‘BORGS’ Invade Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day Celebration, Leaving Streets Lined With Empty Jugs

DOWNTOWN — A new St. Paddy’s Day tradition has emerged in Chicago, and it left Downtown littered with empty plastic jugs piled up near trashcans and curbsides.

Every year on the Saturday before St. Patrick’s Day, thousands descend on Downtown in their best green attire for the dyeing of the Chicago River, the St. Patrick’s Day parade and the associated bar crawls and general debauchery.

But in recent years, revelers — particularly younger ones of questionable drinking age — have moved away from Guinness and whiskey in favor of the BORG, which is an acronym for “black-out rage gallon.”

Chicago Police officers dump out “BORG” jugs as people party along Wacker Drive as the Chicago River is dyed green for St. Patrick’s Day by the Plumber’s Local 130 in Chicago on March 14, 2026. Credit: Arthur Maiorella for Block Club Chicago

People hold “BORG” jugs as the Chicago River is dyed on March 14, 2026. Credit: Arthur Maiorella for Block Club Chicago

A BORG is a brightly-colored beverage typically made up of vodka, water, drink mix and some type of electrolyte formula meant to stave off hangovers. It is made in a gallon-sized jug that historically were more associated with milk consumption.

The drink originated in a suburban Cincinnati basement after a group of high schoolers used three half-empty plastic water jugs as a mixer for vodka, adding powdered drink flavoring packets for taste, according to the Columbia Student News.

The drink would see a meteoric rise among high schoolers and young college students through the 2010s, exploding in popularity on TikTok in the 2020s, particularly at fraternity “darties,” or day parties.

Chicago Police officers dump out “BORG” jugs as people party along Wacker Drive as the Chicago River is dyed green for St. Patrick’s Day by the Plumber’s Local 130 in Chicago on March 14, 2026. Credit: Arthur Maiorella for Block Club Chicago

Their popularity was helped by the pandemic, as the large containers, which are meant for the enjoyment of one drinker, are a more sanitary and safe way to drink than traditional college formats of jungle juice served in punchbowl-like containers for comunal consumption. They are also less likely to be spiked with date-rape drugs and drinkers can also make them non-alcoholic, avoid peer-pressure to drink, advocates have said.

Drinkers often write BORG-related puns in sharpie on the jugs, including ‘Arnold Borg-inator,’ ‘Pearl Harborg,’ ‘Spongeborg,’ and many, many more.

Chicago’s St. Patty’s Day celebrations have been the perfect breeding grounds for a full-blown BORG takeover this year.

A discarded “BORG” jug after the Chicago River is dyed green for St. Patrick’s Day by the Plumber’s Local 130 in Chicago on March 14, 2026. Credit: Arthur Maiorella for Block Club Chicago

People hold “BORG” jugs as the Chicago River is dyed on March 14, 2026. Credit: Arthur Maiorella for Block Club Chicago

Gen Z partiers were seen guzzling BORGs by the gallon Saturday, oftentimes tossing the empty – or half empty – jugs onto the sidewalk.

Some BORG jugs were also confiscated and emptied by police, video and photo from Saturday’s festivities show.

“I keep seeing them everywhere,” a bystander said in a viral video posted to social media, talking to a police officer who was pouring the remaining contents of a BORG through a grate into the Chicago river.

“We got kids drinking this and, I mean, we don’t know what in it,” the officer tells the bystander as he adds another emptied-out jug to over a dozen collected in the street.

BORGs have been criticized for their high alcohol content, as BORG-tenders dump exceptional volumes of hard liquor into their jugs. The sweeteners, caffeine and electrolytes conceal the amount of alcohol in the drink, and can lead to serious health concerns. Nearly 50 people at a 2023 University of Massachusetts Amherst BORG party were hospitalized due to alcohol poisoning, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

There seems to be no signs of stopping BORG fever, however. BORG photos, videos and memes have caught fire over social media.

Videos of young people brawling in the streets of Downtown Saturday have also gone viral. It is unclear if there is correlation between the instances of fighting and the increased presence of BORGS Downtown Saturday. Chicago police on Sunday did not immediately provide a tally of arrests and citations connected to Saturday’s festivities.

Nor is it clear if the BORGS are now a public nuisance or remain a curiosity among Chicago residents.

“[Twenty-five] years ago I would do this with a CamelBack,” one Reddit user said on a thread about the prevalence of BORGS Downtown. “Zero trash left behind.”

“Making your own drink and wanting to bring it out is hardly a new concept … but putting it in the most ostentatious, see thru container that you walk around with IS new; and, objectively speaking, pretty f—— dumb,” one Reddit user said.

“Borg makes me so happy, I would have been all over this when I was 19,” X user SooperShoe posted. “The kids are alright.”

Revelers party after the Chicago River is dyed green for St. Patrick’s Day by the Plumber’s Local 130 in Chicago on March 14, 2026. Credit: Arthur Maiorella for Block Club Chicago

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