Losing weight and drinking alcohol don't go hand in hand. Just ask New Jersey resident Kevin Strahle, who recently released a YouTube video giving step-by-step instruction on how to "smoke" alcohol vapors to get drunk without the bothersome need to ingest calories through binge drinking.
Even though the amateur competitive eater isn't the first person to smoke alcohol on the Internet, he does appear to be the first guy to do it with popular drinks like FourLoko, champagne and a Jäger Bomb (a shot of Jägermeister and Red Bull mixed together) on his YouTube account. And he's definitely the first guy to ever smoke a box of wine.
Which is why we decided to share Strahle's (otherwise known as the L.A. Beast) video here...
By day, 29-year-old Strahle is a sales rep for a New York beer distributor, and is planning a move back to Los Angeles in March. Online, however, many people know him as the "L.A. Beast" -- an online persona Strahle created for his social media accounts including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
Strahle, who moved to Los Angeles in 2008 shortly after graduating college, created the alter-ego after a roommate challenged him to a hamburger eating contest at one of the city's fast food chain restaurants known as Fatburger.
"He dared me to finish their 24-ounce XXXL burger as fast as I could, and I ate it in like five minutes," Strahle told Clean Plate Charlie during a recent interview. "He posted the video of me eating [it] to his YouTube account, and called me 'a beast' [for finishing it so fast]."
A few weeks later, Strahle -- always up for a challenge -- gave it a go pounding a gallon of milk. He got that down in record time, too, and the second video featuring the L.A.-based "beast" was equally popular; seeing the traffic his shenanigans were getting, Strahle decided to start his own YouTube feed, and dubbed himself the L.A. Beast.
Not too long ago, he also embarked on a competitive eating career, starting with his first challenge in 2012, a turkey-eating contest in New York where he downed almost three and a half pounds of turkey in 10 minutes. He came in "dead last," but is currently rated #16 by Major League Eating. Today, Strahle has the honor of being featured on Tosh.0 as a "video breakdown of the week," has received more than 9 million video views on his YouTube account, has over 1,300 Twitter followers, and 6,000 Facebook subscribers.
One of his most recent videos -- an extended clip of him smoking alcohol with nothing more than a plastic bottle, cork and bicycle pump -- began to circulate on Facebook a few days ago. Like many of his videos, Strahle said he wanted to be the "first" to get it up on YouTube.
"Whenver I create a new video, I like to be the first to do it," said Strahle. "There are a ton of people online chugging alcohol, but there wasn't really anyone smoking it. Even though I wasn't the first [to do it], I decided to think of a way to make the video different so that it would appeal to everyone. And I'm definitely the first person to ever smoke a Jäger Bomb."
Strahle opens the clip entitled "Dude Gets Drunk Without Drinking 1 Drop of Alcohol" with a short bit about his desire to lose weight, a nod to his recent 700-plus hot dog binge, prep work for an eating competition he was training to compete in. Although he didn't qualify, Strahle gained a few extra pounds in the process, and was on a mission to shed some weight. Part of that meant he would need to drink fewer calories from alcohol.
"I [was] trying to keep the calorie intake low, but at the same time, I still want to go out on the weekends and get shit-housed," said Strahle, who decided to take a few of everyone's "favorite" drinks, and get to smoking. He didn't get "shit-housed," he said, but he did get a pretty strong buzz.
So, if you ever want to get drunk without the calories, Strahle suggests you start smoking some alcohol. "Especially boxed wine."
Here, Strahle smokes alcohol, gets a buzz, and makes us laugh:
Charlie on Twitter @CleanPlateBPB and Nicole Danna @SoFloNicole
