How to drink like Taylor Swift on reputation

Ready (for it) or not, Taylor Swift’s reputation has arrived, and with it comes a whole new Taylor — one who is over 21, thank you very much, and has officially graduated from Diet Coke.

The highly anticipated new album dropped Friday and has received generally positive notice from critics, particularly for its personal lyrics; in her B-grade review, EW’s Leah Greenblatt observes that Swift’s latest is “half obsessed with grim score-settling and celebrity damage, half infatuated with a lover who takes her away from all that.”

How’s a pop starlet to navigate between those two extremes, you ask? Easy! Swift knows there’s only one way to cope with the trials of fame and heighten the heady thrills of a new romance — booze, naturally! She spends much of reputation (nine of its 15 tracks, to be exact), rattling off the beverages she’s imbibing — and she’s getting drunk on something a bit stronger than jealousy these days.

So slap on your red lipstick, queue up the new Taylor jams, and try not to ruin your own reputation after getting hammered like a pop princess.

“I knew it from the first old fashioned, we were cursed” (“Getaway Car”)
Sigh, we’ve all been there, haven’t we? Nothing to do but pour another, though, right?

“But you can make me a drink / Dive bar on the east side, where you at?” (“Delicate”)
Once upon a time, Taylor Swift sang about her desire to “dress up like hipsters” as if it were a disguise or a social experiment; on the same album, she told off an ex who would listen to “some indie record that’s much cooler than mine.” Five years later, she’s hitting up dive bars in Silver Lake, downing craft cocktails until she can’t even remember those days never happened.

“Whiskey on ice, Sunset and Vine / You’ve ruined my life by not being mine” (“Gorgeous”)
The main thing to take from this lyric is that you should never follow directions from drunk Taylor, as the intersection of Sunset and Vine in Hollywood is a good place to get a pumpkin spice latté or some Chipotle, but you should stay on the east side if you’re looking for that whiskey on ice. On the other hand, now that Taylor has entered the stage of dramatic proclamations about her ruined life, it might not be a bad idea to sober up with a burrito.

“Touch me and you’ll never be alone / I-Island breeze and lights down low” (“…Ready For It?”)
Oh, an island breeze! Looks like it’s time to move from whiskey to rum. How refreshing!

“Drinking on a beach, with you all over me” (“End Game”)
That fruity cocktail has gotten you in a tropical mood, so you’d better keep up your cross-town westward motion and keep going until you hit the Pacific. Feel the sand in your toes, savor the drink on your tongue! There is also, apparently, a lover involved. But we only promised to help you drink like Taylor, so that part’s on you.

“I’ll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year’s Day” (“New Year’s Day”)
Ah, yes, the morning always comes, and with it, a reckoning. Time to face the many messes — both physical and personal — you made the night before. A new day has begun. It is time to cleanse, to breathe fresh clean air, to drink something hydrating and wholesome (e.g. water). But wait! Is one of these bottles… unopened? Does anyone have some orange juice??? Happy New Year, indeed!