Playboy Guide to Football Tailgating Like a Gentleman

With your college years behind you—and football season upon us—it’s high time your tailgating party graduated from supermarket hot dogs and plastic cups of beer. Our upscale upgrade features a surf-and-turf grilling menu worthy of an Iron Chef (Wolfgang Puck, to be exact), top-shelf champagne cocktails (from the world’s greatest bar, no less) and the coolest vintage-inspired fashion and gear. Take a cue from the following pages and you may need to put up a red velvet rope.

License to Grill - Four ways to upgrade your grilling game

Get Wood

Pit masters will tell you the best way to grill is over real hardwood coals. B&B oak lump charcoal burns hot and clean and adds the fragrance of real wood smoke to your party. Be sure to bring along a charcoal chimney starter to fire it up. ($23 for 20 pounds, bbcharcoal.com)
Use Real Tongs

Another vital pit-master tip: Don’t buy a “BBQ set” with clumsy tongs and an oversize, serrated-edge spatula. A set of long-handled, restaurant-style tongs will work better, and you can use them in your kitchen the rest of the year. (Edlund 16-inch tongs with lock, $16, edlundco.com)

Cook Like an Iron Chef

Football season comes but once a year, so cook something to stand out from the burgers-and-brats crowd. We enlisted Wolfgang Puck—yes, the godfather of all that is luxurious and delicious in food—to give us a recipe for grilled lobster with spicy herbed butter and tips on how to grill the perfect steak. (See eat up.)
Prep School

Split those lobsters and slice those succulent steaks on a burly hardwood cutting board. ($90, jkadams.com)

1. Raise
the bar cart

Leave the keg stands to the kids. A well-appointed mobile bar should have all the comforts of the latest nouveau speakeasy: gleaming barware, top-shelf liquor and an ice bucket—no stooping into the cooler required. (Mayfair ice bucket, $99, williamssonoma.com)
2. Carry
a manly bag

The Filson rugged twill utility bag is what all toolboxes aspire to be. It can carry booze, food and anything else you need to lug to the game. ($245, filson.com)
3. Sit right

This guy isn’t sitting on some nylon folding chair like he’s camped out waiting for the latest iPhone release; he’s looking smooth on an American-made wood-and-canvas director’s chair from Telescope, the preferred on-set seat of Hollywood A-listers. ($110, filmtools.com)

read more: Sex and Dating, football, style, alcohol, tailgate

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Anonymous wrote

Amazing!
Anonymous wrote

I agree, first dude in the blue sunglasses is total hipster, but the rest are really just classic vintage looks.
Anonymous wrote

Since when did gentleman translate to hipster?