Andre The Giant drinking stories are arguably even more legendary than his accomplishments in the ring. The 7-foot-4 titan, who weighed well over 500 pounds, had an incredible tolerance for alcohol, and seemingly everyone from that era has a favorite Giant drinking story.
Longtime WWE performer Gerald Brisco recently opened up on Andre’s taste for wine in an interview with the Tampa Bay Times, so we’ve added it to the list of jaw-dropping Andre stories. Here are the top six:
1. Andre drank six bottles of wine before a match
“There are a lot of crazy stories about Andre that sound fake but most are true, especially his drinking. Andre used to ask me to get him six bottles of Mateus wine and ice them down. He would drink those before we went to the ring and no one could tell. One night in Sarasota, Andre is traveling with us. So we pull over and get two cases of tall boys. By the time we get from Sarasota to the Tahitian Inn on Dale Mabry, the two cases were bone dry.” – Gerald Brisco, via the Tampa Bay Times
2. Andre drank 102 beers in 45 minutes before a flight
“I get a call. ‘Hey, boss, I’m at the Tampa airport. I’ve got a one-hour layover.’ I was like OK, it’s fifteen minutes or so from my mom’s house. So I drive over the airport and I met him at the Delta Crown Lounge. By the time we sat down, we had about 45 minutes before he had to walk to the next gate. He drank 108 12-ounce beers.” – Hulk Hogan
3. Andre downed pitchers full of “various liquors” and ran up a $40K bar tab
“The famed wrestler preferred something stiffer, specifically, ‘The American,’ a concoction that consisted of 40 ounces of various liquors poured into a pitcher. Elwes said that Andre would drink several of these in a single sitting. ‘I’ve never tasted airplane fuel,’ Elwes said, ‘But I imagine it’s very close to what that must taste like.’ It’s very potent indeed, and I remember coughing a lot. But to him, it was like chugging water.” – “Princess Bride” co-star Cary Elwes, via Vanity Fair
4. Andre drank 12 bottles of wine on a bus ride in Japan
“I went down to this little karaoke bar right down the street from the hotel, and I bought a case of Pouilly-Fuissé wine — 12 bottles of this very powerful, powerful, strong white French wine. … All of a sudden, we left the hotel about 8 in the morning for an eight-hour bus ride. About three hours later, he shakes the seat. He says, ‘Boss. Bossss. I need pit stop.’ Three hours on a bus he drank 12 bottles of wine.” – Hulk Hogan
5. Andre’s unofficial record is 156 beers in one sitting
As told by Mike Graham and confirmed by Dusty Rhodes. That’s 1,872 ounces, or 14.6 gallons of beer. The average human stomach can typically hold about a liter.
Incredibly, that’s 39 more than what Andre himself admitted to drinking when he appeared on David Letterman in 1984. (Jump to 3:48 to hear Andre explain his enormous appetite for beer.)
6. Andre responded to a last call by ordering 40 drinks
This one’s the most mythical of all, but it allegedly happened near Kansas City. “The bartender told Andre he could stay only if he was drinking, imagining, surely, that he would soon be rid of the big fella. Andre thanked the man, and proceeded to order 40 vodka tonics. He sat there drinking them, one after another, finishing the last at just after five in the morning.”