The Kentucky Derby is an American institution. The race has been run on the first weekend of May for the past 139 years, and while the athletic elements of the race are important — who doesn’t want to see a tiny person in a brightly colored shirt ride around on horseback — the “most exciting two minutes in sports” carries with it a unique following and subculture.

The Derby is one of the most heavily attended sporting events: Approximately 160,000 spectators pack themselves into Louisville each year to watch the race. To put that figure into perspective, approximately 30,000 more people attend the Kentucky Derby each year than attend the Super Bowl. The attendance record for the Derby, over 165,000 observers, dwarfs the approximately 114,000-person record for the University of Michigan’s Big House. The fact that more people fill the stands and infield of the Derby than of the largest football stadium in the country speaks heavily to the popularity of the event.

By why is the Kentucky Derby so popular? It might have something to do with the excessive amount of alcohol consumed at the event. The Derby is synonymous with the mint julep, a classic southern drink comprised of bourbon, mint and sugar. Each Derby weekend, spectators consume over 2,600 gallons of the cocktail. This quantity, compounded with the 522,360 beers and 7,800 liters of bourbon served over the course of the weekend, amounts to one thing: a drunken mess.

Yes, the Kentucky Derby is a party of epic proportion. This debauchery and decadence has even managed to maintain a place in the American literary tradition. The first piece of gonzo journalism, a bizarre amalgamation of fact and fiction, titled “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved,” was written by Hunter S. Thompson in 1970. Thompson characterizes the hullabaloo of the derby as a place where “every half-mad dingbat who ever had any pretensions to anything at all within five hundred miles of Louisville will show up there to get strutting drunk, ” where there is “total chaos, no way to see the race, not even the track… nobody cares.”

What should we do with this information? My recommendation is to try our best to experience the Kentucky Derby firsthand. Even for the teetotaler, the opportunity to be part of such a classic southern tradition warrants at least one trip to the Derby. As for the individual who does choose to imbibe, she should grab a frosty julep, find a spot on the infield and try to catch a glimpse of the race.