In the cold winter months, it’s hard to run back to the residence hall or apartment complex for a quick drink. Vending machines get a definite workout on the days when students don’t want to face the harsh extremes.

What people don’t know is that there is a specific beverage that tastes best in each particular building. This may have something to do with the asbestos count, or even the age of the building.

Others would say the lunar eclipse that happened a while back had something to do with it; the stars predetermine the fact that root beer just tastes better at Still Hall.

To get to the bottom of this, the Weekender went all the way to the top: NIU President John Peters. When asked about this phenomenon, he said he never had heard of it, which can mean only one thing — plausible deniability. The powers that be keep the head official in the dark about sensitive supernatural issues, so he truthfully can deny its existence.

Switching gears in an effort to uncover his feelings, we probed deeper, asking him what his favorite beverage was and where it tasted best on campus.

“I’m a Diet Pepsi guy,” he quickly responded. And although he is on a diet at the moment, he said his car has a slight problem: “It can’t stop going through the Dairy Queen drive-through for a small chocolate malt.”

This didn’t help us at all; it didn’t play into our conspiracy theory of a greater power causing beverages to taste better in certain parts of campus. So, we asked straightforward, where is the place on campus where his beverage tastes best?

“I would imagine that the Three Sons Café is probably a pretty good place,” he said.

The fairly safe answer boasted the more costly drinks on campus, but saying the more expensive drinks taste better is far too plausible. We hit the streets and investigated the phenomenon firsthand.

Lipton Brisk Iced Tea tastes better at Swen Parson Hall because the proverbs chiseled in the walls cause the brain to utilize its proverb-decoding region, which is fueled primarily by artificial lemon flavoring. Therefore, quickly after entering Swen Parson Hall, the brain signals a depletion of necessary fluids, making Lipton Brisk Iced Tea the drink of choice to regain adequate levels of lemon.

Montgomery Hall, home of the Terwilliger auditorium, creates an interesting effect. Because of the steadily increasing altitude of the stadium-style seating, the farther one sits to the back of the auditorium, the greater the increase in potency of the sugar content of any Coca-Cola product.

The blue doors at Davis Hall cause an unconscious reaction in the body with Blue Arctic-flavored Gatorade, causing the electrolytes to function at three times their standard energy replenishing rate. This makes for not only a total replenishment of energy, but it also grants the beverage-holder a momentary superhuman amount of energy. But, always remember with great power comes great responsibility. Drink with caution.