Joe Buck says he and Troy Aikman used to drink tequila cocktails in the booth to remind themselves it is just sports

• Joe Buck said he and Troy Aikman used to drink tequila cocktails in the booth for NFL games.
• Buck said it was a "mental trigger" to remind themselves to relax and have fun calling a sporting event.
• Buck said they no longer drink in the booth, but he and Aikman are best friends now.

When Joe Buck and Troy Aikman were first calling NFL games for Fox, they needed to ease into things a bit.

As Buck revealed on Colin Cowherd's podcast, he and Aikman used to have tequila cocktails in the booth just to relax and remind themselves to have fun.

The comment came after Cowherd said listening to Buck and Aikman call an NFL game feels like listening to two college friends with a "small glass of bourbon that you sip occasionally during the game."

"I'll say this: we've had that glass of bourbon in the booth. Although it's not bourbon, it's tequila, a splash of Grand Marnier, and grapefruit juice," Buck said.

Buck said he would ask an assistant to get him the tallest beer the stadium sold when he first started calling MLB playoff games. He would sip throughout the game "to remind myself to relax and have fun. I'm just doing a game."

Buck said when he brought the idea over to NFL games with Aikman, Aikman's tastes required tequila.

"But because Troy is a man of finer tastes, beer somehow became tequila, Grand Marnier, and grapefruit juice.

"We haven't done it in a long time now, but it was good for a stretch. I feel like it's a good mental trigger to just chill and remind yourself that you're not refueling an F16 in mid-flight - you're doing a sporting event, and if you treat it like anything other than that, you're doing yourself a disservice."

Buck said that it took him and Aikman longer to develop the chemistry that they now have but called it a "legitimate friendship" now.

"We are legitimate friends," Buck said. "I would consider him one of my three or four best friends in the world. And I'm fortunate that I have that with somebody that I'm in that high-pressure situation with."

Listen to a clip from the show below:

—The Volume (@TheVolumeSports) February 15, 2021