Wherever your American political sympathies lie, I think we can all agree that the presidency of Donald Trump has been a delightful rollercoaster ride and now 240,000 Americans are dead from a virus he said would go away. “It is what it is.”
But what will happen on election day? Will the nation choose to keep Trump for four more of the longest years of our lives? Or will it choose Joe Biden? Will ballots be invalidated? Will there be voter intimidation?
Whatever happens, you are going to need a big drink. And there’s no better way to toast a change – or the continued minimisation of the threat of coronavirus as cases break records and civic unrest – than with a classic American cocktail.
In unprecedented times, an old fashioned or Manhattan just won’t cut it. But these five libations, matched to potential election day outcomes, should suit all the very fine people on both sides.
Enjoy!
The polls are right; Biden wins in a landslide
Drink: piña colada
This is the cleanest and, according to the polls, most likely scenario – everything’s over in one day and the US can scrape together whatever dignity it has left to try to restore its standing in the world.
You’ll want a patriotic drink in honour of a plurality of Americans who would prefer not to have more kids in cages, border walls, flirtations with authoritarianism, white supremacist pandering and ignoring science during a deadly pandemic, among other things.
My personal preference is a piña colada. Originally from Puerto Rico, it’s absolutely delicious and will serve as a fitting reminder of how Trump handled the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, delaying aid, disputing the death toll, suggesting the US “sell” the island and tossing rolls of paper towel into a crowd. “We get an A+.”
How to make it
Recipe by Pasan Wijesena of Earl’s Juke Joint and Jacoby’s
60ml Grog mix*
60ml pineapple juice
20ml lime juice
30ml coconut cream
10ml sugar syrup
Blend all with ice and serve in a tall glass. Garnish with pineapple fronds or a wedge of pineapple.
* A ‘grog’ is a blend of rums that best approximates the variety of rums that were typical of classic tiki cocktail recipes. In this case a mix of Plantation silver rum, Plantation original dark, OFTD rum and five-year-old Barbados rum. If you want to just use one rum I’d suggest plantation five-year-old Barbados or plantation silver.
The polls are really wrong; Trump snatches a quick victory
Drink: four horsemen
A Trump win should signal the end of the polling industry. Why do we even have these things if they can be this bad?
Did millions of Americans just vote again to be represented by a president who tear-gassed Americans for a photo opportunity, bragged about sexual assault, stoked racial animosity and used the presidency to enrich his family?
It’s time for a shot.
So try a four horsemen! I’ve never had it, but there are two versions of this frat-bar shooter: one has equal parts gold tequila, Jägermeister, peppermint liqueur and rum and the other is made from four whiskeys – Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, Johnnie Walker and Jameson. Either version sounds absolutely disgusting. Best of luck to all of us.
We’re waiting for days or weeks for a winner
Drink: zombie
If the election is close, things may take a while. Due to increased voting by mail in the pandemic, states like Pennsylvania may take more time to count votes. Also, Trump is already promising legal action (and apparently threatening violence), so we could be in for a month’s worth of recounts and court battles culminating in a Bush v Gore 2000-type scenario with a partisan supreme court having to force everyone to stop counting.
So mix yourself a zombie, or two, or 35! It’s a classic tiki drink, made from three kinds of rum, absinthe and something called falernum. Some bars ban you from ordering more than two in a night, so perhaps you’ll be unconscious long enough to wake up and discover that Trump’s been arrested for tax fraud.
How to make it
Recipe by Michael Madrusan of Made in the Shade Group (The Everleigh, Bar Margaux, Heartbreaker and The Everleigh Bottling Co)
45ml light rum
45ml dark rum
15ml Gosling’s 151 dark rum (for the float)
25ml fresh lime juice
15ml fresh grapefruit juice
7.5ml falernum
10ml sugar syrup
5ml pomegranate molasses
2 dashes Angostura bitters
3 dashes absinthe
Fresh grated cinnamon (for garnish)
I’d recommend Snug Harbor for the falernum. Pour all ingredients into a large, tiki-style mug and fill with crushed ice. Float your Gosling’s 151 over the ice and grate your cinnamon over the top.
Garnish with a parasol and a large mint bouquet.
A (highly unlikely) tie
Drink: hurricane
In some ways, a tie in the obsolete, disgraced, prime-for-abolishment Electoral College might be cleaner than a close election. The House of Representatives chooses the president. The Senate chooses the vice-president. Twenty six votes wins.
But this outcome is likely to expose all kinds of systemic complications that will drive everyone absolutely nuts, so you’ll need a sweet drink evocative of the chaos and anxiety we’ll all be choking on.
Have a hurricane! They were invented in an Irish pub in New Orleans during the second world war – and have a style of glass named after them – but people mostly drink them out of plastic fish bowls on Bourbon Street now. They taste great and you won’t feel a thing.
How to make it
Recipe by Pasan Wijesena of Earl’s Juke Joint and Jacoby’s
30ml light rum
30ml dark rum
30ml orange juice
20ml lemon juice
20ml Crawley’s fassionola syrup (or if you can’t find this, use passion fruit syrup)
Shake with ice, and then pour into a hurricane glass filled with fresh ice. Garnish with orange slice skewered with a cherry.
Everything that can go wrong does go wrong
Drink: Long Island iced tea
Polarisation in the US is so intense that serious people have brought up civil war as a possibility. Businesses around the country are boarding up windows. People are preparing for violence.
Trump might not give up the White House. QAnon types will be juiced on misinformation. Maga maniacs are already blocking highways and trying to run people off the roads. The Proud Boys are standing back and standing by.
Things could get extremely messy (and scary) (and depressing).
So you are going to need a drink that says “I need to feel good right now”.
Try a Long Island iced tea. It’s from the 70s, has roughly 28 different liquors in it, plus some cola and it tastes like society is crumbling.
Just to be safe, you should probably keep all of these options on hand for any of the above scenarios. Not long to go. You’ll want to be sedated.
How to make it
Recipe by Joshua Rosalky
10ml vodka (Titos if you want to be really American)
10ml tequila
10ml white rum
10ml triple sec
10ml gin
30ml lemon juice
Cola
Lemon wedge
Pour all the spirits into a tall glass over ice, top with cola and garnish with a lemon wedge. My Minnesotan family use lemonade instead of lemon juice, and add extra sugar syrup.
Nick Bhasin is a US-born, Australia-based writer and editor, follow him at @nickbhasin
