"A 'Bin Laden', Anyone?"

I've subscribed to the print Newsweek for years. Sometimes I'll go for months without seeing anything worthy enough for the Brain, but this week the rag is paying off like a slot machine.

Sometimes the print edition will fool ya. This article took up one-quarter of a page, including four photos. It was just a blurb, but I thought you folks'd like it. When I went online to snag it, it was greatly expanded. I think the MSM is startin' to catch on that the internets are a really good forum that doesn't involve the death of forests or much expense.

While some of us think a 'mixed drink' is when you take in some air with yer likker after ya pull the cork with yer teeth (or gums, as the case may be) and tilt the jug up on yer arm fer a good long pull, some o' them city slickers actually like their alkyhol cut with stuff. Go figure! I guess there's a libation for every palate just like there's an ass for every saddle.

Every major American military conflict has inspired a cocktail. What will be the signature drink of the Iraq War?

I'll give you my answer to that in a minute. Read on. The quotes are out order because I liked it better that way.

The idea of war-inspired watering may sound crass, but historically nothing whets America’s whistle quite like conflict. Artillery Punch and other hard punches emerged from the ashes of the Civil War. World War I inspired the French 75, a gin and champagne concoction used to toast fallen pilots, while World War II saw the emergence of the kamikaze shot, a hairy blend of vodka and triple sec mocking Japan's so-named suicidal flyers. Even the Korean and Vietnam Wars left their liquor legacies in the form of the Korean sling and napalm shot. “War and drinking have always been complimentary forces,” says Dale DeGroff, president of the Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans (Figures. Heh. - G)

The origins of war-themed drinks vary from cathartic expressions of outrage to mere jokes, like the WMD, delivered by bartender Mike Grubb at Schiller's Liquor Bar in New York’s Lower East Side. It arrives as an empty shot glass, mocking America’s pre-war intelligence that Saddam Hussein was hiding “weapons of mass destruction.” Price? “Thirty billion dollars,” says Grubb, putting a (low) figure on the cost of war. [...]

Professionally edited Web sites like Epicurious decline to list such creations, leaving them to other sites like 1001cocktails.com, BartendersGuide.com and personal sites. “While the Taliban is getting bombed, you should too!” writes one Washington-based writer on her Web site, introducing a long list of drinks, including The 'Thrax, The Osamalamadingdong, The Talibanana, Puff the Magic Turban and Take off Your Burqa. (As of earlier this month, she was still requesting recipes for Osama’s Mama and the Tali-BAM. The site promptly went offline after NEWSWEEK requested an interview.)

And the 'signature' drink from the Iraq clusterfuck? Just my opinion, but...

[...] Blood and Oil, a special black vodka and cranberry juice drink that underscores the notion that America is warring to defend energy interests [...]

I'm proud to say that one's from Sacramento.

I'll close this out with an old joke from the South Pacific Area in WWII.

A hospital ship gets a call from a battalion aid station ashore, "We got a case of beri-beri here. Whatta we do?"

"Send it to the Marines. They'll drink anything!"