Hey Gothkids,

We all love to drink til we black out. But there's nothing more embarrassing than an alcohol-related faux pas. Ordering a babycham for example, or a white wine spritzer. Avoid such unpleasantness simply by selecting from the following handy list of tipples for goths with hairs on their chests.

Recipe Note:
In general, I won't provide exact quantities or serving suggestions. I'm not bloody Delia Smith you know. Besides, personal tastes vary - wussy GIRLS like me prefer to sip modestly from crystal goblets bedecked with crushed ice and fresh fruit, while leafing through volumes of Shelley. Hairy hunter MEN such as yourselves may be more inclined to chug by the gallon from swill buckets, omitting any ingredients less alcoholic than absinthe, while eating glass.

Experiment a little: express your creativity through the quality of your drunkenness. Enjoy!


TRADITIONAL STANDARDS:

SNAKEBITE 'N' BLACK

Ingredients:
1/2 pint good strong cider
1/2 pint good strong lager
dash of blackcurrant cordial

Comment:
Ooh, the original and still the connoisseur's choice. Pleasingly purple, packs quite a punch (given the right ingredients), satisfyingly big and messy when thrown, and just bursting with Vitamin C. No more scurvy for us then, gothic piss-heads. Just the syphilis still to worry about.

For a classier version, try using Cassis instead of ordinary blackcurrant. Or pop in a maraschino cherry impaled on a cocktail stick. You can pretend it's a little bleeding heart. Mm, sophisticated.


BLOODY MARY

Ingredients:
1/3 gill vodka
dash of Worcestershire sauce
dash of lemon juice
Tomato juice

Comment:
Well, better include this for completeness I suppose. I assume this drink was named after the hapless Tudor queen whose life was a tragedy of bitterness and brutality and who took it out violently on good puritan folk. A fine pedigree, but now the downside: tomato juice. Ugh. If this stuff doesn't make you vomit bile at twenty paces then there's something seriously wrong with your sick little body. Maybe you really are dead. Take it away, it's nasty.

(NB Tabasco sauce seems to be an option. Means you taste the tomato less I guess.)


OF MY OWN INVENTION:

BLOODY NAIL

Ingredients:
1/2 Drambuie
1/2 Port

Comment:
Good warming hearty stuff. The sort of drink to quaff while browsing through old esoteric manuscripts in the creaky monastery library as the storm rages outside.


LIVING DEATH

Ingredients:
1/2 pint gin
1/2 packet ProPlus

Comment:
More extreme than Red Bull & vodka. Fucks you up. Not recommended.


GREEN MONK

Ingredients:
Benedictine
Gin
Blue Curacao

Comment:
The same colour and consistency as alien blood, X-Files fans. Benedictine is nice, slightly minty: this cocktail looks good with a sprig of fresh mint and a plump eyeball floating in it.


SOM

Ingredients:
Strawberries (2 or 3 pulverised)
Ouzo
Mezcal

Comment:
A brooding drink. A pompous drink. A magnificent seminal post-punk rock'n'roll band of a drink. Well, maybe not, but it's fruity, powerful and has a nicely congealed appearance.


MM

Ingredients:
Mead
Malibu

Comment:
Sickly, exotic and slightly unpleasant; just like the man himself.
That's enough acronym drinks.


WEEPING NIPPLE

Ingredients:
Bailey's
Sambuca
Grenadine

Comment:
Shameless rip-off of the standard Slippery Nipple, only more diseased. All proceeds go to the Mammarian Eczema Sufferers' Association.

Must be downed in a oner. If you're feeling like an artsy-fartsy show-off bastard you can try layering it, but by the eighth one you won't give a shit and you'll probably have spilt most of the last three all over your David Niven shirt, so no-one's going to shag you anyway.