Cocktails to Toast the End of 2021 

It's not a great year for hitting the party circuit on New Year's Eve. But that doesn't mean you can't see 2021 out with fancy cocktails. Try your hand at timely mixology with libations inspired by the year we've had. It's been a doozy so be warned, they're strong. Cheers!

The Stolen Election

Ingredients:

1 empty bottle of your choice

Ice cubes

Steps:

Make a tremendous production of pouring and mixing the imaginary contents of the bottle into a tumbler, smelling it and swirling the ice around. Grimace to suggest a "burn" as it goes down and begin slurring and gesturing wildly until somebody finally is compelled to check the bottle and your glass for liquor, at which point you demand an investigation into everyone else's drinks and collapse face down into a My Pillow.

Roe v. Wade Gravedigger

Ingredients:

1 ounce rum

1 ounce bourbon

1 tablespoon superfine sugar

Ice (optional)

Steps:

In a tumbler, stir the rum and bourbon. Actually, skip the tumbler. Do you have any beer steins? I know it says an ounce each but just fill the stein with whatever rum and bourbon you've got. Pour the sugar into one hand and sip with the other, watching the granules slip through your fingers like your reproductive rights and the medical, financial and bodily autonomy you've come to expect as an adult living in a supposedly free country. Yeah, we're gonna need bigger steins.

DIY Haircut

Ingredients:

1 bottle sambuca, divided

Hand mirror

1 cup water

Steps:

Pour 1 ounce sambuca into a shot glass and light it on fire. Lean in and take the shot slowly, allowing the hair over your eyes to catch fire and sizzle up into the hideous unintentional baby bangs you would have given yourself anyway. Douse the flames with water and examine results with the hand mirror as you drink as much sambuca as it takes to stop caring what you look like.

Insurrection Fizz

Ingredients:

1 can Monster

1 can Red Bull

1 mini-bar bottle Fireball

1 copy of the Constitution

Zip ties

Steps:

Pop open the Monster and chug it as you shake the Red Bull and Fireball in a chilled military surplus canteen. Add the zip ties and muddle lightly. Set the Constitution on fire and watch it curl into a crumbling, black ribbon, the ashes of which you will cut into half a dozen rails and snort through a rolled mail-in ballot. The zesty buzz is as close as you ever need to get to the thrill of recording yourself committing treason at the bidding of right-wing rich dudes who will absolutely not pay your bail.

Mass Shootini

Ingredients:

3 ounces gin

1 ounce dry vermouth

2 dashes orange bitters

Ice

687 olives

Steps:

Pour the gin, vermouth and bitters into a mixing glass filled halfway with ice. Stir the contents until well chilled and strain into a Martini glass. Garnish with 687 olives, one for every mass shooting in the U.S. this year according to the Gun Violence Archive. Is that too many olives? A seemingly insane and untenable number of olives in a civilized society, especially when you look at all the other Martinis around the world? Well, sorry, we have a constitutionally protected right to olive proliferation in this country and there's absolutely nothing we can do to prevent it, so 687 is how many olives you get. Serve with thoughts and prayers.

The Billionaire

Ingredients:

2 ounces Billionaire Vodka, chilled on a hunk of Arctic iceberg

3 karats flawless blood diamonds

1 teaspoon rendered fat of peasants

Steps:

In a crystal coupe, stir the diamonds into the vodka. Using the back of a golden spoon, float the peasant fat on top to create a pearly layer. Place the cocktail carefully in an overtly phallic rocket and launch it just high enough to crest the outer edge of the Earth's atmosphere, where it will do nobody any good at all.

Omicron Body Shot

Ingredients:

1 bottle low-quality tequila

1 pump bottle hand sanitizer

Lime wedges

Plastic tarp

Steps:

Jam a wedge of lime in your teeth like a boxer's mouth guard and place your N95 mask to fit firmly over your nose and mouth. Place the tarp over a member of your bubble. Squirt the sanitizer on your hands, rubbing vigorously for 30 seconds, making sure you can feel every tiny paper cut. Then estimate roughly where a sexy but non-genital (don't make it weird) part of the other person's body might be under the tarp and place a shot glass of tequila there. Tap the exterior of your mask on the surface of the tequila so you smell it instead of your own weird breath. Yell, "Woo-hoo!" and wave your arms because you are going crazy tonight.

Canceled Plans

Ingredients:

1 bottle Champagne of your choice

1 box Franzia rosé

Steps:

Chill the Champagne in the refrigerator at least 2 ½ hours, or until it reaches 20 F (or 11 C). Place the bottle in an ice bucket and prepare tulip glasses, which will maximize both the bubbles and the bouquet. Just before opening the bottle, check the news and abruptly shut it down. Return the bubbly to the fridge. Pull on your sweats, pop the plastic spigot on the Franzia and drink it from a rinsed-out coffee mug on your couch. Repeat until gone. Not like you're trying to impress anybody.

Jennifer Fumiko Cahill (she/her) is the arts and features editor at the Journal. Reach her at 442-1400, extension 320, or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @JFumikoCahill.