Smashed at the Weekend festive special: The Liminal Libations
Special guest edition with drinks expert Douglas Blyde
The Liminal Libations: Drinks to Endure the Week Nobody Wants by Douglas Blyde
Ah, the dreaded no-man’s-land between Christmas and New Year - a cranberry-glazed purgatory teetering on the fringes of sanity. It’s Britain’s annual nosedive into a pit of lazy inertia. Tins of Cadbury Roses devolve into dystopian wastelands ruled by Strawberry ‘Dreams’, board games ignite mutinies mid-match, and pyjamas mutate into sherry-stained battle armour. Festive cheer? Please. This is feral anarchy. Dignity? Sacrificed with the precision of a drunk buttering midnight toast with a soup spoon. What can possibly save you in this cul-de-sac of the calendar? Not cocktails, but crisis management in liquid form. These aren’t drinks; they are lifeboats hurled onto an ocean of existential gloom.
Nobody bounds out of bed in this grim perdition. Instead, you slither from your duvet like a trifle discarded at a wake: tacky, tragic, gelatinous. Breakfast? A minefield best navigated with some Cereal Champagne Slurry. Scavenge for Cheerios calcified into dusty artefacts or brittle, joyless husks of All-Bran. Drown them in prosecco as flat as your mood and stir with the realisation you forgot, yet again, to buy milk. The result? Soggy, lamentable, yet perversely consoling, much like gazing through condensation-coated windows at the scorched remains of your self-esteem.
For those clinging to a shred of ambition, there’s always Despair on the Rocks. Take lukewarm coffee – the sad, stale sludge that smells like a motorway service station - and flood it in Advocaat, an audacious excavation from the back of the cupboard. Dust with nutmeg so ancient it predates the referendum, and I don’t mean Brexit. Serve it on slushed ice in a chipped mug emblazoned with ‘World’s Best Dad’ while your offspring gleefully reenact Lord of the Flies at full volume, powered by unholy amounts of sugar.
By mid-morning, some deluded relative will inevitably suggest a ‘wholesome walk’ to ‘blow away the cobwebs.’ Counter this madness with the Tinsel Mule. Mix much vodka, syrup salvaged from a tin of peaches destined for a crumble, and a rogue splash of Stone’s ginger wine pilfered from grandma’s stash. Garnish with actual tinsel, because, frankly, sanity fled with the turkey carcass days ago. For the truly deranged, there’s the Turkey Fat Sour: Madeira, Jif lemon, and a slick of gravy’s golden grease. Heat it up, swallow it down like a dipsomaniac Pac-Man, and watch your last shred of self-respect vanish like mist in the wind.
By now, time itself has ceased to have meaning, and cooking feels like a cruel joke. Enter the Brussels Sour: one forlorn sprout smashed into oblivion in a shaker with the rolling-pin fury reserved for relatives who suggest you ‘look tired.’ Add whiskey, honey, and squeezed clementine. Shake it with the desperate energy of a failed New Year’s resolution, strain through tattered resolve, and garnish with a parsnip crisp which mocks your optimism as it dissolves.
As ‘dinner’ - a charitable term for concrete Paxo and cold roasties - approaches, unleash the Stuffing Sniper. Simply blend the stuffing with vodka, Fino, Worcestershire sauce, and a sprinkle of self-loathing. Or embrace chaos with the Cranberry and Ketchup Shrub: cranberry sauce, ketchup, Cointreau, and a splash of Sarson’s vinegar as a sort of liquid slap in the face. Shake like it’s the only cardio you’ll do this year, pour it over a begrudging cube of ice, and marvel as it teeters between wrong and disturbingly right.
For dessert? The Quality Street Daiquiri. Liquefy Orange Cremes into a neon sludge, spike with spiced rum, and swirl into a synthetic fruit nightmare which tastes like regret but clears the tin. Consider it a pyrrhic victory. When the day finally sputters to its bitter end, cocoon yourself in scratchy blankets and gulp Christmas Cake Nog: take some brandy, as much cream as you have left, raw eggs, and a panettone picked to pieces and gobble it from a bowl like a man-sized, ravenous badger. Or skip the pretence and guzzle Harvey’s Bristol Cream straight from the big, blue bottle. Who needs glassware? That’s 2025’s problem.
And should any misguided soul utter the phrase ‘Dry January,’ retaliate with the Dirty Resolution Martini: a tear-brined gin concoction served in a smudged tumbler without a trace of ice. This isn’t just a drink; it’s a middle finger to the universe.
As Paddy Roberts wisely crooned, ‘Though your vision is double, just keep smiling through, there are others in trouble a lot worse than you.’ Here’s to enduring the most surreal, soul-sapping week of the year. Bottoms up, darlings. May your drinks be strong, your spirits stronger, and January in your squinting sights.
Three Significant Sips:
The Award for Best Wine Title of All Time Goes To: Bonkers Zombie Robot Alien Monsters from the Future Ate My Brain (£29, sugruesouthdowns.com)
A multi-vintage, multi-layered Chardonnay blend as eccentric as its name, this brilliant, homegrown still wine from a producer best known for its fizz is sufficiently divertingly delicious to distract from family chaos.
Beer’s Leap To Immortality: Braybrooke Keller Spirit (£22.50, braybrookebeer.co)
This golden, oak-aged distillate turns almost wasted Covid-era beer into something glorious. Sip it neat or let it chase its lagered cousin for a celestial pairing.
Your Last Shred of Sanity (Priceless): AYALA Rosé Majeur NV (£39, thechampagnecompany.com
Because if you’ve made it this far, you deserve a toast to the ultimate Christmas miracle: survival. It comes from the same people as Bollinger, with the Maison a mere stroll away. It was pitched via the PR as an early option for Valentine’s Day, though we believe its blast of cherry is a cheerful way to augur the end of 2024.
A late starter in the world of drinks, Douglas Blyde built a bar in his bedroom at 15 - a precursor to being immortalised in the ‘Jekyll & Blyde,’ poured at Fortnum’s 181 in Hong Kong. His exploits include escaping the albeit dry dining room of HMP Highdown, being blooded by his first grouse on the Glorious Twelfth (whisky in hand), and chasing flavours from China to Lebanon. A contributor to Drinks Business, The Standard, and Brummell, he’s both thrilled and humbled to feature in the mighty Smashed.
Follow Douglas on Instagram: @DouglasBlyde