Saturday afternoon:

we're sitting around the kitchen table. Precisely nothing is happening. The chat turns to the (cocktail) party we're having next weekend. Eyes swivel towards the flat booze stash - largely the dregs from the last party - consisting of:

• half a bottle of stagnant Cinzano Bianco
  
• a £3.99 bottle of Tesco-brand dry sherry for use in stir fries
  
• a mercifully unopened bottle of cheap white wine
  
• a rather more respectable bottle of red (i.e. actually has the name of its grape variety written on the front)
  

The classic Cinzano Cocktail Book (1980) is retrieved from the pile of cookery books. To be honest, it's near the top. We idly flick through it. Momentum is gathering. Josh muses: "If we got some tequila, we could make Tequila Sunrises. Er, and we'd need orange juice too." We recall that Josh has a bottle of rather potent vodka hidden somewhere in his room. Foolishly, he adds: "I've got a bottle of Jim Beam as well."

Jeff, also foolishly, but getting caught up in the inexorable progression towards boozing, says: "I've got some Talisker. What could we make?"

"Er. A Rob Roy, apparently. And we can make Manhattans with the Jim Beam."

"What are they, then?"

"Ah, basically whisky and vermouth."

<group pause>

"That sounds disgusting. Let's get some ice and make a night of it."