A tight presidential race. Concern about unrest and upheaval. Gnawing uncertainty about what the next four years will bring, and what sort of country America will become. The nervy, half-mad state of American politics is enough to drive any person to drink. The trick is to do it well, but not excessively, and to make it worthwhile -- ideally with a well-crafted cocktail or two.
That's especially true on election night, during the hours upon hours you'll spend waiting for results that will either be a huge relief, or a huge downer -- if they even come in at all. Election night is a high-variance event: Something is going to happen, but you won't have much control over what that something is.
That's where your drink comes in. Your election night tipple of choice should be something you enjoy, something special, something that gives you a small guarantee of liquid pleasure no matter what else happens.
Election-night drinking, in other words, is about hedging risk. And to do that, you need a strategy, a plan, a theory of the case. Some rock-solid cocktail recipes will help too.
I speak from experience. For the past four years, I've been writing a Substack newsletter about making craft cocktails at home. In general, I try to avoid politics in the newsletter, since good cocktails should bring people together, and politics tends to tear them apart. But in my day job, I work as a writer and editor at Reason, a libertarian political magazine. And I got my start making serious cocktails as a way to bring friends together while mitigating frustration and exasperation with high-stakes political events. And what I can tell you is that making well-crafted, quality drinks for yourself and your friends can be a fun and even funny way to take the edge off of a rough political night -- or to celebrate a good one.
There's some history here, too. Cocktails have long been part of America's political discourse: As far back as the 1800s, cocktail bartenders gave drinks politically charged names, like the Moral Suasion, a response to the era's temperance advocates, and the Fiscal Agent, a jab at America's early tax collectors. The 1900s brought drinks like the Remember the Maine, a sort of cherry-forward Manhattan that referred to a sunken U.S. battleship. Today, the tradition continues every time a bartender makes a coconut drink as a nod to Kamala Harris. Cocktails have long been part of our political discourse.
On election night, you can take this idea and run -- or at least imbibe -- with it at home, making your drinks and serving them to friends with whatever name you want. Rebrand a French 75 as a Swing-State Sparkler or call your smoky mezcal Negroni the Firewall. You'll have cocktails. You'll have commentary. The point is you'll have something pleasant no matter what the rest of the night brings.
Of course, you do need to figure out what drinks to make, and that's where the aforementioned strategy comes in.
Election night is long, so you need to pace yourself. And different drinks have different use cases, depending on how many people you plan to serve. So here are three ways to think about an election night drinking.
If you're responsible for making drinks for a large group of people, you will want to make a batched drink in advance. Yes, you can make a menu and whip up individual drinks all night -- from time to time, I do this myself -- but this is a lot of work. Instead, make a punch. Specifically, make Philadelphia Fish House Punch, a bowl-sized mix of rum, brandy, peach brandy, lemon, and black tea (or water) that can easily accord a dozen or so friends.
The recipe, which includes more than a full bottle of Jamaican rum, might sound too aggressively boozy, but it's actually quite watered down, and if you serve it over large hunks of ice, it becomes more diluted -- and thus lower in alcohol by volume -- over the course of the evening.
It's also a classically American drink, the house concoction of a Pennsylvania fishing club that dates all the way back to the 1700s. America's Founding Fathers drank various punches in this style -- sometimes more than I'd really recommend -- and if it was good enough for them in our nation's heyday, it's good enough for the rest of us now. The Pennsylvania connection suggests any number of potential names, given the state's status as the likely decider of the presidential election, but if I were serving this, I'd call it: Pennsylvania Exit Poll.
For those who do want something more potent, a single strong cocktail or two is the way to go. Here you can go with something simple and classic like an old fashioned or a martini, but I want to nudge you in the direction of something in the Manhattan family.
The Manhattan skyline is one of the nation's great wonders, and the best versions of the drink are made with rye whiskey, which was the default American whiskey before Prohibition. With just three ingredients plus garnish, it's an easy drink to make, and an easy drink to spruce up via any number of excellent variations, from the Little Italy to the Bushwick to the Brooklyn.
Save this drink for later in the night, when something big happens -- or, as fate may have it, when nothing big happens. Either way, you can name this one after what you'll likely be looking at when you have your first sip: Cable News Chyron.
What if you want to have something to sip on all night long? Well, you'll probably want a drink that's considerably lower proof. There are any number of excellent cocktails that don't hit too hard, and most of them involve some combination of fortified wines like sherry and/or vermouth, which have much lower alcohol content than spirits like whiskey, gin, rum, or tequila. Sherry, in particular, can be used to swap for higher-proof spirits in some drinks, like the margarita. If you're craving something like a Manhattan but with a little less kick, just reverse the proportions -- so two ounces of sweet vermouth and a single ounce of whiskey.
But for election night, my recommendation for a low-ABV drink is actually a bubbly, effervescent, low-proof spin on the Negroni. It's an easy-to-make mix of vermouth, bitter-orange Campari, and soda water -- but unlike a typical Negroni, no gin.
Like most elections, it's a little bit bitter, a little bit sweet, and slightly unexpected. And while you can call it whatever you want, this one doesn't need a name change: It's the Americano, a long drink for what promises to be a very long night.
Election night is, by nature, a night of uncertainty, of unpredictability, of unknowns and unforeseen events. But you can give yourself and your friends a little bit of certainty with a great drink and an amusing name. No matter what happens to the country, at least the cocktail will be good.