Side roads on the way to Philly

First stop - Cleveland and the Republican National Circus, er, convention. Day one - Make America Safe Again. I can sum this up in three words: Buy more guns.

OK, that was easy. Now for some highlights. Sad mom whose son was killed in Benghazi "It's all Hillary's fault." Poor woman, why subject her (the mom, Hillary can take it) to this public display of her grief and anger?

Then various veterans, including one who says he saw a movie that convinced him women were not cut out for the military followed by Joni Ernst, farmer's daughter from Iowa, who happens to be , wait for it, a military veteran and the first elected Federal official from her state. Also a big smile, and more Hillary blaming. Obama blaming too. Our veterans. We don't take care of them. It's shameful, blah blah. Yeah, we know that. George Bush started this mess that got them all sent into war in the first place, then left his wars unfunded for Obama. Fact check: Lack of VA funding not Obama's fault, delusional Republicans.

Next up, the lovely Stepford wife, Melania, whose speech was "inspired" by, wait for it, Michelle Obama's 2008 speech. Got it, inspired, not plagiarized. Oh, irony.

Oh yeah, there were floor fights. Someone wanted a roll call vote on the Rules, which would have allowed them not to vote for Trump. (Who would they have voted for?) At first nine states agreed with this, then only six. Gee, did Trump offer to buy them a casino or something? One of those wanting a roll call vote says she was "threatened" out in the hall, by some angry Trump women who said, "Die Bitch," words to that effect. (OK, she didn't say they used the B word, but they did tell her and her whole Utah delegation to die.)

And this was all just on Day One. Day Two, Make America Work Again, tonight. Let's see how many times the words "lazy bastards" come up, and your drinking game for tonight is the word "illegal" as in illegal immigrant, or maybe wetback; any variation will do.

Your drink? "Inspired" by Paul Clark from his tasty blog The Cocktail Chronicles, the aptly named:  Suffering Bastard 

Recipe

Paul Clarke

[Photograph: Wes Rowe]

• Yield:makes 1 cocktail
• Active time:3 minutes
• Total time:3 minutes
• Rated:

This recipe appears in:

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I can't explain how I've managed to stay interested in mixology this long without ever getting around to mixing myself a drink as enticingly named as the Suffering Bastard. But when I was perusing Anvil's 100 Cocktails list, the Bastard stood out as one I had yet to cross off my list.

The drink's genesis can be traced to the Long Bar at the Shepheard Hotel in Cairo. As the story goes, in the late 1940s, the Shepheard's bar steward was Joe Scialom. One day in 1947, according to Esquire, Scialom was desperate for a hangover remedy and the Suffering Bar Steward (soon somewhat sloppily rechristened as the Suffering Bastard) was the result.

There are a number of recipes for the Suffering Bastard floating about. Some are merely Mai tai variations with extra rum, while some call for brandy instead of bourbon, and others for rum. Today's drink historians generally settle on bourbon as one of the two base spirits, along with a shot of gin. The drink is then leavened with the healing powers of lime juice and bitters (the lime juice can range anywhere from a teaspoon to an ounce) and lengthened with a good dose of ginger ale.

Since I'm just now crossing it off my list, I can't say if the Suffering Bastard lives up to its reputation as a hangover buster. I can say that on a lazy evening, with one of these in front of you, "suffering" is about the last word that comes to mind.