It’s just a few days before our fate is decided at the ballot box — or at least that’s usually the way it goes — and so I have a drink that is, cinematic and theatrical associations excluded, apolitical yet strong enough to help you stand up to the stress.
The provenance of this week’s cocktail, a sweetened-up martini of sorts, is not too obvious. There is a significantly different drink of the same name in Harry Craddock’s “The Savoy Cocktail Book,” which calls for a now mostly unavailable sweetish fortified wine called Caperitif. (A revival of the product seems to have been attempted, however, so that may change.) These days, that Cabaret cocktail is sometimes made with Dubonnet Blanc or Lillet Blanc, so we may give it a shot at some point.
The drink will be making now, however, is an apparent adaptation/reboot that comes from Robert Hess’s “The Essential Cocktail Guide.” While Hess has also promoted a smaller version of the cocktail on his online video channel, and there are a few other versions of it online, I’m partial to the recipe in the book. It’s a bigger, bolder tipple and quite user friendly. It also gives us a reminder that Benedictine is good for something other than just going halfies with brandy.
Halloween, at least officially, is on Monday, so I have a seasonally appropriate drink of my own creation. It does not reference anything supernatural, but it does reference something scary and monstrous. I speak, of course, of the presidential election. I call it the October Surprise.
If you’ve heard the name “Buster Brown” at all, you’re probably thinking of a line of kids’ shoes. However, you may not know that these shoes were not named for the guy who started the footwear line. Buster Brown was a popular comic strip character from the early 20th century created by Richard F. Outcault, a comics pioneer who’s perhaps slightly better remembered by modern graphic storytelling geeks for the Yellow Kid.
For those of you who don’t know your early Hollywood history, Douglas Fairbanks was probably the first real superstar action hero and, like Buster Keaton in his own day and Jackie Chan many years later, a superb stunt performer. He played the dashing, ultra-athletic lead in some of the earliest film versions of “The Thief of Baghdad,” “The Mark of Zorro” and “The Three Musketeers,” among many other productions. He was also — and I believe this is a DOTW first for a celebrity-named cocktail — a teetotaler.
Long before my serious cocktailing days, boozy drinks that featured coffee were a go-to for this caffeine addict. Then and now, I’ve found the effect both invigorating and relaxing and, let me tell you, drinks that are insults to the good name of 
