Making Cocktails Out of Household Items

You're too stupid to figure out how to use the Silk Road and the dog has eaten all of your weed again. What are you gonna do? Well, in a sane world, you do what generations of stupid, bored children have done before you and reach for the medicine cabinet. A few of Mum's valiums and a wine glass of Calpol never hurt anyone, right?

Of course they haven't, but then where's the fun in getting fucked up if you're not stunt piloting through whole new stratospheres of gettingfuckedupness? The LA Times reckons that kids have been flooding into California's hospitals after glugging hand sanitiser. Apparently it's not that good for you, with side effects ranging from diarrhoea and short-term memory loss to blindess and irreversible organ damage. And if you think it's just dumb Americans being dumb Americans, think about how George Osborne seems intent on jacking up the prices of professionally made booze over here. Soon, getting drunk might be a luxury rather than a necessary daily coping strategy.

But does it have to come to that? Maybe not, because I spent a few minutes on Google and found a bunch of other things that I could, if I was insane, put in my mouth the next time I'm at a house party and the only stuff in the fridge is a few stalks of celery, some out-of-date hummus and Carling.

OBVIOUS DISCLAIMER IF YOU ARE AN IDIOT: DON'T ACTUALLY DRINK ANY OF THESE DRINKS. I ONLY TOOK TINY SIPS OUT OF THEM AND YOU AREN'T AS TOUGH AS ME Mouthwash Mojito

Ingredients:

1.5 x cups of Listerine Original mouthwash
12 x mint leaves
1 x tbsp sugar
1 x cup of lime juice
3 x cups of soda

First, I painstakingly placed mint leaves in the bottom of glass. For some reason if your mojito takes less than half an hour to make, it's not as good. Then I added my crushed ice, splashed in a generous dose of Listerine, some sugar, some lime juice, and shook it like I was a TGI Friday's barman and my tip depended on it. Then I sprayed in some soda water and added even more mint, as if it wasn't gonna taste enough like a halitosis cure already.

What did it taste like?

You know when your mum told you to never swallow Listerine when you were a kid? Even though that refreshing, minty taste had you wanting to so much? It's not because it was highly poisonous (well, it is a bit), it's because she didn't want you getting slammed before bedtime (its alcohol content is 26.9 percent; about the same as a strong gin). True, one report in the Emergency Medical Journal states that drinking mouthwash could (could) lead to: "severe anion-gap metabolic acidosis and osmolar gap, multiorgan system failure, and death", which sounds bad, but these are the same people who claim Jack Daniel's should be enjoyed "responsibly". You know, I could see this catching on; people sipping the green stuff on little tables on summer days, like a ghetto creme de menthe.

Update: It's three days later and I still can't get the taste out of my mouth. I thought it'd be kinda irresponsible not to let you know that.

Dirty Baby Wipe Martini

Ingredients:

1 x box of Johnson & Johnson Baby Wipes
1 x tbsp dry vermouth
2 x tbsp olive juice
2 x olives
some water and ice

Don't let the title put you off; the dirty part of this drink comes from the olive juice. First of all, I extracted the juice from the alcohol-soaked wet wipes. I did this by just lining the glass with it, like an antiseptic version of the napkin in the wine cup. Then, I placed an ice cube in a glass with a small amount of water and put it in the freezer for 2-3 minutes. Meanwhile, I put all the rest of the ingredients in a mixer, and shook it. I took the glass out of the freezer, strained the liquid into the glass, and Bob's your uncle, I'm James Bond on benefits.

What did it taste like?

When I was a kid, I was once in a public swimming pool that some hapless employee had accidentally poured far too much chlorine into. I legged it straight through the changing rooms and running bombed into the deep end, not noticing all the vomiting, shaking children being consoled by worried parents at the side of the pool. My jaw dropped in dismay when I realised, and in the process I swallowed some of the foul water. This drink tasted pretty much exactly like that, but also packed a sickeningly salty bite, which I can only imagine is what the Dead Sea tastes like.

That said, drink enough and you'll fucking destroy yourself. Some brands of wet wipes can be as much as 60 percent alcohol, which is like drinking two bottles of whiskey at once. This can only explain why babies cry so much; they're all hammered through external contact alone.

Strepsil Drank

Ingredients:

1 x pack of Strepsils
1 x can of Sprite

OK, so Strepsils aren't exactly the preferred medicine of choice for the sizzurp connoisseur, but it's difficult for the man in the British street to find stupidly powerful codeine without crying off to the doctor's surgery. But Strepsils do contain a small amount of alcohol in each lozenge, so I crushed them up at the bottom of a glass, poured in some Sprite and decanted it into something suitably ghetto. They might not contain much alcohol, but neither does that weird, grey Stella, and people still get wasted on that.

What did it taste like?

Pretty good actually, like one of those tasty soft drinks you can only buy in America, or those shops in North London where they sell American products to Hedge Fund managers at a 5000 percent mark-up. The Strepsils added a nice and warm depth of flavour to Sprite's usual (but somehow cosmetic) deliciousness. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to live the hip-hop lifestyle on trip-hop money and end up with a voice like a young Laurence Olivier.

The Lynx Colada

Ingredients:

2 x cups of chilled pineapple juice
1 x can of Lynx Africa (Inca will suffice if you can't get your hands on it, but Atlantis will not)
1/2 x cup of coconut cream
2 x tbsp finely chopped palm sugar
1 x cup crushed ice
extra crushed ice to serve

The Pina Colada is a tasty, but expensive drink to mix yourself – if you're not prepared to imbibe the pre-mixed bottles of tropical molasses, it's the white rum that drives the price up. However, if you're working on a budget, this cocktail substitutes the Bacardi for the fragrant (yet potent) taste of Lynx Africa. No one knows what ingredients actually go in to creating the smell of banter, but it turns out you can get drunk off of them. Also, if it smells good, it must taste good too, right? I simply placed all of my ingredients in a blender and served immediately over crushed ice. Hopefully one sip of this and I'll think I'm on Elton John's yacht.

What did it taste like?

Sadly, the Lynx Colada didn't send me spinning off in a hallucinatory trance back to the birthplace of mankind. It tastes terrible, too; more akin to something you might accidentally swallow at an animal testing plant than the taste of the Congo. The pineapple juice and coconut didn't help its cause, adding a sweetness that lulls you into a false sense of security, before a few seconds later you feel like a fire-breather who's laughed mid-routine and swallowed some lighter fluid. I guess that's what happens when you try to outdrink your own armpits.

Hand Cream Mini Guinness

Ingredients

1 x tube of face cream
1 x bottle of Jaegermeister

Yep, that's right, you can rejuvenate and destroy your skin with the same thing. There's enough of the good stuff in these babies to floor a Welsh rugby team, but for some reason I can't seem to find many testimonials from anyone who's drunk it. I guess the macho boozers that stupidity-drinking attracts don't want people thinking they're metrosexuals. Guys, don't be ashamed: it's the 21st century.

Anyway, so a Mini Guinness is a cocktail made to look like a tiny pint of the black stuff. People tend to use Tia Maria or Kahlua to give the impression of a head, but in this case I'm going to attempt to use Nivea.

What did it taste like?

Jesus, that didn't turn out at all right. It doesn't look anything like a miniature pint of Guinness, more like something you'd find in a hospital bin or the VICE Gross Jar. It tastes terrible, too: I hate Jaegermeister, and when you combine it with the kind of bitter, creamy taste that makes you feel like your spine is trying to escape through your mouth, you're not exactly onto a winner. Usually you can just chuck back a Jaeger bomb and it hits your digestive system before your tongue has a chance to taste it, but I spat this in the sink almost immediately and still it lingered for aaaaaaages.

On the plus side, it's five to ten percent, so while it's not gonna have your family hiding from you when you get home, it's pretty much perfect for those in search of something light to quaff of an afternoon. Sorry, did I say light? I meant "repulsive".

Anti-Freeze Breeze

Ingredients:

1 x bottle of anti-freeze
1 x carton of cranberry juice
1 x carton of grapefruit juice
some crushed ice

"But surely anti-freeze is poisonous?" I hear you whining. Well, my answer to that would be: "Don't believe everything that you read." Anti-freeze is a fine drink, so much so that, in the 80s, a group of Austrian winemakers decided to include it in the recipe for their Riesling. Yes, they went to prison, but who in the regulation-saturated nanny state that is the EU hasn't been to prison? I know I have.

When I'd finished making this, it actually looked quite appealing, like the kind of seawater you only see in holiday brochures for the Seychelles. The other ingredients for a traditional Sea Breeze are cranberry and grapefruit juice, but being the rebel that I am, I used a grapefruit and blood orange combo known as "Ruby Breakfast". I could see this being the kind of cocktail for alcoholic salesmen, trying to numb the pain at a conference in Gran Canaria.

What did it taste like?

What the fuck do you think it tasted like? I have no idea. Don't drink anti-freeze.

So there you go. I hope you appreciate those efforts, although I'd seriously suggest NOT TRYING ANY OF THESE AT HOME, because I don't want to go to jail (again).

Follow Clive on Twitter: @thugclive