Antifreeze Cosmo

For those of you who whine about the high prices urban bars charge for spirits these days, take a page from our hard-drinking, former Soviet, Russian friends and drink more "industrial spirits". Industrial spirits are much, much, cheaper than your traditional vodka (and other liquors), and are only moderately deadly.

According to news.com.au: Production of drinks concocted from perfume, skincare products and anti-freeze increased by 38.2 percent in the first five months of 2005 compared with the same period in 2004, while vodka production fell 9.4 percent, according to data from Russia's National Alcohol Association. . . . Typically these drinks are produced and packaged legally as beauty or industrial products, but are then sold as alcoholic drinks from kiosks and food stores. The lethal cocktails kill some 60,000 Russians per year,[Russia's] Izvestiya [newspaper] said.

So, next time you're yearning to go out downtown, but don't think you have the money for it, go pick up some perfume, antifreeze, and cranberry juice and make yourself a drink. Watch out for the hangover though. . . .