The quest for knowledge never ends at the super top secret Spock Mountain Laboratory, although it is frequently interrupted by beverage breaks. Recently, a team of crack ethnomixologists returned from a dangerous expedition to the frozen expanse of Canada with the much sought recipe for a Spocktail that is destined to replace blunt force head trauma as the major cause of brain damage in the civilized world.

I am speaking, of course, of the legendary 'Acadian'. This nasty little blend of bufotenine and alcohol will make you hallucinate, twitch, and foam at the mouth. The origins of this concoction are shrouded in legend, but appear to be linked to the peculiar alien abduction phenomenon in Atlantic Canada.

The story goes like this: some time in late 1979, 3 brothers from Newfoundland grew weary of imbibing huge quantities of Newfie Screech, kissing the cod, and then beating each other senseless with the empty bottles. In the very depths of this alcoholic ennui, one of the brothers hit upon the idea of combining the Newfie Screech with the skin of the cane toad (the details are hazy, but there seems to have been some sort of epiphany along the lines of the much vaunted "you got peanut butter on my chocolate").

The 3 brothers quaffed a prodigious quantity of the brew and then began hallucinating and foaming at the mouth like rabid Labrador Retrievers. They proceeded to drive to the airport where they located the first small foreigner with a funny accent that they could find, and put the protesting and terrified traveller in the trunk of their Chevy. They drove to an isolated spot, and then forced a funnel into the mouth of the alien abductee and dosed him with their vile cocktail.

Within a short time he was raving and hallucinating, so they let him drive. When they were inevitably stopped by the local constabulary, the alien was hauled off to jail on various and sundry charges and the 3 brothers were cautioned to "go home and sleep it off, eh". The alien awoke in a holding cell two days later, pallid and twitching in a pool of his own sticky vomit, and unable to account for several days of 'missing time'.

Thus were the Acadian Cocktail and the sport of Alien Abduction delivered into the unsuspecting world like dark, demented twins. Cheers!

The Acadian

Ingredients:

• 5 cane toads
• 4 oz. Newfie Screech (It's a Canadian liquor. No, really.)
• 1 large dash of Tabasco sauce

Directions:

Kill and skin the toads, in that order. Boil the skins and reduce until you are left with a paste. Allow the paste to dry to a powder.

Place the powdered toad skin in the bottom of the glass. Pour the Newfie Screech on top and stir. Add the Tabasco sauce. Hold your nose and pound 'er back in a single gulp -- trust me, this is not a drink you want to savor.

zales@pigdog.org