Intoxicating. Max Allen

as methylated spirits, rum, cayenne pepper and opium, while another says the ‘devil’s potion’ also included Cocculus indicus, or Levant nut, an Indian plant used by unscrupulous brewers in mid-19th-century beers to enhance the effects of intoxication – and used by everyone else as a pesticide and poison.

      Cocktail historian and distiller Sebastian Reaburn has found mentions of Blow My Skull Off in police gazettes of the era, where officers are warned: ‘If you find a group of men up in the goldfields of Ballarat drinking this, don’t try to arrest them. In fact, don’t even get off your horse. You just need to club them into unconsciousness because they’re mad. There’s no reasoning with them.’

      I didn’t try re-creating this later version of the drink. I do have some limits.