It's that time again

If you're celebrating, or drowning your sorrows, this week, the NY Times has election-themed drinks for you.

Is it possible to detect bias in a drink? Not at the World Bar, across the street from the United Nations building on First Avenue, where Jonathan Pogash has been serving blue and red cocktails since September.

Even the drinks’ names bear a staid impartiality: there’s the Obama Cocktail, a blue Curaçao-spiked variation on a Mai Tai, and the McCain Cocktail, in which gin and a Cognac-vanilla liqueur get red-state coloration from a dose of house-made grenadine. “Very neutral,” is how Mr. Pogash described his approach. He wouldn’t even divulge sales figures except to say that they seem to track the polls.

If Mr. Pogash is the David Broder of the mixological world, then Jackie Roberts may be its Keith Olbermann. Ms. Roberts owns the Pink Door, a Seattle restaurant where her Obama-Rama cocktail helps raise funds for the Obama campaign. There’s no McCain drink on her menu, but she rejects “the theory that politics and business don’t mix,” she said. “I feel good about standing for something.”

Every four years, I try not to get entirely wrapped up in it all, and this year is worse than ever. With the trying, I mean. I'm just saying.