The New York Times reports on a new trend in teen drinking across the pond: Young Brits have recently been consuming a kind of caffeinated wine called “Buckie” with wild abandon. The drink has become so popular that the Scottish Parliament is considering banning it to keep it out of their country.

The "Bloody Best" Bloody Mary at the Atlanta-based eatery The Nook is not kidding around.

The Antarctic region is losing its glaciers to global warming, but now comes evidence humans are helping erode the ice masses in a more direct way: Chilean authorities arrested an entrepreneur for making off with five and a half tons of the Jorge Montt glacier in Patagonia.

Eben Freeman has had it with the injustice done to bartenders. "Someone needs to get sued," the "molecular mixologist" tells The Atlantic. Cocktails used to be intoxicating fun, but now they could land you in legal trouble.

Just what airplane travel needs: more reasons for people to be loud and drunk. Continental Airlines, soon to merge with United, has created fun specialty cocktails, like mojitos, to serve to passengers. Nothing says party like a stuffy tin box!

Cocktail names from a scintillating New York Times trend piece on drinking: the Penelope Cruiser, the Algerian Typist, A New Phase of Life, the Yuzu You Too!, the Sexy London, Sandals 'n Spice. Don't you want to drink them all?

Drinkers are apparently weary of all the fancy-pants cocktails filled with tinctures and obscure violet-based liquors. The kids these days are, apparently, enjoying a shot of whisky followed by a shot of pickle brine.

"Japanese barteder and cocktail-shaking philosopher" Kazuo Uyeda is coming down from the isolated monastery where he toils to perfect a "controversial method of shaking drinks": the "Hard Shake," the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique of booze.

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow once said that if she wasn't a broadcast host she'd "try to find a way to professionally bully people about what they drink." She'd be good at it!

One of our favorite Oscar traditions is the menu of original cocktails inspired by the five Best Picture nominees, as devised by the clever bartending staff of The Polo Lounge. We gave them a call to see what they came up with this year (yes, these are all real):
· To honor No Country for Old Men, they have Blood and Sand: Johnny Walker Red, cherry brandy, sweet vermout, and a splash of OJ served strained in martini glass. Enough of those should give you a hangover that feels like a bolt-stunner to the melon.
· The Juno drink is a Blue Slushee, named for the frozen treat our hero upchucks into her stepmother's urn: Stoli raspberry, blue curacao, and lemonade, blended with ice.