Madame Zolonga’s Astrological Guide to Drinking Your Way Through 2015

By Madame Zolonga

It’s 2015, let’s drink to it! Not just New Year’s day, but every day! Just think, if there’s a musical tone and a day for every planet, there ought to be a drink for every planet, too. Mix your planets with some jazzy aspects, and what do you get? Cocktails, my dear!

2015’s Top 5 Astrological Aspects, For Your Drinking Pleasure

The Saturn-Sagittarius Mixer

Saturn entered tropical Sagittarius Christmas Eve, and will give 2015 a distinctly new High Church flavor. Think deep red velveteen pew cushions and eau de Murphy’s Oil lingering in your nostrils. Except for the summer (when Saturn retrogrades into Scorpio for a quick farewell) that old-time religion and bridge club rankings are the prevailing themes.

This first cocktail will get you through the long winter with its warming ginger, and even feel refreshing come autumn. Nothing says “perfected by Saturn” like barrel-aged whisky. You needn’t buy half-century old Macallan, but don’t pick anything aged less than 30 years for this drink. Now drop your deep-noted, mature Saturnian whiskey into that uplifting Sagittarian ginger zip!

The Presbyterian On The Rocks
— 2 oz Scotch (may substitute bourbon or rye whiskey)
— 2 oz Ginger ale
— 2 oz Club soda

Mix this drink when you know you’re in for a marathon of afternoon negotiations with your brother-in-law, dissertation committee, or elder board. Sip it like a country club worthy who’s conquered the back nine like Cotton Mather took on apostasy. Finding Truth in a glass was never so easy.

The Uranus Square Pluto Break-up Cup

Farewell, uber-couple of the quarter century. Sure it was always a tense relationship, and much like Kanye and Kim, you were the couple we loved to hate, or hated to love. But the conflicts always meant we had at least one story every day on our Facebook wall guaranteed to inflame our mothers. Whether we’ll ever get on with her again is our choice, but at least we all now know how each other really feels about vaccination schedules, drug-testing welfare recipients, and your local Fraternal Order of the Police.

Consider celebrating The End with the traditional Tequila Sunrise cocktail. Tequila will give you that Plutonian depth-charge experience, and the cheery orange juice/grenadine glow will remind you of the Uranian fires of Aries — or the cheery coral-hued blooming mushroom cloud over the beige Nevada landscape. Or perhaps it’s the tarot’s Ten of Swords sunrise on the far horizon, in the desert of your post Uranus-Pluto life. Mix a couple drinks now, and watch that desert finally bloom again!

Tequila Sunrise (serves 6, or 2 with a death wish)

— 2/3 cup tequila
— 3 cups fresh orange juice
— 1 tablespoon grenadine, or to taste
— 6 orange slices for garnish

Best served on and after March 15. (Don’t forget the Ides of March!)

Chiron Conjunct Asteroid Borasisi

People say post-modernism is dead, but they’re wrong, and Borasisi proves it. Borasisi is the ne plus ultra of “truthiness,” and Chiron is the “owie.” Which means truthiness hurts. I’m calling this the Satirist’s Special. And to celebrate (or mourn, as it were) our favorite satirist, you can serve the hair of the dog that bit you in this special commemorative Colbert Report cocktail shaker while fondly remembering that Barbara Streisand, voicemail, and the War on Christmas are the real reasons for the decline of Western Civilization.

The Venus and Mars Hat Trick with a Fire Chaser

Usually Venus and Mars chase each other like a will-they-or-won’t-they sitcom couple who tease us straight through to May Sweeps Week, but 2015 is notably different. Expect not one but THREE potential “must-see” episodes of lusta-hunka-sizzling emotions — a formula-breaking format not usually seen in one broadcast season.

The Moon-Uranus conjunction in Aries onside for the first two dates gives Mars the extra spontaneous edge. That’s a tricky piece of work. Bookmakers might favor Venus, though, when her retrograde challenges Mars’ upper hand.

Your hot dates to book in:

— Feb. 21: 1+ Aries Venus-Mars with the Moon and Uranus poppin’ at 14+ Aries

— Aug. 31: 14+ Leo Venus-Mars, again with the Moon and Uranus sizzling onside in Aries

— Nov. 2: Venus-Mars at 24+ Virgo on the North Node, square Pholus — with fiery Leo Moon trine our Sagittarius Saturn.

Thoughts on technique: Typically Venus and Mars pairings in one sign lack subtlety, a couple of one-note Johnny-and-Janies who love to bicker, and then bump like bunnies in heat. In fire signs Aries and Leo, Venus and Mars will be pimply, horny, happy, handsy teens. And OMG, the drama. By November I expect they’ll apply actual thought to the relationship, but the couple’s square to Pholus situ warns a lesson might be too little, too late. Pholus always guarantees a long fuse detonation somewhere down the line. This looks a lot like our lovers forgot the condoms over the summer, and now the pee stick’s come back positive.

Rather than the usual Rum and Coke or Hawaiian Punch and Everclear combo, let’s help these kids find the cocktail equivalent of more sophisticated sexual relations. They’ll need it.

— February’s meet-up calls for a Dirty Sriracha Bloody Mary with a super-chilled IPA chaser. Don’t forget lots of pointy garnish sticks for that martial tone! Given ’em some stuffed olives to suck and giggle over, too.

— August needs something for the blistering backend of summer, something simple but glamorous that appeals to a mane-sized ego. How about a Flaming Redhead? Serve on a sandy towel, at your favorite beach with Wi-Fi service and a live band, of course.

— If a baby’s on the way by November’s Venus-Mars date in late Virgo, cue your tee-totaling days. If not, let’s celebrate the near miss and give them a juniper berry treat, the gin-infused virginal Do Be Careful

The Jupiter/Saturn/Nessus T-square Hangover

I’d like to recommend a drink here, but frankly this ongoing 2015 aspect is the hangover and not the party. Which is proof that we can’t quite guzzle our way through 2015 like how Don Draper took on 1965. Call it The Accountability Crisis.

If you’ve been anything like dear Don, this tense planetary standoff says you’ll need your local AA chapter at your side. But many of our indulgences these days are digital, so you could be owning up to your Internet persona. Or taking on the cable company. Or tap-dancing for the NSA.

Here’s another tip. Jupiter is in Nessus’s sights most of the year. You plagiarists and D-string artists will love this. If you play it right, Jupiter will be so up himself in Leo he won’t notice you’ve filched a favorite blog entry from him or incorporated the best moves of his last vlog into your multi-media digital collage.

Of course you don’t need to cite your sources, because everyone knows imitation is the greatest flattery, you big flatterer! You won’t get caught until July, at least, so if intellectual property theft is your thing, get crackin’ early on.

After July 2, do have a lawyer on retainer and/or a registered bank account in the Bahamas. You know, just in case. There’s nothing like Saturn’s return to Scorpio to peel back the sheets and see who you’re screwing. Happily, if you’re caught, you’ll have the rest of the year to explain that number.

Also, I daren’t speak “Gamer’s Gate” too loudly, so I’ll just whisper it instead; “Dox(x)ing” parties might make a comeback this summer, so get your address books handy!

And there you go. 2015 in a highball glass. Or as my dear grannie used to say each night as she poured her evening constitutional, “When you feel you’ve hit bottom, bottom’s up!” If 2014 was the bottom for you, I drink to your health in 2015. Sláinte!