PRETORIA—There’s a drink here in South Africa that they call “creme soda.” It’s probably like the cream soda you’re familiar with, only it’s a bright, shocking, emerald green.

Mostly, creme soda is used as a mixer for a drink they like to call a John Deere, usually taken as a double (especially if you want to, you know, act like a man) with two shots of 86-proof cane sugar alcohol. The resulting highball cocktail — whose name comes from the obvious colour association as well as the fact that it runs you over like a lawnmower — is delicious, refreshing, and quite deadly. Ordering a first round of John Deeres is commonly called “hopping aboard the cane train,â€? so stated because once you climb aboard the train, you generally ride it to the very last stop, occasionally waking up in the back seat of a strange car in an equally unfamiliar underground parking lot. True story. (more…)