Witches have been famous for supplying aids to seduction throughout the ages.

A lot of these included revolting or hard-to-find ingredients like mandrake, powdered cats eyes, or that tired old “aphrodisiac” Spanish Fly.

Spanish Fly is an irritant, that’s all, and can sometimes produce an uncomfortable stiffening effect on the male. It doesn’t affect women in the slightest.

And the less said about pointlessly harvesting rhinos for their horns, the better. Phallic symbolism doesn’t help you perform, you might just as well chip a bit of trim off a train just after it went into a tunnel, grind it up and eat it.

There it goes

As for Viagra, well. It can increase blood flow, sure. But it doesn’t increase desire – it has no effect on the brain whatsoever. And the notorious “roofie” or Rohypnol is just a sedative with amnesiac qualities.

You’d be better off eating an avocado from the supermarket – at least those are packed with Vitamin E, which can boost the state of arousal and intensity of physical experience.

The artificial creation of the approximation of physical passion is in the end a rather lonely, deadening business. If you can affect the mind, the body will soon follow after.

Which of course brings us inevitably to booze, which has brought so many people together who would never remotely have contemplated the possibility when sober.

“Looking through the eyes of love” or, as some folk would have it, the “beer goggles” has been by far the most effective seduction method since Bacchus first squeezed his grapes.

As Anton La Vey points out in his book “The Satanic Witch” – many of the old recipes for “liquid lust” were instructions for preparing liqueurs which are now available on the open market. Commercially available today, traditional potions include Advokaat, Chartreuse, Drambuie, Goldwasser, Parfait Amour and Vermouth.

Vermouth especially is notable for containing herbs and barks which were classic botanical ingredients of ancient mixtures, and like the witches of days past, the makers like to keep the exact recipe a secret. Originally developed for medicinal purposes, it has evolved into a traditional cocktail component.

As you can pick these concoctions up so easily now, you are really spoilt for choice if you look to get lucky, so why not whip up something which evokes your eventual goal by name alone?

I refer of course to the Orgasm, which can be converted to a Screaming Orgasm by the simple addition of vodka.

The Screaming Orgasm

½ shot vodka

½ shot Amaretto

½ shot Kahlua

½ shot Baileys

Single cream

Combine ingredients in a chilled shaker with ice, and shake. Serve in a chilled glass on the rocks.

The Orgasm, or Screaming Orgasm, ranks along with other 1980’s classics Sex on the Beach, Sloe Comfortable Screw, and the Slippery Nipple as top options to order in bars when you are looking to combine spoken word comedy with something terribly drinkable.

Since 2011 the International Bartenders Association no longer rates it officially as a cocktail, but quite honestly until they think up something with a name that lends itself as well to a fun night out, The Orgasm will remain popular.

Whilst booze is an intoxicant and releases inhibitions when taken in any form, sucking the liquid from an alcohol wipe at your desk, say, is hardly going to have the same passion-inducing effect as this combination of delicately blended flavours whirling through a cream base.

Speaking its name can lend it power also, with the use of Voice Magic. Our words, uttered with enough conviction and intent, can have a considerable effect on the world we inhabit.

Pushing the name of the drink out of the cavern of your mouth and using breath from the very bottom of your lungs can send it out to mingle with your surroundings- you breathe in air, breathe it out with a word – then that breath and that word are in turn breathed in by people around you.

So go all out and order an Orgasm. Skål!