8 November

Of all the cocktails to have its very own day, the Harvey Wallbanger is probably the most surprising. But, yes, Harvey Wallbanger Day is a thing in American. And Harvey Wallbanger Cake is a thing, too.

A much-maligned 1960s cocktail, the Harvey Wallbanger comes a little before the Sex on the Beach, the Woo Woo and the Long Island Iced Tea on many veteran bartenders' lists of drinks they least like to serve. We reckon that's down to the quality of their orange juice. When made with freshly squeezed juice the herbal flavours of Galliano come to the fore [be sure to use L'Autentico and not Vanilla], making this a cocktail worth celebrating. So dust off that tall yellow bottle, break out your juicer and try our recipe for a delicious Harvey Wallbanger. While enjoying your cocktail, perhaps read the full story of this cocktail under our recipe.

The day an asteroid narrowly missed the Earth

This day in 2011, at 11:28pm, the cutely-named Asteroid 2005 YU55 passed less than the moon's distance (330,000 km/200,000 miles) from Earth. The next day, on 9th November 2011, it passed even closer to the Moon.

NASA was at pains to point out that there is no danger of an earth collision within the next century, which is handy since the dark object is around 400m across.

2005 YU55 is too small and too fast-moving to be observed with the naked eye, although amateur astronomers rejoiced in the visitor and hoisted their telescopes. We are toasting this particular near miss, not to mention the technology which enabled astronomers to predict its trajectory, with a Comet Cocktail, an elegant, classical blend of cognac, Drambuie and lime originally named after an aircraft.