GAMBLING ON A GOOD COCKTAIL

Vegas is in the news again. What happens in Las Vegas, contrary to the popular phrase, does not stay in Las Vegas. But this time it’s not another residency for U2, and nobody has discovered that Elvis has, in fact, been working as a hairdresser here for the last 45 years or so.

No, this week it’s cocktails. At the Chandelier Bar at The Cosmopolitan Of Las Vegas hotel you can order a Verbena for around $11. That’s not too expensive considering it comes with a Szechuan button, an edible flower that is filled with a natural alkaloid that gives your drink a hit that would kick-start a dodo.

You sip your cocktail, enjoying the early evening sun dipping below the horizon in western Nevada and slowly your mouth feels tingly, then your taste buds go into overdrive and your mouth comes alive. But in an altogether a good way.

It’s a margarita-like cocktail with a mix of components: blanco tequila, ginger and a yuzu-calamansi sour mix (citrusy stuff). It’s spicy, refreshing, fragrant — and dangerously moreish.

Once you’ve sobered up, hire a car and head north-west for just under two hours on US Route 95. At the ghost town of Rhyolite in the Amaragosa Valley in the Mojave Desert you’ll come to the Goldwell Open Air Museum, and experience a real sense of serenity.

Which you may need after the Verbena.

This extraordinary place is an outdoor sculpture park near the ghost town of Rhyolite. The non-profit museum was the brainchild of Albert Szukalski, the Belgian artist, who died in 2000. But he creLAS ated the site’s first sculptures in 1984 near the abandoned railway station in the old ghost town, and imbued the place with art, culture and serenity. His sculpture The Last Supper is modelled on the Leonardo da Vinci painting. It is the oddest thing to come across in the arid landscape of Nevada, but somehow oddly moving.

If you’re still feeling adventurous, about 8km further on from Goldwell is Death Valley National Park.

This is the hottest, driest and lowest of all the national parks in the US. It is home to Badwater Basin, the secondlowest point in the Western Hemisphere and lowest in North America at 282 feet (86m) below sea level.

The park, of which most of the terrain is officially classified as wilderness, is home to many species of plants and animals who have managed to adapt to the harsh desert environment (temperatures can exceed 50C).

Expect to see every kind of cactus, the creosote bush, the Joshua tree, bighorn sheep and coyote. And expect to be quite hot.