Thanks to Dr._T. for checking his copies of Gardner’s book. My memory was faulty; this is further excellent proof that memory fades.
I also misremembered details of the Spider Robinson story I mentioned above.
The Spider Robinson story was ”Mirror, rorriM, Off The Wall,” by Spider Robinson, 1977, from ”Time Travelers Strictly Cash” [a collection of Callahan’s Place stories], published in 1981.
In the story, the reversed ambrosial liquor was nicknamed “Wonderbooze” and tasted like the legendary “Four Eye Monongahela” [invented by Oliver La Farge in a 1957 story, Spud and Cochise]
There was no mushroom-shaped cloud.
.
...Trevor unstopped the bung. A clear ten feet away, a fly intersected an imaginary circle drawn round the bunghole. The fly went down like a shot up Stuka, raising a small cloud of sawdust from the floor when it hit. The nondescript stranger tilted the barrel, ...
Later, the fly was resurrected (the reversed liquor had great power):
...and it got pretty drunk out. I remember walking over to where the fly lay dead on the sawdust, dipping my finger into my glass and letting a drop of Wonderbooze fall onto the fly. At once he rose from the floor in a series of angry spirals, spraying sawdust, and I swear he shouldered me aside on his way out the door. The conversation got a little hard to follow, then. ...
.
In the story, the fact that alcohol is a symmetrical molecule was brought up, as was the food issue leading to malnutrition. I enjoyed the ‘mushroom-shaped cloud’ false memory, though…
