Tanqueray and tonic. I think what it says about me is that I like the taste of Tanqueray and tonic. But I guess it also signals other things about me. I guess any G&T is a moderately serious drink (less "serious" than straight bourbon, say), and having a preferred gin says that you drink regularly?
At home I like scotch on the rocks, but for some reason I don't order it when I'm out.
My old preferred drink: amaretto sour. Which says "fuck your fascist gender norms", and also "I don't drink very much" (which was true at the time).
faux-manhattan:1 sweet, 1 dry, 2 whiskey
sippin whiskey, straight up no ice;sippin cuervo, no salt or lime
g & t for afternoons on porches
spatlese;auslese;eiswein
I like the taste of liquor but hate the effects
Manhattan. It says: Still cutting the bourbon with a little vermouth.
Beam and water. It says, "Hey bartender, I'm no trouble."
I do enjoy better whisk(e)ys, but I prefer dilution rates that would be criminal.
Manhattan, definitely. What it's supposed to say is some combination of "I've gotten drunk with a lot of old people" and "I want a 'classy' drink that's still cut with various flavorings," but what it usually ends up saying is, "there is no bar left that stocks sweet vermouth."
In those instances I get a Maker's & Diet Coke, which says, "If I can't have what I really want then I'm just going to get trashed."
I was once sitting next to a person when he ordered Macallan 12 and Coke. I glared at him, but he was (predictably) oblivious.
Manhattan, definitely. What it's supposed to say is some combination of "I've gotten drunk with a lot of old people" and "I want a 'classy' drink that's still cut with various flavorings," but what it usually ends up saying is, "there is no bar left that stocks sweet vermouth."
Ha! Quite. I have also been served far too many Manhattans with no bitters in 'em.
Tom Collins or Gin & Tonic w/ salt on the rim. They both say "brown liquors taste yucky to me".
Gotta have drinks for occasions and circumstances
Don't feel right to prop my feet up on the porch rail and drink a manhattan; or watch a football game with one or ten;don't like mixing (shot + beer) and a single shot an hour at a bar feels wrong
course at a bar that single shot or mixed will not fit the competitive drinking that is considered social fun and might spoil the party if you dont dominate with jokes or stories or unless there is another dominant to distract and amuse.
whatever
I'm not much of a cocktails person, but when I do have them, I tend to go for a Caipirinha. Or a Mojito, which is more or less the same thing but with rum.
One of the worst cocktail experiences I've ever had was when I was served a so-called "perfect" Manhattan by a bartender who bragged of having owned his own bar for twenty years. It turned out that by "perfect" he meant that he was using dry vermouth and lots of it rather than a touch of each. I couldn't finish it. Gods, so awful. Happily, it was an open bar. I went back and got a Maker's & Diet.
On election night 2006 I drank SoCo and "Jazz" Diet Pepsi, a combination finely calculated to say, "I need to get blitzed in case Santorum doesn't lose."
Jello shots. It says "Titties, horay!"
ok, not really.
||
Oh. Checked my Kroger's the other day for chocolate
Lots of Dove;3 or 4 sets of different labeled Hersheys (e.g. Hershey's Extreme Dark or something);a row of Cadburys;and half a dozen medallions named after different plantations
|>
My brother the ex-bartender believed that there are only about 50 legit mixed drinks (counting "on the rocks" and "and water" as mixed drinks) and and thought that anyone who ordered anything else was full of shit. (Yes, folks, they hate you. Smiling is just part of their job. They're like strippers. Strippers aren't really in love with you, even though they do look at you that way.)
Of course, this was during his dry bartender days. Dry bartenders are much more common than you'd think. They have their motivation right in front of them 5 nights a week.
Probably there are SM bars with dom disciplinarian bartenders who abuse the customers. My brother would have been good in one of those.
Now that it's spring, I have switched from Manhattans to gimlets. Although at home all winter it was Aviations. What that says is, "Yes, I've just bought a bottle of crème de violette."
Robusto is one of my favorite people here, and my brother is a very nice person, and they'd almost certainly like one another, but if they ever meet, R. should refrain from ever even mentioning his taste for diet mixed drinks. Even now I'm sure that my brother has flashbacks of some of his old beliefs.
I love Manhattans, but I've had enough bad ones that I'm gunshy about ordering them in bars I'm not completely sure about. (Somewhere in the archives is a story about being served a Manhattan with an olive in it.) Mostly, in bars, I drink Bushmills straight up, water back. I think that says I like booze, but I'm not crazy about smoke. (I like some scotch, but not as a general thing.)
In people's homes, I usually drink beer or wine, unless they've made some complicatedly fruity thing -- mmmm, girldrinks, the primrose path to tripping over the furniture. And in the summers I make vicious margaritas. I'm not sure quite why they seem comparatively stronger than ones I have other places; I'm using a perfectly conventional recipe and not doing anything tricky to it.
My father was a bartender nearly all of his life, a bartender of the very old-school white shirt/black vest sort. He had very strong opinions about ridiculous "sex on the beach" type drinks. When he was out he'd order scotch rocks, almost always, but occasionally would hazard a perfect Rob Roy. These were almost never made to his liking.
17: Gimlets were my 'drinking in bars underage and trying to look sophisticated drink -- would a seventeen-year old girl be ordering a gimlet? Clearly not, which means there's no need to ask for my ID.' I don't know why I went off them, though, they're delicious.
The spring weather around these parts has brought on the annual taste for gin & tonic. It says, "Look, a robin!" The only problem is that one has to always drink at least two if drinking alone. And then multiples of two thereafter, which can have serious consequences.
This is so that the tonic is used efficiently while it still has fizz. I am speaking, naturally, of the 6-packs of 10 oz bottles. The liters are to be avoided unless one is entertaining a houseful of gin drinkers.
I've mentioned this before, but in Melrose Mn there's a bar named "Earl's" with an 80 year old old-school bartender who's been there since WWII and keeps it the same now as it was then, even down to the jukebox and the songs on it. When things are quiet he's always polishing the glassware, etc.
I was last there two years ago, and it's not long for this world, obvs. I presume that the new owners will modernize.
We have a friend who drinks manhattans, and so I keep the fixings on hand for her quarterly visits. Basically, though, it's beer and wine, latter usually house red. I don't know or care what people think.
Back when I used to be in the USVI fairly often, I'd bring back six-packs of flavored rum: give 5 away, and drink the 6th with colleagues at a couple successive happy hours. "Straight" if you can call it that. My current engagement down there isn't going to require my presence, most likely, but the associates on the matter are trying to figure out ways to justify some time on the ground.
Old-people bars are less strict than young-people bars. My brother's underage trick was going out with some work buddies in their 30s and 40s to a non-hip grownup bar.
If I have a signature drink, it's a whiskey sour. It says a little bit of 2.last, and also a variation of 7.1 because I've found more than a few bars that don't keep a sour mix. But the main thing it says is "I'm a creature of habit," because I'm pretty sure it was the first mixed drink I had in a bar, during a trip to France with my French Club in high school.
I'm not too picky about mixed drinks, I'll rarely order the same thing twice in a row. I don't like them too sweet, though.
One visit, I bought a bottle of oldish estate rum, for a partner's 40th birthday. The clerk refused to sell it to me unless I swore that it would never be mixed with anything. When I told him it was a gift, he made me promise to get an oath from the recipient.
25: True fact -- as a teenager, a couple of friends and I used to prop up the bar in a ratty old German restaurant with odd little portraits of WWI generals in niches and garlands of plastic grapes all over the place. I doubt we were fooling anyone, but we were generally quiet and harmless, and no one gave a damn.
I've always felt that I don't like brown liquors because they're too sweet, but I've had lots of people say that they don't find brown liquors sweet whatsoever. I find this hard to reconcile. (Like "Everywhere I see green, you see color X, and we'll never know unless we find an object that we label differently from each other!" Do I not know what sweet tastes like?)
When I lived in France I had a whole set of preferences. I liked kirs or "martini rouge" (sweet vermouth) in a shot glass for sitting and sipping out on the town. I think that said that I was a girl. At nightclubs---and only there---I would drink the occasional gin and tonic, partly because I liked the way it glowed blue in the lights, partly because the sugary-bitter carbonation felt like a weird sort of stimulant, and lastly because the bartender could usually be relied upon to deliver one. In my more hardcore phases, I was very fond of Pastis, which gave drinking that wizened old man allure.
In New York I liked vodka gimlets or very dry martinis, but those aren't the sort of thing you want to order unless you're at a very posh place.
These days, I'm the seltzer with a dash of juice or the decaf coffee. At friends' houses, I may even fix myself a cup of tea.
29: You're right and your friends are wrong -- brown liquors are sweet. What's confusing them is that brown liquors also have all sorts of harsh, complicated flavors -- they're thinking that 'sweet' should mean 'simple and easy to drink'.
I don't really drink a lot of mixed drinks. However, I like martinis [just the usual gin + vermouth + twist], gin and tonic and various other gin based drinks. I also like the Jamaican mule -- rum + lime juice + sugar syrup + ginger beer; mojitos and a few others.
I like whisky, but it doesn't really like me so I very rarely drink it. If I'm drinking shorts with no mixer, I drink cognac, usually.
I'm amused that all of us Manhattan drinkers seem to have the same associations with it. Also, yum. In the summer, I'm reliably a gin and tonic person.
Last weekend I was at a wedding with an "open martini bar" that nonetheless did not have any gin or vermouth. I drank a lot of vodka gimlets.
My signature drink is two Manhattans perfect. I order two so I can project that irresistible "attorneys general" language-pedant vibe.
Last weekend I was at a wedding with an "open martini bar" that nonetheless did not have any gin or vermouth.
And I was at a zoo that did not have any animals.
Holy cow, the Becks is AB's preferred pregnancy "cocktail." Since she wanted wine with dinner, cocktail hour was (almost always) non-alcoholic. Wish I'd had the shaking tip.
I know I've mentioned my preferred drink fairly recently (bourbon gimlet, altho no one calls it that), but I can't recall if I've told you that, when I ordered one on our first date, AB thought I was trying to impress her. Not sure what's supposed to be impressive about it, except that I have to explain it (since "bourbon gimlet" - esp. to a server - generates blank stares).
The good fight is lost, mrh. "Martini" means "cocktail" now.
34: In the summer you drink gins and tonics?
My old preferred drink: amaretto sour. Which says "fuck your fascist gender norms"
Ha! The amaretto sour started me on the road to my bourbon, due largely to fascist gender norms. First time I had one, it was super-tasty, but when I went into rather harder bars, I didn't really want to order girlie, so I switched to whiskey sours (often subverted by the presence of fruit and, sometimes, a girlie glass).
Amaretto sour =>
Whiskey sour =>
Bourbon sour =>
Bourbon gimlet
In the summer I cup my hands to make air-parentheses and order (gin and tonic)s.
37: Nah, it's not just any cocktail. It's a cocktail in shallow cone stemware.
I can identify with 6.last.
I've only recently discovered that 6.first is an adequate substitute when no Rose's is to be had. For years, I never realized how much work the melting ice was doing.
In the days when I drank liquor, gin and tonic, or occasionally vodka and cranberry, which has a name but I can't remember it. Can't be doing with mixing brown liquors - ice and water if you must.
Now, wine or beer, usually red wine.
At the moment, a mojito sounds like the best thing ever.
re: 44
Yeah, in pubs usually beer, at home usually red wine. Mixed drinks are a rarity.
More than one bartender has been surprised when I specified a gin Martini.
a single shot an hour at a bar feels wrong
Until the amaretto sour came along, the only liquor I drank was Yukon Jack, plus a minty one or two. I wasn't a binger - I just liked (and like) the flavor. But the options were to get utterly fucked up or to drink absurdly slowly (the latter option prevented many a hangover - shot, pint glass of water, repeat). I did build up a hell of a tolerance for the stuff - I once inadvertently drank a neighbor completely under the table, because I was feeling festive and he was feeling like keeping up.
I feel like a fool for giving these potent dating tips away for free. You would not believe how effective those parentheses are, in particular. They demonstrate to your prospective partner, in the clearest way possible, your mastery of manifest punctuation.
At the moment I'm rather fond of the Kentucky mule: bourbon, ginger beer, lime. Bourbon and ginger beer meld in quite a delicious way.
I tend to run in long ruts -- rum and coke in college, scotch neat in law school, gin for a bit post law school. Now, it seems my "signature drink" (in the sense that various friends and family express surprise when I order anything else) is Ketel One on the rocks with olives. Which says, I believe, "I don't have alot of time to waste, and I can't come up with anything more interesting."
47: I have found that one really must specify gin and straight-up in order to be certain to get a gin martini straight-up.
46. Right. Mind you, if for some reason I'm already paying fifty quid a head for a meal (not often), I'm damn well having a decent Armagnac with my coffee.
Wow, that Kentucky mule sounds awesome.
50 is correct. Bourbon (or rye) and Vernor's ginger soda too!
If more of my local bars carried cachaça--and if getting loose on cocktails wasn't so much more expensive than getting loose on tolerably good beer--I would drink nothing but caipirinhas. (Note: not really true. I'd drink single-malts in the winter, also.) As it is, I usually stick with beer when I'm out, wine more often at home. This says I like getting loose more than I like expensive drinks.
It's one of those drinks that's hard to mess up, because it still tastes good at many different bourbon:ginger beer ratios.
One drink I'll miss---not that I ever really got a chance to drink a lot of it, mind you---is the after-dinner Calvados. Man, I loved that stuff.
re: 54
With a mix of rums [or even spiced rum] instead of bourbon the Jamaican version is nice, too.
My around-the-corner bar also has a concoction called "the good humor" that is unusually tasty: a shot of aperol, an egg yolk, and heavy cream. Shaken vigorously with ice, served in a coupe glass with fresh nutmeg on top. When done right, the flavor comes in waves, with first sweet, then the nutmeg, and the bitter of the aperol hitting you as an aftertaste.
I was last there two years ago, and it's not long for this world, obvs. I presume that the new owners will modernize.
This seriously shifts the odds of me ever showing up in Woebegon. Maybe John & I can bike there together.
One thing I'll say: the best bar in my neighb is 1940s-vintage, and when it was redone ~7 years ago, they didn't fuck it up at all. It has become a hipster haven, but that's due primarily to hipsters with a taste for a 1940s-vintage bar. The jukebox is updated, but the food menu is basically comfort food (the shrimp po/ boy is apparently a throwback to its dive bar past) without apparent irony (best fucking mac & cheese in town). They have 1 small TV which isn't always on, and is never on sports (which is actually not traditional, but given that sports TV is so insanely ubiquitous in bars of all stripes these days, it feels like a throwback).
58: My preferred after dinner drink as well.
Bourbon and ginger beer meld in quite a delicious way.
Wait, I've been drinking Dark & Stormies for 10+ years, always with a bottle of bourbon nearby, but have never once tried this apparently delicious combo?
I haven't felt this stricken by lost opportunity since I stopped being Catholic and started having sex.
I feel like a fool for giving these potent dating tips away for free. You would not believe how effective those parentheses are, in particular. They demonstrate to your prospective partner, in the clearest way possible, your mastery of manifest punctuation.
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I was once given a calvados sorbet as dessert. It's still one of those memories which carry you through the bad times.
58 -- They don't have Calvados in JackM City?
29, 31: I've always been a bit confused by the bourbon==sweet thing; I don't identify what I like in bourbon but dislike in whiskey as presence or absence of sweetness. But I had a glass of Bulleit the other night, and it was quite sweet.
In contrast to a lot of liquors (and foods in general), I don't think that cheaper bourbons are distinctly sweeter - presumably because the harshness is more apparent, hiding the sweetness.
Since ginger goes well with apples of course, what about adding Calvados to my rye whiskey-Vernor's ginger soda mixture? Would that work?
(and then adding a couple more ingredients associated with elderly men...a garnish of C. Howard's violet candy, and some Pappy's sassafras tea extract, maybe)
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It's vital that you buy all three. If you don't, your incomplete training may lead you right into an interrobang, which is rarely attractive.
61 is 100% correct, except for the use of the word "neighb".
Look, I already waste enough time around here without endlessly typing out, "orhood."
Oh, and the "po/" in 61 is obvs.* supposed to be"po'."
* Or, "obviously"
re: 68
I understand it. Some bourbon tastes sweeter to me than I'd like to drink in any quantity. But I know almost nothing about bourbon so couldn't even really tell you which.
Shameful confession? I'm completely confused by the difference between all American/Canadian whiskys. I don't like any of them much (outside of a Manhattan), and somehow I never figured out what exactly something like, e.g., Crown Royal is. Bourbon is labelled bourbon, but if it's not bourbon, scotch, or irish, I'm not sure exactly what you're supposed to call it.
I've been drinking grapefruit juice and gin for a while now. It says that I'm Snoop Dogg.
When I was a kid, we had a house mixed drink: a Larapin. Grape Nehi and ginger ale. It was larapin good.
You were raised by Radar O'Reilly's parents?
I had an idea (one of those mildly-amusing-but-insufficiently-compelling-to-act-upon ideas) for a drinks version of the color-coded ski wax thermometer. You'd have your brown-liquor drinks, then your clear-liquor drinks, then, at the highest temperatures, your fruity icy blender drinks.
It's finally spring here, and the magnolia outside my library window is just about to bloom, so it's almost time for a mint julep. Vermont style, with maple instead of simple syrup.
I'm not sure exactly what you're supposed to call it
Canadian whisky? Thing is, a lot of American/Canadian whiskies are made with rye, even if not exclusively. Scots and Irish frown on such things, at least until they emigrate. But it's all whisky. I can't see any reason why they shouldn't make something to rival Lagavulin in Canada - they just don't.
I should have people over and feed them Irish coffee sometime soon. I like Irish coffee, but it's not the sort of thing I think of spontaneously, and I don't usually have cream in the house.
82: That's it -- rye. There's bourbon, there's 'stuff you're not allowed to call bourbon for some reason but it really is' and there's rye. But I still get confused.
79 -- I might have spelled it wrong.
When I was in college I thought I was relentlessly cool because I would order gin&tonics. This was in Texas, where the men drink shitty beer and the women drink cranberry vodkas.
I remember one of the few times the drink someone ordered made an impression on me. My first semester of law school, there was an outspoken, opinionated guy in my section that I thought was a pompous asshole. A few weeks into the semester I ran into him at the deli down the block and was horrified to find that he lived in my neighborhood, not a block from me, somewhat far from school. I told my friends how much I despised him.
A few weeks later into the semester, another person who lived in the neighborhood organized a get-together at a local bar for all the law students who lived in the 'hood--there were 5 or 6 of us. We'd been there an hour or so when the guy I hated still hadn't arrived, and I thought, whew, maybe he won't show. Instead, he showed up in a sport coat. I asked him why he was dressed up and he said he'd just come from Symphony Hall. Who'd you go with? Oh, I went alone.
To me, this signalled "cool." And then he ordered a gin&tonic which I thought of as "my" drink, and I was like "huh."
Of course, now I know that gin&tonic is the go-to drink for approximately 50% of people age 25-30. It's still a good drink, though.
Anyway, the end to the story is that over the course of the following two years my hatred of the opinionated asshole slowly morphed into a massive crush, and we're still dating.
And I still like gin&tonic.
What? "Canadian whiskey" and rye aren't the same thing. Rye whiskey is whiskey made with more rye than corn. Canadian whiskey is whiskey from Canada. This is a scenario where the US labelling laws, which prevent Canadian whiskey from being labelled "rye" unless it is actually made of rye, are correct. And yet, people call them "rye" anyway. Why?
'stuff you're not allowed to call bourbon for some reason but it really is'
I'm pretty sure it's a simple DOA thing - Bourbon County, KY or bust. But Jack Daniels, which is sour mash like bourbon, tastes not much like bourbon.
Plus, of course, >50% corn, >50% rye, or potpourri.
Are there any well-regarded American whiskeys that are neither bourbon(ish) nor rye? I believe that Canadian whiskeys are well-regarded (insofar as they are) for being more along the lines of a whisky than anything made in the States, but I could be very, very wrong.
I've been drinking grapefruit juice and gin for a while now.
Grapefruit juice and rum with a sprinkling of turbinado sugar on top and a lime wedge is good.
80 -- I don't believe that Radar ever used the word 'larapin.' Scriptwriters would have been afraid. Poking around for (a) correct spelling and (b) etymology, I see that Festus used it in Gunsmoke.
Tasting a bunch of bourbons together will definitely give you a good idea of how sweet they are. I can't really drink Maker's Mark any more, after a bourbon tasting I hosted a few years ago. Against Buffalo Trace and Old Weller 107, it tasted like cherry-vanilla cough medicine. (We had some Old Granddad thrown in for comparison too, but that's obviously not in the same league.)
They don't have Calvados in JackM City?
Oh, they do. It's not as awesome as the kinds you can get in France and it's twenty times the price, so I never bought a bottle here.
86: Modern Love is calling. Also the Dysfunctional Relationship hotline. Also the How to Score Chix show. Better get an unlisted number.
90: I wasn't commenting on the 'larapin', but on the Grape Nehi, a beverage I've never heard anyone admit drinking other than in MASH.
Nice story, m.
The #1 thing I did to make a good impression on AB was to say, when she told me that she didn't own a car, "Good for you!" She had not heard that before in Pittsburgh.
Jack Daniels, which is sour mash like bourbon, tastes not much like bourbon.
This is due to the charcoal filtration process, as you would know if you'd had to spend two and a half weeks in Huntsville, Alabama for work and had taken a Saturday trip to Lynchburg to alleviate the boredom.
The only time I've ever drunk bourbon was when I had nothing else to drink, and it's definitely sweet when you mix it with 7Up.
In Taiwan duty-free Jack Daniels was the generic gift currency, along with duty-free cigarettes, so everyone always had a bottle around. It wasn't usually used as emergency survival alcohol (this was during a hurricane watch when everything was closed)..
91: Good tips. My best bourbon-drinking friend swears by Woodbridge's.
96: Hey, AB lived in Huntsville for 9 years. But she was in elementary school at the time, so I doubt she visited Lynchburg.
I thought the charcoal had something to do with it.
87, 88: See, this is what all confuses me. You've got whisky (in the broad sense -- distilled brown grain-based liquor) defined by place of origin (Canadian, bourbon), and by ingredients (rye, whatever the hell sourmash is). Obviously, these are categories that can overlap -- like, what would you call something made exactly like a Canadian whisky if you made it in the US? If there's not enough rye in it to call it rye, what is it? (A possible answer is "No one's ever done that, so there's no need to call it anything.") But I still get confused.
The simplest way to remember, LB, is to remember that there's whisky -- made in Scotland -- and everything else is crap.
Does anyone in the US make whisky from barley?
101: Feh. If I wanted to eat peat, I'd do it straight.
Elderly relatives make great homebrew Calvados. The great-aunt who made incredibly wonderful Slivovice in her kitchen is no longer, alas. G+T or greyhound for me in bars. Says "simple-minded cheapskate uninterested in complicated negotiation with the bartender," I guess. The best cold sake that the minimart sells works in Tokyo.
My problem is that I am invisible at the bar-- always the last to get the bartender's attention. Do I need different clothes, to hunch down meekly, some magical gesture or stance?
Minnesota's peat reserves were inventoried in the Nineteenth Century, but while they were substantial, it was not economical to develop them at that time. Maybe now with free trade we can start flying our peat to Ireland, and put the oafish traditional peatcutters out of business with our twenty-first-century product.
"I can't really drink Maker's Mark any more,"
De gustibus...
My problem is that I am invisible at the bar-- always the last to get the bartender's attention.
This happens to me sometimes, and then by the time I order I'm too impatient to ask for anything complicated.
103 gets it exactly right.
I'm baffled by the cold sake thing. AB was 2 years living in Japan, and was never once offered cold sake except in the heat of summer. Now the liquorati all claim that the real way to drink sake is cold. WTF?
108: The liquorati are wrong; sake is meant to be cellar temp, like wine. Chilling and heating are for inferior sakes.
55: Vernor's! My dad used to get cases up the stuff shipped out to Denver while he was in college out there. Back in the 70s, it wasn't really commercially available outside of Michigan.
It's what my grandparents would give us as kids when they were drinking - Jack Daniels for my grandfather, Cutty Sark for my grandmother, both on the rocks. It was a test of kid-manliness not to sneeze in front of your cousins when you drank Vernors.
Bourbon is expensive in Spain, as are peanuts. In the States, I used to order Maker's Mark neat if I wasn't drinking good beer. This, I thought, belied my babyfaced youth.
The cheap Taiwan version of sake is god-awful turpentiny shit.
I'll second 108a.
I always thought that my palate would 'mature' into liking scotch, but it hasn't happened yet.
Does anyone in the US make whisky from barley?
There's barley in most bourbons, that 30% or so that isn't made from corn.
That is to say, it can be part of that mixture of other things (+ wheat + rye) that isn't corn.
You drink God-awful turpentiny shit heated. I think that inhaling it to clean your sinuses is part of the appeal, and heating it improves that aspect.
Tibetans make barley liquor, apparently. Didn't know that.
116: And barley tea.
It's so hard to get yak ghee in Wobegon!
117: A truly enterprising drinker would get a milking yak. The climate's about right, isn't it?
re: 108a and 112
There are all different kinds of Scotch, some of them aren't remotely peaty or 'challenging' tasting. There's a vast gulf between, say, Laphroaig and Glenmorangie.
According to The Graduate, men are either Scotch men or bourbon men. These are fundamental categories, not amenable to change or further analysis.
There's a Tibetan restaurant on my street! I had the yak butter tea once. It wasn't gross, but not anything I'd order again.
86
Of course, now I know that gin&tonic is the go-to drink for approximately 50% of people age 25-30. It's still a good drink, though.
Indeed, when the bar doesn't have a sour mix or I'm drinking in someone's home rather than a bar, that's usually my fallback drink.
99
Hey, AB lived in Huntsville for 9 years. But she was in elementary school at the time,
Got held back a few years, did she?
I think that yaks need altitude, which is sorely lacking in Minnesota. You'd have to stack the highest point in MN on itself to reach the lowest point in Tibet, and yaks are mostly raised much higher than that.
119: I get that. I've tried lots of different kinds. When I taste them I can even understand how Scotch would be something that people could get really into. It's just not for me.
Rancid Yak Butter Tea Party!
There are (were?) a local band.
I don't know jack about sake, but in the sushi restaurants around here warm sake is always sour/savory (and terrible) and cold sake is always cloudy and sweet (and very good). I don't know if that's due to brewing, temperature or what. Last week I looked up something about sake to help a friend choose between two bottles they had on hand and I don't even remember it anymore.
I would happily order a Manhattan from John's brother.
Sometimes Rah asks me to make two Manhattans (that's the only thing of which I keep the components around all the time) but he would much rather sip Scotch. I can sip a little Scotch every once in a while but it's not what I go for at all.
For unfussy day-to-day drinking, or hanging-out-with-friends drinking I prefer red wines. I know nothing about wine, so it always says, "Isn't this a pretty label?"
re: 124
That seems fair enough.
119: And I've had Scotch I liked, but nothing that was in my price range enough to bother remembering the difference between the stuff I liked and the stuff that tastes like charcoal briquettes. Mostly, when I say I prefer Irish, I mean I prefer low/moderate quality Irish to low/moderate quality Scotch.
re: 128
For me the price difference is narrow enough that I just wouldn't buy crappy scotch.
I'd probably think differently if it was something I bought regularly, but since I probably buy a grand total of one bottle every couple of years, I don't mind spending 20 - 25 quid on a bog standard 10/12 year old single malt.
Unfortunately, the distillery local to where I grew up [maybe about 2 miles away] shut down so it's now expensive.
http://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/P-4367.aspx
I have a somewhat unfair bias against Scotch stemming from my experience that friends and acquaintances seemd to "graduate" to it at about the same time they began to exhibit a lot of other obnoxious (to me) behaviors. I have no legitimate reason to think that the problem wasn't all on my side, or that they truly weren't enjoying the taste, but for me the drinking of Scotch still carries with it a whiff of affectation.
And I have no alternative spirit to recommend. I almost never drink anythng beyond wine or beer.
I'm pretty sure it's a simple DOA thing - Bourbon County, KY or bust.
This is actually a very widespread misconception. Bourbon can be made anywhere in the US. Most of it is still made in Kentucky at this point, which is part of the reason for the confusion.
The rules on what can be labeled as bourbon and what can't are all process related. 27 CFR Part 5 has the details. Wikipedia does too.
re: 131
Yeah, obviously being Scottish it carries no such connotations for me. It's just booze. People can be poncy and affected about it -- with their vintage single-malts, etc. -- but the drinking of it in general is just normal.
In most bars, pubs, or homes: a large glass of red wine. (Or white. But cheap reds usually continue to taste good further down the price scale than cheap whites.) This says: I like red wine.
In a pub which serves reliably good real ale, or if there's a local beer that's recommended: a half pint (or a 1/3 litre) of beer. This says: I like real ale. Sometimes it says "I care about my dyke image", but probably only in the UK.
If invited to order a fancy cocktail: ...I mostly don't. But Baileys with chocolate ice-cream is delicious.
Oh, there's one called an Eye-Opener, or something?
A single espresso, a shot of hot Cointreau, warm cream to taste. Delicious, but I've only seen it in one restaurant ever - the same one where they serve mulled port, I think. (An expensive vegetarian restaurant in Edinburgh, David Bann's...)
Huh. The Cointreau and cream has real potential, but I'm not sure what to do with the espresso in it.
I don't think I have anything that could be described as my signature cocktail.
Got held back a few years, did she?
Thinking back, I got my math wrong - 7 years, I think it was. Anyway, she wasn't in elementary school the whole time, but I believe Hunstville comprised the entirety of her elementary years.
When I taste them I can even understand how Scotch would be something that people could get really into.
Same here. Which I find weird given that I love rauchbier, which is surely the Scotch of ales. One of my coworkers is from Bamberg, which gives me a bit of a thrill.
Unfortunately, the distillery local to where I grew up [maybe about 2 miles away] shut down
I never thought it was that good a distillery.
One of my coworkers is from Bamberg, which gives me a bit of a thrill.
In a very mild discretion breach, I'll reveal that my FIL gave his daughter a complete set of bier glasses showing the Bishops of Bamberg.
132: You know, I had a suspicion that this was the case, but the example of JD (basically a bourbon, but from TN) made me think otherwise. I read up on it once, but the distinctions are so arcane (unless you understand the process so well that Distinction X is Clearly Significant) that it didn't stick at all.
135, 136: We're big fans of kahlua & cream/white russian with a bit of cointreau in it. For when there's no other dessert in the house.
I should make clear that when I said "same here", I meant that I don't like Scotch myself, but I can see why other people would like it.
It's too early to drink, but I'll happily comment on liquor all day.
I have an actual signature cocktail -- that is, the "Tweety Fish" -- back years ago all we hacker dorks decided it was important to have one of these. It's single malt and a quadruple espresso. I'm not generally stupid enough to drink it much any more, and it's anyhow tough to order, since bars generally don't have espresso machines, but it does make you feel pretty neat.
My friend Deth Vegetable had probably the most iconic signature cocktail; a bloody mary, but made with everclear, and lots of it. More than one person has gotten arrested becaue of that drink.
If I'm in your standard bar where the bartender doesn't know what the fuck they're doing, I'll order a Tanqueray dirty martini. It says (a) I like olives and (b) I don't feel like paying for really fancy gin.
If I'm in a bar where the bartender does know what they're doing, hey, let's have some fun. A Toronto's always a good time. Most anything with St. Germain can be, too.
I think I need to drink more aged rum drinks.
I'm embarrassed to say that I toasted Michael Harrington after he died with a white Russian. But I like them and I couldn't think of a red drink that didn't involve grenadine syrup.
142: Oh, on a cold night a hot milk with Amaretto is a really nice nightcap/dessert.
You know what else? A Grasshopper. I've had one literally once in my life, but for the occasion where you're deciding between a drink and a slice of cake, and you like chocolate and mint, there are worse things you could order.
147: next time he dies, try something with campari.
I couldn't think of a red drink that didn't involve grenadine syrup.
Chateau Lafitte?
In actual fact, and realizing that it's a cliche, I've probably drunk more PBR than anything over the last 20 years. That orHenry's Ale (a good Portland local). But the last 4 years, PBR again.
149: Good call. I wasn't sophisticated bourgeois enough to know what Campari was that point.
88: Michter's makes a whiskey that's neither bourbon nor rye. I've found it prettytasty. The distillery attached to Anchor Steam (I think it's called Potrero Distilling) also makes a whiskey that's aged for a brief enough time it can't legally be called whiskey. IIRC, it's primarily corn.
136: I usually drink the espresso, but it's your call.
re: 145
Around the millennium a friend of a friend [who is a minor rock star but whose songs a lot of people will know] had his signature cocktail, the 'Great George', which was, iirc: gin, tequila, and absinthe.
Another friend was drinking the Great George but adding tonic, I think, to make his own 'Millennium'.
The exact details are vague, but it was one of those 'lemon wrapped round a gold brick' drinks.*
* with apologies to Douglas Adams.
Speaking of absinthe cocktails, I once had a fantastic one in Ealing called an Applesinthe, whose main ingredients were absinthe and apple schnapps.
Jesus, a "signature cocktail"? Please.
I would have to go with wine.
Well, it's Pernod and not absinthe, but the Pegu Club makes a super yummy cocktail called a French Pearl, which is Plymouth gin, Pernod, lime juice, simple syrup, and a mint sprig.
For a stretch last summer, I was drinking my Ketel One with a dash of absinthe for what was quickly dubbed my Absinthe-minded Martini.
I don't have a "signature cocktail," I mostly drink red wine or beer.
When I was young and foolish, I used to drink rye and ginger. I would not drink that now.
I generally order beer, because I'm not a wine lover (and find the choices baffling) and I'm too poor for mixed drinks. I do aim for a better class of beer than PBR, so I hope I send off the signal that I'm easy-going but still have some critical powers. Plus, if I drink mixed drinks I have a hard time stopping and end up way too fucked up. Beer, I get full before I get hungover. (Usually).
I do drink wine sometimes, in which case it's either Robust's "this label is prettttttty!" or, "this is from my home town/I know the guys who manage the vineyard/I went to school with their kid." (Benefit of coming from wine country that I really should be taking better advantage of).
I do like hard alcohol in various incarnations - pastis and ice on really hot days (leftover from France, like Jackmormon); big fancy blender drinks on hot days; white russians while watching The Big Lebowski; mojitos (the first thing I ever drank in a bar, and they've never been so good since). I'm sure I'd like many other cocktails but I'm afraid I'm generally ignorant of them.
Ginger in what form? Root? Powder? Ale? Candied?
My signature drink is a Diet Coke. What it says about me: I'm on medication that means that I can't drink but extremely rarely, and I'm diabetic (or close enough) so I can't drink regular Coke. I call it the "Self Pity".
163: Don't malign the goodness that is Diet Coke! (Though, sorry about what leads you to the Diet Coke).
"....easy-going but still have some critical powers."
The interpretion of that that spring immediately to mind is lewd.
Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, anyone?
pastis and ice on really hot days
Yessssss. Also good on: not-hot days!
162: Rye and ginger is ginger ale -- I know it as a 'non-drinker's drink' from my parents' generation. My grandmother would nurse one through a six hour party while all the serious drinkers drank themselves insensible.
158: it might well be absinthe now.
165: Hm. I don't think I meant it lewdly...
167: True, I just associate it with sitting around under wilting trees playing boules with the old men of my friend's family in the dry dust of Provence and wondering if it was possible to be any hotter.
Yes, in Athens in the summer. Where of course they have a similar remedy.
I want to go to Greece! (Sorry, I'm feeling the need for international travel rather overwhelmingly at the moment).
I remembered that the other mixed drink, if one could really call it that, that I consume on a semi-regular basis (more than once a year) is Kahlua and milk, when I can't sleep. My mom used to let me have it as a special treat when I was a teen and I still have fond memories of it. I'm fairly sure that one just says, "I'm a girl."
Moderately on-topic, but in a buzzkill sort of way... The Drunk drunk-dialed me this morning at 1 a.m. and, when I called a few moments ago, she was completely plastered. Her mother is there, so at least I can assume the 3-year-old will be safe. Ethical question -- there is a pending CPS investigation against her for neglect (no, not based on my report). I am contemplating making an anonymous call to them to suggest that now might be a good time to make a surprise visit.
And, yes, of course I realize that if I would have woken up to answer her call at 1 a.m. everything would be fine now and there'd be peace in the middle east and no more world hunger. Don't need any opinions on that. Just call or don't call?
173: I don't remember the Drunk you're talking about, but I don't see much of a reason not to make the call. Assuming there's no lawyers' code of ethics against it for some weird reason. You aren't being a meddling busybody if there's already reason for a CPS investigation.
173: Huh. If her mother's there, the kid's not being neglected right now, it'd seem. I'm not sure the call would have much effect.
Backstory here, et seq. My resistance is that, technically, the Drunk is a friend and will I be betraying her?
177: For me, the question of betrayal depends on whether or not you think that her daughter will be better off with the CPS than with her. Will it be a greater betrayal to turn a blind eye and allow her daughter to suffer serious harm due to her negligence, or will it be a greater betrayal to potentially have her daughter taken away from her? (I'm not really sure about what might happen, obviously, if they do find her negligent). I'd lean away from making the call, but that is without knowing the situation and also because of my tendency to avoid conflict.
inaction is the best personal strategy in the difficult moral situations imo
what if her child is the only thing which is still holding her there, take the child away from her, she'll be done
and signature drinks imho are the first step for this kind of disasters, i mean i can drink, but won't miss them if they disappeared
Personally, I wouldn't make the call unless you were willing to be open with your friend about having made it, and your reasons for doing so. Not that you have to volunteer that, necessarily, but would it be problem for you if she did in fact find out? (I.e., how much are you depending on the anonymity of the call?) It's not so much that I think she's likely to find out, but that if you're not even theoretically willing to be open with her about it, it's probably not a decision you're comfortable with. But that's just me.
what if her child is the only thing which is still holding her there, take the child away from her, she'll be done
Well, right. But what if something happened to the child (as Parenthetical notes) because she is drunk so frequently she is unable to properly supervise the kid? (Age 3, to clarify -- far from able to fend for herself.)
if you're not even theoretically willing to be open with her about it, it's probably not a decision you're comfortable with
But am I uncomfortable for the right reasons or wrong ones?
I wouldn't call. Partly because the kid's not being neglected -- the grandmother is there, and there isn't a law against having a grandparent sit your kid while you go get plastered.
But also because of what Brock says. You'd have to hide the fact of your call from the Drunk. A visit from CPS is going to cause her a lot of turmoil, and she'll call you to talk about it. If she doesn't know that you triggered the visit, this is all going to make you feel horribly uncomfortable.
My resistance is that, technically, the Drunk is a friend and will I be betraying her?
As Parenthetical says, I think the question should more rightly be whether you think the child should be with CPS rather than her mom/grandmom.
183: Yeah, and maybe part of the concern is not knowing what CPS will do. If the pending charge of neglect is determined to be founded -- will the kid be sent off to some strange foster home, or will they let grandma take temporary custody until the Drunk proves herself clean and sober? If I thought grandmom would take the kid for more than just the afternoon, I'd leave it be. As if I felt confident that CPS will ultimately make the right finding without a tipoff. But if the pending charge of neglect comes back "unfounded," I am very confident the Drunk will never stop drinking. And if, in the meantime, she feels I've betrayed her, any chance of my ever being able to help will be shot to hell.
Do you have any mutual friends with the drunk friend? I mean someone whom you both know? People here can't judge the situation, but someone who also knows the drunk friend might be helpful to talk to.
Your thought that the drunk friend will never stop drinking unless CPS determines the charge of neglect to be founded seems pretty central, if you're confident of it.
My signature order in bars of unknown or questionable reliability is a gin and ginger, which says, "I don't trust you not to fuck up something else, but I don't like quinine. Also, I'm not assuming you know that this drink is called a Gin Buck and I'd rather keep things simple."
I've been making Manhattans at home and my tastes are specific enough that I tend not to order them somewhere where I think they're likely to leave out the bitters or get the vermouth proportion wrong. Given the option and a trustworthy bartender I'll order one, though. Inspired by the original Jerry Thomas recipe, I make mine with 2oz Bourbon, 1oz Noilly-Prat sweet vermouth (M&R will do, but I like the N-P better), 1/4oz Luxardo maraschino liqueur, and both Peychaud's Aromatic (two light dashes) and Regan's Orange (three light dashes) bitters. I told you my tastes were specific.
At home my signature cocktails over time have been a Margarita (1.5 oz tequila, 1 oz Cointreau - always Cointreau, no other Triple Sec or Curaçao will do, juice of one lime, shaken, up, salted rim), or the emergency concoction derived when we turned out not to have tequila, and which I dubbed the Margaret Thatcher (substitute gin for tequila, and sugar for salt on the rim).
That last combination of ingredients has been done before and has a couple other names, but none of them appear to be widely known. Gary Regan would classify it as an International Sour. Other sours we've been into lately include the Bee's Knees (gin, honey syrup, lemon) and Regan's Jockey Club No. 2 (gin, amaretto, lemon), both of which use a 2:1:1 ratio of main ingredient to mixers.
And I can't start drinking until I make the pizza tonight. Drat.
Ah, I'd missed the thread in 177, or forgot about it in the first place. Still rereading it for details, but that changes things; I had assumed the Drunk was an acquaintance, maybe a friend of a friend or maybe a client. I'm still leaning towards making the call, but it looks a lot tougher than I thought. Good luck.
185: The only mutual friend we share thought this morning it might be a good idea (when I predicted Drunk would be drunk by 2...) But I don't know how good a friend she really is, nor do I know confidently whether she herself is back on the wagon.
That last combination of ingredients has been done before and has a couple other names
Trying to find the name under which I first saw this, I discover that esquire has revamped their drinks database into something horrible and unusuable (naturally, it's Flash-ridden).
It may just have been an egg white–less White Lady, actually.
I'm currently googling Manhattan recipes and wondering whether it's really a good idea to stop by a liquor store for the ingredients this evening.
Di -- I'd lean toward making the call if you think it will help CPS get a fuller picture of the situation. My sense is that your duty to protect a kid is stronger than your duty to protect your friend's dignity or privacy.
it's really a good idea to stop by a liquor store for the ingredients this evening.
Of course it is; even if you don't end up drinking tonight, liquor keeps.
I would lean against the call largely because I think of CPS as a big scary blunt instrument, and there are sober people closer to the situation who can make the call. Unless you have some reason to think that the grandmother's very unreliable, she's better positioned to know what to do than you are. (Also, Drunky McDrunkerson is a single mom; I've forgotten whether there's a father in the picture at all? I'd call him before I'd call CPS, if it were practical and there weren't circumstances I knew of making it inadvisable.)
Predictably late but must add:
Sazerac is my new drink of choice (where 'new' = w/in last 3 yrs), esp if it's a nicer bar or restaurant. SF's in the middle of a serious cocktail renaissance so I can usually get one pretty well made, which makes me deliriously happy. And then I have two, which simply makes me delirious. What it says about me is that I'm a woman who doesn't like sweet drinks, isn't afraid of brown liquors and who has friends who are way, way too much into cocktails and have thus introduced her to such.
When it does ever get warm enough, I like a Pimm's cup, but only if they've actually got fresh cukes for garnish.
And to get trashed at home, I'm will drink Crown Royal and Diet Ginger Ale or Jack and Diet Coke. Or Jack and Diet Ginger. (I think you get the idea.) In any such variation, I call it my Sorority Girl special.
If the Drunk is too wasted to take care of the kid, she could just send the kid down to the nearest dog/homeless/junkie park for a few hours. Problem solved!
Further to 192: Of course, just like I'm saying you should defer to the grandmother's/father's judgment because they're closer than you are, I should defer to your judgment because you're closer than I am. 192 was my guess of what's appropriate, but you know much more about the situation than I do.
192: I agree that CPS is a blunt instrument, but I weight the inclination to call them at all pretty heavily. I mean, there are some people who tend to be alarmist and melodramatic and to a person like that I would give different advice, but if Di is one if them then I haven't noticed it. Most people are more likely to underestimate the need to call for help in a situation like this rather than to overestimate it.
That being said, yeah, before CPS call some the kid's father or some other relative likely to be less dysfunctional than the mother, if possible.
Since the writers' strike (and subsequent cancellation of my show), I've been back up in SF living with my GF (for whom the LA-SF commute was apparently torture) and working on my spec features and pilots from here. This can only work if you've got people on the ground in LA working for you, so I'm relying a little more heavily on my manager and agent than, frankly, I'd like, but it's still the best option now until I sell a spec or get staffed.
(Talk to me if I do end up getting staffed on David E Kelley's new show. I really do miss being on the WB lot because it's insanely fun and OMG IS THAT GEORGE CLOONEY?!!)
190: It's also a Pegu Club without the bitters, and the name under which it shows up in Regan's book is the Big Pine Key (apocryphally the name of a hotel whose bar made it their signature cocktail, but I can no longer find where I got that information so I no longer trust it).
Okay, talked to someone who used to work for the public guardian who advised that a call would likely not accomplish much. And also that, as bad as it may seem, this case is so exceedingly minor by CPS standards that she couldn't believe they are involved at all.
Giving up.
Is there a father around you've got access to? Because this seems like more his problem than anyone else's. (My guess is that he's either totally absent or at least you don't know him or have contact information, or somehow he's an even scarier parent than she is. But if I'm wrong, and there's some way to get ahold of him, I'd be doing that. And if he exists but you just don't have his number, maybe ask Grandma?)
I'm currently googling Manhattan recipes and wondering whether it's really a good idea to stop by a liquor store for the ingredients this evening.
If you do, get you some rye. Also Peychaud's bitters if you can find them, but you probably can't -- I've only been able to find them online. Of course, you live in a bigger metropolis than I do.
200: I'm glad you know somebody with professional insight. That helps a lot.
201: I have no contact info for him (or grandma, but grandma I could track down) and I guarantee grandma would not provide it. All I know of him is what I know from the Drunk, which suggests he has a history or habit of cocaine use and zero competence as a father; that his visitation is in her home does seem to corroborate that line of thought. He is well aware of the problem, though, I think.
203: Yeah, I'm glad I finally remembered she used to work there. The knowledge that it's probably hopeless is remarkably comforting.
I'm currently googling Manhattan recipes and wondering whether it's really a good idea to stop by a liquor store for the ingredients this evening.
Is it ever a good idea not to stop by for them?
When you lack the capacity not to respond to a stimulus, and need to watch your cash outlay.
Much more fun to watch your cash outlay with a delicious cocktail at hand.
If there's ever a liquor store that celebrates your cash outlay by giving you a delicious cocktail, I'm not sure I want to know about it.
204: Bummer. Sounds as if there's really nothing at all productive to do.
Oh, and OFE, the vodka/cran cocktail is called a Cape Cod over here, but I imagine it has a different name in the UK.
When I was a waiter at a country club, age 18, I was shoved behind the bar when both the bartenders were out sick one night. There was a little recipe book behind the bar and I used it to educate myself on the fly. I knew so little about bars that I didn't realize the difference between well or top shelf liquors and figured I should probably serve the brands I'd heard of instead of the stuff we had below the bar, which included "Outer Banks" brand vodka. I'm given to understand that's a fairly standard well vodka in NC, these days, but at the time I thought it smelled like gasoline and refused to use it. I also didn't recognize the little measuring cup thing I should have been using to dispense liquor and just eyeballed it, tending towards the generous to play it safe.
I got compliments on my drink fu all night long. Unfortunately, it was a sign-your-bill kind of place, so no tips.
When you lack the capacity not to respond to a stimulus, and need to watch your cash outlay.
I miss w-lfs-n. Will you let him come back, nosflow? Will you let him come back to us at long last?
191: The classic Manhattan is whisk[e]y (Originally Rye, then Canadian or Bourbon, now Bourbon by default IME) and sweet vermouth in a 2:1 ratio, with Angostura bitters to taste. Made with blended Scotch it's a Rob Roy. Bitters is non-optional, and people who use a different vermouth ratio are Doing It Wrong (except in special circumstances where the whisk[e]y overwhelms the vermouth, necessitating a higher ratio).
You could do much worse than Evan Williams Black Label (Bourbon) or Old Overholt (Rye), both of which are very affordable and make very nice drinks.
Not that I'm encouraging you to stop watching your cash outlay.
212: Also, one of the few drinks where the cherry is really functional from a taste point of view (as well as visually). You need the cherry.
213: I think I've plugged Todd Thrasher's recipe for preserved cherries before, but I'll plug it again. Well worth the time and effort.
Truly, the cherries and the bitters are non-optional. Rah pointed out some fancy blood orange bitters to me at a local store one day a few weeks back and I haven't gotten around to trying them yet. I think I need to do that tomorrow after work.
I have just rewarded myself for doing an extremely unpleasant emergency plumbing job—to wit, reaming out my clogged main drain with a power auger—with a trip to my new favorite liquor store. Purchased: rye, grapefruit bitters, ginger beer. Good job, me.
We, like no doubt everyone else, like to call Old Overholt "Old Overcoat". I also like to call Laphroaig "Lap Robe". How fucking adorable of me.
I'm partial to Long Island Ice Tea, which makes me seem like a far bigger lush than I actually am. Alas, its not the kind of thing I can drink in quantity.
Manhattan, perfect. Concur that they're often not made well... how one could forget to include bitters is beyond me. What's it say about me -- I don't know, old school?
Shocked some 80+ year old friends when I ordered one when we went out together for dinner... "You're too young to drink a Manhattan!" Which they promptly ordered as well.
How many people give you lip when you ask for a perfect manhattan?
some fancy blood orange bitters
Got some before Christmas and was making a cocktail with cranberry juice, blood orange bitters, wither vodka or gin (I forget), a splash of absinthe and a couple of fresh cranberries floated atop as garnish. 'Twas pretty and tasty.
They used to sell Old Overholt here, but now they don't. I got one of the last bottles within 50 miles, after noting that something was amiss because of the almost unprecedented occurrence of something having a space on the shelf but not actually being on the shelf.
The store showed me their computerized listing that said exactly how many bottles were remaining at every store in the county.
Success. I bought some Michter's Rye, sweet vermouth, and Fee Brothers Angostura bitters. Made a hot toddy first off, since I was chilled from the rainy bike ride home (fine day to start riding to work again). The fancy rye was probably overkill for that one, but it warmed me up. Then very nice Manhattans for me and two roommates. (I added a few dashes of orange bitters, Bitter Truth, that I had lying around, and Maraschino cherries, of course.)
222: Hardly any lip - more blank stares of non-recognition.
Where did you find the Bitter Truth bitters?
A liquor store in Red Hook last summer. I stopped in with some friends while we were waiting for a table at the restaurant across the street. It turned out to be a very nice liquor store, and I think you, Neb, had just written something about buying grapefruit bitters and pouring them onto your hand in the parking lot to try them or something like that, and grapefruit bitters sounded really nice for summer, but sadly the store was out of grapefruit bitters, so I allowed myself to be talked into the orange bitters instead. They're pretty good -- we made some drink with Plymouth, freshly squeezed grapefruit juice, and orange bitters that was really nice.
Damn! Just searched for Abbott's bitters... and found out that they went out of business long ago. Made a Manhattan this evening with them (fueled by this thread). An old friend, whose dad owned a bar way back when, gave me the bitters at his father's funeral. Now I'm really sad, since they've got a different flavor profile from Angostura or Peychaud's...
I believe various people about have attempted to recreate Abbott's.—I think the Bitter Truth people are among them, actually, though it's been a long time since I kept up with any of this.
Ah, thanks for the tip! I'll look into it. May be able to do a taste test.
My new favorite liquor store stocks all of the Fee Bros. bitters, plus a few others. They also stock several ryes, including Sazerac, which is fine but expensive, and a couple of older Canadian ryes, which may be very fine but which are also very expensive, upwards of 40 bucks (I opted for Jim Beam, which I prefer to Old Overcoat). This may seem unremarkable to you cosmopolitan types, but here in the provinces it's an embarrassment of riches, behind a nondescript storefront I've driven by a hundred times without noticing it. Don't even ask about the absinthes.
I was with a friend visiting his dad in the Shenandoah Valley, and the dad offered us a "bourbon drink". Asked if I preferred Jim Beam or Evan Williams, I stated my preference for the Beam. The father walked away from the liquor cabinet to the freezer, where he was keeping an old bottle of Beam. "Got it as a gift. Can't stand the stuff."
The friend later explained, "Dad likes Evan Williams. Period."
I would definitely prefer the Evan Williams.
Rah and I are having a couple of friends over for cards and cocktails this evening so I'm going to pick up a small bottle of rye on the way home. Mmmmmm.
Evan Williams is surprisingly good for the price. Definitely better than Beam.
233: The other philosophy is "There's good whiskey, and there's not-so-good whiskey, but there's no such thing as bad whiskey".
What say you all about the Italian bitters I see in Italian markets? Of course I'm blanking on the names, but surely you know the ones I mean.
Italian bitters are a different sort of thing entirely than cocktail bitters, but also (or so I, largely ignorant of them outside of Campari and Aperol) worthy.
My father was a bartender nearly all of his life, a bartender of the very old-school white shirt/black vest sort. He had very strong opinions about ridiculous "sex on the beach" type drinks.
Some years ago, there was a magazine advert for some kind of brown liquor (probably Chivas or something) that depicted just such a bartender, looking sternly from behind an old-fashioned mahogony bar with brass and mirrors. The ad copy read, "Do you really want to ask him for a Slow Comfortable Screw Against the Wall?"
My signature drink is two Manhattans perfect. I order two so I can project that irresistible "attorneys general" language-pedant vibe.
Fleur and I both like a good Kir Royale. When we go to some upscale place find ourselves being served by a too-full-of-himself-snooty waiter, I sometimes order "two Kirs Royaux", just to let him know who's boss.
What say you all about the Italian bitters I see in Italian markets?
If your palate is anything like mine, you should shun them like cholera-infected pond water. Some Euro friends served me Fernet Branca, and I nearly made myself gag accepting their hospitality.
I don't have a signature cocktail; it's horses for courses for me. For having a drink at a bar, beer is usually my choice. At home, wine or scotch. On hot summer days, a Pernod and water hits the spot. Or sometimes bacardi, lime and soda. I do enjoy a good Old Fashioned from time to time (a cocktail that says "I may be a post-menopausal woman, but I still have needs"); the trouble is that most places try to make them with granulated sugar instead of simple syrup, which doesn't work at all.
These days, I've been ordering a lot of Klipdrift neat, a drink that says "My grandfather got sadistic pleasure out of using the sjambok on his maidservants."
The Devil's Cream Soda for me, named by author Esther Friesner. Vernor's Ginger Soda and vanilla vodka. Must be Vernor's, no other will give you the perfect flavor.
Vodka gimlets or white russians when I'm at home, or Manhattans when I'm in public. We also have a tradition at home of making Manhattans whenever there's a snowstorm.
Although, my most recent embarrasing moment in public was due to some delicious Manhattans that knocked my socks (and shirt) off.
Between the gimlets and Manhattans, I'm certain that if I also learn the ukelele I'm going to be a serious hit at the nursing home.
