Ontopic Lettuce discuss cocktails
- Thread starter Dory Berkowitz-Bukowski
- Start date
eileenbunny
Druish Princess
Bombay Sapphire should be your baseline, Tanqueray is "good," Hendricks is probably the best.
To make martini: go to the liquor store, look at vermouth. Don't buy it. (alternatively you can imagine putting it in while making the drink). You stir because shaking cracks the ice and makes it watery. Chilled glass aye. One queen olive, or three little ones, brine is good.
Mean Mr. Mustard
Always shouts out something obscene
Syrup Beaver
pants log
Mean Mr. Mustard
Always shouts out something obscene
SCORE!
edit - well, its only in a glass 'till I drink it, then its in my belly
where it belongs
Syrup Beaver
pants log
Gins not worth a rap. It's pretty much all identical, like Vodka. 'Premium' gins or Vodkas aren't worth the extra money. Stick to Gordons or Smirnoff unless you want a fancier bottle.
Where it does start to matter is Whisk[e]ys -- If you want to get the cops around without phoning them, go Irish. If you want to sit and tell everyone why you agree with the public sector strike for 6 hours, go scottish.
Both have their merits, and it's a pleasant voyage across the spectrum, though I don't stray too far from Islay or Speyside no mo.
Where it does start to matter is Whisk[e]ys -- If you want to get the cops around without phoning them, go Irish. If you want to sit and tell everyone why you agree with the public sector strike for 6 hours, go scottish.
Both have their merits, and it's a pleasant voyage across the spectrum, though I don't stray too far from Islay or Speyside no mo.
If you genuinely can't tell the difference between a real premium vodka or a high end gin and the run of the mill then TBH you can't really tell anyone anything about alcohol. Vodka isn't even all made from the same base ingredient. Gin is flavoured with a whole variety of botanicals.
I was a barman for 4 years - I had the 'Grey Goose' Barman of the year tell me Smirnoff was too much of a standard to beat. Almost all cocktails are made with it. Paying extra for Grey Goose, Belvedere, Zubrowka etc. is only so you look like a big dick at the bar infront of all your mates. It's a vodka, it's meant to be as pure as possible. Same goes for gin. Whatever the fuck they're made of, it makes very little difference if you're going to be distilling it soviet-style.
Straight up? Perhaps. But who drinks vodka or gins straight up unless they live on the back of a train. People have more sense.
Looks like you've sipped long enough at the alcohol Tony Blair sold you.
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I regularly drink vodka straight up at our local Ukrainian club, Smirnoff is pure nastiness by comparison. It's harsh and acidic. Of course it's a standard in cocktails. You can't taste it once you've drossed it up with juices and shit. As far as gin goes, if you can't appreciate the different botanicals in higher end gins then your palate is dead or completely uneducated. Being barman of the year means jack shit as far as having an educated palate goes. The winner of any number of cocktail bartenders of the year awards in the UK had no real taste at all ( a good drinking friend of mine and TGI head bar trainer). He knew all his mixes, flared to die for and knew about drinks. He couldn't, in fact, tell an Islay from Talisker. I know, I tested him.
Syrup Beaver
pants log
Whoah, this is one heck of a train I'm living on.
That finally explains the coal smoke at least.
That finally explains the coal smoke at least.
Mccormick (cheap) always claimed vodka is vodka, all costs the same to make and all tastes the same especially once you mix it.
Which is why all vodka is the same ABV, is distilled the same number of times and is made from the same grain. Er... none of the above is true of course. Then of course there's no such things as pepper vodka, honey vodka, paper vodka....
In all my years I don't think I ever sold a straight vodka or gin. Always a mixer. Straight tastes completely synthetic to me. Having said that I was never a gin nor vodka man.
The reference to the bar tender had nothing to do with tasting really. I don't believe in 'wine tasting', but we'll not get into that. The point was that on an average night chances are you could guess someones drink by their behaviour. I could always spot a 'high-end' vodka drinker, and it had nothing to do with palate. People will find the palate excuse in anything they want, because it's a non-argument, and ever since they put that microphone headed sycophant Jilly Goolden on telly it's somehow become acceptable to ruin a perfectly good drink with your mates by spouting a load of shite you read in observer weekend about the drink you have. Drinks-critics are Grade A shite merchants.
I also won't do what I'm expected to do on the internet and scoff at someone who couldn't tell the difference between their whiskeys. I couldn't tell you anything more than region if it were decanted, and I've drank whiskeys for years. Unless it would be as visible as laphroaig or tomatin are when compared to their clades.
I appreciate you like what you like. That's fair enough. But don't try and bring 'palate' into it like there's some sort of atavistic homologue among alcohols that we can all transcribe, if only we read more reviews.
I can't stand Smirnoff. I love Tito's since dbzeag introduced me to it, and it's finally available here. Also love Russian Standard. Wyborwa as well. Grey Goose is fine, I just don't think it's worth the extra money, especially when someone is mixing it.