Cocktails - An Adventure in Modern Gender Roles

[Piobaire]

Originally Posted by Italian Cut

I'm glad you agree, and see the humor in the discussion.

Now we can get back to talking about cocktails and gender roles

First you have to define what a "cocktail" is for me. I mean, it's changed so much in common parlance, I have no idea what you mean by the word.

 

[MetroStyles]

Originally Posted by Piobaire

First you have to define what a "cocktail" is for me. I mean, it's changed so much in common parlance, I have no idea what you mean by the word.

A penis that wags when excited.

 

[Italian Cut]

First you have to define what a "cocktail" is for me. I mean, it's changed so much in common parlance, I have no idea what you mean by the word.

Good question.

For the sake of our discussion I would say it means, as a general rule, a mixed drink with one or more types of liqueur and one or more mixers, including ice or water as a mixer. Of course, this would mean that a Jack and Coke is a cocktail, and I think most people would agree it is not.

So if that definition is lacking, we can use the older definition (liqueur, sugar, water and bitters) with the caveat that though a few drinks which we today consider to be "cocktails" don't match this older definition, we should include them anyway for the sake of discussion.

 

[Piobaire]

Originally Posted by Italian Cut

Good question.

For the sake of our discussion I would say it means, as a general rule, a mixed drink with one or more types of liqueur and one or more mixers, including ice or water as a mixer. Of course, this would mean that a Jack and Coke is a cocktail, and I think most people would agree it is not.

So if that definition is lacking, we can use the older definition (liqueur, sugar, water and bitters) with the caveat that though a few drinks which we today consider to be "cocktails" don't match this older definition, we should include them anyway for the sake of discussion.

Actually, Jack and coke would not be, under this defintion. Glad I asked!

 

[Italian Cut]

Here's my personal definition though, "A cocktail is a mixed drink consisting of liqueur, usually diluted with water, sometimes served in combination with another liqueur, usually flavored with one or more ingredients like, but not limited to, juice, bitters, sugar, etc, and always flavored with one of the above ingredients if no water has been added to the drink. " If it has even the bare minimum of those qualities, to me its a cocktail. I offered the other definitions for the sake of discussion.

 

[Piobaire]

Originally Posted by Italian Cut

Here's my personal definition though,

"A cocktail is a mixed drink consisting of liqueur, usually diluted with water, sometimes served in combination with another liqueur, usually flavored with one or more ingredients like, but not limited to, juice, bitters, sugar, etc, and always flavored with one of the above ingredients if no water has been added to the drink. "

If it has even the bare minimum of those qualities, to me its a cocktail. I offered the other definitions for the sake of discussion.

Fine and dandy, but Jack is a spirit, not a liqueur. By requiring a liqueur in your personal definition, you've eliminated a great many drinks, not least of which would be a traditional martini and a vodka martini.

 

[RPMcMurphy]

I'm just wondering what happened to make cocktails just a "chick" thing, when up till relatively recently, it wasnt at all.

The 80's, Tom Cruise, and the movie Cocktails!


Nowadays, sometimes my wife and I will go to a place with lousy 'pick your color' martini bar program, she's learned to just order a Scotch.

It started out like:
Bartender/Waiter "Would you like a apple martini?"
Wife "No, I'll have a cocktail, do you have rye? if so I'll have a Sazerac"

to which, the staff's head usually exploded.

On the contrary, when we go to a decent bar, my wife will order a Sazerac, and I'll order a (proper made) Daiquiri....

 

[Italian Cut]

consisting of a liqueur or spirit

Better? Can we get back to the topic at hand yet? You didnt object to anything else, so I assume that definition suits you, so we can move on.

Nowadays, sometimes my wife and I will go to a place with lousy 'pick your color' martini bar program, she's learned to just order a Scotch. It started out like: Bartender/Waiter "Would you like a apple martini?" Wife "No, I'll have a cocktail, do you have rye? if so I'll have a Sazerac" to which, the staff's head usually exploded. On the contrary, when we go to a decent bar, my wife will order a Sazerac, and I'll order a (proper made) Daiquiri....

It is all about the bar, it seems, or the bartenders rather. And a proper made Daiquiri can be a beautiful thing. But I've only ordered a Sazerac in New Orleans.

 

[Piobaire]

Originally Posted by Italian Cut

Better?

Can we get back to the topic at hand yet?

You already know what a cocktail is anyway, so lets get on with it.

Well, you know, I was so taken to task for insisting there is actually something called a "martini" I just want to avoid all the traps being laid. Ironic, given your OP (to bring this back on topic):

Originally Posted by Italian Cut

Not only did it used to be that a man could walk into just about any bar
and order a gimlet
and it wasnt thought of as strange,

but that man would have been given a gin gimlet in a cocktail glass.


Nowadays you have to be aggressive and specific if you walk up to a bar wanting to get a drink like that.

But you can't even say,
"Gin gimlet, up,"
because no one knows what the hell you're talking about, so they'll serve it in a whiskey glass with some ice.
So you have to say "Gin gimlet in a cocktail glass," if you even want the drink.

No one expects a man to know, much less want, a traditional cocktail served properly.

But here's my question: Why are cocktails, in cocktail glasses, suddenly considered feminine?
James Bond loved cocktails.
There are volumes of iconic images and movies of some suave mofos dressed to the nines, drinkin cocktails.
So what happened?

And I'm not even a cocktail buff or anything.
Hell, I'd just as soon drink the gin straight as drink it in a gimlet.

I'm just wondering what happened to make cocktails just a "chick" thing, when up till relatively recently, it wasnt at all.​

So while you admonish me about "vodka martini" being today's "martini" and not worrying about really goes in one, you're bemoaning that people cannot serve a proper gimlet? I find that ironic. Exactly on point though, at least in the circles I travel in, most cocktails served in a cocktail glass are not considered feminine. A martini would never be considered feminine. Only when various words are degraded to encompass all sorts of things they should not, like an "appletini," do things start to become considered feminine. When the taste of alcohol and the spirit is so hidden by sugar and fruit, you've got something that people are going to consider sophmoric or feminine.

YMMV and just IMO.

 

[RPMcMurphy]

I'm quite sure it has to do with the liquor companies figuring out 'hey women drink too!' and went on the slippery slope of making drinks fruity and sweet with funny names.

Whatever sells more. Apparently that sells more.

one can only market vermouth and gin so much....how else do you sell it? vodka figured out that if you put it in a funny bottle and spent 1000x more on marketing and magazine ad's than on the spirit, you could turn a better profit.

Wonder if that's why the ratio of Gin to Vermouth goes from 1:1 to 2:1 to 'just put the glass 'near' the bottle of vermouth' to 'martini, no vermouth' over the past 50ish years.....Gin just had better marketing!

 

[Piobaire]

Originally Posted by RPMcMurphy

I'm quite sure it has to do with the liquor companies figuring out 'hey women drink too!' and went on the slippery slope of making drinks fruity and sweet with funny names.

Whatever sells more. Apparently that sells more.

one can only market vermouth and gin so much....how else do you sell it? vodka figured out that if you put it in a funny bottle and spent 1000x more on marketing and magazine ad's than on the spirit, you could turn a better profit.

Wonder if that's why the ratio of Gin to Vermouth goes from 1:1 to 2:1 to 'just put the glass 'near' the bottle of vermouth' to 'martini, no vermouth' over the past 50ish years.....Gin just had better marketing!

I think vermouth became to bland too. Trying Vya was a revelation. That is certainly one of the great things in the last decade or so, the return of small production, craft products. From what Maytag has been doing with gin and rye to the increase in good tequilas and aged rums to the establishment of places like the VTR.

 

[RPMcMurphy]

Originally Posted by Piobaire

I think vermouth became to bland too. Trying Vya was a revelation. That is certainly one of the great things in the last decade or so, the return of small production, craft products. From what Maytag has been doing with gin and rye to the increase in good tequilas and aged rums to the establishment of places like the VTR.

I'll agree to that-- and most bars not using enough, and letting it sit out, spoiling.

Vya as well as my favorite, Carpano Antica Formula, I will sometimes drink neat. In my early days of not knowing much about cocktails/spirits, a bartender did a 'vermouth' tasting for me, starting out with some older martini-rossi...then moving to a 'fresh' bottle of martini rossi, all the way up to Carpano....the taste between just a 1 month old bottle of martini-rossi to a fresh bottle was VERY significant!

I'm glad that Rye is 'making a comeback'

 

[Piobaire]

Originally Posted by RPMcMurphy

I'll agree to that-- and most bars not using enough, and letting it sit out, spoiling.

Vya as well as my favorite, Carpano Antica Formula, I will sometimes drink neat. In my early days of not knowing much about cocktails/spirits, a bartender did a 'vermouth' tasting for me, starting out with some older martini-rossi...then moving to a 'fresh' bottle of martini rossi, all the way up to Carpano....the taste between just a 1 month old bottle of martini-rossi to a fresh bottle was VERY significant!

I'm glad that Rye is 'making a comeback'

As the well known mixologist in that video I linked said, vermouth should be cold and it should be fresh. It is a wine based drink, afterall, full of aromatics with quickly oxidized volatile essences.

 

[RPMcMurphy]

Originally Posted by MetroStyles

A clear drink in a cocktail glass is never feminine. A colored one is.
Clover Club?

Jack Rose?

Stork Club?

Aviation?

Bellini?

(photography credit, meself, at Harry's) Negroni?

Americano?

Singapore Sling?

Ok, I have to stop, all this talk is making me want one...but those were just a 'few' classics. Maybe the problem, is someone telling someone that colored drinks are feminine...

 

[Gus]

Originally Posted by RPMcMurphy

Maybe the problem, is someone telling someone that colored drinks are feminine...

+100

Stop talking about them and drink what you enjoy. Learn to make them the way you like them and not the way someone says it *should* be made. I enjoy several cocktails that are variations on the norm.