Have cocktails changed your drinking habits?

[TAPrice]

I started getting serious about cocktails this summer. In that short time, I've found that my taste in drinking has changed dramatically. Basically, I find the idea of drinking wine unappealing and, dare I say, gauche.

Don't get me wrong, I still love wine with food. And occasionally I do enjoy a glass. And aperitif wines and sherry are as appealing as ever. But normally the idea of sitting around drinking wine just doesn't thrill me. Without food it seems so astringent, so unbalance, and with ever sip I keep thinking how much better a well-made cocktail would be.

I've also found that most American beers now strike me as incredibly sweet.

Anybody else had this transformation?

[MattJohnson]

I still very much like wine, however I've found that I don't drink as much wine as I'm less likely to open a bottle for myself when I can make a single drink.

Good wine is still good. Good beer is still good. Bad cocktails are worse.

[Nathan]

your palate changes, yes. But it hasn't changed my regard for other forms of liquid bliss.

[Mayur]

If anything, I tend to cut back on the cocktails every once in a while in order to clear up my palate for better enjoyment of wine. But no, I haven't found a real difference in drinking patterns. That said, I've been drinking hard alcohol and/or cocktails (as well as wine and a very occasional beer) since I began drinking ~16 years ago, so maybe it's just not that different.

[birder53]

We used to buy wines and keep our 36 bottle wine rack full. We still buy wine but there are only six bottles in the house right now and most of them are Charles Shaw from Trader Joe's. The drink of choice is now a well made cocktail and there is a pantry full of booze in our house.

So, yes, cocktails have changed the way we drink. We spend so much on liquor that we tend to skimp on wine.

[daisy17]

Since getting into cocktails about two and a half years ago my palate has changed/developed considerably, with my preferences leaning towards the bitter and very much away from the sweet. This really surprised me. I recently realized that I never was all that into wine - cocktails are far more complex and interesting to me. If I'm going to drink, my strong preference is for a well made cocktail. I also think that drinking and learning about cocktails has underscored for me the importance of balance - which seems more obvious to me in cocktails than in food in some ways - and thus has also affected the way I eat.

[avant-garde]

I started getting serious about cocktails this summer. In that short time, I've found that my taste in drinking has changed dramatically. Basically, I find the idea of drinking wine unappealing and, dare I say, gauche.

Don't get me wrong, I still love wine with food. And occasionally I do enjoy a glass. And aperitif wines and sherry are as appealing as ever. But normally the idea of sitting around drinking wine just doesn't thrill me. Without food it seems so astringent, so unbalance, and with ever sip I keep thinking how much better a well-made cocktail would be.

I've also found that most American beers now strike me as incredibly sweet.

Anybody else had this transformation?

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I do know what you mean... Ever since I got into cocktails, my beer consumption has almost dwindled to zero. After a long hard day at work, all I can think about is coming home and mixing myself another Last Word cocktail.

[jsmeeker]

yeah...

Well, it HAS increased my quantity at home, but to answer your actual question, it's changed WHAT I drink at home. I going through drink books and making stuff I have never had before. I'm getting ideas from this forum. I'm even sticking termometers in my drinks and taking pictures of it to post on the Internet. My local liquor store has become one of my most favorite shopping destinations.

When I go out, I am FAR more aware of what good and proper drink making is. If someone shakes my Manhattan, I sigh. If they don't put bitters in it, I am saddened. But if they put in the bitters without prompting, and they stir it, I am happy. If a bar uses a single, very large ice cube for certain drinks, I get excited (this happened this past week). When you see them squeeze actual fruit before your eyes, I'm pleased.

It's really tough for me to drink out now. So many places don't do it right. What do I order? Do I get something that I know find boring and lame, yet sage (like a vodka tonic or Jack and Coke) or do I just get a beer. Or maybe, do I throw caution to the wind and order a Manhattan to see what I get.

As far as tastes, I qucikly started to dislike the sweet cocktails I used to think were pretty fancy. (yeah, yeah. All those <somethin>tinis ) Now, I get intrigued by "funky" stuff.. Cocktails with maraschino liquer in them Or chartruesses. Or both! I like to see a cocktail menu that has drinks with gin, whiskey, and rum. And not much vodka.

In essense, I have become a cocktail/bar snob.

And I like who I am.

[Chris Amirault]

They've certainly changed my spending habits.

[mkayahara]

They've certainly changed my spending habits.

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I'm so glad I'm not the only one!

"No, really, honey! I need this liqueur! Well, I only know how to make one drink with it, but I can't make that drink without it..."

[Chris Amirault]

Wait until you start making the damned stuff.

But to the exact question, yes, I think that I can't drink any cocktails outside of my house in my hometown any more, save for one drink (a Gingered Gentleman) in one restaurant (The Red Fez). Out of town, I hunt down places like PDT and the Violet Hour as a matter of course.

[Alex]

I started getting serious about cocktails this summer. In that short time, I've found that my taste in drinking has changed dramatically. Basically, I find the idea of drinking wine unappealing and, dare I say, gauche.

Don't get me wrong, I still love wine with food. And occasionally I do enjoy a glass. And aperitif wines and sherry are as appealing as ever. But normally the idea of sitting around drinking wine just doesn't thrill me. Without food it seems so astringent, so unbalance, and with ever sip I keep thinking how much better a well-made cocktail would be.

I've also found that most American beers now strike me as incredibly sweet.

Anybody else had this transformation?

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My feelings exactly! I still enjoy a good Spätlese out on the deck on a warm summer's evening, but that's about it sans food. I'm not sure I agree with you regarding beer, though. Are you referring to American beers in general or just the mass-market ones?

Up until a few years ago, I thought of cocktails as the beverage of my father's generation and therefore studiously avoided them. (You'd think I would have been over that by 50+ years old, but I'm afraid not.) However, MatthewB's sidecar from the 2003 Heartland Gathering was a revelation. My repertoire still is pitifully small, but the attitude has changed.

[maggiethecat]

However, MatthewB's sidecar from the 2003 Heartland Gathering was a revelation.

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I remember that Sidecar, Alex. Divine. (And to think I was introduced to the Sidecar by my abstemious and girly mother-in-law!)

I get really tired of pre-prandial wine, though the patio scenario always works. I just have reservations about cocktail culture -- it seems owned by the same kind of peeps who were sound equipment geeks in High School. I loved those geeks, bye the way.

I should probably start a different thread, but here seems a convenient place. Cocktails change my drinking habits, sure. If they're good I drink too much. If they're complicated, I get to hear the mixologist drone on. (I'm married to a former bartender -- I know!) I understand the artistry and craft that goes into the creation of a cocktail: The Violet Hour knocked my hose into the bar sink.

I think in the end, I prefer a martini or a sidecar or a great margarita. I'm a three -four ingredient girl. I guess I just want my delicious hooch, whether it be gin, bourbon, scotch or rum. I love you guys, appreciate what you do, but having to parse six ingredients before dinner is exhausting.

To respond to the topic: my kind of simple, hooch-ful cocktail of choice is a friend or an enemy. And yes, a real martini before dinner is better than a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. But I pay. And all that muddling makes me sleepy.

[slkinsey]

I'm a three -four ingredient girl. I guess I just want my delicious hooch, whether it be gin, bourbon, scotch or rum. I love you guys, appreciate what you do, but having to parse six ingredients before dinner is exhausting.

I think most cocktailians would agree that the three- or four-ingredient cocktail is the pinnacle of the craft. In fact, most of the very best more-than-four-ingredient cocktails can be understood as blending two spirits (e.g., calvados and cognac) to make a single "new" ingredient (e.g., "apple cognac").

[Alchemist]

The 2-3 ingredient (not including Bitters) cocktail is where it’s at. I think that the serious east coast bartenders are all about trying to figure out the least amount of components to put in a drink. I think that is why there are so many riffs on the Old Fashion and Manhattan out here. And the Gimlet and Daiquri or Champagne Cocktail are many bartenders drink of choice.

I don’t know how to answer the “Have cocktails changed your life” querry, since at this point cocktails are my life. To paraphrase somebody on the “you might be a cocktail geek if…”

“If I’m not making cocktails, I’m either thinking about them, reading about them, writing about them, drinking them or talking about them, over them with people who do nothing but think/read/write/and consume them.”

Edit: Somehow read the topic wrong. How Have cocktails changed the way I drink? I probably drink less cocktails today than I used to because it is hard to find a bar with the ingredients and the tequnique to make a great cocktail. So I am more likely to order a beer, glass of wine/champange than a martini/manhattan.

Edited January 22, 2008 by Alchemist (log)

[TVC]

Long time reader of the forum, this is my first post. For the past two years I have been completely immersed in cocktails. I make weekly sojourns to Lenell's and happily give more than a modest percentage of my paycheck to PDT and Death & Company.

I remember first having an Aviation and while, enjoying it, found that my palate wasn't quite ready for some of the old cocktails. They seemed perfumey. Now maraschino liqueur and parfait amour and creme de violette are finding their way to my drinks.

Moreover, learning balance in making a good cocktail has informed my tastes in food and wine in that I seem to be able to discern sweet and sour etc. I'll even go as far as to say as that sophisticated cocktails are good examples of the fifth taste, "umami". That may not be the technically accurate definition of the term but somehow a blend of the aromatics of bitters and complicated flavor profiles result in some sort of other taste experience.

When it comes to spending time at bars I am often completely uninterested in beer and would love to enjoy a cocktail but unless I'm at one of the upper echelon cocktail bars in the city, I'm in an awkward situation to have to request that a Manhattan include bitters, not be served on the rocks and for it to be stirred. The experience of a skilled bartender building a drink in front of you is inexplicably a specialized commodity.

[Chris Amirault]

Welcome, TVC!

I think most cocktailians would agree that the three- or four-ingredient cocktail is the pinnacle of the craft. 

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Unless you're Beachbum Berry, whose tiki books (Sippin' Safari, Intoxica!, and Grog Log) have certainly changed the sorts of cocktails I and many folks have been drinking lately.

[slkinsey]

Good point... That said, I think one could make the argument that tiki drinks belong to a separate category with a unique aesthetic. One could also argue that all of the combining of multiple rums in tiki drinks is intended to create the impression of a single rum. And, of course, one could argue that tiki drinks don't represent the pinnacle of the cocktailian craft.

[thirtyoneknots]

Good point...  That said, I think one could make the argument that tiki drinks belong to a separate category with a unique aesthetic.  One could also argue that all of the combining of multiple rums in tiki drinks is intended to create the impression of a single rum.  And, of course, one could argue that tiki drinks don't represent the pinnacle of the cocktailian craft.

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I think that here is a useful place to differentiate between a cocktail and a punch. The way I look at it, Tiki drinks are punches, which have for a slightly different set of judging criteria. I think it's kind of unfair to evaluate the Tiki drink category by how well it primes your palate for a meal (imo ultimately the primary role of a cocktail). Cassoulet is not going to match the delicate balance of sushi, but that doesn't mean one is inferior or superior to the other. They're different things, and should be evaluated as such.

[Snowy is dead]

I WANT to make more cocktails and drink less beer, but with a kitchen under renovation, I have no where to do so. So I dream away to the time when I can make a cocktail whenever I feel like it and crack that beer.

[lostmyshape]

living in pittsburgh, i have absolutely no option for even passable cocktails (except McCormick & Schmick’s, but they tend to make all their cocktails on the sweet side), so when out i almost always order a beer (that's the flipside of pittsburgh -- great beer everywhere).

however, at home, it's almost always a cocktail. and when i'm at a friends house and they offer me a drink ("um, yeah, i think we have some whiskey, let me check."), i'm also asking if they have lemons or limes.

so, out, not at all, but, in, totally changed.

[jsmeeker]

I am a big fan of the KISS philosophy throughout life. Most of the cocktails I make use only a few components, even when you DO count the bitters. (eg. Manhattan )

[Kent Wang]

I still love Belgian ales but wine and scotch and have begun to lose their appeal to me because of the cost. Fine beer and cocktails are pretty damn cheap comparatively.

[Alchemist]

We could compare tiki drinks to a stew and a cocktail to the classic Meat/starch/veg combo with the bitters being the sauce. This is an Obvious oversimplification. But someone slightly more sober than I could run with it. Fat meets acid meets strong with a Bernaise to pull it all together. Simple meets citrus meets booze, with bitters to pull it all together.

Toby

[lostmyshape]

i actually think that's a great comparison, toby. i've really been into punches (thanks to Imbibe!) and daquiris lately, which really can be a mish-mash of ingredients. yet, if you don't go too sweet, they can be complex and refreshing. their sort-of homey and you don't have to be too fussy with the proportions. like stew.

a great cocktail is almost architectual in the way a lot of high-class cuisine might be. a few ingredients, some seasoning and very precise technique (which might resemble alchemy... at least when you see toby and others do it) and you have a striking concoction. salt, pepper, hanger steak:sugar, citrus, whiskey (or brandy or...)! potatoes, garlic, rosemary:gin and vermouth and bitters! etc. etc.

really, those cocktails are a testiment to the mixologist's skill and even moreso to the skill of the master distillers who craft such fine liquor!

did we go off topic?

a-hem... mostly my love of coctails has me drinking more! i don't think my tastes have changed much though. still love a great beer, or a brandy after dinner. i never went in for wine, and i guess i drink wine a lot less even now.

Edited January 23, 2008 by lostmyshape (log)