4 bottles to make manly cocktails

[DynV]

As this is my 1st post, I'll make the customary: Hello, glad to be here. *smile*

I'm not much of a drinker but a few weeks ago I bought myself some rhum. Now I'm thinking of making myself some manly cocktails in the once a month or so times I drink. So I'm wondering what 3 other bottles I'll get ; I may get a 4th extra one (so 5 total) of it really make my selection better.

I'm thinking to get for a 2nd spirit some Mezcal, it doesn't have to be that but it was my 1st thought. Now to make the cocktails, many of manly recipe suggest bitters and vermouth. Some thinks that caught my interest: Curaçao, Campari, Brandy.

Thank you kindly for your feedback, and preferably that come with a thoughtful suggestion.

[Hassouni]

Rum and Mezcal both go great with lime and sugar..so your other two bottles.....bitters of some sort (Angostura..), then maybe either Cointreau or Luxardo Maraschino. If you get Campari, get sweet vermouth, cos the Negroni and its variations are certainly "manly" drinks

[chefmd]

May be this will help

 

http://gizmodo.com/5899481/the-five-most-mathematically-essential-bottles-of-booze

[Hassouni]

Vodka and coffee liqueur, meh

[cdh]

Hmmm... What's a "manly" cocktail?  A favorite of mine, and I'm a man, is a Jasmine. Gin, Cointreau, Campari, lemon juice. Pretty and pink, but bitter and grapefruity.  You can make fine riffs on this sort of drink with rums and tequilas... really depends on the flavor profile that the particular spirits bring.  You need to figure out what cocktails you like and think are "manly" enough for you.  The most "manly" cocktail I've ever run across is the Staggerac...  140 proof bourbon with sugar and bitters.  If putting hair on your chest is your primary cocktail goal... that is a direction to look in.

[Hassouni]

Manly cocktail: warm Wray & Nephew, with no ice, and just a single drop of bitters,lime, and SS.

[cdh]

Manly cocktail: warm Wray & Nephew, with no ice, and just a single drop of bitters,lime, and SS.

Damn... that is manly.  At least the Stagg tastes good on its own... W&N doesn't have that going for it.

[ChrisTaylor]

Manly cocktail? Deliciously gendered. I assume we're talking about some big classics here, right? An Old Fashioned, yeah? Something like a Manhattan? A Daiquiri? I mean, if the latter was good enough for Hemingway--a dude who went deep sea fishing and fought in foreign wars and ate buckshot for breakfast--I assume it's good enough for you. A martini? 

 

This is tricky. Four bottles. You can't just buy spirits. You want vermouth. You went a sweet vermouth if you want to be able to make a Manhattan (2:1 rye:sweet vermouth + a couple dashes of Angostura bitters) or similar cocktails, such as the Hanky Panky (a similar drink, really, but with a slightly different ratio and gin instead of rye). So a question of definitions: if a bottle vermouth counts as 'a bottle', you'll probably want sweet. I think sweet is more versatile, but then again, I don't really like martinis. Sweet vermouth will give you access to the Manhattan family. It'll also serve you well if/when you expand your collection: drinks like the Negroni and its many relatives, for instance. If vermouth isn't 'a bottle', get both sweet and dry. I operate under the assumption that vermouth isn't part of the four. If it is, well, you'll want to lose one of spirits. 

 

You want a white rum. When you say rhum, I assume we're talking a grand grassy agricole like JM. That'll serve well in some 'manly' classics like the Daiquiri and Mojito.

 

You want a whiskey. I'd argue for rye as the most versatile kind of whiskey from a cocktail-making perspective. You can use it in an Old Fashioned. You can use it a Manhattan. If you eventually expand the collection to include, say, a small bottle of absinthe or pastis, you can make a Sazerac. Starting with a small collection is a sensible idea--we all did--but as you gain more experience you can spiral off in different directions. One of the first cocktails I really liked was the Old Fashioned, for instance. This led to me getting into the Sazerac. And to eventually focusing on the 'brown and stirred' category.

 

I've come to really like mezcal. I just think that in a small collection, though, that it's not very versatile. There are a few mezcal cocktails around but most require a lot of ingredients that wouldn't be sensible purchases for a starting-out, four-bottle-only collection (i.e. Rafa's brilliant Man Comes Around). I'd probably argue for tequila over mezcal but even then ... unless you're getting an orange liqueur as one of your bottles, you're not going to do a lot with it. Not with such a small collection.

 

Gin is good. A London Dry like Tanq. is what you want as a starting point. Genever, Old Tom and all these modern craft gins can come later. An entry-level London Dry will serve you well in a martini, a gin and tonic, a Collins (you can make a Collins out of basically anything, but I find that whiskey-based ones tend to just taste like watered down whiskey).

 

I would not buy a bottle of brandy. I like brandy, but I don't think there are enough delicious brandy-based cocktails to make with a four bottle collection if the idea of that collection is versatility. By all means, get a brandy if/when you expand the collection, but if I was starting afresh it wouldn't be one of my first four bottles. 

 

Now, I assume Angostura bitters doesn't count as an all-the-way, honest-to-God bottle of something. You want some kind of bitters. Angostura is your starting point. Eventually you can grab a bottle of orange bitters and expand your horizons a little.

 

Curacao and Campari are both nice but pose a problem. Let's say you only have four bottles. What are you going to make? Two different Negroni variations? The Campari--and I love Campari--isn't going to be particularly versatile in that context. Unless you really like Americanos and Negronis, I probably wouldn't buy it as one of the first four.

[FrogPrincesse]

I'd get a bottle of rye and drink it neat if you want something really manly, or mix it with sugar and aromatic bitters for the beginner version, the Old Fashioned. Then get some absinthe and Peychaud's and try a Sazerac.

[cdh]

Trying the warm W&N with a drop of mole bitters... the bitters do combat the wr(h)ong that this r(h)um brings... not something I'd drink regularly, but a fine riff on the staggerac...

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I don't have the credentials to speak of manly drinks, but I beg to help: absinthe is a girly drink.

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/Edgar_Degas_-_In_a_Caf%C3%A9_-_Google_Art_Project_2.jpg/560px-Edgar_Degas_-_In_a_Caf%C3%A9_-_Google_Art_Project_2.jpg

 

 

And putting bitters in W&N is just plain wrong.

[Naftal]

Speaking more as a history-buff than as an expert on spirits (I am not), I would say that a gimlet is a very manly drink!

[Hassouni]

1. 

AIN'T NOTHIN' FUCKIN WRONG WITH WRAY AND NEPHEW!! EVER!!

 

2.

Chris Taylor, excellent post.

 

3. 

Actually, for a truly manly drink, the Pink Gin. Warm.

Edited September 27, 2014 by Hassouni (log)

[EvergreenDan]

My 4 bottles:

1. Gin
2. Scotch (single malt)
3. Dry vermouth (Dolin or Boissiere).
4. Campari

 

Gin & Tonic, Martini, Scotch neat (or rocks if you prefer), Scotch / dry vermouth / a touch of Campari or simple for something akin to a Rob Roy or Manhattan, Scotch Old Pal, Campari with Gin + lemon/lime, Campari Soda, Dry Negroni, vermouth plain (chilled, without ice, with a lemon twist), Gin on the rocks.

 

Extra credit if your Scotch is an Islay.

[weinoo]

I'd get 4 bottles of Rittenhouse.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I'd get 4 bottles of Rittenhouse.

 

...which tastes like marshmallows.

 

 

Edit: but here are a couple of simple drinks I make...

 

1.)  Balaklava #1

 

Equal parts absinthe and kummel over ice.  Only two bottles!

 

 

2.)  Mississippi punch (one of my favorites)

 

Cognac (I use Pierre Ferrand 1840), rum (I use Smith&Cross), and arrack.  Now admittedly that's three bottles but if you use the rum you already have, you need only two new bottles.

 

 

Thus two quite different beverages from four bottles.

Edited September 27, 2014 by JoNorvelleWalker (log)

[weinoo]

...which tastes like marshmallows.

You drinking with the 'smores again?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Crème de cacao and Rittenhouse.  Yum.

[DynV]

Thank you all. I read all the comments and gave them appropriate consideration.

 

I especially liked the link

May be this will help

 

http://gizmodo.com/5899481/the-five-most-mathematically-essential-bottles-of-booze

and the post #8 by ChrisTaylor.
 

I was going to buy a mix of the 2 former but I was let down when I got to the liquor store of where I hang out these times (I live in a metropolis and I like to go almost at the border of the metropolitan area). Where I live all alcohool are supervised by the state but beside markets and corner stores, with few selection, people go to state liquor stores and they are quite popular. The one where I was is the 4th grade on 5 ; as I live in the metropolis, it's not hard to get to the 1st grade store. Anyway there was little selection with only 3 vermouth, 2 single malt whiskey, and most vodkas with design bottles, which I'm prejudiced against ; you know what I can go to a dollar store and get a couple postcards if I have a fix for nice things to look at. I was going to give up and I got back in and bought a bottle of Glenlivet 12 yrs ; it was 50% more than I wanted to spend on a bottle but I figured I'll just buy a bigger bottle of vermouth and drink more of that when mixing ; well maybe not mixing, I'd start with the nice thing then move on to the cheaper stuff when I'd get fuzzy.

 

I'm glad I read you suggestions or I might have ended buying sub-par liquor and be disappointed.

 

Update 1:

 

The rhum bottle I had before starting this thread is Appleton Estate V/X.

Edited September 28, 2014 by DynV (log)

[haresfur]

I might be the resident contrarian  but I would skip the vermouth if you are really wanting to keep to 5 bottles total.  My reasoning is that an Old fashioned is as manly as a Manhattan and a Campari and soda is much more manly than an Americano.  I would also start with bourbon and graduate from there to rye or scotch.  I would also chose a good reposado tequila over mezcal but that's just me - I think it is more versatile.  Skip vodka - anything it can do, gin can do better Aside from that it depends a lot on what you like.  You could go with maraschino to bring in manly funk with sweet for another dimension.or my personal choice would be Fernet Branca.

 

So that would be:

 

Bourbon

London Dry Gin

Campari

Fernet Branca

 

But, what ever you do, think of it as just a start.   

[Vuko Laosic]

Amaretto, Almond Liqueur

Peppermint Liqueur

Vodka

Extra Dry Vermouth Chambery

Triple Sec

 

You can make nice range of cocktails with this ingrediants  

[Yojimbo]

When I heard "rhum", I thought, like others, "rhum agricole", which led me to think of the most macho (is this less gendered than "manly"?) Ti Punch:  a spoonful of cane syrup, rhum, and a squeeze of a coin-sized slice of lime rind.  No ice.

 

But Appleton V/X?  That's a nice Jamaican rum.  Try it with ginger beer (please, not supermarket ginger ale) and the above-mentioned lime squeeze and f*$k the people who say you can only mix ginger beer with Goslings.  Now that the weather's turning colder (depending on where you live), fix yourself a hot buttered rum.  Try it in a Navy Grog a la PDT, with lime and grapefruit juices and a little honey syrup.

 

And lastly, go to a decent tiki bar and order something with Jamaican rum and a whole bunch of other ingredients and some outlandish garnishes, preferably on fire, and then, if you're not hooked completely, you have my blessing to stick with whatever you were drinking before you began your descent into the rabbit hole of mixology.

 

We're all mad around here, you know.

[gfweb]

Manly Cocktail?

 

Short list. Gin martini or G&T in season.

 

Men drink their booze on the rocks and maybe with a twist (but I consider twists girly).

 

Bourbon/Scotch with a rock or two is manly.

 

Tequila if you are a believer.

 

Frozen Vodka perhaps, if in the company of communists.

 

Nothing fruity or sweet.

 

Ever.

[Hassouni]

No, men drink their booze neat! Scotch with ice is BLASPHEMY

[gfweb]

There is a school that says one or two little rocks improves the taste.