You might be a cocktail snob/geek if...

[jmfangio]

5.) Yup, all savory all the time. But can’t bake to save my life.  I should try again and picture the measuring cup as a big, misshapen jigger.

YMBACS/GI... you frequently use your jigger as a measuring cup whilst cooking

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Or, on the other hand, your jigger is gathering dust since you discovered that your Oxo mini angled measuring cup is perfect for cocktails.

Edited August 16, 2007 by jmfangio (log)

[eje]

...you skip lunch and take the train downtown to pick up the Batavia Arrack you special ordered before it became available in your state.

[Mayur]

...you skip lunch and take the train downtown to pick up the Batavia Arrack you special ordered before it became available in your state.

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Guilty.

Insert "Creme de Violette," "Noilly Prat Ambre," "Amer Picon," "Suze," etc etc.

Every one of those has its own associated train ride and workday shirking.

Yeah, one really does involve oneself in too much craziness....

Edited September 18, 2007 by Mayur (log)

[jmfangio]

...you raise your own chickens so you'll have fresh eggs for cocktails?

The NY Times has a piece today on city dwellers who raise their own chickens, and gives a shout out to LeNell Smothers, and includes a recipe for the Ramos Fizz. Here's a link to the article, but this is the money quote:

One notable exception is LeNell Smothers, 36, a liquor store owner in Red Hook, Brooklyn. She keeps six hens in her backyard and drops their eggs (whites, yolks or both) into cocktails like whiskey sours; Mae Wests; Ramos gin fizzes; and a drink a friend invented called the Good Humor — a blend of cream, egg yolk and the Italian aperitif Aperol. Unlike most chicken farmers, Ms. Smothers names her hens after family members. (“I’ll probably slaughter them myself,” she said.)

I don't know how to top that. Take up glassblowing so you can make your own cocktail glasses?

Edited September 20, 2007 by jmfangio (log)

[bostonapothecary]

...you raise your own chickens so you'll have fresh eggs for cocktails?

The NY Times has a piece today on city dwellers who raise their own chickens, and gives a shout out to LeNell Smothers, and includes a recipe for the Ramos Fizz.  Here's a link to the article, but this is the money quote:

One notable exception is LeNell Smothers, 36, a liquor store owner in Red Hook, Brooklyn. She keeps six hens in her backyard and drops their eggs (whites, yolks or both) into cocktails like whiskey sours; Mae Wests; Ramos gin fizzes; and a drink a friend invented called the Good Humor — a blend of cream, egg yolk and the Italian aperitif Aperol. Unlike most chicken farmers, Ms. Smothers names her hens after family members. (“I’ll probably slaughter them myself,” she said.)

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that is so cool... nothing like a newly laid egg.

[Alchemist]

For reasons beyond your controll you end up at a fast food joint where they hand you an empty 70oz plastic cup and point you towards the soda fountain. You step up and add ice. There is too much so you shake some out. You want a cola base with hints of citrus, tropical fruit and prune. So in goes the Coke, with a splash of "pink lemonade" , a sploosh of whatever that orange pop is... and a float of Dr. Pepper. Ahhhh, refreshment at the freeway oasis.

Then you try to figure out what rye should be added if you wern't driving.

Edited for HC7.

Edited October 8, 2007 by Alchemist (log)

[thirtyoneknots]

For reasons beyond your controll you end up at a fast food joint where they hand you an empty 70oz plastic cup and point you towards the soda fountain.  You step up and add ice.  There is too much so you shake some out.  You want a cola base with hints of citrus, tropical fruit and prune.  So in goes the Coke, with a splash of "pink lemonade" , a sploosh of whatever that orange pop is... and a float of Dr. Pepper.  Ahhhh, refreshment at the freeway oasis.

Then you try to figure out what rye should be added if you wern't driving.

Edited for HC7.

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Beautiful.

[Nathan]

For reasons beyond your controll you end up at a fast food joint where they hand you an empty 70oz plastic cup and point you towards the soda fountain.  You step up and add ice.  There is too much so you shake some out.  You want a cola base with hints of citrus, tropical fruit and prune.  So in goes the Coke, with a splash of "pink lemonade" , a sploosh of whatever that orange pop is... and a float of Dr. Pepper.  Ahhhh, refreshment at the freeway oasis.

Then you try to figure out what rye should be added if you wern't driving.

Edited for HC7.

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we did this as kids...the resulting libation is called "Swampwater"

[avant-garde]

For reasons beyond your controll you end up at a fast food joint where they hand you an empty 70oz plastic cup and point you towards the soda fountain.  You step up and add ice.  There is too much so you shake some out.  You want a cola base with hints of citrus, tropical fruit and prune.  So in goes the Coke, with a splash of "pink lemonade" , a sploosh of whatever that orange pop is... and a float of Dr. Pepper.  Ahhhh, refreshment at the freeway oasis.

Then you try to figure out what rye should be added if you wern't driving.

Edited for HC7.

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we did this as kids...the resulting libation is called "Swampwater"

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Ha! In little league we called it a suicide. The thought of all that sugar now makes me tired.

[Alchemist]

I just found this on eater and was suprised what a little comment can generate.

http://eater.com/archives/2008/04/against_jiggers.php

I have worked with jiggers for many many years, and I like them. In a serious establishment like M&H, D&C and the like they are needed. In a divey kinds of bar not so much.

I guess you would be a cocktail geek if you changed what you order to drink by if the bartender has a jigger in his paw.

Toby

[brinza]

You might be a cocktail geek if...

...while trying to decide what cocktail you want to have, you have to mix (or order) an easy "preliminary" drink to sip on while you think of what you really want.

...you select a cocktail based on the kind of bitters you're in the mood for.

...when you make an entry in your log book of cocktails you've tried, you make sure to note not only the name of the drink and your personal rating, but which book it came from.

...you keep a log book of cocktails you've tried

[TMFIII]

. . . you ask for a flight of house made bitters.

[brinza]

Your web browser bookmarks look like this:

(though I'm sure I'm not the worst example)

[TMFIII]

You enter a local cocktail contest and in your recipe you tell them where to buy the bitters specified.

Then, you actually take your own personal bottle of the specific bitters for the bartenders to use during the competition . . .

Yep, that was me last night! BIG OLE COCKTAIL NERD!

Cheeers,

Marshall

[Lisa Shock]

-When you wish that silverware/barware manufacturers made higher quality cocktail spoons, in sterling silver.

[John Rosevear]

Or, on the other hand, your jigger is gathering dust since you discovered that your Oxo mini angled measuring cup is perfect for cocktails.

...so perfect, in fact, that the measurement markings are wearing off and the plastic is getting battered from overuse, prompting you to replace it with the stainless steel version.

[vice]

...so perfect, in fact, that the measurement markings are wearing off and the plastic is getting battered from overuse, prompting you to replace it with the stainless steel version.

Oh, the markings will wear off the stainless one, too (the grooves are still there, of course, but the paint is waning). Still, I'd happily buy another, and will have to soon.

[Busboy]

If you go to a hip, new cocktail bar, look at the fruit bowl prominently displayed mid-bar, and think, "they really need to get rid of those grocery store apples and get something from the farmers market."

[Shamanjoe]

..The home screen of your iPhone is nothing but cocktail apps, and those pesky "phone" features are relegated to the next screen.

..Your coworker says she likes Mai Tai's, and you ask her if it contains pineapple juice and grenadine, then laugh when she says yes and tell her that's not a Mai Tai.

[Shalmanese]

This is the home screen of your iPhone. (from here)

[John Rosevear]

..Your coworker says she likes Mai Tai's, and you ask her if it contains pineapple juice and grenadine, then laugh when she says yes and tell her that's not a Mai Tai.

... or you go off on an extended monologue about the Royal Hawaiian Hotel's pineapple-fueled "Mai Tai" vs Vic's original and the apparently-outsized influence of the former and its progeny on what people think a Mai Tai really is.

[Shamanjoe]

... or you go off on an extended monologue about the Royal Hawaiian Hotel's pineapple-fueled "Mai Tai" vs Vic's original and the apparently-outsized influence of the former and its progeny on what people think a Mai Tai really is.

John, how did you know?

Shalmanese, that photo, plus my home screen (the one the phone goes to after you run your finger across the "slide to unlock" I think would make the ultimate cocktail snob phone accessory. Especially if you count in the reputation the iPhone has for being in the pocket of Apple snobs..

Edited December 27, 2009 by Shamanjoe (log)

[John Rosevear]

I knew because of this: Of the hundred-plus Jeff Berry recipes we've tried over the last few years, the Surf Room Mai Tai is my wife's absolute total favorite, hands down, second place not even worth mentioning... and I've maybe felt moved to explain the whole "it's not REALLY a Mai Tai" deal to her friends a time or three.

[edited for typo fix]

Edited December 27, 2009 by John Rosevear (log)

[Shamanjoe]

I knew because of this: Of the hundred-plus Jeff Berry recipes we've tried over the last few years, the Surf Room Mai Tai is my wife's absolute total favorite, hands down, second place not even worth mentioning... and I've maybe felt moved to explain the whole "it's not REALLY a Mai Tai" deal to her friends a time or three.

[edited for typo fix]

You know you're a cocktail snob when.. John mentions his version of the Mai Tai is the Surf Room and you immediately go online looking for the recipe because the one you're using came from Trader Vic's iPhone app and even though it's credited to Jeff Berry, you still want to be sure..

[John Rosevear]

The Surf Room variant is from Berry's book Intoxica... if you have the Tiki+ iPhone app, it's listed as the "Mai Tai (Hawaiian Style)". It's not Vic's Mai Tai, and it's not exactly a *deep voice* Great American Cocktail, but it's a tasty tiki drink, well worth trying on a warm night.

1 oz orange juice

1 oz pineapple juice

1/2 oz lime juice

1/4 oz lemon juice

1/4 oz orange Curacao

1/4 oz orgeat

1/4 oz simple syrup

1 oz Demerara rum (80 proof)

1 oz dark Jamaican rum

1 oz light Puerto Rican rum

Shake, pour unstrained into a DOF glass (or a pint glass if you used a lot of ice), garnish with pineapple, sugar cane, orchid, and mint sprig.