The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Drink cocktails
Magus`
The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered User regular
The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered User regular
So I just moved into a place all my own and am wanting to few drinks I can make for guests. What are some good, inexpensive things I can make? Nothing too complicated as I'm not looking to turn my place into a full featured bar.
Yet.
Yet.
Magus` on
0
Posts
* Gin: Sapphire or Beefeater aren’t too expensive and are decent, and go really well with tonic water ( which you can keep in the pantry until you need it) for one of the best, easiest cocktails ever
* Rum: Bacardi is ... okay, but I prefer dark rums; goes great in a lot of sodas
* Tequila: Jose Cuervo is fine, goes well in anything citrusy, and you can make homemade margaritas with some mix
* Bourbon / Whisky : Jack Daniels is fine, and there’s lots of other options. Again, mixes well with lots of sodas
* Vodka: midprice vodkas are good value for the money, and it mixes with basically everything.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Gin + vermouth = Martini, classic and easy
Gin + lime juice + seltzer = Gimlet
Gin + lemon juice + seltzer + sugar = Tom Collins
Gin + tonic, easy for those who want something lighter (substitute with seltzer if desperate)
Vodka + vermouth = Vodka Martini, for those who don't know any better
Vodka + orange juice = Screwdriver
Vodka + tomato juice + kitchen sundries = Bloody Mary
3 Gin + 1 vodka + 1/2 Lillet blanc = Vesper Martini, for those James Bond nights
However, I find that having the ingredients on hand for Negroni or Spritz tend to be crowd winners.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
1. Cuba libre. Highball glass, Squeeze in two lime quarters and drop 'em in for garnish. Add 2-3 icecubes. 1 part rum, 2 parts coca cola.
2. Wine spritzer. Wine or highball glass. Doubleshot of chilled white wine (just a bit less than 1 decilitre). Fill up with club soda. Decorate with lime wedge. Can be made alcohol free by using alcohol free wine.
3. The alcohol free alternative. Ginger sparkler. Wine or highball. half/half chilled ginger ale and pineapple juice. Very thinly sliced ginger root (1 cm per litre of mixed drink) and some fresh de-stemmed basil leaves.
4. The "I don't want no sissy drink" alternative (if necessary). Highball (technically it's supposed to be a collins, but fuck that). Ice, 1 part Jack Daniels, 3 parts coke. If anyone this calls this a sissy drink, call them out for disrespecting Lemmy.
5. "I'd like something not-so-sweet". Vodka tonic. Highball. Lots of ice, doubleshot vodka. Fill up with tonic. Lime wedge.
Depending on the crowd you can scratch one or several of these alternatives. Always have an alcohol free alternative, which can be just soda if the crowd is under 35.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I know other people do! I'll look into these.
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
1. Adding a few dashes of Grand Marnier (orange liqueur) to hot chocolate and topped with whipped cream is pretty nice for winter get together. Although it's definitely a winter drink.
2. For warmer weather. A Mudslide. Equal parts Baileys, Kahlua (or some other coffee liqueur), vodka and milk.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
While the Manhattan isn't chocolatety, I think it tends to be pretty smooth-drinking, especially if you use a decent rye.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Super simple drinks that are all on the sweet side because you said you prefer those:
- pour a teaspoon of your bitters into a glass and then pour a few ounces of Sprite or your favourite lemon-lime soda into it. Congratulations, you have now made a version of the "lemon lime and bitters" soda common in the Commonwealth! Refreshing and tasty and basically impossible to screw up, adjust the amount of bitters/soda to your liking. I start with a teaspoon because that's enough for most people, ymmv
- the recipe for an "egg cream" is 1oz of good chocolate syrup, 1.5oz of milk, 6oz of plain soda (avoid club soda that has been salted for this! You can tell if club soda has had some mineral salt added to it if in the nutritional information it has more than 0mg of sodium). You can easily make "adult" variations of this by adding any (or many!) of crème de cacao, coffee liquer, Bailey's, Frangelico, vodka, creme de menthe, bitters, Grand Marnier, etc... to your chocolate syrup and mixing thoroughly before adding the other ingredients.
- you can find ginger beer of many kinds out there, some that have alcohol content and some that have none. Find one that you like, and you can easily spike it with a variety of liquors. Grand Marnier, bitters, vodka, and gin are some simple ones to try. This is another mix that is basically impossible to screw up!
7up flavored with grenadine is a nice treat for people who still would like something, but aren't looking for anything alcoholic.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
Equal parts bourbon, sweet vermouth, and Campari
Orange peel plus bourbon in the glass, give it a minute, then add ice before pouring in the vermouth and Campari. Use a little more orange peel along the rim for aroma.
This is now my favorite cocktail
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
The margs here are da bomb.
If you have cloves, tie about a teaspoon of them in cheesecloth and heat them in the mixture, but remember to remove before serving.
There are other spices that work great but that’s enough to get started with.
The other mandatory item I'd highly recommend adding to a basic, affordable home bar is a bottle of Triple Sec. This stuff is dirt cheap and opens up a TON of drink options. It's something you can add to just about anything and end up with something tasty. For instance, by taking a Gin and Tonic and just throwing in some Triple Sec you get the New Moon cocktail (and it's fucking delicious).
I also recommend getting this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GOJT5H0/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
It's a really handy book that covers a lot of classic cocktails and bar techniques. Some of it is a little much for a casual home bar but there's still a lot of great information in there. As far as supplies go a basic cobbler shaker and a jigger are all you need. Boston shakers are awesome but require some extra tools like a Hawthorne Strainer which makes them more suited to when you ramp up into more obsessed levels of home bar tending.
I'd swap the basic Bacardi out because bottom barrel Bacardi is fucking disgusting. For my "party booze" cabinet I usually just throw some Sailor Jerry in there because it ticks the three important boxes. Namely it's 1.) Cheap 2.) Available in bulk and 3.) Not disgusting. Bacardi's Oakheart line is also a good choice for a cheap party booze.
Costco's Kirkland liquors are also a good go to for cheap, surprisingly decent booze in basically every category. Tbh, one of the best ways to get a home bar rolling for cheap is to just go to Costco (assuming there's one near you), and just get their industrial sized bottles of Kirkland stuff. None of it will blow your mind but it'll get you off the ground with decent party booze while you save up for the good stuff and figure your tastes out.
I recommend ditching Lillet Blanc for Cocchi Americano. Lillet doesn't follow the same formula as it used to and more importantly, doesn't have quinine in it anymore which gave the original cocktail a bit more of a bitter (but not in a bad way) taste to it. Cocchi Americano still has quinine in it which will give the drink a profile closer to how it originally tasted. Also, I buy Tanqueray as my bulk gin since Gordon's was reformulated to a lower proof years ago, further diminishing the original vesper and you'll want to make sure to get a 100 proof vodka. Stoli does make a 100 proof version but you can safely sub it out for whatever similar grain vodka you can find.
If you wanna get slightly fancy you can get an inexpensive channel knife for making the orange rind curl garnish.
I...uh...drink a lot of Vespers >_>
"What kind of cake?"
There are a LOT of different kinds of cakes out there! Understanding what taste it is that you want will let you refine your search for what you need to stock. A lot of liquors that people find "gimmicky" in part because of their high added sugar content, are exactly what you want because of that. Some of these include ones I've mentioned, like crème de cacao, coffee liquer (commonly Kahlua), Bailey's, Frangelico, and creme de menthe.
I think you would absolutely like advocaat, which is a sugary liquor that has egg yolks mixed into it. Its sweetness and richness are such that you could practically use it as a condiment for other desserts (such as chocolates, cakes, and ice cream), and it mixes well with all kinds of things. For instance, if you mix it with orange juice, you have something reminiscent of a creamsicle. If you pour it on top of coffee jelly, it's like have a coffee pudding. If you pour it on an actual pudding, you now have pudding++.
Some other useful things in your cake quest would include amaretto (made from bitter almonds or bitter almond extract) which has a taste most people would associate with marzipan, plain old vanilla extract (which actually typically comes in 40% alcohol..), kirsch (a cherry-based liquor that most people associate with Black Forest cake), and schnapps (there are many kinds, some fruit-based, some herb-based!).
1. Vodkas in the midrange are just as good in a bar as a high price one. But you need to hit the mid-range, even when making a cocktail. It's a certain cleanness of taste.
2. Why go for Jose Cuervo when you can get Cimarron Blanco for just a little bit more?
3. When it comes to gin drinks, then Sapphire gin is the bar go-to in Sweden. I can't tell if it' good or bad because I hate gin.
4. Rum, holy shit is there a difference between the different price categories. Note that it's probably heresy to serve any aged Rum (well, aged more than 3-6 years) as anything but clean or sightly citrused. But still. Don't go cheap bacardi. At any given price point Havana club tends to make a better product (for cocktails), but I guess you don't have Havana club in the US.
5. Whiskey/whisky is complicated. But for a bar you'd better stock Jack Daniels and at least something else that isn't jack daniels. 95% of the time when whiskey is involved the customer wants a jack&coke, in the rest of the cases it's complicated. Complicated enough that there is no "generic whiskey" when mixing a drink.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
1 part vodka
1 part gin
1 part dark rum
1 part tequila.
3 parts sweet & sour
2 parts diet cola, to taste.
Add the diet cola after you mixed and poured everything else, give it a stir, and add a bit more if it still doesn't hit the 'mmm, that's good spot.'
Maker's Mark is my bourbon hiskey of choice to keep on hand for mixing or sipping The old fashioned was mentioned up above, and a simple recipe for that is old fashioned glass (typically a 6-8 oz glass) filled with ice, 2 oz whiskey, fill the rest of the way with lemon lime soda, stir, add a splash of bitters.
I tend to use diet sodas in most of my mixers, because cocktails tend to be calorie bombs to begin with, and to my palette, it helps keeps things from becoming too sweet. Ginger ale is a good one to have on hand. It mixes with vodka, rum, whiskey, for simple and good drinks.
Pimm's and 7up is a fruit cup.
Whiskey sour mix is straightforwardly a whiskey sour. Tastes like candy. You can but Squirt if you dont feel like making sour mix as it is basically a 2 liter bottle of premade sour mix.
Rum and coke.
Honestly there are about a million 2 or 3 ingredient drinks that are super easy. Thlse 4 have always been winners with me.
but they're listening to every word I say
Came to say this. The Boulevardier is an excellent, well rounded cocktail and lends itself well to batching too so you can fix up a whole bunch of them ahead of time in a big ole bottle.
I find from your costs are way down that way and your audience will generally be good if you are hosting, and if the party has a theme, so do your drinks. Hell I have a buddy who just keep a pitcher of Mojito or fakey mojito (limeade, mint and rum) in the fridge just because.
Oh as do I, and Tanqueray + Stoli 100 + Cocchi Americano is indeed my combination of choice. Cocchi Americano by itself on the rocks is also pretty tasty. But rare is the bar with all three. Easier to just tell the bartender Gin/Vodka/Lillet.
I once got into a friendly discussion with a bartender about martinis. One of those Stanley Hotel bar looking places. To prove a point, the bartender insisted on making miniature martinis through the night as we chatted: shaken/stirred, vodka/gin, more/less vermouth, olives/lemon peel/onion, dirty... I'm a bit hazy on what exactly transpired through the night, but we did raise a toast in agreement that martini on the rocks was the lowest of the low. There are better ways to chill a martini, like freezing your gin and refrigerating your vermouth, much to my wife's ire.
But the OP do feel free to do whatever you want. I've long since discovered most people don't care enough about their cocktails to entertain the finer points. Once you have friends like that, then you'll know it's time to vastly expand the home bar.
Take some classics
Daiquiri - rum,simple syrup, lime juice.
Margarita -tequila, Cointreau, lime juice.
Tom Collins - gin, syrup, lemon, splash of soda
Bitters and liquors can be substitutes for either the sweet or the sour depending.
Don't use fucking sour mix, it is gross as hell.
Beefeater for gin
Bulleit bourbon and rye
Havana Club for rum
El Mayor or 1800 for tequila - having a blanco, a reposado, and an anejo is nice, but just an reposado will cover most basis- i prefer them to silver/blanco since there's more flavor there.
Vodka- it's all a waste, any cocktail is better with some other major spirit.
These aren't like the "best" brands and there are some better values out there but are generally available and moderately priced. The rye/bourbon field is so stupidly crowded and varied, finding a best one is impossible.
The issue with cakey drinks is that they tend to require a bunch of heavy/creamy/sugary liquors.
If you're going for a cakey drink.
Jeffery Morgenthaler's videos/blog/book are a great resource on modern cocktails. But contradicting this video's specific point - Brandy, creme de cocoa, and ice cream in a blender is a recipe for some delicious disaster.
Rum and icecream is also a classic combination.
Both can also be pretty nice.
Spiking a choco-smoothie with Dooley's and havana club is fairly insidious.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
a shot of Gosling's Black Seal Rum into a Root Beer Float is a go-to for me.
or equal parts Lemonade and Sweet Tea Vodka (Firefly or Deep Eddy)
One of my favorite things lately though, is a Cherry Coke old fashioned.
1/2 oz Cola Syrup (my favorite has been this: https://www.amazon.com/Premium-Sno-Cone-Shaved-Syrup-Cola/dp/B00FXF2FKK?th=1 -- but it seems to be out of stock. Advice would be to go with a snow cone syrup though. Don't buy Monin brand for this)
2 oz Rye Whiskey
3 dashes cherry bitters
Stir these with ice, then drop a maraschino cherry in there, maybe some of the syrup from that jar
Toss in a goodly orange peel or garnish with a wedge of an orange.
I've noted this in other threads, but if you're looking to make mulled wine in party sized batches, a great way to do so is with a canister style coffee pot, the sort you see in church basements.
(If acquired secondhand, it's recommended to give it a good cleaning to get the coffee residue out.)
Take the coffee basket, line with cheesecloth, and put your mulling spices in there. Fill the vessel with cheap red,and plug in, and let sit for a bit. Guests can serve themselves from the tap.
Edit: If you need a non-alcoholic hot drink, replace the wine with apple cider for hot mulled cider for the neighborhood.
Also, regarding vodka, you can "clean up" cheaper brands with a carbon filter pitcher.