I wasn’t going to drink today, but now I’m thirsty…
Just drink it straight from the bottle, avoids any confusion!
True. But the nice thing about a rocks glass is you can get your nose in there as you’re drinking and get a nice, healthy whiff of the bourbon, and it really does heighten the flavor and experience in general.
Yeah, I just call that drink a “gin & grapefruit” cuz I just don’t trust bartenders these days to know what a greyhound or its salt-rimmed cousin, the salty dog, is.
I’m a young’en (27), but I want to drink where you drink. All my favorite drinks are seriously old school - cider, Manhattans… I want to go out and try a Chartreuse Episcopal, but I have very little faith in the local bars…
I like whiskey served in one of these.
It’s hard to tell the size here, but it’s larger than a shot class and about 1/3 the size of a rocks glass.
I guarantee you that none of your local bars will know what it is. FWIW, “Chartreuse Episcopal” is not the name of a drink; it was the name of a specific blend that the monks put out for their <mumble>-hundredth anniversary, and it is no longer available. The boys at the Zig Zag in Seattle got their hands on a bottle and then decided to reverse-engineer it. The proportions they came up with (60/40) really do taste remarkably like the official blend.
But you’re best off just buying your own bottles and making it at home.
Back to the bourbon thing: I don’t like straight whiskey, but I will admit that the practice of serving bourbon in a rocks glass with a single large spherical ice “cube” does intrigue me. The theory is that you start off with very cold ice and then the spherical shape minimizes the surface area, so it chills the drink and melts slowly, so you get a little water to open up the flavors without over-diluting the drink.
Nope. (I’ve been a bartender before.)
They’ve corrupted the martini–we must stand & fight!
There are some very serious young bartenders in Houston. Here’s the menu for Anvil–with just a sample of their full drink selection. They also offer The List of 100 Cocktails we all should sample.
So. I saw ‘bourbon’ in the title and I thought, “I could go for some MOL humor right now.” I had no doubt that you would be posting within the first 10 posts.
After many years of teetotaling, I decided to start drinking again. I like a double shot of straight tequila, warm. I was in Manhattan when the bartender taught me the proper way to order it (neat).
When I’m home in East Bumbafuck Rochester, NY, I still try to order that way, all cool souding and shit. Never works. They chill my drink with ice, or serve it on the rocks or put lemons or limes all around it, they toss salt at me. WTF.
Try asking them for a “water back” with your bourbon next time, and see what you get…
You’re the best.
Uhh, you’d get a glass of water? Don’t tell me there’s confusion over what a water back is now.
Seriously, WTF. Thankfully I already had the glass of water before I ordered the bourbon so it wasn’t an issue for me. It’s not like bartenders are making brain surgeon wages here. How difficult could it be for a bar to have a well-educated bartender? I know there are bartending schools locally. Is there really no call for simple bar service anymore?
I just found a new to-do list!
That reminds me, I’ve been meaning to try a sidecar…
Well, I’m more of a Scotch drinker, but I’m pretty sure you don’t have to be a genius to know “neat” means “no fucking ice”.
But you’d be surprised how many bartenders either don’t know it, or forget it when they make your drink. I had a never-to-be-sufficiently-damned bartender in San Antonio serve me 18 year old Macallan on the rocks! The waitress was a bit shocked when I flipped the ice cubes out of my glass with a spoon onto the table. Cowboys don’t appreciate good Scotch.
The norm around my area is this:
straight-up means: straight out of bottle,nothing added; but chilled-whatever the method(straining through ice or refrig.)
neat means: straight out of bottle @ room temperature
I missed this one back in 2010 but I’d always thought that a neat bourbon was a 2oz pour, not the standard shot of 1.5oz.
I just looked around and it seems that this isn’t at all universal.
Discuss.
Not any place I’ve been. To me, neat and up mean the same thing: liquor in a snifter or rocks glass straight from the bottle. No chilling, no diluting. I’ve never encountered any difference in the amount of liquor poured when the terms are used. Since I only patronize places with generous bartenders/owners, I get a healthy amount each serving.
I agree.
I asked for a Jim Beam neat and got a Manhatten. I can’t stand Vermouth and tasted it immediately. When I questioned the dunce who served it to me she gave me the deer in headlights look and said “isn’t that was neat means?”
This was in an expensive hotel bar!:mad:
A lot of bars, including those in high priced restaurants don’t make Old Fashioned Cocktails correctly either. I had better not see you reach for a god damned bottle of Jero mix!:mad::mad:
Some things are just regional though. Around here if I want bourbon with white soda I’ll ask for “Beam and sweet”. In a lot of other places in the U.S. they don’t know what the heck I’m asking for.