Maybe it depends on what Maastricht means by “elaborate,” but, at least in my circle, home bars and making cocktails at home never went out of style. Most of my friends with homes (and pretty much my whole family) have some sort of well-stocked bar with a few mixers so you can throw together a good variety of cocktails together if need be. And this is how it’s always been.
Really? Mai-Tai’s, Tequila Sunrises with a little colorful umbrella with pieces of fruit, Margarita’s with fresh mint and salt around the glass rim? All that stuff?
Invite me to your friend’s homes, then !
I haven’t made stuffed cabbage in ages, really because my husband isn’t a fan. I do make a version of a stuffed cabbage casserole, if you will. All the flavors except the cabbage is coarsely chopped and everything is mixed together. My daughter and I enjoy it, and in fact, I was thinking about making some this weekend.
I’m not sure about the pies, I haven’t been looking for one, but I know Boston cream doughnuts are usually readily available. They are my daughter’s favorite.
I’m surprised to see shrimp cocktail on these lists. Any mid-priced restaurant with any kind of seafood selection around here has one. It is true that it no longer represents high-end luxury the way it once did.
- Come on by! 2. Anybody who puts mint within 100 meters of a Margarita ought to be horse-whipped. c. We have a whole set of cocktail umbrellas that look just like Kaylee’s parasol on Firefly. IV. The fruit gives you your morning fiber!
Mint in a margarita? What the hell do you crazy Hollanders do out there?
But, yes, mint from the garden for a proper mojito. The colorful umbrellas can be found only in some of my friends’ bars, but toothpicks with olives, maraschino cherries, citrus slices? Sure. Maybe not at all times, but when expecting company for cocktails, certainly.
More typical cocktails would be gin & tonics (with lime, of course), manhattans, old fashioneds (with maraschino and orange), martinis (with olive). Long island iced tea. Gimlets. Maybe tequila sunrise. Not unusual. But I hang around with drinkers, so there’s that. Polish people kind of take pride in the variety and amount of liquor in their bar (my parent’s bar probably has around 50-70 bottles of liquor in it.)
We should start another thread on Cocktails That Have Gone Out of Style.
I enjoy an occasional Bronx, myself.
At least in the circles I’ve run in, most people always drank beer and wine, and if they branched out at bars, it was almost always in the form of some kind of highball- rum & coke, whiskey & coke, gin & tonic, vodka & tonic, etc… If not that, then some kind of “shot”, meaning something meant to be downed in a single gulp, typically in a communal setting (i.e. “let’s have shots!” meant that everyone was having one at the same time) Often these were closer to what we’d call an “elaborate cocktail” in terms of ingredients, but in terms of the actual drinking experience, they were light years away.
But now that it’s a trend to have “craft” cocktails at any restaurant that’s not a nationwide chain, the people I know are much more likely to actually drink those, and a few of us have actually turned it into something of a hobby. Another thing to note is that magazines like “Texas Monthly” publish cocktail recipes from notable restaurants and bars in the state as a regular thing. I don’t recall that being a common practice until the past few years.
Huh. Now that’s a trend I’d be a fan of.
No normal Dutch modern household has a bar, let alone one with stuff for making cocktails. Dutch houses -and kitchens- are small anyway, and if people splurge on anything to impress guests with, it’s more likely to be an elaborate barista-like coffee machine. I always find those things overly large, sometimes they are as big as a diswasher, in an otherwise miniature kitchen. That trend is past its prime at the moment, though. The current It thing is steam ovens, I believe.
A Dutch a beer enthusiast will have a collection of beers, each with the right glass. Same for a whiskey fan or a wine aficionado. But usually people will be just one of these. It’s hard to find a beer fan that is also a wine connoiseur, or vice versa.
Some cocktails hav made a recent come back in our hipper bars. More and more bars serve mojito’s ( that is the one with the mint, you’re right). They have the mint handy anyway for all those ladies requesting fresh mint tea.
Two summers ago, all Dutch terraces served the Hugo. Last summer it was the Spritz Aperol.
But anyway, only some Mexican chain restaurants serve a wider variety of cocktails. Which I can’t order because then I have to drive home. But the few times I ordered one, I found them to be a “party in a glass” I love cocktails ! . 
Yeah, my time in the Netherlands led me to believe that it’s primarily a beer and wine nation, or of people who like particular spirits. I actually took the father of the groom at the wedding I went to over there a bottle of artisanal bourbon because he fancies himself a connoisseur, but can’t get much other than the mass-market stuff. He about fell over when I gave it to him.
That’s interesting about the Mexican restaurant thing; here they pretty much serve beer, margaritas and some have a very wide variety of tequila/mescal for sipping. Not much else in the way of cocktails. Some may have a frozen sangria that they use in conjunction with their frozen margaritas for some drinks.
Here’s a drink that Texas Monthly published and that I’ve actually had in the wild, so to speak. It’s excellent.
Really? I haven’t seen it in years. Most places have some sort of shrimp appetizer on the menu, but it’s usually something like grilled shrimp or coconut shrimp. Some restaurants (mainly buffets) have peel and eat shrimp, but that’s not quite the same as the old fashioned shrimp cocktail served in a glass containing cocktail sauce with 3-5 jumbo shrimp perched on the rim.
Yeah, the size of the house matters. It’s typically not in the kitchen, though, at least not around here. My parents have it off the family room. My brother has it downstairs in a secondary entertainment room (we might call it a “den.”) A finished basement is another popular spot for them. This would be for a house around 120 square meters.
I think the mistake many people make with the sauce/ketchup on meatloaf is putting it on way too early in the cooking process. Ideally, you should wait until the loaf itself is finished cooking, and then apply the sauce and pop it back in the oven for another 5-10 minutes. Or, even better, mix it into the raw mixture. That way it imparts its flavor and also makes the end product more moist.
One restaurant item I recall from my childhood that I never see any more is the “bacon & egg sandwich”. I suppose this has simply evolved into the modern “breakfast sandwich” that is typically made with an English muffin or biscuit, but the “breakfast sandwich” is generally considered, as the name implies, a breakfast food. The bacon & egg sandwiches I remember from the 1970s were served on toast, with mayonnaise, and appeared on lunch and dinner menus.