Has anyone in this thread ever been to a “standard Wisconsin tavern”?!? There’s no way in hell that a standard Wisconsin tavern is going to have even half of these drinks you’re touting. Ask for a Tiramisu-tini or a Chocolate Cake Shot and you’ll be instantly branded as someone who has no clue.
That said, here’s what I recommend, given your OP and the chances that they’ll be available at a Standard Wisconsin Tavern (SWT from now on):
They’ll probably have at least one version of those nifty drinks-in-a-bottle. Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Smirnoff’s version, Bacardi’s version, etc. Those more or less taste like pop, but a little less sweet. Try one - on a hot day they’re especially good.
Cocktails: of the cocktails listed on this thread, I’d guess you can get the following at the SWT:
Black Russian
White Russian
Old Fashioned (very yummy, but might be a bit too alcohol-y)
A couple of my favorites are Jack & Coke (or Jack & Diet Coke… even better if you get the kind with lime) and raspberry vodka (I usually call for Stoli, but Absolut or whatever is good, too) and tonic, with a twist of lime. Both nice and simple, not to sweet, and a healthy dose of life-giving liquor. Whiskey sours are good too, but only if you’re a fan of the brown booze.
A really sweet simple one is vanilla vodka and Coke. And, of course, there’s always the girly classic, the cosmo.
Of course, it is your 21st birthday, and if you wanted to go all out and end up on the floor, I’d just go for the straight tequila shooters.
There’s diet tonic available if regular tonic is too sweet for you. Tonic water can be pretty sweet.
Tonight, I need to marianate my chicken for 2 hours before I grill it. I plan to fill the time with some G&T’s or TnTnTs (that’s Tequila, Tonic and Triple Sec with lime. As far as I know, I invented it.)
I second Athena, as a person who has been to a LOT of “standard Wisco bars”.
Purl…don’t new drinkers in WI fall under the infamous 1975 “Brandy Alexander Mandate”? You coudl ask for a Cosmo, but the shot-and-beer guy behind the counter might twitch his monobrow at you and wander off in confusion.
You probably won’t like beer of any kind right off the bat. Then one day, you’ll find yourself with a nice tall-glassed Hacker-Pschorr with a lemon, and you’ll realize that beer is about as good as it gets.
And Whiterabbit, I love the Guinness, but do yourself a favor and find a Kostritzer Black. Wow.
I have to second (third? Whatever) not giving up on beer. Yeah, don’t waste your time on anything with “light” in the name (an interesting explanation why), as they will all tasted like watered down ass. Guinness I would recommend, but I’ve learned it’s not a universal taste. Killians, on the other hand, is enjoyed by most who try it, even if they don’t normally drink beer. Right now I’m drinking an interesting Dogfish Head Raison D’etre (which one really must love for the name alone).
Outside of that, I’d definitely recommend G&T or vodka tonic, as well as vodka cranberry, or a martini made with either liquor (I like both in certain moods, and really don’t feel like starting the polarizing argument on which is better). Note on gin: Go top-shelf. My first bar drink was a rail G&T, and it turned me off to gin altogether for a year and a half. Note on vodka: if you’re mixing, whatever the hell brand you want. For home mixing, I prefer Three Olives. For straight vodka, it’s Grey Goose, but as mentioned above it’s expensive.
Only Mostly Missus has a very small palate for alcohol. White/Pink wine and whisky sours (made with irish whisky). They’re all too sweet for me, and if you have to keep diabetes in mind, possibly for you too.
A vodka tonic with a slice of lime (take it off the side of the rim of glass; put it in the drink) is easy to order and easy to make, so you don’t have to help the bartender. Well vodka is fine: there is no such thing as a single malt vodka.
Do not mix whiskey with any kind of pop, diet or otherwise. Whiskey is drunk with club sode, sometimes with a lemon slice. You won’t like a martini as much as you think you will.
IME, it would be vodka, Kahlua, and club soda, layered in the glass with the club soda on top.
Miss Purl McKnittington, if you’re going to a bog-standard bar, the bartenders probably won’t be very good at mixing drinks, so you’d probably be best off sticking with very simple stuff like gin & tonic or maybe a lemon drop.
Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone. Unfortunately, it poured down rain last night, so we decided to stay in and watch movies. We bought a bottle of mead (holy crap! One glass was enough to make me flushed) and a bottle of champagne, and got warm and fuzzy off of that, with Ewan McGregor to help. A pretty good night, even if we weren’t surrounded by middle-aged farmers in feed caps.
Glad to hear you had a fun birthday…mmm, Ewan McGregor. Mmm.
I’m not big on drinking in bars anyway. Not that I’m a serious drinker anyway, but it’s a lot more expensive, and also if I want to go ahead and have that second glass of wine or whatever (I have amazingly low tolerance, though it’s slightly better than it used to be) I don’t have to worry about either acting silly in public or, more importantly, how to get home!
Mead! Excellent choice, it’s what I was thinking of recommending as I scrolled through the other posts. I would specifically advise Chaucer’s Mead, it’s quite good. Also, Southern Comfort mixed with some kind of soda, like Coke or cream soda, is downright delicious.
