How about this: “Immature people have no credibility. How do you tell a grown-up from an immature person? The immature person orders what s/he thinks looks cool. Grown-ups order what they want.”
I have never gotten the faux prestige that some people think your choice of beverage carries.
Tequila Sunrise best drink in the house. 
My 8 years of bartending experience agrees with you wholeheartedly.
For mixed drinks if you want to avoid being a douchebag at a bar do the exact opposite of a Soccer Mom at Starbucks.
You know that drink from old Daffy Duck cartoons? That is mixed while wearing gloves and a welder’s mask, produces a small mushroom cloud and dissolves spoons?
That drink.
Items ordered in Beatles movies. “Two lagers and lime, and two lagers and lime” is the bar order just before Ringo drops into the tiger pit in “Help!”
No drink really conveys credibility, but an obscure beer says that you are a curious person who is willing to explore.
If I want something as a conversation starter, I would order Tsingtao or maybe an imported Japanese beer. The label announces to the world what you’re drinking so you don’t have to be a douche bag about it by yelling your order to make sure everyone hears. And if you can then mutter a couple sentences about the origin of the beer and it’s flavor, that closes the deal.
Of course I don’t actually believe anything I just wrote, but it’s fun to babble.
Chocolate milk, baby. Ice cold.
Pan-Galactic Gargle-Blaster for me please, barman!
Anyone who can use “attendant antitheses” in a sentence has ‘cred’ with me!
Smile and say “Louis 13” and you will impress all the chicks with your credibility.
I often get drink cred when I’m out, and I think it’s hilarious. At the bar I’m usually ordering a whisk(e)y of some sort (can be bourbon, scotch, Irish, rye, depending on the bar and its selection) usually neat, at times with very light rocks, or gin on light rocks. Occasionally a gimlet, and even more occasionally, if the bar has a decent rum selection, which most American bars unfortunately do not, a dark rum neat or with light rocks. People seem to think I’m srs bizns because of this, and I’m almost certain it’s because I’m a woman, and particularly because I am a woman who isn’t old yet.
Pointless story: Some months ago I went to the bar and ordered a Beefeater light rocks while a bartender was training a(n ostensibly new) bartender. New guy pours some precisely measured jigger over ice, when old guy says, “Make that a real pour. Someone ordering gin on rocks doesn’t want no wuss drink.” I don’t know that guy, but I like him.
Further clarification: anything called a martini that doesn’t comprise of gin and vermouth should be called something else.
Fair enough, regarding not ordering something stupid like “beer,” but I always assumed that when ordering a mixed drink, you were accepting well unless otherwise stated. When I order a gin gimlet (and I bristle that I have to make that distinction considering a gimlet is made with gin, and the vodka intruders have forced me to specify), I always assume I’m getting rail. Occasionally they will ask if I have a preference, and I’ll say rail is fine. When I have a preference, however, I will say so.
All of the aforementioned.
Wait. I knew Harvey Wallbangers were out of style, but Singapore Slings are too? Fuck if I know anything.
Yeah, we get it.:rolleyes:
You still look like a weirdo or a girl drink drunk for ordering a cosmo or some sort of fruity umbrella laden concoction. If you don’t care, that’s your business.
Any woman ordering a cosmo looks like she’s trying to be Sex And The City superfan number one.
You don’t walk into a Belgian beer bar or microbrew bar and ask for a “Bud Light”. First of all they typically won’t have it. Second, why would you order the crappiest possible beer?
30-year-old single malt scotch
Or drinking a banana daiquiri with 151 Bacardi
I only hope that you’re saying “Louis Treize” and not “Louie Thirteen”!
I don’t always drink beer. But when I do, I prefer Dos Equis. 
This kind of thing genuinely mystifies me. What kind of person gives a flying fuck what kind of drink another person likes to drink, much less judge them? Hint: good pubs have a range of drinks to suit every taste and pocket.
It’s primarily applicable to shots. Cocktails aren’t so finicky. Ordering a “whiskey shot” is the same as ordering a “beer”. Ordering a whiskey and coke is traditional, though I somewhat question folks that will drink well to save 50 cents over Jack or Makers.
“Be Somebody!”
Right on. My liquor tastes are similar, but even as a guy, I still get the odd drink cred when none is sought. I’m flying a lot these days, and it’s something of a pre-flight ritual to order a scotch neat. I like the drink, and it puts me in a good mood for commercial air travel, but it nevertheless draws a nod of approval or compliment from bartenders and patrons.
Absolutely standard practice in my view. If I just say a generic type of liquor, I expect the rails. Bartenders at nicer places do sometimes ask if I have one in mind, but they don’t mind asking.
OK, quick question fellow Doper alcoholics cough I mean spirit connoisseurs cough …
I’ll fess up. I’m not a big gin drinker, but I do like my gin & tonics in the summer (as well as gimlets, or what is known redundantly as “gin gimlets” these days). I also like the regular Bombay gin. The Sapphire is fine, but I like my gin & tonics with just the bog standard Bombay gin (the one in the clear bottle). What’s the accepted way of specifying this? It seems if I say Bombay & tonic, the Sapphire is assumed. I even just checked “Bombay gin” in Wikipedia, and it redirects to the Sapphire.
Or should I just order them with Beefeaters and not be troubled with this conundrum?