Every once in a while you come across a bar that still has the same bottle of Galliano they opened back in 84, when the last Harvey Wallbanger was ordered.
Weird. The better cocktail bars here seem to move a lot of Negronis, and will often have their own ‘signature’ version of such.
Well, damn, this is going to bug me…
…until the country’s healthy enough for me to hang out at my favorite watering hole. Maybe I’ll pop in just to ask, but it’s kind of a petri dish in there (nothin’ but Clueless Old Guys).
I just bet there’s a bottle of absinthe or aperol that the bartender bought and forgot about. Of the big boozes, my guess is rum, although I do order a Rum ‘n’ Coke on occasion.
For a tiny sports bar, they do sell a surprising amount of higher-end Bourbons and Scotch, due to not charging much for it, and offering to school newbies like me on Sippin’ Whiskies.
This. Campari and soda is also a lot more refreshing than it has any right to be. We go through a bit of the concoction in our house.
OTOH, I can never get through a bottle of vermouth before it goes bad. Why they make chocolate and vanilla, I guess…
I’ll put in a vote for either Sambuca or Apple Liqueur/Schnapps. I like them both, but many people hate licorice and it looks like the Appletini craze went away some time ago.
I’m sort of surprised that I’m one of the few holdouts that still order Rum ‘n’ Coke in a bar. Well, Sailor and Coke… I order Gin ‘n’ Tonics, too!
Ennui.
If it’s a bar that serves shots to the 20-something crowd, these two bottles will move really fast. Apple Pucker is a VERY useful liqueur and is essential for any lowbrow mixologist.
What the hell are you talking about? Gin predates vodka in pretty much all of the Western world, having been Eastern European rot-gut for centuries.
Gin OTOH, derives from Dutch distillates of the sixteenth/seventeenth centuries- it wasn’t originally neutral alcohol, but rather more of something resembling a junipered whiskey than anything else. Over time, and with a few changes in venue, it gained its current styles, of which London Dry is only one.
And I’m with pulykamell- almost every gin drink is better with gin instead of vodka. Only a handful of vodka-only drinks are better that way, and they’re usually ones where the other flavors are pretty strong in their own right- Harvey Wallbangers, White Russians, etc… But Martinis, Tom Collinses, Gin Fizzes? Atrocious with vodka, just like 99% of other drinks intended for gin.
Looking at the shelves in liquor stores, booze in general seems to be doing quite well- there’s a surfeit of types, brands and styles of every major booze category these days. Rum especially- the rum aisle at most stores I’ve been to is as large or larger than the whiskey aisles. There’s fancy expensive aged rum, there’s cheap spiced rum, there’s all varieties and origins of rum there nowadays.
If I had to pick a spirit that seems to be suffering by comparison, it would be brandy/Cognac/Armagnac. There seems to be less shelf space devoted to the three of them combined than there is to any other liquor- stuff like whiskey, rum and vodka have more than 2x the shelf space of the grape distillates.
I’ll go out on a limb and say that brandy is on the verge of a big bump up in popularity. Maybe nothing like what’s happened to bourbon in the last few years, but there’s buzz building. I got sick of the whole bourbon chase and started buying Armagnacs and am now finding that there’s competition for many of the rarer bottlings.
Of course now that I say this, I went to find a story I read that backs my claim up. And I realize it came out in 2017. Maybe it happened and we all missed it?
But of course, the trust-fund douchebags, rappers, hangers-on and other such lice will ruin it for everybody. I remember ordering a nice cognac at a restaurant on the Vegas Strip for dessert and being asked if I wanted it on the rocks! When I rounded on the server with a hearty “Do I look like an asshole?” he laughed and noted that they got a lot of LA-types at that restaurant and he had to ask, because they committed all sorts of atrocities with good cognac. (He gave us a more-than-standard pour and got tipped handsomely.)
I’m willing to maim for a good armagnac.