| ▲ | antognini 2 days ago |
| If anyone is interested in getting into cocktails I really can't recommend Cocktails with Suderman enough. The early posts are free and go into the theory of how cocktails are structured and why they work. Once you start to understand the structure of the major cocktails it makes it a lot easier to understand how you can play with the ingredients and make something new. For instance, tons of cocktails fall into the "sour" category. They usually have proportions of 2:1:1 or 3:1:1 of a liquor, a sour, and a syrup. If you have rum, lime juice, and simple syrup it's a daiquiri. Swap out the lime juice for lemon juice and the rum for whiskey and you get a whiskey sour. Swap out the simple syrup for honey syrup and you get a Gold Rush. Use tequila, lime juice, and a blend of agave syrup and Cointreau and you have a margarita. Gin, lime, and simple syrup is a gimlet. And so on. Also, as others have mentioned, the quality of the ingredients and the brands often matter a lot. A Manhattan calls for whiskey, sweet vermouth, and bitters, but the choice of whiskey and vermouth makes a big difference in the character of the drink. (And if you are using old vermouth that has been sitting out on the counter for a few years, or making a drink with bottled lime juice, it's just not going to turn out all that good.) https://cocktailswithsuderman.substack.com/ |
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| ▲ | matsemann 2 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| My second advice would be ice ice ice. A bartender uses copious amounts of ice. It's for a reason. If you make a mojito at home and just chuck two ice cubes in, you will either get waaayyy too much soda in when filling the glass, a too hot drink, too watered down etc. |
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| ▲ | Avalaxy 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > A bartender uses copious amounts of ice. It's for a reason. $$$$$$$$$ | | |
| ▲ | matsemann 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Hehe. But where I'm from (Norway) it's only allowed to serve drinks with 40 cl (edit, I meant 4 cl heh) of liquor (with exceptions for international recognized cocktails). So if you were to get less ice you wouldn't get anything more for your money anyways. Except more soda water and a diluted taste. | | |
| ▲ | jansan 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | International recognized cocktails must be quite popular in Norway. I remember when going to Norway for a friend's wedding and they explicitly asked all guests to bring the maximum allowed limit of liquor with them. I understood this after I saw the ridiculous high prices at those liquor stores, which they shamelessly call "wine monopoly" and have higher security than bank buildings. You guys sure have a special relationship with ethanol. | | |
| ▲ | matsemann 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, strict rules. But the Wine Monopoly is great and quite beloved. For more expensive wines/liquors where the alcohol tax is a small amount of the total price, it's actually reasonably priced. The monopoly get good prices due to the volume they purchase of stuff. And the selection is great. In Denmark for instance, every store has a selection of alcohol, but it's quite limited and always the same everywhere. You have to hunt for specialty stores. But the monopoly has everything even in smaller cities. | | |
| ▲ | cinntaile 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | In Denmark you're not dependent on a monopoly for your selection, you can order whatever you like. Wine Monopoly is by definition a specialty store. It's state subsidised, operating and capital expenses are almost irrelevant so that's why you have everything in smaller cities as well. This comes at a financial cost of course. | |
| ▲ | elygre 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The two revelations of the wine monopoly. The first is «you have a monopoly???», and then later «and you actually like that?????» | | |
| ▲ | jenadine 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | It is a state owned monopoly, whose purpose is to address the actual problem of too high alcohol consumption, and not necessarily to make profit.
I'm sure not everyone likes it though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinmonopolet | | |
| ▲ | cess11 2 days ago | parent [-] | | If it's anything like Sweden they have coddled reactionaries that are incapable of even the slightest planning and hence are constantly whining about the monopoly not being open at night or some weekend when they get a sudden urge to get drunk. For someone who drinks moderately and enjoys variety and access to obscure alcohol products it's likely a very good deal, as it is in Sweden. If I want a single bottle of lebanese Ksarak it'll cost me roughly fifty euros and I'll walk across the street to pick it up after a week or so. Unless I'm misunderstanding something the danish have to get it from german suppliers, though it'll be a bit cheaper (~33 euros), probably due to taxes. Sometimes I've engaged in tentative planning of imports, e.g. ukrainian bubbly wine and whatnot, but it typically falls through because people don't actually want to put in the effort to organise a drive or getting someone to mail a package, even if there would be a bit of money in it. On the other hand it's trivial to get into contact with people running rather large scale imports of cheap beer and wine from Germany that sell for less than the monopoly takes. I don't think there is actually any improvement to gain from getting rid of the monopoly, it would quickly turn our local alcohol availability into something similar to what I've seen in Russia and Bulgaria, fifty shades of Flirt vodka, sour wine and useless lager. The rest I'd have to import myself. | | |
| ▲ | SOLAR_FIELDS 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I mean give the reactionaries a little credit. The systembolaget by my house closes at 1500 on Saturdays. Come on. It is a really reasonable deal to buy from there though often. Selection is pretty good and the taxes on beer and wine are less and as a result due to the flat markup you can get really good deals on fine wines and the like. | | |
| ▲ | cess11 2 days ago | parent [-] | | The one where I live closes at 1400. I've never been bothered by that, if something social suddenly comes up that I'd like to be tipsy for I'd grab something I already have or buy some "people's beer". I.e. 2.8 or 3.5 percent alcohol, available at any grocery store, cornershop or petrol station, sometimes lovingly called "emergency rockets". In my area it's also trivial to find both illegal vodka and legal beer people make at home, which is common outside the larger cities in Sweden. This compensates for the lack of greyzone importers from Germany and Denmark. | | |
| ▲ | impossiblefork a day ago | parent [-] | | I think the big appeal for me with Systembolaget is actually their non-alcoholic alternatives. You simply can't get anything of that level in a normal store. Dealcoholized Rieseling, Morello cherry juice, cider apple juice, etc. | | |
| ▲ | SOLAR_FIELDS a day ago | parent | next [-] | | In general the NA game of Sweden (and Denmark) is incredible compared to many other countries. My understanding is that there is a law in Sweden that indicates that bars must offer non-alcoholic options and as such there's a pretty large market demand and opportunity for the popular craft breweries like Mikeller to come in and make awesome NA beer that the whole region gets to enjoy. | |
| ▲ | cess11 a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yeah, that's another perk. Service is typically very good as well, you can ask for advice and get decent, trustworthy answers beyond what shelf something is on. It's a quite different experience compared to regular profit optimised mass retail. Now, I'm very aware of the drawbacks for local producers. It's a bit tricky to get things onto the monopoly shelves, you can't have anything the least provocative or advert-like on the label and even if you're only going to sell through your local monopoly shop you still need to price in sending your bottles to a logistics hub in Örebro or wherever. This is surely annoying, but pretty much every monopoly shop has inventory from local smalltime craft brewers and distillers and the like anyway. As I see it, this is an unexploited business opportunity, one could likely live quite comfortably skimming a margin from small alcohol producers in exchange for lower transport costs and reliable advice in product design that shortens time to market. |
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| ▲ | tallanvor 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's definitely not loved by everyone here! Really the main concern a lot of people have is what will happen to prices if they got rid of it. The limits on how much they can mark up the prices does, like the previous commenter noted, mean that the more expensive stuff is actually more "reasonable". |
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| ▲ | Barbing 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >40 cl of liquor RIP all Norwegian drinkers [typo correction and conversion likely: 4 cl = 40 ml ≈ 1.35 fl oz] | | |
| ▲ | SOLAR_FIELDS 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Alcohol is insanely expensive in Norway. Not the place to be if you are a big drinker | | |
| ▲ | OldfieldFund 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Unpopular opinion, but I think this is a great idea for alcohol and cigarettes, especially in areas with high rates of alcoholism. | | |
| ▲ | SOLAR_FIELDS 2 days ago | parent [-] | | That is in fact why alcohol is insanely expensive in Norway. Because they have historically had high rates of alcoholism and want to combat that. | | |
| ▲ | punnerud a day ago | parent [-] | | Long ago there was a law that every farm in Norway had to produce beer, because the king could potentially visit.
It’s said coffee was introduced to try to reduce the alcohol consumption, but Norwegians kept consuming alcohol like before and staring to drink large amount of coffee also. |
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| ▲ | pc86 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's because of the insane taxes and government-owned monopoly on sales. But you'll still find apologists in this thread saying with a straight face that "it's actually reasonably priced" which is objectively false. | | |
| ▲ | tallanvor 2 days ago | parent [-] | | It's really only because of the taxes. Vinmonopolet prices are marked up by 10.4 NOK per liter plus 21% of the purchase price excluding taxes and duties up to a maximum of 250kr per item. Of course, this means they can't have loss-leaders, but at the same time, you can end up with very good deals on expensive drinks relative to many other countries. Of course I would love to see Norway lower some of it's sin taxes - these mostly only hurt poor people. |
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| ▲ | beAbU 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | 40ml is a decent double tot. I would not want more than that in a single drink anyway. Especially if its a strong liquor! | | |
| ▲ | pc86 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | 40ml is 1.3 oz so not even a double. I didn't realize the Norwegians were all drinking weak cocktails! | | |
| ▲ | beAbU a day ago | parent [-] | | For some reason I had in my mind that a shot was 20ml, but clearly I'm wrong. A cocktail with only a single shot of liquor, especially if the rest of the drink is large volume, is pretty weak I agree. |
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| ▲ | Jedd 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | In Australia, a nip of alcohol (spirits) is 30ml - so anything involving more than one ingredient is generally multiples of that. |
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| ▲ | wrsh07 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In _regarding cocktails_, the note from the author is that it's better to have a cold drink with too much ice than one that isn't staying cold The tacit advice is to drink faster than the ice melts (and if there is no ice, enjoy quickly) Anecdotally at home and out, I've found I agree. But it could be a mental trick | | |
| ▲ | Rooster61 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Interesting that the size of the ice is not mentioned. I find large pieces of ice to be ideal as they cool the drink for longer yet don't overly water down the drink due to less surface area melting off. Also, I HATE when bartenders add too little ice to shaken drinks and end up shaking it to oblivion. Makes me not want to order drinks from that particular bar. | | |
| ▲ | Wojtkie 2 days ago | parent [-] | | It does make a difference. The big rock ice is great for whiskey and scotch the reason you mentioned; keeps it cold with minimal dilution. Crushed ice is great when you want dilution, like in a mint julep. It really depends on the style of cocktail and personal preference. |
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| ▲ | pnt12 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | A decent bartender will measure the drinks regardless of ice. I've been doing them at home and a generous amount of ice leads to better results, especially if you like ice cold drinks! | |
| ▲ | johnisgood 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What do you mean by that? In many European countries or cities, ice in your "iced latte" is unheard of. | | | |
| ▲ | bongodongobob 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yeah, I have a 22 year old friend who thinks this as well. His drinks are fucking terrible. | |
| ▲ | reverendsteveii 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | it's really not though. you're getting 1.5 oz liquor whether I put it in a shot glass, a rocks glass with no ice, a rocks glass with half a scoop of ice, a shaker with a full scoop of ice and then strain into a martini glass, a highball glass full of ice, a pint glass with no ice, w/e. Most mixers are so dirt cheap compared to the tremendous margin on alcohol that it doesn't make a ton of difference. |
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| ▲ | morberg 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I find it really strange that the IBA list does no longer include the gimlet. |
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| ▲ | dbl000 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I also want to shout out The Sprits which serves as a book club for cocktails. Very good if you're just exploring. Each week you get a cocktail and a themed playlist to go with it, plus some other random musings. https://thespirits.substack.com |
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| ▲ | ReptileMan 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| My rule of thumb for cocktails is - they were created to mask the flavors of shitty base liquors so this is what should be used. The best old fashioned comes from jim beam white label. Unless you use some really strong medicinal smoked whiskeys you probably won't be able to pick up much of the delicate flavors from the good stuff with so much syrup and bitters in it. and if you want to add complexity - just make a more complex syrup. |
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| ▲ | kingnothing 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I'm not advocating to use limited release bourbons, but when 90% of your drink is the base spirit, you'll get a lot of value out of using a traditional top shelf bourbon vs well like Jim. Try a $40 bottle like Eagle Rare or Angel's Envy. There's not much syrup in a good old fashioned -- go with 2oz bourbon, a teaspoon of simple or good maple syrup, and a couple dashes of Angostura. Maybe a dash of black walnut bitters, too. The higher quality whiskey should be apparent. | |
| ▲ | Karawebnetwork 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | When I treat myself to an expensive bottle as a treat, I go against conventional wisdom and use it at least once to make my favourite cocktails. While I agree that a simple bottle is best suited for cocktails, I can't remember an expensive base liquor ever spoiling a cocktail. For some, this is a waste because the premium taste takes a back seat to the cocktails, but often the result is better due to the subtle flavour profile of higher-quality spirits. | |
| ▲ | omnimus 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | To be fair Jim Beam is not that shitty. It’s cheap but there are way worse bourbons. | |
| ▲ | 8note 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | you can make cocktails with subtler adjuncts just fine. Tea bases are a bunch of fun | |
| ▲ | FuriouslyAdrift 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I recommend a high proof (bottled in bond or cask strength) rye in most whiskey drinks | |
| ▲ | kenanfyi 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Wasn‘t it Woodford Reserve? I think I never used Jim Beam for an old-fashioned. | | |
| ▲ | scott_w 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Yes and I don't know how they manage it but Woodford Reserve somehow makes the worst old fashioned money can buy. I find Wild Turkey makes a decent tasting old fashioned that you can make at home with not much knowledge. |
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| ▲ | reverendsteveii 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This. As someone for whom food & bev was a career for 18 years and now it's a dedicated hobby Suderman is the Salt Fat Acid Heat of booze. It's graduating past memorizing recipes and into theory and framework. Also please God pour out that old vermouth, get a new one and put it in your fridge. |
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| ▲ | moehm 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > Also please God pour out that old vermouth, get a new one and put it in your fridge. Don't pour it out, but deglaze your pan the next time you cook. |
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| ▲ | FuriouslyAdrift 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Vermouth, like wine, has a short shelf life once opened and really should be chilled to keep it's flavors. |
