Ask Alfred Soto

As I read this I am sipping a Blood Orange Beefeater gin (which I didn’t know existed) negroni. I heartily approve.

I like Beefeater because it's a straightforward gin at that pricepoint.

I'm so glad my 36-year-long revulsion for gin has passed. Also that I discovered Bristow (made by the Cathead vodka people).

The St. George's recommendation is of course choice, signed, someone who lives across the bay from where it's made, so.

I like gin as a cocktail ingredient, and I do notice variations in gin, but it's nothing I can ever get excited about the way I like (and enjoy) bourbons, tequilas/mezcals and rums. But then, I don't like martinis, and that seems to be the drink most beholden to gin.

*waves away vodka 'martinis'*

1:1:1 ratio is what makes a Negroni a Negroni, though everyone has their own taste and I would gladly accept your variation if you were making one for me.

Try a Bijou: Gin, Green Chartreuse, and sweet vermouth in equal parts. Stir with ice and strain. Garnish with cherry. One of my favorites.

I think ingredients make recipes not ratios. Agree w this ratio too fwiw.

"this" = Alfred's negroni

Negroni, like the corpse reviver #2 (more or less), is awesome for being an equal ratio cocktail. Easy to remember!

I avoid vodka entirely. I'm a total snob in that regard. I once heard vodka described as an elaborate prank played on Americans by Europeans.

xps I prefer 1.25 gin. 1 vermouth, and .75 Campari but ymmv and it depends on the gin

thought that said "yummy"

it is!

as far as highball riffs go, I've been mixing campari and topo chico lately.

Vodka is for people who don't like anything about alcohol besides getting trashed.

It's....irritating living in a city where Tito's is the official drink.

a shot of vodka in topo chico with a couple nuun hydration tablets over ice is good when the heat index is 110.

a shot of vodka in topo chico with a couple nuun hydration tablets over ice is good when the heat index is 110.

Another vote for St. George, I particularly like their Terroir gin. I visit my uncle in Alameda every year, but still haven't made it inside the distillery.

Summer's here, the time is right for Negronis.

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, June 20, 2019 2:28 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm surprised you describe a negroni as tart... that's not a flavour i associate with it

I see tarts everywhere.

lol

Bitter tarts.

#%&@ tarts, let’s dance!

"Ask Alfred Soto to Link to His Blog"

should link to my Ginmo account.

*waiting for Alfred Soto to write about Scott Miller & Game Theory*

*mixes Negroni*

TS: Soto Linking To His Blog vs. Morbs Linking Perrin Tweets.

Vodka is for people who don't like anything about alcohol besides getting trashed.

Eastern Europe simultaneously concurs and begs to differ.

Vodka is for people who don't like anything about alcohol besides getting trashed.

― Yerac

there's a very good russian restaurant where i live that offers vodka flights; vodka is certainly strong drink but based on my experience there i would definitely have to say they have more to offer than that

vodka is certainly strong drink

Read this with a muzhik accent.

I like some of the russian infused vodka rooms but vodka is a characterless, neutral, neutral spirit. It's not interesting besides the high abv and using it as a vehicle to get wasted (or I guess to keep warm).

It's literally called 'little water', so it's supposed to be as neutral as possible. I happen to like that, but I get where you're coming from.

People resent vodka for exposing the underlying trashiness of all cocktails.

Des Esseintes would like to have a word with you.

They make alcohol free vodka now, which I have not tried but seriously, I can see how the alcohol free gins and whiskey have a point but with vodka...?

I don't think cocktails are innately trashy, but I think vodka is kinda trashy.

How so?

Drinking makeshift screwdrivers with bottom shelf vodka & orange crush gave me an enduring aversion to the little water, despite a few good times with it since in classy russian restos.

I feel that way about tequila and rum. It's Pavlovian.

I'd rather channel my resentment to the execrable mimosa.

How so?

It's all a matter of perception, I guess, but I associate vodka primarily with either joyless hard drinkers or college kids who just dump a gallon into whatever juice or sweet beverage they have on hand. There's no nuance to it, imo, just a neutral strong spirit that pairs well with aggressively stupid marketing at both the luxury end and at the silly My First Drink end. Tequila and rum (and bourbon) are imo really complex spirits with a lot of variety and craft to them, and I've found that people with bad memories of those spirits base them mostly on drinking too much of the worst quality stuff at the worst time (usually college). I would never drink straight gin, but I know plenty of people who claim a gin aversion who probably had a similarly wrong/bad experience (perhaps by drinking straight gin?). But vodka is always vodka, and doesn't really add anything to drinks beyond alcohol, imo, which again, lends itself to getting drunk in the sloppiest way possible. So yeah, when I think vodka, I either think Siberia or Kappa Kappa Trash Juice.

Fair enough. I resent that Eastern European drinks are systematically associated with alcoholism, but if the WHO's data is anything to go by, there's more than a grain of truth to it. That said, I genuinely enjoy the flavourlessness of vodka – there's a certain minimalistic purity to it, especially when it's served chilled.

Yeah, there is definite diminishing returns with vodka re price. At least you can get a premium whiskey, rum, mezcal even mimosa cocktail that would be really great because of source ingredients, labor, aging. Premium vodka is like, here is quadruple distilled super pure ethanol!

Although if I had to sterilize a wound I would choose the vodka over the mimosa.

it rubs the vodka on its skin

more than a grain of truth to it.

Nice

I like vodka cream sauce.

If vodka gets associated with degenerate Russians, surely gin should have the same reputation except with Britishers?