Ask Alfred Soto

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?

As far as I'm concerned, it already does.

Oh and don't forget the Poles.

But really, wine and beer are wholesome table beverages. Cocktails are refined expressions of drunkenness; they aim to remove the trashiness from getting trashed. Otherwise we'd be drinking smoothies. It's OK to want to get trashed; we need some degree of familiarity with oblivion.

I would never drink straight gin

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 21 June 2019 15:45 (fifty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You're missing out on a whole world of fun. Depends on the gin of course, but given a slightly more complex one (Pickerings and Nordes are my current two go tos) I rather enjoy sipping my way through a few measures. I find a tonic, or even cocktails, can too easily overpower the lovely differences between them.

And yes, prior to the recent craft explosion, gin certainly had the reputation in Britain of being primarily for depressed housewives (being known as "Mother's Ruin") or for your man on the street.

Gin, like vodka, can be made with pretty common ingredients, pretty much anywhere, and is. From distilleries to bathtubs, hence (probably) their bad historic reputations. There's no "bathtub bourbon" or "bathtub tequila."

there's a very good russian restaurant where i live that offers vodka flights

Of course, I read this as 'vodka fights.'

Gin is basically vodka but macerated with or distilled again with juniper/botanicals. I'm a little curious to try those no alcohol gins, but I can also just drink flavored water.

When it comes to bad reputations, nothing beats Hogarth and his 'Beer Street' (industriousness, good company, etc) and 'Gin Lane' (everything going to shit all at once) two print combo. Sorry not sorry for the huge image but the details are what make it:

https://girlvsglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/hogarth-beer-gin-a3.jpg

There's no "bathtub bourbon" or "bathtub tequila."

Sure there is, they're just not allowed to call it that on printed labels.

No there's not, not really. Bourbon by definition has to be aged for a couple of years in a virgin barrel, among other hoops to jump through. And tequila has to be made from agave plants, which only grow in a couple of places and take 7 years to mature. So yeah, while in theory both can be DIY, they take a lot of D-ing. Years.

Rum can be made anywhere, too, and is, but needs sugar cane (that was the impetus of the sugar tax pre-Revolutionary War! There used to be dozens of rum distilleries in New England, with cane imported from the French West Indies, irking the Brits).

Trivia from the wiki entry on "bathtub gin:" "Many gin cocktails owe their existence to bathtub gin, as they were also created in order to mask the unpleasant taste." Hmm, didn't really occur to me, but I guess this makes sense! "Prohibition era"=drink whatever you can get your mitts on era.

Josh, google sotol or pulque. Tequila is just one of dozens of agave liquors except it has the twin forces of law and marketing behind it. Same's true of bourbon, which is just a special kind of whiskey, which is pretty much any liquor made from cereal grains and aged in wooden barrels. Only reason there isn't more homemade whiskey in the US is because it's illegal. And it's only illegal because there's no good way to tax it, and currently licensed distilleries don't have any motivation to create more competition for themselves.

it's not just taxes and marketing it's also protectionism of the name and any regulatory standards that go into the process or origin of an alcohol. Most other countries are stricter than the US in how they label products.

The US is all messed up. FFS the same tax bureau that oversees firearms and explosives deals with alcohol.

I actually have a couple of bottles of sotol (which afaict is one of about 6 types of agave spirits, including tequila, mezcal, raicilla, etc.). I like it! My point was that agave is a relatively rarified ingredient, and while people have traditionally been making spirits from it for ages, it's not something the vast majority of the world has access to; I've always thought the concept of "bathtub (x)" was something that can be whipped up by anyone, from moonshiners to the dudes in M*A*S*H. And while anyone can make whiskey, yeah, at least of some sort, bourbon specifically, by law, requires a handful of "special" attributes (most notably aging it for a couple of years in a virgin oak barrel) that make it hard for people to simply whip up it on demand over a couple of weeks, like they can gin or vodka or moonshine or even I guess rum. Now, you can argue those rules/restrictions are arbitrary, or just hoops to tax, and maybe they are, but those special/unique characteristics of tequila etc. and bourbon are what imo make those spirits so remarkable and full of character in a way that gin or vodka lacks. Rum is pretty diverse, too, depending on where it is made, how long it has aged, etc. But there's a reason no one ages vodka, and few age gin; what you make is more or less what you've got.

I should market a bottle of sotoa

What will you call it?

US Bureau of Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things

Sotoa Pop

Sotol Le Bon

Alfred, Lord Sotoa

I bought a bottle of Italicus and find it very nice. The orangey-floral-bitter combination works for me. Tried it with just club soda = good. Tried it with Prosecco and some lemon juice = also good, though instead of the 1:1 ratio suggested on the Italicus bottle I did it 3:1 Prosecco. I suppose now it's onward to the Negroni flavored with Italicus.

ooh I like the idea of mixing with prosecco + lemon juice

you really love "posture" as a verb don'tcha?

you do plenty of it too

You answered your own question!

what are your other Categories beyond Big British Summer Crossover Album and #PoppyBushInterzone?

Cute Dudes Who Love Campari.

https://cinemasips.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/steve-zissou-campari.jpg

otm

what day is it today Alfred?

you really love "posture" as a verb don'tcha?

you do plenty of it too

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Sunday, November 17, 2019 1:47 PM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

You answered your own question!

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, November 17, 2019 1:48 PM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

Aw, I miss Morbz.