Talk:List of cocktails/Archive

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Current Discussions

This page contains discussions that have been archived for historical preservation. Please do not edit these articles. If you wish to address a topic here or start a new topic, please do so only within the Talk:List of cocktails page. Thanks.

Miscellaneous Discussion

The like to the sex on the beach page seems to be broken Chris1435 21:21, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Does anybody know where the word "cocktail" comes from? --AxelBoldt

Added etymology of the word "cocktail" to CocktailDavid de Paoli

No, but shouldn't "black cow" be "brown cow"? At least that's what it is in Ohio (USA). And I've heart of "Virgin Daquari" (spelling? [—heard]), but not "Virgin Mary" (as a drink, anyway). What about the "Shirley Temple"? -- Marj Tiefert

A Virgin Mary is just a Bloody Mary without alcohol. Same thing for Virgin/Bloody Caesar. --Stephen Gilbert

The tradition of calling non-alcoholic drinks "virgin" came from analogy to "virgin mary", which was coined to describe bloody mary mix without the vodka. All other uses of "virgin" should be considered references to that. --LDC

As a former professional in the field (with considerable experience on both sides of the bar), I would classify "shooters" as a category separate from "cocktails". And the article about shooters should mention that obscene names are just part of the tradition of shooters. On the other hand, a "purple hooter" is a cocktail, not a shooter, so I suppose a few names like that will sneak into the cocktail list as well. --LDC

I agree with Lee -- with the same background. i would also add that there are often identical cocktails with different names (and conversely, different cocktails with the same name, depending upon the region). For example, in the western US, we don't drink brown cows -- we drink root beer floats -- and they would NEVER appear on a virgin cocktail list! Also, a mind eraser in GA is vodka, kahlua, and coke -- here in WA, it's got a bunch of other stuff (including Bailey's, I think ). Oh -- and I would add sex on the beach to the cocktail category...JHK
Bartending helped me through college. :) JHK, I wouldn't consider a brown cow (which term was used by my family, who lived in the South but were from the West, go figure) as a virgin cocktail but as an ice cream drink. --Dmerrill
Exactly, Dmerrill! Real bars don't serve ice-cream drinks! (although a few chain restaurants here in the states are breaking that 'rule'. It's on my list of things not to do -- like make blue drinks and anything that needs a blender! But I will muddle! JHK

I'm afraid real bars pretty much have to have blenders these days, and you have to go out of your way to order a non-blended Margarita (and for that matter, a gin Martini in some places), so you've lost that battle. You'll be glad to know that I've never owned a bottle of blue Curaçao, though. --LDC

New question -- on Gimlets -- should it not specify Rose's lime juice, so that people don't think they can use Realime or something like that? JHK

How about "bottled sweetened lime juice, such as Rose's"? There do exist other brands, but I agree that more people will know what you're talking about if you mention Rose's. --LDC

JHK: just boldly edit!

Like Bartles and Jaymes, I thank you for your support, Lee! But I was seriously asking, because I don't want to edit boldly but stupidly ;-) Just so you know, I usually don't ask unless I am not sure, don't know, or (being a Socratic teacher type) because I want other people to also think about the ramifications about something before jumping in feet first! JHK

Capitalization is a tricky issue: I agree that "root beer float" and "gin and tonic" seem right, but "martini" is an eponym from "Martini & Rossi vermouth", and "bloody Mary" just looks odd. They are "titles" in a sense. I'll have to do a print survey and see how books handle it. --LDC

I removed the link to cocktail.com, since it showed only some useless flash animation, saying it was under construction. If a site is (re)build there, someone can add the link --Omegium

Under the category "Cocktails with Vodka", there's one called "The Game", which links to a disambiguation page. Is this a real cocktail, or just one of the multiple conspiracies to make me lose the game? (Read artcile on the game to understand). 82.4.43.19 18:36, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

It was deleted (possibly be me in an earlier purge). --Willscrlt 05:33, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Tell me why many of these shouldn't be deleted

A number of these articles, potentially a very large number of them, are nothing but a list of ingredients, which makes them ineligible for a wikipedia article as I understand it. Is there some reason why I shouldn't copy (for those which aren't there yet) about 100 of these to bartending/cocktails and put Prod tags up on all of them? --Xyzzyplugh 16:31, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Some of the more famous and well known cocktails if possible should have their own articles as a number do have some notable history behind them, if all theyve got at the moment is a recipe but they are important cocktails you should just mark them as a stub. Or if people decide they really cant write all that much on any of them, any encyclopedic information should be moved to this page and yes in that case the recipes should be moved. You shouldnt be copying and prodding though use the transwiki procedure to keep the edit historys intact. Discordance 09:44, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok, some of these have already been transwikied to wikibooks, and hopefully many more will be. I'm unsure what to do with the current non-notable drink articles once they've been transwikied. I was going to Prod them all, but instead I'm thinking of redirecting them all to this article, and having this article link to their wikibooks article. This way the information is still there for anyone trying to get to it, and it should discourage recreation of the removed articles. --Xyzzyplugh 01:17, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Article is full of broken wikibooks links

This article links to many wikibooks cocktail articles which don't actually exist, or which did exist at some point but have been deleted or moved. I looked around and couldn't find any sign of them. It looks like, first of all, the format for cocktails was changed at wikibooks. But knowing this still didn't lead me to the missing cocktails. This is the new wikibooks cocktail format http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Bartending/Cocktails/Dry_Martini But our article here links to many of them in a format like so: Wikibooks:Bartending:Boiler If anyone can find them, it would be useful to fix the links. Eventually, if no one does, I'll just delete all the broken links from this article, or someone else should if I forget about it. --Xyzzyplugh 16:37, 24 March 2006 (UTC) :And I've now unlinked all the broken links, as they are gone completely from wikibooks. I've left the text in place so the names of the drinks are still there, just not linked. --Xyzzyplugh 14:26, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Note: some of the broken links have been found... if anyone wants to add links, here is a list of the cocktails at wikibooks: http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3APrefixindex&from=Bartending&namespace=0 --Xyzzyplugh 10:14, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

The above is no longer accurate. The cocktails at wikibooks have now all been combined into one enormous article, Wikibooks:Bartending/Cocktails/Glossary. The wikibooks links in this article are now all broken. Someone ought to fix these, or perhaps I will if I get around to it. --Xyzzyplugh 14:02, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

This page is mostly useless ATM, for example, Rusty Nail (cocktail) redirects here, and there is no mention of it far as I can tell. The full extent of the uselessness of this page is going to take some exploring... DoomBringer 17:53, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

This was apparently fixed a while ago. There is a full article now, not a redirect. The article could still use some work, but at least it's not looping. --Willscrlt 04:27, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I fixed another broken link. Tequila Sunrise was redirecting to a disambig page, then there it was looping back to here. Archmagi1 03:08, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

The Alabama Slammer loops its self back here too.

Adding the patriot missile

well, I may not understand how to create new articles, or how I should list the ingrediants but I felt it needed to be there.

1/2 oz Black Haus® blackberry schnapps 1/2 oz Blue Curacao liqueur 6 oz Smirnoff® Ice 3/4 oz grenadine syrup

Pour half a bottle of Smirnoff Ice into a pint glass. Then add 3/4 oz. of grenadine along the inside of glass, so it settles at the bottom. In a separate shaker, combine 1/2 oz. Black Haus and 1/2 oz. blue curacao with ice. Shake contents and pour into a 1 oz. shot glass. Drop the shot glass into the pint glass and drink quickly.

I had one of these in Columbus Ohio, its really good. The recipe was found at <http://www.drinksmixer.com/drink1p47o02.html>

Added to 'misc cocktails' - enjoy!! SkierRMH 06:04, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Things that should and should not be listed here

Do layered shots belong on this list - you know, the rather crudely named Quick Fucks, Cocksucking Cowboys and the like? --Robert Merkel

By the way, to whomever deleted this, I am not trying to be crude for the sake of it here. At least in Australia, the above rather lewd names are the only names these drinks have. Hence, to ask a question about them, I need to refer to them by name. --Robert Merkel

I see nothing wrong with layered cocktails/shots being included in this list. The primary page for "shots" is Mixed drink shooters and drink shots, but all shots with decent information are being copied into this article for now anyway. Please also read #Non-Cocktails (per definition of a cocktail) for more thoughts. --Willscrlt 05:55, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Tug

Vodka and milk, anyone else heard of it? If so maybe it should be added. TheEasterBunny 02:25, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Unless someone can provide references, a complete recipe, notability, etc., I'd vote against adding it. --Willscrlt 05:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


Link Spam

Hi. This evening someone removed a link added to the Ext links section on grounds of link spam. I've no problem with this, but when I glanced at the section, it looks like most of the other links there could probably fit into the same category. Should they all be removed? Wikipedia is not an advertising hording. Jamse 22:36, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikibooks has a good bartending manual with recipes. If an external link is largely nothing more than that, then it probably does not belong in the article. Some of the external links I've left include sophisticated search engines that help you determine the drinks that can be made using the ingredients or drinkware you have on-hand. This is beyond the scope of Wikibooks or Wikipedia, and I feel it makes the site a useful external link. We do not need a lot of links like that, so only the best one or two of the breed need listing. That could get into subjectiveness and favoritism though. --Willscrlt 05:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


Suggestion

At the top, there should be a shorter list of the most common cocktails—those absolutely every beginning bartender should know how to make. Martini, bloody mary, white Russian, etc. I don't know how many drinks are in this category, or how similar the list is in Australia vs. the USA. My guess is around 25 drinks would be enough.

I added a top-20 list from the editors of iVillage to the top. It is holiday related, and there is no justification given as to why these make particularly good holiday drinks. I think we should come up with our own list to replace it with after the holidays. Any suggestions? --Willscrlt 05:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


Easier to read formatting - I hope

Please check out "other cocktails" subsection...

Drinks that link to another page with the recipe are left without that here.

Drinks without link to another page with recipe, I double indented, and added the recipe or a brief synopsis

Comments? I'd be willing to reformat the rest of the page like this if there's a consensus. SkierRMH

Sorry, SkierRMH. I just undid that work for you. :-( This talk page is was so haphazard that I missed it the first time through. I do like the concept, but the formatting was making the section very long (at least with the monobook skin) due to the extra spacing. I'll explain in the next section. --Willscrlt 10:39, 4 December 2006 (UTC)


New Layout and To-Do List

My suggestion new layout is similar to SkierRMH's (and what I have been starting to do already). Make all the cocktails bold to distinguish them from descriptive text (unless this breaks a standard Wiki convention). If there is no supporting page, do not link it. Add a brief description (mainly the constituent components and one or two sentences with citations as to the notability. If the drink has no page, no description, and is non-notable, then it should be removed from the page (I'm not qualified to make a determination about notability). Instead of adding the descriptions as an indented line, just place a hyphen and then the description in non-bold text.

Standardize the information. Do not link to the main topic of the section (vodka, beer, etc.). Do link all key ingredients and any bar tools used, etc. Standardize the names of the ingredients used (e.g., orange juice instead of OJ, whisky instead of whiskey [since that's the article title's spelling], etc.). Standardize the measurements; it would probably be best to use parts or percents (I've been using parts) since some places use fluid ounces and some use metrics, and serving sizes may differ. Standardize the use of brand names (If a brand name is critical (Midori sour comes to mind), then it should be used; otherwise, use a generic name like melon liquour).

Linked articles that are mostly empty or only a list of ingredients should be either (a) expanded to explain the notability of the drink (at a minimum), or (b) be merged into the main article until someone feels up to expanding the article properly. By merging, I mean to reduce the information to that I described above. If there is a bit more information than would ideally be included in this list, but there really is not enough for a separate article, I'd say to move it here, but edit it down to only the truly important parts.

The reason I got involved in this, is because the Kamikaze article is up for deletion. We were discussing the relative merrits of keeping the stub, merging it, or deleting it. Looking at the article, I saw that it was only a list of ingredients (thus several people considered the article a recipie and worthy of deleting based on that alone). Looking through several other articles off of this page, I saw the same thing. Obviously consistency is important. It is also equally obvious that this list needs a lot of help (this talk page, too, for that matter). I'm willing to help, if you like my ideas (see Cocktails with vodka and List of cocktails#Mixed drink shooters and drink shots for working examples). I'm also open to other ideas on ways to format it. --Willscrlt 10:39, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The more I looked at the bad links (links to wrong articles), mismatched formatting, and other problems on the page, the more I decided doing something would be better than doing nothing. Even if the exact formatting changes I have made are not acceptable to the majority of people, it will be much easier to change just the formatting to something else, as long as the rest of the page is functional. So, I spent seven hours tweaking and fixing. I left some of the larger sections still unmodified (anyone else want to clean those up while I get some sleep?), but I will come back and finish them throughout this week.
What would be really helpful for me, is if people who know a lot about mixed drinks could take a look through and see if anything is grossly inaccurate (either by something I edited or something that was wrong before I tweaked). Also, I like the anonymous suggestion listed above about highlighting the top 25 (wouldn't 10 be a more manageable number?) cocktails with which everyone should be familiar. I am sure that will lead to some interesting disagreements and regional differences, but I think it could be useful. Better yet, if someone could find citable material listing the top X cocktails served (or by some other statistic), that would be truly Wiki. :-)
The other thing that would be helpful is to start following the links. If the resulting page has very little that links to it (use the "What Links Here" link) and is basically just the ingredients, add that to the main article, and list the link on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cocktails/Stubs to Delete. Then, once we get everything all cleaned up, we can request deletion of the articles. If an article is about a truly notable drink (in a way that can be cited!), but needs work, add it to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cocktails/Stubs to Improve. Then, one of you people with mixological backgrounds, use the list and fix the problems. Cross off each article once it has been fixed.
Pretty soon, we will have an article to be proud of instead of a mess. :-) --Willscrlt 15:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The List of cocktails#Mixed drink shooters and drink shots section combined with the Mixed drink shooters and drink shots article is a good example of how I would like to see all the sections eventually. In List of cocktails, there are only links to in-depth articles (sometimes with brief comments) and unlinked cocktails with descriptions. The plethora of unlinked and undescribed shooters were all merged into the Mixed drink shooters and drink shots article. It still needs someone to go through and edit out any cruft, but it all looks more orderly. I think it would be especially important to do the same with the non-alcoholic beverages, which take up a large chunck of this article's space (and mostly with red links). --Willscrlt 05:02, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Non-Cocktails (per definition of a cocktail)

I think we should list all mixed drinks here, including shooters and non-alcoholics, even if they're not technically cocktails. Though I don't feel strongly either way, as long as everything's nicely interlinked. Should we keep on capitalizing everything? Obviously one would capitalize Manhattan, Bloody Mary, etc., but gin and tonic seems odd as Gin and Tonic; or Root Beer Float instead of root beer float. --TheCunctator

I am cross-posting this discussion to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cocktails. Please post your responses there.
Originally, I was in agreement with TheCunctator. The more I have been working with this topic, the more I think it should be handled a little differently. I propose creating an article called List of mixed drinks and branch out from there to List of cocktails, List of beer mixes, List of wine mixes, List of non-alcoholic mixed drinks (with a redirect from List of non-alcoholic cocktails (which currently redirect here), List of mixed drink shooters and drink shots (essentially what the Mixed drink shooters and drink shots article is right now), Category:Drink mixers, and a links to Drinkware and Bar tools. This would also require updating related categories and maybe even the project pages. --Willscrlt 05:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Adding new drinks

Unless you can find some references to a new drink, I'd rather not see it included. In fact, I would like to see references for all the drinks listed (per Wikipedia's guidelines), rather than just list anything for which people happen to know a drink recipe. Doing the first makes us an encycolpedia, and the second makes us a bartending manual (which Wikipedia is not). Obviously many of the currently listed drinks do not meet that criteria. I'm not advocating deleting all of them outright, but working to improve the entire section. Adding new unreferenced material would be counter-productive to that goal, however. --Willscrlt 05:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Alternate Names

Shouldn't the Rum and Pepsi drink just be listed as a variant of Rum and Coke? Did the Pepsi people insist on its having a seperate entry? --unsigned comment

I do not think it is productive listing drinks more than once within the article.

I have been listing additional names as follows:

  1. Tom O'Hawk or Tomahawk- when there are only minor variations in spelling
  2. Boilermaker or Jimmy & Guinney - when there are only two alternate names (the name with a full article is listed first, with the alternate simply bolded)
  3. Carbomb (also known as Irish Carbomb or Belfast Carbomb) - when the drink is "also known as" by multiple names (the name with a full article is listed first, with the alternate names simply bolded)

Variations within ingredients I have handled this way:

It seems to make things pretty clear without taking up too much space or creating recipe-only articles. --Willscrlt 05:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


Photos

I just added one photo per section, and I think it brightens up the page considerably. It also helps show the variation in the styles and presentation of the drinks. It was really difficult to find good images, though. We really need people to snap some pictures of their favorite drinks (or other people's drinks if you don't want to order it yourself) whenever visiting a bar. Don't forget to upload the pictures after you take them! :-) --Willscrlt 05:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Dr Pepper vs. Dr. Pepper

Danhm corrected the spelling of Dr Pepper, the soft drink to remove the period after the "Dr". Thanks. I did not know that there was not one in the name. However, he also removed the period from the flaming and non-flaming cocktails of the same name. Since these drinks/articles are not referring to the brand name, and are in fact copycats of the flavor, it would seem proper to use proper English and include the periods in the name of the cocktails. Not having the period results in a redirect to the article name with a period. Throughout the article, a period is used. So, as a matter of style -- at least in this context -- the non-alcoholic soft drink will be referred to as Dr Pepper, and alcoholic cocktails (flaming or otherwise) resembling the flavor of the soft drink will be referred to as Dr. Pepper. Thanks again. --Willscrlt 02:26, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Beer Mixes

I revereted a change that added a Black and Tan and one other beer mix. I am not opposed to a good list of beer mixes (something I have recommended at Wikipedia:WikiProject Cocktails), but this article's focus is on true cocktails. By definition, that means that the majority of the alcohol should be composed of [[distilled beverage]s. Admittedly, several of the drinks listed in the beer section of the page do not meet that definition. They should be split into to a more appropriate article, leaving behind only the drinks that are cocktails including a lesser volume of beer than spirits. Adding two more beer mixes would be counter productive toward that goal. Any other thoughts, contrary or otherwise? :-) --Willscrlt 01:21, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Fictional Beverages

What's the consensus on Flaming Moe? (and if we allow that, there's a whole load more "previously fictional" drinks on offer from the trekkies ;-) Ojw 01:15, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think they should be moved and/or added to List of fictional beverages. This page should be kept for true cocktails and cocktail-like drinks (i.e., beer mixes) that can be ordered readily in most bars. --Willscrlt 04:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree that a list of fictional beverages on this page would be good, at least for drinks that can't be made, such as the Pan_Galactic_Gargle_Blaster. Drinks derived from tv-shows like the Simpsons that have a actual recipe should probably be in both sections.

Ceetar 17:57, 21 December 2006 (UTC)