For one, I don’t think it would technically be a cocktail if it’s based on wine rather than liquor. Had to look this one up. Hmmm, sounds like one way to work your way through a bad bottle of champagne. If you’re much younger and femaler than I am. ;)

ROTFLOL!!! By analogy a cocktail? Does it matter if you're disguising bathtub gin or bad champagne? Though the word cocktail actually does pre-date prohibition...

My 50 yr old son and his wife and most of his friends like fancy "cocktails". They've tried to tell me that I'd like something with, for example, blackberry juice or some gawd awful cider and liquor concoction that had last Thanksgiving. These are the same people who buy beers with fruit. Yuck. Sweet stuff. One of their friends was over and was disappointed with our selection of liquor and surprised that I didn't have keep any diet ginger ale for a mixer. We did have a '70's vintage French wine with dinner that night. More for me.

Me, I am very old school. Yeah, ok Boomer. Fanciest I get is a margarita once a year, a Bloody Mary or a whisky sour or a Manhattan or a G&T in the summer. I like Martinis with gin, good scotch and bourbon plain. I'd enjoy a Kir Royale at a brunch on the patio in the summer, but I really try to avoid sweet stuff. I'm very good with decent wines and I prefer a dark beer, stout or porter, for a treat. Jim likes Fat Tire. I'll have one of those a couple of times a year. Jim's family was growing grapes in CA long before these kids were born, and I always prefer good California Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays.

I prefer a virgin frozen strawberry daiquiri. :)

So yeah, I like slushies.

I am just messin with ya. I don't like alcohol at ALL so I am zero help.

(I do like the virgin daiquiris though. Its what I drank all through our cruise vacay,much to the amusement and confusion of our regular bar waiter, Melvin. I am sure Carnival loves me,as they still charged me the same price as the boozy ones. Oh well. They were awfully refreshing.)

Yeah, I have the cocktail pallete of a four year old. ;)

Our liquor cabinet is bulging again. It still has bottles from the last holiday season, a year ago. (looking at it now.). Another holiday ahead, one work vendor sends us a mixed case...oy.

Put the word 'virgin' in front of a cocktail and I'm all over it. I make a signature BloodyMary. (virgin)...or add vodka if you want. (I harvested a half dozen horseradish roots from my garden last month) Don't care for sweet so if I indulge it is scotch. Balvenie. One ice cube. Or a vodka martini once twice a year. Olives, not dirty. extra olives on the side. Scotch is a bit sweet but I like the smokey notes and sip it. A good burn I like.

Millennials are just having fun with mixology. We did that when we were younger.

I did make kumquat martinis a couple months ago. Fresh kumquats poked and soaked in vodka 3 days. Was not trying to be fancy at all...just enjoying guests visiting. (these friends had never had kumquats). I did chop some into seltzer for the non-drinkers. And had kumquat marmalade with the charcuterie/cheese platter.

Alcohol is fine in small doses and the herb (pot/canibus).. my system does not handle any of it very well. I have no problem that it is accessible for those that need it and I may need it someday...thankfully it is available now. (and not a crime)

I don't have a refined palate for alcohol. I like full-bodied champagnes like Veuve Clicquot and aged tequilas. A margarita is tasty with muddled citrus as the mixer, but I like sipping tequila, too. All other alcohol holds no interest for me, although I can drink a scant glass of wine with a meal. As for mixing champagne with fruit juices, I think the bubbles make the fruit juice a bit more festive. I tend to buy prosecco for mimosas, bellinis and the like because of its fruitier taste.

Fun, I have no argument with Veuve Clicquot! There's a lot of decent champagne for under $100. There's a lot of rank champagne for under $10.

So, I realized that I absolutely must say I'm not accusing Martha of giving her guests rotgut!! My comments about Kir and Kir Royale were based on European bars and corporate functions in general and the quality of the wine that they were disguising.

Also, re mimosas, I just realized that they remind me of those medicines that they say to take in orange juice. They're probably tinctures. We had to have them when I was a child and I had the hardest time choking them down. There was no disguising them, and they just made the oj taste awful. One of them smelled, to me, like lighter fluid. I could chuck it straight off the spoon and say yick far easier than the orange juice thing. So I don't know if it's that mimosas taste bad, or just taste like bad medicine.

I've never been either a big drinker or a t-totaller. I drink a little once in awhile. I don't waste Calories or money on bad tipples. :)

A "cocktail" is what you drink before dinner...and I sure don't like sweetish fruity stuff before a meal. I like martinis or gibsons or manhattans...but not any of those cuteish appletinis or chocotini or butterscotch martini....nor heaved forfend a cosmo!
My tipple of choice is usually Scotch....a blend and I am not terribly fussy, I can drink some cheap blends very happily but don't give me Johnny Walker or most single malts.
As for cheap champagne? Why not....lots better than many other things I have been offered. If you find a kir royale too sweet, cut back on the creme de cassis.
When someone is mixing me a drink at their home I usually ask for "scotch on the rocks"....remembering a few times when I asked for Scotch and water and got a 16 oz tumbler with 2 ice cubes and an ounce of Scotch. Ugh! Dishwater.....and then the remark was "Linda, drink up! We are ready for another and you are scarcely touched your drink., do you need more ice?"...hard to tell a host, to just add more Scotch!!
I would rather have almost any liquor on ice with no mixer than a Bellini or or some icky sweet fruity thing. A friend and I go out about once a week and sit at the bar at a local "joint" and marvel at the things the bartender throws together for people to drink with their steak and fries!
But in spite of all I have said about hating sweet drinks, I do remember very fondly a place that would bake the most divine ice cream drinks....but that was dessert! Fond memories of a Nutty Bishop, and a Pink Squirrel and a Golden Cadillac.

LOL I’m with you on the weak drinks, Linda. I have a friend who used to ask the bartender to “put some liquor in it this time” but that tended not to be well-received. My MO was ask for a splash. “Beefeater with a splash of tonic.” In the home environment, my parents’ generation seem to serve drinks, but we’re just directed to the available liquor and mixers and left to make our own. Much better.

Oh gosh, I need to not comment... ha ha! I do like sweet drinks. Not sickly sweet, but yes, sweet. Ok, maybe some quite sweet! Dh can't abide them, so he'd be in agreement with everyone else. I could not drink alcohol, not a drop, for 20+ years, so I guess I enjoy trying things now. I often make one cocktail a week - one glass. And very weak, as I prefer the taste to the feeling. Gin martinis, dirty and wet. Margaritas over ice, no salt. A cross between a Manhattan and an Old Fashioned. Black cherry Old Fashioned. Bourbon neat, only if it's very old, very good. And yes, beer. I'll drink one on a hot summer day after working in the garden. Mimosas? I had my first taste only a few years ago, and yes, I actually enjoyed it, and this New Year's eve, will be revisiting them : ) In the summer I make sweat-tea mint juleps, which is the one sweet alcohol drink DH does enjoy.

Where I live we sell legalized moonshine. Rivers of the stuff. It's awful (to me). Because the flavorings are very artificial - 'fake'. Everything from 'wedding cake' to 'apple pie' flavorings, which taste off to me. The only moonshine I like (yes, weak-drink me) is the real stuff, but aged in a bourbon barrel, which makes it smooth, and very bourbon-like. And then only a few sips.

Never had a bloody mary, never really had a wine cocktail aside from sangria (which I also enjoyed). Someday I will. Sweet, sour, and everything in between, I'm pretty much game in moderation. Like food, I'm pretty open to trying anything, and like food, not much of anything I don't particularly like : ) I do have a sweet tooth.

I like good wine and I like good beer and neither are hard to find for a reasonable price. But other than tequila, I don't care for the taste of most hard liquors so not a big fan of mixed drinks or cocktails.

In my mind, juices are the saving grace of any cocktail I would consider drinking so do not mind fruity drinks (fruity - NOT sweet!!) at all - Greyhounds, Bloody Mary's, Pimm's, Margaritas, Cosmopolitans or Bellinis...........or just give me a shot of good tequila and a wedge of lime and I'll be happy!!

French sparkling wine that is not champagne is the best inexpensive bubbly. To be called champagne it must be from Champagne. Try a Crémant de Limoux Brut instead of a cheap champagne.

I will drink the rare sangria at a party but otherwise I don't like sweet alcohol, whether it be wine or spirits. I like citrus in a cocktail such as a gin and tonic or a margarita or a salty dog, even a cosmopolitan if the cranberry juice isn't sweetened, that's about it. One exception is a vodka white trash cocktail which is vodka, whatever kind of flavoring you want, such as citrus, and ginger-ale, but only enough to make it sparkly. I can't remember the last time I drank anything like a pina colada, etc. - I know it's been many years ago.

I do enjoy wine, but the only cocktail I can do is a classic Pimm's and lemonade. Otherwise, I do not like sweet drinks. Give me a good Scotch neat any day over a sweet cocktail.

I have never liked beer, with the exception when I was pregnant. I'd drink n/a beer to satisfy the craving. After the babies were born, the craving went away.

Linda would not consider it a cocktail, but I like Bloody Caesars. I was told that it is the national drink of Canada, when I was there. I also like gin and tonic, and I used to drink Cape Cods, but now very rarely. We keep our liquor cabinet stocked reasonably well, but some bottles seem to evaporate if not used. I have a large selection of liqueurs that I use for flavoring desserts when making them, especially ice cream and puddings. I almost never use them in drinks, however, except for Cointreau when making Margaritas.

Well, to be fair, Margaritas don't have a sweetie taste because of all the citrus juice and the tequila, but there is sugar in them. I do like Margaritas.

Definitions are really unimportant, here, but I think of sangria as a punch rather than a cocktail. My father used to clear out the cupboard of whatever odd stuff had been brought in as gifts (cherry brandy, semi-sweet concord grape wine, fruit schnaps, etc.) to make sangria at Midsummer. It was smooth and delicious and full of fruit, very refreshing, and very alcoholic, though you couldn't taste the alcohol. Potent stuff.

2Many, this thread is about likes and dislikes. Your comments are valuable! I love your charge ahead spirit! (...about spirits!)

So, while we're talking about drinking habits, I'm big on spring water. My common vice is caffeine free Diet Coke, really cold over ice. Especially if I'm having allergy issues, it feels really good going down. Half a glass of good wine with with dinner happens now and again, but I have a cocktail a couple of times per year nowadays. It's not that I don't like them, but my whole social group tends to be abstemious. Many people are driving distances so want to be not only sober but wakeful. So when I do have a cocktail to order, it's usually something I know I'll like, that's hard to mess up. My go-to, since my 20's when people were a lot more into drinks, is a vodka Collins. It's pretty hard to screw up, well vodka doesn't usually have enough flavor to taste bad, and no one complains that it's not a real drink. :)

Lyrical. Evocative. Lovely.

Re-reading what I wrote, I realize how much social drinking used to be a part of life for me. There were a whole set of sensations associated with that. Floating. Swaying. Hilarity. Bonhomie. Uproarious. Glowing. Impulsive. Unreserved. Openness. Unguarded. Truth. Youth.

I'm content to drink much less now. Sure, I'm also much less likely to hurl open the door and bound out into the night with friends in search of adventure, camaraderie and T & Ts. Instead I prefer to open the door and let friends in for an evening of cooking, eating, conversation, games when SWMBO has her way, and, admittedly, drinks (including T & Ts) are always served. But I'm usually too busy cooking to keep track of my wine glass, guests are more focused on food than drink, and big dinner parties aren't something you do every night or even every week.

There's something else that I've started to write and thought better of it, but it keeps coming back to be said.

Above, I mentioned being unreserved, unguarded, open, etc, as something that came with drinking back when. It feels to me, today, harder to be as thoughtlessly candid as my friends and I used to be with each other, especially when alcohol had loosened thoughts and tongues. It feels like there are more sensitivities to be considered, feelings to be hurt, wires to keep uncrossed, taboos to be observed, pronouns to be remembered, ideological lines to keep untrodden.

So we, or at least I, watch what we say, even at our own dinner parties with our friends. We may not be conscious of it, we do it so naturally as to not notice ourselves. But if we, or I, summon enough self-awareness to see, there's constant editing and self-control going on. Which doesn't really go with pounding back cocktail after cocktail.

I don't think this is that much a reflection of ideological polarization in America or anything so socio-dramatic. After all, I live in one of the uniformly "bluest" parts of one of the bluest states.

My feeling is that it is somewhat about life becoming more complex, and growing challenges to individual's and society's ability to satisfy divergent goals and the resultant tension. As well as my and SWMBO's tendency to be friends with alert, passionate people.

And, perhaps, I'm slowly becoming a cranky old dinosaur who is still trying to get along with the mammals.

Anyway, to finish off this unaccountable digression, I think that's another reason why I don't drink as much as I used to. That plus I'm just too busy to spend a day recuperating with Bloody Marys in a fern bar.

John, I find you need cohorts to successfully drink to excess. To be on your level to appreciate the hilarity. And to write off your offenses as drunk talk rather than consider it an indictment of who you really are. With age, both the numbers and quality of such cohorts seems to diminish.

I think you're right. There's also some "been there done that". As well, the older body and brain aren't as resilient to self poisoning.

One of my favorites, a classic.

dcarch

John, it may just be as simple as you're growing up. ;)

Law school *and* business school. Of course you were drinking a lot.

My older son introduced me to mojitos several years ago, and he makes great mojitos. My favorite drink if he makes it.

I'm Lpink and I like pink drinks. Well, some of them. Others not so much. My favorite is a Sea Breeze made with a splash of cranberry and I like Cosmopolitans. I had a pink drink with an orchid decorating the glass while on vacation, 12 bucks and tasted like bubble gum. Yuck. Can't remember what was in it, we were at some kind of fru fru "local" made alcohol joint. Everything there was overpriced and yucky. I also love bubbly drinks, alcoholic or non. Gingerale is a fave so I like Moscow Mules although not the name.