A coworker once gave me a cartoon featuring two guys at a bar, one saying to the other: “When I was a child, I drank like a child, but when I became a man I put away childish drinks.”
The cartoon brought to mind my favorite mixed drink back in college: the Tom Collins. Somehow I got it in my head that there was no better way to say “Hey, I’m a grownup” than by ordering that delectably sweet and citrusy blend of gin and Collins mix, plus an orange slice. Friends would make fun of me, but I insisted the Tom Collins was a most sophisticated drink. And I would sip it through a tiny straw.
I can’t imagine ordering a Tom Collins today. It would be like ordering an Amaretto Sour or a Fuzzy Navel or an Old Fashioned.
Hold on, you say: What’s wrong with an Old Fashioned? This was the question posed by another colleague in his mid-twenties. He had taken a liking to this libation, consisting of bourbon, Angostura bitters, a sugar cube, orange slice, and a cherry. I, on the other hand, much prefer a Rob Roy (whiskey, sweet vermouth, and Angostura bitters) or a Manhattan (bourbon, sweet vermouth, Angostura bitters).
Neither impressed my friend. Soon, other coworkers got involved in the debate, each with his own opinion as to which cocktail was the more mature. We found ourselves in search of a definitive answer to that age-old question: Why don’t you order a real drink?
First, let us define the term “cocktail” by turning to the ultimate cocktail book, The Ultimate Cocktail Book. “Cocktails are alcoholic mixed drinks, which are usually a mix-and-match concoction of at least two different liqueurs or spirits. They have enjoyed an enormous revival in fashion in recent years, with many exciting new cocktail bars opening.” Indeed.
The book continues, “Most of these cocktail bars offer a ‘happy hour’ in the early evening when drinks are half price-an added incentive that has no doubt added greatly to their popularity.” Which is all well and good. But what do you drink when Bud Lights aren’t $2 a bottle and rail drinks aren’t $4?
We can easily eliminate a few cocktails, such as anything with the suffix “tini” other than a martini (as in Appletini or Crantini) as well as the entire drink menu of T.G.I. Friday’s, including the New Ultimate Margarita, Ultimate Hawaiian Volcano, Ultimate Mudslide, and Ultimate Long Island Tea. (As a brief aside, my 6′ 4″ giant of a brother-in-law will order a Long Island iced tea even at a four-star restaurant, but considering he is from Holland, he gets a pass.)
This basically leaves us with whiskey or a martini. Of course an entire essay could be devoted to the martini, what H.L. Mencken called “the only American invention as perfect as a sonnet,” so I shall bypass the issue of preference, as in gin or vodka, shaken or stirred, type of garnish, or the amount of vermouth. (The standard ratio is 4 gin or vodka to 1 vermouth, though some like it drier: Ernest Hemingway preferred a ratio of 15 to 1.)
Nevertheless, the martini family is large, and the Old Fashioned, Manhattan, and Rob Roy are all members. In his Wall Street Journal column, cocktail maven Eric Felten categorizes the Old Fashioned under “Non-Girly Drinks for Guys With a Sweet Tooth,” while the Manhattan falls under “Female-Friendly Non-Girly Drinks.” A seasoned bartender at Sam and Harry’s steakhouse, however, claims he has never served a Manhattan to a woman.
On the other hand, Al Fedorowsky, the bartender at Jimmy’s on K Street, doesn’t recall ever serving a Rob Roy to a woman in his 33 years of bartending either. So that would make it the manliest of the three drinks? “It’s a drink for 65-year-olds,” Al replies.
Taking a taste test, I found the Old Fashioned to be flavorful but to a fault. Because the drink is made with a muddler, by the time you near the bottom of your glass, your cocktail has become a Dole fruit cup with bourbon. (My “Old Fashioned” drinking friend, after conducting his own taste test, now declares his allegiance to the Manhattan.)
Al considers rating such drinks as the Old Fashioned, Manhattan, and Rob Roy to be arbitrary and notes that the one thing they all have in common is that they are “old drinks,” up there with the Sidecar, Gimlet, and Brandy Alexander.
Perhaps in our pursuit of “real drinks,” we’ve ventured too far in the direction of the cocktail. Maybe it all comes down to less is more (besides which, the fewer ingredients, the cheaper the drink). I asked Al, who quit drinking 16 years ago, if he were to have a “real drink,” would it be a Manhattan, Old Fashioned, or Rob Roy? He said, “Vodka.”
VICTORINO MATUS
