Writing tips for alcohol orders:
-Ordering a drink neat means you’re saying you want one kind of alcohol, right out of the bottle, with no ice or anything else in it. Whiskey neat makes sense. A Jack and coke neat does not.
-Most people know on the rocks means with ice, but again it makes more sense with some drinks than others. Some kinds of whiskey are designed to be served with ice while some kinds of scotch would get you a weird look to get served with ice. And odds are you’d not get any wine on the rocks. It’s good to look up the drink and see if it’s typically served with ice or not
-Off of this, ice isn’t the only way to get a drink cold. For drinks you want cold but not diluted you’d get in a chilled, or frosted, glass, like that scotch.
-You could also order straight up, which is shaken or stirred with ice then having the ice strained out so you get a cold drink with no ice in it
-Having a drink shaken cools and aerates it, diluting it a bit faster and making it a little fizzy or frothy. Stirring cools it slower and dilutes it slower. So James Bond ordering shaken not stirred means he’s getting a more diluted, colder, and fizzier version of the drink
-A back is something non alcoholic to drink along with your alcohol, like a glass of soda alongside whiskey.
-A chaser is something you immediately drink after a shot. Pickle juice is becoming a popular chaser
-Ordering whiskey by fingers still happens but is going out of style, mostly because they’ve standardized how much a finger is and it’s not a lot. However, if you want to write an old timey gentleman it would work to have them order two or three fingers of whiskey, but not so much a New York City businessman
-A dry martini has a little bit of vermouth. A wet martini has a lot. A perfect martini has equal amounts. If you’ve seen Kingsman and remember he orders the martini made while looking at an unopened bottle of vermouth, that’s him saying he wants it extremely dry
-A dirty martini has a splash of olive juice
-Ordering something with a twist means with a bit of lemon peel. A martini with a twist is then a martini with a bit of lemon instead of an olive.
-A Gibson martini has an onion instead of an olive
-A highball is a kind of drink, not a drink in itself. Basically, it’s liquor and something else, generally a soda, in a tall glass over ice. Jack and coke, gin and tonic, scotch and soda, all can be highballs so make sure you specify what kind