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[Rass]

Originally Posted by french_disko

Sugar syrup is about £3 a 750ml bottle in the supermarket - look for "sirop de gomme" on the drinks shelves.

A bag of sugar and some boiling water would be a cheaper alternative to this, obviously let it cool before you go sticking it in drinks mind Just keep putting sugar in the water until it stops dissolving.

Em, from your list quickly, other things of note, Cherry Brandy, you will find for sure in Oddbins (the big one at the top of Bon Accord Street), It's in the Bols range of Liqueurs. Same for CD Bananes.

There's heaps of other stuff to mention but as i'm late for work, my parting shot will be, if your inventing, get some Chambord, you can find it in Asda, in a little round bottle (looks like the holy hand grendade), it's a Black Raspberry Liqueur, and makes pretty much anything you put it in taste nice!

[Tam o' Shantie]

thanks for the advice, but once again i'm not inventing. just looking for clarification on what brands people recommend in the way of the straightforward spirits

[Metarie]

in that case I reckon gordon's, smirnoff, bacardi, jack, grouse and martini will serve you fairly well. And get a big wooden rolling pin so you can muddle limes and smoosh ice properly

[Lester Burnham]

I can do a little piece about vodka!

Russian Standard is actually fine - pretty good for the price. Especially for mixing.
Absolut - concentrate on getting some flavours. The orange, lemon and blackcurrant ones would be priorities in my books.

If in doubt - Stolichnaya is the bees knees as far as grabbing it as the supermarket goes. Mixes well with generally everything. I've been using it recently in white russians and it works a treat. I'll also offer a nod to Finlandia.

If you're making something that's basically all vodka and ice but with a little pinch of something else then Grey Goose is lovely. I wouldn't waste this on anything else though.

Plus… lots of ice!

Avoid Smirnoff or anything cheap and nasty like the plague. I generally find that unless realy goddamn cold... Smirnoff tastes like crap.

Other good ingredients:

Midori (melon liquor)
Chambord (Black Raspberry)
Anything from the Bols range - Blue Bols being the most common.
They have some flavours that are pretty hard to get a hold of but if you can get them - usually from specialist websites - then they are brilliant.
I've been after the Parfait Amour for a while (Violet flavour).
See ---------> Bols Cocktails.com: The best professional bartender
The bottles are also specially designed for flaring. The website has a ton of recipes you can use as well as stockist information to boot

[Ouroboros is Broken]

Bombay Sapphire gin is the biz, much smoother and nicer than Gordon's….I think a lot of cocktails use American style whiskey's like Jack Daniels do they not?

[Tam o' Shantie]

Originally Posted by Metarie

in that case I reckon gordon's, smirnoff, bacardi, jack, grouse and martini will serve you fairly well. And get a big wooden rolling pin so you can muddle limes and smoosh ice properly

but they're all so boring! if someone asked me to advise an alternative to bacardi that was a bit nicer, i'd say appleton white. gordon's, i'd say tanqueray. what about jack n grouse?

[Flash@TMB]

If you're mixing spirits then the key is to use those of good quality. Most of the big brand names are of reasonable quality and very consistent quality.

Russky Standart is not as good as it used to be, gone too big volume now. I also found it started to cause a hangover, something that it never used to do, so we discontinued it some time back.

Which spirits you use really comes down to personal taste. Most cocktail guides will contain recipes for commonly available stuff that is regular tasting. For more exotic things you need to order on-line.

To mix your own reciepies you need to get used to the taste of each spirit mixed with lots of juice, this will give you an indication of the particular flavors that it imparts. Try 1 part spirit and 8-10 parts orange juice with some ice. Then try mixing it with pineapple, apple, cranberry, coke, ginger beer etc.

The more exotic stuff that I'd recommend are:

Tanquerry Gin - very fresh tasting. Gordon's tastes stale by comparison. Tanquerry makes a VERY dry martini. Don't forget the olives.

We love Chopin vodka which is made from potatoes. Potato vodka is much smoother than grain vodka, these are generally Polish.

For bourbon try all the small batch stuff. Knob Creek is the dryest.

For rum there is a lot of choice, and it's one of the most versatile cocktail spirits. There are probably more rum based cocktails out there than anything else. rums also vary more in their flavour than other spirits. Here are some good ones, they are all very different.

Firstly rums vary greatly with the Island on which they are produced. And there are lots of islands... ones to definitely try are:

Cuban
Jamaican
Martinique
Barbados

Secondly rum comes in 3 colours, white, amber, and dark.

The Martinique rums (they spell it Rhum) are made from sugar cane juice rather than molasses. This gives them a completely different taste. Try Clement for white Martinique, but you need to dilute it with lots of juice. I find that it mixes particularly well with ginger beer. Make sure you get hold of a nice burny ginger beer.

Appleton is Jamaican rum. The white is very sweet compared with Bacardi. The ambers are very light smoothed and they also make aged rums which are not so useful in cocktails. Don't forget Koko Kanu.

Mount Gay is a Barbados rum. Similar to Appleton special (amber) but stronger tasting and dryer.

Cuban rums I'm not so familiar with yet.

Tequila is a minefield. There are 3 different spirits made from agave, tequila, mezcal, and sotol. You generally get more choice of tequila, and all tequilas that are made from 100% blue agave are worth trying out. There are a lot of great tequilas out there but personally I can't see past Patron Silver.

Aside from these there are various other weird and wonderful things out there, stuff like Arrak of which we have a bottle, and is technically similar to rum but tastes nothing like it.

Hope you found that useful.

There is a great book on the subject, called "Booze". It's like the bible for alchies:

Booze: The Drinks Bible for the 21st Century: Richard Neill: Amazon.co.uk: Books

[RF Scott]

Sailor Jerry rum is pretty fantastic, though it smells a bit better than it tastes!
Juniper Green gin is pretty amazing, and had come down in price a bit as far as I know. AND IT'S SCOTTISH SO YOU CAN SUPPORT THE ECONOMY