The Boozy Uncle Thread

[Kereb]

tee hee hee hee hee hee hee

[Xephyr]

The Mountain Dew

Ingredients
- 1 bottle or can Mountain Dew
- 1 cup or glass

Step 1: Open the bottle or can of Mountain Dew
Step 2: Pour the Mountain Dew into your cup or glass until full.
Step 3 (optional): Add ice cubes to taste.
Step 4: Enjoy!

[sirdanilot]

Mountain Dew used to be not available in Europe, and as it is very popular in the US we always wondered what it would taste like and it was quite hyped. Now recently it became available and I tasted it, but... what is all the fuss about? It is sickeningly sweet and tastes like a 7-up kind of soft drink. I do not understand why people find this so interesting. Could someone explain this to me?
Another one is 'Ginger Ale'. I ordered this in a pub once because I thought it was some kind of beer (it was not, haha). But it was also not very interesting, although more pleasant than the mountain dew, as it was less sickeningly sweet.

Now I do really love Brazilian soft drinks, as they are truly something different from what is available in Europe. For example you have Guaraná, made from the guarana berry, which has a unique aroma. It is kinda comparable to energy drinks but much less synthetic and yuck, as it is made from a natural source (and also a naturally energizing berry rather than synthetic energizers). Another one is Mate, also popular in Argentina, which is a kind of ice tea from a special kind of tea. And finally you have Grapeche which is a grape-taste soft drink that I also love.
All of these are either unavailable in europe, or very hard and expensive to find

Now I am wondering, is 'Cassis' available in America? It is a soft drink with blackcurrant flavour, it's basically my favourite soft drink that is available here. Another favourite is Vanilla Coke but I cannot find it anymore

I don't drink a lot of soft drinks anyway. Most of them are too sweet. I drink mostly water, coffee and beer, and tea if I am sick or have a cold.

[Torco]

Orangina, on the other hand, is lovely

[gach]

Guys, please talk about hard drinks, it's the boozy thread. I do approve of mate but I'm not aware of any recipe mixing it with alcohol. Does anybody happen to know if there exists some variant of mate toddy?

[Kereb]

Can't help you with the mate-cocktail but I do know that Orangina makes an awesome variant tequila sunrise

[sirdanilot]

I hardly ever drink cocktails anyway, as I mostly drink beer really.

What I tried by surprise a while ago was rum + bitter lemon, which tasted very good, especially because bitter lemon isn't so sickly sweet. Very nice.

[linguoboy]

Now I am wondering, is 'Cassis' available in America? It is a soft drink with blackcurrant flavour, it's basically my favourite soft drink that is available here.

"Cassis" in US English refers to crème de cassis, a blackcurrant liqueur. Its most common use is being added to white wine to create a kir (or to champagne for a kir royal).

Blackcurrant isn't a common flavouring in the US since blackcurrant cultivation was banned here in the early 20th century and has only been recently reintroduced in a piecemeal fashion. In Britain, the government actually distributed blackcurrant syrup for free during WWII to prevent scurvy so far more people acquired a taste for it. The only place I've seen that here is in the one Irish pub around which makes a proper snakebite.

[Xephyr]

Mountain Dew used to be not available in Europe, and as it is very popular in the US we always wondered what it would taste like and it was quite hyped. Now recently it became available and I tasted it, but... what is all the fuss about? It is sickeningly sweet and tastes like a 7-up kind of soft drink. I do not understand why people find this so interesting. Could someone explain this to me?

Sure. The explanation is that different people like different foods and drinks.

... What? Not the explanation you were hoping for? Well what on earth kind of explanation were you expecting?

[sirdanilot]

Maybe : what is the appeal of the stuff to people who do like it ?

[KathTheDragon]

Maybe : what is the appeal of the stuff to people who do like it ?

They think it tastes good?

Well what on earth kind of explanation were you expecting?

[Hydroeccentricity]

To be fair, it is baffling when some hyped foreign food turns out to be crap. Mountain Dew is widely lampooned in Canada as caffeinated sugar water only fit for teenage gamers. The first time I tried fancy European bottled water I had a similar disappointment, which in retrospect is hilarious.

[KathTheDragon]

I've lost my taste for still water, unless it's super-cold.

[finlay]

I first tasted Mountain Dew in Japan, if I remember rightly, and it was so caffeinated it left me feeling nauseous. To be fair, coffee does the same. I don't drink that much caffeine...

[Kereb]

de gustibus and all that, I'm not about to tell anyone to stop liking Mountain Dew
but it's noticeably even sweeter than most sodas. it's like a liquid version of lemon pie filling
i'm open to cocktail recipes that make use of it, though ... i've read that MD was originally invented as a mixer for whiskey but i'd probably try and find another element to cut the sweetness further still

[sirdanilot]

Just adding carboneated water might do the trick perhaps, or perhaps some kind of not too sweet fruit juice. Perhaps even lemon juice but I don't remember how sour mountain dew was (not so sour I think).

[vampireshark]

Can't help you with the mate-cocktail but I do know that Orangina makes an awesome variant tequila sunrise

That, I can imagine. I wonder if it works well for screwdrivers.

Anyways, unfortunately, the only cocktail I can really contribute is that, about five years ago while I lived in the UK, I discovered that limoncello mixed with lemon Fanta was delicious, and incredibly so: the bitterness of the limoncello and the less-bitter quality of the Fanta seemed to balance each other nicely. Unfortunately, lemon Fanta doesn't exist in the US, and San Pellegrino lemon is really expensive (as is limoncello, but that's what I get for living in an ABC state), but I should investigate this and report back.

[Bristel]

I had a wonderful mixed drink of a shot of chilled vodka over ice then topped off the small glass with a liberal pouring of Italian blood orange soda. (maybe the vodka should have been more liberal in the pouring, but it was a beautiful sparkling pink and was quite delicious anyway)

[Shm Jay]

There's supposed to be a popular Spanish drink (or perhaps just Catalonian) mixing Coca-Cola with [cheap] wine.

[linguoboy]

There's supposed to be a popular Spanish drink (or perhaps just Catalonian) mixing Coca-Cola with [cheap] wine.

Are you thinking of the Kalimotxo? That's Basque in origin, not Catalan. (The "k" is a dead giveaway.) Though these days it is found in Catalonia as well as the rest of Spain. My favourite alternate name for it is "Rioja libre".

I think it may have also been invented independently in the Balkans.

[sirdanilot]

They also mix a seven-up kind of soda (except it's a bit more watery than actual seven up) with cheap red wine. However sadly some youngster mix it in with any wine which is an abomination (it's fine to make cheap wine drinkable though).

Also I wouldn't call mixing coke with wine an 'invention', that really is too much honour.

[sirdanilot]

Can't help you with the mate-cocktail but I do know that Orangina makes an awesome variant tequila sunrise

That, I can imagine. I wonder if it works well for screwdrivers.

Anyways, unfortunately, the only cocktail I can really contribute is that, about five years ago while I lived in the UK, I discovered that limoncello mixed with lemon Fanta was delicious, and incredibly so: the bitterness of the limoncello and the less-bitter quality of the Fanta seemed to balance each other nicely. Unfortunately, lemon Fanta doesn't exist in the US, and San Pellegrino lemon is really expensive (as is limoncello, but that's what I get for living in an ABC state), but I should investigate this and report back.

Why not just use sprite/seven up? Also, there are cheap alternatives to limoncello (which are just wodka with some lemon flavouring and colour), but you do get what you pay for.