Mixed Drinks vs Cocktails: The Great Liquor Debate

The statement that started it all, courtesy of this website: http://www.eatdrinkandbemarried.com/

Mixed drinks referencing any sexual act are always best avoided. These mixed drinks are crass, often acting as props that you carry around with you in a bar as a conversation starter. A cocktail, by comparison, sits with you at your table and speaks volumes about your taste and the company you keep.

Now, as a young, modern lady, I will openly admit to partaking, once or twice, to an alcohlic beverage (alright, stop the giggling!) But before this question, well, statement rather, was posed to me, I never really thought of the difference between the two. I don't think that I ever really knew that there was a difference in the first place. So, in a very Sex & the City manner I have decided to figure out if I am a cocktail girl or a mixed drink girl.

At first reading of the post, which can be read in its entirety at the aforementioned website, the distinctions between the two are obvious. The mixed drink is a simple combo of a spirit and a sweet mixer such as orange juice (think screwdriver) and the cocktail is the stronger drink usually with more ingredients that don't try to mask the taste of the spirit behind sugar. That said, I think that my life can easily be broken down into two drunken phases: college and post-college. In college, my drink of choice (free frat beer not included) was certainly a mixed drink. As most underage drinkers will admit, it is far easier to snag one bottle of anything than it is to smuggle numerous types of illegal liquids into any given dorm room. And, as young college women, mixers were always available. You don't have to be 21 to buy coke or any type of juice (or any other pre-made "just add liquor" products for that matter.) So we mixed, a lot, and enjoyed our time together.

Yet as I have grown older and alcohol has become something that I can purchase for myself, I do believe that I have moved on to the cocktail. I now order vodka tonics with reckless abandon and rarely think to mix myself a screwdriver (which I used to do so frequently and chug from large containers!) As of late, my drink of choice is a martini. Any type, classic or otherwise. So I guess this means that I have moved on. That now, a good drink is certainly best shared when sitting with my best girlfriends, sipping from a stylish glass not wandering around looking to find the next drink as if the magic mixed drink fairy is going to plant a full paper cup in my hand.

But, the funny thing is, sometimes you really just need a good mixed drink. Sometimes something sweet and sugary and full of youthful abandon is just what the doctor ordered. And sometimes, sharing that sticky drink with a group of friends while laughing at all of the people with their stuffy cocktails is just as fun and carefree as it ever was. It is indicitive of the company I keep. The company I keep doesn't care if I drink a cockatil or a mixed drink, in fact, they enjoy that I drink both! As the wonderful candy slogan says "Sometimes you feel like a nut, Sometimes you don't" and I think that is the way it should be. I suppose I am not as refined as I sometimes belive that I am. It's just another sign that I am still in that purgatory phase, as so many young twenty-somethings are, between childhood and adulthood, between mixed drinks and cocktails. Either way, I'm happy. With good friends and good drinks, life is bearable.

So, hear is a toast to all of you. Those with the stuffy cocktails and those with the youthful mixed drink. Drink up, enjoy, there's plenty more where that came from!