Whisky Cocktails - A necessary evil?

[Deactivated Member]

There has been much reported about the upturn in popularity of whisky cocktails. Some are very good and give a nice twist to traditional flavours. Others are not.
However, my question is this.
Is this the best method of attracting new drinkers to whisky? Or would it be better to educate at an earlier stage, e.g. guiding younger palates to sweeter, more gentle taste sensations (speyside/Irish/American?), before tackling the big boys?

[Mr Fjeld]

I guess most of the cocktails are based on blended not single malt - but if otherwise I don't really care. People can do what they want to their whisky in my mind - although wasting good single malt where blended whisky would be perfect is perhaps a bit extravagant. Myself I just love an Irish/Scottish coffee now and then - but I use Famous Grouse instead of a single malt. I don't touch cocktails though.

Skål!
Christian

[Deactivated Member]

I doubt whisky cocktails serve as an introduction to whisky at all--the people who drink them are people who drink cocktails. Do any of them go around dramming fine vodka or gin? If this sells more whisky, fine. But I wouldn't count on it as a growth sector for the product. The world of cocktails is all trendiness and ephemera. For all some folks complain about whisky's supposedly stodgy image, its strength is its position as a traditional product, not its fashionability. To put one's eggs in the latter basket is only to invite even worse boom-and-crash cycles than the product is already prone to.

Christian, you might generally be right about the choice of whisky, but I can see some cocktails being given a decided twist by the use of a heavily peated or sherried whisky. And if you post any more photos of Bergen, I'll cry! I'd love to go back. A really cool place, if very expensive, and a bit short on good beer. (Looking forward to that Nøgne Ø.)

[Mr Fjeld]

Christian, you might generally be right about the choice of whisky, but I can see some cocktails being given a decided twist by the use of a heavily peated or sherried whisky. And if you post any more photos of Bergen, I'll cry! I'd love to go back. A really cool place, if very expensive, and a bit short on good beer. (Looking forward to that Nøgne Ø.)

You could very well be right - I guess I ought to try once - just to learn if it's good or not! And the Nøgne Ø will be sent for you to pick up when you arrive at the hotel.
And trust me, you'll be back here once or more times as most people who visit Bergen usually do! Meanwhile I'll leave you crying for a bit:



Skål!
Christian

[hpulley]

Cocktails are good for the whisky industry as a whole and may be good for beginners who would cough (literally, not figuratively) if they attempted to quaff undiluted liquor of even 40% ABV. It isn't necessarily good for single malts or for us, the connoiseurs but businesses and industries are about making money, not making friends unfortunately.

Do people who drink whisky cocktails graduate to drinking whisky? They can, with myself as a case in point. I used to drink them almost exclusively in cola or ginger ale, then on the rocks, before 'graduating' to taking them neat (strangely I've never liked water in my whisky). You can't taste much whisky in cola or ginger ale so I'd argue that fancier cocktails are no worse for covering up the taste.

Harry

[Admiral]

Is this the best method of attracting new drinkers to whisky?

I don't think so. Drinking cocktails never attracted me to vodka or blue curacao, or those sort of things.

However, whisky cocktails obviously help increase awareness of whisky, and that's not a bad thing.

Cheers,
Admiral

[patrick dicaprio]

it cant help but make people aware of whisky so that is good. do i think that someone who drinks a whisky cocktail might eventually becomce a whisky drinker? yes. that is what happened to me. i dont think many are going to start with single malt whisky so they have to start somewhere.

Pat

[Mr Fjeld]

All of a sudden I came to think about the fact that cocktails in Norway are not considered to be very manly somehow....
Not that I care though but cocktails are not the way to get norwegians atracted to single malt whisky. I suppose Cognac is the better way - by suggesting a sherry matured whisky as an avec would do the trick!

Skål!
Christian