Overrated Cocktails

Every day at Social and Cocktail Towers we endeavour to bring you new & exciting things from the wonderful world of cocktails, including; cocktail recipes, news, reviews, cocktail bars & much more. We love to sing the praises of the many amazing cocktail creations that exist in the many wonderful cocktail bars across the country, but as a change, we thought we would ask three experts & friends of the site, which popular cocktails they thought were overrated and didn’t deserve the praise they get. Basically, we wanted to know what cocktails they would send to Room 101!

We begin by asking Welsh bartender and blogger, Mark Holmes; the man behind the excellent Cocktails in Cardiff website:

My most overrated cocktail has to be, dare I say it, the

Martini

More accurately, I use the word “overrated” to refer to the palate of the 21^st century, where the classic Martini has been reduced to a glass of gin (or in some cases vodka) with nothing else but the smallest spritz of vermouth. If we take ourselves back to the 19^th century (Harry Johnson`s 1988 “New Improved Bartenders Manual”) we find the Martini to be a drink consisting of equal parts gin and sweet vermouth, accompanied with a few dashes of Bokers Bitters, gum syrup and curacao. For me I find this a far more interesting drink and hence is why I label today’s extra dry Martinis overrated.

 

Next, we ask regular Social and Cocktail contributor Mark Gill, aka The Cocktail Geek, the man behind the excellent website of the same name.

The most overrated cocktail has to be the 

Mojito

 

…You’d think given the number that are ordered by everyone from students to suited and booted executives that it must be a sublime, tongue-teasing and palate-pleasing libation, the like of which will never be emulated.  It isn’t.  It is rum (usually cheap), sugar (usually granular), lime (usually too little or too much), mint (usually battered like a cheap piece of cod), and soda (usually from a gun). Properly made it is a perfectly serviceable cocktail, albeit one that pales into insignificance when compared with the epic Mint Julep.  Rarely is it properly made, and consequentially rarely should anyone be caught going back for seconds.  But the masses do.  More fool them.

Thirdly we asked Jeff Marron, owner of Saugatuck Grain & Grape, for his view. As someone who has been working in the alcohol industry for over 20 years, specializing in boutique wines, artisian spirits and craft beers, Jeff is in a good position to comment:

In my opinion, the

Vesper Martini

has to be one of the most overrated cocktails out there. To me, it’s one note, bland and boring. I like a lot of complexity in a cocktail. I tend to lean more towards the Boulevardier, Hanky Panky or even the Sazerac cocktail. In the Vesper Martini, it seems that the vodka takes away from the gin and the Lillet lies flat. When it comes to suggesting a cocktail to an undecided customer, the Vesper Martini never comes to mind!