The joke is, gin-wise, that until some point in this century gin was rotgut; now it's considered sort of snobby. I suppose it's because nobody drinks raw gin now; they drink it with mixers, and that way lies snobbification and the dreaded label "girly drink".

I suspect fanon settled on whisky/scotch because of the major hard liquors, vodka has no flavor, and rum and gin are almost sweet. I can drink any of them neat, and I'm no hardened drinker; but scotch neat makes me splutter.

A man who can drink scotch neat without a splutter is a man who knows what he's doing, hard-liquor-wise. Which is to say neither that scotch drinkers are alkies nor that beer drinkers aren't, but I get why the stereotype arises.

The joke is, gin-wise, that until some point in this century gin was rotgut; now it's considered sort of snobby. I suppose it's because nobody drinks raw gin now; they drink it with mixers, and that way lies snobbification and the dreaded label "girly drink".

I used to drink raw gin. I've used it before precisely because of the history of the stuff. Blue Ruin/Mother's Ruin here we come! Though most people I know who drink it mostly straight are drinking martinis.

Whisky *in general* I can get behind. Irish, Canadian, Jack. The ones that work well in mixes or chased with beer and aren't specifically the chosen drink of another character. Hell, of three other characters: Giles, Doyle, and Whistler. Four, if you count Lilah. I tend to think more that fanon has just gone ahead and assumed it through confusion and through one or two good stories than anything else.

At the tale-end of Season 3, we have plenty of evidence to suggest that Wes's drinking more than he should, but as he's only a year removed from drinking random silly girly drinks in an effort to get thoroughly pissed, and as he's out of a job, seeing him getting plastered on Laphroaig takes me out of the story to a small degree. Plus it makes me cry for the Laphroaig, which should never be abused like that.

And yes, I've thought about this too much.

I've gotten plastered on Laphroaig! It's a good plastering.

Isn't he drinking whiskey shots with his beer in "Tomorrow"?

I've gotten plastered on Laphroaig! It's a good plastering.

t sheepish so have I, generally slowly, and with sipping. And by expanding my definition of "double" to mean Extra Huge Glass of Twice. Which is what I did two nights ago. Still, I'm not shooting it.

Isn't he drinking whiskey shots with his beer in "Tomorrow"?

He is indeed consuming the Boilermaker, from the looks of it at a rate of slightly more than a shot per pint.

Edit: Specifically, he's pouring the shots into the beer before drinking them, rather than doing a shot with a chaser.

I could see Wes doing vodka, but that's because my veddy, veddy British and professorial stepgrandfather loves good vodka.

At Thanksgiving, my dad, SGF, and I have shots of Chopin or Gray Goose (which Dad keeps hidden in the freezer), while a jug of Popov sits out for general consumption.

Question re. boilermakers (I actually need to know this for a fic). Does a boilermaker always involve dumping the shot into the beer, or can one alternate? I'd also imagine that a boilermaker hangover is pretty nasty stuff.

Question re. boilermakers (I actually need to know this for a fic). Does a boilermaker always involve dumping the shot into the beer, or can one alternate? I'd also imagine that a boilermaker hangover is pretty nasty stuff.

Some people consider it still a boilermaker if you're shooting and chasing, but they're wrong like wrong things because, damn it, that's just shooting and chasing.

The classic boilermaker in school involved actually dropping the shot into the beer, glass and all. Dumping the whisky in still counts, but isn't as hard core.

(Edit again: of course, there are those who insist that the dropped in version should be called a Depth Charge. There are some serious regionalisms with this drink. To the point of Usenet flamewars, or close to.)

One or two boilermakers will make you nice and tispy, but the head's not too bad.

Edit: and yes, fine, there was nothing to do at Evergreen but drink. I drink much less now than I did at 20 and 21, but I keep my mix books around for reference.

I know very, very, very little about alcohol and while I'm always interested in new realms of geekery I don't think I will. My aunt was a bartender when she was younger and when we go over she always makes Interesting Drinks involving blenders-- last time I talked to John on the phone I was slightly drunk because they'd been having margaritas (!)-- but that's as far as I think I'll be going, in terms of knowledge.

But what *does* it mean to have a drink "neat"? No ice?

On the train today I was overhearing this woman explaining what fic was to her two male companions. I waited for a whole few minutes, until she was saying "they call it a beta, I don't know why," and I twisted around and said I thought it was from the tech vocabulary, beta-version-testing, and said I was a ficcer. She was very pleased to have run into me as a living breathing illustration. She was only familiar with X-Files stuff, though.

I like the term "beta-reader" better than editor or proofreader. A beta-reader is less dictatorial than an editor, but comments more on the actual content than a proofreader.

In other news, I thought [link] was kinda good. Several parts seemed rather... gratuitous, but there was a funny, Jossy vibe here and there.

Rachel Lee Arlington! I'll be damned. I didn't know she was still ficcing. She wrote one of my favorite XF smutfics, "With a Vengeance".

That was kinda fun, and the dialog was good.