Swanky Drink

[Cowboy_ninja]

I want my character (noble) to order a top shelf alcoholic drink like he's james bond, but I want it to be a long order like " quad long shot grande in a venti cup half calf double cupped no sleeve salted caramel mocha latte with 2 pumps of vanilla substitute 2 pumps of white chocolate mocha for mocha and substitute 2 pumps of hazelnut for toffee nut half whole milk and half breve with no whipped cream extra hot extra foam extra caramel drizzle extra salt add a scoop of vanilla bean powder with light ice well stirred"

any bartenders can weigh in and help me come up with a long order for a single drink?

[JackPhoenix]

"Look, pal, I don't know what kind of elven crap are you on, but this is a tavern. You can get an ale. Brewed it myself. Or a mead, 'less it went bad. Also got three different kinds of wine, widest selection in town. And a bottle of smuggled spirit that blinded the last non-dwarf who tried it. Now pick what you want, or go get yourself water from the public well."

I'm not sure what setting you play in, but what you ask for wasn't really a thing until recently. You'll get what's available, you don't have much choice about that. If you're a noble, you can order your servants to make you whatever you want, if you get the ingredients, but in a normal tavern? Not a chance. The "top shelf" is probably the only shelf.

[ProsecutorGodot]

You could always ask your DM if your family can own or hold stake in a winery. It's got a really long pretentious name that inexplicably mixes words from several different languages, as long as it sounds unique. The wine is also terrible, but cheap, so even bottom end taverns can have a bottle lying around for when a noble shows up looking for something "fancy".

Otherwise, bouncing a bit on JackPhoenix's point, it doesn't make a huge amount of sense for every tavern to offer mixed drinks. Owning a wide variety of alcohol would be expensive and it's not the kind of service that common folks could afford regularly enough to keep that business running. High end establishment might have something like that but I'm not mixologist and couldn't give you a name for any crazy drink.

[Unoriginal]

I want my character (noble) to order a top shelf alcoholic drink like he's james bond, but I want it to be a long order like " quad long shot grande in a venti cup half calf double cupped no sleeve salted caramel mocha latte with 2 pumps of vanilla substitute 2 pumps of white chocolate mocha for mocha and substitute 2 pumps of hazelnut for toffee nut half whole milk and half breve with no whipped cream extra hot extra foam extra caramel drizzle extra salt add a scoop of vanilla bean powder with light ice well stirred"

Do note that Jame Bond's typical order is anything but top shelf or "swanky".

It's been noted (https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/the-internet-cant-stop-fighting-over-james-bonds-bad-martini) that his famous "shaken, not stirred" vodka martini would be a watered down, barely tasting but highly alcoholic brew looking like dirty bath water, if done like he orders it.

It's just that the movies give James Bond the kind of charismatic aura that lets him order anything and still look like a total badass:


James Bond: "I'll take five ounces of Japanese whisky with three measures of ketchup, served in a chilled corn pipe."




any bartenders can weigh in and help me come up with a long order for a single drink?

I'm not a bartender, but I would say that a long, complicated order does not give an impression of swanky, top shelf drink.

On the other hand, what would give an impression of your character being a badass who enjoys top shelf stuff, IMO, is to buy a bottle at the bar as "yours, only" in advance, and when you show up you can just sit down and you get served what you want without even ordering something specific, or just by ordering "the usual" or the like (idea I got from the video game Yakuza 0).

[Burley]

"I'll have a Dwarven ale, shaken until flat and foamy, in an oaken mug with a cave moss rim and a pickled gysahl greens chaser."

[Catullus64]

Rather than order a complex mixed drink, which for reasons already pointed out is a fairly modern phenomenon that would feel out of place in most D&D settings, you could display a keen knowledge of local viticulture by asking for a specific year's wine from the region. Ancient and medieval people definitely had opinions about certain years and regions producing the best stuff, and it's believable that a well-off tavern keeper would know about and procure well-regarded vintages.

"The twelfth year of King Frenga's reign was simply splendid for white Caecarian, was it not? A flagon for me and my friends, and fresh from the cellar, there's a good man."

[Willie the Duck]

Others have mentioned that both IRL medieval/Renaissance societies and the quasi-medieval ren-fair milieu D&D has traditionally had would not have this setup -- A bar would likely brew their own or have a specific in-town brewery from which they purchase their 1-3 choices. As for distilled spirits (which honestly really took off more in the late Renaissance anyways), entire towns might have one specific spirit of choice (although there might well be 'the good stuff' and less good stuff). In that environment, the impressive buy might be 'give me a double of that bottle I know you have under the bar. Y'know, the one you serve the King's tax collector when he comes through town.'

That said, not everyone plays D&D that way anymore -- and given how the quasi-medieval ren-fair milieu is also fictive, there's no reason to treat one as more reasonable than the other. If you want a cosmopolitan D&D city to have cosmopolitans and manhattans (despite your world not actually having a Manhattan), more power to you. In that case, why not lean on the fantasy nature of things. Something like, "I'll have 3 fingers of Restless Wurm with a dram of Wraith's Aura."

[PhantomSoul]

Cocktail-wise, googling could be fun! Grab some ingredients, stick 'em in dice tables, and roll to see what you get! You could even model it on common cocktail proportions/formulas (e.g. the golden ration, with 2 parts alcohol, 1 part sour, 1 part sweet, but there's stuff from 8:2:1 to 4:1:1 to not having a sour ingredient).

I'd agree that even outside of historical accuracy, many of the more "fancy" cocktails present simply -- not everywhere, of course, but the "classics" have shorter lists and no ordering headaches reminiscent of burnt-coffee shops... :)

I'd tend to focus on ingredient quality and honing flavour rather than a complicated-sounding order. You want a cocktail with coffee liqueur? Ask for a proper coffee infusion not the equivalent of Bailey's. You want a vodka or a gin or a whisk(e)y? Specify which. You need it sweetened? Go for something with a bit of flavour instead of plain simple syrup -- demerara syrup, or a syrup with texture, or a honey syrup, or maple syrup, or a sweet liqueur.

But of course, the classic if you just have a grudge against the bartender is a Ramos fizz.

Or, when in doubt, have a list of cocktails that are booze-forward to randomly choose from. Probably not sours, if I read the intended feel right.

And maybe have arrangements with bartenders, like the idea above of having Your Bottle at places you go often. But you could also arrange for them to make custom bitters or vermouths or infusions (like gin) for you. It could even be profitable in the long run!


Rather than order a complex mixed drink, which for reasons already pointed out is a fairly modern phenomenon that would feel out of place in most D&D settings, you could display a keen knowledge of local viticulture by asking for a specific year's wine from the region. Ancient and medieval people definitely had opinions about certain years and regions producing the best stuff, and it's believable that a well-off tavern keeper would know about and procure well-regarded vintages.

"The twelfth year of King Frenga's reign was simply splendid for white Caecarian, was it not? A flagon for me and my friends, and fresh from the cellar, there's a good man."

And you can use it as a world-building thing -- the wine of a year might be perceived as "tainted" by an unfortunate event or be especially prized because of some event, perhaps with superstition bleeding through. Or maybe when it's a "tainted" wine, there's a special process: this is a wine you mull or put in a New York Sour or a sangria. After all, an uneventful year's wine should be improved with spice; a wine from a year when a family member died might need fruit to give it life; a wine from a region that is seen as snobby or emptily self-agrandising might be perfect for a float; a wine from an area with purists might be turned into a seltzer out of sheer parody; maybe wines are combined with local flavours giving an equivalent to white wine mojitos or a French pear martini.

[Polyphemus]

And you can use it as a world-building thing -- the wine of a year might be perceived as "tainted" by an unfortunate event or be especially prized because of some event, perhaps with superstition bleeding through. Or maybe when it's a "tainted" wine, there's a special process: this is a wine you mull or put in a New York Sour or a sangria. After all, an uneventful year's wine should be improved with spice; a wine from a year when a family member died might need fruit to give it life; a wine from a region that is seen as snobby or emptily self-agrandising might be perfect for a float; a wine from an area with purists might be turned into a seltzer out of sheer parody; maybe wines are combined with local flavours giving an equivalent to white wine mojitos or a French pear martini.

Ooh, on that note, maybe your character could be ordering a bottle of wine from a generally agreed-upon “bad year” either because they’re stingy in spite of their wealth and the bad year stigma means it’s the cheapest wine to be had. Or perhaps, if they have an edgy, eccentric, or Devil-may-care attitude towards things, maybe they go against the grain and think that the “bad year” wasn’t a bad year…for the wine, at least.

“Garçon? I’ll have the 1138 Chez La Vin. The entire bottle.”
“Er, do you not mean, perhaps, the 1132, sir?”
“I said what I said.”
“It’s just, and I feel foolish in pointing out, 1138 was the year the plague hit, sir.”
“The plague hit the peasants, not their grapes.”
“Ah, yes, of course, sir. Right away.”

[PhantomSoul]

“Garçon? I’ll have the 1138 Chez La Vin. The entire bottle.”
“Er, do you not mean, perhaps, the 1132, sir?”
“I said what I said.”
“It’s just, and I feel foolish in pointing out, 1138 was the year the plague hit, sir.”
“The plague hit the peasants, not their grapes.”
“Ah, yes, of course, sir. Right away.”

Makes perfect sense, really; late-harvest benefit of a richer and honeyed flavour, and in some areas maybe the late harvest or an underlying freak freeze led to getting ice wine perks that year!

[tKUUNK]

Ooh, on that note, maybe your character could be ordering a bottle of wine from a generally agreed-upon “bad year” either because they’re stingy in spite of their wealth and the bad year stigma means it’s the cheapest wine to be had. Or perhaps, if they have an edgy, eccentric, or Devil-may-care attitude towards things, maybe they go against the grain and think that the “bad year” wasn’t a bad year…for the wine, at least.

“Garçon? I’ll have the 1138 Chez La Vin. The entire bottle.”
“Er, do you not mean, perhaps, the 1132, sir?”
“I said what I said.”
“It’s just, and I feel foolish in pointing out, 1138 was the year the plague hit, sir.”
“The plague hit the peasants, not their grapes.”
“Ah, yes, of course, sir. Right away.”

This right here is golden.

[Reach Weapon]

I might recommend you go the other direction, and simply have a man for that sort of thing. Depending on their rank, a noble need not concern themselves with such base concerns, and could simply state vague preferences "I'm thinking moral floral than fruity today" or "something oakey and strong" and let their designee sort through it (an NPC might be easier, but a party thief or spy might find the access and borrowed authority useful).

You could then do the Bond thing Diamonds Are Forever style, "Unusually fine Solera. '51, I believe. (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066995/characters/nm0619802)"

[Phhase]

Coincidentally, I did something similar recently with a specialty bar called The Quintessence that sells magical elemental milkshakes (inspired by a random bit of art). There are four base variants (one per element), and each has two potential mix-ins (only one mix in per drink, alcohol optional, one shake every two hours or else one might have a bad reaction between magics in one's stomach). Adding a mix-in changes the drink and its effect into something else. For example, adding cinder syrup to an Air makes it a Paraelemental Smoke, and Z-sauce makes it a Stormcloud. Similarly, adding Bonespear Ichor to an Earth makes a Paraelemental Dust, whereas Distilled Pudding makes it an Ooze Skincrawl. You get the idea.

So an order could be "I'll have a large Skincrawl, light on the Pudding, splash of limoncello, get some white on the peaks [whipped cream]."

If anyone likes, I can post the full menu, with effects.