Whenever a drink you might not know turns up in a Pintdle, a short note under the game says what it is and how it's made. Here are all of them, from A to Z.
374 drinks so far. None of the notes say which drink people would pick, so reading them won't give away a single answer.
The notes are written in Pintdle's own words, and their facts were checked against public sources, mainly Wikipedia, with other reference sites where Wikipedia said little.
Dubbel, tripel and quadrupel are strong Belgian-style ales, named in the tradition of monastery beers. Dubbel is brown and fruity, tripel is golden, and quadrupel is the strongest and richest of the three. Beer can only be sold as Trappist if it is brewed inside a Trappist monastery, by the monks or under their supervision.
Absinthe is a high-strength spirit flavoured with wormwood, green anise and fennel, and is traditionally pale green. It is served by slowly dripping cold water over a sugar cube into the glass, which turns the drink cloudy. It was banned in several countries in the early 1900s, but the bans were later lifted.
Advocaat is a traditional Dutch drink of eggs, sugar and brandy, rich and creamy with a smooth, custard-like texture, usually 14 to 20 per cent alcohol. Vanilla, honey and sometimes cream may be added. Its origin is debated: one theory traces the name to an avocado drink of Indigenous people in northern Brazil, with Dutch colonists swapping the avocado for egg yolk.
Aglianico is a black grape grown mostly in Basilicata and Campania in southern Italy, sometimes called the Barolo of the South for its ability to make complex wines. It is traditionally thought to have come from Greece, brought by Greek settlers around the 8th century BC, though its origins are unclear.
Aguardiente comes from the Spanish and Portuguese words for 'fiery water' and is a loose name for distilled spirits of about 29 to 60 per cent alcohol, made from sugarcane, grapes, fruit, grain and other plants. It comes from the Iberian Peninsula and is drunk across Latin America. Cane aguardiente is similar to cachaça but not the same.
Alcohol-free beer is brewed like ordinary beer, then has its alcohol removed, or is made in a way that hardly produces any. It keeps much of the flavour of the style it copies. Labels such as 0.0% or 0.5% show how much is left, and the rules for what counts as 'alcohol-free' differ from country to country.
An alcopop is a sweet, ready-mixed drink with a low alcohol content, usually between about 3 and 7 per cent. The name joins 'alcohol' and 'pop'. Some are based on malt, some on wine and some on a spirit mixed with fruit juice or other flavourings, and in English-speaking Canada they are more often called coolers.
Ale is beer made with a yeast that ferments warm and fast, which gives fruitier, more varied flavours than lager. The family includes pale ales, IPAs, bitters, stouts and many more. Ales are usually served a little less cold than lager.
Altbier, German for 'old beer', is a copper-coloured beer from the Rhineland, especially around Düsseldorf. It is fermented with a top-fermenting yeast, an older method than lager brewing, and then matured cold, so it tastes cleaner and more like a lager than most ales do. It is usually 4.3 to 5.5 per cent alcohol.
Alvarinho, spelled albariño in Spain, is a white grape grown on both sides of the border between northern Portugal and Galicia. The wines are light, crisp and aromatic, with citrus and stone-fruit notes, and are often served with seafood.
Amaretto is a sweet Italian liqueur with a strong almond flavour, although it is often made from apricot kernels or peach stones rather than almonds. It is sipped on its own, poured over ice or used in cocktails such as the amaretto sour. Amaretto means 'a little bitter' in Italian.
An amaretto sour is almond liqueur, lemon juice and sugar syrup shaken with ice, often with egg white for a silky foam, and finished with a cherry. Amaretto is made from almonds or apricot kernels, so the drink tastes of marzipan. It follows the classic sour pattern: alcohol, citrus and sugar.
Amaro is Italian for 'bitter', and amari are bittersweet herbal liqueurs, made by steeping herbs, roots, bark and citrus peel in alcohol and sweetening it. They are sipped after a meal as a digestif, or before one as an aperitivo, often over ice or with soda water.
Amarone della Valpolicella, usually just Amarone, is a rich, dry red wine from the Valpolicella area near Verona in Italy, made from partly dried grapes, mainly corvina and rondinella. Its name means 'great bitter', to tell it apart from the sweeter Recioto made in the same area. It was not marketed as Amarone before 1953.
An amber ale is a copper-coloured, medium-bodied beer made with lightly toasted malts that add caramel and biscuit flavours. The hops stay in the background, so it tastes smooth and malty rather than sharply bitter.
The Americano is a short, fizzy cocktail of a bitter red liqueur, sweet vermouth and soda water, served over ice with a slice of orange or lemon. It began in Milan in the 1860s, where the story goes that an American customer asked for his bitter liqueur to be made longer and fizzier. Adding gin instead of soda is said to have led to the Negroni.
Ouzo (Greece), raki (Turkey), arak (the Levant), pastis (France) and sambuca (Italy) are aniseed-flavoured spirits and liqueurs. Most are clear or pale in the bottle and turn cloudy white when water is added, because the oils that carry the aniseed flavour come out of solution. They are usually served with water and ice and sipped slowly with food.
An apéritif is an alcoholic drink served before a meal to stimulate the appetite, usually dry rather than sweet, such as vermouth, champagne, pastis, gin, ouzo or dry sherry. A digestif is served after the meal. The word comes from the Latin aperire, 'to open', and the French shorten it to apéro.
Apfelwein, German for 'apple wine', is German cider, made from sour apples and usually 4.8 to 7 per cent alcohol, with a tart taste. It goes by many regional names, including Viez around Trier and in the Saarland, and Most in Austria, Switzerland and southern Germany.
Applejack is an American apple brandy, traditionally made by freeze distilling hard cider, a method called jacking, though modern makers use ordinary distillation. It was first produced in 1698 in colonial New Jersey by William Laird, a Scots American, and it is used in cocktails such as the Jack Rose.
An appletini is vodka, apple liqueur and a little lemon juice, shaken and strained into a martini glass, usually bright green and garnished with a slice of apple. It is sweet and tart, like a green apple. It borrows the martini's name and glass, and is usually said to have been created in Los Angeles in 1996.
Aquavit is a Scandinavian spirit flavoured mainly with caraway or dill, plus other spices, and its name comes from the Latin for 'water of life'. It is served ice-cold in small glasses, traditionally with food such as pickled herring, and often at Christmas and other celebrations.
The Arnold Palmer is a non-alcoholic mixed drink of iced tea and lemonade, named after the American golfer Arnold Palmer, who often ordered it. Cocktail versions add vodka, which is called a John Daly, or tequila, which is called a Lee Trevino.
Aromatised wine is wine flavoured with aromatic herbs and spices, and in the European Union it must be at least 14.5 and under 22 per cent alcohol. Vermouth is the main example, and the group also includes quinquinas, aperitifs flavoured with cinchona bark, which supplies quinine. Egyptian jars from about 3150 BCE held residues that suggest spiced wine, with mint, coriander, sage and thyme.
Arrack is a distilled drink typically made in India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia from the fermented sap of coconut flowers or from sugarcane, and sometimes from grain or fruit. The word comes from the Arabic arak, meaning 'distillate'. It is not the same as the aniseed spirit called arak in the eastern Mediterranean, which is made from grapes.
Assyrtiko is a white Greek grape from the volcanic island of Santorini, also grown on other Aegean islands such as Paros and in mainland Greece. On Santorini many vines are old and ungrafted, growing in dry soil rich in volcanic ash. The grape is known for keeping its acidity even when it is very ripe.
The aviation is a gin cocktail of gin, maraschino liqueur, lemon juice and, in the original recipe, crème de violette, a violet liqueur, served straight up in a cocktail glass. It was created by Hugo Ensslin, a bartender at a New York hotel, and first published in 1916. Many later recipes leave out the violet liqueur, which was hard to find.
Awamori is a spirit unique to Okinawa in Japan, made from rice and distilled rather than brewed, so it is closer to shōchū than to sake. Most is made with long-grain rice imported from Thailand, and it is typically 30 to 43 per cent alcohol. Distilling reached Okinawa from the Ayutthaya Kingdom, in present-day Thailand, in the 15th century.
A B-52 is a layered shot of coffee liqueur, Irish cream and an orange liqueur, poured slowly over the back of a spoon so that the three layers stay separate. Its origins are not well documented, but one story says a bartender in Banff, Canada, invented it and named it after the band the B-52s.
Baijiu is a strong Chinese spirit distilled from grains such as sorghum, and its name means 'white liquor'. It comes in many styles with very different aromas, from light and floral to rich and savoury, and is usually drunk neat from small cups, often in toasts.
Baltic porter is a strong, dark beer, often over 10 per cent alcohol, that began around the Baltic Sea in the 19th century as a local version of imperial stout. Early ones were warm-fermented, but many breweries later switched to cool fermentation, so it is technically a lager. Baltic Porter Day, marked each January, began in Poland in 2016.
Barbera is a red Italian grape known for deep colour, full body, low tannins and high acidity. It is believed to come from the Monferrato hills in Piedmont, where it has been known since the 13th century. One of its wines is Barbera d'Asti.
Barley wine is a strong ale, typically 6 to 12 per cent alcohol, brewed from grain. The 'wine' in the name is only about its strength, which is close to a wine's. The first beer sold as barley wine was a British ale from around 1870, and the style reached the United States in 1976.
The bee's knees is a Prohibition-era cocktail of gin, fresh lemon juice and honey, shaken and served chilled, often with a lemon twist. The name comes from Prohibition-era slang for something excellent. Its origin is unclear, with stories naming a bartender at the Ritz in Paris and the American socialite Margaret Brown.
Beer is one of the oldest prepared alcoholic drinks. It is brewed from cereal grain, most often malted barley, which is mashed to make a sugary liquid called wort. Yeast ferments the wort into alcohol and bubbles, and most modern beer is flavoured and preserved with hops. The earliest evidence of a brewed drink is a 13,000-year-old residue from a cave in northern Israel.
A bellini is prosecco mixed with white peach purée and served in a flute. It was created at Harry's Bar in Venice, sometime between 1934 and 1948, and is said to be named after the painter Giovanni Bellini, because its pinkish glow reminded the inventor of one of his paintings.
Between the sheets is a cocktail of white rum, cognac, orange liqueur and lemon juice, close to a sidecar with rum added. It is usually credited to Harry MacElhone in Paris in the 1930s, though other stories place it in London around 1921. Made with gin instead, it is sometimes called a maiden's prayer.
Bia hơi is a light, fresh draught beer from Vietnam, brewed without preservatives and delivered daily, so it does not keep. It is low in alcohol, at about 3 to 4 per cent, and is traditionally drunk at street-corner bars, especially in Hanoi, from tiny plastic stools.
Bière de garde, French for 'beer for keeping', is a strong pale ale from the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of northern France, copper or golden in colour. It was traditionally brewed on farms in winter and spring, when yeast behaves more reliably, and then matured or cellared before drinking.
Bison grass vodka is a flavoured Polish vodka with a blade of bison grass in every bottle, hand-picked in the Białowieża Forest. The name comes from żubr, a word for the European bison in many Slavic and Baltic languages. Production in Poland goes back to the 16th century.
English bitter is a cask ale that ranges from gold to dark amber, usually pulled by hand pump and served at cellar temperature with only light fizz. Real ale is unfiltered and unpasteurised, and finishes fermenting in the cask. The name is relative: it is bitter compared with mild ale, but most are gently malty rather than sharp.
Bitter lemon is a lemon-flavoured soft drink with a bitter edge from lemon pith and from quinine, the same ingredient that gives tonic water its taste. The difference from tonic is the lemon juice, pith and peel, which add sourness and a citrus aroma. A generic bitter lemon drink dates back to 1834, and it is drunk alone or as a mixer.
Bitters are alcohol flavoured with bitter or bittersweet botanicals such as herbs, bark, roots, orange peel and cinchona. Many long-standing brands began as patent medicines and are now sold as digestifs, and cocktail bitters are added by the dash, because they bring a bitter note that balances the sour and sweet flavours in a drink.
A black and tan is a beer cocktail made by layering a pale beer, usually pale ale or lager, with a dark beer, usually stout, which floats on top because it is less dense. It is also called a half and half. In Ireland the name can cause offence, because it is also the name of a British paramilitary force sent there from 1919 to 1921.
Black IPA, also called Cascadian dark ale, is as hoppy and bitter as other IPAs but dark in colour, because dehusked roasted malts are used, which add a coffee or roasted flavour. The style is traced to a Vermont brewpub, where the owner made a strong, roasty winter ale around 1989 or 1990.
A Black Russian is vodka and coffee liqueur, stirred over ice in a short glass. It is dark and sweet, and stronger than it tastes. The story goes that it was created in Brussels in the late 1940s. Add cream and it becomes a White Russian.
A black velvet is a beer cocktail of equal parts stout and sparkling wine, poured without ice, sometimes layered by floating the stout over the wine. It is said to have been first made in 1861 by a bartender at a London club to mourn Prince Albert, with the dark stout standing for the black armbands of mourners.
Blaufränkisch, German for 'blue Frankish', is a dark grape that makes red wines that are often rich in tannin and spicy. It is grown across Central Europe and is called Kékfrankos in Hungary, Frankovka in the Czech Republic and Lemberger in Germany. In Hungary it is a main part of the red blend Egri Bikavér, 'Bull's Blood'.
A Caesar is the Canadian twist on the Bloody Mary: vodka, a blend of tomato and clam juice, hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce and spices, served over ice in a celery-salted glass with a celery stick. It was invented in Calgary in 1969 for the opening of a hotel's Italian restaurant, inspired by a pasta dish with clams.
A bloody Mary is vodka mixed with tomato juice, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, salt and pepper, served tall over ice, usually with a celery stick. It is savoury and spicy rather than sweet, and is often associated with brunch. Made with gin instead of vodka, it is called a red snapper.
The Blue Hawaii is a tropical cocktail of rum, pineapple juice, blue curaçao and sweet and sour mix, and sometimes vodka. Harry Yee, head bartender at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki, invented it in 1957 after a sales representative for a Dutch distiller asked him to create a drink that showed off their blue curaçao.
A Blue Lagoon is vodka, blue curaçao and lemonade, served over ice in a tall glass. The bright blue comes from the colouring in the orange liqueur, not from the vodka. It is generally said to have been created in Paris around 1960.
Bock is a strong German lager, malty and smooth with little hop bitterness. It comes from the town of Einbeck and is often drunk in spring or around Christmas. A doppelbock ('double bock') is stronger and richer still, and a maibock is a paler version made for May.
A boilermaker is a beer served with a shot of whiskey, either dropped into the beer or drunk alongside it as a chaser. The American version is said to come from Butte, Montana, in the 1890s, where it was served to miners at the end of their shifts. In England the name traditionally means half a pint of mild ale mixed with half a pint of bottled brown ale.
A bomb shot is made by dropping a shot glass of spirit into a larger glass of beer or energy drink and drinking it straight away. The Jägerbomb, a shot of herbal liqueur dropped into an energy drink, is said to date from around 1997, possibly in northern California. In the sake bomb, a shot of sake is dropped into beer, often after banging the table.
Bordeaux is a wine region in south-west France, around the city of Bordeaux. Most of its wine is red and blended from grapes such as cabernet sauvignon, merlot and cabernet franc, with cabernet sauvignon leading on the left bank of the Gironde estuary and merlot on the right. It also makes sweet whites such as Sauternes, dry whites and a little rosé.
A boulevardier is a Negroni made with whiskey instead of gin: whiskey, sweet vermouth and a bitter red liqueur, stirred over ice and served with an orange peel. It is richer and warmer than a Negroni. The name is said to come from a 1920s magazine for Americans in Paris.
Bourbon is an American whiskey made mainly from corn, and by US law it must contain at least 51 per cent corn and be aged in new charred oak containers. It can be made anywhere in the United States but is closely linked with Kentucky. The name comes from the French royal House of Bourbon, though exactly which place or street inspired it is uncertain.
Boza is a thick, low-alcohol drink made by fermenting grains such as millet, wheat and maize, with a slightly sour, sweet flavour. It is one of the oldest Turkic drinks and is made in Turkey, Bulgaria, Albania, North Macedonia and elsewhere. Its alcohol content is around 1 per cent.
A bramble is gin, lemon juice and sugar syrup, shaken and poured over crushed ice, then topped with blackberry liqueur that bleeds down through the drink. It was created in London in 1984 by the bartender Dick Bradsell, who based it on the blackberries he picked as a child on the Isle of Wight.
Brandy is a spirit distilled from wine or other fermented fruit juice and often aged in oak. Cognac and armagnac are brandies from particular regions of France. It is often sipped neat, and is also used in cocktails and cooking.
A brandy Alexander is a creamy dessert cocktail of cognac, crème de cacao and cream, shaken with ice and strained into a stemmed glass. It is a variation on an older gin-based drink called simply the Alexander. Its origin is uncertain: stories link it to a London royal wedding in 1922, to a New York bartender and to a Russian tsar.
The Bronx is essentially a martini with orange juice added: gin is the base, orange juice the mixer, and sweet and dry vermouth are almost an afterthought. More than one story is told about who invented it before Prohibition. In the 1934 film The Thin Man the lead actor compares the way to shake a Manhattan, a Bronx and a Martini.
Brown ale is a malty beer that tastes of caramel, nuts and sometimes chocolate. It is brown rather than black, and less roasty than a stout. English versions are often nutty or sweet, and American versions are drier and hoppier. Mild is a related, lower-strength style of dark ale.
Brunello di Montalcino is a red DOCG wine from around the town of Montalcino, about 80 km south of Florence in Tuscany. It is made from sangiovese. Brunello was the local name for what was thought to be a separate grape until 1879, when the province's experts found that it was the same variety.
Brut IPA is a crisp, dry, fruity, highly fizzy IPA with very low body. It was invented by the brewer Kim Sturdavant in San Francisco and is meant to recall brut sparkling wine. Brewers add an enzyme that breaks down malt sugars, so less sugar is left than in a typical ale.
A buck is a cocktail of ginger ale or ginger beer, citrus juice and a base spirit. When the spirit is vodka it is better known as a Moscow mule, which is why bucks are sometimes called mules. The name is believed to come from someone adding a shot of whiskey to the old non-alcoholic Horse's Neck, giving it a kick like a bucking horse.
Burgundy wine comes from east-central France. Its dry reds are made from pinot noir and its dry whites from chardonnay, with gamay and aligoté also used, and Chablis and Beaujolais are counted as part of the region. Vines were being grown there by the second century AD, and perhaps earlier by the Celts.
Cabernet franc is a black grape mainly used in blends with cabernet sauvignon and merlot in Bordeaux, but it is also made alone, as in Chinon in the Loire. It is lighter than cabernet sauvignon, making a bright, pale red wine with a peppery perfume. It is believed to have been established in south-west France in the 17th century.
Cabernet sauvignon is a thick-skinned red grape that makes full-bodied, deep-coloured wines with firm tannins and flavours of blackcurrant, cedar and spice. It is a main grape of Bordeaux and is grown in many warm regions, often aged in oak and blended with merlot.
Cachaça is a Brazilian spirit distilled from fresh sugarcane juice, unlike most rum, which is made from molasses. It can be clear and grassy, or aged in wood for a golden colour and softer taste. It is the spirit in the caipirinha.
The caipirinha comes from Brazil. It is made with cachaça, a spirit distilled from fresh sugarcane juice, plus lime wedges and sugar crushed together in the glass and topped with ice. Versions with other fruit, such as strawberry or passion fruit, exist too, and using vodka instead makes a caipiroska.
Calimocho, spelled kalimotxo in the Basque Country where it began, is red wine mixed half and half with cola and served over ice. The mix goes back to the 1920s there, and it got its name in 1972, after huge amounts of it were drunk at a festival in Algorta.
Calvados is a brandy from Normandy in France, made from apples and sometimes pears. It is distilled from cider made from specially grown apples, drawn from over 200 named varieties, and a producer may use over 100 of them, some sweet, some tart and some bitter.
Canadian whisky is mostly blended from different whisky styles and is typically lighter and smoother than other whiskies. Most is based on corn whisky with rye whisky added for flavour, and Canadian law treats the terms Canadian whisky and rye whisky as interchangeable, even when only a small amount of rye is used.
Carignan, also called Cariñena or Mazuelo, is a red grape of Spanish origin that is grown in France and around the western Mediterranean. Italian wine writers once speculated that the Phoenicians brought it to Sardinia in the 9th century BC. In Priorat in Catalonia, some vines are more than 100 years old and are used to make wines from carignan alone.
Carménère is a red grape originally planted in the Médoc in Bordeaux, where it made deep red wines and was used for blending. The name comes from the French for crimson, after the colour of its autumn leaves. Chile is now its main home, because cuttings brought from Bordeaux in the 19th century were long confused with merlot.
Cava is Spanish sparkling wine, made mostly in Catalonia near Barcelona by the same bottle-fermentation method as champagne. It is usually made from local grapes such as macabeo, xarel·lo and parellada, and ranges from bone dry to sweet.
Chablis is the northernmost wine area of Burgundy in France, making dry white wine only from chardonnay. Its cool climate gives more acidity and less fruitiness than warmer regions, often with a flinty or steely note, and usually much less oak than other white burgundy. Monks planted vines there in the Middle Ages.
Champagne is sparkling wine from the Champagne region of north-eastern France. Its bubbles form in the bottle during a second fermentation. In the European Union and many other countries only sparkling wine from that region may use the name, however similar other bottles are.
A champagne cocktail is sparkling wine poured over sugar and a few dashes of bitters, usually with a splash of brandy and a cherry. A recipe appears as early as Jerry Thomas's bar guide of 1862, without the brandy, and that version is seen as the American classic.
Chardonnay is a white grape that began in Burgundy, in east-central France, and its taste changes a great deal with where and how it is made. Wines from cool places tend to be crisp and lean, with green apple and citrus, while warmer places give richer, tropical flavours. Oak ageing adds vanilla and spice, and a second, malolactic fermentation adds a buttery note.
Châteauneuf-du-Pape, 'the Pope's new castle', is a wine area in the southern Rhône Valley in France, around a village between Avignon and Orange. Its history is tied to the popes, who moved to Avignon in 1309. The wine can be red or white, though most is red, and it may be blended from thirteen traditional grape varieties, which a 2009 rule change counts as eighteen.
Chenin blanc is a white grape from the Loire Valley in France. Its high acidity lets it make everything from sparkling wines to sweet dessert wines, though it can make very plain wines if the vines grow too vigorously. Outside the Loire it is also grown in South Africa, where it was long called Steen.
Chianti is a red wine from the hills of Tuscany, Italy, made mainly from the sangiovese grape. It is dry and fresh, with cherry and herb flavours and lively acidity that suits tomato-based food. Chianti Classico, from the historic heart of the region, carries a black rooster emblem on the bottle.
Chicha is a fermented or unfermented drink from the Andes and Amazon regions of Latin America. The most common form, before and after the Spanish conquest, has been chicha de jora, a corn beer, but it is also made from quinoa, peanut, manioc, palm fruit, potato and more. The exact origin of the word is debated.
A chilcano is a Peruvian long drink of pisco, ginger ale and lime juice, served over ice and often finished with a few drops of bitters. It is a light, refreshing relative of the pisco sour.
Chocolate liqueur is a chocolate-flavoured liqueur made on a base of spirit such as whisky or vodka, unlike chocolate liquor, which contains no alcohol. In its purest form it is clear, though colouring may be added, and the main types are plain liqueur, cream liqueur and crème de cacao. It is used in cocktails, baking and cooking.
Chūhai is a Japanese highball of shōchū, a clear distilled spirit, mixed with soda water and a fruit flavour such as lemon, grapefruit or plum. The name is short for 'shōchū highball'. It comes in cans as well as at bars and izakaya.
Cider is an alcoholic drink made by fermenting apple juice. It ranges from dry and tannic to sweet and fizzy, and is sometimes flavoured with other fruit, such as pear or berries. In the UK and Ireland 'cider' always means the alcoholic kind, but in the US it often means fresh apple juice, and the alcoholic version is called hard cider.
A Clover Club is a frothy shaken cocktail of gin, lemon juice, raspberry syrup and egg white, which forms the foamy head. It is older than Prohibition and is named for a Philadelphia men's club, chartered in 1882, that met at a hotel on Broad Street. Several sources suggest dry shaking it, without ice, before adding ice to chill it.
A cocktail is a mixed drink, usually alcoholic, that combines one or more spirits with other ingredients such as juice, syrup, tonic water or bitters. The first printed definition of a cocktail as an alcoholic drink dates from 1806. Where the word comes from is disputed, but the usual theories link it to a horse, either a lively one with its tail up or one of mixed breed.
Coconut rum is a coconut-flavoured liqueur made with white rum, usually around 21 per cent alcohol. The original of the type was created in 1978 to make piña coladas simpler for bartenders, and it is now sold as a flavoured rum where local laws allow.
Coffee liqueur is a sweet, dark liqueur made from coffee and sugar with a spirit such as rum or vodka. It is poured over ice or into milk, and it is an ingredient in the espresso martini and the White Russian.
Cognac is a brandy named after the town of Cognac in France and made in the Charente and Charente-Maritime areas under strict appellation rules. It is distilled twice in copper pot stills from a thin, dry white wine, mostly made from ugni blanc grapes, then aged at least two years in French oak. About 3 per cent evaporates each year, which locals call the angels' share.
Cola is a fizzy soft drink flavoured with vanilla, cinnamon, citrus oils and other flavourings. The name comes from the kola nut, which gave early versions their caffeine, though other sources of caffeine are generally used today. A stimulating soda made with kola appeared in the United States around 1880.
Cold IPA is a hoppy beer style that mixes ideas from lager and IPA. It has a malt bill with maize, rice or dextrose, is brewed with lager yeast, is hopped strongly like an American IPA, and is fermented warmer than a normal lager.
Commandaria is an amber, sweet dessert wine from Cyprus, made from sun-dried grapes on the foothills of the Troödos Mountains. The wine style is documented in Cyprus back to about 800 BC, and the name dates from the crusades, which makes it the oldest named wine still in production.
Corpse revivers are a family of morning-after cocktails, named tongue in cheek for being strong enough to revive the dead. The version in the Savoy Cocktail Book of 1930, Corpse Reviver No. 2, mixes equal parts gin, lemon juice, orange liqueur and a French aperitif wine with a dash of absinthe. The book warns that four in quick succession will unrevive the corpse.
A cosmopolitan is vodka, orange liqueur, cranberry juice and lime juice, shaken and strained into a stemmed glass, usually with a slice or twist of citrus. It is tart, lightly sweet and pink. Bartenders in several American cities have claimed to have invented it in the 1970s and 1980s, so its origin is disputed.
Côtes du Rhône is the basic appellation of the Rhône wine region in south-east France, making red, white and rosé wines. The reds and rosés are generally led by grenache, and the whites by grenache blanc. Wines from the region were already being drunk by kings and by the popes in Avignon.
Craft beer comes from smaller, often independent breweries that emphasise new flavours and varied brewing methods, in contrast to large 'macro' breweries. The microbrewery movement began in both the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1970s, though traditional small-scale brewing in Europe is centuries older.
Cream ale is a light, pale American beer, well fermented out and dry, brewed with ale yeast but often conditioned cold like a lager. Despite the name it contains no dairy. It was first made in the mid-1800s in the United States, and Canadian brewers refined it during Prohibition.
Cream soda is a sweet soft drink flavoured with cream or vanilla, though the name covers a wide range of drinks around the world. A recipe published in a Michigan farm magazine in 1852 mixed water, cream of tartar, Epsom salts, sugar, egg and milk.
Crème de cassis is a sweet, dark red liqueur made from blackcurrants that are crushed and soaked in alcohol, with sugar added afterwards. It gives the kir and the kir royale their colour and flavour, and it was in the original tequila sunrise. It may also be served as an after-dinner liqueur.
Crème de menthe is a sweet, mint-flavoured liqueur sold in a colourless 'white' version and a green one, coloured by mint leaves or by added colouring. The two taste much the same and can be swapped in recipes apart from the colour. It is usually made by steeping Corsican mint or peppermint in grain alcohol for several weeks, then filtering and sweetening it.
A Cuba Libre is rum, cola and a squeeze of lime, served over ice in a tall glass. The name means 'free Cuba' in Spanish, and the story goes that it was first mixed in Havana around 1900. The lime is what makes it more than a plain rum and cola.
A classic daiquiri is just rum, lime juice and sugar, shaken hard with ice and served chilled in a stemmed glass. It is named after a beach and iron mine near Santiago de Cuba. The frozen, fruit-flavoured daiquiris made in blenders and slushy machines are a sweeter cousin of the original.
A dark lager is brewed like a pale lager, cold and slow, but with darker malts that add flavours of toast, caramel or a hint of chocolate. Despite the colour it is usually smooth and gentle rather than heavy or bitter. German versions are called dunkel, or schwarzbier when they are nearly black.
A dark 'n' stormy is a highball of dark rum and ginger beer, served over ice with a slice of lime. The 'dark' is the rum and the 'stormy' is the ginger beer. It is close to a Moscow mule with rum in place of vodka. A Bermudan rum maker claims the drink was invented there just after the First World War.
Dark rum, also called black or blackstrap rum, is darker than gold rum, dark brown, black or red, with stronger flavours of molasses or caramel. The colour may come from added colouring or molasses, or from ageing in heavily charred barrels, and the term is largely unregulated. Most dark rum comes from Caribbean islands such as Jamaica, Barbados and Guyana.
Dessert wines are sweet wines, made from very ripe grapes or grapes that have been dried, frozen or affected by a beneficial mould called noble rot, which concentrates the sugar. Examples include sauternes from Bordeaux, tokaji from Hungary and ice wine from Germany and Canada.
Dolcetto is a black grape grown in Piedmont in north-west Italy. The name means 'little sweet one', though the wines are nearly always dry, fruity and sometimes tannic, with low acidity, and they are usually meant to be drunk within a few years of release.
Dortmunder Export is a pale lager first brewed by a brewery in Dortmund, Germany, in 1873. It is soft-textured, a little stronger than a typical pale lager, and influenced by the pilsner of Plzeň. It is also simply called Dortmunder or export.
A double IPA, or imperial IPA, is a stronger, very hoppy version of an IPA, usually over 7.5 per cent alcohol. 'Double' refers to the extra ingredients, especially hops, which make it richer in both alcohol and hop character. The style is claimed to have begun in 1994 at a brewery in Temecula, California. Triple IPAs go higher still, over 10 per cent.
Draught beer is served from a keg or cask through a tap, rather than from a bottle or can. In the UK a pint is an imperial pint, about 568 ml, which is larger than the US pint of about 473 ml.
Eggnog is a rich, creamy drink of milk or cream, sugar, beaten eggs and spices such as nutmeg, often with rum, brandy or bourbon added. It is usually served cold, around Christmas and New Year, especially in the United States and Canada.
Elderflower cordial is a soft drink made from a sugar and water syrup flavoured with the flowers of the European elder, sold as a concentrate that is mixed with still or sparkling water. It has a Victorian heritage in north-western Europe, though recipes can be traced back to Roman times.
An energy drink is a non-alcoholic drink containing stimulants, usually caffeine at a higher concentration than in ordinary soft drinks, often with taurine, and it is marketed as reducing tiredness. A serving holds from about 50 to over 500 mg of caffeine, compared with about 90 mg in 250 ml of coffee.
An espresso martini is vodka, coffee liqueur and a shot of freshly made espresso, shaken hard until a pale foam forms on top, then strained into a chilled glass and usually finished with a few coffee beans. The most common story is that a London bartender invented it in the 1980s for a customer who wanted a drink to wake her up.
Fernet is an Italian type of amaro, a bitter, aromatic spirit made from herbs and spices such as myrrh, rhubarb, chamomile, cardamom, aloe and saffron on a base of distilled grape spirit. It is usually a digestif, served at room temperature or over ice, and it can go into coffee. In Argentina it is mixed with cola over ice in a long drink called fernet con coca.
Flanders red ale and oud bruin ('old brown') are sour ales from the Flemish region of Belgium. They are fermented with bacteria as well as yeast, aged for a year or more, often in oak barrels, and often blended with younger beer to balance the sourness. The red has a strong fruit flavour, while the brown is gently malty with no hop bitterness.
A flip is an old class of mixed drink made with a spirit or fortified wine, egg, sugar and spice, usually grated nutmeg, and made smooth by pouring it back and forth between two vessels. The word was first used in 1695 for a mix of beer, rum and sugar heated with a red-hot iron. It differs from eggnog because it has no cream.
Fortified wine is wine to which a distilled spirit, usually brandy, has been added. The spirit was first added to help preserve the wine, and it also adds flavour. Styles include port, sherry, madeira, marsala, Commandaria and vermouth.
A French 75 is gin, lemon juice and sugar syrup, shaken and topped up with champagne or another sparkling wine, then served in a flute. It is said to be named after a quick-firing French field gun from the First World War, because of its kick.
A French martini is a fruity cocktail of vodka, raspberry liqueur and pineapple juice, shaken and strained into a martini glass, often with a raspberry or a pineapple wedge. Despite the name it has no gin or vermouth. It is said to have been created in New York in the late 1980s by the bar owner Keith McNally.
Fruit beer is beer made with fruit added as a flavouring, such as cherries, raspberries, strawberries or plums. It was first made in Belgium. Belgian lambics refermented with cherries or raspberries become kriek or framboise.
Fruit brandies are spirits distilled from fermented fruit rather than grapes. Rakia is made across the Balkans, pálinka in Hungary, slivovitz from plums, kirsch from cherries and calvados from apples in Normandy. They are usually clear or amber and drunk in small glasses, often as a welcome drink or after a meal.
A fruit cup is a long summer drink of a gin-based, spiced fruit liqueur topped up with lemonade or ginger ale and filled with chopped fruit, cucumber and mint. The first was made in 1823 by an oyster-bar owner in London, who served his mix of gin, herbs and liqueurs as an aid to digestion in a small tankard.
Furmint is a white grape grown mainly in the Tokaj region of Hungary, where it makes dry wines and is the main grape of the sweet Tokaji wines. It ripens late, and its loose bunches and thick skins suit noble rot. It has been grown in Tokaj since at least the late 16th century, and DNA analysis suggests it is a child of the old grape Gouais blanc.
A fuzzy navel is peach schnapps and orange juice, usually in equal parts, served over ice. Add vodka and it becomes a hairy navel. It is a peach-flavoured cousin of the screwdriver, and the name was made up in the 1980s as part of a marketing campaign for peach schnapps.
Gamay is a purple grape used for red wines, most notably in Beaujolais in France and in the Loire Valley around Tours. It is an old variety, mentioned as long ago as the 15th century, and its wines are typically light-bodied and fruity. Beaujolais nouveau, released soon after the harvest, is also made from gamay.
The Garibaldi is an Italian aperitivo of a bitter red liqueur and freshly squeezed orange juice, served over ice. It is named after the general Giuseppe Garibaldi, and its ingredients are said to stand for the unification of Italy, with the liqueur from Milan in the north and the oranges from Sicily in the south.
Gavi, or Cortese di Gavi, is a dry white wine from a small area of Piedmont in northern Italy, near the Ligurian border, made only from the local Cortese grape. It gained DOC status in 1974 and the higher DOCG rank in 1998. Sparkling styles are allowed, but most Gavi is still wine.
Georgia, the country in the Caucasus, has one of the oldest winemaking traditions in the world, going back thousands of years. Traditional wines are fermented and aged in large clay vessels called qvevri, buried in the ground. White grapes fermented with their skins make the amber wines the country is known for.
Gewürztraminer is an aromatic grape that does best in cooler climates. Its skin is pink to red, but it makes white wines, usually off-dry, with a flamboyant scent of lychee and spice. The name means 'spice Traminer' in German, and it is a mutation of the savagnin grape, named after the village of Tramin in South Tyrol.
A Gibson is a martini garnished with a pickled onion instead of an olive: gin and dry vermouth, stirred and served chilled. Its exact origin is unclear. One story credits the illustrator Charles Dana Gibson, and the first known recipe was printed in 1908.
A gimlet is gin (vodka is used too) and sweetened lime cordial, shaken and served chilled in a small glass with a slice of lime. The name may come from the tool for drilling small holes, or from a Royal Navy surgeon said to have used it to get sailors to take lime juice against scurvy. Many bars now use fresh lime juice and sugar syrup instead.
Gin is a spirit flavoured mainly with juniper berries, alongside other botanicals such as coriander seed, citrus peel and angelica root. It starts as a neutral spirit, and the botanicals are steeped in it or distilled with it to give the flavour.
A gin and tonic is gin topped up with tonic water over plenty of ice, with a wedge of lime or a slice of lemon. Tonic water gets its bitter edge from quinine, which British colonial troops in India were said to mix with gin to make their anti-malaria medicine easier to drink.
The gin basil smash is a modern cocktail of gin, lemon juice, sugar syrup and fresh basil, muddled, shaken and strained into a chilled glass or served on the rocks. The German bartender Jörg Meyer created it in Hamburg in 2008, inspired by the whiskey smash, and first sold it under the name Gin Pesto.
A gin fizz is gin, lemon juice and sugar, shaken with ice and topped with soda water. The Ramos gin fizz, invented in New Orleans in 1888, adds cream, egg white and orange flower water and is shaken for a long time until thick and foamy.
Ginger ale is a fizzy soft drink flavoured with ginger, drunk on its own or used as a mixer, and despite the name it is not an ale. The golden style is credited to the Irish doctor Thomas Joseph Cantrell, who made the first in Belfast in the 1850s. The dry, pale style, much milder in ginger flavour, was created by the Canadian chemist John J. McLaughlin in 1904.
Ginger beer is a sweet, fizzy, usually non-alcoholic soft drink with a strong ginger bite. It began in Yorkshire in the mid-18th century as a brewed drink, made by fermenting ginger, sugar and yeast, and until the mid-1800s many versions contained about 11 per cent alcohol. Modern ginger beer is usually manufactured rather than brewed, and is the mixer in a Moscow mule.
Ginger wine is a fortified wine made from ginger, raisins, sugar and yeast, often strengthened by blending with brandy. It began in England with a London distillery founded in 1740, and it is one of the main ingredients of the Whisky Mac.
Glögg, called glögi in Finnish, is the Nordic version of mulled wine, of Swedish origin: red wine heated with sugar and spices such as cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and ginger, often with raisins and almonds, and sometimes with a little brandy or other spirit added. It is served warm, especially around Christmas.
A Godfather has just two ingredients, Scotch whisky and amaretto, served over ice in a short glass. The origin of the name is uncertain, but the drink is often linked to the film The Godfather and its star Marlon Brando, and it was also drunk by the Rat Pack. Swap the whisky for vodka and it becomes a Godmother.
Golden ale, also called blonde ale, is a pale, easy-drinking ale with a light malt sweetness and gentle hops. It is often brewed as a British answer to lager, and is usually served cool. Belgian blonde ales are a little stronger and spicier.
Grappa is an Italian brandy distilled from pomace, the skins, seeds and stems left over after grapes are pressed for wine. It is clear and strong, with a fragrant, grapey flavour, and is often drunk after dinner or added to an espresso, a mix known as caffè corretto.
A grasshopper is a sweet, minty after-dinner drink of green crème de menthe, white crème de cacao and cream, shaken with ice and strained into a chilled glass. It is named for its green colour. A bar in New Orleans says its owner invented it in 1918.
Grenache, called garnacha in Spain, is a red grape that ripens late and needs hot, dry conditions. It is believed to come from Aragon in northern Spain, and is also grown in southern France, Sardinia, Australia and California. Its wines are generally spicy, berry-flavoured and soft on the palate.
A greyhound is grapefruit juice with gin or vodka, served over ice. With a salted rim on the glass it is called a salty dog. A drink called a greyhound was in print by 1945, and after the Second World War vodka took over from gin as the usual spirit.
Grüner Veltliner, meaning 'green Veltliner', is a white grape grown mainly in Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and it is the most planted grape in Austria. The vine is likely native to Austria, though it has long been believed to date back to Roman times.
The hanky panky is a cocktail of gin, sweet vermouth and a couple of dashes of a bitter Italian digestif, stirred and served with a squeeze of orange peel. It is a variation on the sweet martini, or Martinez. Ada Coleman, head bartender at the Savoy Hotel in London, created it, and the recipe was printed in the Savoy Cocktail Book.
Hard seltzer is sparkling water with alcohol, usually fermented from sugar or malt, and a light fruit flavour. It is clear and low in calories, and is served over ice or straight from the can. It is usually around 5 per cent alcohol, similar to a beer.
A Harvey Wallbanger is a screwdriver with an extra: vodka and orange juice over ice, with a measure of a sweet Italian herbal liqueur added. It began as a marketing campaign in 1969, when the liqueur's importer in the United States made up a cartoon surfer called Harvey Wallbanger to help sell it.
A hazy IPA, also called a New England IPA, is a cloudy, juicy style of IPA made with plenty of hops added late, which give tropical fruit and citrus flavours but little bitterness. Its soft, full body comes from oats or wheat and from the yeast left in the beer.
Helles is a pale, golden lager from Munich, first brewed there in 1894 as a local answer to the pilsner. The German word means 'light' or 'pale'. It is soft, lightly malty and only mildly bitter, which makes it smoother than a pilsner, and it is poured in Bavarian beer halls and gardens by the half-litre or the litre.
The Hemingway special is a daiquiri variation of rum, lime juice, maraschino liqueur and grapefruit juice, served in a cocktail glass. It grew out of the author Ernest Hemingway's request, in Cuba, for the house daiquiri without sugar and with double the rum, a drink known as the Hemingway daiquiri or Papa Doble.
Herbal liqueurs are bittersweet spirits made by steeping dozens of herbs, roots, spices and peels in alcohol, then sweetening and ageing them. Germany and Italy have many. They are often drunk ice-cold in small glasses as a digestif after a meal, or as a shot.
A highball is a spirit topped up with a larger amount of a fizzy mixer and served over ice in a tall glass. Whisky and soda is the classic, and a gin and tonic or a rum and cola is a highball too. In Japan the whisky highball is served very cold, usually with a twist of citrus peel, and some bars specialise in it.
Horilka is a Ukrainian spirit, usually distilled from grain such as wheat or rye, and in Ukrainian the word can also mean vodka or any strong spirit. It comes from the word for 'to burn'. Home-distilled horilka is called samohon, which means 'self-distilled'.
A horse's neck is a long drink of ginger ale, ice and a long, curling strip of lemon peel, usually with brandy or bourbon added. In the early 1900s it had no alcohol at all, and by the 1910s a spirit was often added, giving what was called a horse's neck with a kick.
Hot buttered rum is rum mixed with butter, hot water or cider, a sweetener and spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. It is a cold-weather drink linked with the holiday season, and in the United States it goes back to colonial times, when many families had their own recipe.
A hot toddy is whisky (brandy or rum are used too) mixed with hot water, honey, lemon and spices such as cloves or cinnamon. It is traditionally drunk as a nightcap, in cold or wet weather, or to soothe a cold. The word toddy comes from a drink of fermented palm sap in India.
Huangjiu, 'yellow wine', is a Chinese rice wine brewed from steamed rice, glutinous rice or millet with a starter called qū, then fermented for weeks at around 13 to 18 degrees Celsius. It is typically 8 to 20 per cent alcohol and is usually pasteurised, aged and filtered before bottling. It is made mostly in eastern China.
A Hugo is a light, fizzy spritz made with prosecco, elderflower syrup or liqueur, soda water, fresh mint and a slice of lime, served over ice in a big glass. It comes from South Tyrol in northern Italy, where a bar manager is said to have created it in 2005.
A hurricane is a fruity New Orleans cocktail of rum, passion fruit and lemon juice, served over ice in a tall glass shaped like a hurricane lamp. The story goes that it was created in the 1940s as a way to use up a surplus of rum.
Iced tea is tea served cold, usually in a glass with ice, sweetened with sugar or syrup or left unsweetened. It can be made from tea leaves or from herbal teas, and sun tea is made by steeping the leaves in the sun for about an hour. The oldest printed recipes date from the 1870s.
Imperial stout, also called Russian imperial stout, is a very strong, very dark stout, usually over 9 per cent alcohol. It began in 18th-century London as a stout made for export to the court of Catherine II of Russia. American craft brewers often add vanilla, coffee or chilli, and age it in bourbon barrels.
IPA stands for India pale ale, a hoppy style of pale ale. The story goes that extra hops, which help preserve beer, were added to ale shipped from Britain to India in the 1700s and 1800s, though historians argue over how much of that is true. Today's IPAs range from piney and bitter to juicy and tropical.
An Irish coffee is hot coffee, Irish whiskey and sugar, topped with a layer of lightly whipped cream that floats on top. The idea is to drink the hot coffee through the cold cream rather than stirring it in. It is said to have been created at an airport in western Ireland in the 1940s.
Irish cream is a sweet liqueur made from Irish whiskey, cream and flavours such as chocolate and vanilla. It is served over ice, in coffee or hot chocolate, or as a shot, and it is also used in desserts and milkshakes.
Irish red ale is an amber-red ale coloured by a little roasted barley, with a caramel or toffee sweetness, a dry finish and low bitterness. It is usually around 4 per cent alcohol. Its true origins are unknown, though ale is said to have been brewed in the city of Kilkenny since the 14th century.
Irish whiskey is whiskey made on the island of Ireland, and the word whiskey comes from the Irish uisce beatha, meaning 'water of life'. Distilling is believed to have reached Ireland with monks around 1000 AD. A long decline from the late 19th century cut the number of distilleries from at least 28 in the 1890s to just two by 1966.
Japanese whisky is modelled on Scotch, made from malted barley, distilled in pot stills and matured in oak casks. Pioneers such as Masataka Taketsuru went to Scotland in 1919 to learn how Scotch is made. Industry standards introduced in 2021 define it as whisky fermented, distilled, matured and bottled in Japan, using Japanese water.
A jelly shot is a small cup of gelatin set with alcohol, often vodka, that is eaten or sucked out rather than drunk. Mixtures of gelatin and alcohol are older than the dessert brands: a 14th-century French recipe set wine in aspic, and in 1862 the bartender Jerry Thomas published a recipe for a punch jelly.
Jenever, also spelled genever and called Dutch gin, is the juniper-flavoured traditional spirit of the Netherlands, Belgium and nearby parts of northern France and north-western Germany. It was first made by distilling malt wine, with juniper added to mask the harsh flavour, and modern gin developed from it after it reached Britain.
The Jungle Bird is a tiki cocktail of dark rum, a bitter red liqueur, pineapple juice, lime juice and demerara syrup. Jeffrey Ong, a beverage manager at a Hilton hotel in Kuala Lumpur, created it in 1973 as a welcome drink, and named it after the tropical birds in the hotel's aviary.
A kamikaze is a short, sharp cocktail of equal parts vodka, orange liqueur and lime juice, shaken and strained, usually with a wedge or twist of lime. It is probably named after the Japanese dive bombers of the Second World War. Dozens of variations exist, and some add a little sugar.
Kellerbier, German for 'cellar beer', is an unfiltered lager from Franconia. It keeps more of its brewing yeast in suspension, so it is cloudy, which Germans call naturally cloudy. It is often served straight from the barrel in a beer garden, though it may be bottled.
A kir is white wine with a spoonful of blackcurrant liqueur, traditionally made with a dry white wine from Burgundy. Swap the wine for champagne and it becomes a kir royale. It is named after Félix Kir, a mayor of Dijon who served it at official receptions.
Kölsch is a pale, clear, lightly fruity beer from Cologne, Germany. It is brewed with a top-fermenting yeast like an ale, then conditioned cold like a lager, and only beer brewed in and around Cologne may be called Kölsch. It is traditionally served in tall, thin 200 ml glasses.
Kombucha is a fermented, fizzy, sweetened black tea made with a culture of bacteria and yeast, often flavoured with juice, spices or fruit. It is believed to have begun in China and spread to Russia and Eastern Europe. Commercial kombucha contains small amounts of alcohol, and the name comes from a Japanese word for a different drink, kelp tea.
Korn is a colourless German grain spirit, distilled from fermented cereals, mostly rye or wheat, with no added colourings, flavourings or sweeteners. It is believed to have been made in Germany since the 15th century. A city council in Nordhausen banned grain spirits in 1545, which historians think beer brewers wanted to protect themselves from competition.
Kvass is a low-alcohol, cloudy, sweet and sour drink from eastern Europe, traditionally made by fermenting rye bread, or rye flour and malt, with sugar and yeast for about 12 hours. The first written mention is in a chronicle describing a celebration in 988. It became an everyday drink where there was too little grain for beer.
Lager is beer fermented with a yeast that works slowly at cool temperatures, then stored cold for weeks. The word comes from the German for 'storage'. The result is clean and crisp, with little fruitiness. Most lagers are pale and golden and served very cold, though dark lagers exist too.
Lambic is a Belgian beer left to ferment spontaneously with wild yeasts and bacteria from the air around Brussels, then aged in barrels. It is dry, sour and complex. Young and old lambics blended together become gueuze, and lambic aged on cherries or raspberries becomes kriek or framboise.
Lambrusco is a lightly sparkling red wine from Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, usually drunk young and chilled, and often poured with rich food such as cured meats and cheese. Styles range from dry to sweet, and they are fresh and fruity.
The Last Word is a gin cocktail of equal parts gin, green herbal liqueur, maraschino liqueur and fresh lime juice, shaken and served without ice in a chilled glass. It comes from the Detroit Athletic Club in the 1910s, and in 2003 a Seattle bartender found the recipe in an old cocktail book and put it on his menu.
A lemon drop is vodka, orange liqueur and lemon juice with a little sugar, shaken and served chilled in a glass with a sugared rim and a twist of lemon. It tastes like the sweet of the same name: sharp first, then sugary. It is said to have been created in San Francisco in the 1970s.
Lemonade is a sweetened, lemon-flavoured drink. In many parts of the world it means a still, traditionally homemade drink of lemon juice, water and a sweetener, while in others it means a fizzy lemon-flavoured soft drink. One of the first recorded lemon drinks comes from a 12th-century Egyptian treatise by a court physician.
Light beer is brewed to be lighter in alcohol or calories than the ordinary beer it is based on, usually a pale lager, so it has a thinner body and a milder taste. The exact rules differ by country, and 'low-alcohol' beers in the UK are those under about 1.2 per cent.
Lime cordial is a non-alcoholic drink made by mixing concentrated lime juice and sugar with water. It is sometimes used as a mixer in cocktails, such as the gimlet. The first was made after 1865 by Lauchlan Rose, a ship chandler in Leith, who found a way to preserve lime juice and patented the process in 1867.
Limoncello is a sweet, bright yellow Italian liqueur made by steeping lemon peel in strong alcohol and then mixing the infusion with sugar syrup. It comes from southern Italy, especially the Amalfi Coast and Sorrento, and is served very cold in small glasses, traditionally after a meal.
A liqueur is a sweetened spirit flavoured with fruit, herbs, nuts, cream, coffee or spices. It is usually lower in alcohol than the spirit it is made from, and is sipped after a meal, poured over ice or used in cocktails.
A Long Island iced tea contains no tea. It mixes vodka, gin, rum, tequila and orange liqueur with lemon juice and a splash of cola, which gives it the colour of iced tea. It tastes milder than it is, because it packs several spirits into one glass.
Lonkero, or long drink, is a Finnish drink of gin and grapefruit soda, first made for the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. It is served cold from a can, a bottle or a glass, and tastes of grapefruit with a bitter edge.
A Lynchburg lemonade is a long drink of Tennessee whiskey, orange liqueur, sour mix and lemon-lime soda, served over ice with a slice of lemon. It is named after Lynchburg, Tennessee, where the whiskey is made, and it was created by an Alabama restaurant owner in 1980.
Madeira is a fortified wine from the Portuguese island of Madeira in the North Atlantic, made in styles from dry, which can be an aperitif, to sweet, which goes with dessert. Its winemaking dates back to the Age of Exploration, and it mattered in colonial America, where the thirteen colonies had no wine-quality grapes of their own.
The Mai Tai is a tiki classic made with rum, orange liqueur, lime juice and an almond-flavoured syrup, served over crushed ice and garnished with mint. Its name is said to come from a Tahitian phrase meaning 'out of this world'.
Makgeolli is a milky, lightly fizzy Korean rice drink, slightly sweet and sour, made by fermenting rice with a starter called nuruk. It is low in alcohol, at about 6 to 9 per cent, and is usually served chilled: the bottle is shaken or flipped to mix in the sediment, then it is poured into small bowls, often to go with food.
Malbec is a dark red grape with French roots, long linked to Cahors in south-west France, but it is now grown mainly in Argentina, especially around Mendoza. The wines are deep purple, rich and juicy, with flavours of plum, blackberry and a hint of chocolate, and they are often poured with grilled meat.
In North America, malt liquor is a strong beer, usually above 5 per cent alcohol, made from malted barley with adjuncts such as corn, rice or dextrose added to raise the alcohol, and it resembles an American lager. The term is older: in 1690 it was used in England for beer and ale in general.
Malvasia is a family of wine grapes grown historically around the Mediterranean and in Macaronesia, and now in many regions. The name comes from the Italian name for Monemvasia, a medieval fortress town in southern Greece, and the family is believed to be ancient, most likely from Crete. Malmsey now means almost only a sweet style of Madeira made from Malvasia.
A Manhattan is whiskey (traditionally rye), sweet vermouth and a few dashes of bitters, stirred with ice and strained into a stemmed glass with a cherry. It is richer and sweeter than a martini, and is named after the New York borough.
A margarita is tequila, orange liqueur and lime juice, shaken with ice and served in a glass with a salted rim. It comes on the rocks, blended into a frozen slush, or flavoured with fruit such as strawberry or raspberry. The sharp lime and salt balance the sweetness of the liqueur.
Marsala is a dry or sweet fortified wine from around the Sicilian city of Marsala, protected by DOC status since 1969. It is thought to have reached a wider market through the Liverpool merchant John Woodhouse, who in 1773 found that the local wine, aged in wooden casks, tasted like the Spanish and Portuguese fortified wines sold in England.
The Martinez is a classic gin cocktail, widely seen as the forerunner of the martini. The 1887 recipe mixes Old Tom gin, vermouth, maraschino liqueur and bitters, served with a slice of lemon. Its true origin is unclear: stories point to the bartender Jerry Thomas or to a bartender in the town of Martinez, California.
A martini is gin (or sometimes vodka) stirred with dry vermouth and served chilled in a stemmed glass with an olive or a twist of lemon peel. A 'dirty' martini adds a splash of olive brine, and a 'dry' one uses very little vermouth. Many modern drinks borrow the name just for the glass.
A Mary Pickford is a Prohibition-era cocktail of white rum, fresh pineapple juice, grenadine and maraschino liqueur, shaken, chilled and often garnished with a cherry. It is named after the film actress Mary Pickford, and is said to have been created for her in the 1920s in Havana, by one of two bartenders at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba.
Märzen is a malty, smooth German lager, usually amber, traditionally brewed in March (März) and stored cold through the summer for the autumn festivals. It was once the standard beer at Oktoberfest, where a paler seasonal beer called Festbier has become more common since the late 20th century.
Mastika, or mastiha, is a sweet Greek liqueur flavoured with mastic, a resin with a slight pine or cedar flavour gathered from mastic trees on the island of Chios. It is typically drunk at the end of a meal, and Chios Mastiha must be at least 15 per cent alcohol.
Mead is an alcoholic drink made by fermenting honey with water, sometimes with fruit, spices or herbs. It is one of the oldest fermented drinks in the world. Depending on how it is made, it can be dry or sweet, still or sparkling, and it ranges from about 3.5 to more than 20 per cent alcohol.
Merlot is a red grape that makes soft, fruity wines with flavours of plum, black cherry and chocolate, and fewer drying tannins than cabernet sauvignon. It is one of the main grapes of Bordeaux, where it is blended into the region's red wines, and it is also bottled on its own.
Mezcal is a Mexican spirit made from agave, often cooked in earth pits, which gives many bottles a smoky flavour. Tequila is closely related, but it is made from a single type of agave, the blue agave, and is usually cooked in ovens.
A michelada is a Mexican beer cocktail: light lager poured over lime juice, hot sauce and savoury sauces, in a glass with a salted or spiced rim. It is tangy, salty and spicy, and there are many regional recipes.
Milk stout, also called sweet stout or cream stout, is a stout brewed with lactose, a sugar from milk. Beer yeast cannot ferment lactose, so it stays in the beer and adds sweetness and body. The style was once advertised as nourishing, and craft brewers brought it back in the 21st century.
A mimosa is sparkling wine and chilled orange juice, often in roughly equal parts, served in a flute. It is light, citrusy and lower in alcohol than most cocktails. In Britain, a similar drink with more sparkling wine than juice is called Buck's Fizz.
A mint julep is bourbon, sugar and fresh mint served over crushed ice, traditionally in a chilled silver or pewter cup that frosts on the outside. It comes from the American South and is the traditional drink of the Kentucky Derby horse race.
A mocktail is a cocktail made without alcohol, using juices, syrups, herbs, soda and tonic instead. Many are alcohol-free versions of classics, such as a virgin mojito or a virgin piña colada. The word joins 'mock' and 'cocktail'.
A mojito is a Cuban cocktail of white rum, lime juice, sugar, soda water and plenty of fresh mint, served over crushed ice. The mint is pressed gently rather than crushed, so it gives off its fragrance without turning bitter. It is light, cool and refreshing, and is often made without alcohol as a 'virgin' mojito.
The Monkey Gland is a cocktail of gin, orange juice, grenadine and absinthe, created in the 1920s by Harry MacElhone at Harry's New York Bar in Paris. Some recipes swap the absinthe for pastis or another herbal liqueur. It is named after the pseudo-scientific idea, promoted by the Russian doctor Serge Voronoff, that grafting monkey tissue into humans would lengthen life.
Montepulciano is a red grape grown in central Italy, especially in Abruzzo, where it makes deep-coloured, juicy, fairly soft reds. It is also the name of a hill town in Tuscany, which makes a different wine from another grape, Sangiovese. So the name can mean two quite different wines.
Moonshine is high-proof liquor that is traditionally made or sold illegally, and the name is said to come from distilling at night, when the moon was out, to avoid detection. Today commercial distilleries also use the word for legal products, including many flavoured ones.
Moscato, or muscat, is a family of grapes that smell and taste remarkably like fresh grapes, with flavours of peach, orange blossom and honey. Moscato d'Asti from Piedmont in Italy is lightly fizzy, sweet and low in alcohol, and is often served with dessert or fruit.
A Moscow mule is vodka, lime juice and ginger beer served over ice, traditionally in a copper mug that keeps the drink very cold. The ginger beer gives it a spicy kick, said to be the 'mule' in the name. Swap the vodka for another spirit and you get other mules, such as the Kentucky mule made with bourbon.
Mourvèdre, also called Mataro or Monastrell, is a red grape grown in the Rhône and Provence in France, in several Spanish regions, and in California, Australia and South Africa. It is a main part of GSM blends, of grenache, syrah and mourvèdre, and is also used for rosé. It is probably Spanish in origin, perhaps brought to Valencia by the Phoenicians around 500 BC.
Mulled wine is red wine gently heated with spices such as cinnamon, cloves and star anise, plus orange peel and sugar or honey. It is served warm, especially in winter, and is called glühwein at Christmas markets in German-speaking countries.
Muscadet is a French white wine from the western end of the Loire Valley, near Nantes, made from the melon de Bourgogne grape. The name refers to an alleged musk-like taste, though wine writers say the wines have little of it. Roman soldiers are said to have planted the first vineyards there.
The naked and famous is a modern mezcal cocktail of equal parts mezcal, yellow herbal liqueur, a bitter orange aperitif and fresh lime juice. Joaquín Simó created it in 2011 at a New York bar, and it borrows ideas from two other drinks, the Last Word and the Paper Plane.
Natural wine is a loose movement of winemakers using simple or traditional methods: grapes farmed without pesticides or herbicides, little or no added sulphur dioxide, and little or no filtering. There is no official definition. Some sources trace the movement to a group of winemakers in Beaujolais in the 1960s.
The Navy Grog is a rum-based tiki drink created by Donn Beach for his Don the Beachcomber restaurants, where it was limited to two or three per customer. Grog itself was originally rum and water, introduced into the Royal Navy by Vice Admiral Edward Vernon in 1740. He was nicknamed Old Grog after the grogram cloak he wore.
Nebbiolo is a red grape from Piedmont in north-west Italy, where it makes wines such as Barolo and Barbaresco. Its name is thought to come from the Italian word for fog, because a thick fog settles over the vineyards at the late-October harvest.
Negroamaro, usually explained as 'black and bitter', is a red grape from southern Italy, grown almost only in Apulia and especially in Salento, the heel of Italy's boot. It makes very deeply coloured, rustic wines that combine perfume with an earthy bitterness, and it is often blended with Malvasia Nera, as in Salice Salentino.
A Negroni is an equal-parts cocktail of gin, sweet red vermouth and a bitter red Italian liqueur, stirred over ice and served with a slice or twist of orange. It is bittersweet and herbal rather than sugary. The story goes that it was first mixed in Florence, around 1919, for a count named Negroni.
Sbagliato means 'mistaken' in Italian. The story goes that a bartender in Milan reached for sparkling wine instead of gin while making a Negroni, and the happy accident stuck. It is bitter red liqueur, sweet vermouth and prosecco: lighter and fizzier than the original.
Nero d'Avola, 'black of Avola', is the main red wine grape of Sicily, named after the town of Avola in the far south-east of the island. Its wines are compared to New World shiraz, with sweet tannins and plum or peppery flavours. It is also used in blends of Marsala Rubino.
Nigori means 'cloudy'. Nigori sake is filtered through a coarse mesh, so some fine rice particles stay in the drink, giving it a milky look and a fuller texture. Many are sweet, though some are dry. It is often served chilled, and gently mixed before pouring to stir the settled rice back in.
Nocino is a dark brown Italian liqueur from the Emilia-Romagna region, made by steeping unripe green walnuts in spirit and then mixing the strained alcohol with sugar syrup. It tastes aromatic and bittersweet. Many families make their own to a secret recipe, sometimes adding cinnamon, juniper berries, citrus zest, vanilla or coffee.
An Old Fashioned is a short cocktail of whiskey (traditionally bourbon or rye), a little sugar and a few dashes of bitters, stirred over ice with a twist of orange or lemon peel. It is one of the oldest cocktails still made. In Wisconsin it is usually made with brandy instead, with an orange slice and a cherry muddled in.
Old Tom gin is a slightly sweeter style of gin than London dry gin, but drier than Dutch jenever, so it is sometimes called the missing link. It was made in 18th-century England, fell out of use, and has returned with the craft cocktail movement. The name is said to come from black cat plaques mounted outside pubs.
Orange liqueur is made by steeping orange peel, often from bitter oranges, in alcohol and sweetening it. Triple sec is a clear style, and curaçao can be clear or coloured: blue curaçao is coloured, not differently flavoured. It is used in margaritas, cosmopolitans and sidecars.
Orange wine is white wine made like a red: the grape skins stay in the juice while it ferments, which gives it an orange or amber colour, some grip and a nutty, dried-fruit taste. It is not made from oranges. The method is ancient in Georgia, and it is also used in Italy, Slovenia and elsewhere.
Patxaran, or pacharán, is a sloe-flavoured liqueur from Navarre and the Basque Country. It is made by soaking sloes with a few coffee beans and a cinnamon stick in an anise liqueur for one to eight months, giving a sweet reddish-brown drink of around 25 to 30 per cent alcohol. It is usually served as a digestif, chilled or over ice.
A painkiller is a rum cocktail from the British Virgin Islands, made with rum, four parts pineapple juice, one part cream of coconut and one part orange juice, shaken, served over ice and topped with grated nutmeg. It was created in the 1970s at a beach bar on the island of Jost Van Dyke.
A pale ale is a golden to amber ale balanced between fruity, biscuity malt and hop bitterness. The name dates to England around 1703, when malt dried over a smokeless fuel made paler beers than the dark ales of the time.
Palm wine is an alcoholic drink made from the fermented sap of palm trees such as the palmyra, date and coconut palms. It is found in parts of Africa, the Caribbean, South America, South Asia, Southeast Asia and Micronesia under many local names, and is often made by small farmers, for whom palm trees give a regular income.
A paloma is tequila topped up with grapefruit soda (or grapefruit juice and soda water) and a squeeze of lime, served tall over ice, often with a salted rim. It is tangy, lightly bitter and refreshing. Paloma means 'dove' in Spanish.
The paper plane is a modern bourbon cocktail made with equal parts bourbon, a bitter orange aperitif, an amaro and lemon juice. It was created in 2008 by the bartenders Sam Ross and Sasha Petraske, who named it after a song they were listening to. It began as a riff on another cocktail, the Last Word.
A penicillin is a modern cocktail of blended Scotch, lemon juice and a honey and ginger syrup, finished with a float of smoky, peaty whisky on top. It was created in New York in 2005 and is named after the antibiotic, a nod to honey, ginger and lemon, which are old home remedies for a cold.
Perry, or pear cider, is an alcoholic drink made from fermented pears, traditionally in the English counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire and in Normandy and Anjou in France. It is usually about 5 to 8 per cent alcohol. The earliest known reference to a fermented pear drink is in the writings of Pliny.
Petit Verdot is a red wine grape used mainly in Bordeaux blends. It ripens later than the other varieties there, sometimes too late, but when it does it adds tannin, colour and flavour in small amounts. In warmer countries it ripens more reliably and is made into wines of its own. Young wines have been likened to banana and pencil shavings, with violet and leather developing as they age.
A pickleback is a shot of liquor, often whiskey, chased by a shot of pickle brine, or sometimes by a bite of dill pickle. The salty, sour brine is said to soften the taste and the burn of the spirit. The drink is linked with New York, and it reached bars in London and elsewhere from about 2011.
Pilsner is a pale, golden lager first brewed in the Czech city of Plzeň in 1842. It is crisp and lightly bitter, with a grassy, floral aroma from the hops. Many of the pale lagers brewed today descend from it.
Piña colada is Spanish for 'strained pineapple'. The cocktail blends rum, cream of coconut and pineapple juice with ice and is usually served in a tall glass with a wedge of pineapple. It comes from Puerto Rico, where more than one bar claims to have invented it.
Pineau des Charentes is a regional aperitif of western France, made in Charente and Charente-Maritime and a little in Dordogne. It is a fortified wine in which fresh grape juice, or lightly fermented grape must, is blended with cognac eau-de-vie and then matured. A legend says it began in 1589, when a winemaker accidentally added grape must to a barrel that held eau-de-vie.
Pinot blanc, or Pinot bianco, is a white grape that began as a mutation of Pinot noir: now and then a vine bears black fruit on every cane but one, which gives white. In Alsace, Italy and Hungary it makes a full-bodied dry white wine, while in Germany and Austria the wine can be dry or sweet. Germans call it Weissburgunder.
Pinot grigio, or pinot gris in France, is a white grape with greyish-pink skin that is a mutation of pinot noir. Italian pinot grigio is usually light, dry and crisp, with citrus and green apple flavours, while pinot gris from Alsace in France tends to be richer, rounder and more aromatic.
Pinot noir is a thin-skinned red grape that makes light-bodied, silky wines with flavours of red cherry, raspberry and earth. It is difficult to grow and sensitive to its surroundings, so wines taste very different by region. Burgundy in France is its home, and it is also grown in Oregon, California and New Zealand.
Pinotage is a red grape that is South Africa's signature variety, created in the 1920s as a cross of pinot noir and cinsaut, which was then called Hermitage, hence the name. It makes deep red wines with smoky, bramble and earthy flavours, sometimes with notes of banana and tropical fruit.
Piquepoul, also spelled Picpoul, is a grape grown mainly in the Rhône Valley and Languedoc in France and in Catalonia in Spain. It comes in dark, light and grey versions, and the light-skinned Piquepoul blanc is the most common. It is one of the oldest local grape varieties of the Languedoc.
Pisco is a grape brandy from Peru and Chile, distilled from wine made from particular grapes and often not aged in wood, so it is usually clear. Peru and Chile both claim it as their own. It is the base of the pisco sour and the chilcano.
A pisco sour is a cocktail of pisco, a grape brandy from Peru and Chile, with lime juice and sugar syrup. The Peruvian version adds egg white, shaken into a froth, and a few drops of bitters on the foam. Both Peru and Chile claim the drink, and the pisco itself, as their own.
Poitín, or poteen, is a traditional Irish spirit of 40 to 90 per cent alcohol, once known as Irish moonshine or mountain dew. It was traditionally distilled in a small pot still, and the name comes from the Irish word for 'pot'. Under its technical file it can only be made from cereals, grain, whey, sugar beet, molasses and potatoes.
Pomace brandy is a spirit distilled from the skins, seeds and stalks left over after grapes are pressed for wine. It is grappa in Italy, tsipouro in Greece, orujo in Spain, bagaceira in Portugal and marc in France. Unlike most wine brandy, it is usually neither aged nor coloured.
A porn star martini is a passion fruit cocktail of vanilla vodka, passion fruit liqueur and passion fruit purée, traditionally served with a chilled shot of champagne on the side. It was created in London in 2002 by the bartender Douglas Ankrah. Despite the name it is not a true martini, and some shops now sell it as a passion fruit martini.
Port is a sweet fortified wine from Portugal's Douro Valley. Grape spirit is added during fermentation, which stops the yeast early and leaves natural sugar and a higher strength. Ruby ports are young and fruity, tawny ports are aged in wood and taste nutty, and it is traditionally served after dinner.
Porter is a dark, well-hopped beer developed in London in the early 18th century, dark because of its brown malt. The name is believed to come from the street and river porters who drank it. It was the first beer style to be brewed around the world, and its history is tied to stout, because strong porters were sold as 'stout porter'.
Prosecco is an Italian sparkling wine made mainly from the glera grape in the north-east of the country, near Venice. The bubbles are usually created in a large sealed tank rather than in the bottle, which keeps it light, fresh and fruity.
Pulque is a milky, slightly thick, sour alcoholic drink made from the fermented sap of the agave, or maguey, plant. It is traditional in central Mexico, where it has been made for at least 2,000 years and was once considered sacred. The sap can be drunk fresh, but it only becomes alcoholic after fermenting, and the plant needs about 12 years to mature first.
Punch is a wide family of mixed drinks, with or without alcohol, usually made with fruit or fruit juice and served from a large bowl at parties. It reached England from India through the East India Company in the late 1600s, and the name is often said to come from a Hindi word for 'five', after its five ingredients. Jamaican rum arrived around 1655 and the modern punch emerged.
A radler, called a shandy in Britain, is beer mixed with lemonade or another fizzy soft drink, usually around half and half. Radler is German for 'cyclist', and the story goes that the name comes from an innkeeper near Munich who served it to cycling crowds in the 1920s, though the mix is recorded earlier. It is light, sweet-sharp and low in alcohol.
Raicilla, meaning 'little root', is an agave spirit from the south-west of the Mexican state of Jalisco and part of Nayarit, related to tequila and mezcal. It has about 300 years of history and a protected denomination of origin, and it is colourless when matured in glass and yellowish when aged in wood.
Red wine gets its colour, and some of its dry, grippy feel, from the skins of dark grapes, which stay in the juice while it ferments. That grippy sensation is tannin, which comes from the skins and seeds. Reds are usually served a little below room temperature.
Retsina is a Greek white (or rosé) wine flavoured with pine resin, a practice that goes back to ancient times, when resin was used to seal the vessels that stored wine. It tastes of pine and citrus, and it is usually served chilled with food.
Rhum agricole is rum made from freshly pressed sugarcane juice rather than molasses, a style first distilled in the French Caribbean islands such as Martinique. The word agricole means 'agricultural', and it is the French term used to tell this style apart from rum made from molasses.
A rickey is a highball of gin or bourbon, lime juice and soda water, with little or no sugar. It was created in Washington, D.C., in the 1880s, first with bourbon, and is linked to a lobbyist called Colonel Joe Rickey. The gin version followed about a decade later, and a version without alcohol is called a lime rickey.
Riesling is a white grape believed to come from Germany's Rhine region. It makes wines from bone dry to very sweet, nearly always with bright acidity and aromas of citrus, apple and blossom. With age, some develop a distinctive whiff of petrol, which some drinkers seek out and others find off-putting.
A Rob Roy is a Manhattan made with Scotch: Scotch whisky, sweet vermouth and a dash of bitters, stirred and strained into a chilled glass. It was created in 1894 at a New York hotel bar and named after an operetta about the Scottish folk hero Rob Roy MacGregor. A 'dry' Rob Roy uses dry vermouth and a 'perfect' one uses both.
Root beer is a sweet, fizzy North American soft drink traditionally flavoured with sassafras root bark or sarsaparilla, and it has a thick foamy head. It began as a brewed small beer, was sold in American confectioners' shops by the 1840s, and is now usually alcohol-free. Since safrole, a chemical in sassafras, was banned in 1960, most makers use artificial flavouring.
Rosé is pink wine, made from dark grapes whose skins stay in the juice for only a few hours, just long enough to tint it. It is usually served chilled and ranges from pale and bone dry to sweet and fruity.
A Roy Rogers is a non-alcoholic mixed drink of cola and grenadine syrup, traditionally garnished with a maraschino cherry. It dates from the 1940s and is named after the American actor and singer Roy Rogers, who probably gave his name to it because he did not drink alcohol. It is the cola cousin of the Shirley Temple.
Rum is a spirit made from sugarcane juice or molasses, a by-product of sugar making. It ranges from clear and light to dark and rich, depending on how it is distilled and aged, and it is the base of many tropical cocktails, including the daiquiri, mojito and piña colada.
Rum punch is a Caribbean drink. In Barbados it follows an old rhyme: one of sour (lime), two of sweet (sugar or syrup), three of strong (rum) and four of weak (water or juice). Planter's punch is another version, and many islands have their own recipes, often with spices such as nutmeg.
A rusty nail is Scotch whisky mixed with a Scotch-based honey and herb liqueur, from equal parts up to two parts whisky to one, served on the rocks in a short glass, often with a twist of orange. A drink like it appeared at the 1937 British Industries Fair, but the name Rusty Nail was only settled in 1963.
Rye whiskey can mean two related things. American rye whiskey is similar to bourbon but must by law be distilled from at least 51 per cent rye grain. Canadian whisky is also often called rye, for historical reasons, even though it does not have to contain any rye. Rye itself is a grain that began in the Euphrates valley about 10,000 years ago.
Saison is a pale, dry, fruity and spicy ale from Wallonia, the French-speaking part of Belgium. It is very fizzy, with a peppery, citrusy taste from the yeast and sometimes added spices. It is often called a farmhouse ale, though historians say that label only took hold in the 1980s.
Sake is a Japanese drink brewed from rice, in a process closer to brewing beer than to making wine. It can be served chilled, at room temperature or warm, from a small flask into tiny cups, or in a square wooden box called a masu. The more the rice is polished before brewing, the lighter and more fragrant the sake tends to be.
Junmai and ginjo are grades of premium sake. Junmai means pure rice, with no distilled alcohol added. Ginjo sake is brewed slowly, for about 30 days at 5 to 10 degrees Celsius, from rice that has been milled down a long way, and it has fruity flavours of apple, banana, melon and peach. Ordinary table sake, futsū-shu, is just over half of production.
Sancerre is a wine from the eastern Loire Valley in France, named after a hilltop town. It is mostly white wine made from sauvignon blanc, though about a fifth is red and a little is rosé, both made from pinot noir. White Sancerre was one of the original French appellations, awarded in 1936.
Sangria is a chilled punch from Spain and Portugal, made of red wine, chopped fruit such as oranges and apples, a little sugar or juice and often a splash of brandy, served from a jug over ice. Its name comes from the Spanish word for blood, because of its colour. White and sparkling versions exist too.
Sauvignon blanc is a white grape that makes crisp, dry, refreshing wines. Cooler places give grassy, green flavours of gooseberry, green pepper and cut grass, and warmer ones riper, more tropical fruit. It is grown in Bordeaux and the Loire Valley in France, in New Zealand and in many other regions, and is usually served chilled.
A Sazerac is a New Orleans cocktail of rye whiskey (originally cognac), a sugar cube and a few dashes of bitters, served in a glass rinsed with absinthe and finished with a lemon peel. It is served without ice, and is one of the oldest American cocktails.
In German-speaking countries schnapps is a strong, clear fruit spirit, distilled from apples, pears, plums or cherries and usually drunk in small glasses after a meal. In the United States and Britain the word usually means a sweet, flavoured liqueur, such as peach or peppermint schnapps, used in shots and cocktails.
A scorpion bowl is a tiki drink served in a large ceramic bowl for sharing, drunk through long straws and often decorated with island scenes. It began as a single-serving drink called the Scorpion, made with light rum, brandy, orgeat syrup and orange and lemon juice. Its spread as a bowl drink is credited to the tiki bar owner Trader Vic.
Scotch ale is a strong, dark, malty ale, sweet and full-bodied, often with toffee notes. The name was first used in the 18th century for strong ales exported from Edinburgh. The strongest versions are sometimes called a wee heavy.
Scotch whisky is malt whisky or grain whisky, or a blend of the two, made in Scotland. The first known written mention is in the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland for 1494, which record malt given to a friar to make aqua vitae. By law it must be matured in oak casks in Scotland for at least three years.
A screwdriver is vodka and orange juice, poured over ice in a tall glass. It is said to have first been mixed by Americans abroad during the Second World War, and the usual story is that they stirred it with a screwdriver for lack of a spoon. It is one of the simplest mixed drinks there is.
Scrumpy is cider from the West Country of England, traditionally a harsh, dry 'rough' cider made from unselected apples and drunk by farm workers. Today the word usually means locally made, traditional cider as opposed to mass-produced brands. The word is first recorded in 1904.
A sea breeze is a long, tart drink of vodka, cranberry juice and grapefruit juice, served over ice. Swap the grapefruit for pineapple and it is a bay breeze, and leave the grapefruit out and it is a Cape Codder. The name is older than the recipe: in the 1930s a sea breeze was a gin drink with apricot brandy, grenadine and lemon juice.
Sémillon is a golden-skinned grape used for dry and sweet white wines, mostly in France and Australia. Its thin skin is prone to noble rot, which makes it the main grape of the sweet wines of Sauternes and Barsac in Bordeaux. It is native to Bordeaux and first arrived in Australia in the early 19th century.
Sex on the Beach is a fruity long drink of vodka, peach schnapps, orange juice and cranberry juice, served over ice. Recipes vary from bar to bar, and some use pineapple juice or other fruit liqueurs. It is usually traced to Florida in the 1980s.
Sherry is a fortified wine from around Jerez in southern Spain. Styles range from pale, bone-dry fino, served chilled with a salty tang, to dark, rich, sweet sherries for after dinner.
Shiraz and syrah are the same red grape. It is called syrah in France's Rhône Valley, where it makes peppery, savoury wines, and shiraz in Australia and South Africa, where the wines are usually riper, fruitier and richer. Both are dark and full-bodied, with flavours of blackberry, pepper and smoke.
A Shirley Temple is a non-alcoholic drink of ginger ale and a splash of grenadine, garnished with a maraschino cherry. It is said to be named after the American child actress, and it gives anyone the look of a cocktail without the alcohol.
Shōchū is a Japanese distilled spirit made from ingredients such as sweet potato, barley, rice or buckwheat. It is lower in strength than most spirits and is drunk neat, on the rocks, or with hot or cold water or soda. Sweet potato shōchū is earthy and aromatic, while barley shōchū is lighter.
A sidecar is cognac, orange liqueur and lemon juice, shaken and strained into a chilled glass, often with a sugared rim. It is thought to date from around the end of the First World War, and one story says it is named after the motorcycle sidecar in which a customer arrived.
The Singapore Sling is a pink gin cocktail that usually mixes gin and cherry liqueur with lime, pineapple juice and a herbal liqueur. It is said to have been created at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore in the early 1900s, but the original recipe is debated and modern versions vary a lot.
A single malt Scotch is whisky made at one distillery in Scotland from a mash of malted barley, distilled in pot stills, and not blended with whisky from other distilleries. Like all Scotch it must be matured in oak casks in Scotland for at least three years, though most single malts are matured for longer.
A sling is an alcoholic drink of gin, whiskey, rum or brandy spiced with nutmeg. It dates from about 1759, when it was meant as a single-serving punch with sour, sweet and strong parts. Some sources trace the word to the German schlingen, 'to swallow fast', but the Oxford English Dictionary says its origin is uncertain.
Sloe gin is a red British liqueur made by steeping sloes, the fruit of the blackthorn tree and a relative of the plum, in gin. It is 15 to 30 per cent alcohol, and under European Union rules it must be at least 25 per cent. It is the only liqueur that can legally be sold simply as gin.
Smoked beer, or Rauchbier in German, gets a smoky flavour from malt dried over an open flame. Before modern kilns, drying malt over fire was common, and the tradition survived mainly in Bamberg in Franconia, where the malt is dried over beechwood fires and the beer is kept in cellars under the city.
A snakebite is a pub drink of equal parts lager and cider. With a dash of blackcurrant cordial added it is called a snakebite and black, and more rarely a diesel. In the United Kingdom, serving it from separate cider and lager taps is legal, though many pubs have policies against it.
Soave is a dry white wine from the Veneto region of north-east Italy, made around the city of Verona mainly from the garganega grape. Its heartland, on sloping vineyards, is labelled Classico, and since 2001 the top tier, Soave Superiore, has held DOCG status.
Soda water, or carbonated water, is water with carbon dioxide dissolved in it, either put in under pressure or occurring naturally. Common forms include sparkling mineral water, club soda and ordinary sparkling water. Club soda and some sparkling waters contain added minerals such as potassium bicarbonate or sodium citrate.
A soft drink is a non-alcoholic drink, usually fizzy and sweetened, and the word 'soft' sets it apart from 'hard' alcoholic drinks. Its roots lie in the fruit-flavoured drinks of the medieval Middle East, such as sharbat, and in the carbonated water Joseph Priestley invented in 1767. It is sold in cans and bottles, and served from fountain machines in bars.
Soju is a clear Korean spirit, traditionally distilled from rice and today often made from other starches such as sweet potato or tapioca. It is mild and slightly sweet, lower in strength than most spirits, and is usually drunk from small glasses alongside food, such as Korean barbecue.
Sotol is a Mexican spirit distilled from plants of the genus Dasylirion, which grow in the Chihuahuan Desert. Since 2002 it has had a protected denomination of origin, and it may be made only in the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila and Durango. Indigenous peoples made a fermented sotol drink for centuries, and distilling arrived in the 16th century.
A sour is one of the old families of cocktails: a base spirit, lemon or lime juice and a sweetener such as simple syrup, with egg white added in some versions for a foamy top. Jerry Thomas described sours in his 1862 book How to Mix Drinks. The whiskey sour, the pisco sour and the amaretto sour all belong to the family.
Sour beers are tart on purpose, thanks to lactic-acid bacteria and sometimes wild yeast. Gose is a salty, lightly sour wheat beer from Goslar and Leipzig in Germany, often brewed with coriander, and Berliner Weisse is a pale, very tart wheat beer from Berlin that is sometimes drunk with a dash of fruit or herb syrup.
Sparkling wine is wine with bubbles, from carbon dioxide made during fermentation. In the traditional method the bubbles form in the bottle, as with champagne and cava; in the tank method they form in a large sealed tank, as with most prosecco. Sekt is German sparkling wine, and crémant is French sparkling wine made outside Champagne.
Spiced rum is rum flavoured with spices. Most are darker than other rums, though many are based on light rums that are neutral in flavour because they were distilled in a continuous column still. Rum has been spiced throughout history, and the modern commercial style arrived in the United States in the 1980s.
A spritz is a long, fizzy Italian aperitivo made with prosecco, a bitter liqueur (often bright orange) and a splash of soda water, served over ice with a slice of orange. The name is usually traced to the German spritzen, 'to spray', from the 1800s, when Austrian soldiers in northern Italy asked for water to be sprayed into their strong local wine.
Squash, known as cordial in British English, is a non-alcoholic fruit syrup, usually made from fruit juice, water and sugar, that is diluted before drinking. It is mixed with four or five parts of water, or nine parts for thicker traditional cordials. Some traditional squashes contain herbal extracts, notably elderflower and ginger.
Steam beer, also called California common, is made by fermenting lager yeast at a higher temperature than usual. It is linked with San Francisco and the American West Coast, and it began as an improvised process before refrigeration. The modern style comes from one San Francisco brewery, which trademarked the name in 1981.
A stinger is a two-ingredient cocktail of brandy and white crème de menthe, classically three parts brandy to one part liqueur, shaken with ice and served straight up or over crushed ice. It dates from about 1890 in the United States and was treated as an after-dinner drink.
Stout is a dark beer made with roasted barley, which gives it flavours of coffee and dark chocolate. Despite the look, it is not always strong or heavy. The name began as a short form of 'stout porter', a stronger version of porter. Some stouts are served with nitrogen gas, which gives a thick, creamy head.
Tannat is a red grape historically grown in the Madiran area of south-west France and now grown in Uruguay, where it is seen as the signature grape. French tannat is very high in tannin, which is why it is often blended, while Uruguayan wines tend to be lighter in body and lower in tannin.
Tej is a honey wine, like mead, brewed in Ethiopia and Eritrea from honey, water and a shrub called gesho. It is usually 7 to 11 per cent alcohol and is drunk at festivals, weddings and religious events. Fermented honey drinks are thought to be among the oldest alcoholic drinks in the world.
Tempranillo is a red grape from Spain and the base of Rioja and Ribera del Duero wines. It makes medium- to full-bodied reds with flavours of cherry, leather and tobacco, and is often aged for years in oak, which is why labels say crianza, reserva or gran reserva.
Tennessee whiskey is straight whiskey made in the US state of Tennessee. Producers must make it there, and nearly all filter it through maple charcoal before ageing, a step called the Lincoln County Process. Although it has been legally defined as a bourbon in some trade agreements, most Tennessee producers do not label their whiskey as bourbon.
Tepache is a lightly fermented Mexican drink made from pineapple peel and rind, sweetened with unrefined brown sugar and sometimes seasoned with chilli powder, and served cold. Street vendors sell it in clay mugs or in bags with a straw. It dates from pre-Columbian Mexico, when it was made from corn.
Tequila is a Mexican spirit made from the blue agave plant. By law it can only be made in certain regions, mainly the state of Jalisco. The heart of the plant is cooked, crushed and fermented before distilling. Tequila can be sipped neat or used in cocktails like the margarita.
A tequila shot is a small glass of tequila, often downed in one go with salt licked from the hand and a slice of lime or lemon. That is how it is usually served outside Mexico, where the traditional way is neat, sometimes with a spicy, sweet and sour drink called sangrita on the side. A tequila slammer mixes tequila with fizzy lemon-lime soda.
A tequila sunrise is tequila and orange juice with a splash of grenadine poured in last. The grenadine sinks and leaves a red-to-orange gradient in the glass, like a sunrise. It is served over ice and not stirred, so the colours stay separate.
Tinto de verano is Spanish for 'red wine of summer'. It is red wine mixed with a fizzy lemon drink or soda water and served over ice with a slice of lemon. It is lighter and simpler than sangria, which includes chopped fruit and often a splash of spirit.
A Tom and Jerry is a hot Christmas cocktail from the United States, a variant of eggnog with brandy and rum added, usually served in a mug or a bowl. It is sometimes credited to the writer Pierce Egan in the 1820s, and its name refers to his 1821 book Life in London, whose heroes are Jerry Hawthorn and Corinthian Tom.
A Tom Collins is a tall, fizzy gin drink: gin, lemon juice and sugar syrup topped up with soda water and served over ice with a slice of lemon. Think of it as a gin sour stretched out with soda.
Tommy's margarita is a variation on the margarita that uses agave nectar in place of orange liqueur and sugar syrup. Julio Bermejo conceived it in 1990 at Tommy's Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco, preferring to let the agave flavour of the tequila come through rather than cover it with orange liqueur.
Tonic water is a fizzy soft drink with quinine dissolved in it, which gives it a distinctive bitter taste. Quinine from cinchona bark was used against malaria, and in early 19th-century India and other tropical posts of the British Empire it was mixed with soda and sugar to hide its bitterness. Modern tonic water has much less quinine and is often sweeter.
Touriga Nacional is a red grape from Portugal. Its small berries give low yields, but they bring structure, body, firm tannins and concentrated black-fruit flavours to the blends used for port, and it is increasingly made into table wine in the Douro and Dão. The vine grows in steep, rocky vineyards in searing heat.
Trebbiano is an Italian white grape, grown across Italy and France, that gives good yields and fresh, fruity wines which do not keep long. Its other name is ugni blanc, and its high acidity makes it the usual grape for distilling into Cognac and Armagnac. It is also used to make balsamic vinegar.
Tsipouro is an unaged Greek brandy, 40 to 45 per cent alcohol, traditionally distilled from grape pomace or from wine after the juice has been separated. It is made mainly in Thessaly, Epirus and Macedonia, and an aniseed version appeared in the 1900s. By tradition, monks on Mount Athos first made it in the 14th century.
Txakoli is a slightly sparkling, very dry white wine with high acidity and low alcohol, made in the Spanish Basque Country, Cantabria and northern Burgos. It is usually drunk as an aperitif within a year of bottling, and it is poured into tall glasses from a height, often alongside pintxos, the Basque bar snacks.
Umeshu is a sweet Japanese liqueur made by steeping green ume fruit (often called plum, though it is really a kind of apricot) in alcohol and sugar. It tastes sweet and sour, is around 10 to 15 per cent alcohol, and is served on the rocks, with soda water, or hot in winter.
Verdejo is a white grape grown in the Rueda region of Spain, where it is said to have arrived around the 11th century, possibly brought from North Africa. It was once used for strongly oxidised, sherry-like wine, and it almost died out in the mid-20th century before a local grower helped bring it back.
Verdicchio is a white grape grown mainly in the Marche region of central Italy, and its name comes from verde, 'green', for the slight green tinge its wines can have. It is the main grape of two DOC wines, from the Castelli di Jesi and Matelica areas, and it also makes sparkling and straw wine. Records of it in Marche go back to at least the 14th century.
Vermentino is a light-skinned grape grown in Sardinia, Liguria and Tuscany in Italy and in Corsica, and it is called Favorita in Piedmont. DNA tests have shown it is the same grape as Pigato in Liguria. It is often grown on slopes facing the sea, and one of its wines is Vermentino di Gallura, from Sardinia.
Vermouth is a fortified wine flavoured with herbs, roots and spices. Dry (white) vermouth is used in a martini, and sweet (red) vermouth in a Manhattan or a Negroni. It can also be sipped on its own, chilled or over ice with a slice of orange.
The Vesper is a martini-style cocktail of gin, vodka and a French aperitif wine, shaken until ice cold and served with a thin slice of lemon peel. James Bond invents it in Ian Fleming's 1953 novel Casino Royale and names it after Vesper Lynd. The original wine is no longer made, so bars use a substitute.
The Vieux Carré is a New Orleans cocktail of rye whiskey, cognac, sweet vermouth, a herbal liqueur and aromatic bitters. It was created by Walter Bergeron, a bartender at the Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone. The name is French for 'old square' and refers to the city's French Quarter.
Vin Santo, 'holy wine', is a Tuscan dessert wine, traditionally made from white grapes such as trebbiano and malvasia, dried on straw mats to concentrate their sugar. A rosé version, Occhio di Pernice ('eye of the partridge'), uses sangiovese. The name is most likely linked to the wine's use in the Catholic Mass.
Vinho verde, Portuguese for 'green wine', comes from the far north of Portugal, where 'green' means young rather than the colour. The wines are usually light, crisp and slightly spritzy, low in alcohol and mostly white. Alvarinho is one of the grapes used.
Viognier is a white grape that can make full-bodied wines with a lush, soft character. It is the only grape allowed in Condrieu, a wine from the Rhône Valley in France, and it is also grown in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. In the Rhône it is sometimes fermented together with the red grape syrah.
Vodka is a clear spirit distilled to a high purity and usually filtered, so it tastes clean and fairly neutral. It can be made from grain, potatoes or even grapes, and it is the base of drinks from the Bloody Mary to the espresso martini.
Wassail is a hot, mulled drink of cider, ale or wine with spices, traditionally drunk from a large bowl at Christmastide. The word comes from an old Norse greeting meaning 'be in good health'. Wassailing also means going door to door singing, or singing to apple trees in cider-making regions to bring a good harvest.
Weissbier is German for 'white beer', a wheat beer from Bavaria. It is hazy and pale, with fruity notes of banana and clove that come from the yeast, and it is traditionally served in a tall, vase-shaped glass that leaves room for its thick white head. Belgian-style wheat beers are called witbier.
West Coast IPA is the traditional American style of IPA: hop-forward, often clear and dry, with little malt character and plenty of bitterness. Its name sets it apart from hazy New England IPAs and other offshoots. American hops such as Cascade and Chinook give it resin, citrus and tropical fruit flavours.
Whisky, or whiskey in Ireland and the United States, is a spirit distilled from fermented grain and usually aged in wooden casks. Scotch, Irish, American and Japanese whiskies differ in their grains, how they are dried and distilled, and how long they age, which gives flavours from smoky and peaty to sweet and vanilla-like.
A Whisky Mac is blended Scotch whisky and green ginger wine, in equal parts or up to three parts whisky to two, served in a wine goblet without ice, or hot with boiling water. It is attributed to Colonel Hector MacDonald in British India, and is also linked with golfers, who drank it to warm up after a cold round.
A whisky sour is whisky, lemon juice and sugar syrup shaken with ice. Some bartenders add egg white for a silky foam, and a few drops of bitters on top. It belongs to the 'sour' family of drinks, alongside the daiquiri and the pisco sour, which all follow the same pattern: a spirit, citrus juice and sugar.
A white lady is a sour of gin, orange liqueur and lemon juice, sometimes with egg white for a silky foam, usually served in a stemmed glass. It is a sidecar with gin in place of brandy. Harry MacElhone is said to have made the first version in London in 1919, using crème de menthe, and to have switched to gin in Paris in 1929.
White rum, also called light or silver rum, is a light-coloured, mild-flavoured style of rum, usually made in a column still in the Spanish tradition. It may be unaged, or aged and then filtered to remove the colour. Its gentle flavour suits mixed drinks such as the mojito and the daiquiri.
A White Russian is vodka, coffee liqueur and cream (or milk), poured over ice in a short glass. Despite the name, the vodka is the only Russian thing about it. Leave out the cream and it becomes a Black Russian.
White wine is made from the juice of green or yellow grapes, usually fermented without the skins. Dark grapes can make white wine too, if they are pressed quickly so the juice stays clear, as with some sparkling wines. It is normally served chilled and ranges from bone dry to very sweet.
Wine is an alcoholic drink made from fermented grape juice, and the grape variety, the place it grows and the way it is made all change its taste. The oldest known traces of wine, from about 6000 BCE, were found near Tbilisi in Georgia, and the oldest known winery, from about 4100 BCE, is in Armenia.
A wine cooler is an alcoholic drink made from wine and fruit juice, often mixed with a carbonated drink and sugar, and served cold. The first wine cooler to be marketed appeared in California in 1976. It is a cousin of the wine spritzer and of sangria.
A wine spritzer is a tall, chilled drink of white wine topped up with carbonated or sparkling mineral water. The word comes from the German spoken in Austria, where the drink is also called a Gespritzter. It is also drunk across central and eastern Europe, for example in Slovakia, where it is called vínny špric.
Witbier, Dutch for 'white beer', is a hazy wheat beer brewed mainly in Belgium and the Netherlands. It gets its cloudy look from suspended yeast and wheat proteins, and it is usually flavoured with spices such as coriander and orange peel. White beers from the Flemish Brabant region go back to at least the 16th and 17th centuries.
A woo woo is vodka, peach schnapps and cranberry juice, shaken with ice and served in a highball glass with a lime wedge, or sometimes as a shot. It dates from the 1980s, when peach schnapps drinks such as the fuzzy navel appeared.
Zinfandel is a red grape grown mainly in California, where it makes rich, jammy wines with flavours of blackberry, pepper and spice. It is the same grape as primitivo in southern Italy, and DNA tests in 2001 matched both to an old Croatian variety, tribidrag. A pink wine called white zinfandel is also made from it.
The Zombie is a tiki cocktail of several rums, lime juice, fruit juice and a spiced syrup, served in a tall glass with mint. It was invented in California in the 1930s, and the story goes that the bar limited each guest to two because of how strong it is.
Zweigelt, also called Rotburger, is an Austrian red grape created in 1922 by Friedrich Zweigelt, a viticulture researcher who later ran a federal research institute. He crossed two grapes, St. Laurent and Blaufränkisch, and the next year created a second red grape, Blauburger.
Play today's Pintdle and guess which one more people would buy, or send in a drink of your own.