Oh man, I love me some Jameson! I love it straight, I love it with root beer, and I love it in Irish Carbombs (my personal favorite "out on the town" beverage). But yeah, whenever I order whiskey I get the "Oooh, someone's not messing around tonight!" speech, as if I'm really "manning up" by enjoying it.

And yes, sometimes I do want to order the foofy-fruity-sweet drinks, and I usually refrain from it because I don't want to encourage stereotypes. It's like I have to prove to the bar that we can drink as well as anyone.

Bourbon- straight up, neat.

I was never a big drinker- in fact, I went about 10 years sans alcohol- but then I discovered I could appreciate bourbon just like people appreciate wine. I don't like mixers in anything.
And yes, when I order it, I usually get the raised eyebrows and the low whistles of appreciation- "oh, I like it, a tough chick."
Blargh.
BTW- Elijah Craig is a great bourbon, but few bars carry it.

i'm a vodka tonic kind of girl mostly, but i do enjoy a maker's and coke now and then. i just have to commit to one liquor for the entire evening and not mix it up and it seems like opting for whiskey usually results in something really crazy happening.

i really haven't liked the sweet, fruity "lady" drinks since i was about 19. i can't process the sugar and after too many strawberry-mango-pineapple-cosmo-tinis i just end up puking without even being drunk! it's the worst. it seems like most of the women i know are pretty down with the hard liquors at least sometimes, but maybe i just know a lot of tough bitches. i definitely feel like there is a presumption, especially among younger women, that what we chiefly want to drink is syrup with a paper umbrella, but i think that the converse of that is even more prevalent--that manly dudes do NOT want to touch anything too girly, so i think guys face more social disapproval for fruity drinks than girls are for ordering scotch on the rocks.

Awesome post! I was just thinking of this the other day, actually, when I was at a new bar with a good (male) friend of mine and we both ordered a nice brand of Scotch (on the rocks). Predictably, mine came with some kind of soda mixed in, and a little umbrella. Gross!

I just don't understand. I'm not quiet, and I didn't mumble or stutter while I ordered. I clearly ordered the exact same thing as my friend. Gah!

Luckily, my regular neighborhood bar NEVER tries to pull any of that crap on me.

Vodka. Multiple filtered, expensive potato vodka, too good to shoot. Straight or in tonic. I love me some vodka.

I definitely have gotten the "oooh, you're so tough" comments shooting the more affordable stuff, though. Mainly with vodka--people were never that surprised by women shooting rum or something.

I live in Kentucky. I love bourbon. Bourbon = American whiskey, not necessarily from KY but in my opinion KY (and TN) make the best. And it's all natural! I usually order it on the rocks or with water (bourbon and water sounds gross, but is not).

I never felt like an anomaly for ordering bourbon here, but I've noticed when I've traveled recently that people are shocked that I order bourbon, or any whiskey. I don't have a very noticeable Kentucky accent, and usually when I explain that I'm from there people 'get it', so I always thought of it as a geographic thing rather than a gender thing, but based on these ads and the experiences in this post I'd say it's a little of both.

Also, I notice that it's MUCH more expensive in say, San Francisco or New York than it is here in KY, which makes sense, i guess (though I'm always amazed when i try to go out in other regions and people are paying $9 a drink and $10 for a pack of cigarettes). If you're really into whiskey, and you're ever near Kentucky, I encourage you to do some bourbon tourism. It's really really fun and educational. You can do distillery tours where they give you samples and teach you about the process of making bourbon and see some beautiful countryside.

Whisky-lemonade is what I liked when I lived in Scotland. Sadly, most bars in the US don't carry lemon soda, so I go for a whisky-sprite. In a bar I just ask for whisky since I'm poor, but if I'm buying a bottle for home use, I like Woodford Reserve as a sipping bourbon, or Dewar's if I'm in the mood for scotch. On the rocks, no mixer. I mix if it's Jim Beam or something of equally-mediocre taste.

I've lived in bourbon country my entire life, so I'm kind of a snob. But we have an extra shitty economy, so I'm financially limited in snobbery. ;)

I will take a nice Belgian or Belgian-inspired ale over hard liquor any day. :) Or a Newcastle. Or even a Bass Ale. Or, a lovely Boddingtons. Yummy.

Um. TGIF!

Also, I have never been given a drink with a little paper umbrella. I can see how patronizing that would be, but i think just once that would kind of thrill me. I don't think the bars i usually go to have paper umbrellas. they don't even skewer olives with those little plastic swords that i see sometimes when i travel. I've also worked as a cocktail server and there were no umbrellas there. maybe this is a geographic thing...

That used to happen to me all the time when I was dating my last boyfriend, who didn't drink beer. I'd order a beer, he'd order a Mike's or a Smirnoff Ice, and invariably the waiter or bartender would put the beer in front of him and the sweet drink in front of me. It usually hadn't been more than a minute since we'd ordered, so that had to be some powerful stereotyping operating to make them revert that quickly to the belief that he must've ordered the "manly" beer and me the "girly" alcopop.

I'm not much of a hard liquor gal since I left my partying days behind. However, I have had trouble with male bartenders when I ask to see the beer list. The conversation goes something like this:

Me: May I see your beer list?
Bartender/waitstaff: I have a Smirnoff Ice (or similar) that you would like.
Me: Actually, I was interested in a stout. Or IPA. Or hefeweizen. Or any local microbrews you might have. So could I just see the beer list, please?

It gets really annoying. Good beer is NOT masculine! Ugh!

Anybody else out there a beer woman?

Singapore Slings. I do worry about them being girly, but Tom Waits sings about them so I feel ok.

I drink bourbon on the rocks. In Austin, Texas this is not looked upon as odd for a woman, at least in the bars I frequent. However, I do have an alcohol-related gender issue. When I'm around my male friends, I feel a perverse need to prove that I can keep up with or out-drink them. This is not healthy.

@ religiousfeminista

MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Although, I'm not as acknowledge!

I tend to stick with imported lager: Heineken, Heineken Light, Stella Artois, Presidente, Presidente Light (in that order, because no carries my beloved Presidente, unless I find myself at a Dominican or general Latino spot).

@ Attagrrrl - I definitely had that problem in college. Luckily I could hold my alcohol back then, and didn't hang out with DBs who would try something.

I don't like hard liquor (I feel like I'm drinking harsh chemicals). I like beer and wine, but I always feel silly ordering a blonde ale or a wine spritzer (perpetuating the stereotype) BUT I LIKE THEM!! Dang, can't order something without getting admiring looks for being manly, or feeling enabling with a fruity something. Drinks are definitely gendered.

I like medium-dark beers and red wine, myself.

Meanwhile, I like the drink, too, but can everyone come up with a name for it that doesn't refer to the conflict in Northern Ireland? I didn't really think about it until I went out with a guy from Hollywood (the Irish one), and he mentioned his horror at that name in passing. Just saying. (I like "Guinness bomb," as the drink is technically a "bomb" shot).

I LOVE that you wrote this article.

My best friend and I are "petite" women who drink whiskey "like men" and get weird looks all the time.

ALL the time. even people who know us well are like "oh my god. you drink whiskey??? you can handle that?? i'd like to see it to believe it!"

Yet if we ordered tequila or vodka, we would not get those looks.

I LOVE that you wrote this article.

My best friend and I are "petite" women who drink whiskey "like men" and get weird looks all the time.

ALL the time. even people who know us well are like "oh my god. you drink whiskey??? you can handle that?? i'd like to see it to believe it!"

Yet when we ordered tequila or vodka, we don't get those looks.

My stepmother is a whisky drinker; my father for years drank gin & tonic. Most waiters would put the whisky in front of him and the G&T in front of her.

I have a friend who was an NCAA gymnast, about 100 lbs, and would invariably order double Jamesons, neat. Having heard the order correctly, bartenders would assume she didn't mean it, and usually ask if she wanted ice; to which she would respond deadpan, "why would I want ice? That would water it down." (She is also a walking encyclopedia of college sports, which has made more than one sexist fratboy run).

I'm a nondrinker, and equality in alcohol is a dubious sort of equality, but discrimination is discrimination wherever we find it, and stereotypes are stereotypes.

I drink all sorts of things - rum and coke or vodka tonic when I'm out dancing, stouts or brown ales or IPAs, wine-with-food, Maker's Mark mint juleps at Redbones, interesting-sounding cocktails if they don't have peach or banana in them (ick) - most anything, although I'll usually choose something that's not gin. I don't usually order neat whiskey when I'm out somewhere, although I don't turn it down from friends who pride themselves on their collections of single malt scotches or high end bourbons. I also like Rocket Fuel, the fannish booze slushy made with grain alcohol, lemonade concentrate, and solid CO2.

But I've totally noticed the gendered thing. I was at LTK with friends a couple of weeks ago, and I ordered their take on the Dark & Stormy (rum and ginger beer, yummy!) and someone else, a guy, ordered a blackberry capirhina.

Guess who got the pinky-purple drink set down in front of them, and who got the booze-colored one?

Yup. And we noticed how gendered that was, too.

That's simple, whiskey gets the male machoness because whiskey is the drink of every cowboy in every cowboy movie.

This is kind of filth reminds me of all the anti-male commercials these days.
Nearly all the tv spots portray men as bumbling morons and woman as all knowing and smart.
We need to write those commercials and tell them to stop degrading men on tv the way women used to be degraded on tv, like in the ad you showed (from 17 years ago).

Texas drinking is a hobby, so I can handle everything but (ironically?) tequila. I used to drunk vodka on ice with my ex. Pretty much left Smirnoffs behind in highschool. We call my boss and his girlfriend the bourbon twins because they always drink tall bourbon and waters and our local spot makes them extra small because they know we're all on a nonprofit budget. A lot of the women I work with drink strait liquor. Besides the occasional Mojito or Bahama mama, gin and tonic, rum & coke, & whiskey and coke are my current favorites.

The problem that I have is that I look so young that I will probably get carded for the next 20 years of my life. I know this because my mom is 43 and still gets carded. People say "Oh how lucky! Cause you won't look a day over 17. Ever." But right now, I'd really like to look like I'm in my 20s because I am. I always feel like people think I'm giving them a fake ID or something.

I don't drink scotch regularly, but I'm working on it. So far, it goes down hard and burns my tummy in a bad way. Anybody else have that problem? How did you overcome it? I dearly want to learn how to enjoy it. Many of my friends derive such deep pleasure from experiencing the different kinds of scotch. I want that kind of joy. Sipping it, reading a good book. Lovely, lovely.

Anybody else think of Steve Martin in "The Jerk"?

***
Navin: Sorry about your wife Hobart.

Hobart: Federal regulations sir. Oh, dear me. Your wife has given you another gold chain. I nearly forgot. Ah, I suppose I'm still not quite over Hester's death.

Navin: Well, these things take time.

Hobart: Yes, so I'm told. Oh, and here's your drink sir, like the one you saw in the magazine.

Navin: Wow, you got the bamboo umbrella and everything. See that? (pulls the magazine out of the drawer) "Be somebody".

Hobart: Very good sir, very good.
*****

Be somebody.

Yay underage drinking!

My drink of choice is gin and tonic, and I have no idea how girly or manly it's considered. I think it's pretty neutral. I've never gotten in trouble buying gin, and the one time I ordered a G&T in a restaurant, I got one of the strongest ones I'd ever had.

Like I said, underage, and the waiter totally knew. He probably figured I was trying to get drunk.

Me and my suitemates all love beer. Never gotten any shit for that one, either, probably because we're college students and everyone assumes we just like it because it's cheap.

Of course, I love strawberry margaritas and sangria. I have been known to enjoy Smirnoff Ice. Nothing wrong with the girly drinks.

I like Guinness, mostly because I have an excuse to drink it slowly.

I drink whiskey on the rocks after a bad breakup, because it makes me feel so much worse. That's also the only time I smoke.

The dearth of whiskey drinking women worked in my favor on the distillery tours in Ireland. They ask for a volunteer to be a whiskey taster, and mine was the only female hand raised, and I always got selected.

@metabonbon: If you don't like scotch, try whiskey. Bushmills is good stuff for a beginner. Once you are accustomed to whiskey taste, you start to appreciate the burn, and you can try rougher whiskies.

He loves high-waisted bikini bottoms. And he drinks Johnny Walker.

BTW, as I said above I'm a nondrinker, and I have a trememdous sweettooth, and by way of "fuck you and the stereotype you rode in on," I frequently order Shirley Temples. That gets double-takes; I'm a masculine-presenting man in his mid-thirties. But I just stare and repeat myself.

What's interesting to me about this (and yes, I'm a whiskey drinker in bars - Bushmill's or Bulleit, depending) is how I, a somewhat androgynous looking woman, don't get nearly the commentary that my friends and colleagues with more femme appearances do. I'm not sure what to call it, but since I have kind of a genderqueer thing going for me these days there's a certain hesitation, and then folks almost always defer to the treatment they would give a man. It's strange, and at times infuriating. Then again, when I'm read as a butch lady, the expectations are "act like a man, drink like a man!" and folks will give me grief if I order something that looks or tastes like fruit juice. The latter scenario is more common at queer joints. Who knew ordering a damn drink could be such a clusterf*ck, eh?

I like vodka just about any way they serve it.
I find many woman like vodka also.
Vodka shots, or mixed. It is always a great drink.
I find many woman from Europe can drink American men under the table with shots.

Hehe. I love this post.

This issue of gendering inanimate objects like booze came up with one of my male students. For some reason I mentioned in class - probably because I was having them analyze advertisements, some of the more interesting and egregious ones of which were for alcohol - that I feel strange for not liking beer because I'm of German heritage and grew up in one of the most German states. He admitted that he actually gets teased because he hates beer. And I said, "It's pretty ridiculous that we have to gender even what we *eat and drink*."

Whiskey ads are almost always aimed toward men. In fact, I don't even recall seeing one in a women's magazine. Just today my class was looking at an ad for some kind of pomegranate liqueur. The ad consisted of a martini glass with the red liqueur in it balancing on top of a pomegranate. All of a sudden, like inspired, one of my boys piped up, "It looks really girly. I can't picture myself walking around with a drink like that." I was like ... it's a martini glass with a red liquid in it. Red liquids are girly? But even underage college students - and probably even young kids - have a sense of the gendered nature of booze.

I drink a sort of weakling whiskey - Jack - and I get the tough-girl reactions all the time, even from guys I date. And I'm like ... wtf. It's Jack. It's almost sweet. I don't mind the reactions, but it just reenforces that booze is one of the most obviously gendered products around, almost on par with clothes. And it annoys the shit out of me to think it's used as another tool to inspire homophobic insults and gender policing, which it surely does.

I don't drink anymore, but when I did drink I drank vodka, generally neat or in Absolut Lemonades.

But I so relate to being served the wrong drink. Years ago I was out with a group of friends, and one of the gentlemen in our group took one look at what the girls were drinking (whiskey, neat; gin & tonic; vodka, neat) and at what the guys were drinking (margarita, old fashioned, bar drink called a "zombie brain", pina colada) and said, "It figures that in this crowd the women would drink the hard drinks and the men the foofy drinks." (Including himself in that second group, of course.)

I've had a thing for hard apple cider lately. Must be the season.

Personally I hate whiskey and bourbon. Not because they're strong, I just don't like the taste. I love vodka tonics though. They're plenty strong and not sweet like some stereotypical "girl" drinks that we make me sick before I even get tipsy from the amount of sugar in them. But my all time favorite thing is tequila shots. So whenever a guy claims that I don't like whiskey cause it's strong I just laugh and order us some shots.

I LOVE a Jack Daniels and Coke. Or Southern Comfort and Coke, or any other type of whiskey - don't like vodka, never have. But bartenders do seem to find it odd - hell, practically everyone I know finds it odd. A few nights ago I was having a drink with my boyfriend - he ordered a Coca-Cola, with nothing in it, I ordered the above. Guess which drink the bartender put in front of me? He looked rather confused, bless him, when we swapped them round.

I hate beer, never could stand it. I mostly drink wine or mead, but I also drink whisky (Laphroaig or Talisker, or Jamesons if I'm in the mood for Irish). Of course, I just buy a fifth of the stuff and it lasts forever. Going out and buying booze by the glass in a bar is hideously expensive, I hate hanging out in most bars (less since the smoking ban went into effect), and then I'd just have to drive home anyway.

I started drinking Jim Beam because it was the cheapest, hardest thing available (to last longer, not 'cause I'm a drunk) and developed a huge appreciation for better whiskey once I got a chance to try it. I need to find out what the hell we drank in Scotland; it tasted like gouda.

Always drink it straight. Pop tastes nasty with alcohol.

This post makes me wish there was a feminist whisk(e)y club somewhere. Maybe a club where any sort of liquor snobbery is welcome as long as you don't gender the drinks! I'd love to trade tasting notes with folks who don't have these drink biases.

To Thomas, Cheers. Those things are yummy!

I'm with Kate: Jameson. On the rocks. No sprite or juice added, thanks. Depending on the bartender, it takes some convincing. But if you're in a rootbeer mood try it with some dark unspiced rum. Mmm, IBC rootbeer and Myer's rum. But Jameson is my standard for sure.

Ah, this makes me realize how long it's been since I had a drink - 9 months of pregnancy + 10 months of breastfeeding! Jesus. And no caffeine either. Is this what it's like to be a Mormon? Damn! (Please don't get all mad at me if you're LDS!) Only 2 months to go.

"This is kind of filth reminds me of all the anti-male commercials these days.
Nearly all the tv spots portray men as bumbling morons and woman as all knowing and smart