Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2021 June 11

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June 11

Drinks known as screwdrivers in Britain

Is the drink a screwdriver commonly known in England? Because in the Fawlty Towers episode Waldorf Salad, an American man and his English wife ask for screwdrivers. Basil however, has never heard of that drink and doesn't even ask "What's a screwdriver?". See [Towers: Screwdriver] on YouTube. 86.147.178.38 (talk) 20:05, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

No, Basil is right (as always). We certainly drink vodka & orange juice, but we would never call it a screwdriver. --Viennese Waltz 20:32, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Echo the above. It's just a vodka and orange. Nanonic (talk) 21:09, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

[Edit Conflict] I beg to differ somewhat. I used to drink this in my teenage years in the 1970s (when at parties with my parents and their friends) and the term 'screwdriver' was used only a little less frequently than 'vodka and orange', and almost universally understood. Perhaps my parents' set were a little more cosmopolitan than average English people, since they were nearly all British Army personnel and their families.

Certainly all bar staff (as I have been) in British pubs and hotels will know what a 'screwdriver' is, unless they're very new to the job. Basil Fawlty is untypical, a comic character part of whose comicness is that he's exaggeratedly English, fiercely non-cosmopolitan, and actively dislikes his role as a hotel manager. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.0.58 (talk) 21:15, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

This is OT of course, but I've always wondered what the appeal of that particular drink is. Sounds to me like weak orange juice plus alcohol you can't taste. Personally I like my OJ strong with lots of pulp, and I like to taste my booze. But de gustibus I suppose. --Trovatore (talk) 21:24, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever heard anyone order a screwdriver in a British pub, and I've spent a lot of time in a lot of pubs. Plenty of vodkas and orange, but no screwdrivers. And as for fresh-squeezed orange juice, as the character demanded, at the time at home we used to drink orange juice made out of crystals (I think Bird's Appeel was one of the brands). Pubs would have little bottles of orange juice, and you could buy bigger bottles in a supermarket 20 miles away, but they were rather pricey. A vodka and orange would more usually have orange squash than juice. I still suspect the only reason any British people have a clew what a Waldorf salad is is because of re-runs of Fawlty Towers. DuncanHill (talk) 21:50, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Orange juice made of crystals. That doesn't sound like a thing I'd recognize as "orange juice" (and mixing it with vodka seems if possible even more pointless than mixing orange juice with it, except, I suppose, at least you're not wasting orange juice). --Trovatore (talk) 05:42, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

The juice from crystals (Kellogg's Rise and Shine was another, and you can see old adverts for that on a well-known video website) was what you would have as orange juice at home, and then probably only once a week. Jolly nice it was too. Real, i.e. bottled, orange juice was a rare treat - you might have a glass as a starter in a restaurant. DuncanHill (talk) 09:51, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

There's a comment on this story which chimes very true "I remember the sense of cosmopolitan sophistication when we started having "Rise 'n' Shine" powdered orange juice as a special treat for Sunday breakfast". DuncanHill (talk) 09:55, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, oranges don't grow here and have to be imported (Israel is a major supplier - see Jaffa orange), so squeezing lots of oranges just to make a drink would be rather indulgent. Alansplodge (talk) 10:43, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

In North America, at least, drink crystals are legally not allowed to be called "juice" since they contain no, well, juice. It would be labelled as drink mix if it was sold powdered and as according to this chart if it was reconstituted. Matt Deres (talk) 12:49, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't think you can get them here at all now. DuncanHill (talk) 13:44, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

No indeed, cartons of orange juice reconstituted from concentrate arrived here sometime in the 1980s and quickly dominated the market. Alansplodge (talk) 18:10, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

When I was a kid, my mom used to buy frozen concentrated orange juice in paper cylinders with metal ends, kept in the freezer. You'd reconstitute when you wanted to drink it. It was actually pretty good. Sometimes I'd just spoon out the slushy frozen juice and eat it. I don't know whether it's still in the supermarkets; haven't particularly looked for it. --Trovatore (talk) 18:54, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

They're widely available in Canada, though I more often buy the lemonade or pink lemonade ones. I find the quality of the OJ suffers a bit more than it does with the lemonade for some reason. Economically, they're a great deal and because you're the one doing the reconstituting, you can know the quality (and quantity) of water being added. Matt Deres (talk) 13:08, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

BrEng here. My Booth's "Handbook of Cocktails and Mixed Drinks" (pub 1979) lists a screwdriver on page 85. 2 oz vodka, 1 oz orange juice, 1/2 teaspoon powdered sugar. If I was in a pub and wanted vodka with orange, I'd order vodka and orange. If I was in a cocktail bar, I'd order a screwdriver. If I was in Fawlty Towers, I'd dine elesewhere...--Phil Holmes (talk) 08:45, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Agree with Phil above. Cocktail bars exist here but are something of a rarity and very upmarket, but pubs are everywhere. Alansplodge (talk) 10:39, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

(OR) From my youth in London and Cambridge in the 70s I remember a sequence of cocktails which started with a screwdriver (vodka and orange), and gradually introduced other ingredients until you got to a "long slow comfortable screw against the wall". This featured sloe gin, Southern Comfort, and Galliano, but I don't remember what the "long" bit was - maybe just lemonade. --ColinFine (talk) 17:30, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Oh my ColinFine that is a mixture of some of the sweetest, most cloying liquors ever - I'm getting a cavity just reading about it :-) All this talk of orange crystals leads me to ask whether Tang (drink mix) was available in the UK or was it strictly a US product? Also would orange squash be part of this conversation? I've forgotten where the comic routine came from but the joke was "if vodka and OJ are called a screwdriver are vodka and prune juice a piledriver? :-P MarnetteD|Talk 18:10, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

I think the "long" part just referred to it being served in a tall glass. https://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/218/A_Long_Slow_Comfortable_Screw_Up_Against_the_Wall37560.shtml --Khajidha (talk) 17:33, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

And you can go even further than that (pun intentional): https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/4269/slow-comfortable-screw-against-a-cold-hard-wall-with-a-kiss --Khajidha (talk) 17:35, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever seen or heard of Tang in the UK. I mentioned orange squash above. DuncanHill (talk) 18:16, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

"Tang" was around in Australia - I remember it from my Tasmanian (yes, it is a real place) days. Would you accept a cartoon about a talking platypus a reliable reference? (Though I was a bit less irresponsible and a bit more studious than Ralph, I did share his taste in music...) Why can I remember a comic from over 30 years ago like it was yesterday, but half of the time forget where I left my wallet and keys? Pete AU aka --Shirt58 (talk) 04:13, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Related question - Is vodka and orange juice a cocktail? I would describe it as a drink and a mixer, and would expect a cocktail to have a minimum of 3 ingredients.--Ykraps (talk) 07:22, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

For me, a "drink and a mixer" would still be a cocktail. Admittedly a very simple one, but one nonetheless. Anything other than a single alcoholic beverage would be a cocktail. Our cocktail article seems to agree with me: "When a mixed drink contains only a distilled spirit and a mixer, such as soda or fruit juice, it is a highball. Many of the International Bartenders Association Official Cocktails are highballs. " --Khajidha (talk) 14:54, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Dear me! On cold winter nights I'm partial to a dog's nose – a mulled porter (or stout) with an added (single or double) gin and preferably sprinkled with powdered/grated nutmeg. I find it difficult to think of that as a 'cocktail'. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.0.58 (talk) 16:26, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

What would you call it? A mixed drink? To me "mixed drink" and "cocktail" are the same thing. What would you consider a "cocktail" to be? --Khajidha (talk) 17:28, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it anything other than "a dog's nose." It's not actually necessary to classify everything into higher categories. So far only drinks containing multiple ingredients in one glass have been discussed, but what about different drinks in two glasses that are explicitly drunk together (in alternate sips, obviously), such as the traditional Scots "hauf 'n' (a) hauf" (a glass of whisky and a half-pint of beer)? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.0.58 (talk) 04:20, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

I too would not call a dog's nose a cocktail, nor would I call any kind of flip or punch a cocktail either. DuncanHill (talk) 13:14, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

I have a vague notion from somewhere that a "cocktail" is specifically a sweet mixed drink. So bourbon and branch, for example, wouldn't count. --Trovatore (talk) 21:40, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Well, cocktailbuilder.com and epicurus.com (among others) classify it as one. --Khajidha (talk) 23:03, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

That can't be right. A dry martini, for example, is a cocktail. See List of IBA official cocktails. --Viennese Waltz 07:01, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Back in the mid and late 1970s, I worked in a pub throughout my six years as a university student in Great Britain (just for research purposes, you should understand). My recollection is that (in Cornwall at least), the aforementioned sequence of contrived cocktail names started with the introduction of Harvey Wallbangers. A Harvey Wallbanger is vodka, Galliano liqueur and "orange juice" (but see my SIDE-NOTE below), and was backed by an aggressive American style promotion by McKesson Corp. (then the owners of the originally-Italian Galliano brand ingredient). In a nod to that origin story, those fictitious cocktail names invariably ended with "up against the wall" (no kisses in Cornwall). Some of these cocktails would cease to be fictitious on a Truro Friday night. I also recall the appearance of "long" in those contrived cocktail names. It was the understanding of me and my customers at the time that the term "long" was a reference to the cocktail known as a Long Island iced tea. Whilst popular as a stand-alone drink, it was my experience that the "long" combinations with 'up against the wall" remained fictitious because the addition of five more hard liquor ingredients rendered the price beyond the reach of all sane and most insane drinkers in that place and at that time.

ORANGE JUICE SIDE-NOTE: We did not use what Americans would call "orange juice" in any of those cocktails. Neither did we use the alleged orange juice in those little bottles marketed under the brand name Britvic and others. We used the diluted orange cordial that is ubiquitous in British pubs.
Cheers from ChrisJBenson (talk) 09:29, 14 June 2021 (UTC) (who moved to the land of Wallbangers not too long after that experience).