Talk:Cocktail

Article needs vast improvement
I've rolled back edits that have only confirmed the very sorry state this article has long been in. It's no fault of Anoted, who has worked hard to improve the article today, but the whole basis of this article was wrong, and doesn't need to be confirmed by more work along the same lines.

The article has absolutely no citation for any definition of the word cocktail. Instead, it's more or less a list of things perceived by the article's various editors to be cocktails. Even if they're not. There's a lot of T:NO RW creep in the article, in other words, and that just won't do.

Especially when editors' real world "knowledge" of the world is shaky. A gin and tonic, for instance, is in no way a cocktail, but simply a highball.

This article should not be a list of drinks. Rather, it should focus squarely — as every article should — on defining the topic. All of theses drinks should be moved off into their own articles, and they should only be included in this article: 13:09: Tue 30 Apr 2013
 * briefly
 * if it can be established that someone in the DWU actually calls them a cocktail
 * I was in the middle of doing that, when you reverted my edits. I wanted to organise first, because it was just a mess.
 * The following things have been removed from this page, both because I don't know if they were referred to as a cocktail in the source, and because they have their own pages:
 * all martinis are now at Martini
 * Banana daiquiri - I'm fairly positive that this is never referred to as a cocktail
 * Screwdriver - no clue if it was referred to as cocktail or not
 * I'm going to get back to the page now. This page will be much cleaner when I'm down. If anyone can check and see if some of these things are cocktails in narrative, that would really help. Also, if people want to start lobbing suggestions for subcategories of alcohol, well, we're sure going to need them. Anoted ☎  13:23, April 30, 2013 (UTC)
 * Not quite sure why you've put the infobox back, because you don't have a basis in the world for the appearances section. And if you don't have that, you've not got enough info for the infobox to exist.  By the time the article gets whipped into shape you'll have a paragraph left on the page.   The organisational principle of just having a list by type is wholly wrong — again, not your fault, cause that's how the page presented itself to you.  But this isn't a category; it's an article.   13:39: Tue 30 Apr 2013
 * The Unicorn and the Wasp does not contain the word cocktail, and certainly not in the section from which you drew your picture.  As such, the picture cannot be used to illustrate the article, so the infobox definitely falls.   13:50: Tue 30 Apr 2013

cocktail or not list
thing we know are cocktails because the source says so:


 * Flaming Her and the rum and coke that Polly drinks.
 * Backtrain cocktail
 * Kronka

things I don't know, and need someone to check the source:


 * sidecar
 * sundowner
 * martinis. any of the several martinis

things that aren't cocktails
 * Banana daiquiri

Anoted ☎  13:29, April 30, 2013 (UTC)