Mixed Drinks

in my experience SC bartenders don't know how to make good mixed drinks. Keep it simple, a martini or a gin and tonic. Anything else and you will confuse them or get a poorly made drink.
Find yourself a good cocktail bar. yelp and google will help you. The waitress or bartender in a good craft cocktail bar will help you decide what to try.

Rule #1 is to order by a brand instead of getting the cheap "well" stuff they give you when you order "rum" or "vodka" that can leave you with a splitting headache or bad hangover.

Taking it a step further to avoid branded bottles refilled with cheap stuff, I generally go for the stuff with a distinctive flavor profile that I can recognize. For example, Captain Morgan's spiced rum has a unique spice taste, Tanqueray, Beefeater and Bombay Sapphire gins all taste different from each other because of their different combinations of botanicals.

So, if you have more of an adult palate, maybe something like Sapphire and tonic, or for something sweeter, Captain & Coke like I recommended on another thread, or Tanqueray and Ginger Ale.

You might also like 7 & 7, which is made with 7-Up.

The branded gins tend to increase in price from Tanqueray, to Beefeater to Bombay Sapphire being the most expensive. I tend to like Beefeater and tonic the best out of the gin drinks, but it's rare to find it at the strip clubs I go to.

If I want a mixed drink, I stick a straw in my beer and stir.

Never mixed drinks for me either bottled beer, Scotch no less grade than Dewars, or Bourbon Gentleman Jack or better on rocks only no mixers ever.

A vodka or whiskey sour is hard to get wrong.

But I generally drink bourbon or beer.

Beer (Sam Adams) or Bourbon (Knob Creek, Makers Mark, or Southern Comfort)

I won't touch those flavored liquors like Fireball or Captain Morgan. Those additives are only there to mask the fact that the liquor is such low quality.

Knob Creek is my weapon of choice.

I follow the same general rule for strip clubs as I do in dive bars: if you order a cocktail with more than 2 ingredients, you're a douchebag. It's just a rough rule, but it's a pretty good one, and both the bartender and your taste buds will thank you for it :)

K has the right idea, IMO: if you're saying "and" in your order, it's probably a good bet. Gin and tonic. Rum and coke. Scotch and soda.

As a general rule, if I'm not doing shots or beer, I'd rather stick with a decent whiskey, straight up, than almost any cocktail at a strip club.

I shoudl also say, super simple recipes where it's incredibly easy to make, or it's likely they already have a mix ready (e.g., Ish's vodka sour) works too. Basically, in these types of places, don't call on the bartender to do something beyond his skills or that will take him 5 fucking minutes to find all the ingredients for and make, while he's got 10 other orders piling up.

Wait, how does alcohol soaked in wood for 6+ years not count picking up additives covering the taste of the spirit vs. the spices in Captain Morgan that only has a year's worth of wood in it? I prefer the flavor of spices to wood, so... ;)

Personally, I haven't gotten nasty headaches from Captain Morgan, while I have from stuff like Heaven Hills vodka. It might not be as fancy as a good bourbon, but I'm mainly looking to avoid the after-effects of the well stuff in dodgy places like the bar at a strip club.

Man, this discussion makes me glad I drink only beer in SCs! I make an occasional exception for a Coke when I've had enough beer, like during a five- or six-hour afternoon at a club.

Now I've had lots of different beers in SCs: Bud and Bud Light, Miller and Miller Light, Coors and Coors Light, Michelob, Sam Adams, Heineken, Corona, Dos Equis, Negra Modelo, and any number of other Mexican beers. One thing I like about the Hip Hugger in Kokomo is that it features the entire range of beers, from Bud to Bud Light :)

Good vodka and soda or tonic with lemon or lime. Clean alcohol like vodka keeps me even and has predictable effect. It also does not have a negative effect on my performance unlike whisky or gin. I also can drink quite a bit and not get headaches and have short hangovers.

Beer just has more calories then I would like and I dont like feeling too full if I am getting lappers, etc.

I'd recommend a fuzzy navel, or anything with an umbrella in it.

I usually don't drink any alcohol in strip clubs. They don't have craft beer nor good quality wine. Some of them claim to have quality whiskey but I strongly suspect they are crap in the bottles of better whiskey.
When I take one of the ladies out we go to places I know we can get good wine and good cocktails. Most of them are impressed by such a simple thing

a screwdriver is pretty safe. even with cheap vodka.

Yeah I wasn't assuming that a bartender in a typical strip club would make a lot of fancy drinks with umbrellas, lol. Sounds like the "keep it to 2 ingredients" rule makes sense. If there is an odd taste then you know what ingredient to avoid on the next order.

I usually just drink beer, but if not then a shot of bourbon on the rocks is a good choice.

Vodka and tonic has made for a lot less hangovers for me the day after. Even cheap stuff.