All right-thinking people would tell you that the best mixed drink, especially in the summer, is a whiskey ginger, hangover be damned. Unfortunately, we have many wrong-thinking people here at Deadspin.
After much haggling about what constitutes a mixed drink and settling on the following criteria—mixed drinks have basic ingredients (ginger beer is not a basic ingredient); use rail liquor (Whiskey Knowers with double cask black gold label sherry oak 12-year reserve will only have it neat, as they will tell you at the top of their lungs); and can be served in a plastic cup (the only thing grosser than a martini is a martini in a plastic cup)—the Deadspin staff used our previously established methodology to score the mixed drinks on a scale of 1-10.
The scientific and unimpeachable results—even though gin and tonics are gross—are as follows:
- Gin and tonic 7.26
- Whiskey ginger 6.80
- Whiskey sour 6.22
- Greyhound 6.09
- Gimlet 5.50
- Screwdriver 5.33
- Rum and coke 5.26
- Vodka cranberry 4.92
- Whiskey soda 4.85
- Jack and coke 4.09
- Bloody Mary 3.94
- Long island iced tea 3.94
- Vodka tonic 3.88
- Getting hit by a car
- Vodka Red Bull 1.90