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Page seems to be incorrect
This should be a gin cocktail but does not mention gin in its ingredients, and instead lists the ingredients for the variant
Brandy Alexander which links here saying it is different.
Hello. I have finished transferring the essence of this article to
List of cocktails. Instead of deleting it, I would recommend the following redirect instead:
Firstly, the section 'Variations' is confused: Brandy Alexander isn't a variation of Alexander, it is Alexander. Cognac is a (grape) brandy that just happens to be made in the designated Cognac region (yes, there is a bit more to it than that, but once you cut through the marketing hype and regional pride etc., that's what it boils down to). And especially in a mixed drink like this, thick with liqueur and cream, very few if any drinkers could tell whether the brandy used to make the concoction is cognac or some other grape brandy. So to say that Brandy Alexander is a variation because it uses brandy rather than cognac is nonsense. And indeed, if you look at the article on
Brandy Alexander, the recipe there is identical. (For that reason, I think the articles should be merged.)
Secondly, it seems there were earlier those two (perhaps more?) drinks by the same name, as described in the 'Earliest citations' section (and also mentioned in 'Variations'): the whiskey-based one of which has nothing whatsoever to do with the (Brandy) Alexander; and although the second, gin-based one does share two of the three ingredients, it's also quite a different drink. In other words, they have little or nothing to do with the Alexander in this article, except the name — which begs the question, why are they covered so extensively, or why are they here at all?
Thirdly, one of the more notable actual variations, the Coffee Alexander, does not substitute coffee liqueur for the gin (seeing as there is no gin in the Alexander!), but for the creme de cacao; hence, instead of the drink having a chocolate flavour, it has a coffee flavour. (This confusion with the gin probably arises from one of the 'early Alexanders' being a gin-based drink, although even there it wouldn't be the gin that gets substituted with coffee liqueur.)
Unless anyone objects, I'll rewrite the 'Variations' section, and de-emphasise the 'Earliest citations' one. But ultimately I would like to merge this article with the Brandy Alexander one, and include the early versions at most as a footnote (actual or proverbial) or get rid of them altogether. Views? --
DoubleGrazing (
talk)
06:54, 8 August 2020 (UTC)reply
Okay, I just went ahead and did that without waiting for objections! :) I think the article now reads better and is more factually correct. If anyone spots a problem, please comment below or just edit as needed. --
DoubleGrazing (
talk)
10:05, 8 August 2020 (UTC)reply
Merger proposal
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
I propose that
Brandy Alexander is merged into this article. Whether or not the Alexander can be made with gin (that is claimed in the Brandy Alexander article, but I'm doubtful), the fact remains that it is usually made with brandy/cognac per the
IBA official recipe, and therefore for all intents and purposes the Alexander-made-with-brandy is synonymous with the Brandy Alexander. Hence, no need to have two articles with so much overlap in scope. Views? --
DoubleGrazing (
talk)
10:11, 8 August 2020 (UTC)reply
Alexander was invented with gin. However, Alexander is from cognac (or gin for purist) and creme de cacao and cream, while brandy variant is made from brandy, chocolate liquor and cream. So one can say that Alexander is Brandy Alexander, but not the opposite: there are other chocolate liquors than creme de cacao, and brandy is not strictly equal to cognac. Some sources even call Brandy Alexander as Alexander №2.
Macuser (
talk)
15:39, 30 September 2020 (UTC)reply
Oppose as presented The
Brandy Alexander article predates this one by several years, is substantially longer, and appears to be better sourced (although I'm not an expert). If the claim is simply that the two articles are redundant, and the direction was decided arbitrarily based on the optimal title, then this article should be merged in there and an RM should be opened to change the title of the other article. That said, this article's lead currently implies the two are synonymous, and per
WP:NATURALDIS parenthetical disambiguation is not preferred.
Hijiri 88 (
聖やや)
08:48, 15 December 2020 (UTC)reply
Brandy Alexander has more sources but with citations to eatocracy and imdb it's certainly not "better sourced". Any unreliable sources can be sorted by editor who does the merger. I was confused by the way the lede was written as well, but if Brandy Alexander is the variant version, taking on good faith the discussion of other contributors made here on talk, we would merge into the broader article.
Spudlace (
talk)
00:07, 16 December 2020 (UTC)reply
If they are not redundant, why the merger proposal? Not being familiar with this topic, my concern is simply a procedural one that, lacking exceptional circumstances, the longer page history should be given precedence, and any rewriting and/or changing of the article title can be dealt with separately, as happened
here.
Hijiri 88 (
聖やや)
10:41, 16 December 2020 (UTC)reply
Support I hadn't thought about preserving the page history. Merger was proposed for a trivial variant where the primary spirit (gin) is swapped out (for brandy). We wouldn't merge Bloody Mary into Bloody Geisha, but we can just change the title after the merge like
Hijiri 88 suggested.
Spudlace (
talk)
07:05, 17 December 2020 (UTC)reply
You may be right, many popular drinks were originally made with gin, but no reliable sources have been shown so far that the Brandy Alexander was one them.
Spudlace (
talk)
06:37, 27 December 2020 (UTC)reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Brandy vs gin
The real problem here is that IBA calls the drink made with brandy an "Alexander", and does not list the one made with gin. But on Wikipedia we use the traditional terminology and call the gin one an "Alexander" and the brandy one a "Brandy alexander". This leads to such confusion as the infobox in this article (the gin one) listing brandy as the main ingredient.