The cream/milk is what surprises me. Would bars have that in the 90s?
Why does it make a difference that its the 90’s? its not like refrigeration was only invented a bit before that. They had frosted glasses and everything. Im surprised folks would think a bar would not have the ingredients for a white russian.
Isn’t that when the movie takes place? Obviously there’s refrigeration. My point was what was common in the 90s for a bar to stock? How many cocktails in a bowling bar would take dairy? How many would take Kahlua for that matter? It’s about what would be stocked due to demand.
Bars/bowling alleys often serve coffee, so having some kind of dairy is pretty common.
Kaluha is probably less common, but its shelf stable so it wouldn’t be that uncommon.
Plus The Dude basically lived at that bowling alley. It would be worth keeping it stocked just for him.
As someone that drinks white Russians as my go to drink, I can confirm that this is the case. I rarely say, “I’ll have a white Russian” and instead often ask, “can you make a white Russian?”
I asked that once at a friend’s wedding that had an open bar. They could, in fact, and I’ve rarely regretted anything more than the monster I created when I shared that fact with other guests. Those poor bartenders probably didn’t get to make anything else and everyone was absolutely shithammered because they’re so delicious and easy to drink.
My local bartender calls them adult milkshakes
I drank White Russians recently with a friend who is an experienced bartender and bar manager recently and he said they always have Kahlua and milk around. People order strange things but there’s shots that include both that people order more than you’d think.
He basically said that they make sure they have all the ingredients but adjust quantity for the expected crowd. He works at a music venue nowadays and after awhile, you know what drinks are gonna get ordered based on the band’s core audience. But they’d send a bar back out to get more milk at the corner store if someone was a regular or spending money.
“Jimmy, you gotta run to the store.”
“Why?”
“The Dude’s here.”
Places like the bowling alley aren’t surprising though since he’s a regular and always orders the same stuff
But Maude’s bar cart has milk? And kahlua is one of the 10ish bottles?
My cupboard has less than 10 bottles of spirits and kahlua is definitely one of them. Is it not a core liqueur?
Ingredients:
- 2 ounces vodka
- 1 ounce Kahlúa / coffee liqueur
- 1 ounce heavy cream
To be fair, he did have to use powdered creamer instead of milk that one time.
I’d just like to drop a mention for the Big Lebowski bar in Reykjavik. Awesome place, serves like 30 variants on the White Russian. Great burgers.
Don’t pee on the rug. They are very clear about that.