Talk:Whiskey and Coke

Existence of this article

Many other cocktails have their own pages. I felt that it would be unfair if the Jack and Coke, a favorite of mine, was left to collect dust as a cursory reference in another article, so I spruced it up a bit, added some detail about advertising, a reference to the actual Jack Daniel's and cola product, and the IBA-style listing on the right (understanding, of course, that this beverage is not and official IBA beverage). I'm taking out the "stub" tag, but I will leave the "orphan" tag until a few more places link here. Lioux 05:34, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Name change

I also switched "Jack and coke" to "Jack and Coke" with a redirect at the old location to the new one. This is to reflect the fact that "Coke" is short for "Coca-Cola", a proper noun, and thus IMO should be capitalized as well. Lioux 05:34, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Cocktail?

Is Jack and Coke considered a cocktail now? Do we have a source for that? Kendall-K1 (talk) 01:23, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Of course it's a cocktail. Just look up the definition of the word "cocktail". What's the problem? —BarrelProof (talk) 16:53, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 15 April 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. There is no consensus for a move. (closed by non-admin page mover) qedk (t 桜 c) 14:54, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

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Jack and Coke → Bourbon and cola – A "Jack and Coke" is just a name-brand version of a well-known drink of the American South: bourbon and cola. Considering the effect of the combination of ingredients, it doesn't really make a big difference which brand of either ingredient is used, and the double-branded version (as well as the single-branded variation marketed as "Jack Daniel's and Cola" and sold in cans outside the United States, as well as the other single-branded variation known as "bourbon and Coke") can be discussed within the article on the more generic beverage. (For those who think that Jack isn't bourbon, which is an incorrect notion promoted by the manufacturer of the Jack Daniel's brand, please read the legal definition of Tennessee whiskey and the discussions and citations about that issue in the Jack Daniel's and Tennessee whiskey articles; by law, Tennessee whiskey is required to meet the legal definition of bourbon whiskey.) —BarrelProof (talk) 00:46, 15 April 2019 (UTC)--Relisting. -- Dane ^talk 19:51, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. "Jack and Coke" returns 25 times more Google search results than "bourbon and cola". The current title is clearly the common name. Rreagan007 (talk) 07:50, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

  WP:GOOGLE is a terrible measure. It lacks historical context, focusing on only the most very recent usage, and search results are tailored by Google to the reader. they should never be used for RM discussions. -- Netoholic @ 08:26, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

  That's ridiculous. Google search results are one indication of what the common name is. I agree it's not a perfect measure, but when it is as overwhelming as 25:1, it's a clear indication of which name is more common. And there has been no evidence offered that "bourbon and cola" is a more common name than "jack and coke". Rreagan007 (talk) 18:39, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

• Move to bourbon and coke - While "Jack and Coke" is a very popular phrase today, that construction is relatively recent in the history of this style of drink, and it should be considered an extremely popular variant of this drink (using those specific ingredients), but not the broader term for the drink. I ran a Google Ngrams comparison, which shows that "Jack and Coke" really only started in the 1980s and took off in the 1990s (a triumph surely for JD's marketing folks). The "bourbon and coke" term has been used since the 1940s and continues to describe the broad style of drink. Since Ngrams only covers books, I verified these results using Newspapers.com and found similar results (especially the genericized and lower-cased "coke"). -- Netoholic @ 08:26, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
  • I support Netholic's suggestion, as evidenced by the Google Books Ngram Viewer results shown, which survey usage in published books rather than raw web frequency. I continue to argue that a non-Jack phrasing is more appropriate based on long-term significance and broader topic coverage. Note that combining uppercase and lowercase as shown here makes it a bit more clear that the "bourbon" variations have been historically dominant until about 2003. —BarrelProof (talk) 18:23, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
    • Want to make sure I'm understanding correctly though -- since 2003 Jack and coke has been the most dominantly used term, correct?--Yaksar (let's chat) 04:01, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
      • The most dominantly used term for two different topics? Please see the Tesla and apple examples below. —BarrelProof (talk) 22:36, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose based on what appears to be the currently used common name by a large margin. That a historically commonly used name evolved into a more commonly used one over decades does not mean the older must be used.--Yaksar (let's chat) 03:59, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Well, there's also a difference in scope; the two terms are not synonymous. One name is more encompassing, while the other is brand-specific. While "Coke" has become genericized in practice (with shades of John Belushi shouting "No Coke – Pepsi!" on SNL more than 40 years ago), no one would consider "Jack" a generic name for bourbon. It is straightforward to discuss Jack and coke in an article about bourbon and coke, but the other way around doesn't make much sense. It's not as if Jack and coke has replaced the concept of bourbon and coke. —BarrelProof (talk) 05:53, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
    • That's reasonable, but it does seem to be more like the case of Rum and Coke, where the name for the drink is used regardless of what brand of cola you actually are served, rather than a Coke vs. Pepsi distinction.--Yaksar (let's chat) 06:54, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
      • It could be reasonable to apply the same logic to rename that to rum and coke as this to make it bourbon and coke. In the same sense, "rum and Coke" is a variant which specifically uses Coca-Cola, but the broad term for the class of drink is "rum and coke" - "coke" in both cases meaning the Southern U.S. word for "soft drink". Much like this "Jack and Coke" issue, the Rum and Coke article has multiple failed moves on the grounds that a very common variant "Cuba Libre" is not the term used for the wider class of drink. -- Netoholic @ 08:08, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. The current name happens to be the common name. Calidum 12:18, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
  • There is a clear fallacy here. Again I point out that this discussion is not about two equivalent terms for the same exact subject – one topic is a special case of the other. Google shows 310 million hits for pages that contain both "Tesla" and "car", while it only shows about 1/10th as many for pages that contain the phrase "electric car". Does that mean that the common name for "electric car" has become Tesla? No, it doesn't. Google also shows more than twice as many hits for "apple" as it does for "fruit". Does that mean that the common name for fruit has become "apple"? There are more than twice as many hits for "hurricane" as there are for "cyclone", but a hurricane is a type of cyclone, and on Wikipedia, hurricane is a redirect to Tropical cyclone. The common name for cyclone has not become hurricane. There is no evidence that the common name for a mixture of Jim Beam and coke or a mixture of Maker's Mark and coke has become "Jack and coke". Bourbon is the cyclone and Jack is the hurricane. —BarrelProof (talk) 22:36, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
    • We have separate articles for apple and fruit, and Tesla and electric car, so I'm not sure what your point is unless you are arguing that this article should be split into separate articles for Jack and Coke, and bourbon and cola. As for tropical cyclones and hurricanes, these are scientific terms with specific, precise, official definitions in meteorology. There is no official or scientific term for this particular drink, so common usage is what should determine the name of this article. Rreagan007 (talk) 00:48, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
      • Bourbon and coke seems like a pretty well-defined specific and precise beverage concept to me – it's just a mixture of those two things (each of which is also well defined in itself). I think there isn't a sufficient amount of distinct subject matter to support two separate articles about a cocktail in which the only distinction is the brand of whiskey (and hence I think the situation fits the cyclone/hurricane analogy). And once it has been mixed into a larger amount of coke, most people wouldn't be able to tell what brand of bourbon was used. —BarrelProof (talk) 01:00, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
        • So why does the brand of cola have to be Coke? Rreagan007 (talk) 02:28, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
          • It doesn't - the "and coke" refers to the Southern U.S. word for "soft drink" which was genericized from Coca-Cola, being where these drinks became popular. -- Netoholic @ 02:32, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
            • And "Jack" here is being generalized to mean any bourbon. Rreagan007 (talk) 03:01, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
              • No, absolutely not. -- Netoholic @ 03:26, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
              • "Jack" is not used as a generic way of referring to bourbon. That term is used only for the Jack Daniel's brand. That's the fundamental problem here. Most bourbon drinkers would give you a very confused (and possibly insulted) reaction if you referred to their bourbon as "Jack". —BarrelProof (talk) 03:35, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
                • Regardless, "whiskey and coke" would be more common than the proposed "bourbon and coke". Rreagan007 (talk) 04:51, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
                  • Non-bourbon whiskey is rarely used in this cocktail. It's primarily a drink of the American South, which has enough loyalty to its native spirit to mostly avoid using other whiskeys – which are also typically more expensive there than bottom-shelf bourbon. I've never heard of anyone mixing Scotch and coke, for example. Maybe it has been done, but bourbon and coke is a very well known combination and is commonly referred to by that phrase. Further generalization to "whiskey and coke" seems like stretching the concept to the point where it becomes completely artificial. But it's clear that more than one brand of bourbon is often used (e.g., Jim Beam, Evan Williams, Heaven Hill, Wild Turkey, or Kentucky Gentleman might be pretty common choices), although Maker's Mark or Woodford Reserve would usually be considered a waste, and anyone mixing Pappy Van Winkle with coke in public might be at risk of a swift and violent reaction. I'm really getting the feeling that some of the people involved in this conversation are not frequent bourbon drinkers. —BarrelProof (talk) 05:19, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
                    • It's debatable whether or not Jack Daniel's is bourbon or not. Some people would call it bourbon, some people would just call it whiskey. It's certainly not marketed as "bourbon". But "whiskey and coke" yields over twice as many google search results as "bourbon and coke". Rreagan007 (talk) 18:22, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
                      • That's interesting, and you are certainly right that the marketing of Jack Daniel's intentionally disclaims calling it "bourbon" (although I don't personally think it's a very debatable question as a matter of fact). The usage statistics come out differently in Google Books Ngram Viewer, as shown here, but I suppose I don't necessarily object to moving it to "Whiskey and coke" (or even "Whiskey and cola"). There is again a larger scope for "whiskey" than for "bourbon" (and "bourbon" has not become genericized as the common name for all whiskey). —BarrelProof (talk) 19:19, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
                        • found a good article which keeps the distinctions between various whiskeys, bourbon, and JD and probably is a good model for how we should handle this broad topic. -- Netoholic @ 03:10, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Current title is the clear WP:COMMONNAME. I'm not opposed to any of the proposed titles becoming redirects towards the current title though, given that "Jack" and "Coke" are brand names, and all/most proposed titles are the the technical names of "whisky" and "cola" themselves. Steel1943 (talk) 22:17, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

  @Steel1943: You're making a false equivalence. "Jack and Coke" is a name-brand variation of a broader category of drinks based on bourbon/whiskey & cola. Its like saying that the article fast food restaurant should be renamed to "McDonald's" as the COMMONNAME based on the popularity of that specific name brand. -- Netoholic @ 02:09, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

  My rebuttal to that example is that most instances of all fast food restaurants are not referred as "McDonald's" (doesn't make any sense to call a Burger King, White Castle, etc. a "McDonald's"), whereas this drink, though it may technically be whisky and cola (and may even be made with a brand of whisky other than Jack and a type of cola other than Coke) is commonly called "Jack and Coke". Steel1943 (talk) 02:33, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

  @Steel1943: That's an unsourced claim, isn't it? Can you find a source, say, in a bartending guide or drink recipe book with an entry specifically for "Jack and Coke" that instead says it can be made with any ole whiskey or cola? Every time I've seen an entry for "Jack and Coke", they specifically call for Jack Daniel's. Entries on the other hand for "bourbon and coke" leave the brand names out of it. -- Netoholic @ 03:06, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

  If you are expecting me to have enough interest in this discussion to provide some sort of source, you are sadly mistaken. Claim WP:OR blasphemy or whatever you shall. The current name is the common name for the subject in its current form. If one desires to create a separate article for a "Whisky and cola" article, there's that option. Rewriting the current article to be more general is also an option. But alas, I've always heard this called a "Jack and Coke", and my opinion stands unswayed. Cheers. Steel1943 (talk) 07:02, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

  WP:RSF, and I hope the closer weighs accordingly. -- Netoholic @ 07:22, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

  Closer, please also consider that the above commenter also attempted WP:RSF and muddy the waters with their "fast food restaurant should [not] be renamed to "McDonald's"" comparison regarding my comment, essentially nullifying citing WP:RSF as a valid reason to invalidate or validate my comment in this matter. Thank you. Steel1943 (talk) 07:57, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

  For me to point out a logical fallacy via an illustrative example to you is not RSF at all. "Jack and Coke" is a subset of drinks made with whiskey and cola (which is the scope of this article), just as McDonald's is a subset of fast food restaurants. McDonald's status as a very highly-used phrase does not mean that it determines the name of the broader topic area, so too does the very popular name-brand-based variant "Jack and Coke" not define the broader topic area. If you need further clarification on any point I've made or want be to provide some sources for anything in particular, I'll be happy to do so because I do have enough interest in this discussion to provide that. Most important though, your statement "I've always heard this called a 'Jack and Coke'" is asking us to use your claimed personal experience as some sort of evidence... which we clearly, by policy, cannot. -- Netoholic @ 11:12, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

  Fair enough. Either way, as you have evidentially determined, my point in the matter is that yes, the current title is laced with WP:OR, but that is okay since this subject is usually referred to in a social setting (I mean, it is a drink after all), the name is going to be spoken more often than it is documented. (And disclaimer, I get it ... in most cases, it doesn't make sense to name an article in this manner [such as renaming "hamburger" to "Big Mac" or "Whopper"].) But this, to me, is one of the very, very, very few instances where if the article was renamed to its base ingredients "whisky" and "cola", the title would be a WP:SURPRISE to possibly most readers. (In other words, this title probably needs WP:IAR to avoid a WP:SURPRISE.) Steel1943 (talk) 16:01, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

  Well, if I were to counter one IAR invocation with another... then I don't care how popular the phrase is because I don't think Wikipedia should act as an arm of the Jack Daniel's and Coca-Cola marketing departments by allowing an entire historic category of drink to be plowed-over. -- Netoholic @ 22:27, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

  There is absolutely no evidence here (or in identified sources) for the notion that a mixture of coke with non-JD whiskey is commonly called "Jack and Coke", and I'm willing to bet money that any reasonable polling of frequent bourbon drinkers will disprove that idea. I also point to this Ngram as evidence that "Bourbon and Coke" is a term that has been more historically dominant and remains in frequent use. Note that the recent (2019) cited article by Jonathan Miles, which is headlined and devoted entirely to the drink known as "Bourbon and Coke", does not even mention "Jack". If the common name for the subject of that article was "Jack and Coke", wouldn't he at least mention that in the article? There is also the other (2012) article cited by Netaholic, which talks explicitly about both bourbon and Jack and what to mix with Coke and does not say that Jack can be used as a generic name for all bourbon (or that "Jack and Coke" can be made with non-JD whiskey). Similarly, the 2012 article about Julian Van Winkle talks about "bourbon and Coke" and does not even mention Jack. —BarrelProof (talk) 22:09, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

  Again, as stated above, WP:IAR WP:OR is my basis, and I have no desire to discuss this further. Thank you. Steel1943 (talk) 02:21, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

• Support a move to bourbon and coke per the arguments of User:BarrelProof (if you can't trust a user with that name, who can you?) and User:Netoholic above. I realize this is OR but my years of extensive field research on this topic yields the following: Ordering a "Jack and coke" will get you Jack Daniels® and some type of cola, just as ordering a "Beam and coke" will get you Jim Beam® and some type of cola, i.e. the name of the bourbon gets you that brand whereas "coke" is genericised. The happy hour rail/well drink special is "bourbon and coke"; trying to use a phrase like "rail Jack and coke" seems a little nonsensical and risks you paying far more than you intended. The Tesla/electric car and hurricane/tropical cyclone analogies presented above are valid here. —  AjaxSmack  04:16, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 30 August 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved to Whiskey and Coke. There is a consensus to move from Jack and Coke, with the conversation gravitating to move to Whiskey and Coke as it being a more general term. (closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky (talk) 06:24, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

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Jack and Coke → Bourbon and Coke – "Jack" is just one brand that can be used in this common U.S. southern drink. Other brands are often used as well, such as Jim Beam or Evan Williams, and Bourbon and Coke already redirects here. There isn't really a sufficient amount of distinct subject matter to support two separate articles about a cocktail in which the only difference is the brand of whiskey, so using the more general one seems more appropriate. When the title of this article was discussed three years ago, we may have gotten hung up on whether "Coke" should be changed to "cola" or not. In the southern U.S., "Coke" is frequently used to refer to any cola. Considering the effect of the combination of ingredients, it doesn't really make a big difference which brand of either ingredient is used. While the term "Coke" is often used generically, the term "Jack" is not. "Jack" only refers to the Jack Daniel's brand. Most bourbon drinkers would give you a very confused (and possibly insulted) reaction if you referred to their bourbon as "Jack". Per previously-cited Ngram evidence, "Bourbon and Coke" is a term that has been more historically dominant than "Jack and Coke" and remains in frequent use. Although Jack and Coke is currently popular, this is partly a scope question. As I mentioned, Bourbon and Coke redirects here, so the scope should include both topics, but the title doesn't currently fit the scope. Although the Jack Daniel's brand is not marketed as "bourbon", it fulfills the definition of what bourbon is (and is required to, under terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the laws governing production of Tennessee whiskey). See also Rum and Coke. Please also see the previous RM discussion commentary. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:32, 30 August 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 20:38, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

You cut off your ngram graph too soon. "Bourbon and cola" overtook "Jack and Coke" in 2013 and now predominates by a wide margin. GA-RT-22 (talk) 18:44, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

That's interesting. Here is a link with the more recent date range. It seems kind of funny that the period of around 1998–2008 looks so different in those two charts. It seems to be a side effect of the smoothing factor. Here is a link to the older time span with a smoothing factor of 1, which looks very different from the result with a smoothing factor of 6. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:49, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that graph is much help, because you've downcased both "Jack" and "Coke" and done a case-sensitive search. Hardly anyone spells "Jack" lower case, because it's a brand name. Try this: [1] GA-RT-22 (talk) 20:20, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Oh, yes, case-sensitivity makes a big difference. Sorry about that. Here it is including more recent years (smoothing factor 1). Jack looks more popular, but this RM is about scope, since "Jack" is not a generic term and thus implies an unnecessary scope limitation. As previously remarked, the current situation is like having an article about all electric cars that's named "Tesla", an article about all fruit that's named "Apple", or an article about all cyclones that's named "Hurricane". —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:52, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

• Comment, another consideration I would advocated for if moved is Whisky and Coke. Even though Jack Daniels doesn't advertise itself as a bourbon even though it is, really any kind of American Whisky can be used as an equivalent for this drink. It has similar usage (ngrams) and is broad enough to cover all similar drinks without being over(or under)specific, which seems to be the goal of this move. However, I'm currently leaning towards opposing a move. Jack and Coke is the primary topic and name for this drink, and I think having the more genericized, less common name as the redirect is what most people would expect.--Cerebral726 (talk) 14:01, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

  Fair enough, but (per your Ngram and this), I think you meant to say whiskey rather than whisky. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:56, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

I went back and forth and landed at whisky to match the parent article. However, doing another ngram, it seems Whiskey and Coke is more common than Whisky and Coke, so with the "e" would probably be better.--Cerebral726 (talk) 19:21, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, since it's predominantly an American cocktail, I think it should probably use the typical American spelling of "whiskey" if we do that. My understanding is that people would usually use some kind of bourbon, so I'm rather hesitant about the "whisk(e)y" idea. But hypothetically, this cocktail could be made with Early Times, for example, which is not bourbon. Early Times and Coke would probably taste about the same or better than Kentucky Gentleman and Coke, and Kentucky Gentleman is (blended) bourbon. Using "whiskey" instead of "bourbon" in the title could also help finesse the usual dispute over whether Jack Daniel's should be called bourbon or not. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:26, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

• Weak support - I actually prefer "whiskey", as per the sources. Red Slash 04:50, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
• Support per the above discussion and especially per the Ngram data provided. I'm also perfectly fine with whiskey and coke as an alternative per the same, but whichever is used I do think the alternate should be mentioned in the lede sentence as a commonly used alternate name. - Aoidh (talk) 04:54, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
• Relister comment – To my eye, "whiskey and Coke" has a slight lead in support, but I don't think there's a consensus at this point. Seeking additional input to determine a clearer consensus for one title or another. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 20:38, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

@ModernDayTrilobite: I guess Whiskey and Coke works for me. I think I was the reluctant one on that. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:45, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

• Support per nom. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:10, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
• Support – This is a tough one, because while "Jack and Coke" may be the more common term, it's really the same drink if you ask for some other whiskey. "Jack and Coke" is just one way to make the more general "whiskey and Coke". I would never order "whiskey and Coke" but I might order "Jim Beam and Coke". I'm fine with renaming to either "bourbon and Coke" or "whiskey and Coke". I slightly prefer "whiskey" just because it's more general. GA-RT-22 (talk) 13:34, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

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.