Template talk:Alcoholic drinks/Archive 1

Proposed revision, 18 June 2008
This proposal distinguishes between spirits distilled from various grains, fruits or other plants, and those flavored with various fruits and herbs. It also allows the lists to be collapsed:

Unless there are violent objections, I will make the change in a day or so (please leave comments if (a) you object; or (b) have amendments / nits to be addressed before implementation. Bongomatic (talk) 17:12, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Discussion
I like the idea of the template, but I have a few suggestions: --Stlemur 18:41, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Distilled drinks are fermented too
 * I don't think it's necessary to clutter up the template with beer and corn beer and wheat beer...
 * There needs to be more focus on classes of beverage rather than individual beverages


 * Agreed - there are too many duplications and quite a few omissions, but we can work on it. violet/riga (t)


 * I see what you mean, feel free to change it as you like, it was just meant to be a draft, maybe we could focus on the area of Alcohol more rather than drinks and just have the main ones e.g. Beer | Wine | Cider. Hamish (Talk) 22:46, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposed revision:

This is only halfway done. The problem is, where we have "Rice: shochu | Huangjiu | Baijiu" and then "Potato: vodka | aquavit | brennivín" it's not quite accurate -- a lot of each of those is made with something other than rice or potato. There should be a general classification for such beverages, but there isn't, as far as I know... --Stlemur 14:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know much about tables, but how does this general idea look, if we can straighten out the top?

--Stlemur 17:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Alphabetization
Why the strange alphabetization? Badagnani 05:08, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Getting too big
There are getting to be far too many drinks in this template. We can't put in everything in Category:Alcoholic beverages. There needs to be some kind of limit; if we can't come up with one then the template's too general. --02:38, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

We could split the mixed drinks out into their own template, which would drop one section off. I do like adding this to the mixed drink pages, because it really ties in with the topic well. That might lead to two templates being placed on mixed drink articles, and that would not be a great thing.

I could pretty easily create ONE template that uses a simple attribute to display several versions of identically formatted templates forming a set. Something like this:


 * - main for general alcohol topics (probably move "other" into this group)


 * - fermented to display fermented drinks


 * - distilled to display distilled drinks


 * - mixed to display mixed drinks


 * - other, which is pretty lame at this point


 * - no attributes would display all the usual ones, but not the subsection (i.e., no apparent change from the current version)

Another thing that might be possible would be to use collapsible div's that would essentially "hide" the sections that were not selected. In other words, on a mixed drinks page, you would see that list. If you then clicked the fermented link, instead of jumping to a separate page, the mixed drinks section would become hidden and the fermented ones would appear without reloading the page. Kind of like how some other templates do now where extra verbiage is hidden until the [Show] link is clicked.

The first part (using a little parser magic) would be easy. I've never tried something here at Wikipedia quite as dynamic as the show/hide section, but I'd be willing to give it a try if that's the direction people would like to move forward.

-- Willscrlt (  T alk · C ntrb  ) 08:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
 * This seems like a great idea... can you do it? - TheMightyQuill (talk) 18:28, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Size of template
The template is dizzyingly huge. I think some of the above proposals would make it more elegant. Badagnani 23:05, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Style of template
See Template:IT giants. Even if we kept the "dizzyingly huge" list of beverages we currently have, we could greatly limit its impact on any given article by allowing the reader to hide it, using Template:Navigation or one if its derivatives, as the template above does. Also note that it would greatly simplify the syntax of the list. MrZaius talk  20:11, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The hugeness is one aspect; the lack of any perceivable sense of systematic organization within each section is another. Badagnani 02:05, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Many thanks to User:Scharks for implementation of a the navigation-like format! Only remaining problem is that the template is wider than need be. For some reason it's acting like there's a third empty column.  Not seeing what's causing it, though.  Anyone got a fix?  MrZaius  talk  18:16, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks MrZaius. I can't seem to replicate this problem. I have been editing in Firefox and it may relate to browser differences. Let me know if the problem is still occuring since recent edits. ◄  §ĉҺɑʀκs  ►  09:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks like you already got it!  Just for the record, the above link was generated by a maximized Firefox window in 1680x1050 resolution.  MrZaius  talk  20:54, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm a newcomer to this discussion -- I just want to say that I think that this is a great template. It really encourages the reader to browse, to explore, and it's not overwhelming or too large (with left alignment at least)-- Zantastik  talk  18:37, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Distilled Categories
Kudos on the template, however I see a certain issue with the distilled beverage categories. Currently the template sorts by fruit/plant/seed/legume/grain of origin, however this can be an issue since as far as vodka is concerned, many vodkas are not distilled from potatoes. Take for instance Finlandia and Cîroc which are distilled from barley and grapes respectively. Not sure if this applies to other distilled beverages since I am not as familiar with many of the other spirits as I am with vodka. D1lux 00:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The same is true for aquavit and brennivín, some brands are made of grain. 86.56.0.159 23:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, i confused brennivín and brännvin. :( 86.56.0.159 17:10, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Gouqi jiu
Someone moved this from "distilled" to "fermented", but the article says it can be made both ways. Anyone know which is more common/easier to find? -- DrGaellon (talk | contribs) 19:30, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Categories instead of real links?
- It appears that a number of direct links were replaced with category links today. I understand the motivation behind it, and won't revert them, but I'd like to point out that I feel the infobox was stronger, stylistically, when it contained direct links to actual articles, rather than expecting the reader to sift through category pages. Thoughts? MrZaius talk  23:02, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Does anyone know whether Wikipedia has some sort of policy pertaining to this? I honestly don't know what standards or rules or anything are in place to decide this sort of question. --Daniel11 23:07, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Liqueurs
There should be a liqueur category aswell. It is somewhat misleading to put liqueurs in the same group as pure, distilled liquors. As the setup is now, it seems Advocaat is distilled from eggs, Amaretto distilled from almonds, etc., but most liqueurs are simply missing. I can agree the template is rather too big, but then it should be changed to a two-level template. Some of the suggestions mentioned above under "Getting too big" seem reasonable. The new liquor category could still be part of a two-level template. I added a category for Alcohol powder and Vodka gel, btw. I thought they were hard to fit in with existing categories. --Sasper 22:39, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree and was about to make that exact comment. Perhaps the answer would be to embed a secondary template into the main template such as is in the turkish cusine/beverages templates: Template:Turkish cuisine/beverage for working example, see Ayran.

J.P.Lon 13:27, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Inconsistencies in the areas of "fruit", e.g. brandies
I feel the template is still full of inconsistencies. What is the use of a general term fruit if you are going to add some specific, important fruit varieties (apples, plums) as their own category while ignoring others, such as grapes, that are even more important on the world market? I noticed this when I added "armagnac" to the list of fruits, but could not find a specific entry for grapes -- which would be important as it would include cognac, armagnac, sherry and Jerez brandy, and maybe a few more (grappa & marc are correctly listed under pomace). Perhaps the list would be better if it included fruits (general) and then, say, the 3-4 most important fruits based on market importance: grapes, plums, and apples. The 3 individuals need not be placed in purely alphabetical order with other major categories, but could be listed behind the general word fruits, as subcategories. Alternatively, they could be listed completely separately (and then alphabetically in the major list), but then no entry specific only to grapes, apples, or plums should continue to appear under the generic/general category fruits. For the moment I will follow the latter strategy while adding the category grapes. Jtnet 12:12, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

"alcopops"
I removed this from the Mixed Drinks category since "premixed" drinks would more likely be assumed to be pre-made mixes of traditional cocktails and the like, not brewed drinks with added flavoring (which frankly would fall under liqueur or American schnapps). IMO, "alcopop" is either a regional word or scare-mongering by anti-alcohol groups trying make a link between underage drinking and sweetened alcoholic beverages.130.13.20.67 (talk) 22:15, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Focus
As per Navigation templates, the template has been reduced to make navigation easier, and the template more useful.  SilkTork  *YES! 13:00, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Reverted. Discuss and generate consensus before making radical changes. Bongo  matic  13:32, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Reverted back. The template contains too much, and is too complex - "Navigation templates provide navigation. The goal is not to cram as many related articles as possible into one space." and "They should be kept small in size as a large template has limited navigation value."
 * If there are aspects that you wish to put back in, let's discuss them. But the template you reverted to is not usable, as it is attempting to operate as a category tree, and - in addition - a category tree that doesn't follow the existing Wikipedia category system or any categorisation system used by reliable sources . Forcing a template to follow a non-standard categorisation system is not helpful to the average reader and is pushing a POV. I'd like to see the reasoning behind the current random system of:
 * selecting a handful of the 44 non-standard fermenting beverages. Why is Pulque in the template, but not Ibwatu, for example.
 * separating out Liqueur and Fortified wine, but not Whiskey or Rum.
 * not having a clear and simple system whereby readers can see that we have fermented beverages and distilled beverages. And then the major types of each.
 * confusing people by attempting to organise by ingredients.
 *  SilkTork  *YES! 08:41, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * This is not the way to gain consensus. Please see WP:BRD. Bongo  matic  08:50, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposed major changes to template
WP:NAV guidelines are arguably not followed with this template in its current form. One proposed (and as of now, reverted) suggestion is this:

To my thinking, this unacceptably removes a number of useful features: Nonetheless, the current template does warrant some rethinking. Ideas? Bongo matic  13:41, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * ability to see beverages by flavor
 * ability to see beverages by source of alcohol
 * distinction between straight distilled beverages and liqueurs / fortified wines
 * I am observing that this template above, as it is now, seems to require me to know what I am looking for, by name, first, rather than finding it by seeing the template and seeing, new to me, stuff. I come to wikipedia templates, to find new things, where as this proposed template would, I think, require the user to have to know what they were looking for before finding it. Additionally I would like any future version of this template to reflect a worldwide view. Thats my $0.02. Peace, rkmlai (talk) 14:32, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Contrary to the view of SilkTork, at least two people (Rkmlai and I) think that the organization by ingredient is helpful. Furthermore, the links to the categories (shown in the proposed template as "types") is unhelpful, as it links to brands, not types at all.
 * While the proposed version is certainly streamlined, it takes out what has evolved to be the main feature of the template. Getting rid of the stuff on alcohol consumption, etc. seems in keeping with the title, but removing the links to the specific beverages is not. Bongo  matic  09:15, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Bongomatic's organisation of the template is not based on the way that alcoholic beverages are organised. It's a personal view - it's interesting, and I understand the thinking, but it is personal, individual and consequently, OR. It's like taking the animal kingdom, and instead of creating a template based on mammal, bird, reptile, etc, deciding to organise it based on colour or habitat or what the animals eat. Alcoholic beverages have been sorted and organised for years by the major groups. If you don't wish to be academic about it, pop into your local supermarket or drinks shop and note how the alcoholic beverages are sorted. The whiskies will be together, as will the gins, the beers, the wines, etc. They will not be organised by flavour. It would be more helpful if the template followed the organisation systems currently in use. And that is in use all over the world. As used by people who handle, make, sell, and write about alcoholic beverages. Anyway. Let's go through this bit by bit. Fermented beverages. At the moment this contains a random assortment of fermented beverages selected from those in this category. It doesn't, though, contain a link to that category. Nor does it identify which are the main groups in the fermented beverages category. I propose we: If that approach is agreeable, we can then proceed to identify which are the main fermented beverages. I suggest we take the sub-categories already in place on Wikipedia in the parent fermented beverages category. These are: Category:Beer; Category:Cider; Category:Mead; Category:Rice wine; and Category:Wine. If other sub-categories are created in future, they can then be added to the template.  SilkTork  *YES! 09:02, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) identify which are the main groups in fermented beverages,
 * 2) have those main groups in the template,
 * 3) and provide a link to the fermented beverages category for the rest of them.
 * Pardon me, but the organization is not mine. See the revision prior to my reorganization, which had the same fundamental structure (but didn't separate liqueurs flavored with a plant from alcohols distilled from that plant).
 * The categories are not well-suited for the purpose (just look at Category:Whiskies if you are not sure).
 * Going by type is fine, but there are more types than the main kinds. My view is that there should be groups for sour mash whiskeys separate from malt whiskeys, and certainly groups for eaux de vies. Liqueurs seem to me (in liquor stores and logically) a separate category.
 * There are a lot of things that are miscellaneous that are worth calling attention to.
 * People (including me) seem to like the information on ingredients here&mdash;so long as the information is there, it doesn't seem that it needs to be the organizing principle.
 * Bongo matic  13:02, 24 March 2009 (UTC)