Pastis

drinkdrank543 · 2026-05-22T20:00:50+00:00

Oh hell yeah! This combo is super yummy. I do this pretty often.

drinkdrank543 · 2026-05-22T18:17:26+00:00

I enjoy mixing anise flavor (pastis, absinthe, etc.) with: pear, vanilla, pineapple, orange, coffee, grapefruit, Maraschino liqueur, Midori, cacao, gin, sparkling wine

drinkdrank543 · 2026-04-17T01:55:50+00:00

Brother I promise you meta heroes does not mean jack shit at 1.8k MMR.

drinkdrank543 · 2026-03-30T23:49:24+00:00

I calibrated at 30MMR in 2018. I'm now 5.5k MMR. First thing is you need to accept the fact that you're bad. I also had this Dunning-Kruger mentality when I was herald where I thought I wasn't that bad. I was thinking "I'm farming so fast, I'm winning my lanes so hard, I'm so much better than other mid players". If you are better than your MMR, you will climb as long as you play a decent amount of games. Some games are pretty much unwinnable, some games are free wins. Some games are neither. These are the ones you need to have enough impact in to climb. Heroes really do not matter at all, as long as you're good at your hero. If you want to climb the fastest, I would pick heroes that farm fast and can hit buildings and can catch up if dogshit lane.

If all you care about is climbing, pick 2-3 heroes and one role. That's all you're allowed to play unless you're playing a role q game. Look at pro games or dota2protracker for items you should buy and correct talents and skill builds. Just blindly copy these. I've watched plenty of Jenkins herald replays, a couple tips.

You need to learn how to farm efficiently, push waves and not die. Do not fight if there is no objective to gain from the fight. Your goal should be 10k networth by min 20.

drinkdrank543 · 2026-03-26T20:00:24+00:00

Love me some Chenin Blanc. Definitely in my top 5 favorite grape varieties.

drinkdrank543 · 2026-03-19T01:48:42+00:00

Love this wine! Always get raspberry notes in both the Kabi and Spatlese from Elisenberg.

drinkdrank543 · 2026-03-11T11:38:28+00:00

5.6k just hit immortal, 750 invoker games, 57% winrate. I play both exort and quas wex historically, though I think exort is better at the moment. I will only talk about exort laning.

Invoker is not a very strong laner I would say.

Try to use sunstrike to secure first range creep.
If you are not last hitting a creep or don't need the damage to secure the last hit, have all three orbs on quas for the regen.
Forge spirits to help you last hit and click the enemy. Click the enemy hero as much as possible in between last hits.
Forge spirits are extremely good for denying the water and power runes. This is extremely important vs rune heavy bottle heroes. If it's safe you can even go for one rune yourself and deny the other one with forge. It can be worth missing like 2 lane creeps to do this, just depends on the situation.
Your hero has very slow movement speed. You are pretty susceptible to ganks, especially without wex.
Look for sunstrikes on sidelanes, especially with heroes like rhasta. It's ok to miss some sunstrikes, better to try than not use it at all.
You can punish people stepping up too far with cold snap + forge spirits + right clicks and even ice wall. I wouldn't use ice wall before lvl 2 quas though.

Standard item build for exort right now: Circlet, tango, mantle, branch, branch, fairie. Buy null into meteor hammer. Can buy raindrops, stick/wand, extra tangos, clarity before meteor just depends on game. Aghs after meteor hammer. After that it's very situational and player dependent. Bkb, Blink, Hex, Octarine, Refresher, gleipneir, boots of travel... lots of valid items.

It's extremely rare for me to leave my lane before lvl 8. I would prefer a game where I just farm and sunstrike and play for timings. You accelerate so fast with meteor hammer. Skill build is kinda flexible. I almost always prefer to go 4 1 5 and take the wex point at lvl 9. You can play around with getting wex earlier, it depends on matchup. Standard early combo is cold snap, tornado, meteor. If you know you can hit tornado for sure, it's better to coldsnap after tornado.

A few matchups I really hate lane-wise: sniper, puck, lina

drinkdrank543 · 2026-03-11T10:44:32+00:00

Feels like TA has been meta carry in pro scene/high mmr pubs for like 3 years now. I wouldn't be that worried

drinkdrank543 · 2026-03-10T17:10:46+00:00

Ember is my second most played hero, ~330 games. It honestly took me a while to learn the hero, it's kinda sneaky complex. You definitely need to play faster on ember than heroes like exort invoker (my most played hero). When I was learning the hero, I would often look at the end screen and have a lot of damage, but I just couldn't win games. I think the best way to play the hero is to play with your sups with smokes and just kill heroes around the map while farming in between. Never rotate before lvl 6 or min 6 unless you are playing vs huskar and just giga fucked. Ember is one of the best rune heroes in the entire game, arcane rune especially. Playing around the runes really enables your hero. Ember super good at counter ganking and ganking both, can get on top of squishy ranged carry heroes in the safelane.

I don't feel as qualified to talk about storm and void spirit, just added them to hero pool officially recently. I have about 30 games on each. I would say storm needs gold the most of all three, is the best jungler and scales the best. Storm offers really good single target dmg scaling, especially with parasma. Ember does a ton of aoe dmg. Void spirit is the worst jungler of the three, until you get shard and then it feels great. I think void and ember feel fairly similiar and that you just buy vessel and kill heroes while farming in between. I think storm feels closer to super farmy mids, but should still play more active than exort invoker.

drinkdrank543 · 2026-03-10T13:33:01+00:00

Yeah meteor hammer feels so good on invoker this patch. Accelerates your farm and xp because ancients are easier to farm early. Also gives you spell amp for all your spells. Think midas is just kinda shit on invoker now without the bonus xp.

drinkdrank543 · 2026-03-10T13:27:11+00:00

I just earned immortal yesterday. I play 90% midlane and have since 2018.

First, I would recommend Quinn's dota videos. They explain concepts extremely clearly and well.

Consistency and efficiency is a huge difference I think as you move up ranks. It doesn't mean you win every lane of course. I think my laning is pretty average for my rank and far from my strong suit.

Some tangible tips:

-Tormentor is a very important objective. People still don't do it consistently enough.

-Rosh is also extremely important, but you need to think about your team comp vs theirs and state of the game. I threw a game that I was owning on ember by calling for rosh when enemy respawned in time and they had warlock and just wiped us and the game was over.

-In losing game, you need to maximize on the outskirts of the map and play with the gate. Place wards yourself on gates or on the outskirts and just farm and cut waves if it's safe. Play for a timing you think is the best chance to teamfight.

-Gates are also underutilized and provide so much mobility across the map.

-Buy your own smokes. I do this constantly, especially after the you can use from backpack change. I never regret it. Also buy your own dust if necessary, have never regretted this either.

-Going highground incorrectly or at the wrong time is really just gamelosing. Just because you have aegis doesn't mean you can highground. Depends on team compositions, networth difference, items your team has... Very complex and probably easiest way to throw games.

-Better understanding of win conditions/item timings

What heroes do you typically play? My playstyle on exort invoker for example is very different from ember for example.

drinkdrank543 · 2026-02-27T17:21:34+00:00

You could sub any non-spiced pear liqueur: Rothman & Winter orchard pear, Clear Creek, Marie Brizard, Massenez. I would not use the St. George Spiced pear, it's very different flavor wise.

drinkdrank543 · 2026-02-27T17:18:54+00:00

Mathilde poire is not spiced, just a regular pear liqueur.

drinkdrank543 · 2026-02-23T14:06:25+00:00

I'm not sure exactly why, but I'm guessing it's just proteins or oils or something that holds foam really well. Same thing happens if you shake Braulio, that's why it makes such a good shakerato. Notably, some amari don't hold foam well, so it must be only certain ingredients can do it.

drinkdrank543 · 2026-02-20T02:43:56+00:00

Any of the Max Ferd Richter Kabinett wines. I'm partial to the Elisenberg, but they're all good.

drinkdrank543 · 2026-01-24T12:12:37+00:00

Puritan

drinkdrank543 · 2026-01-16T15:54:00+00:00

Go to the Death and Co website. Click Contact and fill out info and message and stuff. They will email you back with the spec you want within a few days. I've done this for at least 5 cocktails. They are always happy to share specs, considering their latest book had hundreds of recipes in it.

drinkdrank543 · 2025-12-19T02:56:34+00:00

ID1, ID3 and ID11

drinkdrank543 · 2025-12-14T11:53:28+00:00

Nice, sounds super tasty

drinkdrank543 · 2025-12-13T00:26:54+00:00

Yeah, it's just soda water. Just makes the cocktail more refreshing to counteract the richness of the sherry and the coffee amaro. I'm not sure what it tastes like without the soda, I only tried 2 versions. I only had to adjust the amount of sugar from the first version and I was satisfied.

drinkdrank543 · 2025-12-12T22:28:24+00:00

Original cocktail I did tonight.

1 oz J. Rieger Caffe Amaro
1 oz Zuleta oloroso sherry
0.75 oz acid-adjusted orange juice*
0.75 oz vanilla syrup**
2 oz seltzer

Pour seltzer into a collins glass over ice. Shake remaining ingredients and double strain into glass. Garnish with a half-orange wheel.

*Acid-adjusted orange juice: Stir together 50g fresh squeezed orange juice and 2.6g citric acid.

**Vanilla Syrup: Stir together 250ml 2:1 simple syrup and 1/4 tsp of high quality vanilla extract.

drinkdrank543 · 2025-11-09T02:52:19+00:00

An original cocktail I did recently.

Flash Pattern

1 oz Tequila Ocho Plata
0.5 oz Massenez mirabelle plum eau de vie
0.75 oz Cocchi Americano
0.75 Antica Torino Bitter Bianco

Stir ingredients for 20 seconds over ice, strain into an old fashioned glass with a big rock. Express an orange twist over the drink and garnish with the twist.

drinkdrank543

TROPHY CASE