The THC Cocktails Audit: A Complete Line-by-Line Investigation of Where Your Money Went
I have the receipt. I am looking at it right now. I have been looking at it for eleven minutes and I have not calmed down, and I will not calm down, because what I am holding in my hand is a document that describes, in plain English, a series of financial crimes committed against me personally by a bar that had the word "craft" in its name and exposed-brick walls that nobody asked for.
The spine of this issue, and the reason I am writing this at all, is that the modern bar tab has become an abstract art project. You go out for thc cocktails or regular cocktails or any cocktail, and you come home with a receipt that looks like a ransom note from a man who learned about "the experience economy" at a weekend seminar in Scottsdale. I have had enough. This is the audit. Herb is running the numbers. Nobody asked, but here we are.
Line Item One: The Ice
Ice costs extra now. Not on the menu. Not announced. Just on the receipt, quietly, as a "premium ice" surcharge, four dollars, like the frozen water required a college education.
I have a position on this. Ice is weather. Frozen weather. The sky produces it seasonally at no charge whatsoever. The sky has never sent me an invoice. The sky has never handed me a little leather folder with a mint on top and waited for me to do the math with a pencil. And yet here, at a bar in a neighborhood I would not have gone to if Mary hadn't insisted, I am being billed for a substance that falls freely from clouds.
The "premium ice" argument is that it is a two-inch cube, hand-cut, and it melts slower. Fine. I will grant you the geometry. I will not grant you four dollars. I will not do it. I am not funding artisanal weather.
Line Item Two: The Rosemary Sprig
Nobody ordered this. Nobody at the table requested it. Nobody at any table in recorded human history has ever called a bartender over and said "I would like a cocktail and also a twig." It arrived in the drink like a small green flag being planted on territory that does not belong to it.
The rosemary is there to make you feel like something happened. Something was considered. A chef, somewhere, thought about your drink as a unified sensory journey. The rosemary costs one dollar and thirty cents and smells like a parking lot in Tuscany. I did not go to Tuscany. I went to a bar fourteen minutes from my house. The rosemary is a lie. The rosemary is not a garnish. It is a prop in a play where the ticket price was not disclosed.
Line Item Three: "The Vibe"
There is a line on this receipt. I am reading it verbatim. "Atmosphere fee, $3.00." Three dollars for the atmosphere. The ambient lighting, I assume. The playlist. The feeling that you are somewhere intentional. The fact that the bartender has a waxed mustache and studied under someone in Copenhagen.
The atmosphere, for your information, is a converted warehouse with the heat off and one bathroom. I have been in better atmospheres at the DMV. The DMV does not charge me for the experience of sitting in it. The DMV understands that the atmosphere is simply where we are. This bar does not share that philosophy. This bar believes the atmosphere is a product. I believe the atmosphere is a room and that rooms are included in what you pay for when you buy a drink in a room.
Line Item Four: The Cocktail Itself, Which Was Not Great
Twenty-two dollars. For a drink that tasted like someone described a classic cocktail to a person who had only heard about cocktails secondhand. It had smoke in it, which I did not request. The smoke was ceremonial. They torched something tableside with a small torch, like they were welding, and then handed me a glass with a wooden lid on it and expected me to be moved.
I was not moved. I was billed.
The Quiet True Thing at the End of All of This
Here is what I know. I know exactly what eight milligrams costs me. I know it to the cent. I go to the Variety Pack, I open it, I get Herb's Very Manly Peach Bellini with its 8mg THC and its actual peach and its actual bubbles, and the price is the price I paid at checkout. There is no atmosphere fee. There is no sprig. There is no small man with a torch. There is a can, a couch, a good night, and Lou on the phone from a parking lot telling me about a pipe fitting he's proud of, which, honestly, is more entertainment than the waxed-mustache guy provided at any point in the evening.
The thc cocktails I drink at home do not have a line item for ice because the ice is from my freezer, which I own, which the sky filled for free.
Want to do the experiment yourself? The Variety Pack is right there. Sixteen cans, four characters, 8mg THC each, no rosemary unless you go get some yourself, which you will not do because you are a reasonable person. There is also Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned for the purists, Jane's Fancy Shmancy Pomegranate Cosmopolitan for the people who understand what an entrance looks like, and Mary's M Train Double Espresso Martini for anyone who refuses to quit. It is in the fridge right now, if you want to try the experiment yourself.
The receipt from that bar is on my desk. I am going to frame it. Not as a memory. As a warning. A warning to myself, specifically, that the next time someone suggests a bar with exposed brick and a curated ice program, I will simply open a can, stay home, and let my watch tell me it's the right time to do exactly that.
Lou's watch, by the way, stopped in 2009. It has been right twice a day every day since. That is a better accuracy rate than the bartender who told me the smoke "elevates the botanicals." My watch never lied to me about botanicals. My watch never charged me for the atmosphere. I should get a watch like Lou's.
- • Must be 21+ to purchase. Hemp-derived THC, 8mg per can.
- • These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
- • Check your state and local laws before purchasing. Available only where legal.