The Cover Charge Is Not a Fee. It Is a Declaration of War.
Twenty-two dollars. Twenty-two dollars to walk through a door. A door that is already open. I have been walking through open doors my entire life, free of charge, and I have been doing it correctly. You push, it moves, you are inside. That is the whole transaction. Nobody has ever handed me an invoice for it before last Saturday.
I stood there. I looked at the kid with the wristbands and the clipboard. I looked at the sign. I looked back at the kid. I said, "What does the twenty-two dollars cover?" He said, "The cover." I said, "The cover of what?" He did not have an answer. Of course he did not. There is no answer. The twenty-two dollars covers the privilege of giving them more money once you are inside, and that is the entire scheme, and everyone has agreed to pretend otherwise.
I did not go inside.
A Brief Audit of What I Would Have Paid In There
I know how this works. I have been to bars. I sold pipe for thirty years. I understand margin. So let me walk you through what the next two hours would have looked like, financially, had I surrendered the twenty-two dollars and proceeded.
Old fashioned: sixteen dollars. That is eight dollars of whiskey, six dollars of atmosphere, and two dollars for the guy who will describe the bitters to you like he wrote a thesis on them. Nobody asked about the bitters. I did not ask about the bitters. I asked for an old fashioned. The bitters are supposed to be in there already, silently, doing their job. They do not need a presentation.
Second old fashioned: another sixteen. Now I am at fifty-four dollars and I have had two drinks and I am standing in a room where the music is slightly too loud for the conversation I actually wanted to have, which is a conversation about whether the Mets bullpen is a cry for help or an elaborate prank. It is not a trick question. It is both.
Tip: mandatory eighteen percent on drinks they poured in thirty seconds. I tip. I am not a monster. But I am also keeping notes.
Total damage for two old fashioneds and a door: somewhere north of seventy dollars. For a Tuesday.
The Only Financially Defensible Position a Grown Man Can Take
Here is what I did instead. I went back to the car. I opened the cooler I keep in the back, because I am a man who plans, and I cracked open a Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned. Eight milligrams of THC. Real bitters, real orange, real oak. Nobody described it to me. I did not pay a cover charge to access it. It was already mine. I paid sixteen ninety-nine for a four-pack, which works out to about four dollars and twenty-five cents a can, and I did not have to stand next to a velvet rope to do the math.
This is what I am telling you. The old fashioned THC drink in the parking lot is not a consolation prize. It is the correct choice. It is the only choice a person with a functioning brain and a basic grasp of arithmetic should be making. I was not missing out on the bar. The bar was missing out on me. There is a difference, and it is important.
The edge came off in about fifteen minutes. Not knocked flat, not dramatic, just right. Social. Present. Ready to have the Mets conversation with whoever walked past. One man from the bar actually came outside to smoke and I held court in that parking lot for forty-five minutes on the subject of closer usage, and I will tell you right now it was the best Tuesday night I have had in recent memory. No cover charge. No bitters presentation. No receipt that required a moment alone to process.
The Part Where I Address the Markup on Ice
I was going to let this go. I am not going to let this go.
The drinks inside have ice. The ice is not free. It is included in the sixteen dollars, which means it is not included, it is priced in, which means I am paying for water that has been made cold by electricity that the bar is also not paying me for. Ice is frozen weather. Weather is free. I have lived through forty years of weather and not one entity has sent me a bill. The bar has found a way to monetize precipitation and everyone is acting like this is normal. It is not normal. I am the only one saying this out loud and I should not be the only one saying this out loud.
My old fashioned THC drink came with no ice, no upcharge, no speech about the ice. It was cold because I put it in a cooler, which I own, and the cooler cost me forty dollars eleven years ago. I have made that money back many times over. This is called investing.
In Case You Think I Am Being Unreasonable
I am not being unreasonable. I am being precise. There is a pillar post that exists on this very blog, "Damn Right It's an Old Fashioned," which lays out the case for the classic with appropriate seriousness. Go read it. The argument has been made. The old fashioned does not need to be reinvented, improved, or handed to you with a garnish that required a blowtorch. It needs to be cold, strong, and in your hand without you having to hand over your wallet first.
That is what the can does. Eight milligrams. Clean. No alcohol, no hangover, no moment at 2 a.m. where you are doing the kind of math you regret in the morning. If you want to try the full lineup before committing, there is a Variety Pack that covers all four of us: Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned, Mary's M Train Double Espresso Martini, Jane's Fancy Shmancy Pomegranate Cosmopolitan, and Herb's Very Manly Peach Bellini. Herb's has bubbles. He is very proud of the bubbles. I am not going to take that from him.
The old fashioned THC drink is in the cooler right now, if you want to run the numbers yourself. The math is not complicated. The parking lot is free. The door does not cost twenty-two dollars when it is your door.
You are welcome to come stand next to the car. I will be the one explaining the Mets bullpen to a man who did not ask. He is learning a lot.
Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned contains 8mg hemp-derived THC per can. Must be 21+ to purchase. For adults only. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Check your local laws before ordering.
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