Lou's Official Complaint That the Bar Is Charging You for the Bartender's Feelings (And His Feelings Are Not an Ingredient)
I have the receipt in front of me. I am looking at it right now. One old fashioned: twenty-two dollars. I did not order a therapy session. I did not ask the man behind the bar how his screenplay was coming along. I asked for bourbon, bitters, sugar, and an orange peel. That is four things. Two of them are fruit. And somehow I owe this establishment twenty-two dollars plus a tip that, according to the suggested amounts printed at the bottom of this receipt, starts at twenty percent.
Twenty percent of twenty-two dollars. For a man who scowled at me when I did not immediately identify the region of origin for the bourbon he chose on my behalf, because apparently I ordered wrong. I did not order wrong. He poured wrong. There is a difference and I will die on this hill.
This is about THC cocktails no bartender needed. That is the whole argument. I am making it now and I will not stop.
The Emotional Surcharge: A Line-by-Line Audit
Let us go through the receipt together. I am calling each line what it actually is.
The "hand-selected" bourbon: He selected it. From the shelf. Behind him. That he works next to every day. He did not travel to Kentucky. He did not shake hands with a horse. He reached left instead of right and charged me four dollars for the journey.
The "house-made" bitters: I have no doubt the bitters are house-made. I also have no doubt they taste exactly like store-bought bitters, because bitters have tasted like bitters since 1824 and that is not a problem that needed solving. The house-made premium is three dollars. I am paying three dollars because someone in this building owns a jar and some patience. Good for them. That is not my financial responsibility.
The "artisanal" ice: I have said this before and I will say it again until someone listens. Ice is frozen weather. Weather is free. I am not underwriting a small business that figured out how to freeze water into a cube that is slightly larger than a normal cube. I am not doing it. The large ice cube line item on this receipt is two dollars and it represents everything that went wrong with this country.
The "expression" garnish: The orange peel. He called it an "expression." He twisted it over the glass and held it up to the light like he was delivering a baby. It is a piece of orange. A piece of orange that costs me one dollar and fifty cents and came with a five-second explanation of why he does not use a cherry because the cherry would "interrupt the profile." The cherry would interrupt nothing. The cherry has never interrupted anything. The cherry is a cherry.
The vibe: This is not a line on the receipt. But it is on the receipt. The music I did not choose, the lighting someone decided was moody, the menu printed on a piece of wood, the fact that there are no barstools with backs so that you are physically uncomfortable for the entire experience and cannot leave because you already paid for the ice. All of it costs money. None of it is bourbon.
Add it up. That is your twenty-two dollars. Fourteen dollars of feelings, eight dollars of drink.
Nobody Asked the Bartender for His Opinion on the Cherry
Here is what I want from a bartender. I want him to make the drink. That is the whole list. I do not want a provenance explanation. I do not want to be informed that the cocktail I ordered is "actually more of a template." I do not want to hear about the distillery's founding family or the elevation at which the grain was grown. I want the drink. Made correctly. Given to me. And I will take it from there.
Instead I am getting a performance. A one-man show about whiskey in which I am the audience and I paid for my own ticket and also for the theater and also apparently for the director's personal journey that led him to this bar and this moment and this orange peel held up to the light like a sacrament.
I did not come here for this. I came here for a drink.
The Drink That Has No Feelings and Costs You Nothing Extra for Them
This is where I tell you about Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned. Eight milligrams of THC. Real cocktail flavor built from the same ingredients and extracts the bartenders use, before they started charging for their emotional availability. No alcohol, no hangover, no man explaining anything to you. You open it, you drink it, and that is the whole experience.
It does not have a story. It does not have a profile that can be interrupted. It is an old fashioned. It is done. It cost you sixteen dollars and ninety-nine cents for four of them. That is four dollars and twenty-five cents per can. Do that math against the twenty-two-dollar receipt and then tell me who is being unreasonable here.
The 8mg is the right amount. Stronger than a half-measure, lighter than a mistake. It hits in minutes because of nano-emulsification, which is a real science thing that I am not going to explain at length because I am not Herb and this is not a lecture. The short version: it works fast and it clears clean. No drag. No morning-after audit of your own decisions. The cocktail without the regret.
THC cocktails no bartender needed. That is the product. That is the review. We are done here.
A Note on What You Are Actually Paying For at a Bar
I want to be precise because I am a precise man.
- You are paying for the liquor license. That is real. Fine.
- You are paying for the real estate. Also real. Also fine.
- You are paying for the ice. You should not be paying for the ice. Ice is weather.
- You are paying for the training. His training. In how to scowl at your order.
- You are paying for the music. The music nobody voted on.
- You are paying for the menu. The wooden menu. The menu that is a piece of wood.
- You are paying for the feeling that you are somewhere that matters. And that feeling costs the most and lasts the least.
None of those things are in the drink. The drink is in the drink. And you can get the drink, just the drink, for four dollars and twenty-five cents, at home, on your couch, without the scowl.
The Soft Pitch, Stated Plainly
It is in the fridge right now. Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned, four-pack, ready to go. No one will explain anything to you. No receipt with a suggested tip percentage that begins at a number that made me sit down when I saw it. Just the drink.
If you want to see what else we have on offer before you commit, go look at the Variety Pack, which includes Lou's Old Fashioned, Herb's Very Manly Peach Bellini, Mary's M Train Double Espresso Martini, and Jane's Fancy Shmancy Pomegranate Cosmopolitan. All four. All 8mg. All with no feelings built into the price.
You can also read about all four cans in the field guide we put together, where we lay out the whole lineup in one place. That post exists. It will not scowl at you either.
The Closing Argument
I am not against bartenders. I am against the surcharge for the parts of them that are not the drink. Make the drink correctly and I will tip you correctly and we will both go home satisfied. Put a smoked rosemary sprig in my old fashioned and explain to me why the cherry would interrupt the profile and I will write a blog post about it that several thousand people will read.
Several thousand people are reading this right now.
Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned. Straight up, classic, and a little stubborn. Just like me. Damn right. No bartender required, no feelings invoiced, no wooden menu, no ice surcharge, no expression explained to anyone.
Jane found the volume knob on me once. She knows I am right about the ice. She just will not say it out loud because she has better manners than I do. That does not mean I am wrong.
I am not wrong.
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. Must be 21+ to purchase. For use only where hemp-derived THC is legal. Please drink responsibly.
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