Lou's Official Complaint About the THC Old Fashioned He Did Not Order (and the One He Did)
I have the receipt in front of me. I am looking at it right now. Seventeen dollars for something called "A Quietude of Fog." That is not a drink. That is a feeling a twenty-six-year-old had once in Portland and decided to monetize. I paid for it. I am still angry about it. This is my official complaint, filed in writing, so there is a record.
The drink, by the way, was an old fashioned. It was an old fashioned with smoked cardamom vapor released tableside under a glass dome, which the bartender, who introduced himself as a "liquid storyteller," lifted slowly while making eye contact with me like he was revealing a Fabergé egg. It was an old fashioned. Whiskey, bitters, sugar, orange. The recipe is two hundred years old. Nobody needed to add a dome. Nobody needed to add fog. Nobody needed to add a story. And nobody, under any circumstances, needed to charge me seventeen dollars for a concept the bartender named after a feeling he has admittedly never had.
I asked him. I said, "have you ever felt a quietude of fog?" He said it was more of an aspiration. I said, "so I am paying for your aspiration." He smiled. I did not.
The Modern Cocktail Menu Is a Cry for Help
I have been sitting at bars for a long time. A very long time. Long enough to remember when a menu had four things on it and none of them had a paragraph of backstory underneath. Now every drink has a narrative arc. There is a sourcing note. There is a sentence about the distillery's relationship with the land. There is a chef's journey. There is a feeling the bartender wanted you to feel, and the feeling has a name, and the name is something like "Peripheral Light" or "The Weight of Almost" or, I am not making this up, "Sunday's Apology."
Sunday's Apology. Fourteen dollars. It was a gin and tonic with a sprig of something in it. I do not know what the sprig was. I did not ask because I was afraid he would tell me.
The old fashioned used to be the safe harbor in all of this. It was the drink you ordered when you wanted a drink and not an experience. It was the thing that meant: I am a grown adult, I know what I like, I do not need you to fog anything. And now they have gotten to it. They have named it something. They have smoked it. They have put it under a dome. They have charged you nineteen dollars for the dome rental.
I am done.
What an Old Fashioned Is Supposed to Be
An old fashioned is supposed to be straightforward. Classic. A little stubborn. It does not explain itself. It does not have a backstory. It does not aspire to anything. It is simply correct, and it has been correct since before the bartender's grandfather was born, and it will be correct long after every fog machine in Brooklyn breaks down.
That is why my name is on one. Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned is a THC old fashioned. Eight milligrams. No alcohol, no hangover, no fog, no dome, no concept, no liquid storyteller making eye contact with you in a dimly lit room while your ice melts. Bitters, orange, oak, 8mg of hemp-derived THC, and the satisfaction of a drink that does not need to justify itself to you. Damn right.
It is a THC old fashioned for people who wanted an old fashioned and not a spiritual experience. It comes in a can. The can does not have a backstory. The can has my name on it and that is the whole story.
A Line-Item Audit of What You Are Actually Paying For at That Bar
I have done the math. Here is what your seventeen-dollar "Quietude of Fog" breaks down to:
- • The whiskey: three dollars, maybe four.
- • The bitters and sugar: negligible. Do not let them tell you otherwise.
- • The orange peel: I refuse to assign value to this.
- • The ice: zero dollars. Ice is frozen weather. Weather is free. I will not be invoiced for the sky.
- • The dome: you are renting the dome. You do not get to keep the dome.
- • The fog: this is a theatrical effect. You are attending a one-man show about an old fashioned.
- • The name "A Quietude of Fog" and all associated intellectual property: apparently seven dollars, minimum.
- • The bartender's aspiration: also your problem now, apparently.
You are not buying a drink. You are buying a bartender's creative vision, and the bartender's creative vision has a cover charge.
The Rest of the Menu Is Not Off the Hook Either
While I am here I want to note that the other drinks on that menu were also crimes. There was an espresso martini that cost twenty-two dollars and came with a description that said it was "for the restless." I know what restless costs. Restless costs eight milligrams and about twelve dollars for a four-pack when you buy Mary's M Train Double Espresso Martini instead of paying a bar in Williamsburg to tell you who you are as a person.
There was a cosmopolitan described as "a return." A return to what, exactly? They did not say. Fourteen dollars for an incomplete sentence. Jane's Fancy Shmancy Pomegranate Cosmopolitan is also a cosmopolitan. It does not promise a return. It promises pinkies up and a good time, which is what a cosmopolitan is actually for. Eight milligrams. No existential subtext.
There was also a bellini with four adjectives in its name, two of which contradicted each other. I will not repeat them here. Herb's Very Manly Peach Bellini has two adjectives and they are both doing honest work.
The Soft Pitch, Filed Under Complaints
I am not telling you to never go to a bar again. I am telling you to know what you are paying for. If you want to pay for fog and a concept and a bartender's personal growth journey, that is your right as an adult. I will not stop you. I will think less of you, but I will not stop you.
What I am telling you is that Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned is in the fridge right now. Eight milligrams of THC. An old fashioned that is exactly what it says it is and does not charge you extra for the saying. If you want to try all four of us at once, the Variety Pack exists and it is a better use of your money than one dome rental and somebody's aspiration.
That is the whole pitch. I am not going to make it more complicated than that. Making it more complicated is what got us into this mess.
Closing Statement
I still have the receipt. I am keeping it. It is going in a drawer next to my watch, which stopped in 2009 and is still right twice a day, which is more than I can say for a bartender who has never once felt a quietude of fog and charged me seventeen dollars for the privilege of witnessing his uncertainty about it.
Damn right.
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 state and local laws before ordering.
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