Lou's Official Complaint That the Bar Just Charged You for the Bartender's Education

Lou's Official Complaint About the Bar Tab, the THC Cocktails vs Bar Tab Math, and Everything Else Wrong With This Receipt

I have the receipt. I am looking at it right now. I have been looking at it for eleven minutes and I am getting angrier with every pass, which I did not think was possible because I was already at a nine when I picked it up.

Forty-three dollars. Two drinks. No food. We had a brief conversation with a man who called himself a "cocktail architect" and I did not have time to deal with that then but I am dealing with it now, here, in writing, for the record.

This is Lou's Official Complaint Number Nine. I do not plan to stop.

The Line Items, Each One Worse Than the Last

First drink: twenty-one dollars. It was an old fashioned. It had something purple on top of it. I did not order purple. Nobody ordered purple. The purple was not on the menu. The purple arrived anyway, like a summons.

I asked what it was. The bartender said "lavender foam." He said it like that was a thing a person says out loud to another person, in public, without consequence. I am the consequence. This complaint is the consequence.

Second drink: twenty-two dollars. Different old fashioned, because the bartender, who introduced himself as Caden with a C, suggested I "try the smoked variant." I should have said no. I said yes because I was curious about what a smoked old fashioned even meant and now I know: it means they light a piece of wood on fire, put a glass over it, trap the smoke, and hand you a drink that tastes like someone dropped your cocktail in a fireplace and called it innovation. Twenty-two dollars for arson performed slowly at my table.

And then there is this line at the bottom. Right here. Seven dollars. Listed as "craft consultation." I asked the waiter what craft consultation was. He said it covered the cost of Caden explaining the drinks to us.

He charged us for the explanation. Of the things he chose to do to the drinks. That we did not ask for.

I Have Done Research on Caden's Credentials

I asked Caden, directly, where he trained. He said he was "self-taught." He said he watched a lot of YouTube and then spent "two years really leaning into the craft." He said the word "journey" without being prompted. He seemed proud.

I did not pay twenty-two dollars for a man's journey. I paid twenty-two dollars thinking I was buying an old fashioned. Those are two completely different transactions and only one of them was disclosed at the time of purchase.

Caden's YouTube certification is his business. His dreams are his dreams. I support the pursuit of dreams. I do not support paying a surcharge for them. I did not attend his graduation. I do not owe him tuition.

The craft consultation fee alone cost more than a full can of Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned, which contains 8mg of hemp-derived THC, tastes like an actual old fashioned, and has never once charged me to explain itself. You crack it open and it is already an old fashioned. There is no consultation. There is no foam. Nobody lights anything on fire. It just works. That is the entire concept and it is revolutionary only because everything else has become so absurd.

What You Are Actually Paying For at a Bar Right Now

I want to be precise about this because I have itemized it.

• • The ice: you are paying for ice. Ice is frozen weather. The sky produces it free of charge every winter. You are renting someone's freezer at cocktail prices.
• • The "hand-expressed" orange peel: somebody squeezed a piece of orange over your drink. That is a task. It is not a skill. It is not billable.
• • The "craft spirit": this is a bottle they bought somewhere and you are being charged triple the bottle price to have it poured in front of you by a man with a two-year journey and a YouTube subscription.
• • The "technique": Caden stirs with conviction. Caden stirs for exactly forty-five seconds because he read that somewhere. Caden's conviction is priced into your tab.
• • The ambiance: they dimmed the lights so far you cannot read the menu, which is probably strategic because the menu lists the lavender foam as optional but Caden brings it regardless because Caden has vision and vision does not ask permission.

Forty-three dollars. Two drinks. I went home and did the THC cocktails vs bar tab math on a legal pad and I am not going to be okay about it.

What Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned Charges You For

The drink. That is it. That is the whole list.

Bitters. Orange. Oak. The flavor of an old fashioned that has never been tampered with by someone who needed an outlet for their passion. Eight milligrams of hemp-derived THC, nano-emulsified so it actually does something in a reasonable amount of time, not two hours later when you are already in a cab wondering why you feel strange. No alcohol, no hangover, no craft consultation fee, and absolutely no foam of any color.

Sixteen ninety-nine for a four-pack. You do that math. You do the THC cocktails vs bar tab math right now and tell me I am wrong. I am not wrong. I am never wrong about receipts. I was an accountant. I see every number. Every number on that bar tab was an insult delivered in numerical form.

It is in the fridge right now, if you want to try the experiment yourself. Crack one open. Notice that nobody introduces themselves to you first. Notice that nothing is on fire.

A Note on the Word "Mixologist"

Caden called himself a mixologist. I want to address this.

A bartender makes drinks. A bartender has been making drinks since before Caden was born and the drinks were fine. The drinks were good. You knew what they were going to taste like when you ordered them and that was considered a feature, not a failure of imagination.

A mixologist is a bartender who watched more YouTube. That is all that happened. That is the entire difference. The word costs you six dollars extra on the tab and comes with a journey you did not sign up to hear about.

I am not paying for the word. I did not consent to the word. The word is going in the complaint.

Closing Statement

Herb read this complaint before I filed it and said I was being "perhaps slightly uncharitable." Herb paid thirty dollars for a glass of wine last week that the waiter described as having "a whisper of graphite." Herb is not in a position to counsel charity on this topic. Herb's watch works. Mine stopped in 2009 and it has been right twice a day ever since, which is better than that tab was right even once.

I am keeping the receipt. I am keeping all of them. This is an ongoing investigation.

In the meantime, the fridge is right there, the old fashioned is already in it, and nobody is going to charge you a consultation fee for opening it.

Damn right.

Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned is 8mg hemp-derived THC per can. For adults 21 and older. For more on what we actually put in the cans and why, see the full lineup in our Meet the Cans guide. 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. Please check the laws in your state before ordering.