Lou Has Reviewed the Receipt and He Has Opinions
I have the receipt right here. I am looking at it. And I want somebody to explain to me, line by line, what I paid for last Saturday night, because it was not a drink. I know what a drink costs. I sold pipe for thirty years. I know margins. What I paid for last Saturday was a content strategy, and nobody told me I was financing it.
Forty-seven dollars. Two cocktails. One for me, one for Herb, who complained about his the entire time and then finished it in four minutes. Forty-seven dollars, and I am supposed to nod and hand over my card like a man who did not notice. I noticed. I notice everything. I notice the mood lighting was not for me. The mood lighting was for the bartender's Reels. He was filming the pour. He filmed the pour, and I paid for the electricity.
This is the situation we are in with thc cocktails at home versus whatever that was.
The Full Audit, Line by Line
Let us go through this together.
The garnish. He put a dehydrated orange wheel on my old fashioned. A dehydrated orange wheel. That is a fruit that died of dehydration and he is charging me for the funeral. A regular orange peel costs nothing. You know what a dehydrated orange wheel costs? Seven dollars of my money and whatever is left of his dignity. It was for the grid. I saw him photograph it before he handed it to me. I was not a customer. I was a prop.
The ice. Large-format ice. Hand-carved, allegedly. I did not ask for a sculpture. I asked for an old fashioned. Ice is weather. Weather is free. The sky produces it. I am not paying for the sky.
The music. Somebody's curated playlist at a volume calibrated specifically to prevent conversation. You know who benefits from no conversation? Nobody at the table. You know who benefits from forty-seven seconds of ambient synth every time someone posts a Story? The bartender. That is his playlist. That is his brand. I am paying cover for a DJ set nobody voted for.
The markup. Twelve dollars for an old fashioned is already a negotiation I lost before I sat down. But this was twenty-two. Twenty-two dollars. For whiskey, bitters, and one sugar cube that did not earn its keep. The difference between twelve and twenty-two is not better whiskey. It is the bartender's follower count. I looked him up. Four thousand followers. I paid for four thousand followers. I want them back.
He Has Not Finished Explaining His Career Pivot, and I Cannot Leave Until He Does
At some point in the evening, the bartender told me he was "really more of a cocktail artist." Unprompted. I did not ask. I was sitting there minding my receipt. He is a cocktail artist. I see. And what are the rest of us? The audience? The patrons? The funding mechanism for the career pivot he has been describing to strangers since 2021?
He then told me about the provenance of the bitters. Where they come from. The family that makes them. The region. The philosophy behind the recipe. I wanted a drink, and instead I got a podcast episode with no exit. Herb nodded along like he understood. He did not understand. He was just relieved someone was talking more than him for once.
Meanwhile, my old fashioned sat there getting watered down by the artisanal ice, and nobody was addressing that.
What Thc Cocktails at Home Costs, Since You Asked
I will tell you what I did the following Tuesday. I opened the fridge. I took out a can of Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned. Eight milligrams of THC. No alcohol. No bartender. No dehydrated orange wheel that needed a eulogy. No mood lighting for anyone's content calendar. No career pivot. Just the drink, working correctly, in my kitchen, at a price that did not require me to finance a stranger's Instagram presence.
It hit in minutes, which is what nano-emulsification does, and I did not look it up on his curated playlist. I already know because Herb told me and then told me again and then told me a third time in case I forgot.
The cocktail was good. It was, in fact, great. Bitters, orange, oak. Classic. Not improved. Not deconstructed. Not photographed. Drunk. Like a drink is supposed to be.
That is thc cocktails at home. That is the whole argument. Open fridge. Pull can. No receipt. No content strategy to fund. No follow-up conversation about the spiritual lineage of the ice.
The Part Where I Tell You What to Do
Stop going to bars that charge you for the bartender's aesthetic. You are not a customer in those places. You are an extra in a short-form video. You are ambiance. You are the out-of-focus background that makes the garnish pop. You paid forty-seven dollars to be a blur.
Get yourself a four-pack and stay home. Or get the Variety Pack if you want to let someone else at the table make a decision for once. All four characters. Sixteen cans. No one filming the pour.
If you are new here and you have not met everyone yet, start with a sample can and take a look at the full cast. Mary's got the espresso martini for when you want to stay awake and be insufferable about it. Jane's got the pomegranate cosmopolitan for when you want to make an entrance into your own living room. Herb's got the peach bellini, which he did not invent and will absolutely claim he invented. And I've got the old fashioned, which is right twice a day, like my watch.
It is in the fridge right now. No dehydrated orange wheel. No receipt. No five-minute explanation of the bitters.
Just the drink.
Damn right.
Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned contains 8mg hemp-derived THC per can. For adults 21 and older. Not available in all states. 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.
← Back to all opinions