Lou's Official Complaint That the Bar Just Charged You for the Bartender's Playlist
I have the receipt in front of me. Not metaphorically. I actually kept it. Because somebody needs to be keeping records, and I have decided that somebody is me.
Two thc canned cocktails from our own fridge, one round of drinks at the bar down the street, and a bill that includes, and I want you to read this carefully, a line item that amounts to charging me for the music. Not a cover charge. Not a band. Not a DJ who made a single human decision with his hands. The music. The playlist. The algorithmic arrangement of sounds assembled by a server in Iceland that has never once been screamed at by a Mets fan and therefore has no business setting the mood for my evening.
I paid for that. I did not consent to that. Nobody asked me.
The Server Is in Iceland and It Has Never Been to a Bar
Here is what happened. I sat down. I ordered. The room was playing lo-fi beats, which is what they call music now when they mean "sound that was designed by an algorithm to not bother anyone, including the algorithm." It did not bother me. It also did not interest me. It was ambient noise assembled by a machine that, I promise you, has never had a bad night, never needed a drink, never watched the bullpen blow a three-run lead in the seventh, and never sat at a bar at nine-fifteen on a Wednesday wondering what it was all for.
And I paid eleven dollars for it.
Eleven dollars. That is the cost of a decision made by no human being. That is a surcharge on the aesthetic choices of a program that cross-referenced "bar," "relaxed," and "Tuesday" and produced a playlist that sounds like homework music for someone with no homework. I have been charged for the emotional labor of a machine that does not have emotions. This is a crime. I am not being dramatic. I am being precise.
The bartender did not make that playlist. He told me so. He said, and I am quoting, "I just put it on shuffle." Sir. SIR. You put the algorithm on shuffle. You outsourced the soul of the room to a company in Sweden and you are passing the cost to me like I owe that company something. I do not owe Spotify a single cent for producing a playlist that sounds like waiting on hold for a bank that does not want to talk to you.
What Ambiance Actually Is, Since Nobody Seems to Know Anymore
Ambiance is not a playlist. Ambiance is a bartender who knows your order and starts making it when you walk in the door. Ambiance is the specific sound of ice hitting a glass in a quiet room. Ambiance is a jukebox that someone put a dollar into because they meant it. Ambiance is the accumulated weight of every conversation that ever happened in a room, soaked into the wood of the bar, and that is free because it already happened and nobody is billing you for it retroactively.
You know what is not ambiance? A Discover Weekly for a fictional customer named "Bar Patron, Chill, Wednesday." That is not ambiance. That is content. And I refuse to pay for content.
I have been saying for years that the bar experience has been slowly dismantled and replaced with a simulation of a bar experience, and every year I say it, someone tells me I am being difficult. I am not being difficult. I am being a customer who read the receipt. There is a difference, and the difference is eleven dollars.
What I Drink When the Evening Belongs to Me
Here is what I did when I got home. I opened the fridge. I took out a Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned, which is 8mg THC, no alcohol, and exactly zero algorithmic playlists included in the price. The price is the price. Nothing is hiding in it. There is no surcharge for the sound of my own refrigerator. There is no ambiance fee. It is an old fashioned, cold, in a can, made the way it should be made, and it costs what it costs and not one cent more.
I sat in my chair. I put on the game. Not a curated sports experience. The actual game, which was also bad, but it was bad in a way that made sense to me. The Mets were losing in a way I recognized. That is familiarity. That is comfort. Nobody charged me for it.
The old fashioned was exactly right. Classic, a little stubborn, no one trying to improve it with a smoked rosemary sprig or a dehydrated citrus wheel or any other garnish that exists to justify a markup and not to improve a drink. Just the drink. Just the evening. Mine to run, not the algorithm's.
If you want to try the experiment yourself, it is in the fridge right now. Or grab the Variety Pack if you want to see what the whole crew is working with. Mary's M Train Double Espresso Martini is in there. Jane's Fancy Shmancy Pomegranate Cosmopolitan. Herb's Very Manly Peach Bellini, which Herb will tell you he invented, and which I will tell you is still good despite that. Eight milligrams across the board. No hangovers. No hidden fees. No Iceland involved at any stage of production.
My Formal Recommendations, Which Nobody Asked For
One: bars should stop charging for the playlist. The playlist is not a service. The playlist is a gap where a service used to be.
Two: if you are going to charge me for the music, the music should have been made by a human being who has suffered at least once, and ideally someone who has watched their team blow a save in extra innings, because that is the kind of person who understands what a bar is for.
Three: the old fashioned is correct and has always been correct and does not need your help. Sit down.
Four: go home when you are ready to go home. Not when the algorithm transitions from "Wednesday Chill" to "Late Night Wind Down" and you feel the tempo change and realize the machine has decided your evening is over. Your evening is not over until you say it is over. Open another can. Stay in the chair. The watch on my wrist stopped in 2009, and it has been right twice a day ever since, and that is better than most people, and it is certainly better than a server in Iceland that has never once needed a drink.
I have submitted this complaint. I do not expect a response. I do not require one.
Damn right.
Herb and Lou's thc canned cocktails contain 8mg hemp-derived THC per can. For adults 21 and older only. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please check your state and local laws before ordering.
← Back to all opinions