Lou's Official Dispatch on Why You Are Paying for the Bartender's Story (And Why His Story Is Not a Cocktail Ingredient)
I want to talk about THC old fashioned drinks, and I will get there, but first I need to file a formal grievance because it is the responsible thing to do and someone has to.
Last Tuesday I sat down at a bar. Normal bar. Wood surface, stools, bottles on a shelf. I have been doing this for forty years and I know how it works. You sit, you order, you drink. That is the entire contract. Three steps. A child could execute this.
The bartender came over. Good. Progress. I said I would have an old fashioned. He nodded. Also good. And then he opened his mouth and did not stop for eleven minutes.
The vermouth, he explained, was sourced from a small family operation in a region I did not ask about, run by a man whose grandfather had a philosophy about botanicals that he wanted to share with me. The bitters were not just bitters. They were a "collaboration." Between whom, I did not find out, because I had already started thinking about my car and whether I had locked it. He had opinions about ice. He had a position on orange peel versus orange zest that he delivered like testimony. At one point he used the word "journey." About a drink. About a drink I had ordered four minutes ago and had not yet received.
I am a patient man. Ask anybody. Ask Lou, people say. Very patient. Sold pipe for thirty years. You know what pipe customers talk about? Pipe. They say what they want, you hand it to them, everybody goes home. That is commerce. That is civilization.
Biographical Information Is Not a Cocktail Ingredient
I want this in writing. I want it published and indexed and findable by anyone who needs it, including whoever trained this bartender.
The provenance of the vermouth does not affect the taste of my drink. The grandfather's philosophy does not make the bitters work better. The word "collaboration" belongs in a conference room, not a bar, and even in a conference room I would leave. You did not ask me if I wanted a story. You asked me if I wanted a drink. I said yes. The answer to that question is a drink. Not a memoir. Not a TED talk. Not a guided tour of someone's feelings about oak barrels. A drink.
If I wanted to learn something, I would have gone to a library. Libraries are quiet. Nobody in a library tries to tell you about the paper supplier.
I am not paying for context. I am paying for the old fashioned. The old fashioned does not need context. The old fashioned has been fine since the 1800s. You know what the man who invented it said? Nothing. He handed it over. He went home. Everybody was happy. That is the legacy you are tampering with when you open your mouth before you open a bottle.
The Part Where It Gets Worse
It got worse.
The drink arrived. It had a smoked rosemary sprig in it. Standing up. Like a flag. Like he had conquered something and needed to mark the territory. There was also a dehydrated citrus wheel on the rim, which was decorative and therefore useless, which is the worst combination a thing can be. The glass had a rim of something crystallized. Sugar, I think, or possibly ambition. I could not tell. I did not investigate. I sat there and looked at this construction project he had handed me and I thought: I have made a terrible mistake coming here.
The drink cost seventeen dollars. The rosemary did not make it taste like rosemary. The dehydrated citrus did not do anything at all. The story he told me cost him nothing and cost me eleven minutes of my life and I am sixty-three years old, which means eleven minutes is a meaningful percentage of what I have left, and I would like it back.
The Ruling, Delivered Plainly
Here is what I did. I went home. I opened the fridge. I took out a can of Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned, which is a THC old fashioned, 8mg, no alcohol, no autobiography, no rosemary, no grandfather, no collaboration, no journey. The name tells you exactly what it is. "Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned." That is not just a name. That is a position. That is a man who looked at the modern bar situation and said: no. We are not doing this. The classics are classics because they worked. They do not need a story. They need to be made correctly and handed over without comment.
I cracked it open. I sat in my chair. Nobody talked to me. It was the best eleven minutes I had in a week, and it was not even eleven minutes, it was more like six, because the nano-emulsification means it hits fast and clean, not like an edible that makes you wait forty-five minutes and then ambushes you in the parking lot. Six minutes. No drama. The edge came off. The room got a little better. Nobody smoked any rosemary near me. Genuine improvement in conditions.
That is a THC old fashioned done correctly. That is the verdict. Case closed.
If you want to see the full lineup, the rest of the cast is over at the Meet the Cans page, where Herb's Very Manly Peach Bellini, Mary's M Train Double Espresso Martini, and Jane's Fancy Shmancy Pomegranate Cosmopolitan are also available and also do not talk to you while you are trying to drink them. That is a feature, not an omission.
What This Is About, Stated Directly for Anyone Still Confused
I am not opposed to bartenders. I am opposed to bartenders who have confused their job with a speaking engagement. The job is the drink. The drink is the job. Everything else is self-indulgence you are charging me for, and I have checked the receipt, and I did not order the speech.
A THC old fashioned in a can, sitting in your fridge, ready when you are, is not a compromise. It is an upgrade. It is the drink without the performance. It is 8mg of THC in a classic format, formulated to make the room loosen up and the conversation get better, not to give you homework before you can have a cocktail. It is the right call. Damn right it is.
The can is in my fridge right now. There are three left in the four-pack. I am watching them the way a man watches something he knows is good and knows will not last. If you want to run the same experiment, you know where to find it.
And if you go to a bar this weekend and the bartender starts explaining the vermouth: leave. Just leave. You are an adult. You have options. Use them.
The watch on my wrist stopped in 2009 and it has been right twice a day ever since. That is more than I can say for a seventeen-dollar drink with a rosemary flag in it.
Lou out.
Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned contains 8mg hemp-derived THC per can. For adults 21 and older only. Hemp-derived THC products are not legal in all states. Check your local laws before ordering. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
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