Lou Files an Official Grievance About THC Cocktails and Bar Receipts
I have the receipt in my hand. I am looking at it right now. I have been looking at it for six minutes and my blood pressure has not gone down, so I am going to tell you about it.
Line item, right there, buried between "PREMIUM ICE" (which is weather, by the way, frozen weather, I am not paying for the sky to do its job) and "TABLE ALLOCATION" (I sat down, that is not a service, that is gravity): Staff Certification Surcharge.
I asked the bartender about it. He said it covers his credentials. His credentials. I said, what credentials. He said he is a certified mixologist. I said, certified by whom. He pulled out a laminated card. A laminated card. I have seen more official-looking documentation on a parking permit.
I asked him where he got it. He said online. I asked how long it took. He paused. He said two days.
Two days. I sold pipe for thirty years. That is thirty years of knowing what goes in a pipe, what connects to what, what holds pressure and what blows up in your face at two in the morning. Nobody handed me a laminated card. Nobody charged my customers a surcharge for the privilege of knowing I could do the job. You just did the job or you did not.
This kid spent two days on his phone and now I owe him a line item.
The Part Where He Told Me His Opinion About Rye
And it gets worse. Because he had opinions. He had opinions about rye whiskey. He volunteered them. I did not ask. I never ask. I know what I want, I sit down, I order it, and I expect the person across the bar to pour it without a presentation.
He told me that a proper old fashioned uses rye, not bourbon, because rye has more spice and complexity and something about the "flavor profile." I want you to know that he used the words "flavor profile" while making direct eye contact with me, Lou, a man who has been drinking old fashioneds since before this kid had a phone to take a course on.
He was wrong, by the way. Not about rye versus bourbon, that is a legitimate debate among people who have the time for legitimate debates. He was wrong about something more fundamental. He was wrong to tell me. I did not come to a bar for a seminar. I came to a bar because it is the correct place to sit down and not be taught things.
The laminated card did not help him in that moment. The laminated card has never helped anyone in any moment.
Nobody Certified Lou, and That Is the Point
Here is what I want to tell you about THC cocktails, and specifically about Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned.
Nobody certified me. Nobody ran me through a two-day course. Nobody handed me a laminated card and told me I now understood what goes in a classic old fashioned. I did not take a test. I did not watch a module. I did not receive a certification surcharge I could pass along to you on a receipt.
What happened is simpler than that. I knew what a good old fashioned tasted like because I had been drinking them for decades. I knew that the flavors had to be right, bitters and orange and that particular warmth that sits in your chest and tells you everything is going to be fine for the next twenty minutes. I knew that 8mg of THC, the right dose, the sweet spot between "I felt something" and "I am on the floor," had to be in there without wrecking any of that. And I knew that nobody needed to certify that combination for it to work.
It works because it is correct. Not because somebody said it was correct on a laminated card.
The certification, for the record, is in the can. The nano-emulsification gets the 8mg of THC into your system fast and clean, same way a real cocktail hits, not two hours later when you've already gone home and changed into sweatpants. If you want to understand more about how that actually functions, Herb wrote the whole thing out in the Lab Notes, in his way, which is to say he explains it like he personally invented chemistry and is still waiting for the thank-you note. But the short version is: it works, and it works on purpose, and nobody charged you extra for the explanation.
What a Real Bar Tab Should Look Like
I will tell you what you should pay for at a bar. You should pay for the drink. That is the entire list. The drink. Not the ice. Not the table. Not the ambiance, which is a word invented to justify charging you for the light bulbs. Not the bartender's laminated card, his weekend course, his opinion about rye, or his certification from an organization that apparently runs entirely on good faith and a printer.
The drink.
Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned is $16.99 for a four-pack. That is four drinks. Four times that warmth in your chest and everything is going to be fine. Four times 8mg of THC that hits the way it is supposed to hit. No surcharge. No laminated card. No one standing across from you with an opinion you did not request.
If you want to try the other options, because apparently some people have not yet committed to the correct drink, there is also Mary's M Train Double Espresso Martini and Jane's Fancy Shmancy Pomegranate Cosmopolitan. Those are good drinks. I will allow it. Or you can get all four in the Variety Pack and figure out which one you are.
They are all in the fridge right now, if you want to try the experiment yourself. No course required. No certification. No line item.
The Formal Complaint, in Closing
I am going to submit this grievance in writing because I believe in documentation. I believe in records. I wore a watch for thirty years and I still wear it, even though it stopped in 2009, because it is right twice a day and that is a better track record than most people and certainly better than a weekend online certification program.
The bar has not responded to my grievance. I expect it will not. They are very busy charging people for ice and printing laminated cards.
Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned does not have a certification. It has the right flavor and 8mg of THC that actually works, which, last time I checked, is the entire job.
The bartender can keep his card. I will keep my can.
For adults 21 and older only. Hemp-derived THC. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please drink responsibly and check your local laws before ordering.
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