The Terpenes That Make You Laugh Are Not Behind That Bar, I Can Tell You That Much
I got a receipt last Saturday. I am going to talk about this receipt for as long as I need to, and you are going to sit there. Because somebody has to say it, and apparently that somebody is me.
Old fashioned. One old fashioned. The price on the menu said eighteen dollars, which I already consider a personal insult, but I ordered it because I am a man of habit and I respect the drink. The receipt said twenty-two dollars. Four dollars appeared out of nowhere, like a ghost, except ghosts do not charge you for glassware.
I asked the bartender. He said, and I am quoting directly, "There's a vessel surcharge."
A vessel surcharge.
I sat with that for a moment. I looked at the vessel in question. It was a rocks glass. A rocks glass is a cylinder. A cylinder is geometry. I did not agree to fund geometry when I sat down at this bar. Nobody handed me a disclosure form. Nobody said "Lou, we're going to need four dollars for the cylinder." They just took it. Quietly. Like it was reasonable. Like I would not notice. I notice everything. I am not a man who misses line items.
A Full Audit of What They Are Actually Charging You For
Let us go through the receipt together, because I have been going through it in my head since Saturday and I might as well take you with me.
- The ice. Ice is in the glass. Ice is frozen weather. Weather is free. I am subsidizing precipitation.
- The vessel surcharge, already covered. The vessel is a cylinder. Cylinders do not cost four dollars. I have bought cylinders. I know the market.
- The "handcrafted" designation. They stirred it. With a spoon. A spoon they also own. I did not rent the spoon. I should not be paying for the motion of the spoon.
- The orange peel. Somebody peeled an orange in my direction and that is apparently a service I owe money for.
- The "ambient experience." This is not on the receipt but it is priced into every number on it. The ambient experience was a playlist I did not choose and a speaker that was too loud for a Tuesday.
And here is the part that really gets me. The drink was not good. I am not being dramatic. I drink old fashioneds. I know what an old fashioned is supposed to taste like. This one tasted like they were mad at me. There was something smoky in it that I did not order and did not want, and the ice melted before I finished it because the glass was warm, which means they charged me four dollars for a warm cylinder that ruined their own ice program.
I left a fifteen percent tip because I have manners, but I want it on the record that I was not happy about it.
What the Terpenes That Make You Laugh Actually Look Like
Herb has explained the terpenes to me at least six times. I understand maybe forty percent of it. But here is what I do understand: Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned is built with a specific terpene blend, what Herb calls the Canned Laughter Formula, that is engineered to make you social. To make the room funnier. To take the edge off without turning you into a couch cushion. Linalool, Beta-Caryophyllene, Citronellol. Terpenes that make you laugh, terpenes that loosen the room up, terpenes that make whoever you are sitting with suddenly seem like better company.
Herb says he invented this. He did not invent this. Mary and Jane will tell you they figured it out. I believe Mary and Jane. But the result is real, and the result is that there is a formula in this can designed specifically to make the night funnier, and that formula does not cost twenty-two dollars, and it does not come with a vessel surcharge, because the can is the vessel, and the can is included.
Eight milligrams of hemp-derived THC. Bitters, orange, oak. Real cocktail ingredients, not syrup. It hits in minutes because of the nano-emulsification, which Herb will explain to you whether you ask or not, and it does not drag on until two in the morning making you regret your decisions. It is the cocktail without the receipt. It is the old fashioned without the smoke they added that I did not ask for.
You can get a four-pack of Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned for sixteen dollars and ninety-nine cents. That is four old fashioneds. Four. For less than the price of one Tuesday bar old fashioned in a warm cylinder with a four-dollar surcharge and ice that apologizes for itself.
If you want to try all four of us before you commit, there is a Variety Pack with every can in the lineup: my Old Fashioned, Mary's M Train Double Espresso Martini, Jane's Fancy Shmancy Pomegranate Cosmopolitan, and Herb's Very Manly Peach Bellini. Sixteen cans. One price. No surcharges. No spoon rental.
The Glass Is Not Even Good
I want to come back to the glass because I think we let it off too easy.
The glass at this bar was not a nice glass. A nice glass is a nice glass. I can tell the difference. This was a glass they bought in bulk. It had a slight clouding at the base that means it has been through the dishwasher more times than any of us should be comfortable with. The rim was not polished. There was a small chip on the back that I found with my thumb, which means I now know more about this glass than the bartender does, and the bartender charged me four dollars for it.
The can of Lou's that is in my refrigerator right now does not have these problems. It is a clean, sealed, eight-point-four ounce slim can. It has not been through a dishwasher. It does not have a chip. Nobody is charging me extra for it. It is, by any measurable standard, a better vessel than what I paid a surcharge for on Saturday. And it comes with terpenes specifically chosen to make the room funnier, which the rocks glass did not.
If you want to read more about all four cans and the people behind them, there is a full field guide over at Meet the Cans that covers the whole lineup. I recommend starting there and ending at my can.
The Verdict
You are paying a surcharge for a glass. The glass is bad. The ice is weather. The drink inside the glass cost eighteen dollars on the menu and twenty-two dollars on the receipt and was smoky in a way nobody cleared with me. The ambient experience was a playlist. The spoon motion was billed into the handcraft designation. And at the end of all of that, you did not laugh once, because nobody behind that bar was thinking about terpenes that make you laugh when they made your drink. They were thinking about the vessel surcharge.
It is in the fridge right now, if you want to try the experiment yourself.
Damn right.
Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned contains 8mg hemp-derived THC per can. For adults 21+ only. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please verify that THC products are legal in your state before purchasing.
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