Lou's Official Ruling on What a Zero Proof Cocktail Actually Is
A zero proof cocktail is a cocktail with no alcohol in it. That is the whole definition. You are done. You can go home. A zero proof cocktail has the flavors, the format, the glass, the occasion, and none of the ethanol. It is not a complicated concept. It did not require a symposium. And yet somehow, the bar on the corner is charging you eighteen dollars for one, plus what I can only describe as a separate invoice for the privilege of being in the same room as their Edison bulbs.
I have opinions about this. I have filed a formal complaint. Nobody has responded, which I expected, which is why I am writing it down here so it exists in the public record.
The Zero Proof Cocktail Markup Is a Crime I Am Documenting in Real Time
Here is what I paid for last Thursday. I paid for the drink. Fine. I paid a service charge. Tolerable. I paid what the receipt described as an "experience fee," which is the single most audacious line item I have ever seen, and I once got a hospital bill that charged me for a blanket.
An experience fee. The experience was bad lighting and a Spotify playlist that had not been updated since the guy who made it moved to Austin. I did not consent to paying for that experience. I would have paid to not have it.
And the bartender. I want to talk about the bartender. He told me, unprompted, that he studied mixology. Six weeks. He said this the way a man says he studied abroad. He used the word "profile" to describe my drink. He called bitters "an aromatic foundation." I called it a drink. He did not appreciate the correction. I tipped him anyway because I am a reasonable man, but I want it on record that I did it under protest.
The Cover Charge Is for a Room You Already Paid to Enter
There is a cover. On a Tuesday. The cover is for live music, which turned out to be one man with an acoustic guitar playing songs I did not recognize at a volume that made conversation impossible but was not loud enough to actually be music. It was audio wallpaper. I paid twelve dollars to stand near audio wallpaper.
I asked what the cover covered. The guy at the door said it covered the atmosphere. I said the atmosphere was a condition of the building existing and I should not be charged for physics. He did not have a response to that. Nobody ever does, which is my point.
The Garnish Situation Warrants Its Own Paragraph
Somebody put a dehydrated orange wheel and a sprig of something on top of my drink. Not inside the drink. On top of it. Decoratively. Like a hat. I did not order a drink with a hat. I ordered an old fashioned, which is bitters and whiskey and a single orange peel and absolutely nothing else. That is the entire drink. The man who invented it did not leave room for amendments.
I removed the garnish. The bartender looked at me like I had insulted his family. I have nothing to say to that. You do not improve an old fashioned. You do not iterate on it. You make it correctly or you go work somewhere else.
Why I Went Home and Opened the Fridge Instead
I will tell you what I did after I paid the bill, which came to forty-seven dollars for two drinks, one of which I did not finish because it had a hat on it. I went home. I opened the fridge. I took out a can of Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned, which has 8mg of THC in it, no alcohol, and exactly zero dehydrated orange wheels on top of it, because it comes in a can and cans do not have garnish situations. I sat down. I was fine.
Eight milligrams is the right number, for the record. I did not come up with it, they did, but I endorse it fully. It is not a microdose, which is the amount you take when you want to feel slightly different and then spend an hour analyzing whether you feel slightly different. It is not a knockout either. It is a drink. It does what a drink is supposed to do. The edge comes off. The room loosens. I became, according to the people who were there, funnier. I always was, but now they noticed.
I did not pay an experience fee. The experience was my kitchen, which I pay for separately in a monthly arrangement called a mortgage, and I did not have to tip anyone.
A Note on the Word "Craft"
Everything at this bar was craft. Craft beer. Craft spirits. Craft ice. There was a dedicated section of the menu for craft ice. Ice is weather. It is frozen precipitation that a machine made in the back room. It is not craft. Nobody is out there crafting ice. If you are charging me for craft ice, you have crossed a line I cannot come back from, and I will be telling this story for years, which I am already doing, right now, in print.
A zero proof cocktail that is actually craft is one where someone thought about what goes in it beyond making you reach for your wallet. The terpenes in Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned are chosen specifically. There is linalool in there for the relaxation. There is beta-caryophyllene for the mood. There is a reason it feels like a good night instead of a project. That is craft. A smoked rosemary sprig on top of a drink is theater. These are different things and I will not be told otherwise.
If you want the full explanation of how THC drinks actually work and why they hit differently than anything else you have been handed at a bar, go read the THC Cocktails, Explained post. Herb wrote it. He believes he invented nano-emulsification personally. He did not, but the information is accurate.
The Formal Conclusion of My Complaint
Here is where I land. A zero proof cocktail should cost you less than a cocktail with alcohol in it, because you have removed the most expensive ingredient. The fact that bars are charging you more for the experience of not having ethanol is an inversion of logic I cannot explain and will not accept.
The alternative is already in the fridge. Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned, 8mg THC, no alcohol, no garnish, no cover, no experience fee, no man telling you about his six weeks of mixology education. Four cans for less than what I paid for two drinks on Tuesday, one of which had a hat on it.
My watch stopped in 2009. It is still right twice a day. That is more than I can say for the bill I got Thursday night.
Complaint filed. Case closed. Drink up.
Lou's Damn Right I'm Old Fashioned contains 8mg hemp-derived THC per can. For adults 21 and over only. 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. Please check your local and state laws before purchasing.
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