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Drink Dispensers Balk At Crushing Burden Of Squeezing Lime
Is it me or are bartenders getting a little bit too entitled these days? Look, your job is to administer me the medicine I so desperately need to keep from suffering seizures or being forced to confront the actual horror that is my life. If that means you've got to spend a few more minutes muddling mint, so be it. That's why I tip well. That said, there are very few venues in this city where it is acceptable to order a mojito in the first place, so I am not wholly unsympathetic.
That's it. I'm ordering pousse-cafes from now on.
wah teh fuuuhhhh…Can't find one decent gin martini in town, and now this?
@Danny Denim@twitter "Gin martini" is redundant, young man.
@Mr. B : The only cocktail-neologism I hate more than "gin martini" is "Irish carbomb."
Full disclosure : I spend a lot of time thinking about cocktail neologisms.
Fine print : Also, I am naturally full of hate.
@Mr. B I'm guessing that you take your martini with a nod in the direction of the vermouth?
@happymisanthrope Almost — I take the cap off the vermouth bottle and blow.
The other night I finally caught the barkeep's attention and asked rhetorically, "Do you know what I want?" To which he replied, "No". He then walked away.
@dado You sure you were in a bar?
@hershmire – Was it The Existentialist on 23rd?
Holy fuck, what a bunch of assholes. (A) – You don't have the ingredients? Really? Rum, Limes, Sugar, Mint? Oh, you're telling me you don't have mint. What you're saying isn't "Make Another Drink", you're saying "We've got a shitty array of cocktail fixins" – which is fine, I like shot & beer places too, but don't pretend your bar isn't a shit-hole if you don't have fresh herbs.
(B)I hate making fucking spreadsheets, and if I told my boss "How about I just put the numbers in an email instead?" They'd ask me to kindly fuck off.
I don't even like mojitos that fucking much, but now it's on. I'm going to just drink all the fucking rum on this island in mojito form, and be sure to bitch if they try to cop out w/ simple syrup and don't spend a good god-damn long time muddling.
@Leon Saint-Jean : I'd be less irritated about the whole thing if fully 75% of the whiny bartenders weren't also wearing sleeve garters and calling themselves "mixologists". YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. NOW MAKE ME A CAIPIRINHA WITH SOME OF THAT ARTISANAL SUGAR AND HANDPICKED ORGANIC BROOKLYN LIMES AND WATCH WHILE I DRINK IT IN HALF THE TIME IT TOOK YOU TO MAKE IT.
@Gef the Talking Mongoose – Haha yeah. I just hate the idea that people in the service industry expect their job to not suck.
And I mean – I worked in the service industry for years. I have worked counters, made food, been yelled at because the diet coke has too many or too few bubbles in it. You're right, it fucking sucks, customers are ungrateful assholes.
THATS WHAT THE MONEY IS FOR MR BARTENDER. You can only bitch about people that don't tip or treat you subhuman. I don't wave money in the air at you, I don't yell "HEY MAN" while you're making somoeone else a drink. I wait patiently and respectfully for my turn to order, and then YOU MAKE ME MY FUCKING DRINK, and then I pay you for it and leave you at $2-$3 per beverage. If I wanted to hear your opinion, I would (I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT I'D DO, STOP WHINING TO THE POST AND POUR THREE SHOTS OF CHEAP SCOTCH IN A PINT GLASS FOR ME).
It's so hard being an out-of-work actor, isn't it?
There was an illuminating discussion on this very topic in these pages almost exactly a year ago. It influenced me to the point that I went to a sushi bar in Williamsburg and ordered a mojito about a week later, just to see how the bartender would react.
Real talk: 1. Never order house from a dive. As every native knows, most water that crap down. 2. I've never had a real Mojito in NY. 3. When they pretend to ignore you, start yelling and pounding on the bar.
@Maxine4Mayor So that was you.
I have a sudden urge to muddle someone's mint, but I'm not sure what that means.
@C_Webb – I'll muddle your mint, buster.
@Ham Snadwich An artisanal thug!
@C_Webb : "The Mint Muddler" was really an underrated Batman villain.
@C_Webb – This blackjack is handstitched and filled with locally produced lead shot and the handle of this switchblade is made from reclaimed wood from the floor of the old post office.
Why are you guys still ordering drinks that allow bartenders to use buckets of ice, taking precious alcohol space away?
Guys: Neat. Neat drinks. Neat drinks everytime. You get your money's worth and you prove who your real bartender friends are. Stop it with the ice. You give them all the power.
@djfreshie "But I like my drinks cold!"
Your drink will be served cold and iceless if your bartender is your friend and that's what you want.
@djfreshie – There's a bartender around the corner; she's not a *bad* bartender, but I think really bad at assessing volume when ice is involved. So if you order a Makers straight up you get about exactly an ounce. If you order it on the rocks you get 3 times that.
@Ham Snadwich – well, Makers is probably better served in ice anyhow. I do find ordering bourbon on rocks generally results in a huge glass full of both ice and booze. If you order the cheaper stuff like that or Jamesons, usually it's not getting measured out. If your barkeep is being cheap about the inexpensive booze, it's time to reconsider ever returning to that bar.
@djfreshie – It's not that she's cheap, I think she's genuinely sort of dumb. She seems to be perpetually surprised that people sitting at the bar want drinks and is somewhat baffled by anything more complicated than booze on the rocks.
Why not just, you know, charge more for a mojito? Like if it takes twice as long, double your price? Let the market do the work for you!
@deepomega What my market will bear tends to fluctuate wildly.
Hmm. Maybe that's why I keep having this conversation -
me: Could I get a mint julep, please?
Bartender: Uh… no, this isn't the South.
@synchronia There was one memorable occasion wherein my father ordered a mint julep and the beverage he was served clearly contained creme de methe.
@cherrispryte Wow, yeah, I guess I'd rather get shot down than get handed something like that.
Intimidated middle-age men are the most likely to panic-order a mojito.
What the hell has happened to this country?
@SidAndFinancy The terrorists have won. And by "terrorists," I mean Imbibe Magazine.
@BadUncle: At the wine bar in question in the article, the terroirists have won.
@SidAndFinancy: That was fucking outstanding.
Might it just be that bartenders just don't like clawing handfuls of mint out of their trip sinks at the end of the night? No one is ordering enough Southsides to fill a drain with mint squish, but mojios are like bar herpes: once one person in the bar gets it, everybody in the bar gets it.
i enjoy that the bartenders' alternative drink ideas also involved muddling herbs…
There are fewer and fewer establishments where I feel wholly comfortable asking, "Who do I have to blow in this joint to get a decent martini?"
Until I figure out how I can just convince the bartender to give me a handful of mint leaves, I will keep ordering my mojitos.
A couple year's ago I tended bar every week at Mad River for a $4 cocktail night. A lot of people would ask for mojitos, and when I explained we didn't have mint, they would get mad at me—the assumption being that this was my fault. They also assumed (re: @Mr. B's comment) a martini was only made with vodka, and so they never stipulated a "vodka martini." You can imagine their delight when I made it with gin.
This is a long way of saying people who frequent $4 cocktail nights at pseudo-sports bars in the UES are not very smart, and that includes ignoring the implicit idea I don't order the spirits for the bar, so it's not my fault we didn't serve mojitos or possess mint leaves when I worked there.
Also, when it's really crowded and a hundred people are berating you for drinks, why would any bartender take the time to mash things up for an Old Fashioned or some other drink that the mixologists at PDT or [insert speakeasy] can take their time with? Unless you're at a fancy bar, don't order a mojito or any other drink that takes forever to put together. Order a bourbon/whiskey/scotch plus a beer and move the fuck on. You don't go into a Duane Reade and get mad at the people by the registers for not having your favorite European soft drink, do you? What's that? You do? Oh, my bad.
I don't complain when I'm charged 5 bones for a seltzer at some prissy place where there's no cocks drawn on the wall in the bathroom.