A Mix(ology)ed Reaction
I walk into my regular bar with a few friends and see that a new bartender is working. He’s a younger guy in a full shirt, tie, and vest that looks like it would be more fitting for a big-city nightclub than a typical Main Street, USA kind of bar like this one.
To compare, the bar owner and the rest of the staff typically wear jeans or cargo shorts and generic t-shirts.
My friends and I walk up to the bar to order, and when it’s my turn, I order a Jack and Coke on the rocks. That’s three ingredients: ice, Jack Daniels, and Coca-Cola.
Bartender: “Do you want anything mixed in for some extra flavor?”
Me: “No, thanks.”
Bartender: “C’mon, man, give me something a little more complicated, a little more fun.”
Me: “Either a plain Jack and Coke on the rocks, or you can get [Owner’s Name] out here to make it.”
Bartender: “But that’s so boring!”
I call the owner’s name loudly – again, this is my regular bar, and it’s not the biggest town, so I’m on a first-name basis with him, as are all the regulars – and he comes out from the kitchen, where he usually works the grill. I explain about the bartender refusing to make my drink because it’s “boring”. The owner chews him out a little bit, orders him to make my drink exactly as I ordered it, watches him make my drink and serve it to me, then apologizes to my friends and me and heads back to the kitchen.
Drama over, my friends and I get a table, enjoy our drinks, order a second round – plenty of stink eye from the new bartender, but he did make all of our drinks without hassling us – and a few snacks from the kitchen, enjoy those and leave for the night.
The next time my friends and I stop in at the bar, the new bartender is not working, and the owner is tending bar. After my friends and I order our drinks, the owner leans across the bar toward me.
Owner: “Thanks for tipping me off about the new guy.”
Me: “What do you mean?”
Owner: “He was always bragging about how he had just finished some fancy mixology class, and he knew all about making fancy cocktails and such. I had my doubts, because this obviously isn’t that kind of place, but I figured maybe he could help draw in some new folks who have fancier tastes than most of the people who come here.”
Me: “How does that relate to me tipping you off?”
Owner: “After you left, another customer had an allergic reaction to something in her drink. She ordered the same drink she always does, but reacted to it. She didn’t need an ambulance or anything, thank God. I remembered your complaint about how the new guy wanted to add something to your Jack and Coke to give it some extra flavor, so I asked him about it. He said he wanted to use all his fancy mixology stuff, but everyone here was just ordering boring drinks that didn’t challenge him. So, he added something to this woman’s drink, but this time he didn’t tell her about it. Turns out she was allergic. I would have fired him for messing with people’s drinks anyway, but that really sealed the deal.”
A few nights later, another new bartender was hired, and he’s become a favorite of most of us regulars ever since because he really fits in here. The new guy hasn’t been seen in our town, but a husband-and-wife couple of regulars apparently saw him bartending at a high-end hotel, the kind of place where his fancy mixology course would be more useful, in a larger city forty miles from our town, while they were traveling.
