Ask a Bartender: What are the Most Hated Drink Orders?
Sunday, August 23, 2015
No matter what industry you work in, there is one thing that you would give a year’s salary to never have to do again. For teachers it is parent-teacher conferences, or so I’ve heard. For nurses, I imagine anything having to do with a bedpan. For bartenders, there is that one drink that you hear a customer ask for, whether it is a busy Friday night, or a quiet Monday afternoon, and you instantly cringe. Suddenly you think you hear the kitchen calling you, and you tag in whichever bartender’s closest. And that’s probably the most calm, and levelheaded of responses. Here are a few of the most-hated drink orders.
Anything that requires a blender. “Miami Vice on a busy Friday night with one blender behind the bar,” says New York bartender Stef Toch. If your bar isn’t on the beach, and doesn’t have a list of frozen drinks on the menu, chances are you only have one blender on site, if that. Unless you just picked up a T.G.I.Friday’s mix at the grocery store, this isn’t a simple add ice and blend process. “In the time it takes to make two frozen drinks, I could have made 6 or more standard cocktails.” And the worst part? “Once the server carries the delicious-looking frozen concoctions past one table, everyone gets googly-eyed and then the floodgates open and I have to walk away from the service bar,” adds Toch.
The smorgasbord that takes you more steps around the bar than your FitBit can count. AA is the only 12-step process anyone should ever go through when liquor is involved. When you get past the five or six ingredient mark for one drink, it’s a sure sign you only ordered the drink because you like the name of it. That, or you hate your bartender and want to guarantee you get ignored for the rest of the night. Union Tavern bartender Kaya Abramo has one standout in this category. “A customer asked me to make a ‘Dizzy Buddha’, which contains 11 different ingredients, conveniently scattered throughout the entire bar. I could go without making that ever again.”
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Grateful Dead, and other Long Island Iced Tea based recipes. Surprisingly, this is not because it has a longer list of ingredients. All of the ingredients are right there in your well, and many bars have invested in pre-made Long Island mixes so it’s a simplified process when it gets busy. Some bartenders hate the lingering Blue Curacao that somehow manages to get on your arm or
hand and stay there for all-too long. Others hate the countless other names people have for these two types of drinks, particularly “Ungrateful Dead”. Personally, I hate that every time a customer takes their first sip, whether I made it or someone else did, it’s like it’s their first time ever experiencing taste—good or bad. Customers have ordered it multiples in a night for weeks on end, and each time it’s like unwrapping one of those mystery flavor Dum-dum lollipops. And then come the questions and passing it around the group waiting for someone to say something profound like, “It needs more of something. Sour mix?” False. Maybe this is because it seems as though there are many variations of what to include in these from bar-to-bar, so I’ll take the hit on that one. Or, maybe it’s because all most customers know is that they are strong drinks that seem like fun to order, without actually knowing what they should taste like.
If nothing else, dealing with some of these dreaded orders gives us something to laugh about at 3:00am as we sop up all the curdled remnants of the car bombs everyone had to have. Not to mention, these types of orders put the “Red Bull Vodka” and “lot of lemons and limes” orders in a much better light.
Pam Martin bartends at Compass Tavern at 90 Harding Street in Worcester every Friday night and Sunday afternoon.
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