What’s your cocktail bar red flag?
We posed this question on Threads recently, and the answers quickly poured in. “When they clutch their jiggers with a death grip,” wrote one of our followers. “Unrefrigerated vermouth,” said another. Also commonly cited: building Old-Fashioneds in a mixing glass (as opposed to directly in the glass), store-bought syrups and pour spouts on the backbar.
Anyone who spends enough time in cocktail bars starts to pick up on these indicators—some more subtle than others—that the bar in question might not be, well, very good. For a while now, I’ve kept my own running tally of red flags. Some, I should clarify, are more of an ick than a red flag; they may not have any actual bearing on the quality of the drinks or service, but irk me nonetheless. For example, if a bartender smells a tin before using it, that suggests there’s a pretty good chance that the tin might, in fact, smell—because why else are you checking? Needless to say, it doesn’t inspire confidence.
It should be stated that no single red flag or pet peeve on my list is enough to warrant turning around and walking out the door, but they’re worth looking out for.
Here are a few that make me cringe.
🚩 Too many brands name-checked—it’s a menu, not a billboard.
🚩 When the “Martinis” section includes flavored ’tinis.
🚩 Touching all the ice—there’s really no need for the cubes to come into contact with anyone’s hand on their way into the tin.
🚩 When the description of a cocktail lists an ingredient that you can’t taste in said cocktail.
🚩Any bar called a speakeasy. Remember Prohibition? Me neither—it was repealed almost a century ago.
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