Ordering a drink at a bar seems simple enough. You walk up, you ask, you sip. But behind the bar, every order tells a story – and some of those stories end in a bad night, a bruised wallet, or a bartender quietly cursing your name. After fifteen years behind the stick, working everything from packed sports dives to craft cocktail lounges, there are six drinks that keep coming up as problems. Not necessarily because they taste bad, but because of what they do to you, what they cost, or what they actually contain.
1. The Long Island Iced Tea
The Long Island Iced Tea is typically made with vodka, tequila, light rum, triple sec, gin, and a splash of cola – and despite its name, the cocktail does not contain any iced tea at all. That’s already a warning sign. The drink has a much higher alcohol concentration – approximately 22 percent – than most highball drinks, due to the relatively small amount of mixer. Most people have no idea what they’re actually drinking.
“No bartenders ever order a Long Island iced tea,” asserts Lauren Lenihan, director of operations for Paris Café and Common Ground Bar in New York City, and a bartender with over 20 years of experience. As mixologist Paul Kushner puts it, “They are just a hodgepodge of booze, too sweet, and take little finesse to make. A $5 Long Island will taste pretty much the same as a $25 Long Island. You don’t get to appreciate the unique flavors of the spirits, and the wash of sweetness overpowers everything anyway.”
2. The Mojito
As simple as the ingredients are – just rum, fresh lime, sugar, mint, and soda water – the logistics of making a mojito are a nightmare. The key to a perfect mojito is all in the mint, which is much more than a garnish. Mixologists have to pulverize the mint for a few solid seconds to really infuse the mint’s flavor, which is critical to a mojito. At a busy bar, that kind of time simply doesn’t exist.
Mojitos may seem like a harmless, sophisticated, refreshing order, but the drink could be carrying bacteria from spoiled mint leaves. The problem, according to writer Adam Levy of the blog The Alcohol Professor, is that bars don’t serve too many mojitos – so it’s rare they keep fresh mint on deck. Old mint can spoil and carry bacteria. Unless the bar uses mint regularly, it’s best to skip it. If you’re not in Havana, it’s likely not worth the risk.
3. The Ramos Gin Fizz
Perhaps the most-loathed cocktail by bartenders, a Ramos Gin Fizz not only requires a lot of ingredients – gin, lemon, lime, cream, egg white, orange blossom water, sugar, and soda – but it takes a lot of time and elbow grease to make. It has to be shaken hard for up to ten or fifteen minutes. That’s not a cocktail – that’s a workout.
Almost unanimously, bartenders across the country are staunchly opposed to subjecting a fellow bartender to the relative labor intensity of making a Ramos Gin Fizz, which usually requires anywhere between five and 12 minutes of shaking just to build the proper foam. Mixologist Elissa Dunn compares it to cooking a delicate soufflé, noting: “You have to shake it for a really long time, you have to let it set, it usually takes, if you do not have a hand blender, somewhere around 12 minutes.”
4. Anything Mixed With an Energy Drink
Research reveals that alcohol mixed with energy drinks is riskier than alcohol alone and constitutes a public health concern. Consumption is frequent, especially in young and underage drinkers, and is associated with elevated rates of binge drinking, impaired driving, risky sexual behavior, and risk of alcohol dependence when compared with alcohol alone. That Vodka Red Bull is a lot more than a night-out shortcut.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that people who mix alcohol and energy drinks are four times more likely to binge drink than those who don’t add an energy boost to their cocktail. They’re also more likely to report unwanted or unprotected sex, driving drunk or riding with an intoxicated driver, or getting injured. People who consume energy drinks experience elevated blood pressure and abnormal electrical activity in the heart for hours afterward. Case reports have also linked heavy energy drink use, especially when combined with alcohol or intense physical exertion, to episodes of cardiac arrest.
5. Frozen Drinks (Unless a Blender Is Visible)
Unless you see a frozen drink machine buzzing and swirling around behind the bartender’s head, do not order a frozen drink. Expecting your bartender to bust out an entire kitchen appliance to make you an alcohol smoothie that will be loaded with everything under the sun except fresh fruit is the height of bar-going bad etiquette. Making drinks that require a blender isn’t among bartenders’ top favorites, as it often means more cleanup.
Frozen drinks may be a summertime staple, but they also pack on the calories. The drinks tend to be filled with sugar juices and mixers, and served in huge glasses – typically larger than an average serving size. Those machines are rarely cleaned, and because bartenders keep adding mix and spirits to what’s already being churned, the ratios get thrown off. By the time you’re ordering that blue raspberry margarita, who knows what is actually being swirled around in there.
6. The Bloody Mary (Outside of Brunch Hours)
Even a restaurant that makes the best Bloody Marys in town only has the correct mix fresh and ready to go during the brunch and breakfast hours. Order it at any other time, and you’re getting that pre-made Bloody Mary mix they give you in cans on airplanes, or you’re getting an annoyed bartender wondering what would possess a person to order a Bloody Mary during Happy Hour. Context is everything with this drink.
The biggest gripe bartenders have with a Bloody Mary is all the ingredients it takes to make one – vodka, tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, black pepper, celery salt, Tabasco, and lemon juice. Long known as a hangover cure, the Bloody Mary could actually be harmful for your health. Even many experienced bartenders may not know how to use Tabasco in drinks, and a heavy touch could add too much spice, which could overwhelm some people’s digestive systems.
Why the Setting Always Matters
The key, as Daniel Yeom, general manager of Esters Wine Shop & Bar in Santa Monica, puts it, is to “read the room.” A great order at a fancy cocktail lounge can be a terrible choice at a dive bar, and vice versa. Certain beverages ordered in specific situations may result in a subpar experience for both the drinker and the drink maker, and the last thing a bartender wants is for their guest to feel shortchanged.
Occasionally, a bartender’s pet peeve has more to do with where they’re working and what they have on hand, rather than the drink itself. Next time you’re out, take a second to consider the setting before placing your order. Even swanky cocktail bars feature elaborate cocktails that take time and precision, and even those bars get slammed. If you ask for anything with more than three ingredients at a dive bar mid-rush, the bartender might not even humor you.
The Problem With Egg White Cocktails at a Busy Bar
If you order an egg white cocktail when the line at the bar reaches the front door, the bartender is going to take it as a personal attack. Any egg white cocktail is going to be a pain to make, even with as few as three ingredients. Between taking more time to shake and carefully cleaning the shakers, this order can really set a bartender back on a busy night.
Egg whites do something spellbinding to cocktails, creating a silky sip topped with a foamy crown. Over one hundred years ago, mixologists discovered the impact egg whites had in cocktails without messing with the flavor, and the technique worked its way across bars all over the world. Still, timing your order matters. A quiet Tuesday evening at a craft cocktail bar is entirely different from a packed Saturday night rush.
The Espresso Martini Problem
Typically made with vodka, coffee liqueur, simple syrup, and espresso, it’s a smooth caffeinated martini that can be as sweet or stiff as desired. All of the ingredients can be tossed in the shaker at once, so the cocktail itself isn’t too taxing – but that’s only if there’s chilled espresso at the ready. That’s the catch most people don’t think about.
Vinny Spatafore, bartender and beverage operations manager at Blue Bridge Hospitality, explains: “The strong, lingering espresso smell means bartenders have to wash the shaker extra carefully, which can be time-consuming.” Coffee drinks are more commonly ordered year-round, but if you only see an old, stained coffee pot with sludgy-looking coffee in it that may or may not have been made today, you might want to get your caffeine fix another way.
Layered Shots: Pretty, But Painful
Layered shots look cool, but they’re a nightmare to pour properly – which is even worse when a bar is very busy. Sunshine Foss, founder and CEO of boutique liquor store Happy Cork, said: “Bartenders are already under pressure to serve drinks quickly, ordering layered shots just doesn’t make sense for anyone.”
Many drinkers have had the indignity of drinking a cement mixer – or one of its similarly gross brethren – at some point. It’s something of a rite of passage for young drinkers who may not know any better, or who have prankish friends that enjoy hazing. Other than that very specific situation, there’s no reason to order one of these shots that are really only designed for shock value and to make people sick.
The White Russian and Dairy Risks
There’s a spoilage issue with dairy-based cocktails. Drinks like White Russians are made with cream or milk – ingredients that don’t keep very long, and something that bars often forget to restock. New York City bartender Timothy Dunn says that since bars don’t use dairy products too often, chances are the cream’s expired and could even be close to turning sour.
Bartenders loathe milk-based drinks for a few reasons. Top of the list is that most bars rarely use milk, so their supply is short, nonexistent, or – worse – expired. Save that White Russian for a cozy night in. There’s no shame in that call – it’s the smarter move for your stomach.
Asking the Bartender to “Surprise You”
Bartender Samantha Follows says her least favorite order on a busy night was simply “Surprise me!” – because that leaves way too much up in the air for a busy bartender with a limited supply of fresh ingredients. Her response is always the same: “Do you like sweet drinks? Do you like bitter drinks? Do you like whiskey?” If it’s not a specialty cocktail bar with a mixologist on duty, at least give a little direction if you want to be surprised.
There’s a difference between an open-ended question at a craft bar and lobbing a vague request at someone managing a line six people deep. “If the bar is busy, bartenders hate making anything with more than three ingredients that’s not on the menu,” says Eric Trueheart, founder of cocktail company Black Yeti Beverage. “Save the complicated requests for when things calm down.”
The Cheap House Wine Trap
Unless you’re at a wine bar, most bars have super-cheap “house reds.” And as anyone who’s ever lived on a budget has learned, super-cheap wine leads to a brutal hangover. As Daniel Yeom puts it, he will “never order a glass of wine, or anything other than a gin and tonic, whiskey and Coke, or a beer in a bottle at a dive bar” – adding, “I don’t know how long that wine’s been open, and the chances of whatever bottle has been sitting behind the bar making me happy is pretty close to zero.”
This one catches people off-guard because wine feels like a safe, moderate choice. It can be – but at the wrong venue, you have no idea how long that bottle has been open or how it’s been stored. A warm, oxidized glass of house red is a fast track to a headache that has nothing to do with how much you drank.
Flaming Shots: A Real Safety Issue
Flaming shots are a category to avoid ordering, unless you’re at a bar that specifically features them. The last thing you want is to force a bartender to play with fire and alcohol when they’re not experienced with the practice. It sounds dramatic, but fire and distilled spirits are a genuinely dangerous combination in the wrong hands.
There’s also a strong argument that flaming shots are more of a spectacle than a drink. Most of them don’t taste particularly good, and the flavor is secondary to the visual effect. As one bartender put it bluntly: “I do not have time to light your damn drink on fire.” If a bar doesn’t regularly perform this kind of preparation, the risk of an accident – however small – simply isn’t worth it for a single shot.
The Margarita at the Wrong Bar
The standard margarita recipe is, seemingly, too simple to mess up – just tequila, lime juice, and triple sec, shaken with ice and garnished with a salt rim – but it’s incredibly common for different establishments to make alterations based on what’s available, swapping lime juice for sour mix, for example. Fresh lime juice is a key ingredient in the perfect margarita, but dive bars typically use sweet and sour. Most commercial sweet and sours contain high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavors. Bartender Julien Whaley says he’ll always try to steer customers away from drinks that use these types of artificial mixers when he can.
As Whaley clarifies, “It’s not because I can’t do it, or it’s not that it annoys me – I feel bad for you drinking that stuff. Because a) it’s gross, and b) it’s bad for you.” Skip the margarita next time you end up at your favorite local dive and opt for something classic and simple that can be made well with the ingredients on hand.
