Thursday, June 28, 2007

Cocktail Incompentency: 2A


Another report from the field.

I know I shouldn't get all bent out of shape about this stuff, but bartenders should know how to make a drink. Right? I write for a living. If I used bad grammar or only know how to use a small section of the English language, I wouldn't be employed for long.

So I went into 2A, a popular bar that has been at the corner of Avenue A and 2nd Street for 15 years of so, surviving many changes in the East Village. Must be a good place, right? I admit, I'd never ventured in before. But I had decent expectations due to the joint's longish history.

OK, here we go. Miss Bartendress was about 22, blonde and kind of uninterested in things in general. (She manned the above bar.) I started with my usual drill: could she make a Sazerac? I pretty much expect people to fail this one and she did. So I thought Manhattan; did she have Rye behind the bar. No she didn't. At this point she said something like, "Wow, you're making this really hard." Hm.

How about a bourbon Manhattan, even though I don't like those. No, they don't stock bourbon.

Let me repeat that: they don't stock bourbon.

I'm desperate and depressed now, so I ask for a Gibson. "OK," she says, "except we don't have those little onions." Sigh. A Martini it is, straight up, very dry, with a twist.

I got the drink a few minutes later. It had a twist. A lime twist. A Martini can be many things. A Gin & Tonic it is not.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Holy crap that's sad. Aside from not stocking Bourbon, the irony of knowing that a Gibson requires a cocktail onion but then mishandling a Martini by including a lime twist, wow.