What’s your cocktail bar pink flag?

We posed this query on Threads not too long ago, and the solutions rapidly poured in. “Once they clutch their jiggers with a loss of life grip,” wrote considered one of our followers. “Unrefrigerated vermouth,” stated one other. Additionally generally cited: constructing Previous-Fashioneds in a mixing glass (versus straight within the glass), store-bought syrups and pour spouts on the backbar.

Anybody who spends sufficient time in cocktail bars begins to choose up on these indicators—some extra refined than others—that the bar in query won’t be, effectively, excellent. For some time now, I’ve saved my very own operating tally of pink flags. Some, I ought to make clear, are extra of an ick than a pink flag; they could not have any precise bearing on the standard of the drinks or service, however irk me nonetheless. For instance, if a bartender smells a tin earlier than utilizing it, that implies there’s a fairly good likelihood that the tin may, in truth, scent—as a result of why else are you checking? Evidently, it doesn’t encourage confidence. 

It needs to be said that no single pink flag or pet peeve on my record is sufficient to warrant turning round and strolling out the door, however they’re value looking for. 

Listed below are a couple of that make me cringe.

🚩 Too many manufacturers name-checked—it’s a menu, not a billboard.

🚩 When the “Martinis” part contains flavored ’tinis.

🚩 Touching all of the ice—there’s actually no want for the cubes to come back into contact with anybody’s hand on their method into the tin.

🚩 When the outline of a cocktail lists an ingredient which you could’t style in stated cocktail.

🚩Any bar referred to as a speakeasy. Bear in mind Prohibition? Me neither—it was repealed nearly a century in the past.

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