This is not a cocktail

It is known by many things - "swamped", "in the weeds", "sweet mother of God will somebody please stop this endless march of thirsty bastards" - This weekend Ed was all of those and more. So it is with a heavy heart I regret to inform you that we are sans drink for this week. Rest assured that the hot sting of shame burns brightly up our respective cheeks, and we will labor in earnest to prevent this from happening again.

Speaking of shame, I was recently poking around a variety of web sites for local restaurants and came across the digital home for a relatively new restaurant naught but a stones throw from my office. My eye was immediately caught by the "Drinks" link in their menu, uh, menu and clicked away with perhaps a wee bit of glee. As I read through the menu I was not so much impressed as saddened. Sure, you could call them cocktails, but they were so uninspired and rife with drinks relying on Vodka which to me is not a good indication. Even so, imagine my horror when I saw their description for their Blood Orange Old Fashioned (emphasis mine) - "Fresh blood oranges, brandied cherries and sugar muddled together with bourbon and a splash of soda. A dash of orange bitters is added and you’ve got a refreshing classic in your hands."

No, what you will have in your hands is a fizzy glass of ass. When a restaurant puts its cocktail menu on its site, that is an indication that they look upon their cocktail program with the same dedication to quality that they have towards their food. With that in mind I have to admit that it takes some pretty serious balls to unleash unto the public at large the fact that nobody in your establishment has any fucking idea how to make one of the most classic cocktails in human history.

In spite of the fact that I sound like nothing other than a pompous harpy, I assure you that I don't really care if one wishes to drink an Old Fashioned with soda water or if that's what I bartender wants to put on their drink menu. Just call it what it is - Not an Old Fashioned. Call it a Whiskey Highball or even an Old Fashioned Fizz for all I care, but when any drink is altered far beyond the realm of reason (I'm looking at you martini!) yet not renamed it promulgates the falsehood to ridiculous levels.

Look, all I want is to be able to walk into a bar and be able to order and Old Fashioned confident that I’m going to get a goddamned Old Fashioned. There. I said it.

Hey look, content!

Would you like to tell me what a pedantic prick I am? Leave a comment or send us one of those e-mail deals to drinkaweek [at] gmail [dot] com.