Font ResizeI took this into consideration as I opened up my service spiel.
"May I get you something to drink?" I asked taking a closer look.
Fortyish, minimally styled dirty-blond hair, wedding ring, out of town newspaper and stone-cold sober; it all added up to someone just passing through.
"I'll have a vodka gimlet."
A classic, and the only drink for which I ever recommend Rose's bottled lime juice. Rose's odd sweetness gives the venerable cocktail its je ne sais quoi, which, of course, now no longer applies.
Two ounces of vodka, a splash of Rose's, two wedges of fresh squeezed lime and a vigorous shake later I set the drink down. I purposely navigated around her unfolded newspaper, being sure to not set the drink directly on it. As with every shaken drink her gimlet was now closer to 4 ounces total, the extra 1 ounces being melted ice. One of the reasons that you don't use liquor stored in the freezer to make drinks is that 32 degree ice and 32 degree liquor means no melting, which means no dilution, which makes for an incredibly strong drink; almost twice as strong per volume. But sometimes the effects of alcohol have nothing to do with volume or strength.
She never
After she had consumed about an ounce of her gimlet - about an hour later - two men sat next to her. They were so involved in their conversation that they didn't seem to notice that in an empty bar they had sat directly next to the only other person there. She looked up from her paper briefly. Taking the affably boisterous duo's drink order indicated they clearly were an "interact" group. By the time I finished shaking their martinis, I knew that they were celebrating the recent nuptials of the older of the two.
When I set down the two men's drinks, the blonde spoke for the second time.
"How are you doing?" she asked me for no particular reason.
I had to look around to make sure that she was talking to me.
"Great."
"That's good."
I didn't have time to dwell on the oddness of that exchange before the bar started to fill up and my duties were required elsewhere.
Two ounces of her gimlet and about a half hour later, she had entered into a conversation with the two men. Or, more accurately, a diatribe about marriage. The newlywed was fending off comments like a ringer in a heavyweight boxing match, with about as much success. His friend, sitting between the two, was acting as a conversational referee with about as much efficiency as a WWF referee.
Three ounces and yet another half an hour later and she was on the phone to her husband while she held hands with the former referee. Based on her conversation, that husband was apparently about 30 minutes away.
Four ounces in - and 20 minutes later - she was crying on the arm of that same referee, refuting everything that she had said in the earlier hour and half about marriage.
It was zero to crazy in 4 ounces.
When her husband arrived 10 minutes later, it was clear by his pursed lips, shaking head and frown that he was all too used to this sort of thing.
I watched them leave in silence and as I folded her newspaper, four thoughts came to me:
- There are some people should not drink any alcohol ever, in any quantity at all.
- You can never be sure of the emotional or mental state of anybody who sits down in front of, or next to you, in a bar.
- Sometimes people are critical of institutions, not because of the institution's failings but because of their own.
- Noted 20th-century wit Dorothy Parker once said of the gimlet's godfather, the martini, "I like to have a martini, two at the very most. After three I'm under the table, after four I'm under my host." Which in light of recent events, and in particular one fortyish blonde, might be more accurate if changed from "martinis" to "ounces," especially when dealing with gimlets.
Jeff Burkhart is an award-winning bartender at a Marin bar/restaurant and an author. His columns appear weekly in Here. Add your comments to the end of this story. Contact him at jeffb@thebarflyonline.com.
