Neat vs. Straight Up

As a cocktail server, I am coming across many terms that I have never encountered before. Despite my eleventy-billion years of slinging food, some words have not made it into my lexicon. One of them was “back” when referring to a chaser. For example, “I’ll have a shot of Jack with a ginger back.” Okey dokey… In my three weeks at the new job, I have had three people order a “back” of something. Weird. Now, I was the first to admit that I was unaware of that bar term and just asked the first dude who ordered it what it was and it was no biggie. But last shift, someone clearly did not understand the bar term he was using and blamed it on me when his drink came out wrong.

Two people are waiting for the show to start and I go to take their order. The lady asks for some drink I have never heard of. It was called a Mazzarerk or some shit like that. I think bitch made it up or dreamed it. She asked me if I knew what it was and I told her no. “Well, does the bartender know what it is?” My telepathic powers were in the shop that day making me unable to read the bartender’s mind so I had to to tell her that I didn’t know if he knew what it was. “Well, it’s made with rye,” she says like that will jog my memory. Ohhh! A Mazzarerk made with rye! Now I remember! What a cunt. I tell her we have a barbook so we could look it up and she says that if the bartender has to look it up to make it, she doesn’t want it. I dunno, I guess because then he would be following a recipe and that would somehow make it all wrong? She has to think about it. The ass wipe she is with says he wants a Maker’s Mark, straight up with a ginger back. I tell him how I have just learned that word and how odd it was to have heard it for a third time in just a couple of weeks. “Well, it means a chaser.” He said it all condescendingly like he should be so proud of his alcoholic knowledge. I assured him I knew what it was and tried to tell him that I’ve been waiting tables for eleventy-billion years but realized I didn’t really give a shit. His boozehound lady friend says she’ll have that too. Fine. Two Maker’s Marks, straight up with two ginger backs.

Now, in my head, “straight up” means chilled and poured into a martini glass. If I ordered a margarita straight up, it would be chilled, shaken and poured into a martini glass. You can even Google and Wikepedia that shit, because that is what “up” means. I bring them their drinks and the guy looks at the glasses and moans. “No, no no…up! I don’t want it shaken. Look, you can see it’s got bits of ice in it and now it’s all watered down. Up means just pour it right from the bottle into a glass, go it?? Up, up!”

“Oh, you mean neat then, not straight up.” The asshole shut up. I got his Maker’s Mark neat with his ginger back and placed it in front of him and walked away. He tried to ignore me for the rest of the shift but he wasn’t really because it was me who was ignoring him. I got his second round and then gave him his check all the while thinking how I wanted to take that bottle of Maker’s Mark and neatly shove it straight up his ass.

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    • Michael K.

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