A New Jersey bartender received an order for a sidecar. Then she realized the customer didn’t really know what cocktail he was ordering.
Alix Macolino (@captain_ahabb) posted a video that received more than 22,000 views. In it, she says that she receives a number of strange and unusual drink substitutions. But a customer insisting that “Grand Marnier is a cognac” had her wondering whether she was really on Earth.
Macolino received an order for a sidecar. But she quickly realized that the man who was ordering it didn’t “know” what the drink really contained.
“He said, ‘Just put Grand Marnier in it,’” Macolino recalls. She asked whether he wanted Hennessy or Rémy Martin as his cognac, and he reiterated that he wanted “Grand Marnier.”
Traditionally, Grand Marnier is a cognac-and-orange-flavored liqueur. It isn’t just straight “cognac.” Macolino explains in the comment section that without a regular cognac, a drink with Grand Marnier would be “sooo sweet.”
For that reason, Macolino says she told the man she’d trade out the triple sec in the drink for Grand Marnier, but she still needed to know what cognac he wanted. She says he told her that “Grand Marnier is a Cognac,” which led to a back-and-forth debate.
She says she tried to ask whether the man was ordering Grand Marnier with lemon juice, but he insisted that he was ordering a sidecar. It was just a sidecar with “Grand Marnier” as the cognac, he said, according to Macolino.
Finally, another bartender stepped in and explained exactly what Macolino was saying. The man picked out a cognac for his drink and ordered his cocktail.
What Is A Sidecar?
A sidecar is a sour cocktail that typically has brandy, orange liqueur, and lemon juice in it.
The drink is attributed to multiple famous bartenders of the ‘20s and ‘30s. David Embury, the author of “The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks,” said the cocktail originated from a Parisian bistro. Spruce Eats says that Embury’s account likely describes Harry’s New York Bar in Paris, which was run by Harry MacElhone, a then-famous mixologist. MacElhone, however, credited the drink to Pat MacGarry, a famous bartender in London.
Today, sidecars are incredibly popular. They appear on drink menus all across the United States and are famous enough to be ordered off-menu at many cocktail bars.
Other Drink Order Debacles
Outside of the confusion surrounding the sidecar, Macolino says that she ran into other issues with customer drink orders.
Macolino says she made a woman a Grey Goose martini, sans vermouth upon request. The woman told Macolino that something was off with the martini, despite it including only two simple ingredients—olive juice and vodka. So she ordered a “cosmo” with “no triple sec or lime juice.”
“Are you two walking on the planet for the first time today?” Macolino asks.
Bartenders weighed in the comments section to share the strange drink orders they have received.
One viewer said, “I had someone order a whiskey sour no sour. people are stupid.”
Then another added, “This guy ordered a Manhattan. He tasted it and said I don’t like this. I said what’s wrong with it? He’s like I don’t know I’ll just have a gin and orange juice. Dude clearly didn’t know what’s in a Manhattan cause why would you switch from whiskey to gin???”
@captain_ahabb I’m doing my best here #customeroftheday #customerstories #customerservice #serviceindustry #bartender
BroBible reached out to Macolino via email for comment.