Texas Customer Orders An Old Fashioned. Then The Bartender Loses 3 Fingers: ‘Are You Kidding Me?’

You might not think of bartending as a dangerous job. You would be wrong.

In fact, bartenders can face a whole host of problems while on the job. Sometimes, these challenges involve dealing with difficult customers—problematic individuals who can occasionally get violent.

Other times, injuries can come from the job itself. Carrying heavy boxes of bottles, slipping on spilled ice, slicing oneself on broken glass—these are all things that can and do happen at bars. There are also specific health ailments that tend to affect bartenders.

For example, bartenders are particularly prone to a skin infection called paronychia. It’s so common that it’s developed its own mixologist-related name: bar rot. Making matters worse is the fact that less than 15% of bartenders have employer-sponsored health insurance.

Now, a bartender is sharing her own tale of an on-the-job injury. The culprit? Old fashioneds.

Why Are Old Fashioneds Dangerous For Bartenders?

In a video with over 2,000 views, Texas-based bartender Maddie (@th3cracken) explains why she dislikes preparing old fashioneds. According to her, customers ordering the drink caused her to injure three of her fingers.

“Off my second ever bartending shift, right? I get in. What’s the first drinks? I get three old fashioneds,” she recalls. “You want to know how that ended? I’m missing the tip of my finger and a knuckle. They’re from the old fashioned.”

For context, an old fashioned is made with whiskey, sugar, bitters, ice, and a strip of orange peel. It’s the last part that seems to be the source of the problems.

“My problem that I have with him is the peeling of the orange. I cannot get that orange peeled any day,” Maddie explains. “I don’t know if it’s our peelers; I don’t know if it’s the orange—I don’t know what the problem is.”

Maddie notes that, after slicing her hand while peeling, she had to “deeply sanitize” all of the equipment.

While her third injury was the result of her finger getting slammed in a door, old fashioneds are still the target of her ire.

“I was fingerless by the end of the shift,” she declares. “Fingerless.”

Is This A Common Bartending Injury?

While there are steps bartenders can take to prevent this from happening, Maddie is certainly not the first bartender to claim their fingers were injured due to fruit peeling.

In one Reddit post, a bartender shows their finger in a splint. The title states that they cut the tip of their finger off with a fruit peeler, dubbing the experience a “[rite] of passage.”

In another post, a bartender says that, despite being warned for years about the dangers of the fruit peeler, they still managed to take “a huge, circular chunk out of my pinky fingernail,” which they claimed did not stop bleeding for hours.

Other threads on the topic share similarly horrific stories from peeler injuries.

How Can You Prevent This?

In order to leave the bar with all of your fingers intact, you should practice proper peeler technique.

First, one may want to consider switching tools. In an interview with VinePair, bartender and author Jeffrey Morgenthaler notes that many bars use Y-peelers in order to create their garnishes. However, they weren’t designed for this—Y-peelers were instead intended for veggies with thin skin, such as potatoes.

Instead, Morgenthaler recommends using a cheese slicer. These are meant to cut thick, wide strips—perfect for a bartender’s garnish.

While it may sound unconventional, Morgenthaler says there have been zero injuries in his bar in the two years since the switch.

Second, one should not move the peeler when using it. Instead, one should find a comfortable position with the peeler, then move the fruit underneath it. That way, if one loses their grip, the fruit may fall—but the user’s hands are more likely to stay intact.

Finally, one can make sure that their peeler is adequately sharp. A dull blade is a dangerous blade. If your peeler is too full, you will find yourself applying more pressure to get it to move. This will, in turn, make it more likely that the blade or fruit will slip out of your hand and increase your likelihood of an injury.

BroBible reached out to Maddie via email and Instagram direct message.