Clearly Confused

As a bartender, I understand that there are people out there who drink and have no clue as to what it is that they are really drinking. Some people drink what their friends drink. Some people choose their beverages by what's being rapped or sung about on MTV. Some people will just have "whatever they're having."

I had a customer come in one time and didn't know what she wanted to drink. That's cool because that's what I, as a bartender, am behind the bar for. I am here to help my customers decide on something good to drink, for them. In order to get to that point, I have to ask a couple of questions. So this lady made it known that she wanted a scotch and asked me what kind of scotches I had. We had a few in-stock, some from three different geographic regions in Scotland. I asked her which region from Scotland she wanted her scotch to come from. She looked at me baffled. I don't think she knew anything about scotch. That was okay. We moved forward, or so I thought.

She asked me what kind of whiskey I had. I asked her if she wanted a Kentucky bourbon or a Tennessee whiskey because we have a number of different types of whiskeys in stock. Before I started rattling off my entire inventory of Bourbon, I needed to know which kind she preferred. Again, I got the deer caught in headlights look. Oh man.

Then she asked me what kind of Irish Whiskey I had. I told her two: Jamesons and Tullamore Dew. She ended up ordering a water and sipping off of her friend's Jameson on the rocks.

Sometimes, customers are clearly confused and there is nothing the bartender can do about it. I tried.