They can’t all be winners…
This is The Gibson, a bar that was recommended by several bartenders this week. I walked in and was the only customer, the bar stools looked really uncomfortable but the tables did too so I sat at the bar.
I chatted with the two Italian bartenders about how how warm (25c) it was out today and how thirsty I was and such things, I ordered a Negroni but the bartender started talking about the special drink they had on this week, it sounded cool so I ordered it, I knew as soon as I saw him piling stuff on stuff that this was not going to be good…. a few minutes later I received….
I mean no…. just…. no.
It was nearly impossible to drink, every millimetre of the glass was coated in something sticky, things were leaking out everywhere, I decided to take one for the team and dive in. The drink itself was… not bad so I tried to just chug it before any other humans came in and bore witness to this shame. I drank until there was just a half a glass of muck, no idea what I was supposed to do with the offal.
What I should have done next…. was leave.
Next up the bartender insisted I try another cocktail, he listed the ingredients and I caught the name of a smoky scotch, I explained that I don’t like smoky alcohol, he insisted it was very mild and that I would like it… I did not like it and could not drink it.
But I still didn’t leave, I asked the bartender for a Boulivardier, just a classic one. He started telling me about their version of it, which sounded awful, I put my foot down, a bit aggressively this time and asked for a classic, plain, Boulivardier.
This is what I got….
Yes… because all classic Boulivardiers have figs.
I picked all the crap (herbs and leaves and white chocolate and ginger and figs and cucumber and I don’t know what else) out and stacked it on a napkin, there was no way to drink this “drink” without making a huge mess so I did.
The drink was bad, really bad, I had to have water between each sip to rinse out the herbs from my teeth, unfortunately every single time I took a sip of water the barback came around and refilled my glass in the most annoying way, finally I left the full water glass in front of me and pulled my own water bottle out of my jacket and drank from that instead.
Then they started asking if I was happy, they continued asking if I was happy every 2 minutes until finally I had to leave without finishing this drink either.
I paid and told the bartender I didn’t understand why he was doing what he was doing to all the drinks, while I was sitting there other people (a terrible crowd of blowhards) had come in and I had seen that the drinks he was making me were about as simple as they came, most of the drinks had their own set of instructions. I asked him if he knew a place to get a proper drink nearby and left.
I won’t bother with my normal rankings, this place is a zero.
0
A Bit Gone 