As someone who legally cannot consume alcohol, this post is a bit of my league (or age-bracket). Regardless, I found this morning’s Red Eye cover story to unusually shocking. Apparently, some are cracking down on mixed drinks that contain more than the “standard 1.5 oz” of liquor. Critics, also known as bar owners and prohibitionists, say that bartenders too frequently don’t use jiggers to measure out alcohol. Instead, they “free pour” and use their own experience and intuition. This trend decentralizes the drink-making process, letting bartenders pour customers more than the allotted amount. The concerns of over-pouring are two-fold: money and well-being. Bar owners are terrified that bartenders who top you off are rapidly depleting inventory. Social welfare experts are more concerned that those who receive strong drinks are getting too drunk.

To this, I have three responses/thoughts:

1. Bar owners are frightened that they can’t keep track of inventory? Bartenders work for tips, not for the measly wages they get from the bar. So it is in their best interest to keep customers happy. That’s why frequent, high-tipping customers often get a little extra or will sneak a drink on the house. So are they surprised by this? No, it’s part of the business. When you stop charging $10 for some soda and cheap gin, I (or my legal counterpart) will sympathize. Clubs and bars put huge markup on alcohol, so don’t expect public support that you are running out of Skol faster than you thought.

2. Prohibitionists are not-so-cleverly masking their actual argument. By pretending to be concerned about drinkers’ welfare, they hide their bold opposition to the notion of drinking. People don’t go into a night saying, “I must have 8 drinks tonight or my life will be incomplete”. They say, “I want to get a little intoxicated and enjoy myself”. If I (read: legal counterpart) am 3 drinks in and feel drunk, then I will stop. If I am 9 drinks in and hardly feel the effects, I might go in for another. All things (such as sleep, food, and tolerance) held equal, upping alcohol content will decrease total consumption. That’s why beer is served in 12 oz. bottles and liquor is served in 1.5 oz shots. Surely people of all sobrieties can recognize the difference.To simplify the social reasons for drinking down to alcohol per glass completely misses the point. Reactionaries have turned the ideological and rhetorical equivalent of Malibu into Everclear.

3. Do we have nothing better to do with our time than study this nonsense? People get all dressed up, wait on line for hours, and go to bars/clubs for the experience, NOT because they like dropping $15 to buy the cute girl in the black dress a cosmopolitan. I’m all for pragmatism, but the whole point of a bar is to not appear pragmatic. Bar goers enjoy not worrying about things like how exact the jigger’s measurements are. A crackdown on free-pouring dehumanizes the process and destroys what it means to go to a bar. Bars would generate more attendance (and profits) if they let this crap go.

Honestly, the social police is seriously killing my buzz.