I’ve Been a Bartender for 12 Years: 9 Drinks That Instantly Make Me Dislike You

Let me be straight with you. After more than a decade standing behind a bar, I’ve poured thousands of drinks and met tens of thousands of people. Most of them? Wonderful humans. Some of them? A genuine test of my patience.

The truth is, it’s not always about the drink itself. It’s about what the drink says about you, how you order it, and whether or not you’ve given even a single thought to the person making it. Some orders are red flags. Some are just lazy. A few are straight-up insulting. Here’s my honest, unfiltered list. Brace yourself.

1. The Long Island Iced Tea – The Chaos Order

Let’s be real. Despite its appearance and mix of ingredients, bartenders never assume you’re ordering a Long Island Iced Tea for its looks or flavor. This cocktail is considered an instant red flag and a strong indicator that you’re probably not interested in having a nice, quiet night out. That’s not my personal opinion. That’s the collective wisdom of virtually every professional bartender I know.

A Long Island Iced Tea can have an alcohol content of around 22 percent, and that high proof regularly leads to overly inebriated and problematic bar patrons. Bartenders can also be held legally accountable for the actions of those they have overserved, so they’re always on the lookout for people whose goal seems to be getting as drunk as possible for the least amount of money.

Bar manager Abraham Flota of Prospect in San Francisco has described the Long Island Iced Tea as a drink that often sacrifices quality for potency, making it unbalanced and muddled, appealing mostly to those looking for a quick buzz. Honestly? He’s right. If that’s your move at 9 PM on a Friday, I’m already keeping one eye on you for the rest of the night.

2. The Mojito – Beautiful Drink, Terrible Timing

Mojitos are one of the least popular drinks for bartenders to make. According to bartender Lisa Millar-Jones, ordering a mojito is a sure-fire way to end up in a bartender’s bad books. And I say that with genuine affection for the drink itself. It’s a Cuban classic. It’s refreshing. It deserves respect.

It’s annoying to make mojitos if there isn’t an ice crusher at the venue. Smashing ice with a muddler during the happy hour rush takes forever. Think of it like asking a surgeon to perform a delicate procedure while the hospital is on fire. Possible? Sure. Appreciated? Absolutely not.

The mojito is the classic example of a multi-step cocktail that takes a while to prepare. If you work at an upscale cocktail bar, you expect to make drinks like this more often, but at the average bar job, these drinks always seem to be ordered when you are slammed. It’s not that bartenders mind mojitos – it’s more that these drinks slow down the flow, which is frustrating during a busy shift.

3. The Espresso Martini – The Post-Coffee Machine Order

As Colm Whelan, general manager of Desert 5 Spot in New York City, put it plainly: both the mojito and the espresso martini are universally hated by bartenders. Universally. That’s a strong word, and it’s earned. The espresso martini has become so impossibly trendy that it’s basically unavoidable at this point.

Espresso martini consumption increased from 2 percent to 15 percent in 2024. That explosion in popularity sounds exciting until you’re the one behind the bar making fifteen of them back-to-back. As Vinny Spatafore, bartender and beverage operations manager at Blue Bridge Hospitality, explained, the strong lingering espresso smell means bartenders have to wash the shaker extra carefully, which can be time-consuming.

Espresso martinis are surprisingly unpopular with bartenders. There is apparently nothing more annoying than a group coming in thirty minutes before closing, post-coffee machine clean, and ordering a round of bean-based drinks. I’ve lived that nightmare. More times than I care to count.

4. The Piña Colada – Please Find a Beach First

If you’re not on a beach in the sunshine, the question is why you’re drinking a piña colada. The main problem is that this drink requires its ingredients, including rum, coconut cream, and pineapple juice, to be blended. Beverage expert Zach Pace said plainly: “Please don’t make the bartender fire up a blender in the middle of a crazy service.”

Most frozen drinks are annoying to make. In summer, it’s understandable, but when the bar is overflowing with people, it’s definitely nice when customers take note and order something quick and easy. A blender at full throttle on a packed Friday night is not just loud. It’s a signal to every other customer that their wait just got longer. Because of you.

5. The Ramos Gin Fizz – A Ten-Minute Science Project

Perhaps the most loathed cocktail by bartenders, the Ramos Gin Fizz not only requires a lot of ingredients, including gin, lemon, lime, cream, egg white, orange blossom water, sugar, and soda, but it takes a lot of time and elbow grease to make. It is the cocktail equivalent of asking someone to build you a piece of furniture while fifteen other people are waiting for sandwiches.

A Ramos Gin Fizz can be deliciously frothy, light, and silky smooth, blending gin with citrus, cream, and egg whites. A well-made Ramos is a real treat, but it basically requires a whole chemistry experiment to bring its many ingredients together. It’s a labor-intensive cocktail that needs a lot of shaking so the cream and egg ingredients can emulsify.

It is a huge pain for a busy bartender. Tasty though it may be, it’s not an order that will make you very popular with bar staff. Save this one for a slow afternoon when the bar is nearly empty and you’ve been tipping well. That’s the unspoken rule.

6. The Vodka Soda – A Little Piece of the Soul Dies

Here’s the thing. A vodka soda isn’t hard to make. It takes maybe twelve seconds. That’s not why it’s on this list. It’s on this list because of what it communicates when you order it at a bar that clearly put real work into its menu. Co-founders of boutique bartending company Twist and Bitters say a little piece of their soul dies every time a customer orders a vodka soda, calling it quite possibly the most boring, flavorless, and mundane cocktail a person can order, comparing it to asking a chef to serve plain, un-toasted white bread for dinner.

It is not really about the drink being hard to make. It takes about twelve seconds. The issue is that ordering a vodka soda at a craft cocktail bar is a little like booking a table at a Michelin-starred restaurant and then asking for plain buttered toast. I think that comparison is perfect, honestly.

7. The “Bartender’s Choice” – A Setup for Failure

I know it sounds casual and fun. “Surprise me!” It does not feel that way from where I’m standing. According to Jackie Ocampo, owner of The Office Hour, requesting the bartender’s choice really causes such a delay in the flow and it feels like a setup for failure. She’s not wrong. There are dozens of possible drinks and zero information about what you actually like.

If the bartender actually stops to ask the customer what flavors they like and how sweet they prefer their drinks, it causes an even greater disruption to service, all while knowing there’s a high likelihood the guest may not actually like the final drink. Another reason this request enrages bartenders is because the customer might be fishing for a free drink, disliking whatever cocktail the bartender gives them and then asking for a refund or a replacement.

It’s a hard spot to be placed in. Ocampo recommends giving at least minimal direction, like a base spirit, a flavor profile, or a style of drink. Asking for something sweet with vodka is better than nothing, and it gives the bartender a more specific idea of what you like. That’s a small effort that makes a world of difference.

8. The Bloody Mary – Seven Ingredients of Pain

The biggest gripe bartenders have with a Bloody Mary is all the ingredients it takes to make one: vodka, tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce, black pepper, celery salt, Tabasco, and lemon juice. On top of that, there are now so many different riffs on this cocktail that no two orders ever seem to be the same. It’s basically a different meal every time someone orders one.

Bloody Marys have around seven ingredients, so they’re a huge pain to make per order. Most bars prep a batch in the morning for brunch service. We make the mix and garnishes in advance. When brunch is over, we usually don’t make another batch until the next morning. Walk in at 10 PM asking for a Bloody Mary and watch what happens to the energy behind that bar.

9. The Deconstructed Cocktail – Please Just Trust Me

This one is my personal nemesis. About once a week someone will ask a bartender to bring a deconstructed cocktail to the table for them to mix themselves. That is the number one pet peeve for experienced bartenders. It communicates something specific and it’s not flattering.

When you ask for all the ingredients separately, you may not know what really goes into making your favorite cocktail, and you’re also showing that you don’t trust the bartender to do their job. It’s a bit like walking into a tailor’s shop, picking out all the fabric yourself, and then sewing it at the table in front of them. Why are you even there?

The key, as one bar general manager put it, is to “read the room.” A great order at a fancy cocktail lounge can be a terrible choice at a dive bar, and vice versa. Twelve years behind this bar has taught me that the best customers share one quality: awareness. They know where they are. They know what they want. They treat the person making their drink like a fellow human being.

And they tip. In 2024, Salary.com reports the average bartender salary in the United States is around $23,620 per year. In some states, bartenders are paid an hourly wage as low as $2.13 per hour. In many states, service staff rarely receive an actual paycheck because nearly all their hourly income goes to taxes, so tips keep roofs over their heads and food on their tables. That’s the reality. Order whatever you want. Just be kind, be patient, and tip like you mean it.

What drink do you think says the most about a person the moment they order it? Drop your take in the comments – I genuinely want to know.