Mock-Tale Cocktail

Do those cocktail designers really intend to mean anything when they christen their concotions with extremely fanciful and imaginative names? Or do they just borrow these visually and aurally appealing names from some tourist magazine and then randomly distribute them across their collection of mixed drinks that they believe taste differently from one another?I am inclined towards supporting the latter.

This past weekend, there was a "Caribbean" (visual imagery again) cocktail festival at Zero-G, and R and I were curious to see what this was all about. Add to that R's curiosity about cocktails.

We walked straight into a super-suave waiter at Zero-G who even allowed us to choose the corner we wanted to place ourselves at. Call it great customer care, or simply, empty seats in every corner. We decided to give the benefit of doubt to the waiter, and decided to tip him generously for his politeness. Till this point, everything was fine.

After we placed ourselves at seats of our choice, the same suave waiter decided to pay us a visit to help us decide on the cocktails that he found suited us best. Am not sure if it was a mix of Italian-Tamilian accent, or Spanish-Bihari, but listening to him speak English made me prepare myself for a not-so-perfect evening. And he gave us so many options that HE found it very difficult to choose what drinks we would be ordering. After lot of pondering, HE decided that Caribbean Delight was the best drink for a man, and Arabian Fantasy was the light mix best suited for a non-drinker like R.

Since we are used to the psuedo-democracy having stayed in India all our lives, we decided to agree to whatever he decided. And soon enough we had our drinks placed on our tables. Colorful and photogenic. I started sipping away at my Macho drink, fully expecting a strong "kick" at the end of it. And R, after deliberating whether she should even taste her drink, finaly succumbed to my persuasion.

Our first sips of our respective drinks took us by surprise. I was sipping on a mocktail, or almost. And she was feeling dizzy already. We decided to exchange sips from each other's drinks to make sure our complaints were genuine. And sure enough they were. As common sense would indicate, our drinks must have been exchanged. And so we swapped our drinks and continued till we emptied them.

Now for the finale. Our suave waiter, putting on his charmer avatar, came to our table for the check, and he couldnt resist asking us the obvious question.

" Did you enjoy your drinks sir? Madam?".

R politely suggested that he must have gotten our drinks exchanged, and that she almost fainted sipping the strong drink that he served her . I was also going to add my own piece after she finished. But Mr.Waiter suddenly stopped me, and with an annoyed expression, and a frightening frown on his face, he said

"Are you crazy? Those WERE your drinks that I served. And make no mistake about it".

Whoa! So much for being polite. We just nodded apologetically, and tipped him generously for enlightening us with his mixological knowledge. And silently decided never to vist the place again.

That night R made a vow never to touch alcohol again.
Some wounds cut deep. Real deep!