The TikTok Old Fashioned Scam That Really Isn't A Scam At All
Compared to beer and wine, cocktails are growing in popularity, according to a survey done by Gordon's, Tanqueray, and Baileys (via the Independent). Per the survey, about 2,000 adults in the United Kingdom were polled, and the results showed that about a fifth of them preferred cocktails rather than wine and beer. Apparently, the first instance of the word "cocktail" was in a newspaper from Britain in March 1798, per VinePair. It wasn't until the 1800s that people actually began mixing cocktails in the United States, and they mainly consisted of spirits, water, sugar, and bitters, according to MasterClass.
There are a lot of different kinds of cocktails, and while the original cocktail only had a few ingredients, many bartenders started playing around with different ingredients, such as fresh fruit juice, curaçao, and more. A few popular cocktails include the Old Fashioned, the French 75, the Highball, the Mamie Taylor, the Morning Glory Fizz, and the Rob Roy (via Chivas). The great thing about all types of cocktails is that they all have a unique recipe that makes them special.
Flash forward to today, and one person is calling out an alleged scam regarding an Old Fashioned drink. However, their claim isn't as solid as they think. Here's what happened.
Old Fashioneds are made with a specific type of ice
Recently, TikTok user @sona_visavadia brought attention to an alleged scam involving an Old Fashioned drink. The TikTok in question has the text "London bars are a scam" written at the top, with the caption "Guess how much it cost." In the video, the original poster appears to have ordered an Old Fashioned, and the glass is just about filled to the brim. However, the original poster then reaches into the glass and pulls a huge cube of ice out of the glass, revealing the true amount of liquor in the glass to be about only halfway.
Pretty much every comment under that video disagreed with the original poster, saying that they weren't getting scammed at all."Actually that bartender did a good job, [they] used one cube so your drink won't water down as quick [sic]," one person commented. Interestingly enough, the comments under the aforementioned TikTok couldn't be closer to the truth.
Old Fashioned drinks do indeed have a specific way of being made, from the amount of liquor used to the type of ice used. Old Fashioneds are made with rye whiskey or bourbon whiskey, water, Angostura bitters, and a type of sweetener, per MasterClass. The type of ice used for an Old Fashioned is typically a large cube or sphere instead of smaller cubes of ice because the larger ice will melt slower and dilute the drink a lot less as opposed to small cubes.