Walk up to a bar with confidence, but know this: the person on the other side of the counter forms an opinion about you the moment you open your mouth. According to surveys, roughly four in five bartenders admit they will change their opinion of a customer based on their drink order. That’s not a knock on bartenders – it’s just human nature, pattern recognition after years of watching thousands of orders come and go.
Most of the time, the judgment is harmless, a quiet mental note filed somewhere between making change and wiping down the rail. Often it’s a positive assessment, but not always – and even when it’s not, most bartenders will tell you it’s all in good fun. Still, a handful of orders carry real reputational weight behind the bar. Here are the nine that consistently earn a raised eyebrow.
1. The Appletini
1. The Appletini (Image Credits: Unsplash)
Some drinks are simply embarrassing to order, and few cocktails are more likely to draw a raised eyebrow than the appletini – an unnaturally colored, tooth-rottingly sweet drink that many behind the bar find displeasing. The issue goes beyond taste preference. As one beverage director put it, the biggest bone many bartenders have to pick with the appletini is the fact that it's "not a real martini."
According to one survey of bartenders, a whopping 49 percent said they have a negative opinion of customers who ask for the appletini – by far the highest negative response of any drink studied. There are actually several ways to make one, with the simplest version involving vodka and apple juice, apple cider, or apple pucker, while riffs might add vermouth or liqueur for sweetness. However you build it, the bartender's verdict tends to stay the same.
2. The Long Island Iced Tea
2. The Long Island Iced Tea (Image Credits: Unsplash)
Easily one of the most reviled cocktails out there, a Long Island Iced Tea is widely considered a poor choice for both your sake and your bartender's. For one thing, the drink contains a puzzling number of ingredients – gin, vodka, white rum, tequila, and triple sec, with lemon juice, simple syrup, and a splash of cola for flavor. Making it during a busy rush is nobody's idea of a good time.
The other reason many bartenders dislike Long Island iced teas is that they're typically a drink for those who don't really care what their drink tastes like – the whole point being that when you blend enough strongly-flavored ingredients, you can't really identify them by taste. More of a college-party challenge than a legitimate cocktail, it has undoubtedly invoked a handful of sloppy nights and regretful morning-afters.
3. The Vodka Soda
3. The Vodka Soda (Image Credits: Pexels)
Ordering a vodka soda won't insult a bartender the way some drinks will, but it does send a message – and not a particularly flattering one. The 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" – like asking a chef to serve a piece of plain, un-toasted white bread for dinner.
The drink's popularity isn't going anywhere. About 38 percent of consumers actively seek low-calorie or low-sugar cocktails, and the vodka soda has long been the default answer to that. Bartenders understand why people order it. They just find it deeply uninspiring to make, night after night, at every bar in every city.
4. Frozen Cocktails (Especially Outside a Beach Bar)
4. Frozen Cocktails (Especially Outside a Beach Bar) (Image Credits: Unsplash)
Most frozen cocktails bear little resemblance to their original, unfrozen forms, which might explain why roughly 39 percent of bartenders think negatively of people who order them. Consider the daiquiri: while a strawberry daiquiri is essentially a strawberry smoothie spiked with rum, a classic daiquiri simply consists of rum shaken with sugar and lime. The difference matters to people who take their craft seriously.
Context plays a huge role here. The key, as one 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. Ordering a frozen strawberry daiquiri at a craft cocktail bar tends to signal that the drinker and the venue may not have found each other by the right route.
5. The Bloody Mary (After Brunch Hours)
5. The Bloody Mary (After Brunch Hours) (Image Credits: Pixabay)
Nobody disputes the Bloody Mary's charm during a lazy weekend brunch. The problem arises when someone orders one at 9 p.m. on a Friday. Its status as maybe the quintessential brunch cocktail is precisely why bartenders tend to abhor anyone who orders one after brunch hours – and according to one Reddit thread, after a certain hour the Bloody Mary should be renamed the "bartender's nightmare."
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. With its many ingredients, it takes more than the average amount of time to prepare, and bartenders are usually only set up to take on this challenge during brunch hours – after that, the ingredients have been put away, and pulling them back together for one drink is genuinely inconvenient.
6. The White Russian
6. The White Russian (Image Credits: Unsplash)
The Dude made it iconic. Bartenders, somewhat less reverently, made it infamous. One bartender with more than two decades of experience in New York City notes that ordering a White Russian at any time signals a lack of social awareness, pointing out that dulling an alcoholic spirit with milk or cream interferes with the integrity of the spirit. That may sound harsh, but it's a widely shared sentiment behind the bar.
Milk and cream aren't exactly known for staying fresh over long periods of time, so a bartender may prefer a customer avoid ordering this drink to reduce the risk they'll end up sick. Since profit margins for restaurants are often razor-thin, any sunk cost on rarely used ingredients can take a toll – so if you're unsure how often a bar is slinging White Russians, doing your bartender a favor and ordering something else is generally advised.
7. "Surprise Me" or "Make It Strong"
7. "Surprise Me" or "Make It Strong" (Image Credits: Pexels)
This isn't exactly a drink order – it's the absence of one, and bartenders find it just as frustrating. Asking for a free drink or whistling to get a bartender's attention were by far the most annoying customer behaviors according to bartenders surveyed, with asking them to either "surprise you" or "make it strong" being close runners-up. Both phrases shift the labor and the accountability entirely onto the person behind the bar.
Bartenders aren't mind readers, and crafting a random drink takes time away from serving others efficiently. One suggestion from industry pros is to come in with some specifics, like "I love whiskey and citrus flavors" or "I usually drink vodka sodas but want to try something new." That gives a bartender something to work with – and a much better chance of making you happy.
8. The Espresso Martini (At the Wrong Bar)
8. The Espresso Martini (At the Wrong Bar) (Image Credits: Unsplash)
The espresso martini has had a genuinely remarkable run. The espresso martini saw its ordering growth increase by roughly 50 percent in the lead-up to 2024, becoming one of the most dominant cocktail trends in recent years. Bartenders at dedicated cocktail lounges are well-equipped for it. The problem is that most bars are not.
Most bars are not equipped with a decent espresso machine and the coffee might be old and sitting for a long time behind the bar. The classic recipe calls for a freshly pulled espresso shot combined with vodka, Kahlua, and simple syrup, shaken over ice – and lots of bars have their own variations that swap cold brew or chilled drip coffee for the actual espresso. Ordering the latest thing that's cool on TikTok at the wrong venue will almost certainly get you judged by the bartender.
9. The "Whatever's Viral on TikTok" Order
9. The "Whatever's Viral on TikTok" Order (Image Credits: Pixabay)
Social media has reshaped bar culture in ways that aren't always comfortable for the people actually making the drinks. TikTok can alter the drinks landscape in an instant – if a cocktail goes viral among the app's enormous user base, bartenders get flooded with requests for whatever the trend is, even if nobody knew it existed the week before. Bartenders typically tolerate such shenanigans with grace and aplomb, since they're professionals. But that doesn't mean they have to like whatever the mighty TikTok algorithm foists upon their universe.
Into the scene walks a customer asking for something they saw on TikTok that the bar does not serve, with custom substitutions, preferably in under a minute. Bartenders urge customers to be mindful of the type of establishment they're at before getting into more complicated cocktails. If a bartender says they don't know how to make your drink, they might not have the time to learn on the spot – and when ordering at a local dive bar or stadium's beer stand, venturing into craft mixology tends to go badly for everyone.
The Honest Takeaway
The Honest Takeaway (Image Credits: Unsplash)
Most bartenders are professionals first. Some within the industry have pushed back against the whole culture of judgment, pointing out that it's extremely easy to lose oneself in a competitive environment, and that the job is to guide, not judge. The snap assessments described here are largely reflex, not malice – the same kind of quiet shorthand that forms in any high-traffic service job.
The practical upside of knowing all this is simple: a little awareness goes a long way. Read the bar you're in, know roughly what you want, and if you're genuinely unsure, ask for guidance rather than demanding a surprise. A bartender who feels respected tends to make better drinks. That seems like a fair exchange for everyone involved.