The Pour Decision

Tuesday nights at The Rusty Tap are slow, and I like it that way. I was forty-four years old, and I'd spent the last fifteen years pouring drinks at this same bar, and I had turned down the manager job twice. Once in 2016 and once in 2019. Both times the boss just laughed and bought me a beer, because he knew exactly what I was doing. I didn't want to be anybody's boss. I wanted to wipe down an oak bar, listen to the game on the radio, and go home.

I was doing exactly that, wiping down the bar around nine, when the door opened and a woman walked in. Mid-twenties maybe, I'd find out later she was twenty-eight, but that night I wasn't guessing ages. She was wearing one of those dark blazer things that women wear to offices, and she had a big purse, and she looked like she'd been having the worst day of her life. Her hair was half falling out of whatever she'd done to it in the morning.

She sat down at the bar right in front of me and put her purse on the bar top like she was setting down something heavy.

"Whiskey," she said. "Something decent. Neat."

"Long day?" I asked.

"You have no idea," she said. "I'm Rachel, by the way. I'm supposed to be meeting someone here, so don't let me scare you off. I just need a minute first."

And here's where my brain betrayed me. I heard "Rachel Ramsey." Not Rachel. Rachel Ramsey. And the word Ramsey, well, that's the name of the company that owns this bar. Tapright Hospitality Group, but the district office is Ramsey Holdings, or something like that, I never paid attention to the paperwork. What I heard was: this woman is the new regional manager, she's here to evaluate me, and her meeting is with my actual boss, Doug, who is going to walk in any minute and ask her how the bartending is.

I know how that sounds. You're probably thinking, who panics over a name? Me. I panic over a name. Fifteen years of avoiding responsibility will do that to a man.

So I did the dumbest thing I've done in a while, which is saying a lot, because I once set a dartboard on fire.

"Rachel Ramsey," I said. "Right, right. Welcome to The Rusty Tap. Can I start you with something special? We do a house pour here."

We did not do a house pour here. We had never done a house pour here. I had never made one in my life. But I figured a regional manager walks into bars all day, and a signature drink might be the thing that keeps me employed.

Her eyebrows went up. "A house pour? At a place called The Rusty Tap?"

"Sure," I said, already reaching for bottles. "It's, uh, it's an original."

I grabbed the rye, because she said whiskey, and then I added some sweet vermouth, because that's what fancy drinks have, and then a dash of bitters, and then, because I lost my mind completely, a splash of the cherry juice we use for Shirley Temples. I stirred it in a glass like I knew what I was doing and slid it over.

She took a sip. She coughed. I mean a real cough, the kind where she put her hand over her mouth and her eyes watered.

"Wow," she said, when she could talk. "That's, wow. That's strong."

"Yeah, it is," I said, like I had planned it. "It's bold."

"It tastes like a campfire fight," she said, and then, God help me, she took another sip. "You know what, though? I kind of love it. It tastes like my day feels."

Something in me unclenched a little. Then clenched right back up, because what if she was grading me the whole time?

"It needs something," I said. "Hang on."

That's when I saw the pickle jar. We keep a jar of pickles under the bar for the regulars who order them with their beer, and I don't know what possessed me. I guess I figured acid cuts alcohol, or something I half remembered from a cooking show. I dipped a bar spoon in and flicked a little brine into her glass.

"Are you putting pickle juice in my drink?" she asked. She wasn't mad. She sounded almost delighted.

"House secret," I said.

She sipped it. She went quiet. Then she looked at me like I'd handed her a winning lottery ticket.

"Okay, that's actually good. That's disgusting and it's actually good. What is that?"

"Pickle brine," I admitted. "Don't tell anybody."

"Okay, that's the best thing I've had all week, and I had a nineteen-dollar cocktail yesterday with a flower in it." She turned on her stool toward the room. "Everybody! This man makes a drink with pickle juice in it and it's amazing!"

Big mistake on her part. The back room regulars heard every word, and the loudest of them, a retired mailman named Vern who has held the same barstool since the Nixon administration, raised his glass and hollered.

"To the new boss!" Vern shouted. "The boss is in the house."

I want to be fair to Vern here. He calls everything "the boss." If the Blackhawks score, the Blackhawks are the boss. If the chili is good, the chili is the boss. He was cheering Rachel's drink, not her career. But I did not know that at the time.

What I knew at the time was: she knows. She knows I know she's the regional manager. She's letting me dig my own grave. Doug hired a plant to audit me.

I grabbed the tap handle to pour myself a calming beer, which is against every rule I've ever