Pubs & Bars Serving More Ice Then Drink

Volvic

But if you consider how many drinks you'd buy in a bar in a lifetime and then how much drink you ACTUALLY get, it is something to complain about.

I paid £7 for a double malibu and coke a few months ago in a London bar and in alll honesty, I think I had 3 mouthfuls beneath all the ice. When I pay as much as £7 for a drink, I expect to actually have liquid in the glass.

RadoJo

Saucepot wrote: »

The reason you often get ice as defacto is that spirits are often watered down. If you order a whisky and drink it neat you will notice, if they give it you with ice you will not. Spirits and pubs is a bad idea, you are better off steering clear of pubs. A club whether con, lab, reform, wmc or rugger tend to be better. I only drink beer in pubs and proper pubs with proper beer.

As for getting a full pint. The shocking truth is here
http://www.camra.org.uk/page.aspx?o=fullpints

Join up to campaign for a full pint ! (even if you are a smooth bitter drinking nancy or lager top drinking woofter that doesn't like proper cask beer)

I would be very surprised if many places were getting away with watering down their spirits - do you have any evidence for this?

Badger_Lady

I'm always offered

I usually ask for just one ice cube - usually enough! But I've never been forcibly given excess ice. Mind you, I don't drink coke.

Saucepot

RadoJo wrote: »

I would be very surprised if many places were getting away with watering down their spirits - do you have any evidence for this?

Shed loads. Buying spirits in public bars is a mugs game.

In addition, unfortunatly for real ale fans, it is simple to add a few pints of water to an ale cask (or even the slops tray) but impossible to a beer keg.

The only way to water down a keg is a complex dispensing method of adding water to the dispensing pipe, that is frankly too difficult to regulate the mix, meaning watered down keg beer is so rare as to be none existant.

The way they stiff you on beer is the froth being part of the pint. That means they get more pints out of a keg.

Adulterating cask beer is rare, thankfully, to do with the delicate nature of keeping it in tip top condition without top pressure, and the fact that the cask ale customers are a discerning lot, more than the difficulty of adding water to it.

As spirits are more often than not mixed and serving with ice is the norm, watering spirits and/or substituting brands is common practice.

When a landord is forced to buy from the brewer at prices larger than the supermarket, don't be surprised if the vodka in the smirnoff bottle is tesco value. with tap water.

adouglasmhor

They experimented with line glasses in Glasgow in the 80s, where you had an oversized glss with a line where the pint was, the froth had to be above this line (which said 1 pint to line!), but it was unsuccessful as retards kept moaning the glass was not full even though the pint was to the line not to the rim. Moronic little toads, I even had to eject a few from places for causing trouble about it.

RadoJo

But is there any evidence? I would have thought that this nation of stalwart drinkers would be in uproar if they though they were getting watered down spirits, and have certainly never seen it in any of the pubs I have worked in, but I have never see supermarket spirits being used as the cash and carry prices are invariably cheaper. I am just surprised that you seem to have experienced it so often, but then I am not really a pub person - the ones near me are too full of Hitler-haired tight-jeaned teens, crap music, or unpleasant fighting types for my liking. Is there some definitive test as to whether you have a pure shot?

gunsandbanjos

I've worked in bars and restaurants for 8 years and i have never come across people watering down spirits! Plus it would be really obvious especially in whiskey etc as it would separate if you put water in it

snu

In Budapest all the restaurants and bars we went to seemed to keep their glasses frozen... so they would rinse with water and then place in a freezer so the glass had a light film of ice over it... nice and refreshing.
They didn't seem to put any ice in our drinks and the drink was nice and cold.
My absolute hate is when you go to a UK pub and order a glass of Rose wine or a pint of Magners... and they try and put ice in it...

mountainofdebt

I always thought it was illegal to put ice in a glass unless the customer asked for it as this is effectively watering down the drink.

Rex_Mundi

Saucepot wrote: »

When a landord is forced to buy from the brewer at prices larger than the supermarket, don't be surprised if the vodka in the smirnoff bottle is tesco value. with tap water.

I do not agree with this at all.

Years ago, as a part time job to get to know a new area I moved into. I did a bit of barwork after my dayjob (I figured it was the easiest way to meet women in a new area...........and I was right!!!!!!!)

One session, I was the only barman (left in charge), and two people came to the bar and identified themselves as customs and excise. They ordered six singles of four different spirits (they specified no water, and no ice). They then measured each glass in their own test tube type of thing. They took away all the samples in their bottles for testing in their own labs. They told me they would check that each spirit was correct for the bottle (Bells is Bells, Smirnoff is Smirnoff, etc).

The only thing they told me to do was take down two optics (out of about 25), that didn't have the measure (in ML) printed on the front (apparently this is against the law).

This is not the only time I've heard of this happening (though I only saw it once). Every Landlord should know that this can happen at any time to them. It still continues today.

I don't believe that pubs watering down spirits is a big problem.