`I think' and `I know' aren't the same

I don't remember exactly how they ended up sitting next to each other, but they did. In the busy ebb and flow of a bar, people often wander off and mingle and mix, which is why many bars won't run a cash tab. How are you supposed to keep track of a person you interacted with for 20 seconds amongst 200 people? Or 100 people? Or even 50 people?

A decanting emergency had called me away — and yes, there is such a thing. We may not be saving lives in a restaurant environment, but sometimes it feels that way, not from the service side, mind you, but often from the side of the serviced. And when I had returned, they were right next to each other.

“I need another Oaxacan mule,” said the tattooed guy in a slacker beard wearing all black.

I had already been through a 10-minute diatribe on the extra “colding” ability of copper from him.

“I don't know, let me find out” is the key to all wisdom.

“I'm a mixologist,” he had said. “So, I know.”

Which was an interesting thing to say, because any scientist will tell you that copper doesn't make things colder, it actually helps heat them up. And any chef will concur, telling you that because copper has that excellent heat-conducting ability, the very highest of high-end cookware is often made from it.

But he wasn't a chef or a scientist. He was a mixologist.

“You guys know what you should do?” he asked, unbidden, which wasn't all that unexpected from a mixologist.

I looked briefly at the full bar, the full restaurant, the full lobby and then at the guy not working on a Friday night, and recognized that we really needed his help. So I asked:

“What?”

“You should barrel-age your negronis. It makes them better.”

I shrugged and went back to waiting on all the people who figured we were kind of doing things the right way already.

But the bespectacled guy next to him perked up.

“Why do you say that?” he asked.

“It mellows it out,” said the bearded mixologist.

“What do you mean?” asked the guy in glasses.

“The air interacts with the molecules and softens them up.”

“Are you talking about oxidi