Okay, look: Everyone loves a bit of citrus in the right cocktail or beer. It makes it come alive, adds a bit of bite, and, when the citrus is served as a wedge, allows you to control the drink’s acidity. Squeeze a little or squeeze a lot, the final product’s flavor is up to the consumer.
That is, as long as your bartender isn’t actively subverting your happiness by cutting your citrus into a wheel. Here, let’s go over the many complicated ways to cut limes for drinks (hint: there are only two):
INCORRECT
CORRECT
For those bartenders doing it wrong, I ask the following:
What’s wrong with you? Are you the first bartender in history who has never tried to squeeze citrus? Do you think slicing wheels on a lime is easier than simply quartering it (and then quartering it again)? Do you enjoy watching your patrons struggle to match both loose ends of the lime, fruitlessly (yes, that’s intentional) trying to squeeze the wheel into itself? Or do you, as Alfred notes, “just want to watch the world burn”?
Who hurt you? What soulless ghoul, what specter of the nightlife, what spirit-crushing loneliness has left you so bereft of compassion? Of collective care for your fellow man? Of common decency?
You, my former friend, hold all the power to bestow or withhold the ethereal joys of citrus infusion, yet you so cavalierly adorn my cup with this insult. What have I done to deserve this? And how does this even happen? Are all of your limes like this? Or is there a special time during sidework that is devoted to undermining our civilization so insidiously?
I presume you’ve seen wedges, right? You know, they’re like wheels, but useful. Wheel you please stop cutting limes this way? It’s a wedge issue.
