Margarita tragedy

August 13

Our world is plagued with many tragedies — genocide, epidemics, calamitous hurricanes and tsunamis.
Getting Margarita splashed on you is not a tragedy. It’s funny. If the worst thing that happens to you in a day is having Margarita splashed on you, that’s a good day. A great one, in fact. Even if the Margarita gets on your handbag.
Someone was not aware of that last night at the Stone Rose in the Time Warner Center, where I was invited to witness and participate in the bar’s make-your-own-Margarita bottle service. For the price of a bottle, plus $40 for all-you-can-eat chips and guacamole and all-you-can-use mixers, and salt, and lime slices, a hostess will show your table how to make Margaritas, and then you can have at it.
A bottle of Patrón tequila would be $350, so the whole thing, before tax and tip, would be $390.
Personally, I don’t think you need to invest in Patrón to make a good Margarita, but I’m not the target market for bottle service. If I didn’t want bartenders to make my drinks for me, I’d stay at home.
Anyway, most of the people at my table seemed to write for the sort of socialite-fashion publications that target people who might like bottle service. One of them brought a date. The date was a newcomer to New York and he was trying to fit in, and doing so just fine, but when he was getting ready to shake his Margarita he forgot to put the little cap on the shaker and doused the humorless woman who brought him with unmixed tequila, Cointreau and house made sour mix of lime and simple syrup (theoretically you can have it made with agave nectar or even stevia if you ask, although I asked about stevia and they didn’t seem to know what I was talking about).
She didn’t like that. She excused herself, I would guess to go to the bathroom and clean herself up, and came back a few minutes later to inform her poor date that they were leaving.
She was really mad, especially, it seemed, because it got on her handbag.
Imagine the ruckus she’d raise if someone committed genocide on her.