I don't drink alcohol so I don't know what a drink costs.
The setting is in a small, poor town near the Mexican border (so not expensive NYC). The guy buys 1 beer on tap and then buys a man and woman 1 bottle of beer and 1 martini, respectively.
If he slaps a $20 bill on the bar, would that cover those 3 drinks and a tip?
Probably. It has been years since I was in a bar, but the upscale restaurant I go to generally charges about $6 for something like a bourbon and ginger ale. Beer is cheaper. So in a low-cost area, there would probably be enough left over for a nice tip.
It should. Which side of the border will matter for cost, but 20 should cover that easy.
ETA: If on the US side, it may not cover a tip.
The setting is in a small, poor town near the Mexican border
Which side of the border?
On the south side of the border, they'll still probably take US$, but given the exchange rate, the $20 might be enough for a round for the whole house.
Some small town bars will server shots of hard liquors, but not mixed drinks.
Note: in the small town dive bars, even if they technically offer mixed drinks, finding bartenders that know how to make them properly is going to be very iffy. Good bartenders that can make proper cocktails correctly can get out of the small towns and find much better paying jobs in the bigger less poor towns and get out of the small poor town.
If you are going into deep dive bar territory, you can run into beer only joints. This can be a licensing issue. In some states, beer only bars don't need liquor licenses, other states offer a cheaper beer only bar license.
Based on your description of the locale, your pricing is fine - maybe even a little generous.
Yeah, but ordering a martini in a bar like that is a total crap shoot. Best case: the bartender looks at you funny and asks "what's a martini. Worst case, you get a quadruple shot of who knows what, served in a martini glass.
It's on the the U.S. side of the border in a tiny fictitious Arizona town in Cochise County.
Thanks, everyone. $20 it is.
The same as DS, I'd wonder much more about the Martini than the $20. A barkeep with a cocktail shaker in such a dive hole seems a strange scene to me.
Martini than the $20. A barkeep with a cocktail shaker in such a dive hole seems a strange scene to me.
A bartender who pulls out a shaker for a martini doesn't know what he/she is doing. A proper martini is stirred. Shaking will dilute it. This is likely why James Bond in the books/movies is constantly asking for a martini "shaken not stirred." 1. Stirring is the standard way of making a martini. 2. He's a spy on duty so he wants the drink diluted (and therefore weaker).
Only cocktails with a citrus component should be shaken.
I beg to differ. Shaking is about aeroating a drink. If you used cubed ice, dilution during shaking is minimal while chilling and aeration can be maximized. For citrus drinks, mulling is preferable. Same with mint or other aromatics.
A bartender who pulls out a shaker for a martini doesn't know what he/she is doing.
No matter whether a bartender stirs or shakes a martini, most probably he'll use a shaker either way.
The setting is in a small, poor town near the Mexican border (so not expensive NYC).
The OP did not define the bar as a dive. Small towns can have decent bars and a bartender should know how to prepare a wide variety of mixed drinks. They may have to look up how to make some of the infrequently requested drinks.
There are also bars in the US that don't serve mixed drinks like a martini; they limit themselves to shots of liquor and draft and bottled beer.
The OP did not define the bar as a dive.
No, he didn't. He also didn't write it's a decent bar in a small, poor town at the Mexican border. You have your impressions, I have mine, and only SB knows what kind of bar he wants to write about.
Small towns can have decent bars and a bartender should know how to prepare a wide variety of mixed drinks.
Now, SB didn't just say small town*, he said it was poor.
*He also didn't say what he means by small town, I've met people who think 20K pop is a small town, to me, small town means pop under 1k
I'm familiar with small towns. My mother grew up in a town with a population under 400, it had two bars, and yes, they were both dives. The nearest town with a pop over 1K is half an hour away.
Yes, a small town in an area with decent incomes can have decent bars. Any bar in a town that is both small and poor is more likely than not to be a dive.
I chose a martini because of the unique shape of a martini glass.
When the POV character enters the bar he sees a couple sitting at a table with a beer bottle in front of the guy and martini glass in front of the woman on it.
When the POV character enters the bar he sees a couple sitting at a table with a beer bottle in front of the guy and martini glass in front of the woman on it.
Depending on how you define small and poor, the way you described the town where the bar is located, that may not be realistic. One thing that would make it more realistic would be if the town in general, and the bar in particular was on/right off a major highway with a significant amount of through traffic.
Low income, low population density off major traffic areas are going to be the areas where you are most likely to encounter bars that are strictly beer and shots or beer only as there won't be reliable revenue from people outside the local area.
as there won't be reliable revenue from people outside the local area.
Hmmm, that depends.
I remember a restaurant and bar in a small town back then in the 70's where I lived for 7 years and I liked their steaks and the ambiente but the first two months there they had only two or three standard Scotch whiskies (I remember Johnnie Walker Red Label and Cutty Sark) while I preferred Chivas Regal. I coaxed them into adding Chivas Regal to their offering of Scotch.
They had a long board high on the wall behind the bar where they had a few exotic bottles stored. To reach up there they had to use a stepladder. After the first bottle of Chivas Regal was empty they put it up there. When I moved – after 7 years there – to another town this board was full of empty Chivas bottles. I visited them about once a year and on my third visit I emptied their last bottle of Chivas. My next visit was nearly one and a half years later and they had removed all those empty bottles and I couldn't get a glass of Chivas Regal.
So even in a bar where you wouldn't expect some sophisticated drink you may find one if it's the preferred drink of one of their regulars.
HM.
I remember a restaurant and bar in a small town back then in the 70's where I lived for 7 years
1. What do you call a small town. To me it's a population in hundreds, not thousands.
2. The OP's specification, wasn't just small town, it was small poor town. To me that says not only population in the hundreds, but a median income barely above or below the poverty line.
So even in a bar where you wouldn't expect some sophisticated drink you may find one if it's the preferred drink of one of their regulars.
The bar is still going to have a certain level of revenue/net profit to be able to do something like that. Something like that has costs beyond just the purchase of the product. Keeping inventory sitting around for a long time has costs, even if that cost is just taking up space that could be holding product that would sell at a higher volume.
1. What do you call a small town. To me it's a population in hundreds, not thousands.
2. The OP's specification, wasn't just small town, it was small poor town. To me that says not only population in the hundreds, but a median income barely above or below the poverty line.
I'm not specific about the size of the town or how poor it is. I leave that to the imagination of the reader. I introduce the town as:
Another change in the speed limit had him travelling down Main Street at thirty-five miles per hour. Cactus Point wasn't much of a town. Buildings needed painting and Main Street lacked the arts and craft shops many small towns in Arizona had. No one would confuse Cactus Point for a tourist stop.
And shortly after:
Too small to have its own police, Cactus Point relied on the county sheriff's deputies—and the local mechanic, Buck Ka-e-te-nay. The sheriff didn't have enough deputies to police the small town so, with the approval of Cactus Point's mayor, made Buck a volunteer deputy.
And then later I mention from the POV of a woman driving to the U.S. from Mexico:
The same would be true on the United States side. She had driven it often and it was always the same. All the cars would go one way and she'd go the other way to Cactus Point. At least Cactus Point had the mine, not that it produced much ore anymore.
Too small to have its own police
Again, to me this reinforces population in the hundreds not thousands.
Again, to me this reinforces population in the hundreds not thousands.
Fountain Hills, AZ does not have its own police. They rely on the county sheriff department. Their population is 25,000.
Fountain Hills, AZ does not have its own police. They rely on the county sheriff department. Their population is 25,000.
And I could name much smaller towns that do have their own police. And even larger towns that choose not to spend money on police, but that's a choice, not the inability to have police because they are too small.
Oh, and check this out:
https://www.nj.com/news/2017/12/new_jersey_smallest_towns_with_their_own_police_de.html
When you say too small to have their own police, this implies incapacity, not a choice to spend money on other things. That sets the population bar much lower than you imagine.
Cactus Point is an isolated fictitious town near a small fictitious border crossing into Mexico. The sheriff deputy is in another fictitious town that is called to Cactus Point when needed. Only Bisbee, where the elected sheriff is, is a real town (and only mentioned once). And the Mexican town on the other side of the border where the drug cartel is is also fictitious. Tucson was also mentioned because he flew into Tucson and drove to Cactus Point.
As the author, I build the world my story takes place in.
@Switch Blayde
Too small to have its own police
Again, to me this reinforces population in the hundreds not thousands.
I did some research when a question about small-town police forces came up here a while back, and determined that, in my home state, the smallest town with a municipal police force has a population around 250, and the largest town without one has a population around 5,300. The threshold below which municipal police forces are uncommon and above which not having one is uncommon seems to be about 2,500.
The towns smaller than ~2,500 which have one are all ski-resort towns with small permanent populations, but which are flush with tourist cash and have relatively large transient populations.
Of course, I'm in New England, not the Southwest, so mileage may vary.