Bartenders, say hello to life-threatening food allergies

[Alex]

When even one drink could kill you (Washington Post article)

 

 

The recipe, scribbled above the bar at the Brooklyn club, looked delicious — mezcal muddled with basil and lime, and a dash of club soda. But the first sip raised a familiar itch in my throat. The bartender had not rinsed the milk, an ingredient in a previous order, from the shaker, which meant my lips would now be swollen for hours.

 

Given food allergies like mine, $8 wasted and a few hives is a lucky night; an unlucky one involves an ambulance.

 

[cdh]

When one drink could kill you, you really should take control and only drink bevs you mix yourself.

[Martin Fisher]

Interesting article.

I know one thing for sure, If I had a life-threatening food allergy I sure as heck wouldn't depend on busy restaurant or bar staff to protect me.

Even if they claim to be accommodating, people make mistakes.

This demands personal responsibility!

[bostonapothecary]

I had worried about this not with milk but when I started making a very large series of drinks with nut milks and nut milk "heavy creams" where I had concentrated the fat. I was doing cashew, peanut, almond, pistachio, walnut, etc. I covered pretty much everything. I was concerned with allergies, and to have it fit into the bar I devised using special jiggers for these drinks (the plastic angled OXO instead of the stainless version) and dedicated shakers that would not be washed until the end of the night (because I didn't want residual milk in the crappy bar "glass washer" which only drains a third of the water for every wash. Nothing was ever really put to the test because where I work we were only really making three of these drinks a night. I wondered what people were doing that used orgeat and what incidents that had had.

[Anna N]

Any adult with a life-threatening allergy to common food stuffs who is willing to eat or drink in public venues really ought to take up Russian roulette -- the odds are better. Even the most understanding and accommodating of us have little understanding of how complex the task it is to keep a food or beverage area free of allergens. Yes if you have a severe allergy to nuts or dairy or gluten or whatever it does limit your life options but not so much as when you consider the alternative.

[Alex]

I'm rather distressed by some of the comments I'm reading here already, not to mention the ones in the WaPo article. I mean, let's not play "blame the victim" here (and she doesn't see herself as a victim; see the quote below). She is taking personal responsibility and she does acknowledge that people make mistakes. Her main contention is that the bar part of a restaurant usually receives much less attention and training about this issue than the food part -- and that it shouldn't.

 

This post to the Comments section, by "StarM" at 11:16 a.m. EST today, sums things up nicely for me:

 

 

Good gravy, people. The lack of compassion is stunning, as is the rush to judgment. 
 
The author is not whining about her predicament; she is simply raising awareness of a FoH issue at many bars and restaurants that many people do have to deal with food allergies which does impact their choice of alcoholic beverages. And, I would reckon that most bartenders and service staff do not think of food allergies in the realm of the bar and the constant cross-contamination of shakers, stirrers, muddlers, etc. 
 
The Bloody Mary example is perfect. Chances are, if she had received that shrimp garnished drink at a table, she would have sent it back saying she was allergic to the garnish ingredients, and the server would have walked back around the corner and tossed the garnish in the trash and told her it was a fresh drink without being aware of the shrimp and cheese proteins that were still in the tomato juice. It's like (sort of) mixing the caff and decaf coffee pots and thinking no one is the wiser. Yet to a caffeine sensitive diner, there is a difference. Staff training and awareness is key. 
 
She is the one who ultimately bears the risk. And she knows that. If you've read her book or heard an interview, she does not play the victim card or expect the world to conform to fit her. She simply advocates for the knowledge of what it is she is actually consuming. Which isn't bad for all of us to know.

[SylviaLovegren]

People's reactions to this are interesting.  My take was that she hadn't considered that there might be milk residue involved when she ordered a completely non-dairy drink and was alerting others to this possibility.   I would have made that same assumption but, for me, it wouldn't have been a problem.  Still, I don't see why this makes people angry.    Perhaps all bars should be off-limits to people with dairy allergies.  But maybe some bartender might like to make a "kosher" bar.  Why is this upsetting?

 

As to dinner parties with people with varying food aversions -- we have a friend who has to go to the hospital if she eats gluten, another friend who carries an epi-pen for the accidental ingestion of nuts/peanuts, and a number of vegetarian friends.  It can be very challenging if they are all invited together!  But I wouldn't be serving my favorite Greek beef stew with walnuts on top of pasta, that's for sure. 

[Arey]

Should bartenders be rinsing out their shakers between mixing drinks? I should think that would be standard procedure. I would think they would have several shakers, and give the one most recently used a quick rinse and left to drain on a rack while taking a dry off the rack. This is just supposition since I haven't been in a bar for years, or even eaten out for several years. This is because of my abhorrence of drinking and driving, which is equaled only by my abhorrence of dining and not drinking.