I have a quick question for pro-bartenders. Is it normal to order off menu cocktails or does this make me a fussy customer?
A while back in March, I was at a Mexican restaurant with friends. This Mexican restaurant had a full bar and a cocktail menu that listed cocktails other than margaritas. I try to gauge what I order based on what they have listed on their menu and the kind of establishment it is. The way I think about it is that cocktail menus are there to sell the cocktails they serve as well as set expectations for what they can do. They had proper mojitos, aperol spritz, I see Hendricks and other good gins on their back bar. We were seated at a table. I ordered a mojito from menu to start, both out of consideration for my table and for the server taking the order. For my second drink I ordered an aperol negroni with a double of Hendricks since a lot of bars around here don't seem to have campari these days. I also stuck to reordering the same drink the rest of the night to make things easier on the server. Ever since, at least one of my friends never lets me hear the end of this both for ordering off menu and for speccing out my drink. He equates what I did with going to a restaurant and ordering an entree that isn't on their menu. Usually for the trouble, I'll tip 25-30%. My friend thinks I'm basically a nightmare customer. The situation was made to look worse because our server was nowhere to be found most of the night except for when you could see him visibly flirting with some guy at the end of the bar. None of my friends are cocktail people so I'm guessing this seems odd for that reason alone, other than I was also waiting on condiments and another one of my friends couldn't even eat his food for a good five minutes because he had no silverware. Are my friends making a big deal out of this and if not, how far out of line am I?