“This one’s on me” are maybe the 4 greatest phrases one can hear at a bar, particularly contemplating the rising costs of cocktails today. Whether or not you’re within the business, a daily who’s racked up a lofty tab, or simply occur to be properly preferred by the bartender, getting comped for a drink is a telltale signal that your presence on the watering gap is appreciated. Even when it’s not a bona fide cocktail that’s getting knocked off the invoice, a free shot isn’t a foul comfort prize.

Sadly, the social tango that comes with receiving free drinks can fluctuate from bar to bar, and there’s by no means a assure that it’s going to occur. In spite of everything, it is a enterprise that’s notoriously arduous through which to make a revenue. Nevertheless, there may be one pretty surefire strategy to get a free shot. Admittedly, it’s a little bit bizarre, and it entails one specific bottle that each respectable bar has.

So far as we all know, the trick comes from LeNell Camacho Santa Ana, proprietor of LeNell’s Beverage Boutique in Birmingham, Ala., and was relayed to VinePair by way of bartender KJ Williams of Brooklyn’s Lengthy Island Bar. LeNell was a giant determine within the NYC bar scene within the early aughts. Not due to any chops behind the stick, however because of the curated choice of hard-to-find bottles she stocked at her now shuttered Pink Hook store, LeNell’s. She additionally gained appreciable fame for her short-lived Pink Hook Rye, a small batch of whiskeys that now fetch as much as six figures on the secondary market.

“I used to be at a seminar at Tales of the Cocktail in 2008 known as ‘Amor Amari,’ and the panel audio system had been Eric Seed, the late Daniel Hyatt, and LeNell Smothers (now Camacho Santa Ana),” Williams says. “In some unspecified time in the future LeNell stated, ‘Right here’s a very good tip for all you bartenders. You need to get a free shot of alcohol? Go as much as a bartender and ask them for an entire ounce of Angostura bitters.’”

That’s proper. It sounds gross — and relying on which approach your palate swings, it’s — however since bitters are usually distributed in dashes, most bars merely don’t value out pictures of Ango of their POS techniques. “They are going to watch you drink it out of curiosity and never know the right way to cost you for it,” Williams says. “In the end, they’ll simply let you will have it without cost as a result of it’s such an oddity that they acquired to observe.”

The bartender may suppose you’re loopy, however some could be flat-out impressed. In some circles, a 1-ounce pour of Ango is a bartender’s handshake shot. Hell, there’s even a bar in Wisconsin that’s been slinging Angostura pictures for many years.

Bitters are potent in taste, however they’re additionally a time-honored tincture and treatment for nausea, hiccups, and even stopping malaria resulting from their distinctive botanical invoice. Plus, at 44.7 p.c ABV, they arrive in at an identical power to most properly whiskeys. They’re form of a win-win.

So far as we’re involved, gulping down a full ounce of an 89 proof bittering agent is a decent flex. In the identical breath, although, whoever stated “one of the best issues in life are free” in all probability by no means did a shot of Ango.