A Cocktail Of The Week You Won't See Here

At BaT, we've published more than 50 cocktail recipes over the past year. So far, there are no reports that any of them almost killed somebody. A bar in Columbia, S.C., can't say the same:

A woman and her sister had to go to the hospital after a bartender mistakenly dipped their martini glasses in a caustic substance used to clean the restaurant's fryer.

The bartender ran out of sugar Saturday night at Doc's Gumbo Grille downtown and asked a dishwasher that speaks mainly Spanish for more sugar. The employee gave the bartender a box containing a white substance that looked like sugar, but it was the cleaner instead, restaurant owner Doug Goolsby said.

"I hate that anybody gets hospitalized at your place of business. Mistakes happen, and it's regrettable," said Goolsby, who added the business has moved the cleaner to the basement.

Lesson 1: If you allow your Mexican dishwasher to restock the bar, make sure your barkeeps know two phrases: "Azucar por favor" ("Sugar, please.") and "No deseo el veneno" ("I don't want the poison.).

Lesson 2: We're pretty sure cleaning supplies should not be near the fryer. Fried foods may kill you -- but this should not be an instantaneous death, but a slow demise.

Lesson 3: If your bartender poisons two patrons, try to come up with a better quote than: "I hate that anybody gets hospitalized at your place of business." I rarely counsel anyone to say "no comment," but maybe in this case, it would have been for the best. Yeah, if you own a restaurant, I'd say people landing in the hospital after a visit would rank right up there with a late-night fire and a cook with tuberculosis -- even if it is named Doc's.

At least the two poisoned customers are going to live ... at least long enough to become the new owners of the Gumbo Grille and fire a certain bartender.