Cocktail Straws

It’s been a long time since I posted anything here. And this is probably going to be the silliest post yet.

Whenever I go out for a drink, I always wonder why bartenders give 2 straws with cocktails, and why sometimes they don’t give one at all. I decided to investigate, and compile all the possible (conspiracy) theories here. Clearly, I have nothing better to do with my life.

Let’s start with some numbers, because otherwise it’s not fun:

• 5000 years old: that’s how old the first straw is. It was found in a Sumerian tomb. It was quite a fancy straw to boot: gold with lapis lazuli inlay.
• 1888: year when Marvin Stone patented the modern paper drinking straw, which was made wounding waxed paper to form a tube
• 13: the number of different types of straws in existence (at least according to Wikipedia), including candy straws, color-changing straws and flavor straws.
• 500 million: number of straws used in the US every day, according to BeStrawFree. That’s 1.6 straws per citizen. And that’s also a lot.
• 10 000$: cost a straw-making machine. I’m actually tempted to go buy one.

The way straws function is usually misunderstood. When you are drinking, you suck the air out of the straw, decreasing pressure inside the tube and therefore allowing the liquid to be pushed up inside the straw by the higher surrounding air pressure. It is the air outside that is actually pushing the liquid up, not you pulling it. So, in outer space, where there is no air pressure, a straw would not work.

With physics out of the way, let’s go back to the original question: why do bartenders give us straws to put in our drinks? Here are some of the possible answers.

• Enhance flavor: the first possible explanation is that straws help the liquid aerate, meaning that CO2 is absorbed, bringing out the aromas and smells of the drink. In addition, drinking through a straw makes it easier to taste better, because it maximised the flow of liquid to your palate. I do not think this is right, because otherwise we would be drinking wine with straws. Which we do not do.
• Make it easier to drink: drinks that have a lot of ice, especially crushed ice, can be hard to drink. Your teeth freeze and the ice cubes are bothersome. Making the liquid flow up the straw warms it and makes it better-tasting. But if this were true, they would give you straws when ordering whisky on the rocks. Which does not happen.
• The bartender actually uses the straw to get a sip himself: I have seen this happen once, but I don’t think this could be a reasonable explanation. At least, I sincerely hope it is not!
• Lipstick: bartenders are lazy and do not want to spend 15 minutes trying to clean a used glass after some girl has smeared her lipstick all over it. But then, why do they give straws to men as well?
• Just to stir: to keep you from leaving your hands idling about, what best alternative than to give you a small straw to stir your cocktail and see all the ice cubes happily swirling around? If this was the reason, couldn’t the bartender just stir the cocktail himself before giving it to you? And couldn’t he give you a simple stick instead of a straw?

Now on to the second question: why are we sometimes given 2 straws, not just one?

• Share your drink: giving you an additional straw allows you to generously share your drink with a friend. Too bad you are given 2 straws even when you are sitting at the bar alone. And if you are not comfortable sharing the same straw or glass with a friend, I doubt you would be willing to share your drink at all.
• Making you drink slower: since you cannot close your mouth snuggly around two straws, you are left with a small gap in between and part of your “suction power” will be lost inspiring air instead of liquid when you drink. This of course would not apply if you were to put the straws to each corner of your mouth. But then you would look like an idiot. This does not sound like a convincing explanation, and empirical tests carried by yours truly prove it wrong.
• It is actually a secret code: one straw means alcoholic drink, two mean non-alcoholic, for example. Or you might have a different number of straws to distinguish between similar cocktails. I guess this one depends on the bar, but so far I have not witnessed any instance when this answer turns out to be true.
• Making you drink faster: getting more surface area means that you are able to suck in more liquid. As long as your suction power is strong enough, you will be more efficient in drinking through 2 straws. If they gave you 10 though, you would probably not be able to effectively drink though all of them at once. Making you drink faster, the theory goes, would convince you to order another drink. In fact, I’ve noticed that while cocktails tend to come with double straws, soft drinks usually only come with one straw. It could be plausible that the bar, which makes a higher margin on alcoholic drinks, would want you to drink faster. If that were true though, and if all the bar wanted was for you to finish your drink faster, it would be better for them to not give you a straw at all. After all, drinking directly from the glass is faster than sucking up liquid through a straw. In addition, it is not true that if you finish your drink sooner you’ll be inclined to order a second one. Most likely, if you order a second glass, you would have done so regardless of how fast (or slow) you had drank your first one.

Inconclusive conclusion:

• Straws are completely useless: they might be enjoyable, and sometimes useful for hospital patients who cannot sit upright to sip a drink. Otherwise, we would probably be better off not wasting plastic making these silly drinking tubes.
• The 2-straws-with-cocktail remains a mystery: I’ll probably ask a bartender directly next time and see if he/she can come up with a satisfying answer. Until that time, the “mystery” will remain, since none of the hypothesis I made seems to stand up to criticism.

Thanks for reading this far, hope this didn’t bore you to tears. And now go do something more productive with your life :3