# I'll have a whiskey. And leave the bottle. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 1, 2008, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-have-a-whiskey-and-leave-the-bottle/435896 "2008-02-01T19:31:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-have-a-whiskey-and-leave-the-bottle/435896/1 "2008-02-01T19:31:50Z")
I see this in movies all the time, but never in real life. A character will be in a bar and ask for an entire bottle of hard liquor and a glass. Presumably he will sit and drink until most of bottle is gone, getting fairly wasted. And presumably he won’t get a full bottle to begin with, so either he’s paying for the entire bottle and getting a bad deal, or he’s getting a prorated price. How does that work? Does this ever actually happen, or is it a Hollywood construction? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-have-a-whiskey-and-leave-the-bottle/435896/2 "2008-02-01T19:40:15Z")
[QUOTE=tdn] I see this in movies all the time, but never in real life. A character will be in a bar and ask for an entire bottle of hard liquor and a glass. Presumably he will sit and drink until most of bottle is gone, getting fairly wasted. And presumably he won’t get a full bottle to begin with, so either he’s paying for the entire bottle and getting a bad deal, or he’s getting a prorated price. How does that work? Does this ever actually happen, or is it a Hollywood construction? [/QUOTE] I’ve done it before with a bottle of Jaeger - but the bartender was a friend. He charged me for ten shots. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-have-a-whiskey-and-leave-the-bottle/435896/3 "2008-02-01T19:42:45Z")
[From a few weeks ago.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=450206) ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-have-a-whiskey-and-leave-the-bottle/435896/4 "2008-02-01T19:51:05Z")
[QUOTE=pulykamell] [From a few weeks ago.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=450206) [/QUOTE] Excellent. Thanks. But I’ve seen it in more than just old west movies. In fact, the one that made me wonder about this is Rounders, which came out less than 10 years ago. In one scene, Martin Landau is sitting alone at a table with a bottle of gin. When Matt Damon sits down with him, Landau asks a waitress for another glass. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ea5d25/32.png) [@Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-have-a-whiskey-and-leave-the-bottle/435896/5 "2008-02-01T19:53:32Z")
I did it once with brandy. Got charged about what the bottle cost. What was in it for the bartender was that I tipped well and I was a 5-nights-a-week regular. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-have-a-whiskey-and-leave-the-bottle/435896/6 "2008-02-01T20:02:08Z")
[QUOTE=tdn] But I’ve seen it in more than just old west movies. In fact, the one that made me wonder about this is Rounders, which came out less than 10 years ago. In one scene, Martin Landau is sitting alone at a table with a bottle of gin. When Matt Damon sits down with him, Landau asks a waitress for another glass. [/QUOTE] The second post in the linked thread offers one possibility, and is specifically related to the present day, not old west. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-have-a-whiskey-and-leave-the-bottle/435896/7 "2008-02-01T20:10:14Z")
[QUOTE=pulykamell] The second post in the linked thread offers one possibility, and is specifically related to the present day, not old west. [/QUOTE] Yes it does. I can see that working. I’ve just never actually seen it myself. ---
**Author:** ![Santo\_Rugger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Santo\_Rugger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santo_Rugger)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-have-a-whiskey-and-leave-the-bottle/435896/8 "2008-02-01T20:13:24Z")
FWIW, my buddies and I opened a fifth of Jack Daniels this weekend, and promptly threw away the cap. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-have-a-whiskey-and-leave-the-bottle/435896/9 "2008-02-01T20:23:07Z")
“Bottle Service” is pretty typical in clubs these days. You get a bottle of booze, glassware, mixers and ice, and you pour yourself. You pay about $250 for a $20 bottle of vodka. Why people do this, I have no idea. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-have-a-whiskey-and-leave-the-bottle/435896/10 "2008-02-01T23:33:42Z")
When working in a foreign location for about a year, we Americans tried to go out as a group once a month or so. Inevitably the national distilled beverage of choice would always start to flow, and it didn’t take too long to ask how much they’d sell the bottle for versus the per shot price (shot is misleading; cognac glasses were used). Now at Sam’s Club there, a bottle of this stuff was about US$24. Shots were usually US$5-6. At the restaurant, we’d get the bottle for about $45, which was well worth the price, being a restaurant and all, and a 750mL bottle being about 17 shots. ---
**Author:** ![Omegaman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e480ec/32.png) [@Omegaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omegaman)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2008, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-have-a-whiskey-and-leave-the-bottle/435896/11 "2008-02-02T00:11:18Z")
[QUOTE=Lamar Mundane] “Bottle Service” is pretty typical in clubs these days. You get a bottle of booze, glassware, mixers and ice, and you pour yourself. You pay about $250 for a $20 bottle of vodka. Why people do this, I have no idea. [/QUOTE] Because they can. ---
**Author:** ![Mahna\_Mahna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47c2d/32.png) [@Mahna\_Mahna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahna_Mahna)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2008, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ill-have-a-whiskey-and-leave-the-bottle/435896/12 "2008-02-02T00:38:44Z")
[QUOTE=Lamar Mundane] “Bottle Service” is pretty typical in clubs these days. You get a bottle of booze, glassware, mixers and ice, and you pour yourself. You pay about $250 for a $20 bottle of vodka. Why people do this, I have no idea. [/QUOTE] Because bottle service will usually buy you a table or booth in the VIP area, or at the very least, in a slightly more private (and less crowded) section of the club. I don’t personally do bottle service when going out, but have been out with friends who get it as a professional perk… it’s not a bad deal when you compare the cost of getting a bottle of vodka with all the extras vs. the cost of buying individual mixed drinks, especially if splitting the $250 between a group. However, I can’t see most respectable 'tenders leaving a full bottle of hard liquor for a single customer, seeing as this would translate to the customer getting drunk well beyond the point where they should’ve been cut off if they’d been ordering a drink at a time.