Tennessee man orders Long Island iced tea. Then he threatens the bartender over his drink: ‘We have Pepsi’

“The customer is always right.” When you've worked for the public, you may have heard this expression. But one bartender challenged old adage after one of his patrons argued about the ingredients in a Long Island Iced Tea.

“I had an older man almost get into a knockdown, drag-out argument with me about his Long Island,” Tennessee-based bartender Corban Smith (@corban.rei.smith) begins his video, sitting in a car. “Came up, asked me what bourbons we have.”

What happened with this customer?

Immediately, the content creator was upfront with the customer, sharing that the flavors available were Jack, Jim, Seagram, and Jameson. Instead, the customer decided to opt for a Long Island. “

I'm making a Long Island, all four clears,” he says. “Sour Pepsi cause we have Pepsi. We don't have Coke.”

Once the bartender handed the customer his beverage, he instantly complained. “‘You put bourbon in here?'” he recalls the customer asking.

“‘No, we don't put bourbon on Long Island,'” he remembers replying.

However, the customer refused to believe him.

“‘That's maybe how you guys do a Long Island but that's how it's been at every bar I've worked at,'” he recalls him arguing. “‘I've been a bartender for almost 30 years. A Long Island is Bourbon and Coke.'”

But Smith argued right back, claiming, “That's a Bourbon and Coke. That's not a Long Island.” When the manager stopped by, they echoed the same answer as Smith.

“The customer is not always right,” he concluded.

‘Not on my shifts'

Smith's video garnered over 12,000 views and many concurred with both sentiment and the ingredients in a Long Island Iced Tea.

“The customer is not always right, but the trick is to address the issue without telling them they're wrong,” one viewer commented.

““Customers always right.' Not on my shifts,” a second echoed.

“I tell people ‘the customer is always right' is the one of the biggest lies ever told,” a third remarked.

“Adding bourbon to it makes it a Texas tea, but he just wanted a bourbon and Coke lol,” a fourth said.

“I was a bartender for over 30 years. LIs have ALWAYS been exactly as you explained. What the hell was HE making for 30 years???” a fifth stated.

Of course, this isn't the first (and won't likely be the last) time a customer was angry with a bartender about what's in a drink. Last month, a newly 21-year-old pat r on was shocked that green tea shots didn't contain green tea and tried to have it removed from their bill.

Does Long Island Iced Tea have bourbon?

If you're unfamiliar with mixology, that's OK. Despite this alcoholic beverage's name, it doesn't contain iced tea. Instead, it merely resembles the non-alcoholic counterpart.

According to Liquor, the ingredients to concoct this cocktail echo what Smith said: four spirits (i.e., what he called “clears” that include vodka, gin, white rum, and tequila), triple sec, lemon juice, and cola (though he opted for Pepsi). Therefore, there isn't any bourbon. However, the only recipe that mirrors a Long Island Iced Tea would be a Texas Tea, which adds bourbon.