Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Ask For A Drink On The Rocks

Ordering a drink on the rocks might sound cool or maybe even your style of having a strong one but after what the experts say and what a bartender said in an interview with Business Insider, it is better not to take chances with your health. You can probably ask for chilled water for your drink if you do change your mind after reading this.

Unhygienic Ice Storage

“Almost no restaurants or bars clean their ice machines as regularly as they’re supposed to,” the said one of the 30 bartenders interviewed by the publication. “If you have ever seen a bar person drag a glass through an ice tub with his bare hands or watched an employee drop the ice scoop back into an ice machine bin with the handle coming into contact with the ice, you have seen a norovirus outbreak waiting to happen,” writes Karen Constable, the certification manager of HACCP International in the Food Safety Magazine.

She also explains that the cause of norovirus is mainly the human fecal matter that due to poor handling is ingested by the customers through the ice that comes with the drinks. The main problem here is unwashed hands. “Most people don’t realize that not washing their hands could cause death,” Debra Huffman, a microbiologist with the University of South Florida, said in an interview with the NBC News. “They just don’t see the risk. It’s not going to smell funny. It’s not going to look funny. These are microscopic, and so you’re not going to see it. You wouldn’t know it happened.”