9 Ways Bartenders Can Spike You, If They're Asked To

Some political activism from the bars of Berlin

I am not trying to cause a moral panic about men being spiked in bars. I remember when the press pushed the idea that there was an epidemic of needle-spiking in nightclubs in the UK. When I first heard the rumours I thought people were being pricked with needles on dance floors. It never crossed my mind that someone could be injected with a drug unawares while standing at a bar or dancing in a nightclub. But this is what newspapers were reporting, lefty newspapers and conservative alike. This came at the peak of mounting concern about drink spiking in the UK. Campaigns were organised by students and women boycotted clubs. The mass media built this moral panic about spiking and then pushed the country into a state of alarm at an epidemic of injections. The Home Secretary at the time, Priti Patel, demanded that the police investigate. Academics were needed to point out the obvious. Prolonged pressure needs to be applied to the plunger in the syringe, and of course, the prick of a needle hurts. No one is likely to linger at the bar oblivious to a needle in their back long enough to allow this to happen. One academic quipped that the NKVD [the Russian secret police] would be needed to incapacitate someone with a needle, and even then, its would demonstrate amazing skill to get the dosage right.

There was, to be sure, a huge increase in reports of drink spiking. The number of Police reported drink spiking incidents had gone up from around 150 in 2006, to 500-600 in 2007. However, academics do not place much value on self-assessment, anything conspicuous in that data must be supported with further evidence. The problem is that not many studies have analysed the toxicology reports of self-reporting cases at A&E units. The few studies that have, do not reveal evidence of spiking. So, for example, a study from 2007 took 75 samples from suspected spiking cases. Unexpected drugs, that is, drugs not reported by the patient, were found in 8 of the cases; three of them were cannabis; three were MDMA. Only one case of GHB and one of Benzodiazepines were found. The study concluded that the use of sedatives to spike drinks “may not be as common as reported in the mainstream media”. It needs to be said that the speed at which GHB is metabolised poses problems as to how, and above all how quickly, drugs are tested for. This problem needs to be taken seriously. Nevertheless, it seems probable that young adults might find it easier to report being spiked to their parents or police, than admit they have been taking drugs recreationally.

I will return to this topic in the next post on ‘Moral Outrage and Coercion: the bogus discourse of toxicity’. The moral outrage created around toxic masculinity does nothing to solve the problem of the various socially unwanted behaviours of certain men. When I say ‘certain men’ I acknowledge, there is quite a few. When I say ‘socially unwanted’ I acknowledge that this does not adequately express the kind of disgust that some of these behaviours incite. The problem is that this disgust sells papers and acts as clickbait, and disgust is a call to action. I have mentioned elsewhere that women are turning the toxic behaviour of men against men. This does not mean that women are spiking the men who spike women’s drink, because, in truth, there are very few cases of a female student’s drink being spiked. The behaviour I describe below is also rare. However, I dare say it is no less common than the spiking of women’s drinks.  

The abuse is not directed at men who have drugged women, harassed women, or assaulted women. It is directed at men who have only allegedly cheated on a girlfriend, or simply rejected the wrong woman. The victim could be someone who has refused to drug men or rejected the political beliefs of the group. Soon after arriving in Berlin, before I had a girlfriend I was warned about a group of women targeting British men in Berlin. I was not being warned that if I cheat on my girlfriend, this could happen to me to. This group was already targeting British men back in 2012. It took years for this to catch up with me. I have failed myself but my ethical orientation on the world was still strong enough to say no to women when I was in a relationship, and no to women while I was working in the bar. They asked if I would be up for spiking or spoiling someone’s drink. I said no, and they went on to tell me what they are capable of, and what gets done to British men in Berlin. They told me about how men are drugged, some are robbed, some are sexually assaulted, some are made to think they have a child they will never see. They told me how men are spiked in bars. I would live out a lot of this, and I would take notes.

This Substack must tell a dark story, but I am trying to provide some contrast to what I have to report. I have had some fun writing this. Enjoy.

1.      “The Darling and the Machine”

Many pubs have the counter-top card machine at the bar. It is often set in the middle of the bar, often opposite from the touchscreen where the bartenders ping the request for payment over to the machine. The beer taps will be further down the bar, left or right of the card machine. There are many possible lay outs for a bar, but long story short, the business of pouring the pint will often occur out of the line of sight from a customer paying at the card machine. Even if the card machine is situated next to the beer tap you point to, the bartender can move to a different tap without causing suspicion. That other tap could, of course, be pouring a better pint that night. You must imagine a bit of play acting with all these ploys. You need appreciate the ego boost of the bartender if he or she feels that they have fooled you with a bit of play acting. The bartender’s egotism is your friend, in fact, because it might be the only give away. The insider information I am offering is a poisoned chalice in this regard. Once you realise this ploy has been used against you, the cynicism that can set in might ruin some genuinely friendly chat, mistrusting the kind of warmth that is the hallmark of a great pub. It can be hard to tell the difference at times. So, for example, I have watched on as a woman pulled this ploy on me in a sports bar on Great Western Road, Glasgow. This is not the good ole days when I was just an innocent outgoing guy, this is since I returned from Berlin persona non grata. She welcomed me with a real warm welcome as I approached the bar. The kind of outgoing public friendliness that suggested she thought the best of you, and of her role as bartender. It was a disarming welcome, without being flirty. But I had looked around the bar for a seat beforehand and she had spotted me then. Even at the time, I wish she wouldn’t have. I knew there would be time for her and her workmates, now grinning on from the kitchen in the back as I ordered, to spit in my glass. After she took my order she turned around, and actually verbalised that she was going to, ‘put that through to the card machine now while I get that pint for you’. After tapping my order onto the touchscreen till she spun around, turned the machine to me, and said sweetly, ‘there you go darling’. That did feel sweet, but I knew from Berlin to look up to catch a glimpse of the pint glass before the beer dropped in. I only just managed to mind you. She was quick. As soon as I dipped my head down to the card machine to direct my bank card into the slot, she yanked the pint glass up from just under the bar top, pulling the tap handle before the pint was present to take the beer. By the time the beer was flowing the pint was placed perfectly underneath the tap. She made fine, quick work of that, ‘the darling’.

2.      “Taps Aff!... ”

In bars in Glasgow, a bartender might tell you that ‘the tap’s aff’. Do not confuse this with ‘taps aff!”. When a bartender tells you ‘the tap’s aff’, she might make this clear in the din of the bar by placing a plastic cup over the tap of that beer you just ordered. This act, of seeming spontaneity, would strike anyone as curiously inhospitable. Spotting the other beer taps fitted down the bar, your curiosity will likely lead you to request a pint from one of those taps, just to see what her next move might be. Right enough… ‘the taps are aff’. She points out the plethora of cans in the fridge cabinet. Even if you were not after one of those craft beers you decide that, in this atmosphere, you are grateful for canned beer. It is a safer bet isn’t it. As chance would have it, there is Tennants- you are saved! Or so your average punter would think, if he had not been forewarned by a bartender in Berlin, that it is in fact possible to open a can, and with sleight of hand, drop something in that scallop shaped hole at the top of the tin.

3.      “Factoring in”

There is another reason not to be fool hardy with cans of beer. Yes, they can be surreptitiously spiked while being opened, but it seems possible to me that they can be spiked before they get to the fridge. I cannot be as sure about this as with other things I am claiming in this Substack. Alcohol intensifies the effect of whatever they are spiking me with. So, it is possible that whatever I have left in my system from being spiked that day, or the day before, reacts with the alcohol I consume from a can of beer. It has been a long time since I was confident that the drug is completely out of my system. I am trying to be as sceptically vigorous as I can with the conclusions I am drawing. However, I fear a batch of beer cans can be spiked at the canning plant and punted out the back door. It might be that the production process rules this out, but the human element in the process makes me think that someone might be doing feminists a favour. The only thing worth adding, is the way people can nudge you in the direction of ordering this or that beer, this or that can or bottle. So, no, I am not saying that bars are stocked with spiked drinks, but there are means to direct people to a particular drink that is spiked, other means than saying ‘taps off!’. This brings me to ‘The Nudge’.

4.      “The Nudge”

Technically speaking, the bartender telling you all the taps are off is already a form of nudging. Nudge theory develops ways to construct what can be called ‘architectures of choice’. That is, you construct situations or environments to guide people to make certain choices in that environment. This is not necessarily unethical. The author of the book Nudge, Richard Thaler, talks of ‘libertarian paternalism’. Basically, you can help people make the right choices for them, by say, directing them to the product that best suites them. Of course, this strategy can be used by nefarious forces. In the literature no one speaks of tactics because the research is not concerned with manipulating people, the research is concerned with cognitive biases. The research makes us aware of the ways in which our judgement can be consistently skewed. It is mostly business models and political ideologies that have turned this research to ethically questionable goals. When the bartender tells you that all the tapped beer is off (‘taps are off!’), she is ‘narrowing the field’, which is one common nudge tactic. Another cognitive bias is ‘the anchoring effect’, namely, that the first piece of information you hear effects your choice making, whether the information is directly relevant to your decision or not. Most examples of the anchoring effect are scenarios in which people end up paying more for something after being first presented with a higher number. That is, they pay more than other people who are presented a relatively lower number and who end up paying less. This is why Substack offers people the ‘founding members’ option. Not because they expect to make money from people opting into that, but because having seen the larger cost of founding membership that some people pay, people see the basic membership as a modest choice. The expensive option anchors the decision to opt for a paid membership. However, the anchoring effect need not be restricted to quantitative examples. The first thing you see shapes what you are likely to value and select. This can be employed as a tactic at a bar. Simply getting someone to order in front of the target, while he waits to order his own beer, can have a surprising power of influence over the target’s choice of beer. Other cognitive biases can be used in conjunction with the anchoring bias. The man ordering in front of you might look like the kind of person who has good taste in beer conforming to the ‘representative heuristic bias’. That is, you make your choice on what seems to fit our stereotype because it seems more common that this kind of guy makes tasteful gastronomic choices. Alternatively, the man in front might have some chat with the bar staff to demonstrate to the target that he is a local to the bar and that he knows the crowd, and you might want to fit in with the locals, thus falling foul to the ‘bandwagon effect’, another cognitive bias. You might think that this cannot work as well as I am suggesting because most men, perhaps the reader included, have their favoured pint. This is a fair point. However, I am talking of someone who is being targeted. One of the things you lose when targeted in this way, is many of the little happy productive habits that make life run smoothly, because all these habits make you too predictable. So, our victim in all these cases is more prone to the nudge effect because as he waits to order, he is probably telling himself that it is too predictable to order his favourite beer again already. He is always asking himself, what random beer shall I pick tonight.

I know that feminists do not just employ the anchoring effect in bars. Even the seemingly benign and safe bet of a buffet can be reconstructed towards an architecture of choice. I am thinking of an internationally renowned company that has large stores famous for their canteen-like dining at affordable prices on the bottom floor. All the processes for preparing the food are no doubt universalized across the different stores in different countries, and the kitchens seem open to public view. It seems a safe place to dine, even if you have upset a political group. However, a group of 2 or 3 people can slot themselves in the que in front of the target and order something, the tomato sauce to go with veggie balls say, in front of him. The tray of this sauce is only there for the victim. The person behind the victim in the que is only there to film the ploy on camera and post the footage up on the group chat. Footage of the target falling victim to the nudge strategy at the buffet.

5.      “Cameo for the cops”

One of the feminist activists can make a cameo appearance in the restaurant to drug the target with her own hands. Indeed, this might be the deal breaker with a restaurant where no one wants to risk being caught in the act. The political activist can get herself in the uniform and behind the counter for the hour that she needs to present the target with his just desert. That can happen in the canteen of that major superstore I mentioned above, but it can happen in little independent restaurants like it happened to me in Berlin. I mean quite literally,  ‘I got my desert’. This must be the dish for spiking in Berlin because I was told about this exact dish two years prior to my incident. It is a chocolate brownie and ice cream that is ordered to share among two people. The person sharing the brownie can therefore take part in the drugging of his or her companion and enjoy the superiority over him, and afterwards he can participate in the gaslighting when his companion complains about being unwell. It is not the brownie itself that is spiked, it is rather the decoration round the side of the plate that has nuts and icing powder. The person sharing the brownie with the target knows how the plate will be set down on the table between them and where to avoid the decorative outer rim of the plate. There is no point going back there afterwards to complain if you have been spiked or found something disgusting in the food. The women who served you the food, perhaps the only women who was working that shift, does not work there. If you were to call the police and describe the culprit, there will be no person fitting that description on the rota, or on the books, at the restaurant. By the way, I have not caused myself the embarrassment of calling the police or even making a complaint, I was told all about this in Berlin beforehand.

6.      “Spinne-spucke”

There is no logical reason to give this one a German name. I mean, this is not even something I experienced in Berlin, it is certainly not somehow germane to their style there. I am simply a sucker for alliteration and the onomatopoeia of ‘Spucke’  with ‘spit’. There is also the spinning [spinnen] of a web of deceit to catch your prey, and the many other connotations that come with the image of a spider [Spinne].  It’s worth mentioning that the the word ‘Spinne’ can also refer to a ‘scrawny spiteful women’, but more generally it also connotes a ‘nut job’, ie. ‘du spinst!’ [‘your trippin’!, or ‘you must be crazy!’]. I am sure there are just as many scrawny and spiteful men in the world and, in fact, this ploy for spiking people is generally practiced by men. It’s not much of a secret though, so I will be brief. Perhaps you do not know though, because you are a likable person who has lived a charmed life. Honestly, I remember how that feels. If this is the case, you are forgiven for thinking that when a pint glass is spun on its side against the vertical palm of a bartender, that it is just a bit of fun, or that the barman just loves himself. Even if you were worried that someone might spike you, your fears might be allayed watching this glass turn upside down a couple of times during its rotation round the palm of the bartender. Surely, if the glass was not empty in the first place, it would be after being spun around. But of course, there is the centrifugal force to contend with. Whatever is in the pint glass is thrown away from the palm of the hand and into the bottom of the glass while the bottom of the glass spins round the outside of the palm. The speed at which the bartender pulls the glass up and spins it around, before slipping it under the tap with one movement, prevents anyone seeing if anything is in the glass.

7.      “Lowering the Bar”

The shape of some bars means that there is no spot where the staff can tamper with anything. So they have to be inventive to put something in a glass without the victim anyone seeing. The bartender will claim that the Wi-Fi is not working and so the portable card machine is not working either. This means the customer will be paying cash. When the customer goes to pay with cash it will likely be with a banknote because if cash is becoming rare, even fewer people go about with coins in their pocket. The bartender apologises for not having enough change in the till, so he must take some notes from the till to collect change. He kneels underneath the bar to get some change for the till. At this point he spits in a glass, the same type of glass as the one you received your drink in, anticipating you will order the same drink again. If you do order the same, the barman now has the glass ready. This seems to me conspicuously laborious bar work. This ploy might be better directed to making the victim think he will receive a spoiled glass from the barman, when in fact no glass was spoiled. If the bar man covers the bottom of the glass with his hand as he quickly sets it under the tap, the victim will be unable to tell. Unless, of course, he asks to see. Either way, he will not likely make friends or frequent that bar.

All these methods can be used to make someone think that their drink has been spoiled or spiked, when in fact it has not been. Whether the drink is really spoiled or not, the group can keep the pressure on their victims this way. In so doing the group let him know that they are foreclosing possibilities for social encounters and for making a connection with people, because he knows he will be surveyed there in that pub, if not spiked. However, this ruse is only effective when the victim has already experienced being spiked a couple of times, or he has had the experience that his drink has been spoiled. It is easy to imagine how women he might date or befriend are only there to spike him and contaminate his food.

8. “the pill of a lemon”

This one’s nice and simple. A small pill, or half a pill, is placed in the straw, depending on how thick the straw is and when the victim sips his Gin and Tonic he believes he has sucked up the pip of the lemon through the straw. I would guess that the straw is already holding some of the beavarage and the half pill is placed into the bottom of the straw, so that there is plenty of liquid in the mouth when the pill pings the back of mouth. Thus, the pill is washed away down the throat when the vicitm suddenly stops drinking and instinctively gets rid of the liquid in its mouth.

9. “the beginners jugging”

A young lovely girl makes mistakes and misshears while she takes your order. She appologises a few times, saying it’s her mistake. She makes sure to tell you twice or more that she has just started the job. After she has taken your order, she brings over a jug of water and glasses, but unfortunately, because she’s soo sweet and daft as a brush, she brings a small jug and glasses enough for only half the table. She gives the men the glasses and says to the woman directly that she will be right back with a glass for her and more water. This personal touch nudges the men to pour their water into their glases and the, not so sweet and innocent waitress, brings a jug and glass especially for the woman. This way, the men are targeted, not doubting for a moment that the waitress is silly niave sweet girl.

In future articles I will explain how they can direct men to a flat rental where he will be drugged, so that he might be persistently drugged at home without necessarily knowing it, or knowing how.

If you have any of your own stories of harassment or abuse, please share.