THE MOCKTAIL ALCHEMIST

THE DARE

“Shaina, you’re so boring. You don’t even drink and you are scared of breaking rules. How about a dare to spice things up?” said Meera, smirking.

Shaina’s friends relentlessly teased her as they lounged on the sunlit beach.

“I’m not boring!” Shaina shot back, her voice defensive but curious about what they had in mind.

“Prove it. Take over the bar for an hour tonight. If you can manage the crowd without messing up, we’ll admit defeat,” challenged Arjun, the group’s self-proclaimed dare king.

Shaina hesitated, her heart racing. “Are you crazy? I’ve never even been behind a bar!”

She realized what she was getting into and couldn’t help but imagine her father’s reaction.

Shaina Sen grew up in a middle-class household in Kolkata, where her family valued stability, tradition, and conventional success. Her father, Mahesh Sen, was a government officer—a man of routine who believed in hard work and respectability above all else. Her mother, Sunita Sen, was a homemaker, a quiet yet perceptive woman who often acted as the bridge between Shaina’s free-spirited nature and her father’s rigid expectations.

“Shaina, stop overthinking and just do it!” Arjun called out, shaking Shaina out of her thoughts.

Shaina was nervous and intrigued, but she finally accepted the dare.

That evening, with her friends cheering her on, Shaina stood awkwardly behind the bar. The bartender grinned as he handed over the space, clearly amused. “Good luck.”

Her first customer was a middle-aged man. He smiled kindly and said, “Surprise me.”

Shaina stared at the bottles and mixers, feeling the weight of every pair of eyes on her. And then something shifted. Her breathing steadied, and a strange calmness washed over her. She grabbed a few ingredients without thinking—mint, lime, soda, a hint of cucumber, and an unexpected dash of cardamom syrup. She topped it with a delicate mist of citrus essence she found nearby.

The man took a sip and froze. “This… this is incredible,” he said, his face lighting up.

Her friends gasped, but Shaina didn’t hear them. Her hands moved like they had a mind of their own, crafting drink after drink for the crowd. Each one was different, each one perfect. By the time the hour was up, she looked up to find the entire shack clapping for her.

“What just happened?” she whispered to herself, her hands trembling.