Experience and Quality, Squares and Rectangles

One of the perks of sitting at the bar is the theater—watching the bartender build something for you in real time.

Last night I ordered a quite expensive Manhattan only to find it was pre-mixed. The bartender shook a few dashes of bitters into my glass, poured in my Manhattan from an unmarked glass bottle, plopped in a cherry and called it a day.

No seeing the bottles of spirits, no mixing glass, no stirring, no straining, no theater. 

I felt a bit robbed. 

I took a sip.
Delicious.
But anticlimactic. 

While the drink was worth what I paid for it, the experience was not. 

It’s the square–rectangle relationship.

While all great experiences require a high degree of quality, quality alone doesn’t guarantee a great experience.

Note: Sitting at the bar I watched the bartender build dozens of drinks from scratch but none of them were for me, so while entertaining, the action didn’t quite connect. It's like watching a cooking show and seeing the chef finish prepping a cake, pop it in the oven, then immediately pull a different finished cake out of the other oven. You definitely baked a cake, but you didn't bake it for me.