Each week, we answer the questions you’re too shy (or drunk) to ask. This week’s question comes from Angela:This has always bothered me, why is it OK for bartenders to touch all the fruit and olives they put in your drinks with their bare hands? I drink gin and tonics mostly, no lime. I can’t stand the thought of someone squeezing fruit into my drink after handling money.It’s not OK, depending on your comfort level. Technically bartenders should be held to the same food handling rules as everyone else in a food service establishment. But…it just never bothered me as much as someone molesting my sandwich with their bare hands. I mean citrus and booze are disinfectants. On the other hand, money is dirty, dirty, dirty. Bartenders also handle dirty glasses when they load the dishwasher (all those greasy fingerprints on the outside of someone’s white knuckled tumbler). Are you eating those olives they had to fondle copiously in order to stuff them or pick them? You’re right to be grossed out.Ooof, on second thought…I might just go lime-squeeze free depending on how clean I deem the bartender. And I haven’t even thought about the hands in the giant olive jar. (NOT all bartenders do this.) I’d be more worried to order a dirty (!!) martini out and about than I would a slice of lemon. I try to teach the bartenders I train to pick everything they put in a drink, and use tongs, but these end up being practices in a perfect world, of which the bar often deviates.