Georgia Tavern General Beauregard's Denies Serving Racist-Inspired Cocktail

After receiving a fiery backlash on social media, the owner of a Confederate-themed bar in Athens, Georgia, denied reports that it had offered a racist-inspired cocktail. “We do not condone this at all,” Daniel Simmons told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Tuesday. “We’re investigating it to get to the bottom of it.”

The bar, General Beauregard’s, faced criticism after a photo began circulating on social media Monday night featuring a laminated recipe for a drink called “N-----ita,” consisting of tequila, watermelon and a splash of sour. Since the recipe appeared laminated, it led some to suggest that it was not on a drink menu intended for customers but as a recipe book for bartenders. Simmons also acknowledged that the bar does not have printed drink menus.

"We had absolutely no knowledge of, and would never condone, this image that is claimed to be our drink menu,” Simmons said in the statement, the Atlanta Journal-Constiution reported. “The circled drink included in the picture is not something we have ever served to customers or advertised and would never be approved by ownership.”

After a gunman inspired by racist ideologies shot and killed nine African-Americans at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June, a heated debate erupted in the United States over controversial Confederate symbols and imagery. After the massacre, General Beauregard’s, which is named after Confederate Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard, removed several Confederate flags from its interior.

“It’s not just General's. I would hate to paint the picture that it’s only General's. It’s the general culture in downtown Athens that you experience when you go to many of the bars,” said Ryan Kelley, a University of Georgia, Athens, student studying international affairs and a member of the school’s NAACP executive board, OnlineAthens.com reported. “They will selectively discriminate against African-Americans. There are bars that have made us pull out our UGA IDs to make us prove we’re students before we can get into the bars.”