It's okay to mix a little pleasure with business at Bloomberg Businessweek. After The Economist ran a short piece about "The boredom of boozeless business," (a paean to drinking at work) the magazine was prompted to post a funny correction about America's hippest weekly business magazine. It read:

Correction: An earlier version of this article claimed that journalists at Bloomberg Businessweek could be disciplined for sipping a spritzer at work. This is not true. Sorry. We must have been drunk on the job.

That correction, it seems, was prompted by a playful Twitter rebuttal from Bloomberg Businessweek editor Josh Tyrangiel (noted by Poynter's Craig Silverman), who took exception to The Economist's claim that, "Hacks at Bloomberg Businessweek can be disciplined for so much as sipping a spritzer." Yes, The Economist managed to squeeze Bloomberg Businessweek, its lack of spritzers, and abundance scolding into a column that touched on Morgan Stanley, the political pressure of the 1970s, and prohibition. 

So, The Atlantic Wire had to ask, what are you guys drinking over there? "We love The Economist," Tyrangiel told us over the phone. "The truth of the matter is that every staffer here has a spritzer two or three times a day, and contrary to what The Economist wrote, there's no scolding involved."  

Hmmmm. "It's mostly spritzers," Tyrangiel said by phone. "It's one of the questions we ask before we hire someone and if they aren't spritzer drinkers we just have to think whether they're a good cultural fit."

So, if Bloomberg is indeed a pro-spritzer anti-scolding office, where could that tip to The Economist have come from? "I wouldn't know who the tipster was. I don't know where it came from. We have very kind relations with The Economist," said Tyrangiel, who thanked the tipster. "One of my great enjoyments in life is a good correction."

Because we just won't let spritzer-gate die, we asked if there was any intention to smoke the tipster out by passing along this rotten spritzer information. Tyrangiel tells us it's quite the opposite. "We invite the tipster down for spritzers to see how we roll." 

Obviously, Tyrangiel was joking: Bloomberg Businessweek staffers don't really drink on the job. Yes, the folks who gave us humping airplanes made it stone-cold sober.

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Alexander Abad-Santos