Bartending

Opinions? Is bartending school/academy really needed anymore or is it better just to get started at a restaurant? Good money?

imo just get started. i barbacked for a while first.

i made better money during college doing that than any "real" job I've ever had :-/

I may have a bartending gig starting this summer. Our town voted to go wet in December, and a couple of friends are opening a restaurant and want me to tend bar. The timing couldn't be worse obviously.

Nice! I would take a p/t bartending job in a heartbeat right now just because I think it's fun. It's always been one of my favorite jobs.

hey, it's something to look forward to.

a good resource for you might be this guy's blog--he has a good amount of material on his path (was a scientist, started barbacking at 41 and became a professional bartender): http://cocktailvirgin.blogspot.com/search/label/*essay

Nice! I've been to that site often for cocktail ideas but haven't looked at the essays, but I will now.

i was a bartender in a london pub for a couple of months once and i fucking hated it.

Ha, my first thought was 'i would start doing some squats and stretching now."

why did you hate it Tracer? I bartended in London before, but the only thing I really hated was the smoke. I loved that they closed early.

Yeah I need to start getting in shape now. I've lived a very sedentary life and this will kick my ass until I build up a little stamina. The city in its infinite wisdom decreed no liquor sales after 10pm, so that'll be nice.

constantly on my feet. hated the regulars. i hated my boss. the pay was terrible. i got one 15 minute break per shift in which i was 'free' to heat up the chip fryer (which took 10 minutes) in order to fry some chips for myself (3 minutes) and burn my tongue eating them (2 minutes). or take one of the butter and ham sandwiches from the fridge.

yeah, that sucks. I was lucky that the two places I worked in London had kitchens so they were good about staff meals and end of night snacks. But the pay was terrible.

This bartending gig is getting real. Owners showed me around the place yesterday and asked me to give them an equipment/utensil list.

zinc and vitamin D tablets!

what kind of restaurant/drinks program will it be?

I don't have a clear sense of the kitchen menu except that it's a step up from a diner. They've been developing dishes the past few weeks and I know shrimp and grits is on there. Barwise, this will be the first place open in decades in this town where you can get a drink with your meal, so they really don't know if they'll be slinging more beer, wine or cocktails. There's a pretty basic drinks list -- whiskey sour, margarita, martini, old fashioned, pisco sour, bloody mary, pink pussycat of all things. That's not the full list. The owners want me to come up with a signature cocktail and I was thinking something with rhubarb syrup that would have a nice jewel tone -- the place is called The Gemstone.

I took a bin full of bottles and some rhubarb syrup down there and we just did some brainstorming. I'm going to be educating the owners as much as the customers. One of them said he usually has a rum and coke in the evening so I left him an ounce of Amaro di Angostura to stick in there and try on for size.

oh that's right! it was a dry town. That'll be interesting.

zinc and vitamin D tablets!

― Yerac, Monday, May 18, 2020

you lost me there

oh just that i remember when I bartended, I felt like I was constantly fighting some cold.

ah, gotcha

this sounds so fun -- sounds like they want to keep it accessible and also respect your opinion
what a nice outlet for creativity in such SHITTTY TIMES

otm -- this is exciting and scary.

if your area currently does or will allow to-go cocktails in closed containers as is the case in parts of the country, it might be worth looking into a drink or two where that'd work well and maybe ordering some bottles/containers

I'm not sure what the dining out/bar drinking scene will look like for the near future

I want to develop a watermelon cocktail because what could be more Mississippi, but I'm allergic to melon and so others will have to try them and give me tasting notes. I'm definitely part of the team, had a meeting with the owners last weekend. The liquor situation in Mississippi is even more dire than I thought, now that I've seen the state ABC price list. No pisco, so no pisco sour even though one owner wants it on the menu. I know I've seen a lot of bottles in better liquor stores and at finer restaurants that aren't on the state list, so i have to know how to get that stuff and not get the restaurant in trouble.

I started creating a bar bible for myself with a half-size ring binder. Created some page templates for drink recipes, large type and including clip art of the correct glassware for each, and I'm printing the pages onto cardstock and putting a stripe of clear packing tape along the right side so I can turn pages with wet hands. Showed it to the owners and they were like YEAH! and I said this is mine and you can't have it, but I'll make another one for you that stays behind the bar.

would try

Eating watermelon with salt is SOP down here, so a watermelon margarita with a salted rim seems like a natural.

does the abc have a special order option to get stuff that isn't on their regular list?

The guidebook for permit holders says no, but I bought Amaro Montenegro in Tupelo in March and have seen a dozen similar situations at better liquor stores and at John Currence's restaurants, so people are skirting the rules like crazy.

yeah, the US has the bonkers 3 tier system for alcohol, but when I worked in a bar in ny we totally got a lot of stuff on our own through non-vendors for various reasons. I don't know about enforcement anywhere really though.

watermelon mezcalrita!! but that's just me talking because i love mezcal

also i made one once when trader joe's used to sell carbonated watermelon juice. it was SO GOOD

maybe it was just canned and not carbonated. i don't remember tbh but i do know it was good and then they discontinued the juice and i never drank one again! :(

I'm sure it would be insanely popular around here.

The owners want me to put together the initial liquor order and it's stressing me out. What brands to put on the rail?!?!

I made up a couple of melon-based cocktails over quarantine, either of which should be easily adaptable to watermelon:

the cantaloupe one:

2 oz gin
.5 oz Cointreau
.5 oz dry vermouth
cantaloupe chunks

Muddle cantaloupe in a shaker. Add other ingredients and ice; shake to combine. Serve in a chilled martini glass with a cantaloupe garnish.

the honeydew one:

2.5 oz white rum
.5 oz dry curacao
.25 oz blue agave syrup
honeydew chunks

Muddle honeydew in a shaker. Add other ingredients and ice, then shake. Serve in a chilled cocktail glass (martini or coupe) with melon garnish.

I've stocked my home bar with the following:

vodkas: Absolute, Grey Goose
gins: Hendricks, Bombay Dry, Bully Boy (Boston area distillery)
tequila: Lunazul
rums: Don Q white, Diplomatico
brandy: Hennessey
bourbon: Evan Wilder
scotch: Talisker
vermouth: Lillet, Antica Formula
orange liqueurs: Grand Marnier, Cointreau, Campari, Ferrer Dry Curacao
other liqueurs: Disaranno amaretto, Frangelico, Luxardo maraschino, St. Elder, Rothman & Wilder creme de violette

gah wtf "Absolute"

have you done all the cost analysis stuff for the drinks that will be on the menu?

(xp to WmC)

yeah for your speedrail/well drinks you should have a talk about what the cost will be first. I remember Evan Williams was a decent rail whiskey or people go with jack. I feel like the vodka is always just whatever you can get a deal in and the rest is some version of bacardi, cuervo, seagrams/gordons.

I have no clue how much well drinks are anymore.

I'm going to give Chad (this is easier than typing "my boss" every time) a wholesale cost per liter for everything when I make my recommendations so he can figure out cost/drink. DJP, that's a good list, you shell out more for base spirits than I do. In my research I'm seeing reasonably good reviews for Wodka, El Jimador, Old Overholt, Beefeater, Old Forester. For rum I'm thinking good old Bacardi White and Mount Gay Eclipse... there will be higher-end call brands for every category, I'm sure...

lol "Evan Wilder" I haven't even started drinking yet

he's evan williams' fratty cousin.

that's a solid list if the cost works.

Watermelon agua Fresca plus ____________

xpost Old Forester is one of my favorite bourbons, but it might be a little spendy for a well bourbon. A very good one for the price is Ancient Age from the Buffalo Trace distillery. About half the price as Old Forester in my part of the country, but much better than other well bourbons like Old Crow (shudder).

Scotch - for a blend I like Monkey Shoulder. Shit's cheap and pleasant.

i knew a guy who drank an entire bottle of monkey shoulder in one night. he was a fucking idiot but he lived to tell the tale and wasn't even very hung over the next day, relatively speaking.

Monkey Shoulder is about $30.40 wholesale here.

Wow, I haven't bought any in a year but it was $24 retail here.

shouldering your mezcal sounds hardcore...

I couldn't believe how right that amount was.

― Ippei's on a bummer now (WmC), Friday, August 2, 2024 11:37 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

can confirm, i made one earlier. that is a true warm-weather crusher. nice job!

Glad you liked it! I didn't come up with it -- I stumbled across the recipe at Punch or Liquor.com. I think I've only invented two drinks since I got into spirits, and one of those was a Trinidad Sour riff so it almost doesn't count. The other one is my rhubarb "martini."

I don’t have any Pimms on hand so I went a slightly different way with blue curaçao and Cocchi Americano along with my jalapeño simple syrup and lemon juice. I also threw some Peychaud’s in after shaking to top it off. It was pretty tasty.

xp how many truly new inventions are left anyway unless you start getting culinary with it. but finding a good recipe online and making it the drink of the week is praiseworthy imo!

Yeah, my thing is trying to sneak some education in, disguised as a good drink. Different base spirit every week, shaken and stirred drinks, different techniques. The other bartender's drinks of the week are more popular because they tend toward vodka, fruit juices, lots of sugar and bright colors. Last week it was a "strawberry-orange margarita," standard marg spec plus strawberry puree and OJ. That just sounds gross to me. I'm thinking about a milk-clarified drink this week with a shot of the pre-clarified cocktail on the side so people can see/taste what the technique does.

thanks for the specs, WmC, def going to shake one up this afternoon so i can sit in my inflatable pool with a beverage

When I tell people I'm into cocktails, they sometimes ask if I have invented any recipes. But there are so many good recipes online that I've rarely felt the desire to experiment and potentially waste good liquor along the way. Even the one that I submitted to the Kindred Cocktails database as an original creation is really just a Negroni variant that was close enough to other variants that I figured it couldn't possibly be terrible.

jaymc, when I was at that ChiLXor meetup, whatever year that was, I don't think I'd ever had a cocktail. Pre-diabetes-diagnosis, still focused on beer. Long strange trip, etc. (The Soveral looks good! Unfortunately no Madeira here.)

2013 #xls

on my second Pimm's Coupe, we ran out of lemons so I subbed the last 1/2 oz with lime, recommended?? also heavily shaken/diluted

sorry I mean my second try at the recipe, I made a pair yesterday when a friend came over

Always fun to sneak an alternate citrus (or acid adjusted pineapple) in to see what happens.

This evening I made a rum infinity bottle, something I've been thinking about for a couple of months. My last 1.5 oz. of Cruzan Aged Light and about 1 oz. each of 25 other cane spirits, and am having a couple ounces on some ice. The pushy spirits dominate at first (Old Monk on the nose and Clairin Vaval on the palate) but as the ice melts, it settles into a homogeneous oneness and the vanillin and other barrel notes from the aged rums come forward (but with Vaval still jumping to the front on some sips). Figured I'd might as well turn some of this cane obsessiveness to an interesting project. I need to stop buying rums...except if I find a bottle of Holmes Cay Grand Arôme, I will be buying that...and I'd like to try the new Planteray coconut rum...

Another "...what the HELL, this is good but what the HELL" at the Pimm's Coupe at the bar last night. This thing has legs!

ha, I have now tried it with lemon, lime, and orange, predictably the sweeter orange version is my fave

next I should do 1/2 oz each

I like my sours sour, so I've generally been anti-OJ, but chacun a son gout and all that, the world is your oyster shooter, etc. A half ounce of each sounds like a good test.

Last week's "Tequila Sunrise, no grenadine" was the funniest request I'd seen in a while.

hmm how do you say “screwdriver” in spanish?

If they'd just asked for a tequila + OJ they could have saved a couple of bucks.

The other fun thing that happened recently was ordering a case of Old Overholt ($183/12) and getting a mislabeled case of Jefferson's Tropics ($462/6) instead.

haha nice

though not for your ability to sell liquor at a reasonable price

Yeah! At first we were happy with the win but how do we move that stuff? So far it's just going into the owners' son's gullet for free.

Another bar opened across the street — now there are four within a one block radius — and their drink pricing is very O_O ... we charge $14 for a double Maker's & Sprite and they charge $26...

knowing nothing about bars as business i guess i would put the jeffersons in a fancy old fashioned that you could upcharge a bit for? like you'll never fully recoup but you could make a fun special out of it and get back something.

as for the new bar, adapt or die?

indeed — "adapt or die" in both directions. I think they'll have to back off on some of their wackier pricing (or maybe not!) but we're revisiting our prices, which haven't really changed since we opened five years ago. (and which were a little low at the time because we didn't know what a newly-wet market would bear and because we had a little imposter syndrome)

My Tupelo regulars, the orthopedic surgeon and his S.O., were in tonight and Dr. R brought me a bottle Amaro Istriano from his recent trip to Croatia. Not available in the States as near as I can tell. It's not great, but what is great is having regulars who bring me bottles from their travels.

indeed!

- My drink of the week is always something off the beaten path, leading the horses to water but knowing very few horses will drink -- I'm cool with that. This week I made it the Hemingway Daiquiri and have been selling the shit out of them. One guy came up with a tip for me separate from the tip for his server and said "I've been looking everywhere for a bartender who knew how to make these — turns out he's like five blocks from my house." Fantastic ego-stroke.

-My first cocktail class that isn't to a family + friends audience is this coming Tuesday, feeling pretty good about it. Extra income!

-We have some new mini martini glasses and racks that hold three little drinks, so I'm working out details and logistics of a daiquiri flight. I want to do one Puerto Rican, one Jamaican and one rhum agricole.

- Had the idea for a Cocktail Club rewards card thing — nothing tacky like buy 10 cocktails and get the 11th free, but having to get 6 or 8 or however many specific drinks for the discount. A Negroni, a G&T, a Jungle Bird, a Manhattan, etc. Force people out of their comfort zones. The owner loved that idea.

- Same owner surprised me yesterday with a raise, which was cool.

Good luck with the class. I'm going to make your White Elephants for my wife's family at the beach next week.

it's great that your customers and boss are vibing with you, i know your journey with this job has had its ups and downs and you deserve this recognition!

are you making the hemingways up or with crushed ice? i never have grapefruits/grapefruit juice but they're a great middle of summer special.

I'm doing the Hemingway up. I have a Lewis bag and a rubber mallet, occasionally I'll get them out and make crushed ice for something semi-tropical, but it's not the most convenient.

PBKR, enjoy those White Elephants. It's such a startling set of flavors for anyone who hasn't had one before.

I got a talking-to for calling out a regular who doesn't tip, and who hasn't tipped in the five years we've been open.

More details please

One couple who are regulars at the restaurant sat at the bar last night because the dining room was packed. She's a 7th grade science teacher and wants me to talk to her class about various physics/chemistry topics as they relate to drink-making. Leaving out alcohol, of course. So far I've got carbonation, chilling (volume of ice vs. surface area)...I'm sure I had one or two other topics last night but I was so wiped out I've forgotten them.

there are reams of stuff out there on the science of shaking and stirring and how dilution works

perhaps a demonstration of liquids of different densities colored red and clear (as opposed to blank and tan, wink)

i know a trad whiskey sours involves creating an emulsion, i bet you could do a fun NA version as well

Dave Arnold's book Liquid Intelligence might be useful

Ah yeah, probably one of the most dramatically pretty drinks I make is the Shirley Temple, with its red to clear gradient. I did have sections on ice/chilling and carbonation in my last drinks class, so that should be no problem presenting to 12 & 13 year olds.

Another thing I want to talk about is how RONG most recipes for fruit syrups are. Use freezing instead of cooking, and change the order of operations. (sweeten last instead of first) Always interrogate conventional wisdom. I guess it'll wind up being sort of a home-ec presentation? But I'm ok with that.

xp, yeah, I'll pull my copy of Arnold's book out and see what might be interesting to The Kids.

Meanwhile next week is Negroni Week. Last year I did the Alpine Negroni as my drink of the week; this year I'll do a flight of 3 mini-Negronis (classic, white, Kingston), all of which I can batch.

tell me more abt the fruit syrup thing plz

Almost every search for "________ syrup for cocktails" comes up with a cooked recipe. "Hull and quarter a pound of strawberries, cook with this much water and that much sugar, pinch of salt, bit of acid, strain and bottle." But cooking often/usually dulls the fresh flavor of the main ingredient. What is the reason for cooking? Breaking down cell walls and extracting juice. What else is great at breaking down cell walls of a fruit or veg? Freezing. So, freeze your berries, your rhubarb, your ginger, whatever. The next day, thaw them out and get a nice watery mush. Put them and some water (less than you would have needed in a cooked recipe, which will make the flavor of your finished syrup more concentrated) in the blender and strain the whole thing through cheesecloth or a cotton bag or whatever. Measure your juice and sweeten it to whatever Brix you want. (Either by barely warming it in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves, or keep it cool by blending the juice with sugar until it dissolves.) Add a pinch of salt, a pinch of citric acid if needed, done. Fresher tasting than cooked, more concentrated flavor. I recently made 2 different batches of pistachio orgeat, and found out the principle applies to nut milks too. Sweeten after blending and straining, not before.

awesome thx

I was happy to see Jeffrey Morganthaler catch the no-cook syrup revelation recently, but I've been doing it for a few years now.

That is very cool. You're taking things to another level.

Negroni proportion drink that I recently discovered is the Rule of Thirds: gin, manzanilla sherry, blanc vermouth, lemon twist. It feels like a lighter martini with a sherry aroma, which is one of my favorite smells in the world.

I was reading up on fruit juice extraction and heating vs. freezing and apparently cryo-maceration is a thing sometimes used in winemaking!

That makes a lot of sense. I bet there are flavor compounds that can be extracted that way that just pressing can’t get.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_wine

A bar regular overheard me going on at length to another patron about rum, glorious rum, and said "hey, my uncle makes moonshine and decided to try his hand at rum — he got a 5-gallon bucket of blackstrap molasses and made a batch of rum from it. Want some?" Absolutely! So she brought me about 12 oz. of distillate last night, and this stuff is magnificent! Very estery, surprisingly grassy considering it's from molasses instead of cane juice. Going to try it in a daiquiri later today. My benefactor was a little too casual about offering me moonshine and handing me a pint jar of clear liquid later — hopefully that one guy eating at the bar wasn't a revenooer. It's very smooth; Uncle definitely seems to know where to make the cuts.

I am working a very rare day shift.

many xps to the cryonics discussion above - suntory now sells its -196 hard seltzers stateside, which are made by freezing fruit to -196C, crushing the results, and then infusing vodka and adding bubbles. They’re scary tasty if a little on the sweet side.