Category: drinking_life

  • What to Drink When You’re Not Drinking, According to Bartenders

    It's January, and maybe you're taking a break from drinking so much or maybe you've resolved to drink less. Here are some suggestions on what to drink instead. 

    I asked my bartender pals on Facebook what they drink when they're not drinking alcohol. I didn't expect 100 of them to reply! I put them into various categories mostly based on their first answer to the question. There are some conclusions at the end. It is very long. 

     

    JugWater! And Coconut Water

    It seems that people who like plain water also like herbal tea. 

    Daniel Castro of La Banane in  Toronto, Ontario:  Water. I'm getting older, I get migraines, and so looking after my health is #1. Herbal, peppermint tea is another go-to.

    John Lermayer, Sweet Liberty, Miami:  Alkaline water and green tea (together and separately)

    Paul Bradley of Dubai: Large amounts of water, St Clements, lashings of ginger beer. And coconut water

    Jabriel Donohue of Circadia, Seattle: Plain soda water, herbal tea, non alcoholic beer

     Robert Freeman of Sidecar in Jacksonville FL:  Acqua Panna with fresh squeezed lemon. 

     Charles Steadman: Mayim sparkling water and sencha tea from JoJo tea

    Nonna Titulauri of Hakkasan San Francisco: If I'm out but not drinking, if I'm at a restaurant bar, I either drink hot/cold tea or a coffee beverage. And if I'm at a single standing bar, I just drink water with no ice. I like to keep it simple. I often times go visit my friends after my shift at bars where they work and just have a glass of water. 

    Chris Grimm of Sugar & Olives, Norwalk, CT: I try to drink a couple of litres of water, during a shift. My non-alcoholic, non-water go-to is Pellegrino Pamplemousse. 

    Ricardo Albrecht: Coconut water

     

    1009066_157612477757223_1316551939_oTopo Chico Sparkling Water

    Mindy Kucan of Hale Pele Portland, OR: Topo Chico!!!! I always have a case of topo in my car! Iced tea- sometimes I sweeten it. Black tea, golden milk, and I make this coconut water-banana-cocoa powder-Hawaiian sea salt smoothie that does the trick. 

    Pamela Wiznitzer of Seamstress, NYC: Topo Chico when available. Otherwise, I drink loads of tea and very into matcha these days!

    Brad Bowden of Lounge Here Dallas, TX: Topo Chico for sure! HOLY Kombucha is up there on my go to list. 

    Donnie Pratt: Tap water, Topo Chico or Mountain Valley Springs and espresso 1000 Faces out of Athens, GA are my favorite.

    Stuart Humphries of The Pass & Provisions, Houston, TX: Topo Chico, a highly effervescent agua mineral hard to find outside of Mexico and Texas, goes great with everything, esp. tacos and hangovers

    Greg West: Topo all the way. Topo with hint of lime. So good.

    Cameron George: Topo chico and Ango.

    Kyle Zimmerman, Hutch on Avondale, Oklahoma City: Topo Chico with bitters and an orange slice. I feel like the minerality of topo really plays well with the bitters.

    Will Croxville: Topo Chico if possible, but if not just regular old seltzer water for me.

    Rich Heider II:  Topo Chico

     

     

    Sodas or Soda Water with Splashes of Something

    1449356763-spellegrinoPaul Russell of Hugo's, Portland Maine: Cinotto by San Pellegrino. Also, what I call the hydrito…an N/A mojito with a heavy hand of ango.

    Danny Ronen, Consultant: I go for effervescent with little to no sugar, so:  Perrier Grapefruit, Coconut water (preferably the one Robert Pallone has been working on for the past few years, it's so GD delicious and some of the lowest sugar content i've seen), Hot water, fresh lemon juice (neighbor's tree). 

    Tony Morandi of 900 wall/the Capitol. Bend OR: Coffee. Half soda water/half water. Tea is awesome mid day and night. Veggie based smoothies. Coconut water. But for special occasions, well made/ interesting sodas in limited quantities. Made a pineapple allspice soda the other day that was killer

    Jason Laidlaw of The Shameful Tiki Room, Vancouver: Water, splash of pineapple if I need an energy boost (and the opened can(s) of soda water at the end of the shift. Not at work: coconut water (no added sugar), kombucha, water.

    Travis St Germain of Clover Club, Brooklyn: Soda water lime juice and salt. 

    Matt Roberts of London: 1 lime, Mexican elbowed, pinch salt and soda water during service. Pot after pot of pu'erh tea helps keep the focus on line clean day too!

    Josey Packard of Bar Mezzana, Boston: I make a tamarind syrup that has brags vinegar in it, a no-sugar St John's "syrup," and a sarsaparilla syrup.

     Andy Griffiths:  Sparkling water with yuzu juice!

    Jamaal PatronJames Bowen:  Clayton's Kola Tonic, splash Ginger Ale and 4 dashes of Angostura Bitters for good measure

    Elliot Clark of Trick Dog, SF: Soda water, pineapple juice, and Peychauds bitters. 

    Alastair Burgess: Lemon, lime and bitters, actually available as a canned soft drink in the Caribbean. Other wise, ginger juice, lemon juice ango bitters and soda water.

    Kailee Asher of Counter Intuitive/Undertow in Phoenix AZ: I'm pregnant right now so no drinking for a while…  Clausthaler N/A beer, club soda and ango, dealer's choice N/A cocktail at a cocktail bar – had a really good smash at Otium in LA!

    Odd Strandbakken of Himkok, Oslo. Norway: soda, ice, grapefruit bitters and grapefruit zest!

    Francis Schott of Stage Left & Catherine Lombardi a restaurants, New Brunswick, NJ: Blenheim Ginger Ale (not-so-hot) out of the painted glass bottle (never plastic) or Elderflower syrup and soda. 2 oz in 6 oz seltzer- my favorite brand is Austrian by Nikolaihof. Elderflower syrup in German is Holunderblütensirup (available through Michael Skurnik Wines). Fun to drink – fun to say. I keep a bottle in my refrigerator at all times. 

    Zachary A. Evans: Fresh squeezed lemonade, ginger ale, and cran. Equal parts.

    Ole Buddrus: Technically speaking bitters contain alcohol, that aside my favorite is still ginger ale and angostura, preferably East Imperial.

    Ben Johnson of The Imperial Life, Asheville, NC: I find myself drinking a lot of Coke, or specialty soda in general. When I go out to eat or to a bar, my go to is almost always Peach Nehi soda if they've got it (and most places in Western North Carolina do). I'll also crush a soda water with lime after a long shift. And if I'm at a real dive, I'll generally go for a grapefruit juice (out of a can) and soda, as it looks more like a drink. There's really no reason to be at a dive bar if you're not drinking, so I find it best to mask it at these types of places. 

     

    Tonic Water, Modified

    East-imperial-tonicJacopo Rosito: 54 Mint, San Francisco: Cranberry, tonic, lime !

    Mike Henderson of Edible Beats (Root Down), Denver: Tonic, Lime, and Angostura Bitters. Preferably Q or Indi tonic.

    Jay Villafana of The Slanted Door, San Francisco: Grapefruit and Tonic

    Blair Frodelius. Mid-Century Lounge. Syracuse, NY: Fever-Tree Tonic water and a squeeze of lime, Orangina or Lavender Dry Soda all served on the rocks.

    Brian Means, Michael Mina Group: Seedlip and tonic is delicious!

    Tyler Fry:  Tonic on anything, especially grapefruit. Juices and tea. Chai-spiced cider.

    Jessi Mess, Absinthe, SF: grapefruit & tonic, sometimes with ango.

    Paul Mathew  of The Hide/The Arbitrager, London: House tonic syrup, orange bitters, squeeze of lime, soda, long w/lots of ice. And shots of 50:50 maple syrup and lime juice for a pick-me-up.

     

    Coffee, Please

    CoffeeFred Yarm of Loyal Nine in Boston: My number one nonalcoholic drink is coffee, hot and black, although I have no problem drinking it room temperature such as during a shift or if I have left overs from yesterday's pot. Otherwise, the majority of my nonalcoholic drinking consists of water either still or sparkling. And medicinally (besides its use for making Bucks and Mules), ginger beer such as a ginger-forward one like AJ Stephens is my go to.

    Adam Patrick K of Rothbard Ale & Larder, Westport, CT:  Bulletproof Coffee, tisanes, kombucha

    Tom Zyankali of Zyankali Bar, Berlin:  Café au laut with Vietnamese coffee

    Anthony DeSerio:  Coffee… lots and lots of coffee. Verners ginger ale when i can get it.

    Or Geshury: Espresso tonic. Cold brew from coconut water. Jasmine green speedballed with chamomile/peppermint depending on the time of day. Coconut water + activated charcoal + sea salt (hangover preventative). Fevertree sodas. Mexicoke. Bitters lime and soda when at a bar and not drinking.

     

    Tea and Iced Tea

    TeabagBill Brooks,  The Cannibal Liquor House, Manhattan: I am a big fan of sun tea in the summer. I have 2-3 empty clear growlers that I fill with water, various fruits (watermelon, lemon, raspberry, peaches, etc), spices (mint, lemon verbena, basil), and some really good quality tea. Leave it out in the sun for a couple of hours and I will go thru a jug every 2-3 days. Love my sun tea.

    Gary Crunkleton of The Crunkleton in Chapel Hill, NC: Sweet Tea

    Christian Suzuki of multiple bars, San Francisco: Genmaicha, Oolang (iced for summer, hot during winter), coffee (black…like my soul)

    David Bonatesta: Genmaicha tea , Evian Water or San Pellegrino. Vitamin Water, Carrot Juice, Espresso

    Trevor Easter of Normandie Club, Los Angeles: Bhakti original and coldbrew chai blend.

    Bethany Ham:  If it's cold out – green tea with honey and lemon or chai tea with a little hot almond milk.  If it's hot out – bitters and soda #ftw, iced tea or ice water with a splash of fresh sweetened ginger and ango. 

    Jared Hirsch of Sidebar, Oakland, CA:  At work: Arnold Palmer the way he liked it (3:1 iced tea : lemonade.) At home: Harney and Sons' Paris tea, or Lapsang Souchong tea, or Dr. Browns' Cream Soda. 

    Matthew Rowley, writer: For me it's tea. Iced tea all year and, when the mercury dips, hot tea in an old 500 ml West German beer stein. First one goes down usually before dawn. Second by 7am or so. A third only if I'm not going to the gym that day. Between hot and iced teas, I usually dispatch 2-4 liters per day.  I may have a tea problem.

    Andreas Künster: Black tea (the English way), cold milk, calpis or calpico with soda and a lot of non sparkling water

    Tim Morrison of 4th Street Bar & Grill, Lake Mary, FL:  I'm a tea addict. Hot or cold or any kind. I go thru more unsweet iced black tea than anything. 

    Christopher Day:  Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.

     Niquito Constan: mate-cocido (a famous argentinean infusion) with milk and mascabo (red sugar), coffee with milk and honey, ginger beer whenever I can lay myself on one. I tend to mix tonic with juices. Homemade guarana soda, or homemade pomegranate with soda! From time to time I go full on zombie mode and drink guarana flavoured energy drink called V.

    Jen Ackrill, Top of Waikiki, Hawaii: Technically when I'm "not drinking" I'm drinking Dolin Blanc with soda and a grapefruit zest, but when I'm NOT drinking it's Yogi Egyptian Licorice Tea, hot or cold!

     

    Weird Miscellany

    A1jAdGiMqPL._SX522_Cari Hah of Big Bar in Los Angeles: Korean Corn Silk Tea

    Blake Pope of Kindred, North Carolina: Switchel.  It's composition is incredibly simple – usually, just three ingredients: seltzer, apple cider vinegar, and either honey, molasses or maple syrup. I love the simplicity. Kindred currently has a pomegranate switchel on tap and I can’t get enough.

    Thor Bergquist of PS40 in Sydney, Australia:  Smoked lemonade made in house

    Dan Brink:  Apple cider vinegar, honey, cinnamon, ice

    Leilani Vella:  I don't find the trade of sugar for alcohol to be a healthier choice. So kombucha, bitters and soda, lemon grass mint tea, orange slice with fresh mint a splash of lemon juice and soda, or fresh juiced ginger, lemon apple and greens.

     Ariana Vitale: Verjus

     Cordula Langer: Joghurt with soda and homemade smoothies

    Alex Smith, Whitechapel, SF: I have a favorite recovery drink when I go to the gym – when I am coincidentally also "not drinking." Combo of the following: some concentrated cold brew coffee w/ chicory (4 oz), hemp milk (2 oz), natural cane ginger beer (2 oz), coconut water (10 oz), and some Bob's Red Mill chocolate protein powder (3 tbs).

     

    Conclusions

    So if you wanted to take something away from this, here is what I see. Bartenders like:

    • Tea, perhaps even more than coffee. I did not know this. 
    • Grapefruit and Tonic – If you're a tonic water brand you're going to want to release this as a combination flavor. 
    • Topo Chico is so, so hot right now. (I introduce it to my friends as 'bartender water.') Here's a good NYT story about it's new popularity.

     

     

  • How Drinking in 1948 was like Drinking in College, or in 2005

    EmburyRecently I was speaking on a panel based around the era of David A. Embury's book The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, first published in 1948. 

    Then, they were coming out of Prohibition that ended in 1933 and World War II that ended in 1945. 

    He notes what coming out of an era of bad drinks into a good one is like: 

    Most of the present generation learned to drink and most of the present-day bartenders learned their profession during the past thirty-seven years. The first fourteen years of this period were devoted to the famous ‘experiment, noble in purpose,’ and the remaining years have not yet been sufficient to erase wholly the ignoble effects of that era. 

    During prohibition the overwhelming majority of available liquor consisted of bathtub gin and Scotch "just off the boat" (ferryboat from either Hoboken or Brooklyn).

    So unutterably vile were these synthetic concoctions that the primary object in mixing a cocktail became the otherwise emollient and anti-emetic ingredients (cream, honey, Karo, canned fruit juices, etc.) to make it reasonably possible to swallow the resultant concoction and at the same time to retain a sufficient content of renatured alcohol to insure ultimate inebriety.

    Just how much dilution of the "gin"-bottle content might be necessary to accomplish this supposedly salutary result depended largely on the intestinal fortitude and esophageal callosity of the particular individual involved. 

    During the talk, I mentioned how that was like drinking in 2001 or 2005 or so, when fresh ingredients were not the norm. That first fresh lime juice Margarita you had changed everything. 

    But also it's a lot like being a grown-up drinker as opposed to a college-aged one where you were trying to hide the taste of the liquor underneath brightly-colored sugary liqueurs. 

    We live in much better times now. 

     

     

  • Every Drink I Had at Tales of the Cocktail 2011

    Below are the tweets sent out as I was recording every drink I had at Tales of the Cocktail for the second year in a row. 

    The totals are: 

    Wednesday: 18

    Thursday: 41

    Friday: 28

    Saturnday: 19

     Compared to last year, this looks like a ton more drinks. But really I kept it to small sips and tastes for the most part. I came home feeling less poluted than usual, so don't let the numbers terrify you. Tales is for amateurs too!

    Thursday was the big day again, due to the Diageo happy hour event. I had the same number as last year, 25, but it looks like more drinks before and afterward. 

    Below are the individual drinks from my Twitter feed, many with pictures. Note they're in reverse order. 

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  • Every Drink I Had at Tales of the Cocktail

    I just returned from New Orleans for Tales of the Cocktail, a cocktail convention attended by many of the world's top bartenders, drink writers, PR representatives, and superenthusiasts. I think this was my favorite year of the convention to date. 

    I tweeted every cocktail I had over the week. Let's see how messy that looks added up!

    Tuesday July 20, starting at 5PM

    • Vieux Carre and an 
    • Abita beer @ Monteleone Bar
    • Another Abita beer at Carousel Bar at Monteleone
    • makers mark on the rocks out of a plastic cup at acme oyster house
    • Sazerac at Carousel Bar
    • Vieux Carre at Carousel Bar
    • Vieux Carre
    • Giant Bud Light with some awful Pizza somewhere on Bourbon Street.

    Wednesday July 21

    • Coffee with Kahlua to start the day!
    • Gold kiwifruit St Germain Splash
    • kiwifruit cucumber reviver
    • not sure what it's called but kiwi yummers
    • Shot of rum before my seminar begins
    • Three drinks at my seminar- rear admirals grog
    • perudriver
    • margarita
    • Firefly bourbon in hotel room
    • another sweet tea bourbon
    • a shot of dubonnet cocktail out of a flask
    • 3 glasses of Veuve Cliquot at dinner at Arnauds
    • Shot of bourbon 
    • bourbon cocktail
    • miller lite
    • orgeat drink
    • 2 shots of Stock Fernet
    • Ocho tequila
    • Miller lite
    • stock fernet

    Thursday, July 22

    • Cat Daddy Moonshine coffee drink at breakfast
    • Drinks of Asia seminar cocktail: unkown cocktail with some herb that tastes like fuzzy lemon dandelion leaves
    • cognac old fashioned
    • Self Publishing seminar- an amaretto and gin cocktail
    • Ron Abuelo juicy drink at Carousel Bar
    • nutmeg drink at Consulting seminar 
    • firefly bourbon
    • Diageo Happy Hour drinks:
    1. Joaquin riff on seelbach cocktail
    2. Wayne Curtis drink with Oronoco rum and fernet
    3. Singapore sling punch
    4. Aviation from Simon Difford
    5. Daiquiri from bill Norris
    6. rosy sinclair by Jason Bram
    7. Valentinos Denise by Jim rondall
    8. Bryan Dayton serves a Mary Pickford
    9. Phillip Duff makes a Clubland
    10. Tequila negroni from Ricky gomez
    11. Brian miller makes drink with tanqueray dolin chartreuse cocchi
    12. Misty Kalkoffen drink 
    13. John Lermayer drink
    14. Lynette Manero makes a drink
    15. Tommy klus Serves a Mexican firing squad
    16. Pisco drink from Aisha Sharpe
    17. Ed Hamilton actually makes a cocktail!! With Zacapa
    18. Jim meehan with a Cuervo drink
    19. Spicy drink from Wondrich
    20. Sean Muldoon serves a trader Vic drink
    21. Andrew Friedman serving a sagatiba drink
    22. Cable Car from Tony Abou Ganim
    23. Chad and Christie drink
    24. Francesco Lafranconi drink
    25. Josh Durr drink
    • Cure bar daiquiri
    • Another daiquiri at Cure
    • Dubonnet cocktail In hotel room

    Friday, July 23

    • a sip of Ron Abuelo rum at breakfast
    • 2 Disarono cocktails at my Social Media seminar
    • A Glenfiddich drink from Jon Santer
    • Bourbon carbonated grapes that taste like a Mint Julep at the Bax vs. Clift seminar
    • Sazerac with absinthe fog
    • Molecular michelada
    • apple sous vide infused calvados. 
    • Dehydrated fruit cereal with champagne
    • Old fashioned with orange peel smoke served in a jar
    • Quick bourbon in the room before a meeting
    • 2 Abita Amber and a veggie mufalatta at Cage Maspero
    • Pimms Cup at Napoleon House
    • Abita Amber at Napoleon House
    • glass of bourbon
    • Hilo Hai cocktail with Teader Tiki Syrups!
    • Stella Artois.
    • nip of Ron Abuelo

    Saturday, July 24

    • a spicy Hendricks cocktail 
    • Mount Gay Rum punch.
    • Wet Grave cocktail in Darcy Oneils fascinating Soda seminar- bourbon, acid phosphate, bitters, vermouth, claret syrup
    • Soda seminar drink with Root beer, gentian, bourbon, acid phosphate
    • 10cane rum drink in the Subconscious Drinks seminar
    • a sip of Geranium Gin
    • Brandy Milk Punch in the Caousel Bar
    • 2 rum drinks in hotel room followed 
    • 2 martinis at Tales of the Cocktail awards
    • Glenlivet Nadurra 16 
    • Another gin martini at Tales awards 
    • Many swigs of Jameson 18
    • a beer with my slice of awful but sobering pizza on bourbon street

    Sunday, July 25th

    • A morning Akvinta vodka cocktail.
    • Stella Artois at breakast
    • A Dalmore cocktail at the Keeping Ahead in an Online World seminar
    • second Dalmore cocktail
    • A final vieux carre at carousel bar.
    • One last beer at the airport 

    Apparently I had 35 drinks on Thursday. That would be terrifying but do keep in mind that for the vast majority of these drinks I had only a sip out of a glass that only held an ounce or so at maximum. 

    Still, my liver will be getting a much-earned rest for a while now that I'm home. 

  • The Safety of Milk Thistle

    A few months ago, founder Mike McAdams of Drinkwel reached out to me. This product is meant to be a vitamin for drinkers rather than just a hangover cure.

    I told them that I was unsure about one of the ingredients in the mixture, milk thistle, as I'd heard reports that rather than being good for the liver it may actually cause harm.  

    This caused a conversation that I thought I'd share. McAdams replied:

    It's also funny you mention milk thistle because that was really our only ingredient that had an interaction paper on it. I've taken it on and off for a couple years but make sure my dosages are not too high. 

    In case you're interested, here is what our doctor who helped formulate had to say (unfiltered): 

    Milk thistle is probably the most well known liver protectant on the market. As far as alcohol intake, new studies have shown that milk thistle has both liver toxicity protection from ethanol [18] and protects against liver fibrosis in non-human primates [19]. 

    Safety

    There is the possibility of an adverse reaction with milk thistle (possible Pk interactions regarding the decrease of CYP, UGT, and P-Gp activity) [20]. These decreases seem limited so should not be a concern. Therefore, I believe this drug to be a safe and positive addition to the formulation.

    and:

    The biggest concern would be Milk thistle with only one interaction paper. I think for the most part its use in this formulation would be fine. It has been used for this type of treatment for numerous years without a major side effect case report being brought to light.

    18.       Song, Z., et al., Silymarin protects against acute ethanol-induced hepatotoxicity in mice. Alcohol Clin Exp Res, 2006. 30(3): p. 407-13.

    19.       Lieber, C.S., et al., Silymarin retards the progression of alcohol-induced hepatic fibrosis in baboons. J Clin Gastroenterol, 2003. 37(4): p. 336-9.

    20.       Wu, J.W., L.C. Lin, and T.H. Tsai, Drug-drug interactions of silymarin on the perspective of pharmacokinetics. J Ethnopharmacol, 2009. 121(2): p. 185-93.

    I followed up with McAdams and he send some more information. Then I followed up with the National Institutes of Health. This is all below the jump. 

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  • Another Ice Banner Attempt

    You may think all I do is futz around with ice all day, and you'd be mostly correct (for proof, see the index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics here). I attempted to make another site banner today using a clear piece of ice stamped with ALCADEMICS, but I think I like the orange peel one (too big as it is) better.

    Click it to see it bigger if you're interested.

    Ice banner
     
  • An Icy Weekend in Monterey

    This past weekend I spent about 12 hours cutting ice and it was awesome! As part of a bartender catering gig with Rye on the Road I worked a wedding and rehearsal dinner in Monterey. With a trusty ice saw and my new ice pick from Cocktail Kingdom I went to town on those blocks of ice, chopping out fat cubes, attempting to carve spheres, and even making a heart to show the ice how much I love it.

    Photo (9)

    Despite how it looks in this picture I didn't have my hand replaced with an ice saw, but now I'm thinking about it.
       

    Photo (7)

     

    An index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.

  • Why Can’t I Get a McDonald’s Hamburger at Chez Panisse?

    In response to my recent story in the San Francisco Chronicle on high-end bars becoming more accommodating to patrons' requests, many people wrote into the comments about how snooty bartenders are who won't give you the drinks that you want.

    The Chronicle's commenters are a notoriously (and often hilariously) opinionated bunch, so I don't take offense to anything they say. By and large, they were all terribly upset with Erick Castro of Rickhouse's quote:

    "Three years ago it was OK to be rude. It used to be 'I'm not making a
    cosmo and you're a horrible person.' Now we say, 'I'm not making a
    cosmo, but I'm making you something better than a cosmo.' And if they
    like (the drink) they trust you for the whole night."

    Commenters were offended that a bartender is so arrogant as to think he knows better than the customer, and offended that a bartender wouldn't make the customer what he wants.

    I know that in the case of Rickhouse they don't carry cranberry juice, so they actually can't make a Cosmo. I believe all of the other drinks cited by commenters cannot be made at Rickhouse either- drinks with Midori, 7UP, Malibu, etc. They do not carry these products on principle, and thus cannot make drinks with them.

    So Rickhouse can't/won't make a Cosmo, and that makes people mad. But does it also infuriate them that Chez Panisse (probably) can't make a McDonald's hamburger?

    Would you be surprised at Chez Panisse if you asked your waiter for a McDonald's hamburger and they steered your toward something similar and better, like a grass-fed, free-range beef burger on a fresh-baked bread roll with organic ketchup? Would you consider them arrogant? Call for the waiter to lose their job?

    Only if you can't see the difference between McDonald's and Chez Panisse; between fast food and fine dining. And that is the image problem that cocktail bars have. Many people still think every bar is a McDonalds, when most bars that make the news are evolving toward something better. 

    The better cocktail bars are not actually suffering from this lack of understanding- there's a huge demand for them, in fact, and in my experience the places selling $10 cocktails are affected less in this recession than places selling $6 ones. So despite complaints, better cocktail bars are safe, for now.

    The funny thing is that speakeasy bars were originally a theme concept,
    but evolved into a practical concept: hiding the bars from people who
    don't yet know that not every bar serves Bud and has sports on TV.

    Some people worry that the perceived arrogance of the bartenders in these places will make this better-drinking era a trend rather than an ongoing movement. I think that's a valid concern, as fine cocktails are very trendy right now. I'd hate to see this movement lose momentum as there is so, so much further to go with it.

    As was the point in my original article, bartenders are learning how to talk to patrons in a nicer way to steer them away from lesser-quality or marketing-driven drink choices and into better ones. But is there more that can be done- in the media or by bartenders/bar owners- to make a clearer break between the fast food version of bars and the ones more like fine dining?

  • Passing the B.A.R.

    This past fall I took the B.A.R., Beverage Alcohol Resource, five-day course in New York. The course has two levels- "Ready" and "Certified", with the only difference in the number of drinks one has to make within a certain time on the practical bartending exam. The course ran for about 12 hours each day for the first four days, with nearly a full day of testing on the last day. It was a real butt-kicker.

    People seemed to come away with different impressions of the course, but what stuck out most to me was what you need to know not just to pass the class, but to say that you're at an expert level in the industry. It's a lot. You need to know:

    1. The science and history of fermentation and distillation from the dawn of time
    2. The history, ingredients, geography, and practical and legal production rules for every major category of spirits
    3. The entire history of bartending and individual history and timelines of dozens of important cocktails
    4. How to blind taste and identify spirits, quality of distillation, barrel type and age, and other production parameters, down to individual brands and bottlings
    5. How to balance drinks, mix drinks, make them fast and of the highest quality possible while providing top quality customer service
    6. How to create new drinks and tweak existing ones based on different mixological strategies
    7. How to blind taste and critique cocktails

    I took 76 pages of notes in those four days, after having read and studied the textbook, attended dozens on lectures by the instructors, read zillions of books, and passed the BAR Smarts course before the course. We sampled a few hundred spirits blind, I practiced bartending until my shoulder ached from shaking, and still tried to find time to study each night before passing out.

    I decided to attempt the BAR Ready certification, thinking that I knew so much about the history and production rules of spirits that I wouldn't have to even study for that part of the test. (Boy was I wrong about that.) Luckily if you don't make all your drinks in time to be BAR Ready you can still pass BAR Certified. And I did, which is awesome.

    My takeaway from the course is not just the new information and skill set gained during the week, but knowing what it takes to stay on top of things going forward: A great and constant amount of work tasting, testing, practicing, learning, and reviewing what you think you already know.