Alcademics

Tag: bar class

  • Japanese Bartending Technique

     Orgo6s
    (Photo taken at Orgo in 2009)

    Last summer when I was in Singapore I had the chance to experience Japanese bartending for the first time. I went to Koffe Bar K, a chain with I think just one outpost in Sinagpore. They do ice ball carving there, though I didn't think to ask to see it. The menu was a giant picture book of mostly-awful looking blue and green drinks, but my friend always orders classics like the Sazerac there. I had the only good Singapore Sling I would drink in Singapore.

    Before making the drink, the bartender pulled down all the bottles and set them label-facing the customer. His movements were precise and nearly robotic, as he measured each ingredient and mixed the cocktail while keeping his work station meticulous, pausing to wipe away any stray drop with a white bar cloth.  When we finished and got up to leave the bar, the bartender literally ran out from behind his post to go hold the door for us. He asked if we were taking a taxi and ran again out to the curb to hail one for us, again holding the door and bowing ridiculously low as he did so.

    Later that week I went to Orgo, a rooftop bar specializing in blended mixto margaritas also run by Japanese barmen. They did a surprisingly good job with what sounded like awful recipes. Here too, a formality was in place with each person behind the bar handling specific tasks and each task having a specific movement associated with it. It's kind of a formal form of flair bartending.

    What I remember most about these two bars was not the drinks, but the bartenders and the level of service. There are plenty of bars in the US with ultra-attentive and doting bartenders, most often the bars at fine dining restaurants where the bartender is also your waiter and busboy. I've found most of them to have a friendly, rather than formal, demeanor, and that's just fine with me.

    There is a lot that American bartenders can learn (or at least study then decide to dismiss or not) from the Japanese style of bartending. From tricks like carving an ice ball (is this neccesary anymore now that there are machines to do it for us?) to the Hard Shake (a shaking technique that may be more about aeration then it is chilling) to the deft handling of bar tools: are these useful in an American bar (professional or home) or just flair?

    I hope to find out. I'm attending a seminar on just that topic in New York on May 3 and 4: Japanese Cocktail Technique.

    Japanese-banner

    The seminar features Japan's most famous bartender Kazuo Uyeda of Tender Bar in Tokyo, along with Stanislav Varda, a student of Uyeda who spreads the word of the Hard Shake and other Japanese bartending techniques with his Analog Bar Institute. This will be Uyeda's first time speaking in New York, coinciding with the release of the English language version of his book Cocktail Technique.

    Part of the session will be dedicated to technique- making ice balls and learning the Hard Shake- and part to philosophy with topics like "exploring color" and "developing your ability to concentrate." I'm also hoping to learn about the mentor and apprentice programs they have in Japan- people tell me that there are several levels of bartenders working beneath the head bartender and that you have to reach a certain level before you are even allowed to pour water for a customer. 

    Tickets are available at CocktailKingdom.com for $675 for two days. Yep, it's a lot, so there's that.

  • 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.