Bartending

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.

Old Overholt is totally serviceable and <$20 per bottle retail. I’ve had much much worse well drinks than those I’ve made at home w OO bc I’m cheap.

Concur on Old Overholt, but if you can get Rittenhouse for cheaper, do it (Not likely though. I think it's a couple of bucks more). Really holds up well in cocktails that have more than a couple of ingredients, such as a scofflaw.

OO = $18.44/L
Rittenhouse = $24.60/L

Interesting, Ancient Age is half the price of Old Forester on this list.

XP. Well, there you go. Old Overholt it is. I think OO really shines in a manhattan.

Try Ancient Age in a cocktail. It's not quite as soft as Buffalo (less wheat in the mash bill, maybe) but it is not a harsh drink at all.

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

I see you haven't quit your day job.

hahaha, I'm angling to design the menus, too.

based on this info, i'd buy some rittenhouse and old forester 100 proof for some higher-end drinks, and overholt and ancient age for the well. i got a bottle of ancient age years ago when i was in kentucky for work, and if it's still as good as that bottle was it would be an excellent well bourbon.

Crap, just looked at the "qty available" column and there's no Ancient Age right now. Back to Old Forester.

Any blended scotch recommendations?

i'd probably go famous grouse for a basic acceptable scotch

Ugh, only available in 1.75L bottles. What a state.

Scratch that, there's a typo in their site.

Grouse and Bell’s are the bog-standard well whiskeys in the UK.

Chivas? Whyte & Mackay? the aforementioned Monkey Shoulder? Johnnie Walker red?

I’ve always liked J&B too

To clarify, once I figured out the typo I realized that Famous Grouse 750ml was available, so that's what I put on the proposed order. Chad gave me a number to stay under and I sent him a list this morning that was less than half of that figure.

hmm yeah i wonder if you can figure out a couple shortcuts for the mojitos, they’ll be a pain otherwise.

Yeah, the bride may want the theater of muddling/shaking/straining but it seems unworkable esp if there are a large # of guests. And she likes hers extra sweet so she wants them all topped with Sprite, which... ok for you, Missy, but have some club soda on hand please, not everyone wants drinkable candy. This reminds me of how I got into bartending in the first place -- a friend wanted to have a "retro 50's style cocktail party" but didn't know anything about drinks, so I commandeered that part so it wouldn't be a disaster.

i guess i’d be trying to make a blueberry/mint syrup so you could just build syrup/lime juice/rum/club soda, which is still a bunch of stuff tbh

Re theater: you have to pay extra for that. If they want volume, they accept batches or find someone else imo

You don’t take individual orders and make small talk when working a wedding (or funeral as I’ve recently experienced)

I'm very sorry for your loss. Another blueberry mojito?

Drink of choice at self’s funeral should be part of everyone’s will

went to a friend's wedding at the club that originated the Bootleg:

https://lundsandbyerlys.tumblr.com/post/150327031545/the-bootleg-cocktail-a-minnesota-tradition-its

was lovely on a hot summer day, and easy for the bartenders (recipe specifies vodka here, but they were allowing the liquor of your choice). might be an acceptable mojito substitute?

Re: the funeral i worked—
It was a service for a young person and there was a LOT of drinking. The other two funerals I attended this year did not have any alcohol but this one did in abundance. It was quite a scene.

At the actual funeral? Not at a wake or memorial service afterward?

This was the only service so I guess so? I’m not sure as I’m just the help! Lol

Funeral bar just the best and worst idea I've heard in years.

Wonder what tipping's like. "I've lost enough today, no one's getting anything else," vs "Just take it all. Why do we keep money anyway."

IME at this particular event, it was more the latter. Firstly, the family paid upfront for our labor so we were guaranteed (x). Then people tipped individually here and there and we made (y) in addition. Then at the end, the family settled up and paid us (z) more on top.

So each of us (3, self included) wound up making more than I have ever (ever!) made in one day of service work. We haven't talked about it since because it was extremely sad and everyone walked out of there drunk af and weeping. Personally I was numb bc it was the second funeral I had been at in 7 days.

Feel like I need a drink after reading that. Doing God's work out there, LL.

doing my best. I didn’t even share the sad parts bc it is too much.

FWIW we've worked a couple of weddings. They were fine, but definitely make sure you're not the only bartender and find out how big the crowd is. A wedding of 40-50 people isn't that hard to work, but 200-300 is obviously different.

In terms of flourishes and panache, what we usually do in party situations is prebatch everything we can and rely on garnishes for the classy touch. A good garnish goes a long way.

One wedding we did was an outdoor reception, and it started pouring halfway through. They basically just called it and sent us all home, but paid us for the full four hours of service, so no complaints from us even though packing up our stuff in the rain wasn't super fun.

I’ve been given the mission to pick higher-end bottles and sourcing for the new bar (our establishment is expanding into the space next door with a separate bar and a darker, quieter, more chill vibe). Owner specified bourbons because this is the southern US after all, I said I’d include rums, Irish whiskey, Scotch whisky and other spirits as well. Anyone here have any wishlist items that would impress you if you saw them on a bar menu?

Redbreast 15

Red Spot, Yellow Spot. Are you going to get a problem if it sits? Found North stuff is brilliant Canadian Whiskey but still relatively unknown.

Bourbon is pretty easy, though I do find it really fun when bars have curated some of a list of dusties, though that involves estate sales.

Weller Antique 107 Bourbon

I'm always happy to see a little mezcal selection — just two or three is fine. Smith & Cross and OFTD in the rum lineup?

Get a decent/proper Cachaca so you can make legit Caipirinha as well.

Thanks for the suggestions -- all going into the notebook. Really it'll come down to what is easy to find in Tupelo and maybe in Memphis. One example being Smith & Cross — technically it's available in MS as a special order, but I've only ever seen it in TN and GA. OFTD is readily available. Redbreast 12 is so common I can get it here in my little village but for 15 I have to go to one particular store in Tupelo or drive on to MEM.

Second the mezcal rec

I normally don't work on Saturdays but assumed I'd be needed tomorrow because it'll be our last service of the year and we'll probably be hopping. I asked the owner on Tuesday if he wanted me to plan to work, and he finally got back to me today -- nah, "we haven’t had hardly anyone ask if we were going to be open like we did last Saturday." So I get one whole shift this week and I believe the other bartender will be annihilated tomorrow. OK by me, maybe I'll go see the Miyazaki movie and ignore my phone when it blows up.

go see the Miyazaki movie and ignore my phone when it blows up.

definitely do this

I can cover the shift

I read about Taylor Swift's favorite cocktail, the French Blonde, so for a laugh we're getting all the components and will start serving it this coming week. I have no idea if we'll be inundated with Swifties or not.

L, the other bartender, and I are going to each start doing our own Cocktail of the Week this week as well. L is going to do some two-layer frozen concoction served in a pint jar, looks terrible frankly and very time-consuming, which means she'll get bombed with orders for it when we're at our busiest. I'm going to do a riff on Death & Co's Hot Sauce Committee, a margarita variation with a house-made hot sauce syrup (bell pepper juice, habanero, vinegar, sugar, pinch of salt; quite a tongue-slap). I can't get the St. George raspberry brandy from the original spec so I'm going to use Svedka raspberry vodka, which will work out because people around here like their drinks sweet. I feel like I have to give it a different name since I'm changing a core ingredient -- thinking about "Surfing on a Rocket."

the french blonde sounds pleasant enough.

it would be funny if the swifties started a run on lillet, which is kind of gross

lol yeah

We had to get some Fee Bros lemon bitters and the boss got the 2/$20 instead of 1/$14, so we'll have a lot more than we need. I'll play with it to see what ideas come up. I believe it's glycerin based instead of alcohol so I can do a punched-up all ages lemonade without worrying about the Legions of Decency.

yes all the fees stuff is glycerine

Fee Bros stuff is good (from my old hometown too).

I've never had a French Blonde, but it sounds pretty good. I like Lillet! It's a good mixer but also a nice dessert wine/apertif on its own.

feel like I have to give it a different name since I'm changing a core ingredient

appending (New Reactionaries Version) would be appropriate

Legions of Indecency Version