Bartending

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.

The bar manager at a country club is coming in to do a bartender training session in a few minutes and oh jeez do I have a case of Impostor Syndrome. Here we go...

I haven't been posting about this because it's insane, dangerous, irresponsible and indefensible for me to be doing it, but the work has been really fun and interesting. The watermelon margarita is a huge hit, and I've gotten thumbs-up on my execution of classics like Old Fashioneds and Sazeracs from exacting cocktail nerds. One guy said he hated gin but he'd only had it in a Martini, so I made him a Negroni and he said "ok so it turns out I like gin."

Nice

well done!

Weird, weird weekend. Don't know what to think about the loud, opinionated guy at the bar who paid for the privilege of being annoying by dropping a hundred in the tip bucket when he paid up. (And then loudly announcing there should be a bell that gets rung whenever a $100 tip goes in.) Then there were 3 grimy kids, tripping or otherwise enhanced and one guy could literally not read the menu he was so jittery, who pooled their ones for an order of wings and 3 beers, no tip. When I rang the bell for last call last night, one yahoo stood up and announced a round for the house on him, something I'm sure he's been waiting to do his whole life, so I was still building drinks at one minute to closing. But then it turned out he tipped $260, which the owners decided to split equally between the servers and bartenders because we were all teamed up to fill that round at the last minute, so that was nice.

Gotta love the humanity

Last night I learned about the Smoker's Cough: a Jager shot with a dollop of mayonnaise in it. Fortunately, nobody wanted one, they were just playing Stump the Bartender.

A local car dealership owner is an Ole Miss alum and was the president of his frat, and is trying to turn the place into a frat bar in the later hours after dinner service, loud foul language and service staff abuse. He got a "calm the fuck down" death stare/index finger from me, then one of the owners got in his face and really gave him the business. He's booked to be back tonight, should be interesting.

Also, and this is hilarious to me: the owner decided to drop back to ultra-cheap tequila (Torada) from the 100% agave we'd been serving. I was worried about this -- thought we'd get complaints about serving drinks with paint thinner and rubbing alcohol and such. But an older couple from San Antonio was in town last night; he was drinking watermelon margaritas and she was having regular ones. He came up to the bar as they were leaving and said "My wife and I consider ourselves margarita snobs, and these were fantastic, really well done, thanks." So there you go, snobs like paint thinner.

you can stretch some cheap liquor a long way by putting it in a nice drink

I was discussing some local drinks for shooting that are... iffy.. lately and could provide some horrible ones to introduce to the bros. Some types of camaraderie lends well to terrible drinks

Also, and this is hilarious to me: the owner decided to drop back to ultra-cheap tequila (Torada) from the 100% agave we'd been serving. I was worried about this -- thought we'd get complaints about serving drinks with paint thinner and rubbing alcohol and such. But an older couple from San Antonio was in town last night; he was drinking watermelon margaritas and she was having regular ones. He came up to the bar as they were leaving and said "My wife and I consider ourselves margarita snobs, and these were fantastic, really well done, thanks." So there you go, snobs like paint thinner.

"this is the best Italian meal I've ever had. and I've been to *Dallas*!"

are you sure he wasn’t taking the piss
taking it, or drinking it?

No, he was totally sincere. He may have only had margaritas at a Chili's and at his brother in law's house back home in San Antone though.

The state's ABC is completely out of Luxardo Maraschino and has been out for a couple of months. One of our drinks, the Pink Pussycat, has a small amount and we're down to our last couple of ounces, so I went to Memphis yesterday to Buster's Liquor, an amazing store. Better stocked than all the places I've been to in Atlanta. Loaded up on Luxardo for the bar (+ 1 bottle of Lazzaroni, a cheaper maraschino liqueur, for comparison) and then spent another $300 on stuff for myself.

We're going to start doing Saturday brunch in a couple of weeks and the owner wants me to come up with 5-6 mimosa options.

Went there this summer. I've never seen so many bottles of Four Roses. Their beer selection was outstanding too. Got a 12-pack sampler of Oskar Blues for like 10 bucks!

Got my daughter out of the house for the first time in months and took her to Memphis, where she had googled three or four comic book stores.

My part of the deal was a stop at a real liquor store and a bag full of Krystals.

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