|
Rotten Cookies posted:A whole bunch of stuff I am in almost the exact same situation as a bartender in a hotel that specialises in conferences and weddings. If they pay for a 4 hour beverage package then we still have to ring up every single drink we pour (with wine by the bottle) purely for stock taking purposes. There's a massive room for error, but also plenty of room to put through a few extra beers as staffies at the end of the night. Nobody is paying too much, but drinks can be very easily written off. We also have a "no shots" policy that I quite enjoy enforcing, although it is actually somewhat up to our discretion. If I get a group who is discussing shots I usually let them go through their whole "what do you want? Okay, so that's 4 tequilas, 5 Sambucca" etc. before telling them we can't do it. I'm not sure why I get such perverse pleasure from letting them get an entire order first. Serving doubles is at our discretion as well. Someone who wants to sit by the fire with a double scotch, no problem. A bunch of wedding guests drinking on someone else's dime with a mission to get drunk? Sorry fellas, no doubles served here. Part of our license I'm afraid! Speaking of which, what the hell is up with black Sambucca shots? It seems that literally not a single person who orders them actually likes them. Sambucca seems to have this stigma of being really strong and will get you poo poo-faced more than anything else in the bar, but the taste offends everyone in a 10m radius. I'm always happy to give the bride/groom pretty much whatever they like as well, but it's hard to explain to a group of drunk dickheads why they can't get shots when they just saw someone else doing them. One massive saving grace at my work is that our license only extends to midnight. 11:45 last drinks are called, come 00:00 I'm afraid your wedding is over. I don't give a poo poo that you didn't hear the DJ calling last drinks, I don't care that it took you half an hour to stumble your way to the bar. As soon as that clock hits 12 not a single drop of booze is leaving my bar, the lights are turning off and you can all gently caress off back to your hotel rooms.
|
#
¿
Aug 16, 2012 16:03
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 4, 2024 05:17 |
|
|
Pantsmaster Bill posted:There was a great night when some dude asked me for a double of our most expensive brandy (to mix with Red Bull Sweet Jebus, I thought we marked it up a buttload at AU$28.50 a shot! Reminds me of a wedding I worked where the father of the groom bought his son a bottle of Glenfiddich 21yr, and for the first time ever we allowed someone to BYO so long as I was pouring it for them (just so we could regulate how fast they were drinking). It wasn't until I was pouring the last shots for the groomsmen that the father realised they'd been drinking the entire bottle with pepsi all night. With me protesting of course, but they insisted because none of them actually really liked Scotch. Mixing cognac with anything sounds gross to me. Mixing it with Red Bull sounds like blasphemy, but doing it to Martell XO should see someone hang!
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2012 17:04
|
|
) Martell XO, which was £26 a shot. You should have seen his face.
|
I had a group of customers tonight have a big whine that their mojitos were undrinkable because "they taste like rum. I hate rum!" Pretty on par with the lady who complained her margarita was undrinkable because it tasted so much of tequila.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 5, 2012 18:18
|
|
|
I was just curious what size float you guys all keep in the till? I'm in a hotel that has a lot of functions and weddings, so it happens a few times per week that I'll have 150ish people all insisting on paying with $50 notes, so no matter how perfect my till looks at the start of the shift, it's usually rendered useless within an hour or two. I currently have $400 and have been told "we can't just make more money appear for a larger float! Where would it come from? Just make sure you stock it properly beforehand!"
|
|
#
¿
Nov 9, 2012 03:18
|
|
|
That's my experience with an Espresso Martini in particular. Every single person that orders one wants it made differently, so I've just started asking them what they want in it. I've heard so many variations of Creme de Cacao and Frangelico and Kahlua and Vodka that I just know I'm going to make it "wrong" unless I ask what they're actually after.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 22, 2012 16:46
|
|
|
Speaking of undrinkable shots, I had an awesome customer recently who was having a long running competition with a friend in another state. They started with a base ingredient, and the other person would choose a second ingredient to go into the cocktail. If the first person drank the whole thing without puking they got to pick an additional ingredient that the other person then had to add to their order. They'd been playing this over the phone for about a week, so by the time I served the poor guy his "cocktail" looked something like this: Tequila Baileys Jack Daniels Grenadine Gin Lemon Squash Midori The Baileys was the most recent addition so the whole thing started going nice and lumpy as I apologetically put it in front of him. Took him about 20 minutes to down the thing, but then we started scheming what his friend had to add next round. He loved my suggestion of Jaeger...
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2012 01:12
|
|
|
Shooting Blanks posted:The Bailey's is already curdling from the alcohol, or that would have been my vote too. This was a few weeks ago, and I didn't see the guy beyond our initial encounter. I just know that he rang his friend afterwards with a "it's your turn! Add Jaeger!" He didn't imply there was anything in particular they were betting on beyond "can I make my friend drink something revolting and hurl in a public place?".
|
|
#
¿
Dec 1, 2012 17:04
|
|
|
My bar's in a hotel, so 'the bar is closed but there's still people around' is pretty common. But can someone tell me if the following sounds at all familiar. At first I thought "this guy must be a bit slow, whatever!" but it's become depressingly frequent now. (Me) In the bar after closing. The doors are locked, the fridges are locked, every single light is turned off. I am counting the till, cash all over the bar, going just by the light from the POS screen. From the outside this is a pitch black, locked, very closed room. *tries door, finds it to be locked, knocks* *is surrounded by cash, 100% closed, decides to ignore knocking until it goes away* *KNOCK KNOCK!!* *peers around bar at the douchebag at the door* *shakes door! KNOCK loving KNOCK!!* *Reluctantly puts cash back into the drawer, walks around the bar, runs into a few things because it's pitch loving black, opens door* "Yes?" "Hey, are you still open?"EVERY. GOD DAMNED. WEEKEND!! If the bar is open but temporarily unattended people will wait, or call for assistance, or generally act like a sensible human being. As soon as the bar is completely, totally, glaringly obviously closed, locked, dark, turned off, shut down, packed away and generally no longer open, it's like I've put out a big neon signs outside the door saying "Ask me if I'm still serving! Seriously, I might be!"
|
|
#
¿
Dec 16, 2012 14:10
|
|
|
Ted Ed Fred posted:I've been drinking gin, soda water and lemon juice so far. I've grated some lemon zest into that and it makes it more awesome. Just a quick suggestion, I would squeeze the oil from the lemon's (or lime's) rhind in instead of zesting it. I always feel that something that fine in a drink does nothing but clog a straw or get stuck in your teeth. Cut off a nice wide strip of the lemon's skin off, cutting off as much of the white pith as possible. Then just twist or squeeze it over the drink to spray its oils all over the drink. It will smell and taste far more intense than simply using zest or juice. This is basically what "with a twist" is in things like Martinis. Also the obvious next thing to try is whether you like your gin with tonic instead of soda.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 18, 2012 02:11
|
|
|
With a bit over a week to go, does anyone know of any Valentine-based cocktails? Or is it far easier to just churn out champage with strawberries?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 5, 2013 09:15
|
|
|
Just wondering how often you all wash the speed pourers/spouts/whatevers in your alcohol bottles, and how you go about that? Today, after giving the bar an incredibly thorough clean after it's been abused and neglected while I've been on holiday, it dawned on me that I'm the only person I know who actually cleans them in any way. Generally every bottle in my bar has a plastic pourer with a plastic 1oz cap on it. When I use the bottle I then keep the cap off it, so that at the end of the night I can see that any bottle without the cap has been used, and is therefore dirty. All the caps and pourers just get soaked in soda water for a bit and then thrown through the glass washer as the last cycle of the night. Not a single person I've ever worked with does anything like this though, so I'm wondering whether I'm being silly, or everyone else is just a grot? I work with one girl who will use the cap to measure a shot, then put the cap back on the bottle without rinsing it. That includes Baileys, Midori etc., so you can imagine the bar and all the bottles dripping with sticky poo poo at the end of the night, and that's made me doubly vigilant about cleaning.
|
|
#
¿
May 15, 2013 17:02
|
|
|
Luceo posted:Also, I'll never understand why any restaurant with a decent bar would stock Pepsi products. No one ever orders a Jack and Pepsi, or a Jack and Cola. In my experience, because every place I've ever worked in Aus has used Pepsi, is that Coke wants complete control over how you sell the stuff. "Sure you can officially stock Coke! Here's a coke fridge to serve from, some coke signage for your new coke tables. God help you if we see a non-coke product anywhere near our stuff though!" Whereas Pepsi will simply say "sure! What do you want to order?", end of story. That and they're much cheaper.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 9, 2013 02:56
|
|
|
I work in a hotel that specialises in conferences and weddings. Very often we get larger groups that are happy to run a tab with no restrictions. The Groom/CEO/Boss/whatever will usually sign off on the bill without even looking at it. Now, my previous manager always encouraged us to "add a bit of extra love" to their tab, like a few staff drinks, or just a few extra of whatever they'd been drinking to make our figures look a teen bit better. I was wondering, is that fairly standard practice? I realise that morally it's pretty iffy, but when a group's stance is "we'll pay whatever for whatever", is it that much of an issue? Since that manager left it has been up to my discretion as to what a group's tab looks like, and so far this has been limited to "every time you're a dick to me, you bought me a drink!" Is the previous example of fudging a tab common practice, or have I basically been working for a terrible human being?
|
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2013 18:42
|
|
|
Tigren posted:You've been working for a shady person and "every time you're a dick to me, you bought me a drink" is still stealing. Theft is theft dude. You don't just add stuff on to people's tabs. Is this a troll? I understand that the practise is shonkey on a moral and legal level. That's why I was asking whether it was common practice or not? I'm sure that it makes me a terrible person, but I have to say that, when a group has an unlimited tab running, reaching many thousands of dollars, where the person signing off on it neither knows nor cares what's going onto it, then changing "127 beers" to "130 beers" isn't going to make me lose any sleep. Sure, it's dodgy, but is it common? When I've got 120 pax who I would consider to be a colossal bunch of fuckwits, I find it very easy to add +5 to whatever drink they've decided to drink a poo poo load of. The staff are happy, and the group is absolutely none the wiser. I'm sure there's a very big difference between "make sure this comapany pays at least X amount, because they're made of money and gently caress them!" and "chuck a few extra drinks on there for the staff".
|
|
#
¿
Aug 16, 2013 16:59
|
|
|
Perdido posted:
Apparently my Margarita was "completely undrinkable" because it "tastes like tequila". Similarly my Mojitos, unforgivably, tasted like they had rum in them. Only lady asked me to make her a custom cocktail she'd had before but couldn't remember exactly what. Eventually she decided the main ingredients were Baileys, grenadine and fresh lemon. I warned her it would instantly turn into a red lumpy mess, she insisted, and actually really loved the drink, which was "exactly what she was thinking of!". Not a bad customer by any means but it was so weird to be thanked for making something so horrible. And for some reason it still surprises me how many people, when asked, want their whisky "neat... with ice".
|
|
#
¿
Sep 21, 2013 18:39
|
|
|
After an altercation with my manager at work, I was wondering what everyone's opinion is on what to do if you run out of basic house spirits? I realise that it should never happen, but my manager doesn't have a clue what he's doing and I went a full week with no Smirnoff, despite numerous verbal and written reminders for him to get some. So I suddenly get a conference group of 60pax, for two days straight, who happen to be vodka drinkers. Realising the boss's stubbornness is now going to make me look like a clueless fool in front of a large group of well paying clients, I gave them a "Sorry, I'm actually out of the house vodka, but I'll do you the Belvedere at the same price." Boy was that the wrong thing to do! According to boss man (and this has happened before with wine), I should have told them "Sorry, no Smirnoff. Your vodka and raspberry will be $13.50." I was verbally told off, well and truely, and then a written memo was put up for everyone to see. Now if, over a night, a group drinks so much that they drink me out of my entire reserve of very basic spirits, well then nuts to them. They can drink something else. But if I start a night with no Jim Beam, or Smirnoff, or any of the other staples of every bar on the planet, surely that's the bar's fault and problem?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 11, 2014 18:07
|
|
|
nrr posted:Your manager sounds like a dumbass but sheep goats is right, you should've asked him what he wanted done. You could've also tried to avoid the situation altogether by seeing a solid group of well paying clients and just up sold them to the belvedere anyway. You make them want the good stuff and it becomes inconsequential that you're out of everything else. It probably did sound like that, and you're all right. I wrote that while half asleep and a bit grumpy. I am not the bartender at work anymore, I was promoted to food and beverage supervisor, so I run the bar and restaurant. The manager wasn't there that day, and neither was our actual bar tender. I was the one serving in the bar in their absense, and I made the call because I was the only one there authorised to make it. Our spirits and pricing are all over the place at the moment, so yes Belvedere was the next step up from Smirnoff, with Grey Goose one above that again. I had a nicer selection at one point but nobody had heard of them... I was frustrated and pissed off with my manager, but only after the fact when I was publically berated for improvising a solution to cover for the fact that he's incredibly bad at keeping the bar and restaurant stocked with basic things. I didn't tell the clients that "my boss didn't bother ordering it" was the reason, I wouldn't do that. The customers only saw me defuse a situation before it was a situation, and the feedback we recieved after the conference left was that we are all brilliant and professional. When my reward for making a large, well paying group really happy and probably getting us repeat business is "but you only made us 300% profit instead of 400! What the gently caress do you think you're playing at??" well then I think I'm quite justified in getting lovely.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 12, 2014 03:03
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 4, 2024 05:17 |
|
|
I humbly request thoughts and suggestions! I work in a Spanish style tapas restaurant and we just got our liquor license. I have now been tasked with coming up with a handfull of cocktails, and I can apparently request pretty much whatever I want. The boss wants to put a bit of emphasis on Sherry, but I know pretty much bugger all about them. I've tried googling Spanish style/themed cocktails but all the results boil down to "Make sangria with red wine. Or make Sangria with white wine!" Is there a particular style of cocktail that is distinctly Spanish? Are there interesting cocktails using the sweeter Spanish sherrys?
|
|
#
¿
May 25, 2014 10:07
|
|