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Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Sheep-Goats posted:

no offense to servers but if I had a shop full of only bartenders everything would go fine, but if I had only servers things would fall apart.

Yes, yes, oh my god, yes. I say some variation of this every single shift. I trust my bar staff, I don't trust my wait staff (with certain exceptions) to tie their loving show laces.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2012 02:55

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 21:29

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Don't want to be a big party pooper but if someone did that to me, I would probably have smashed your bar up until they wrestled me out of there. I definitely would have called the police. Okay the girl might have been awful but that's practically lawsuit territory.

Royality posted:

So what I want to know is what sours refers to in the US? In the UK (especially at lovely student places) it refers to Apple/Raspberry/whatever fruit sours which are generally about 20% alcohol shots.

(UK barman too): A "_____ sour" is a cocktail, made with sour mix (lemon/lime juice with a bit of sugar syrup (gomme)). Sourz (which I don't care what anyone says, I like and are usually really cheap) is just the brand name for the weak fruity shots.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2012 22:30

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Weinertron posted:

Bartenders, tell me the etiquette around extreme happy hours. I'm going to a bar tonight celebrating 5 years of being open, and they're doing $1 beer, wine, and wells all night. Yes, I'm expecting it to be completely slammed with people packed in there like sardines. I'm still planning to tip $1 per drink. Would whiskey sours be too much work and they're just wanting to toss out beers and shots?

If you want the truth: yes. The staff will hate you for it.

I'd be very surprised if cocktails are in included in the offer as well. If you want a whisky sour, go to the quiet bar down the street and enjoy it.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2012 23:24

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Fair enough, I didn't even know you could get sour mix in a gun. We used to make our own in massive jugs.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2012 23:33

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Mr. Tibbs posted:

I'm an American studying in Denmark right now. Would it be considered rude/pretentious to go to a cheapish bar and order something slightly less common like a Rusty Nail. I vaguely remember something from the last thread about how European bartenders are more for pouring beer than really mixing drinks.

Don't know much about European bar culture, but I really love trying new cocktails.

It's a very different job in Europe, it's much more casual and entry-level. 90% of bar staff in Europe (or maybe I should just speak for the UK) don't know how to make a mojito. Or they might but they have never had to. But tell them how to make something, they'll happily do it and just charge you for the individual ingredients. They won't give a poo poo about what's pretensious, they'll just think it's some unusual American drink.

I'd be surprised if they had Drambuie in Denmark to be honest, but you never know.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2012 19:39

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Have a small part of it white rum and cranberry juice. Say 2 parts rum, half part curacao, 4/5 parts cranberry. Easy. It'll be quite tart, but still totally drinkable.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2012 15:21

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

You people that drink Campari are just biological mutations, my good god.

You put that stuff in your mouth?

# ¿ Sep 8, 2012 03:42

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

odiv posted:

I was away at university and some friends of mine had come in from out of town. "I know a decent Irish pub we can go to," I said.

We get there around 10pm, I could hear J-Lo from down the street and there were some women in tiny sequined shirts waiting in line outside.

"What the gently caress is this?" I thought, embarrassed.

Turns out the pub had just started having a "Club Night" to boost traffic. I walked away disgusted, so I didn't get to see how hilarious some drunk kids grinding in a pub atmosphere would be.

God, I can't even imagine how terrible this would be.

I remember the fuss I kicked up when my bar (slightly "fancy" mid-market bar & restaurant) started stocking Jager and Sourz and put a vodka red bull pitcher on sale. Just finished at that job on friday night as it goes.

Hoops fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Sep 9, 2012

# ¿ Sep 9, 2012 23:02

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

MisterOblivious posted:

lovely light beers are usually around 4.2% alcohol.

That's surprising to me. Internationally, US beer is thought of as being weak and watery, but most of the mass-market draught lager (Carling, Carlsberg, Kronenbourg, Fosters, Stella Artois, Becks) you can buy in a typical pub or supermarket in the UK is 4-5%, while the more common "premium" stuff can go up to maybe 5.5%. There's plenty of brewhouses where you can get stronger specialist stuff, but it's not the norm and from what I can tell they're perfectly common in the US too. The best selling beer in the UK is Carling (poo poo), and that's only 4%. Is the US reputation undeserved then, atleast compared to western Europe? All those light beers like coors light or bud light, are they all about 4.2%? I thought they were like 3.6, 3.8, something like that.

[edit]Jaegerbombs are super popular here right now. People only started drinking them maybe 5 years ago, and whilst the trend has probably peaked, it's still definitely going strong. You'll get a club flyer with "Jagerbombs only �2.50!!!!!" or whatever for most of the clubs in the country.

Hoops fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Sep 11, 2012

# ¿ Sep 11, 2012 16:23

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

The Slippery Nipple posted:

We have Belvedere as our well vodka. This talk of upgrading to Smirnoff has me realising that this must not be very common. Although I work in a cocktail bar, seeing as the bar is 'sponsored' by Belvedere its more for show than any actual taste improvement.
Beefeater, Calle 23 and Havana Club are our other whites in the well.

It's interesting how brand perception can be different in diffferent places. In the UK, Belvedere would be thought of as a more up-market alternative to Smirnoff (I'm assuming Smirnoff Red here). Smirnoff isn't thought of as being "budget" in any way (although I don't like it), but it's very much the standard vodka most places will have. It's as ubiquitous as Jack Daniels.

Some places will have a cheaper vodka (Russian Standard is getting a bigger market share, I prefer it to Smirnoff) and Bombay Sapphire or Beefeater are totally common, but the very, very standard house spirits you'll see in basically every licensed premises in this country are Smirnoff, Gordon's, Famous Grouse, Bacardi, Havana Especial, Jack Daniels. None of them are considered as being either "premium" or "cheap", just "normal". All of them produce 1.5 litre bottles with the label printed upside down so it's readable when you put them up on optics on the back bar, which I guess you generally don't so in the US.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2012 13:11

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

FISHMANPET posted:

So, is Halloween weekend Oct 26-28 or Nov 2-4?

Got to be before, right? No-one is going to want to put on a costume and go out after the actual Halloween night. It would be like having a Christmas party on the 29th December or something.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2012 21:21

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

rikatix posted:

Sorry, but it seems like you're complaining about the poor way you handled things that every waiter ever deals with all the time. To be frank with you I could have dealt with every single one of the problems you mentioned without missing a beat. It's completely second nature to make a suggestion to a customer if they're not being specific. Here's how it seems like that beer conversation went:

"A beer in a straight glass"
"What beer would you like?"
"Whatever, any beer"
"We have 32 different bottled varieties here sir"
"Just bring a beer, I don't care"

So you walked off and brought nothing. They can be snippy and non-responsive sure, but in terms of the end goal of getting an order from them you were a bigger problem than them.

You also can't be openly rude to a customers face and then complain about not getting tipped, it's one or the other.

Hoops fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Nov 12, 2012

# ¿ Nov 12, 2012 02:03

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

The shot is 1/3rd Schnapps, 1/3 whiskey and 1/3rd red bull? In one regular-sized shot glass? Doesn't really live up to a name like "Royal gently caress".

# ¿ Nov 30, 2012 00:02

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Coohoolin posted:

I was also UK bar staff (nightlife bars though, not a little Scottish pub, those kind of regulars would drive me insane) so I can more culturally specific response.

There was always a couple of ways, you just had to judge it on the guy and the reaction of the girl. A group of guys in giving it a bit of a cheeky flirt are fine, girl staff usually know they can get tipped out of it. They say something a little too far and I would give them a "alright lads, that's enough now" in a friendly, "you cheeky little devils" way.

Sometimes I felt that was selling the girl out a little bit though because she may have been quite offended and I was still giving them the benefit of the doubt.

If it was something more offensive it'd be quite aggressive "don't talk to the staff like that if you want to stay in here, mate", and probably tell them they can't stand at the bar anymore.

Then there's the definite crossing the line stuff: grabbing, getting aggressive, calling them "bitch/oval office". They're straight out the door.

It's the same with all of these kinds of questions though, there's no one way to respond, you have to judge it on the situation and your appraisal of the customer.

One thing I would always do though, which seems quite white-knighty but is more because I was in charge, was to ask them if they wanted to swap sections/me to take over serving. Usually they were fine as long as it wasn't happening anymore, I guess young women just learn to deal with that sort of poo poo.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2012 03:20

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Base Emitter posted:

I thought the Bailey's version was called a mudslide.

That's what I would have called it too. The "official" White Russian recipe is vodka, kahlua and cream, but I would argue that the cream has been replaced by milk (or atleast half-and-half) in common practice now. If I ordered a white russian I wouldn't expect full cream. Maybe it was The Big Lebowski that popularised it that way, but I was significantly underage when that movie came out so I'm just speculating.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2013 18:51

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

I've just been out in my small hometown, and goddamit in three different bars every pint I was served was flat. I've worked in bars in that town and no beer would be flat when I was serving. This was Saturday night so you know the supervisors were on, I don't understand why people will let the gas on their taps run out without changing it. I had to ask for some extra head on my beer in three different places just to make it drinkable.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2013 05:30

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

door Door door posted:

Not scooping ice with glassware is obvious. But don't Boston shakers pose the same danger, even if the glass chipping is less likely?

In two years at a cocktail bar and a few more years at various other jobs, I don't remember ever seeing a boston glass break, or even get chipped. But still, no glass in the ice bin, never ever ever.

edit:

LogisticEarth posted:

I think he's concerned about the shaker glass chipping against the tin, when used like this:

Ah, I get you. I don't think chipping is really possible because the metal is so thin. Smashing them together would cause the tin to dent or split before it chipped the glass. Seems to me, anyway.

edit2: There also might be some physics reason behind it, like the seal is partially formed by the tin getting cold and contracting round the glass, so the force isn't "vertical" (in the direction of the base to the rim). That's just a guess though.

Hoops fucked around with this message at 02:08 on May 10, 2013

# ¿ May 10, 2013 02:04

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

rorty posted:

I'm in the UK and have been playing with the idea of moving to America for a few years. I graduate with an Art History degree in two years and want to land somewhere with a strong gallery scene. NY being the dream. Will a few years of bar experience and an accent be enough to assume that I can land and be earning enough money to pay rent and feed myself within a few weeks? I've got strong cocktail knowledge which is relatively rare in the UK.

I think the visa to work will be much more of a problem than the bar job. For some reason the UK has really poor emigration treaties with the US. Can't just move over there and get get employment, technically I think you need to be a skilled worker (no, barman doesn't count) sponsored by a company before you even leave. I think there's a US immigration thread in Ask/Tell.

# ¿ May 15, 2013 11:40

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

ubermarcus posted:

Just wondering how often you all wash the speed pourers/spouts/whatevers in your alcohol bottles, and how you go about that?

When I've worked in places with say 20 bottles behind the bar, like you said: pourers off every night, through the glasswash, back on again. For places with 150 bottles, generally we had a tub of clean pourers, and when a bottle ran out we put the new bottle back with a clean pourer on it and washed the dirty one. Then a full clean of everything once a month-ish. For the sticky stuff, wash the pourers whenever someone felt like it, to be honest.

quote:

Bar jobs are very competitive in the US compared to the UK. Even more so in big cities with galleries and more so again in cocktail oriented places. The accent is helpful.

I've been reading this thread for something like two years, so I feel I have a good understanding of the different industry cultures between the US and UK, but how true is this across the whole country? I totally get that in Vegas, New York, Miami etc bartending is a really prized job and you have to work your way up. But what about in some random bar in some random midsized city? I'm picturing say, Cheers. Or the kind of bar you see in a million sitcoms. Somewhere that doesn't even have barbacks. If you walked into a non-collegey, non-club, run of the mill bar in Colorado, it's really unlikely you could get a job?

# ¿ May 15, 2013 17:58

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

JawKnee posted:

I tend to soak spouts in boiling water and plastic wrap them (or just leave them off and put the caps back on the bottles) at the end of the night. Keep on cleaning those spouts, fruit flies suck, and they suck worse when they get in the bottles.

We had a minor ant infestation once, it was a loving nightmare. Had to keep the screw caps on the bottles until it was sorted out. Try doing high volume when you have to unscrew the cap every time.

# ¿ May 15, 2013 18:42

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Going back to bar work over the summer before I start a "career" job in the autumn. My head tells me get the closest, easiest job I can get but part of me wants to go to a club and work till 5 in the morning like I used to, blazing through 8 hour shifts before I even get a chance to check my watch and having staff drinks till the sun comes up.

# ¿ May 27, 2013 21:43

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

rorty posted:

I'm perfecting a cocktail based on a biscuity cake orangey thing some UK folk might be familiar with and I'm really trying to get the biscuity taste on the end. Any suggestions on what might add biscuity tastes to a cocktail?

Jaffa Cake Martini? would sell like a motherfucker to a young crowd.

I would try Cointreau, Amaretto, splash of vanilla vodka, and maybe also make a tester with a bit of cinnamon schnapps (might not work for what you're going for). Just amaretto and cointreau would be close enough I expect. Blue bols would cut through more with the orange flavour but well, you know, it's blue. It will be more "cakey" than "biscuity". Can't think of how you're going to get "biscuity" in liquid form, unless you want to start dicking about with eggs and stuff.

[edit]on second thought actual powdered cinnamon instead of schnapps, don't think you'll taste the schnapps in that so you're just using stock for no reason. Just a little bit though. You won't get it to taste exactly a jaffa cake but you can get "orange and cakey" pretty well.

Hoops fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Jun 24, 2013

# ¿ Jun 24, 2013 01:05

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

The supermarket own-brands ones are nearly all better than the McVities ones to be fair.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2013 01:34

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Masonity posted:

It just reenforces the idea that robots instead of barmen are great as a gimmick but terrible as an actual business plan. If you opened a robot bar everyone in town would come once, for a drink. Then they'd go somewhere with cool, efficient, knowledgeable staff and shoot poo poo with them about that cool new robot place down the road while getting properly smashed.

I agree, it could only ever work if it was in Times Square or the Vegas strip, somewhere super touristy where people will take their chance to visit the bar where the robots make your drinks for you.

Honestly though I don't think stuff like that is designed to be a credible business idea, it's just an attention-grabber for the MIT robotics department. It's more about the robot gimmick than it is the bar gimmick.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2013 00:40

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Masonity posted:

In the UK at least, it's the standard "wiping up spills" paper. It's far better than kitchen roll.

It's absorbant, doesn't fall apart when wet, and will clean glass/metal without streaks. It's the lifeblood of the industry.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2013 23:18

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

I've put a drink for myself on a massive tab from a huge group of drunk idiots who caused problems for me all night because they were treating it like a free bar, screw you guys. One pint after work for me, when they've spent a grand on round after round of eight mojitos, I'm not losing any sleep over it. People don't tip in the UK, especially when they're drinking on a tab.

I've never done the "make sure the tab gets tapped out" thing though. I can't recall a tab that ever didn't hit the limit.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2013 02:14

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 21:29

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Masonity posted:

I work in a bar in the City (London's financial district)

Do you mind saying which one? Or what street, maybe?

# ¿ Aug 17, 2013 03:43

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