Life Behind Bars Chapter 14
- Ray DeGraw
- Jun 29
- 14 min read
Chapter 14
There Are Only Ten Drinks
(Time to get technical!)
There were three questions that always seemed to pop up from customers on a consistent basis. One, “What in the world are you doing here?” The answer, “I’m an idiot.” Two, “Where is the nearest brothel?” The answer, “I don’t know.” And the third was, “How in the world do you memorize all those drinks?” Well the answer was simple, “There are only ten drinks.”
Now yes, I know what you’re thinking, that’s impossible! There are thousands of drinks, volumes of books with cocktail recipes as far as the eye can see. Yes, that’s all true, but when it’s all broken down, there are only ten types of drinks…the rest are just variations on what we call a style of drink.
As boring and inconsequential this may all sound, this is a book on bartending after all, isn’t it? I have to get into the meat and potatoes at some point here. The first thing I like to tell beginning bartenders is that the bar you work in will determine how much knowledge of making cocktails you will need to know off hand. For example, if you work in a beer and shot joint, you’re probably not going to need to know how to make a Mai tai off hand…or have the ingredients on the ready.
Generally, you’re going to have either a beer and wine crowd, a beer and shot crowd, or a Manhattan and Martini crowd. Or a little bit of all three, which is pretty much what I experienced. I’ve always found that most people don’t drink what I refer to as “foo-foo” drinks. Anybody who orders that sort of thing usually isn’t a big drinker and follows the restaurant’s drink menu. So if you keep it simple and have maybe a half a dozen foo-foo drinks on your drink menu, that’s pretty much what people will order other than the normal stuff. So that keeps things simple.
If somebody does come in and order some crazy off the wall foo-foo drink, ask them what’s in it and how it’s made. If they don’t know, I ain’t making it. And more times than not, you won’t have the ingredients to do it anyway. And besides that, if all else fails, use your phone and google it! What a time to be alive! Of course it goes without saying that this sort of person usually only comes in when you’re super busy and don’t have time to deal with it…but alas, that’s how the game works sometimes.
Drink One
The Manhattan
To me there is nothing finer than a well-made Manhattan. Eight marvelous ounces of chilled whisky or bourbon with a hint of sweet vermouth and a cherry for the garnish. No, this is not a drink for the lightweight or the Coors Light beer jockey who makes fun of you for drinking out of a martini glass. This baby is pure booze, so beware and not drink more than three, because you most likely won’t remember the night.
Start off by pouring ice and water into the martini glass you will be using and set it aside to cool. Then take a 16 ounce pint glass and fill it to the top with ice; never skimp on the ice, it is the most important ingredient when making cocktails…this is why amateurs can never get their drinks at home to taste like they do at the bar; plain and simple, it’s all about the ice!
Next, pour your brown liquor of choice three quarters of the way up the glass, leaving about an inch at the top, and then give about a half a shot of sweet vermouth. Please, and listen carefully, do not shake a Manhattan, you will bruise the liquor and put ice chips in the drink. Take a bar spoon and gently stir for about fifteen seconds or until you feel the ingredients have mixed well.
You’re now going to want to pour out the ice and water from your martini glass that was prepared earlier. Use a strainer to remove the ice from your mixed cocktail and pour into the martini glass. Garnish with a cherry, or lemon twist, or both…whatever the customer prefers. I like it all three ways, depends how I’m feeling that day. Now sip and enjoy and laugh at the idiot who is spending five bucks a pop on crappy beer, while you just got the best bang for your buck. Your Manhattan has more alcohol than a whole six pack of light beer. Cheers.
Things You Never Wanted to Know
A French Dip is old roast beef served on a stale roll. Why do you think they give you a bowl of au jus to dip it in? Enjoy Suckers!
Drink two
The Martini
One Martini makes me boast, two I like the most, three I’m under the host! Truer words could not have been spoken. It’s very similar to the Manhattan in the way the drink is constructed, it’s just the ingredients that are different. There is also debate on if and when dry vermouth should be used. In my opinion, never…and I was taught that long ago by a wise old sage. You can always add it if the customer really wants it, but you can never take it back out. And when you're mixing drinks with booze that’s worth more than your paycheck, the last thing you want to do is screw it up.
Prepare your glassware the same way by chilling the martini glass. Always chill the martini glass when making an “up” drink…this goes for Manhattans, Martinis and foo-foo drinks alike. There is nothing that irritates me more than paying over 10 bucks for a drink and seeing some half-rate bartender serve it to me in a warm glass. If you want to make it look like you know what you’re doing, chill the damned glass. It takes three extra seconds and it makes you look more professional, and your drink a million times better.
Fill your pint glass all the way to the top with ice, and fill with vodka or gin three quarters of the way. Use your shaker now, and please, don’t make an ass out of yourself with a little dance, just shake the fucking drink before I slap you upside the head. After about ten seconds or so, pour out your prepared martini glass and strain your drink into it. Garnish with olives or a lemon twist. Or, for a salty sweet taste, which was my signature martini, use both…sounds weird, but it tastes awesome.
Drink Three
The Build
The build is basically your classic foo-foo drink. Generally it’s served in an eight ounce high ball glass…with exception to a drink that has four or more ingredients in which you would most likely use a 16 ounce pint glass. Your classic build drinks are your sea-breeze, bay-breeze, white-russian and your long island iced tea. If you know how to make these four drinks, you can get by for a shift or two while you’re learning on the fly.
A sea-breeze is grapefruit, cranberry with vodka or rum. A bay-breeze is pineapple, cranberry with vodka or rum. A white-russian is vodka, kahlua and heavy cream. Start by filling your highball all the way to the top with ice, pour the booze first and top with the mixers...one and half ounces of booze and equal parts for the rest. Give a quick shake or two to add a nice frothy top and to blend the ingredients.
The long island iced tea is a different animal all together and will need a pint glass. Start by filling all the way to the top with ice (Don’t skimp!! If you don’t use the proper amount of ice, it throws off your mixture and your drink won’t taste right! And don’t let the customer bully you into using less ice. You are the professional, remind them of that! Pour a shot of all your clear liquors in your fast rack. That’s vodka, gin, rum, tequila and triple sec. Fill the rest of the glass with sour mix and leave about an inch at the top. Shake the mixture vigorously to blend ingredients and pour back into the pint glass. Top with a splash of coke to sweeten it up and give it color and garnish with a lemon.
Like I said, if you know these four drinks and you can make a Manhattan and a Martini, you will do just fine getting through your first few shifts, or failing that at least through an open bar at a wedding. And really, that’s where it all begins. As you get more experienced you will learn new drinks each shift, and for the most part you’ll be able to remember them…if you can’t, then move along, this profession is not for you.
Drink Four
On the Rocks
Nothing pleases a busy bartender more than when someone orders something on the rocks. Simple, two ingredients for the most part; ice and booze. It should always be served in an eight ounce rocks glass, if not, your boss is cheap and doesn’t deserve to sell liquor. Customers always appreciate an eight ounce glass, whether it’s your high ball, rocks or up glass. It makes the perfect drink and gives the customer a nice respectable cocktail.
Now if the customer wants just a few cubes, be sure you still only give four ounces or less of booze. Don’t fill up the glass to the top and dangle a few ice cubes in there…that’s a classic mistake by rookie barkeeps, and if a regular customer sees you making this mistake they will exploit it as long as they can. Trust me, I too was guilty of that in the early days.
Manhattans and martinis can and do get served in rocks glasses as well, and some people prefer to have them on the rocks rather than in a martini glass. It makes life easier for you as well since you won’t have to chill a glass or strain a drink. There are also drinks that are specifically served in a rocks glass, which is your gimlet and your black-russian. For a gimlet, fill the glass with ice, pour vodka, gin or rum three quarters of the way up and top with either Rose’s lime juice or fresh lime juice, whichever the customer prefers. For the black-russian, fill three quarters of the way with vodka and top with Kahlua.
People who order drinks in a rocks glass tend to be particular about the preparation of their drinks. They also tend to actually like the taste of booze, which is why most of these cocktails are basically all booze, with a few exceptions. The idea of having it on the rocks as opposed to in an up glass, is that the drink will mature as they consume it as the ice slowly melts and changes the taste of the drink with each sip.
Drink Five
The Sour-Fizz
Sour and fizz drinks have fallen out of favor over the years, and are often called your grandma’s drink of choice. Funny thing is, the fizz and sour are very similar to a Smirnoff ice. Basically it’s what the people at Smirnoff fashioned the drink after. It’s wonderful in the summer and if you’re not a big fan of the way alcohol tastes but like to get a good buzz on, this drink is for you.
For the sour, start with a full pint glass of ice. Pour in a shot and a half of your booze of choice, fill it three quarters of the way up with sour mix and top with club soda, shake it to get a nice frothy top and garnish with an orange slice and a cherry. The fizz is the exact opposite, just flip the club soda and sour ratios…this will give you the resulting taste of a Smirnoff ice and at a fraction of the price!
Just beware, this drink has a ton of sugar in it and it’s also masking the taste of the booze. These may be your grandma’s drink, but they can sneak up on you fast, and leave you with one hell of a hangover. On the bright side, you will be getting your vitamin c with the sour mix and the fresh fruit garnish. No scurvy for you matey!
Drink Six
The Frozen
The first night I worked at the Irish pub a customer asked me for a Pina colada. I said sure and turned around to find the bar had no blender, or the ingredients to make the drink. I asked Angry Dave, and he laughed.
“Yes, we have a blender, it’s downstairs in the basement.”
“Why keep it there Dave?”
“Don’t know. I got tired of making frozen drinks ten years ago. Threw it against the wall.”
“Are there any plans to fix or replace it?”
“They tried that, and I threw that one against the wall too. It’s been in the basement ever since. Trust me, it’s for the best.”
Dave was as old and as wise as Master Yoda, and I trusted him on his judgement. There is nothing worse than being three deep at the bar with drink orders coming in from the tables and some asshole decides they want a frozen drink. The same went for the Italian joint, so for the first 15 years or so of my career I never had to make a frozen drink and let me tell you, I was grateful.
Pina Coladas and strawberry daiquiris are often made with premixed cocktails that are loaded with sugar, high fructose corn syrup and have been sitting in the back of the fridge for months. The blender is often dirty and smells like a dirty sock. It’s in your best interest to not order one of these drinks unless you are at a resort that makes a ton of them every day and uses fresh fruit. Otherwise, stay clear my friends, stay clear. Did I mention bartenders hate to make them?
Uncle Ray's Tricks of the Trade
Need to avoid a customer you can't stand? Start scrubbing every surface of the bar and do all of your side work. Failing that, start telling endless stories about how great your kids are. Works every time.
Drink Seven
The Call
The call is quite simple, it’s a shot and a half of booze and a mixer served in an eight ounce highball glass. You want to know how the bartender knows how to make so many drinks? Well, most of them are ordered as a recipe. Sure, you will get some smartass ordering a Cuba Libre or a Cape Cod…but 99 percent of the time those two drinks will be ordered by their more common names, the rum and coke and the vodka cranberry.
It doesn’t get any simpler than that, especially if you have your three second pour perfected. Build with your ice, add your booze and top with your mixer and garnish appropriately. Throw in a stirring stick and place it down on a coaster or beverage napkin. Done and done…other than somebody ordering a drink on the rocks, you can’t get any easier than this.
The only thing you may want to do is try and upsell your customer. If they ask for a gin and tonic, ask them what kind of gin they want. Push the Beefeater and Tanqueray or the Bombay sapphire. Don’t let them drink the crap you have in the fast-rack. The more expensive the drink, the bigger the bill. The bigger the bill, the bigger your tip. Easy math, unless you’re a Millennial…and in that case you shouldn’t be in the bar business…multitasking and actually doing work is consistently proving to “not be your thing”.
Drink Eight
The Bloody Mary
Never, under any circumstance, use a pre-made bloody-mary mix…it’s so simple to make, and people who drink these on a consistent basis will not only appreciate a good homemade bloody-mary, but will seek you out if you make a good one. Tomato juice also keeps forever in the fridge, so you can get away with making a batch once a week.
Use one large can of tomato juice, half a bottle of Worchester sauce, four heaping tablespoons of fresh horseradish, a tablespoon of tabasco, a teaspoon of celery salt, a teaspoon of pepper and squeeze half a lemon into the mix. Stir well and keep in the fridge. You can also play with the amounts of the ingredients as well, base it all on the likes and dislikes of your customers…but do make sure once you’ve settled on a recipe that you and the other barkeeps at your establishment keep it consistent.
When making the drink itself, use a pint glass and fill to the top with ice, pour a shot and a half of vodka and fill the remainder of the glass with your mix. Shake and add a fresh stalk of celery and add either a lemon or three olives to finish the garnish. Have fun with it, make it look really nice when it gets to the table…having this as your signature drink is never a bad thing. Trust me, you make it well, and they will come!
Drink Nine
The Snifter
For the love of God, always push the snifter at the end of a person’s meal. They’ve got a nice full belly to take on more alcohol, and they’re happy and susceptible to suggestions. And generally speaking, most things served in a snifter are expensive and will pad that tab right over the magic number every time! Your overall goal is to get every customer to spend 50 dollars, which in most cases should get you ten bucks in a tip. In other words, if you get 10 customers to spend 50 dollars, you walk with a 100 plus shift pay for the day. If that becomes your low water mark, you are going to make a respectable living doing this full time.
As far as the snifter glass, there are two simple ways to get the perfect pour each time; remember, you are most likely pouring expensive booze so you don’t want to over pour. Nor do you want to under pour; remember, you are working for tips after all. The first is to put your two fingers on the bottom outside of the glass pour to the top of your second finger, this is simply called the two finger pour and it’s what customers expect in a snifter glass. The second would be to lay the snifter on its side and pour into the belly of the glass until you can pour no more. Tip the glass up and you should have a perfect two finger pour.
If the customer asks for their brandy or whiskey to be warmed, the simple solution is the fill the snifter with hot water from the coffee maker and let it sit in the snifter for a minute or so to get the glass nice and hot. Pour out the water and add the liquor. It will warm it up just right and is a much better solution than heating it up in the microwave or the stove top which can prove dangerous if you make it too hot. It also makes the alcohol in the drink evaporate, as booze has a quicker boiling point than water does. Which is how they distill alcohol, but you savvy types knew that already, didn’t you?
Besides, the cooks are cranky enough as it is, asking them to do anything extra is like playing dodgeball in a minefield. It’s best to avoid that situation altogether…colossal douchebags that they are!
Drink Ten
Shots
I’ve always been on the fence with shots because most people who do them are usually inexperienced drinkers. For one, you’re only getting one shot of booze as opposed to a shot and a half, or in the case of a snifter, two shots. And in most cases, shots are priced ridiculously high…so most people who order them are novices in the bar world. In other words, young folk who don’t know how to hold their liquor yet.
Now I know you’re thinking why not try and push shots if they are expensive and use less booze, and you’ve got a valid point. The problem not only lies with the youth and inexperience of the drinker, but also because shots are mostly done on an empty stomach with a beer chaser. If your customer starts slamming these things down on an empty stomach repeatedly, you’re going to be asking for trouble. I always try to avoid them all together.
I’m also a purist when it comes to shots, as I don’t like all these crazy concoctions that take ten different ingredients to make and foul up half of your glassware and fill up your dishwasher. Big surprise, right? Cranky old bartender Ray doesn’t like something new! Yeah, yeah, I get it. There are a few go-to shots like the red-devil, the buttery-niple, green-tea, Kamikaze, B-52, mind-eraser etc…learn these and make them your go-to shots when people ask for something to shoot down.
I’m not going to bore you with the recipes, because you can look them up on your phone. The same goes for when some 21-year-old asks for something crazy; just ask them how to make it and they’ll pull it up on their phones. And if the girl is hot and you’re a single go-getter, accidentally put your phone number in her contacts list while you have her phone! Hey, you never know!
So to answer the question of how do you memorize all those drinks, it really is quite simple. There are only 10 drinks out there, there are just limitless variations on them. You will remember a lot of them, but not all of them. Your customer base will have a selection of drinks that they prefer, and those are the ones that your mind will put to memory. On the occasion that you don’t know something, there is always a lousy book like this one to consult, or the internet at the tip of your fingers.
The most important thing is to know your glassware, and to use as much ice as possible! I can’t stress that enough! Ice is the second most important ingredient of a drink. That, and that alone is the reason drinks at the bar taste much better than they do at home. You are not doing yourself or your customer a favor by skimping on the ice. It takes the proper balance of booze, ice and a mixer to get the right balance and proper taste in a great cocktail. Don’t forget it!
Uncle Ray's Tricks of the Trade
Save your Christmas tips. New Year's resolutions and credit card bills will make your bar a ghost town until March!
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