Let’s have a drink, it's on me

 

Have a good day? Let’s have a drink, bad day? It's on me - as it seems we have always had a reason to drink, but who can make these fantastic cocktails for us? Barmen or barmaids, the people who have superpower in their hands and can change our mood only in one sip. And do you know there are 644,100 bartenders in the US (the Bureau of Labor Statistics 2018)  trying to quench our thirst and make our days better.  

This job has lots of fun aspects but it needs lots of hard work too. Bartenders have to be on their feet all day, they should interact with customers, make recommendations, take orders and serve snacks, alcohol or non-alcohol drinks, mix ingredients and prepare the best cocktails for you, it’s a very hard work especially when 185,000 Margaritas are drunk every single hour in the USA.

You can meet the first bartenders from the ancient era where Greek and Roman revelers asked expert craftsmen to pour their favorite drinks and by 15th century people called bartenders innkeepers which “produced their own spirits and ales”, as it seems they believe the magic of drinking. But By 20th century bartending was prohibit by the law so we get “Prohibition Era” in bartending history, it was called the “noble experiment” and the aims of it was to solve social problems, improve health, hygiene and reduce crime and corruption but the results show that the experiment failed. Sometimes we break laws and thanks to this we get the gin and tonic, yes! the most famous cocktails were invented in the Prohibition Era. What happens then? After ending the “noble experiment” bartending came back with its whole effort, lots of bars or cocktail lounges, bartending schools were opened for those who wanted to study making cocktails in professional field. 

Bartending culture , bartenders, barmaids, drinks and tastes have changed over the years but the basement of bartending , classic recipes and techniques remain same. The author of the first cocktail book 1862 “The Bon Vivant’s Companion” was Jerry Thomas considered to be the first bartender in our history who also loved  performing eye-catching tricks behind the bar. Oh, What do you think about flair bartending? I like it, can you imagine a good bartender/barmaid trying to entertain you by manipulating bar tools, shaking their drinks, doing several tricks and then gives you cocktails? It’s fantastic, even when you get this from best ones.

Today among bartenders “58.7% are women, while 38.2% are men”. Can you feel girl power? So do Ada Coleman,  who was serving drinks for Mark Twain, Charlie Chaplin and the Prince of Wales. She is considered to be the first woman in bartending history. Ada worked as a barmaid for 23 years  at the Savoy Hotel’s American Bar and created her own cocktail called “the Hanky Panky” which appears in our menus even today.

Apart from studying the recipes or techniques of cocktails, bartenders must have a good memory, organizational and strategic communication skills to bare our sometimes strange desires and if you hear the number “86” from bartender it means you are no longer a good customer because in bartending “86” is slang which means they want to remove, get rid of someone/something and in this way they share their unpleasant to their partners. 

And do you know one fact about them? Fridays are not for them, as they had to do lots of cocktails, they have to contact lots of customers and had no strength for their own “Fridays’’,  it’s not fun anymore, just hard work , but they earn average $12.30 in an hour and for professionals it rises up to $20 (what do you think about it ?)

We agreed that bartenders do the very best job for us but there are things we should do for them, we should take care of the ones who can change our mood from bad to good things. There are very tiny things we should do for them , If you order cocktail and then go, where are you going? Please do not disappear, you have to pay, don’t be too curious, don’t ask so much questions, wait for your turn in the queue and always remember “closing time” means they end working and you can’t enter. So we must be good customers for our best bartenders, we should appreciate their work and then they serve the perfect drinks for us.

So have a good day? – lets have a drink. Bad day? – lets go for a drink, it’s on me.