Eleven years ago, when I penned my first column for Nation’s Restaurant News, I declared that “the glory days of the American barroom are upon us—right now.”
I wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t 100 percent right, either.
Fact is, in 1996, we were seeing just the tip of the ice cube in the highball glass, and it took a few years before the cocktail movement really took hold, changing the job of the cocktailian bartender forever. Note, please, that I qualify bartender with “cocktailian” in this context. The job of the bartender in general has not changed—and hopefully never will.
Those of you who have ever set foot behind the stick know that a bartender wears many hats, and you’re also aware that preparing drinks may be the smallest part of the job. Bartenders have to do a lot of grunt work like hauling kegs and heaving ice. They must get along with every single employee in the joint, and it’s their job to represent the bar or restaurant where they work, too, since theirs is probably the first face that customers encounter when they enter the place. They had better be able to give a warm welcome to every single soul who steps up to the bar.
Bartenders also have to remain on their feet for hours on end while they chat with treasured regulars, deal with unruly customers, placate anyone who is dissatisfied with anything at all—from the cleanliness of the bathrooms to the doneness of the burgers to the policies of the management. And they must do all of this while maintaining a pleasant attitude and an air of authority. Good bartenders must be benevolent dictators.
I teach workshops on bartending, and although much of the curriculum involves cocktail creation and the mixing and matching of flavors, I always try to impress on the attendees that there’s much involved with the job that’s simply impossible to teach. Not everyone is cut out for the job. The customer, for instance, will always pick up the slightest hint of a bad attitude, and arrogance is immediately detectable, too. When bartenders step behind the bar, they are handed something that I call “the power of the mahogany.” The customers at the bar give them that power, and they’d better be able to use it judiciously, or it will be taken from them as fast as it was given.
The most important part of a bartender’s job is to make sure that their customers leave the bar feeling just a little bit better than they did when they walked in, and this requires intuition on the part of the bartender. He or she has to figure out why each person is really at the bar, as people seldom come only for drinks.
All that said, I want to take time now to applaud the new cocktailian bartenders of the 21st century. These passionate young souls have taken the craft of mixology to new heights. The ingredients being used in some of the cocktails today are above and beyond anything that my generation would have ever dreamed of, and the best mixologists take their jobs so seriously, learning methodologies from seasoned chefs and experimenting with making their own tinctures, essences and flavored syrups.
Now I can say with confidence that we truly are in the golden age of the American barroom.
And with those words, I take my leave of this column, my little heart glad and a tear in my eye. I’ve loved every second of writing for Nation’s Restaurant News. I can’t leave without thanking Pam Parseghian, my wonderful editor here for these past 11 years. And thanks, too, to Joe Anderson, the art director who pretties up my words with his eagle eye for all things graphic. J. Roger Friedman, president and owner of NRN’s parent company, has been a part of my life for the past 11 years, too, and I’d be wrong to leave without thanking him for his notes of encouragement, words of wisdom and leads to some great cocktail bars. Very few presidents take a personal interest in their columnists the way he does.
With that, then, I’ll pay my tab, leave a decent tip, and be on my way. Thanks for your ear, my friends, it’s been a damned good session. And remember to watch for me as you continue to explore the world of cocktails. I’ll be the guy at the end of the bar wearing a contented smile.