Can you believe...

As I watched one of my server's snack on the green olives while she helped me stock my garnish tray one night last week, I came to the realization that out of all my years of bartending, I've never tried a green olive. Not once. Not ever.

Green olives are the staple garnish at any bar. All bars have some sort of variation of a green olive. Somehow I've managed to avoid snacking on green olives for the past eight years. I don't think it's anything against green olives. I've just never been tempted to eat anything out of a garnish tray. Maybe it's from all of the dirty, filthy hands I've seen reach into the garnish tray throughout a shift. Or maybe its the fact that garnishes aren't always as fresh as we'd like to believe them to be. You don't know want to know what some of those garnishes look like by the end of the night, when the lights are turned on, after hours.

Have you ever wondered what olive juice really is? I'll give you a hint. It's not really juice at all: Bartending 101: What is olive juice?

Cool things come from San Francisco

Cool things come from San Francisco such as the Golden Gate bridge, Cable Cars, Anchor Steam beer, Twitter and Drink Me Magazine.

Drink Me Magazine is a local print magazine that features 64-full color, glossy pages of San Francisco's bar and drinking culture every other month. The magazine is distributed FREE to its readers all over the city in local watering holes, liquor stores and at alcohol-related events.

This March will mark Drink Me Magazine's second year in print. Quite impressive especially since print publications seem to be a dying breed with everything going online lately.

Drink Me Magazine has no plans to slow down their growth spurt. Since they started publishing the magazine almost two years ago, the pages have doubled. The magazine is now up to 12 published issues. They just revamped their entire website and relaunched it this week. There is also word that the magazine is expanding to include New York in the near future.

Like I said, cool things come from San Francisco.

Be sure to check out the interview I did with Daniel Yaffe, the editor and publisher of Drink Me Magazine on my National Bartender page.

December 5th: Celebrate Repeal Day!

December 5, 2009 marks the 76th anniversary of the Eighteenth Amendment being repealed, giving back to Americans their constitutional right to drink. The Eighteenth Amendment is the only amendment to the Constitution that has been repealed thanks to the Twenty-first Amendment, marking the end of Prohibition in 1933.

Learn all about what Repeal Day is exactly and why it should be celebrated

Repeal Day events in San Francisco tonight

So today, be sure to drink and be merry. Celebrate the day in American history when the ban on manufacturing, importing, exporting, buying and selling of alcohol was lifted and that all fellow Americans (whom are at the legal age to drink or older) got back their constitutional right to drink publicly.

Fun Holiday Cocktail Recipes

Everyone is gearing up for Thanksgiving this week with making several trips to the grocery store and preparing to spend more time than usual in the kitchen. If you are looking to entertain adult guests this year or are an adult and are looking to entertain/relax your adult host(ess) with some holiday cheer, be sure to check out the following fun holiday cocktail recipes. They are fun, tasty and most importantly, easy to make:


Batida de Pumpkin


Spiced Place Market


Smashing Pumpkin


Cypear Buck

Your adult host(ess) and guests will thank you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

BarSmarts Wired

In most states, there currently aren't any prerequisites for becoming a bartender. There aren’t any classes required for someone to take that teach about all of the spirits and cocktails that are served behind a bar. There isn’t a license or certification that one must receive before they can work behind a bar. Bartending school is always an option as long as there is a good, reputable school located close by, but it’s not required. Many people who work behind a bar have never had any sort of formal training. Traditionally, bartending has always been a profession where a person learns the hard way, by good old trial and error, in front of their customers.

What is BarSmarts Wired? Read More...

A good bouncer is a bartenders best friend

A really good bouncer can either be a bartender’s best friend or their worse nightmare. The bouncer is the “face” of the bar or club because this is the first person a customer sees when they come inside the business. The first interaction between the bouncer and the customer is important. This interaction sets the mood of the night for the customer. A really good bouncer will set a positive vibe for the customer, providing a pleasant introduction to the bar or club. Bartenders benefit from this by having happy customers to serve.

So what makes a really good bouncer? Read More...

Pay Your Dues

Another option to consider when trying to become a bartender is by paying your dues. Paying your dues simply means that you are hired on with a restaurant, (corporate or not) usually as a server and work your way up within the company to become a bartender. By paying your dues you will learn important skills like what it means to provide good customer service, the ability to multitask and think ahead and have the opportunity to work under pressure. All of these skills are a required necessity as a bartender.

In any restaurant, the bartending position is usually the most sought out position. Just like in any other bar or restaurant (corporate or not), the bar is the social epicenter of the house. A few customers may choose to dine at the bar, but a majority of the bar business comes from making drinks for the customers waiting for their tables and making the drinks servers order for their tables. Bartenders generally make more money out of all of the other restaurant positions because they are able to sell more volume and don’t have to travel far in order to take care of their customers like servers do.

Corporate restaurants primarily promote their bartenders from within. Read More...

Know Someone on the Inside

Part 2 in the "How to Become A Bartender" series: Know Someone on the Inside

Once a person truly understands all of the different responsibilities of being a bartender and decides that they have what it takes for the profession, then its time to consider the different options of becoming a bartender. One way is to know someone on the inside who will give you a chance.

Sometimes, it’s not about what you know, but whom you know. Networking is an important element in any career, no matter what the profession might be. Read More...

How to Become a Bartender

Part 1 in the "How to Become A Bartender" series: The Responsibilities

One question customers and friends of friends seem to ask me over and over again is “If I wanted to be a bartender, how would I even start?” There are many different ways one can become a bartender, but the first question people should ask himself or herself before making the decision to become a bartender is, “Am I the type of person that is cut out to be a bartender?” From the customer’s side of the bar, bartending might look like it’s nothing but making tasty cocktails and flirting with the clientele. What many people don’t realize is that with bartending comes a lot of responsibility. Read More...

Complaining about a free drink is poor bar etiquette

Receiving a comp drink, free drink or a drink on the house is a luxury, not a right. It’s annoying to bartenders everywhere when someone complains about their free drink. It’s understandable if the quality of the drink is not up to par or maybe the glass of wine that was ordered didn’t taste right, but complaining about the amount of alcohol in (or not in) the drink is poor bar etiquette.

For example...Read More

WhiskyFest Coming to SF in October

Attention all whisky lovers: America’s largest whisky celebration is coming to San Francisco. The 3rd annual WhiskyFest will be in San Francisco on October 16th at the San Francisco Marriott, from 6:30 to 9:30 pm. This event will be featuring over 70 pouring booths, allowing attendees to sample over 200 whiskies (single malt and blended scotch, Irish, bourbon, Tennessee, Japanese, Welsh and Canadian), while being able to personally chat with master distillers and distillery representatives. In addition to all the various whiskies, there will be a few vodkas and rums available for tasting as well.

The focus of WhiskyFest is education. Read More...

The BaCu Sour @ Coda

The BaCu Sour is a modified version of a drink I concocted sometime last year for a bartender competition. The BaCu Sour is a vodka-based drink that consists of vodka (I prefer to use Stoli), St. Germain, a touch of simple syrup, fresh lemon juice, basil and cucumber with a splash of Hendrick’s gin, served up in a chilled martini glass. The garnish is simply a fresh basil leaf floating on top.

The name of the cocktail gives the drinker clues as to what the cocktail entails. “Ba” stands for basil. “Cu” stands for cucumber. “Sour” is referencing the type of mixed drink family the cocktail belongs to. Read More...

Timing is Everything

When it comes to finding a bartender job, timing is everything. There are many different factors as to why bars might not call back a bartender applicant for an interview. It’s important to not to take these things personal and to not let it negatively affect your bartender job search.

Let’s say that you hear about a new bar, restaurant or club opening in your neighborhood and decide to stop by to drop off your resume. You speak with the hiring manager briefly and you get a really good feeling from the conversation. You’re sure they’re going to call you and offer you a position behind the bar, but they never call. Or what about after doing some specific bar research, you stumble upon a bar that you know you’d be a perfect fit for? You have all the right experience and the bartender you’ve been chatting with tells you that they think there might be some shifts opening up. You come back to the bar to speak to the hiring manager and give them your resume only for them to tell you that they aren’t hiring, but they’ll keep your resume on file. Read More...

What is St~Germain?

What does St~Germain, Domaine De Canton and Chambord all have in common? Besides the fact that they are all considered liqueurs in the cocktail world, all three of these products original founders are all related to each other. St~Germain is a product of Cooper Spirits International, which is run by Robert Cooper. Domaine De Canton (a ginger flavored liqueur) is a product of Robert Cooper’s brother, John Cooper. A few years back, Robert and John Cooper’s father bought Chambord (a black raspberry liqueur), brought it to the United States from France, made it popular here in the states and then sold the company.

All three of these liqueurs are equally delicious and a great addition to any cocktail. My favorite of the three liqueurs is St~Germain. Read More...

Yelp: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Ever since I first began my career as a bartender, I have always had one major goal in mind: to always make the customer happy. Working in the service industry, I am in the business of customer service, of pleasing the customer. Sometimes, customers are really easy to please. Other times, customers can be high maintenance and demanding. If a customer is well taken care of, then there is a greater chance that the customer will come back in the future and tell their friends about their experience.

Before 2004, most people would hear of new restaurants and bars based on word of mouth. If a customer had a great or terrible experience at a restaurant or bar, that customer would tell their friends. Yelp has since brought this “word of mouth” service online in the form of Yelp.com. Read More...

How to Keep Your Cool Working Behind the Bar

Every bartender has had one of those nights. You’re four-deep at the bar. The bottles in your well are running low and you have no idea where your barback is. The server tickets keep spitting out from the printer. Your clean glassware supply is quickly running out. You’re almost out of change in your cash drawer. Your bladder feels like it’s going to explode and of course the next customer you approach to take their order says, “Um, I don’t know what I want. What’s good?” Aaaahhhhh!!

These are nights all bartenders have nightmares about.

I can always spot an amateur bartender because on nights like these, they either freeze or have a terrible attitude towards their customers and fellow bar staff. These are stressed and it shows. So how do great bartenders keep their cool behind the bar on the really busy nights? Read More...

Original Small Batch Bourbon Collection

I have a customer who every time he comes in, always requests the same drink: Knob Creek, neat. On one of the nights he came in, we had a chance to talk “shop” about whiskey and bourbon and the different types within the category. Surprisingly, I armed my regular customer with so much newfound information on his drink of choice. Now each time he comes into the bar and I have time, we pick a certain bourbon or whiskey off the shelf and talk about it. This is part of how I get inspired to write many of the articles I post here on Examiner.com. A majority of my inspiration comes from my customers, which is why I dedicate this article to my friend and regular, Mike, the Knob Creek drinker.

According to Fred Noe, 7th Generation Beam Distiller, “Tasting one of these small batch bourbons is like tasting the past. This is the way bourbon used to be. The way it was meant to be.” In 1988, Booker Noe, the grandson of Jim Beam decided to bring back the tradition of small batch bourbon making that had been popular before Prohibition. Before Prohibition, this type of bourbon was only made in small quantities, was more potent, more aged and more varied. The result has been the Small Batch Bourbon Collection from Beam Global. Beam Global features four different bourbons in their Small Batch Bourbon Collection: Bookers, Basil Hayden, Bakers and Knob Creek. Read More...

Bar Review: Rickhouse

When it comes to San Francisco’s bar and cocktail culture, there is a little something for everyone. You have the dive bars where ordering a shot and a beer is the standard. You have your fancy nightclubs selling bottles of spirits and bringing it directly to the table with ice, glass and mixers in the form of bottle service. You have live music venues that serve everything in a plastic cup. You have restaurants featuring specialty cocktails that pair nicely with the food entrees on the menu. And then there are places like one of San Francisco’s newest members to the bar scene, Rickhouse, located at 246 Kearny Street (at Sutter). If any of you in San Francisco remember the old Ginger’s Trois bar, this is the space.

From the company who brought to San Francisco, Bourbon & Branch now brings to the city, Rickhouse, minus the required password for entrance and the house rules. Rickhouse features an impeccable selection of spirits, local beers and California wines. There are three pages consisting of 96 different brands of American whiskey and rye whiskey alone! Read More...

The Beer Goggles Theory Has Been Debunked

The idea of having beer goggles just might not fly anymore. According to a recent study done by the University of Leicester, located in England, the infamous “beer goggles” theory has been proven to be only a myth. In the study, 240 men and woman in bars and cafes were asked to look at pictures of females and asked to comment on their age and attractiveness. The study included 120 sober men and women. The other 120 men and women had consumed alcoholic beverages. The pictures used were of ten different women, all of the age of 17. Some of the pictures had been digitally altered to show the same woman, aged at 13 years old and also at 20 years old and showed the women wearing makeup and without makeup.

The overall results of the study found that Read More...

Classic Cocktail: Mint Julep

Bartenders in San Francisco gripe every time there is a warm day here in the city (there are only a handful a year) because they know customers are more than likely to ask for a Mojito. Mojitos are a classic, labor intensive cocktail that requires basic ingredients such as rum, mint, lime juice and soda water and a little elbow grease in the form of muddling the mint within in the drink. In the whole grand scheme of things, the drink isn’t that big of a chore to make. Sure they take a bit longer to make than a mixed drink that only calls for a base spirit and a mixer, but Mojitos are tasty and refreshing, even more so on warm summer days.

The Mint Julep belongs to the same mixed drink family as a Mojito, which is considered the “Smash” mixed drink family. Being a Smash drink just means that fresh mint and other ingredients are muddled together in preparation for the drink.

The Mint Julep is the Mojito’s cousin from the South. Read More...