Jeff Burkhart: There’s no need to worry if others are getting more
His eyes were so fixed on the drink I was making you’d think I was cutting a diamond or performing an episiotomy.
A bar is the proverbial proscenium arch — on one side the audience, on the other the work. And the work is on constant display.
Eventually, he ordered. Everyone does what they want in the time they want to do it. In a world of choices, the most important choice might be the use of time.
“So, you guys don’t fill drinks all the way to the top?” he asked, using a coordinating conjunction to soften the blow. “You know, so full you can’t pick it up?”
I looked at the server who picked up the two drinks, put them on a tray and carried them through a jostling crowd toward a table. And while the sarcast in me wanted to scream out, the host is the one who answered.
“No, we don’t.”
Before he ordered, there were 10 questions about ratios, followed by five questions about weights and measurements, followed by two questions about cost, finally ending in the only question really pertinent to a bartender.
“Can I have a Manhattan?”
A local retail store was just fined $500,000 for not having its built-in cash register scales properly calibrated, never mind that it doesn’t actually use the scales for anything. But because it has them, the scales must be calibrated — state law.
In the bar business, there is no such thing. We hear the term shot, jigger and measure all the time. But there is no universal measurement for shot, jigger or measure. A shot is whatever the bar or restaurant wants it to be. In fact, those fancy little measurers you see “fancy” bartenders using come in all sizes, anywhere from 1 to 3 ounces. Typically, the double-sided ones have a ratio of 2:1, the larger size being whatever the establishment holds to be a shot. But again, that is subject to whatever they want it to be. Not all bartenders know this, but we all do know that measuring equipment is often only as accurate as the measurer wants it to be.
I made the Manhattan under his wilting gaze.
“Did you fill that all the way up?” he asked, pointing at the jigger I used.
“I did.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am.”
“Could you add a splash more?”
“A $1 splash or a $2 splash?” I asked.
He laughed nervously. “Are you serious?”
“I am.”
“Forget it then.”
He spent more time looking at his drink than drinking it. And not just his. It was as if his companion didn’t matter and, to the greater extent, the evening didn’t either. He watched every drink I made — the ones for customers at the bar and those that went to tables — with measuring eyes. When he went to a table, I could still feel his eyes on me.
His entire night was now relegated to making sure that no one else was getting more than he was. And no one did — that is how consistency works. But he wasn’t worried about everyone being equale needed that little something extra to make him feel special. Trust me, no one in the bar business asks about ratios and measurements because they are concerned about getting too much. It’s always about getting too little, or in some cases a bit more than everyone else.
There is a saying that the only thing that makes a drink better is more booze. It’s not true, of course, from the point of a bartender, but it comes awfully close to being true from the point of many customers.
“Excuse me,” said the woman to whom I had just delivered a draft beer. “Next time, maybe you shouldn’t fill the beer all the way to the top.”
I looked at her beer with its proper ¼ inch of foamy head, cocked my head and asked, “What do you mean?”
“I just spilled it on myself.”
Leaving me with these thoughts:
• Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
• If someone can carry a beer 10 feet without spilling it, but you can’t move it 2 inches without spilling it, it may not be the beer or the bartender.
• Spend more time worrying about your drink than your date and you won’t have to worry about them for long.
• Bartenders work for tips, but they certainly don’t like being “worked” for them.
• Too much head can be a problem as can too little. It all depends upon perspective.
Jeff Burkhart is the author of “Twenty Years Behind Bars: The Spirited Adventures of a Real Bartender, Vol. I and II,” the host of the Barfly Podcast on iTunes and an award-winning bartender at a local restaurant. Follow him at jeffburkhart.net and contact him at jeffbarflyIJ@outlook.com