I’ll be at OldFields Liquor Room tonight.

Keeping it together.

Working the night shift.

Getting ready to work tonight.  Sometimes the bartenders life is strange.  We have all day sometimes to have our day, but have to stay semi focused to serve.

Slur of the Day.

Shirley Temple to Martini.

Like most people I first got the idea of finding a bartending job in college in the mid 90’s. My girlfriend at the time found a job at a banquet hall in West Orange, New Jersey, working weddings and Bar Mitzvah‘s. Most of it was just pouring wine, sparkling water and Shirley temples. Soon after, I got my first real fine dining restaurant job in Newark, NJ. Go figure. The bar was located in the kitchen and served the buffet section of the restaurant. I always associated being a bartender with being cool. I mean who didn’t see cocktails?

Anyway, I thought I was gonna be the shit behind my buffet service bar. When tickets started flying in I was in the weeds in seconds. A ticket for a Martini on the rocks came in. I made it in a martini glass and added ice in the martini glass; the waiter looked at me like I was from outer space. It was a disaster!

I don’t think I made one drink correctly. Perhaps maybe a screwdriver, I think I even made a few diet cokes wrong. Suffice to say my index cards and “How to Bartend” book did not help. After my nightmare of a shift, my manager; a high-strung French guy named, Alex came in foaming at the mouth and chewed me out righteously. “What were you doing behind the bar!? Huh!? What am I paying you for? What am I paying you for?!? You gotta be kidding me? Are you an idiot?!” As a 19 year old know it all from the hood, I almost blew my top at him, but reason set in and I held myself from crying and I realized he was right. I had no idea what I was doing. You can’t just show up behind a bar and call yourself a bartender, otherwise your French manager will call you an idiot.

Alex became my mentor from that point on…

Slur of the day.

    Always carry a Flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite, and furthermore, always carry a small snake.”

(W.C. Fields, 1880-1946)

The Green Fairy!

The Green Fairy is the English translation of La Fee Verte, the affectionate French nickname given to the celebrated absinthe drink in the nineteenth century. The nickname stuck, and over a century later, “absinthe” and “Green Fairy” continue to be used interchangeably by devotees of the potent green alcohol. Mind you, absinthe earned other nicknames, too: poets and artists were inspired by the “Green Muse”; Aleister Crowley, the British occultist, worshipped the “Green Goddess”. But no other nickname stuck as well as the original, and many drinkers of absinthe refer to the green liquor simply as La Fee – the Fairy.

This Friday Night is Manhattan Night

Ahhh… Friday night. If you’re just getting out of work and are looking for the perfect elixir, a Manhattan is the choice. If stirred to the perfect temperature with a Bing Cherrie, it’s liquid silk in a glass.

Ingredients:
2oz. Bourbon (My choice is Blantons, or Makers Mark.
1oz Carpano antica sweet vermouth
3-4 dashes of angostura bitters
(Stir until nice and chilled. Pour, and drop a Bing or luxardo cherry.)

The Bar Life!

I guess I was born to be behind a bar. It’s tough to admit but my first memories are from a bar. My mother was a member of this Puerto Rican Social Club, “Salseros”. My dad was always in the back room of the Old San Juan Bar in Jersey City. No matter how hard I tried to stay away, the bar was always waiting, always calling with stories to tell….. I’ll be sharing mine and many others here on Classic Slurs…. Stop by whenever you want to hear one or share one, the Bartenders always listening. Cheers!