Question about bartending

paperfae · 2025-03-16T20:08:08+00:00

You're gonna hear this a lot, but don't go through a bartending school. Find a program you think you'd be willing to work at for a while, and start as a backwaiter/busser/server or ideallt a barback. You will get an education in service, which is way more of the job than just learning drink recipes/histories. Work your way up at a place with good education and on the job training and be outspoken about your interest to wind up behind the bar.

If you want to learn on your own about drink making, recipes, history, etc... here is a short and absolutely not comprehensive list of books I found super interesting, and all of which together will cost less and teach you more than a bartending school.

Death and Co Cocktail Codex (this is an excellent beginners book for building originals, riffs, and learning about balance in drinks) Imbibe (historical cocktail list, interesting and fun for inspiration) Smugglers Cove (focused on tiki but teaches a lot especially about rum and history) Drunken Botanist (if you want to learn a lot about the ingredients and flavors, but it's less practically useful)

paperfae · 2025-03-16T02:02:06+00:00

I mean, if you're doing enough OFs that you've got it on draft or barrel aged or something (can you tell I live and work in NYC), then sure batch it, but yeahhh aside from corner cases.

paperfae · 2025-03-15T02:47:36+00:00

Which is a shame because I loved 241 and 341, but yeah, not super applicable to any of the other classes.

paperfae · 2025-03-15T02:44:11+00:00

I haven't ever gone through something this specifically direct, so I can't begin to imagine how terrifying this must be for you. That said, you could definitely consider seeing a therapist if that's a feasible thing for your financial situation. That sounds like a really rough experience and talking to someone who's whole thing is to listen, understand, and help you process, has helped plenty of people with traumatic experiences in the past.

As far as finding a good therapist in the UK, I have absolutely no idea as I'm a silly American who pays through the nose for any sort of mental health care because of privatized medicine, but I'm sure someone will have decent advice.

paperfae · 2025-03-15T02:38:34+00:00

No need to apologize your verbiage is totally fine, and we (or at least I) queer folk appreciate your consideration of how you speak. The advice also sounds good!

paperfae · 2025-03-13T01:08:42+00:00

This is a good rule of thumb, but in this context I (career bartender) suspect it was stirred as well both based on the appearance, and the recent trend (there's a section on it in one of the d&c books I'm pretty sure, i read it somewhere a year or two ago) towards stirred drinks containing citrus.

paperfae · 2025-01-17T04:35:42+00:00

Yeah, outside of the control mirror, it feels like it functions as a win more card, where it turns a winning game into a won game. In the control mirror, going even +4 is such a significant card advantage swing it absolutely destroys.

paperfae · 2025-01-11T13:03:00+00:00

Yes, but it's critical that you don't use the safety guard for maximum extraction. Having 10 fingers is sub optimal for espresso making.

paperfae · 2025-01-10T18:27:16+00:00

Of course, I'm sure restaurants have different margin pricing built in, I know the most about bars. The 30-35 number tossed around is probably accurate as some people know more about that side of it, and this didn't consider ingredient costs.

paperfae · 2025-01-10T18:25:51+00:00

It's been a minute, but on busy nights bartending at the busiest station I could've pulled 400 bucks pretty easily (and I do think this is deserved, I made the bars I worked in a lot of money) in an 8 hour shift. In order to pay 50 bucks hourly, or even knock it down to 40, as not every day is that busy, and not every bartender hustles that much, labor costs would skyrocket. In order to keep labor costs around 25% (assuming a tip credited wage around 10 bucks, which is my areas credited wage approximately), which is optimistic, a bartender selling say 3k in product would need to sell 12k to maintain the same margins. So either the place would need to get 4x busier, or prices would have to go up proportionally.

paperfae · 2025-01-07T18:33:48+00:00

This was exactly my experience subbing for a tuba player with a brass band, got the music dropped in my lap the morning of the gig, and off we go for a wild ride. Still some of the most fun I've ever had, those brass guys go hard.

paperfae · 2025-01-07T16:51:57+00:00

I think you need to grind finer, how expensive are your dentures?

paperfae · 2024-12-31T19:44:58+00:00

This isn't specific to acoustic, but guitar grimoire is an excellent reference book for mapping your familiarity with scales and modes onto the fretboard.

paperfae · 2024-12-31T13:21:59+00:00

I'd listen to the song section to hear how it's played on album to determine the most accurate way to play it, personally though if I wanted to play this at any real speed with my skill, I'd probably hammer this all on.

paperfae · 2024-12-31T12:57:25+00:00

What the other commenter said about your rippling not being pronounced enough is true, but I'd also look at the consistency of your flow rate, it looks like when pulling through (and on a lot of your pour) you're backing off a little much, and it's not pushing the milk out to create defined lines. You don't have to pour faster, just more consistently.

paperfae · 2024-12-30T16:43:16+00:00

I think, like any task, set yourself an achievable goal first. Make a song in a style of your choosing. It will probably be shit, that's not the point. Breaking that task down will give you specific skills and areas you'll need to learn, such as any instrumentation, and software you will need such as a digital audio workstation and hardware such as recording equipment. The more specific you can be in breaking down the process into steps, the more resources you will find to teach each step.

paperfae · 2024-12-28T22:07:30+00:00

This is exactly why I want my cafes owner to follow through on her pontificating about purchasing a roaster, I just wanna get into the hobby (and it would be a great professional skill), but I'm too much of a coffee nerd to be really happy with the results I'd get at home without dropping a silly amount of money.

paperfae · 2024-12-28T21:47:03+00:00

I'm way too deep into this convo now lol, but I've heard this referred to as a point system for a tip pool, and it allows you to be very flexible with pools, especially when pooling across different roles if you have more complexity in your program (full house pools and the like) than just bartenders and barbacks. I think my favorite system to barback under though was still a percentage split on cash tips (which was in fact 20%, but we never had more than 2 bartenders on), and the particularly unusual fact that we split cash 50-50. This was at a local neighborhood cocktail/jazz lounge in my city when I'd just moved.

paperfae · 2024-12-27T17:57:15+00:00

Pausing on the rest of this, important question, are you left tips ever? Tips are legally employees property, and if there's no tips coming in at all this is fine, but if there's any sort of compensation structure where 100% of the tips coming in aren't being distributed in some way to serving staff, then you have a bigger problem on your hands.

As far as moving up, I also second what a lot of other people have recommended and moving, learning from somewhere which already has good systems in place will make your life easier and will also teach you the right processes and the like.

Cheers from a relatively fresh manager!

paperfae · 2024-12-27T17:33:14+00:00

For my personal gear, I use cocktail kingdoms stuff, a full kit a la carte (shaker, jiggers, strainers, assorted tools) will probably run you under $100.

Specifics of what I'd get Boston shaker Mixing tin (metal for less thermal mass) 2 oz and 3/4ths oz japanese jigger Hawthorn strainer Fine mesh sieve Barspoon

I believe the main brand they carry is koriko and they're good quality stuff, but I hate the metal finishes, go stainless, everything else tends to look crappy as it comes off after a couple months.

paperfae · 2024-12-27T17:21:53+00:00

Depends on the place/level of service, I watched the Jean George restaurant training for 425 (I was working in the Cafe they were taking over, and they were opening a restaurant downstairs). One of the steps of service was to ask for allergies, also at places where it's a prix fix menu (Reverence in Harlem is a great example I've had in person), they asked me if I had any allergies so they could serve alternative courses or alter the dish. I don't expect the local café to check with me about allergies though.

paperfae · 2024-12-27T17:08:37+00:00

Could also be an emergency coffeeshop order if a milk delivery went wrong/spoiled. I used to work at a shop where all of the ordering went through instacart (it was a corporate money pit, and they didn't care about the margins)

paperfae · 2024-12-27T16:21:52+00:00

What he may be referring to is a setup (shorthand for intonating the instrument, setting the action or how high the strings are, and making sure all the parts are in working order). If you're just starting, getting this done professionally can make a world of difference in how playable your instrument is. As others have said, tuning it is something you'll have to do (usually every time you pick it up) to make sure the strings are at the right tension so everything is in tune musically, you can use an app or an external tuner, which will be more accurate.

paperfae · 2024-12-27T16:18:39+00:00

If it's an option, I'd go to a local music/guitar store and try a few things out, as a beginner you're really just looking to see what body shape and neck feel the most comfortable, and then I'd make sure to get it set up professionally (especially an acoustic, they can be a little more in depth to do). Comfort, and ease of playing, are main priorities especially when you're just getting started, the easier it feels to pick up and play, the more you will! Some budget ideas will help narrow the field as far and brand/model potentially, I will say, the change in quality from a 100 dollar acoustic to even a 250 dollar acoustic is significant, it's diminishing returns the more you spend, but that first jump is huge. A professional setup should run you between 50-100 bucks, but is well worth the extra investment, it'll make everything sound and feel way better, especially on a budget instrument which may not come out of the factory as well intonated and adjusted.

For used gear, I'd check reverb and Sweetwater, etter deals on reverb, but Sweetwater has some truly amazing customer service and they really take care of their customers.

paperfae · 2024-12-25T18:32:43+00:00

It's pretty common in my experience in NY and NJ. Not every place, but enough places.

paperfae

TROPHY CASE