THE BARTENDER KNOWS #6
YOU ARE WHAT YOU DRINK.
Ok. If you don’t drink, don’t read this week’s column. But wait!
Now remember, The Bartender Knows loves you. I know some really shitty bartenders who complain about sober folks at bars. I am 100% cool with anyone jumping on a bar stool and opening with “I don’t drink.” The REAL people who know the score will throw down a buck for each of their soda waters with a fresh lime or lemon and just chill.
I’m the kind of bartender that doesn’t need to know why you stopped drinking. Maybe you’ve got a marriage on the rocks. Maybe you get drunk and like to start fights. Maybe you drink and become an absolute bore. Maybe you’re a mix of all three. So yeah, I’m cool with you.
But we’re talking about drinks and drinkers in this column. Maybe one of these sections will remind you about what life was like before the wagon came and carted you away.
After two long decades of serving people their ‘favorite’ beverage, you start to see a pattern about who drinks what and why. So for you actual drinkers, let these drunken mathematics illuminate you.
WELL SHOTS:
I’ve quit going to bars as a customer. It’s just a personal lifestyle choice. You might catch me at the MoMA bar drinking free champagne or some gorgeous French bistro sipping a digestif. But I think my days of American Dive Bars are over. It smells bad, frankly. The bartenders totally suck and give two shits about you. The days of charm and storytelling are long gone (at least here in Williamsburg). Talking to strangers is a crime. They are so engrossed on their phones it’s like they all work for the United Nations awaiting the next nuclear threat. What does this have to do with well shots? Nothing really. I used to live and die by them. It was the thing to drink. It used to be cheap (not anymore). It tasted okay (as long as it wasn’t tequila or rum). But as one customer explained recently: “Anyone who drinks well shots all the time are either debtors or future cancer patients.” Hmmm. No comment.
BEER AND SHOT COMBOS:
Now this was the IN DRINK for a time around these parts. That was until bar owners and managers got greedy. It used to be the saving grace for dive bars. The Levee Bar here in Williamsburg, Brooklyn still holds it down ($5 last I checked), but every other poseur dive bar has jacked up the price close to double that. For a shitty well shot and a Pabst, Bud, or Miller High Life? I don’t know, man. If you got that kind of money, why the hell are you still drinking shitty well shots and beer (see above). Here’s the rub. I call it getting “Strip-Clubbed”. Most strippers will charge you a shit load of money for a two minute song to gyrate poorly knowing that it’s not about entertainment, it’s about getting a schmuck to pay as much as they can because they won’t be back. It’s the same thing with jacked up prices at bars. They don’t want you to come back. They just want that high check average — get you in and out and get them paid. But they are fucking up return business. What everyone is forgetting is that if you get a person tipsy with a $6 beer and shot combo, they are going to buy another. And another. And another. So instead of “Strip-Clubbing” them, treat them like it’s their new local spot. I promise you, the bar will make more money —unlike what your failed Business Major manager thinks will happen.
HIGH END BOURBON PEOPLE:
Conversely, you have the high end bourbon people. Have the years of drinking all of that well whiskey finally destroyed my taste buds? Perhaps. But here’s a very unpopular opinion: it pretty much tastes the same to me. The difference between Jack Daniel’s and Johnny Walker Black is a matter of how you look while your ordering it. I will say that if you are having a lovely evening in a nice suit surrounded by potential future business partners and you want to have a sausage off to see who’s more sophisticated, then by all means, pay $20 for a 1.5 ounce pour of whiskey. It’s not going to taste any better, it’s just a liquid version of a circle jerk. In fact, I prefer Jack Daniel’s. Fuck, I prefer Old Crow or Kentucky-Carstairs (look it up). Throw some ice in the tumbler and take it down like you got some XY chromosomes. (Special Note: If you’re a Scotch drinker, this part of the column is not for you. You guys live in a different mental place than I do. And also, I’m not a douche bag).
VODKA VS. GIN MARTINI’S:
A “Martini” is this — 2 ounces of dry gin and one ounce of vermouth. Stir vigorously (only stirred, never shaken) and garnish with a lemon twist. Done and done. Any questions? No? Except if you serve it to modern people like this their faces will contort faster than bringing up Trump at an AOC rally. This is what a ‘Martini’ is. I know we are slowly descending into a world where vocabulary means nothing and the sky is red and water is dry — but for those who still care about definitions, order yourself a drink that your Grandma knew very well. If you like Vodka, that’s fine. But mixing Vodka with Vermouth is oddly unpleasant to the palette. That’s why when Vodka drinkers order this they explicitly ask for a ‘very dry’ Vodka Martini. The translation here is this: “No Vermouth please, just serve me a bucket of chilled Vodka in a fancy adult glass like they do on the TV shows. Thank you.” That’s why my heart is with the ‘Dirty’ Martini drinkers. Gin or Vodka, it tells me: “I’m bitter, and I like my drinks bitter. And the weirder the olives the better. Fuck taste, I’m here to get drunk.”
ABSINTHE:
There’s some disagreements about this liquor, but I’ll keep the argument here short. Of course like any good wanna-be writer I read all the journals entries and pop culture critiques of the great writers and creators who indulged in this fine, bizarre liquid. It spoke of amazing visions and futuristic promises of artistic legend. I too wanted to join this group of ne’re-do-wells. So, one year, I convinced my bar manager to order boxes of the real thing. I was determined to only drink Absinthe each and everyday, replacing the usual beer and shot gut rot I was weened on. Did I have any visions or artistic achievements during my fidelity to this beverage? Did that mortal coil draw the curtain and reveal its true nature? No. I just got pretty wasted. I will say though — the real effect of this drink only becomes apparent if you drink it all the time. Like in the morning with Prosecco all the time. There is something in this beverage that is other-worldly. It’s hard to explain. I guess you might just have to go on a month long mission yourself. Be sure to send The Bartender Knows a postcard when you get there.
FROZEN ANYTHING:
Fuck off.
BEER IN GENERAL:
It gets you by. But, conversely, it also makes you fat. It’s cheap. But so are liters of Russian Vodka (much less calories). Like I said it gets you by. It’s something to chase the Whiskey shots down with. Probably the worst tasting beer in the world was America’s first — Yuengling. Shit, even when I first read the label, I thought it was made in China or something. Anything headquartered in a place called Pottsville says it all. 1829 was a long time ago. Here’s how I describe the taste of Yuengling. Just take a vat of Budweiser beer in a metal cauldron. Next, invite a homeless elderly bearded man to soak his dry, curled unwashed beard in said caldron (he can tongue some of the beer if he wants to). Then, take off said old mans boots, poke a hole in the heel of his shoe and pour the remaining caldron of beer through the hole in the shoe. Let it stir in its own juices for a half a decade and that’s approximately what Yuengling tastes like. And that’s a fresh pint! What about the beer ‘snobs’? Good question. Well, I have a question for you, beer snobs. Why do all your micro-brew beers smell vaguely of fish? That can’t be on purpose. And why do you always wear sports jerseys and ball caps to work? Also, why do all of your beer reps look like degenerates who watch teen porn prom dresses dot com? Call me weird, but I’m only drinking Guinness until I die. And if I have to drink beer, I’m only doing it in Germany or Belgium. The facts are the facts, ma’am.
There obviously will be a Part Two to all of this — there’s over 200 varieties and local flavors around this fine world. I hope I live long enough to try them all. Until next week, here’s your bill — and by the way — we’re cash only tonight. The credit card machine is broken again.
