Sometimes, someone lucks out and gets me as their bartender.

[xiphias]

Last night, I was called for an event held at the MIT Faculty club. Which is a function space -- things held there need not have much connection to MIT. As always, I had no real idea what I was to do until I showed up, and as is normal, the function hall only knows what's on the function sheet.

Remember: the HOSTS know what's going on and why; the rest of us don't, nor do we entirely care. We make functions happen; to us, it makes no difference if it's a business meeting, an anniversary party, or whatever. Personally, I do try to find out as much as I can about that sort of thing; it rarely makes a difference, but it sometimes does.

So, we read the sheet, and it said that the bar I was doing was sherry only, which is something I'd never seen.

Well, if it was only sherry, I figured I could do this right. After all, part of my WSET certification in wine knowledge includes knowledge of fortified wines, such as sherries and ports. I went into the back of their liquor closet, and found that they had six different types of sherry, so I took them all. It was a good range, actually, from a fino to a Pedro Ximenez.

See, in the United States, people think of "sherry" as one thing -- a sweet dessert wine. And that is ONE kind of sherry. But it's far from the only one.

The sherries that they had were a Manzanilla fino, a dry sack, an Oloroso, two cream sherries -- Harvey's Bristol Cream and one other brand whose name escapes me at the moment -- and a Pedro Ximenez. (Actually, they also had an amontillado, but the beverage manager didn't want me to use that one because it hadn't been opened, and he figured I could do enough with the other ones.)

I lined them up on the bar in that order, and made a display at either end, with a glass of the Manzanilla on one end and a glass of the Pedro Ximenez on the other, so that people could visually see the range of choice they had. Fino sherries are a pale yellow, crisp and dry, while Pedro Ximenez is as dark and sweet as molasses. And the rest of them form a pretty smooth spectrum from one to the other. A cream sherry is a mix of Oloroso and Pedro Ximenez; dry sack is a mix of Oloroso and amontillado (and amontillado is, itself, darker than a fino and lighter than an Oloroso), so it formed a good range.

People were impressed. It turns out that it's just a tradition, dating back a hundred years, that this particular annual meeting always has sherry.

But this was the first time that someone had actually WORKED with that to make it INTERESTING, and people's socks were knocked off. For seventy people, I went through six bottles of sherry (I had backups on most of them -- so I did 1.7 bottles of Manzanilla, 1.2 of Dry Sack, 1.4 of Oloroso, 0.5 of of Bristol and 0.4 of the other, and 1.2 of the Pedro Ximenez). At $140/bottle (served -- that's not the price of the ALCOHOL, that's the price of the bottle, the setup, the liquor liability, the bartender, the glassware, and so forth), I did pretty good business for the Faculty Club. And the guests were impressed, most of them coming back several times to try different varieties and compare.

Sometimes, people luck out. Sometimes, luck of the draw means that people get me as their bartender. There is no other bartender they could have gotten who could have done better, and only a few that could have done as well.

Comments

[mightydoll.livejournal.com]

well, now I feel the need to pour myself a glass of the port I have in my bar. Yes, it's not the same thing, but I don't have any sherry, so it'll have to do ;)

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Congrats to you, and I'm glad for them.

(Obvious Amontillado joke forcibly shoved back into the bottle.)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Edgar Allan Poe did more to advertise that style of wine than any single other human being.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Well, the rest of us have been slacking a little.

[brooksmoses]

Careful; that's dangerously close to bricking up the joke in a closet....

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

I was avoiding that one.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

That's so cool! I'd love to try all those different kinds of sherries.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Very, very cool. (It's been really amazing to read about your continuing evolution into a great bartender.)

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

You rock. I love reading entries from folks who are enthusiastic about things they are paid to do, and yours are some of the best.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

It is SO COOL that you know that about yourself.

[fibro-witch.livejournal.com]

Some day, some one will open a bar, a cool bar that rocks. That encourages people to talk and hang out.

And they will hire you as the bartender / bar manager. And you will develop special nights, and special events all around different drinks. And you will educate the local hoi poi in the finer liquors of life.


Then we will all get so drunk we will have to kidnap BU freshmen and steal their livers.


Oh what a wonderful world it would be.
Fine drinks
Excellent company
Fewer BU students on the T.....


Ah life woould be good. (ok I'll stop now)

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

And I will have to become a regular.

Lucky people! I have next to no experience of sherries, would love to go someplace where I could do comparative tasting at some point.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

You are so very fabulous.

I mean, really. :-D

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

I love your bartending posts: before them I never realized what an art it could be.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

That's so cool. I would've loved to be there for that tasting. I'm not sure I've ever even tried a sherry. But of course Poe's tale of amontillado makes me think fondly of it whenever I hear the name :)

[cattitude.livejournal.com]

Alas, no Tio Pepe? It's a fino palomino - drier and lighter than the manzanilla, and one of my favorite drinks.

My local liquor store owner is heavily into sherry; I gather he's something of a go-to guy for sherry in New York. As a result, I've been trying all sorts of different sherries over the past few years. There's quite a bit to work with there.

[tapuz.livejournal.com]

nicely done!

The roulette part is an interesting element of it all....

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

That's wonderful. I hope they ask to have you back next year.

[dancing-kiralee.livejournal.com]

Thank you...

... there's a story I ought to tell you about Harvey's Bristol Cream and buying christmas presents for my dad when I was a kid, but work has swallowed up my life (meaning I have to go do some)... maybe I'll get a chance later.

Kiralee

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you've found something you enjoy, and that you've managed to recover from depression enough to enjoy it.