For those of you who don't believe that "skill" is the least important part of bartending:

[xiphias]

Okay. Let me make this clear. I believe that making good drinks well is a vital part of tending bar.

Yet, for those of you who are interested in tending bar, but fear that you just may not have the skills, I offer the following video.

Watch it first, then I'll put some discussion points under the cut.

Yes, most of the lessons in this video are "what not to do". This video is like this recording of "O Holy Night":

(Which, incidentally, I found by doing a search on "worst O holy night ever", knowing that I'd find this exact recording).

In each case, as you are just convinced that this just COULDN'T possibly get WORSE, it manages to take it to the next level. For me, at both "Oh night de-VIIIIIIIIINEEE!" and "Don't forget your Sprite", I just totally lost it and my horror cracked into uncontrollable giggles.

So, yes, in both cases, these are largely "How Not To Do It" examples. Besides the obvious things, note how the bartender uses the muddler upside down, barely shakes the drink. . .

Still, there are things to learn from this, as well.

Note that this woman is not only employed at a bar, but she has enough self-confidence to actually put this video up on the web. Self-confidence is the most important attribute a bartender can have. When I was learning, I made plenty of drinks incorrectly -- and most of the time, people would drink them happily, anyway. Okay, I never did anything THAT egregious, but still.

And I also think that those of you who are considering getting into bartending can take some encouragement from this. SHE has a job. Yes, I'm sure you can see the two main reasons she got the job on display in the yellow halter, yet still. . . .

It reminds me of that scene in THE FULL MONTY, where they are watching videos in order to learn how to dance:

GAZ:
It's "Flashdance." She's a welder, isn't she?

DAVE:
A welder?

I hope she dances better than she welds.

Look at that. Her mix is all to cock.

GAZ:
What the fuck do you know about welding, any road?

DAVE:
More than some chuffing woman.

It's like Bonfire Night. That's too much acetylene.

Them joints won't hold fuck all.

If Dave can take confidence in his dancing by the fact that he can weld better than Jennifer Beals's character in FLASHDANCE, you ought to take even MORE confidence in your bartending by the fact that you can actually tend bar better than Andrea there.

Comments

[ailbhe]

I have always loved that scene in The Full Monty. I also love Dave madly. Gaz irritates the hell out of me but I love Dave.

EVEN I knew that the Sprite was an error.

I couldn't be a good barperson because I'd hate every minute. But if I had to, I suppose I could do it...

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

That does not look like anything I'd ever *want* to drink. Why add lime and rose's lime juice and sprite? At that point, you'd overwhelm the mint.

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Hey Butthead, you can see her boobies!

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

Um, Sprite?

[redbird]

My reaction to that video was a suspicion that she was being paid for emphasizing the brand names. (And not just because I suspect, only suspect mind you, that plain soda water might be both more traditional and a better idea than elf-lemon-lime.)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

No; soda water has no place in a mint julep. It's ice (crushed or shaved), bourbon, mint, and sugar or simple syrup.

[redbird]

Noted.

So, all that lime wandered in because someone had a garage full of the stuff?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

No, it's because she somehow came up with the idea that a mint julep was something like a "bourbon mojito" -- and couldn't make a mojito, either.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Also, I doubt she was being paid by Woodford, anyway. They have a stake in not pissing off bourbon drinkers.

[rebmommy.livejournal.com]

very, very funny... Now, I don't know much about mixing drinks, and I didn't know the muddler was upside down, but even I could tell that this drink was mistake after mistake. Maybe juice from the 3 lime wedges, a splash of Rose's Lime juice, and the Sprite would have made a passable drink. But she went on and on and on and... You should have seen dad's face as he watched this video- that was very, very funny in itself. He said, "What!? Woodford Reserve! That's like using a Ferrari for a doorstop."

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I'm sure his face looked much like mine when I watched it.

Yeccchhh

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

I know even less than that on the subject, but (in addition to what you said)...

1. Sprite?!!!
   
2. That "pinch of mint" looked more like a gorilla's fistful.
   
3. Did she also add sugar? (I'm NOT going to watch it again to check!)
   
4. The result was a butt-ugly mess. Who would want to drink that?
   

Sorry, lady, no sale.

Re: Yeccchhh

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

A mint julep SHOULD have a gorilla's fistful of mint in it, not a "pinch". It's a MINT julep, after all.

It also should have sugar, or simple syrup. And bourbon, and ice.

What it shouldn't have is anything ELSE that was in that mess.

Re: Yeccchhh

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

True enough. But I thought she SAID "pinch".

And I don't think it should LOOK like a mess, either.

[smacaski.livejournal.com]

I don't drink, and don't know much about mixing drinks, but good god, that just looks awful. I DO know limes and Sprite (Sprite?!) aren't in a mint julep, so whatever she's making, that isn't even a bastard cousin of it.

Found the quote you were looking for...

[cheshyre]

by Irwin Cobb, c.1934:

Come we now, reverently, please, to what I insist is the queen mother of all the infusions--the Mint Julep. Who first compiled this most regal of refreshments? Nobody answers. But our hearts are throbbing monuments to his anonymous memory. The very origin of the julep is wreathed in the mists of antiquity--the same as the early wandering of the Celts, the identitiy of the inventor of books or the mystery of who it was that smote Billy Patterson. We do know that it was evolved in the South, that it has been enshrined in the affectations of a grateful constituency for at least a century. Throughout the universe it now is popular, and that loud and thankful labial aknowledgment of its superiorities at the conclusion of the draft is the smack that was heard around the world.

There are many schools of thought on this important subject, as there are many methods of adorning the masterpiece. So great has been the argument on this subject that often the controversy could only by solved by recourse to pistols at dawn. One group holds that the bruised mint should be left in the potion. but my grandfather always insisted that a man who would let the crushed leaves and the mangled stemlets steep in the finished concoction would put scorpions in a baby's bed. And as for the dash of nutmeg which some barbarians insist on sifting across the top of the glass--well, down our way we've always had a theory that the Civil War was not brought on by Secession or Slavery or the State's Rights issue. These matters contributed to the quarrel, but there was a deeper reason. It was brought on by some Yankee coming down South and putting nutmeg in a julep. So our folks just up and left the Union flat.

Some expert practitioners insist on Rye as the basic motif. Practically all Marylanders, many Virginians, and Carolinians, New Yorkers and New Englanders and a few Tennesseeans hold this doctrine as sanctified. The majority of Kentuckians, the folk of Chicago, the middle and far west, Texans, Missourians and Louisianians swear by holy Bourbon, but all the deft technicians, wheresoever found, agree that the liquor must be old, mellow whiskey,--the blandest in its savor, the richest in its perfume, the most lingering in its softly-expiring after-aroma.

In the name of the julep I have seen high crimes and flagrant misdemeanors committed. In one Corn Belt city, which I shall not name here because probably it's enough ashamed of itself already, I have stood in horror and with seared eyeballs have seen a julep converted into a harsh green tea by the sacriligious use of peppermint sprigs--not mint, peppermint! But if one's fancy inclines that way, why not just swallow a mothball and be done with it? Along the Eastern Seaboard--north of Baltimore, of course, because they know better there--I have been affronted by an architectural mostrosity, containing such foreign substances as flavoring extracts, canned goods, artificial coloring, grated cinnamon, and almost anything else that wasn't nailed down. Any person who would call that a julep--and these savages actually did--would be sufficiently ignorant to think Cincinnati is a new form of chewing gum. And once, in Farther Maine, a criminal masquerading as a barkeeper at a summer hotel, reared for me a strange structure that had nearly everything in it except the proper constituents of a julep. It had in it pineapple, orange peel, lemon juice, pickled peaches, sundry other fruits and various berries, both fresh and preserved; and the whipped up white of an egg, and for a crowning atrocity a flirt of allspice across that expanse of pallid meringue. When I could in some degree restrain my weeping, I told him things. "Brother," I told him, between sobs, "brother, all this needs is a crust on it and a knife to eat it with, and it would be a typical example of the supreme effect in pastry of your native New England housewife's breakfast table. But, brother," I said, "I didn't come in here for a pie, I mentioned a julep; and you, my poor erring brother, you have done this to me! Go", I said, "go and sin no more or, at least, sin as little as possible."

source

Re: Found the quote you were looking for...

[temima.livejournal.com]

"It had in it pineapple, orange peel, lemon juice, pickled peaches, sundry other fruits and various berries, both fresh and preserved; and the whipped up white of an egg,"

Without the egg whites, that could be an interesting whiskey-infused fruit salad. It would not be a mint julep, but it would be something akin to the trifle or some other dessert with alcohol.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Well, what IS the proper formula?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Now, now, you're not going to trap me THAT easily. The "proper formula" for a mint julep is a violently debated subject. Nonetheless, all partisans of one school or another would happily set aside their differences to jointly beat a person who called THAT mess a "mint julep."

There is general agreement on the following points, however:
A mint julep contains:

• Ice
  
• Bourbon
  
• Mint
  
• Sugar OR simple syrup.

And nothing else. Historically, there have been variations such as the "Georgia julep", which added peach brandy, and the earliest forms of mint juleps often used brandy instead of bourbon, but "the mint julep", as we know it today, is NOT either of those.

There are those who will only serve a mint julep in a silver julep cup. There are others who are happy to serve it in glass.

Some say that the ice should be shaved, some say crushed. The amount of mint used is a source of contention, as is the exact variety of mint. How much the mint is muddled is in question, as is whether you then strain out the pieces or leave them in. Whether you use finely powdered sugar or simple syrup. And the exact way that the drink is built in the glass and served -- these are all items of contention.

But, as an example, I might decide to make a mint julep as follows:

Take three sprigs of peppermint and put them in a glass. Pour a half ounce of simple syrup over them, and muddle them GENTLY until the mint is bruised and releases its odors. Pour one and a half ounces of bourbon over it, and stir gently. Fill the rest of the glass with shaved ice, and put a couple cocktail straws in it to reach the liquid. Garnish with a few more sprigs of mint, slapping them first to release the aromas.

Now, that recipe is one designed by me, a Yankee, and I'm certain that any Kentuckian would laugh and have a better recipe. But mine, at least, might be RECOGNIZABLE as a mint julep.

[aitchellsee.livejournal.com]

P-p-p-peppermint?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Better than spearmint. What mint would you use?

Bleccccch.

[flinx.livejournal.com]

I don't really wanna know wtf she thinks she's making.

The mint julep recipe in The Joy of Cooking is quite, quite, quite serviceable. Rather akin to yours right above. Not so much mint, maybe, but still very smooth.

[cellio]

That is one ugly drink. I didn't know (before reading the comments) what goes into a mint julep (or doesn't), but I do know that what comes from the bar is not supposed to have a presentation that deters the drinker!

[paninogirl.livejournal.com]

My ears are bleeding. Why in the world would you want to search for this version of the song?

Oh lord. LOL.