Nobody likes to keep anyone waiting for a drink right?
So whether you're tending bar in a venue or just hosting a group at home,
I'm going to give you some things to think about to make sure you're getting
your guests their drink as quickly and in the best condition possible.
In this episode I'm going to be concentrating more on mixed drinks,
so things like vodka sodas and gin and tonics, but if it is the kind of content
you'd like to see more of then definitely let me know, I could look at things like
building a round of cocktails or a larger mixed round and how to deal with that.
Regular viewers will know that my mantra is always to get your garnish ready first and that
definitely applies here just as much as it does in cocktail making, even if you're just cutting a
lemon or a lime wedge you don't want to have your drink ready and it's sitting there with ice in it
and then you reach to your fruit bowl and it turns out you actually don't have a lemon in there.
If you are working in a larger volume kind of establishment then you can definitely
do a fair bit of chopping ahead of time, or if you know that you're expecting a larger group,
but I would say that generally cut fruit doesn't last more than sort of one shift or one evening,
so don't be trying to keep it for longer than that.
And I like to do wedges rather than slices just because then if people want the actual
juice in there then they can squeeze it in as well, it kind of leaves it up to the customer
rather than just having the the little slice in there which you can't really do that much with.
The way that I tend to cut fruit is I'll take a little bit off the bottom and then cut, I guess
pole to pole rather than across the middle, so just right down there from top to bottom.
So this one's actually quite big but you should definitely be able to get four,
and you'll see some of them with the pith on there it just looks a little bit messy so I go back
and take that bit off. Then we're gonna go the same with our lemon, so just the bottom off there.
And especially with lemons, you just want to make sure there's not any pips
because if you squeeze that in the drink then it can get stuck
in people's straws and things which is a rather frustrating experience.
Then the last thing I need a little slice of grapefruit and with this one
you'll see I've done a little bit of cocktail making with it already
but I do tend to keep fruit that you use less whole, just because it keeps better.
Obviously, sort of once it gets cut up then it's going to start drying out pretty quickly
and where if it's something that you don't use that often maybe only
once every couple of hours and you can just take a little slice off to order.
What we're making for our round today is a vodka soda lime, a gin and tonic, a fancy gin and tonic,
bourbon and dry and a scotch and coke. Those are all some pretty kind of common things that I get
asked for here at the bar and will often come up in these sort of mixed rounds when you have
a group all drinking different things. So the easiest way to remember is as soon as somebody asks me,
actually orders that over the bar, then I'll get the glassware out that I need and line it up.
So then you know that you have the right amount of glasses out there and sort of
the right ones and that'll help jog your memory as to what you're actually making.
A good rule of thumb for spirits is generally that your white spirits would be in tall glasses,
so things like vodka and gin, and then your dark spirits are in short glasses,
so things like rum and whiskies. One kind of thing that we do here at Bomba is like a signature serve
for gin and tonics, and that we kind of model on the big copita, Spanish wine, gin and tonics,
so we do it in a little stemless wine glass instead just to have that kind of
nice round feel to it, but that's my vodka soda, gin and tonic,
fancy gin and tonic, and my bourbon and my scotch all nicely lined up there.
And then what I like to do again, because my memory isn't always the best, I'm sure it's
nothing to do with all the shots I've had in my lifetime, and also just because obviously in a
busy bar quite often you can get interrupted if somebody smashes a glass or something while you're
making a round, you might have to jump out and deal with that, so to make sure you always know
exactly where you're up to, I pour from what I have in my head is the lightest spirit through
to the heaviest. So I would always start with vodka, then go through to gin, then I'd do
something like white rum, then sort of bourbon, and into scotch. It's really just to make sure
that you do it the same way every single time, so that if you for instance get cut off, you know get
stopped and have to do something else here, then you know what you have left to pour in your glass.
Now we're going to get started with some vodka. The other benefit of doing it like this is you
don't really have to rinse your jigger in between, because everything's getting progressively more
flavourful essentially, so unless you're using something actually quite sticky that's going
to cling to the inside of the jigger, you can kind of just keep going there.
So then we've got our house pour gin.
We're going to do one of our little signature gin and tonics,
which is with Melbourne Gin Company, so a local gin.
Then our bourbon and last but definitely not least the Scotch.
And this is where it gets a little bit controversial- this is a bit like the bartender
equivalent of the chicken or the egg. Some people swear by doing the ice first and then the mixer,
I like to do the mixer first and then ice, and I'll give you two reasons for that.
One is a again in case you get interrupted or something, I kind of think of ice as a bit of
a ticking time bomb, if that doesn't sound too dramatic, but once it's in the glass it's starting
to melt and so again if you have your ice in here and you get interrupted before you get to finish
the drink then that could end up actually having to go to wastage, rather than if it's just got
the mixer in there you can again press pause if necessary. And the other is that it means that
you're going to have a consistent amount of mixer in every single time. So you can kind of see where
it sits on each glass and know that you're going to be pouring that same thing otherwise if you
have the ice in there first then it does tend to shift as you pour the mixer in and so sometimes
you could end up with, you know, a fair like shot or two more of mixer than you usually would.
So we're gonna go soda in our vodka.
Our regular house pour tonic, which is Capi in our Tanqueray.
And then a little fancy Fever Tree in our fancy gin and tonic.
And then a little dry in our bourbon, and Coke in our Scotch.
So I sort of know from experience using this glassware that that's about the level,
that should, once I add, ice bring it up to a nice just sort of little,
half a centimetre beneath the rim of the glass.
So that, you know, there's a bit of room there so people can carry it and not spill it everywhere,
but it's still nice and full and feels like a full drink.
Obviously if I add in the ice and then any of it looks a little bit low then we can top it up.
And as always, as much ice as possible
is good, it actually slows the dilution it's not ripping you off, and if you don't trust
me on that, then we do have a full video which you can have a little look at here.
Now one argument for adding the ice first is that obviously now at this point you are in danger of
doing a little bit of splashing, what I normally do is just do a cube or two in each glass first
and that kind of allows it to foam up a bit and settle and then you can just dump the rest in.
I do also honestly usually have a drip mat here but the aesthetics of that aren't as
good for YouTube, so we'll see how neat I managed to be without that little safety net.
Then we're just going to add in our garnishes.
With a vodka soda lime, because people do tend to actually ask for it specifically with lime,
I'll usually squeeze that in for them,
do one squeezed and one as a little garnish if they want to add some more.
I personally prefer lemon with my gin and tonic,
it does really tend to be a bit of a personal preference.
Then our little fancy guy we're gonna go a grapefruit wedge and a little sprinkle of pink
peppercorns. These grow everywhere in Melbourne, so it seems apt for a Melbourne made gin.
And then I do a little lime in my bourbon and ginger, and nothing in the Scotch and Coke.
Lime and ginger is obviously a really nice flavour combination and Coca-Cola tends to kind of have
enough going on by itself there, but again, obviously if someone wants it then that's fine.
Last but not least we've got some straws. So these really tall and narrow glasses
are quite hard to drink out of without having ones,
but something like this with a broader lip and especially the ones that are kind of funnelled up
towards your nose with nice garnishes and things I actually tend to leave strawless unless asked for.
So there we have a round of drinks. I promise it would have been a bit quicker had I not
explained every step. I'll need to time myself at some point,
but I think that they all look, you know present really well, all have a nice
wash line, they look really refreshing, full of ice, nice and fizzy and delicious.
So if you follow this set of guidelines then you will start
to get a little bit quicker you should find a nice rhythm
and with a bit of practice you'll be the fastest vodka soda lime slinger in town.
If you do find these kind of hints and tips for speed and efficiency behind the bar
quite useful, then you could have a look at our bartending course,
which we did in collaboration with International Open Academy. There's a link to that below if
you're interested but there you have a speedy and mistake-free round of drinks, so now you know.