flair bartending - Beyond Tiki

F freddiefreelance Member San Diego, Ca. Joined: Feb 15, 2003 Posts: 3006	F freddiefreelance Posted posted on Mon, Nov 13, 2006 7:02 PM On 2006-11-13 15:41, tomdyerFLAIR wrote: Well as you can see by my name....I am a flair bartender. Some of you guys out there are very small minded (freddiefreelance) and need to get away from thinking that Mixology is the be all and end of bar tending. If you asked the majority of the public to name the first cocktail that came into their heads they would most likely say "Sex on the Beach". I'm not trying to say that this means that they don't enjoy a good well made cocktail. I know I certainly do, and I know I can make a good cocktail too. It just shows that most people really couldn't give two shts (except other bartenders) how a cocktail is made and with what. Most customers hardly know anything about bar tending, they just want their drinks. I know being a flair bartender my knowledge about all alcohol is very very low but other aspects of my bar tending makes up for that. Bar tending is not all about making a good drinks with a dash of this and 5ml of that or flairing. It also involes customer service, smiling, talking, confidence, style, panache, experience etc. There is no point having someone who makes and awesome drink but has the personality of a stone. The same goes with flair too. I hate it when someone does this whole show behind a bar and then makes me a drink and its rubbish. I just think you need to stop slating flair and get off your high horse. You don't see flair guys slating and having a go a mixology. We are trying (some people more successful than others) to put mixology into out routines on stage. There is a time and a place for flair and sometimes in some places it is not necessary. BUT it is wrong to just turn your back on it altogether. To be honest someone could train me up in a month to enter a mixology competition and I could do well, but for a mixologist to be trained for a month to enter a flair comp and do well is well IMPOSSIBLE!!!! I know that a lot of time and effot goes into both aspects of bar tending and both sides are very passionate about what they do. BUT pull your head out of your arse, and deal with it. It is gonna be around for a long time. It has given me so much and I have been able to travel around the world and see some amazing places from it, and meet some of the respected mentors from the mixology world and class them as my friends. We are all bartenders and like to promote our skills in different ways so we need to stop arguing with each other on reasons why "flair is evil" or "mixologist are just wannbe flair bartenders". The fact if the mater is, Mixology has not been around for a long time. The term mixology is fairly new....flair has been around for years and years entertaining people. Both are here to stay....DEAL WITH IT!!!!!! Umm, No. We're not talking about the majority of the public here, those crowds of barely out of pubescence Frat Boys & Sorority Sisters who crowd in their puking, mewling masses into Tiki Bob's Cantinas or Señor Frogs, we're talking about a fairly small subset. A subset that likes their bartenders to know what goes into a Manhattan, or a Martini, or a Mai Tai. I haven't gotten a good one of any of those from a Flair Bartender. Let me repeat that with more precision: I have NEVER received a good Cocktail that required more than adding Tonic & A Squeeze of Lime to Ice & Vodka from a Bottle Twirler. And that's not just bad Mixology, not just a lacking in Alcoholic Alchemy, it's a lack of basic Bartending Skill. There are basic ratios to know, simple procedures to follow, skills that can be taught to anyone in a couple weeks, that most of these monkeys don't have time* for. Let me have a look at this from another angle, as a Juggler. Speaking as a former juggler who had an interview with Clown College, Flair Bartenders are, for the most part, lousy jugglers. They're mostly a dog & pony show of spins & twitches who just want to score tips & chicks like Tom Cruise in Cocktail. And the ones who are good jugglers (and those of you who are good enough at it to play at the Pro level in any of the dozen Professional Flair Bartender Leagues can juggle well) aren't making drinks, they're juggling. Have you ever seen Michael Davis, a juggler who in one of his bits juggles an Apple, an Egg & a Bowling Ball? He'd take a bite out of the apple while keeping just those three objects in the air. This is a difficult stunt to do 'cause it's difficult to do something else while juggling without screwing it up & ending with your teeth knocked out or with egg all over your face. OK, let's look at this from another angle, from the angle of Flair. From Merriam-Websters: "Flair (N) - Pronunciation: 'fler, 1 : a skill or instinctive ability to appreciate or make good use of something : TALENT ; also : INCLINATION, TENDENCY 2 : a uniquely attractive quality : STYLE ." I have nothing against Talent, Tendency, or Style. I like all three of those in a Bartender. I like to use all three of those in my own work. What I dislike is someone who trots out a limited series of tricks in place of those three things, or worse, in place of any ability at all. Flair is the way your Bartender spins a napkin across the bar so that it stops right in front of you. Flair is a Bartender laughing at your jokes and then retelling it better to that attractive person down the bar that you want to impress, while giving you all the credit. Hell, Flair is standing flatfooted behind the bar in a Lab Coat while pouring exact measurements of liquor into a shaker and having every eye in the place on you doing it. That last is an apt description of Professor Jerry Thomas, considered by many the Father of Flair Bartending, and considered the Father of ALL Bartending by even more. So lets recap: 1. We're not the Masses who think of "Sex on the Beach" before all other cocktails here, but those people who enjoy a cocktail for more than just a way to get girls to take rufies. 2. Bartending is a skill that requires training and some ability, as is juggling, but most Flair Bartenders do neither well, and the best Flair Bartenders can really only do either one or the other and not both at the same time. And 3. True Flair is a combination of Talent & Style that a working Bartender incorporates into His or Her basic tasks. C'mon, if you're as Professional as you're making yourself out to be in defending your abilities & chosen profession, you have to agree that 90% of the dweebs out there working in some teenage puke factory in hopes that he can work his way up to TGI Friday's just plain Suck Ass at both ends of their claim to ability. C'mon, I Double-Dog Dare Ya! Show me I'm wrong in claiming that these poor schlubs are nothing more than Barbacks putting on airs and pulling down the whole profession with their inability to master even the basic skills needed to mix a decent Cocktail.

On 2006-11-13 15:41, tomdyerFLAIR wrote:
Well as you can see by my name....I am a flair bartender.

Some of you guys out there are very small minded (freddiefreelance) and need to get away from thinking that Mixology is the be all and end of bar tending.

If you asked the majority of the public to name the first cocktail that came into their heads they would most likely say "Sex on the Beach". I'm not trying to say that this means that they don't enjoy a good well made cocktail. I know I certainly do, and I know I can make a good cocktail too. It just shows that most people really couldn't give two sh*ts (except other bartenders) how a cocktail is made and with what. Most customers hardly know anything about bar tending, they just want their drinks.

I know being a flair bartender my knowledge about all alcohol is very very low but other aspects of my bar tending makes up for that. Bar tending is not all about making a good drinks with a dash of this and 5ml of that or flairing. It also involes customer service, smiling, talking, confidence, style, panache, experience etc. There is no point having someone who makes and awesome drink but has the personality of a stone. The same goes with flair too. I hate it when someone does this whole show behind a bar and then makes me a drink and its rubbish.

I just think you need to stop slating flair and get off your high horse. You don't see flair guys slating and having a go a mixology. We are trying (some people more successful than others) to put mixology into out routines on stage. There is a time and a place for flair and sometimes in some places it is not necessary. BUT it is wrong to just turn your back on it altogether.

To be honest someone could train me up in a month to enter a mixology competition and I could do well, but for a mixologist to be trained for a month to enter a flair comp and do well is well IMPOSSIBLE!!!!

I know that a lot of time and effot goes into both aspects of bar tending and both sides are very passionate about what they do. BUT pull your head out of your arse, and deal with it. It is gonna be around for a long time.

It has given me so much and I have been able to travel around the world and see some amazing places from it, and meet some of the respected mentors from the mixology world and class them as my friends.

We are all bartenders and like to promote our skills in different ways so we need to stop arguing with each other on reasons why "flair is evil" or "mixologist are just wannbe flair bartenders". The fact if the mater is, Mixology has not been around for a long time. The term mixology is fairly new....flair has been around for years and years entertaining people. Both are here to stay....DEAL WITH IT!!!!!!

Umm, No.

We're not talking about the majority of the public here, those crowds of barely out of pubescence Frat Boys & Sorority Sisters who crowd in their puking, mewling masses into Tiki Bob's Cantinas or Señor Frogs, we're talking about a fairly small subset. A subset that likes their bartenders to know what goes into a Manhattan, or a Martini, or a Mai Tai. I haven't gotten a good one of any of those from a Flair Bartender. Let me repeat that with more precision: I have NEVER received a good Cocktail that required more than adding Tonic & A Squeeze of Lime to Ice & Vodka from a Bottle Twirler. And that's not just bad Mixology, not just a lacking in Alcoholic Alchemy, it's a lack of basic Bartending Skill. There are basic ratios to know, simple procedures to follow, skills that can be taught to anyone in a couple weeks, that most of these monkeys don't have time for.

Let me have a look at this from another angle, as a Juggler. Speaking as a former juggler who had an interview with Clown College, Flair Bartenders are, for the most part, lousy jugglers. They're mostly a dog & pony show of spins & twitches who just want to score tips & chicks like Tom Cruise in Cocktail. And the ones who are good jugglers (and those of you who are good enough at it to play at the Pro level in any of the dozen Professional Flair Bartender Leagues can juggle well) aren't making drinks, they're juggling. Have you ever seen Michael Davis, a juggler who in one of his bits juggles an Apple, an Egg & a Bowling Ball? He'd take a bite out of the apple while keeping just those three objects in the air. This is a difficult stunt to do 'cause it's difficult to do something else while juggling without screwing it up & ending with your teeth knocked out or with egg all over your face.

OK, let's look at this from another angle, from the angle of Flair. From Merriam-Websters: "Flair (N) - Pronunciation: 'fler, 1 : a skill or instinctive ability to appreciate or make good use of something : TALENT ; also : INCLINATION, TENDENCY 2 : a uniquely attractive quality : STYLE ." I have nothing against Talent, Tendency, or Style. I like all three of those in a Bartender. I like to use all three of those in my own work. What I dislike is someone who trots out a limited series of tricks in place of those three things, or worse, in place of any ability at all. Flair is the way your Bartender spins a napkin across the bar so that it stops right in front of you. Flair is a Bartender laughing at your jokes and then retelling it better to that attractive person down the bar that you want to impress, while giving you all the credit. Hell, Flair is standing flatfooted behind the bar in a Lab Coat while pouring exact measurements of liquor into a shaker and having every eye in the place on you doing it. That last is an apt description of Professor Jerry Thomas, considered by many the Father of Flair Bartending, and considered the Father of ALL Bartending by even more.

So lets recap: 1. We're not the Masses who think of "Sex on the Beach" before all other cocktails here, but those people who enjoy a cocktail for more than just a way to get girls to take rufies. 2. Bartending is a skill that requires training and some ability, as is juggling, but most Flair Bartenders do neither well, and the best Flair Bartenders can really only do either one or the other and not both at the same time. And 3. True Flair is a combination of Talent & Style that a working Bartender incorporates into His or Her basic tasks.

C'mon, if you're as Professional as you're making yourself out to be in defending your abilities & chosen profession, you have to agree that 90% of the dweebs out there working in some teenage puke factory in hopes that he can work his way up to TGI Friday's just plain Suck Ass at both ends of their claim to ability. C'mon, I Double-Dog Dare Ya! Show me I'm wrong in claiming that these poor schlubs are nothing more than Barbacks putting on airs and pulling down the whole profession with their inability to master even the basic skills needed to mix a decent Cocktail.

Post #266499 by freddiefreelance on Mon, Nov 13, 2006 7:02 PM