Post #627620 by artsnyder on Mon, Mar 5, 2012 12:10 AM

On 2012-03-04 22:49, artsnyder wrote:

On 2012-02-29 00:06, Chuck Tatum is Tiki wrote:
There is no place like Don's around here anymore, It is the only place that makes me think I have gone back in time to the Tiki Palaces
of my youth, But they did hire lot of new bartenders, who may not make the best cocktails, Yet the place still has all the magic
that is Don's, So don't let that sway you from visiting.

  There is something unique about a Don the Beachcomber bartender--to make Don's drinks you really don't need to have a bit of creativity. Only the intelligence and recall that would be necessary for a server at "21 Flavors."  You understand that Donn, the most brilliant of mixologists, expressed his "Rhum Rapsodies" in the most specific of formulas, so that those who finally constructed them would have to do nothing but use the right glass, scoop up the ice to fill THAT glass, pour in rum of the brand dictated in the amounts dictated, add 2 0r 3 ounces of its "flavor mix," pour it in a malt can, give it a number of seconds on a malt mixer, put it back in the glass, add the foilage and trinkets that he dictated be part of it, and put it down on one of his bar coasters in front of the customer.  
  The Flavor Mix is where the flavor lies.  Don made it himself in a narrow room behind  

the bar. Delia, my wife of 35 years, compounds it in the back of our kitchen, with a huge, walk-in reefer that holds the fruit, the fresh juice and the various contents of 20 of Don's "Rhum Rapsodies. A huge task for Delia, who may make 20 gallons of mix or more every day, and is also our Executive Chef. And also serves the critical role of the most important person ever in my life, my queen, and my love. Oops--Off the track for a moment. She has all of Don's drinks memorized, and measures the ingredients (16 ingredients in the Mai-Tai, by the way.) All her notes are entered in a little book in Chinese shorthand.
Unless the bartender can't or won't read the labels, he could not make a bad Vicious Virgin. The biggest problem we have with new bartenders (to us) is to convince them that, concerning Don's drinks, you were not doing yourself or your friendly customer a favor by putting too much of the expensive rum in his drink. If you did, he would find a very different drink in his hands than Don designed.
Yes, we have had a change in bar personnel since our first hiring. For better or worse, those who will simply NOT make a Zombie the way that Don did when he invented it in 1931 in "Ernie's Place", the Speakeasy he operated on McCadden Place before repeal--with or without the absinthe that he always used then.
But that is not to say that we don't hire experienced bartenders. We do, because there's a lot to being a bartender besides mixing Don's drinks. We insist that our bartenders are likeable folks, who enjoy dispensing that substance that warms the heart, can make a good Martini in the traditional way, and who finds it a pleasant occupation in which to make friends, relieve anxiety, and continue in his relations with our customers the fantasy that is and always has been Don the Beachcomber.

[ Edited by: artsnyder 2012-03-05 00:12 ]

[ Edited by: artsnyder 2012-03-05 00:21 ]