Post #649050 by Registered Astronaut on Tue, Aug 21, 2012 10:59 PM

I retired (moved on) from pro bartending, and now I just do it for private parties- friends and referrals. I get much praise for my classic tropical drinks and prohibition cocktails at the private parties, and I think it's because many folk out here in LA were pre- primed by the mixology craze. They know what they're tasting after a while. Conversely, in the bar business, writing cocktail menus was a struggle in the good taste department. I often found management was scared or out of touch with progressive taste and I was usually forced to reign back anything complicated, until my last menu contributions when every bartender hated me for making them actually work for the drink. But I can commiserate with the pervasive trend in most folk being absolutely clueless when they taste something- especially with bitters- they say it tastes like "old man" or "too sour." Surprisingly its not the rude tudes or dog eat dog that bums me out as much as comments like those.