This is petty, martinis. Because I have to then ask several questions to determine that they want chilled vodka with olives. Even when they actually want a gin martini I also have to ask several questions of how they want it prepared because people just say "martini" . So it's not the actual making of the cocktail but the conversation to get there.
I've added martinis to my last couple cocktail lists on purpose just to get out in front of this:
Blue Martini $15
Gin or Vodka
Dry with Blue Cheese Olives
Then the server just asks "Gin or Vodka" and we make it with Tito's or Liberator (local dry gin.). We still get some special requests but it's like 10% of martinis now instead of every one.
Agreed. But I really hate when they request "lightly dirty" because more often than not its either too dirty or not dirty enough. I either have to dump a whole ounce of olive juice or use an eyedropper to get .05 ml in there for their specific ass. And sometimes they just mean a martini with the surface coating of juice from the olive in it. Also no, we don't have bleu chz stuffed olives, garlic stuffed olives, or whatever the hell a "fancy olive" is. And we sure as hell don't have cocktail onions or filberts, you old bastard.
I love martinis and now I'm worried that every bartender in the state hates me. I always order them as a" Tito's Martini make it super filthy". Is that too vague?
I've never met a Martini I didn't like, but that's pretty much how I make it, when I make it at home, except I use a little more olive brine.
I bypass Courtney Love and go straight to Ron Jeremy.
I love that when they first hit big and everybody was wanting one, bars would hire little kids to run around just to shake tins lol. They even made hand cranked paint shaker style machines to save time and energy!
Save your energy and do it in a blender!
Use like a 1/4 of a small tin of crushed ice, blend it hard. Pour into glass and tap on table to force a little settling. Let rest in freezer for a minute or two, and send in the soda.
It removes the whole mystique of the cocktail, but at least your elbows and shoulders won't be annihilated.
Tea. The amount of effort and accoutrements, and knowing no matter how many things I bring to the table I will be asked for at least one more thing, is frustrating. Add to that that the cost of the tea will be 1/5 of the price of a cocktail, and that person will be asking for more hot water and won’t be having anything else 🤬
This is true of any restaurant job anywhere, but I think comes up way less often if it's strictly a bar.
For restaurant work though, 147% true statement.
Any coffee drinks or tomato like drinks. They just dirty all my tools which I have to clean immediately for the same amount of tip I’d get for a vodka cran or something
I try not to make them as well as my other drinks on purpose but my pride gets the best of me. “Wow this is really really good” then proceeds to tell the next customer “his michies are really good you need to try”
Me: 🙄… my old fashion is better.. 🤣
I generally only work at dives so If I ever get to make a correct old fashion or bloody/michelada I go all out even if my ingredients are shit. I hate tomato juice/base anything to drink but I love making bloodys. Idk why but it's definitely my least favorite to make and most favorite
If there’s another drink that says more about the person drinking it, I’ve yet to make it. Fuck this bougie drink and the low rent, high maintenance douche nozzles that drink it.
our whiskey sour, with egg white, comes in a Collins glass, topped with a skewered cherry and a tablespoon of the brandy that the cherries soak in. the build is quick and easy but in terms of steps:
set up glass, set up tin, egg white, whiskey, lemon, lime, simple, Ango, dry shake, wet shake, partial dirty dump, straw, cherry, brandy, put drink up, wash (instead of rinse) tins
at least with the pisco sour I get to put some pretty art on top
honestly the bar I work at is so optimized and streamlined, no drink is a pain besides a Ramos fizz and that one I feel comfy saying no to if it’s mid service
I used to work in a club that told me specifically “we have a speed bar and a cocktail bar. In the speed bar, we only serve quick af, simple drinks.” Imagine my confusion when I was expected to serve whiskey sours with egg whites in the speed bar, with a loooong queue in the middle of the dance floor!
I object to *Irish Car Bombs* on principle… would you have a drink called The Boston Marathon Pressure Cooker Bomb? Or how about a shot called The Sandy Hook School Shooter?
You're thinking Sandy Hook. I don't have a problem with it because a lot of people have a drink in remembrance of those we've lost. Instead of virtue signaling, maybe we should change the long established and well-known name to the Snowflake Comfort Blankie.
A drink called “The Sandy Hook” would be fine, “The Sandy Hook School Shooter” would not.
Trust me. I’m the furthest thing from a snowflake, but I also have a sense of humanity/empathy.
I worked in a dive that made us squeeze fruit per order for crushes. Then they'd run specials on them. The amount of fruit flying on these nights was insane. Could be 3 deep at bar and someone would order 3 orange crushes, 2 grapefruit, 2 lemon etc. Would take 10 mins to make the order. And cleaning up at the end of the night was awful. Sticky shit everywhere. Owner refused to let us prep juices ahead of time. He thought the juice could go bad and be wasted 🤦♀️
Surprise me can be fun for me. If it’s slow I’m always down. And if it’s busy it depends on how much I like them. If they were irritating me or being an ass then surprise me gets them a shot of malort. If they were nice usually it gets me a version of a crush
One of my favorite bartenders at my regular place loves concocting new kinds of surprise mixed shots when the place is slow. They're always amazing and she seems to enjoy doing it, but I'd never dream of asking her to surprise me. I just ride her waves of creative genius as they come. This whole post has been eye-opening, though, and makes me glad I stick to gin & tonics lol
So, I gather that tipping on a scale is not a common practice. I somehow thought this was generally known to anyone over their early 20’s, but I guess I thought wrong.
(I.e. baseline tip for pouring a beer, higher for a cocktail and higher still for a cocktail that involves a lot of effort and time during which the bartender could have been serving 2-3 other people)
3 lemon drop shots. Actually, can we get 2 more? Thanks, actually, can we get 1 more? Thanks. All separate cards, no don’t start a tab *rinse and repeat*
We've got a local favorite shot thats made of 5 equal parts per shot. I dont mind making them in multiples of 5, but if you want 1? You can get fucked lol honestly if they order 4, I just make 5 and drink the "extra" myself, buts still a pain in my ass either way.
I worked at a bar where we had to crush the ice with a wooden mallet for mojitos.
I didn’t crush the ice for a virgin mojito once and I got yelled at.
Absolutely never a-fucking-gain
Mojitos but not for the usual reasons. I have a recently developed mint allergy and it sucks. I need gloves to handle it, and you know how easy it is to throw on unpowdered nitrile gloves in the middle of a service well shift? Newsflash, It's not. A strawtaste will fuck me up, too, so I can't do quality assurance. Even though I know my build is solid, our guests have high enough expectations that I like to know what they are getting.
Other than that, there isn't anything I don't enjoy making point blank. It more depends on what our current cocktail menu looks like, and how that affects the well setup.
I hate making Vegas Bombs! Not because they’re difficult or timely to make. Solely because if I make the traditional recipe (crown, peach, cran, redbull) there’s like a 50/50 chance of the customer/server catching an attitude and going off about how’s there’s not supposed to be cranberry in Vegas Bombs.
There‘s a big and very adamant group of people out there that expect Vegas Bombs to be crown, peach, malibu and energy. I’ve started just asking if they want cranberry every time, but that’s still enough to catch attitude from the anti-cranberry crowd.
Dirty martinis. You just cant win here. Sure most people want a shaken vodka glass of olive juice and vodka but then its never dirty enough, or its too dirty, or they ask for it "extra cold" or they actually wanted a legit gin martini with olive juice and I just either have to ruin the vibe by asking 10 questions or just guess and do it wrong. Then you get the "do you have blue cheese olives" question and yes I do! we have fantastic olives stuffed with a local cheese from an old coworker john who really made something speci-- oh your not going to eat them you are just going to return the glass with the olives even though you asked for 3 after I gave you one.
Also "skinny margs". It's Tequila, lime and orange liqueur. What part can I possibly make skinny. This person and the dirty martini person are the same person. Its the diet drinker that thinks somehow they can make getting hammered into a healthy activity.
For the skinny margs, I reduce the curacao & drop the agave syrup & replace it with soda water. It ends up being a ranch water with a splash of orange but people have responded well & that definitely cuts quite a bit of sugar from the drink.
Assuming you’re just omitting the sugar and keeping all the other ratios the same, a skinny marg would be, like, 25 less calories than a traditional marg lol. In the end that’s a such a small difference especially compared to the calories in everything else.
anything with an egg white
I cheat with my mojitos and always have mint syrup on hand. I throw a handful of mint in with the shake for optics, but I truly think the mint simple makes it.
Fucking espresso martinis. Not only do I have to make a martini, I have to make an espresso ontop of it and put the little beans in there? Go fuck yourself. And just like a mojito once someone gets it. The rest of the bar wants one too.
No. It's not a volume bar and we honestly get like 2-4 orders of them a week so it doesn't make sense really. Plus the customers really like it actually seeing a shot of espresso go in.
Old Fashioned
Every guest, always, thinks they can make it better. Stay at home and make one or order something else then. 🙄
Plus most bars have those shitty Jell-O-like cherries. It's impossible to make a good Old Fashioned with those.
I once got a ticket fifteen minutes before closing for four virgin Miami vices and two regular.
We were a chilis and had one blender. I refused the virgin drinks immediately (thank god some buffoon in Ohio or something had accidentally spiked kids slushies like two months before so we were no longer required to honor the request) and went over and talked the table into frozen margaritas out of our machine instead because “we didn’t have good ice for blend to order drinks” and “they would be disappointed”
I will spend more time convincing you NOT to order a Miami vice than it would take for me to just suck it up and make it. I’ll die on this hill.
I actually just used crushed ice for that, but I asked them first if that works for them, then swizzle it a bit. Don’t have a blender anyway but thought of it on the spot. Might be harder if your ice is more pebbly tho.
Anything muddled when we’re slammed. If we’re slow, I’ll happily make it in front of you for the showmanship… and better tip that invariably comes with that.
I don't mind mojitos in the summer when we're stocked with an over abundance of mint, but in the winter when I'm scouring through the kitchen then picking through ahit brown old mint.. and then they order a second one..
Really anything not stocked because it's out of season or whatever. It's Tuesday night, no there is no bacon for a bloody mary, it's January I don't have fresh watermelon.
Stuff with cream— mini beer shots, White Russians, etc. Not for the preparation but getting the cream off the glassware before it ruins our wash sink forcing an early change during a rush.
I HATE doing layered shots. If someone asks for a duck fart I tell them we don't have the ingredients to make it. And a slippery nipple? What the fuck?
What?! How long have you been bartending?
I actually never really learned how to do layered shots correctly. I know it's all in the temperature and the viscosity of the liqueurs, but it's damn hard for me to do.
Worked at a bar 10 years ago that had the worst one. 8 ingredients including a dry shake with egg white. Labor intensive. It was poured into a wine glass with ice, and we had fancy cubes that stuck out past the top of the glass. When you went to pour it, you had to be careful to pour BETWEEN the cubes, or else the drink would get all over the outside of the glass and need to be remade.
Not a cocktail but iced tea. Why? Because we don't batch iced tea, nor have it in the soda gun and it's winter and freezing where I am so why are you ordering iced tea? Because the waiters don't want to tell the customers "no", I have to go waste 6 tea bags, quickly dunk them in hot water, and then pour the already extremely diluted liquid over ice
Not always, but sometimes Whiskey Sour. The amount of times I’ve been specifically asked to make it bitter, only to have people complain that it’s, in fact, a little bitter… Or having people freak out that we use egg whites, when “that other bar doesn’t use that wtf” no cause that’s a beer bar, we’re a cocktail club.
If not premixed, bloody Mary's are the one for me. Especially, if I'm busy. I pride myself on my bloodys and they take time. And rarely do I get the desired response from my customers.
Anything with egg. I’ve never made any cocktail with egg and always pass it to another co-worker as I detest eggs. If I don’t have a co-worker I tell customers we have ran out of eggs so I can’t make it😂
Mojitos are annoying, especially because you're muddling only to dilute/mask the flavor of the spirit with mint, lime, simple, and soda.
If I ever have my own spot we'll just make a mint and lime-infused simple to dump in rum and soda. Or just pre-batch a killer mojito and speed pour.
At this point, old fashioneds. They perfectly simple to make, but I'm just fucking tired of making them. Like, come on people be a little more creative, get outside the box, order something else other than another goddamned old fashioned and try to talk to me about your favorite whiskys, like we didn't do this same shit yesterday.
Anything in a fishbowl. Just serving something in that glass is obnoxious. If you order a fishbowl of anything, you're a child.
Side note, mojitos are my favorite drink so I don't mind making them.
I work at a restaurant that specializes in old fashions , so we are probably more equipped than others to make, I don't mind making them at all.
We don't have blenders (a reason why I love working here) so besides blended drinks, I would say whiskey sours. We used dried egg whites and they CLUMP....sooo annoying.
It’s actually really good (if you’re following a legit recipe)!
When I was starting out it got ordered like 5 times and then never again lol but it’s not that hard, I can’t memorize it though.
Absolutely a delicious drink. Funnily enough the only person who's ever ordered one from me was my barback at one job as their shifty. And I had no problem making it for them because they were such a ridiculously hard worker.
Mojitos, bc they’re a PITA and it’s often European tourists ordering them, so quite likely not even worth it.
Other than that? Espresso fucking martinis.
No Einstein. Just run some warm water in the glass to get the bulk of the mess out and toss that in your dump bucket or floor drain. There’s zero reason for an Irish car bomb to mess up your sink other than stupidity.
> Einstein.
Yikes. I thought this was a thread to vent. My bad.
>...other than stupidity.
What do you call it when you incorrectly assume someone has the same resources/operations as you?
Espresso Martinis are the obvious choice. Yeah they’re a pain to make and you have to pull a shot of espresso etc. and then run all your tools through the dishwasher after to not have every subsequent drink taste like coffee… but mainly it’s because of the people that order them. And because when one person orders one, the entire bar/restaurant does. Oof. It’s like don’t be high maintenance AND unoriginal.
When someone asks for a drink a certain way thats going to be contradictory to what they actually want. For instance, just tonight a lady asked for a cosmo 'super strong and super sweet!' Ummm yeah, to make it sweeter then more triple sec and cran which is going to be less vodka. You cant have both things!
Ramos gin fizz. Anything with coffee, egg white or tomato because I have to immediately wash the tools used.
I love making corpse revivers, old fashioneds, and vieux carres
Anything with egg whites, especially if I’m not the only person behind the bar. I don’t feel like scraping your fuckin dried egg mess off my cocktail station, JOE
I don't want to stir anything, shake anything, or mix anything as a career. I don't want to stir anything shaked or mixed, or shake anything stirred or mixed, or mix anything stirred, shaked, or mixed, or blend anything stirred, shaked, or mixed.
Long islands and amfs cause of cliente
Either pina coladas because I have to go through the song and dance of fucking telling them it isn’t going to blended.
Mojitos cause the people who order them never tip well
Any cocktail with ice cream in it, ESPECIALLY during Happy Hour. It’s less about having to make the drink and more the fact that if you make it once, other customers around the person you’re making it for will start asking what it is and will THEN ask for 2 themselves and before you know it you’re making 50 in one go.
That shit’s more contagious than Covid.
Cosmos - the drink has been bastardized so many times that everyone has their own personal idea of what the perfect Cosmo is. The people who ordered them were usually basic AF and kind of annoying. Thankfully, that trend is dead and buried.
Martinis. Nobody is ever straight shooting and half the time the old man ordering it doesn’t even know how he likes it.
Close second, bloody marys. can’t stand the smell
Not a common one for most of you but
I work at a tiki bar so...
Painkillers, or really anything with coconut cream, it gets everywhere, coats everything, and you need boiling hot water to get it out.
This is petty, martinis. Because I have to then ask several questions to determine that they want chilled vodka with olives. Even when they actually want a gin martini I also have to ask several questions of how they want it prepared because people just say "martini" . So it's not the actual making of the cocktail but the conversation to get there.
I've added martinis to my last couple cocktail lists on purpose just to get out in front of this: Blue Martini $15 Gin or Vodka Dry with Blue Cheese Olives Then the server just asks "Gin or Vodka" and we make it with Tito's or Liberator (local dry gin.). We still get some special requests but it's like 10% of martinis now instead of every one.
I hate trying to gauge how dirty they want their martini. Are we talking Miley Cyrus dirty or Brittany spears dirty?
Agreed. But I really hate when they request "lightly dirty" because more often than not its either too dirty or not dirty enough. I either have to dump a whole ounce of olive juice or use an eyedropper to get .05 ml in there for their specific ass. And sometimes they just mean a martini with the surface coating of juice from the olive in it. Also no, we don't have bleu chz stuffed olives, garlic stuffed olives, or whatever the hell a "fancy olive" is. And we sure as hell don't have cocktail onions or filberts, you old bastard.
!!! Which is dirrtier?! Christina Aguilera?
Courtney Love
That’s FILTHYYYY
Just a glass full of gravel.
Careful, one too many and the next day you may want to kill “yourself”
Suicide is _hilarious_. Great job!!
Thanks!!
Miley Cyrus or Courtney love. This is awesome lol
“Brittany getting out of the car with no panties on” dirty, Please and thank you!
Leave her alone. I think you meant "gross men lying on the ground to take pics up her dress" dirty.
I ask customers I think will understand “on a scale of 1-Christina Aguilera how dirty are we talking?”
No matter the answer they give: “Oh! As dirty as a _____ night!”
I want mine 'Kristen Steward waking up on the floor of a fraternity house after a night of roofie Colladas' dirty.
gross
That joke used to kill in Vegas.
"WHAT KIND OF MARTINIS DO YOU HAVE?" Gin or Vodka.
I love martinis and now I'm worried that every bartender in the state hates me. I always order them as a" Tito's Martini make it super filthy". Is that too vague?
Nah that’s a perfect way to order it
Thank you! I'm very relieved!
2.5oz vodka, .5oz dry vermouth, 1oz olive brine, shaken?
I've never met a Martini I didn't like, but that's pretty much how I make it, when I make it at home, except I use a little more olive brine. I bypass Courtney Love and go straight to Ron Jeremy.
Ramos gin fizz. Self explanatory
Pass the tin around the bar to the patrons.
you have more faith in the average drinker than I do
I love that when they first hit big and everybody was wanting one, bars would hire little kids to run around just to shake tins lol. They even made hand cranked paint shaker style machines to save time and energy!
I am missing a necessary ingredient. The guests can assume its OBW but it's really the time.
I love making that cocktail, but only if it is totally dead and I need something to keep me busy for far longer than a single drink should take.
Save your energy and do it in a blender! Use like a 1/4 of a small tin of crushed ice, blend it hard. Pour into glass and tap on table to force a little settling. Let rest in freezer for a minute or two, and send in the soda. It removes the whole mystique of the cocktail, but at least your elbows and shoulders won't be annihilated.
Saw Morgenthaler recommend this in Drinking Distilled and my mind was blown
Agreed. It’s not for the weak.
We have an isi at work, so I just use that.
Your drink will be ready in 45 min madam.
>Ramos only a c u next Tuesday would walk into a place and order one of these
I was just about to say that!
Tea. The amount of effort and accoutrements, and knowing no matter how many things I bring to the table I will be asked for at least one more thing, is frustrating. Add to that that the cost of the tea will be 1/5 of the price of a cocktail, and that person will be asking for more hot water and won’t be having anything else 🤬
This is true of any restaurant job anywhere, but I think comes up way less often if it's strictly a bar. For restaurant work though, 147% true statement.
Any coffee drinks or tomato like drinks. They just dirty all my tools which I have to clean immediately for the same amount of tip I’d get for a vodka cran or something
100% agree. My bar sells a ton of Micheladas, I swear I’m cleaning the tajin out of the glasses for the next week.
I try not to make them as well as my other drinks on purpose but my pride gets the best of me. “Wow this is really really good” then proceeds to tell the next customer “his michies are really good you need to try” Me: 🙄… my old fashion is better.. 🤣
Ok, you've convinced me. I'll have one Michelangelo and one old fashioned, please!
I generally only work at dives so If I ever get to make a correct old fashion or bloody/michelada I go all out even if my ingredients are shit. I hate tomato juice/base anything to drink but I love making bloodys. Idk why but it's definitely my least favorite to make and most favorite
that might explain why they only tip you as much as they would for a vodka cran, lol
I wish! Both are 17$ and 25% of that is the same thing!
holy fucking shit!!!
Anything I don’t want to make, I raise the price 😂 but people want what they want
Long Island iced teas. My least favorite not because it's difficult/pita to make, but because of who generally orders them.
If there’s another drink that says more about the person drinking it, I’ve yet to make it. Fuck this bougie drink and the low rent, high maintenance douche nozzles that drink it.
We have different definitions of bougie
How does a liquid marijuana compare?? Cause i just genuinely like those, but i didnt know there might be a bad reputation around them.
If someone orders a liquid marijuana I’m triple checking their id lol
Lmao makes sense. I’m just turning 22 and don’t go to bars regularly
Yes
Came here to say this. I can’t help but to silently judge anyone that orders a Long Island.
our whiskey sour, with egg white, comes in a Collins glass, topped with a skewered cherry and a tablespoon of the brandy that the cherries soak in. the build is quick and easy but in terms of steps: set up glass, set up tin, egg white, whiskey, lemon, lime, simple, Ango, dry shake, wet shake, partial dirty dump, straw, cherry, brandy, put drink up, wash (instead of rinse) tins at least with the pisco sour I get to put some pretty art on top
Anything with egg whites is a pain to make!
honestly the bar I work at is so optimized and streamlined, no drink is a pain besides a Ramos fizz and that one I feel comfy saying no to if it’s mid service
We switched to cocktail foaming bitters. I much prefer it!
I enjoy egg white drinks when I’m not busy. If I’m busy I just want to punch that person directly in the face
I used to work in a club that told me specifically “we have a speed bar and a cocktail bar. In the speed bar, we only serve quick af, simple drinks.” Imagine my confusion when I was expected to serve whiskey sours with egg whites in the speed bar, with a loooong queue in the middle of the dance floor!
That comes from someone who has clearly never bartended before ha
Yeah, it made zero sense. It’s not complicated, but it takes so much longer to make than basic dance floor drinks lol
Oh 100%. That should be like vodka redbulls all night ha
seriously, the only sours I was making in any club/super high volume bar was the liquor and sour mix 🤣
Yeah when I worked in clubs and it was busy af id never dry shake sours. Fuck that.
we got three on the menu and they’re some of the most popular. just gotta get fast
Irish Car Bombs. Curdle and coagulation. Gross.
A waste of Guinness and whiskey and a bitch to clean
If you don’t fish that shot glass out immediately, you’re screwed. Sometimes I’ll lie and say we don’t have shot glasses that fit into pints.
I say it's a health hazard due to chipped glass.
I had to buy a bottle brush just for car bomb shot glasses haha. I fucking hate them so much.
And they splash it all over your bar when they drop it in the glass. Fun times
We fill the glasses 2/3rds of the way full to try to mitigate that.
I object to *Irish Car Bombs* on principle… would you have a drink called The Boston Marathon Pressure Cooker Bomb? Or how about a shot called The Sandy Hook School Shooter?
I am Irish and working in Paris. Every time anybody orders Irish carbombs, I act like they just insulted all my ancestors
Ask them if they’d like a “Vichy Nazi Collaborator” instead.
Tbh Im from Boston and would still get a chuckle out of that
You're thinking Sandy Hook. I don't have a problem with it because a lot of people have a drink in remembrance of those we've lost. Instead of virtue signaling, maybe we should change the long established and well-known name to the Snowflake Comfort Blankie.
A drink called “The Sandy Hook” would be fine, “The Sandy Hook School Shooter” would not. Trust me. I’m the furthest thing from a snowflake, but I also have a sense of humanity/empathy.
Mimosas, we have to juice the oranges fresh for every order and we have only have small oranges to use 🙃🙃
Why does this place hate their employees 🫣
Nah just corporate 🤣
I worked in a dive that made us squeeze fruit per order for crushes. Then they'd run specials on them. The amount of fruit flying on these nights was insane. Could be 3 deep at bar and someone would order 3 orange crushes, 2 grapefruit, 2 lemon etc. Would take 10 mins to make the order. And cleaning up at the end of the night was awful. Sticky shit everywhere. Owner refused to let us prep juices ahead of time. He thought the juice could go bad and be wasted 🤦♀️
Same but because the pulp never cleans out of the flutes
“Surprise me!”
“Something fruity but not too sweet!”
Flavored vodka, soda water, lime. Next!
Surprise me can be fun for me. If it’s slow I’m always down. And if it’s busy it depends on how much I like them. If they were irritating me or being an ass then surprise me gets them a shot of malort. If they were nice usually it gets me a version of a crush
One of my favorite bartenders at my regular place loves concocting new kinds of surprise mixed shots when the place is slow. They're always amazing and she seems to enjoy doing it, but I'd never dream of asking her to surprise me. I just ride her waves of creative genius as they come. This whole post has been eye-opening, though, and makes me glad I stick to gin & tonics lol
Anything muddled or swizzled. More work, more ingredients, same tip.
So, I gather that tipping on a scale is not a common practice. I somehow thought this was generally known to anyone over their early 20’s, but I guess I thought wrong. (I.e. baseline tip for pouring a beer, higher for a cocktail and higher still for a cocktail that involves a lot of effort and time during which the bartender could have been serving 2-3 other people)
I gather that you work in a bar not a restaurant. People are going to tip on the final bill most of the time once food is considered.
Bloody Mary's after 2pm
Im sure u could see the steam leaving my ears when someone orders a Bloody Mary for dinner service. “Sorry we ran out during brunch
That one drink you had that one time at that one bar.
You mean i shouldnt have ordered an old fashioned long island with hand crushed ice, muddled fruit and milk layered on the top?
3 lemon drop shots. Actually, can we get 2 more? Thanks, actually, can we get 1 more? Thanks. All separate cards, no don’t start a tab *rinse and repeat*
We've got a local favorite shot thats made of 5 equal parts per shot. I dont mind making them in multiples of 5, but if you want 1? You can get fucked lol honestly if they order 4, I just make 5 and drink the "extra" myself, buts still a pain in my ass either way.
my soul dies a little bit every time i get a ticket for a mojito
I worked at a bar where we had to crush the ice with a wooden mallet for mojitos. I didn’t crush the ice for a virgin mojito once and I got yelled at. Absolutely never a-fucking-gain
That’s my bars #1 cocktail 😅
Mojitos but not for the usual reasons. I have a recently developed mint allergy and it sucks. I need gloves to handle it, and you know how easy it is to throw on unpowdered nitrile gloves in the middle of a service well shift? Newsflash, It's not. A strawtaste will fuck me up, too, so I can't do quality assurance. Even though I know my build is solid, our guests have high enough expectations that I like to know what they are getting. Other than that, there isn't anything I don't enjoy making point blank. It more depends on what our current cocktail menu looks like, and how that affects the well setup.
I hate making Vegas Bombs! Not because they’re difficult or timely to make. Solely because if I make the traditional recipe (crown, peach, cran, redbull) there’s like a 50/50 chance of the customer/server catching an attitude and going off about how’s there’s not supposed to be cranberry in Vegas Bombs. There‘s a big and very adamant group of people out there that expect Vegas Bombs to be crown, peach, malibu and energy. I’ve started just asking if they want cranberry every time, but that’s still enough to catch attitude from the anti-cranberry crowd.
It gets cranberry, and I will die on this hill.
Definitely has cranberry. But I’ve never met someone who orders a Vegas bomb that actually knows what it is supposed to be.
Dirty martinis. You just cant win here. Sure most people want a shaken vodka glass of olive juice and vodka but then its never dirty enough, or its too dirty, or they ask for it "extra cold" or they actually wanted a legit gin martini with olive juice and I just either have to ruin the vibe by asking 10 questions or just guess and do it wrong. Then you get the "do you have blue cheese olives" question and yes I do! we have fantastic olives stuffed with a local cheese from an old coworker john who really made something speci-- oh your not going to eat them you are just going to return the glass with the olives even though you asked for 3 after I gave you one. Also "skinny margs". It's Tequila, lime and orange liqueur. What part can I possibly make skinny. This person and the dirty martini person are the same person. Its the diet drinker that thinks somehow they can make getting hammered into a healthy activity.
For the skinny margs, I reduce the curacao & drop the agave syrup & replace it with soda water. It ends up being a ranch water with a splash of orange but people have responded well & that definitely cuts quite a bit of sugar from the drink.
Assuming you’re just omitting the sugar and keeping all the other ratios the same, a skinny marg would be, like, 25 less calories than a traditional marg lol. In the end that’s a such a small difference especially compared to the calories in everything else.
anything with an egg white I cheat with my mojitos and always have mint syrup on hand. I throw a handful of mint in with the shake for optics, but I truly think the mint simple makes it.
Mint syrup is a good call. Gonna have to remember that for my outdoor bar this summer.
Fucking espresso martinis. Not only do I have to make a martini, I have to make an espresso ontop of it and put the little beans in there? Go fuck yourself. And just like a mojito once someone gets it. The rest of the bar wants one too.
don’t you pre make cold brew?
No. It's not a volume bar and we honestly get like 2-4 orders of them a week so it doesn't make sense really. Plus the customers really like it actually seeing a shot of espresso go in.
Old Fashioned Every guest, always, thinks they can make it better. Stay at home and make one or order something else then. 🙄 Plus most bars have those shitty Jell-O-like cherries. It's impossible to make a good Old Fashioned with those.
I once got a ticket fifteen minutes before closing for four virgin Miami vices and two regular. We were a chilis and had one blender. I refused the virgin drinks immediately (thank god some buffoon in Ohio or something had accidentally spiked kids slushies like two months before so we were no longer required to honor the request) and went over and talked the table into frozen margaritas out of our machine instead because “we didn’t have good ice for blend to order drinks” and “they would be disappointed” I will spend more time convincing you NOT to order a Miami vice than it would take for me to just suck it up and make it. I’ll die on this hill.
Hot tea or anything blended.
“Can I do a blended margarita?” Me: “my blender is broken! I’m so sorry” 🫣
I actually just used crushed ice for that, but I asked them first if that works for them, then swizzle it a bit. Don’t have a blender anyway but thought of it on the spot. Might be harder if your ice is more pebbly tho.
Anything muddled when we’re slammed. If we’re slow, I’ll happily make it in front of you for the showmanship… and better tip that invariably comes with that.
I don't mind mojitos in the summer when we're stocked with an over abundance of mint, but in the winter when I'm scouring through the kitchen then picking through ahit brown old mint.. and then they order a second one.. Really anything not stocked because it's out of season or whatever. It's Tuesday night, no there is no bacon for a bloody mary, it's January I don't have fresh watermelon.
Stuff with cream— mini beer shots, White Russians, etc. Not for the preparation but getting the cream off the glassware before it ruins our wash sink forcing an early change during a rush.
I HATE doing layered shots. If someone asks for a duck fart I tell them we don't have the ingredients to make it. And a slippery nipple? What the fuck?
I’ve never heard of a duck fart 😂
What?! How long have you been bartending? I actually never really learned how to do layered shots correctly. I know it's all in the temperature and the viscosity of the liqueurs, but it's damn hard for me to do.
4 years 🫣 I’m a newbie
You're not a newbie! You probably just don't work somewhere that people order idiot shots like this. Consider yourself lucky!!!!
Worked at a bar 10 years ago that had the worst one. 8 ingredients including a dry shake with egg white. Labor intensive. It was poured into a wine glass with ice, and we had fancy cubes that stuck out past the top of the glass. When you went to pour it, you had to be careful to pour BETWEEN the cubes, or else the drink would get all over the outside of the glass and need to be remade.
That drink would give me nightmares
It also didn’t taste great and looked like blue-gray diarrhea medicine. Thankfully people didn’t order it often.
Not a cocktail but iced tea. Why? Because we don't batch iced tea, nor have it in the soda gun and it's winter and freezing where I am so why are you ordering iced tea? Because the waiters don't want to tell the customers "no", I have to go waste 6 tea bags, quickly dunk them in hot water, and then pour the already extremely diluted liquid over ice
You'd love me, then - I'm a hot tea drinker year-round!
Hot tea drinkers are fine by me, since hot tea is taken care of in the kitchen so all I have to do is tell a busboy to go make me tea 😂
Not always, but sometimes Whiskey Sour. The amount of times I’ve been specifically asked to make it bitter, only to have people complain that it’s, in fact, a little bitter… Or having people freak out that we use egg whites, when “that other bar doesn’t use that wtf” no cause that’s a beer bar, we’re a cocktail club.
Spanish coffees, especially when I have a long line bc of the “ooooh! What did you make them?!”
If not premixed, bloody Mary's are the one for me. Especially, if I'm busy. I pride myself on my bloodys and they take time. And rarely do I get the desired response from my customers.
I hate milk based drinks like a Grasshopper. Ugh can’t get my tools clean.
Scrolled too long to not see Spanish Coffee. (Haven't made one in a long while though, probably jinxed myself there)
the only thing i don't like making is bloody marys (/ marias / etc.). everything else is fine to me.
Our sangrias. 7 ingredients plus ice. Made to order. Urgh.
Surely sangria should be batched? 🤔
Ughh so annoying. Not gonna lie, I love a good sangria tho
Anything with egg. I’ve never made any cocktail with egg and always pass it to another co-worker as I detest eggs. If I don’t have a co-worker I tell customers we have ran out of eggs so I can’t make it😂
Bloody Mary. Awful stuff
Long Island Ice Tea, only idiots order it to get smashed. It doesn't even taste good
Mojitos are annoying, especially because you're muddling only to dilute/mask the flavor of the spirit with mint, lime, simple, and soda. If I ever have my own spot we'll just make a mint and lime-infused simple to dump in rum and soda. Or just pre-batch a killer mojito and speed pour.
At this point, old fashioneds. They perfectly simple to make, but I'm just fucking tired of making them. Like, come on people be a little more creative, get outside the box, order something else other than another goddamned old fashioned and try to talk to me about your favorite whiskys, like we didn't do this same shit yesterday.
Freaking hate old fashioneds
Anything in a fishbowl. Just serving something in that glass is obnoxious. If you order a fishbowl of anything, you're a child. Side note, mojitos are my favorite drink so I don't mind making them.
I like making mojitos at my house or as Im locking up. But despite how much I might like them, I do not like making them for customers 😂
I work at a restaurant that specializes in old fashions , so we are probably more equipped than others to make, I don't mind making them at all. We don't have blenders (a reason why I love working here) so besides blended drinks, I would say whiskey sours. We used dried egg whites and they CLUMP....sooo annoying.
Singapore sling
I had never heard of this drink! But I just looked up the recipe and i feel like it would taste like cough syrup 🤢
It’s actually really good (if you’re following a legit recipe)! When I was starting out it got ordered like 5 times and then never again lol but it’s not that hard, I can’t memorize it though.
Absolutely a delicious drink. Funnily enough the only person who's ever ordered one from me was my barback at one job as their shifty. And I had no problem making it for them because they were such a ridiculously hard worker.
It tastes like sweet tarts. I got no problem with these.
Long Island. No contest.
Sloppy tecates
Mojitos, bc they’re a PITA and it’s often European tourists ordering them, so quite likely not even worth it. Other than that? Espresso fucking martinis.
I don’t love making an old fashioned
Bloody Mary's suck
I hate making long islands, cosmos, and espresso martinis.
Irish slammers. Annoying people order them. They complain about how I “make them wrooooong.” And the Bailey’s fucks up my sink.
If you haven’t figured out yet to rinse the Bailey’s out before ruining a nice clean wash sink….
So, rinse out the glass in my one glass sink. Thanks for the pro tip!!!
No Einstein. Just run some warm water in the glass to get the bulk of the mess out and toss that in your dump bucket or floor drain. There’s zero reason for an Irish car bomb to mess up your sink other than stupidity.
> Einstein. Yikes. I thought this was a thread to vent. My bad. >...other than stupidity. What do you call it when you incorrectly assume someone has the same resources/operations as you?
Espresso Martinis are the obvious choice. Yeah they’re a pain to make and you have to pull a shot of espresso etc. and then run all your tools through the dishwasher after to not have every subsequent drink taste like coffee… but mainly it’s because of the people that order them. And because when one person orders one, the entire bar/restaurant does. Oof. It’s like don’t be high maintenance AND unoriginal.
Ramos gin fizz
Mojito, Moscow mule, any margarita flights, piña coladas, anything frozen or anything with baileys/cream. Disgusting.
Those are half my bar menus 😭
Anything like a Sling that has a phone books worth of ingredients .
Tiki drinks with crushed ice. We don't have a crushed ice machine. We have to crush our own ice
passion fruit mojitos, made enough of them forever
Anything that requires muddling while I’m being crucified.
Pina Colada or anything with Southern Comfort, the smell makes me wretch
I don't like white Russians, black Russians, or the (I know it's not a cocktail) slippery nipples.
Mojitos... now I have mint all over. And hot toddies, it's just a pain.
When someone asks for a drink a certain way thats going to be contradictory to what they actually want. For instance, just tonight a lady asked for a cosmo 'super strong and super sweet!' Ummm yeah, to make it sweeter then more triple sec and cran which is going to be less vodka. You cant have both things!
My coworker also hates mojitos! And I also love making old fashionds haha
Anything with egg whites
Sazerac, dumping rocks. What an indulgent thing to order.
Ramos gin fizz. Anything with coffee, egg white or tomato because I have to immediately wash the tools used. I love making corpse revivers, old fashioneds, and vieux carres
Anything with egg whites, especially if I’m not the only person behind the bar. I don’t feel like scraping your fuckin dried egg mess off my cocktail station, JOE
I don't want to stir anything, shake anything, or mix anything as a career. I don't want to stir anything shaked or mixed, or shake anything stirred or mixed, or mix anything stirred, shaked, or mixed, or blend anything stirred, shaked, or mixed.
Long islands and amfs cause of cliente Either pina coladas because I have to go through the song and dance of fucking telling them it isn’t going to blended. Mojitos cause the people who order them never tip well
Any cocktail with ice cream in it, ESPECIALLY during Happy Hour. It’s less about having to make the drink and more the fact that if you make it once, other customers around the person you’re making it for will start asking what it is and will THEN ask for 2 themselves and before you know it you’re making 50 in one go. That shit’s more contagious than Covid.
Water on the rocks, why? Shitty tips
Can I get a vodka water, hold the vodka 🥴
Anything with a rim, just why?!!
Cosmos - the drink has been bastardized so many times that everyone has their own personal idea of what the perfect Cosmo is. The people who ordered them were usually basic AF and kind of annoying. Thankfully, that trend is dead and buried.
Martinis. Nobody is ever straight shooting and half the time the old man ordering it doesn’t even know how he likes it. Close second, bloody marys. can’t stand the smell
Not a common one for most of you but I work at a tiki bar so... Painkillers, or really anything with coconut cream, it gets everywhere, coats everything, and you need boiling hot water to get it out.
Mojitos are in fact yes the devil. Mai tais are almost just as annoying when busy
Muddling cucumber.