Message 19498 of 39188 in General Discussion

Share on Facebook |  Save to del.icio.us

> In my opinion,  there should be ONE list of 20 or so drinks (and I 
> think this was Cheryl's original intention) that no matter what venue 
> you work in... you should know.  And if you dont know these 20 drinks 
> and you use the word "bartender" to describe yourself then you are 
> only kidding yourself.  And this should be known as THE LIST.
> 
> Even if bartenders in nightclubs rarely if ever make margaritas, they 
> sure as hell better know how to make one.

I think that this is where a lot of the people in the forums differ.  You're 
describing the idealistic bartender and I'm describing the practical 
bartender.  Certainly a list of 20 recipies is no large feat to learn, and if 
anyone thinks it is, then they are kidding themselves about bartending and 
pretty much any other job that requires more than a couple neurons.

My point is this, and let's think about it in terms of an engineer (most 
college grads with degrees in science will understand where I'm headed).  
There are many types of engineers out there from architectural, mechanical, 
electrical, software, and the list goes on.  When I was in college for 
software engineering, I was required to do a full year of physics classes.  
This is a requirement for any college that wants to offer an accredited 
engineering degree.  Any software engineer that does not work with some sort 
of real-world modeling will tell you that it was three of the most wasteful 
and costly classes they've ever taken.  It is quite simply useless knowledge 
that is forced onto them so that they can attach the word 'engineer' to their 
title.  This would be the same as forcing an architectural engineer to learn 
about high temperature thermodynamics (something used almost exclusively by 
mechanical engineers and many engineers that deal in building/designing 
electronics).  I could keep listing examples, but they are pretty obvious.  I 
think most people would agree that you don't need to become a beginner 
physicist to write software for Microsoft.

Now that I've said that, I've got to return to the example I sighted against a 
popular list a few months ago.  The Mojito is often included on almost every 
list I've seen.  I know many people who are incredible behind a bar and they 
most certainly don't know how to make a mojito.  Are you seriously proposing 
that they must obviously not be bartenders because they don't know a drink 
that (quite literally) nobody has ever tried to order from them.  Of course 
I'm exaggerating a little bit with this, but it's not wrong to say that the 
knowledge is impractical and useless to such a vast portion of the bartenders 
out there that to descriminate against them is very shortsighted.

--
Cody