> I'm sure he wouldn't mind me posting that here, but in a lot of ways
> he's right. The top bartenderbooks available are filled with 3/4 of
> stupid recipes that no one is ever gonna make (which by the way I
> think confuses the average person out here that is just curious), and
> then 1/4 of the book has your basic alcohol history, bar tools, etc.
> Plus he's right...a lot of these authors don't even tend bar or
> haven't tended bar in over 25 years! That's one reason why I will
> always respect Dale.
>
> Cheryl
After I had been bartending for about a year and everybody I knew saw me
having so much fun doing it, a few of them started asking me how they could
get into it. Some of those kinda had the right idea, just try to get the job
and learn it as you go. A lot, at least half, would ask me what book they
should get to learn how to tend bar. I had to repeat myself constantly saying
that they shouldn't even bother with a book for learning to tend bar. Usually
I would explain that they should get one of the more generic books (Mr.
Boston, New American Bartenders Guide, or even Bartender's Best Friend)
because these act as a good reference for looking up the drinks they've heard
about after the fact. I also pointed out that each of these books usually has
17 pages of good general knowledge and terminology (weird, the number of pages
does seem to be 17 in half of the books I've glanced at).
I've been thinking for at least a year now about how well a bartending book
would sell if somebody wrote something where at least 50% of the book was real
bartending and ONLY 50% of the book was recipes.
--
Cody