Dear D,
wow... still angry! Why use loaded and offensive terms like fagets (sic)? Why
claim in the loudest possible voice that you are a great bartender and then
seem to prove you are not?
Tales is Tales of the Cocktail, indisputably the largest single gathering of
Bartenders, Mixologists, writers, Distillers and the like in the world (and as
someone who has attended Paris' Cocktails and Spirits show, Berlin's BarZone,
Amsterdam's Venuez and is booked for Sydney BarShow and Berlin;s BCB I fele I
talk with some authority on this one. Its odd you are unaware of it.
http://www.talesofthecocktail.com/
You talk about wanting a mentor and not having one but I fear even if someone
did come up and offer (not that that is how it works with mentors) you would
not think they could teach you anything
Who are the bartenders in the world you admire? Colin Field? Eben Freeman?
Kazuo Ueda? Murray Stenson? Dick Bradsell? Gary Regan? Julio Bermejo?
Salvatore Calabrese? Dario Comini? Charles Schumann? Christian Delpeche? I am
interested to get a sense of your position and attitude.
When I mentioned 'mechanics' I meant in the old term sense of a bartender that
methodically and mechanically (and often mindlessly) cranks out drinks - read
Haywood Gould's Cocktail and you wil come across the sense of it (thats how
Flanagan describes himself). I think we now call them flowbots.
I am not entirely sure that shaking a Malibu and Pineapple makes it a better
drink or you a better bartender - I am sure that every bartender here, every
book in your collection and the whole internet would sugegst its a built drink.
I personally figure you are filled with the arrogance of youth and are a big
fish in a very little pond but most of us were at some stage - we then figured
out that there is so much to know thats its scary and that as we serve people
more than we serve drinks that being a people person is half the battle... and
to be frank that seems to be a skill you are lacking right now.
If you truly want to learn then sign up to the BAR Course and sit back and
watch Olson, Wondrich, Frost, DeGroff, Seymour and Pacult do their thing... I
am sure you will learn more than just drinks.
cheers
aw