Yeah, okay. We know you make the “Best Margarita in Town.” Your rum punch is soon-to-be famous and your selection of craft beer is more eclectic than college radio. Blah, blah.

But let’s be serious. Does your drink menu have anything that will get a customer (and his or her friends) in the door for a night out? A top-notch signature drink can build word of mouth of mouth and drive promotion. Here are a few examples of drinks that can draw a crowd all by themselves.

You may want to take notes.

Cocktail: The Terminator

Where: The Brick; Shuangjing, Beijing

What makes it special: The booze factor. The red color is an homage to the establishment where it’s sold and what’s inside should end up bringing you closer to the pavement. The Terminator is essentially a quad-Long Island Iced Tea, mixed with cider, beer and blackcurrant. As the Beijinger bar and club awards said of the concoction: “It’s probably the last thing you’ll see before passing out.”

Cocktail: Corpse Reviver #577

Where:Toronto Temperance Society

What makes it special:  In keeping with TTS’s speakeasy, 1920s theme – “No one under 25 is permitted without an adult” states Rule 7 of the Rules of Membership – The Corpse Reviver #577 is a nod to throwback cocktail making: Beefeater 24, Aperol, Cointreau and lemon. It also doesn’t hurt the drink sits underneath a quote from Bernard DeVoto on the menu.

Cocktail: Tit for Tat

Where: Justus Drugstore: A Restaurant; Smithville, MO

What makes it special: The ‘how did he did he come up with that’ component. The brainchild of one of Kansas City’s top bartenders, Chris Conatser, TfT starts by infusing Hedrick’s Gin with locally grown carrot tops and calamus root, then adds simple syrup, lemon juice, Aqua Perfecta pear eau de vie and “three drops” of celery bitters. Wow.

Cocktail: Rattlesnake

Where:Beretta; San Francisco

What makes it special: It just sounds so delicious. San Francisco Weekly awarded Beretta Best Cocktail of 2011 for a drink so yummy it will have you ordering “another and another.” The Rattlesnake starts with a shot of rye, lemon, maple syrup, Peychaud’s bitters and egg white. That is shaken with ice and strained into a wine glass, then garnished with a lemon twist. SFWeekly compared it to a whisky sour or Ramos fizz, “but with a sweet-and-sour character unique to itself.”

The common thread here is that each of these drinks has a story to tell. Whether it’s helping build a personality for your bar or providing a good story for customers to tell their friends, top-notch cocktails provide talking points your customers have to pay for. Now it’s your turn to entice your customers.

As the lines between reality and fantasy become more and more blurred, the following story breaks:

A woman who claims she was severely burned when a bottle of Bacardi 151 rum caught fire during a restaurant bartender’s pyrotechnic display has won her attempt to proceed with a personal injury and products liability action against Bacardi and the restaurant.

Lauren Sclafani alleged that Bacardi knew or should have foreseen that its high-proof rum was being widely used for a variety of dangerous, flammable displays. She accused the company of employing a poorly designed flame arrester on top of its bottle that could be easily removed by bartenders.

It’s hard to know where to begin with this one so I’ll just let you read the full story here!

Today we’re bringing you another great guest post. This post is by Doug Fisher, a highly sought after management consultant based in Canada who we’re delighted to showcase on TheBarBlogger.com. You can find out more about Doug at http://www.fhgi.com

Co-Worker Scams To Look Out For Behind The Bar

Bartenders not only steal from their employers and customers, but have also been known to steal from their coworkers as well. Here are the four top ways:

1. Straight theft from the cash till is undetectable until the cash out is completed at the end of the night. If three bartenders are working and one steals $45 from the till prior to cashing out, management will ask all three to make it up. Each will put in $15, leaving the one who took the money $30 ahead.

2. If 20 beers are sold by one bartender without being rung into the register, the beer count will be out at the end of the night. If there are two bartenders on at the time, the cost of the lost beers is split by both bartenders leaving the thief ahead in cash by the value of 10 bottles of beer at the end of the night.

3. Similarly most bartenders do their own closing beverage counts. By miscounting the beer at the end of the night by the amount sold, the next shift bartender will likely be charged for the difference.

4. If more than one cash register is used at the bar, it is possible for the bartender to ring in the sale on the register he is not responsible for while keeping the money.

Money is generally not taken openly and all at once. If you do not see your bartender stuffing money in his pocket here and there, it is not enough to say he is not involved in a scam. For a bartender who knows half of these schemes and any of the 100 not mentioned here, he also knows how to account for the money taken and how to pocket it discretely.

However, it is most common for a bartender to take a lump sum just prior to the end of his shift. Therefore, their accounting process is important.

Bartenders usually keep their extra earnings in one of three places- in the till, in their tip jars, or in their pockets. The latter is extremely risky as people will question the constant flow and handling of personal moneys. If the bartender constantly uses his tip jar for additional moneys, it is not necessary for him to maintain a cash control system. He simply takes the money and places it in his tip jar and keeps the revenue at shift’s end. Additionally, if a customer who pays by credit card is shortchanged (i.e. the bartender charges him for a drink he did not receive), the bartender must record that he has one drink in hand. In order to do this several simple methodologies have evolved.

Stemware racks which are placed over the bar are commonly used to assist in counting drinks in hand.

While the glasses on one side of the bar may be used in any particular order, one row is generally reserved for a count. A white wine glass on this rack may stand for a single shot, a cognac glass represents a double shot, a red wine glass a shooter, et cetera. Sales are recorded in an abacus type fashion where glasses account for specific sales. Other methodologies include the use of stir straws or matches as either drinks sold or dollars owing. For every drink scammed, or every dollar taken, the bartender moves one straw or match book from one jar to another. As the evening’s end approaches, the bartender counts the money owing via his system and in one single move takes the extra cash from the till and places it in his pocket or tip jar. If caught he could say he was simply cashing in some of his tips for larger bills.

Extra funds which go into a tip jar are divided amongst all bartenders so if there is more than one on at a time the bartender who took the extra would want to retrieve it before everyone took their cut.

Additionally if a bartender places his extra earnings in the cash drawer and management, not the bartender, counts the cash, the bartender must have a method by which he can accurately retrieve his additional income without being caught.

Conclusion

There is no excuse for bartenders to have the opportunity to take such extreme advantage of the operator, patron or their fellow workers. The following recommendations should assist in eliminating a number of the above concerns.

* Require all shots are poured with the shot glass placed on the bar.
* Bags, jackets or purses should not be permitted behind the bar.
* A sales chit or bill should accompany each drink sold.
* All kitchen liquor supplies should be requisitioned by the kitchen and then sold to the kitchen for the requisition form.
* Opening floats should be count and verified by management before given to the bartender.
* Constant, random checking of perpetual inventories should be conducted.
* There should be a policy forbidding the sale and consumption of alcohol to staff.
* A manager’s signature should be on all manual voids.
* Management should provide a visible display of the US exchange rate.
* Maintain a bar par stock and an inventory lockup.

Unfortunately, there is not an answer to every scam, and of course as new controls are implemented new scams will be developed. There are presently several methodologies to reduce the scam artist. The most effective however, is to be aware of the different scams that could be happening in your establishment and be on the lookout.

Inform your staff there are controls in place, (even if there are not) and that alone may be your biggest control system. Being aware of all the scams and how they are conducted can be difficult. However, the problems can be combated by making staff aware that managers supervisors are constantly watching and monitoring staff performance and actions.
Ask questions about what they doing and be aware of any actions which may resemble the behavior outlined herein.

I received this question this week at http://thebarblogger.com/askbarry:

We run a very popular restaurant w/an 20 seat L-shaped bar and a service area at the end for servers lets the 3 bar tenders working any shift roam up & down with no assigned section nor one of the 3 designated for service exclusively.Sometimes the wait is long for servers and bar patrons/customers.Is it not sound business to assign them a section of the bar with responsibility for that area primarily?

Here are my thoughts on this:

A recent crackdown on the use of raw eggs in a bar in New York by a local health inspector opened a can of worms in the bar world. The thought of removing such favorites as Pisco Sours, Eggnog and Flips from the Cocktail Lists of the city’s bars was almost too much to handle.

Fortunately it looks as if the crackdown is being scaled back (for now at least), no doubt in part due to the backlash,  however the victim of a recent bust, Pegu Club in SoHo, has stopped serving its MarTEAni, a drink featuring egg whites to balance out tannin-infused gin, after a health inspector issued the bar a citation and summons to court for serving the drink without checking to make sure the patron knew he was exposing himself to salmonella.

Is this really the worst thing that a customer is being exposed to when they dine out? Having worked on both sides of the bar and kitchen, I’d be less worried about the contents of a sealed shell, than the food handling procedures in some of the kitchens I’ve seen.

It would be a shame for this age-old ingredient to be removed from use due to a technicality. It appears that the bar in question listed egg as an ingredient on the menu but because the patron had ordered without seeing the menu, the inspector pounced…!

Let’s worry about more serious health concerns. It ain’t the egg that will kill us.

An open letter to the bartender who “served” me last night.

Dear Bartender, ( I use this term loosely),

I would like to draw your attention to the incident last night when polite company and manners prevented me from dressing you down publicly as would have befitted the occasion.

When I ordered a Mojito from you, I had a basic level of expectation as to what I was going to get. After all a Mojito is not a vague guideline, but a specific recipe.

I was not expecting a tall hurricane glass with three large ice cubes floating around the top, a withered piece of mint drowning in a solution of 90% cane rum, topped up with a splash of still water…

However, everyone can make a mistake and it’s not about the mistake, but how you handle it that will cement my impression of you. Alas, this opportunity was wasted on you when I asked for a replacement.

Telling me that you have done this for years and know how to make a Mojito did nothing to improve the flavor of the poor excuse for a cocktail I was trying to return to you and will certainly not endear yourself to me. Asking two other customers at the bar if their Mojitos were the yummiest they had ever tasted in a clear attempt at embarrassing me in front of my friends and your customers for returning your “masterpiece” makes you look foolish and even more incompetent.

While wisdom normally comes with age, clearly the years that have contributed to your greying hair were years spent avoiding education and skill. Here’s hoping the years between grey hair and white hair will be more educational.

Unfortunately I won’t be back to sample your skills whatever your hair color, because you had your chance and blew it. Big time.

Sincerely,

4 customers who are going elsewhere tomorrow

I came up with this list a few years back when working with a client that couldn’t seem to hire the right staff and always had the worst bartenders!

What is the difference between a Good Bartender or a Bad Bartender? We’ve all been upset at poor service but equally I know when I get good service, I remember it! So what are the things that annoy or impress us?

A good Bartender:

• Always acknowledges customers at the bar.
• Can take more than one order at a time.
• Pours the pint of Guinness first when dispensing a large order.
• Puts your change in your hand and not on the bar counter.
• Offers to carry the drinks to the table for you when necessary.
• Can explain the difference between different quarter bottles of wine.
• Takes pride in their uniform.
• Prepares sufficient lemon slices in the morning.
• Does not raise their eyes to heaven when asked for an Irish Coffee.
• Knows how to change ashtrays (outside these days..) without ash flying everywhere.
• Does not put their fingers into glasses when clearing tables.
• Knows what’s going on in the area when asked by customers.
• Knows a number for local taxis.
• Takes orders from customers in rotation, without leaving anyone waiting longer than others.
• Asks if the customer would like ice in their mineral water.
• Asks if ice and/or lemon are required in vodka/gin/bacardi.
• Knows how to clean the draftt lines (even though he doesn’t have to any more…).
• Understands the importance of discretion.
• Presents the pint glass with the logo facing you.
• Holds glasses a couple of inches below the rim when serving.
• Thanks customers for their business when they are leaving.
• Asks customers if they would like another drink when the glass is almost empty.

A bad Bartender

• Talks to some customers at length while others are left waiting.
• Never washes their hands despite handling glasses by the rim.
• Arrives late and leaves early.
• Is always wondering when they can get their “staff drink”.
• Doesn’t record or care about waste.
• Takes orders from the pretty girls first.
• Dispenses free drinks to the pretty girls “on the house”.
• Adds ice and lemon to drinks as standard.
• Lets the tap run for a second or two before placing the glass underneath.
• Adjusts the gas setting of each tap before pouring a pint.
• Scratches their head and their face during service.
• Doesn’t wear full uniform.
• Encourages friends to drink in the bar when (s)he is on duty.
• Leaves the Cash Drawer open in the cash register.
• Never gives a receipt.
• Hates the thought of serving food.
• Doesn’t know what cutlery/condiments are needed for each dish/drink served.

Can anybody add to the list?

I went out on Saturday night for a few beers (Strongbow Cider and Schneider Weiss, if you must know…) and watching the bartender reminded me why there is no place for Ego in business. Certainly not if you’re a bartender.

Before you construe this as an attack on the noble profession, nothing could be further from the truth. Having spent many years behind the bar, I consider no profession more respectable and I believe that a great bartender can make your bar.

On the other hand, a bad bartender can break your bar. A stuck up blond bartender with an ego and an attitude can be devastating. That is what I had the “pleasure” of experiencing on Friday.

When a guy who is clearly out for a good night out with his friends approaches the bar and politely asks the bartender for four shots of whatever she recommends, this is an opportunity for the bartender to make some money for the bar and herself, and if she’s clever, will extract a lot more revenue during the night than that one round.

On the other hand, looking down your nose and shrugging your shoulders saying that “I don’t know what you like…” before turning on her heels is the very antithesis of what bartending is about.

Was it because the customer and his friends were dressed more like Napolean Dynamite than Zac Effron? Should it matter?

I wasn’t the only disgusted customer. Many more shook their heads in disbelief and the customer retreated in defeat to find another bartender.

To the bar owner, get rid of her. Get rid of any poison that infects your business. If you feel that you need that kind of service to make your bar work, then maybe you need to lose the ego yourself.

The cast of Mean Girls called. They’re missing a bi**ch….You should let them have her back. As a customer, I don’t want her serving me and as a bar owner you can’t afford to keep her around for long.