For quite a while now I have been working to put together a stand up comedy show that is for and by bartenders…well, I can finally say that I have done it!

Proud to announce that the first show will be Sunday, October 14th in the back room at Bar Lubitsch. Very happy with the team of comics set to perform and hoping that if you are in LA you can join us! If you aren’t in LA, I will be working on posting a podcast. But no firm date on that, I still have a lot to learn about it.

A common practice in the restaurant and bar industry is to train the staff to upsell. Meaning that when asked for a vodka tonic, the server suggests a brand or asks the guest to specify a brand. If the server prompts the guest to spend an additional dollar or two per drink the final check will be higher. $6 may not seem like a lot but per person, per night, over the course of a week, month, or year it adds up.

Upselling is by no means a malicious practice. The financial benefit to the business is undeniable, however it is done for more than just increasing numbers. People have specific tastes yet don’t always call for them. Within every spirit category there is an ample amount of variety. How the spirit is made, flavor, even price point. It’s reasonable for a server to inquire further in order to insure that their guest will enjoy their drink as much as possible.

As a bartender when I ask my guests to specify a brand, the most common response I hear is “I don’t know”. As the guest scans the shelves, scrambling for an answer, they often say the first brand they can think of, or happen to make eye contact with. This seems normal, but brands being called for based on visibility and recognition creates an opportunity for businesses to take advantage of unsuspecting consumers.

Are you an unsuspecting consumer? Have you ever answered, “I don’t know” when asked to specify a brand? Better yet, after specifying the brand have you said, “will do” or “I guess”? If these scenarios apply to you, chances are that you are spending more than necessary on our nights out.

Based off of a national survey of bartending friends from various types of bars I determined an average price for the commonly accepted pricing tiers of liquors. Of course it is an estimate, depending on where you live it may vary. But for the sake of illustrating a point these numbers will suffice.

If you are a consumer of premium liquors you could save 18% of your annual drinking budget by switching to a call brand. If you are fortunate to patronize bars with decent well liquor programs, and consume cocktails that taste the same anyways, you could double your savings and save 36% per year.

If you spend $10,000 a year on drinks, saving $3,600 is a lot of incentive to stop and think about this. Furthermore if you are young and have your prime years of going out and drinking ahead of you, consider the savings over a 5-year period? How about a 10-year period? It adds up to a car, decreased student loan debt, a down payment on a house, something tangible that has much more value than a blurred memory you may have overpaid for.

So how can you start saving money? Ask yourself these questions:

What does your drink of choice cost?

What is it made/distilled from?

Where is it made/distilled?

Once you know a bit about your drink of choice, enlist the help of a local, professional bartender. This bartender should be able to talk to you knowledgably about the recently researched spirit you prefer, and be enthusiastic about your desire to explore substitutes in order to qualify for the job. Explain to him or her what you like, how you drink it and see what they can share with you. With the investment of a little free time and an open mind not only can you save some money, you will always enjoy the benefits of knowing what you like. Raise a glass to yourself and try to resist grinning when you hear people around you order “I don’t know”.

I had the privilege of working with Jon Taffer and his crew for season 2 of Bar Rescue. I’m a fan of the show so really happy I got to be a part of it! Here are the first 12 minutes of the episode which can be seen on Sunday 9/16 at 9 pm PST.

Bartending jobs can be elusive. If you are someone that has a strong desire to get behind a bar but aren’t sure where to start, here are a few tips that I find myself dispensing often.

DO
Ask yourself, “Why do I want to do this?”

If you think that you have industry changing cocktail concepts, that people want to watch you juggle, than you’re going to have a hard time convincing anyone that can help you to take you seriously. The people that are the best in this business are intrinsically driven to make their guests happy. They happily serve people regardless of their judgement of their work. They are comfortable with serving and take pride in being able to provide an experience.

DON’T
Buy into common misconceptions. (Believe the hype!)

You will make a lot of money, meet a lot of boys/girls, and get to party while doing it all. Sure the job is fun, but it’s a business. You have to be responsible for yourself as well as the safety of others. If you are a liability to the business by putting your egocentric priorities first than you will be ousted.

DON’T
Go to a bartending school.

These schools are expensive and don’t offer much return for your investment. Additionally the average curriculum is out of touch with the expectations of most of today’s popular bars.

DO
Take the money you would spend on bartending school and buy some books.

Yes, books! I highly recommend those that cover proper bar techniques and use of tools as opposed to endless amounts of recipes. “The Craft of the Cocktail” or “The PDT Cocktail Book” are essential. Additionally buy some basic tools and practice using them correctly. You will still have money left over to buy an over-sized tie and pose for a bartender school graduate type photo of you to put on your resume.

DO
Jump into the culture.

You don’t have to be working behind a bar to learn about bartending. Identify the bars that you enjoy the most and start visiting often. Get to know the bartenders, watch them work, try to understand what they are doing, why they do it a certain way. Learn from observations and occasional questions.

DO
Learn about cocktails and spirits.

A great bar is always happy to talk about the bottles on the shelves with guests. Ask about unfamiliar bottles, and if you find something you like try a cocktail made with it. Drink it with the intention of learning from it rather than getting drunk. It is “studying” after all.

DON’T
Allow your enthusiasm be misunderstood.

Nobody likes a show off. If you sit down and start quizzing he bartender or dispensing knowledge you studied from wikipedia in an attempt to brag, boast, or impress, you are doing yourself more harm than good. The same applies when the bartender is tending to a guest, don’t attempt to “help” the bartender by suggesting cocktails for an indecisive guest. If you often attempt to hijack the service experience, you are just defining yourself as a nuisance.

DO
Make some friends.

Bartender friends can help you get your foot in the door, or behind the bar in this case. If they know you are eager to learn, applying yourself, and a “cool” person, they can be of tremendous assistance in finding you that first bar job.

DON’T
Expect results from being lazy.

Finding a bartending job is not easy. If you just e mail every craigslist ad seeking a bartender, or call bars to ask if they are hiring it won’t generate much success. Nobody wants to hire work averse people.

DO
Be strategic about seeking employment.

In addition to knowing something about the bar you are applying to work at, you should know who to talk to, when that person is there, and when they are slow enough that you can have a drink and get an opportunity to speak with them for a minute. Even if they can’t hire you, they may have a lead on another opportunity.

DON’T
Forget what it was like when you couldn’t find a job!

All people get comfortable with their work but bartenders are very guilty of this. Finding a job isn’t easy, finding a good job is really damn hard. Should your hard work pay off, always stay humble and remember what it felt like when you would have done anything for the opportunity.

If you are searching, I wish you the best. If you have any questions please feel free to leave them in the comments section. Thanks for reading!

A good cocktail can improve many situations, and traveling on an airplane is certainly one of them. Unfortunately the airline offerings are pretty slim, so imagine my delight when I saw Erick Castro pack a bar kit, some mint, and limes to make a Southside on his flight! It was brilliant!

I have never seen anyone make a cocktail on a plane, but why not? It’s a pretty awesome bartender meme! If we as bartenders hope to propel proper cocktails into society than this random act of cocktailing makes a lot of sense!

Inspired by Erick I decided that I wanted to be the first to prepare a Ramos Gin Fizz on an airplane! The Ramos Gin Fizz is a cocktail that even the best of bartenders would agree can be a difficult order. It takes more time to make than most cocktails and typically the person who ordered it consumes it faster than it was made.

Perhaps the only challenge larger than working in a very tight space is having all of the ingredients available. To do this it required a bit of planning, I packed:

-halved lemons and limes
-orange flower water with a touch of vanilla extract
-heavy cream and pasteurized egg white in TSA approved containers
-citrus squeezer
-Boston shaker and pint glass
-Hawthorne strainer
-milk frother
-bar towel
-measuring cup

Then I ordered from the stewardess:
-a can of club soda
-2 cups of ice
-3 extra cups
-gin
-handful of sugar packets

I made my own simple syrup on the plane because I knew I could get sugar and hot water. You could probably get limes and lemons too but at the point of asking for 20 or so of those tiny wedges I don’t think that they would be good sports about it. Additionally I used a produce bag for all of my own garbage to be courteous to the flight crew.

Check out the video and if you decide to make a cocktail on a flight yourself be sure to big up Erick Castro (@castrodisiac). I say the challenge is on! What can’t be made in the tiny coach spaces on an airplane?

Recently a friend of mine posted a photo of a cocktail menu onto his facebook because he found a particular concoction to be funny. However upon viewing this photo, another item on the list caught my attention. This disclaimer posted on the bottom of the menu:

“Specialty cocktails may take more time to prepare during busy hours.”

It seems like a nice enough heads up, but this “warning” is way more disgusting than that drink! It may as well read, “We suck at our jobs, so deal with our incompetence”.

A cocktail menu is the heart and soul of a bar. I can get a good idea of what the bar is about simply by reviewing it. It should be a point of pride, not a statement of failure. The presence of this notice indicates that there are a few problems behind this bar.

One of these is that the bartenders are not skilled enough to execute the bar program. This is becoming a common problem as so many bartenders who can make a good drink or two have promoted themselves from mixologist to consultant. But skilled bartenders are the difference between success and failure, not a mixologist’s ego driven vanity project. If the cocktail program is so ambitious that the staff can’t execute it, the bar loses money, customers have bad experiences, unsatisfied guests don’t return, and the business fails.

Enough about the bartenders though, what kind of leaders set their team up to fail? Bad ones! Also what kinds of owners agree to accept failure as the status quo? You guessed it, bad ones! If the bar manager has no idea how to succeed during “busy hours”, it’s safe to assume that they haven’t earned their job on merit.

The owner’s of this bar may someday recognize their work and if so I ask a question. In the event that an inebriated guest were to defecate in the entry, would you just put a sign up and ask people to ignore it? Perhaps it is time to realize that someone has shat upon your bar program.

The bottom line is just that, the bottom line. As an owner if you are content with losing money, please promptly sell your business to a bartender that knows what they are doing and deserves the opportunity to make the money you are regularly leaving on the table.

The work of a bartender is under constant scrutiny and eligible to be written about anywhere in any context. Writers and bloggers seemingly have more influence on this industry at times than the bartenders themselves. I appreciate and respect the professionals who perform this job with caution and care. However I feel that there are times when people say or write stupid things that need to be challenged. Here is one of them:

“In previous days we’ve described this as one of the world’s best cocktail lounges. Nowadays it’s more akin to a fun pub-style atmosphere serving up cocktails listed on a psychedelic, wipe-clean menu whipped up in next to no time, though still costing $14-15. “

This is a quote in a review about The Roger Room from a publication I respect called Difford’s Guide. Upon Mr Difford’s first visit to the Roger Room, he wrote very nice things about the place and awarded us a score of 4 or 4.5 out of a possible 5. Then over a year later, Ian Cameron of Difford’s guide visited Los Angeles and gave us a new review, which includes the above excerpt and a downgraded score of 3/5. The same as the recently defunct Tar Pit.

Perhaps it is poorly worded, but do I detect that we are being punished for preparing cocktails quickly coupled with an insinuation that the prices are too high?

Allow me to address the simpler of these issues without delay. Mr. Cameron, our cocktails are priced fairly, even competitively for what we offer in our part of Los Angeles. You are already demonstrating a serious misunderstanding of LA that should immediately disqualify you from publishing your opinion about any bar in this city anywhere other than yelp.

The other issue is much more difficult. It’s very easy to inference that the care required to make a “good” cocktail was lacking because of the speed in which it was prepared, but this is a sad misnomer that prevents innovation in this industry. I am saddened that a “professional” journalist chooses to perpetuate it. On this evening I was the bartender who prepared these cocktails “in next to no time”.

My personal bartending philosophy is that I don’t cut corners, keep people waiting, or compromise cocktail quality for speed. This is something that not many bartenders can say and it has made me one of the most respected bartenders in Los Angeles. To achieve this, it requires a mastery of bartending skills, techniques and most importantly a desire to provide guests with expedient service.

Should I make something that is easy to me appear difficult in order to increase its value?

Good cocktails start with good recipes and end in good execution. Time is important to dilution when shaking or stirring but outside of that, seconds can be shaved with preparation and strategic mis en place. Every second adds up! Let’s not forget that many bartenders neglect to work with their non-dominant hand! (Using it to hold a jigger doesn’t count.)

Bartending with an emphasis on execution is something that requires much thought and discipline. There are no books that you can read, and few people to consult when it comes to the challenges of a busy bar. Rather than innovate, many choose to adopt the belief that it can’t be done. The best bartenders in the world are innovating cocktails on several levels, so how is it that taking less time to prepare them should not be of value?

In closing Mr Cameron, Hollywood is not New York, London, or Paris. Just Like The Roger Room is not The Varnish or Providence. We are in agreement that those are great bars operated by great people. However what we do at the Roger Room is more significant and commendable than you think. We introduce cocktails to a crowd that may have previously never considered drinking anything other than vodka with soda their whole lives. We are a beacon for better drinking that you have shunned. I suggest that you innovate the way you evaluate bars before people realize what you do has little to no value.

Dear friends,

I recently teamed up with some friends to produce a video that you may have seen called “Sh*t That People Say to Bartenders”. I apologize if it has congested your facebook newsfeed but it was more popular than I thought it would be. It’s success taught me a lot. Most importantly I realize that we have a community larger than I imagined. If you enjoyed the video, please take a moment to read this.

Like many of you, I am intrinsically driven to change the way people think about spirits, cocktails, and even bartenders. For the past few years I have enjoyed many opportunities through the “cocktail boom” but I still believe as knowledgeable skilled individuals, we are largely undervalued and misunderstood by the masses.

Here in LA, most bar owners prefer to keep costs down by favoring low skilled employees and simple two ingredient cocktails. Rather than focus on a quality beverage program they pour money into design and marketing. This happens because our guests don’t demand much more than that. I don’t believe in telling others what to drink but I fear that this landscape presents significant challenges to our collective value.

I understand that growth takes time yet I believe that growth lies in changing the way people think. I am compelled to believe that we can do more to change the way our work is valued. I have developed a strategy to achieve this but I need your help!

I ask you to consider taking these actions:

-Recognize!
We are all in the same gang!. Being competitive is human nature but if we spend our time and effort working against each other we will never realize change. The environment of our industry makes it easy to think success is determined by benchmarking the accolades of others but that is untrue. If we change the way people think about what we do we can all be happy doing what we love.

-Slow down!
To the youngsters enthusiastic about bartending that think it’s all about getting into a magazine. Trust me, no bartender pictured in The Tasting Panel is killing it. Recognition is nice, but this job is about loving what you do and doing it well. That’s much deeper than winning a cocktail competition or creating a dozen new cocktails. If you are a youngster, get a mentor and learn your basics before you think you’re a consultant or the mayor of mixology.

-Don’t check out!
Because the highly skilled can be so under valued it seems that more and more bartenders are longing for that brand ambassador job, expecting that to be more rewarding. It might be the easy answer to make more money, but are you a bartender or a salesman? If we dig in, work together, and fight the good fight we can achieve change and increase average bartender wages. Stick around and make it better rather than cutting loose, we could use the help.

-Extend the olive branch.
I don’t know when this happened but there is a massive disconnect between guests and bartenders. Ordinary guests think that bartenders are assholes while bartenders think guests are annoying. In order for people to really value our work we need to work to eliminate this misconception. We get people drunk, of course they can be irritating. But we have thick skin no? We can deal with it professionally. Just like being subjected to being personally attacked on websites like yelp. Which brings me to this…

-Write!
For several years I have watched yelpers, bloggers, and journalists opine as if they are experts. Some have merit but others are simply uneducated enthusiasts looking for a paycheck via advertising revenue. While there is room for enthusiasts, they should not be regarded as the “experts” in your town. They should not dominate the media, determine the worth of anyone’s work, and they should be checked when they step out of line. Let’s decide to not worry about the erratic opinions of the self empowered and instead empower ourselves as industry professionals.

We can change the way that our work is valued, and further change the way we are rewarded.

I will be doing my part here in LA and happy to speak with anyone about my strategy, vision, and opportunities to work together. But I need your help! I seek strength in numbers! Please help me by liking my company on Facebook and following me and my company on twitter. I promise not to bombard you with propaganda or do dumb shit like tag you in things that you don’t want to be a part of.

I will make a difference! I look forward to fighting the good fight with you.
Super Vest Friends unite!

Your brother in arms,

Jason Bran

So it seems that a few people are taking this video the wrong way. This video was not made to insult anyone or portray any stereotypes.

Myself and all people involved with this production LOVE what we do. We are not bitter nor disgruntled. People say things far worse than portrayed in this video regularly and we smile through it all. The fact is though that when people get drunk, they can be a bit annoying, it’s human nature plain and simple.

My main purpose was to give people who have never served others some perspective from our side of the bar. If you want to see a bitter version that is aggressive please have a look at these links:

Frankly I think that these people are assholes and give the profession a bad name. Professional bartenders don’t crack under the stress, we make sure you have a great time and get home safe. The idea that bartenders are all assholes or conversely bartenders thinking that all their guests are annoying is a strange belief that too many subscribe to. I assure you I have no intention of perpetuating the ridiculousness as I feel it has already gone too far.

Thank you for reading. Feel free to write me if you would like to discuss further.

Cheers!

Jason!

I am very proud to announce the formation of my company, the Hollywood Cocktail Company! Hollywood Cocktail Co. seeks to increase the value of proper bartenders, cocktails and spirits in Los Angeles and beyond. As a way to familiarize myself with video production and editing, I wrote and produced the following video, “Shit People Say to Bartenders”. Sure, it’s a little late to the “Shit People Say” party, but never the less it’s entertaining. All future videos will be posted here. Please follow @hwoodcocktailco on twitter to stay up to date on all future video releases!

Cheers!

Jason!