life_interrupts
Distinguished Member
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2006
- Messages
- 1,005
- Reaction score
- 8
I know you busted my balls earlier, but I think we're on the same boat. I know my bar scene very well in my city (Houston, which is the 4th most populous in the country), and I'd honestly have a lot of trouble thinking of a bar which stocks both green creme de menthe and white creme de cacao. Seriously, even the guy who complained about rusty nails earlier on probably doesn't get the fact that my bar, which is one of the most high volume in the city, sat on a bottle of Drambuie for well over a year without a single person ordering that drink (it was killed by a Brit who spent the night ordering neat Drambuie shots). I think that's one thing that bugs me about the e-gullet/wannabe cocktail afficianiado crowd; they learn the drinks, but they have no idea of how niche their requests are. I'd love to make you the great drink you read about on drinkboy.com, but the fact is, the economic reality makes it so it isn't even worthwhile to stock the liqueurs you need for it, and you certainly shouldn't take it out on the bartenders, who are just used to preparing basic highballs, because that's what the non-pretentious crowd orders.
The old cocktails have been making a comeback for several years now, in part because people are tired of order a Red Bull and Vodka. I bartended in DC for years and every bar I worked at carried green creme de menthe, white creme de cacao. These are liqueurs ($7 wholesale) that don't cost much. Drambuie, more expensive, but not prohibitively so. None of them got used much when and where I worked, except for the Ritz-Carlton, but that's an older crowd. Making some of those old cocktails is more time consuming, but it's a part of the gig and fortunately, not many people order them. That doesn't mean it wasn't a pain ********** to find the Campari for the Negroni some college kid returning from break in France wanted.