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 More on Bar Equipment

Funny how we think that the bar equipment at a club is too loud and unnecessary all while ignoring what it takes to make the drinks. Sure, when you first walk in with your drink, you can snatch it off the bartender's hands and be on your way home with no strings attached. But if you want to actually taste your drink and understand what's going on in that glass, every aspect of its production must be accounted for in order to really enjoy it. Sure, you can drink it straight, but after taking in all that the cocktail provides, you'll understand why a little something extra (extras?) has been added in.

Everyone knows that alcohol is alcohol. It might as well be a box of matches – 100% pure ethanol with zero effect on the drinker's senses. Now to make it a cocktail becomes very difficult and requires an extensive amount of ingredients, tools and knowledge that will make or break your drink experience. If the bartender doesn't know how to properly muddle mint or measure out the correct ratio of spirit to ice or even how to clean up afterwards, well then you have every right as a consumer to refuse service.

If you think about it, even the soda gun has a purpose. Sure, you can add in a lime wedge, cherry and an extra shot of Jagermeister, but the soda water is the backbone of why some drinks taste way better than others. If it wasn't for that extra H2O added in to freshen-up your drink then we'd all be drinking straight jager shots out of dirty glasses with lipstick on them.

Speaking of tools and knowledge – did you know that many years ago, bartenders would make drinks by pouring straight from a bottle? They didn't put ice in a cocktail shaker, they didn't create garnish towers or even use handcrafted juice or purees. They simply poured from the bottle, mixed in their ingredients and served it up on your table with a smile.

In those days if a bartender broke his shaker or cracked a glass, he would be instantly reprimanded. I've even heard of bartenders being fired for breaking their pitcher. It was the classic tale (or so they believed) of too much ego being blended with not enough knowledge and equipment to create a proper drink.

Those were the good old days when drinks were simple; well at least drinks like The Gibson or Whiskey Sour. You know, drinks that are quickly forgotten by most of us today because they require too much work and attention to detail to appreciate them properly (not that we're complaining).

Today's bars are designed to create a certain environment. You want to be able to hear what the person next to you is saying while still understanding what the person at the other end of the bar is telling you. You want your smoke machine to give off just enough fog that you can still taste your drink while still noticing that bartender giving you a dirty look for not tipping her enough last time. And then there's that annoying music – it's loud enough so that we don't have to hear our friends talk (and vice-verse) but quiet enough where we can forget about work and have a good time without anyone knowing about it.

Then you add in the ice and shake it up, which is another reason why bars are filled with so much noise. The shaking of that cocktail shaker has become a symbol associated with the cocktail itself – a sense of power, complexity and excitement. But who am I kidding? It's just shaking ice around in a jug while wearing black clothes and balancing a few bottles on top of each other.

The reality is that we should all be more thankful to our local bartender for the work they put into making our drinks look simple when they are anything but. After all, 99% of us would rather drink a martini than drink ten martinis just to attempt to understand what the bartender's actually doing.

But hey, if you still want to complain about how loud the bar equipment is at your favorite club, then you should really get out of your cave and walk in there with a blank slate. If you can read the ingredients from across the bar and work your way up from there, I'm sure that bartender will be more than happy to start pouring straight from that bottle. And who knows? Maybe you'll even figure out why 99% of us still line up every week just for that one cocktail made by that one person who cares enough (and knows enough) to get it right.

Thus conclude my rant on how I realize that I'm still a customer who enjoys the little things about my job.

Adam – Bar Equipment

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Conclusion

Thank you for your kind attention. This has been the post on the basics of bar equipment for bartenders and barkeepers, I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Please do share this with your friends if you found this useful or entertaining.

If you are ready to get started on an exciting new career path, please visit our home page to learn more about what we do here at Bartending Pro , we hope to see you wear a sexy little outfit soon!

Also published on Medium.

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