Showing posts with label bar staff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bar staff. Show all posts

Tuesday, 9 September 2014

How To - Best Bloody Mary's Ever.

How to make the best Bloody Mary you’ll ever have. 

So, everyone knows that a good Bloody Mary is the perfect way to slide into an evening session or maybe even a cheeky pick me up in the afternoon. Either way, there are do’s-and-don’ts.



This is the way I’ve been taught to make a Bloody Mary, with my own preferences thrown in too.

You will need to acquire the following;
-          One bottle of the regular, normal old tomato juice. Britvic or Schweppes is fine, Big Tom is not. Big Tom is already spiced so you don’t really want to use that one if you’re into tailoring your own drink. Also, if you use Big Tom it will make everything I’m about to say entirely irrelevant.
-          A double, or  50ml’s, of regular vodka. Smirnoff,  Absolut ...whatever floats your boat.
-          A ‘little’ splash of Tabasco sauce.
-          A generous splash of Lea & PerrinsWorcestershire Sauce.
-          A sprinkle of Celery Salt, which you can by in the spice section of most full-size supermarkets. By full-size, I mean not a Tesco Metro. You need a proper big boy supermarket.
-          Ice
-          Lemon slice.
-          Celery stick (if you want)

1.       Combine all ingredients except juice and lemon into your glass. Stir.
2.       Pour half of your juice into your glass. Stir.
3.       Fill your glass with juice, stir and add in your lemon.
4.       Slide your celery stick in as an edible-stirer.
5.       Enjoy.

For those who don’t want ice in their juice, try this version. This is the version I make at the bar, or if I’m not being lazy. Me? Lazy? Ahem.

1.    Pour ice, vodka, celery salt, Lea & Perrins and Tabasco into a pint glass.
2.   Pour mixture into another pint glass, and then back again into the original. 
3.   Pour half of your tomato juice into the mixture (still in a pint glass).
4.   Repeat step two.
5.   Add remaining tomato juice.
6.    Repeat step two.
7.    Strain and serve into a half-pint glass, garnish with celery and or lemon.  Your Bloody Mary will be chilled from the ice in the pint glasses and will not have dissolving cubes floating about in it.
8.     Enjoy.


If you would prefer a Virgin Mary, simply follow steps 1 through 8, but don’t add the Vodka at the start. Et voila – the perfect brunch juice drink for your friends on Saturday morning.

If you'd like more recipes for cocktails and things of the like, BBC Online has some good ones, or if you want something a little sexier and daring try out the cocktails on Esquire, who are doing awesome Whiskey Cocktails for Fall at the moment. (which is Autumn to us Brits.) 

Hope you have enjoyed this how-to. I’ve quite enjoyed making it, so maybe there’ll be more of this kind of thing going on. Let me know if you do like this, if you don’t, if you like Bloody Mary’s, if you don’t. Yadda yadda yadda.



Thursday, 10 April 2014

'Ello, Bar Girl here. Here's 10 Things.


Good evening and welcome, to the first post of the Adventures of Bar Girl blog. Here, you can read all kinds of shenanigans that I get up to in and around my favorite and not so favorite bars. Working in Winchester means you might see some of your favorite haunts popping in and out of my life, so feel free to tell me what you think; what you like and don't. I should probably let you know from the get go that I can be pretty opinionated.

 Just to break you in...

 Here's my, current, 10 Bar Girl hates:

1. "What do you have on?" (...in reference to beers.)
What do I have on? You mean, aside from the fourteen pumps you can see in front of your face? Well... Would you like me to list every spirit and soft drink that we sell? That's going to take me a minute you self-centered ass. 

2. "Is this all you have?" (...Nope. I keep a secret stash under the bar.)

People ask me this all the time, as if I'm going to let them in on a super secret sleuth stash of beers under the bar that are only available for super special customers who ask. 
 
3. Please stop moving all my furniture to rearrange for abnormally large group. 
So there are twenty of you - that really doesn't impress me. Especially at five minutes to closing time. What would you like me to say? But of course, Sir. You drag all my chairs to one corner of the bar and huddle there with all your loud, drunken friends. (See point 6.)

4. "I can't make it in today, I'm sick." (Nothing to do with the fantastic sunshine today?) 

When my staff call in sick when they're not, it really bugs me. They don't seem to realize what they've done to the rest of us. You're just dropping out of a busy shift leaving the rest of us to pick up your slack. Don't bother coming back. Don't let me see you out drinking tonight either.

5. "HOW MUCH?!" (Don't bitch at me, I don't set the prices.) 
This one really has nothing to do with me. Please don't moan at me that your pint of Peroni only gives you 40p change from £5. You were the one to order one of the most expensive beers. 
 
6. "What time do you close?" (In five minutes) "Great. There's 12 of us."
Inconsiderate...GRUMBLE...I want to go home...pain in my ass... grumble grumble. 
 
7. "Okay, I'll take a burger. No bun. Hold the relish. But can I get extra mayo? And is your salad washed before it's served?" 
That's all well and good, but you clearly don't have dietry requirements. You're just being a tosser. I'm the one who has to face the almighty wrath of a Chef with the temper of a dragon. And of course the salad is washed!?
 
8. "I'll take a lager." (Fantastic. Am I meant to psychically know which one of six?)
Becks. Peroni. Carling. Fosters. Red Stripe. Pilsner. Grolsh. Staropramen. Same goes for ordering simply "Stella" when there's four different types of Stella on sale. Cidre. Stella 4. Stella Black. STELLA ARTOIS. 

9. You dragging your kids to a bar. (It's inappropriate and annoying.) 

Okay, I understand you guys want your family to spend quality time together but I'd much rather that wasn't in the middle of a football game when there's thirty louts at the bar and your precious little girl is screaming louder than them all. 
10. No hesitation, deviation or repetition. (Please) 
Don't repeat your orders or I'll make them twice, I can retain them the first time. Don't deviate from your original order, again... I will have retained the first order. Don't come to the bar if you don't know what you want, and once you have what you want GO AWAY. There are other people who need serving.
So, maybe that's enough for now. I'm sure more will come to me - they usually do. To anyone who thinks I'm being too harsh - you have clearly never worked in a bar. Any bar. Being in charge of Champagne at your great aunt Hildy's 60th birthday doesn't count. 

Til next time, stay safe. 

BarGirl.