I've sailed with some interesting people over the years, and this boat is no exception.
I am presently sailing with a former navy seal, a former County Sheriff, a former commercial diver, a former bridge builder and a former bartender.
The interesting thing is, this is only one guy I am talking about. Brad is a deckhand on our boat and as you can see by his resume, he is multi-talented. Either he gets bored easily and moves on to experience something new, or he hasn't decided what he wants to be when he grows up. Brad is closer to 40 than 30.
He weighs in at about 250 lbs which is spread out not exactly in proportion to his 6'1" frame. Thank goodness he's a sweetheart because he could break me in half if the spirit moved him. I've seen him throw lines, (big rope we tie the boat up with) 8 feet in the air lassoing a cleat on the dock 10 feet away like he's roping a calf at the local rodeo. He's a beast!
Anyway, I found one of his former jobs very interesting and I learned some things while talking to him that I didn't know before. Which job? You guessed it, bar tending.
I asked him if he was a mixologist? He said no, many high volume bars won't hire guys who were 'trained", because they are taught to use a jigger, that fancy dohicky you see in the tops of bottle that measure accurately one shot per tilt of the bottle. The problem with the jigger is the time it takes to pour.
He said that in high volume bars, like a packed night club, you line up 8 or 10 glasses in a row, turn the bottle upside down and just run down the line and make your drink. Less time to pour equals more drinks made, equals more money made for the owner and more tips for the bar tender.
I mentioned to him that it must be hard to remember all the different drinks there are out there. A Mud Slide, a Grasshopper, a Pink Flamingo, a purple this and a Chocolate that. He smiled and said, if he gets asked to make some fancy drink and he doesn't know what it is, he'll ask the customer if they know what is in it. If it's a young female, and they don't know what's in it, he said, "You just make something red and they'll be happy."
That's interesting. I'll be watching the bar tender from a different perspective next time I'm out.
I may just order a Walking Pelican and see if I get something red.
2 comments:
Ya got me with "walking pelican" -- what is it? I'm pretty much past my fruity-drinks phase, but sometimes my curiosity gets the best of me. Actually, I think I prefer drinking something pale green rather than red, but red's a good color, too, if it includes grenadine or cranberry juice.
I love hearing about the jobs that people have done and finding out things that we don't know... it always adds that fresh perspective :-)
And my goodness, he is HUGE
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