In a Dirty Glass: Learning the Science of Mixology

By Shannon Peach

My search for a paying job has been lurching along for months now, hindered mightily by the fact that I don’t like getting up in the morning. Without a forced schedule, my circadian rhythms dictate that I don’t fall asleep until 3 a.m., wake around 11:00, and remain catatonic until caffeine hits my bloodstream. After 33 years, I finally realized my destiny: To be a bartender. Or a motel desk clerk.

The decision to attend bartending school was made only after pondering a Zen-like “if a tree falls in the forest” puzzle: everyone knows that the only way to learn bartending is to work in a bar, but the only way to get a bartending job is with previous bartending experience. After much research, I still had no idea whether or not a certificate from a bartending college would score me a job, but at least it put off the search for another two weeks. And, after all, I wasn’t looking for Coyote Ugly. Just a nice quiet dive that sold Pabst in cans, where I could call the customers “hon” and play Tanya Tucker on the jukebox.

Now, if I happened to be a washed-up rock star, my decision to return to school would likely inspire a short-lived reality show. But since I’m merely an unknown freelance writer who’s never been married to a Baywatch cast member and been taped having sex on a boat, and “school” was actually two weeks of memorizing cocktail recipes, we’ll just have to pretend.

Episode 1.

I arrive in an impossibly dank room with no windows and two fake bars set up along each side of the room. All of the liquor bottles are familiar brand names, but they don’t hold actual liquor. The instructor — let’s call him Floyd — is a haggard, eccentric old man who cracks a lot of lame jokes about women. My roommate has been asking me if showing cleavage will be part of the curriculum, and I won’t be surprised if it is. Floyd tells us that mixing drinks isn’t rocket science, but we’re still pretty nervous about memorizing so many recipes in so few days. (The soundtrack to this episode features the theme from “Smokey and the Bandit:” “we’ve got a long way to go/and a short time to get there”.) We practice pouring one-ounce shots repetitiously, careful not to let them spill over, as over-pouring will cost our future bosses money. The idea is to count to four while pouring, and so that you can always pour a perfect ounce by counting to four. The problem is that everyone seems to count at a different pace, so you could just as easily count slowly to three, or quickly to five. It may not be rocket science, but there are mathematical complexities. I work next to an obnoxious fake gangsta-type guy who holds up a one-ounce shot glass and asks, “How much is a quarter ounce? This?” I tell him the glass holds one ounce, so, one quarter of that glass. Instead he holds up a larger glass and says, “This?” I shut my mouth and make martinis out of water.

Episode 2.

The obnoxious fake gangsta guy (you know, one of those guys who was raised in the suburbs, but wears loose, shiny basketball shorts and uses street slang?) has started yelling, “What up, Rebel?” every time he sees me. This is in reference to my pink “Rebel at Heart” T-shirt from the teen section at Wal-Mart. Five dollars, yo. One of the female students mentions right away that a cockroach has run over her hand. Today we learn tropical drinks, which are a bitch because they each have about 42 different ingredients and, unlike martinis, I don’t drink these so I don’t already know what’s in them.

Floyd makes a point a point of teaching us that the way to avoid getting a hangover is to drink lots of water and avoid sugary beverages. I had figured this out, through trial and error, several years ago so I will share the benefit of my experience and Floyd’s lesson plan and tell you that while a Singapore Sling might be delicious and irresistible, it will leave you with deep regrets the next day — not unlike the people you might pick up while drinking them.

The other lesson we get from Floyd today is that he’s come up with cute little phrases to help us remember drink recipes. The first letter of each word is supposed to correspond with the first letter of each liquor, so “bad gas ruins oral sex” signals the recipe for a Fog Cutter: brandy, gin, rum, orange juice, sweet and sour mix. Likewise, “bitter men often slap girls” indicates a mixture of bitters, Meyer’s rum, orange juice, sweet and sour, and grenadine. That’s what we call Planter’s Punch. I can’t give away any more of these things, or I’d have to charge you the $200 I paid to hear them. What I didn’t understand, however, was how it would be any easier to memorize these phrases than to memorize the recipe.

While filling the “juice” bottles from a big bucket of orange water, I notice that the spouts are coated with mold inside. All we do is fill glasses with dyed water, scoop ice and dump it back in the sink. All of the bottles are concealing mold, and the well trays are lined with it. I choose to believe that the bottles in a real bar would be sanitized by alcohol. We run out of ice early in the day and Floyd goes out, cursing, to buy some, leaving us to intently pour shot after shot like two parallel rows of boozebots.

Episode 3.

We learn about sours, Collins’, teas and lemonades. Teas do not contain tea and lemonades do not contain lemonade, though several of them do contain a splash of lime juice. Floyd’s repeated jokes have worn thin with me, though the other students don’t seem to tire of repeating them. I’ve noticed that most of the guys sound normal when they talk to me, but when they speak to each other, they put on the gangsta slang. I wonder what jobs they’ve all held before. Of course, I’m the oldest one in the room, besides Floyd. They should be addressing me as ma’am.

I have completely forgotten all of the tropical drink recipes from yesterday. And we are out of ice again. The class is overcrowded, not everyone gets a station, and one ice machine clearly isn’t enough to keep up. With three classes per day, the school doesn’t seem to be pulling in enough to cover the high overhead costs of bleach and ice. I wonder how much the teachers are paid, and it worries me. It can’t be all that much, yet it must be more than an actual bartender — otherwise, they’d still be tending real bars, right?

Episode 4.

All the students are burned out by now. The lecture today is about customer service and legal issues, rather than mixing drinks. I start to get a clear picture of what it would be like to peddle alcohol to serious drunks, to have to cut them off and clean their vomit off the floor. Floyd tells a colorful story about almost getting hit with a nail gun behind the bar, and I realize that as a bartender I’ll have to endure jokes even lamer than Floyd’s.

After the lecture, some of the second week students take their test. Floyd names two drinks at a time, then busies himself while they make it. I am watching closely enough to see several mistakes, so I figure that as long as the drink comes out the right color in the right glass, it’s a pass. No one fails today. I still force myself to practice, because I can’t remember the tropical recipes without looking in the book. I vow to study over the weekend.

Episode 5.

I forgot to study over the weekend. I’m a martini-making genius, but I can’t remember a single tropical drink recipe, even though the guy who couldn’t divide one by four on the first day is now whipping out fake Mai Tais with confidence. I’m beginning to fear I have a cocktail-related learning disability. In the fourth grade, I could barely grasp even remedial multiplication, and now I can’t remember if a Blue Hawaiian starts with vodka or rum. I only know it has blue in it. And who even orders these drinks? Everyone I know drinks rum and Coke, or vodka and orange juice, or beer. I don’t expect to get a job on Fantasy Island.

Floyd actually addresses this in today’s lesson on highballs. Even though we have to memorize the official names for fairly simple drinks, he says that most people will just say what they want, i.e. “Jack and Coke.” And, just when you’re feeling all superior because you already know that a Cape Cod is just vodka and cranberry juice, you suddenly have to remember the difference between a Cape Cod, a Sea Breeze, a Bay Breeze, and a Madras. It’s all in the juice.

Episode 6.

This time I did study. I even wrote the harder recipes on index cards and made my roommate test me. By this time, I’ve given in to Floyd’s method. For some reason, it must be easier for human brains to remember somewhat off-color phrases than basic words like “gin” or “rum.” Besides, I’m starting to feel that Floyd is a kindred spirit — just a tired old guy who wants to be left alone but has to endure endless ice runs to pay the bills. I can only imagine how tired he would be if he had actually let us use the blenders.

This is a pretty slow episode, so it might be a good time for a montage of Floyd footage: Floyd cussing out his ex-wife, Floyd yelling “don’t know, don’t care!” when I ask what Benedictine is, Floyd smoking outside the glass front door, Floyd practicing his fake smile for the benefit of the ladies, Floyd reminding us for the 18th time that he may be real pretty at closing time, but he gets less pretty in the morning.

Floyd has claimed several times, and loudly, that he doesn’t do flair bartending, indicating that only a bleeping idiot would. Flair is when the bartender swings the bottles and glasses around, flipping them over his/her wrists and elbows before catching them and pouring the drink. “What do I do? I make a g@#$#mn good drink. That’s my f&#%ing job.” But for the purpose of our montage, it would be fun to watch him try.

Episode 7.

Today’s lesson is about shooters — another realm of the liquor world with which I am unfamiliar. Of course I’ve done shots, but I mostly stick to tequila. The rest of them remind me of cough syrup.

There is a practice test in the book, and another student asks me the questions as I casually mix fake drink after fake drink. Some of them look tasty, especially the ones with brown dye. The annoying gangsta guy has taken sips now and then, saying, “What? It’s just food coloring.” I try to explain about the mold, but he doesn’t see it as a problem.

The guy who’s been testing me comes to a question about beer. We haven’t actually talked about beer at all, and tomorrow is the last day. I look in the book and realize there is quite a bit of information on beer and wine that was never covered in class. Surely it’s as important to know how to tap a keg as it is to layer shots? Perhaps knowing the proper way to pour a Guinness would be helpful behind a bar? The book also mentions the importance of lighting a customer’s cigarette and keeping the ashtrays clean. I imagine working in some swinging tiki bar in the ’70s, where men with mustaches sip daiquiris and ask women with feathered hair what their signs are.

Episode 8.

Test day. Floyd teaches us how to make cream drinks by explaining that they contain whatever the name of the drink is plus Half & Half. Thus, a Golden Dream would be… uh… something golden. He assures us that no one ever orders these drinks, which is good because it’s the last day and we don’t have time to learn them.

I take the written test and get almost every answer, but am marked down because I forget to mention the amount of vodka it takes to turn a drink into a screaming drink, and the amount of Galliano it takes to put a drink up against the wall. I’ll give you a hint: it’s half an ounce. That would be about one half of a one-ounce shot glass. It’s not rocket science.