The Day Bartender mixes a little more than the glass will hold and leaves the extra in a shot glass on ice. But the day shifts are typically easier paced and the customers better behaved. There's also inventory and house profits to consider. The main reason I rarely give the customer the excess is I want to keep my hand on the throttle. The drink needs to be treated as the potentially crippling drug it is.
The recipe calls for the strongest cocktail in any reputable bar: alcohol plus alcohol plus a tiny amount of water from the melted ice prior to straining...served in a bird bath. These glasses have grown over the decades. Watch Double Indemnity and see how martinis used to/should be served: in tiny, maybe 3 ounce glasses.
And, maybe I want to keep the line moving. In certain cases I want to turn that seat over, get some new blood in here. If the customer is a regular and I know how they drink, tip and linger I might pass on the excess. Strangers lose but they can always come back and change that.
Notes:
- "Hey, kid. You never make a single f-cking martini." Phil Matzuka training the Day Bartender at the bar in the whore house in the Haight in 1957. You do the math.
- The moratorium on shaken mojitos is under reconsideration. Hesitation from a trusted customer the reason.
- Chris at Solstice recommends pouring from the tin, not the glass. The customers can't see any overpour and metal on glass breaks less than glass on glass.
- There's no such thing as a fourth martini.
Nice post - I was never a martini drinker but your comment on the size of glasses used for drinks these days says so much about 'excess' in everything. Order a glass of wine in a French cafe and you get a small, unpretentious glass filled with wine. Walk into the typical upscale American wine place and you get half a bottle poured into a individual carafe-size glass. Ah, but this is just an ex-whining about how superior life is in France (while missing the hell out of SF!)
ReplyDelete"There's no such thing as a fourth martini." this i can attest to, i've had less strange experiences at dead shows in albany then what comes after #3...
ReplyDeletegib, 4 martinis is a sucker's game. People think they're stronger than the alcohol. They are not.
ReplyDeleteJH, "carafe-size glass," brilliant!
I love wine in non-stemware. You remember L from SFPD. She'll request high end Pinot in a cafe glass probably not dissimilar to the glasses you see in Biarritz. Expensive wine in a humble glass, it's stealth.
And SF misses you too.