Blue Blazer Mix-Off at Pegu Club

(videos near the end of this post)

Oct. 27

"...90 percent of the reason I'm here is because I want to see fire," I said to Alex Day as I nursed a Whiskey Smash.

The setting? Pegu Club. Six contenders were set to duel in their mastery of the most basic of elements required for human life. Fire and alcohol.

To kick off Slow Food NYC's first annual "Slow Drink Week," Audrey Saunders was hosting the launch reception at Pegu. Slow Foods NYC announced last week that several restaurants and bars in the city would be participating this week with their own menu of "slow" cocktails.

Pegu was serving its own list of slow cocktails that evening with a list of hors d’oeuvres.

(Part of the proceeds from Slow Drink Week, as well as the ticket sale for the opening reception, will go to benefit Slow Food NYC's Harvest Time Program, including Good Food Education, a Youth Farmstand, and Edible Schoolyards at schools in East Harlem and Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

For a list of participating locations and dates provided by Slow Food NYC, click here.)

Earlier in the evening I greeted Eben Freeman, Alex Day and Joaquin Simo at the door of Pegu as we got ready to enter. I was asked how my cocktail education with Eben was going. I answered that it wasn't going too bad, but practicing with the shaker wasn't going too well because, "it sounds like nothing."

"It's all right as long as it sounds like a good nothing," Eben said with a smile.

Wait, was he just messing with me or did he just drop some kind of Yoda-like aphorism that I needed to get to be the best cocktail shaker EVER? I decided to go with the former to make it easier for everyone involved.

Upstairs the crowd was pretty big, but it wasn't too packed, which was nice. Pinballing around I found myself bumping into folks like John Deragon, Phil Ward, Jim Kearns, Don Lee and Naren Young. I spotted Dale DeGroff in his snazzy red jacket and Dave Wondrich's top hat teetered around in the crowd.

Now that I was feeling better, I figured I could slowly wade back into drinking, but was still mildly worried about my body taking terrible offense to that. I sipped at a French Pearl that went unclaimed. Just then Gary Regan walked by me and cryptically warned, "You behave yourself now."

Though I knew he said that independently of what I was debating in my head, I couldn't help but reluctantly put down the half-empty glass.

After a few words from Audrey Saunders and the drawing of straws, the Blue Blazer Mix-Off started with Dave Wondrich and Jim Meehan. They went for a historical and patriotic theme with their presentation of Jerry Thomas' Spread Eagle Punch. The liquid was Blue Blazerfied then poured into glasses with a gelatin (I didn't catch what was in it, if anybody could let me know what was in the gelatin, that'd be awesome).

The second group to go was Gary Regan and Phil Ward. The two warned that they had not practiced their Blue Blazer beforehand, but had a "special ingredient" on hand that they said was a tip of the hat to Eben Freeman. After a couple of false starts, Phil fortified the mixture a bit more and Eben jumped in to offer the service of a blow torch.



The third team was Dale DeGroff and Kenta Goto. With a recipe concocted by Kenta with the help of Audrey, Dale showed off his liquid fire taming skills as Kenta added some (literal) flare to the presentation by tossing cinnamon powder into the line of fire to create sparks. Instantly, the place was filled with the scent of what seemed like apple pie. The drink was then poured into cored apple halves.

Though these were the three teams announced to compete, Audrey announced yet another surprise team that would be participating.



Johnny Iuzzini and Dave Arnold tried their hand at competing with a more of a "scientific" approach. Dave utilized a kinda sorta technically illegal ingredient of a 120 proof tea-infused vodka of sorts for a Blue Blazer twist on a tea and lemonade drink. Then using a hypodermic needle, the liquid was shot from across the bar into a caraffe/pitcher held by Johnny Iuzzini. His forearm caught on fire. And while it was insanely cool to watch, it did smell like burnt hair at the bar.

But before I go on, I'd like to apologize for my unsteady camera hand and lack of lighting. I'm still not used to capturing video and it was dark in that bar to better capture the flames. Kind of lame excuses, but what can you do. Hey, I'm the one providing a service here with a video for those who couldn't attend. Also, this is a hardy drinking group. There might be some blue language. Maybe not R, but perhaps a PG level. If salty language is not your thing...I really don't know what to tell you.



I didn't stick around to see who ultimately won, because in my mind everyone's a winner...or something like that. Instead I headed over to Death and Company to bug Alex Day (he had to leave in the middle of the Blue Blazer Mix-Off to start his shift) and Thomas Waugh for a bit. I tried to get a head start on trying some new drinks for when the menu update rolls around. Out of the couple I tried, Thomas' Strange Brew won me over. With gin, pineapple juice, lemon juice and falernum it didn't seem like the usual drink I'd go for unless I was in the mood for something light. However, Thomas topped it with a bit of Hop Devil IPA that gave it a hoppy kick. I have to say, the guys at Death and Co. have been doing a pretty decent job of helping me get over my fear of sweet drinks.

Tuesdays with Eben pt. 3

or First Tuesday: Shaking, the end of the first Tuesday

I had been "ting, ting, ting" -ing the glass for a while, moving my straw back and forth in an empty glass. The fingers did cramp up a bit a couple of times, but it was starting to get less uncomfortable than when I first started out. I even practiced a bit more of pouring. Having no real counter space in my small apartment, I wanted to use the space and time I had as much as possible.

Eben came back downstairs and it was time to learn about shaking. We were starting off with a cobbler shaker. Eben said this while some would think it a bit old fashioned, this was good for getting the basic motions down.

He told me to hold out my left hand, palm up, and place the cobbler shaker, cap-side down facing towards me (fig. 1). Then I was to place my right hand on top of the shaker. My thumb on the cap and the rest of my fingers around the body of the shaker. Sort of like how you'd hold a football (fig. 2). The thumb's just there to make sure the cap stays in place, but not pressing down too hard or else, Eben warned, I'd end up jamming the cap and it'd get stuck since the shaker expands and contracts according to temperature.




In fact, that finicky tightening and loosening of a cobbler shaker also meant Eben had to show me how to close one. Cap on, OK, got it. But the top half of the shaker? Eben said not to just jam it on straight on, but to roll it on (not twisting it on like a bottle cap mind you). You didn't need to press down hard to make sure it was sealed or anything. Start at one point of the rim and just lightly roll it into a close position.

"I'm not teaching you the hard shake," Eben told me and I nodded. Instead, he explained to me how he was trying to explain to me the Japanese mindset of shaking. The idea of how you manipulate the ice in your shaker and thinking about the drink rather than just shaking away with brute force. It was similar to the the talk he gave at Tales after he was asked about the hard shake at a seminar.

Eben looked at the shaker in my hands. He handed me a different sized shaker, and said, "You have small hands."

I frowned wondering if this would he a handicap to my nonexistent bartending career, but Eben said, "Start off with a smaller one then work up."

I nodded. With ice and water in the shakers, now we were ready. To start off, I had to loosen up my wrists. With the shaker in my hand, I was instructed lift my arms up to around shoulder height with my elbows out (fig. 1). Once there, Eben told me to sort of "toss" the shaker forward using only my wrists. He told me to do that and try to hit three different points in front of me while doing that, but to not move my arms (fig. 2).



As I practiced this Eben told me that once I got the hang of this I could start to shake it. Starting off slow he began began to build up speed. He told me to listen to what sounds the shaker was making. I concentrated hard to hear how the ice moved and Eben did it several times. He said that if you do this right, your ice is hitting four different points in the shaker, and you can feel that.

I tried to follow along, but while I could definitely hear what Eben was talking about when he was doing it, I was a little rhythm/tone deaf when it came to the shaker in my own two hands.

After struggling to try and copy the exact noises he was making with the shaker, I said, "I think I get it, but it's hard making it sound just like that."

"You'll find your own rhythm," Eben reassured me. People figure out a rhythm that works for them he said. It wasn't that I had to do it exactly the same way he does it; this was just a basic stepping stone I needed to be more conscious of how I was moving the contents of the shaker.

Again I was left to my own devices to practice. I did the three points exercise a couple of times, but my arms started to get tired. I was starting to think maybe I could create a bartender workout plan. Hire famed infomercial spokesperson Billy Mays to be all, "Hi, Billy Mays here for Bartendercise! Are you a fitness junkie with another monkey on your back called 'a drinking problem'? Are you tired of weights and home exercise machines that you work on for hours with little to no results and definitely no booze at the end of it? Ever noticed the guns on your bartender? Wonder how that happened? Well, wonder no more!"

As I practiced I talked a little bit to Ludo, the relatively new guy, and found out he used to work at Opia, which is a stone's throw away from our office in Midtown. Eben jokingly told him to keep an eye out on me so I didn't steal anything. I tried my best to keep out of the way of folks were trying to set up the bar.

I practiced the shaking as much as I could, but soon my hands were freezing and itchy. I moved back to practicing jiggering and stirring as I read Eben's copy of The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks by David A. Embury that was on the bar. I was pretty engrossed in the part about brown spirits when Eben came back.

"All right, you need to stop or you're going to drive yourself insane," he said noticing that I was stoically "ting-ting-ting"-ing the a mixing glass.

He grabbed two different sized shakers and put rice in one of them. Wait a sec, I thought, Alex Day told me about this.

"You can practice hearing the rhythm at home with this," Eben said. I could of course use ice and water, but ice melts. Rice is a decent substitute so that you had a bit of weight in the shaker and could still practicing the listening part of it.

Again he said, I need to find a rhythm of my own. Even though I had been taught all these rules and exercises, I wasn't as overwhelmed as I was before. I got the idea that I wasn't learning that his way was the only way, I was more or less learning foundations to help put me on the path to being thoughtful about how drinks are made.

With a lot of the NRN staff out for MUFSO the following week, I knew I couldn't take a half day off the following Tuesday, and Eben was headed out of the country for a Mojito of the Future event the Tuesday after that one, so we agreed to reschedule the second Tuesday as soon as possible.

"I'll practice during the missing weeks." I said.

"Well, I expect you be like a ninja by the time we meet again," Eben answered.

"Oh man, because I really needed the pressure."

Eben chuckled but then got serious and said, "Really, though. You need to practice if you want to learn this. It's all about how much you want to do it."

---

Oct. 24

"Practice makes practice," Phil Ward, the guy who can stir four drinks at one time, told me when I made my visit to Death and Company on Wednesday.

Damn, I was expecting a different answer. Everyone had been saying practice.

"Yea, I did that rice thing," Don Lee said when he showed up at Milk and Honey on Saturday.

I'd just seen Eben earlier on Saturday at Tailor to try out some of the new stuff on the menu. He was leaving for the Mojito of the Future event the next day. He asked if I'd been practicing. I was, but I don't think it's enough. Let me put it this way. I wasn't too confident. I was having horrible flashbacks to back in the day when I took piano lessons. I was starting to seriously hate my freakish sausage fingers on the stirring side of things. On top of that, even though I tried the shaking at home, I couldn't tell if I was hearing it right.

"The thing about using the rice though is once you start using ice again, it's a different feeling from the rice. You almost have to relearn to hear it," Don said. "But at least you know what its supposed to sound like."

Don assured me though that it all came down to doing it often enough until you got it.

Even Kenta Goto at Pegu told me I just needed to practice when I stopped by on Monday.

"I don't think I'd make that great of a bartender," I dejectedly told Phil.

"You don't have to be a great bartender, you just have to be a good one," he said. "You could just learn how to make good drinks for yourself at home."

"Yea, but then I wouldn't have a reason to come bother you guys," I said with a raised eyebrow.

"It could even be about just knowing recipes and what goes into a cocktail," Phil added.

I quizzed him about his recipe learning technique and he said he started with the classics. Most other drinks tend to be variations of classics, so it's easier for him to think in terms of "Oh, so it's like this drink, except you're using x, instead of y."

Thomas Waugh described a similar process to me a couple of weeks back, but Phil said that each person remembers things differently, so I could figure out how to do that for myself. And of course, read some books.

With all this talk about figuring things out and a DIY attitude, bartending was starting to sound like the bastard child of the Arts and Crafts movement and punk rock. There's gotta be some kind of poetic comparison to be made from that statement, but I'm going to leave it for another day.

Your bartender, the physician

Warning: Despite the post title, the author does not promote the idea of using your bartender instead of a physician. Any and all benefits reported by the author below are the author's experiences only and those of us at Standards and Pours would like to encourage you to seek the opinion of a trained healthcare professional for your medical needs. Having said all that...

Finally heeding my body's cry to "Get thee to a physician," I went to a doctor who not only confirmed that I had indeed suffered from an ear infection, but that it had not entirely gone away. On top of that there was some seasonal allergy related upper respiratory inflammation. Well, that's just peachy, I thought. The real annoyance was to discover how much all the meds I needed would cost even WITH copay. It's enough to drive a person to drink.

So what else could I do but head on down to Death and Company? The ear infection was the immediate thing to take care so I got the stuff I needed for that and put the allergies-related meds on hold until I could figure out how to pawn all my belongings or start stealing car radios to help pay for it. I've suffered through seasonal allergies before with no meds, I wasn't going to let it take me down now. But I still had the matter of a funky throat to deal with. I was hoping to kill two birds with one stone. I wanted to drown my sorrows just a little bit with some alcohol (so, more like, let my sorrows go down a slip-n-slide of some alcohol?). A sort of "last hurrah" since I was going to be getting on the antibiotics train for the next couple of days and drinking alcohol while on antibiotics is probably not a good idea. And second, just maybe see if there was something to help me with this my throat and congestion issues.

"You got anything to help with something like a sore throat?" I hopefully asked Phil Ward.

"A hot toddy," he answered immediately and I was down with this suggestion like the Electric Slide at a wedding.

"I bet a shot of George T. Stagg would help you out a lot," Phil said. I bet it would.

Warming up more and more to the idea, he also remembered that he had pecan-infused bourbon as well and finally said, "You know what, I know what I'm going to make you."

After a couple of minutes he set down a warm toddy made with demerara sugar, pecan-infused bourbon, George T. Stagg bourbon and chocolate bitters. It was a nice tall drink in what looked like a fancy pants glass latte "mug."

I breathed in the warm aromatic steam coming off the drink then took a sip. The thing punched through the scratchiness of my throat and rolled on down to my stomach. It worked like those medicated hot drinks you drink for a sore throat, but without that weird taste and with the added benefit of it being booze

Once I finished my drink, it sat warmly in my stomach. It felt like my entire esophagus had gotten the Vicks Vaporub treatment, but in a good way (what?). What I mean is there was this soothing, vaguely medicine-y, cool and kinda mentholated feeling (again, what? But that's how I can best describe it) warmth that spread throughout. It certainly helped as I made my chilly way back home.

Brands want YOU, to learn about cocktail making

Consumer reviews of restaurants online isn't all that new. You've got your local version of Citysearch, Yelp or even discussion boards like Chowhound. You might go to New York Magazine's site to look up a restaurant then skim through readers' ratings and evaluations of the place. Bars are no exception.

Zagat's went one-step further in the consumer-rated world by teaming up with Diageo to present a its semi-standalone drinks and nightlife site called idrinkwell. The ratings site covers restaurants as well so that food establishments with a bar program can have their drinks, service and pricing rated next to other bars and cocktail lounges in their area.

Another point of interest is the Drinkwell Academy tied to idrinkwell. It's an accreditation program that teaches several categories such as mixology, white spirits, brown spirits, menus and service. You have to be accredited before being featured on Drinkwell. Being on a whole learning about cocktails kick, I've been poking around on the the learning modules (full disclosure: I got a login thing because I'm press). The whole thing is online and lessons come with tests with randomized questions (so no cheating). The video lessons on the site features well-known names and faces such as Dale DeGroff, Steve Olson and Dave Wondrich. Sound familiar? Yep, these are some of the guys that brought you Beverage Alcohol Resource.

Jumping off of that note, brands seem to be wanting to get in on the education action since Pernod Ricard has their BarSmarts program as well, also involving partners from BAR.

You have to admit that it's a pretty smart thing for brands to do because yea, you're providing training, but marketing-wise it familiarizes bartenders with your products. On the same token, for bartenders and the beverage market in general, educational opportunities coming out nowadays with a nod to mixology. You could argue whether its marketing fueling the demand or demand fueling the marketing many times over, but in the end we're talking about customers' increased expectations as more people are becoming familiar with the idea of an almost culinary-style for creating mixed drinks. They might not be cocktail nerds who decide to run out and buy a copy of Wondrich's Imbibe! or make their own bitters at home, but at the least people are hearing about cocktail lounges, visiting them and trying out new things.

I know, I KNOW

Now don't get me wrong, I'm glad there are folks out there looking out for me, sending emails and what not, but just saying yes, I read this item on Grub Street today, so, thank you. I'll admit I don't know the specifics of the bar project because it's still a "coming soon" kind of thing, but it's been in the works for while. Come on, folks, Johnny Iuzzini was down at Tales for crying out loud. Sure maybe he just really really likes cocktails, but this should've been like the end of The Usual Suspects for some people reading this (links 1 and 2). Anyhow, last I heard, Dave Arnold, director of culinary technology at the French Culinary Institute, is involved. He does all kinds of neato things with tech and molecular stuff so needless to say I'm looking forward to seeing what a place with those two involved is going to be like.

Tuesdays with Eben pt. 2.5

or A slight detour about service style

This was harder than I thought it'd be. Not that I never had thoughts of, "Wow, it must be a really hard job to stand behind a bar several hours a night and serve people," but I was beginning to FEEL that I would pretty much suck at being a bartender.

I don't think I'd been behind the bar even close to an hour, and I was already tired. I wish I was joking, but my arms were tired from practicing with the jigger and the bottle of water. And I don't mean the bottle was heavier than I thought it would be, I mean actual muscle fatigue from tilting to pour. Like I'd been doing curls at the gym or something. Also, my lower back was starting to stiffen up just from standing behind the bar and trying to work on it.

"Are you kidding me," I asked myself. "Are you tired from just PRACTICE?"

First off, let me remind you there was no one there. I wasn't serving anybody, yet somehow I was pretty flustered and nervous. I'd hesitantly reach for a jigger and shakily pick up a bottle and pour. Eben was going back and forth getting the place ready for an event, but when he saw me nervously pouring he came over to tell me that I needed to pour with more confidence. I was grasping the body of the bottle like it was going to turn and bite me, My lack of confidence was definitely affecting my pour. The slow tilt of the bottle was making the speed pour top gurgle and sputter water out in a very undignified way. Eben would grab the bottle about the neck and confidently tipped it forward, and water poured out in a smooth, unending stream.

While we're on the topic of bottle handling, a slight detour. So while I was being taught the basics of pouring and stirring, Eben also took time to talk to me about the style of service he learned about in Japan. It was all kinds of neat to hear him talk about this because I could appreciate the adherence to rules in service, and it meshed well with what I was being told about present a professional front.

First off, right hand is for pouring, but your left side is where you shake. So Eben explained when you reach for a bottle, you'd always grab it from behind you with your right hand from your right side. If the particular bottle you wanted is behind you or to the left, you stepped over so that you could grab the bottle with your right hand.

While this may seem like an oddly unnecessary bit of flourish, I thought about it for a bit and here's what I came up with. To pull this off it meant that you had more than a passing familiarity with the bar's stock and where everything was. And you weren't turning around all the time, so your back wouldn't be to the patrons. It made for less of a messy and hectic look to your bar service. Probably not doable for everyone everywhere, take out of it what you will.

Also, a bottle's label always faced out to the customer. As you picked it up off the shelf, carried it, poured it, the front label faced out. There was even a way of cracking a bottle open to achieve this. Eben showed me how you'd pull the bottle in (still in your right hand as how you picked it up from behind you) close against your body. When you twisted it the top open with your left hand, the bottle would stay put in your hand in the correct position.

You could also set the bottle down on the bar for the customer to look at (again label facing out), if it wasn't too busy or if you work at the type of place where you can leave out a bottle of liquor without worry. Eben said that as a bartender you often get patrons who want more info about what they're drinking. By giving them the bottle, it might answer any of the initial obvious questions they have about ingredients or flavors, and gives them a chance to educate themselves and figure out what they like. An added bonus is other patrons seeing the bottle might get curious about what the other person is drinking and can ask for what that guy is having with that stuff in it.

Tuesdays with Eben pt. 2

or First Tuesday: Jiggering and Stirring

Before we go on, I totally forgot to mention in my previous post another one of Eben Freeman's tenets of bartending, which is: Don't be afraid to push the envelope a little. Of course this makes sense coming from Eben. Crazy cocktails aside however, basics were still basics. And when we got down to brass tacks, he wasn't kidding about teaching me those basics.

So how do you start off making cocktails? By pouring in the ingredients. Eben found an empty creme de violette bottle and filled it with water. Slapping a speed pour top on it, he was ready. Eben showed me how to hold a jigger between your index finger and middle finger (fig. 2). It was all about being more ergonomic and the economy of movement. By holding the jigger that way, rather than instinctively picking it up in your thumb and index finger (fit. 1), when it came to pouring the contents out, it was a flick of the wrist forward (fig. 2), rather than turning in your entire forearm (fig. 1).



"This will feel a unnatural at first, but once you get used to it you'll realize how much more ergonomic it is," Eben said as he showed me the difference between the two movements.



As you measure out things with your jigger, Eben told me to hold my hand on level with the lip of your mixing glass. To steady yourself, I could back my little finger against the glass. The reason for this is, that while this means holding the jigger further away from your body, it made for a quicker and more graceful pour into the glass rather than measuring and then carrying the jigger over, wobbly meniscus and all, to your mixing glass.



Eben explained that once you get used to this, it becomes part of filling the gap that he mentioned earlier. The better you get, you start to get into the mindset of planning ahead. Rather than using one and tossing it in the sink, you can think about what measurements are needed for what drinks so that you can reuse a jigger. You can also think about what to put in or measure first (if not dictated by the recipe) to best utilize the jigger and not create waste by understanding, which ingredients are viscous and what's not.

"Now you'll see some people who do this," Eben said pouring into a jigger, but not exactly filling it to the top. Instead, he stopped short and poured the contents of the jigger into the glass as his right hand continued the pour.

He said that while some think that the continued "finishing" pour makes up for the missing amount, it wasn't proper jiggering and he was uncomfortable with that. He illustrated this by doing the pour again in a 2 oz. jigger. Stopping again just short of the lip as before, he then poured the water into a 1 1/2 oz. jigger. It was a little under a perfect fit.

Holding the jigger up for me to see he said, "You're losing almost a little over a half an ounce there."

Now that we learned how to measure our liquids, it was time to learn how to stir it.

"Do you have chopsticks at home?" Eben asked as he looked around the bar.

I nodded, slightly puzzled, but nonetheless chirped, "I like using them to beat eggs. They work great for scrambling them too."

Finding a box of cobbler straws he pulled two out and handed me one, "In Japan they practice this using chopsticks."

He held the straw in his thumb and index finger, then tucked the rest of the straw between his middle and ring finger; the middle finger went in front and his ring finger behind (fig. 1). Then he held the straw in the middle of an empty mixing glass and moved the straw back and forth hitting front and back of the glass with a lilting "ting."

"Push it back with your middle finger and forward with your ring finger," Eben said.

My eyes glued on his right hand, I painstakingly and clumsily copied what he was doing.

"They're going to want to move in the same direction at first," he said, as he corrected me several times.



The reason for this exercise was to get my fingers used to the stirring technique that would keep the back of a bar spoon glued to the sides of a mixing glass to create a silent vortex to chill a cocktail. Stirring was supposed to be smooth, different from shaking.

"The reason you shake a cocktail is to put air in it. It changes the molecules," Eben said, but stirring it doesn't incorporate air into the cocktail and provides a different mouth feel on the tongue, which is why proper stirring is about smoothly mixing your ingredients and chilling it with as little agitation as possible.

I nodded as I continued to "ting, ting, ting" the glass with my straw.

Eben showed me the stirring motion with his straw and I tried to do the same. He quickly pointed out how even though I was moving the straw round and round in the glass, he could tell the straw wasn't always touching the glass. Where there were gaps, the glass would lightly "ting" in whenever the straw would lose and regain contact.

Once your fingers get limber enough from the straw/chopstick exercise, you are able to push the bar spoon forwards and backwards in an unbroken circular motion along the edge of the mixing glass. Silently moving the ice, and not in a willy-nilly ice clinking and clanking everywhere kind of way and definitely not stabbing at your glass with the idea that all that frantic movement and chipping of ice will get your drink colder. Though, Eben added, I would eventually have to learn how to move my spoon up and down to make sure all of the liquid was getting equal contact with the ice.

He filled both of our glasses with ice and water and showed me how the stir looked. I was handed a bar spoon and tried my best to stir. I was getting the basic idea of the motion, but my stirring was a jerky swoosh around one side of the glass as I noisily pushed the ice around and after a bit of a stall and stammer as I tried to get my rebelling fingers to listen to my brain, another swoosh around the other.

While mixing glasses tend to be sturdy enough that you don't need to hold them, if you ever find yourself having to steady your glass, Eben warned that I shouldn't grasp the glass like I would if I was to take a drink from it. The warmth from my hand would transfer to the glass and drink. The way to do do it, was to instead gently hold the base with your thumb and index finger.



Eben said the straw/chopstick exercises would help me to stir in a less awkward manner. Of course I wanted to jump ahead and just start stirring away with the ice in the glass, but Eben said that I needed to practice this first exercise before I could get to the point of stirring with a bar spoon properly.

I was then left to my own devices behind the bar to practice pouring and get my fingers to obey. Eben said he'd come check on me and then we could start with shaking. He didn't want to throw everything at me at once.

First Tuesday to be continued...