The art of bar work.

To know your way round a bar is a simple thing to do and any one can do it as far as I know. In fact I would go as far to say I have never meant any one who could not work behind a bar . weather they was capable or able to do so is a different matter . It is a strange place where if you work in one you are a part drink dispenser and social worker . you get to hear all the things that you do not want to hear and have to be interested and sow that you are interested . When in fact the person who is talking is boring the hind leg of a donkey . So if you have the social skills and actually like people then it might be the sort of job that you can do . If not then I would look for another way of earning money . But if you think you can do it what do you need to know .

Every bar that I have been in has the same usual format so if you have never been in one before you should know your way round. To start with you have the pumps. The pumps are normally were the beer is dispensed from. Now if that is ether lager beer or bitter. That is as far as I know in Britain. Most of the rest of the world have larger beers. You find the pumps located on the bar counter top in most bars . beer being the most drank beverage in most bars and easiest of all the drinks to see being done . Either in a pint or half liter or just a glass the beer will be from a barrel in the cellar and threw some kind of cooling mechanism .Now all depending of what kind of beer it is you will need to tilt the glass and allow the beer to pour in slowly to fill the glass. To fast and you will be all head and froth and no beer . A little practice and you soon would get the art of pouring a beer . but every beer is a little different to the next so there is no hard and fast rule how to do this apart from tilt the glass take your time .
Directly at the back of the bar are the shelves that will hold the bottles . There will be bottle of ether beers ,ciders or alcoholic drinks ,mixers or juices . Mixers consist of tonic water ,ginger ale , soda water , bitter lemon , lemonade and cola of some kind .

You might find that they have all be done away with and now come out of a siphon arrangement that you just press a button and the correct mixer is blended with carbonated water to give out the drink that you want cool and ready to go. Mixer are important as they go with all the spirit drinks . Tonic being the king of mixer . The gin and tonic , vodka being one of the most popular drinks I think after a beer . All
the other fruit juices and such like are for what ever else you might need to mix with .

Then you come to what is on optic . Now on optic is what I would refer to most of the main selling spirit drinks gin, vodka , whiskey , brandy , white rum and perhaps some kind of vermouth. These will be you fast moving spirits and that is why I always call them on optic . The optic is the device that you stick in the bottle. Press a glass up to it and push and it measures a set amount out in to a chamber . Once this chamber is full release the optic and it will dispense the beverage into the glass and you will have a set measures of a spirit . Then behind the optic spirits or most used ones you get the not so often used ones . Cognacs , malt whiskeys ,sherries and so on the list is endless and the top back shelf is normally reserved for the most expensive and refined liquors or spirits . once you have worked out what is what and ware it all goes the next is to know what it all goes in .

Over all there are a few glasses to choose from but like any things they all have many different names . So to start with the beer glass . It will be able to hold a half pint to half a liter to one pint or one liter . Ether strait or with a handle . Fluted wineglasses are for wine , white wine preferably champagne and very little else. Stemmed glasses can be use for wine or spirits . If you are serving a wine in a glass make sure that you leave plenty of space for the wine to be sniffed and the full bouquet get to the person who is drinking it . The most versatile glass is a tall slim Jim or high ball glass . This can be used for spirits ,mixers, beer and even wine with soda if you like .

So once you know your way round a bar the next is to get to know what to drink and that is more completed than you think so I will come back to that at a latter date . The other thing to remember is ice and lemon . Always have lots of ice and lemon at hand if you are going to run a bar . Drinks should by on large be served cold and that is what you need a good supply of ice for . So know you know your way round a bar you can start to enjoy your time in them .