Know Your Way Around a Bar

Video Transcript

"Now I'm going to show you how to know your way around the bar. There's some basic things that all bars will have and I'm going to walk you through what some of those might be. Right in front of you there's going to be what they call the well. And this is usually a metal kind of container and this is going to hold your basic liquors. And now this is what I've put out. This is pretty much the basic liquors you use anywhere. Vodka, gin, rum tequila and triple sec. And now depending on the bar you work you might have additional things. I've worked places where they put wine in there. I've worked places where they've put, if someone drinks a lot of a certain type. I worked one place where someone drank a lot of Cutty Sark so they actually put the Cutty Sark in there because someone was drinking it or a couple of people were drinking it that much. The next thing I want to talk to you about is your back bar. Now behind you there's going to be bottles lined up. And generally they're not going to look as disorganized as this. They're going to be pretty organized. And usually you have two tiers. So for example you''ll have one tier her and the second here. On the first tier you're going to have your call liquors. So these are going to be basic things that you use. So if you're not using your well liquors, you'll use your call liquors. Generally this is a step up. So for example this is where you have your Absolut vodkas, your Tanqueray tonics and your Jose Cuervos. In the well you have the basic no name brands like type of alcohol, so Azenta vodka or something like that. In the tier above it you would have your next liquor, your top shelf liquor. This would be for example a Grey Goose of a Belvedere. Drinks like that that are a little bit more of a high scale than your typical well or call liquors. In addition, in front of you you're probably going to have your ice box which is just usually its a bin with ice. Its got a cooler underneath it to make sure the ice stays cold. And then on your sides, you do so they stay cold as well, you have your mixers. And these would typically include things like cranberry juice, milk, orange juice whatever the basic ones are that you're going to use, sour mix for example. Again this kind of varies on the bar depending on what people drink. They're not going to keep milk out if no one ever orders a White Russian. And that is pretty much how to know your way around a bar."