‘GOOD TIMES’, AND SOMETHING ABOUT A FROG

The old pond —

a frog jumps in,

sound of water.

- Bashô

It’s Spring. I meet new people. They ask me about what I do. I have difficulties explaining. It’s a bit weird. The care, technique and intelligence applied to - ‘what, a drink ?’ - defies reason. Let’s see … the first drink in my instagram feed, from a bar I don't know, gives :  Southern Comfort, Fermented Quandong, Distilled Peach Water, Tomato Honey. That's what bartending is now, often. Good luck explaining that.

- So, plants and drinks, uh ? You’re a druid, then, hey ?

Well, in a way. But then the same bartenders - and I too - insist we’re not ‘mixologists’. The drinks are part of something else. A ‘something else’, made up of service, music, conversation, … and as I try to explain the words escape me.

Because a wood carver carves wood. A chef sends out food. And all of that - as with most crafts - covers basic needs. It’s simple. But when we say that a bartender tends a bar, we’ve said nothing yet, and our whole addition to society is at best gratuitous, and at worst, well …

Let’s look at the facts.

First, people come in. We greet them. It’s less formal than most restaurants. They’re guests, and friends maybe. They may really talk to us, ask questions you’d never ask the waiter - he’s gotta run to the next table.

Second step : the guest is faced with the big mysteries of our menu. Maybe they’ll have a classic - still, there’s a few hundreds ot those, made up of strange liquids from strange origins ...

This choice, shrouded in mystery, results in the drink’s creation, live : full of sound and movements …

At last, the drink comes. Until now there was only ‘show’. Now we get something real, a perfume, a flavour, a colour, and … it’s gone. On to another.

- Well, it’s simple then. Your place sells alcohol, and you make it fun.

- But then, why all the fuss ? Just for show ? Like snakeoil salesmen ?

- Well, yeah. You’re a fancy dealer.

I think I even liked mixologist better.

Well, let’s look at alcohol. Where do people drink ? Bars and churches, mostly. Who created it ? Monks and businessmen. Odd combinations. If you're not going to mass, there is the wine of the greek symposium, or the countless drinks and psychotropes of all religions, philosophies, all serious reunions ...

There is something in the mind that wants escape. There is something in the drink that gives it. Alcoholism is the risk of being trapped in that escape. But the right amount, the right stimulation - flavour chief among them -  the right setting - the right bar ... sets you free. You'll be 'more'. That you be more eloquent or more agressive depends on you. Bartenders organize that space at the edge of everything. Not every bar, not every night, not for everyone … but that might be the ideal, that « might be what we do » : trying to make perfect moments.

That’s what we always do in any bar at any time. We make moments. from the hot poker to the rotavap, and on to the next nuclear device we’ll soon use to make liquid things taste good. With obvious elegance at the 18Bar, or with casual fun at BAC. Whatever it is you need. Everything is fleeting in our work, even that flavour that those mad bartenders have spent weeks to achieve - but the impression may last a lifetime. It was happy or sad, lonely or accompanied. Old friends, new lover. What your bring on that canvas will come out.

And we’re not alone. There are arts of fleeting moments we might l ook up to. All of perfumery. The haiku, famously, and the tea ceremony - Japanese culture in general. Most poems are precious because of their brevity.  And really all crafts, save cathedral or organ building, create fleeting, almost unnecessary things. Who needs an amazing shoe polish ? An awe-inspiring pair of scissors (they exist) ?

Last night a new client came in - I now call him the Young Prince. We were his first bar. He was gracious and polite - too much. He almost bowed at the beginning. He had all sorts of questions, had read articles about us, referred to complicated books, wanted to know if I thought bartending was ‘art or science’, how it could relate to his latest philosophy class ... all of what my jedi master Richard Gillam, calls "the rubbish" around a delicious drink in a nice setting. 

I stopped him right there. ‘No, no … most of the time I’m cleaning man. That and a good time, rest is for show’ We laughed. With him, I put the drinks second, not to make a point and mock our work - but to create the moment he needed. The boy needed to unwind - I surprised him - then gave him a drink that may or may not be art or science, but sealed thatmoment into the senses. The moment comes first. It is the start of the relationships. The Young Prince is a regular now. We’re his bar.

That's what we do. Moments that bring some humanity and some nature together - and for what ? - for nothing, in a world more and more devoid of both, where everything has its reason and price. There's no great legacy, no great image to build that way. Bartending is fleeting. We carve snow. Our energies, better spent, would add greatly to a 'worthy' cause. But there has to be a space for small fleeting things. For one great hour somewhere at night.

And so in our moments of reflection - if any - we might want to look at what we do like the japanese poet looks at things under moon. "All of this, as it is, will not last = it is all snow". But it shines somewhat, and is beautiful, like this starlight pond, where the frog jumps and in a moment disappears, without leaving a ripple in the water.

So, what do you do, exactly ?

- I … make moments. Something about a frog and the moon and … well, no, forget it. I’m a bartender. (In the fullest sent possible) we just have a good time.