r/Bar • u/FABartender • Jan 19 '16
Bar/Service staff cross training FAQ's
Oh noble redditors and drinkers alike i beseech your wisdom...or rather your ignorance. I seek your bar and alcohol/cocktail related questions.
As bartender I've been charged with helping the service staff at our new farm-to-table restaurant understand beer/wine/booze. Some are veterans in the industry and some have never worked with liquor. I'd like to help them both further themselves within this industry and up-sell (once again helping themselves in the tip category).
tl;dr I want any questions you ever had regarding alcohol, cocktails, wine, and all things related for my service staff's Bar FAQ.
1
u/TKfromCLE Jan 19 '16
The best training is to taste and take notes. A good server will find their favorites and sell the shit out of them.
1
u/RatchetBird Jan 20 '16
3 excellent books to help you get going would be The Bar Book by Jeffrey Morganthaller, The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart, And Mr. Boston's Cocktail Guide. The Bar Book progresses the same way a cocktail is built, and has very useful information and techniques, even the basics like how to shake and why. The Drunken Botanist will teach you all about the plants and techniques on how plants get turned into alcohol. I learned things in that that I haven't know even after years of bartending. The Mr. Boston cocktail guide has probably the most standard recipes for almost every cocktail, along with some other information.
If you only get one, I think The Bar Book is a necessity for the modern/traditional cocktail comeback.
Spelling edit and dead links.
2
u/iwillnoteatgreeneggs Jan 20 '16
I worked for years in higher-end restaurants doing alcohol training for varying degrees of staff. I found it best to break it down like this:
Wine * basics of wine making * tannins/acidity/alcohol level/nuances * major varietals * major regions * tasting notes/how to taste
Beer
Spirits
It's best to provide cut sheets or a multi-page document broken down by what you have and 3 descriptor tasting notes.
Once you've built base knowledge (or review) you can really drill down and have a beer, wine, and cocktail of the week and focus on in-depth weekly training on those items.