Life in a Cocktail Backwater
| Darcy O'Neil :: May 18, 2008 11:18 AM |
The cocktail is going through another “golden age”, but it seems to be happening in only a handful of locales. This is understandable, since renewed ideas take time to grow and spread. But, in the city I live, London, Ontario (Canada) the idea of a good, or interesting, cocktail is about as alien as life from another planet. I am literally stuck in a cocktail backwater where ordering anything that is not a Cosmopolitan or Vodka Martini is effectively impossible. If I want to have a good cocktail I can drive two hours to Toronto or possibly 90 minutes to Detroit. Having said that, Detroit probably won’t be a cocktail mecca anytime soon.
Now don’t get me wrong, as I’ve said before, I don’t expect to be able to drive to any city, walk into a bar, and expect to be served a properly made Ramos Gin Fizz. In a bar I don’t know, I’m more apt to order beer anyway, unless there is some attempt at promoting cocktails in the establishment.
My real beef is with managers of restaurants who refuse to accept new ideas. I’m not talking about revamping a restaurant from roadhouse to classic French cuisine, I’m talking about adding a couple of modern drinks to the bartenders repertoire.
Now, the definition of Backwater is : an isolated or backward place or condition. So why is London (Ontario), Canada’s tenth largest city, a cocktail backwater you ask? Well, aside from the lack of any bartenders making a basic attempt at cocktail creation which is more status quo than backwater, its the actual removal of the bartenders that makes it backwards.
So let me explain. In London (Ontario) there is a trend at restaurants to not actually hire bartenders at all, they are just replacing them with waiters and waitresses. That is right, on a Friday or Saturday night, most of the places that you’d expect to have a decent bartender, don’t actually have any bartenders on staff. If you order a Manhattan, then your sever will just jump behind a bar and make one. I know this is common in many places, but here it seems to be a trend.
From a management perspective there are some positives to not employing a bartender, like saving a whole $7.50 per hour. Plus I’m sure there are less sexual harassment issues, since many male bartenders seem to be inordinately horny.
There are also a lot of negatives to not employing a good bartender. First, that expensive backbar inventory probably won’t move very fast. If you don’t have someone knowledgeable enough to promote it, then nobody will buy it. This is a perfect example of why vodka bars are so popular, there is no need for the bartender to know the products, because vodka is a clear tasteless spirit by definition. Actually, with vodka, you can just make things up and people who buy $60 plus bottles are so gullible that they’ll believe anything you say. This is probably why Jamie Boudreau is thinking about opening a vodka bar.
Next, all those seats at the bar will probably remain empty because with nobody behind the bar who are you going to talk too? A lot of people who travel for business like to sit at the bar and talk.
Inventory control is another important aspect. There are some bartenders who treat the inventory as their personal stock, but given an opportunity the serving staff are no different. A good bartender, as with any good employee, will keep “spillage” costs to a minimum.
Finally, and the biggest reason to have a good bartender behind the bar is to promote sales. If you aren’t promoting spirits, then that leaves you with wine and beer. A half decent bartender will at least have a few drink they can generate sales with, otherwise the restaurant has just limited their sales potential.
In London (Ontario) the Lifford Wine Agency has an effective monopoly on wine menu’s. Good luck on finding a wine list, in this city, that has anything but Lifford on it. As for beer, this is the city where Labatt’s started and the Labatt’s family is still an active part of the community, just recently donating $10 million to the University of Western Ontario nursing program. Coors may have caddies, and Budwiesser may have flight attendants but Labatt’s has nurses. Actually the Labatt’s donation was a completely philanthropic gesture, so get your mind out of the gutter. Anyway, my point being that there is a strong loyalty to the Labatt’s brand.
Basically, London is a very conservative city where change is difficult. I haven’t even mentioned the food on menu’s at the fine dining establishments. Hint, it is all the same and hasn’t changed for years. As a bartender who strives to be on the cutting edge this makes life difficult. I think it is a bit short sighted on the local restaurant owners part, but what can you do.
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10 Comments on Life in a Cocktail Backwater
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Even here in Montreal, I feel just like you.
We now have 5-6 fine dining restaurant with some really nice food : chief that care, that have imagination, that care.
We also have some very decent wine list to go with these magnific restaurant.
Whats missing? cocktails.
There's a big hole in our gastronomy.
The cocktail community is so small and restrained for a city big like Montreal :(
Apart from the Hotel W, that hired a talented mixologist ( Manny Vides ) to head their bar, I can't seem to find decent cocktails.
Few places tryed to make a list, but its nothing fancy : Lyche Martini/raspberry mojito. Might be better than nothing but don't think you can find more evolved cocktail than this...
I proposed cocktails/food pairing to a bunch of restaurant : everybody likes the idea but nobody is ready to do it.
Im trying to get the cocktails to a new step in here, going from bar to bar, hotel to hotel talking with chef's and managers to conveince them the cocktail "wave" is ready to hit Montreal, that there's place and market for it, that cocktail could be a promotion and revenue for their place. Its still something "avant-gardiste" but I wish to get it to be a trend of quality.
I'm surprised that Montreal doesn't have a better cocktail culture. It is such a great city and has the tourists that would definitely enjoy a good cocktail.
Really?? You just had to further propagate a false rumor that I'm trying to squash? Really?!??
Not only the tourists ;)
Right now i'm trying to create a kind of "standard" for the bar.
GentlemenPenchant : Cocktail Certification.
Id like to set standard for the classic cocktails.
to have an "Appelation d'Origine Contrôlée" for cocktails.
When I go in a bar and ask a classic cocktail, I want it to be done has its supposed too, not the "house version" of that cocktail.
Bar that would be certified would have a selection of classic cocktails and that certification would assure that these cocktails are made with the correct ingredient and everything...
Id need inspector that would go from bar to bar to verify if bartender makes the cocktails the right way etc.
This is a fairly big project and I think its something that could help to rise the cocktails in a lots of cities
Any comment?
I thought it was funny. I'm just waiting for Paul or Jeffrey to jump on the bandwagon. At least I linked to the post that attempts to debunk the "vodka myth", so I'm not that cruel.
Sébastien, I like the idea. I've always hated the "house" modified recipe that maintains the same name, but is completely different to the original. It is definitely a very big project, but not impossible. Europe has something similar, but the recipes can be a little odd (Mai Tai for one). I'd be happy to do what I can to promote your idea.
We have the same problem here in Houston. Fortunately I get to New Orleans on a regular basis where I can enjoy the work of luminaries such as Chris Hannah, Marvin Allen and Mark Quigley.
In Houston there are two places that understand cocktails: (1) Beaver's is an unlikely spot that features BBQ and burgers and world-class cocktails served up by Bobby Heugel of http://drinkdogma.com fame. (2) Voice, the new bar at Hotel Icon, is trying real hard, but customer response so far is light.
I'm reminded that, years ago when they first became legal, the best selling beer in Houston's first brew pubs was Miller Lite. Most of the pubs closed quickly and have remained closed.
Keep up the publicity for good cocktails, Darcy. I'll see at Tales.
As another resident of the cocktail backwater of London, Ontario I ask you, where can I go and find someone with at lest some skill behind the bar? I spoiled myself and spent a month in DC, I was very impressed with the bars. Now, maybe that's because London is abysmal, but there has to be one or two places here that has a decent staff that could make more than one or two spirit mix, without me telling them whats in it (because I can never remember). So where are they Darcy? Name some names.
Hello Robert. I can pretty much assure you that no-one in London is doing anything decent with cocktails. When I was writing for Eat Drink mag, we put a call out to all the local bartenders to demonstrate their cocktail prowess. We received zero responses. Then I went searching for good bartenders, and had no luck. I'm eventually going to be back behind the bar, but I'm just waiting for a new restaurant to open. Sorry, can't give any details on that yet, but once things happen I'll post it to AoD.
I'm late to responding to this post but I will say that Tulsa, OK is very similar, but for different reason. OUr restaurants tend to have bartenders, and fairly skilled ones at the right places, but the cocktail menus, by and large, are terrible here.
The presumption is that people here won't drink anything with gin, in general, with rum unless it's blended with soda, or with tequila unless it's a margarita or kamikaze. This leaves vodka and flavored-syrupy-sweet swill to be served almost everywhere and too few people know enough to mind. And forget fresh juices, you'll rarely find them used. This is why I'm eyeballing opening my own bar, or at least offering nearly free bar menu consulting to a few places I'm in well with the management.
Backwater is a perfect term for it.