On being the civilian bartender

When you're at a party, does anybody besides you ever make the drinks?

If you've spent meaningful time as a server or bartender, the answer is probably no.

In this week's interview Shaun Mcguire, bartender extraordinaire and coach, talks about how important it is to create a distinction between the whole You and You the Bartender.

If you don't proactively work at it, you're always going to be You the Bartender. And that's not going to get you in a good place in either your life or your relationships.

Check out the interview clip to hear more from Shaun:

👉 And if you'd like to hear more from Shaun about bartender life (including financial advice and some interesting stats about bartenders), check out this playlist on the Brave New Bar Youtube channel.

❓ Why is it worth it?

Because if it’s not listed on the menu, customers won’t know to order it, and it won’t sell.

Even if your servers are ready to answer the question (which, honestly, often isn't the case), many customers just don’t want to have to ask. Instead, they’ll just order something else that they know is available, or maybe nothing at all.

❓ How can I do it at my business?

For starters, anything is better than nothing here. If all you can muster is just a half sheet of paper with your rotating beers listed on it, that's still much better than "ask your server."

If you'd like to up the design a bit, you could of course do something manual—create an editable menu template in Google Docs, Microsoft Word, or Excel. And once you have your template designed, just edit it whenever you get a new beer in and print it out.

• CA junk fee law applies to restaurant surcharges. CA's Attorney General ruled that a law passed last year that eliminated junk fees for hotels, concerts, and sports tickets also applies to restaurants. Restaurant industry folks are still absorbing the news, and hoping that adding these fees into the price for menu items won't cause sticker shock.
• Beam no more. Japanese conglomerate Suntory bought Beam Inc. (Jim Beam, Maker's Mark) 10 years ago. Their US subsidiary had been called Beam Suntory, but that changed this week when the subsidiary was renamed Suntory Global Spirits. Don't care that much, but kind of a bummer that the Beam name is getting dropped.
• Campari owns Courvoisier. $1.17 billion and 4 months later, Campari completed its purchase of the famed Cognac brand. Wow to the price tag.
• Big liquor law changes in UT. Utah, known to this writer for its bizarre and overly strict liquor laws, has made some big changes and they're going into effect this week. Maybe the biggest one is that canned cocktails are now legal in bars. Bizarre this wasn't the case before.