100 Fun Facts About Bartender

What nickname did Jerry Thomas, the 19th-century father of American mixology, go by?

The Professor: Thomas earned the title as the great showman of the American bar, mixing drinks in diamond rings and cufflinks and juggling bottles as he worked.

Jerry Thomas published the Bar-Tender's Guide, America's first drinks book, during which war?

Civil War: the guide came out in 1862, setting down recipes from punches to sours that Thomas had gathered while tending bar across the country.

Jerry Thomas's signature flaming drink, poured between two mugs in an arc of fire, was called what?

Blue Blazer: Thomas's own guide admits the name is not 'very euphonious', but promises that the blazing Scotch-and-water toddy 'tastes better to the palate than it sounds to the ear'.

An 1806 newspaper's definition of 'cocktail', the first in print, joked that the drink was of great use to whom?

Political candidates: editor Harry Croswell of The Balance and Columbian Repository wrote that a person who had swallowed a glass of it 'is ready to swallow any thing else'.

Bartender Dale DeGroff suggests the word 'cocktail' comes from 'coquetier', the French word for what?

An eggcup: the tale has apothecary Antoine Peychaud serving a brandy drink in one, but dictionaries call the word's origin obscure, and no explanation has won general acceptance.

During US Prohibition, illegal bars serving cocktails were known as what?

Speakeasies were so called from the habit of speaking quietly about such a place, or inside it, so as not to alert the police or the neighbours; the word was in use by 1889, decades before Prohibition.

Which 1919 law set the rules for enforcing Prohibition across the United States?

The Volstead Act became law only after Congress overrode President Woodrow Wilson's veto, and it took its name from the Minnesota congressman who championed it in the House.

Which amendment to the US Constitution repealed Prohibition?

The Twenty-first Amendment was ratified by specially elected state conventions instead of legislatures, because many state lawmakers still feared the temperance lobby.

Which cocktail shaker is a two-piece set of a large metal tin and a smaller mixing glass?

The Boston shaker is the one most bartenders prefer; the cold makes the metal contract into a tight seal, so the two halves need a sharp tap to come apart.

Which style of shaking tin has three pieces: a base, a top with a built-in strainer, and a cap?

The Cobbler shaker is the classic choice for home bars because its built-in strainer means there is no separate tool to buy before you start mixing drinks.

What is the bartender's tool used like a pestle to crush fruit, herbs and sugar in the bottom of a glass?

A muddler is pressed only gently on mint, because tearing the leaves lets bitter chlorophyll leak into the drink.

Which US state makes bars pour spirits through meters that cap the main liquor in a drink at 1.5 ounces?

Utah also made many restaurants mix drinks behind a partition nicknamed the 'Zion Curtain', so that diners could not watch, until a 2017 law relaxed the rule.

UK law fixes pub measures of 25 ml or 35 ml for just four spirits: gin, rum, vodka and which other?

Whisky is covered, but the rule stops at those four spirits, so a British pub may legally pour brandy or tequila in whatever measure it likes.

If a customer orders a spirit 'neat', how should it be served?

Unmixed, unchilled, no ice or water: a neat pour goes from bottle to glass. Ask for it 'straight' instead and a careful bartender will check what you mean, because that word is used more than one way.

How is a cocktail ordered 'up' served?

Strained into a stemmed glass without ice, the drink has nothing left to keep it cold, so the stem is there to stop a warm hand heating the bowl.

What is a mixed drink made with the lower-cost spirits kept in a bar's speed rail called?

A well drink is what you get when you don't name a brand; ask for a Bacardi and Coke instead of a rum and Coke and it becomes a pricier 'call' drink.

What does '86' mean in bar slang?

It is out of stock, or the person is barred. The term is probably rhyming slang for 'nix', though a popular tale credits Chumley's bar at 86 Bedford Street in New York.

In which country is tipping a bartender seen as unnecessary and sometimes politely refused?

Japan treats good service as already included in the price, so a tip left on the bar can cause confusion and may be politely handed back.

Which restaurant chain held the first national flair bartending competition, the 'Bar Olympics', in 1986?

T.G.I. Friday's bartender John 'JB' Bandy won the contest, and a Hollywood studio then hired him to teach bottle-flipping to the stars of the 1988 film Cocktail.

Who plays bartender Brian Flanagan in the 1988 film 'Cocktail'?

Tom Cruise's film was named Worst Picture at the Razzies, yet its soundtrack single 'Kokomo' gave the Beach Boys their first number one in 22 years.

In the 1988 film 'Cocktail', Brian Flanagan ends up tending a beach bar on which island?

Jamaica is where Brian heads after a fight with his bartending partner Doug, and where he falls for Jordan, a New Yorker on holiday.

Which film grew out of a magazine memoir by 'Eat, Pray, Love' author Elizabeth Gilbert about her bartending days?

Coyote Ugly took its name from the New York saloon where she had worked, and after the film its owner Liliana Lovell turned the bar into a chain, starting in Las Vegas in 2001.

On 'Cheers', bar owner Sam Malone is a former relief pitcher for which team?

The Boston Red Sox past was a late change: Sam was first written as a former Patriots football player, until Ted Danson won the part and baseball suited his build better.

Which real bar, picked from a phone book, was the model for the one in 'Cheers'?

The Bull & Finch Pub let the show use its exterior for a fee of just one dollar, then drew so many tourists that in 2002 it was renamed Cheers.

Which actor joined 'Cheers' in season four as the naive young bartender who replaced Coach?

Woody Harrelson shares a first name with his character purely by chance: co-creator Glen Charles has said Woody Boyd was already named long before they met the actor.

In 'The Simpsons' episode 'Flaming Moe's', what secret ingredient makes Homer's drink a hit?

Cough medicine meant for the children got into Homer's mix by accident, and the drink only turned delicious when falling cigarette ash set it on fire.

A classic Negroni is equal parts gin, sweet vermouth and which bitter Italian liqueur?

Campari was already in the count's usual Americano; the story goes that in 1919 Camillo Negroni asked a Florence bartender to swap its soda water for gin.

Which brand of bitters comes in a bottle famous for its oversized label and yellow cap?

Angostura's label is too big by accident, the story goes: one of the founder's sons took charge of the bottles and another of the labels for a competition, and nobody checked the sizes.

German doctor Johann Siegert created his famous bitters in Venezuela while surgeon general of whose army?

Simón Bolívar's soldiers were suffering from stomach illnesses and fevers, and the doctor's herbal tonic was meant as a remedy for them long before anyone dashed it into a cocktail.

Which city in 2015 named the whiskey-and-bitters classic it claims to have invented as its official cocktail?

Louisville's claim rests on its Pendennis Club, but historians call that a myth: a Chicago newspaper was already writing about the drink in 1880, a year before the club was founded.

On 'Mad Men', which cocktail is Don Draper's drink of choice?

An Old Fashioned is what Don mixes himself in season three, hopping behind an unattended country-club bar to make two, one for a stranger who turns out to be hotel magnate Conrad Hilton.

A 'dirty' Martini adds a splash of what?

Olive brine found its most famous fan in Franklin D. Roosevelt, who drank his martinis this way in the White House and is sometimes wrongly credited with inventing the dirty version.

A dry Martini served with a pickled cocktail onion is called what?

The Gibson's onion came late: the earliest printed recipe, from 1908, has no onion at all, and what set the drink apart then was leaving out the bitters.

Ian Fleming's Vesper martini in 'Casino Royale' combines gin, vodka and which aperitif?

Kina Lillet is no longer made: its maker reworked the recipe in the mid-1980s with less bitter quinine, so bartenders now reach for substitutes such as Cocchi Americano.

A Manhattan made with Scotch instead of rye is called what?

The Rob Roy was named in 1894 for a Broadway operetta about the Scottish outlaw, which opened close to New York's Waldorf Astoria, the hotel credited with the drink.

The Bloody Mary is often credited to bartender Fernand Petiot in 1921 at which Paris bar?

Harry's New York Bar began as a real Manhattan bar: in 1911 jockey Tod Sloan had it dismantled, shipped across the Atlantic and rebuilt in Paris.

A Bloody Mary made with gin instead of vodka is best known by which name?

Red Snapper began as a polite alias: one story says the owner of New York's St. Regis hotel found the name Bloody Mary too vulgar for his bar in the 1930s and had it changed.

Which gin, vermouth and Fernet-Branca cocktail did pioneering London bartender Ada Coleman create?

The Hanky Panky was named by its first taster, by her own account: actor Charles Hawtrey asked for a drink with some punch, drained the glass and cried, 'By Jove! That is the real hanky-panky!'

Which 1930 recipe collection did Harry Craddock name after the London hotel whose American Bar he ran?

The Savoy Cocktail Book owes its existence to Prohibition: Craddock had learned his trade behind American bars, left for England when the country went dry and was quickly hired by the hotel.

The Sazerac became the official cocktail of which city in 2008?

New Orleans was the fallback: a 2008 bill to make the Sazerac the state cocktail of Louisiana was voted down, so lawmakers settled for naming it the city's official drink.

A Moscow Mule is vodka, lime and ginger beer, traditionally served in what?

A copper mug was part of the sales pitch: the drink was devised in 1941 to shift vodka, then a hard sell in America, along with surplus ginger beer, and the eye-catching mug helped bars push it.

Which cocktail is Ngiam Tong Boon said to have created at the Long Bar of the Raffles Hotel?

The Singapore Sling was coloured pink on purpose, the story goes: women were not expected to drink alcohol in public, and this one could pass for fruit juice.

Which Caribbean island proclaimed the piña colada its official drink in 1978?

Puerto Rico has two rival birthplaces for it: the Caribe Hilton credits its bartender Ramón 'Monchito' Marrero in 1954, while Barrachina, a San Juan restaurant, has a plaque claiming 1963.

Which tiki cocktail did Trader Vic say he first mixed in 1944 at his restaurant in Oakland, California?

The Mai Tai got its name, by his account, when a friend visiting from Tahiti took a sip and said 'mai tai roa ae', which he translated as 'out of this world, the best'.

Which cocktail does bartender Robert 'Rosebud' Butt say he invented in 1972 for a triple sec contest?

The Long Island iced tea has a rival birthplace: Kingsport, Tennessee, says a bootlegger known as Old Man Bishop mixed the first one in the 1920s on a river island there that is also called Long Island.

Which rum, lime and sugar cocktail shares its name with a beach and an iron mine near Santiago de Cuba?

The Daiquiri is credited to Jennings Cox, an American engineer at those mines, who is said to have run out of gin while entertaining guests and reached for the local rum instead.

Which TV character's regular order helped turn the Cosmopolitan into the must-have cocktail of the late 1990s?

Carrie Bradshaw had a head start: bartender Dale DeGroff put the drink on the Rainbow Room menu in 1996 and Madonna was seen sipping one, two years before the show began.

London bartender Dick Bradsell is credited with inventing which caffeinated cocktail in the 1980s?

The espresso martini was his answer, he said, to a model who asked for something to wake her up, and the bar's coffee machine happened to stand right beside his station.

Which spritz favorite did the Barbieri brothers launch at a trade fair in Padua in 1919?

Aperol stayed a north Italian habit for decades; its spritz went global only after a bigger Italian drinks group bought the brand in 2003 and began marketing it abroad.

The pressure inside a Champagne bottle is two to three times that inside which everyday object?

A car tire holds about a third of the 90 psi inside the bottle, which is why Champagne glass is so thick and why the cork has to be held down by a wire cage.

What is the name for opening a Champagne bottle by striking the neck with a sword?

Sabrage works because the blade strikes where the bottle's seam meets its lip, the weakest point in the glass, and the pressure inside carries cork and collar away together.

Which Champagne bottle size holds 1.5 litres, the same as two standard bottles?

A magnum is prized for ageing: it has the same small pocket of air under the cork as a standard bottle but twice the wine, so the wine oxidises more slowly.

What does a bartender do in a 'dry shake'?

Shakes it without any ice: the first shake lets egg white whip into a silky foam, and only then does ice go in for a second shake that chills the drink.

How do you customarily tip a bartender in a British pub?

Tell them to 'have one for yourself' and the bartender may pour a drink later or, more often, add the price of one to your bill and keep it as a cash tip.

What brought the cocktail shaker's 1930s heyday to a sudden end?

Metal was diverted to the war effort when America entered the Second World War, and the firms that had been turning out cocktail shakers switched to making artillery shells.

In 1981, Shatbhi Basu became the first woman bartender in which country?

India's first woman bartender never planned it: she was a restaurant supervisor in Mumbai when the bar was handed to her as an extra duty, and she later ran her own bartending academy.

Which cocktail shares its name with the imaginary man at the centre of a hoax that swept American cities in 1874?

Tom Collins never existed: pranksters told a victim that a man of that name was insulting him in a bar around the corner, then watched him storm off to find the slanderer.

What did Jerry Thomas famously carry with him when he toured Europe?

A set of solid-silver bar tools matched the act: he turned mixing drinks into a stage show, juggling bottles and cups as he worked, and became the most famous bartender in America.

Despite its cherry-red color, grenadine syrup was traditionally made from which fruit?

Pomegranate is 'grenade' in French, which gave the syrup its name, yet many mass-market bottles are now just corn syrup and red dye with no pomegranate in them.

Which David Wondrich book about Jerry Thomas won a James Beard Award in 2008?

Imbibe! tells Thomas's life story and updates the recipes from his guide so they can be mixed today, with substitutes for ingredients that are no longer made.

The 'proof' rating of spirits recalls an old test in which what was soaked in the liquor and set alight?

Gunpowder that burned even after its soaking marked a spirit as above proof. The test works because the saltpetre in the powder dissolves far more easily in water than in alcohol.

Which future US president co-owned a store in New Salem, Illinois, that gained a licence to serve liquor in 1833?

Abraham Lincoln's partner William Berry took out bartending licences for them both, turning the store into a tavern. The business sank into debt and the future president sold his stake.

The hangover remedy 'hair of the dog' takes its name from an old folk treatment for which disease?

Rabies was once treated by pressing hair from the animal that bit you into the wound. Drinkers borrowed the logic: a little more of what hurt you is supposed to cure you.

Which compound gives tonic water its bitter taste and makes a gin and tonic glow under ultraviolet light?

Quinine fluoresces under ultraviolet light, and even in direct sunlight against a dark background. Tonic began as a malaria preventative, mixed with soda and sugar to mask the taste.

A 1948 US Supreme Court ruling upheld a Michigan law that barred most of which group from tending bar?

Women could be licensed only if their father or husband owned the bar. A barmen's association had pushed for the rule, largely to stop female bartenders undercutting union wages.

Which Oscar-winning actress played Guinan, the bartender of the Ten-Forward lounge, in Star Trek: The Next Generation?

Whoopi Goldberg asked for a part herself, passing word through her friend LeVar Burton. She was a lifelong fan, inspired to act by Nichelle Nichols as Uhura.

Blue curaçao owes its colour to dye, but the dried peel of which fruit gives the liqueur its flavour?

Oranges of a bitter variety called laraha, grown on the Caribbean island of Curaçao, supply the peel. The liqueur is naturally colourless, so the blue is pure showmanship.

Which gas, mixed with carbon dioxide, gives a pint of draught Guinness its thick and creamy head?

Nitrogen makes far smaller bubbles than carbon dioxide, which is why the stout has poured creamier and smoother since the brewery took up the gas in 1959.

The red 'worm' found in some bottles of mezcal is really the caterpillar of which kind of insect?

A moth caterpillar known as the red maguey worm is the one in the bottle. The custom is younger than it looks: producers began adding larvae only in the 1940s or 1950s.

Which politician worked as a bartender and waitress in New York before winning a US House seat in 2018?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took the bar and waitressing shifts after college to help her mother stave off foreclosure on the family home.

Tequila differs from other Mexican spirits because it is made only from the blue variety of which plant?

Agave plants are stripped of their leaves to leave a core called the piña, which averages 70 kg or more and is slowly baked to break its carbohydrates down into sugar.

Under US law, the grain recipe for a bourbon must be at least 51 per cent which crop?

Corn must make up most of the mash, and the barrel rule is just as strict: each new charred oak cask may hold bourbon only once, so most are sold on to age other spirits abroad.

Whatever other botanicals a distiller adds, gin is by definition a spirit flavoured with which one?

Juniper even supplies the name: gin is a shortened form of genever, a word that goes back to juniperus, the Latin for the plant.

Aquafaba, a vegan stand-in for egg white in foamy cocktails, is usually the liquid drained from canned what?

Chickpeas leave behind a liquid that whips up like egg white, a trick that spread in 2015 after a recipe for egg-free meringue appeared online.

Which tool became the trademark of temperance crusader Carry Nation, who wrecked saloons across Kansas around 1900?

A hatchet began as her husband's joke: after a raid in Wichita he teased that she should use one next time for maximum damage, and she called it the most sensible thing he had said since they married.

Cachaça, a spirit distilled from fermented sugarcane juice, is the most popular liquor in which country?

Brazil drinks nearly all the cachaça it makes, which is enough to make it the most popular cane spirit in the world; elsewhere it turns up almost only in tropical cocktails.

The pub in Athlone that claims to have been pouring drinks since AD 900 stands in which country?

Ireland's oldest pub, by a Guinness World Records certificate, is Sean's Bar, although surveys date the oldest parts of the building to around the 17th century.

In pubs in Australia and New Zealand, what is a drinker doing when it is their turn to 'shout'?

Buying a round is known as shouting there, and everyone takes a turn. Parts of Britain once banned the custom: 'treating' was forbidden under a state scheme from 1916 to 1919.

Italian sambuca is traditionally served with three of what floating in the glass, for health, happiness and prosperity?

Coffee beans are the classic garnish, a serving Italians call con la mosca, 'with the fly'. Some bartenders set the shot alight to toast them.

Which spirit, nicknamed 'the green fairy', was banned in the United States from 1912 until 2007?

Absinthe was outlawed across much of Europe as well, yet it has never been shown to be any more dangerous than ordinary spirits.

Jägermeister, the German herbal liqueur with a stag on its label, has a name that means what in English?

Master hunter was a real job title, held by a senior official in charge of game. The glowing cross between the stag's antlers recalls a vision in the legends of two patron saints.

What do distillers call the portion of a spirit that is lost to evaporation as it ages in oak barrels?

The angels' share changes with the weather: in dry warehouses more water escapes and the spirit grows stronger, while in humid ones more alcohol goes and it weakens.

Which bartender's measuring tool is typically shaped like an hourglass, with a different-sized cone at each end?

Jigger cups in the double-ended style were patented in Chicago in 1893. The word is older: 19th-century 'jigger bosses' handed out measures of liquor to the labourers digging America's canals.

Which future action star tended bar at Manhattan nightspots such as Kamikaze and Cafe Central in the early 1980s?

Bruce Willis poured drinks while living in Hell's Kitchen, then beat 3,000 other actors to the lead in the TV series Moonlighting, the part that made him famous.

Besides fresh sugarcane juice, rum can be distilled from which thick, dark by-product of sugar refining?

Molasses mattered so much to the rum trade that Britain taxed foreign supplies of it to the American colonies in 1733, after an outcry from its own West Indian planters.

Orgeat, the sweet syrup stirred into many classic tiki drinks, gets its flavour from which nut?

Almonds now do all the work, but orgeat began as a barley and almond blend, and its name comes from orge, the French word for barley.

The phrase 'happy hour' is thought to come from 1910s entertainment sessions held in which US armed service?

The Navy link runs through the battleship USS Arkansas, whose crew by 1913 were calling their regular evenings of boxing, wrestling, music and films 'happy hours'.

Which struggling dive bar do 'the Gang' run in the sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia?

Paddy's Pub is owned by three of the Gang, with Dennis behind the bar, Mac as its self-appointed bouncer and Charlie as janitor; Dennis's twin sister Dee pours drinks there too.

The 'fifth', once the standard American bottle of spirits, was named for holding one fifth of which unit?

A gallon in its US form made the fifth about 757 ml. The metric 750 ml bottle that replaced it is roughly 1% smaller and is sometimes called a metric fifth.

A bartender building a striped pousse-café pours the liqueurs in order of which physical property?

Density does the layering: liqueurs with the most dissolved sugar and the least alcohol are heaviest, so they go in first and the lighter ones are floated on top.

Which French herbal liqueur, made by monks to a secret recipe since 1737, gave its name to a yellow-green colour?

Chartreuse is made from 130 herbs, plants and flowers by the Carthusian order, and the exact formula is known only to a select few of its members.

Which cocktail strainer, named after a café, uses a coiled spring to hold back the ice as a drink is poured?

Hawthorne strainers date from the early 1890s. The spring rolls inward to fit the tin, so the rim of the strainer never has to sit flush against the rim of the glass.

Which type of US law makes a bar liable when a visibly drunk customer it served goes on to injure someone?

Dram shop laws are named after shops that sold spirits by the dram, a small measure. The earliest were passed in the 19th century under pressure from the temperance movement.

On a bottle of cognac graded VSOP, the first three letters stand for Very Superior Old; what is the P?

Pale completes the grade, which promises that the youngest brandy in the blend has spent at least four years in a cask.

Which US state became the first to ban happy hour drink promotions statewide, a law passed in 1984?

Massachusetts set a pattern that other states followed, for reasons ranging from drunk driving to rowdy crowds; Kansas kept its own ban for 26 years before lifting it in 2012.

In Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining, what is the name of the ghostly bartender who serves Jack Torrance?

Lloyd entices Jack back to drinking in the hotel ballroom. Actor Joe Turkel recalled rehearsing the bar scene for six weeks before a shoot day that ran from 9 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.

Which slang term for a drugged drink is thought to come from a Chicago bartender accused of robbing customers in 1903?

A Mickey Finn recalls Michael 'Mickey' Finn, manager of the Lone Star Saloon, whom newspapers accused of slipping knockout drops to his patrons; his bar was ordered shut that December.

Sloe gin, the red British liqueur, is made by steeping gin with the small plum-like fruit of which shrub?

Blackthorn fruits, the sloes, are relatives of the plum. The result is the only liqueur that EU rules allow to be labelled simply as gin, with no 'liqueur' on the bottle.

Maraschino liqueur is distilled from Marasca cherries, which grow wild along the Dalmatian coast of which country?

Croatia's port of Zadar, then the Venetian city of Zara, is where the merchant Francesco Drioli began making maraschino on an industrial scale in 1759.

In bartending, a 'shrub' is a sweetened fruit syrup sharpened and preserved with which kitchen liquid?

Vinegar stood in for citrus juice when 17th-century English cooks preserved berries for the off-season. The syrups reached colonial America, where they were mixed with spirits or water.