PASSIONATE RATIONS

It looked a bit like a mad-scientist’s laboratory: multi-colored liquids in unmarked jugs; tubing emerging like oddly transparent snakes from plastic bins, tall cylindrical glasses, tubs of ice.

Ice?

The markings on the bins began to coalesce into actual words: “shot glasses,” “refreshments,” “bar ware.”

This was my entrance to the world of bartending and mixology, a la a community-college course entitled “Become a Professional Bartender” which required the instructor to haul and unpack the various accoutrements prior to each class, turning the long, low classroom tables into facsimiles of working bars, complete with speed racks, dump bins, ice supplies, jiggers, strainers and shakers. The variously colored liquids were, alas, not real alcohol, but water dressed up to resemble various spirits.

The first class was an exercise in terminology: speed rack, specific gravity, back bar, sour mix, well brands, call brands, premium brands, build-on-ice, shake-and-pour, stir-and-strain, shake-and-strain, 4-2-1, Collins glasses, rocks glasses, high balls….

And then came the drinks: screwdriver; greyhound; salty dog; cape cod; madras; sea breeze; bay breeze; Hawaiian sea breeze; sex on the beach; woo woo; long island ice tea; margarita; blue, purple and standard cosmopolitans….

It was hard to remember it all.

To help with at least remembering the difference between seltzer, club soda and tonic water, our instructor conducted a taste test. I will never again confuse tonic water with seltzer/soda. It has quinine, which makes its taste quite distinctively potent. Quinine was once used as a malarial cure (this was my contribution to class), so equate “tonic” with “medicine” and you’ve got another way to remember its uniqueness. The taste difference between seltzer and soda is less clear. Soda has various minerals in it, which may give it a slightly salty aspect; otherwise, those two may be subbed for each other.

“Let’s do free pours,” the instructor said after teaching us how to measure our pours with counting, instead of relying on our jigger measurements. As you can imagine, free pouring makes the crowd around the bar on a Saturday night much happier. “Keep going until you get two perfect pours in a row.”

My very first two were perfect.

I was hooked.