"bartenders" news and stories

• Read about one of Boston's most in-demand bartenders
• Delicious, creamy local goat cheese makes for great croquettes, squash blossoms, tomato soup...
• Want to make our own cheese? Feeling frustrated? Try a kit
• Doughnut Plant has an unbelievable selection of sweet, fluffy pastries, managing to thrive without the hype that so many competitors rely upon
  
• And if you can't make it to Doughnut Plant, try your hand at making your own orbs of sugary goodness
  
• A Boston couple becomes the first U.S. business to exclusively import African wine made by indigenous producers
  
• Find out how the owners of one Rhode Island-based grocery store can afford to keep prices so low
  

I don't know if I could ever be a bartender. I like the idea of being one, but it seems to me it's like the ultimate pop quiz in a very intense situation. People come in off the street and ask you for a Tequila Sunrise or a Negroni or A Slow Comfortable Screw Up Against The Wall, and you immediately have to know how to do them. Sure, you can stop and look in a book (I did that when I was a sorta-bartender at a restaurant), but a real bartender has to know how to make these drinks immediately, especially if it's a Friday or Saturday night. Though I guess it's like any other skill, you learn through practice.

Esquire has the four obscure drinks that every bartender should know how to make. I've heard of (but never had) The Aviation Cocktail, but I've never heard of the other three.

The San Francisco Chronicle recently queried several SF bartenders about the drinks they hate to make. As you might imagine, it's the laborious, time consuming cocktails that can really get on your mixologist's nerves when he or she is slammed with thirsty customers. The sugar-rimmed lemon drop made the list, as did the Manhattan, because, according to one bartender, people are very picky about how they want their Manhattans made. The same goes for cosmopolitans, apparently. Muddling and shaking also put the mojito on the list of loathed drinks. Last on the list of pet peeves were concoctions specific to certain bars. I personally know of one bar where all the blenders magically seem to break once the night shift arrives...

[Via DrunkNewsBlog]