Bar-Diction - ary - 4

Bar, Tools, Liquor, Mixing, Distillation, Production

TERMINOLOGY LOG

Series – 4 of 8

G – L

Garnish / Tray
The final topping to any given cocktail, though not every cocktail requires or receives a garnish. It takes experience as a bartender to understand what best goes with what, yet the key is to remain simple about it. Please see Garnish Extravaganza in Liquid Masters.
The standard Garnish Tray is rectangular, about 2 feet long and comes with plastic holding containers for 6-8 different garnishes. Locate and purchase at your nearest restaurant and bar supply.

Gates
Before the square, plastic, clear pourer tops with built-in screens became popular, there were “Whiskey Gates” – a round pourer with a hard black shell, and a metal screen instead of plastic. These screens, well in use now, save sweeter liquor / liqueur spirits from the fruit flies entering the bottle,
eliminating total waste of the bottle’s remaining contents.

Gill
An English liquid measurement, equal to 4 ounces, ¼ pint, or .1183 liter.

Glasswashers
There are basically three types:
1. Manual stick-up brushes (set in wash tank 1)
2. Motor-rotation brush units (set in wash tank 1)
3. Glass Machine Washers (completely enclosed and set behind the bar)(place inside rack, close door, push button)
With the use of #1 and #2, there are three water sinks behind the bar: A Wash tank, a Rinse tank, and a Soak tank. Make sure the drain and dry area for the glasses is clean at all times, and ample time is given for air drying, before you re-stack and re-hang.

Gravity
A term used to describe the thickness levels of spirited liqueurs, cordials, schnapps, and fruit brandies.
2. Measuring a weight of liquid substances, with the use of a Hydrometer.
3. The higher the sugar content, the thicker or more viscous the liqueur.
Also see Density and Viscosity.

Hair of the Dog
The morning (or afternoon) after the night before. One of those times during the hangover hours where it may become necessary to turn one’s mood around and indulge in a little “Pick-Me-Up”. A reduced-alcohol version of the previous night’s cocktail that eventually did you in, or just start off with a medicinal Bitters and Soda to clear how ever many layers of fog you seem to be sensing at the moment. Maybe this is how the Bloody Mary became so famous on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon! Other bitter spirits include Campari and Fernet Branca, poured on-the-rocks, and with club soda. Here’s to the dog in all of us . . . Cheers!

Hallucinogenic
The psychoactive constituents of a medicinal plant or herb that may cause visions or hallucinations depending on the amount consumed.

Herbals
Liqueurs made of many herbs and spices, and impossible to acquire the usually long list of ingredients that result in a complex, hard to duplicate flavor. The Secret Recipe! Far from a sweet single-flavored cordial, these herbal liqueurs such as Bene-dictine, Chartreuse, Strega, Trappistine, China Martini, Izarra, Certosa, and others are mostly made in France, Holland, Italy, and throughout Eastern Europe. Some are known as Cloister Liqueurs.

Hosted Bar
A term used when the drinks for the party are paid for by the host of the party. Another term for this is Open Bar - which does not mean all night. There are times where the host will request that the bar be “Hosted” or “Open” from say 6:00 – 8:00 pm, and from 8:00 – 12:00 midnight it turns into a Cash Bar. This can be termed a Split Bar. When drinks are not paid for by the host, it is termed a No Host Bar. The bartenders for the party, banquet, function, special event will need to be notified by management ahead of time, as to start charging for drinks right at 8:00 pm. It may be a good idea not to announce this to the guests, to avoid some individuals feeling the need to slug em’ down for that early 2 hour period just before dinner.

House Pour
The standard pour-per-drink amount that management usually comes up with, determined from the types, styles and ounce amounts of all the glassware chosen to be used behind the bar in order to come up with a proper and generous Liquor >to Mix >to Glass ratio. Also see Standard Pour Requirement (S.P.R.)

Hydrometer
A device that measures the specific gravity/density/viscosity (thickness) of any given liqueur. Made with different cali-brations, the exact one to get for liqueurs is 1.0 – 1.22 . Available at any scientific supply outlet for about $15. You’ll also need to purchase a 250ml tall measuring beaker / graduated cylinder, to float the hydrometer once the liqueur’s been poured in. Also $15. Both are glass, and very fragile.

Ice Machine
Usually located in the back kitchen, near the liquor cage, or in an adjacent storage room near the main bar if you’re lucky enough to have one, where a water line can be available nearby. There are many sizes depending on the occupancy rate of the bar, club, rest-aurant, hotel one works in. Make sure you have the machine fit with the type of Ice Trays that give you the exact type of ice cubes you prefer for your bar and your glassware. There are dif-ferent sizes and types available to choose from; Cracked, Crushed, Slab Tray cubes, and models that produce Individual ice cubes, as in Lenticular ice, which is a round or square Crescent/Dome shaped cube (my personal favorite). Never forget to replace the filters when absolutely necessary, so the cubes always remain clear and clean, not cloudy or milky which is the result of sodium and cal-cium deposits when the old filter can no longer clean the water. This creates not only bad tasting ice, but a bad tasting drink as the ice slowly melts, and then the deposits slowly kill the car-bonation of the club soda, tonic, and any other carbonated ingred-ients within the drink. If you suspect the machine is not oper-ating correctly or breaking down, for whatever reason, notify the manager as soon as possible. The last thing you want is to have to call out for an ice truck delivery of 500 or 1000 lbs. of funky cocktail cube ice (never fits the glass) on a busy night emergency.

Ice Plate
Located in the bottom of your bar’s ice well, this plate assists in the carbonated beverages from the beverage gun being chilled below room temperature when served into the glass, so the ice cubes avoid as much diluting as possible. You will notice cooling tubes/lines connected from the plate to the guns’syrup calibration box. The plate is easily movable by hand, even though it’s a little awkward and has some weight to it. The underside of it needs to be cleaned on a regular basis, as does the interior floor of the ice well. Always run the beverage gun a little bit before the start of each shift, and before a load of ice gets the plate too cold and freezes the lines.

Ice Scoop
An indispensable tool behind the bar. The U.S. Public Health Office requires that one be used. Avoid using your hands or a mixing cup to scoop ice into a glass for a drink. It has a very unprofessional look to it. Drinking glasses should never be dipped or scooped into the ice as they can chip and break, contaminating your ice with glass chips and slivers, where your whole ice well will have to be burned, and replaced with fresh ice so everything is safe for your customers. The best size scoop is a stainless steel 24 oz., and can be purchased at your local bar and rest-aurant supply outlet for about $6.

Ice Types
Center-holed cocktail cubes, cracked, crushed/shaved, small thin square cubes, and round dome-shaped cubes called Lenticular ice, designed to chill longer, fit more fully and easier into glass-ware, and crushes into a blender really well. These cube styles listed are not all that’s out there on the market, but offers a good selection to choose from. Just make sure you have the ice that you want in your club or your private party.

Ice Well
The center of the Bartenders’ work space, surrounded by liquors, juices, and the speed rack of main-pour liquor bottles. Hopefully deep and sizeable to last between the barback’s fill-ups. Use a 24 oz. scoop for quicker multiple-glass ice fills. The garnish tray will usually be on the left or right side.

Infusion
A water-based preparation in which flowers, leaves, or stems are brewed in a similar way to tea.

Jigger
A long time ago this term referred to 1 ½ oz. of liquor, an actual liquid level/amount. Today, a Jigger is a term for the actual piece of equipment itself. It is a stainless steel dual-ended shot measurer. One end always holds twice as much as the other – 1 oz./ ½ oz. - 1 ¼ oz./5/8 oz. - 1 ½ oz./ ¾ oz. The best tool to use if you’re required to measure all pours at the bar you currently work in. Your local restaurant/bar supply carries all sizes.

Jockey Box
Located at either the left or right side of the bartender’s ice well, and sometimes both sides, depending on how one sets it up. These are the compartments that shelve the square black containers designed to hold all of the juices, mixers, and other miscellan-eous bottles if there’s room. At the end of each shift, the under-side drip areas of the jockey boxes need to be rinsed, drained, and wiped down.

Lace / Lacing
Used in conjunction with “Float”, this a dash of a final liquor, also as the last ingredient of a given recipe, that simply gets poured at the very top, swirling it around. Usually the color and density of the liquor will create a great looking visual contrast (as it stays afloat) with the colors and flavors of the cocktail’s previous ingredients. Then just add a groovy looking garnish!

Last Call
Clubs, Bars, Restaurants, Hotels etc., close at different times depending on late-night business volume, demographics, venue / theme, private parties and of course the State’s hour/time limit on alcohol serving. Here in California it’s 2:00 am. We give “Last Call” usually at 1:30 am to give ample time for finishing a drink, so you find don’t yourself rushing a customer at the last moment, which is not cool! Even though all glasses empty to full need to be off the bar, table tops, and out of people’s hands by 2:00 am, it’s best not to do this at the last moment either. By no later than 1:55 am, glassware should not be seen out in the open, much less in a customer’s hand. Also, make sure your wrist watch, the house clock on the wall, and the closing manager’s watch are all in sync, and all in correct time. In short, the general rule is to make the call at 20-30 minutes before state law curfew. If you tend bar in an establishment that closes up their bar before the state’s designated curfew, then there’s no potential for legal trouble, so you can give the call at 10-15 minutes before the bar stops serving, since there’s no rush to consume.

Liqueur
Also known as Cordials in the U.S., this French term is used for the fruity, mint, herbal, chocolate, and syrupy sweet spirits such as flavored schnapps, liqueurs, and fruit brandies like apricot and blackberry.

Liquor Cage - See Cage

Liquor Gun
This is a hand-held apparatus that comes with a fitted holster, and a thick coil filled with smaller individual lines usually ran to the back bar storage area and connected to a Liquor Tree. It is connected to the inner edge of the bar rail, on the opposite side of the Beverage Gun. Not in every bar, I’ve used ones that contain some 15-18 lines and corresponding buttons. This gun also pre-measures the standard pour of the house, as well as other presets like short pour (for Long Islands) and long pour (for Martini drinks). Real handy when you’re crankin’ it out, and pretty easy to use once you get the feel of it. You can see how you would have both guns in your hand at the same time for Vodka/tonics, Rum / Cokes etc. Well, Call, and Premium brands are all used in the liquor gun, prioritized of course by level of usage/sales.

KB