{"id":725,"date":"2008-12-09T14:50:17","date_gmt":"2008-12-09T14:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cocktailians.com\/2008\/12\/attention-must-be-paid.html"},"modified":"2008-12-09T14:50:17","modified_gmt":"2008-12-09T14:50:17","slug":"attention-must-be-paid-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/?p=725","title":{"rendered":"Attention Must Be Paid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Felten at the WSJ<\/em> on the sad (and enraging) state of most grand hotel bars<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Once upon a time, hotel bars set the standard for sophisticated
\ndrinking, with barmen who were the best in the business. . .Nowadays you're lucky to find a hotel
\nbartender whose vocabulary extends very far beyond Vodka-Tonic. Over
\nthe past year and a half, as I traveled around the country, I stopped
\nin at dozens of grand old hotels, incognito, to see if their bars lived
\nup to the tradition. I found a few gems in a sea of expensive
\nmediocrity (punctuated with the occasional fiasco).<\/div>\n

Chief among these is this abomination:<\/p>\n

Take the young man I found tending bar at Hollywood's brilliantly
\nrestored Roosevelt Hotel. He happily told me that he didn't know how to
\nmake many drinks at all. When needed, he could always just look
\nsomething up in the bar book behind the counter. But most of the time
\nhe didn't bother to use the book: "If people ask for a drink I don't
\nknow," he explained, "I can always kind of make something with sour mix
\nand vodka and they'll be happy." A more eloquent and concise expression
\nof the state of bartending in America you couldn't hope to find.<\/div>\n

There's no shame in looking something up, but ignoring the request
\nand faking it with crappy ingredients? That's like being a chef at
\na restaurant and saying "I don't know how to make Hollandaise
\nsauce, but here's some Velveeta mixed with gravy from a jar."<\/p>\n

This hereby serves as advance notice to any bartender who tries to pawn
\na sour-mix-vodka concoction off on me instead of the drink I've asked
\nfor: you will receive an angry complaint from me and you'll be the
\nsubject of a discussion with the manager. <\/p>\n

Though that may not help; my friend Michael Palmer relates this sad tale of an afternoon almost exactly a year ago at the Bemelmans Bar<\/a> at the Carlyle Hotel:<\/p>\n

My wife and I got married at
\nthe Carlyle and had a drink at the bar later that night. Four years
\nlater we went for a classy drink at 1pm, first drink of the day. I
\nasked for an Old-Fashioned, and was given a tiny bit of Scotch
\nover ice, and lots of soda, in a tall Collins glass. No sugar, no
\norange, no bourbon, no bitters. . .<\/p>\n

I said 'I don't think this is an Old-Fashioned". . .to which he said, "Sir,
\nmight I suggest when you order from a hotel bar, you know what's in the
\ndrink before you order it", with the "might I suggest" remarkably
\ncondescending.  He rolled his eyes at my party and walked away. . .I ordered a Manhattan (which was soapy), we paid our $16 per drink
\ntab and left.<\/p>\n

The Bemelmans!  As my friend concluded, "they are definitely coasting on their reputation."<\/p>\n

This story reminded me that I haven't been to the Bemelmans since Audrey Saunders left to start the Pegu Club<\/a>.  A return visit is clearly in order.<\/p>\n

(hat tip to Anita<\/a> for the WSJ<\/em> link.)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Felten at the WSJ on the sad (and enraging) state of most grand hotel bars: Once upon a time, hotel bars set the standard for sophisticated drinking, with barmen who were the best in the business. . .Nowadays you're lucky to find a hotel bartender whose vocabulary extends very far beyond Vodka-Tonic. Over the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seen-elsewhere"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}