Cocktails Done Right

I would NEVER hire this guy again. He showed up late, only 45 minutes before the guests were scheduled to arrive for my husband's surprise birthday party. My caterer's staff and my two house keepers had to help him set up the bar. During the event, I overheard him tell one of my guests we had no bourbon - we had two liters of Jack Daniels, two 1.75 liter bottles of maker's mark and 4 liters of various single barrel bourbon selections. I walked behind the bar and found them for him. Why would he not ask if he couldn't find them? It's not like bourbon is an obscure cocktail mixer. The only signature cocktail of the party was an Old Fashioned, my husband's favorite. Midway through the party I find out he had not made a single old fashioned and when I asked him why not, he told me he didn't have orange slices. Again, didn't ask about it, just told my guests "NO". The caterer had plenty of oranges, we used them for garnishing the food buffet tables and on every passed hor d'ouvres tray. At a minimum, a professional bartender would have asked where the oranges were so he could make the ONLY signature cocktail planned. If we didn't have any I would have sent my housekeepers to the grocery store. I rented special old fashioned high ball glasses, luxardo cherries, gourmet premixed old-fashioned mix in addition to 3 different kinds of bitters, bags of custom made blocks of ice with cute sayings in the ice - all for the signature drink that my husband and his friends love. He told me he didn't wan to use the cherries I bought - but I also had the cheep cocktail marachino cherries - he is just a complete hack. I had cute disco ball beverage skewers for martini olives and other drinks that may have needed a skewer of garnish. He didn't use those but was throwing an olive in the bottom of the martini glass. It felt like a bad frat party. He iced down way too much white wine leaving me with 8 bottles after the party to deal with. Same with the champagne at $50/bottle. I expect a professional bartender to manage this sort of thing, ice several bottles at the beginning and replenish as needed. He was throwing bottles up in the air and catching them on his shoulder, pressing his ear on the bottle like it was a phone and saying "Hello" to the bottles, complete cheese ball and frankly very embarrassing. I didn't hire him to entertain my guests with trick pours, I hired him to pour delicious cocktails and be courteous to my guests. Neither of which I received. Final comment - The next day a dear friend that attended the event called to tell me he was telling a group during the party that he was was "high as a kite". Just so wildly inappropriate.