Today, bartenders are increasingly cutting their lemon and lime squeezes “waiter style” as garnishes for decoration purposes. They’re no longer useful as juice squeezes in this form, as someone would have to squeeze the meat of the fruit (rather than the rind) and thus get juice all over their fingers.
One reason why this has happened may be that department of health regulation changes have led many bartenders, bar managers, and bar owners to believe that they can no longer squeeze lime and lemon squeeze garnishes into drinks with their fingers.
For example, in 2014, California first banned chefs from directly touch the ready-to-eat food, and then the same law was shortly repealed. (However
California lawmakers have since pulled an about-face on a controversial change to the state’s health code that bans restaurant workers from touching food with their bare hands and requires chefs and bartenders to wear gloves. The Senate voted 32 to 0 Thursday to repeal the law that went into effect Jan. 1. The measure was previously approved by the Assembly.)
The chief reason for why so many ‘bartenders’ today are slicing decorative as opposed to functional/ingredient garnishes is because most corporate assembly line production type chain and franchise pub/restaurants are promoting wait staff to bartender positions, with or without giving them corporate training. It creates under-skilled poorly qualified, low quality bartenders ignorant of many older more advanced bartending concepts.
Without properly training in the culinary arts (either food or beverage) waiters aren’t generally qualified to become chefs, cooks, bartenders or any kind of food or beverage preparers, except in the most basic, least demanding environments. Where the ‘bartender’ is still expected to wait tables to save a few dollars on payroll, this move is generally viewed as an acceptable loss by accounting, and the house posts a few specialty menu drink items to give the bar the appearance of having some actual class.
Here below is a photo of an actual cutting done by a waitress trained by a manager (a manager with about 2 how to cut bar fruit:
Waiters and waitresses are order takers and deliverers, with packaging and presentation skills. They sometimes know what ingredients are in a dish or cocktail, but not the method, precise quantities, or other specifics required to create quality product. This isn’t said to knock their commitment to quality and dedication to their work, it’s just that bartending has been around for a thousand years and there are a few things professionals have passed on over the centuries that corporations have missed.
Promoting waiters (who deliver meals) to bartenders or chefs makes about as much sense as promoting newspaper delivery boys to newspaper reporters and editorial writers. Order taking, transmitting, pickup and delivery skills have nothing to do with either bartending or cheffing.
Garnish vs Ingredient
Most wait staff garnishes are flimsy wastes of good fruit. These fruit slices are a huge question mark as to what good they are or what purpose they serve outside of for decorating a glass of water. Attractive looking cuts (not good for squeezing) look like the slices in the photo below:
Squeeze “Garnishes”
How to Choose Lemons Limes For Squeezes
There are two quality considerations of importance. The first is appearance. When ordering your fruits it should be made clear to your vendor that the fruit they deliver should be top notch and not covered in blemishes. you’re paying for fine fruit and anything sub-par should be delivered somewhere else because you’re not accepting any limes or lemons (above a small percentage you can use just for juicing Margaritas or Daiquiris) that aren’t perfect.
The second consideration is that they be thin skinned and juicy. Juice laden thin skinned limes are heavier than water. They sink. Drier, thicker skinned limes float. Dropping them into a sink filled with water will reveal which limes will make the best juice limes, and which will be better for other purposes (such as giving to waiters to make lime and lemon wheels and half wheels).
Lemons are to be cut into 6 wedges suitable for squeezing. First cut off a small amount on both ends as follows:
Now slice the lime in half top to bottom, lengthwise:
Then cut it into six wedges:
Note: these are not to be slit and set as garnishes on the edge of the glass. They are to be squeezed into the drink as an ingredient and dropped into the drink.
If the customer states that they don’t want you to squeeze it, skewer it and lay it across the top of the glass or place it on a fresh napkin next to the prepared drink so the customer can squeeze it.
Limes are to be cut in half and quartered, creating eight wedges suitable for squeezing.
First cut off the top and bottom of the lime, being sure to cut enough away so that the fruity portion (and not the white bitter pith) is left exposed and visible:
Now cut it in half along its equator and cut each side into four pieces:
Again, the same rules of squeezing apply.
Now note that these limes have a core which is white where the segments all join together at the center of the fruit:
These can be removed to provide a truly beautiful piece of fruit for squeezing:
Some may choose to think that the distinction between a garnish and a squeeze is small or irrelevant. This isn’t the case. Follow the above guidelines for cutting bar fruit for lemon and lime squeezes as a bartender.
Cutting Orange Slices
The one area bartenders and waiters might be in agreement on is how to slice oranges.
Here’s how I do it which yields 9 1/3rd wheel slices (one third of a wheel). If you follow my instructions your orange slices will have a center split cut into the fruit already without having to take an extra three steps.
Step one, find the brightest orange, least blemished oranges you can. Cut off the bottom and top of the orange so plenty of fruit is showing on the ends:
Next you’re going to slice almost, but not completely through the orange:
Next turn the orange one third (1/3rd) around and repeat the previous move, slicing almost all the way through:
Now perform the exact same move again – turn the orange 1/3rd of the way around again for the last time, and cut almost all the way through again:
As you can see in the last photo above, by cutting the orange into thirds and slicing almost all the way through each time I have performed two moves. First I’ve cut my orange into thirds, but at the same time I’ve also placed a center cut into each of the thirds so I can sit my final slices onto the edge of a glass (I’ve slid a few sip stix into the center cuts in the slices pictured below for you to better see what I’m talking about – You can see that I’ve sliced almost all the way through during the cutting process):
Last, the orange third 1/3rd wheels are themselves each sliced into three pieces, leaving us with 9 slices of orange total from each orange:
What we’re left with in the end is 9 very attractive and clean 1/3rd orange wheel slices which are pre-slit down the center for placing on the edge of a glass, ready for a sword pick and a cherry so you can easily add an appetizing flag to any drink in seconds.
As a final note, I cannot stress strongly enough the importance of properly cutting lime wedge eighths as shirt thick chunks, and not thin slivers or long thin wedges. Limes are typically smaller than lemons. six lemon wedge pieces are cut per lemon, whereas limes are cut into eight parts. Lime juice is more bitter, the acid more concentrated, and getting it all over your fingers in full concentration multiple times during each hour every night WILL remove your fingerprints and require sleeping in rubber gloves with your fingertips covered in Neo-Sporin for about a week for them to grow back.
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Site Author, David J. Curtis: David Curtis, a seasoned professional with decades of bartending and bar management experience began his career in Midtown Manhattan, NY, tending and managing bars before diving into Manhattan’s bustling nightlife club scene. Over the years, he has mastered high-volume, high-pressure bartending as the lead bartender in iconic Midtown clubs and tended bar briefly in the Wall Street area, generating over $1,350,000.00 annually in personal drink sales. He has since extended his expertise to establishments in Georgia and now Tampa in Exclusive Platinum Service Awards Clubs, Florida. David’s roles as a Bartending Instructor at the American Bartending School in Tampa, while maintaining a second job bartending, and his years experience of managing bars, and working as a Brand Ambassador along with his extensive professional library of over 1,000 bartending books, highlight his dedication to continually refining his craft. He holds a diploma in Bar Management and is BarSmarts certified by Pernod Ricard.
