Expanded Story Background, Part 4 Remembering Fractions of Ounces.  Full Imagery Examples for Memorizing Garnishes, Fractions, Glassware. 

Working with Fractions of Liquid Ounces using a Specific Image for Each Fraction

Bartenders need to memorize hundreds of drink recipes. Each drink has its own multiple fractions to remember¹. Even if certain categories have a general formula, there are always exceptions.


It might be assumed that 10 drinks in a category will each have in common the same glass, garnish, and proportions, but this is not the case.


I’ve spent years experimenting with what works best for long term, clear, easy to recall of drink recipes. For myself, tending bar, I would just go over my cards once a day, flipping through a hundred or so of the ones that needed review, and the ones that always slipped my mind – so that they would NEVER slip my mind that night when I was working.


While that more or less mostly rote method bothered me, I was still using the Major System’s advanced memory techniques to help me with much of the work, but I wasn’t using all memory methods combined.


Once I became a bartending instructor at the American Bartending School in Tampa, I had a lot of students ask me how I remembered so many drinks with such certainty. The school (all bartending schools nowadays) teach many drinks using acrostic word associations. 


B-52 (Kahlua, Bailey’s, Grand Marnier) becomes “Kills Bad Guys” for instance. First letter of each ingredient becomes the first letter of each word in the easy to remember sentence that relates in some way to the name of the drink. That’s called an acrostic. The B-52 killed Nazis and other bad guys.


But not all drinks in bartending schools (or elsewhere) have memory “cheat” devices provided for you. And for those that do, there’s no glassware, garnish, or fractions of ounces. Sometimes the acrostic itself leaves too much to guesswork. Does that “G” in “Guys” stand for Gin? Galliano? Grand Marnier? Goldschläger? (I’ll get to that later in my “Expanded Story Background” post.)


So for now, looking just at the fractions of ounces part of the background story in the overall mnemonic, many harder to recall drink recipes must include those extra bits of elaborative encoding² symbolizing fractions of ounces.


Here’s a simple example of a mental image of an object that can be used to assign the value of 1/2 oz. to any ingredient. The hatchet or axe chops thing in half.


So here’s how it might look as a part of your background story for the Jolly Rancher:


The Jolly Rancher is a popular shooter. I don’t mind acrostics, but I like acronyms better if I can find a way to put them into a memorable story. I just rearrange the order of ingredients to make a word. 

S   Sour Mix
P   Pineapple Juice
A   Apple Pucker
M  Midori


That said, I have no problem  adding an acronym to an acrostic, and putting in some custom encoded key images for fractions of ounces.


I have now touched on how to memorize fractions of ounces of grouped ingredients encoded into the acronym SPAM where all four are 1/2 ounce. Similarly, a drink with two 3/4 oz. ingredients can be grouped by assiciation within the image designated as 3/4 oz. etc.


The glassware is now able to be encoded as well with my new method. The Jolly Rancher is in a shooter glass. Any shooter can be served in a small rocks glass as well. So knowing that, one symbol for a shooter will do. It doesn’t have to play a major part in the  construct of the encoded memory, as long as it fits neatly.



So there are key images for glassware, garnishes, and proportions all added to the elaborate encoding. 


The purpose of mnemonics is easier, faster, and exact recall, and ultimately making what you learn go from short term to long term memory.


I like to keep the associations even after the drink has gone long term because they act as a final check. As an instructor, it’s quite common to have to deal with uncertain students repeating the wrong recipe out loud while practicing. Sometimes it subconsciously challenges the instructor who “just” knows the drink but has no double checks in mind to compare the drink recipe to. It’s an unsettling distraction. 



Memorizing with my system makes it very easy to assert with absolute certainty and confidence precisely what is in each of the drinks, the exact quantities, the garnish, and the glassware being taught to the students, as written in their training manuals (and with the full application of the Major System, that can even include the page numbers the drinks are on). 


Mind you, we all have “base recipes” from which we might be asked to deviate by the bars employing us. They may not have shooter glasses in their inventory, and may want their Jolly Ranchers to be 3 oz. each, instead of 2 oz. They may want you to add a fifth ingredient, or a garnish. That’s fine, keep your base recipe strong. You may be nudged to reinvent the Jolly Rancher again in the next place you work. Great. No problem. No need to erase your base recipe and overwrite it unless it contains a major flaw³. 

BartenderLife

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.

1. Even if a drink has 16 ingredients and they are each 1/2 oz., that fact has to be remembered.[↩]
2. Elaborative encoding is a type of mnemonic in which new information is made memorable in order to be able to recall it more easily. It is making information more elaborate and complex in order to be more likely to remember it in the future.[↩]
3. Major Flaw: The person who wrote the manual slipped up, put in the wrong recipe, and nobody noticed until after you learned it wrong. It happens to all of us sooner or later.[↩]