MEMORIZE DRINKS LIKE A MAGICIAN!¹

Beachcomber’s Rum Planter

Here’s a nice drink I found in the 2017, 10th Anniversary “Sippin’ Safari” tiki book by Jeff Berry (p. 119). It’s called the Beachcomber’s Rum Barrel.²


Beachcomber’s Rum Barrel
Glassware: Rum Barrel Ceramic Mug
Method: blend 5 seconds max, then fill w/ ice
Ingredients:
Dash Angostura Bitters
2 oz Demerera Rum (aged)
1 oz Jamaican Holden Rum
1 oz Puerto Rican Light Rum
1 tsp Falernum Syrup
1 tsp Pimento Dram³ Liqueur
6 drops Pernod
6 drops Grenadine
1 oz Honey Syrup (1:1 Honey & Water)
1 oz Grapefruit Juice
I oz Lime Juice
1 oz Orange Juice
1 oz Pineapple Juice


The elaboratively encoded mnemonic image I have for the Beachcomber’s Rum Barrel is below.

Beachcomber’s Rum Planter

I looked at that drink recipe last evening, and drew the above graphic on my phone⁴ while lying down in bed, then I went over it in my mind once before sleeping (had to grab the phone a second to strengthen the “Pimento Dram” Jamaican spice liqueur reference), and then went to sleep. PS Yes, I spelled Demerara wrong.  


Upon waking I know the drink precisely from recall without having to look. Really. WITHOUT HAVING TO LOOK AGAIN! (If you’re new here or still unfamiliar with the image modifications I’ve created to quickly, accurately encode fractions of ounces, pop this link open in a new window and take a quick look at the various symbology denoting standard items that stand for various fractions.


In my image I’ve got a Tie with some letters on it. The Tie represents 1 oz, so I’ve got an H and GLOP the H stands for Honey mixture (1 part honey, 1 part water), GLOP is for the fruit juices in the drink, one ounce each: Grapefruit, Lime, Orange, Pineapple. So far so good.

At the top of the graphic to the right of the barrel is Noah (he stands for the number 2 in a system called “The Major System“, but you don’t need to know the entire Major System to use the parts I provide here for your use). Noah is holding something in his hand to remind me of Demerara Rum (I spelled it wrong in the picture). The Tie on the Jamaican and the Puerto Rican Flag Tie on the woman remind me of the 1 oz of Light Puerto Rican Rum, and 1 oz of Jamaican Golden Rum. So there are already 8 ingredients memorized by precise amount. 

The two Teaspoons under the barrel are acting like legs, and they are in shoes — “Shoe” in the Major System stands for the number 6 — Six Drops. The teaspoons stand for teaspoons. F PD (1 tsp Falernum, 1 tsp Pimento Dram), and “PG” like the movies, stands for 6 drops of Pernod, and 6 drops of Grenadine. 

Almost done. Now take a look at the barrel. It has a Drill Bit extending from it. That’s what I use for a Dash of Bitters (Bit = Bitters)

Next, from natural memory I know that the drink takes 8 oz of ice and it’s blended for no more than 5 seconds, it’s poured into a Barrel Mug (or whatever huge specialty glass or giant snifter your house has), and gets filled the rest of the way with ice. Voila! And I didn’t need to look at any notes to write this out, though I am doing screen shots, uploading, and annotating the image I created so I can write this post — but I don’t have to look at it because it’s properly elaborativelyl encoded and one big chunk all zipped together for fast easy recall. 

So does this work IN PRACTICE?

I’ll cut right to it: YES; I’ve done it thousands and thousands of times.

The bar is packed. It’s been rocking all night — slammed with customers, I’m making hundreds and hundreds of drinks — and some customer comes up and says “I’ll have a Singapore Sling, a Bahama Breeze, a Ramos Fizz, a Yellow Bird, and a Beachcomber’s Rum Barrel” (haha – that’s not likely to ever happen, but it might)… or more likely, just “I’d like a Beachcomber’s Rum Barrel please.” Can the drink’s glassware, method of building, ingredients, and garnish all be unzipped on the fly and make it without hesitation? Yes. You’ve got to do some spaced repetition due to the human learning forgetting curve – but if you encode it properly you’ll have 100% recall. So you do have to review once in a while, it’s part of work. This is how Magicians do it too, but it’s still work, not actual “Magic”. 🙂 …and with occasional review after you’ve nailed the recipes down, you can make all of the hardest drinks, ordered all at once, and not get mixed up even once, and get every single ingredient’s measures perfect. When the customers order round two – all of their drinks will taste identical to the first.



 

My image Mnemonic has chunked about two dozen exact points of reference into one file picture story (the ingredients PLUS the amounts!). Like a Zip file, it’s all one chunk⁵ I can recall every exact detail from later by decompressing the image in my mind.


Anyone wanting to truly become an Elite Bartender and gain the power of total recall and absolute drink recipe domination join my BRAND NEW FB Mnemonic Bartending Group

BartenderLife

Site Author, David Jonathan Curtis: David Jonathan Curtis, a seasoned professional in his fifth decade of bartending and bar management, began his career in Midtown Manhattan, NY, tending and managing bars before diving into Manhattan’s bustling nightlife scene. Over the years, he has mastered high-volume, high-pressure bartending as the lead bartender in both iconic Midtown clubs and Wall Street bars, generating over $1,350,000.00 annually in personal drink sales. He has since extended his expertise to establishments in Georgia and now Tampa, 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. STAGE MAGICIANS, MENTALISTS, FREEMASONS, MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS, JESUITS, TOP SCHOLARS, and many others do indeed use the same techniques I teach here. The various method modifications I have devised over the past few years are specifically for bartenders. After searching high and low for some existing way to easily apply Mnemonics to fractions of ounces, glassware, and garnishes — and getting nowhere — I decided enough is enough and created the methods I show you how to use here.[↩]
2. BEACHCOMBER’S RUM BARREL [↩]
3. IT’S NOT THE SAME PIMENTO AS IN OLIVES.   It’s Pimento Dram made with Jamaican Spices.
   Pimento Dram – Allspice Liqueur
   ST ELIZABETH ALLSPICE DRAM
   https://www.totalwine.com/spirits/liqueurs-cordials-schnapps/herbal-spice/herbal-blend/st-elizabeth-allspice-dram-45p/p/104674375
   HAMILTON JAMAICAN PIMENTO DRAM LIQUEUR
   https://www.bittersandbottles.com/products/hamilton-jamaican-pimento-dram-liqueur
   Bitter Truth Pimento Dram
   https://the-bitter-truth.com/liqueurs-spirits/pimento-dram/
   HOMEMADE ALLSPICE DRAM RECIPE
   https://theviewfromgreatisland.com/its-5-oclock-somewhere-friday-fall-cocktails-and-homemade-allspice-dram/
   “Allspice is a Jamaican spice— the dried fruit, or berries, of the Pimenta dioica tree.
   It’s widely used in Caribbean cooking, and the name comes from the fact that the English, who first tasted it back in the 16th century, found the flavor to be a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. I think to this day a lot of people avoid buying it because in the back of their mind they think it’s just a mix of common spices.
   INGREDIENTS
   1/8 cup whole allspice berries
   1 cinnamon stick
   1 cup Rum you can use light or dark, I used dark
   1 1/2 cups water
   2/3 cup brown sugar
   
   INSTRUCTIONS
   
   Crush the allspice berries in a spice grinder, or with a mortar and pestle. You want them roughly cracked and crushed, don’t grind them into a powder.
   Put the allspice in a sealable glass jar, a mason jar is perfect.
   Pour the rum in the jar, put the lid on, and give it a shake.
   Let the rum sit for a day, then break up the the cinnamon stick and add it to the jar.
   
   After 2 days, strain out the rum with a fine mesh strainer. Then put it through a coffee filter to filter out the smaller particles.
   Meanwhile, bring the water and sugar to a boil in a small saucepan. Boil for 5 minutes. Let cool, then mix into the infused rum. Pour into your final bottle* and let rest for 2 days before using.
   
   notes:
   This is a potent liqueur, and a little goes a long way. You won’t be guzzling this down on its own. The allspice gives it a powerful spicy kick, and the holiday-like flavors linger on your tongue.[↩]
4. I USE (for Android) “BAMBOO PAPER“, an Android creative productivity tool that even works well on my phone. It’s also available for iPhones and iPads. For making my drawings on phone, I use my stylus and “Bamboo Paper” which allows any number of notebooks for creating various types of drawings, graphs, and creative style documents.
   [↩]
5. CHUNKING — NOTE: SCIENCE HAS ESTABLISHED NEW EVIDENCE that human short term working memory can only hold 4 items at a time, and not the previously thought 7. It is chunking which gives the illusion that we can remember and recall more. When working, orders are often received several drunks at a time. Practice quickly chunking drink names into a string, and then retrieving those associated chunks and decompressing each one while building the drinks in glasses set side by side (rims touching) and pouring like ingredients in use all at once (touching each bottle once) is the way to build speed. Using my advanced mnemonic system modifications and innovations recalling dozens of PRECISE measurements per drink recipe is now virtually effortless, and was never possible with this degree of complete accuracy before. This is an extremely exciting breakthrough for bartending mnemonics.[↩]