Speed bartending does exist but it’s exceedingly tight, disciplined, and follows an exact set of steps defined as the mechanics of drink building. A tachymeter is used by the bartender (in the beginning of their career) to refine every procedure, to measure the frequency of any regular event in occurrences per hour, such as the units output by an industrial process. A tachymeter is simply a means of converting elapsed time (in seconds per unit) to rate (in units per hour). [pullquote]*NOTE: This is about speed and accuracy, and in actual high volume places where the bartenders pour drinks and focus on relentless crowds, often from the moment they walk behind the bar until last call, phenomenal gains will be seen.[/pullquote]Saving 7 seconds in an hour means one more drink made. Doing that in 100 areas an hour means 100 more drinks made. Potentially $500 more per hour, potentially $4,000 more per night.These are the precise steps and order of operations for speed bartending (also called scientific bartending):
- Pour and serve the wines and beers first.
- Ice up all the necessary glasses, including the mixing glass if needed. (Never leave old ice in the bottom of a glass. Dump it and use new ice.
- Determine what liquors the drinks have in common (i.e., 3 have vodka), and group the glasses together, edge to edge, so that you or your bartender can pour from one glass to the next without having to lift the bottle twice.*
- Pour all vermouths first, if needed (this coats the ice and helps in mixing).
- Work down the speed rack, pouring well Vodkas first, then Scotches, then Gins etc., then call brands (bottom shelf liquors): Smirnoff, Dewars, Beefeaters, Seagrams 7 etc., then top shelf liquors.
- Next finish pouring all base ingredient liqueurs and syrups.
- Add your Mixes: sodas, juices, cream etc. Work from the easy to the hard:
b) Fill glasses requiring sodas, cokes, tonics, etc.
c) Pour toppings: roses lime juice, liqueurs, grenadine.
d) Short shake** drinks: collins’ etc.
e) Add garnishes and stirrers where appropriate.
- Always wash your mixing set immediately after straining drinks.
- Handle bottles as few times as possible.
- Become ambidextrous in all things – have stirrers, napkins and garnish picks on both sides of your spill mat where you build drinks so you can set them out without hesitation.
All steps in this discipline must be carried out daily and consistently throughout the career and will become easier over time. Other bartenders must not be permitted to share the station or they will sabotage your efforts to double production; this cannot be stressed more strongly.
NOTE: Each bartender will have their own speed rack order, their own drink building station, their own POS, and their own section of the bar to work. Each rack and station in the bar needs to be worked by one bartender or it’s a free-for-all mess, everyone climbing over each other, waiting on line behind each other – absolutely amateur, full of inefficiency, delay, frustration, and customer service slow downs which means fewer dollars flowing into the til. Think of the bar as a foxhole with a few soldiers in it. Each soldier has a side, each has weapons, both can fire at the same time as quickly as they can without waiting for the other soldier to finish using a piece of equipment.
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.
