River Hawkins

This is not a book about how to make a perfect Old Fashioned. This is not a book

about proper technique in muddling a mint sprig. This is not a book that has any recipes in

it whatsoever, but this is still a book about tending bar.

If you’re looking for a little black book with every recipe for a pre-prohibition

Sazerac you’ve wasted your money. I haven’t spent years trying to hone the craft of making

fine cocktails so that one day everyone will make a Pink Pussy just like River Hawkins

recommends. Nor have I been practicing my juggling so I can finally win that bartending

championship in Vegas for my skills at flair. I have simply made tending bar my career,

and in my opinion, tending bar is one of the noblest professions. I use the word Noble as

in having or showing fine personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals. Noble, as

in divine. I understand many would argue with this opinion, but only because they do not

truly understand the value of a bar and the importance of a good bartender.

Tending bar has allowed me to travel the world and always find work that pays

well. Every town in the world has a bar, and bars may well be the only recession proof

business. Many people would buy a beer before they’d buy bread. So, at the risk of playing

the Devil’s advocate, I recommend bartending to anyone and believe passionately everyone

should try it out for a time.

A lot of people want to be bartenders because they think it's cool, and it is. You're

the host of a party every night. You get to meet a lot of interesting and beautiful people,

and you get to be the center of attention, but few people realize the nobility of being aHawkins/Barman/ 3

bartender. Few can see the value in serving their fellow man as only a bartender or a

prostitute can. They consider it demeaning to lower themselves before someone else, and

there are many bad bartenders because of this. What these bad servers don’t realize is that

lowering yourself before others is a selfish act with many personal benefits. I have realized

over the years that the highest form of service to my own life, has been my service to others.

It is this understanding, which has brought me so much joy, that I wish to pass on to you.

I’m here to teach you how to tend bar and deal with all the eccentricities which

come along with working in an industry that is basically drug dealing and babysitting. I

don’t want to show you how to make a drink; I want to show you how to deal with a drunk,

or an overbearing boss, or shady co-workers. In my twenty-one years of experience,

success in bartending relies less on recipes and more on relationships. This book is the

culmination of those years of experience and the essence of all the things I believe every

bartender should know.

I want to impart some wisdom regarding the subtle nuances of this industry.

Things I wish I had known before starting out. Such as how to deal with a boss who beats

his wife in the club, or being fired and having all your friends turn on you, or serving

someone and later finding out they went home and shot their mother in the face. These

incidents all happened to me while tending bar and I wish I had been better prepared.

Having worked in every different kind of drinking establishment there is, I’ve been

a bouncer, a DJ, a bar back, a server, a bartender, a manager and now an owner. I’ve worked

at gay bars, strip clubs, saloons, rock venues, dive local bars, large dance clubs, high-end

cocktail lounges, tropical resort bars, German beer gardens and my least favorite of all,

chain restaurants. With all of this varied experience, I think I can bring a clear perspective

of the industry to you.Hawkins/Barman/ 4

The stories in this book are all completely true from my experiences working at

thirty something different bars in the United States and abroad. I have not exaggerated or

embellished anything. I may have even omitted some of the most ridiculous stories because

I just don’t have a lesson to go along with them. Sometimes you can’t learn anything from

having a stripper arrested for biting customers in the VIP lounge. Actually, you can.

Here is lesson number one:         Strippers are fucking crazy.

I have only altered the names to protect the guilty.

When tending bar, you experience people at their best and at their worst. You see

them when they celebrate and when they suffer. At times they'll curse your name, but at

others they'll praise you on high. This is the joy of tending. You are given the opportunity

to serve, to experience life at its most bitterest or brightest, and to learn from people if you

are wise enough to pay attention. Offer them an ear and they will spill out their lives to

you. Show even the smallest bit of genuine respect, and it will be returned to you tenfold.

This is what it means to tend bar, and why tending bar is one of the noblest professions.

You see a bar is a social experiment. The question always is: How do you put every

different kind of human being in a room, get them drunk, and keep them from killing each

other? The challenge of this question is the fun part. Depending on where you work the

experience of tending bar can be so great and so bizarre it will leave you dumbfounded.

The characters you meet might be so ludicrous the best fiction writer couldn’t create them.

And as a result, the stories you will tell will be so strange people won’t believe you.Hawkins/Barman/ 5

Every sleazy shit hole I worked at brought me closer to understanding humans in

their essence. We are all savages. Our hearts are savage and alcohol brings us back to the

instincts of our hearts. This is why it is the most abused intoxicant in the world. We are all

searching for the heart of ourselves, and in the heart of every neighborhood, town, city or

society on earth is a bar. So, while others brag about spending ten years at the same

pretentious high-end cocktail lounge never having to cut someone off, kick someone out

or get in a fight, I would rather celebrate the ugliness, the chaos, the battles of bartending,

because, in reality, the balls out, rare and wonderful thrill at the center of life in its most

volatile state is a full tilt liquor bar.

So, bless the bartenders and let us begin.