The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-09-17
BARTENDER's WOES.
Many Palates to Pease and Many
People Whose Fur Must Be Rubbed
the Right Way.
From the New York Herald.


From the New York Herald.
It's the easiest thing in the world to
grumble at the bartender to sniff at his
pretensions to skill as mixer, to growl
because he gets your cocktail 200 sweet
or your fizz to sour or bruises the mint
in your iulep.
1t costs you no effort at all to hold him
up and badger him for five minutes on his
busy day because the whisky in the place
where he happens to be working isn't to
your liking. The fact that he deals out
Just such poisOns as are put into his hands
by the ''boss" never enters your head.
You never wait till the "boss" comes
around to register your objection with
him. You know better. You just take
it out of the "barkeep" You have him
where you want HMM his box He's
like the Gagged animal at the Zoo Every
body may poke sticks or fun at him, and
then call him ugly if he growls.
All he can do is to walk up and down in
his little workshop and get tired out, and
take his medicine and dole yours out to
you, listening to everybodys chaff and
gabber, answering the same old questions,
laughing at the same old Jokes, making
the same old change, going through the
same old motions day and night, in and
out, getting grayer and more laconic un-
ishes and new sprig takes his rusty,
liquor soaked comfortable old working
shoes and walks up and down the same
old rubber mating and iuggles the same
old bottles, and grows old listening to the
maudlin mirth and threadbare arguments
and inevitable grumbles of the man out
side the bar.
Your ''barkeep," I'll lay odds, works
harder than you do, and its a pOttering,
piCdyune kind of work. too. He swings
like pendulum between the lofty func-
ton of Compounding alcoholic gems TO
tempt Sybaritic palates and the far ex-
IRENE of watching out for fly specks on
the fresh glasses or gnat in the gum
bottle.
TRIALS OF THE BUSINESS.
heard a bartender spry, neat we'll
dressed well educated and withal COM
petent bartender in one of the BROOKLYN
notes.-the other night talking about his
own business.
He had closed the doors. 1t was l
o'clock. The last "jaggy' customer had
ambled out to continue his task of &C
emulation elsewhere The man in the
white duck jacket poured out for himself
about four good healthy fingers of brandy,
lit long cigar and pumped himself down
in chair outside the bar like a man who
had just sprinted mile. He sighed long
and deeply.
well, Pm hanged if don't go and be a
stevedore, where [ can get more rest and
less of every body's jaw. This business
makes me sick. Pm tired of the smell of
rum, first hand Or second I'd like to get
somewhere where I'd never have to set
out glasses and bottles any more.
Now look. l opened this place at six
this morning and laid off from noon till
6 o'clock, an Pm not done yet. I've got
to so TO work and make an inventory of
the contents of that whole bar yet, and
make out orders for what l want in the
way of replenishing for the morning
There's only about fifty bottles there to
be filed or half filed, or maybe not
touched, but I've got to have tab on 'em
all. Then there's the accounts of the days
business. H'ml
Lord! You ought to spend Just one
day behind there and see the different
kinds of games and the different kinds of
people. They're no more alike than chalk
and cheese. Half of 'em when they call
for thing don't know what it is. If
their lives depended on it they couldn't
tell corn whisky from rye, and vet they
bawl for bourbon as if they were Ken
lucky distillers. They want some spec
ial kind of gin or rum because they've
heard some other body say it was best
They want a cocktail made Just so and so.
and don't know when they've drunk it
whether it is so or not.
There's the man who affects absinthe
frappe because he reads about show &C
tors and clubmen drinking it for a bracer.
He doesn't like it. He has the hardest
kind of a job keeping his face straight af-
ter he swallows it.
FADs OF DRINKERS.
Now about cocktails. l suppose there
are twenty-five different kinds of cock
tails called for here in a morning-all
fads could be summarized in say five at
the most. But the cocktail crank is about
the crankiest of them all. Then this sec
ton Of the Own is peppered with the long
drink MAJ He calls for long this or
long that, and always wants a dash or
two of something that no sane bartender
would ever think Of using. The man who