Help me stock the bar

[Kid Cid]

I don't know. It's my house so you can take it or leave it. Certainly at the restaurants, I'm not going joust that many windmills and find it easier to just give the people what they want in cases like this (and frankly Jack is pretty easy because I think it's fine enough stuff). However, I'm gonna buy what I wanna buy for my house. And for American whiskey, I'm drinking Evan Williams Black Label on the cheaper side and then sliding right up to the fancy stuff from there. Of course, I do keep a bottle of Jim Beam Rye around for sazeracs because it's pretty much the only Rye I can get in the state without going through a major hassle.

This kind of leads to the next question, one that I know is clearly tilting at windmills. In this day and age, are the state run ABC boards really in touch with the public/reality or are they just such monolithic money makers for the states that nothing the public wants matters very much?

[detlef]

Manhattans and Rob Roys are classic cocktails. I prefer the Manhattan because I hate to mix scotch with anything. I ask for rye whiskey in my Manhattan. (Some people prefer bourbon).

 

 

 

I guess this depends on whether you want the bar to reflect your tastes or you want to accomodate your guests. Of course, if you seldom entertain guests, the latter is less important.

 

As far as I'm concerned, if somebody wants a mountain dew and whiskey, I'll make it, and my grimace will be internal.

My comment was more to the point of stocking a popular brand. Someone says they want a Jack and Coke. I have no problem saying, "Evan Williams Black fine?"

 

This kind of leads to the next question, one that I know is clearly tilting at windmills. In this day and age, are the state run ABC boards really in touch with the public/reality or are they just such monolithic money makers for the states that nothing the public wants matters very much?

Dude, the ABC. Don't get me started. A legalized monopoly run by people who act as if they they'd just as soon that nobody sell booze at all.

 

At very least, they certainly don't care at all about bringing in anything cool. Because there's no competition, why should they? If you can't get Sazerac Rye, you'll buy Jim Beam. No sweat to them. Of course, most customer's don't know this so you're overhearing people talk smack about the fact that nobody in NC sells the cool stuff. If they only knew.

 

Here's a list of some of the crap they pull:

 

1) Everyone has to pay by cash or certified check. The only way you can get out of paying that way is to get your bank to sign a form that promises that they'll never bounce a check from you written to the ABC. Something that no bank in their right mind will sign.

 

2) You call your order in the night before and they call you back with a total. Then you have to go pick it up at the store (in many counties, there's only one store that you can go to for restaurants or bars). After, of course, you go by the freaking bank for a certified check. Not a huge hassle except on Friday, when they close at 2pm. Thing is, they call you at like 12:45 with the total. So, you basically have an hour to drop what you're doing, run to the bank and then to the store. And you can't figure the total out ahead of time because you don't know until they call you if your entire order filled. We serve lunch, so that can certainly be a problem. Moral of the story is that you avoid placing orders for Friday, which is great until you have a crazy Thursday night and/or a large party plows through all your Patron.

 

3) I pay more for booze than you do. Every bottle in my bar has a tax stamp (placed smack dab on the front of the bottle which is sort of insult to injury when it's something nice. Picture a bottle of Louis XIII with a fat tax stamp right on the front of it.) At any rate, that stamp costs $4 per bottle and my base price is the same as the public's. As soon as you finish a bottle, you have to deface the stamp to insure that you don't keep an empty stamped bottle around and refill it with a bottle you bought from the retail store.

 

4) This is where it gets freaking crazy. In the event that you want something that NC ABC isn't stocking (which, as you can imagine is a long list), you have to special order it, paying for a full case in advance. Now, in many cases, this is not a huge deal, but I happened to be standing behind this dude at the ABC when he was trying to get some hard to find scotch. Because it's allocated, he was only going to get one crack at it for the entire year, so he had to order accordingly. All told, it was about 4 cases of various ages. The total came to $3K. He had to give them a certified check for the total and then they'd tell him in 8 weeks whether or not he could even have it. If he didn't get it, he'd get his money back. two freaking months later. What a crock.

 

If one of my wine distributors pulled any of this crap, they'd be out of business in a week because someone else would be willing to treat you like a customer.

Edited August 26, 2009 by detlef

[whomper]

I didn't realize he would be inviting my great-grandparents over for drinks !

 

 

Im glad I didnt suggest Creme de neyoux for the Pink Squirrels crowd