Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week’s Cocktail, SHOTS!

I don’t like making them. But dear Lord, do we ever need them right now.

Do yourself a favor and don’t look at that layer of Bailey’s too closely.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. I’m pretty good at this bartending stuff. I write some pretty decent cocktails. But there’s one aspect of bartending that I genuinely suck at. And it’s time to admit my flaws and talk about the one bartending style I absolutely do not do well. Let’s talk about shots. Here’s some recipes:

B-52 Shot

½ oz coffee liquor

½ oz Bailey’s Irish Cream

½ oz Grand Marnier

Pour the coffee liquor into a shot glass. Lower the rim of a bar spoon into the shot glass until it touches the lip of the coffee liquor. Very, very, slowly, pour the Bailey’s onto the spoon, raising the spoon as you go so it remains at the top of the drink. Follow the same procedure with the Grand Marnier. (Use a clean spoon and fresh measuring cup with the Grand Marnier for best results.) Serve neat.

For the record, the B-52 is named after the World’s Greatest Party Band, not the WWII airplane. The origin of the cocktail is murky; the best guess is that it was created by Peter Finch, the head bartender at the Banff Springs Hotel in Alberta, Canada. Peter, like many bartenders, liked to name drinks after rock-and-roll bands and songs. (I’m guilty of this as well. I poured a cherry-flavored cocktail for a young woman last week; I called it “Hello World I’m Your Wild Girl.”)

I love balance in cocktails. Finding the elegant sweet spot between sweet and sour, bitter and smooth, salt and sugar fuels my soul. So when I pour sugar, on top of sugar, on top of sugar, and serve it to a guest, a part of my soul shudders. Mind you, it’s a tour de force of a drink. The specific gravity of each layer is obvious. You can see that the coffee liquor is denser and heavier than the Irish coffee, which is heavier than the Grand Marnier. It’s a fairly easy version of the pousse café, a seven-layer monstrosity that would drive me insane if I attempted to make one. But the B-52 tastes like syrup. I’d never drink one willingly.

Here’s another example of a shot that drives me nuts:

Safety meeting shot(s). If you look closely, you can see where I lose patience with the entire process.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake Shot

1 oz vanilla vodka

1 oz pineapple juice

¼ oz grenadine

Shake the vodka and pineapple juice and pour into a shot glass. Slowly pour the grenadine over a bar spoon into the shot glass. Serve neat.

Blessedly, we make our own grenadine from scratch at Hemingway’s. (And you should too; Rose’s Grenadine is corn syrup, red food coloring, and sadness.) But the sweetness of the sugary vanilla vodka combined with literal syrup in a glass … I’m sorry. Ick. I’ll drink one for a safety meeting at work, when a quick jolt of calories helps me finish the night. But this is no way to start an evening. (For the uninitiated: “Safety meeting = A round of shots in the kitchen near the end of a rough shift.” Generally speaking, around 10 on a Friday, I’m feeling very unsafe. I can still remember one night where our new bar back — a charming young man who strongly resembles Scooter the Muppet in human form — downed his shot, looked around, and earnestly asked, “So what’s the safety issue?”)

I prefer a shot of something straight from the bottle. Something bitter and strong, like my battered soul. Yes, I’ll do a Malort shot, but I consider that a professional hazard instead of recreation. When a table’s on the fence about doing Malort shots, I’ll offer “double or nothing” — buy me a shot, buy yourself a shot, we’ll see who breaks first. Inevitably I “lose,” add an extra $7 to their check, and everyone’s happy. (One table paid to watch me take a shot, but refused to down one themselves. They were not my friends.)

Here’s my shot of choice:

Fernet-Branca

1 ½ oz Fernet-Branca

Pour into a shot glass. Serve neat without regrets.

I got hooked on Fernet-Branca years ago at Spotted Owl, when I was finding my footing as a craft bartender. The bitter, herbal liquor isn’t for everyone. Most of the staff shudders when they drink it. I do, too. But this little glass of mentholated evil kicks me in the pants and keeps me moving when the chips are down behind the bar. If you want something sweet and pretty to finish your night, that’s on you. Give me something complex, strong, and bitter to make my night happen. I don’t want a shot that pats me on the head and tells me things are OK. I need something to slap me in the face and get me moving. Maybe we all do, at this point.

OPEN THREAD!

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you… or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. We’ll make it through this together.