TOBY ELLIS IS… Cut Off – “Freepour or Die”

Updated: June 1, 2005

Who else but detail dedicated drink slingers like you and I, would take their craft to such extremes as to know the part number of something as seemingly trivial, as a small chrome pour spout? Or to make it their license plate? (Shawn Oana) What other professionals appreciate– no, demand the ultimate equipment to perform their jobs? Answer: Navy Seals. Neurosurgeons. NASA scientists. Olympic Gold Medalists. Hmmm. Interesting.

I went to a job interview once, with nothing but a resume and a #285-50. I sat down at a table with the owner, exchanged silent smiles, pulled it out of my pocket, and gently placed it in front of him and proclaimed “this is why you’re going to hire me.” Ten minutes later, the offer was on the table. True story. Nothing signals a serious bar or a serious Bartender more to me, than the sight of an infantry of chrome-tipped Spill-Stop #285-50 Speed Pourers, all flagged left, standing at attention, ready to pour.

There is an exactness in seeing a clear stream of liquid shoot like a laser from the bottle to the bucket that can make even Jim Beam. Nothing like a luscious long-pour or a crisp cut, is there? Or how about that sound when you’re just passing the 1 3/4 ounce mark, about to hit two ounces? That unmistakable, distinct and delightful sound of hitting “the money pour?“

Do you get that same thrill from the freedom to freepour as I do? After working at jobs where we had to pour with jiggers, chamber and ball pourers, and worst of all… liquor guns and collar-systems, I relish in being able to freepour. A privilege that should be a right. If only our industry could get itself out of the 1950s and into at least the nineties. (Don’t think our industry is behind the times? Guess you haven’t been to the local restaurant supply store in a while. Don’t worry, it probably hasn’t changed in 40 years. Talk about a time warp. Who buys those pourers with the corks anyway?!

Being able to freepour makes me grateful for the jobs I have, for yet another reason. Sure, I have to work with liters so the only thing my tins capture is (most of) the liquid I pour into them. But how thankful I am, that I don’t have to wear the chains so many of my brothers and sisters do, and that I once did, in the past. You know what I’m talking about: jiggers, ball-pourers, liquor guns.

The mechanization of our craft. A craft which until the last 15 years, mustered about as much respect as a profession as sweeping floors. For decades we have suffered the ignorant rantings of industry baboons who could not see past the glitz, the glimmer and the flying bottles, enough to notice the precision, the professionalism, the craftsmanship.

And yet a well-trained freepouring Flair bartender is more akin to a Samurai than a circus clown, if you actually pay attention. Where so many guests and managers see entertainers, I see expert marksmen, skilled artists, trained commandos. You would think such dedication on our part would be received with open arms and thundering praise. Instead, it is too often trivialized, and no skill more so than the truly amazing ability many Flair bartenders possess of precise and masterful freepouring.

Being a bottle-flipper is almost like being a blonde with a nice rack… nobody notices anything but our jiggle. Flip a bottle, wear a label. Sometimes it feels like we’re the bimbos of the drinks industry just because we can entertain while doing our jobs. And so the industry keeps turning to contraptions, gizmos and super-computers to handle the age-old issue of… how do you keep your bartenders pouring profitably?

In fairness, the finger has to be pointed back at us, as well. And by us I mean all Bartenders, no matter what style you favor. Some mixologists after all, are guilty of pouring right from the open mouth of the bottle, with zero portion control. Some Flair bartenders are guilty of spilling far too much liquor while performing. But the worst culprits of all are those who have never been properly trained, the vast majority of Bartenders, who perform what I have referred to as “untrained freepouring” aka eyeballing. Maybe we just as well call it Free-For-All-Pouring. Sadly, Public Enemy #1 in our business (Ego) is to blame for the false confidence so many bartenders hold onto, the ill-conceived notion that they “have a great pour.” Pull out an Exacto-Pour on them and watch the color drain out of their faces almost as fast as the excuses suddenly start shooting from their mouths.

Truth is, most bartenders who have never received formal instruction in technical freepouring can’t manage much of a consistent, accurate freepour beyond one ounce… with their good hand. And most attempts at multiple-bottle pours include ugly, ugly, sloppy cuts that trail liquor all over the bartop. But would you expect anything more? Accurate freepouring is not intuitive. Just because a bartender pours liquor out of a bottle day after day for years doesn’t mean a damn thing about accuracy. The only way you can assess your own accuracy…is to measure it. And most bartenders, never have. Unless you count using a clumsy, imprecise device like a shot glass, jigger, or mixing glass. Which nobody who knows what they are doing ever would.

And this is why bartenders on the whole, are easy targets for management when it comes to pour cost. Because our industry as a whole does not demand serious training of the most important skills. So we have tens of thousands of bartenders who can’t accurately freepour to save their lives. But it’s not their fault! Nobody took the time to train them otherwise. And so we meet lovable, otherwise highly talented and skilled bartenders on every corner who, like self-taught golfers with a great game but with quirky back swings, have these awkward, often comical methods and systems for pouring liquor. Two counts? Three counts? The amount of time it takes their arm to “go like this?” The level of the liquid in the glass? I’ve heard and seen it all. It’s Greek tragedy: Funny, sad, and true.

Worse than those, who in fairness, were never taught any differently, are the ones who have been taught, but don’t practice technical freepouring. Often I hear about some otherwise very talented bottle-flippers whine about competitions with pour tests, as though freepouring is not part of being a great bartender, albeit a Flair bartender. Poppycock. Hogwash. Bull Malarky. There used to be a saying in the business “No pour, no drawer.” If you couldn’t pass your pre-shift pour test, you were sent home.

There was a day when to be a Flair bartender, meant you were a master with a #285-50 who could hit any and every pour thrown your way within .25 of an ounce. With Flair. Cleanly. And while there are a lot of those old-schoolers still in the game, and a swelling number rising through the ranks, there are a few scary (to me) role models out there who brazenly proclaim “who cares if you can pour or not.” Answer: 99 out of 100 people that will pay you to bartend for them. You just happen to work for the 1 in a 100 who apparently, does not.

I am so grateful for my years with TGI Friday’s, for so many reasons. Learning how to freepour with precision, is one of them. With a 44-pour test that included multiple bottle pours, Flair pours, wine pours, even store-n-pour and draft beer accuracy, we learned how to pour with more precision and speed, than most people could believe to be true. But it was true. And it still is. Thankfully, most of the top Flair bartenders of the world are helping to educate the rest of the industry to this point. But we have a long way to go. And if we don’t gather some more troops pretty fast, we all might lose the privilege to freepour, in favor of the “magic pill” machines that keep popping up at trade shows. Machines that in a Matrix or Terminator kind of way, are slowing replacing you and I, when you look at the bigger picture. And if you think i’m joking, keep reading. There is even a machine (which thankfully I can’t seem to find any evidence is still being produced) that practically delivers push button cocktails. Laugh it up. Until your job is replaced by a vacuum cleaner.

On the surface, I do see the appeal of these emerging technologies. I really do. On the obvious, immediate, “don’t think it through for five seconds” surface of them. Think about it for any longer than that, and I can’t comprehend how anyone running anything but a gigantic multiple outlet, 24-hour a day property (airports and casinos) who give their drinks away (casinos) could not see through the “Wizard of Oz” smoke and mirror facade of these mechanical monstrosities and ever-failing gizmo pour-spouts. Doo-hickeys, I think I’ll call them from now on. Or maybe Don’t-hickey’s because they don’t do a damn bit of good.

But ok, just for a second or two, let’s pretend even just one of these technologies actually delivered what they all promise: that they pay for themselves in months and then deliver lower costs and greater profits. Stay with me. Let’s imagine these system somehow could outperform the kind of trained, precise, technical freepouring you and I are armed with. There are bigger issues, beyond cost: like speed of service aka sales volume.

It sounds great if you can save 20-25% on your P.C. by using jiggers (you can’t) or by investing in a $75,000 computerized pouring system. But besides the capital investment, don’t forget to calculate the hundreds of fewer drinks your bartender can sell in a night. Times all 8 of your bartenders. Times $4 a drink. Kiss those thousands of dollars of revenue goodbye. Whoops… there goes your big savings. Not to mention how your faster, more experienced, more passionate bartenders gravitate towards operations that freepour. (Well, we do.) So enjoy the available employee pool of bartending school graduates, burn-outs, bored housewives, and one-armed bandits. Good luck turning profits with that crew.

There’s another major issue you’d better not dismiss. Guest perception. Perceived value. Whichever you wish to call it, it’s the most basic, and most important factor in whether or not John Q. Public is going to take out his wallet and give you some of his hard-earned money for the drinks you are selling. Unless your target customer is a homeless wino or four broke college kids who pounded a gallon of $5 wine and smoked who knows what before they stumbled into your joint. If you’re after the cheap crowd, then admittedly, the name of the game is pour many drinks cheaply and count your pennies. For the rest of the industry, we are competing for that same dollar, or perhaps, that same $100 dollars. And that drink better come with a lot of atmosphere, eye-candy, and whatever else you can fit into the glass.

Now I’m the last person on earth to understate the importance of maintaining acceptable costs. But I am also the first to remind the bean counters that you manage a hospitality concept from the front door, not the back office. The guest experience must come first. It is the ultimate challenge of our industry, to figure out how to deliver that maximum experience at a minimum cost. Too many operators try to attack things from the opposite direction. (No wonder 9 out of 10 restaurants and bars go belly up in less than one year.)

hile most of the world may always seek out the cheaper light bulb or the less expensive pen… the service industry is driven by the guest experience. Whoever said “Honey, where can we get the cheapest martini in town? Let’s go there!” Value, much more than price, determines where people dine and drink, and how often they return. If price where the real determining factor, people would never eat or drink out. Not when you can buy a filet for the price of a Big Mac and a six-pack of beer for the price of one nice pint of Guinness. People are paying for the experience, which just so happens to come with the drink.

And yet, inexplicably, owner and operators seem hell-bent in may cases, in investing into technologies and systems that erode perceived value, detract from the guest experience, and all but destroy customer loyalty.

What is more basic to your survival as a business owner, than that moment when the booze goes from the bottle to the glass? That is what people are paying for. That is the most basic, and most frequent moment where value perception occurs. People want the feeling that their bartenders are in control of how much booze goes into their drinks. Have you ever met anyone who went out for a drink and said “Thank the Lord!” when the bartender pressed a button from a liquor gun? And yet, isn’t that the experience so many operators are setting up for? Patrons who feel “cheated” even though they may not be. Perceived value.

These operators are the exact same people who will rant and rave about overpouring and giving away drinks all shift long, but the minute their butt hits the barstool across the street after work, they expect a stiff drink…for free. And don’t tell me it’s not true… remember, you’re talking to a bartender. The one who puts your drinks on his comp check every night, Mr. Owner Guy.

Are you beginning to appreciate the huge gap between portion-control theory and it’s reality? The theory is that every drop must be accounted for and paid for. But the reality never has been and never will be close to that. Denying this inescapable law of the drink slinging business is nothing more than naiveté. Every bar patron wants to feel like they’re getting the “hook up” or at least a glass packed with perceived value and every owner wants every ounce measured and paid for. So where does this leave us?

How, as an industry, do we balance the conflicting needs of high perceived value with necessary portion and cost control? And where does speed and quality of service fit into the equation? I mean, it’s not like there is some magic way to appear to be just spilling booze all over the place like guests wished we would while actually being more precise and faster than the most sophisticated $100,000 computerized contraption in the world? Or is there? Well, duh. Hello. Welcome to our world. The world of Technical Freepouring that includes long pours, Flair pours, and other visual techniques to adding perceived value into every single drink. The preferred method of portion-control in use by more top restaurant, nightclub, hotel, casino, and chain properties and operations than you would believe. And yet still, so many people in our industry, particularly the smaller, independent operators, have never even heard of it. Am I the only one who finds it mind-blowing that in 2005, you can still plop an Exacto-Pour kit in front of F&B managers of multimillion dollar operations only to receive a “Huh?” or a “What in the world is that?” look of bewilderment on their faces?

Maybe you and I look at it from too close of a perspective. Maybe we need to simplify the concept for those it is new to. Ok, let’s give ‘er a go. How’s this:

[To owner] What if I told you there was a very simple method I could teach your entire bar and management staff in one afternoon, that would absolutely guarantee a portion-control system that not only has been proven to be the most effective on the planet for the past 20 years, but also one that can be maintained and driven with one small piece of $120 equipment and a bag of pour spouts? What if you could sit across a room and know in an instant, just by watching, if your bartenders were overpouring so much as .25 of an ounce? And what if this system actually motivated your staff to practice being better at their jobs, on their own time, so that morale and healthy competition both boomed behind your bars?

Maybe that would peak some interest, at least here in the United States. Unfortunately, this modern marvel of cost-effective, sales-condusive portion-control is actually illegal in some countries. Illegal. I can barely believe it, but it’s true. There are laws, not unlike South Carolina’s archaic liquor laws, all over the world. Obscure, bizarre, infuriating laws governing how and when a bartender can and cannot freepour. From Brisbane to Birmingham, Dublin to Dunedin, bartenders have to endure absurd legislation drafted by potbellied politicians that limit their creativity, speed, and Flair behind the bar to such an extent, ingredients have to be counted, to determine whether the liquor can be freepoured or not. The same politicians that scream bloody murder when their martinis weigh in at under three ounces. The irony of it all.

But what is far more revolting, is that in the rest of the world where freepouring is completely legal, it is forbidden at a lower level…by the owners. In fact, it’s downright comical. To know that there are people dumb enough to spend $40,000 on a computerized set of pour spouts that are costing more in lost revenue than they could ever possibly make up in decreased shrinkage (not that kind of shrinkage… it’s the term for lost inventory due to theft, waste, spoilage, etc.) and these people own and run clubs and bars, instead of you and me. Tragically funny. How do you reach these people? How do you possibly get through the dense fog of utter stupidity that surrounds people who actually think they are being smart by putting pour-control systems into place that a) slow service and sales b) erode consumer confidence c) deflate employee morale d) cost thousands, even tens of thousands, e) decrease perceived value?? How do you show them the light? I really have no idea. No magic pill. But if you want to give it a go, here’s a roofie or two you can slip into their drink.

Pour Control Chart Pour Systems Review

Click for Printable PDF Click for Printable PDF

Letter to Your Boss

Click for Printable PDF

During the course of my research for this column, I came across some interesting arguments about controlling pour-cost. Most of the ones presented by the companies trying to sell the five and six figure pouring machines and systems cited bartender theft as the reason why so many operators go out of business. Actually, I’d go out on a limb to guess just plain stupidity coupled with an entire portfolio of bad business practices is more likely the culprit. We all have stories of the managers and owners who spends their shift doing everything and anything besides managing the business. But the blame always seems to fall squarely on the shoulders of you and I. Such is life.

Bartenders don’t over-pour because of the portion-control system is in use, no more than they can be prevented from over-pouring in spite of one. Sure, some systems make it much more difficult to overpour than others. And there is merit to that point. But to be so bold as to suggest a $50,000 piece of equipment is going to eliminate pour cost problems is absurd. Address the cause, not the symptom, if you want the cure. Don’t worry, I’ll tackle the other angles of this issue another day. Let’s stay focused, he said semi-hypocritically.

The bottom line on all of this is a system, no matter how good or bad, does not maintain itself. If management is not willing to a) train and test staff b) hold staff accountable and c) manage the system… nothing will work. Ultimately, the success or failure of your portion control policies and systems are in the hands of you, the owner. You and your managers’ involvement in implementing and managing that system are the only thing that will determine how profitable it is for you. No machine can do that for you. If a slick salesman talks you into believing otherwise, than he or she earned his/her commission. More power to them. But you’re the one who is going to pay for that mistake. Over and over and over…

And no, I don’t think every owner is a moron. (though don’t we bartenders just love to pretend that’s the truth?) I just pray I got some of you to pay attention and that this cold, hard slap in the face followed by some concrete suggestions for fixing the problems related to portion control has opened some eyes a bit, to what seems like common sense to thousands of us, your front-line salespeople, who already have been trained to freepour with accuracy, if you would just let us.

Summary
In a business where the difference between profit and loss can come down to fractions of ounces, maintaining a profitable pour cost is paramount. Unfortunately, it is a more complex equation than just keeping low costs. In fact, more important than low costs, are high revenues. Without revenue, you can run the best costs in the business, and you’ll be out of business. A balance must be found between perceived value and pour cost. Of all the controls and systems that can be implemented to achieve this, only one system comes out on top. Technical freepouring. But in a culture that spends billions on fad diets and the latest, greatest contraptions, it is no surprise, a percentage of the industry still buys into the “magic pill” approach that most of the inferior systems promise. Technology over technique. Circuitry over Skill. Machines over man.

Fear not, friends. As long as I’ve got a voice and my #285-50s, I’ll be riding the night, surfing the net, selling the industry, and lighting up your TV with the unshakable, inarguable superiority of technical freepouring. I’ll be fighting for your right and mine, to take pride in our profession, and do it the way it was meant to be done: With skill by hand, not blindly by pushbutton.

My name is Toby and when I’m not stirring the pot, I’m freepouring my eyes out and putting money in my owners’ pockets at two of the busiest nightclubs in Las Vegas. I also train this style of freepouring, and one or two other things about the business, for select clients around the world. You can drop me a line. And you can donate your jiggers to The American Society of Antiquated Junk and Stuff by calling 1-800-DUH.

p.s. Technical freepouring is the skill of freepouring spirits using a counting system, calibrated by the use of a very simple, inexpensive set of graduated test tubes housed in a plastic casing, called an Exacto-Pour.

It is a very simple system, taught to anyone in about an hour, whereby each count of 1 equals 1/4 ounce of liquid, thus the now industry standard 1.25 ounce pour is a 5-count. For me and a lot of my colleagues, the secret to a good pour is having a good cadence. I get this by putting “ands” between my counts as in “One AND two AND three AND four AND five…” Some rhythmically almost sort of sing “Bubble, two, three, four.” Somebody out there uses “alligator” or something funny like that. Whatever works.

The first key to success is buying the right equipment. The only pour spout used in this style of freepouring, used by every world champion Flair bartender since the first bottle flew, is the Spill-Stop Model #285-50. Accept no imitations, and there are several. It is distinct in that the collar of the spout has “squared” shoulders instead of “tapered” ones. Take a close look and you’re notice the difference. They are also the only spout to wear the FBA seal of approval as an Official Endorsed Product of the FBA.

The second key to success is using the 4-count per ounce system so you can easily and quickly pour from 1/4 ounce and up without worrying about fractions or remainders, lol. So abandon those 3 counts, throw out those jiggers, and burn down the Mr. Bartender contraptions. And fight for your right to pour. If you’d like some tried and tested inside secrets and tips to mastering perfect freepouring, so you too can “black line” every pour, I would strongly recommend joining the FBA.

For the price of a few cocktails after work, you get access to more information, video clips, articles, pictures, news, and events…and my favorite part…. message boards LOADED with tips, tricks, and debates from the top veterans and the sharpest rookies around the planet on everything from how to freepour to job opportunities, jokes, recipes, and so much more. Visit FBA for more information. And Keep The Faith.

2 Comments

Lucas

May 19, 2016 at 1:00 pm

Great article all around. packed with information and real facts base don real experience. Only if the new mixologists can open their minds and become real bartenders.

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Rob Husted

August 15, 2014 at 2:45 pm

Still one of my favorite articles on Flairbar.com to date.

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