#liquorcart

[fryfabrications]

Day 2 out here at the @barrett_jackson show and this is our new liquor cart. It's design to be a model bar you can move around and keep your liquor locked up when not in use. #liquorcart#barrettjackson #liquor (at Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale Az)

[wineisdivinepdx]

Hybrid sommelier meets hybrid bartenders at hybrid bar

When Tommy Klus reached out for me to join Multnomah Whiskey Library, I didn’t hesitate to immediately turn in my notice at Noisette, a job I dearly loved, but sometimes love sometimes isn’t enough. I was looking for something different, something fresher, and our first meeting at Grendel’s across from Le Pigeon, where he explained the concept to me was enough. Multnomah Whiskey Library was going to be a service-focused bar with an exhaustive collection of spirits, staffed with a cadre of professional bartenders. I didn’t doubt for a moment that this service model was totally executable. Tommy was the first and remains one of only a handful of hospitality professionals in Portland that I've witnessed several times actually providing excellent, guest-centric service. I trusted the staff he was hired to select and shape was to be cut from the same cloth. In the first pre-opening, staff trainings, it was clear that an environment of learning and craft-honing was on par with creating a culture of old-school-styled-selfless service, similar to what you would find at The Four Seasons.

Aside from hospitality culture, the technique of bartenders rolling out guéridons {which we simply call “carts”}, customized to build cocktails or present fine spirits was amazing to see develop. Essentially, I was watching a new style of service professional emerge, a bartender acting as sommelier: being gracious, knowledgeable, recommending spirits, presenting, pouring and serving tableside, often times using a tray when the cart is not necessary. The team looks very much like Court of Master Sommeliers trained professionals, with one notable exception; each bartender is particularly lethal at creating cocktails.

I knew I was moving into uncharted territory when I found myself spending more on a set of gold Japanese jiggers than I had ever spent on a single wine tool in my life. I found I wasn’t only learning about spirits, but was being developed by my co-workers, particularly Jordan and Alise, to craft balanced cocktails. In a sense, I’ve come to realize that I’m not really a sommelier in this world, but a hybrid somm-meets-barback-meets-foh-manager.

The Library is also a hybrid concept.  The bar accepts reservations and controls seating much like a restaurant, offers a membership component, but is not entirely a private club. The owners want the greater Portland public to have access to the space as well as those visiting our fair city. And then there's the service model: where four different bar carts are literally rolled out to the guests, who are reclining mostly in living room settings and a handful of traditional tables. The place is designed with grandeur to look like a gentlemen’s club of old, but you may receive a very casual {yet custom-built!} TV tray to use when food is ordered. The look and feel of the place might seem tony and pretentious, but the team, working the floor are down-to-earth, donning hand-made uniforms, yet remaining humble and personable.

We by no means invented this concept of tableside service, but we have adapted it, polished it a bit and some may say have innovated it. Anthony Garcia http://twitter.com/wineisdivine