Surely everyone wants to learn how to make cocktails! Of all the many aspects to the job description that was sent to me, “cocktail waiter”, was definitely the most attractive. It filled my imagination with images of me hurling bottles in the air and setting fire to stacks of glasses…and in all honesty I wasn’t too far off.
Admittedly the “flair”, as it’s called (the throwing and catching and spinning and twirling) is taking me longer to learn than anticipated due to my lack of basic co-ordination but the rest of it has come along very nicely. This is mainly thanks to Ben’s professional training over in Miami and his surprising amount of patience. My first few weeks working at Kenton Park Estate tended to be a little bit quieter in the afternoons as the schools holidays hadn’t yet started and Covid restrictions were still in place so rather than staying at work late to train into the evening, we were able to get most of it done in the early afternoon. This of course has its benefits…once you’ve practised making a cocktail you of course have to taste it.
The good times just kept on rolling! Even though the cycling home became slightly more of a challenge…I only fell off once. Learning how to make cocktails is as fun as you would imagine, getting to grips with the techniques, the ingredients, the funky glasses, the dry ice, the fire, it was all a lot of fun. Ben taught me through the whole menu which, as many of you will know, isn’t a small one in content or physical size. From Mojitos to Motley Martinis we went through it all- making them, drinking them, making them, drinking them, drinking them, drinking them.
My favourite to taste must be The Grasshopper. To make…it’s got to be the Flaming Lamborghini- who doesn’t love playing with fire!
All this fun did have a serious objective though of course, the famous “Pizza and Cocktail Nights” that run through the summer. They booked up as soon as they were advertised and I was well aware that I was going to need to know all these cocktails like the back of my hand in order to keep up with customer demand. So, I made flash cards and revised at home, on my way into work and in between evenings. I knew that I couldn’t waste all the fun that I was having and had to make something of it. Besides, if I could learn all these popular cocktails then I’ve got the party trick to beat them all.
In typical Motley Cru fashion we put the work in behind the scenes and pulled off what was required by the skin of our noses, laughing our way through every crisis and doing our best to keep everyone happy- and I must say I think we did a pretty good job of it!
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