Professor of Cocktail Studies

  Two of the five people killed late Saturday night at Club Q , an LGTBQIA-friendly nightspot in Colorado Springs, were bartenders:  Derrick Rump, shown at left; and Daniel Davis Aston.  For both, Club Q was as much a haven as a place of employment.   Rump was originally from the Philadelphia area. CBS Philadelphia reports:   “Friends said Rump welcomed everyone into Club Q with a warmth and light that has now been tragically dimmed…. [A friend, Anthony] Jaramillo said Rump loved working for Club Q as a bartender, and became a staple of the LGBTQ bar. ‘When I went to Club Q, Derrick was going to be there guaranteed every time,’ Jamarillo said.” Aston, who was transgender, had recently completed his transition and performed as a drag queen at the club in addition to his job behind the bar.   His parents both supported him in his choice to transition—something that unfortunately is not the case for many transgender youth—and enjoyed going to Club Q. “We...

One of the great Tiki cocktails. According to lore, the Singapore Sling was invented by Nigiam Toon Boon, a bartender at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore in 1915, allegedly to allow women to clandestinely drink a cocktail with liquor in it, thanks to its benign fruit juice appearance.  Either or both stories may be apocryphal, especially given that Ngiam died in 1915. Famously, no two recipes for the cocktail are identical.   (The supposedly “authentic” Singapore Sling served at the present-day Raffles Hotel is almost universally regarded as bogus.) Here, for whatever it may be worth, is my recipe.   It is a close copy of one of the better recipes I’ve run across: I like serving it in a hurricane glass, but a highball glass works well, and one of those whimsically exotic ceramic Tiki glasses can be lots of fun. Build on ice in a mixing tin, preferably a Boston shaker. 1.5 oz. gin, preferably Beefeater. 1.5 oz. cherry brandy, preferably Heering Cherry Liqueur. 1 oz. ...

  Worked a fourth venue last evening at one of those “wedding barns,” for lack of a better term.  These are open interior spaces, large enough to accommodate a wedding ceremony, reception, dinner, bar service, and dancing (when it’s too cold to go outside) and a large outdoor area (when it isn’t).   Given that there were snow flurries, obviously the event was inside. I wonder whether these venues have been around for a while or are a new innovation.   So far I haven’t encountered one that goes back further than 2018.   If so, imagine that sooner or later the market will be saturated. The guests obviously had a nice time together.   They were friendly, courteous, and followed the rules concerning the serving of alcohol—and were surprisingly generous in their tips as well; close to $600 between us two bartenders.   The only exception, which was minor, was an obviously inebriated fellow who wanted to be served after bar service was over, and es...