BotH: Chapter 7

Lucky 7!

Chapter 7
Alcohol?

As I previously mentioned, I am an alcohol idiot. In terms of serving alcohol I had only served it for about 4 months prior to working at The Resort. It may surprise some that I grew up (kinda) around alcohol(ics) my entire life. My dad drinks and so does his side of the family so I know very basically what names of alcohols are. Little did I know that I knew nothing compared to people in the service world.

During our first two weeks of training we had a 2-hour class with The Resort's sommelier (wine genius). Talk about information overload. It was literally his job to know every single bottle of wine in The Resort and how much it costs, what to pair with it, and how to recommend it. I would say that ninety-percent of the information went over my head. The first time I ever opened a bottle of wine was about 2 hours before an event. My manager knew that I knew nothing about alcohol, least of all how to open wine, so she gave all of the wine idiots the task of opening all the bottles. It really was good practice to do it over and over again and I thought that the experience helped me to know how to serve wine better. She also taught us how to pour wine. In our resort you had to hold the bottle with one hand, present the label facing out to the guest, and then pour the right amount. With our other hand we had a cloth napkin draped over our forearm to use to wipe the wine bottle with if we had any drips. Luckily I never spilled wine on anyone.

For Banquets we had bartenders so realistically all I had to do was know what we were serving and take orders. Sounds easy, right? You would think so. Then there came me. I remember one of our first events I had someone ask me for a beer. He asked for something that I tried to memorize but I kept repeating, "sorry, what was that?" I ran to the bartender and tried to mumble back what I thought the guy had said. I think I said "stellar tois" and the bartender gave me a your-an-idiot laugh as he handed me a Stella Artois. I had never heard of that brand of beer before that day. Like I said, I had only had a few months of alcohol experience before working there. We had a small event that was me and our bartender, Ryan. He had to step away from the bar for a minute which left me alone with about thirty guests. Naturally I started to get drink orders that I would have to fill. Luckily for me Ryan had set a good mood, being loosy goosy and interactive with the guests, so that when I went to get a drink and botched pouring it they were able to be fun/understanding about it. The guest said to me as I poured a bottle of beer into a pilsner, "if that beer had much more head it could walk around with us!" If you don't know what that means, beer foams when you pour it which is why it has to be poured at a sharp angle. I had only used taps before and wasn't sure how pour the beer into a glass without spilling. Ryan casually walked up after that and grabbed another beer, dumped it straight upside-down into the glass, and made a joke. He made a lot of tips that night...he even shared with me, even though I was a klutz at the bar. Then we ate all the leftover oysters and seafood. Delish. By the way, when Ryan and I worked at events together we were unstoppable. And not so much at our service, but you couldn't get us to shut up and stop cracking jokes. He was hilarious and I give him all the credit for that. Plus he was super fascinating, but I digress.

My last alcohol disasters, and I think these two were the worst one. When I worked in Private Dining (room service) if a guest ordered a bottle of wine you had to open it and present it to them in person. You couldn't' open it in advance to save time. Since by this point I had opened hundreds of bottle I felt confident doing this in a guest's room. I had a couple order a bottle of wine. Easy. I got to their room, set their table with their meal, then proceeded to open their wine. But it wouldn't open. At all. I sat there for nearly ten minutes trying to open  the bottle but the cork wouldn't budge. I also shredded through about 1/4 inch of its top layer and I thought I was going to die. To make matters worse I could tell they were annoyed both at me and with each other. It was so awkward to hear them bickering as I was trying to hurry and get the heck out of there. I was about two seconds away from leaving and asking them if I could bring wine back or asking if they wanted to open it. After A LOT of encouragement from me I finally got the cork out. So embarrassing. In my defense it really was the hardest bottle to open of all the bottles I've ever opened. The second less intelligent thing I did was open Prosecco (sparkling wine, like champagne but not) in a guest's room. I didn't think ahead that I should open it before I went in the room (she only ordered a glass of it) and then it hit me that duh- sparkling wine has a tendency to spill out of the bottle if it isn't opened right (I was trained to open it without spilling, not easy though). Luckily for me I didn't spill wine all over her room when I popped the cork, but it was definitely a dumb thing to do.

As a pat on my back, I am proud to say that I know how to saber a champagne bottle. I was trained, they let me practice with real champagne (so we waste another bottle...no biggie), and I did it as part of the evening ceremony at The Resort for about 15 guests. The one time I did it publicly I did mess up a little, but eventually I got it --I was so nervous doing it for guests that I forgot about placing the seam on the bottle at the right place. Luckily my manager was there to help.