A Day at Rockefeller Center’s Legendary Cocktail Bar | On The Line | Bon Appétit

To be able to get those 500 plus cocktails out at night we're preparing hours before the doors open we got to make sure all 15 of our cocktail batches uses and syrups are ready to go being head bartender at such a legendary location a place with so much history has a lot that comes with it when you say Mixology you think of a guy in kind.

Of a white Coach dropping droplets of something more science than art I try to keep it more on the art side Sweeney I'm head bartender here at Pebble bar and I'm excited show you around come on it's 1pm we got a lot of work to do so we're gonna get started this is our second floor bar now this is.

A four-story townhouse we have a bar in the second third and fourth floor now this place has been around since 1892. it was originally a bar called Hurley's in 1930 John D Rockefeller was buying out this whole area for his Rockefeller Plaza this building sticks out because it is the single one that he was not able to buy there's a large group of.

Investors that we have Pete Davidson Mark Ronson Nick Braun Jason Sudeikis and Ariane moyad and they're all wonderful guys who send me an Edible Arrangement every one of my birthdays I swear we got to go upstairs and I got a cake to change but we're gonna pass our door that's been the source of many Legends so follow me all right and this.

Right here might not look like much but this is kind of legendary and this is where Johnny Carson used to enter right now if you walk up there you'll be right in the set of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon so it'll lead us right to our bar here called Johnny's named after Johnny Carson right now we're going to walk back into the prep kitchen and.

We're gonna check on the walk-in and see kegs I gotta change so come with me here's our walk-in some might call it cozy I gotta give another word for it these are all of our kegs right over here as head bartender it's my job to make sure that we're stocked and all these beers are ordered along with all.

The liquor here we have four kinds of beers right here each of these are probably going to be changed about twice a week we have the dials that are going to make sure that our beer is coming out at a proper proper rate that it's not going to get too foamy or too little on pressure this is called a fop system here this would not be necessary if.

These were right below the bar but because it has to travel such a distance these regulate it and all your waste comes in here instead if you've worked out another bar and you change a keg you find you have to go through two pictures of beer that's all foam and you're just wasting beer as you go it's more cost effective to have these if you look up.

At these fops right now you'll see that they're balanced and they're filled with beer this one is not that means there's nothing in it it's got to be changed this might be the 10 000th keg I've ever changed in my life I'm gonna go counterclockwise then the hernia inducing part full keg right underneath peel this off.

We're gonna do it clockwise on this one it's on like that and as you see it just shot right up right there green means go and now for the beer to get out it needs a catalyst we have nitrogen and we have CO2 for the beer it's about a 70 nitrogen 30 CO2 why not all CO2 because you don't want it so carbonated you want those tiny bubbles that comes with the.

Nitrogen right here as I can see it's pretty much on empty and the last thing you want is that running out in the middle of service and bartender's not figuring out why their beer is coming out awfully Lefty Loosey righty tighty and we're going to switch it with a full canister here tighten it up and we have liftoff so it's 1 30. beer.

Looks good nitrogen looks good CO2 looks good now we're going to start going to work on these keg cocktails here all right we have the Negroni and we have the old fashioned these work for me has had cocktails because there is no Citrus in them we do all our Citrus Fresh So if our Citrus is over 36 hours old I'm getting rid of it it might as.

Well be dairy products in the desert as far as I'm concerned at that point we're serving 500 Cocktails A Day essentially in the bar it makes such a difference to have these on tap first of all we got to make sure it's aired out now when it comes to a Negroni here it's all liquor it does have sweet vermouth in it doesn't last forever so I like to.

Start with a fresh batch about every two weeks for Negroni this one just came from two days ago so I'm fine to just fill it in here one park and party one part sweep from with one part gin I can go directly into here the Negroni aptly named after count degrony he reportedly told his bartender that he wanted a stiffer version of an.

Americano from there it just became such a classic recipe that it's not just negronis anymore it's boulevardies which with whiskey it's Kingston negronis and the ever famous nowadays spagliados which have been picking up in Steam so right now I've put in two bottles of sweet vermouth's two bottles of Campari two bottles of Plymouth gin so we're.

Gonna do 1500 milliliters of water for dilution the dilution would normally come from the ice and the stirring I don't want it too diluted because it's going to go on top of an ice cube so it'll get a little extra we're using tap water for this New York tap water the finest in the world so when it comes to how much we can get out of each one of.

These kegs I would estimate just shy of about 200 Old Fashions maybe a little less than the negronique between 150 and 200. if it is not tight and taut you are not going to have a keg that works this is essentially my workout regimen these days and now we're gonna do the old-fashioned the old-fashioned we are not going to do.

Inside of the keg because I want to make sure I get everything good and mixed up I always do the old Fashions as head bartender because I want to make sure that the taste is absolutely right right here we have 12 bottles of whiskey as I was taught Years Ago by the great Jim Kearns always start with your cheapest ingredient first don't start pouring in.

Your most expensive ingredient if you make a mistake uh you're in trouble and you've completely screwed yourself so we're going to start with water so the biggest mistake sometimes with the keg old fashioned is that the dilution level is wrong and that it's too sweet as head bartender it's going to be my choice what our recipe is this the way it's.

Selling I think we're doing okay on this one does that sound too conceited for this we're now going to use our sugar we use Demerara syrup two parts measurement of the sugar to one part measurement of the water I don't want it to be too sweet as a matter of fact if you ever start a bar and call it not too sweet I think you'll have a line around.

The block people love that and if you use that you owe me ten percent I'm going to use 600 milliliters of angostura I'm going to do 300 of the orange bitters right here your bitters are essentially the spice rack of a bar and I love what orange bitters brings out let's go with the.

Whiskey I'm using every fiber in my being to not to drop these and look horrible the other key is mixing it I want to give it a little taste after swollen to make sure it's right I gotta Pace myself I'm going till 1am tonight it's got that perfect level of dilution it's got that perfect level of.

Spice for what I want so I'm good to go with it once this wash line gets low enough I will try with my best dexterity to try to actually dump this all into here without making a mess and spilling product all right this is going to look perfectly or I'm gonna make a big mistake and make an ass out of myself see the ball be the ball.

All right it's two o'clock in the post meridian Eastern Standard Time so we got to get going on batch cocktails next out goes without and goes within feel it and there's a carbonator yes we have something like 21 cocktails on our actual cocktail menu I think something like 15 of them are actually.

Batched why do we do that let's take our first cocktail right here there's three different kinds of alcohol if we combine these all into one it's a one bottle pickup for that we're not going to put any Citrus in there because that just will not last so bartender is going to have to do that some people will put syrups into a batch cocktail I don't.

Personally like to do it because I don't want it all to fall to the bottom really we do it like for instance as you saw with our old-fashioned keg but syrups have a finite amount of time these babies these guys can last for well infinitely really doing up to 500 cocktails even more at a night this will not take away from the quality of it.

Mixing liquor with liquor it's absolutely totally fine it's shelf stable sweet dreams is named after the eurythmic song most of the cocktails on our list is named after bands or songs that were featured in Radio City Music Hall at one point in time so the sweet dreams kind of taste like a holiday cocktail to me it has a whole egg in it.

It's got lemon juice it's got the herbaceousness of our liqueurs there it's got the sweet so the Cherry hearing and it's got that peat of that Scotch all going for it nutmeg it's got cinnamon it's basically like a wonderful wonderful eggnog we get a recipe or a speck as we call it from an r d session we test out cocktails and.

We adjust them and then basically if it works out perfectly we can multiply those numbers into a large batch amount which is what we're doing right now here all right let's move it on to our next cocktail and we're going to do the loose seal here our Mater D Ryan here was a huge fan of M M's Mezcal Montenegro shots it was pretty simple taking those.

Two ingredients and then I added Coqui Torino which is a form of sweet vermouth it's got that rhubarb that tobacco that leather kind of taste to it that might sound unappetizing but trust me it's really good that is a stamp the copper allows it to indent and you have a design on the top of your big ice cube here and then the chocolate that comes.

With the mole Bitters and it kind of completely works so those are the batch cocktails we're making today I'm sure there'll be more tomorrow that we got to do but right now it's three o'clock so I'm gonna work on a syrup that we're gonna need for service and let's get moving and here we are our dining room bar.

Dining room to the left of me kitchen to the right getting set to make cinnamon syrup because we have it in two of our cocktails right now first things first I'm gonna weigh out the cinnamon with the syrups that we do it's going to give it some flavor it's going to give it some fat as well everything being made in-house if done well is going to be.

Better we don't use lemon and lime juice that comes in a bottle we juice that every day now the bottle can last longer but it's just so much better done fresh I want one pound of water for every pound of sugar I have I got six pounds pints a pound of world around so I do this three times and for those of you wondering at home that's Chef Carlos.

Pereira back there our head chef of our kitchen he's affectionately giving me the nickname of Gringo which I believe means Ben Neville it's Savant but I haven't looked it up yet and now sugar in the Raw it's a dark brown sugar huh I'm gonna put it about 4 30. I can.

Always cut it then later this one absolutely requires being put over heat and Cocktails outside of the old fashioned you almost definitely want the uh want the syrup the consistency is going to be better that way so we're gonna do this to about 10 to 15 minutes once you get that smell of that cinnamon you know it's on the right path you.

Don't want it to get to a boil I never want my syrups to get to a boil boiling is no bueno all that Sugar's dissolved I got that great cinnamon smell going to it let me give it a little taste make sure it's exactly what I want or exactly what the customers want I should say oh yeah all right so this cinnamon here I think.

It'll last me a week so I'm gonna get this stuff out of here and we're gonna set up for an r d session with me myself and I management has asked me to do a tiki cocktail I swear I've never tried this cocktail before so this might be some Icarus level idiocy but you're gonna have fun either way.

Trendy stands for research and development the normal process is you have an idea I try to take notes and keep these ideas in my head on what we're going to do for a cocktail in the future when I'm happy with it eventually there'll be a big r d session with all the bartenders the things that graduate from that all of a sudden go in front of.

The committee of the heads of state here now my style is usually dark and boozy those are things I specialize in and I know absolute Titans of this game people are going to be judging me on this one so we're going to see what I can do with this this I have my official recipes I'm happy with they have been completed the Necronomicon here.

Then you have this this is me reading a book today this was a gift from a friend HH you know who you are thank you and it's just an idea that's all it is so I'm sitting here I'm writing ingredients will it work I don't have a lick of clue but we're gonna try it out I have some chinola it'll be a passion fruit liqueur and.

Then I'm using three types of rum silver Jamaican style we have another version of a dark room here the Guatemalan rum so we mix it together it gives it more complexity it adds different flavors to it doing r d personally is a year-round activity got to keep doing it as we go and that's one of the great places about this place they give me the freedom to.

Kind of try all this out and be able to test quarter ounce of chinola we had a passion fruit syrup at a previous bar slowly surely that I worked at and it worked really well in the tiki cocktails there so I'm going to try to find an original spin on it hopefully three quarters of an ounce of Plantation one.

Ounce of Appleton and zakapa we always have a working title basically I'm calling this Tiki blinders will that stick probably not because they'll probably be a theme to it but you know I'm quasi-proud of it I love the way crushed ice dilutes in a tiki cocktail choosing your ice and how much delusion you want is very important Cube dice.

Texturally just doesn't work as well and give myself a straw taste it's good but there's no way that's a finished product first of all I am going to put the bitters on top and see if I like the way that that goes with it I like it a lot better with the bitters but what I am going to do is I'm going to cut the pineapple a little bit on.

This next one and round two now the thing about r d is when you make a cocktail the next cocktail you do you can only change one thing if you change two things you're going to be confused on what made it good or not so it can be expensive to r d.

It needs a kick and it's missing a kick that I would love to have I'm going to add some overproof room I got some Ray and nephew right here this will set your hair on fire 63 alcohol by volume 126 proof all right let's try this one more time this will be the last one will I have something to bring the committee we're gonna find out I'm gonna be.

Straight when it comes to having a natural gift for this Mixology as they call it I don't have that but I know enough of the rules and I've learned and I've worked at that but I consider myself a bartender one of the big details on why you're gonna shake as a poster is the presence of citrus or dairy it really really welcomes itself.

To more dilution one two three four five oh yeah random nephew made a difference there I think I have something that I can bring to my peers and say what do you think of this is this going to work for you this is truly me and my most naked here I give you for the first time ever the tiki blinders so it's four o'clock right now as we.

Speak the downstairs bar is opening we're open up here in an hour we're not really close to set to go so let's get moving now the part of me being a head bartender kind of ends for the day outside of maybe ordering or people wanting over stuff is now my part of every other bartender starts right now.

We got to make sure this bar is ready for service so see how nice and clean this bar is let's make it filthy right now and fill it up with things so I'm pretty much going to be taking inventory of what's behind the bars there is a timeline on how long those are going to be good for but we get so busy here that we don't even have to worry about that.

Now the other cool thing about today is it's a Tuesday we do a whole new prep day on Monday everything from the weekend that's left over is too old we throw it away Monday we start over so I know I'm not going to have any old juices to worry about here that makes the job a little bit easier today than it might be later in the week where I.

Really have to look at the dates today is going to be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you when you have a different garnish for every drink when you have different Citrus in every drink when you have different syrups and every drink you've got to be very very very economical with your time you got to be.

Very very smart about your space it's almost like a clown car the way things just keep coming out of here we can do this part in a really fast motion with like the like the Benny Hill music playing or something like that that'd be amazing patches early batch bottle batch bottle batch bottle batch bottle again again.

Tambian tambia and tambien and these are going to go right in front of me in my well in most every bar that you go to the well that the bartender is working at will have their well Spirits in front of there their vodkas their gyms we don't have that because as our menu goes we get orders for these way more than we get vodka sodas I have a checklist here.

Spirits that we need batches that we need wine that we need garnishes that we need mixers that we need as a bartender I am responsible to make sure that this list exists so down here we're going to have juices that we need syrups that we need all right here on my left an economy of movement is so important in this if you're reaching over here here.

Here here here four things for one drink you're just gonna slow it down and people aren't going to get their drinks in a timely manner if you pick up the same bottle twice in one round of cocktails you failed there is a specific type of organization for the garnishes my most popular garnishes are going to go right.

In front of me my tool check I want to make sure that I got four Shaker tins two mixing glasses I want to make sure I have a small [__] and a large [__] I got my stamp I got a micro plane I got four Hawthorne strainers I have a Tong and I have a knife it's 451 and 36 seconds we're gonna be open in just over eight minutes let's get ready for.

Service It's Five O'Clock ready for service I'm ready to go we're just gonna wait for some tickets and this place can be filled up in just a second first ticket of the evening Sweet Dreams Green River Sunday lager so when an.

Order comes in I want to make sure that there's not one drink sitting longer than the other one that's going to over dilute or get warm so pretty much I'm building everything off this ticket as it comes someone just has a vodka soda there's no reason for them to wait whatsoever so the egg serves as basically a nog in what this drink's.

Going out as we originally tried it with just an egg white but it was just too dry dry Shake macerate all that egg and then I'm going to do an ice shake we got two coming down here sweet dreams and the Green River this is the cream it's a Wu-Tang reference cash runs everything around me.

My usual method for pouring the beer is to make sure the glass is tilted at its side that way you you're gonna get that foam but not too much and as you bring it down as you go hopefully by the end boom you get a gorgeous pour each time my worst case scenario on the bar honestly would be closing out someone to the wrong credit card that has happened.

To me once in this life and I have lost sleep waking up in the middle of the night going I can't believe I did that the person was very very nice and by nice I mean not at all and I always have that story to go back on what would you like to take a shot of tequila step right up I'm here to give you an experience and if somebody really.

Needs a shot and they want me in on it I can handle myself and things aren't going to go way out of whack doing that absolutely let's toast one together we both earned it thanks for coming along with me today hope you have an idea kind of what our normal day is like here we got some cyanide we got some strychnine we got some turpentines so let's down.

Them thank you for coming along cheers y'all ready for me good