Muddling Crush

Barkeeps come in two flavors: barmen and barwenches.

No, actually, that's wrong, my idea of a little anti-PC joke. The two categories really are:

Bartenders who remember your drink.

Bartenders who do not remember your drink.

The sex of a good bartender should be irrelevant, but it's not, because I will never, ever develop a crush on a barman, but I have crushed on many a barwench. (Sorry, there's not much to say about the real division between good and bad bar staff. The sexual aspect is way more interesting.)

Take Jen, for instance, my current bar crush. She works in the back bar of a close-by Italian restaurant. The bar specializes in organic cocktails and wood-fired pizzas. Pepe (from Naples) cooks as good a pizza margherita as I've had outside his home town, but he often deflects praise by lamenting the lack of perfect dough hereabouts. He sports a chronic sad look, as if he misses the smell of Ducati exhaust and extravagantly perfumed girls parading at sunset.

I know how he feels.

Jen, however, is there to cast out the Euro-blues. She's of Irish blood, with the pale skin and dark hair. Her lower teeth overlap ever so slightly, and her bar style is somewhat slow. But she always remembers my drink, she always takes time to have a chat, and boy, can she muddle.

Being a (sorta) organic bar means there are lots of "martinis" including vegetation requiring detailed preparation. Ginger, basil, blood oranges - Jen chops and pours and tears and mixes them with lots of liquor so that the air is full of long-chain molecules of boozy wonder. I'm a classic gin martini man - don't skimp on the vermouth - so it's all alcoholic alchemy to me, but watching Jen's dextrous fingers at work is some of the best entertainment around.

Explaining the crush requires no more explanation, right? The perfect wench not only looks beautiful, she wants nothing more than to make me another drink.

I'm hooked.





Bottoms Up, Muddlers!

Edit: Photo not of Jen.