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Three cocktails bartenders hate to make

Rob Moran

Eric Morris in action at Bloodwood. His least favourite cocktail? The espresso martini.
Eric Morris in action at Bloodwood. His least favourite cocktail? The espresso martini.Lisa Maree Williams

We've all seen it – that ol' suit seated by the bar, Bogart-ing the bartender with a blow-by-blow recipe of his grandmother's homemade bramble. Or maybe you've done it yourself – made an instant request for an espresso martini because you can't be bothered reading the multi-page, leather-bound tome sitting on the bar.

Despite the rise in prestige drinking holes and unique signature menus, it seems we all know what we want when it comes to cocktails… and the mixologist better give it to us.

"Everyone's an expert now," laughs Aaron Clark, the bar manager at Brisbane's Blackbird. "With the current phone technology and all those bartending apps that you can get, you get people who've made this obscure drink at home, waving a phone at you mid-service and asking you to make it for them. And it's usually something with schnapps or a few liqueurs they've tried to tack together, even though we know it doesn't really work."

An espresso martini.
An espresso martini.Anita Jones
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Clark, Eric Morris from Bloodwood (Sydney), and Sean McGuire from Nieuw Amsterdam (Melbourne) filled us in on the cocktails they're most reluctant to make.

Long Island Iced Tea
Aaron Clark from Blackbird, Brisbane

"The main requests that bartenders hate are the ones that might slow us down during service," Clark says. "Anything with cream – like a Brandy Alexander – because cream will coat the inside of your shaker, and you have to waste your time rinsing it out, and changing all your utensils over.

Too much muddling ... The popular mojito.
Too much muddling ... The popular mojito.iStock

"We often get asked for things like Grasshoppers from people who haven't gone out for a while," he says. "Most modern-day bars work very much on seasonal fruit and current trends, so we don't often stock those old spirits. Like Advocaat, the liqueur used in a Fluffy Duck, which is made from egg – it's horrible!"

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Still, it's that classic, beloved of struggling uni students out for a buzz the world over, that holds a dark place in Clark's soul: the Long Island Iced Tea.

"Flavour-wise, the Long Island Iced Tea would have to be the worst," he says. "It's a drink that was invented in Prohibition times to disguise the taste of alcohol, so it's meant to be really sour – just lemon juice, Coke and five white spirits, which I don't think go particularly well together. I'll make it if a customer orders it, but I kind of don't understand why someone would want that."

So how does he tackle the situation?

"If someone does come up requesting a Long Island, I might go 'Here, try a Tom Collins with rose and lychee instead'," he says. "A Tom Collins is just 30ml lemon juice, 15ml sugar, a double shot of gin, topped with soda. It's kind of on the same concept as a Long Island, but it's a fresher style of drink and it tastes a lot better."

Mojito
Sean McGuire from Nieuw Amsterdam, Melbourne

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"After doing this for so many years, you kinda learn to appreciate most drinks for what they are," McGuire says rather diplomatically, like a parent refusing to choose their favourite child. "But personally, I don't like anything that's too sugary or liqueur-heavy – I prefer stiffer, boozier drinks."

McGuire's all-cocktail unity softens a bit when talking of last decade's craze, the mojito, a drink notoriously despised for its time-consuming muddling. According to bartender lore, it's common for some to throw out the occasional lie – "Sorry, we're all out of mint" – to get out of prepping the order.

"I can't say it's happened anywhere I've worked before, but I know there are many bartenders who hate making that drink, so I can believe it," McGuire says. "Mojitos can slow down service quite a bit. But it all depends on how your bar's set up. If you batch your crushed ice, it's not so bad. At the end of the day, it's just rum and four ingredients: lime, sugar, mint and soda."

McGuire also makes a point of avoiding another troublesome, trendy drop: the Penicillin. It's more of a modern-day classic, he says, a drink that made the rounds with the neo-speakeasy craze of the past decade, spurred on by the tipsy tumblers of Mad Men.

"There are some modern classic cocktails we don't do, just because the prep for them is so time-consuming," he says. "Like, the Penicillin – only a few bars do it well. It's a twist on a Whiskey Sour, with peated whiskey and a blended scotch, fresh ginger and honey water, garnished with candied ginger. It's a great drink, but the only bar I've been able to get a good one at is The Everleigh [in Fitzroy]."

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Espresso Martini
Eric Morris from Bloodwood, Sydney

"Espresso martinis. It's probably our least favourite drink to make," Morris says. "You're making a cocktail, and then making a coffee on top of that. It compounds the time you have to expend. Especially when you're busy and have lots to do. If someone orders three or four espresso martinis, it really puts you behind the eight ball and makes everyone else wait a lot longer than they should."

Not that he wants customers to stop ordering them.

"Oh no! I mean, if I'm not working behind the bar, I'll encourage customers to get one just to irritate the other bartenders," he laughs. "Bartenders tend to be quite big in their prankster efforts. I think if you're a waiter, or even a customer, and you wanna get back at your bartender and you have, say, a large table of 10, it can be fun to push everyone to grab an espresso martini. There's a good side to bad ordering."

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