opinionated alchemist

Ok - so I wanted to write another post about the "cocktail-robots" however, when I've read again my last post, I guessed, that it was pretty elaborate and comprehensive. However the topic is strangely fascinating me. I love gizmos - am a bit techy [despite of my age] - and I am also very interested in the future of my job expertise. Instead of writing another post about the same subject, I am now try to gain distance and look at the technological elements, which should be improved in a modern bar. Hence the topic: which elements in the existing bar faulty and what can we develop, to make it better. POS and payment: If somebody asks me, what element is the most distracting, the least effective... there is definitely one thing, which directly comes to my mind: the whole financial interaction process. Posting a drink in a POS system [or in an antiquated register cash register like in Canon]. Prepare the drink [most of the time a bartender would create the drink a...

This post is quite dear to my heart - and I thought long time ago to write it up. Todays management is focussed on "hire for attitude, train for skill". But we can't deny, that there is a certain decline of real skill in the global hospitality industry. I am not focussing on few markets, which flourish in craft bartending [Manhattan, Bay Area and few other spots in the US, certain parts of Germany, Paris, London]. Fact is, that in most areas, craft is in the decline. The HfA-TfS could be one reason for it. Why? Let me explain. I am working now one_and_a_half decades in hospitality - and especially in the luxury hotel industry. I exactly joined one bar, only, which was working on an adequate level of bartending [by the way, it is a bar, which you would expect the least this kind of quality - only thanks to Ralph Adamski, who was the bar manager]. All other bars had quite poor drinks, a mediocre beverage portfolio and not knowledgeable bartenders or bar waiters. I...