My New Bartending Career

It's Nice to Make Something Real for a Change

I’ve been writing professionally for over two decades now. Type, type, type, blah, blah, blah. I love doing it and I guess some people like to read what I write, but last week I put on an apron and made something real! And I did it for a charity!

Koloman’s is one of my favorite restaurants in NYC — French with some Austrian flava — and they let me make my drink, the Mistake in the Lake martini to benefit City Harvest.

I’ll get to the ingredients in a sec, but first let me tell you what delightfully back-breaking work bartending is.

Because a gazillion people showed up, I kept getting told “two more martinis” here, “three more” there. I was constantly in motion. The drink itself isn’t complex, but it involves spearing an anchovy for each round, so that by the end I smelled like a small omega-rich fish.

These photos by Nader Farzan and Matt Bruck show a man in motion, running around, taking orders, chatting up the customers, always anxious that he’s falling behind, but loving when the credit card clears and City Harvest makes some money. Damn, in another life, this could have been me! I love people when they’re in their cups.

Now let’s talk about my drink.