

#Give me a drink bartender how to
Before: How to Prep for Going Booze-Freeĭry January has done much to dispel the stigma around sobriety, but you might still be surprised how common your anxieties about not drinking are. Here, Ray, McGarry, Kearns and Nectaly Mendoza, owner of Herbs & Rye in Las Vegas, give their best tips on navigating the bar scene, the house party, and any other social situation where you’d rather just forego booze.

“If you’re taking a break for a month or a couple of days, the main thing is, how do you take a break bit but still feel included?” Ray says simply. The trend has empowered sober bartenders like McGarry and Ray to live, work and hang out as they see fit, without pressure to get hammered from coworkers or friends. But as bartending has shed its image of nocturnal bacchanalia and become a craft as highly regarded as fine dining, and as a new generation of bartenders has entered the industry with different ideas of lifestyle balance, bars the world over are encouraging healthy moderation. Hemselves into alcoholism and related health problems. “You might think you’re the only person doing this, but you’re not.” “That’s part of the industry that’s changed because a lot of the big players who have admitted they don’t drink anymore have actually gotten more successful,” says Billy Ray, a sober bartender and founder of premium cocktail mixer company Mixwell. Big names like Jack McGarry, co-owner of the world famous Dead Rabbit in New York, and Jim Kearns, impresario of New York’s The Happiest Hour and Slowly Shirley, have made waves by going sober, helping destigmatize the idea of a sober server behind the bar and propelling a conversation around health in the industry. Odd as it may seem, the bartender is actually your greatest ally in staying sober, especially if he or she is one of a growing number of bar professionals who have gone sober themselves. It’s natural-to fear missing out on the fun, alienating yourself from friends, insulting a party host, and even annoying your bartender by not ordering a drink. When you do, suddenly all those seemingly good reasons to drink start to feel like negative pressure to imbibe. But as the occasions for a drink begin to stack up and the revelry starts to weigh you down, you may be tempted to take a break from the booze. There are plenty of reasons to enjoy a drink: modern cocktails taste amazing, your friends are gathering at a local bar, you need to get through another tense family dinner or a little liquid courage to loosen up during a date.
