A Day with the Bartender at Rockefeller Center's Legendary Bar

[eggs crack] [liquid pours]

[machine whirs] [ice rattles]

[smooth jazz music]

To be able to get those 500 plus cocktails out at night,

we're preparing hours before the doors open.

We gotta make sure all 15 of our cocktail batches,

juices and syrups are ready to go.

Being head bartender at such a legendary location,

a place with so much history, has a lot that comes with it.

When you say mixology, you think of a guy a white coat,

dropping droplets of something, more science than art.

I try to keep it more on the art side.

[zestful jazz music]

How's it going? I'm Sweeney.

I'm head bartender here at Pebble Bar,

and I'm excited to show you around.

Come on.

It's 1:00 PM, we got a lot of work to do,

so gonna get started.

This is our second floor bar.

Now, this is a four-story townhouse,

we have a bar on the second, third, and fourth floor.

Now, this place has been around since 1892,

it was originally a bar called Hurley's.

In 1930, John D. Rockefeller was buying out this whole area

for his Rockefeller Plaza, this building sticks out

because it is the single one that he was not able to buy.

There's a large group of investors that we have,

Pete Davidson, Mark Ronson, Nick Braun, Jason Sudeikis

and Arjan Moyad, and they're all wonderful guys

who send me an edible arrangement

every one of my birthdays, I swear.

We gotta go upstairs 'cause I got a keg to change

but we're gonna pass our door.

That's been the source of many legends, so follow me.

All right.

And this right here might not look like much

but this is kind of legendary.

And this is where Johnny Carson used to enter.

Right now, if you walk up there, you'll be right in the

set of the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

So it'll lead us right to our bar here called Johnny's

named after Johnny Carson.

Right now we're gonna walk back into the prep

kitchen and we're gonna check on the walk-in

and see kegs I gotta change, so come with me.

[soulful jazz music]

Here's our walk-in.

Some might call it cozy.

I can think of another word for it.

These are all of our kegs right over here.

As head bartender, it's my job to make sure

that we're stocked and all these beers are ordered along

with all the liquor here.

We have four kinds of beers right here.

Each of these are probably gonna be changed

about twice a week.

We have the dials that are gonna make sure

that our beer is coming out at a proper rate

that it's not gonna get too foamy or too little on pressure.

This is called a FOB system here.

This would not be necessary if these were right

below the bar, but because it has to travel such a distance

these regulate it and all your waste comes in here instead.

If you've worked at another bar and you change a keg,

you find you have to go through two pitchers of beer,

that it's all foam and you're just wasting beer as you go.

It's more cost effective to have these.

If you look up at these FOBs right now, you'll see

that they're balanced and they're filled with beer.

This one is not.

That means--

[gas hisses]

There's nothing in it.

It's gotta be changed.

This might be the 10000th keg I've ever changed in my life.

I'm gonna go counterclockwise.

Then the hernia-inducing part.

Full keg right underneath.

Peel this off.

We're gonna do it clockwise on this one. On like that.

And as you see, it just shot right up right there.

Green means go.

And now for the beer to get out, it needs a catalyst.

We have nitrogen and we have CO2.

For the beer, it's about a 70% nitrogen, 30% CO2.

Why not all CO2?

Because you don't want it so carbonated.

You want those tiny bubbles that comes

with the nitrogen right here.

As I can see, it's pretty much on empty.

And the last thing you want is that running out

in the middle of service and bartender's not figuring out

why their beer is coming out awfully.

Lefty lucy, righty tighty.

And we're gonna switch it with a full canister here.

Tighten it up.

And we have liftoff.

So it's 1:30.

Beer looks good, nitrogen looks good, CO2 looks good.

Now we're gonna start going to work

on these keg cocktails here.

[laid-back jazz music]

All right, we have the Negroni

and we have the old fashioned.

These work for me as keg cocktails

because there is no citrus in them.

We do all our citrus fresh.

So if our citrus is over 36 hours old

I'm getting rid of it.

It might as well be dairy products in the desert,

as far as I'm concerned at that point.

we're serving 500 cocktails a day, essentially in the bar.

It makes such a difference to have these on tap.

First of all, we gotta make sure it's aired out.

[gas hisses]

Now when it comes to a Negroni here, its all liquor.

It does have sweet vermouth in it. Doesn't last forever.

So I like to start with a fresh batch

about every two weeks for Negroni.

This one just came from two days ago

so I'm fine to just fill it in here.

One part Campari, one part sweet vermouth, one part gin.

I can go directly into here.

The Negroni, aptly named after Count de Negroni.

He reportedly told his bartender

that he wanted a stiffer version of an Americano.

From there, it just became such a classic recipe

that it's not just Negroni anymore,

it's Boulevardier with whiskey, it's Kingston Negroni,

and the ever famous, nowadays, sbagliatos

which have been picking up in steam.

So right now, I've put in two bottles of sweet vermouths,

two bottles of Campari, two bottles of Plymouth Gin.

So we're gonna do 1500 milliliters of water for dilution.

The dilution would normally come

from the ice and the stirring.

I don't want it too diluted 'cause it's gonna go

on top of an ice cube so it'll get a little extra.

We're using tap water for this.

New York tap water, the finest in the world.

So when it comes to how much we can get

out of each one of these kegs,

I would estimate just shy of about 200 old fashioneds,

maybe a little less than the Negroni, between 150 and 200.

If it is not tight and taught,

you are not going to have a keg that works.

[lid snaps]

This is essentially my workout regimen these days.

And now we're gonna do the old fashioned.

The old fashioned we are not gonna do

inside of the keg because I wanna make sure

I get everything good and mixed up.

I always do the old fashioneds as head bartender

because I wanna make sure

that the taste is absolutely right.

Right here we have 12 bottles of whiskey

as I was taught years ago by the great Jim Kerns,

always start with your cheapest ingredient first.

Don't start pouring in your most expensive ingredient.

If you make a mistake, you're in trouble

and you've completely screwed yourself.

So we're gonna start with water.

So the biggest mistake sometimes with the keg old fashioned

is that the dilution level is wrong and that it's too sweet.

As head bartender, it's gonna be my choice

what our recipe is.

This, the way it's selling,

I think we're doing okay on this one.

Did that sound too conceited?

[Interviewer] No, it sounds awesome.

For this, we're now gonna use our sugar.

We use demerara syrup, two parts measurement

of the sugar to one part measurement of the water.

I don't want it to be too sweet.

As a matter of fact,

if you ever start a bar and call it Not Too Sweet

I think you'll have a line around the block.

People love that.

And if you use that, you owe me 10%.

I'm gonna use 600 milliliters of Angostura.

And I'm gonna do 300 of the orange bitters right here.

Your bitters are essentially the spice rack of a bar

and I love what orange bitters brings out.

Let's go with the whiskey.

[corks pop]

I'm using every fiber in my being

so not to drop these and look horrible.

Yeah, the key is mixing it.

I wanna give it a little taste

after swirling to make sure it's right.

I gotta pace myself.

I'm going till 1:00 AM tonight.

It's got that perfect level of dilution

it's got that perfect level of spice for what I want.

So I'm good to go with it.

Once this wash line gets low enough, I will try

with my best dexterity to try to actually dump this

all into here without making a mess and spilling product.

All righty, this is gonna go perfectly

or I'm gonna make a big mistake

and make an ass outta myself.

See the ball, be the ball.

All right.

It's two o'clock in the post meridium Eastern Standard Time,

so we gotta get going on batch cocktails next.

Out goes with out,

in goes with in,

feel it, and is it carbonated?

[gas hisses]

Yeah.

[laid-back jazz music]

We have something like 21 cocktails

on our actual cocktail menu.

I think something like 15 of them are actually batched.

Why do we do that?

Let's take our first cocktail right here.

There's three different kinds of alcohol.

If we combine these all into one

it's a one bottle pickup for that.

We're not gonna put any citrus in there

'cause that just will not last.

So bartenders are gonna have to do that.

Some people will put syrups into a batch cocktail.

I don't personally like to do it

because I don't want it to all to fall to the bottom.

We do it, for instance,

as you saw with our old-fashioned keg.

But syrups have a finite amount of time.

These babies, these guys can last

for, well, infinitely, really.

Doing up to 500 cocktails, even more in a night.

This will not take away from the quality of it.

Mixing liquor with liquor.

It's absolutely, totally fine.

It's shelf-stable.

Sweet Dreams is named after the Eurythmic song.

Most of the cocktails on our list is named after bands

or songs that were featured in Radio City music

all at one point in time.

So the Sweet Dreams kind of taste

like a holiday cocktail to me.

It has a whole egg in it. It's got lemon juice.

It's got the herbaceousness of our liqueurs there.

It's got the sweetness of the Cherry Heering

and it's got that peat of that scotch all going for it.

[ice rattles] [liquid drains]

It's got nutmeg, it's got cinnamon.

It's basically like a wonderful, wonderful eggnog.

We get a recipe or a spec, as we call it,

from an R and D session.

We test out cocktails and we adjust them

and then basically if it works out perfectly

we can multiply those numbers into a large batch mount

which is what we're doing right now here.

Alright, let's move it on to our next cocktail

and we're gonna do the Lucille here.

Our maître d' Ryan here was a huge fan of M&Ms,

Mezcal Montenegro shots.

It was pretty simple taking those two ingredients,

and then I added Cocchi Torino

which is a form of sweet vermouth.

It's got that rhubarb, that tobacco

that leather kind of taste to it.

That might sound unappetizing

but trust me, it's really good.

That is a stamp.

The copper allows it to indent

and you have a design on the top of your big ice cube here.

And then the chocolate that comes with the mole bitters

and it kind of completely worked.

So those are the batch cocktails we're making today.

I'm sure there'll be more tomorrow that we gotta do

but right now it's three o'clock.

So I'm gonna work on a syrup that we're gonna

need for service and let's get moving.

[lively jazz music]

And here we are, our dining room bar,

dining room to the left of me, kitchen to the right.

Getting set to make cinnamon syrup because we

have it in two of our cocktails right now.

First things first,

I'm gonna weigh out the cinnamon with the syrups that we do.

It's gonna give it some flavor

it's gonna give it some fat as well.

Everything being made in-house if done well is

going to be better.

We don't use lemon and lime juice that comes in a bottle.

We juice that every day.

Now the bottle can last longer

but it's just so much better done fresh.

I want one pound of water for every pound of sugar I have.

I got six pounds. Pints a pound a world around.

So I do this three times.

And for those of you wondering at home

that's Chef Carlos Perrera back there,

our head chef of our kitchen.

Hello.

He's affectionately given me the nickname of gringo,

which I believe means benevolent savant

but I haven't looked it up yet.

And now, sugar in the raw.

It's a dark brown sugar.

Time. [machine beeps]

I'm gonna put it about 4:30.

I can always cut it then later.

This one absolutely requires being put over heat.

And cocktails outside of the old fashioned,

you almost definitely want the syrup.

The consistency is going to be better that way.

So we're gonna do this to about 10 to 15 minutes.

Once you get that smell of that cinnamon

you know it's on the right path.

You don't want it to get to a boil.

I never want my syrups to get to a boil.

Boiling is no bueno.

All that sugar's dissolved.

I got that great cinnamon smell going to it.

Let me give it a little taste.

Make sure it's exactly what I want

or exactly what the customers want, I should say.

Oh yeah.

All right.

So this cinnamon here, I think it'll last me a week.

So I'm gonna get this stuff outta here

and we're gonna set up for an R and D session

with me, myself and I.

Management has asked me to do a tiki cocktail.

I swear I've never tried this cocktail before.

So this might be some Icarus level idiocy

but you're gonna have fun either way.

[upbeat jazz music]

R and D stands for research and development.

The normal process is you have an idea.

I try to take notes and keep these ideas

in my head on what we're gonna do

for a cocktail in the future.

When I'm happy with it, eventually,

there'll be a big R and D session with all the bartenders.

The things that graduate from that

all of a sudden go in front

of the committee of the heads of state here.

Now my style is usually dark and boozy.

Those are the things I specialize in.

And I know absolute titans of this game.

People are gonna be judging me on this one.

So we're gonna see what I can do with this.

This I have my official recipes I'm happy with.

They have been completed.

The Necronomicon here.

Then you have this.

This is me reading a book today.

This was a gift from a friend, HH.

You know who you are. Thank you.

And it's just an idea.

That's all it is.

So I'm sitting here, I'm writing ingredients.

Will it work?

I don't have a lick of clue, but we're gonna try it out.

I have some Chinola, it'll be a passion fruit liqueur.

And then I'm using three types of rum.

Silver, Jamaican style.

We have another version of a dark rum here,

the Guatemalan rum.

So we mix it together.

It gives it more complexity,

it adds different flavors to it.

Doing R and D personally is a year-round activity.

Gotta keep doing it as we go.

And that's one of the great places about this place.

They give me the freedom to kind of try all this out

and be able to test.

Quarter ounce of Chinola.

We had a passion fruit syrup at a previous bar,

slowly, surely, that I worked at.

And it worked really well in the tiki cocktails there.

So I'm gonna try to find an original spin on it, hopefully.

Three quarters of an ounce of Plantation.

One ounce of Appleton and Zacapa.

We always have a working title, basically.

I'm calling this Tiki Blinders. Will that stick?

Probably not, because they'll probably be a theme to it.

But you know, I'm quasi-proud of it.

I love the way crushed ice dilutes and a tiki cocktail.

Choosing your ice

and how much dilution you want is very important.

Cube ice texturally, it just doesn't work as well.

And give myself a straw taste.

It's good, but there's no way that's a finished product.

First of all, I am gonna put the bitters on top

and see if I like the way that that goes with it.

I like it a lot better with the bitters.

But what I am going to do is I'm going to

cut the pineapple a little bit on this next one.

And round two.

Now the thing about R and D, is when you make a cocktail,

the next cocktail you do, you can only change one thing.

If you change two things

you're gonna be confused on what made it good or not.

So it can be expensive to R and D.

It needs a kick

and it's missing a kick that I would love to have.

I am going to add some over-proof rum.

I got some Ray and Nephew right here.

This will set your hair on fire.

63% alcohol by volume, 126 proof.

All right, let's try this one more time.

This will be the last one.

Will I have something to bring to committee?

We're gonna find out.

I'm gonna be straight.

When it comes to having a natural gift for this mixology

as they call it, I don't have that,

but I know enough of the rules

and I've learned and I've worked at that.

But I consider myself a bartender.

One of the big details on why you're gonna shake

as opposed to stir is the presence of citrus or dairy.

It really, really welcomes itself to more dilution.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Oh yeah, Ray and Nephew made a difference there.

I think I have something that I can bring

to my peers and say, what do you think of this?

Is this gonna work for you?

This is truly me at my most naked here.

I give you, for the first time ever, the Tiki Blinders.

So it's four o'clock right now as we speak.

The downstairs bar is opening.

We're open up here in an hour.

We're not really close to set to go, so let's get moving.

[calm jazz music]

Now, the part of me being a head bartender

kind of ends for the day.

Outside of maybe ordering

or people wanting to know where stuff is.

Now my part of every other bartender starts right now.

We gotta make sure this bar's ready for service.

So see how nice and clean this bar is.

Let's make it filthy right now and fill it up with things.

So I'm pretty much gonna be taking inventory of

what's behind the bars.

There is a timeline on how long those are gonna be good for

but we get so busy here that we don't even have

to worry about that.

Now the other cool thing about today is that its a Tuesday.

We do a whole new prep day on Monday.

Everything from the weekend that's left over is too old.

We throw it away. Monday we start over.

So I know I'm not gonna have any old juices

to worry about here.

That makes the job a little bit easier today

than it might be later in the week

where I really have to look at the dates.

♪ Today is going to be the day ♪

♪ That they're gonna throw it back to you ♪

when you have a different garnish for every drink,

when you have different citrus in every drink,

when you have different syrups in every drink,

you gotta be very, very, very economical with your time.

You gotta be very, very smart about your space.

It's almost like a clown car

the way things just keep coming outta here.

We can do this part in really fast motion

with the Benny Hill Music playing or something like that.

That'd be amazing.

[quirky music]

Talking about our batches earlier.

Batch bottle, batch bottle, batch bottle, batch bottle.

Again, again.

Tambien, tambien, tambien.

And these are gonna go right in front of me in my well.

In most every bar that you go to,

the well that the bartender's working at

will have their well spirits

in front of their vodkas, their gins.

We don't have that because as our menu goes,

we get orders for these way more than we get vodka sodas.

I have a checklist here, spirits that we need

batches that we need, wine that we need,

garnishes that we need, mixers that we need.

As head bartender,

I am responsible to make sure that this list exists.

So down here we're gonna have juices that we need,

syrups that we need, all right here on my left.

An economy of movement is so important in this.

If you're reaching over here, here, here, here

four things for one drink, you're just gonna slow it down

and people aren't gonna get their drinks in a timely manner.

If you pick up the same bottle twice

in one round of cocktails, you failed.

There is a specific type of organization for the garnishes.

My most popular garnishes are gonna go right in front of me.

My tool check.

I wanna make sure that I got four shaker tins,

two mixing glasses.

I wanna make sure I have a small jigger and a large jigger.

I got my stamp, I got a microplane

I got four Hawthorne strainers.

I have a tong and I have a knife.

It's 4:51 and 36 seconds.

We're gonna be open in just over eight minutes.

Let's get ready for service.

[smooth jazz music]

It's five o'clock. Ready for service.

I'm ready to go.

We're just gonna wait for some tickets

and this place is gonna be filled up in just a second.

First ticket of the evening.

Sweet Dreams, Green River, Sunday Lager.

So when an order comes in, I wanna make sure

that there's not one drink sitting longer

than the other one that's gonna over dilute or get warm.

So pretty much I'm building everything

off this ticket as it comes.

Someone just has a vodka soda.

There's no reason for them to wait whatsoever.

So the egg serves as basically a nog

in what this drink's going out as.

We originally tried it with just an egg white

but it was just too dry.

Dry shake, macerate all that egg.

And then I'm gonna do an ice shake.

[ice rattling]

We got two coming down here.

Sweet Dreams

And the Green River.

This is the cream, it's a Wu-Tang reference.

Cash runs everything around me.

My usual method for pouring the beers

is make sure the glass is tilted at its side.

That way you're gonna get that foam but not too much.

And as you bring it down as you go, hopefully

by the end, boom, you get a gorgeous pour each time.

Okay, my worst case scenario in the bar, honestly,

would be closing out someone to the wrong credit card.

That has happened to me once in this life

and I have lost sleep.

Waking up in the middle of the night going

I can't believe I did that.

The person was very, very nice.

And by nice, I mean not at all.

And I always have that story to go back on.

What would you like to take a shot of?

[Interviewer] Tequila?

Tequila.

Step right up.

I'm here to give you an experience

and if somebody really needs a shot

and they want me and on it, I can handle myself

and things aren't gonna go way out of whack doing that.

Absolutely. Let's toast one together, we both earned it.

Thanks for coming along with me today.

Hope you have an idea of what our normal day is like here.

We got some cyanide, we got some strychnine,

we got some turpentines.

So let's down 'em.

Thank you for coming along.

Cheers, y'all.

[quiet jazz music]

Ready for me?

[Interviewer] Y'all ready for this?

[Sweeney humming]

We good?