Anvil bar about12/21/2023 The calmer shifts are great nights to taste stranger things, like absinthe or amari.” Shift Drinks: “I won’t lie, if I am the one getting to pick the spirit after a busy weekend shift, I’ll lean more towards something that goes down a little easier-Irish whiskey or rum. Sometimes, the first time you’ve spoken with the guy working right next to you is when you’re breaking down a well at the end of the night.” On the importance of sharing a shift drink: “It’s not often that our time in the bar is tranquil. On Anvil’s approach: “If you’re at this bar, you’re here because you’re a nerd. Shift Drinks: “Maybe half a glass of beer, along with whatever bottle(s) we’re tasting that night.” On community: “Never by yourself! That would be so rude… also kinda sad.” All of our post-shift drinks are neat pours, maybe over ice, or a beer.” On post-shift cocktails: “I would love to meet the bartender who wants to make a Ramos Gin Fizz at the end of a shift. Nights like that might call for a little Grand-Dad 114 during closing.” On winding down: “The things that stress me out are if we are short-staffed because someone is sick, or if I dropped a glass in the ice in the middle of the rush. If you’re not taking every chance you can to learn about them, you’re missing so much.” Sure, I have my favorites just like everyone else, but we have so many spirits moving in and out of the bars. Shift Drinks: “For me, I want to try the things that are new in whatever bar I am working in. “Every night,” says Williams, “the closers sit down and taste something the least senior bartender wants to learn more about.” It’s not so much a habit as a directive from owner Bobby Heugel, and emblematic of Anvil’s approach to, well, pretty much everything.īobby Heugel, Terry Williams and Alex Negranza talk post-shift 50/50s, “kill bottles” and Anvil’s educational approach to the shift drink. The staff’s educational shift drinks are key to that process, giving bartenders the foundation to steer a Glenlivet drinker toward the similarly gentle tones of Glenmorangie, saving the oilier, funkier notes of a Clynelish for another night, or offering a taste if the customer seems keen on trying something new. Over the years, Anvil’s staff has perfected the “Recommended If You Like” strategy, guiding customers through the spirits and cocktails on offer toward shores that taste familiar even if the labels don’t look the part. The staff then hangs a black curtain along a section of window in the back of the bar (“it’s our Cloak of Invisibility, protection from Westheimer”), pushes a few tables together and gets ready for class. “The drinking doesn’t start until the barbacks are done, or at least until they tell us they’re done,” Williams explains, wiping syrup and citrus from the screen of a POS terminal. One final straggler, clearly interested in Anvil’s studious side, talks no-age-statement Japanese whiskey with closing manager Terry Williams, who is fresh from a trip to Tokyo and brimming with enthusiasm for the subject. Then he, too, is off into the night. A barback squeezes past with a rack of glasses, one of a dozen such trips he’ll make during the next half-hour. “Sidework,” shrugs bartender Alex Negranza. Behind the bar, the staff is pre-cleaning their wells, wiping down bottles and tidying the back bar. In the gravel parking lot across the street, couples offer passionate farewells doormen congregate on the patio. Starting with an intensive staff training course that includes numerous speed tests and blind tastings, this dedication carries right on through to the nightly shift drink, where even the post-shift shots are as much R&D as R&R.Īt twenty minutes to close, the thinning crowd is still boisterous, the last happy few well-known to the staff. While these two faces of Anvil feel very different, they’re both driven by a focus on training and education-the goal of which is not just to present a perfect cocktail, but a great experience. On a Saturday night, guests walking in off busy Westeimer Road into the even busier Anvil get to witness a marvel of skill and efficiency, as the small staff pours any of those 100 classics, along with a rotating selection of house cocktails and damn near anything else you can throw at them, for a crowd so deep there’s no point in assigning a number. Order something off the “100 List,” a rotating selection of classics the staff thinks you should try, and you’re likely to get your cocktail served with a sidecar of knowledge. For those as obsessive about cocktails and cocktail culture as Anvil’s staff and regulars, this is a definite term of endearment. Anyone who has the pleasure of spending a quiet afternoon at the long, L-shaped bar nestled inside the slip of a building that once housed a Discount Tire can tell you that Anvil Bar & Refuge-widely considered to be Houston’s first serious cocktail bar-is operated by a bunch of nerds.
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