Bar Basics - How to Pour Liquor Accurately by Counting

Hey guys! My name is Moe Harris and I am here at the Professional Bartending School in Arlington, Virginia. Today, I am going to show you little bit about how to pour properly. Pouring properly really is essential in drink making and you do want the proper proportions of alcohol and juices in your drink, otherwise, you just know the ingredients and if you knew the ingredients or something thats good but proportions is equally important. I could tell you that a cake has equal parts of flour and butter and milk and sugar and eggs but pouring those together in equal parts doesnt make a cake, neither does throwing ingredients together make a drink. So, Im going to show you how to pour one ounce.

One ounce is a really simple thing to do. We count one ounce with a four count and let me show an example for a four count. You grab a bottle. You always want to grab it by the neck. You do have a lot more control and Im going to do is hold it upside down and just give it a quick one-two-three-four, lets give it a try, one-two-three-four, just like that. And hopefully it that was done properly thats just going to fill this little one ounce check glass here to the tippi tippi top. Lets see how we did, just like that. Now, really counting to four doesnt make it an ounce, counting to four at the right speed makes it an ounce. Essentially, you could count to anything as long as you count it at the right speed. The reason why I choose to use four is it really does help with other amounts when we have to pour half ounce 1, 2; an ounce and a half is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and two ounces is 8 and so on and so forth and for those of you whore having difficulty in counting, let me see if I could break it down for you one last time. One ounce should be a basic, one, two, three and four. Lets see how we did. Unbelievable!