Bar Basics - How to do a Backhand Pour

Moe Harris: Hi guys my name is Moe Harris and Im here at the Professional Bartending School in Arlington, Virginia. Today, I'm going to show just how to pour with a little bit of flair.

First let me give you an example of how the typical bartender pours, they will grab a bottle, hold it upside down, pour, complete the pour and put the bottle away and thats absolutely fine. But why not do it with a little bit of style. First thing to notice is instead youre grabbing the bottle with the regular, I am going to grab it with the backhand, now I'm basically just going to pick it up. Now, the second thing to notice is that when I give this thing a little bounce, it cuts the stream off for a second. Thats going to be key.

Here is what are we going to do. I'm going to grab the bottle at the backhand; I am going to grab the tin with the backhand right here, so basically I am grabbing both with the backhand. When I pour, Im going to start off with the short pour, which looks like this, taken into a long pour, which looks like that and then bounce okay, bounce to cut off the stream. Once I do that bounce, all I'm going to do is simply take my hand thats holding the tin, flip it the other way and continue my pour. Lets see how that goes, here we go backhand, backhand, I'm going to pour, long pour, bounce, continue, cut and there is your pour. Very simple, very effective.