A taste for the old school…

Like many successful bar-tenders, Brian Bradley’s fascination with the versatility of alcohol began at a young age…

He was just 11 when Brian Bradley began helping out at the Diamond Bar in his native Ballycastle – at that time, owned by his uncle, Frank McHenry.

“It was really that experience which got me into enjoying this whole environment,” recalls Brian, now aged 41.

When he was 17, he re-located to Belfast to study architecture and secured a part-time position at Cutter’s Wharf in Stranmillis. His love for the trade remained undiminished and he eventually abandoned his studies and took a full-time bar-tending job with Lavery’s, where he stayed for the next six-and-a-half years.

“I decided that I really loved what I was doing and I decided to go with it,” he says. “At that stage in your life, you’re trying to find a little direction, so I decided to take a break from studies and go full-time in the bar trade in the knowledge that I could go back at some time in the future if I wanted to.”

But Brian never returned to his studies. Instead, a phone call from Paddy Simpson, the co-owner of Benedict’s hotel in Bradbury Place, lured him away to a fresh challenge as bar manager at the venue.

He’s still there today and he loves the freedom he has to be creative in the post. One of the things he enjoys most is the chance to develop his mixology skills. He’s already been over to Oxford where he trained with internationally-renowned cocktail specialist, Wayne Collins, and the flair he brings to the bar at Benedicts has driven cocktail sales at the hotel to staggering new heights – around 6-7000 of them are sold there every week!

“The perception is that a cocktail takes a long time to make and that’s a mould I want to break,” says Brian. “We can now mix cocktails in under 30 seconds. It’s all down to the preparation, having everything that you need on hand so that you’re not looking for it and make sure that you have the right number of staff on behind the bar to cope with demand. When our cocktails rush hour is on, we have 12 members of staff behind the bar.”

Promotions run seven-days-a-week at Benedict’s – If you put them on at the quiet times, then nobody talks about them and you don’t get the reward from the customers, says Brian:

“If you give them a good deal all the time, then everybody is buzzing about it. We moved our cocktail sales from 2000 a week to 6000 within a couple of months of doing that.”

As for Brian’s own preference, his favourite tipple is the Joker, a lively concoction of vodka, Cointreau and Advocaat with a splash of cream:

“It tastes exactly like the ice lolly and it reminds me of my youth,” says Brian, who generally favours the older style of cocktail, the likes of the Margarita and the Cosmo.

As for the future, Brian has no immediate plans for upheaval:

“I enjoy my job here at Benedicts”, he adds, “and I don’t have to worry about lots of red tape, I’m free to do whatever I feel is right for the business.”

He reckons the next big thing locally will be ‘tiki’ bars, serving elaborate and exotic beverages, particularly rum-based cocktails such as the Mai-Tai and the Zombie.

“As for my own ambitions, by the time I was 30, I wanted to be managing my own bar and I’ve done that,” says Brian. By 40, I wanted to own my own bar, but I very much enjoy working at Benedicts and I think I have a couple of years left in me yet to come up with plenty more fresh ideas!”

Brian’s recommends:

ETON MESS

Ingredients:
12.5ml Strawberry Liqueur
12.5ml Vanilla Galliano
5ml Advocate
5ml Meringue Mix (5ml pasteurised egg white, freshly squeezed lemon and a splash of sugar syrup)

 
Method :           Build the Strawberry liqueur and Vanilla Galliano into a glass
Drizzle the Advocate over the strawberry Liqueur and Vanilla Galliano
Add the meringue mix into the cocktail shaker and dry shake into a thick foam then pour into the glass
Use a blow torch to heat the top of the meringue mix until it’s light brown
Enjoy!