Burnt Hands Perspective
This is a raw and unfiltered look into the state of the restaurant industry as a whole, powered by longtime friends Chef/Owner Antonio Caruana and former bartender turned News Anchor/TV Host Kristen Crowley.
Representing all aspects of the industry from the front to the back of the house we will dig into the juiciest stories and pull from decades of experience in one of the sexiest and most exciting industries in the world...the food and beverage industry.
From international chefs, sommeliers, industry pros, and so much more, this show will cover all of it without a filter. You turn up the volume; we'll turn up the heat.
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Burnt Hands Perspective
BONUS: Behind the Bar: Mastering the Art of Flair Bartending with 22-Year Veteran
Step behind the bar and into the captivating world of flair bartending with veteran mixologist Vache in this special edition "shift drink" episode recorded live at the World Food Championship with KC.
While culinary competitions often steal the spotlight, we turn our attention to the equally impressive art of performance bartending. Vache, a 22-year veteran who works at Circa Las Vegas, shares his journey from bartending novice to flair expert. What began with a fortuitous meeting with Francesco, one of the World Mixology Championships organizers, blossomed into decades of bottle-flipping expertise.
This special WFC epsidoe is some technical advice and entertaining demos (watch on YouTube!) as Vache breaks down how beginners can approach flair bartending. "Keep it simple. You go one bottle, one shaker. This is your bread and butter," he advises. Through hands-on instruction, KC attempts various techniques—from bottle stalls and simple tosses to the more complex thumb roll—discovering that finding your personal balance points is crucial to success. The highlight comes when she successfully executes a bottle-spinning move on her first attempt, proving that with proper guidance, anyone can incorporate elements of flair into their mixology repertoire.
Whether you're a professional bartender looking to add some visual excitement to your service or simply curious about the flashier side of mixology, this episode offers valuable insights into an often overlooked culinary art form. Follow Vache on Instagram and TikTok @flyinv to see more impressive tricks, or catch his live performances at Circa Las Vegas on weekends. Ready to shake up your bartending skills? This episode is just what you need to get started.
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All right, how you doing? I'm good. How are you, Kristen, I know. So we are bringing in a little bit of the mixology, because you always see us kitchen. Everything is culinary on the food side for chef. Absolutely, I get to jump into my world. I feel good for you right now. I'm supporting this. This is your supporting me.
Speaker 1:This is your game. Right here I'm stepping out.
Speaker 2:This is my time.
Speaker 1:Give me a little shot here so I can step out. A little shot, there we go, hey. Special edition for the chef.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, oh yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, all right. That's it, that's it.
Speaker 2:I'm out, have fun. That's it. Kill it Tag. Thank you, chef. Tag in Right right, keeping it classy. So we were talking. We're here at the World Food Championship, so you have to introduce yourself to everybody first, hi guys, my name's Vache.
Speaker 1:I work downtown in Las Vegas at Cir bartender for like 22 years.
Speaker 2:So you've been doing the flair portion for 22 years. Did you start that as soon as you started bartending?
Speaker 1:I did, I did, I got right into flair a few years later. Ironically, I met into Francesco, one of the organizers of the World Mixology Championships.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:So big shout out to them. Thank you for having me and in full circle now to be back involved with Francesco, but I did get involved with mixology early on. And I was doing mixology competitions along with flair competitions, but more flair heavy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think a lot of people in the restaurant space. I think it's become a little more prevalent now that they know about competition. Like the bartending competitions were always reserved for the people in Vegas, you know, Chicago, New York, Miami, Like you saw the big guys always showing up, but I think it's kind of reached more of a, you know, as we come into the craft cocktail era, more of the herbaceous, like all of these. You're drinking a fucking garden, Like at this point, like you're really eating your drink no-transcript.
Speaker 1:The culinary mixology, amalgamation, is something that we've like. I mean, these guys are peaking right now. They're going for $20,000. So they're taking out all the stops. I mean we saw some good stuff today. That's a good tip.
Speaker 2:So if you're and we've had some of our, you know, we've had our bartender episodes, you know, on the show for burnt hands already, and I think we kind of had one that was old school versus new school, nice. So you know, it was like I'm old school, I've been out of the game for 10 years, but I did it for 15 before that. Wow, so I did it. I never learned to flare because I am a female and females typically do not have to learn to flare as much, because you already have things that shake so you don't need to shake other things.
Speaker 2:So we kind of have that side of it where I always wanted to learn it and I never learned it.
Speaker 1:So do you teach it, or do you just do everything with it now? Yeah, I do everything. I've been in the game for so long now. I'll judge competitions, I teach master classes, I work still, that's awesome and I do shows, demos, whatever you need.
Speaker 2:So you're everywhere, like literally. So when you're starting people out when it comes to basics of flair, what would you say? Your best setup is to start? What are your first couple of steps?
Speaker 1:Right here I say keep it simple. You go one bottle, one shaker. This is your bread and butter. As for getting started, I would learn to just throw and catch these items in different ways. I would start with tins Because, although they are sharper, well, they don't break. Because they don't break exactly.
Speaker 2:So I know they make flare bottles for practicing that are like the hard plastic. Are those similar in weight when you're dealing with that for training.
Speaker 1:They are, but the way they go in and out of the shaker it's different. Yeah, it's different, it's I love glass.
Speaker 2:I'm a big glass, all right. Well, it's different. It sticks. You get that rubber stick, yeah. So it's not the same, yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's okay. So I love glass.
Speaker 2:I'm a big glass guy All right, well, I mean, it is very eco-friendly.
Speaker 1:Yes, don't try this at home, ladies and gentlemen, anything, you just saw, don't. Don't try that until you yeah, don't do working. Whether you're doing mixology or dive bar or this or that, you got to reach for something right. You're reaching for the pint glass or you're reaching for a napkin, a straw, there's opportunities to add a little bit of flair. Yeah, without putting on like a sequence or doing like a routine. There's so many opportunities.
Speaker 2:Even like a bar spoon or like a jigger, you can have a lot of fun with some quick flash okay, when I've seen you do some of that on stage with, like just you know, shaker tin spinning and it just stays spinning. So I see, and I'm like it's, it's, it's cool because you're working in so many different elements of it so all right. So, as we know, way out of practice and I don't know really anything, I don't, it's been so long okay so you're gonna want one thing?
Speaker 2:okay, like we'll start with something basic, so.
Speaker 1:I would say you think we're?
Speaker 2:here with Tito's, they're here at the World Food Championships, they have the Airstream here, so it's a pretty cool setup. So thank you for letting us invade your space.
Speaker 1:Right yeah, thank you, thank you, tito's, right yeah, so just you know. First one is kind of just seeing, if you can even stall it. And then we have different places. We like to stall it, either on the elbow or wherever you know, wherever you want, and you just kind of have fun with it, and then eventually you can kind of throw it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it's so easy.
Speaker 1:Throw it to different.
Speaker 2:I'm going to drop this shit Throw it to different spots you know.
Speaker 1:So see which one feels most comfortable, and I think the hand and this are the two easier ones.
Speaker 2:So usually you're on the back of the hand. Yeah, a little bit more forward, which isn't different for men and women when you're like trying to like, as far as my hand is bony as hell.
Speaker 1:I think it's different for everybody. Yeah, when you're in that, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you just got to find the spot that it actually balances. There you go. Okay, that's really good. Okay, yeah, this is sad. This is like so did you ever juggle or do anything before this? I did not Okay.
Speaker 1:So you went right into this Exactly, and then I learned to juggle with bottles and shakers.
Speaker 2:Okay, so from here, what are my best?
Speaker 1:See if you can even throw it to your left hand and catch it Just this high that way.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that's something. Now can you rotate it forward, like towards me? So like, flip it it, watch your face. Oh, flip it to top up. Yeah, that was pretty good. Okay, all right one more time. All right, ready.
Speaker 1:I get aggressive with a lot of things, so I have to tone it down a little lighter okay there you go, there we go, and now the hardest part is to watch the bottom and then where it lands in the same spot, yep.
Speaker 2:So repetition is key. How long did it take you to nail your first? So people don't get frustrated.
Speaker 1:Cause I think they get frustrated and give up this to do it clean. I mean, yeah, it's gonna take you a long time, okay, coming to you.
Speaker 2:Everything is flair, I know.
Speaker 1:Even.
Speaker 2:I'm getting back into it how about a thumb roll. Like this Back Okay.
Speaker 1:Let's try that. It basically is just going to rotate on your thumb, so it just stays there. It's not a throw.
Speaker 2:It's a little rotate. All right, let's try that, because we'll see.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's really close.
Speaker 2:So now I got to go home and practice all of this shit like later.
Speaker 1:I got this moved down. Good with this move down. Good with a ketchup bottle like that. Yeah, I used to work out fridays.
Speaker 2:I would just just. I was ketchup, almost like the flare needed on the vast kind of restaurant. So all right, I could get okay so that I can start getting faster at. So I'm gonna have to do there it goes, there it goes. First one. That's why we don't do glass, but all right, so that's fun. So when you're starting to progress what I mean for people doing it just over and over again- yeah, exactly, and I mean, if you want to do a nice easy one here, you can.
Speaker 1:I guess you can. Can you go like this? How do you feel about this?
Speaker 2:this could go really bad yeah that's probably not going to happen right now, but I can pass it to this hand okay, how about I show you the little whirly move that you? Kind of love.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, that was fun, so you're just gonna hold it in your left hand, we're not gonna throw it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so just around, spin it around your head.
Speaker 1:We're just gonna put it into our right hand. Okay, so your right hand is gonna be here. Throw that bottle in a circle, we're gonna do that and then, and then don't grab here, we're gonna grab the body, okay, okay. So it's just gonna go like this, and then I'm gonna put about this much in and then just go along the edges and just swirl around just kind of swirl around and just let it set and then once
Speaker 1:you get it okay at a certain point, all right I think I like this okay, let's try it, why not All?
Speaker 2:right, I like those. Okay, let's try it, why not? They're just going to laugh at me. I'm going to be back at the house later with the wine bottle trying to do this shit. I love it.
Speaker 1:All right, so you're here, left hand, starting in the left hand, and then you're going to put it in your right.
Speaker 2:Here All right, yeah, so reverse it. We need that little sound effect.
Speaker 1:Smackdown, reverse it.
Speaker 2:You're from a Nipiquen, yeah, okay, all right.
Speaker 1:She's from our area.
Speaker 2:So it's okay, we're all there, all right.
Speaker 1:So from here, passing back to here Yep, wait, stabilize, stabilize, go ahead, pull it out Nice First try.
Speaker 2:Ta-da, I did one First try, you're a great teacher I love you.
Speaker 1:You're amazing. That was amazing. No one ever gets a first try, Okay well, that one I can do.
Speaker 2:So we found one thing that I'm good at here that I can bring back into the repertoire Amazing. There you go, Okay well, I completed one of my tricks. This is one of our first kind of shift drink segments for the show, because we haven't incorporated as much of the bartending, sure, and that is well, here you go. The face like you're the front, you're the experience when people come in so where are you at now?
Speaker 1:I'm at circa Las Vegas and Fridays and Saturdays okay, so we can find you there still so now we got to make a trip to Vegas. Yeah, you guys ready to go to Vegas, right, yeah, yeah and um, shout out, where's your.
Speaker 2:Instagram, so I know you show a lot. Make a trip to Vegas. Yeah, are you guys ready?
Speaker 1:to go to Vegas. They'll go to Vegas. Find us online too, right yeah?
Speaker 2:And shout out where's your Instagram? Because I know you show a lot of tricks and everything on there as well.
Speaker 1:I do a lot of videos on Instagram, tiktok. You can find me at flyinv. That's flyinv, flyin V for V that we want to say Thank you so much. Yeah, that was great.
Speaker 2:Thank you, tito's, for being here with us, because this was awesome and they let us bombard their space. You're amazing, you've done a great job.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you, thank you for teaching me a trick.
Speaker 2:You're welcome. Now I gotta practice. Okay, we'll do more of that later, but thank you for being on the Burkines. We appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you for having me, cheers.
