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Hotel Industry News |
Saturday November 22nd, 2008 |
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Feature - Would You Care To See Our Water List? |
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Water Water Everywhere And It Pays To Drink
By Ian Maksik, Professor of Service
Being presented with the Water List will soon be as commonplace as being presented with the Menu and Wine List in most casual and fine dining restaurants. The Server and/or Water Sommelier, will then ask Do you prefer Still or Sparkling?
Bottled Water was a $6.5 billion industry last year and it’s growing. By 2004, it is predicted that bottled water will capture the second-most sales among all soft drinks and like so many others, I’m hooked on bottle water.
My association with the sale and service of bottled Water has been ongoing since 1993 when I started to teach my Service Schoo* Graduates and Servers worldwide to see the advantage of selling and serving bottled water in lieu of and in addition to alcoholic beverages. I taught my Server Students that the romance and tradition of wine service protocols as it applies to the senses of sight, smell, taste, sound and touch should be extended to the service of Bottled Water. Simply put, make as much Fuss over Water Service as you would over Wine Service. I’ve always taught my neophyte servers that, The more you fuss, the more you make.
I recently returned from Baltimore where I trained the staff of a fine restaurant (located atop one of the Inner Harbor hotels) in the A,B,C’s of American Service Standards. Since Baltimore (due to a water shortage) did not permit water-pouring unless requested by the guest, it was part of the hotel’s SOP’s to offer Bottled Water for sale to guests. The hotel’s casual Bistro restaurant displayed Evian on the breakfast table and Saratoga on the lunch and dinner table. The Servers in the rooftop fine-dining restaurant presented Saratoga Water soon after dinner menus were presented as part of their opening patter. The water sold like hot cakes along with opening cocktails, wine with dinner and after-dinner cordials and brandies. Bottled Water sales usually do not interfere with the sale of other beverages but should always be offered to guests who refuse to purchase other soft drinks or alcoholic beverages.
The Saratoga was comfortable priced at $5.00 a liter bottle and I consumed a bottle per meal. This was about average consumption ( four glasses per meal) but still a good sale for the house and an extra dollar in the pocket of the Server.
My current love affair with bottle water started with a March 8th front-page interview in The Wall Street Journal. The article was entitled, New Water Pressure: Waiters Reveal Tricks Of the Bottle Trade. In a Slow Economy, Restaurants Are Doing a Lot More Than Asking ‘Still of Sparkling?’ My portion of the article stated:
Meanwhile, high-end alcoho* sales have suffered in this downturn. If you can’t sell booze or beer, I say push water, says Ian Maksik, a Ft Lauderdale consultant who has trained waiters at such restaurants as Sardi’s in New York and the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo.
When you serve dessert, you bring it in low through the room so everyone can see this luscious dish. He says. It’s the same with water. I come out with this gorgeous silver bucket and all the tables to the right and front and back are watching. You approach right foot in, like a ballet move, and pour the water as if it were a fine wine. Others see this and that tempts them to buy it because they want the same protocol. Mr. Maksik also suggests that bottled water be poured into special crystal goblets, further differentiating who has taste and who has tap.
The original interview lasted about 90-minutes and I told all kinds of water stories and my views about water sales and service techniques. One of these stories involved a Brooklyn Caterer who upon running out of Evian (for which he charged an additional $1.50 per person) substituted Brooklyn Tap Water poured into re-used Evian bottles and has been doing that ever since with the price now being $3.50 more per person.
I’m not saying Brooklyn Tap Water isn’t good. I was born in Brooklyn and there is a gutsy Water-bottler who sells bottled Brooklyn Water. Honestly! It has a distinctive taste when consumed almost directly from the faucet. After the fizz settles down and the clouds of various minerals dissipate, if it’s chilled and served over lemon, it’s hard to distinguish from other bottled waters, especially when falsely poured from the popular Evian bottle. This, of course, is not ethical but it does prove that Caterers and Banquet Departments of Hotels and Country Clubs can up-sell bottled waters in the same way as restaurants are now prone to do as evidenced by the WSJ article. The acid test is taste bottled waters at room temperature and all the bad tastes and impurities become quite evident.
Of course there wasn’t enough room in the article for all my opinions. Anyway, as a result of the article I received e-mails from all over the country. One of them, along with a telephone call, came from ICE MIST (Winner of The Gold Medal for The World’s Best Tasting Water in the International Water Tasting Competition held in Berkley Spring, West Virginia). ICE MIST sent me several cases of their Bottled Water and I was hooked. At room temperature, which is the way I drink water because as a profession speaker, cold affects my vocal cords, I found ICE MIST to be absolutely Tasteless light, pure and refreshing. In an AP story on the Internet I found that in this Berkeley Springs Water Tasting Olympics out of 100 contestants the judges voted the following winners:
* For municipal water - Barraute of Quebec (Not Brooklyn)
* For purified water – Blue Water Systems of Brandon Canada and Cherokee Bottled Water of NC tied for first
* For carbonated bottled water – Oaza Tesanj of Tesamj, Bosnia
* For bottled water ICE MIST of Morarp, Sweden
I was not only impressed with the Tastelessness of ICE MIST but with their marketing plans which uniquely includes:
An octagon-shaped 1000 liter Caterer’s container with six spouts for use in off-premise situations as the ultimate source of pure water for soups, sauces, coffee, tea and table drinking water when no other clean and pure source is available.
An ergonomically designed Restaurant plastic bottle that is similar to a tall thin Riesling wine bottle with punt and foi* capsule. Note: Water bottled in plastic bottles is free of the preservatives that have to be added to water bottled in glass.
Plans to Certify Servers as Water Sommeliers with the help of Arthur von Wiesenberger, Watermaster and author of Taste of Water. Mr. von Wiesenberger will teach these Water Sommeliers the in’s and out’s of water tasting which includes swirling to check that there are no legs, taking three sniffs to check for chlorine, sulfur and other odors and a quick sip to check for tastelessness.
Note: ICE MIST won The Gold Medal for still bottled water because according to Arthur von Weisenberger, The ideal water is colorless and clear, odor-free with a balanced mouth fee* and no single overpowering aftertaste.
Supply clients with Water Lists at no charge
Supply clients with the means to produce pure ICE MIST Ice Cubes insuring that those guests who insist upon Ice in their drinks will not lose the purity of ICE MIST Spring Water.
Supply Servers with special Napkin Splash-guards to be used when exercising the proper Sommelier Pour.
Notes: As a Table Service Instructor I teach the following Beverage Service Protocols:
* When pouring drinking water, wine or any cold beverage from bottles, carafes or pitchers, approach the guest from the right. Serve all beverages from the right, with the right hand, right foot in close to the table.
* Use a napkin splash-guard held in the left hand in the Sommelier Fold to wipe condensation from the bottle, carafe or pitcher and then use the splash-guard between the glass and table to prevent spillage. (Place the front edge of the napkin just under the bow* of the glass.) Complete a bottle or carafe pour with a clockwise Twist as you come Up with the splash-guard and Wipe the bottle up to the spout permitting the liquid to gravity feed back into the bottle or carafe. Twist, Up, Wipe is the key to a proper beverage pour.
The Sommelier Fold is created by folding a napkin in half into a rectangle and then in thirds with the naked ends on the inside. The napkin is the folded in half in the length, forming one rounded edge about three to three & one-half inches in width and two overlapping sides about nine & one-half to ten inches long. This is used as background when presenting fine wines and waters and again as a splash –guard to prevent spillage. When used with a pitcher, many servers prefer to fold the two naked ends in and under again to form a smaller splash-guard approximately three to three & one-half inches wide and only five-inches long.
* Shake hands with a bottle of wine or water. Don’t hold a bottle by choking the neck or rubbing the belly. Shake hands with the lower portion of the bottle about an inch from the bottom and hold the bottle by covering the back labe* always showing the front labe* proudly towards the guest.
* Never Lift a Glass Off The Table.~ Chill bottles of water, white wine and champagne. If pouring Spring Water do not permit ice cubes to contaminate the purity of the Water. (ICE MIST makes Ice Cubes from pure ICE MIST)
* If you’re forced to use pitchers of water with Ice Cubes still Never Lift a Glass Off The Table ~
* Never Pour Water Our of The Side of a Pitcher. ~ You can’t make the water any colder than it is and the more ice in the glass the more you’ll be refilling. The guest drinks water, not ice! As a Waiter, I would initially Ice-up water glasses on Banquets but found that on A la Carte and on Banquet-refill I would save myself many trips by refilling with more water and less ice. For those guests whom insisted on Ice, I would present a bow* or separate glass filled with ice-cubes. Doctors now claim that Ice shocks the system and humans were never meant to consume ice.
* At extremely tight tables a Napkin Necktie should be used around the wine or water bottle to prevent spillage. A small amount of liquid has the tendency to work its way to the bottom of the bottle and drip on the second or third guest if the napkin-necktie is not used. A linen napkin is folded into a rectangle. The rectangle is folded into thirds with the naked ends on the inside (not showing). This is the same procedure used to create the Sommelier Fold used as a splash-guar for wine and water pouring. One end of this triple-folded napkin is placed around the neck of the bottle (over-lapping the bottom two-thirds of the necktie.) tucked under the remaining portion and pulled down to tighten around the neck of the bottle.
* Refill water glasses when they are half empty and refill them two-thirds to three-quarters full.
* if the glass is difficult to reach we slide it closer to the edge or the table (never lifting the glass) pour using our splash-guard easily and slide the glass back into its original position. It only takes a second longer to pour correctly.
* The Water Glass is The Guide Glass and it’s positioned in one place only, touching the tip of the dinner knife at all meals. If no knife is in position to guide the position of a water glass it should be in line with the right edge of the chair and no more than twelve inches in from the edge of the table. Always try to use something as a Template so that all table settings are exactly the same. Ex: A place mat or even a napkin roll-up, one-inch in from the edge of the table, in line with the right edge of the chair and touching the base of the Water (guide) glass.
* All other glasses Touch the Water Glass so that all spacing at every setting is 100% exactly the same.
* Other glasses are positioned b two criteria: By Size (Tallest to the rear) and By Usage (Usage take precedent over size)
Bottled Spring Water like Fine Wines should be poured into Stemmed Wine Glasses. Charge more when crystal glasses are used and remember to pour water just like fine wine using your napkin in a Sommelier fold as a splash-guard and when pouring from a bottle or carafe to Twist, Up, Wipe
Never fill a Water Glass or any glass or anything in the culinary or service arts to the top. It’s not Healthy, Safe or Logical. Even Water Pouring is an Art and Science.
86 Ian Maksik, Professor of Service
Ian Maksik is the owner and dean of the Ian Maksik Schoo* of Table Service. He is the author of the training video and manual, The A toZ’s of Professional Table Service. He travels the country lecturing and industry trade shows and training the staffs of food facilities with one goal in mind. Standardizing Table Service in America. For more information of Table Service Protocols contact ian@usawaiter.com or call 954-747-6366.
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