20080520

Tracking the perfect pour

Harry Denton at home in his San Francisco lair

Drinks managers concerned about the accuracy of their alcohol pours now have a new way of ensuring staff consistency. They control them by radio frequency identification (RFID).

According to the RFID Journal, several bars and restaurants have been using an RFID-enabled system to train bartenders how to pour the right amount of liquor, and to measure their progress. The training program is part of the Capton Beverage Tracker system, which records the amount of liquor used to make drinks.

Sandia Resort & Casino in Albuquerque, NM, and Harry Denton's Starlight Room in the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco are among the early adopters of the technology.

"Capton provides bar owners with a system for tracking how much a bartender pours," the RFID Journal reported. "The system includes a sensor and battery-powered RFID tag in a bottle's spout that first measures the amount of a pour, then transmits that amount to an interrogator usually installed on a bar's ceiling, cabled to a server where it can be tracked remotely — either in real time, or later.

"Because only one bartender is typically assigned to a specific station for each shift, a bar's management knows who is responsible for those specific pours. But making a bartender accountable for each pour isn't always enough if that person is unable to accurately pour every drink. That's where the training comes in."

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1 comment:

Rick D said...

This is an excellent way to assure that you only get the most amateur of bartenders working for you. The good ones know how to make a good drink using the right amounts, not always the way it's made in the recipe book. Use this method and you can hire a monkey off the street.

As someone who used to like Starlight Room, this is another nail in their soon-to-be coffin as they are in a town that is at the very heart of the cocktail renaissance.