4/4/14
I've been in Queenstown for two months now, tending bar most every night to pay the rent. Not a whole lot has changed, except for the town quieting down a bit after most tourists returned home at the end of summer and the leaves turning as fall came in. There are a lot of evergreens here in Queenstown, but that only serves to enhance the landscape of a beautiful red, yellow, and green patchwork of trees alongside the turquoise lake Wakatipu in the valley below the looming peaks of the Remarkables. Business has slowed with so many tourists leaving town, so everyone's work hours have dropped a little as we close down shop a bit earlier at Coyote and Arnold's Diner only has a single bar manager on staff at a time, with the rest of us being on call for when things get busy. I'm still working six to seven nights a week at Coyote, but with the cost of living being so high here in Queenstown, a bartender's budget doesn't allow for much more than food and rent each week. I'm lucky to have a staff meal each time I clock out, which has saved me a good chunk of money thus far.
Bartending is a bit different out here in New Zealand than it is back in the States, so my expectations and lived experience differ a little as well. In the U.S., you have to be ready for any drink you can possibly imagine to be ordered by a customer; from martinis to old fashioneds, mint juleps to bahama mamas, mojitos to some of the crazier drinks you learn in American bartending school, like red-headed sluts, pineapple upside-down cakes, and dirty bong waters. Here in New Zealand, the craziest drink anyone is likely to order is a gin and tonic or a rum and coke...which you hopefully don't need to go to school to know how to make. Kiwis keep it pretty simple; they like their beer, and they don't rock the boat much. I work at a Mexican bar, though, so people who come in are pretty far from the beaten path already, and Queenstown is a tourist city, so our customers often have a fairly different drinking palette from that of Kiwis. Margaritas, La Palomas, Tequila Sunrises, and El Diablos are always popular, and it's not uncommon that people order something off-menu. I once made a guy a Purple Haze, which is essentially the same thing as a Long Island Iced Tea with reddish-purple Chambord floated on top, which trickles down the drink in a colorful mélange. My boss has also asked me to have two new cocktails for the specials board every week, and she gave me the liberty to do any drink I like and have the necessary ingredients ordered in to the bar. I'm currently offering the mixed drink Kool-aid (one part Midori, one part Amaretto, three parts cranberry juice) as the cocktail of the week, and the Desert Rose shot (tequila with a drop of hot sauce) as the specialty shooter. I'm wondering if I ought to change the names of special drinks to something relevant to the area or the Mexican theme of the restaurant, but the boss says she likes this one as it is. Next week I'm thinking of doing one of two drinks I made up; one remains unnamed but consists of tequila reposado, pineapple juice, fresh-squeezed lime juice, and whipped cream, shaken and strained, and the other is silver tequila, ginger ale, cranberry juice, triple sec, and orange juice, which I call Silver Sangria. The shot special is still up in the air, so if y'all have any comments or mixed-drink or shooter favorites or recommendations then let me know via facebook, and your drink might become the next rum and coke of New Zealand (maybe I can even give you some credit on the specials board).
With the recent drop in tourists coming in to Queenstown as we've shifted into the offseason, our staff at Coyote has been cut in half and we've all picked up some new duties to keep the show running as a result. I help the waitstaff out and tend to tables when the floor gets busy, and we don't even have any dishwashers on staff anymore, so we all chip in to make sure we don't run out of silverware or margarita glasses. The dishwashing station is right next to the bar, though, so it's me who's on dishes as often as anyone else. Our new off-season circumstances set up a funny sort of paradox, because while we don't have quite as many customers per night, we're all twice as busy covering the jobs that we don't have staff for anymore. I expect things won't change until winter kicks in and we become twice as busy as we were in summer, catering to the massive influx of skiers and snowboarders. We will more than double our current staff for that, and pretty soon I'll be training up barbacks who will become the new Coyote bartenders once I leave town and finally head home. We're even opening a second upstairs bar for the winter season, which offers a spectacular view over the lake and across to the Remarkable mountains. I can't really imagine a better place for skiers to kick back and have a drink as they reminisce about the day's escapades on the slopes.
I'm looking forward to the day I'll be headed back Stateside, though Queenstown is keeping me pretty busy at the moment and things are bound only to get busier. I've been here in New Zealand for so long now that everything seems totally familiar and the U.S. is sounding more and more foreign and exciting. Driving on the right side of the road seems totally backwards to me now, and I had to remind myself in this very post to use the word silverware, not cutlery (if you ask for silverware here in Kiwiland, all you'll get is a blank stare). It's funny to hear people talk about America out here (which happens quite often; you'll overhear a conversation concerning the States multiple times every day) because most people in New Zealand have never even been to the U.S., so it gets built up on this crazy sort of pedestal that derives mostly from Hollywood and American pop culture. Kiwis may not have been to Manhattan, but they all listen to 2PAC and watch HBO. I often find myself thinking of home as this radical fantasyland kind of place where every girl is a supermodel, all cars are brand new, all dreams come true, and everything is dirt cheap, but everyone still spends thousands of dollars a day as they live out their high profile lives, partying every night like Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis in The Hangover. Then I compare that idea to the laid-back, simplistic culture of the Kiwis, and I wonder how far from the truth they really are on their image of America.
I've got work in an hour, so I guess I'll have to end this post with those less-than philosophical daydreams of home. Stay classy, America, and tell all your science teachers to quit secretly cooking meth at home in their basements.
Game of Thrones>Breaking Bad,
~Jack
