Robyn Gray’s work day starts at 5 p.m. and ends around three in the morning.
As a bartender, he has had this schedule for 20 years and isn’t tired of it yet. That’s probably because he loves what he does.
“Bartending is much more than just serving drinks. Bartending is actually not about serving drinks at all. We don’t serve drinks. We serve people,” he explains.
Even as a kid growing up in North Vancouver Gray showed an interest in hospitality and told his parents he wanted to be a bartender. They told him if he was going to tend bar he wouldn’t be able to drink.
“That’s not true,” he clarifies with a laugh, adding it’s similar to the old adage: don’t trust a skinny chef.
Originally, though, he trained to be a video editor back in the 1990s and after high school moved to Scotland to work at one of the country’s foremost post-production houses. While there, he wanted to meet more people his own age so a friend got him a job at a popular bar. He started bartending on the weekends just to meet people and then fell in love with the scene. He admits he didn’t know what he was doing when he started out, but explains that bartending is an apprenticeship trade and he learned on the job.
Returning to the North Shore, Gray worked at the Ocean Club in West Vancouver where he learned the art of mixology. When asked to explain what that is exactly, Gray recalls a popular quote from a well-known hip hop artist who said “Rap is what I do, hip hop is the culture.”
For Gray, mixology is what he does but bartending is a culture.
It isn’t just about making cocktails, it’s about understanding recipes, ingredients and serving details, understanding personal interactions, and controlling a crowd. It’s part culinary, part sociology.
“People are coming for an experience. People aren’t necessarily coming to get drunk. People want to enjoy different flavours, different experiences,” he notes.
Now head bartender at Prohibition at the Rosewood Hotel Georgia, Gray says he has about 3,000 drink recipes in his head, all of which have about five ingredients and each with specific preparation methods and glassware requirements. That’s a lot of detail.
When asked if he serves with flair like the bottle-throwing bartenders in the movie Cocktail, Gray responds with a laugh: “I’m not a juggler.”
But since the bar at Prohibition is a focal point of the room, there is some showmanship involved.
“Watching the bartenders is as much a part of the action and part of the show and part of the experience of being there. We’re not throwing bottles but we’re making drinks in an interesting and theatrical way. You’re always on stage,” says Gray. But ultimately, “it’s not about throwing bottles, it’s about how we make the drinks.”
“It’s a very culinary experience,” he says, noting it’s like being a chef.
Gray is also a certified Specialist of Spirits, an accreditation earned through the Wine and Spirits Education Trust. He considers himself a sommelier of spirits and notes that cocktails are enjoying a renaissance these days. They were popular in the 1920s and ’30s but fell out of fashion for a while. The trend has been re-born, however, and Gray says he could talk all day about their long and interesting history.
While he can’t choose a favourite among his many cocktail recipes, Gray says he does enjoy a dry gin martini with lots of vermouth, a lemon twist and orange bitters on occasion when he gets home from work.
On Aug. 4, Gray will bring his talent to the Mixology Night on the Pier event at the Harmony Arts Festival at Ambleside.
The event will feature a number of top bartenders creating handcrafted cocktails, including Sabrine Dhaliwal of UVA Wine & Cocktail Bar, Grant Sceney of Fairmont Pacific Rim’s Lobby Lounge, Katie Ingram of L’Abattoir, and more.
Gray will be making a Garden Terrace Margarita that will feature Patron Silver Tequila (Patron is his sponsor), fresh pressed lime juice, tarragon agave syrup, and strawberry foam.
Drinks will be paired with food, and guests will vote on the best drinks of the evening.
Gray says they expect about 250 guests at the event, which is part of the annual West Vancouver festival, running July 29-Aug. 7 as a fundraiser for arts culture. For more information visit the website harmonyarts.ca.
