The year before I went to University, I worked as a barman in a rural pub called the Blair Tavern. At that time its little restaurant, or grill-room, was famous for decent helpings of good food, and was consequently busy most evenings, and especially Saturdays.
My role on a Saturday evening was to serve the hordes in the Lounge bar, who were waiting to go and eat, with pints of heavy, Snowballs and Blue Lagoons. When they got next door to the grill-room, I became their wine waiter, advising them on the quality of wines, and bringing them liqueurs or Irish Coffees after the meal.
This whole process was complicated by the fact that clients were obliged to pay for drinks separately from the food they ate, thus necessitating much discomfiture, as seated men had to rummage through trouser pockets whilst simultaneously eating soup. It was worse when there was a group of women, because each would insist on paying individually, thus quadrupling the time for which I was forced to be away from the thirsty queues in the Lounge.
Being eighteen, my favourite customers were middle-aged families, as I found it easy to be polite to people who looked and talked liked my teachers. They also knew, after twenty years of eating out, what they liked to eat and drink, and were therefore easy to look after.
On the other hand...
When I arrived at Table 2, I found a young man of twenty-four, his mate and their two girl-friends. After finally deigning to notice me, and with the usual obligatory disdain of callow manhood, he launched into a discussion of what to drink. Obviously, I could wait forever, as there were only seven very unimportant people waiting to be served at the bar in the Lounge.
I was hopping from one foot to another, as I knew how busy we were even if their Leader did not.
"What would you like to drink, Sir", I asked
"Just a minute, sonny", replied the Leader.
He was twenty-four and I was eighteen: I thought "sonny" a bit strong.
Our leader turned to his group.
"Wine?" asked our leader.
"Wine-not?" replied his witty friend.
This earned a snort from the leader, echoed by dutiful laughter from the bimbos. (Have you noticed how that "sonny" is still rankling?)
I was dispatched for some red wine. When I returned, I informed our Leader that all drinks must be paid for separately.
"Are you sure, sonny? That seems a bit silly."
"Nevertheless, Sir, those are the house rules."
He paid up, and I escaped to the war in the Lounge bar.
An hour later, I was told that Table 2 wanted liqueurs. It was close to the time for last orders at the bar, so I hurried through to the grill-room, where I found our Leader engaged in the task of encouraging the girls to try a liqueur.
"I'll have a Drambuie", said the Leader.
"Good choice", confirmed his trusty sidekick, and the girls hastily agreed.
Less than one minute later, I was back with four Drambuies. These were served in liqueur glasses, which were four inches high with a diameter of about an inch at the top.
"That will be £2.24, Sir", said the harassed waiter.
"Just a second, sonny", replied our ever-gracious Leader and turned to his disciples.
"Have you guys ever seen Drambuie flambe’?”
So saying, he reached for his lighter and ignited the liqueur. It burned with a delicate blue flame, and I was impressed in spite of myself. So were the girls.
"Oh, that's lovely .... How pretty!!..."
He had obviously scored. Just to complete his triumph, he placed the palm of his hand over the neck of the liqueur glass to snuff out the flame. The flame combusted the oxygen, and his hand was stuck, by the partial vacuum, to the glass.
He was so badly scalded that his friend had to pay the sympathetic waiter who did not laugh.... until he was out of the room.