So I was invited with a bunch of other bloggers to go down and attend the launch of the Stella Artois’ World Draught Masters. There was a promise of a lot of free beer, a swanky location, meeting other blog guys, so I thought what the hell, I’ll shoehorn it into a top 5 somehow.

The Stella Artois World Draught Masters finals are happening in Old Billingsgate Walk, London on 28 October, where bartenders from across the world will compete to the pour the perfect pint. Marc Stroobandt, a Belgian man who left law school to study beer, demonstrated to us how to do it:
– Use a clean and rinsed branded glass.
– Open the tap in one quick action and let the first drops of beer flow away.
– Hold the glass just under the tap without touching it at a 45° angle.
– Lower the glass to allow the natural formation of the foam head.
– Close the tap quickly and move the glass away so beer doesn’t drip into the glass.
– While the head foams up and overflows the side of the glass, smooth it gently with a head cutter.
– Clean the bottom and sides of the glass.
– The right amount of foam is usually about two fingers.
– Present the beer on a clean beer coaster with the logo facing the consumer.

I used to work in a pub and did none of these things properly.

I then chilled with my new friends from Hecklerspray.com and Run-Riot.com and talked about exciting blogging stuff like server crashes and wordpress plugins.

5. THE WOMEN OF COYOTE UGLY

Sometimes there’s a fine line between a bar and a strip club – this is dancing all over that line. The women of Coyote Ugly seem to spend more time on the bar setting fire to it and shouting Woooo than serving behind it. Certainly not the sort of place to go for a quiet drink if you can’t fight the moonlight one evening. All in all these bartending staff are slightly too attention seeking, and the place is a health and safety concern.

4. MOE – THE SIMPSONS MOVIE

While his drinks skills may fall a bit short, Moe does succeed in providing a free speech atmosphere that has customers returning. He also knows everyone’s name – bonding is important in a good bartender. So much so that he’s stuck a shotgun in most of their faces at some point or other and they still come back.

3. WUHER – STAR WARS

Having looked closely at the scene, Wuher is the only member of staff on duty at the Mos Eisley Cantina and given the incredible variety of species, languages and mouth shapes it must be an enormous amount of work.

Close inspection also shows tall plastic beakers, short round beakers – pretty much a different beaker size for every customer, so he’s obviously across stock and has a lot of washing up. Wuher does lose points for being prejudice, shouting “Hey we don’t serve their kind here” at C3PO as he waddles in. So possibly homophobic.

2. LLOYD THE BARTENDER – THE SHINING

You’re looking at the best goddamn bartender from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine. Or Portland, Oregon for that matter. Smartly dressed, he knows the correct form and technique when serving a Jack Daniels to Jack Torrance, as played by Jack Nicholson. Lloyd knows to be very agreeable. The customer is always right. The cost of one drink (- your soul -) is a bit high, but it’s nothing compared to the prices in central London.

1. TOM CRUISE – COCKTAIL

At the beginning of the movie Tom Cruise wouldn’t have made this list if it was a top 50 (anybody want to see that?) but by the end he’s been trained and knocked into shape by Australian Bryan Brown, and now sits at the top of this list, grinning broadly. Cruise inspired thousands of people to try spinning drinks in the air with almost always disastrous consequences, but he showed the flair on the job that’s necessary to add a couple of pounds to the price of a cocktail.

Honourable Mention – Elvis Costello in Spice World