Guest Post: Chuckos.

Editors note: Chuckos works in hospitality. He's one of those guys that looks pretty slick at twenty paces, a handsome and stylish bartender. On closer inspection you notice that he is wearing black brothel creepers with a silver buckle, a tattoo of an Indian Brave is showing through the sleeve of his cheap business shirt along with the unforgiveable outline of a pack of Holiday Slims 30s on his breast pocket. Everyone knows people like this.

Chuckos says:
So, my mate James asked me to pen a few words for his internet webpage that he regularly does. As a mixologist by trade, the only thing I really look on the web for is the odd cocktail recipe or for tax-deductible supplies (bar blades, wine knives, regulation blacks etc). I told James this and he just said "yeah nah, just write about what you do and stuff. Bartender stories are a hit with my demographic." Fair enough.

As the head cocktail-chef at the Harold Park Hotel, my work is demanding. I'll usually start my days at around 5pm, and often won't get out of there until as late as 3am on weekends (if we get slammed and have a difficult close). I'm very fortunate to be surrounded by an excellent crew, complete with some pretty decent looking women. My weekend starts on a Sunday afternoon (at whatever time I wake up!), and I like nothing more than spending my Sunday arvos kicking back with a few drinks - on the OTHER side of the bar for a change. I'll usually head into town and meet up with a few of the work crew for mid-afternoon drinks usually at Loft, Bungalow or sometimes the Tillbury. We smash that action up for a few hours, always shouting crew members drinks, always tipping our bartender. Once it gets to about 9pm, it's inevitable that we are gonna be Up The Cross pretty soon.
After tipping our taxi driver we will observe a moments silence for the late and great Barons. Some of us will stop for smokes and gum, then we wander over the road to Peppermint Lounge where my boy Danny makes us something vodka-based and potent - it's amazing what a good bartender can do with a middle-range pour like Absolut, and Danny is no exception.
It is usually around the second or third of Danny's concoctions that text messages are exchanged and The Business arrives. Now I'm not as crazy as I was in my youth, I'm right off pingers these days - they're all bloody ketamine and speed these days. The last time I can remember feeling the cool rush of an MDMA-based Gary, I think I was at a bush-doof out near Peats Ridge or something - would have seven or eight years ago, back when I was working at Bunnings... Anyway, the point is that cocaine is the only drug for me these days.