By FlorencePia G. Yu
2002
For Hirman, acclaimed professional flair bartender, it was an exhibition that won him the year's Flair Bartending Competition at a packed TGI Friday's. For the crowd that had pushed their way in front of the bar, it was a mesmerizing show on the fusion of performance art and alcohol.
"I"ve always thought that just serving drinks was boring. I wanted to be different. So, I thought, why not serve with style?" says the 26-year old Singaporean.
He serves cocktails with a twist. Literally, if you may. Bottles fly up the air and land into one fantastic cocktail right before you when he works up his magic behind the bar.
He has built a reputation for aggressive creativity behind the bar that in Melbourne, Australia last year, a cocktail was named after him. "They mixed up a new cocktail, which is kind of strong. They thought of naming it after me, and called it The Hirmanator," he tells.
Letting it out the bottle
Flair, Hirman says, is what separates the ordinary bartender from the bartender with style.
"It's a bit of an extra," tells a beaming Hirman as this writer caught up with him in an impromptu interview right after the contest. A handful of well-wishers have gathered around him.
Settled in the lobby of an adjourning hotel, Hirman sat in a huge, yellow lounge sofa, shirt wet with sweat, and carrying an opened bottle of bud.
Audience entertainment is important, Hirman says, now dubbed one of Dubai's top flair bartenders. "People come to have fun with us," he adds.
Just like Superman metamorphose in a telephone booth, Hirman seemingly transforms behind the bar. Flair gives the bartender personality, he opines. "The bartender just hands you your drink. The flair bartender makes you go 'Ooh! Wow!' while he serves," he explains.
The bartender with an oomph!
It is serving with an oomph that got Hirman mixed into the business since he was 18.
"I started off as a waiter in 1994. I was filling trays; feeling insecure. I would see the bartender--so cool behind the bar. Nobody touches him. The bartender looked like a god!"�����
So he put down his tray to get mixed into the hustle bustle behind the counter. "I became a bartender. But for six months I was washing glasses!" he said with a wry smile.
The mix was slightly off in the beginning, he admits.� In his earlier acts, a bottle he was twirling slipped from his hand and smashed on top of the bar. A splinter cut a customer above the eye. "Luckily, he just wiped the blood off as if it was okay," he said.�
Determined, he polished his act everyday. After work, he practiced with bottles in the confines of the bar "because the limited space makes it all the more challenging to perfect tricks." Not long after, Hirman was already flipping bottles and mixing cocktails with artistic accuracy. He bagged 2nd place in the Sydney Galliano Open in 1999, and pitted against flair bartenders of international caliber in the 2001 Planet Hollywood Competition, which he won.
Getting the right mix
Speed, entertainment and attitude are the main ingredients that make up a good bartender, Hirman says.
"Of course you need to know the basics first; your cocktails. Like, if a customer asks you for a Long Island, and you don't know how to make it, you're not a bartender, you're a clown!" Aspiring bartenders need to master their cocktails, and then work on their speed, he advises.
Professional flair bartending has brought Hirman beyond the bar. He has performed in Rio, Brazil and Bali. He is also the representative for Singapore in the New York-based Flair Bartenders' Association. Two years ago, he put up Over Pour, a company in Singapore offering trainings and seminars on Flair Bartending.
Hirman admits that sometimes it is difficult to mix business with pleasure in his line of work. With thirsty customers pouring in by the minute, most bars just want the bartenders to be fast and efficient, he says.
Bottling up his career in bartending is the last thing on his list, he says. "I'm happy with my work. If I didn't get into this, I'd be stuck where I was before. Bartending changed my life."