BarNinja Podcast - The Ultimate Bartending & Mixology Podcast

Brunch Battles: Championing Pancakes or Swearing off Eggs Benedict

September 14, 2023 BarNinja Season 2 Episode 4
BarNinja Podcast - The Ultimate Bartending & Mixology Podcast
Brunch Battles: Championing Pancakes or Swearing off Eggs Benedict
Show Notes Transcript

Ready to embark on a whimsical journey into the divisive world of brunch? Buckle up for a hilarious and insightful debate that will leave you either craving pancakes or swearing off Eggs Benedict forever. We're your hosts Bill, Kayla, and Mike, and in this episode, we're joined by special guest Leslie, who's not exactly a fan of the mid-morning meal. Will our passionate defense of mimosa-infused Sundays manage to change Leslie's mind, or will she remain a brunch antagonist? One thing's for sure - you won't want to miss Leslie's mimosa revelations or our lively chat about the most outrageous Bloody Mary garnishes we've ever seen. 

You'll be in stitches as Leslie paints a vivid picture of her brunch aversion, complete with congealed egg yolk and the smell of regret. Meanwhile, Kayla and Mike champion the charms of brunch, celebrating it as a fancy reset before the week starts. We also dive into our favorite brunch cocktails - from the classic mimosa to the potent combination of vodka, champagne, and orange juice. Listen in as we explore the different ways people brunch (or not) and share our own personal experiences, including tales from the trenches of working brunch shifts. Whether you're a brunch enthusiast or a skeptic, this episode is sure to give you a fresh perspective on this beloved (or reviled) tradition.

Speaker 1:

Hey, barnage Nation, welcome to the Barn Ninja podcast, where we talk about everything, trials and tribulations, from life behind the bar to tips and tricks to make you a better bartender and a better drinker. Join your host, bill Fortun, kayla Load and yours truly, mike Gorson. Let's go have some fun.

Speaker 2:

Are we talking about brunch? Brunch.

Speaker 3:

Is this how we're going into?

Speaker 2:

We're going into brunch.

Speaker 3:

Okay, so today's topic is brunch and how we feel about brunch. I personally, I love brunch. I do.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's like a thing now, like Michelin store restaurants are doing these big formal brunches, bringing brunch back.

Speaker 3:

Well, because if you go to a good restaurant with a really good brunch and only have like a couple cocktails, you know it's kind of that we were talking about last night like a reset before the week, right, because you go in the morning reasonable hour Sometimes you go to a place where it's, you know, way more fancy. You get dressed up, you look cute and then you call it and then you go do your things you need to Sunday and then you go to bed early. Sometimes the brunch turns into much more, but it's kind of that like last debauchery before you reset on the week. Fair enough, I hate brunch. We got special guests today.

Speaker 2:

She's like brunch. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't.

Speaker 4:

I don't, I don't, I don't I don't, I don't, I don't. So brunch to me is basically just congealed egg yote, the smell of bleach and vomit from the night before and the cleaning that came after Coffee.

Speaker 2:

The smell of bad decisions, the smell of bad decisions.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, it's like when I wake up let's say, I wake up hungover on a Sunday, which doesn't usually happen but like the last thing I want to do is go back to a restaurant, where it's a similar setting, like a bar, where, like I made bad decisions the night before, and just be reminded of that and be surrounded by people. I'm like, oh, who knows what I did last night here. So there's that portion of it. But then, like, just like the smell and how loud it is, and then I have to like sit in a seat for like two hours. No, it's not for me, I just want to lay there, walking in the tears.

Speaker 3:

It's so funny.

Speaker 4:

Uh-huh yeah.

Speaker 2:

Did British have the work called the tears you ever heard of that?

Speaker 4:

The tears, yeah, basically yeah.

Speaker 2:

Where you want to just like shut your blinds and like work that you last night Exactly.

Speaker 4:

No, that's exactly what I wanted. And if I wake up and I'm not hungover and it's just like go about my regular Sunday, then like I just I'm like I hate it. I hate it so much Like I look, the last thing I want to do is like go sit in a restaurant in the morning to start my day that way and get a little tipsy and then get sleepy and then go home and like I'm just like I'm going to be on the couch for the rest of the day. I'm a party pooper.

Speaker 2:

What's wrong with that?

Speaker 4:

I don't know.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's like the only way I'll like calm down. Sometimes, yeah or I mean I get it Sometimes a brunch will turn into like, oh, now we're going to go here and we're going to do this. But I like that because for me, sometimes Sundays, sometimes my Sundays on Monday, depending on, like, the work we schedule but if I have the opportunity on a Sunday that I'm actually off or not traveling, yeah, the idea of that being my off day, and really probably the only day, because usually on a Saturday, if I come back from traveling, I'm sleeping anyway, so I don't even get to do anything. So that's why I love it, because this is my day, this is my time to go do something fun and I'm tired anyway, I get it.

Speaker 4:

I get the appeal for brunch, like I get why people love it, and I wish I was one of those people. I just I'm. How can we make you love brunch again? Well, I am sitting here with a mimosa as we speak, exactly.

Speaker 3:

So would you like if you were, if you had to, if you had to pick, like it was wife or death, what would you eat for brunch?

Speaker 4:

Like if you like to, and you would enjoy it like somehow, oh easy, a breakfast burrito extra, pico, see, that's such a brunch thing. So here's how I could see myself doing brunch Maybe not in the morning thing, like get up in the morning, do what I need to do, and then maybe in the afternoon stop and like have a late lunch and then like a beer mimosa in the afternoon, like after I've done everything, and then I could just like wind down my day that day. So what would that be called? Cause it's not brunch, it's a supper, basically Liner.

Speaker 3:

Right, yeah, okay. Brunch cocktail Are you going to go with a Bloody Mary, a screwdriver or a mimosa?

Speaker 2:

Usually mimosa. Fun fact Leslie had never seen a mimosa in a champagne fluid.

Speaker 3:

It's true, those are the Richmond mimosa yeah, you guys told me about that last night. I was like that's not a mimosa, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Oh, it's delicious, though it's so good. It's a pint glass. We ice in it, so it stays super cold.

Speaker 3:

With champagne orange juice.

Speaker 4:

And that's it. It breaks up the sugary orange juice a little bit. It's so good, yeah. The first time I went to a brunch spot and they served me a mimosa and a champagne fluid, I was like what the fuck is this? So I was just like can you pour this over ice in a pint glass please? And they looked at me like an idiot cause I sound like an idiot. I was like I was like pint ice. I don't know, I can't drink this. Yeah, it's like a.

Speaker 2:

Richmond, Virginia thing.

Speaker 4:

I mean, I do A lot of mimosa's are like.

Speaker 2:

it's like a dive bar of mimosa almost, but it's like I almost like that better. Yeah, Because the fancy ones get warmer.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, sometimes they're too sweet, like you've got to have. Like for me, if I'm doing a mimosa, it's champagne or prosecco, I prefer with a splash of OJ. Or if you really just want to hit it hard right out the bat, you do a mammose. A couple of different places call it different things, but you do vodka, champagne, orange juice. Sometimes you can put a splash of cream in there and then a gram on yay floater. Yeah, and that's going to get you right pretty quick.

Speaker 4:

You can do a little splash of peach snaps too, which doesn't make it that much sweeter, but I don't know. Just a little juicer tasting and then the Bloody Marys.

Speaker 3:

There's actually been one that we've had here in Nagted where they just deck them out.

Speaker 2:

You can put like a burger on it.

Speaker 3:

I mean it's-.

Speaker 2:

There's a burger one day, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

What they put on a Bloody Mary's honestly impressive Four cheese sticks. Wasn't there like a crab leg or something, or a full like soft shell crab.

Speaker 2:

No, there's a full head shell crab on it one day. So it's like their thing. When are like the craziest plan, that's a run down. I believe Run down, yeah what was that?

Speaker 3:

Wild opportunities for brunch cocktails in addition to delicious brunch foods. But we're gonna make Leslie a fan of brunch. I'm committed to this. I'm just even when I was younger it's already growing on you. It's already starting to grow, so you were talking about I don't know.

Speaker 4:

Even when I was younger, like I was not, like in college and you know, after college I just was not a fan of brunch.

Speaker 3:

I worked too many brunches. So I actually I do understand that, because when I was in college and I served tables, I also worked brunch and I honestly I more so just had FOMO though, because I was working it and I enjoyed it, but I didn't. I did not like working brunch. Yeah, like I made great money working brunch. Sometimes you didn't it because people were just too drunk and I forget what they were doing in the first place and we had bottomless FOMO, says for free, like it was literally for free, and we just have pictures going around. So I understand that being like a whole thing, and I just was like why can't I do this? Yeah, and so maybe now that I can, I'm like I love it because I can be a part of it.

Speaker 4:

I don't have to be on the other end. My friend and I would do this like post-brunch thing every week where we would work our shift. It would be hell, because you're working brunch. We'd be tired, we'd be cranky, we'd probably were hungover from the night before. We would get off and we would make our shift drinks with the leftover brunch champagne and for a while the restaurant we were at had. They were using pineapples, so they had hollowed out pineapples, so we would fill the pineapple up with ice, just like a splash of champagne. And then Coors Light Nice, and that was pure. That's a new one. We would sit in the back booth. Do you name that? I don't think we ever named it. We should have come up with a name for it, but like it was A fuck brunch drink.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, it was like our, like heaven. We would like sit in the back booth and just get like hammered off these iced Coors Light and champagne pineapple drinks, yeah, and they would be like all right, let's go do something tonight.

Speaker 3:

So that's a new one, next level. That was some next level. Yeah, I've never heard of pineapple, coors Light and champagne being a solid mix, but it's kind of like when we were talking about, yesterday, peanut butter. There's not really many things you could think about peanut butter going back with baby. It's the same thing with champagne. You might, I mean, a little bit more specific, but on like every single cocktail, if you think about it, you probably could put champagne and just about anything in. Yeah, it would work. Now, negate the champagne and pineapple and Coors Light. I don't know about that. But you know, here we are, we'll try.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we'll try it Like that's it. That'll be the next drink, yeah.

Speaker 4:

Buddy, yeah, I was going to make that the one of my drinks for this other bar I worked at in Nashville. It was a dive bar and I was building up my Tuesday nights Right before I got my nine to five. I was like I'm going to make the Coors and a pineapple thing over ice and that'll be like our like brunch thing for the bar I was working at there.

Speaker 3:

But yeah, we need to. We need to name that as a signature drink.

Speaker 4:

Start putting it out there called bad decisions, bad decisions yeah.

Speaker 3:

Or fuck brunch.

Speaker 4:

Like I said, what are the?

Speaker 3:

other. Yeah, yeah, but yeah. So I mean, we love to hear what your thoughts are. Whether you love brunch like myself and Mike, I'd say Mike, you love brunch, I'm full brunch.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, full brunch. Definitely the pint glass. I'm all in on the Richmond Mamosa OK.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so we'd love to hear your thoughts on brunch, your preferred cocktail. Maybe you have a brand new one that we also haven't heard of? If you can top Coors like pineapple and champagne Love to know what that is, we should do best.

Speaker 2:

Homemade Bloody Mary recipe contest yeah, or that if you have a good Bloody Mary recipe from scratch, send us your recipe to podcast. The bar ninja, yeah, and then with your name or where you got it from or the restaurant you know, to know who came.

Speaker 3:

I would be interested to hear if there was like another cool like turn on, like a Mamosa or something. Yeah, or anything that's like Best.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, brunch Rest Cocktail recipe yeah, whether it's Bloody Mary, mamosa, your twist on something, yeah, send it to podcast. At bar, at bar ninja.

Speaker 4:

Y'all can try it and taste it, and then I would come taste it with you and then I would like brunch. See, there we go. That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 3:

So we need to know if your team brunch over like Leslie and yours. You're also a little bit better in how we can change your mind, yeah.

Speaker 2:

We'll get our team brunch.

Speaker 3:

Yes, we will.

Speaker 2:

Well, until next time, guys, definitely subscribe on all the different platforms Spotify, apple. Find us on Instagram, facebook. Join the mailing list on bar ninjacom. Check out the new website and the new shaker. We just talked about that on the last episode. Still a few of those available, so grab those while you can, yeah, and that's. That's a wrap.

Speaker 1:

See you next time. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Far Ninja Podcast. Please be sure to subscribe to and your favorite podcast player, enjoy the Bar Ninja Nation. There's 7000 bars in the game and we have a WWW, bar Ninjacom. We found 10aanبيi you.