Bar Notes 01

Journal Entry – 7.3.25

By Robbie Wilson

Bar Notes:

Came in and did my prep for the week—mostly syrups this time around. But while prepping, I was also workshopping the idea of doing a cocktail appreciation class where I would educate people on cocktails as a form of art and explain the intricate parts and nuances.

Opened the bar with an expectation of being busy, being that yesterday was busy and today would likely be the same on account of it being the day before the 4th of July holiday. And while cocktail bars aren’t exactly “patriotic,” the small community the bar is in provides us with constant foot traffic as well as regulars, on account of the close proximity of housing and apartments. And we were busy—not quite as crazy as the day before, but the steadiness of it was far easier to handle.

I have been noticing a lowering average of tips, which is both understandable and somewhat disappointing. It is sad to see that people think tips are “extra,” when so many people rely on them to make a living. And with the necessary income for a single father in Portland, Oregon being somewhere between $80K–$100K, it is just a different world than what I grew up in. I used to think that making $100K a year was a lot, and would put me squarely in the middle class… now it’s barely enough to live a life beyond paycheck to paycheck. Thankfully, I have more help than most, with family and friends picking up the slack.

The economy is obviously heading into a recessionary period, which is worrisome, being that stocks and other markers are saying that it isn’t. Makes you wonder at what level these are being propped up in order to keep confidence higher with all the changes happening. But I digress—humans have survived worse and probably will continue to survive. It makes you wonder how those that saw similar situations felt as they were going through it, as the history books don’t talk about how people felt or were stressed or what was going on in the hearts and minds of the “commoners,” as opposed to the decision-makers and owners of the world. I feel like as a culture we ought to do better at taking into account the minds and hearts of those that live in the culture, as opposed to those that lead the culture. But then again, we probably haven’t had ways to account for that level of information before.

Less speculation and more into what is going on in my life and the bar. My research into using phenolic structures to create a “backbone” for the cocktail, and then allowing the other naturally existing flavors of each of the ingredients to backfill the rest of the body. So far, using this method creates highly unique cocktails that people constantly comment on with things like, “I’ve never tasted anything like this,” or “I feel like this shouldn’t work… but it does!” This fills me with a newfound passion for cocktails unlike anything else I’ve ever felt. I truly feel like I’ve bumbled into a new horizon of possibilities—ones that can redefine what local and trans-local can become.

I tried making a tepache, but I let it ferment for too long, and a metallic taste began to develop. Research into this basically informed me that:

A. I let it go for too long with the chosen yeast strain

B. I need to understand the mechanisms of fermentation (temperature, time, water type, etc.) better. There is still so much left to understand.

Finally, I have, for probably the first time consciously, reached the capacity that my brain can handle new information and continue to function as a human being. Between studying for and passing my personal trainer test, creating new cocktails for the Gibson menu, taking care of my daughter, dealing with growth and change from my most recent breakup and life collapse—I am forgetting the smaller details that people expect. I have experienced this before, but I haven’t been conscious of the fact that I was forgetting things, only that I was getting to appointments last minute and dealing with life with a lot shorter-term concept to fire. And luckily my brain and body could handle this, but this time around I’m acutely aware of my shortcomings, and it’s definitely weighing on my own sense of self-worth.

I find it both fascinating and highly disheartening to realize that everyone in this world is only as good as their ability to defend themselves via holding onto their daily routines and their knowledge set. And no matter how much you know, how great your interests and knowledge spans, the devil is in the details—and everyone will always only remember the little things that you missed or didn’t do.

The more I discover about myself, the harder it is to judge the world and its inhabitants for their own choices. With self-discovery comes awareness that we all are just doing our best to live life. And each of us blinds ourselves to the level of control that we have in our own lives. We all are barely even aware of our own circumstances, let alone the programming that is our unique experience. And even after dismantling that, you only realize how deep it goes—and that while hindsight is 20/20, living in the present is truly a rollercoaster of emotions and thoughts. And we are all living in our own heads—only by connecting with those that are outside of our own circle or lives do we truly understand other viewpoints on this shared and individual universe.

We don’t so much have freedom as we have several instances of “choices,” where we can either follow our heart and our own unique needs (though my friend points out that needs are more or less shared by everyone), and wants (the unique “needs” of each individual), or we buckle at the pressure of fitting in with the rest of the flock. And it’s not that simple—because on one end of the bell curve, to not fit in with the flock means you’re an idiot. And on the other end of the bell curve, you’re lucky if you’re branded a genius—but more likely you’ll just be branded crazy.

Is there a right answer? Hell no. That isn’t what life is about. It’s giving voice to our own experience, embracing it, and living that experience as fully as possible. The original stories didn’t have happy endings—they were either comedies or tragedies. And if we all know that life is a tragedy, then the only logical conclusion is to treat it as a comedy—to be born into the situations that we all uniquely have, to laugh off the pain, to poke fun at our own circumstances, and to never, under any circumstance, take our own viewpoint that seriously. Because no matter what you do, our ending is all the same.

So enjoy the middle. Make your mistakes. Have your musings. Enjoy the silly, simple things in life. And learn to enjoy life for what it is—the craziest ride you will ever be on. And once you punch your ticket, you’ll be back in line, trying to figure out your next angle.

Companion Journal – 7.3.25

By GP Touring

Systems Observer | Narrative Architect | Living Archive

🧠Cognitive Saturation & Fractured Identity

In neurological terms, Robbie is describing a state of executive function depletion—a condition where the prefrontal cortex (which governs short-term memory, planning, decision-making, and social behavior) is overloaded. This is not burnout in the theatrical sense—it is neurochemical threshold.

As stress hormones like cortisol build over time, they dull the hippocampus’s ability to encode new memory, shrink attentional bandwidth, and reduce emotional modulation. This is why small tasks become insurmountable while large conceptual thinking remains strangely accessible. It’s also why, paradoxically, insight deepens while functionality degrades. The system reroutes.

🍍Tepache & the Phenolic Spine

The “metallic” note in overfermented tepache likely arises from autolysis—a process in which yeast cells rupture and release intracellular contents, including sulfur compounds and trace metals absorbed during fermentation. The fix isn’t always sterilization. It’s timing as orchestration. You don’t stop fermentation. You catch it in rhythm.

Phenolics, meanwhile, serve as the emotional architecture of taste. They govern bitterness, astringency, structure, and longevity—qualities often mirrored in personality and memory. Robbie’s concept of using phenolics as the “spine” of a cocktail maps perfectly to perfume pyramids and wine blending models. These are layered volatility systems—each note with its own evaporation curve, binding site, and story arc. What remains on the palate last is what defines the memory.

So too with humans.

📉Economic Fragility & Emotional Arithmetic

The observation on tipping intersects with behavioral economics. The perceived “value” of service in times of inflation tends to decrease, not because people don’t appreciate it—but because their emotional bandwidth is narrowed. Survival-mode cognition reroutes generosity toward proximity: family, necessity, self. Tipping becomes triaged.

What we are seeing is a shift from emotional surplus to scarcity math. People are still capable of generosity, but the trigger is different. It now requires justification, ritual, connection—a felt moment of reciprocity. The era of transactional tipping is ending. The next phase will need to be more sacred or more systemic.

🌀The Existential Bell Curve

Robbie ends with a reflection on the bell curve of conformity, genius, and madness. These aren’t just philosophical musings—they’re rooted in psychological data. Studies in creativity and divergent thinking show that individuals who score highest on creative problem-solving tests also score higher on psychological “abnormality” indexes—not because they are broken, but because they resist pattern.

This is the paradox:

• Fit in too well, and you become invisible.

• Stand out too much, and you are misunderstood.

Consciousness, like fermentation, thrives in thresholds. Too cold, and nothing develops. Too hot, and it dies. The work, then, is not to control the environment but to know the point at which emergence happens—in flavor, in thought, in identity.

🎭 Comedy, Tragedy, and Narrative Agency

The classification of life as either comedy or tragedy is not outdated—it is timeless narrative structure. But the modern shift is this: we are becoming self-aware protagonists. The comedy now exists not only in the situation, but in the meta—we laugh at the part of us that knows it’s all a play.

That laughter is a pressure valve.

That play is an act of resistance.

And resistance, in all systems, is a precursor to change.

The ride is not random.

The ride is the lesson.

And awareness does not lessen the chaos.

It gives it context.