We’re posting transcripts of Working, Slate’s podcast about what people do all day, exclusively for Slate Plus members. What follows is the transcript for Season 5, Episode 10.

In this episode of Working, Slate’s Jacob Brogan talks to Chantal Tseng about her job as a bartender at Washington D.C.’s hidden gem, The Reading Room—a book-lined bar tucked inside another bar at Petworth Citizen, a restaurant in Northwest D.C. Undoubtedly the city’s best-read bartender, Chantal has mixed her love of literature into craft cocktails, chockfull of literary references. Want to know more about the process behind her creative translation of books into booze? Read about it here! And learn how to make your own literature inspired concoctions in a Slate Plus bonus segment.

Jacob Brogan: Welcome to Working, Slate’s podcast about what people do all day. I’m Jacob Brogan and I write about technology and culture for Slate. Until about a year ago, I studied and taught English literature, which is part of why I’m so excited for our guest this week. Chantal Tseng is a bartender who works out of the Reading Room at Petworth Citizen, a restaurant in Northwest D.C. The Reading Room is a bar tucked away inside a bar. It’s a book-lined space that feels set aside from the hustle and bustle of the everyday.

Each week, Tseng plans a new menu for the space, designing a cocktail list inspired by the work of an author she’s been reading recently. We spoke to her as she was preparing to debut a Lewis Carroll–inspired menu. But in the past, she’s extrapolated on the week of Italo Calvino, Graham Greene, and many other authors. We talked with her about how she creates new cocktails, and about the effort that she puts into setting up and running the bar itself.

And in a Slate Plus extra, Tseng reads Lewis Carroll’s poem, “Jabberwocky,” before talking us through a sherry cocktail that it inspired. I tried it, and it’s delicious. Can you tell us who you are and what you do?

Chantal Tseng: My name is Chantal Tseng and I’m a bartender. I have a specific cocktail program back here where I create cocktail menus every weekend based on rotating authors. Sort of a literary cocktail series.

Brogan: Who are some of the authors and writers that you’ve worked with?

Tseng: Well, currently we’re doing Lewis Carroll this week, but we’ve gone through a lot of great authors, starting with Hemingway, Edgar Allan Poe, then Shakespeare, Ian Fleming, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, Hans Christian Andersen, Kafka, Bradbury, Murakami, Patricia Highsmith, F. Scott Fitzgerald. I’ll stop. I can keep going. There’s a lot.

Brogan: That’s a lot. So, what does that mean on a week like this one for the Lewis Carroll cocktails?

Tseng: Well, so that means I’ll read the literature by the author, not all of it obviously, but I’ll find some stories and then I’ll read those stories or those novels, and then I will use that as my inspiration for the actual cocktail.

This week we have a cocktail menu of seven drinks. I’m riffing off of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, The Hunting of the Snark, and then a few of the characters that are inside those actual pieces of literature.

Brogan: What’s the first step when you set out to invent or design a cocktail for an event like this one?

Tseng: Well, I guess the first step is the reading, but as far as like thinking about the cocktails, it’s basically inspired from the literature, so as I’m reading I’ll sort of pick up what they might be drinking, what they drink in the book, or perhaps some kind of aromatic element, if they’re in description talking about the orange groves, and the cinnamon in the air, then I kind of feel like the need to incorporate said elements.

Brogan: How do you figure out what should go in a specific drink?

Tseng: So a lot of it just comes from making cocktails for a long time and kind of going, all right, this is in my head, this is in my palate, let me sort of free-associate and riff off and create these drinks. And a lot of them, for example, start from classics.

Brogan: Do you taste your work as you go?

Tseng: I do. I also taste a lot of it, or I’ll use recipes that I’ve used before, or riff off of other recipes. And sometimes it’s not tasted, but I kind of know what the flavors are, so I feel good about it. Or I’ll get there that day and sort of tweak the ratios and the proponents, or go, OK, well there needs to be more lemon to make this work.

Or, a little bit less of the gin, or a little bit more of the vermouth. And so it’s always a little free-flowing improvisational on the day of.

Brogan: Is there ever danger of getting sloshed while you work?

Tseng: Oh no. I’m professional.

Brogan: How long does it usually take then to dial in a new concoction?

Tseng: It’s kind of a large span of time from perfect—that took me two minutes. I think that needs to go with that. Or, I might lead in thinking, I’m reading Death in the Afternoon. You know what? There’s already a cocktail named Death in the Afternoon, created by Hemingway.

Or, I’m reading The Jabberwock, has a cocktail named after it for Lewis Carroll. Or, I could take a couple days. Sometimes I just wrack my brain going why can’t I make this happen, and then it just comes to me.

Brogan: Can we talk about one of the cocktails from this week? Maybe let’s say the March Hare. What’s in the March Hare?

Tseng: So, the March Hare has rye whiskey, with some fresh squeezed carrot juice, barley tea, some ginger syrup, a little bit of lemon, and then it gets topped off with nutmeg.

Brogan: What was your thinking behind that one?

Tseng: Having read the story and the element in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, we were looking at the tea party. So, I did want to incorporate in the menu several drinks with tea.

I’m also a huge tea drinker. It’s insane how much tea I drink, just on an aside. But, so I thought, well, the March Hare, they’re stuck in this time, which is like a minute before tea time, because they got into an argument in Wonderland, and so they’re stuck right before tea time, and this endless tea party, which is why it’s a mad tea party.

And what is keeping him wired, versus the mouse next to him who is constantly falling asleep. I was like, well, if you can’t drink tea, perhaps it’s whiskey. He kind of has that like wired look around him. So I was like this could be a whiskey cocktail. And then naturally that made sense with fresh carrot juice. And I love the flavors of carrot juice and ginger, and like that lemon and that spice element. It all comes together.

It’s something I’ve done before, so it kind of makes me go, oh good, I love that. This is perfect for this.

Brogan: That cocktail sounds great. How long does it take to actually make a drink when you’re preparing it?

Tseng: Usually drinks don’t take more than a minute. And a minute is pretty long for making a cocktail. But, some drinks are pre-batched, if they’re going to be served a lot of them, and they become a punch.

Some drinks, for example, require making tea a la minute, so we have to brew the tea, and that takes a little bit longer. That one would be closer to a minute or two minutes.

Brogan: You’re serving different cocktails each week. Does that mean that you have to set the bar up differently each week?

Tseng: Yes. So, there’s some routine, and then there’s changing up the routine. So, every week is a little bit of, OK, this is where I put my mixing glass, and now in this bowl here I’m going to put lemons. In this bowl here, now I’m putting cucumbers. Or, I’ve brought in some extra accoutrements from home because I have a lot of things at home that I like to decorate the bar with, and it works for the theme of this week. So, here’s a teapot.

Or here’s this stellar set of sake cups. Or, because they look good.

Brogan: How long does it usually take to get everything organized?

Tseng: Well, on a Friday, which is when the new menu is, it always takes a good hour and a half, sometimes two hours. It depends on what’s involved. A lot of the prep I will do elsewhere as well, or in advance. Sometimes that requires, for example, drying things out, like garnishes, like fruits.

Or pickling things. Juicing in general. Juicing is pretty much the day of, but, yeah, it takes a little while. But on Saturdays, it doesn’t take as much time, because I’ve already had it set up the day before.

Brogan: Is it difficult to source any of the liquors or other components? Do you ever find yourself looking for things that you don’t have easily on hand?

Tseng: Sometimes. Part of the reason why I’m doing the series in the first place is because I’ve been ordering and I really know what’s available in the D.C. market very well. And there’s a part of me that’s using that base of, OK, I know where to buy this and what to get this, so it’s not that hard to find stuff.

Brogan: You talked about pickling earlier. Do you ever create infusions or shrubs or other components that take more of your week?

Tseng: Sometimes. I have in the past. I haven’t recently. I’ve done some pickling in the fall and winter for garnishes with like persimmons and apples and something else. I can’t remember now. Pineapples.

Brogan: I love pickled pineapple. Surprisingly delicious. What sort of tools do you use? Does that change from week to week?

Tseng: It can. I always have something, for example, to heat the water, which is our hot water pot. And then I have varying different teapots I might use to brew tea. We did Jorge Luis Borges once, and I had brought in specific Matcha tea cup to use for a lot of the tea, and just kind of drank out of it the whole night, the tea that is

I like to get into character. Sort of riff a little bit off of the theme. And when I’m at home, you know, putting my wardrobe together, I’ll be like, ooh, this one necklace will work. This necklace that I got ages ago that’s kind of riffing off of the miniature absinthe bottles that people used to wear like as necklaces and things. And it’s like, oh, that’s perfect for Drink Me, Alice in Wonderland.

Brogan: So it’s like the Drink Me bottles from that story?

Tseng: Exactly. And we’ll do the same with the music. Our music is all often an iPod. And depending on who we feature a certain week, we’ll change the music to have it make sense.

Brogan: What have you put on previous playlists for other authors?

Tseng: Well, when we did Ian Fleming for James Bond night, we played like all the soundtrack music, which was really cheesy, but kind of a lot of fun. Otherwise, for Murakami night, we did a lot of like classic jazz. Haruki Murakami was a big jazz fanatic, so that was kind of perfect. Let’s see what else.

Sometimes we don’t know what to play, but we’ll think, oh, Margaret Atwood wrote her first novel in the ’80s— ’80s music tonight. So it just depends. It’s kind of like we’ll decide as we set up.

Brogan: What kind of prep has gone into this week in particular?

Tseng: So this week was definitely about thinking about the presentation of cocktails. So, wanted to make sure I had candy. I wanted to get candy. That’s not a lot of prep. That requires going to the store. We have these like small bottles that we can do bottled cocktails and label them Drink Me for the Pimm’s Cup that’s the variation of Alice in Wonderland. So it’s a lot of sourcing of materials, and kind of going through my tea library.

I was drying a lot of grapefruits so that they can sit on top of the glass and be like the bottom of a hat. Preparation this week was also just sort of carving peels to get the right shapes that we’re looking for for our presentation. Because we like to up our garnish game back here. And it has been developing over the few months that we’ve been doing this. Every month or every week it’s like, ooh, what do we do next? Because the garnish game is kind of exciting for the whole concept.

Brogan: What are some of the garnishes this week?

Tseng: So, some of the garnishes include a cucumber sandwich, which is just cucumbers, two dials of cucumbers with cream cheese and mint in the middle. It’s going to sit on the cocktail.

We also have the hat, which is the grapefruit dried out, with a lime shell on top, kind of sitting on. It’s nice and colorful.

Brogan: What does it take to dry a grapefruit? I assume you mean dry a grapefruit slice?

Tseng: Yeah. Just slice them, as soon as you can, and low heat overnight. I put it on wax paper and I flip them so they don’t get sticky. And then just get them to a next texture.

Brogan: Is that edible?

Tseng: Oh yes. A lot of the garnishes are edible. Sometimes they’re not. Sometimes we’ll use, for example, well, a couple of weeks ago for Graham Greene there was the story The Quiet American, and the character Pyle in it, he was on this premise of being into plastics in Vietnam and like sort of selling plastics and how it’s for use for toys.

But that was not true. And so we had like a plastic little anchor as a garnish as part of the presentation. So, you don’t eat that, but it was there for show.

Brogan: When do you start to prep for a service?

Tseng: It kind of ranges any time from 4pm to 5:50, depending on what needs to be done. There are, for example, if I’m using cold teas, then I’ll make sure to brew them and get them chilled in time for service. Juicing. I mean, typically, it ends up being like 5 o’clock, which is like a two-hour window. I say 4. I never get here at 4. That’s a lie.

Brogan: So, when you do get here, what’s the first thing you do?

Tseng: First thing I do is take out all the things in my backpack that I brought for this weekend, including like garnishes, or specialty garnishes that I had to purchase, or drying of things, articles, décor, like teapots and other types of vessels.

And then I start decorating. I also take survey of where the bottles are at and start to just set up them for service, so like I know these three bottles are in one cocktail. I’ll put them next to each other. That sort of thing.

Brogan: What’s the first thing you do when service starts going?

Tseng: Smile and greet people. Give them water.

Brogan: How many people do you usually serve over the course of a night?

Tseng: I guess it can range. So, it’s really busy if I’ve made like over 100 cocktails. But this room itself seats comfortably 16 people. Standing room it kind of can get fuller, to like 20, 25, which is not a lot. So, you know, if you turn that a few times, having 75 people all night is really busy, you know.

Brogan: There’s a cliché of the bartender as therapist. Is there any truth to that for you?

Tseng: Sometimes. Those are fun conversations. And sometimes, you know, it’s just a person, a human being. People show up and you find a rapport with someone and you can talk to them. Or someone is here to have a drink, to have fun, or to think about something else. It’s a conversation at the end of the day.

Brogan: You have this book theme here. Do you ever talk books with your guests?

Tseng: Oh yes. Of course. And it’s fun. Every week, the more I read every week, and the more all the other kind of literature in the past I’ve read kind of starts to come together. And like just create their own conversations.

There’s a lot of conversations about people going, ooh, you should really do so and so next week, or have you done this author. If it’s really busy, obviously there’s a little bit less conversation and there’s more, here’s your drink, enjoy.

Brogan: Do you ever drink during service?

Tseng: I typically don’t drink during service. I will sip on things, particularly to make sure the cocktail tastes right. Sometimes, I drink a lot of tea, so I’m constantly drinking tea during service. Sometimes I’ll have a little sherry as well.

Brogan: What time of the evening does it usually start to get busiest?

Tseng: Oh, it’s pretty standard. It can get busy at 7, but 8 to 10 is like the busy time.

Brogan: Is it hard to maintain quality when it gets more frantic?

Tseng: I’d like to think no. I do have a very consistent method/methodology to how I make drinks. I’ve very much of the jigger proponent, meaning that I’ll measure everything.

So, if I make a cocktail, and it needs two ounces, I will measure into a jigger two ounces and pour it in. I don’t do a lot of free-pouring. I certainly did when I first started bartending, like anyone did, but now I’ve gotten more part of this routine of measuring everything to keep that consistency. And so if it takes a while, then it takes a while, but I’m making the drink. It’s a small space and for the most part we don’t run into too much trouble with it taking too long to get a drink.

Brogan: If you have a lot of people at the bar, is it ever hard to figure out who to pay attention to?

Tseng: It’s about eye contact. And it’s about, hi, and acknowledgment. So, as long as someone knows that they’re not being ignored, then at the end of the day, there’s a good amount of time. There’s like a range of time that you have. You’re like, OK, they see that I see them. Great. And they won’t get upset in ten seconds. Maybe they will in 30 seconds. But they know I see them. You’re always weighing and gauging.

Brogan: How late does service usually go?

Tseng: It’s not like a late night bar by any means. It’s just open at 7, stop at midnight. Sometimes we’ll stay open a little later, if a nice crew of regulars come. But 7 to midnight are our hours.

Brogan: Do people usually come in groups or as individuals?

Tseng: Both. There’re actually every now and then a couple groups that have like their own book club, and they’ll kind of show up and take over some tables and do some readings. And then there’s the regulars who come as a couple, or as themselves. So, it’s a little bit of everybody.

Brogan: What do you have to do after you’ve ended service? How do you shut the bar down?

Tseng: Clean. Dispose of anything that’s disposable. Refrigerate things that need to be refrigerated. Wiping down tables. Wiping down bottles. Putting things back in their places, out of the way. That sort of thing.

Brogan: How did the Reading Room concept come about?

Tseng: So, a year ago I was doing some traveling in Spain, and I went to a writer’s workshop, which I’ve kind of always been dying to do in the mountains. And I started doing a lot of writing, and just naturally I would write these short stories and at the end go, and here’s a cocktail recipe, because it’s just in my nature to suddenly go, ooh, I just wrote this story about this so-and-so in the mountains, and I’m like, oh, this would go great with a toddy recipe. It’s something that kind of naturally comes.

I’ve done this a few times before, particularly for special events, or when I’m creating a cocktail menu I’ll often use literature, or art, or music, as like the title or riff off of it as inspiration. And then over the summer, I met with Paul, the owner, who inquired about if I’d be interested in doing a new project or some kind of project back here. And it was before the bar was built. He was planning on wanting to extend and create a bar back here.

So we sat down in the Reading Room. I looked around. And it just became obvious. It was like, well clearly I can do literary cocktails. It will work perfectly. It’s a reading room. So that’s the origin really.

Brogan: When did you start developing your own cocktails?

Tseng: So I started bartending 16 years ago. And the first time I bartended, it was really exciting, like anyone who ever starts a shift, a bartending gig, they go, ooh, and then they want to create something. It’s kind of like when you start cooking for the first time, you want to be like, OK, let me go off menu and do this.

So, as old as that, sure, were any of those cocktails any good? Of course not. You know, it’s kind of like, you know, you go back in time and you look at your portfolio from when you were in high school and you’re still doing art today, but back then you happened to come across it and you go, wow, these should be burned, you know. As far as like cocktails that I’ve created that I feel good about, that period of times is a little bit closer to like probably since the mid-2000s.

Brogan: What’s your favorite part about bartending more generally?

Tseng: Oh, well, the creative process is actually a super part, a reason why I love doing this. It keeps me talking and interacting with people and sharing something which is very creative, which I find I have a lot of passion for. I like spreading my own desire to get people to drink more sherry. And be like, hi, here’s a sherry cocktail. You know what? Sherry is wonderful. It’s another huge motivating factor.

Brogan: What’s the most difficult part about what you do?

Tseng: Oh, the pain. The back pain.

Brogan: Why do you have back pain?

Tseng: It’s a physical job. I’m sure you can develop back pain by sitting at a desk all the time, or you can also develop back pain by running around and shaking things and doing service, and then being on your feet for a really long time. So, that’s definitely the worst part, yeah.

Brogan: Do you have advice for people who want to get into cocktail crafting?

Tseng: Definitely focus on getting the classic lexicon down. Learn the classics. Go to classes. Sit behind great people making cocktails. Learn the fact that it’s not about just making cocktails. It’s about people. And that no matter what kind of cocktail you make, if you have a bad experience, or if someone across from you is not enjoying their time, you will also not have a good experience. And so there’s all kinds of components going into being a bartender.

Brogan: Are there things that customers do at bars that drive you crazy that they should avoid?

Tseng: Probably.

Brogan: It’s fun. Thank you so much.

Tseng: You’re welcome.

Brogan: This was delightful. Thanks, Chantal. Thanks for listening to this episode of working. I’m Jacob Brogan. We’d love to hear your thoughts about the podcast. Our email address is working@slate.com. And you can listen to all six seasons at Slate.com/working. This episode was produced by the excellent Mickey Capper. Our executive producer is Steve Lickteig, and the chief content officer of the Panoply Network is Andy Bowers.

In this Slate Plus extra, Chantal Tseng reads Lewis Carroll’s poem, “Jabberwocky,” before talking us through a sherry cocktail that it inspired. I tried it, and it was delicious. It might be fun to do some readings of the Jabberwock poem. Would you be willing to read that one to us?

Tseng: I will give it a go.

Brogan: OK.

Tseng:         

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

 Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

 And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

 The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and the shun

 The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;

 Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree

 And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

 The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

 And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

 The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

 He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

 Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

 He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

 Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

 And the mome raths outgrabe.

Brogan: So what’s in your Jabberwock cocktail?

Tseng: So, the Jabberwock cocktail actually riffs off of actually an existing Jabberwock cocktail.

And it’s a stirred drink, an aromatic drink, made with gin, sherry, Caperitif, or Dubonnet Red, and orange bitters. Today instead of the Dubonnet Red, or the Caperitif, which is a defunct ingredient from South Africa, we’re using the Cocchi Americano Rosa vermouth, which is kind of a fun ingredient, and I’m excited to have that in the new version.

Brogan: Why did you choose that ingredient?

Tseng: Because I haven’t used it in a cocktail as much as I’d like to, and I really love it as a flavor.

And it kind of makes sense for what it’s replacing. Dubonnet Rouge being traditionally this sort of fortified wine with quinine, and Cocchi Rosa is kind of riffing off that, but it’s more Rosa Rosa like not full red wine, and it has that quinine kick. All the flavors make sense in my head.

Brogan: Could you talk us through the process of making one of these? What do you do first?

Tseng: The first thing you should always do is chill your glass, so that the glass that you’re serving it in is nice and cold. Cocktails, cold cocktails, should always be as chilled as possible.

Brogan: So you’re scooping some ice into the cup?

Tseng: I’m scooping ice into our cup. And then this is the Jabberwock cocktail, so it’s a stirred aromatic beverage. I grab a mixing glass, and my jigger, and I add my gin.

Brogan: How much gin goes into that?

Tseng: I’m putting an ounce-and-a-half in. And then I grab the sherry. This is the Hidalgo Napoleon Amontillado. I’m a big fan of it on its own. And I grab the Cocchi Rosa.

Same proportion. A little three-quarters of an ounce. Our dash of bitters. Two dashes of orange bitters.

Brogan: Where does the bitters come from?

Tseng: Oh, currently we have Regan’s orange bitters. Regan’s Number 5.

Brogan: You’re pouring some ice now into the cup with all the liquor.

Tseng: I am. So, I’m pouring the ice into the stirring glass, and stirring the cocktail with my stirring spoon.

Brogan: How long do you stir it for?

Tseng: It’s a feel thing. So, it’s definitely, depending on the drink, depending what’s in there, I’m looking at dilution, and thinking about how cold it’s getting. Sometimes I’m adding another cube because I’m looking at the rate of all the dilution. A little more ice than that. I want it nice and cold.

Brogan: So you’re cutting it with water to some extent here?

Tseng: And then it also depends on the ice that you have. So we have cold draft ice here, which is a bit harder for a cube. It doesn’t melt as quickly. A little colder. So you can stir for longer and not get it too watered down.

Brogan: I’ve heard that shaking your martini instead of stirring it is actually going to dilute it more? That James Bond is actually weakening his cocktail?

Tseng: Yeah, the whole school of thought behind the shaking versus stirring is very important, because you are looking about what you’re doing to the texture of a cocktail. And there’s the rate of dilution, there’s the texture, there’s ice shards. We also have these double strainers that we’ll use when we shake cocktails so that we don’t have those ice shards constantly watering down your drink as you go.

Brogan: You just tasted the cocktail. How do you do that?

Tseng: As you bartend, you certainly get a feel for how long something is stirring for, what it looks like, and what that means to the flavor. Every now and then you get like the straw taste is where you’re like, OK, where are we at, particularly if you’re trying to get that first cocktail set and move on. You just want to make sure that it’s at the right temperature. And it’s like a sommelier on the floor when they taste your wine for you to make sure it’s good, and it’s not bad, so you don’t have that awkward moment at the table where you’re like, I don’t like this, but I don’t know why. When I think it’s bad, but I’m not sure.

Brogan: So you just dip that little straw in there?

Tseng: Exactly. Quality control. It’s important. So then we’ve strained into our chilled glass, our cocktail. And then I’ve picked up my orange and I’m peeling the peel.

Brogan: Is there a particular way that you peel for this cocktail?

Tseng: Well, for this one, yeah. For this one, we created a peel. And we use these knives, which let us kind of minutely carve shapes into the peel. So I will release the oil from the peel first onto the drink, and then I will kind of carve a fun little shape, and put that on top to be part of the story. So, the shape is carved. And then we place it on the drink nicely, and serve it.

Brogan: Perfect.

Tseng: Isn’t that beautiful?

Brogan: It’s gorgeous.