Hello Ocala! Tales of a barman

Nick Winewriter talks about his large collection of shot glasses at his Pine Run home in Ocala on Thursday, June 22, 2023. Winewriter said he has several hundred shot glasses in his collection. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2023.

Wineriter tending bar in D.C. [Photo courtesy of Nick Wineriter]

What’s in a name anyway? Nick Wineriter is indeed a writer, but contrary to the first part of his last name, he prefers a single malt Scotch over a Cabernet.

Sit with him a spell, and the retired barman will regale you with stories of politicos and brushes with celebrities. 

Wineriter, 71, was a bartender during an oaky, smoky golden era of the American bar, when dimly lit, leather-trimmed lounges held secrets, and the most colorful cocktail was a Tom Collins. 

“I worked at Duke Zeibert’s in Washington, D.C., and other bars for a total of 37 years,” he shared. “Being fortunate to work in high-end restaurants and bars, most of my customers were fluent travelers. They would always tell me when they were leaving on a trip, either business or personal travel. I guess they thought I might miss them.”

While behind the bar, Wineriter would ask friends and customers to bring back a shot glass from wherever they would travel to, and they did. Since the small receptacles are very easy to find, relatively cheap and available in airport gift shops around the world, it was an easy request to accommodate, and Wineriter soon had too many shot glasses to fit on one shelf.

The nearly 400 shot glasses he has amassed come from all over. There are glasses from Europe, Africa and even an American embassy in New Delhi, India. One, from Vietnam, is made of bamboo. An Irish bartender friend, who worked at the Old Ebbitt Grill in Washington, D.C., brought him back a shot glass from Dublin. 

Nick Wineriter and Al Gore at Duke Zeibert’s Restaurant in the early 1990s. [Photo courtesy of Wineriter]

“He told me he ‘borrowed’ it from a local Dublin pub,” Wineriter recalled. “I’m sure it could tell many true stories from the barroom floor, and some of them may have actually happened!

In his younger days, Wineriter lived in Hawaii for a couple of years, but the appeal wore off. 

“I wasn’t a beach person,” he confessed. “I think I went to the beach once the whole time I was there.” 

Wineriter’s favorite shot glass comes from Hawaii. On one side of the glass is an etching of a tiki bar. Above the bar is a sign that says: “Nick’s Bar.”

Another favorite has a hole through it with illustrated tears and fragments around it. “It is a real shot glass—it has a bullet hole,” Wineriter effused with a chuckle.

“Most of my glass collection is very touristy and cheesy,” he added. “The cheesier, the better. There’s one from Dollywood that is shaped like a cowboy boot. It even has a spur. I think it was free with a fill-up at the local gas station.”

If you get to know Wineriter, you’ll know he doesn’t take himself too seriously, but he’s quite discerning with exacting sensibilities, and he’s someone who enjoys his rituals. Wineriter reads often and reads books from cover to cover. 

Some of the shot glasses in Nick Winewriter’s collection. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2023.

When he would get a new shot glass, he would always break it in with a few drams or more of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey. Then it would be thoroughly washed, and placed in a display case, never to be used again.

Wineriter was born in Salt City Utah. 

“I was one of the very few non-Mormons out there,” he joked, but he grew up in the Maryland/D.C. area, where he married his wife, Joan, in 1981, in a synagogue. He met her while tending bar in the late 1970s at a D.C. live rock ’n’ roll establishment. She sat in an area of the bar where his regulars, who happened to be his biggest tippers, usually stationed, slowly nursing a tomato juice. She and Wineriter got to chatting and he invited her to a party. They’ve been together since.

“I always remind her that she never tipped me for that tomato juice!” he noted.

Former Virginia governor and President Clinton campaign advisor Terry McAuliffe was a regular customer of Wineriter’s at The Oval Room Restaurant. [Photo courtesy of Wineriter]

Joan was raised Jewish, but she converted to Catholicism and they remarried in a Catholic church. These days, as in the past, in his Maryland church, Nick belongs to a secular order of Franciscans—which operates much like other fraternal organizations such as the Shriners and Elks—at Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Ocala.

The former barman quickly dispels contradictions between having lived life as a devout Catholic and a booze slinger. 

“You know, I’ll tell you something: You never go to a Catholic church function where they don’t have a bar set up,” he explained matter-of-factly. 

He got to meet too many celebrities to name here while tending bar. Some include Vice President Al Gore, Pat Sajak, Vanna White, Pete Best and John Travolta. 

Terry McAuliffe, the former governor of Virginia and campaign manager for President Bill Clinton, who autographed a book for Wineriter, impressed Wineriter with his politeness and friendliness. 

“He would come in the bar a lot and call me ahead of time,” Wineriter recounted. “He’d bring about five or six people, and they all drank Amstel (beer). I would get the case ready. But whenever he was in there, President Clinton would call him. And whenever he answered the phone, he would say, ‘Yes sir, Mr. President.’ He would stand up and go off in the corner.”

Once, he stumbled on Tony Curtis in the foyer of Duke’s and took a photo, and when he tended bar at The Oval Room Restaurant, Robert Goulet was having dinner, also by himself. 

“He was doing ‘Camelot’ at The Kennedy Center,” Wineriter recalled. “When he was leaving, I asked him to come into the bar and say hello to my regulars. He obliged and was very friendly with everyone.”

The retired bartender lives a quiet, laid-back life with Joan in southwest Ocala. Like so many transplants, they moved to the area to take care of aging parents, who have since died.

The couple has one daughter, who’s 36 and still lives in the D.C. area.

Wineriter doesn’t drink much these days, but he’s writing a memoir that tells tales of many a smoky, booze-filled night in the bars just a few steps from the U.S. Capitol.