My Experience as a Bartending School Student
Day 1
I arrived at the school and was immediately impressed with the bar set-up. It
looked very similar to the bars I’ve been in as a customer. My teacher handed
me the course booklet and said to read the first ten pages until everyone else
arrived. Soon we started. Dan, the instructor, made six or so drinks,
commenting on techniques and various points about each one. After he showed us
how to mix them, half the students got behind the bar and made them. He gave
us a running critique as we mixed. Then, the other half had their turn, again,
with a running critique. I found watching other students mix the drinks more
helpful than you might think. It helped me to learn the drinks and what not to
do. We had a recipe booklet that we could look at, but Dan discouraged it. On
our first night, we made martinis, manhattans, rob roys, and a selection of
others: gimlet, white/black russian, old fashioned, stinger, rusty nail,
godfather/mother, and a few others. I was a little overwhelmed, but found that
I could remember the recipes if I studied. Making flashcards helped.
Practicing at home did too (I filled an empty bottle with water, bought a
plastic pour spout, and "named" the liquor as I practiced). Dan ended the
first class with a rather long explanation about how to close down the bar. As
I learned later, I should have paid more attention to those instructions!
Day 2
I studied the drinks we made on our first day with flashcards for an hour or
so before day 2. We started the class with a verbal review of the previous
drinks, then Dan put us behind the bar to mix them without looking at our
notes. He helped us out, as needed. Again, sitting and watching the other
students (6 of us in the class, by the way) helped me remember. After we all
made the drinks from the previous class, he introduced another 20 or so
including highballs, smith and kearns, greyhound/salty dog, moscow mule,
bloody mary, screwdriver/sloe/comfortable/wallbanger, tequila sunset/rise,
cape cod, sea breeze, and others. He mixed these in two sets with us
practicing half the time and watching half the time. Sometime during this
night I started to realize that I could do this. (And then, I tried to shake
a drink with the strainer on top of the mixing glass- what a mess!)
Remembering the drinks isn’t all that hard if you practice a little. Of
course, we were only making them one at a time in a controlled atmosphere, but
my initial apprehension about bartending was the memorization part.