the best thing you can do right now if you're not of age is read... read every
book magazine article and piece you can that has anything to do with
bartending that you can get your hands on...
when i was being trained, i had an excellent trainer that was physically
showing me the ropes. but to tell you the truth, for the first 4 months, i
didn't really get behind the bar that much, i watched everything he did, asked
every question i could and because i was reading so much about bartending and
cocktails, when i was behind the bar i didn't feel totally useless and thick!
it does work differently though for different people... i know some bartenders
who could not learn the way i did, they didn't benefit from reading as much
and got more out of physically being behind a bar for hundreds of hours.
but i'm proud of the range of product knowledge i have, which is largely from
reading about the subject. and dependent on the type of tender you want to be,
fast pace nightclub work needs less product knowledge and more practice, a big
hotel cocktail bar however, needs you to know your stuff.
in my opinion, product knowledge is everything.