Miles Away

“Rocks and Salt?”.  That is the question I learned that as a bartender you always need to ask when making someone a margarita. Yes ladies and gentleman as of Friday night at 10:18pm I am now a licensed bartender, and have the knowledge and skills to make well over 100+ different drinks.

Most people wouldn’t take me as someone who would want to be a bartender, or have a bartender’s skills.  I think that is because of a misconception in thinking.  People hear someone is a bartender and thinks “well, they must really like booze”, but that’s flawed, a bartender doesn’t get themselves booze, they serve it to others.  I’m not a big drinker, but I’ve always been enticed by what a bartender can do.  They can be given some seemingly random sentence (for example “Give me a wet gimlet with rocks on the side”) and give someone the exact drink they are looking for (A martini with extra lime juice, in a martini glass with the ice in a side glass) it is the perfect pairing of art and science.  In fact I believe Bartending is one of the only literal meanings of a ‘social science’. Think about it, bartenders are mearly social chemists.  They take common elements (almost every drink is composed of one or more of the 5 following alcohols: vodka, Gin, Rum, Tequilla & Triple Sec).  By combining these elements in different ways they produce thousands of products.  It’s truly amazing.

For years I’ve seen flyers for Drinkmasters Bartending School and I have heard great things about the school.  But with the $500 price tag for the course, it was out of my reach finacially.  But a few weeks ago I was on groupon.com (which I visit everyday) and saw that you could enroll in the Drinkmasters course for only $150.  So for $150 I could enroll in a $500 course, get my bartending license and have alot of fun? that’s a no brainer, so I purchased it. (As did my good friend Mike Matterra).

The course was only a week long, four hour classes every night from 6pm-10pm.  You would think that a four hour long class would be brutal, but the way the instructors teach the classes it goes by quick and is wicked fun.  There is no pressure, your there because you want to learn, the instructors are there because they want to teach and everyone has a great time. And the max in each class is only 16 people, so you get to know your fellow classmates and joke with them (just how you would as a real bartender)

Every class started with drink drills (where we would stand behind the bar and the instructor would yell out drink orders and we had to make them).  Monday and tuesday night, nearly everyone struggled to make even the basic drink correctly (including handling the glasses, ices, serving the drink to the customer) but by thursday we were all nearly pros.

I surprised myself, most of the time I can be a bit of a klutz…. I tend to drop things.  But everything clicked for me behind the bar, I was scooping ice, grabing the right bottles, shaking, serving the whole nine yards.  I know I keep saying this, but it was alot of fun.

The course went over the whole spectrum of bartending, from how to properly take a drink order all the way to how to identify and pour wine.  We learned how with just a little bit of knowledge we could make any daqauri, shot, mixed drink & margartias.

Friday night was the big night for the course, it was exam night. Where we would see who would go home a bartender and who would go home a customer.  The exam consisted of a written test and a practical.  The written I found was easy, it was only 25 questions and I knew the answer to all except 1.  I was more nervous for the practical, where you had to actually make drinks.  In fact Myself, Mike and our friend Justin were so nervous that we had arrived at 3pm (3 hours before class started) on Friday to just practice our drink drills.

After the written there was a quick break, and then we had the practical.  Myself, Mike & Justin and two others (our new friends Nellie &  ‘P’) were in the first group of bartenders-to-be to take the practical (it was split up into groups of 4/5 at a time).  I was feeling confident, the instructor explained the guidelines and then gave us each our first drink orders.

I cant exactly explain what happened next, it’s all a blur I was in the bar tending zone. I heard the drink orders and it seamed that before I was even done repaeting the order back to the ‘coustomer’ the drink was made and served and I was getting the next order.  It was… I have to say amazing, I was truly impressed with my self and my classmates.

We all finished our drinks (I was first to finish) and then we’re sent on a break (so that the last waiting group could not grill us on what it was like).  Taking advantage of the 45min break we had and the adrenaline we all had pumping we decided to go around the corner to a local bar.  The one thing about the bartending course, is al week we have been making these colorful, exotic drinks but with colored water.  So they looked good, but were completly undrinkable.

One drink, in particular I had been wanting to try all week, it’s known as a planters punch.  When we first learned it the instructor told us that not many bartenders know how to make this drink and it would be hard to find.  So at the bar I asked the bartender for a planters punch, and what do you know but she didnt know what it was.  I explained how to make it and she proceeded to try. The ting about learning something is that you notice when others are doing it wrong.  For example when the bartender was making me my planters punch I could see all the flaws in her technique, and was taken back (of course it’s no big deal since she did manage to make the drink).  But it was just a wonderment to myself to know that when ever I go out in the future I’ll see these flaws.

After our break we went back to class, when the instructor tallied up everyone’s grades and presented all of us with our certificates of achievement (that’s right 100% of the class passed!). We were all excited.  the instructor then explained how the school should be the resource to us for finding bartending jobs, and that we can comeback at any time for free refresher courses or to practice.

Certified Bartender

Does this mean I’m going to quit my job and become a bartender? Of course not, I love my job and using my college degree.  But if in the future I know that I have a second set of skills in case I need to make extra cash.  For now it’s just a great party trick.

Excited with our new sets of skills Mike and I proceeded to get all the necessary tools to make our home bar an actual bar (as opposed to a cabinet with liquor bottles).  Mike purchased a bartenders kit online with all the tools, and saturday went up to New Hampshire to  get all the tax free booze we would need (about $200 worth).  And sunday we went to the christmas tree shop and bought all the proper glassware.

Home Bar

We now have a bar that any bartender would be proud of, and proceeded to christen it with a couple of home made margaritas. (with no pre-made mix, and they were perfect for the heat wave we had over the weekend).

Margaritas

The whole experience was great.  I learned a lot, made some new friends and had a lot of fun. So before I head to my home bar to make you a margarita I need to know, do you want rocks & salt?