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A Brief Look Back at Bartending

In so far as humans crave leisure and fun, the reality remains that there will always be a need for those who serve drinks in a comfortable and relaxing setting. And a bartender is a vital match to craft the perfect cocktails for the guests.

The history of bartending can shed some light on the important role that bartenders play in our society. The first bartenders can be found in the ancient era, when Greek and Roman revelers relied on expert craftsman to pour their favorite drinks. Throughout the decades and centuries, bartenders continued to master their craft. By the 15th century, bartenders throughout Europe were primarily known as innkeepers, and these professionals typically produced their own spirits and ales. Till date, bartending remains a notable profession; In fact, this job is available at nearly any corner of the earth.

Who is a Bartender?

A bartender has many other names such as barkeeper, mixologist, and alcohol server or bar chef–to name a few. Basically, a bartender is any person who prepares or serves alcoholic (and some non-alcoholic beverages) from behind a bar. Bartenders can work in any licensed establishment to include a “bar” and also taverns, restaurants, hotels, casinos and other locations. A bartender may have other tasks to do as well, such as serving food, taking inventory and providing general customer service. Bartending goes hand in hand with the hospitality industry. The outlooks for these jobs are very positive.

Prospect for Bartending

Careertrend.com mentioned that, “Employment of bartenders is projected to grow 18 percent from 2020 to 2027 faster than the average for all occupations. High turnover is expected to result in very good job opportunities. Strong competition is expected in popular restaurants and fine-dining establishments, where tips are highest.”  But then, a trained or a certified bartender does have a leg-up on a non-certified bartender when it comes to competition.

Employers know that certified bartenders have a wealth of drink knowledge and industry-specific training that even an experienced bartender may not have. If you want to work as a bartender in any city of the world, consider enrolling in bartender training courses to build your knowledge base and give you an edge.

Kate Dingwall ,a freelance writer whose work focuses on food, drinks and travel observes that “Bartending may seem like an in-situ skill: Indeed, it’s difficult to translate the energy and instruction of an in-person bartending class to a virtual experience. Still, a spate of schools can do just that, offering online bartending classes for home-bound drinkers”.

This article consist list of classes hosted by award-winning mixologists and courses that focus on service skills. Some modules dive into cocktail history, while others educate students on how to build their own drinks. So, let’s get started!

1.BarSmarts

Established and sponsored by Pernod Ricard, the world’s second-largest wine and spirits distillery in the world, BarSmarts provides starter bar knowledge for industry members and cocktail aficionados, covering spirits, classic cocktails, cocktail history, and service management.

Pernod Ricard built a comprehensive online learning platform that can be accessed by any bartending enthusiast, anywhere in the world.

This program commences with profiles of every spirits category, covering the history of the spirit, cocktail applications, and guided video tastings. It moves through a collection of cocktail recipes and assorted serving techniques. David Wondrich, a renowned authority on the history of cocktails and Editor in Chief, Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails, has been affiliated with the BarSmarts classes.

The course closes with the Drink Builder exam. To ace it, bartenders must make four different classic cocktails pulled from previous readings. Participants have two chances to pass each module’s test and 60 days to finish up the full program. If they pass, graduates walk away with a certificate and the opportunity to level up to the advanced course, which has had famous bartender, Dale DeGroff and wine and spirits expert Steve Olson as educators.

The course costs $29 and is recommended for anyone from professionals to enthusiasts.

2.Free Bartending Online Training at Typsy

Began in Melbourne over 5 years ago with an aim to engage and inspire learners with engaging and accessible hospitality tips from leading industry experts worldwide. Typsy is adopted globally with users in 120+ countries. It is an online learning experience platform with a curated library of short, bite-sized video lessons, all filmed with industry experts globally. They continue to launch new courses every month and their videos have closed-caption subtitles in over 20 languages including French, Spanish, Mandarin, Hindi, and English.

Bartending for Beginners:

This course is included in a Typsy free subscription along with 30 other courses. This course is also included in all paid Premium subscriptions, along with 90 other courses.

It contains 11 lessons to include: the life of a modern bartender, essential bartending tools, how to measure cocktails, essential cocktail making techniques, wow to garnish cocktails, picking the right ice for cocktails, the cocktail formula, the sour cocktail formula, the punch cocktail formula, how to keep your bar clean, turning bartending into a career. With Charlie Ainsbury, one of Australia’s most awarded bartenders, and the co-owner of This Must Be The Place, a spritz and cocktail bar in Sydney as course instructor. The participants would gain the privilege to skilling up and mastering the art of cocktail making.

Except the premium package, this course is entirely free.

Contact: https://www.typsy.com/contact

3.100% FREE ONLINE BARTENDING CLASSES AT SKILLSHARE

Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes for creative and curious people, on topics including illustration, design, photography, video, freelancing, and more. On Skillshare, millions of members come together to find inspiration and take the next step in their creative journey. At Skillshare you would find what fascinates you as you explore the free online bartending classes.

It offers one month free trial, thereafter there might need for subscription for premium packages. https://www.skillshare.com/classes/How-To-Make-Rm-Cocktails-Home-Bartending-Gide/859373897?via=search-layout-grid.

4. Ananas

Ananas is amazingly a great tool for owners and managers because it brings the skills to automate team onboarding and synchronize training. It doesn’t exclude mixologists, though, since bartenders can use the program to add a certified selection of skills to a resume.

There are duo levels to the program: Basics is an excellent place to begin, while more experienced students can skip directly to Intermediate. Basic courses cover everything wine and beer to cocktail, bar, and customer service. The Intermediate cocktail class, for example, provides 52 cocktail recipes and how to mix them, while the customer service course covers hosting and how to prepare for guests.

The intermediate program is broken into focused modules—it lets users pick seminars based on areas they want to improve in, and several of the courses are taught by industry leaders. An example is the History of Gin class, taught by Ford’s Gin founder Simon Ford. The class is broken into eight lessons, eight videos, and three recipes. Students will take a deep dive into gin, how it’s made, where it comes from, and how to use it. There’s also an intermediate course in the ever-intimidating topic of wine, led by certified sommelier Ben Moechtar that covers reds, whites, and rosés over 12 lessons and videos.

Ananas offers the usual slate of industry knowledge and history, but there’s also a selection of videos on quirkier topics like how to balance plates on one arm to keep things interesting.

5. For Working Bartenders : A Bar Above Mixology

Owner and founder Chris Tunstall created “A Bar Above” with the intention of bringing an advanced cocktail program to bartenders. This isn’t a program for someone with light interest in bartending, as it’s designed to take current skills and careers to the next level, with advice on cocktail design and techniques.

However, for newer bartenders or people who want to hone their skills before taking the Mixology certification, A Bar Above also has a basics seminar that talks drinkers through making cocktails at home, using bartending tools, and proper mixology technique.

Step one of the mixology program focuses on ingredients, covering everything from what products to use behind the bar to how to get the most out of them in cocktails. Step two takes students through how to balance cocktails and plan out a cocktail on paper. Step three is the two-part certification exam, consisting of a multiple-choice quiz and a practical exam that has participants making an original cocktail using the framework taught in the course.

All materials are taught via HD videos and interactive quizzes. One of the best parts of the program is that it provides virtual community and mentorship opportunities, all via the online platform and chat boards.

The cost of the program is $147, but with that comes lifetime access to the assets, so students can come back anytime to refresh skills, learn tricks from the community, or network.

6. Udemy

Udemy harbors over 150,000 courses available on the website, from cooking to winemaking to bartending and spirits courses. The bartending section alone is vast. According to Dingwall “Bartender Paul Martin⁠—a two-time Guinness World Record holder for speed mixing⁠—offers a crash course in home bartending for $30, complete with sections on garnishes, mixing, and classic cocktail mastery”. Carlos Batista, a certified sommelier and spirit specialist, leads a master class on gin for $30. Participants need no prior experience, and the sommelier-author walks viewers through gin types, brands to know, flavors, origins, and cocktails. Batista also leads courses on cordials, vodka, tequila, and more rarefied options.

There are also courses on designing bottle labels and courses on managing bars. There’s even a course on the chemistry of alcoholic beverages. All graduates walk away with a certificate, and courses offer open and direct communication with instructors.

One should note that Udemy’s courses are aimed at those looking for casual courses in the bar world⁠. Most are less than three hours long, and they tend to be aimed at the new or home bartender looking to expand their skills, or beginners just looking to get their feet wet.

Udemy offers courses for free but with those free courses, graduates won’t come out of the course with a certificate or have access to an instructor like in the paid options.

7. Shaker

SHAKER South Africa operates three core divisions that all support one another harmoniously.  They think of their business as a cocktail service supporting the needs of the ever evolving hospitality and events industries.

Shaker Bar School offers unrivalled practical and theoretical bar training and educational courses for the hospitality industry. Their mission is to evolve their courses amid the ever-changing climates of the industry and provide an environment which endorses that advancement.

Shaker South Africa is paid course program with varying rates.

8.Diageo Bar Academy

Diageo Bar Academy remains the world’s no.1 premium drinks company. It provides everything you need to raise the bar and enhance your career. Founded and curated by one of the world’s largest spirits companies, Diageo Bar Academy sketches out everything you need to start a bar. The academy commenced as part of Diageo’s initiative to improve the quality of bar staff. To do this, they tapped industry influencers and experts to bring training programs and drink inspirations to Diageo’s network of bartenders and brand fans.

To date, they have trained tens of thousands of bar staff across the globe, and this large community is one of the biggest draws of the program. Training modules are led by industry leaders, and the academy doubles as a networking hub, connecting bartenders around the globe.

Their offerings also include well-being and physical health modules that are useful for anyone working in the notoriously hectic and stressful service industry.

There’s a reason members are loyal to the platform⁠—Bar Academy keeps members up to date on news and trends in the industry, which means the service is an invaluable resource for any industry professional.

In Conclusion

While many companies as a result of the COVID19 pandemic have failed and the whole sectors of business are literally disappearing, the other world of bar and club has undergone a growth boom unprecedented. Only in 2019, again in Italy, and according to official data of Confesercenti, they were born more than 40,000 new bars that have brought a dowry tens of thousands of assumptions including bartender, bartenders and bar managers. Another very interesting figure is that in recent years the number of women who have entered into this field, mostly with particular success, has risen tremendously. Not infrequently, both in cafes and in purely nightlife, to play the bar service is the so-called barlady or barmaid. In all, the cost of ongoing virtual experiences like bar schools depends on the option you choose, and price can, of course, help you decide which school to sign up for. Some schools, such as Diageo Bar Academy,  Typsy, Skillshare and Udemy, have some free classes, but you can expect to pay anywhere from $20 to $95 for more premium and in-depth classes, some of which offer a certificate upon completion.

Reference lists

https://www.bartender-school.eu/courses/free-bartender-course/

http://www.shaker.co.za/about.cfm

https://www.bartender-school.eu/courses/c/bartending-school/

https://www.diageobaracademy.com/en_zz/training/download-tools/”