Bartending 101

Although Bartending 101 is not the given name for the class I am now in, it sort of feels like it should be. I began Principles of Beverage Service last Wednesday which is another one of the front-of-the-house service classes required for my degree here at Johnson and Wales. The class is divided into a few segments, the first of which (for my class) was mixology. We've spent the last 3 class days learning the basics of bartending, the responsibilities of a bartender, and of course how to make drinks. We're only responsible for memorizing the ingredients and procedures for preparing 20 popular drinks, and for my practical next Wednesday I will have to prepare 12 drinks in 12 minutes and be prepared to answer questions about them upon completion.

The room is filled by 20 bar stations, and the walls are covered in mirrors which makes the room look 4 times its actual size. And the ambiance is set each day for practice when my instructor dims the lights and turns up the music (which has included everything from Nelly to Shanai Twain.) The pressure of preparing the drinks quickly enough is a little stressful but also sort of exhilerating. Don't worry though. We're not wasting bottles and bottles of liquor each day. All we get to practice with is mere colored water. You can see from the pictures that it looks pretty real though. And given that no one in my class has ever bartended before, you can only imagine the number of glasses that we've broken. I think that one guy in my class knocked a whole shelf over last week. Since yesterday was our last day in mixology, I can only hope that we're prepared for that portion of our practical next week.