What it means to be a bartender

When asking a bartender with years of experience ‘what it means to be bartender’, he may rattle off the skills and attributes a good bartender should have – hard-working, professional, friendly, approachable, knowledgeable on product and craft, fast, efficient, clean, team-player, etc, etc… This is often bravado to show the skills the experienced ‘tender has, as much as to scare off any would be bartender that thought it was an easy job for easy dollar. But this is a description of the end of the journey, not the beginning. Bartenders that chose their job as a profession did not have the skills and personality traits of a great bartender on day one behind the stick. Bartending attracts like-minded people from all corners of society bound by the desire for freedom of expression and personality, who enjoy creativity in a fun, cool and exciting setting. The odd hours and customer interaction attract our kind like a shark to blood. We were born weary of routine and fearful of 9-5 hours. We never enjoyed getting up early, but we get satisfaction from other peoples enjoyment. We do not excel in corporate speak but love to entertain, enthuse, chat, flirt, recommend and sell. We hate boredom and love pressure. We are strange. We could be bartenders. Some believe bartending is skill-based whereas others are more personality-led. We have had bartenders suggest that they should quit because talking to customers physically scares them. We have seen bartenders frozen to the spot, confidence lost, because they can’t remember how to make an Old-Fashioned or because their Frozen Margarita is too watery. Things can and often will go wrong behind the bar. A bartender is a person that thrives from this pressure, they learn quickly from their mistakes as they know that this can be a very unforgiving industry. The mistakes made will help you become a better bartender as you will never make these mistakes again. Not knowing is always a step to learning, and learning begets confidence. Our craft is learnt on the job, through repetition, self-motivation, apprenticeship, relationships and mistakes. Pleasing people in a three minute time frame is not a science but an art. Thanks are conveyed less than complaints, but we still don’t know a job that gives more reward, more satisfaction and more fun than bartending. In the combined 11 years of my experience, I have had these same early bartending fears, forgotten the odd recipe (or a hundreds!) and wished the earth would swallow us up when talking to the difficult customer. Over the next(and next!) session, we will be giving you the benefit of our experience in bite-sized morsels for you to digest. We all know this profession is the marriage of skill and personality, that each is useless without the other. We know this profession introduces you to every walk of life like no other job can. We have spent years behind the same bar enjoying the difference of every shift. We can tell you that skills will be learnt, confidence gained and personality formed by the environment, people, colleagues, customers and peers around you. So, what does it mean to be a bartender? It means never giving up, learning on every shift, having and giving the time of your life. Bartending means everything to us.

Salute!