Bartending School: Day 1
As I mentioned before, I signed up for a bartending class at Boston Bartenders School. Today was the first day.
Overall, my impression of the class is that it was pretty good, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow. It was certainly better than I expected, though there are some things that could have been better.
When I first arrived, the entire class was a bit of a mystery to me, as I was the only person there. Yup, I picked a killer week with one-on-one instruction. Later, another student showed up who had already taken the course before but wanted a refresher. Since one of the selling points of the class is free lifetime refresher courses, I was happy to see that someone was taking advantage of it. Plus, the class is like a firehose of information. There’s so much thrown at the students that if there’s no prior experience, I don’t know how anyone could actually pick this up in only a week.
Immediately, the instructor sat me down at the bar with my new $75 student manual (included in the $495 tuition), pulled a page out of the teacher’s manual and told me to copy down all 28 highball recipes. After that (my hand was starting to fall off), she had me copy down all 7 chilled shot recipes. Afterwards, she started a video of some guy giving a broad introduction to numerous things, including how to cut fruit, make garnishes, hold glasses, identify glass types, use mixers, etc. At this point, I was starting to wonder what exactly my $495 was covering, because these two activities had thus far mostly sucked. However, she then came out and began lecturing.
The instructor was definitely a good lecturer and had obviously done this numerous times before. She made frequent use of the Socratic Method, encouraging us to fill in the blanks or answer questions, so it was very interactive. She went over bartending ethics, bar mixes, the soda gun, garnishes, glasses, broad overview of alcohols, the speed rack, the different spirits, and more. The entire time, she encouraged us to take copious notes in the student manual and would repeat things over and over until we had them down. Finally, it was lunchtime, and we broke for an hour.
After lunch, we began bartending practice. This started with opening the bar: arranging the speed rack, getting ice, etc. Then, we immediately jumped into free pouring and practiced eyeballing 1/2, 3/4, 1, and 1 1/2 oz. pours in highball glasses filled with ice, verifying our pours by straining into a jigger. After doing this for what seemed like an eternity, we then spent the rest of the afternoon practicing all those highball recipes I’d copied down earlier. All told, I probably made 50-60 highball drinks and have most of the recipes pretty much memorized now. At this point, the instructor left us to practice. It would’ve been nice to receive more critiquing, but there’s only so much value added in that.Finally, we closed the bar and left for home.
Anyway, that sums up my day. I’m now officially tired and can’t believe I have a bunch of work to do. My respect (already pretty high) for bartenders went up tenfold today after spending hours carefully pouring drinks, especially since my lower back hurts a little. That’s what I get from moving straight from an office desk job to this.
The only thing that annoys me is the information on their website is incorrect. The day classes meet Monday through Thursday—not through Friday. However, there’s a fifth four-hour serve safe alcohol class that’s scheduled every couple of weeks that’s necessary, and there’s a CPR class once a month or so that’s optional. Thursday, though, is a couple tests to receive certification, and the class more-or-less ends at that point.
Update: Read about the rest of the experience in these posts:
- Bartending School: Day 2
- Bartending School: Day 3
- Bartending School: Day 4
- Bartending School: Day 5
- Bartending School: Day 6
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April 24th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
Most places say they go through Friday because Friday’s are when they administer “The Test.”
April 25th, 2006 at 12:54 am
Neat post. I really enjoy learning about your experience at the bartending school. I like the site in general too. Great job!
jimmy