How do I go about becoming a bartender?

Answer 1

As a Bar Manager, Head Bartender, and career bartender myself the best advice I can give is to avoid like the plague bartending schools. Find a successful, popular neighborhood bar or pub who has an older bartender working behind the bar and keep an eye on what they do. How do the move? Do they limit their steps and how? Efficiency in bartending is second only to knowledge, but knowledge comes through experience. Don't study your bartenders bible, instead look up vodka, gin, rum, bourbon, whiskey, etc., and find out exactly what they are and how they are made. Learn how beer is cooked, how wine is fermented, and how brandy is distilled. Once you know the ins-and-outs of your primary ingredients then you'll be more comfortable with using them in recipes. Don't throw yourself into a nightclub position on your first day, start at a small pub yourself and try to work under someone who seems to know what they are doing. Usually when I get a resume that has "Bartending Institute" or some such on it, I toss it without even reading further. Sink or swim.

Answer 2

1. You can take a bartending class (look in the phone book). You'll learn basic receipes, get some tips, and before you take the class they can tell you if they have a job line or referral service.

2. Get a job behind a bar. If you get hired as a bar back or assistant you can learn as you go and look up drinks that you don't know how to make.

I used to be a banquet bartender at a hotel, and between that and drinking in bars I've learned that what matters most about a bartender is appearance. Find a bar that's hiring (check the classifieds or ask drinkers you know), make yourself as pretty as you can, and tell them you are ready to learn. Good luck.

Answer 3

You could look in the classifieds for bars/restaurants that are willing to train, and once you get experience you could move onto nicer busier places. Bartending school is a waste of money.

Answer 4

Get a job as a server or, better yet, a bar back. Bartending school is a waste of money and for chumps and won't get you a good job.

Answer 5

Look for little independent places that hire. That's how I learned was on the fly. Less than an hour of instruction on the basics and then thrown to the wolves. Then I taught myself. Then I got creative.

However, more upscale places probably would love to hear you took a class.

Answer 6

look for some recipies and try to make them, once that you can make the more common you can try reading more about this.

I have some friends that have clubs and they only hire for bartender people that already know how to do drinks

So mix and have fun

Answer 7

Look to apprentice at a local small scale bar!

Answer 8

You need to get your foot in the door...start out as a bouncer, waiter/waitress, busperson...then move up! Good luck!