While Bar Smarts won’t teach you everything you need to know to be a bartender, that only comes with experience and practice, you will come out of completing Bar Smarts with a new appreciation of the craft of bartending and a new way of thinking about spirits and mixology.
An invitation-only one day class run by Pernod-Ricard and the Beverage Alcohol Resource Team, what Bar Smarts is meant to do is to open up your mind in a variety of ways that when all is said and done make sense. It’s meant for both bartenders, as well as other individuals such as spirit brand ambassadors, and spirits media such as writers and bloggers.
In the last few years, the job of bartending has started to become more of a craft, that akin to the same mastery of ingredients that a chef possesses, is what this next generation of bartender or as some like to refer to themselves a mixologist will possess.
“Passion drives this industry”-Steve Olson
I think Steve Olson (of AKA Wine Geek) might have said it best during the classroom portion of Bar Smarts. The Bar Smarts program was created to help that next generation of bartenders, “be a better bartender”.
But why would you want to be a better bartender?
With the move to fresh ingredients such as fresh fruit, juices and syrups in recent years bartenders are now being looked at in a similar vein as chefs are in that they are able to create art in the form of something edible, or in the case of bartenders something that’s drinkable. In the past ten years the spirits industry has continued to grow. Case in point, in 1999 there were eleven craft distillers within the United States. Today there are one hundred and forty six.
Only in the last several years has bartending been considered a desirable career. How many people ten years ago, could be heard saying, “they wanted to be a bartender?” Flash forward to modern day, and bartenders are more and more being looked at given the same respect that chefs are. What chefs do with meats, fish, and other solid ingredients, bartenders match with the magic they often work with liquids.
But how does the Bar Smarts Course accomplish this?
The day of Bar Smarts starts off with a brief introduction of the roster of instructors which includes the likes of Dale DeGroff, F. Paul Pacult, Andy Seymour, Dave Wondrich, Doug Frost and Steve Olson. This is followed by introductions of some of the judges. With a class of around 120 students, the BAR instructors have had to request some additional assistance in the form of graduates of the BAR 5 day program. This group has included individuals such as Don Lee(Formerly of PDT, now Momofuku), Tad Carducci(Tippling Bros), Jim Meehan(of PDT), Aisha Sharpe and Willy Shine(of Contemporary Cocktails) and Matty Eggleston(of Smugglers Cove and Bourbon and Branch) but rotates depending on location.
Once the introductions have been made, the real fun starts.
At this point you’re split into two groups and the seminar portion of the day begins.
Depending on which group you’ve been placed in you’re either in for one treat or another.
Group A starts off with being led through a blind tasting by F. Paul Pacult ,Steve (Aka Wine Geek) Olson and Doug Frost in which you’re presented with five different spirits and walked through the process of dissecting the tastes and aromas of each spirit with the goal of becoming a better taster. If you leave this room without having better developed a new way to taste and appreciate each minute nuance of a spirit, there’s something wrong with you. Paul and Steve take you through each sample and explain why you smell what you do, why your taste buds pick out what they pick out and how to really pick apart a spirit. There’s a good reason these guys teach this segment of Bar Smarts. They’re amazing at what they do.
Doug Frost, Steve Olsen and Paul Pacult during the tasting seminar at Bar Smarts.
Your Tasting Samples
While Group A is getting their palates tested and retrained by Paul and Steve, Group B is getting the abridged history of barware, and how modern bartending aka mixology has come to be. After Dave, Andy and Dale discuss the tools of the trade they explain how to apply techniques such as the use of fresh juice, homemade syrups and infusions into your bar program, briefly discuss food pairing, and cover some of the basics behind creating original cocktails.
Dave Wondrich muddling what will eventually become a Whisky Punch.
Once the first session has been completed, both groups switch presenters so by the end of the day each student has been had the opportunity to attend both the tasting seminar as well as the seminar on bar tools, history and mixology.
This first half of the day is all about getting you prepared for those final exams.
Speaking of which, at this point you’re probably getting a bit hungry and its time for a quick break for lunch before the course culminates in a two-part finale.
Depending on which group you were put into at the beginning of the day, this could either be a hands-on practical test of your classic cocktail making abilities judged by either one of the BAR instructors or by a previous graduate of the 5 day BAR Program. You’ll have nine minutes to make any three of the classic 25 cocktails listed in the Bar Smarts guide.
If you’re not in the group that starts off the final part of the day with the practical exam (and count yourself lucky if you aren’t)Â you’ll be taking a one hundred-question test that includes a blind tasting portion in which you’ll have to identify several different spirits.
Once you finish both parts you’re free to go home or find the closest bar and enjoy a much-deserved drink.
Confidence, if it was something you were lacking in your classic cocktail knowledge, you won’t be after taking Bar Smarts. Being primarily someone who has had limited time behind the bar and is primarily self-taught in his mixology skills, I have found myself on occasion second guessing the proportions as I was making some of the more well known classics. After completing Bar Smarts, that hasn’t happened once. I’ve even found myself thinking differently about each spirit I come in contact with.
Anyone who’s lucky enough to be invited to this class, I highly recommend you take it. You’ll leave with having learned a few new things and most importantly start thinking about spirits in an entirely new way.
I’ll leave you with this. A glimpse of the practical exam, with Blair Reynolds of Trader Tiki behind the stick.
