Catch up with Drink Me’s adventures in bartending school!

Back in August, SFSOB invited yours truly, along with two other Drink Me colleagues (all female, by the way!) to take their two-week course in bartending. In order to bring the experience from the classroom into your living rooms (or wherever it is that you read this blog from), I’ve decided to write a daily diary of what it’s like to be in bartending school. This is the second entry, enjoy! As always, don’t hesitate to leave a comment with any questions or insight you might have!

Day 2 | Today, I chose to attend the afternoon class, and this instructor’s t-shirt says “Rehab is for quitters.” He’s playing indie music instead of reggae. Behind the bar, we focus on mixing up drinks that are mostly served on the rocks, as opposed to the the night before, which were heavy on juices. He walks the class through the basics, covering gin, vodka, whiskey, rum, tequila, brandies, standard and creme liqueurs, where they’re from, how they’re made, dropping tips like looking for cue words such as “screaming” or “screw” to denote vodka, etc. The minutiae in the meat of the alcohol is what I like best – how the gin & tonic came about to ward off malaria, what makes cachaca so different from rum (and why Brazilians are still fighting to get it legally recognized as its own spirit), how lime & bitters will rid you of hiccups, the fact that our country is the world’s #1 consumer of vermouth – and it’s because they sound an awful lot like things we’d put into Drink Me!

Day 3 | This evening’s lecture is short and sweet. I’m thrilled, because behind the bar we’ll be mixing up martinis and cutting up real fruit garnishes with lemons and limes. Half the drinks on the list are household favorites where I come from. I am fully prepared to kick ass and take names and I don’t mind one bit that save one thirty-minute break halfway through, we’ll be making martinis from 7-9PM non-stop. By the way, the drill at the end of class is always referred to as “Last Call” and prompts you to make drink orders in singles and multiples as quickly, accurately and controlled as possible, and I’m pleased to find that it’s mostly cake! When you start class by practicing yesterday’s drinks before the lecture has begun, it’s called “Happy Hour”. It looks like all of my obsessing over take-home quizzes and flashcard drills has paid off!