My Bartending Journey (Part 1)

When I heard about bartending, I knew I would love it. Knowing that bartending is about mixing drinks like cocktails or mocktails and bottle flaring, I knew I would enjoy it more than what I'm expecting! 🍸

In bartending, it cannot be helped that it will be costly. We had to buy multiple spirits, alcohol, liqueurs, and bartending tools. It's costly as well as uses your stock knowledge. We particularly had to memorize different kinds of drinks in different types, such as:

• Pre dinner,
• After dinner,
• Build cocktail,
• Stir and Strain,
• Long drinks/muddled,
• Shake,
• Non-alcoholic, and lastly
• Blend/Frozen

°🥂⋆.ೃ🍾࿔*:･

We had a lot to memorize. We had to memorize how to make 40-plus different kinds of drinks and the ingredients in every drink. It was tough and used much effort, but just like me, you'll still probably enjoy it.

To prepare for our future activities, our professor in bartending told us to slowly practice how to flare. And you know what? It is really hard. You probably know that a flare is quite heavy; now think about this: my hands had to make the flare bottle fly, and it had to land into my hands. Now, I was not able to grip or hold it, and it hit my knuckles or my wrist, and worst of all, it landed on my foot.

Let me show you mine and my friends bruises from practicing.

Flaring is not just hard, but it can also be harmful. I can't count or remember how many times I got hurt from practicing. However, I really enjoyed practicing how to flare my bottle. It gave me satisfaction whenever I made a successful flaring. It does not only give me satisfaction, but it also gave me confidence.

Then there came a time in our class that we will try to make Gimlet Straight-Up. It is a stir and strain kind of drink. And its ingredients were:

• 1 jigger gin.
• 1 jigger lime juice
• Ice
• A garnish of slice lime

It's super easy but we did not only try making the drink but we also had to perform flaring. I was really nervous especially because my professor chose me to try and perform after she show us how it's done.

To perform, we had to dance while flaring to showcase our capabilities and unfortunately my skills in flaring is not yet that good because I can only do basic flaring. But still I had to perform in front of everyone so I did my best. And I thoroughly loved the experience because it made me realize a lot of things like I had to be more confident while performing and that I should give my all. ₊˚⊹♡

After my performance, I really laughed too much when it was my classmate's turn to perform in front because the flare bottle that she used hit the floor and the pieces of the bottle separated on the floor, and what's funnier was that she took it and put it back together to continue, and it hit the floor again.

Here I am again performing with my partner. I was chosen again to perform and make cocktail. This was really nerve breaking because we were outside and there are people who's watching but still I did my best because I don't want to disappoint my professor. I wanted to do a great job and show her that I improved.

I'm really glad that my professor did not only help us to memorize drinks, but she also made us enjoy bartending and learn new skills. Because of her, I learned how to love bartending. Even now I am still keeping my flare bottle as well as my tools while my other classmates sold it to our juniors. Why? It's because whenever I don't have anything to do or I'm really bored, I sometimes practice flaring outside our house. I also remember that sometimes my grandfather would come out of their house to check on me every every time he would hear the bottle hitting the floor, and sometimes he would coincidentally see how the bottle landed on my bones or in my foot, but I just laughed it off like it did not hurt me at all.

I can really understand now the quote "no pain, no gain" because all of the pain I received from flaring the bottle helped me to gain skills that I can use for my future career in the hospitality industry.

That's why I am not afraid of the things I don't know because I can learn them if I want to. There's no such thing that we can't do; it just takes one's effort to learn something. So don't be afraid of something; instead, persuade it.

.☘︎ ݁˖

That's all; thank you for coming this far; I really appreciate it. I still had a lot to share about bartending, so I hope you'll wait for it. Again, thank you! xoxo. 🍹⋆✴︎˚｡⋆