For a brief spell in the late ‘90s I was a lunch bartender at a neighborhood seafood restaurant in New York City. I’d been brought on as a waiter, but the seasoned bar staff, mostly primadonnas who conscientiously objected to daytime bartending, refused to work lunch. I presumed, rightfully so, that they were all too hung over to be bothered with shaking tins before sundown. So, when management offered to recruit a few bar-curious servers to cover the vacant lunch shifts, I jumped at the opportunity to cut lemon and lime wedges all day in exchange for feeling like I was Tom Cruise in “Cocktail” for a few hours on a Tuesday afternoon.
The cocktail renaissance hadn’t happened yet, so the back bar was polluted with the usual suspects of flavored vodkas like Stoli Vanilla and Absolut Kurant along with dusty bottles of Galliano and Tuaca that probably hadn’t been opened in years. Hendrick’s didn’t even exist back then, which was fortuitous because I couldn’t make a proper Martini if someone asked for one. My job consisted mainly of pouring glasses of overpriced buttery Chardonnay and refilling iced teas. Worst case scenario, some old timer would ask for a Rusty Nail or Harvey Wallbanger, and not ironically.
I could never be hired to do the same job today. Bartending in most modern restaurants and craft cocktail bars has become considerably more knowledge-intensive, and consumers are more educated about mixology. In the ‘90s, few people had ever heard of a Negroni. Today, even average bar guests have all its variations committed to memory.
Two decades into the cocktail renaissance, bar culture continues to spread like wildfire, and, according to industry professionals I spoke to, it’s creating new challenges for the profession, demanding a deeper level of commitment to the craft. Bartending gigs have become more competitive, often requiring extensive study of cocktail history, mastery of modern techniques, encyclopedic knowledge of international spirits, and, in some cases, familiarity with advanced equipment like centrifuges, immersion circulators, and rotovaps.
The Stakes Are Getting Higher
The ascent of modern mixology has affected all kinds of bartending jobs, not only those in high-end craft cocktail bars. “The baseline level of knowledge is rising across the bartending universe,” says Andre Sykes, the beverage director of Alpino in Detroit. “Ten or 15 years ago, dive bars were beer-and-a-shot spots. Now, I’m starting to see serious cocktails there, too.”
“Original ideas are getting more difficult to come by. If I own a bar that’s just making Gimlets, but this other bar is making Gimlets with a cloud that explodes on top of it, then it becomes a Cold War arms race to capture people’s attention.”
Before the cocktail revolution, bartenders might be expected to have command of the classic cocktail canon and rudimentary knowledge of beer, wine, and spirits. Today, many top bartending jobs require a more rigorous, academic approach to cocktail history and modern mixology.
“At the turn of the millennia, you could show up to a bar and say, ‘I want to work at a bar,’” says Tony Jimenez, who runs the beverage program at Bolo in Philadelphia. “Now bar managers are asking, ‘What is your background?’ or ‘What have you done in your own research to compete for this job?’” Jimenez, who’s been bartending for almost 20 years, says that hiring standards are more exacting now, and applicants are expected to show more initiative than they did a decade ago.
Meeting guests’ expectations has become more challenging, too. “Today’s consumer is going to know what a Naked and Famous is or what a proper Old Fashioned is supposed to taste like,” says Sykes. “So, bartenders always have to stay at least one step ahead.” As the bar keeps rising, it becomes harder to make a big impression. “Original ideas are getting more difficult to come by,” says Jay Sanders, the owner of Drastic Measures and Wild Child in Shawnee, Kan. “If I own a bar that’s just making Gimlets, but this other bar is making Gimlets with a cloud that explodes on top of it, then it becomes a Cold War arms race to capture people’s attention.”
“You can’t just jump into this world and think you’re going to be good at it anymore. It takes the same amount of work and dedication that an artist or a chef needs to have.”
Competition for social media clicks and media coverage has also intensified. “The rise of PR-driven awards like the 50 Best list and the preponderance of cocktail influencers puts pressure on many bartenders to innovate, develop new cocktails, and R&D,” says Garret Richard, the chief cocktail officer of Brooklyn’s Sunken Harbor Club. The downside, he says, is that the attention economy encourages many bartenders to favor style over substance. “Information is ubiquitous, but context is not. That can be hard for some bartenders to navigate.”
Standing out in smaller markets compels bartenders like Sanders to push the envelope even further than his contemporaries in big cities like New York and Los Angeles. Last year, he ordered a $5,000 Girovap (a commercial-grade rotary evaporator) from Spain that he uses to strip alcohol from spirits through atmospheric distillation to make non-alcoholic Negronis and Espresso Martinis. “It’s very hard to make two bars that are less than a thousand square feet apiece in Shawnee, Kan., nationally relevant without pushing the envelope and having a competitive edge,” he says.
A Deeper Commitment to the Craft
Rising through the ranks of the bar world requires a deeper level of commitment today than it did in the early innings of the cocktail renaissance. “You can’t just jump into this world and think you’re going to be good at it anymore,” says Jenn Mitchell, the general manager of Equipment Room in Austin. “It takes the same amount of work and dedication that an artist or a chef needs to have.” At Sunken Harbor Club, for example, Richard distributes a 30-page Google doc with in-house specs for over a hundred tropical cocktail recipes that every member of the bar team is expected to master. He’s currently researching old soda fountain techniques to better understand how the syrups in many original tiki recipes were formulated.
“Bartenders are a big bunch of nerds, and we’re getting nerdier,” says Eliza Hoar, bar principal at Equal Measure in Boston. Back in 2011, she was making simple beach Margaritas in California, and now she’s repurposing carrot tops to make a bitter finishing oil for a tequila and Aperol cocktail made with fresh turmeric honey. “Compared with the drinks I made when I started out, it’s night and day,” she says.
“It doesn’t matter if you know how to fat-wash or acid-adjust or use a centrifuge. Those things can all be learned. The one thing that’s still very difficult to teach is dealing with people.”
While many bar jobs have become more research focused, bartenders also have more access to online resources in places like YouTube and TikTok. “When I started, a lot of this information was harder to find,” says Jimenez. “Twenty years ago, we had a Motorola Razr. You had to do research at home on your computer. Nowadays, you can be sitting at a bar and Google anything on your smartphone.” That’s also led to a more fertile exchange of ideas throughout the international bar community. “You’re able to see what someone is doing halfway across the world way more easily than you could 10 years ago,” says Hoar.
But while more advanced equipment and techniques have transformed the way bartenders make drinks, the human element of bartending and the importance of hospitality behind the bar haven’t changed. “It doesn’t matter if you know how to fat-wash or acid-adjust or use a centrifuge,” says Jimenez. “Those things can all be learned. The one thing that’s still very difficult to teach is dealing with people.”
While Sanders loves seeing more passion and creativity behind the bar, he also worries that an overly academic approach to the job steals focus away from the critical people skills that make a successful bartender. “There’s still a lot of aspiring bartenders who watched a YouTube video and want to make a clear Mai Tai,” he says. “That’s cool, but can you make a person across the bar feel good about being there or smile at somebody when you don’t want to? That’s real bartending — and that part’s not getting any easier, either.”
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