We are unintentionally de-skilling our industry and if we don’t stop, the fundamentals of bartending will die out, says Satan’s Whiskers’ Kevin Armstrong, who returns with the second of his two-parter on batched cocktails.
Twenty years ago I took charge of menu development, training and recruitment for a group of nine bars that included the Match venues, The Player, Trailer Happiness and London’s Milk & Honey.
We had approximately 50 bartenders in that business, and while bartender retention was good, recruitment was a regular part of my working week. This is all to say that I’ve been recruiting cocktail bartenders for a long time. I assure you, that work has never been harder than it is today.
There is an acute irony here. Cocktail culture has never been bigger – we have more bars and more exposure to the craft than we’ve ever had – but bartenders, those with the traditional fundamental skills, are in short supply.
There’s one reason why. The way in which bars operate has evolved to rely partially or fully on batched cocktails, and particularly at the top end of the business. Many bars now operate with a prep lead (someone behind the scenes who produces all the drinks) and the bartenders only dispense or pour what has been made – they are not cocktail bartending in the true sense.
It’s not their fault, it’s just the reality that bartenders don’t need to make drinks during service the way they used to, ingredient by ingredient. And if these currently out-of favour-skills are needed less and practiced less, like most things, they fade. It is unintentional, but we are de-skilling the bar industry.
Bartending divided
We have replaced cocktail bartenders with fractional roles. I’m grappling for appropriate names for them – drink assemblers, dispensers, recipe creators, production specialists… They all require their particular skills but these were once the skillset of one person. They should not be mutually exclusive.
And while I appreciate that modern techniques have added breadth to the role, the best bartenders fully embrace everything that is great and new but still retain the core qualities that make cocktail bartending a craft.
What are these skills? It’s not just making drinks to order. It’s everything from being able to handle glassware appropriately to using jiggers effectively and efficiently. Being quick and clean and knowing how to build rounds of drinks – most bartenders I come across lack these basics. Then there are the more technical elements, such as understanding how ice types, or a change of shaker or shaking method might ultimately influence the drink.
I recently interviewed an experienced bartender who has worked across multiple cocktail venues and handled large amounts of prep, but ultimately could not put up a decent round of five classic drinks. Not one I’d be happy to pay for.
Social media has not helped. It has birthed a generation of bartenders who gain daily affirmation for posting beautifully presented cocktails. These are snapshots of the end product of our craft but they say nothing of how bars function and how bartenders in busy bars need to operate. When you are up against it, you need your colleagues to be able to handle guests and dispense world-class drinks at speed, with no compromise. You don’t need a cocktail stylist.
The old ways can be the new
I don’t mean to paint a bleak picture – some bars do still practice the old ways. One of the UK’s most prominent and successful bars, Schofield’s in Manchester, has built its reputation on traditionally made drinks. Tayer + Elementary, despite being progressive in nature, also still values these skills and it forms part of their internal training programme. The more bars that cherish the fundamentals of our craft the better. If they are not passed on, they are left behind.
Brands are also investing in education that promotes fundamental skills, alongside the new, of course. Campari, Brown-Forman, Diageo and Bacardi have done great work in creating programmes that share this valuable knowledge, for fear it might be lost in a sea of pectinex, whey and recomposed lime juice. We may need these skills again. The past decade has shown how quickly cocktail trends come and go. Elaborate garnishes and bespoke glassware have given way to wafer-thin glassware, block ice and no garnish. If that tide shifts again, it’s just as likely to move away from low-intervention batch-and-pour and revert to the traditional, revisited as something entirely new.
Cocktail bartending for me was – and is – enjoyable precisely because it is so multi-dimensional, hands-on and practical. I suspect others are attracted to bartending for that reason too – the challenge is what makes it a stimulating job. So even if our business evolves, we will double down on teaching these skillsets and encouraging brilliance in the basics. Who knows, if one day our rotovap breaks, being able to make a Tom Collins, Dry Martini and a decent Margarita might come in handy.