BARSMARTS — DONE!
This is not a certification to gain access to dive-bar bartending. It is for the upwardly mobile, aspiring, career professional trade bartender/mixologists moving past the 50 large screen TV dive sports bars with the chemical sour mix and cranberry on the soda gun. It is for serious bar and restaurant owners and managers, & for the well seasoned, past master bartenders looking to keep sharp, keep up with recent historical revelations, who want to learn & develop better techniques. BarSmarts is an excellent, in depth, & difficult course; Bar Smarts is a Spirits & Bartender education program sponsored by Pernod Ricard — one of the largest spirits owners in the world. This is not a bartending certificate. It is a bar culinary certification with serious, focused bar & beverage management material included throughout. This includes “Creating Efficient and Ergonomically Sound Bartending Stations” quote: “The classic bars that date back to the nineteenth century often combined design with function much more successfully than modern bars do. The height of the bar and the bar stools, the brass foot rail, the rounded armrest at the front edge of the bar top and the mirrors behind the bar that allow bar patrons to monitor the activity up and down the bar were all features that helped to make sitting at the bar such a pleasure.” With precise dimensions and height ranges for all equipment areas. It includes 50 of the original recipe classics & contemporary cocktails (& more than a few modern variations) from the 16th to the 20th century. It covers various par setting and inventory tracking/monitoring methods and scenarios foe where each is appropriate. It covers working with the food menu, working closely with the purchasing department, & with the chef on matching drink menu items to the food. It civers creating fresh, varied syrups, & infusions. It covers on and off location batching of ingredients, proper storage, and fresh time. It covers developing new cocktail menus & creating new cocktails based on the classic formulas; using all freshly squeezed juices, & dealing with appropriate & proper quality ingredients – from Cachaça to Genever to Absinthe to Cherry Heering. Pernod Ricard’s BarSmarts works with some of the biggest published & celebrity names in the bartending & the liquor industry today (David Wondrich, Dale DeGroff, F. Paul Pacult, others) to provide an elevated standard level of education for everyone that engages in, studies hard, & passes their program. The program is filled with meat & potatoes. The tests are difficult, & the multi media resources are excellent and available through login after passing, with the full course workbook provided as a download. #business #education #barsmarts Now it’s time to move on to the next challenges ahead.
Site Author, David J. Curtis: David Curtis, a seasoned professional with decades of Bartending and Bar Management experience began his career in Midtown Manhattan, NY, tending and managing bars before diving into Manhattan’s bustling nightlife club scene. Over the years, he has mastered high-volume, high-pressure bartending as the lead bartender in iconic Midtown Manhattan nightclubs (Pursuits, Sybils, Club 53), Coconuts Comedy Club, the Fitzpatrick Hotel, British Airways Hotel, and tended bar briefly in the Wall Street area, generating over $1,496,564.00 annually in personal drink sales. He has since extended his expertise to establishments in Georgia (Marriot Hotel) and now Tampa Florida, in an Exclusive Platinum Service Award winning club. David’s roles as a Bartending Instructor at the American Bartending School in Tampa, while maintaining a second job bartending, and his years experience of managing bars, and working as a Brand Ambassador along with his extensive professional library of over 1,000 bartending books, highlight his dedication to continually refining his craft. He holds a diploma in Bar Management, Advanced Bartending, is Whiskey Certified by DIAGIO, and is BarSmarts certified by Pernod Ricard.
