Memorizing Drink Recipes
As a bartender, you’re going to have a lot of different things you need to take care of. Especially on busy nights, you’re going to want to get drinks out as fast as possible, keep an eye on everyone in the bar to ensure their safety, make sure all of your equipment is clean, and more.
One of the biggest things that can slow down your process is forgetting a drink recipe. Whether you look it up on your phone or ask a fellow bartender, forgetting a recipe can make you look unprofessional and reduce your tips. In this article, we’ll cover a few of the most important things to know when memorizing drink recipes.
Focus on The Essentials
You’re not going to know every drink as soon as you get behind the bar. Instead, it’s important to know the drinks that you’re most likely to see. It can be useful to look at some of the lists of classic cocktails to understand what you’re likely to see regardless of what bar you’re going to be working at.
At the same time, if you’ve been hired somewhere, the best thing you can do is ask fellow bartenders which drinks are most popular. Along with helping you understand where you should focus your memorization efforts, this also allows you to understand any cocktails that the establishment specializes in.
Memorization Tricks
In order to reach peak speed behind the bar, you’re going to need muscle memory. While that comes with practice, it helps to memorize the drinks as much as possible beforehand. This will facilitate muscle memory and help you not slow the bar down too much while you build that memory.
There are a few different tricks you can use when trying to memorize. Flash cards are popular, allowing you to quiz yourself.
You also want to understand that many drinks have strong similarities, which makes memorization easier. The same drink may have several different names. As well, it’s common for two drinks to just have one small difference between them (e.g. a Black Russian is a White Russian without the cream).
Alcohol Safety Education Course – A+ Server Education
Of course, being a bartender is about more than just knowing cocktail recipes. You also need to understand the responsibility that all bartenders have to ensure that people are drinking safely. At A+ Server Education, we offer bartender safety courses & bartender license in Washington & different states of the USA. We’ve been helping bartenders get their certifications for more than 13 years, which is why you can trust us to empower you with the knowledge you need. If you have any questions about our bartender’s education, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us by calling (503) 740-5509. Make sure to take a look at the online training courses we offer.
