My wife wants to be a bartender.

Makes sense; we have a dream of opening our own cocktail lounge someday, so it'd be nice if she could step behind the bar with me and know what she's doing. Better yet if she could stand alone with her arsenal of cocktails and be known about town as a great bartender.

Seeing as how she is married to a one, I'm the obvious choice to begin her training. The question for me is, where to begin? How do you build a bartender from scratch? There is no real established training program or apprenticeship blueprint that I know of that doesn't either a) cost a bunch of money or b) get you physically involved behind a working bar, so I've decided to take a whack at coming up with my own.

BloggingBaby found an interesting piece of news about a boy in South Yorkshire, Chris Hardacre, who might just be the world's youngest bartender. At twelve, he is the youngest person on record to have passed the British Institute of Innkeeping exam and become a fully licensed bartender.

Chris said that he was inspired by the fact that he eventually wants to take over the pub that his father runs and thought that it would be a good idea to learn all he could about it. After only a few weeks' worth of study, and probably a good deal of time spent in the pub, and he was ready to take the exam. He passed on the first try. His license allows him to serve beer with adult supervision, but does not allow him to drink anything that he serves.

If you thought that a mixologist was just a fancy term for a bartender, you'd only be partially correct. Most mixologists start off as bartenders, but the terms are not entirely interchangeable according to mixologist Leo DeGroff. The latter is more like a chef, creating new drinks, not just pouring them.

People have been coming up with new drink recipes for hundreds of years, but it is only in recent times that cocktail creation has really grown into an art, using fruits, vegetables and other flavors with the same precision that they are used in cooking. Mixologists often rely on seasonal ingredients, too. The drinks they create are frequently commissioned to be appropriate for particular events, menus and themes. As an example of the way mixologists work, take a look at the three "old west" theme drinks that were recently created for the launch of a new AOL game, Gold Rush. All the drinks use whisky, a classic American spirit, as their foundation, but come out with entirely different flavors.

If there's a moral from this story, it's "always check the label."

Three restaurant customers in South Carolina were injured - one was in intensive care - when the sugar on the rim of their martini glasses was found to be not sugar at all but industrial fryer cleaner. Yikes. It seems that one of the new bartenders didn't know where the sugar was, so he asked a dishwasher that didn't speak much English. Not sure why the bartender didn't check the label before using the cleaner.

Another question: the martinis where dipped in sugar? Do they mean margaritas?

Update: Oh, that's right, margaritas have salt around the rim, not sugar. Sorry 'bout that. Thanks to the commenters who pointed that out.

[via The Obscure Store and Reading Room]

Studies have shown that the size of the glass can influence the size of the drink a bartender pours, and many people will swear that certain outfits and/or leaving big tips can get you stronger drinks at a bar, too. The only ones who don't seem to like it when this happens are the bar and nightclub owners, who collectively lose $7 billion each year due to overpouring and undercharging.

A new technology, brought to our attention by the hard-working Engadget crew, called the Beverage Tracker, has been invented by a San Francisco company to alleviate the problem. The device is an RFID-enabled liquor spout that attaches to bottles and keeps track of how much is poured for each drink. The data includes "not only the unique identification number of its microchip, but also the brand and size of liquor bottle to which it is attached, as well as the amount of liquor poured" and it is transmitted directly to the bar/club's computer system. Data collected helps with inventory management, as well as identifying bartenders who chronically overpour/undercharge. The whole system can cost from $10,000-20,000, depending on the size of the bar, but the return on the investment can take as little as 6 weeks.

Currently, the system is being used at the bars at Las Vegas's Treasure Island Hotel and Casino, as well as at about 100 other bars/clubs.

Bartenders don't usually use a whole range of vegetables in their mixing unless they are particularly fond of bloody marys and celery garnishes. More and more often, however, fresh herbs are cropping up in cocktails. The Seattle Times had an interesting look inside a bartender's herb garden this weekend. Herbs can generally be grown indoors and require only a small amount of care relative to maintaining a whole garden. The taste of a fresh herb is unmatched and, if you're going to be using them frequently, they are nice to have at hand without a trip to the store. Their suggested list of herbs and cocktails, which is practical for pros and weekend mixologists alike, includes: 

• Spearmint, for classic mojitos and anything that needs a refreshing touch.
• Basil, can also be included with mint in a mojito
• Thyme, adds a layer of flavor to a peach Bellini.
• Rosemary, add to a gin cosmopolitans.
• Sage, works well with tequila and "will raise your margarita to the next level."

They also recommend cilantro and tarragon, but for me, mint or basil is a better choice for an addition to summer lemonade than cilantro, which the Times suggests. Basil, thyme, rosemary and sage can all be used in cooking, too, though I don't necessarily endorse adding spearmint to, say, a grilled chicken dish. And a word to the novice gardeners: basil grows quickly and aggressively. Fortunately, you can make a killer pesto with the leftovers.

Muddle is a word with two meanings when it comes to food/drink preparation, which makes it a little confusing when you first hear it used. There is a tool used by bartenders, and anyone else who really likes to make drinks, called a muddler. It is a rod with a flattened end, like the one shown in the picture. It is used to crush ingredients together, usually at the bottom of a glass, which is a process known as muddling.

Most often, the drinks that are prepared with a muddle are those that involve herbs and citrus, because crushing them together with sugar releases their natural oils brings out their flavors of the ingredients more strongly. For example, a mint julep usually has mint and sugar muddled together at the bottom of the glass before adding the other ingredients. In a mojito, lime is added to the mint and sugar mixture, too.

Earlier this week, our friends over at Engadget posted about a new robot bartender from Japanese brewer Asahi.

This little fella will crack open a can of beer and pour it into a mug. It supposedly even tilts the glass to ensure a good head. What's more, the robot is also a refrigerator that can hold up to six cans of beer and two mugs.

Asahi is giving away 5,000 of these little robotic Sam Malones in a lottery-style drawing. The catch?

It's a Japan-only contest.

With recipes on the ipod, is it any surprise that now there’s the iPod bartender? Created through podSites, the iPod bartender lets you decide what kind of drinks you want by choosing from things like daiquiris and layered cocktails, or simply picking the type of alcohol such as gin or rum. All together, there are 230 drinks that can be stored on your iPod in a notes format.

There’s also a shuffle feature where you can create your very own “BoozeMix.”

Similarly, Apple's download site features the Podtender, pictured here, which features roughly 900 drink recipes.