Before we get started on the continuation of your goal of being a good bartender, I'd like to address publicly a great point brought up by one of our Slashfood readers.

Suzy pointed out in the comment field in the last post that as an alternative to becoming a barback, another way to get your foot in the door is as a cocktail waitress. Great point, and I'd elaborate that to include anybody in the restaurant business. If you're a server and your restaurant has a bar, try asking if you can step behind the bar and train. This is how I got into bartending. Now, ordinarily, this will mean you will be back there for free. Again, this is how I got in. I put in several volunteer hours until I was asked to cover a shift and until finally getting my own shifts. The point is, any way you can get yourself behind a bar and start learning, paid or not, do it.

In fact, I'll go so far as to say that starting as a server is probably the optimal way to go, though the process will take longer. As a barback, you'll get behind the bar quicker and your learning curve on how to work a bar will be shorter, but you'll be missing what I consider a key element of bartending, namely, service. Going through a server training program through a restaurant gives you an eye for the details of good service, an element I think is lacking in many bartenders today. A server in a restaurant would never skimp on the basics such as a) providing water for your guests, b) acknowledging new guests right away with menus and c) patiently explaining the product being offered if asked. I cannot tell you how many bars I go to that skip the bare minimums of good service, as if the bar were a rarefied plane of existence in which these standards don't apply. Good bartending means good service. Period.

Okay, stepping off my soap-box and moving right along . . .

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.