Hey, Bartender!

I've been MIA the last few weeks, but with good reason. I posted a while back that I was contemplating going back to work part time, but I didn't really know what to do - after countless hours of searching for jobs, looking at different schools and thinking of taking a totally random new career direction, I decided on bartending school.

I did this for a couple of reasons. First, I love bartending. I did it a while back when I worked at a restaurant and it was probably the most fun I have ever had at a job. Second, bartending can be something that I can do during the day for a few days a week. Of course, that depends on where I'm hired and whether they'll work with my schedule. But I should have a pretty good shot. So I went ahead and signed up for the class at ABC Bartending School in Tempe.

School was actually a lot of fun - nothing like those long days cooped up in a stuff classroom, listening to your professor drone on and on about something you could care less about. We got to sit at a bar to learn our lessons, and got to practice behind the bar every day. Granted, we were only using colored water instead of actual alcohol, but it was fun getting back there and making drinks.

Class was 4 hours a day for 4 days a week over the course of two weeks. Sounds pretty easy - when I got there however, I found out that I would have to learn over 60 liquors and liqueurs and roughly 200 drinks, shots and shooters. For a 100 question test at the end of the class. Oh. My. God.

But it's all good. Most of the stuff was pretty easy, and with some (okay, a bunch) studying I got the majority of them down. The instructors give you very helpful acronyms to remember the drinks... stuff like "RATS On 151" for a Zombie and "My Mother Beats People Continuously" for a Jamaican Ten Speed. I think my favorite was probably "Light & Dark Burly Boys Slobber Over Girls" - that one was to remember a Rum Runner. It's probably just as easy to remember the actual drink recipe.

I think the hardest part was remembering the amounts of everything that goes in the drink. Some of the exotic drinks have 1 ounce of rum, some have only 1/2. Same with the shooters - and trying to remember which ones were which was really hard.

But I took the test and found out that I only missed two questions! So I passed with flying colors and am now able to tell someone that is hiring that I have taken Bartending Mixology and can make them pretty much any drink they want. I still have to take the Arizona Alcohol License class, but that's not required at most places to get hired. I'm going to do it just to have one more thing on my resume.

Now to find a job... who needs a bartender?!