The Fundamentals Every Bartender Must Know is an online course designed to teach anyone, with any level of hospitality experience, the key components of bar knowledge, service skills, and cocktail building techniques so that they can begin a career in bartending.

As a general manager, one of the most difficult aspects of effectively running a bar or restaurant is staffing the bartender position. Promoting from within is, in my opinion, the best option. But, while your barbacks, servers, and food runners are often very knowledgeable about the restaurant's offerings, they are often completely lacking in the basic bar knowledge that would make them solid candidates for promotion to the bartender. And there simply isn't enough time to teach them these things during the course of a workday.

So I created a program that would help alleviate this problem. I have done away with the superfluous topics and excessive recipes covered in most bartending school programs and have focused in on the topics and techniques that are most integral to being work-ready in a short period of time.

After taking my course, you can be confident that your staff members will have the knowledge, tools, and techniques that they need to be independent and successful behind the bar.

The Fundamentals Every Bartender Must Know includes 8 video lessons, quizzes, assignments, and downloadable PDFs. The course covers materials such as hospitality-specific vocabulary, glassware, bar tools and set up procedures, liquor knowledge, liqueur knowledge, fruit cutting and garnish prep and storage, cocktail building techniques, health department requirements, cash handling, and credit card transaction processing, beer and wine opening and serving skills, and the most popular cocktails in all five of the central cocktail categories: straight-up cocktails, on the rocks cocktails, highball cocktails, juice-based cocktails, and shots/shooters.

The completion of the course should take your staff member approximately 10 hours to complete. And while the online course alone is enough to give your staff members a solid understanding of their responsibilities as a bartender, I encourage them to practice along with the drink-making videos.

For this reason, I have created the RockStar BarKit, a portable 16 piece bar toolset that includes all of the tools a new bartender needs to follow along with the course. The RockStar BarKit includes a shaker tin set, jigger, bar spoon, strainer, speed pourers, muddler, measured shot glass, fruit/ice tongs, beer opener, wine key, and nylon stain-resistant carry bag with handle. Employers can purchase the RockStar BarKit for their staff members, or encourage their staff members to purchase their own. Please use the instructions included in the RockStar BarKit PDF at the beginning of the course to begin your order.