I bought my partner an ‘Introduction to Cocktail Making’ course as a present from Shaker Bar School in London, it happened to be two for the price of one, so I was lucky enough to be able to tag along and enjoy the experience.
When I booked the course, I couldn’t find any obvious reviews of the course, so I thought i’d document my thoughts here.
The London school is located a few minutes walk from Old Street underground station. Walking up the road we almost missed the entrance, which we would have done if it weren’t for the logo on the front door. From the outside, the front look really small and uninviting, simply a black door and a frosted glass window. We knocked and someone let us into the building. On the other side of the door we were greeted be a small reception area, where the other attendees were sitting waiting for everyone to arrive, sipping cocktails. Further back is a pretty long fairly impressive looking bar (there are images on the front page of their website), fully stocked with all manner of alcohol and bar equipment.
Once everyone arrived (there were about 11 people on our course, but the bar could probably have seated 15-16 people, maybe a few more) we were all issued an introduction to cocktail making manual and were asked to sign the liability waiver form in case you injure yourself whilst making your drinks! After signing my life away we were introduced to the team. There were three main people behind the bar, seemingly lead by one lady, all of whom were professional bartenders and a fourth person who kept everyone topped up with water, cleared away unwanted cocktails etc.
The lady gave us all a fairly short background on cocktails and cocktail making in general, some information on bar safety and then they got into making the first cocktail. All of the attendees tend to move down towards the middle of the bar and watch one of the professsional bartenders make the first drink in the manual. Again there’s a small amount of background information on (one of) the backgrounds on how the cocktail was invented and by whom. They then proceed to work through the steps involved in making a specific cocktail, everyone watches and asks questions then gets to try the cocktail (using their method of taking a small amount of drink with a straw by holding your finger over the tip of the straw). We all go back to our places and then two at a time in each of our small groups we get to go behind the bar with our bartender and get to reproduce the drink. The bartenders know so much and can easily suggest ideas on how you can modify the base cocktail so that everyone gets to try to make something different if they like. They help you through all the steps, freshly squeezing your lemon/lime, icing your glass/shaker, measuring spirits, free pouring, shaking, stirring, garnishing, etc. Everyone then gets to try each others drinks (using the same method as described above). There’s generally some more chat about everyones drinks, what has worked and what hasn’t, etc. Then the whole process pretty much repeats for the rest of the day. You learn perhaps 8-10 different styles of base cocktail and get to quiz the bartenders for special recipes of their own, etc.
The whole day was great and needless to say, the Mrs and I left about 6:30pm (the course is 1pm – 6pm with a short break) very happy, content and a little bit drunk.
This is definitely a great afternoon out.