So You Want To Be A Bartender, Do Ya?
By Genevieve Haas and Catherine Dodge

On the scale of trade schools, bartending classes are probably a rung below cosmetology school and a rung above a communications degree in terms of usefulness. But my roommate and I each had roughly $300 to burn this summer and neither of us knew what goes in an Alabama Slammer so we signed up.

The "school" consisted of a dilapidated bathroom, a crowded office, and the classroom bar. The setting had the surreal effect of a sound-stage for a sitcom, complete with colored water in old liquor bottles, labels nearly obliterated from handling.

The teachers were, naturally, professional bartenders, although as students, we had to wonder how good they really were. I mean, wasn't the point of all this that bartenders make "crazy money?" Why did they have to supplement that income by teaching a bunch of spoiled college kids the difference between a Rusty Nail and a Sidecar?

Of the two instructors we met, one, whom I'll call A.J.*, was an affable, goodish-looking black man who seemed to be a good, if not meticulous, bartender. His worst flaw - and it would have been fatal had the course not been purposely and tediously repetitious - was his penchant for getting into heckling matches with the students.

A good comedian knows that if you respond to hecklers at all, it has to be to shut them down quickly and brutally. If hecklers are allowed to start volleying insults, the entertainment quickly degenerates into something infinitely more boring: performance art. And for $17 an hour, that is what the rest of the class was forced to sit through during A.J.'s classes.

The other instructor was a banty little man called Murphy, whose lectures were mostly a stream of curse words and who seemed like he would be more comfortable breaking up bar fights with a blackjack. But Murphy knew his drinks and his demeanor did not invite comment from the budding Henny Youngmans in the class.

The other students were a collection of people the likes of who we hadn't seen since driver's ed. The class consisted of about 15 people, none out of their 20s and several still in their teens. Most faded almost immediately into anonymity, but a few were memorable simply because they were so appalling.

There was Box O'Rocks, who was so incapable of grasping the most basic concepts that the instructor started mocking her. She accepted his gibes with acknowledgment, saying, "Like, I'm totally the dumbest person ever." It was hard to gauge whether she was proud of the title or merely resigned to it.

There was the Champion Vegetarian, who, when she learned that Jaegermeister contains actual stag's blood, whined that "12 years of vegetarianism had gone to waste." It was pointless to tell her that long-term vegetarianism is not a Guinness Book classification.

We can't forget Not-Carla-from-Cheers whom was under the impression that, in fact, she was Carla-from-Cheers. Although Not-Carla had the rudeness of Real-Carla down, she lacked the genuine article's wit and at times simple coherence to carry off a convincing impersonation. Most tragically, while Carla-from-Cheers' heckling lasted, at most, 30 minutes, Not-Carla's took up the entire four hours of each class, at which time she left to catch a bus while the rest of us cleaned up.

The rest of the group was largely an assortment of College-Boys-Who-Saw-The-Movie-"Cocktail"-At-An-Impressionable-Age. The only thing sadder than watching one of their ilk attempt flirtatious banter at a bar is watching one of them practice witty banter behind a bar. It had the stilted, embarrassing quality of watching someone practice French kissing with an inanimate object.

The course material was basically memorizing about 100 cocktails. It involved flashcards and pneumonic devices such as, Kamikaze = Very Tragic Landing (Vodka, Triple Sec and Lime juice), thus underscoring the difference between bartending school and sensitivity training.

Perhaps unintentionally, one of the most challenging obstacles, for me at least, was being required to work while O-Town played in the background. "If you want to tend bar," the course seemed to imply, "You'll have to either like or tolerate crap music." So be it.

On test-day, the stressed out students desperately crammed to remember what garnish goes with rum drinks, reminding my roommate and I that this wasn't rocket-science, but just mixology.

The written test was probably harder to design than take. It was carefully crafted to prevent anyone from failing. It was kind of disappointing, actually, taking a test that we had studied for and realizing we could have passed it without even taking the class. They say 90 percent of success is showing up, but usually that adage is not interpreted quite so literally.

The practical examination was slightly more gratifying. We were asked to make 10 cocktails using the colored water and mushy garnishes that had been mauled by the classes before us. Finally, while pouring drinks that, in some sense, "counted," it was possible to envision ourselves as bartenders.

Then, very quickly, the ordeal was over, my roommate and I solemnly received our "Certificates of Achievement," which would have been more aptly emblazoned with "Congratulations, your checks cleared," and we left a little under whelmed with the world of bartending.

*All names have been changed