Bartending — the new age career choice
Arvinder Kaur

Bottle flipping and juggling glasses is fast emerging to be a hot choice as far as choosing a profession is concerned with fast increase in the demand for bar-tenders. Tom Cruise by his bartender act in "Cocktail" brought this unusual career into spotlight in the West. Hrithik, through his cola ad, made bottle flipping the cool way to tend a bar in India. A large number of youths here are joining this "high spirited" vocation, till recently not thought as a very civilised profession.

"Bartending till recently was looked down as a career choice. But with the pub and cocktail culture picking up, bartenders are in demand and it is picking up as a career among the youth," says Sandeep Verma, who runs a training institute for bartenders.

"From catering college students to bar designers, bar managers, and even housewives are interested in it. The course varies from three to six months, and initially, a bartender can start with a five-figure salary in any reputed bar or hotel," he says.

"It is a highly paid job and has earned respect from the society though it is still a male domain," he says as women bartenders are not allowed here.

"Besides big metros, places like Jaipur, Chandigarh, Pune are becoming pub cities, thus increasing the demand for professional bartenders... Delhi alone needs around 300 new bartenders every year," says Verma.

However, Verma rues that there are very few institutions which provide specialised bartending courses.

Agrees Nischal Gurung, who also runs a bartending school here, "the demand for bartenders has picked up tremendously in the last two years, much more than what is available in the market".

"Earlier, any waiter was trained to work as a bartender by hotels and pubs but these days it has become a specialised field and involves more than just making the drinks," says Gurung.

"A Bartender mixes hot delights, cocktails and mocktails, and relinquishes your desire and transports your spirits to the height of benign pleasure," says Verma adding that bartending is an art... a highly professional job where the person should know all about juices, wines, herbs, roots, etc which are used in making cocktails.

"Besides those who want to be professional bartenders, a lot of corportes send their staff for this course to train them in wine and dining etiquette, mixing drinks etc," says Verma.

Also, there is a lot of interest in amateur bartending, especially among the socialities, who are constantly organising parties and want to learn everything about making cocktails, says Gurung.

Till two years ago, there were hardly any women in the field, but now many are coming for this course. They then join as consultants to wine companies, he says. — PTI