Bartending Course And School For The Greater Toronto Area (GTA)

You might be wondering “What do you learn in bartending school?” 

Our bartending course teaches you how to be the very best bar attendant. You will learn how to provide seamless customer service with personality, skill, and superior knowledge. 

We start off with the bartending basics for beginners, and by the end of the course we ensure you have the qualifications needed to be a bartender.  

Our professional bartending school focuses on both the theoretical and practical components of the profession during your training to be a bartender including: 

• Bartender responsibilities
• Customer service and teamwork
• Opening and closing procedures
• Food safety standards
• Bartender steps of service
• Bar setup
• Current industry and consumer trends

You will become familiar with bar culinary equipment and its appropriate use including:

• Various types of juicing equipment
• Different types of glassware
• Draft beer systems
• Molecular equipment
• Cold smokers
• Mixology tools such as:
  • Jigger
  • Shaker
  • Bar spoon
  • Julep, hawthorne, and fine mesh strainers 
  • Peelers and zesters
  • Bar and channel knives

Our bartending course introduces students to the art and science of mixology.

You will learn the core transferable techniques and skills of mixology, and build on these to create increasing complex drinks throughout the course duration in a variety of cocktail families. 

You will learn the from the best mixology school the fundamental skills of:

• The steps to build a high quality drink
• Various mixing techniques such as shaking, stirring, and rolling
• Layering drinks
• Muddling drinks
• Glass rinsing
• Cold smoking and working with fire
• Choosing appropriate garnishes and garnishing methods
• Tasting and evaluating cocktails
• Drink pairing strategies with food, themes, and seasonality

You will learn how various drink ingredients work together to create a tasty well balanced drink including: 

• Fruits and vegetables, and their juices
• Bitters
• Syrups
• Herbs and spices
• Spirits and liqueurs
• Soda
• Eggs
• Ice types and their purpose

You will learn how these drink ingredients are made, how to select and prepare great quality ingredients, and store your ingredients safely.

Our bartending course teaches you how to think and execute drinks like a bar chef from the ground up. 

We will help you understand the five basic tastes of sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. We will help you learn how to leverage these five basic tastes as well as texture and temperature to make a terrific drink both with and without liquor.

We will break down how understanding the drinks history, the drink making process, and the drink itself can engage the five senses of touch, smell, taste, sight, and sound, and use these to create a deep emotional reaction. 

You will learn to make juices, mixes, syrups, cordials, bitters, foams, and other amazing items.

Near the end of the course you will get the opportunity to engage in your own creative experimentation by designing and developing your own new drink, and participating in a mystery box cocktail competition. 

New Drink Development

We show you a customer focussed approach to develop a new cocktail based on lean startup principles. This is a scientific and iterative approach to beverage development where you control the variables, and observe and test results. 

This process helps to ensure that drinks we make are made consistent, and made consistently better as you refine the concepts.

Using this approach you will learn:

• How to conduct primary drink research by talking to customers
• How to define a drink problem and discern its worth solving
• How to develop a drink solutions
• How to test, evaluate, and validate your drink solutions to find a valuable solution
• How to source equipment, ingredients, and beverage vessels for your drink
• How to cost and price your drink, and calculate its contribution margin
• How to promote and launch your drink concept

Mystery Box Cocktail Competition

For the mystery box cocktail competition, your skills that you have assimilated throughout the course will be put to the test where you will have to think on your feet to create a cocktail from a box of unknown ingredients.

To be a fantastic bartender and achieve a master bartender certification you need an in-depth understanding of what goes into your customers’ glass. 

You will learn the raw materials, production and flavouring methods, proper storage and care, history, and how to serve various spirits, liqueurs, amari, and fortified wines as described below. 

Various spirits including:

• Vodka
• Gin and Aquavit
• Rum and Cachaça
• Tequila and Mezcal
• Whisky and Whiskey, Scotch Bourbon, and Rye
• Brandy, Cognac, Pisco
• Absinthe
• Arrack

Various liqueurs including: 

• Chartreuse
• Bénédictine
• Galliano
• Cointreau and Grand Marnier
• Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
• St-Germain
• Strega

Various amari including: 

• Amaro Averna and Nonino Quintessentia 
• Aperol
• Campari 
• Cynar
• Fernet-Branca

Fortified wines including: 

• Dry vermouth
• Sweet vermouth
• White or blanc vermouth
• Lillet blanc 
• Sherry

You will then put your theory and knowledge into practice and taste these spirits, and make classic drinks with each of these spirits.

Humans have been drinking beer for over 10,000 years. We help you understand how magic happens when you combine malt, years, hops and water. 

We help you learn to deliver a professional table side or bar beer or cider service with confidence. 

You will learn: 

• Key beer terminology and acronyms you need to be familiar with
• The differences between lagers, pilsners, pale ales, IPAs, porters, stouts, trappist, and wheat beers
• Beer ingredients and brewing process
• How beer is brewed
• How to discuss beer with customers and make recommendations to compliment food
• Beer glassware types and appropriate use
• The steps to taste beer, and how to describe the colour, aromas, and flavours.
• How to pour and serve draft beer, and bottled beer
• How to store beer correctly 
• How to bring beer to the correct serving temperature
• The correct temperature to serve beer

We help you learn about this ancient drink, while teaching you the skills to deliver a professional table side or bar wine service with confidence. 

You will learn:

• The common types of wine and grape varieties 
• How wine is made
• How to discuss wine with customers and suggest wines to compliment food
• How to take a wine order
• How to open a bottle of wine and serve it 
• Wine glassware types and appropriate use
• How to hold a glass and place it correctly in front of guests
• How to polish a wine glass 
• How wine is impacted by decanting and how to decant different types of wine
• The steps to taste wine, and how to describe the colour, aromas, and flavours. 
• How to store wine properly
• How to determine if wine is spoiled
• How to bring wines to correct serving temperatures
• The correct temperature to serve sparkling, red, white, and rosé wines