Bar exams

The hospitality industry has embraced wine education (well, many of you, anyway). If it isn't your wine supplier providing the info, then it's one of the scores of wine educators out there who are doing the honours. The Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) reports a surge in students from the on-trade, block-booked by the more forward-thinking companies.

Some establishments have even initiated their own wine education programmes, which is all very commendable - after all, wine is such a hot topic right now, and you can't have your customers knowing more about wine than you do. But what about your staff's knowledge of spirits? Do they know their anejos from their reposados?

Now that the spirits market is showing signs of a recovery, and cocktails have never been more popular, isn't it about time your staff knew more about what they are selling? According to the bar aficionados we spoke to, customers are starting to ask for specific brands in their favourite drinks. Soon, a simple request for a gin and tonic will be replaced by the likes of Tanqueray and tonic.

"The problem is that spirits are seen in this country for their effect," says Mark Ridgwell of spirit educators Taste & Flavour. "Today, anyone can walk into a bar and get a job. They think all you have to do is pour the stuff and get the money into the till.

"I'm still horrified at the number of established, sizeable companies that say they won't pay for training because staff move on - although this attitude is changing. Everyone is talking much more positively about training at the moment."

The big spirit brands, of course, have been on to this for some time. They employ people like Ridgwell to train their on-trade customers, realising that in order to achieve consumer product loyalty, they need to educate and befriend the person on the front line - the bartender. And yes, there is some marketing guff, but there's also some sound advice on what to do with the product and the story surrounding it. But where do you go to learn about the subject as whole?

Well, Ridgwell's Taste & Flavour (020 8947 9410) will do the honours and so will a number of bar consultants, such as ex-Match Group's Michael Butt and business partner Giles Looker, who provide in-house training for restaurants and hotels, including devising drinks menus (Soul Shakers 07990 978166). Award-winning mixologist Chris Langan and his Edinburgh-based Bar Nomadics (0131-557 1835) will do the same.

Angus Winchester at IPBartenders (020 8962 2752) goes one step further by providing his own training bar. He warns: "There are too many bars out there that have had a lot of money spent on them but where staff are hired not for their skills but because they look cute."

Probably the best indication that attitudes are changing is the recent opening of the Training School in London's Docklands (020 7473 1818), which covers everything from food hygiene to a two-day advanced cocktail course. Director Andrea Horsfield says: "When we were doing our research, we found that the training being offered was either very academic or very branded. There was nothing practical or commercial."

The Training School (www.thetrainingschool.com) was launched earlier this year, but the spirit side is still being fine-tuned. Trials finish soon, and bookings will be taken from the beginning of May.

Cocktail maestro and bar consultant Dick Bradsell is looking after the spirit side, with one-day courses in cocktails starting at £150, and there will also be a series of spirit masterclasses. Horsfield eventually wants the courses to be accredited as national qualifications, and she echoes both Ridgwell's and Winchester's sentiments: "A lot of employers still don't believe in training. Those that do have accepted that their staff need to know more about wine, but a knowledge of spirits is not seen as important. The brands have been offering a lot of training, which is great, but it can be contradictory. We want to offer people a benchmark."

The WSET (020 7329 8712) is also getting in on the act with a new spirits course which begins later this year. "The main thrust will be product knowledge, but there won't be cocktail demos," says WSET chief executive Ian Harris, who has promised free places to Caterer readers - so watch this space.

And, in case you were wondering, anejo and reposado are categories of Tequila.