I went into a bar with my dad at the age of 16 and we spoke with the head bartender about being a bartender. He suggested to read lots of books about bartending and I took his word for it so I went online onto amazon.com to buy all kinds of books about the trade of a bartender.

I learned many skills, ideas and traits from these books as if they were my new textbooks, I’ll highlight important details and absorb the main points.

The books I have read are:

  • The Fine Art of Mixing drinks by David A. Embury
  • The Joy of Mixology by Gary Regan
  • The Craft of the Cocktail by Dale Degroff
  • Cocktail Techniques by Kazuo Uyeda

I will get into detail later about each of these books, sort like a review but for now I’ll just tell you how they each helped me in being a better bartender than an average amateur reading recipe books.

The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks have shown me that anybody could be a bartender as David A. Embury was a lawyer who had a passion for the best of the best cocktails. He believed that the good quality ratio is 1:2:8 which is very sweet for most people however an easy to read balance in cocktails. He also shown me to not follow recipes to every detail and “Roll Your Own” and experiment which ratio is perfect for you and other people because everyone has different taste.

The Joy of Mixology, is a very straight-forward book about the skills, techniques and traits of a bartender. It also has a very organized catergorie system for each cocktail in a neat fashion that everyone could read. Gary Regan taught me the tips and tricks of a bartender by not only telling skills and techniques but including “How to deal with intoxicated customers” or “What to do during downtime” this kind of information is valuable for any new bartender on the scene.

The Craft of the Cocktail, is a modernized look of a cocktail book that has been simplified for the average reader and bartender. It has easy to read recipes, and photographs of cocktails and techniques to follow. Dale Degroff uses his experiences and stories to highlight points in his book such as “The Perfect Gentleman”.

Cocktail Techniques has obviously shown me how to do things the Japanese way, and its not easy. Kazou Uyeda methods are accurate and discipline for the highest of hospitality standards from from opening a bottle to recognizing every bit of your movements so that the making and serving of the drink is served with grace andtranquillity. Kazou Uyeda introduces the reader to the “Hard Shake” Method for the perfect balance of ingredients and the signature bubbles for each of his own cocktails in this book.

I’ll review each book of their pros and cons in another post, I hope you enjoyed this blog and look forward to my next.


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