As the semester comes to a close, so does my Learning Project. Honestly, this may have been my favorite part of the semester in general. I’ve never been someone with a huge social media presence. If you could see my Instagram, you’d see I really only post once every couple of years. My last post was for my high school graduation 2 years ago, and the post before that was 2 years before it. I have a Facebook, but I’ve never posted, shared posts, or really spent time on there in general.

Through this project, I became much more comfortable with posting things online. I never saw myself enjoying blogging, but its been really fun in this experience. Seeing people comment on my own blogs has been fun and has helped boost my confidence a bit, and interacting and checking out other blogs in this class helped give me fun ideas of things to try out and ways to present my own blog. I’ve also realized that editing together things on TikTok is kind of fun, and I may explore that a bit more in the future. That’s something I never thought I’d say.

Over this learning project I learned quite a lot, both about tools we can use in the classroom and actual skills to help with my job. I’m currently working as a bartender, so having a reason to really dive deep into mixology has greatly improved my work on the job. It’s been really fun to share my knowledge in so many creative ways, explore new resources and ways of learning, and try out different tools to help me. I’ve learned enough about proper mixology that I’ve been able to tell the people who’ve trained me a few things they didn’t really know about. Do I feel like a jerk correcting people about things nobody really cares about? A bit. Am I proud of myself for learning more about my job than the guys that trained me? Definitely. Now without further ado:

A Recap of My Learning Project

A Bartender Learns Mixology: Introduction to My Learning Project

• Explained my background when it comes to bartending, and how much I knew going in.
• Explained the kind of sources I planned to learn from.
• An overview of how I plan to approach future posts, and some ideas of what I wanted to learn about.

Spirits vs Liqueurs: Learning Project Week 2

• A dive into spirits and liqueurs.
• What they are, how they differ from each other, and how they’re made.
• How we typically use each behind the bar.

The Old Fashioned: Learning Project Week 3

• Analyzed the Old Fashioned, from its ingredients to the way its made, and how they effect the drink.
• Edited my first video for the blogs, and was found TikTok to be one of the best editors for basic videos.

Getting Creative with a Recipe: Learning Project Week 4

• Discussed how cocktails can always be changed up however you’d like to make it work for you.
• Showed how you can get creative with what you have to make a recipe work, even if missing ingredients.
• Recorded videos with audio explaining my process throughout.

Crash Course on Bar Tools: Learning Project Week 5

• Discussed every bar tool listed in “The Ultimate Bar Book“, explaining what they were for, how useful I found them, and whether or not I believed they were essential or replaceable.
• Decided to try presenting the bulk of information of the blog post as a slideshow, and I decided to try out Canva for it.
• When making the slideshow, I found images from Cocktail Emporium and edited out the backgrounds with Photopea, a free image editor.

Shaken or Stirred: Learning Project Week 6

• Discussed the two ways of mixing a cocktail, shaking or stirring, and when we use each.
• Discussed the ways each method work, and the effect they have on the drink.
• Trying to edit a video in Canva kind of crushed my soul here. Just put a video by Anders Erikson in instead. In retrospect, it kind of scared me off of trying out different video editors for a bit.

Layering a Drink: Learning Project Week 7

• Discussed how layering a drink works, and the different ways it can be shown.
• Checked out another blog and found a very comprehensive guide for the density of liquors, but also found out a way to roughly estimate it.
• Made a short video explaining and showing the techniques used to actually layer liqueurs and liquors on top of each other, as well as showing off a trick I learned on the job to change the density of liqueurs.

Talking Like A Bartender: Learning Project Week 8

• In all honesty, this week I planned on trying to learn what every “bar-term” or slang used in mixology actually ment. While I did learn a few new things, I found that I already knew most of the terms and what they meant from experience. However, trying to explain each of these proved very long and boring to read through, so I restructured it a bit.
• Since most “bar-terms” related to how the cocktail was made, I kind of discussed the different kinds of bar terminology found in a drink order change the drink.
• I still found it really interesting, and many of the terms I learned , so I’m glad I learned about it.

Why Bother with Garnish?: Learning Project Week 9

• I found it fitting to end my project off by looking more into garnish. Its often an afterthought to a cocktail, but its really interesting to go into.
• Discussed the subtle and effective ways garnish changes a drink, as well as how we use it as presentation.
• Made one final TikTok video, which was a bit of a rush job if I’m being honest, but I learned how much easier it can be to record audio afterwards rather than try to explain as I record.

To Wrap it All Up

Over just a few months, I’ve learned so much about the art of mixology, a lot of which didn’t make it into this project, mostly because it didn’t happen in just a week. Things that took place slowly throughout time, without even realizing it. I got better at memorizing recipes, the different types of liquors in house, and got very good at accurately pouring without measurements to name a few. All things that I never researched, never set out to learn, but just picked up along the way. I don’t know how, but I got really good at matching different brands of liquors to their “home countries”. But what I’ve learned from this project has also greatly improved my skills behind the bar. There were even a few drinks I was able to tweak a bit to make them just a little better then the recipe called for. I’ve gotten better at describing the cocktails we have. Knowing the reason things are made the way they are has helped me take a bit more care in how I make them, if that makes sense.

Outside of work though, its become a bit of a hobby. I’m really enjoying being able to make fun drinks for friends or family, or trying out a new recipe for myself. I honestly have more fun bartending when I’m not getting payed for it. But it can be an expensive hobby with how many different spirits and liquors involved across every cocktail I want to try out. I’ve learned to be way more experimental because of it, making my own versions of cocktails. Whether I substitute something different in to get a similar flavor to a cocktail without a specific ingredient, or tweak the amount of a given ingredient to make it more enjoyable to me. I’ve even taken up a bit of a gardening hobby because of it. I started out wanting to grow fresh mint for drinks like mojitos, but once I had one pot I decided I wanted to grow some other fresh herbs like basil for my kitchen.

Honestly, when I started this project, I wasn’t sure learning mixology would make a good school project. I mean, usually I try to keep anything involving alcohol away from school, but I found its been really interesting to learn the craft. Its like cooking, in a way. Anyone can follow a recipe, but learning the skills to prepare it, and understanding what all goes into it, all makes you a much better chef. Honestly, its like learning any other skill out there. Practice, a bit of research, and experimenting a bit. I’m glad I’ve taken the time to learn all this, and that I had somewhere to share it!