Out There: Former mixologist still has the hippy hippy shakes

When I graduated from high school, the movie “Cocktail” with Tom Cruise had made bartending super cool and sexy. My friend, Andy, and I decided it would be a good idea to become rock star bartenders, so we took a night course in mixology at George Brown College. Every Monday evening, we hopped in his mom’s K-car and drove from the suburbs to downtown.

We learned to make highballs and cocktails and all kinds of other mixology skills that have stayed in my brain to this day — 35 years later. Looking back, it might have been more productive to take a night class in auto repair or carpentry, but Tom Cruise made a movie about fixing drinks, not about fixing houses or cars. Because of that course, I would never scoop ice using a glass.



What if it breaks? Also, it taught me to be efficient. If you’re making four drinks, you don’t make each one to completion one at a time. You line up your glasses and build each drink together.

Ice ...

spice (if needed) ...

liquor ...

mix ...

garnish. Boom. Ready at the same time.

This skill applies widely — such as at a recent fundraiser golf tournament where the volunteer serving hot dogs could not be slower. She grabbed one bun, added a wiener, added condiments and passed it over. Then the next one.

Same process. There were four of us getting two dogs each. It was painful to watch.

She could have Tom Cruised it. Bun, bun, bun, bun, wiener, wiener, wiener, wiener. Bonus points for flipping the mustard container and splashing up condiments with a little flair.

Andy and I loved our mixology course. We were barely old enough to legally serve alcohol, but we were the star pupils. Our teacher, Joe, loved us.

He taught us to make simple drinks like screwdrivers and built us up to harvey wallbangers, singapore slings and something called a slow screw up against the wall. I soaked it all up. My previous mixology experience involved tequila and Gatorade.

It didn’t end well for me. I flexed my skills whenever I could. I always wanted to make fancy cocktails at family gatherings.

Unfortunately, that crowd generally just wanted a beer or a Diet Pepsi. Boring. When we graduated, I scanned employment ads for rock star bartender positions.

The first place I landed was Chi-Chi’s Mexican restaurant. I arrived for my first day, excited to mix up some tasty margaritas, tequila sunrises and daiquiris and maybe sling some tequila shots with salt and lime. When I got there, I was shown the margarita machine.

Yep. A machine. There was no rock star bartending to be found at Chi-Chi’s.

I was to serve up margaritas from a machine. I didn’t need mixology training for this. If you could serve yourself a 7-11 Slurpee, you could bartend at Chi-Chi’s.

They also started training me to deliver chips and salsa to tables, take food orders and clear dirty dishes. Wait. No way.

Tom Cruise did not serve chips and salsa. He served singapore slings, ding-a-lings, velvet hammers and alabama slammers, all with a side of sexy charm. Chi-Chi’s gave me no space for sexy charm, so I quit after my first shift.

They’ve folded, except for one remaining location in Austria. I moved on to a real rock start job at ..

. Howard Johnson’s. I was a wedding bartender, and it was awesome.

Usually, it was an open bar, so I didn’t even have to deal with money. The drinks were simple. Beer, wine, rum and Coke or rye and ginger ale.

I served drinks all through college. Does that mean I have a double major in journalism and mixology?.