Bartenders upgrade professional skills

Being a good bartender entails more than just fixing fancy drinks and collecting big tips from happily inebriated customers. That was the message this afternoon as a training course for budding mixologists was held at the Biltmore.

Lucy Fleming, Belize Hotel Association

“People had the opportunity to not only learn about the bar and bartending, but to concoct some of their own signature drinks and also to lobby and meet with one another as a group of colleagues. So we felt that it was very successful and actually, we ourselves learn a lot. I learn a lot about mixing drinks myself.”

Corrie Heinze, Instructor

“I think Belize has a lot of good bartenders, real good ones, friendly bartenders. I think I can teach them a little bit, but not so much. Maybe we can put the cost of drinks a little bit lower. I think they’re perfect people for bars, real nice people, learn a little bit of what I can tell them, and other people teach me some things, so it was real nice. And what was perfect, was we use all the local products. We use the local rums, oranges, whatever grows in Belize we tried to use.”

Sana Mortis, Bartender, Biltmore Plaza Hotel

“We act out various situations is they arise, how to deal with it. The proper way of greeting the customer when they walk in a bar, making the customer feel comfortable. Knowing when the stop serving the customer is he over-drinks an all that, various situations.”

Shalue Butcher, Manager., Aguada Hotel and Bar

“We also dealt with some of the codes of bartending, not hearing anything, seeing anything, being good confidantes and various things like that. So it wasn’t just basic mixing of drinks.”

The Belize Hotel Association holds around four workshops per year to improve standards in the hospitality industry. Today’s basic course will likely be followed by an advanced seminar in the future.