Behind the Bar: In Training, Day 1 of a Mid-life Martini Makeover

by hans peter meyer

OK, technically it's "day 1" of my mid-summer back-to-school days. But I'm not even in Vancouver yet. Hey, I'm not even off Vancouver Island!

Major post-BC-Day lineups at BC Ferries and I'm sitting in the new tourist/consumer flytrap in Departure Bay. Mediocre [major chain] coffee and bagel, but a fairly decent place to hang out.

I'll be rolling into my temporary West End digs just after noon, in time for a quick nap before heading down for the first session of Bartending 101 at www.fineartbartending.ca in downtown YVR.

I'm pretty excited about this. I've been mixing martinis since a girlfriend showed me how to handle a Boston shaker and few ounces of vodka about 8 years ago. In recent years I've picked up the "happy hour" torch from another friend, and turned the little duplex on the banks of Rio Willemar into a cocktail bar.

Now I'm about the go "pro." Do some mixological knowledge transfer. Start pitching for work.

The reasons for this mid-life martini makeover are manifold. As a writer and photographer, income streams with trad clients have almost dried up in the wake of Market Meltdown '08. The cash from a few hours of bar tending per week will help feed the cats.

More than beverage-induced cash flow, however, this back-to-school thing is about getting involved in the food & bev industry in a professional way. Yes indeed: yours truly gets to fulfill his dreams of being a spiritual counselor (job/career profiling in my 20s warned me I'd be a great minister – I just hadn't imagined that I'd be ministering mixes and dispensing wisdom on liquid spirits). That's cool. But to get an inside view, a perspective from behind the bar, that's what's really cool.

I imagine myself artfully arranging liquid measures, dispensing spiritual proofs for the necessary existence of bitters and lemon peel and olives and rose-petal flavoured gins, etc. I'll be listening to stories, telling a few of my own, getting to know folks – all of it grist for the writing and foto machine that I am. Yes, this is the image that really primes my pump right now.

But that's down the road a bit. In the meantime I'm enjoying the frisson of trying something new, of plunging into a new discipline. (It's also a way of being a good dad: showing my kids that it's never too late to learn something new, that it's worth stepping out of whatever particular box I've created for myself. And being dad is what really animates this middle-aged man – turning 50 inside of a dozen days! I'm just starting to write about what 'being dad' means to me here.)

Back to the bar: I'll be posting on my experience with Ryan and the crew at fineart.ca over the next couple of weeks at this web address. Watch it for my impressions and for a few nuggets on dispensing spiritual insights. Until the next post... Salut! Prosit! Cheers!

– 30 –