Bartenders with personality and skills can trump flashy menusBartenders with personality and skills can trump flashy menus

Looking at the roster of seminars I was about to attend on my first day of Tales of the Cocktail 2011, I noticed a running theme: None of the sessions were really about cocktails or alcohol.


From a seminar on cutting-edge ice programs to one dealing with the creation and formatting of drink menus — and not about the development of new recipes — the seminars were full of information about the elements of a cocktail bar as opposed to the spirits and hot trends. 


After one seminar called “The Menu,” I overheard two bartenders talking about how the bartending game had changed. Just as the hand-crafted cocktail movement harkened back to old-school recipes from eras past, they observed that today the shift was to teaching bartenders how to be ...