What is Diageo Bar Academy?
Diageo Bar Academy is one of the biggest global training communities for bar professionals in the world. From accredited courses to insights and tips from top industry professionals, Diageo Bar Academy provides all you need to help raise the bar and your career!
To get a better understanding about the Diageo Bar Academy I spoke to Diageo India Reserve Brand Ambassador, Asmani Subramanian and here’s how it went
1. Tell us about your experience with Diageo Bar Academy.
It’s one of the best things to have happened to me, the responsibility of developing F&B professionals is a privilege, sharing the knowledge acquired over many years, helping them developing their bartending skills, managing their business, going through many icebreakers and helping to bring consistency across a wider audience is challenging but fulfilling, post the session seeing many successful individuals come out is a moment of self-pride.
Credits: Ritz Magzine
2. Give us 5 tips to be the best ‘inhouse’ bartender
Buy a cocktail bar kit.
Stock your shelves different types of spirits and fermented drinks.
Keep carbonated drinks and different juice handy.
Make sure you have enough ice.
Fresh lemonade with gin is Gin fizz, whisky- ice -water is a classic highball drink, so help yourselves with easy recipes and videos from online.
3. Tell us about the importance of Diageo Bar Academy
Diageo Bar Academy is an immersive certified training program in over 55 countries for bar professionals and businesses across the globe. Made up of physical training and online learning to educate, inspire and inform the bar and service staff and venue owners to help you take your career to the next level.
4. Have you ever participated in these training sessions as a student?
No, I did not. DBA would have helped a lot in my initial years, where you get a complete course, in my case I had to scramble across places and countries for my development, but every session I conduct I learn and discover something new.
5. If you had to share a few tips and tricks with the budding bartenders, what would it be?
Learning for life must be the goal, bartending is an art, it’s also about teamwork and discipline. Start loving the ingredients, appreciate its provenance, start loving flavors, understand them, explore different ingredients, try them, start exploring cuisines, read a lot, master the great classic cocktails, keep enhancing your skills with the bar tools, hygiene and cleanliness has to be the top priority, have as many chefs as your friends, they will help a lot in understanding the ingredients, bartending groups within the city you live, visits the best bars and restaurants in your neighborhood or the city you live in, get connected with the wider community through online platforms, use online platforms to the most in enhancing yourself, never let the passion fade, it’s tough in initial years but gets a lot better as you grow. and mind you do develop your personality don’t let loose it on course, develop responsible drinking habits, have fun, you do create awesome experiences in a glass.
6. If there was an Asmani special, what would it be? And what food would you pair it with?
It’s quite a few, mostly simple serves with fresh local seasonal ingredients that one may find in the neighborhood market or gardens, this is because I grew up in Ooty which has a lot to offer.
Be it some of the finest fruits, vegetables, teas, coffee or chocolates, we found everything in abundance. Also, when your Dad is full time into the fruit business it’s a win-win kind of situation. I was always foraging and trekking, can’t remember the time where I wasn’t munching on fruits or chocolates. I was always enjoying nature’s best! To add onto it, I was always surrounded by coffee roasters or the smell of freshly brewed coffee, if not at home then in the Ooty market, those flavors still linger around me. And that’s why the Asmani special has to have coffee in it!
Here’s the recipe: 45 ml of any of these spirits: Johnnie Walker Double Black / Talisker 10 / Lagavulin 16/ Ketel One shaken with South Indian Filter Coffee Decoction with Jaggery to sweeten them. I usually pair them with Crème Brûlée or Tiramisù, and for people who love experimenting have gone with Peking Duck and Chargrilled dishes.
Yes, we ended the interview with our favourite topic: food and cocktail! But I must tell you, I learned a lot from this conversation, and I hope, all the budding bartenders who are reading this finally found a platform to hone their skills.
*Drink Responsibly.
