A school for bartenders? Cheers, let’s drink to that

By Kamau Mutunga

Keeping customers happy and mixing cocktails are key skills that Paul Ogunde thought were being taken for granted, so he started the Nairobi School of Bartending and Mixology

Al McGuire was an American basketball coach, who was never short of interesting quips. Listen to him: “Everyone should go to college and get a degree and then spend six months with a bartender and six months with a cabdriver. Then they should really be educated.”

While most know that cab drivers have to attend driving school, it is never clear which college bartenders graduate from, or indeed if it is even necessary for them to attend any specialised institution at all.

“Bartending is complicated yet most of them in Kenya only know how to sell beer and sodas. In Europe, bartenders are also entertainers,” says Paul Ogunde, a graduate of Utalii College.

Paul says that in hospitality schools students are trained in hotel management, food production and service, but never bartending as a unit.

It was that gap in the market that prompted him to register  The Nairobi School of Bartending and Mixology that operates from Nacico Plaza on Landhies Road.

He believes it is the only one in Kenya, and one of only two in Africa besides South Africa’s Shaker Bar School (The Nairobian is still scouring the scene to locate a similar facility in the city).

Paul says that though taken as a pin weight in industrial relations, bartenders are important cogs in the wheels of the hospitality business — and by extension tourism. The bartender is supposed to know the recipes of, say, the margarita cocktails: specific tastes, colours, mixing methods, glasses to use and dressings to mix in under 30 seconds for any client from anywhere in the world.

“The bartender is also supposed to have book-keeping knowledge for cost and revenue control besides food knowledge about which specific type of grape in wine goes with fatty or lean meat,” says Paul, adding that one can throw in creativity for cocktail menus with interesting names such Abortion, Sex on the Wall, Slippery Nipples and Screwdriver to increase sales.

But setting up his institution was no easy task, especially when it came to licensing. It took two years to convince the government that his was a serious educational venture. Officials at the Ministry of Education were sceptical about giving clearance to a ‘Bar school’ and the “Mixology” in the name didn’t help matters.

“They thought it had something to do with chemistry,” recalls Paul, who has made cocktail menus for Brew Bistro, Mercury Lounge, Martinis, the Carnivore and Tribe Hotel. He was eventually cleared to operate last year.

On its part, the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (then known as Kenya Institute of Education) didn’t have a syllabus for bartending.

He was eventually certified and provided with one by London’s City & Guilds.

For three hours a day in two months, the 12 students — who pay Sh15,000 for a single semester — learn bar set up, restaurant, wine, beverage and menu knowledge alongside types and styles of service such as flaring. In the end, they graduate with a certificate or diploma in bartending and barista skills.