How to do Bartending Tricks

In the bartending industry, they call it flair. It looks good and it makes people want to buy more drinks. That’s great if you own a bar. But, some flair is still nice to know for your homebar tricks when you’re entertaining friends and family.

Get a Feel

The first thing to do is get a feel for the bottles you’ll be flipping. Pick up the tin and flip it in your hands. Grab different sized bottles and flip them, making sure you notice the different weights and measurements. You can condition your brain to immediately recognize the feel of a certain bottle if you hold it long enough and try a few tricks with it.

First Trick

This basic trick is what they practically teach everyone first when they go to bartending school. Hold the bottle in your right hand and the tin in your left. You can switch it later if you want, but learn the fundamentals first.

Swing the bottle under and around to your left arm. At that point, you are going to release it and flip it back over to its original position where your right hand should return to immediately. It’s a simple flip and you should do the motions a few times before you actually let go of the bottle for your first time.

Beer Bottle

Beer bottle opening can be quite interesting if you have a bottle opener that is long and flat. This will allow you to have a handle you can use for various tricks. With the beer bottle sitting on the bar, take your bottle opener and hook it to the beer cap.

This is done the same way that you would when you normally open a beer bottle with a bottle opener except that when you get tension, use that tension to do your tricks. Pick the bottle up with the bottle opener. The tension created between the bottle opener and the bottle cap will give you enough stability to be able to lift the bottle. Get a feel for it and you are ready!

You can learn different tricks to do, but my favorite is around the head. You can twirl the beer bottle around the back of your neck and then quickly pop the cap before handing your amazed friend a beer. It’s beautiful flair and when worked on enough, you can create your own sense of style when it comes to twirling beer bottles with bottle openers.

Flairing the Ice

Even something as simple as putting ice into a glass can be interesting. You need an ice scoop to really make this one fun and show your friends an exciting time. This is the kind of trick that if you pull it at just the right moment, you’ll have your friends wondering if they actually saw something cool or if their eyes were playing tricks on them.

Have your glass upside down when you perform this trick. Grab it in the upside down position and scoop ice out of the ice bin at the same time. Pull the scoop up to the glass. The palm of your hand holding the glass should be pointing upward, in the perfect position to now flip the glass around in a circle with the scoop still at the top of the glass to make it a bigger presentation.

But, add a step. Once you’ve done your flip, make sure to keep one last piece of ice in the scoop that you can flip behind your back and catch in your glass. All in one motion, that is a beautiful trick that will catch your friends off guard.

Bartending tricks have been around since bartending. For everything we do, we try to add a little flair to our jobs and make them as interesting as we can. That is especially when we know we are being watched. You may not be much of a bartender. Having a homebar doesn’t mean you have to learn. But, you’ll have fun and your friends will enjoy it right with you.