Bartending can lead to an amazing career & lifestyle. This leads many people looking into online bartending school and courses to help them land their first bartending job. I don’t blame them!
Bartending is great and there’s “never a dull moment“. You never know what you’ll encounter at work next – the complete opposite of an office job…
If you like the idea of mixing drinks and socializing for a living, you’ve come to the right place.
But as with all skills & careers, education is essential. If you really want to excel at the job, joining online bartending schools and online mixology courses can better prepare you for the skills you’ll need to succeed.
You can make real money with bartending. The average bartender salary in 2022 around $24,000 per year + tips – some bartenders bring in $100k/year! You can also work a regular job during the day and do bartending at night. You can pile up some cash doing this when you count in the tips.
If you are an aspiring bartender, there are some essential skills you need to know before you begin your career this year. You need to understand how to properly mix drinks, how to deal with customers and the psychology of working behind a bar.
To help you prepare for a fun and lucrative bartending career, we’ve compiled a list of the top 5 online bartending schools, mixology classes, and online mixology courses.
Best Overall: A Bar Above Mixology Certification
This online bartending school is one of the more advanced mixology courses out there, but it is in our opinion the perfect “all around” course. The owner and founder, Chris Tunstall, created this course to take bartender students to the next (more advanced level) and to share his love of mixing great drinks with others.
He considers mixing drinks and cocktails a true art form and enjoys figuring out new combinations of drink components such as bitter and sweet elements to mix up original drinks of his own.
This is an exciting opportunity for aspiring bartenders who want to take their skills to the next level. The program features high-quality HD videos, interactive quizzes, and lifetime access so you can come back anytime to learn more tips from Chris.
If you want to be the best, this is the best course to take to become a bartender.
Best for beginners: A Bar Above Bar Basics Course
Also from A Bar Above, the Bar Basics course is the perfect crash course for getting creating a foundation of cocktails. The focus of the course is teaching bartenders how to make craft cocktails at home, but once taking the course you will realize how easy it is to translate the knowledge to a career.
The course is shorter, easier, and more affordable (at only $45), so if you are not totally sold on becoming a bartender (yet!), we suggest you start here. In the course you will learn:
- What cocktails actually are and what are the components that make them up
- How to build your own cocktails based on the ingredients you have
- How to apply the knowledge you learn to a career
- Step by step instructions to absolutely nail eight of the foundational cocktails
Best For Home Bartenders: Lynnette Marrero & Ryan Chetiyawardana at MasterClass
At MasterClass, you’ll learn from industry legends Lynnette Marrero, a James Beard honoree and NYC craft cocktail pioneer, and Ryan Chetiyawardana, founder of the world-renowned Dandelyan bar.
In this comprehensive course, you’ll discover the essential skills and techniques needed to craft perfectly balanced cocktails for any occasion. From developing your palate to building your home bar, Marrero and Chetiyawardana will guide you through 17 in-depth video lessons totaling over 4 hours of content.
MasterClass is well-known for its beautiful presentations and simple user experience. More importantly, you get to learn from two of the top minds within the industry.
Best For Hospitality Professionals: Bar Smarts
The course from BarSmarts features the basic methods of mixing drinks and establishes the foundation and essentials that all bartenders should know for bartender service. The course also covers the basics of hospitality so you also learn how to be a good salesman – not only how to make quality drinks.
There are tests along the way to check for the level of knowledge and applied skill that students are learning. If they successfully complete all assessments and events, they will be awarded a bartender’s certification online. Many great bartenders have been produced from online bartending schools like this one.
Some bar owners state that they would not hire their bartenders unless they are certified by this school.
The Best For Extra Skills: EBS Bartending Academy
While EBS does have some great courses around traditional mixology and cocktail making, where they really shine are their courses around the more “out there” parts of bartending. I’m talking specifically about their courses covering things such as flair choreography and working in a Tiki Bar.
While not the best courses for beginners, if you have mastered cocktail making techniques and want to level up your game so to speak, EBS is a great place to do it.
Online Bartending Schools Conclusion
If you have a goal of becoming a great bartender this year, these bartender classes will help you to get started. We tried to include a range of bartending & mixology courses that we think will help you learn new skills regardless of your level. Just bare in mind that these courses should be used as a complement to real-life training and experience.
You’ll learn the most from actually working behind a bar, not sitting in front of a screen of bartending classes.
Bartending is an art and it requires a serious approach to technique with a bit of creativity and fun. That said, knowledge is essential and you should be able to pick up some great tips, get your bartender certification online and more by taking some of these bartending classes.
Check them out, let me know what you think and if there’s any I’ve missed that you think should on this list, add it to the comments section below!
2 thoughts on “The 5 Best Online Bartending School & Mixology Courses”
Most mixologists people start their careers as bar backs, then climb the ranks to the bartender. The best way to get into this field is to take a bartending course and become a certified bartender. I also trying for this to make my future more bright and become an inventor of crazy drinks. Thank you so much for sharing this.
I would love to study mixiology