Master your pour with easy flair bartending skills

Flair bartending refers to the skills and moves that bartenders use to entertain their guests, clients, and audience. It's all about concentration and balance. Like any other sport, bartending skills take a lot of practice before you can perform in front of an audience. Whether you are a home bar bartender who would like to entertain your guests with moves or you are an aspiring bartender looking to master a few pour skills, you will find this useful.

With these easy and simple moves, you will be the bartender with skills in no time.

• Basic Flip

A fairly simple technique. Hold the bottle in one hand and a jigger or glass in another. Simply, grab the bottle by the neck and spin it in front of your body before catching it again. As you catch on, the liquid will pour into the jigger or glass.

• Ice Throwing

Toss a few cubes of ice into the air and catch them (all) in the cocktail shaker or glass. You can easily master this move if juggling comes naturally to you.

• Bottle Stalls

One of the simple bartending skills, this trick involves catching and balancing a bottle upright on the back of your hand. The hand must cushion the bottle's fall for it to balance. There are different ways you can stall or balance a bottle, or any object for that matter. The most common are hand stalls, forearm stalls and elbow stalls.

• Flair Pouring

Pouring is one of the most efficient bartending skills to master. How about adding some style while you are at it? Check out the three flair-pouring styles that you can easily learn! The long pour - pouring from a great height into a glass or a jigger and stopping the pour at the top to allow the liquid to fall into the glass. The reverse pour - holding the bottle in such a way that you pour in a “reverse” fashion.   The cross pour - to pour from two different bottles at different times using the same hand.

• Jigger Techniques

Mixology is all about having the right measurements of ingredients and perfectly mixing them to craft enticing cocktails.  A jigger is one of the bar tools that’s used to measure and pour the liquid/ingredients needed to create the drink. Well, even though it’s a fairly simple process, adding a bit of flair to this bartending skill could be a lot more interesting! Here are a few techniques to try: The Neck Technique - hold the jigger at the skinny part of the vessel The Finger-Joint Flip - hold the jigger between the second and third joints on your finger and pour.  Double-Up - hold one jigger between your thumb and index finger, and another between the index and middle finger. 

How many of these bartending skills have you already mastered? If you haven't now's the time! Start practising and show off your skills while your audience waits for their favourite drinks.