Josh’s Introduction:
Welcome to Independent Study Day. A lot of you have been here before and you know the drill. So all of you that have been here before, treat this like the first day of school and go talk to someone that you haven’t met before.
Everyone that hasn’t been here before, welcome! We started Independent Study Day almost 2 whole years ago because coming out of Covid Lockdowns we saw some gaps in training and bar skills. That’s not your fault…everything was closed and a lot of people that used to prioritize on-the-job training had moved into sales roles or real estate or content creation. That’s not their fault, we were all just trying to figure out what to do.
So we started Independent Study Day to encourage all of you in this room to have a space to be exposed to ideas you might not be getting from your managers at work. There is only so much that you can read about, there are things that you just need to learn by doing.
So we have a whole rail full of ingredients behind the bar here if you want to practice making drinks. Last month we had a crew back here comparing how different their shaking technique was from hand to hand. St-Rémy Brandy is our sponsor this month and on your way in you either had a Brandy Old Fashioned using their VS or a 200 year old drink called a Bittered Sling which bears a striking resemblance to an Old Fashioned but is garnished with Nutmeg. Maybe after our talk today, you want to taste other expressions of St-Rémy or maybe you tasted something that you want to build a drink out of. We have the space and time for that.
If you haven’t yet, please write your instagram handle on the white board at the front, you know, near where you brought your food donation.
Each month we collect donations for the Parkdale Community Food bank and you are all great for showing up and bringing things to help out our neighbours that don’t necessarily get to go drink St-Rémy Brandy on a Tuesday afternoon.
Each Wednesday morning after Independent Study Day, Jess and I drive over to the Parkdale Community Food Bank to drop off those donations, and more often than not, the smiling face waiting for us is Clare Rutledge, our guest today.
Clare Rutledge is the Volunteer Program manager for the Parkdale Community Food Bank, she is a social service worker, she is who Jess has to answer to during her volunteer shifts and for our purposes today, she is also a long time, but former bartender.
We thought it would be a great idea to have Clare as our guest because so frequently as bartenders we are told that you go from barback to server to bartender to manager to real estate agent to manager to owner or to brand ambassador or sales.
Clare, saw a different but relatable path.
See the interview HERE