In the world of wine, there’s the Court of Master Sommeliers’ Master Sommelier Diploma Examination, a distinction that is held by only 269 people globally. It’s an Everest of blind tastings, theory and surgically precise service. Only the obsessed survive it. Here in the world of spirits and cocktails, there’s an equivalent beast that lurks at the Culinary Institute of America’s Hyde Park campus: BAR 5-Day.

Don’t mistake BAR 5-Day for a type of “bartending school.” It’s not a vacation with jiggers and colorful name tags where everyone is friendly. It’s a five-day, no-BS trial by fire. An elite gauntlet of blind tastings, academic beatdowns and pressure-cooked cocktail builds that leave no room for cutting corners. Founded by industry titans Dale DeGroff, David Wondrich, Doug Frost, Steve Olson, Paul Pacult and later Andy Seymour, BAR 5-Day was created in 2006 in order to slap the taste of mediocrity out of bartending’s mouth and drag the profession into the realm of serious craft by serious people.

It's a program built by heavyweights of the industry. Dale DeGroff, the man who dragged American cocktails out of their sour mix grave of the ’80s and ’90s and breathed life back into the virtues of carefully crafted balance and freshness starting with his work at the Rainbow Room in New York City. Dave Wondrich, the drinks historian who gave us context and soul to the cocktails we have come to know and love over the last two decades. Doug Frost, a living legend whose credentials stretch across wine, spirits and service. Steve Olson, a man whose role as Global Mezcal Advocate at Del Maguey Single Village has helped to place a bottle of mescal in every single bar around the world. These are not just bartenders or writers or advocates in the industry. They are the architects of beverage history and what they have built was a proving ground.

BAR 5-Day recently moved operations out of New York City right into our backyard, the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. Don’t let the pastoral setting fool you: the admission rate and curriculum are cutthroat. You must start by proving you’re worthy through the ancillary prerequisite certification program from Pernod Ricard USA, BarSmarts. From there, hundreds of bartenders submit their application every single year in the hope of being accepted into the annual class. Fewer than 75 actually are selected; fewer still pass the examinations.

Once accepted, you receive exclusive access to a 150-plus page study guide which you are expected to commit to memory prior to your arrival on campus. With several months allocated to study the material, you arrive on campus on that fateful day only to spend the next 12 hours a day for five days in a classroom setting.

During this time, you blind taste over 120 spirits across multiple categories, often completely destroying your palate in the process. One of the many required skills is to accurately identify the ABV of the spirit and the production method. You must also have an intricate understanding of fermentation times, the type of aging and the base material(s) used.

You must confidently and accurately retain not just history of the spirit but the social factors that had direct and indirect impact on the respective spirits with the history spanning from 1300 BCE all the way through to the present. Being able to accurately retain all of the major (and minor) historical events that directly (and indirectly) impacted spirits of the time and shaped global trade, social norms and everything in between. All that in conjunction with the study guide.

After five grueling days, the exam day comes. The students are all a bundle of nerves whose anxiety levels are so high that medical professionals have been onsite. To start the exams, a blind tasting of a dozen spirits requires the accurate identification of proof, production method, aromas and tastes, country of origin, base material and, of course, producer. Thereafter, a multi-section written exam that makes the average college final look like a Buzzfeed quiz. Last, a practical portion of the exam, building cocktails under the gun for industry titans who will assess your skills in accuracy, storytelling and product knowledge, all while being timed. There is no faking it. There is only doing it right or doing it again.

Several years ago, I took the BAR 5-Day exam. Passed it the first time around, either by sheer luck or because of the many years spent reading every single book and article on the subject available to me. It was the most emotionally and physically challenging assessments of my entire career — and one of the greatest honors. Since then, I return annually as a faculty member, a spiritual advisor of sorts. Now given the awesome responsibility to lecture on my respective section, rum, to a room of industry professionals that have fought to earn their seat in that room. To be able to sit on stage with seasoned professionals whose names are known globally and have been featured in The New York Times, Forbes and countless other publications.

All too often, education in the beverage industry has been viewed as some precious artifact: nice to have, but not essential. Post-pandemic, an entire generation of bartenders has come up with no context of people, place or product. Even worse, they’re not being given even the basic skills or tools beyond the spec sheet that was shoved in their hands the night before and a single shift “shadowing” another team member before they are deemed a real “bartender.”

That kind of attitude needs to change.

Educational programs like BAR don’t just level up the bartender. They elevate the entire ecosystem. They raise the service off of the floor and into a proper bar stool. They force bars and restaurants to compete based on quality ingredients and well-trained staff who know how to offer genuine experiences rather than peddling happy hour gimmicks. Education like the aforementioned helps to rewire the guest’s experience so that hospitality feels thoughtful, intuitive, even inspired. Perhaps if enough people in our region took education in the hospitality industry more seriously, we could finally break the stigmatic question that is all too often posed to staff members: “So what’s your real job?”

If we want the Hudson Valley’s voice, culture and contributions to matter in the global conversation about craft spirits and well-made cocktails, we can’t continue to treat bartending as a “stopgap” in a resume. We need to start respecting it for the profession that is truly is.

Now, while resources are abundant, BAR 5-Day remains one of the best to prove your excellence. Even if BAR 5-Day feels out of reach, there are dozens of other online and printed resources available that can help to bridge the gap between a good bartender and great one.

For those of us who are in this industry for the long haul, it starts with five very hard, very necessary days in Hyde Park. I’ll see you there.

BAR 5-Day will be held on May 13-17, 2025, additional details about the program can be found at https://beveragealcoholresource.com/

Anton Kinloch's Lone Wolf Kingston is located at 240 Foxhall Ave. in Midtown Kingston. For more information, click here. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer; they do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Kingston Wire Editorial Team.