Depending on where you are, the style of bartending will differ. Why should the commoner be aware of this? Well, for one, you’re not going to get a certain drink at one place that you had at another. Make sense? The old fashioned you order at a craft cocktail establishment will certainly be different at a dive bar– stronger, cheaper, but not as quality if that’s something you give a shit about. Also, for you budding bartenders, if you began in a dive bar and move on to a more craft type place, you’ll be shocked at how different it’ll be to work there.

If you’re thinking I couldn’t come up with something great to post this morning…You’d be right, but, like Meier says in The Eiger Sanction, we shall continue with style.

Restaurant: This would be my favored area of the bar business to partake in, mostly due to the hours. I’m usually home by 10:30, 11 on a busy night. The money is great and I rarely have to deal with some sort of drunken catastrophe. That said, there are moments. Most of the time you’ll get a decently constructed cocktail in one of these places, but I remember asking for a vieux carre in a really nice restaurant once and they handed me an abomination, so your mileage may vary. Oh, as far as wardrobe you’ll have to wear a nice shirt and probably a lame apron. No apron means you’ll ruin your nice shirt, so the two can go hand in hand.

Craft: Right up there in a similar category with restaurant bartending is the craft bar. Same type of deal but worse food. Like anything, it’s a trade off. The money is better but the hours are longer. There’s much more snobbery but better cocktails. You may even get to use fancy machinery like a c-vap distiller, canning machine, centrifuge, or a carbonation system. The people come there to drink and not eat and due to the longer hours you’ll have to babysit the patron’s behavior. Also, the staff may be more annoying to work with than any other place. There’s going to be a large lean toward wispy mustaches, flannel, and shitty tattoos. If you’re old, like me, you won’t fit in.

Banquet: This is your wedding or social event type. The most limited in terms of what is available. The actual cocktails are the worst because they’re weak and taste bad. In these event based bartending events you’ll spend the most down time between serving, it’ll veer toward pouring wine, and cracking open beers but the money is mostly good and among all the bartending gigs available, the hours are the shortest. You’ll have to endure watching white people dance, which I can imagine is funny at first and then quite depressing after a dozen or so shifts. In terms of cocktail construction, you’ll be freepouring. Also, you’ll most certainly have to wear a tie, sometimes a jacket.

Steakhouse: Ah, this is where bartenders go to die. Don’t expect to make anything other than martinis and Manhattans. Yes, you’ll have to wear a tie, maybe a jacket or, oh god no, a vest. If you get the right gig, however, like at a hotel in the right city, you may be unionized which is huge. The money and hours are stellar and you won’t be stirring alongside some dumbass kid who asks you about the latest negroni specs. At this point in your bartending career, there’s no more jiggers either. You’ve gone through the maelstrom of measuring and have now returned to free pouring. No one quits these jobs, rather they die. Expect to work alongside dudes that smell like mothballs and still consider you the new guy after a dozen years.

Dive Bar: Here we go. A dive bar is going to be a torrid affair. The hours are long and late. You’ll reek of stale beer when you clock out and you’ll get seriously jaded toward the general population because most of them will be overserved or come in from other places completely tanked. The benefits of dive bar bartending are many, however. One, you can wear whatever the hell you want. Two, the money is fantastic. Three, you can be mean to people. Unlike restaurants, you can ignore bad tippers and refuse to serve anyone you wish. This leads to creating better tippers in the end. Dive bars are dangerous and only for the young because you’ll end up drinking a lot and then falling asleep at 4 a.m. (6 or 7 in NYC). It’s usually a terminal job where you start off because you’ll later move to craft or restaurant. The drinks are awful but very strong and there’s no measuring, it’s all free pour, all night.

Club: The best money in the business is at a club, but it’s also the most annoying place on earth to work. Super drunk young people combined with eardrum shattering decibels of crap music. Yes, these idiots pay upwards of $200 or more for the right to share a bottle of vodka that cost $20 and sit around a table nodding their heads and not speaking to one another because the music is insanely loud. It’s the biggest crock in the biz. I’ve never done it myself but can only imagine just how annoying it can be. But hey, you can rake in up to $1,000 a shift. Do the math. Five days a week, that’s a quarter million a year. Maybe it’s worth it if you’re young and hungry and putting yourself through school or something comparable.

Home: My favorite. You’ll likely only have shit available that you like and when company comes over they’ll just have to deal with it. No jiggers here and you can wear whatever you want. My favorite is shorts and a tank top, no shoes or socks. The money is zero but your bed is close by and you can go in there whenever you choose.