Founded in 2005 by renowned bartender and mixologist Gavin MacMillan, BartenderOne is rapidly becoming one of the leading lights in the Canadian hospitality industry.
In just ten short years, BartenderOne – or B1 to its staff and students – has quickly expanded its base of operations from its initial HQ in Toronto. With training facilities now situated in Ottawa, Montreal, and Mississauga (and soon Vancouver, Calgary, and Halifax), B1 is growing fast and, with more than 4400 professional and home bartenders trained each year, has already become Canada’s leading bartending and hospitality training school.
MacMillan’s twenty years in the trade – which have taken him around the world and seen him win numerous accolades – have been parlayed into B1’s comprehensive and immersive training courses and workshops program. Together with his team of experienced industry professionals, MacMillan has been credited with shaping the Canadian beverage market for the last few years and producing excellent bartending staff via their intensive training packages, which differ from other classroom-based or ‘mock bar’ courses by parachuting students and instructors into real-time environments – essentially inserting their ‘mobile classroom’ into a busy working bar.
BartenderOne offers a comprehensive package of courses and workshops to choose from. Its main trio of options is designed to get students into the real world of bartending with all the skills and abilities they will ever need. The Bartender 101 certification is a three-day introductory course for $248, while the immersive 5-day Bartending and Mixology Masterclass contains ten sections – covering topics such as ‘Martini Madness’ and ‘Practical Speed Bartending’ – for $599; meanwhile, the elite level Bar Chef International Bartender Certification is $799 for two days but is only open to students who have either completed the _Bartending and Mixology Masterclass _or who have at least two years bartending experience under their belt – and comes with jobs guaranteed for the top graduates of the program.
Supplementary workshops are many and varied, including an introductory 3-hour session featuring drinks mixing techniques called _Breaking the_Ice, Get Into the Spirit, which covers how to create custom cocktails, Craft Beer and Buena Barista Coffee workshops, and numerous ‘Master of…’ mini-courses featuring vodka, tequila, rum and many other spirits. In addition, students can learn how to create the perfect Martini – be it Dirty, French, or Manhattan – in Martini Madness and the Grape to Glass workshop, they are taught wine selection, service and storage. Most of these courses are two to three hours and cost $99, while Smart Serve certification (government certification required by law to sell or serve alcohol in Ontario) and Wine Council of Ontario certification are $59.
B1’s wide-ranging services also include the supply of essential equipment, either from its Downtown Toronto, Yorkville or Mississauga locations or via its 24-hour online ‘BarStore’, which contains everything from glow-in-the-dark cocktail strainers to bartending pants, 40-piece complete bartending kits and instructional DVDs. With your, it offers ‘the planet’s largest social network for bartenders, servers and employers’, and when students complete the Bartending Masterclass course, they receive certification within hours of graduation. They are provided with a handy credit card-sized certificate displaying their credentials – meaning they can get out to work almost immediately.
BartenderOne Toronto has two training locations:
Repeal 95 King St. East Toronto and College Street Bar 574 College St. Toronto M6G 1B2
- (416) 461-4441
- 1-855-462-2271
- 95 King St. East, Toronto
- https://www.bartenderone.com/
