"Moving the bar scene forward on the island"
You need to venture into an alley in Simpson Bay leading to the lagoon, then climb up to the second floor. There, over the Soggy Dollars, the wooden-roofed terrace seems like an ordinary bar. At least in the evenings. During the day, the establishment, built for the purpose, houses a school: the European Bar School.
Inaugurated in 1999, the European Bar School sits in a network of 24 schools dispersed in 17 countries and 4 continents and counts over 50,000 graduates. In addition to training and recruiting bartenders, its hallmark is to propose that its students use bartending as a mean of "traveling the world, financing their studies, making new friends, creating a network, earning money, and especially having fun" as you can read on their website.
Associated with the Amsterdam school with whom it shares a director, the Sint Maarten branch, which opened in November 2015, represents the sole presence of the chain in the Caribbean. Generally closed from late August to November, it is one of the smallest schools in the network and welcomes a maximum of 24 students per session and one session per month. Coming from all over the world, but primarily from European and Scandinavian countries, students of all ages take a four-week training course (from Monday to Friday) costing €2,100, including lodging in a guest house.
Originally from the Cannes area, Maxime Meuric, age 26, was one of them. He was part of the first class from Saint-Martin in November 2015. "I had six years of experience behind the bar, and I wanted to deepen my knowledge in order to be able to work in high-end bars and in the Caribbean," he remembers. Fate decided otherwise. Recruited by the school’s director after his training, he was trained in teaching methods for three weeks in Stockholm, then tried his hand at it in Amsterdam before returning to the island in November 2016 as "head instructor" of the school in St. Maarten. Excited by his craft, he confides: “I get a lot of pleasure from teaching something I love to interested people."
You may dream of studying in the sun, but those who plan to coast along, beware. "The training is very intense. I have never seen a 100% success rate. Regular work habits are essential," he states. In addition to mastering free pouring (the art of using the spout to pour as quickly as possible, to the nearest milliliter), to adapting the role of bartender to the establishment, and to learning eleven theoretical subjects (history, production, and classification of alcohols), students must learn 75 cocktail recipes by heart at a pace of six per day. To practice, they use water and colored dye. "On Fridays, we make all the cocktails we learned during the week for real so that they can taste them - without truly drinking them," notes Maxime Meuric, supported by another instructor, Balthazar Brey, a 30-year-old from Amsterdam. Brey’s specialty is a special technique called flair bartending, which consists of juggling bottles while preparing a cocktail. He also filmed an advertisement for the brand Bavaria in Curaçao, where you can see him demonstrate his talents. Although there are schools centering on this discipline and international competitions, at the St. Maarten school this is a bonus module that is not required for the diploma. "You don’t need to be able to use flair to be a bartender. But it can help with tips," acknowledges the head instructor.
The exam includes a free pouring test, as well as written tests on recipes and theoretical questions, plus practical tests at the bar. Finally, students are assessed on their preparation of six cocktails in under 20 minutes, twice.
The diploma is recognized worldwide and provides access to Matchstaff, which is exclusively reserved for graduates and provides a network of offers and job searches.
The platform is not really used on the island, but bar managers on the Dutch side regularly go through the local branch of the EBS to recruit. Finding work on the island after the course is thus relatively easy, but most graduates come from elsewhere and return home. Since the beginning, only two students still live on the island. "We are trying to develop Bars in Sight, a short and practically customized training for locals who cannot quit their jobs for a month. We want to do that for the people of SXM. We made flyers, and we are waiting for at least four people to call us to open a course," explains Maxime Meuric before adding, "we want to move the bar scene forward on the island."
Video legend:
Video demonstration of the ideal cocktail on Saint-Martin according to Maxime: the Maï Taï (Cointreau dark rum, lime juice, horchata syrup, overproof rum)
Flair demonstration by Balthazar
