There  are thousands of people who work behind bars in the UK, but only seven accredited master bartenders in the country. One of them is Rob Stevens.

 

The 42-year-old runs the cocktail bar at the TGI Friday restaurant on the Festival Leisure Park, in Basildon. A former butcher, Rob first studied bartending as a ticket to travel.

 

He says: “I wanted to see the world and I reckoned it was a passport to getting a job anywhere”

 

Rob was right. He did indeed land jobs in bars all over the world and he discovered he had a passion for bar work.

 

He says: “It is all about taking a professional approach. If you take a pride in it, you will go on learning more and working to deliver an even better service, every day. You need to compete with yourself.

 

“I’ve been in this profession for 17 years and I am still studying. There is always going to be more to learn. ”

 

After professionalism, Rob lists two other key qualities for the job – knowledge and friendliness.

 

The amount of knowledge required by a cocktail barman will surprise many people.

 

Rob needs to carry 800 recipes in his head. It means he can mix the most obscure concoction without a second thought.

 

He says: “You also need to stay on top of new trends. You have to ask yourself whether a new drink is going to have staying power, or is just a short-term trend. Either way, you have to know about it.”

 

He keeps up to date by sticking recipes around the walls of his home in Leigh.

 

However, he says: “Most of the cocktails we serve are the old classics like daiquiris and wallbangers. Once in a blue moon you will get asked to mix something you have never heard of. In that case, you ask the customer for the recipe.”

 

The third factor on Rob’s list of key assets, friendliness, can be crucial when a customer poses a challenge.

 

He says: “You get to know them. You listen to them – that’s very important. That means you can talk to them straight. You can stop a crisis before it happens.”

 

In his spare time, Rob is studying to take another qualification, as a personal fitness trainer.

 

As part of his interest in health he pushes healthy cocktails and one of his favourites is a non-alcoholic mix based on blueberries and limes.

 

Bar work means unsocial hours, but Rob says: “You have to treat the job as your social life and your colleagues and customers as your friends. You and your colleagues become part of one big family.

 

“You get into the rhythm. Our weekends are in the week. It’s got to the stage where having a Saturday off work feels just, well, weird.”