It’s a lovely Friday evening, the week is finally over and you want to unwind but it’s too much of a hustle to go out. You therefore decide to invite a few friends over for some drinks and pleasant conversations. Everyone pitches in for a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and as the hospitable host that you are, you prepare cocktails for everyone. There are endless compliments on the drinks and others even joke about how you should consider becoming a bartender. And you think to yourself, “It might be a good idea to get into bartending, but where do I start?” Your answer might be Jack Daniel’s newest bartending school, The Tennessee Campus!
If you are probably thinking that this is a school where all you do is mix drinks and enjoy delicious whisky all day, you are wrong. While this might be a great idea for a school (someone should come up with one), this is not what Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Campus is about.
The Tennessee Campus is Jack Daniel’s inaugural bartender mentorship program aimed at providing Kenyan bartenders with entrepreneurial skills that will help turn their bartending skills into business. Set to kick off in March this year, the program was halted after restrictions came in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. This however did not stop the Jack Daniel team in Kenya from continuing with the training. They changed tactics and set out to continue the training through a virtual session, making it their first ever globally. Stylenerds Journal and other media personalities had a brief virtual session with Kenya’s National Brand Ambassador, David Mwangi to discuss how the training went.
“Every day we make it, we make it the best we can”. David Mwangi sights this as the promise Jack Daniels has always made to their customers and exact mindset they want to impart to bartenders. He noted, “At Jack Daniel’s we believe firmly in the spirit of entrepreneurship and career development. In these challenging times we felt strongly that this was our moment to help our industry. Not only are we able to give passionate Kenyan bartenders skills to master their craft but also a medium to showcase their talents.”
The first campus was attended by 60 bartenders and training carried out through three different sessions where the bartenders got to learn various topics from different industry leaders led by Jack Daniel’s Head of Advocacy, Nidal Ramini. The topics included entrepreneurship skills, creativity, consistency in quality and craft. The team of leaders included Brian Owango, Paul Gachohi and David Mwangi respectively. The 60 bartenders selected for the training each received a care package courtesy of Jack Daniels, containing a bottle of Old No.7, airtime for data to attend the sessions, delivery fee, shopping vouchers, masks, sanitizers and a letter of invitation from the brand ambassador. The training was carried out through pre-recorded packaged sessions from the experts and online sessions that David Mwangi was keen to note were highly attended. He also pointed out that attendants had their video cameras turned on, probably in jest because everyone had their cameras turned off during our session. After training, the bartenders were challenged to use the skills they learnt to create a cocktail recipe and post them online with the tags #TNCampusKE and #JackDanielsKenya, that you can check out on Instagram.
For David Mwangi, the Tennessee Campus hopes to encourage participants to take inspiration from Jack Daniel’s way of doing things to deliver quality, excellence and consistency. When asked about the next Campus, he responded that it might be some time next year. If you think of having a future in bartending, you definitely need to keep an eye out for the next Tennessee Campus. You only have to contact the team online, express your interest and you too can get to venture into the exciting world bartending.
After an hour-long session, we were able to have our curiosity about the bartending school quenched and now have a newfound respect for the bartending profession.
— Written by Mary Njehia
