Atlas of Skills / Mixology & Bartending

Learn Mixology & Bartending in New York City

Where the bartender's craft was first written down, in Jerry Thomas's 1862 guide, and where Dale DeGroff reignited it at the Rainbow Room.

The spirits came from many places; the craft of mixing them was born in the young United States. On 13 May 1806, a newspaper in Hudson, New York, printed the first published definition of the cocktail: spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters. In 1862 a New York publisher brought out Jerry Thomas’s How to Mix Drinks, the first recipe book for mixed drinks published in the country, and the man behind the bar had his manual. Today the craft is most alive in London and New York: each placed four bars on The World’s 50 Best Bars 2025, and in April 2026 New York’s Sip & Guzzle was named the best bar in North America.

Where it began
Birthplace of the discipline

New York City, United States

Season: Year-round · Beginner -> Master mixologist
BirthplaceLiving sceneNamed masters
Named in this town

The people this craft is known by here

These names belong to the town. Where we have been able to tie one to a particular school, it is on that school's card above; where we have not, we have not guessed.

Where it came through

A lineage, not a staff list. Nobody on it is teaching today — for who is, look just above.

What you walk away with

The credential that counts here

WSET Level 3 Award in Spirits — examined in person by WSET: a closed-book theory paper and a blind tasting. It examines what you know about spirits, not your work behind the bar. · Certifying body: WSET (Wine & Spirit Education Trust)

That is the one an outside body sets and marks, which is what separates it from a certificate a school prints itself — that proves you attended. We name which of the two a course actually gives you; ask the school the same question before you pay, and judge the answer yourself.

Write me a note about this one — how you'd love to learn it, and where.

If this box never loads, the same note reaches me at arnaudcallier@pm.me.

Same discipline, other sources

Also for Mixology & Bartending

London, United Kingdom
Why you can trust this map

How a place gets on here, and what we do when it stops being true

There is a real difference between a school that teaches you and a good-looking website, and too much of the internet is the second kind. Four instruments do the work, and every one of them is visible on the page you are already on.

  • We grade it in public, and publish what is missing. The Measure is five plain questions, not a score: is there a teacher we can name, can a stranger get in, will you be learning beside other people, is the craft alive in the place, and is there enough there to keep you going for years. An empty dot tells you which one we could not answer and why. A craft nobody has graded shows no meter at all, because an absence is not a zero.
  • We print what we checked and did NOT list. Every swept craft carries the places we looked at and turned down, each with its reason. That list is the part no marketplace prints, because a rejection is where the money is.
  • The claims are read back to their sources every night. A robot re-reads every link we publish against the school's own page each night, and every price and course name we have written a test for. page. When one stops matching three nights running, it is flagged for a human — and an entry that cannot be confirmed comes off. It is never softened.
  • Where we are not neutral, we say so above the recommendation. We run one paid week a year, with one teacher. His entry says that before it says anything good about him, and prints the way to reach him without us, at his prices.
  • Nothing here has been stood in yet. An open sheet means desk research, carefully done. No place on this map has been visited and dated by us. When one is, the check will carry a name and a date — and until then, the grade says so in the dots it leaves empty.
  • Nobody pays to be here, and nobody can pay to be left off. No commission, no listing fee, no tourist board. The order is the strength of the community, never the size of the wallet.
Before you trust any school — mine or anyone else's — ask these five things
  1. Who actually teaches it? Can you find them by name, with a track record you can check yourself?
  2. Is the craft alive in that place, or is the school the only thing there? A real scene has more than one good option.
  3. What exactly do you walk away with — a recognised qualification, or a certificate they printed themselves? Ask which.
  4. Can you speak to someone who did the course? A real person, not a testimonial on their own page.
  5. What happens on a bad day — weather, an injury, a teacher who doesn't show? A serious place has an honest answer.

If a place dodges these, that's your answer. It costs you nothing to ask, and it tells you everything.

This is the short version. The full method is here — the six questions, in order, for any craft anywhere.