Insights from industry experts on the latest drink trends and what they mean for bartenders.
The Trend Trap
Every year, the bar industry generates a wave of trend reports, social media aesthetics, and breathless coverage of the next big thing. Smoked cocktails. Clear ice. Fat-washed spirits. Butterfly pea flower color-change drinks. Some of these stick and become genuine parts of bar culture. Many others are forgotten within 18 months.
For bartenders — especially those early in their careers — the constant noise of trends creates a real problem: where do you invest your learning time? Chasing every trend is exhausting and counterproductive. Ignoring trends entirely leaves you behind.
This guide is a framework for thinking critically about trends, with specific guidance on what is actually worth learning in the current environment.
How to Evaluate Any Trend
Before spending time learning a new technique or stocking an expensive ingredient, ask four questions:
1. Does it serve the guest or the bartender?
The best trends persist because they improve the guest's experience — better flavor, more visual appeal, a more interesting story to tell. Trends that exist primarily to signal the bartender's sophistication fade quickly.
2. Is it rooted in technique, or is it cosmetic?
A trend built on technique — like a new application of clarification or fat-washing — teaches you something transferable. A trend that is purely visual (a specific garnish that looks good on Instagram) has a short shelf life.
3. Can it work at scale?
Some techniques that look great in a 20-seat cocktail bar are impractical in a 200-seat venue. Know your environment before investing in a trend that won't function in your context.
4. Is the demand real?
A trend that appears constantly in cocktail industry media may have limited relevance to the guests at your bar. Trends filter down from high-end cocktail bars to mainstream venues over 2–5 years. Timing your adoption matters.
What Is Actually Worth Learning
Glassware Fundamentals: Always in Style
One of the highest-impact, lowest-cost ways to improve your bar program is to understand glassware. The right glass does not just hold a drink — it affects the aroma you smell, the temperature of the drink, the visual impression, and the perceived value.
What to know:
- Nick and Nora glasses have largely replaced the traditional V-shaped martini glass in serious cocktail programs because they keep drinks cold longer and reduce spillage
- Rocks glasses vs. double rocks glasses — a large-format single ice cube in a double rocks glass has become standard for spirit-forward cocktails; the ice melts slowly and controls dilution intentionally
- Stemmed coupes for shaken, chilled cocktails without ice keep the drink at the right temperature and allow you to hold the glass without warming the drink
- Collins and highball glasses are not interchangeable — a highball is shorter and wider, affecting carbonation retention differently
Understanding glassware is not trendy. It is foundational, and it signals professionalism to guests and employers.
Sustainability: Not Optional
The bar industry's environmental footprint — single-use plastic straws, citrus waste, spirit bottle disposal, excessive water use — has come under serious scrutiny, and the response has produced real changes in how professional bars operate.
Sustainability skills worth building:
- Citrus utilization: Spent citrus rinds can be dehydrated for garnishes, used to make infused syrups, or converted to oleo saccharum (a fragrant oil extracted by covering citrus peels with sugar)
- Batch efficiency: Building batched cocktails reduces per-drink waste and prep time simultaneously
- Plastic reduction: Reusable metal straws, paper straws, or straw-free service has become standard in most markets
- Portion control: Accurate pouring reduces over-use of expensive ingredients and is a direct cost-efficiency skill
Sustainability in bartending is no longer a niche value proposition — it is increasingly a baseline expectation of employers and guests alike.
Pop-Ups and Takeovers: Building a Career Through Opportunity
Guest bartending — temporarily working at another venue, or taking over a bar for a special event — has become one of the most effective professional development tools in the industry. Pop-ups and takeovers build your name, expand your network, expose you to different bar cultures, and are visible to the community in a way that a regular Thursday shift is not.
How to approach this:
- Build a small menu of 3–4 original cocktails that showcase your range and are executable in an unfamiliar setup
- Seek out venues whose culture and aesthetic you genuinely respect — the connection should be authentic
- Document your work professionally: photos, recipe notes, feedback
- Follow up with a thank-you and reciprocate by championing the venue's regular program
Pop-ups are available at every experience level, from student events to high-profile industry collaborations. Start small and build.
Beer in Cocktails: Underutilized and Versatile
Beer as a cocktail ingredient is genuinely underutilized in most bar programs, likely because beer-focused bartenders and cocktail-focused bartenders have historically operated in separate worlds. That separation is narrowing.
What to know:
- Micheladas and cheladas — beer combined with lime, salt, and spice — have a long tradition in Mexican bar culture and are experiencing mainstream growth
- Beer floats — a pour of beer on top of a stirred or shaken cocktail — add carbonation and malt character as a finishing element
- Reduction syrups — reducing beer with sugar creates a concentrated flavoring agent that works in cocktails without adding carbonation or dilution
- Boilermakers — the whiskey-and-beer pairing format — has evolved into a sophisticated practice of matching spirit and beer flavor profiles intentionally
Understanding craft beer flavor categories (IPAs, stouts, saisons, sours) gives you a broader flavor palette to work from.
What to Skip (or Wait On)
Hyper-specialized equipment — Centrifuges, rotary evaporators, and ultrasonic homogenizers are fascinating in the context of a research-focused cocktail bar. For most working bartenders, they are impractical and their output can often be approximated with simpler techniques.
Overly proprietary ingredients — A cocktail built around a single obscure ingredient available from one supplier in limited quantities is a menu liability. Guest favorites become difficult to reproduce consistently.
Visual gimmicks without substance — Color-changing drinks and smoke bubbles photograph well. They are not substitutes for a drink that tastes excellent. Build the substance first; add visual elements that serve the drink rather than replace it.
A Learning Framework
The bartenders who navigate trends most effectively are the ones with strong fundamentals. When your technique is solid — when you can taste a cocktail and immediately understand what is balancing it, what is missing, what would improve it — you can evaluate any new ingredient or technique against that baseline.
Invest first in foundational knowledge: classic cocktail recipes, spirits education, flavor science, efficient service. Then layer in current techniques and ingredients selectively, with the critical eye of someone who knows what actually improves a drink.
At ABC Bartending College, we teach the fundamentals that make every trend easier to evaluate and every technique easier to master. Find a program near you and build the foundation your career needs.
