The holidays are one of the busiest times of year for bartenders. If you’ve attended Boston Bartending School, then you already know how to harness those opportunities, but you can never learn too much! Companies are throwing Christmas parties for their employees left and right, large families are holding gatherings in their homes or in small venues, holiday weddings are taking place, and New Years Eve parties are everywhere, so everyone is looking for a good, fast, educated bartender to round out their festivities. To do a great job and to get recommendations for next year, you’ll need to do more than just serve drinks.

This time of year, people will enjoy seeing festive looking drinks and festive tasting drinks. Spiked eggnog, green martinis with a red sugar coated rim, and peppermint mojitos are all great ways to inspire guests to try a drink. Not only that, but your creativity just might earn you some extra tips!

Make sure to place a tip jar on the bar top. If the host has paid for open bar, guests may think it’s unnecessary to tip. By placing a tip jar in an obvious location on your bar top, guests will take notice and be sure to tip. Have some fun with it too! A santa jar or animated reindeer pulling a bowl will intrigue guests and make them smile. If you do nothing else all night, go out of your way to make your guests smile!

Our last tip for the day is to add festive touches. Not every guest is going to order a holiday drink, whether people are raving about them or not. Some of them will just want their usual rum and coke or a beer. That doesn’t mean you can’t turn it into something festive for them. Serve beer and wine with a cinnamon sugar rim, serve vodka tonics with mint leaves and cranberries, or add cranberry/mint leaf toothpicks to any mixed drink. If you really want to go above and beyond, freezing mint leaves and cranberries into ice cubes ahead of time will also wow your guests. Have fun with it and keep them guessing! They’ll be sure to love your creativity and effort.