Youngwood bartender school will be featured on ‘World’s Greatest’ series
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When partygoers in Westmoreland County are waiting on a drink New Year’s Eve, there’s a decent chance the person mixing it attended a class at Wines, Steins & Cocktails in Youngwood.
At an unassuming building on Helman Street, owner Dan Clougherty estimated that he’s trained more than 40,000 people over the years since 1987 for certification in high-end bartending, service, sommelier skills and even the basics of owning and operating their own bar.
Clougherty’s success got the attention of How 2 Media Productions, which will feature the school in an episode of its long-running series “World’s Greatest.”
“People eat, drink and entertain every day all over the world,” Clougherty said. “So you can take one of our classes, pick up and go anywhere.”
This time of year is especially busy for workers in the food and beverage service industry. Wes Butkovich of Irwin was waiting on a call about working New Year’s Eve. He is a chef at The Venue in downtown Greensburg, and both he and coworker Aimee McCune have taken Clougherty’s classes.
“I took a course kind of as a refresher,” Butkovich said. “I’d been bartending since I was 18 years old, but I still learned a whole lot.”
Josh Obrist, 18, of Beaver is home on break from Penn State University where he’s learning to be a chemical engineer. On Thursday afternoon, however, he was learning how to engineer Angostura bitters, sweet vermouth and whiskey into a Manhattan alongside Brittany Hines, 31, of Donora.
“My goal for this break was to figure out what I want to do for summer, job wise,” Obrist said. “My father is a level-four sommelier for wine, so it’s something that I’ve always been around and been interested in.”
Hines said she and her friends are already into complicated cocktails, and taking the classes at Wines, Steins & Cocktails is indulging her hobby while also looking to the future.
“I’ve been looking for a bartending job, and my husband and I have been talking about maybe opening a bar sometime down the line,” she said.
Butkovich said Clougherty’s experience can help those new to the job like Obrist, as well as people like him with decades of their own experience.
“I’d been a bartender before, but when you get into the mixology aspect of things, where you’re making and choosing drinks to highlight your skills as well as to highlight a restaurant’s food, that’s really great knowledge to have,” he said.
A premiere date has not been announced for the “World’s Greatest” episode featuring Wines, Steins & Cocktails. For more on the series, see WorldsGreatestTelevision.com. For more on the school, see Hospitality-Bartender-School.com.