Business Daily (Nairobi)
Millicent Kamau
21 October 2007
There is carnival mood in the air as Jeremiah Kiatu takes a bottle; juggles it in the air and pours the drink into a glass as he makes a cocktail drink.
Cocktail juggling - as they call it in the hotel industry or rather bar flaring is catching up in Kenyan bars.
Mr Kiatu is lucky though. He is one of the few jugglers in the country. A few bars have incorporated this art to attract more customers. In Kenya, a cocktail juggler earns between Sh25,000 to Sh35,000 per month compared to some countries where they earn from Sh50,000 to Sh80,000 per month.
Mr Kiatu, who is a bar man as well as a cocktail juggler at Sarova Stanley, has a diploma in Food and Beverage services from Utalii College.
As part of his diploma course he did a unit on bar keeping, but juggling was never part of the course.
"It is a tactic I learnt as I got inspired with the excitement and the tricks in the juggling act the first time I saw it," he says.
He can juggle four bottles and an open bottle without spilling the contents.
"Juggling is a very exciting activity as it keeps me energetic at work and most importantly I love doing it because it entertains my customers," Mr Kiatu said.
Shooters and Dip is among the clubs have included cocktail juggling in their menu.
The club has invested in a very spacious counter with a floor made from rubber to prevent bottles from breaking incase they fall .
Miss Pari Ratina, the managing director, says her club has adopted a European concept, from the interior design of the club to the drinks served in the club. The club mostly serves cocktails.
To compliment the European concept, she said she had to incorporate cocktail juggling .
"For the European concept to work I had to include cocktail juggling as well because it is a very famous activity in Europe," she said.
Getting cocktail jugglers was the biggest challenge for her since they are very rare in the country and the ones around are already employed.
It took her several months to get a cocktail juggler from Mombasa.
"Juggling is an activity that is slowly picking up and has not yet become popular. So getting an individual who can perform the tricks well is not easy," Miss Ratina said, adding that she almost imported a juggler from Europe.
Mr Brown Mruche, who is the only juggler at Shooter and Dips, explained that he did not attend any institution to acquire his juggling skill.
He said he started out as a glass washer at Laiser Lodge in Mombasa, but after six years he moved to Holiday Inn where he first saw the trick and he got interested.
Since then, he has continued to perfect his juggling skills.
Mr Mruche can juggle three bottles, hold two with one hand and one with the other plus a glass.
He says the skill is very marketable.
"Despite the fact that jugglers are in demand, the job is not well paying. However, you can be lucky to earn an extra shilling from tips for a job well done," Mr Mruche said.
He explained that the pay is one thing that might be discouraging young talented people from trying to learn the trick.
Liquid International Club has also invested in cocktail jugglers and according to Isaac Lwaki , the operations manager , cocktail juggling is an extra activity that entertains customers.
"Apart from the music we have to entertain our customers differently and juggling does the magic," Mr Lwaki said, adding that since they introduced the activity, customers have increased.
In the juggling activity, Mr Kiatu says one needs to know the ingredients of each drink that you intend to mix because you might mix drinks that do not work together.
Interestingly as most of us would mix a home made cocktail and use any glass, in professional cocktail making, each cocktail has its own glass.
"Each cocktail must be served in its required glass. You cannot serve a whisky cocktail in a cocktail martini glass because the martini glass is V-shaped with a long stem.
Such a glass only serves sparkling wine and martini because it is a goblet," Mr Kiatu said.
Juggling requires patience and enough practice. Despite being in the juggling business for 12 years, Mr Mruche still feels that he has to increase his juggling capacity to at least four bottles.
According to iba-world.com, Eu cocktail making and juggling in Europe has become so popular such that competitions are held annually to pick the best juggler.
For instance, the International Bartenders Association that was founded in 1951 in UK, holds cocktail mixing and juggling competitions every year where 52 countries which are registered and are members of the International Bartenders Association compete.
In the process of mixing cocktails, apart from using a glass, to give a perfect blend with a smooth taste, Mr Mruche said that a cocktail shaker must be an important piece of equipment that a bar should own.
A cocktail shaker is a container usually made of metal, used with a lid and a strainer to mix the cocktail.
The size of the shaker matters and the bigger the shaker the better because it will accommodate a lot.
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