Life behind the bar

If you think interacting with professors and preceptors outside of class is awkward, just imagine it buzzed. But student bartenders with the Princeton Formal Services Agency don't just experience this type of interaction — they embrace it.

Student bartenders work the gamut of jobs, from faculty receptions and Reunions to eating club formals and residential college wine tastings. The student agency employs about 40 students, 10 of whom take jobs regularly, manager Salone Loney '10 said.

Student bartender Caitlin Alev '10, who mostly works at faculty events, says that for the most part, professors and other guests tend to behave themselves as they would at any professional event. Sometimes, however, guests get a little out of control, she said. She recalled working at a particular reception where a certain professor's wife drank one too many and turned into a bit of a spectacle. "She was really entertaining," Alev said. "She started talking really loudly to everyone about how she felt out of place at Princeton because she wasn't from around here. She was ... exuberant."

Maria Salciccioli '09, another student bartender, says it's funny when she sees former professors and preceptors get a little tipsy at faculty events. At one event, she recalled, a certain female preceptor was visibly inebriated to everyone in attendance. "The professors behave themselves, though," she noted.

Often the task of regulating falls on the bartender. "Part of the job description is making sure things run smoothly," said Milana Zaurova '09, a student bartender who often works at alumni events. "Alcohol creates disturbances, so obviously you don't want people to get belligerently drunk."

For the most part, however, bartenders in the Formal Services Agency trust that their patrons can handle themselves and are told to follow their own judgment in serving alcohol — and in choosing when to cut someone off.

Alev, for instance, worked at a reception following last spring's production of the classic Russian play "Boris Godunov" at McCarter Theatre and had to take into account her patrons' propensity for hard liquor. "Tiny old Russian ladies would ask me to fill cup after cup with just vodka," Alev recalled. "But they never got out of control."

Zaurova echoed that bartenders must be perceptive to the needs of their patrons, adding that she's also conscientious about her personal connections with the people she's serving. "Your job is to engage people," Zaurova said. "You're their friend, even if it's only for a night. You have to be sociable and fun and extroverted to do this."

Students who feel they fit that bill can join the Formal Services Agency by taking part in the agency's Bartending 101 class this fall. The class, which costs $100 and takes place in November, teaches the basics of mixology as well as bar etiquette and safety procedures. After taking the class, students have the option of taking an online examination — which Alev described as "AlcoholEdu on steroids" — to get certified to serve in the state.

Zaurova said that bartending for the Formal Services Agency has helped her see her instructors in a different light. "Professors have very specific tastes when it comes to alcohol: red or white wine, from this region or that region," she said. "You see that they have interests outside the classroom too — it's heartening."

For more information on the Princeton Formal Services Agency, or to sign up for the class, email formserv@princeton.edu.