[title subtitle=”WORDS Dwain Hebda
IMAGE Jade Graves Photography”][/title]
In a lot of cases, a person gets into bartending to help pay the bills while training to be something else. In Erica Martin’s case the story is slightly backward from that; she had already landed a job as a pharmacy technician when her true vocation came calling.
“I’ve been bartending for six years. As soon as I turned twenty-one, I became a bartender,” she says. “A guy hit me up with an offer when I was a pharmacy technician at the time, and I wasn’t making that much money doing it. I ended up bartending and fell in love with making drinks and learning all about liquor.”
“I didn’t know anything about it at first, but now it’s definitely taught me a lot.”
Erica was thrown into the deep end of the profession off the start, something she says isn’t all that uncommon. But unlike the short-timers in this career, she also took on the responsibility of learning on her own time to perfect her craft.
“It can be a little overwhelming. When I first became a bartender literally what they told me was sink or swim,” she says. “They just threw me in, and I didn’t know anything at all. So, a lot of it up front I just started making up. Somebody would order a drink, and you’d ask them what color it is, and you make sure it’s the right color. It definitely takes a lot of time to learn all the drinks that people ask for.”
“Obviously, I learned from other bartenders. I’ve also used the internet and I’ve had a few books where I learned about cocktails, just a little bit of everything. Even going to other restaurants and watching the other bartenders and actually getting to taste the drink teaches you something.
As for her spirit of choice, Erica says gin has recently replaced rum on her list, an ingredient as versatile as it is misunderstood.
“Gin is by far the easiest drink to make cocktails with,” she says. “There’s a lot of different types of gin. There’s the dry, there’s the regular cheap gin. I fell in love with this one that we carry right now called Citadelle. It is the easiest to mix with pretty much anything. You can make a dirty martini with it all the way to some fruity cocktail. It can be very classy.
“A lot of people sit there and tell you they don’t like gin, but it’s because they’re not drinking it the right way. I’ve played with it so much over the past year that I can make you pretty much any drink you like with gin.”
Erica has been with Uncork’d since it opened two years ago and works every weekend with her fellow bartender and husband Logan. She says that adds to the enjoyment of her job.
“Bartending is like learning to dance with somebody,” she says. “We just learn to dance together, and we work really, really well together. We make a great team.”
Uncork’d
5501 Phoenix Avenue
Fort Smith, Arkansas
uncorkthefort.com
