I saved the empty liquor bottles and filled them with water.

When the restaurant was quiet (we opened winter of ’08), the start of the Recession — it was quiet often) I took the rail liquors out. Placed them on the ground. Replaced them with the dummy bottles.

Then I practiced making cocktails. Over and over again. For hours, six days a week. That first week, I only made 4 cocktails, our most popular ones (Raspberry Saketini (it was a Japanese restaurant), Dirty Martini (for Tom, that’s all he drank), Cosmo, Mai Tai).

I learned with the jigger pour first, then free pour, measuring my portions against the jigger pours, testing my accuracy.

We kept a bartender’s book behind the bar. I don’t know who brought it, Jason maybe, our first bartender. Tall, lanky, a junkie. He made it through training but no-showed on the second day and no one saw him again. I started with the simple stuff, two-ingredient mixes college students and alcoholics drank to mask the taste of cheap liquor: Screwdriver, Cape Codder, Greyhound.

Then I learned the drinks I’ve heard from movies or weddings: Sex on the Beach, Tequila Sunrise, Sea breeze, Madras, White Russian.

Everyday. When there weren’t napkins to fold or salads to prep, I stood at the bar and poured water. Every step of the dance, from pulling printer tape and slapping it on the rail, icing glasses, different combinations of drinks. I wanted muscle memory, not knowledge.

That’s how I taught myself to bartend.

How I Learned About Hollywood

In 2010, I moved to Los Angeles to work in Hollywood. At my first internship interview, the assistant, Jeanie Wong, asked me how my coverage was. Great, I lied. I went home and my roommate showed me what coverage was.