I got very little training and had never bartended before and my first shift was on a Saturday night, it was extremely busy, and I was extremely panicked. Years ago, when I first started bartending, I worked alongside a guy named Nic at a local restaurant/dive bar. Who’s your favorite bartender or mentor and why? It is one of my favorite parts of my job! I enjoy teaching any skill I have learned to any new bartender willing to learn and grow. I do all the teaching, the setup, the breakdown and pretty much everything in between.

What’s your role with Graton’s Bartending School? Now, I believe people are starting to understand how much you can do in this career and grow from it. All I ever got told was, “so what will you do after bartending, you can’t make a career out of it” or “are you bartending to put yourself through school?”. If only I knew where I would be in this industry today back when I started out bartending as a 21-year-old. If I could change anything about the industry it would be that more people understand that bartending/mixology are careers.

What would you change about the industry if you could? I could scan through cocktail pictures all day!

Social media is the easiest way to stay up to date with current drink trends. How do you stay up to date with current drink trends? It is basically my take on a whiskey sour. I just recently revamped some of our cocktail menus at our main bars, one of my favorite drinks I have added on is at our Sky Bar called “Above the Clouds”. What drink have you created and added to a menu recently? My favorite part is when I am doing a training and all our team gets to taste test new cocktails they will be serving, we get to talk about little tweaks they would make and adding their ideas into it, so it is always such a fun process for me. Working inside the casino, it is very fast paced, I love focusing on creating cocktails that are not just easy to make, but beautiful as well. She is the creative force behind new cocktail offerings and drink specials throughout the property and also works at the property’s bartending school, training and further developing all current and new team members. A star bartender, she has excelled at guest service which led to her most recent promotion to Assistant Beverage Manager. Jessica Christensen has been with Graton since 2013.

Graton resort and casino owner