Bartender Trivia
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100 free Bartender trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
52 free bartender trivia questions with answers. This is a quiz about the trade, not just the drinks. It covers the tools (Boston versus cobbler shaker, muddlers, jiggers and legal shot sizes), the language (neat, up, well, 86), the history (Jerry Thomas and the first cocktail book, the 1806 definition of a cocktail, Prohibition and speakeasies) and the bartenders who created classics: Ada Coleman's Hanky Panky, Harry Craddock's Savoy book, Fernand Petiot's Bloody Mary, Dick Bradsell's espresso martini. There is a pop-culture round too, from Sam Malone and Woody Boyd to Tom Cruise in Cocktail and Moe's Flaming Homer. Difficulty runs from easy openers a first-week barback would know to questions that would trouble a head bartender. It is a good pre-shift game, a bar-quiz round or a training warm-up. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What nickname did Jerry Thomas, the 19th-century father of American mixology, go by?
The Professor
The Professor: Thomas earned the title as the great showman of the American bar, mixing drinks in diamond rings and cufflinks and juggling bottles as he worked.
Q 02Jerry Thomas published the Bar-Tender's Guide, America's first drinks book, during which war?
Civil War
Civil War: the guide came out in 1862, setting down recipes from punches to sours that Thomas had gathered while tending bar across the country.
Q 03Jerry Thomas's signature flaming drink, poured between two mugs in an arc of fire, was called what?
Blue Blazer
Blue Blazer: Thomas's own guide admits the name is not 'very euphonious', but promises that the blazing Scotch-and-water toddy 'tastes better to the palate than it sounds to the ear'.
Q 04An 1806 newspaper's definition of 'cocktail', the first in print, joked that the drink was of great use to whom?
Political candidates
Political candidates: editor Harry Croswell of The Balance and Columbian Repository wrote that a person who had swallowed a glass of it 'is ready to swallow any thing else'.
Q 05Bartender Dale DeGroff suggests the word 'cocktail' comes from 'coquetier', the French word for what?
An eggcup
An eggcup: the tale has apothecary Antoine Peychaud serving a brandy drink in one, but dictionaries call the word's origin obscure, and no explanation has won general acceptance.
Q 06During US Prohibition, illegal bars serving cocktails were known as what?
Speakeasies
Speakeasies were so called from the habit of speaking quietly about such a place, or inside it, so as not to alert the police or the neighbours; the word was in use by 1889, decades before Prohibition.
Q 07Which 1919 law set the rules for enforcing Prohibition across the United States?
Volstead Act
The Volstead Act became law only after Congress overrode President Woodrow Wilson's veto, and it took its name from the Minnesota congressman who championed it in the House.
Q 08Which amendment to the US Constitution repealed Prohibition?
Twenty-first
The Twenty-first Amendment was ratified by specially elected state conventions instead of legislatures, because many state lawmakers still feared the temperance lobby.
Q 09Which cocktail shaker is a two-piece set of a large metal tin and a smaller mixing glass?
Boston shaker
The Boston shaker is the one most bartenders prefer; the cold makes the metal contract into a tight seal, so the two halves need a sharp tap to come apart.
Q 10Which style of shaking tin has three pieces: a base, a top with a built-in strainer, and a cap?
Cobbler shaker
The Cobbler shaker is the classic choice for home bars because its built-in strainer means there is no separate tool to buy before you start mixing drinks.
Q 11What is the bartender's tool used like a pestle to crush fruit, herbs and sugar in the bottom of a glass?
Muddler
A muddler is pressed only gently on mint, because tearing the leaves lets bitter chlorophyll leak into the drink.
Q 12Which US state makes bars pour spirits through meters that cap the main liquor in a drink at 1.5 ounces?
Utah
Utah also made many restaurants mix drinks behind a partition nicknamed the 'Zion Curtain', so that diners could not watch, until a 2017 law relaxed the rule.
Q 13UK law fixes pub measures of 25 ml or 35 ml for just four spirits: gin, rum, vodka and which other?
Whisky
Whisky is covered, but the rule stops at those four spirits, so a British pub may legally pour brandy or tequila in whatever measure it likes.
Q 21In the 1988 film 'Cocktail', Brian Flanagan ends up tending a beach bar on which island?
Jamaica
Jamaica is where Brian heads after a fight with his bartending partner Doug, and where he falls for Jordan, a New Yorker on holiday.
Q 22Which film grew out of a magazine memoir by 'Eat, Pray, Love' author Elizabeth Gilbert about her bartending days?
Coyote Ugly
Coyote Ugly took its name from the New York saloon where she had worked, and after the film its owner Liliana Lovell turned the bar into a chain, starting in Las Vegas in 2001.
Q 23On 'Cheers', bar owner Sam Malone is a former relief pitcher for which team?
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox past was a late change: Sam was first written as a former Patriots football player, until Ted Danson won the part and baseball suited his build better.
Q 14If a customer orders a spirit 'neat', how should it be served?
Unmixed, unchilled, no ice or water
Unmixed, unchilled, no ice or water: a neat pour goes from bottle to glass. Ask for it 'straight' instead and a careful bartender will check what you mean, because that word is used more than one way.
Q 15How is a cocktail ordered 'up' served?
Strained into a stemmed glass without ice
Strained into a stemmed glass without ice, the drink has nothing left to keep it cold, so the stem is there to stop a warm hand heating the bowl.
Q 16What is a mixed drink made with the lower-cost spirits kept in a bar's speed rail called?
A well drink
A well drink is what you get when you don't name a brand; ask for a Bacardi and Coke instead of a rum and Coke and it becomes a pricier 'call' drink.
Q 17What does '86' mean in bar slang?
It is out of stock, or the person is barred
It is out of stock, or the person is barred. The term is probably rhyming slang for 'nix', though a popular tale credits Chumley's bar at 86 Bedford Street in New York.
Q 18In which country is tipping a bartender seen as unnecessary and sometimes politely refused?
Japan
Japan treats good service as already included in the price, so a tip left on the bar can cause confusion and may be politely handed back.
Q 19Which restaurant chain held the first national flair bartending competition, the 'Bar Olympics', in 1986?
T.G.I. Friday's
T.G.I. Friday's bartender John 'JB' Bandy won the contest, and a Hollywood studio then hired him to teach bottle-flipping to the stars of the 1988 film Cocktail.
Q 20Who plays bartender Brian Flanagan in the 1988 film 'Cocktail'?
Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise's film was named Worst Picture at the Razzies, yet its soundtrack single 'Kokomo' gave the Beach Boys their first number one in 22 years.
Q 24Which real bar, picked from a phone book, was the model for the one in 'Cheers'?
Bull & Finch Pub
The Bull & Finch Pub let the show use its exterior for a fee of just one dollar, then drew so many tourists that in 2002 it was renamed Cheers.
Q 25Which actor joined 'Cheers' in season four as the naive young bartender who replaced Coach?
Woody Harrelson
Woody Harrelson shares a first name with his character purely by chance: co-creator Glen Charles has said Woody Boyd was already named long before they met the actor.
Q 26In 'The Simpsons' episode 'Flaming Moe's', what secret ingredient makes Homer's drink a hit?
Cough medicine
Cough medicine meant for the children got into Homer's mix by accident, and the drink only turned delicious when falling cigarette ash set it on fire.
Q 27A classic Negroni is equal parts gin, sweet vermouth and which bitter Italian liqueur?
Campari
Campari was already in the count's usual Americano; the story goes that in 1919 Camillo Negroni asked a Florence bartender to swap its soda water for gin.
Q 28Which brand of bitters comes in a bottle famous for its oversized label and yellow cap?
Angostura
Angostura's label is too big by accident, the story goes: one of the founder's sons took charge of the bottles and another of the labels for a competition, and nobody checked the sizes.
Q 29German doctor Johann Siegert created his famous bitters in Venezuela while surgeon general of whose army?
Simón Bolívar's
Simón Bolívar's soldiers were suffering from stomach illnesses and fevers, and the doctor's herbal tonic was meant as a remedy for them long before anyone dashed it into a cocktail.
Q 30Which city in 2015 named the whiskey-and-bitters classic it claims to have invented as its official cocktail?
Louisville
Louisville's claim rests on its Pendennis Club, but historians call that a myth: a Chicago newspaper was already writing about the drink in 1880, a year before the club was founded.