Three drinks industry giants have joined forces to provide professional bartenders with a chance to hone their mixing skills before competing against each other in a UK-wide competition.

Bacardi Brown-Forman Brands (BBFB), Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) and IPBartenders (IPB) have teamed up to deliver a series of free training days.

The training days – the IPB Bartenders Academies – began in Leeds on 30 June and will be held at seven other major cities throughout the UK, before reaching London on 23 March 2005.

The academies will consist of a day of training, tasting sessions and tests for up to 130 local bartenders at a time.

Each academy includes four seminars; Professional Bartending Skills, for bartenders with six months to two years experience; Advanced Bartending Skills & Mixology, for head bartenders with a minimum of two years experience; How To Improve Gross Profit, for recently appointed bar managers and the School For Spirits seminar, presented by Taste & Flavour.

Upon completion of each course, bartenders will be put through a series of tests to assess their skills with graduating delegates receiving an IPB bartending certificate.

Each day will end in a regional heat of the Bartender’s Bartender of the Year Award, which tests competing bartenders in the fields of memory, style, speed, knowledge and business acumen.

The competition is open to all professional bartenders with at least three years of experience and two regional winners from each heat will advance to the grand final in March 2005.

Bruce Ray, director of trade marketing for BBFB, said: “Bartenders are the gateway to consumers and are responsible for delivering a high quality experience, not just a drink.

"It’s therefore essential that they are expertly trained to fully understand the key spirit categories and brands and how they should be served.”