by MATTHEW HAYS

Would you trust a bartender who was juggling as he was mixing you a Cosmopolitan?

Bartenders Fabien Maillard and Samuel Dalcourt are hoping you will. Their company, Mixoart & Fluid Flair, rents out bartenders (including themselves) to add that missing pizazz to private parties. And when they set up shop, they don’t serve up beverages the way most standard bartenders do: instead, Maillard and Dalcourt practise what’s known as “flair bartending,” which means they juggle, spin, toss and flip their bottles and glasses as they serve the customer.

“The idea is to make waiting for your cocktail fun,” explains Dalcourt. “Usually, the customer will forget that they are waiting for a drink as we’re serving them.”

Dalcourt and Maillard met several years ago on the bartending circuit (“It’s actually not that big,” says Dalcourt) and decided to combine forces. “Fabien has a real talent for creating recipes for new drinks and cocktails,” says Dalcourt. “I was more into the flair bartending. Our skills complimented each other well.”

As the lads behind Mixoart & Fluid Flair explain it, flair bartending has a long history, the first recorded instance dating back 150 years to the U.S., when one bartender decided to break with tradition and perform something a bit more demonstrative in the booze-slinging dept. Now, there’s a 15,000-member-strong Flair Bartenders Association based in Boise, Idaho (Dalcourt and Maillard are both card-carrying members).

But aside from that organization, Dalcourt and Maillard concede that the main way people know about this kind of bartending is through the cheeseball 1988 Tom Cruise movie Cocktail (the film’s poster tagline: “When he pours, he reigns”). “That movie is okay,” says Maillard. “But it’s out of date now. Flair bartending has evolved since then.”

Maillard has worked to emphasize more than just creative drink-slinging, expanding their bartending act to more delicious and creative concoctions. “I have worked to develop new menus, new drinks using different fruits and flavours. The idea is to make ordering and having a drink a less routine and more unusual and fun experience.”