Founder of Indie Bartender, an educational platform that shares insights about the bar industry, Danil Nevsky has been providing valuable information to bartenders around the world. In 2024, he was named Best International Bar Mentor at the Tales of the Cocktail® Spirited Awards®. We spoke with Danil—now also recognized as a leading educator—about how he became a bartender and why communication skills are so vital to the profession.
Text: Akira Suzuki / Photography: Koichi Mitsui / Composition: Contentsbrain / English Translation: LIBER
Interview Location: Loa Bar (1st floor, International House Hotel, 221 Camp Street, New Orleans, Louisiana 70130, USA)
My roots are in Eurasia, in Russia. I’ve wandered across the world and lived in many places—England, Scotland, the Netherlands—and for the past seven years, I’ve been based in Spain. Before that, I also lived in Russia and Ukraine, and half of my family is still in Ukraine today.
When I was 15, my family moved to Scotland. Like many teenagers, I had just started to take an interest in the opposite sex, and I wanted to invite a girl to the movies. But as an immigrant family, we didn’t have much money, and my father told me, “Earn it yourself.” So I started working weekends at a Scottish wedding venue. I had originally wanted to be an actor and had been studying theater since I was very young. To me, jobs in the hospitality industry—whether as a bartender or a waiter in a restaurant—felt similar to performing on stage.
In that environment, there was the freedom to create a persona and fully embody a new role. Especially at a wedding venue, where you almost never see the same guests twice, you could try out a different persona each time. I realized that this practice helped me understand myself better—much like how traveling to new places allows you to discover more about who you are.
That aspect of hospitality—directly facing guests, reflecting on myself while performing a role, and fulfilling my part— drew me in and gradually became something I naturally connected with. In particular, bartenders always seemed to attract attention and looked like they were having a great time, and I began to imagine myself standing behind the bar one day as well.
When I entered university in Scotland, I studied during the day and worked part-time at a pub in the evenings. In Scotland, you can start working in bars at 18. I began with collecting glasses and trained as a bartender’s apprentice. At the time, I was living in Aberdeen, a city thriving on the oil industry, and many Russian engineers and workers had migrated there for jobs.
Most of them didn’t speak English, but I spoke both English and Russian. Because of that, the pub owner said to me, “Well, you can talk with them and bring in money, so you can be a bartender.” That was a major turning point in my life.
One Saturday night, the manager asked me, “We’re short-staffed because someone called in sick—could you take the day shift tomorrow?” Normally I didn’t work Sundays, but I casually agreed, “Sure, why not.” I usually worked nights, so I had never met the daytime manager before. He told me, “Please come in 30 minutes before your shift. Also, do you prefer coffee or tea? And how do you like your eggs?” I remember thinking, What’s this all about?
I was young and foolish, so I went out drinking the night before, came home late, and ended up running behind. I made it in time for the shift itself, but not the 30 minutes early I’d been asked to arrive. The manager looked displeased but said, “Well, all right.” By the time I got there, my tea was cold and so were the eggs. He had prepared tea and breakfast for me, and beside it he had placed a newspaper.
In the UK, the Sunday paper is thick, filled with theater, sports, and local news. He told me, “Sit down and read that newspaper from beginning to end. Because when we open at noon, the regulars will come in. They’ll already have read it, and they’ll want to talk to someone about it. That’s what this pub is about.” It meant that a bartender has the responsibility to always be prepared for the regulars and to engage with them in conversation.
In other words, if I couldn’t keep up with what the regulars were talking about, I couldn’t really be a bartender. Whether I disliked soccer or wasn’t interested in theater didn’t matter. That was the manager’s lesson for me, and it was my first real understanding that a bartender’s responsibility goes far beyond just making cocktails. It’s about meeting the needs of the guests—and that includes their emotional needs.
Yes, it did. I think people are most impressionable during their formative years, and my time in Scotland was when I grew the most as a bartender. After that, I traveled all over the world. I even worked behind the bar in Japan, around 2012.
It was BAR ORCHARD GINZA in Tokyo’s Ginza district. The bar has been selected multiple times for Asia’s 50 Best Bars, and it’s owned by Takuo and Sumire Miyanohara. I first met them at an international cocktail competition, and we became friends. During cherry blossom season I visited Japan, toured a distillery in northern Japan to learn more, and traveled further to deepen my understanding of the country. Later, as I gained recognition as a bartender, I was able to travel to places I could never have afforded on my own.
There’s a phrase I like to use often: “A person walks into a bar, they discover the world.” It’s a play on the classic opening line of a bar joke: “A man walks into a bar...”
There’s a reason I repeat this phrase. A bar contains bottles gathered from all over the world, and each one holds history, stories—something to spark a conversation. It’s theatrical, full of narrative. For me, that’s simply beautiful, meaningful, and deeply moving. What I truly enjoy is standing behind the bar, sharing drinks, and connecting with people. That’s what I love most.
Yes and no. Today we have the internet and social media, which means that, at least in theory, people are more closely connected to the world than ever before. And yet, ironically, in the real world people are more disconnected from each other than ever.
Thanks to smartphones, we can access any information we want, anytime, anywhere. If someone comes into a bar with an interest in spirits or cocktails, chances are they’ve already learned a great deal online. We bartenders are no longer the gatekeepers of that information. Now anyone can access it. And that’s a good thing.
At the Tales of the Cocktail® Spirited Awards® 2024, Danil received the award for Best International Bar Mentor.
Amid these changes, we bartenders need to keep growing. Of course, what it means to be a professional varies depending on the country you live in and the way you interact with guests. Still, I believe there are things that remain the same everywhere in the world—things that have always been, and always will be, essential.
In Japan, too, bars serve as social spaces. When a bar has been part of a neighborhood for 10, 15, 20 years, it becomes woven into the fabric of the community. It’s no longer just a privately owned shop. Regulars come in, relationships form. That’s a very different thing from a fast-food chain that’s just opened on the corner. In a bar, there’s interaction and debate, conversations and connections that no AI or robot could ever replace.
Technical skills like how to shake, stir, or pour—if you’re motivated, you can practice them a million times and eventually do them with flawless precision. But developing the skills of human communication and conversation is far more difficult.
Let me show you an example—a little exercise. Could you stand up for a moment? This is an experiment about energy. Ready? Right now, you and I are facing each other. At this distance, we feel fine, right? Now, let’s each take a step closer. You start to feel a bit of tension, don’t you? One more small step closer, and it feels almost combustible.
Now, let’s each turn 45 degrees. Suddenly, the pressure is gone. When two people are directly face-to-face, the energy is intense, and it feels like something might happen. But by changing the angle, the interaction becomes easier, more comfortable. That’s why standing side by side, chatting while smoking a cigarette, doesn’t feel awkward at all. It’s a simple, fun experiment you can try anywhere. These are the kinds of things bartenders need to pick up—through traveling, through conversation, through real human communication.
Yes. When I train bartenders, I emphasize that interpersonal communication skills are the most important thing. In the UK, if you can’t hold a conversation with guests, you don’t qualify as a bartender. It’s very difficult to truly understand someone just by watching them in silence. You have to reach out—talk to them, engage with them—that’s how you get to know who they are. A bartender needs to be able to do that.
When you step behind the bar, your responsibility extends beyond the countertop—it’s for the entire room. You’re responsible for how guests feel when they take their seats. You need to see everything and manage the balance: the mood, the music, the lighting. Serving drinks is important, but balance isn’t just about cocktails—it exists within the guests themselves.
For example, “Those people over there are getting drunk and loud. This couple on a date probably wants a more intimate experience, so I’d better avoid seating them at the next table.” Managing that is challenging, but it’s far more important for a bartender than making a flawless Gimlet.
I had tasted honkaku shochu before, but when I tried iichiko Saiten for the first time, I was genuinely surprised. It felt like, “Oh wow—this is something that’s just right for me!” The flavor was unlike anything I had experienced before—truly unique. And in the world of spirits, having such a distinctive character is incredibly important for establishing a place of your own.
In cocktails, we usually talk about just five main spirits: gin, whisky, vodka, tequila, and rum. But I believe iichiko Saiten has the potential to become a new major category in the world of spirits. That’s because it has a distinctive flavor that doesn’t resemble any of the five—it establishes its own identity. In the fiercely competitive spirits market, having that kind of individuality is absolutely crucial. If people describe you as “like gin” or “like vodka,” you end up blending into the crowd.
When I used iichiko Saiten in cocktails, my impression was that it works perfectly as a base spirit. With its higher proof, it doesn’t get lost among the other ingredients, and you can still taste the unique and varied flavors of honkaku shochu. I thought to myself, “Finally, here’s something I can really use.”