THE STORY OF COREY! – Corey Jansen Interviewed

Age? 28.

Where are you from? Las Vegas, Nevada.

How long have you’ve been Bartending? I’ve been bartending for about 3 and a half years.

And Flair Bartending? About 3 years.

Where do you work? I work at the Shadow Bar at Caesar’s Palace.   

What got you into Flair Bartending? I was out at a bar in Arizona and saw a bartender do a little tin work and thought it looked really cool so I chatted with him for a while about Flair. Then I ended up looking more of it up online checking out some of the competition video clips. After that, I was hooked.

How did you start out learning to Flair? There were really only two guys who Flaired in Arizona at the time and they were definitely beginners as well but my friend Kevin Dow and I would practice outside of his apartment even when it was 120 degrees outside during the summer. We didn’t have a whole lot to watch or look up to, so we tried to help each other in figuring out moves.

Describe to us your style of Flair? I don’t have a whole lot of difficulty in my Flair but I try to really come up with my own moves and work with the movement of Flair, try to keep everything flowing in a smooth direction. I do a little dancing here and there so my Flair is very tied to the movement and the music, it’s an expression.

What makes you stand out from other Flair Bartenders? I guess when I Flair I tend to go more on how a move feels and transitions instead of trying to come up with something really tough.

What do you hope to get out of Flair? I’ve already gotten a lot out of Flair, it’s like having an extended family all over the world. But I would like to travel more and I always wanted to do shows. I like performing in that type of setting and haven’t really gotten to do that yet.

What is your favorite Flair Bartending competition and why?  Oooh, that’s a tough one. If I had to choose just one, I think I would have to go with Roadhouse. I like the fact that it’s very freeform and you see some different moves come out there. I also really like some of the european style and you get to see guys that don’t travel that much so you see new things. Being from Vegas, you see a lot of the same people in pretty much every competition so a change of pace is nice.

Who do you look up to in this Sport?  There’s a lot but to name a few “Flippy” and “Rocco” for being two of the best all around bartenders I’ve seen as far as speed, attitude, Flair, and customer service. Rodrigo Cao for being so humble while being so good and working really hard at it. Tim Plummer, Joey Torres, Vache, Jamie Berrier, and Tom Dyer for sticking to their guns and having their own style. Sebastian Oguich is probably my favorite Flair bartender because his movement and smoothness is incredible.

What are your thoughts on the FBA Pro Tour? I think it provides a good balance to the sport in having something that organized and put together with a lot of rules. Then you have something for everybody. You have some competitions that are more freeform where you see some incredible difficulty and individual style, then you have something more structured and have more rules so you see the demonstration of control and accuracy as well. Also having something like the FBA Pro Tour always helps with the image of Flair bartending. Most of the general public like to see a solid Association/Organization to take it legitimately and I think the FBA Pro Tour makes us look better in that aspect. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard one person who has seen the legends tv special trying to explain it to a friend of theirs “How they have to pour like the exact amount in these little test tube thingies” and how tough it is.

If you could help influence Flair to change our sport somehow, what would it be and why? That’s really hard because our sport is growing in every aspect as it is and I think it’s great. There are a ridiculous amount of competitions happening all the time and not even just general Flair competitions but competitions with different focuses now. There’s really open competitions like King of the Ring, very structured competitions like Legends, and now we have things like Blue Blazer adding mixology, and the Flair Bartenders Shakedown where it focuses on working Flair. We have more exposure on television than ever before and people don’t just recognize us as Flair bartenders but where we are from and even where we work! I think that right now we have great variety, we have great exposure, and we have a ton of people who are always striving to make things better because of their passion for Flair. I wish we could get more Flair bars outside of Vegas but as far as the sport goes, I wouldn’t change anything.

Where do you see the future of our sport? I think it’s going to keep growing. The more people that get into it, the more exposure we get, and the more knowledge about what Flair is through things like the tv specials, and it’s going to go from the dark ages of only being known as Tom Cruise and a liability to bar managers to a new era. An era where we are known to be accurate, knowledgeable, controlled, and a real positive asset to a business.

What are some common myths about the profession of Flair bartending? It may not be the most popular answer but I’m going to be honest in my experience with it. For me personally, the two most common myths is that
1. – Because we Flair we automatically make a lot of money.
2. – That we can have any job we want because we have skills. When I work at Kahunaville during the day, we really only serve food and sodas and make anywhere from $40-100 a day. Hourly saves you here but even when we Flair like crazy, people don’t always tip you better because of it. I do it anyways because I like it, but it’s not a guarantee that you’ll make more money.
3. – Most of the nicer spots where you can make some money, they don’t hire guys. I’ll leave it at that.
How often do you practice? I mostly just practice at work right now.

What is your advice to some of the new people wanting to start competing, any helpful hints? I would say try to compete as much as you can. For most people getting into competing, the hardest part is the nerves. I have never gotten over the nerves and that’s why I rarely ever compete. But they say the more you do it, the more comfortable you are on stage and I think that is the most important thing. If you’re not comfortable up there, it’s hard to put on a good show.

Tell us about your first Flair Competition and your experiences there, What were you feeling, Did everything go as planned? I had been Flairing for about four or five months and there was a competition at one of the local nightclubs. There was only about five of us I think and two of them had about as much experience as I did but I was so nervous being up there. I had a break and I thought I did so horrible but I had the best speed round so I got pushed up to third.

Tell us about your experience moving to Las Vegas and why you moved their in the first place ? After about six months or so I started coming up to Vegas once a month just to hang out at Carnaval Court and watch the Flair bartenders there and then I made the decision that if I really wanted to get into Flair, I had to move here. So I packed up everything I had and just moved to Vegas and lived with a friend of mine that I had known for a while. It took me three months to find any type of bartending job here, it’s really tough to get in. But I lucked out because that was when they started opening up the Kahuna Grills off the strip so I applied for one of those. But when Rick Barcode interviewed me, he said they actually had a few extra board guys going to work full time at the grills so they had an extra board position at Kahunaville. I jumped at the chance with about $300 left to my name.

Do you think having competed in dance competitions has helped you with your Flair bartending competitions ? Actually people ask me that a lot and for me, it didn’t really transfer. For me, when you’re dancing you have a partner to focus on while you’re competing and you know that they judge you as a pair. For Flair it’s just you and you’re facing the crowd and I get so nervous. I’m comfortable doing showcases and things at work but when there’s the best in the world watching, and judges, and a time limit, and deductions, it just all gets to me.  Plus being from Vegas people expect you to be really good so there’s an added pressure of feeling like you have to prove yourself.

What was it like competing in the “Flair Bartenders Shakedown” the first Flair bartending competition based on working Flair? When I first saw it, I thought I might do alright because I really focus on working Flair. I am always trying to come up with new working Flair moves, things I can use every day rather than exhibition that I will rarely use because I don’t usually compete. Plus doing working Flair moves makes me feel like I’m at work so I am a little more comfortable. It was tougher because of the blind drink list so you can’t really prepare too much for your round. You can have an idea of what you’re going to do, but you can’t have a set routine that you practice over and over. It was a lot of fun though, I didn’t know a single person there but everybody was really cool and supportive and the atmosphere was laid back so I had a blast.  I think it’s good to have that type of variety in competitions to show all the aspects of Flair.

Did you think you would make it to the finals? I honestly wasn’t sure. I knew that working Flair was usually my strong point but I tend not to compete very well. Plus I’ve never made any type of finals before so I had no idea what to expect.

What were your thoughts on winning 3rd place during the finals? I couldn’t believe it. I missed my flight on the way in so I got there pretty late and didn’t even have a chance to get to the hotel. I basically just put my bags down, got something to eat, and then competed. I thought my round was okay but I completely forgot my two tin and bottle working Flair routine that I was really proud of and had been working on for a while… just blanked out on it. It was my cleanest round I’d ever had but I still thought that I probably got sixth. So when they called sixth, fifth, and fourth, I was stunned. Less than one full point separated third and fourth place. Even now I am still a little amazed, I have my first Flair trophy ever.

Are all of those countless hours of Flair practice worth it? Yes because I love it. I love the movement, I love the flow, so even if I’m not a Flair superstar who’s known across the world, it’s an expression of me and I’m happy with that.

What are your plans now? My ultimate dream would be to open up a Flair bar back home in Arizona. I think there should be more Flair bars around because people love it and there’s a lot of big cities where it could add a different dynamic to the nightlife.

What obstacles do you see our sport of Flair Bartending encountering in the near future and in your opinion, how can we overcome them? I think the only obstacle that we could probably face is that as the sport gets bigger, I hope the respect and family feel to it stays the same. As a small group in a relatively unknown field the people in that group have to be really supportive to make sure the sport/endeavor stays alive and grows. But as things get bigger and bigger sometimes egos, competition, titles, and money start to divide people. I like the fact that anybody that comes into my bar that Flairs or if I am someplace else and I see somebody flip a tin behind their back, you have that instant camaraderie of both being a part of something that you love. I hope that never changes.

If you had the opportunity to convince a skeptical Bar manager to hire a Flair Bartender, How would you go about it? I think I would probably start off with pour tests since that is usually the biggest deal to a bar manager, waste of liquor. Letting them know that we are probably more accurate than most bartenders because we TRAIN for pour tests in competitions over and over and over, plus it shows your control which transfers over into the spillage issue. Once you alay that fear, I would go with the entertainment factor, word of mouth to all their friends about what they saw that night at their bar and repeat customers. People buying drinks just so they can see you Flair, things like that.