Flinders Social bartender Cooper Stocks prepares for New Year’s Eve

The New Years holiday season is a great time for casual bartenders to earn “extra money”, but an NQ bartender says it’s important to balance time with family too.

Flinders Social bartender Cooper Stocks talks about what it is like working behind the bar and serving alcohol during the holiday season. Picture: Chris Burns.

For Townsville bartender Cooper Stocks, 22, making cocktails is part of his social life.

When friends and family know that he can mix a drink or two, he will often be invited to use cocktail shakers at private parties.

So he might as well be paid to do it, especially during the holiday season.

“I like to work at the very end of Christmas, especially because there are a lot of people in town that don’t have a family to spend it with,” Mr Stocks said.

“It’s an awesome feeling having a chat to someone, then at the end, they say, ‘thank you so much for the drinks, I was having a s —t night, you made it better.’

“It’s not as fun as being on the outside of the bar, being able to enjoy it with your friends, but it is nice to see everyone having a good time.”

Mr Stocks has just begun working at Flinders Social, but he is a familiar face behind the bar in the Townsville night-life precinct, having started as a glassie at 17 at the former Wild Goose Brews and Chews.

Mr Stocks has worked the busy New Year’s Eve shifts in the past, and he believes it likely he will be working many more, and he enjoys it as a way of socialising and taking care of people.

Money earned from holiday rates was nice, but it was also important to find time to spend with family as well, he said.

But he was able to balance work with a social life these holidays.

“But the job didn’t end when I left here,” he said.

“I went straight home and I was making cocktails for the whole family.

“The job never stops no matter where you are,” Mr Stocks said.

“The first thing they say is ‘oh, can you make us something delicious’.”

He said that his favourite cocktail to make is an apple smoked old fashioned, but on New Year’s Eve he thinks the most popular item on the menu at Flinders Social will be ‘blueball shots’, which includes peach schnapps, coconut rum, blue curacao, lime juice

The aim on New Year’s Eve, and any holiday really, was in making sure people were having fun while also making sure they were drinking responsibly.

Originally published as Flinders Social bartender Cooper Stocks prepares for New Year’s Eve