Hello, I'm Elia.

Hi everybody! i'm a friendly, fun and creative bartender from Italy (i love wine!). i'm absolutely not quietly: i love stay with other people and i don't like half-done things: when i do something i always try do it as best as possibile!

"Bartender" ... a word that until a few months ago meant everything and nothing for me: when I was in Italy, I really liked being a barman (so it's commonly called like this in Italy), but it's never been a real job for me, but more a passion, a real fun. Every year in my country we organized 4 or 5 parties (rock festival, house festival, etc.) with other guys, or even the so-called "cantine"; to be clear, the cantine are tents installed specifically for special occasions such as village parties, where the people on Friday night and Saturday night can go in and enjoy the true essence of the party, have fun and drink together, having fun dancing with some good music. At every festival or cantina I was there, I was always at the front line behind the bar, because for me it was something fantastic, having fun with the people you know doing cocktails, and in a sense it made you feel important, like at the the center of attention, because obviously you were like “the wizard that creates potions" and people trusted more you than anyone else, but not only ... it was also a way to meet new people, get noticed, exchange experiences. Then suddenly, a few months ago there was a decline in my life due to work problems: I was going crazy! Being behind a computer 9 hours a day was not for me! I felt like I was caged: living for 21 years in a small town of 2,000 inhabitants in the heart of Italy, it may seem nice, but not for a free spirit like me who likes to travel, learn and speak different languages, meet new people, etc ... in short, the monotony was destroying me. I felt for a dynamic person like me, that meant throwing away his life. For this reason, as soon as I had some savings, I took a trip, even only 3 or 4 days, but I took my backpack or my suitcase and left, but every time I came back it was always worse: taste new cultures, meet new people, new food , exchange experiences with people from all over the world, and then ...? And then you come back to your village where the maximum experience that you can exchange with other people is the result of the football match of the night before. No ... all this was not for me ... like not even the work I was doing. I worked 9 hours a day (or even more) without having any gratification ... no prospect ... so at a certain point I took my life in my hands and I said to myself "Why not turn my passion into a job ?! Enough, i leave everything and follow this dream! "And so I did it exactly at the beginning of October 2017, I pulled out the “attributes” (as always after all, having played 6 years of boxing and 2 of K-1) and I I joined the international bartender course at the European Bartender School in Amsterdam. Also I continued to save money for a month and on November 18th I left. And I must say that it was the best choice of my life! This course made me discover a new world, the world of Bartending, something fantastic to say little, and it made me realize how really this is not just a passion or a job for me, but something more! And with the passing of this month I realized more and more to be good at this ... the positive feedback of the instructors, the high marks, the extreme fun in having competitions with my classmates in the execution of 12 cocktails (12 random taken from the 72 official cocktails of the IBA) fastest as possibile and in the best way, the ease with which I dealt all this experience, the extreme passion for flair ... yes, this is what I wanna do! And finally after a month I graduated, and now I want to literally throw myself into this world with dedication, audacity and humbleness, but with the inertia of a train. As in everything I do in life, I put all of myself into it; when I start something there is nothing and nobody can stop me or prevent me from completing it! And if I'm wrong? I do a step back, correct myself, and start again with more tenacity than before! There are two phrases that I love, which are the mantra of my life and those are the following: the first one is a Latin phrase "Fortis fortuna adiuvat" that it means "fortune helps the pains", and the second one is a phrase from the great Alì "Impossible is nothing ". Yeah, because as long as you believe it, nothing is impossible! And now... let's bartending!! HARD WORK,SPIRIT & SOUL

International Bartender Course (4 weeks)

Grade B Amsterdam - Nov 2017

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