Lockdown leads to the rise of the TikTok bartender

An increasing number of mixologists are taking to social media app TikTok to share videos on how to make popular cocktails and entertain their viewers while bars remain shuttered.

Ashley Hupp, known as @theparadise.bartender, has 2.7 million TikTok followers and over 65 million likes on the video sharing app

 Hawaii–based Ashley Hupp, known on TikTok as @theparadise.bartender, has 2.7 million TikTok followers and over 65m likes on the app for the bartending videos she posts.

Often dressed in a bikini top or floral throw, she grins into the camera as she explains how to make a variety of cocktails, pouring liberally without measurements of any kind.

And she is not the only one. Sin City Bartender is another example of this growing trend. Scrolling down their page, which boasts over 787,000 followers and 20.3m likes, brightly coloured blue, green and red, cocktails in glasses of all shapes and sizes fill the screen.

Mixology videos on TikTok have blown up over the past few months, which may come as no surprise as people trained to mix drinks and create cocktails have remained unable to go back to work in many places as a result of coronavirus restrictions.

And in finding another way to channel their craft, TikTok mixologists are now teaching people how to make cocktails in the safety of their own home as an alternative to going out bar hopping. 

Some of these videos should probably come with a safety warning, as glasses of alcohol are lit on fire and bottles are tossed into the air by flair bartenders showing off their skills. 

This new form of drinks mixing is becoming more of a performance than a service, as no drink arrives at your table by the end of the video.

But with Christmas on the way and Covid cases on the rise, who wouldn’t want a how-to video on making your own Peppermint Martini in a glass rimmed with crushed candy canes?