Tony: How have you seen cocktails in Ireland progress and how do you think the future of drinking is progressing, generally, in your country?
Sean: The Chicago Pizza Pie Factory was Belfast's first ever cocktail bar. It opened its doors to an unsuspecting Northern Irish public way back in 1992 and put a heavy emphasis on American-styled rock'n'roll cocktails. It was more or less a spin-off from the TGI Friday's concept and was where I actually started my bartending apprenticeship. Its novelty soon wore thin, though, and it closed down within 3 or 4 years. I suppose that it was really just a couple of years ahead of its time, that's all.

Apart from that, Belfast never had anything exciting in the way of bars, other than a few age old taverns and well run traditional bars hidden among the backstreets. Before the 1994 Ceasefires and the commencement of the current peace process, people had been literally too frightened to venture out from the relative safety of their own neighbourhoods into the City Centre to socialise. And to open up a business there would have been considered far too risky to many. It is sad to say, but a beautiful bar filled with happy, smiling people would definitely have been a potential target for bombers.

Then Jas Mooney of Botanic Inn's Limited burst onto the scene with the very bold and daring launch of Madison's Cafe Bar in 1996 and things were set to change forever...

This bar had a quite spacious and noticeably continental feel about it. The facade and public areas were decorated in a modish Barcelona-inspired take on art nouveau and it was here that local people first witnessed an espresso machine or even a wine 'menu' taking stage within a bar. Before that you would only have been offered 'house' red and white wine by the glass or 'stewed' filter coffee, if you were lucky! Cocktails, too, were plentiful and came beautifully presented - even if in retrospect they were nothing other than a bunch of alcoholic milkshakes. I myself had been so taken by the grandeur of this building and the style of service that I immediately applied to go and work there.

Jas then opened The Fly in 1998 and it is this bar that is commonly believed to be the city's first true cocktail/party bar. It had stylish and innovative drinks menus which offered a wide variety of pitchers, cocktails and vodka-infusions to a bustling crowd of mostly students. I suppose it was on a similar type of par to bars such as Tiger Tiger and Salvatore & Amanda's in London and for a while was definitely one of Belfast's most talked about venues.

I remember Jas sitting us down and telling us at round about this time of his plans to open two 'niche' bars in Belfast City Centre (Apartment and The Northern Whig). He had been scouring the country for ideas over the last lot of years and believed that the City was now ready to experience a taste of the style-bar revolution that was sweeping Dublin and other large cities throughout mainland UK. He told us that he expected some of us to take cocktails to the next level and introduced us to national magazines - such as this one - insisting that we visit as many of the bars that featured in them as possible. A trip was even arranged for some of us to go and visit the bars in Dublin (such as The Morrison, Cocoon, Cafe en Seine, The Odeon and Pravda) to see firsthand what it was that he was talking about.

Other people had had exactly the same idea though and one of them, an extremely successful property developer called Bill Wolsey, actually beat Jas to it by just over a month! When Tatu opened its doors in the summer of 2000, followed by Apartment and subsequently Shu, it had been a huge wake up call to the people of Belfast. These bars attracted the "designer" generation of Belfast's young professionals and each of them offered fully comprehensive wine and cocktail menus. The clever use of contemporary furnishings and soft comforting colours within these outlets coupled together with cool visuals and ambient background music initiated an enormous "rethink" in Belfast's hospitality industry, and soon every other publican and restaurateur was following suit.

Style bars started popping up all over the place and it was here that I observed an opening in this marketplace. I knew from my many visits to London that cocktails and well trained staff were part and parcel of any good bar and knew (should I leave full-time employment) that I would be one of the only people in this country that possessed both the ability and knowledge to be able to offer this type of freelance service. That was two and a half years ago. Since then I've travelled the length and breadth of this country like a modern day Professor Jerry Thomas preaching to the masses and promoting what I'm about. Some people have listened attentively to me (Opium Bar and Zen Restaurant) but mostly my words have been taken with a degree of scepticism. This is generally because people either don't believe me or just don't have the resources for me to properly work with. Publicans and managers wonder why they should spend time and money om training staff to make cocktails, which after-all do take a lot of time and effort, when it's so much easier to serve five bottles of an RTD.

Retention of staff is another huge problem over here, as is finding half-interested staff to work with in the first place. Bartending to many is still generally regarded as a "means-to-an-end until something better crops up". Except for the odd few, no-one really takes the trade seriously and trying to convince someone to do otherwise has proven to be a very difficult task indeed. Having now seen it all first hand, I honestly feel that outside of Belfast (and admittedly only in some instances) there is nothing worth talking about in this country - north or south - regarding quality drinks or good levels of service in bars.

Belfast has developed at an alarming rate over the last ten years and a phenomenal amount of international money has been pumped in to help with its regeneration. It is still developing more and more on a daily basis. Trouble is, that it is still a small city. Some people living here even prefer to call it a large town, and there are simply not enough people living here (300,000) to satiate the need for a lot of good bars - which is the sole reason as to why so many of those bars are currently struggling.

It's unfortunate, but maybe once again we've been slightly premature over here, just like Peter Curistan (now the owner of the multi-million pound Odyssey Complex) probably was with The Chicago Pizza Pie Factory idea all those years ago. A chef told me recently that he believed there would be at least five self-employed bar consultants knocking around Belfast in the next few years and this made me laugh to myself. Who knows, if it all does turn out that way then people may actually look back upon me as the Irish Dick Bradsell - or the guy who kick-started mixology in this country.

Tony: Life as a bartender can be glamourous but also a tough job. Why do we love it so much?
Sean: When I started bartending 12 years ago I never would have ever believed that I would still be involved in the drinks industry today. I got into the trade initially because I wanted to travel and I suppose, then, I looked upon bartending as a portable type of job that could in reality be lifted up and taken with you wherever you went.

Through time, however, I started to get a bit disillusioned with my choice of career and the way that my life was turning out in general. I felt I had had enough with all the unsociable hours, smoky atmospheres, irate customers, noise and low pay and thought I'd better plan an alternative route to take in life. I was in the process of doing just that when something happened that made me change my mind. A television programme (of all things) inspired me and I determined from that moment on that I was going to apply myself and make the most of this trade after-all. After doing some preliminary research, I then went to work with Botanic Inn's Limited and to be honest, I have never looked back since.

My motivation nowadays is to be the best I can be and to never stop pushing myself. When something is done I simply push it aside and move on to the next challenge. I now feel I've gone as far as I can go in this country as a full-time drinks consultant with The Perfect Drinks Company concept and am currently looking at setting up my own bar. I know exactly the bar I want and am currently involved in negotiations to buy it over. As well as offering the coolest cocktails in this City, it is my intention, if I am successful, to both push a fully licensed mobile bartending service and run this country's only accredited bartending college through it.

I personally love the job so much because it is a constant learning process and presents a lot of exciting opportunities. You get to meet a lot of very interesting people and if you are focused on what you want and have ambition you never know where you could end up.