The role of cocktail bartenders, much like sommeliers, is multifaceted: helping connect consumers with a beverage they’ll enjoy, but also encouraging them to expand their palates, introducing new flavors and concepts, and championing emerging brands or spirit categories. “All of our bartenders look at every single customer, see what they’re ordering, and has in their mind two to three cocktails that they know that person would like,” and may be able to steer them toward, says Laura Unterberg, the beverage director of The Fox Bar and Cocktail Club in Nashville, Tennessee.