To keep drinks flowing, bartenders have to be fast on their feet and nimble with their fingers. While a flashy bartender could make for fast service, most of the time, making drinks most efficiently involves no fancy moves at all, and moving rapidly without adequate organization, intent, and precision is key.

The fastest bartenders are the most mindful, and use some common tactics to make drinks quickly, which we've summed up with a four-point mnemonic: "SLOE." The S in SLOE stands for "setting" up your workspace the same way every time, which helps with muscle memory and always knowing where everything is.

The L stands for "linking" drinks by their common ingredients; for example, if two of your drink orders call for vodka, you can pour one spirit into two jiggers at once. The O in SLOE stands for "optimizing" every moment, such as using lulls in customer activity and demand to refill your maraschino cherries and other ingredients.

Finally, E stands for utilizing "efficiencies" of scale, or fitting in more productivity with the time you're afforded; this can involve cleaning not just your station, but the whole counter while you're at it, or batching egg whites instead of cracking just one. All these tips can come together for a bartender who knows what they're doing.