What Is the World’s Oldest Profession? Find the Answer, Earn a Badge

One of the oldest professions in the world, bartending traces its roots all the way back to ancient Greece and Rome where people served alcohol in public drinking houses. 

Continuing through history, we find innkeepers serving up pints of ale in Europe in the fifteenth century, where alehouses and taverns become common social gathering places.

In the New World during the nineteenth century, bartending became a respectable profession. 

Even during Prohibition, a time when alcohol was illegal in the United States, bartenders kept wetting folks' whistles at illegal speakeasies. Even inventing new cocktails during this time such as the gin and tonic. 

Today, we can find all manner of bars across the world including dive bars, pubs, cocktail bars, taprooms, neighborhood spots, local watering holes, and everything in between. 

But while the scenery, the decorations, the theme, the location, or the type of place may change, what has never changed is that person behind the bar pouring your drink. 

Whether we realize it or not, bartenders have probably been with us through a lot of memorable moments in our lives. 

Ready to ring in another year? A bartender probably poured your celebratory pint. 

Just nabbed that new promotion? A bartender most likely mixed your favorite cocktail. 

Blew out the candles on your birthday cake and ready for a boilermaker? A bartender definitely slung your favorite shot. 

From anniversaries all the way to happy hours, bartenders have gilded some of our most memorable occasions. 

Well now it's our turn to thank them. 

We celebrate Bartender Appreciation Day every first Friday of December (December 2 this year) as a way of saying thank you to the hardworking, friendly folks behind the bar. 

So let's raise one up, pour one out, and toast to Bartender Appreciation Day with a new badge. 

To earn the "Bartender Appreciation Day" badge: Check-in any one (1) beer from December 2, 2022, to December 4, 2022.