If you’re bartending for your next party, you’ll want to keep the liquid refreshment flowing smoothly, and that means knowing the most popular mixed drink recipes. Professional bartenders have to learn more than one hundred alcoholic drink recipes before they can stand behind the bar, but you probably won’t need that many for most everyday events.

Beginners will want to start out by learning the ten most popular mixed drink recipes, those your friends and family are most likely to ask for at your next party. These include: the Bloody Mary, Pina Colada, Strawberry Daiquiri, Lemon Drop, Mudslide, Long Island Iced Tea, White Russian, Margarita, Mojito, and, most famous of all, the Martini. Once you’ve mastered these basic alcoholic drink recipes, you’ll be well on your way to bartending mastery.

To memorize the recipes, you may want to try flashcards. Many professionals use them to learn their recipes, and they could come in handy here. To make flashcards, get some index cards and write the name of the drink on the front and the drink’s recipe on the back. Study them carefully and use the cards to help you check your memorization. When you find that you can recite the recipe from memory without looking at the back of the card, you’ve mastered the basic mixed drink recipes. You can then repeat the process with new drinks, adding to your repertoire until you have truly become a master of alcoholic drink recipes.

Another trick is to learn to do variations. Group drinks by similar bases (rum, gin, vodka, etc.) and learn what you can add to the base to make different types of drink. This way, you can suggest a similar drink if you run out of an ingredient.