Scott Young likes to captivate his customers, so it’s fitting that he spends so much time behind bars.

Young is the president and head instructor of www.extremebartending.com Bar Smart – The Performance Bartending Company, which he founded in 1993.  He laughs when asked if he and his “extreme bartending team” are to bartending what the Chippendales are to exotic male dancing, but then realizes there are many parallels.

Performance:  “We have style as we’re serving drinks,” Young, 33, said from his office in Vancouver.  “We’re throwing bottle, glasses, limes and straws, basically being performers behind the bar.

“We travel all over the world to whoever hires us.  We were in Denmark three weeks ago. It’s neat, because Canadians are really well-like around the world, because we’re polite.”

Young will be in Winnipeg tomorrow and Wednesday for two-day seminar at Canad Inn Polo Park, designed for anyone in the bartending, restaurant and nightclub industry.

Young works at several bars, but mostly at the Roxy Niteclub in Vancouver, which he said is arguably the busiest club in Canada.

There are 10 Extreme Bartending instructors, including two in Toronto, one each in Winnipeg (Carl Berryman) and Kelowna, B.C., and the remainder in Vancouver.  All but one of the instructors are male.

“It’s very difficult to get a high-level bartending job, because there is very little turnover in this industry,” said Young, who charges $225 for his two-day seminars.  “We get people who are wanting to increase their odds of getting one of these jobs.

“We’ve sold videos to 60 different countries and we’ve got 12 new ones on the way.”

The seminars also include how to deal with problem customers and over-serving.

“Make the women feel safe in your bar and the guys will come,” Young said.

The 1988 movie Cocktail, starring Tom Cruise, had both a positive and negative impact on bartending, Young said.  The movie got people excited about the industry, but bar owners didn’t want anyone like the film’s characters in their bar because they were literally leaving their profits on the floor.

“There was a lot of spillage in that movie,” Young said.