Cocktail College

At 9 p.m. on a cold Sunday night near Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, the Victoria Bar's School of Intoxication is in session. I'm an eager pupil, and at the end of the three-hour lesson on the art of mixing cocktails, I'm probably going to be saturated — with knowledge, of course. Award-winning bartender Stefan Weber knows it too, and so he cautions me and the some 40 other "students" at the bar to drink plenty of water between drinks to ward off the dreaded hangover.

"I am going to lead you into the realm of intoxication,"...