Dishes at Jerry Zheng's The Mixing House in Beijing. [Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]

But four months was too short a time for him to fully acquire the skills and knowledge to become a bartender after graduation. So he started working as a waiter in 1949 The Hidden City, a club area in Beijing, where he got the chance to learn from senior bartenders.

Everything seemed going well, until a bad decision dragged him to the lowest point of his life.

He joined in a startup and contracted to run a bar, only to find he was victim of fraud, and lost more than 60,000 yuan in two months. Most of the money had come from his parents, who even suspected that Zheng had become addicted with drugs.

Starting from zero, Zheng drifted from one bar to another, until in 2010, he got a position at Twilight, a popular bar in Beijing.