"WE'RE going to be using a smoking gun," says bar manager Chris Burns as he lines up a dizzying array of drinks and mixers.

It's International Cocktail Day and I'm in Glasgow's world famous Rogano restaurant to learn some tricks of the trade.

Drinks and mixers I was expecting... smoking guns, a ghost and a barman who doesn't drink alcohol are proving a bit more unexpected.

Chris has lined up four drinks for me to try making, all themed around the restaurant.

The TS Queen Mary, built in 1933, is a Clyde-built turbine steamer currently berthed in Tilbury and the focus of a fundraising campaign to bring her home to Glasgow.

She is also the inspiration for a Pimms and Southern Comfort-based cocktail, Mary's Voyage, that I'm about to attempt to make.

Second in line is Smoke on the Clyde, for which we're going to need the smoking gun.

We'll also be tackling Table 16, named after the most sought-after table in the house where everyone from Rod Stewart to Elizabeth Taylor has dined.

And last but not least, the Ghost of James Henry Roger Junior, dedicated to the son of the former owner of Rogano, who is believed to have died on the premises.

Rogano is famous for good reason - the restaurant, designed to replicate the Art Deco style of Cunard liner Queen Mary, is opulent and the staff slick yet friendly.

Both these facts make me terrified of spilling anything.

And being terrified of spilling anything makes me the slowest barman you've ever come across.

Luckily, Chris has plenty of patience. "Being able to train people properly is part of what we do," he says. "We get guys who come in who have bar experience but then we get the guys who come in with none and in six months they're behind the bar and they know everything.

"I was like that. I was 17 when I started and I had no idea even the difference between a Sauvignon blanc and a merlot.

"You get this impression that things are tough in restaurants and you make one mistake and you're out - that might be the case elsewhere but not here."

Despite these reassurances, I'm pretty sure that if I turned up for a real shift I'd be out the door faster than you could say "Martini, with a twist".

Some of the ingredients for these cocktails I haven't even heard of before - St Germain, an elderflower liqueur; Strega, an Italian herbal liqueur; and Dubonnet, a French liqueur first developed as a medicinal tonic.

"Like Buckfast?" I ask. "Sort of," says Chris, who's maybe not used to Buckfast being referenced in such plush surroundings.

Chris is a man who takes his cocktails seriously... even though he doesn't drink.

How does someone who doesn't drink develop cocktail ideas?

"I'm really into food so I take a lot of my inspiration from that," he says. "My mum is a great cook, a sensational cook, and we go out to eat a lot. Eating out is my thing.

"I carry a little black book around with me and I write ideas down in there."

In fact, Chris's favourite cocktail, Father Thyme, is based on his mum's roast chicken recipe.

Cooking skills come in handy as the barman, who has been with Rogano for seven years and who quit a business degree to become bar manager, likes to make his own ingredients.

For the Table 16 he makes his own maraschino cherries - with honey, black pepper and liqueur - as well as his own mint and vanilla syrup for the Mary's Voyage, and his own apple wood chips for the smoking gun.

Ah, the smoking gun.

Apparently, former Rogano owner James Henry Roger had a teenaged son who died on the premises. There is no real evidence for how he died but one theory is that he hung himself in the cloak room.

Staff swear he haunts the restaurant, wearing a suit and a flat cap.

Chris isn't so sure - but he's named a cocktail after the boy. "And I hope he approves," says Chris. "I don't want to be hexed.

"My cocktails are quite literal. So this one involved trapping the ghost in a glass bottle..."

First up - a pineapple ring in the base of a glass. Then four ice cubes. These bits I can do.

Then a Boston Shaker is filled with Strega, St Germain, pineapple juice and a dash of honey before being shaken - very inexpertly by me - and poured into a bottle that looks like it washed up on a beach somewhere with a message inside.

Next, the smoking gun - filled with Chris's homemade apple wood chips. The "gun" has a tube like a garden hose coming out of it, which is placed into the glass with the pineapple and ice.

Chris uses a lighter to set fire to the chips, producing smoke - or, as he would have it, the ghost of James Henry Roger Junior.

The bottle is used to quickly trap the smoke in the glass while Chris fills a tiny jug with coconut milk. Next, the cocktail ingredients and the milk are poured into the glass.

It's a nice bit of theatre - but how does it taste? Let's just say, our photographer has to literally wrestle it from my hands for the pictures.

Bar staff can make around 200 cocktails on a busy Friday or Saturday night so everything behind the bar has to run smoothly.

Chris trains the guys behind the bar to do everything in the same order, "like a dance routine" - ice, spirit, mixers, shake, pour.

"So it's like a ballet back there, rather than Laurel and Hardy?" I ask.

There are 19 cocktails on the menu, which must be memorised, and Chris swears the staff don't get annoyed when he turns up with one of his more complicated new recipes.

But where does the bar manager of Glasgow's most famous cocktail bar take someone for a cocktail if he was trying to impress them?

"The Kelvingrove Cafe in Finnieston," he says, "But of course, Rogano is always number one."

Not if I stick around for too much longer, it won't be.

Time to do what I do best - sit back and let the experts pour for me.