FEATURE STORY
Intelligent Design
by Kyle Branche
Over the last 25 years, I’ve worked in many different bars in a wide range of venues. No matter how complex or simple the design, the main question for me is always the same: how well does it function? It’s one thing to create a beautiful bartop for your establishment along with other fixtures to complement the overall decor, but equal attention should be paid to the function of the underbar and backbar. The operational necessities of the bar are no less important than the form.
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Shrinking Shrinkage
by Ian Foster
Would you like to make an additional $4,000 to $10,000 in your bar every month? By uncovering and eliminating hidden shrinkage—despite a pour cost that might look pretty good—this bonanza could be yours. Shrinkage refers to the amount of alcohol lost in your bar caused by overpouring, misringing, theft, and waste. A study conducted by my company, Bevinco, for the California Restaurant Association found that almost every restaurant bar incurs too much shrinkage, with an average loss of more than 20 percent—one drink in five.
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Buffing Up the Beer Program
by Michael Shetler
When you ask for the beer list in a white-tablecloth restaurant that offers an extensive wine and spirits lineup, do you get a raised eyebrow? Does your server hand you a four-item offering of macro-brewed beer with similar flavor profiles? Beer is often the redheaded stepchild of beverage programs, especially in fine-dining venues. With the exceptional quality and enormous diversity of styles available from all over the world, beer should be viewed with the same respect and profit potential as are fine wines and spirits.
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Matchmaking with Jason McConnell of Sol
By Suzanne Hall
Jason McConnell appropriated the space across the street from his Red Pony Restaurant and created Sol in October 2007. It’s a sunny, vibrant place featuring authentic Mexican dishes, which McConnell has “modernized and lightened up.” He’s introducing the town’s natives to real Mexican cooking and providing familiar foods to newcomers. Fortunately, it’s working.
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Cocktails with a Twist
Gaining inspiration from cutting edge chefs such as London's Heston Blumenthal, Sydney mixologists are serving up sensory cocktails that are designed to transport guests to far away times and places. The experience goes beyond the drink and includes ambient music on an iPod, sensory deprivation, and smells sprayed onto customers.
To find out how to visit Cuba without ever leaving the bar, read more.
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Beverage Trends
Wine & Spirits Daily recently visited with Jim Sabia, the new Executive Vice President of Marketing for Constellation Spirits about one of their up and coming brands, EFFEN Vodka, as well as trends in the spirits industry as a whole. Are brown liquors getting ready to stage a comeback?
Find out.
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Ice Ice Baby
With bottled water sales topping $11 billion in 2007, can designer ice be far behind? According to Jane McEwen, the Executive Director of the International Packaged Ice Association, there's no reason that it shouldn't, after all, ice is water’s “sister product.” Ice may not have the gourmet cache of water just yet, but there are growing legions of ice connoisseurs making the rounds.
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Spirits Showing Growth in Developing Markets
With the opening up of Russia and Eastern Europe, the growing prosperity in Asia and South America, and above all the Westernization of popular culture, Western spirit brands have become the drink of choice for the emerging middle class from Shanghai to São Paulo — and the category that's leading the way is Scotch whisky.
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Gallup Poll Shows Beer Is Again America's Alcohol Beverage of Choice
According to a new Gallup poll, beer's lead over wine and spirits has returned to double-digits for the first time since 2002, particularly among adults between the ages of 30 and 49 who tried wine for a few years then shifted back to beer.
The annual Consumption Habits poll, released Friday through Gallup's Web site, shows that in combined data from Gallup's 2004 and 2005 Consumption surveys, drinkers between the ages of 30 and 49 were about as likely to prefer wine as beer. Now, drinkers in this age bracket have shifted back to beer, with an average of 47 percent in the combined 2007-2008 data saying they most often drink beer. Drinking preferences among adults ages 21-29 have remained stable in recent years, with the majority showing a wide preference for beer. "This poll shows what we've always known -- that trends will come and go but beer is here to stay," said Bob Lachky, executive vice president, Global Industry and Creative Development for Anheuser-Busch, Inc. and leader of "Here's To Beer," a two-year-old campaign that toasts Americans' appreciation for beer. "More Americans are learning -- or re-learning -- how to appreciate the wide variety of beer styles available and how easy it is to pair beer with all types of food, which is also attracting new adult consumers to the beer category."
Beer continues to represent the largest segment in the alcohol beverage category in volume and dollar sales, accounting for 56 percent of all alcohol beverage servings.
Here's To Beer Web Site
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BarSmarts - Bartender Training for Pros Launches
Pernod Ricard USA®, a leading producer, importer and marketer of prized spirits and wine brands in the United States, announces the introduction of BarSmarts, a first-of-its-kind bartender training and education program that targets the profession at all levels -- from well known, influential celebrity mixologists and trendsetters to bartender protégés to bartending newcomers across the country.
“The cocktail culture here in the U.S. continues to gain momentum and consumers are becoming increasingly savvy in their drink choices,” noted Steve Walkerwicz, Vice President, On-Premise Customer Marketing for Pernod Ricard USA. “At Pernod Ricard USA, we understand that knowledgeable and confident bartenders have a tremendous influence on their customer’s drink selections. We see this as a great opportunity to offer a unique, industry-first bartender training and education program that not only provides a valuable tool to those in the profession but that is developed and sponsored by BAR, LLC, a partnership of six of the most highly respected spirits authorities/educators in the U.S. including Dale DeGroff, Steve Olson, Doug Frost, F. Paul Pacult, Andy Seymour and David Wondrich.”
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Photos From 2nd Annual Santé Restaurant Symposium Iron Bar Chef Competition
Santé Restaurant Symposium’s two-day Iron Bar Chef competition on June 2nd and 3rd was emceed by the charismatic Tony Abou-Ganim. Judges were such greats as Dale DeGroff, Francesco Lafranconi, Livio Lauro, and Charlotte Voisey. The sponsor was William Grant & Sons with additional support from The Perfect Purée.
In each round contestants were allotted 45 minutes to make an aperitif, a tall drink, and a dessert concoction employing the backbar’s vast array of ingredients, including one that remained a secret until just before the competition began. Contenders created winning libations using tea for the first round and gold kiwi for the second. They chopped, muddled, whipped, strained, shook, stirred, steeped, and even meringued as the clock ticked down. All completed their cocktails in the nick of time and provided a stellar attraction for both practitioners of the spirituous arts and the merely curious.
See the photos.
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Responsible Alcohol Service
The responsible alcohol service training decisions you make are critical. How can you make certain that your front-of-the-house staff is prepared for every situation? Where can you find training that works in their world, and works around their hectic schedules? The answer is ServSafe Alcohol™.
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The Original Cocktail Art Custom Drink Recipe Cards
Kyle Branche
For Los Angeles-based professional bartender and cocktail specialist Kyle Branche, who is also a frequent contributor to Santé magazine, bartender education has been a lifelong passion. He has pursued this mission in various forms, including self-publishing professional bartender reference and management books and a high-production-value DVD series of cocktail preparations and recipes. Now he’s devised a literally hands-on teaching concept: The Original Cocktail Art Custom Drink Recipe Cards (kbranche@earthlink.net; 818-225-8009; $39.95). Volume one is a 50-card set of classic and popular drink recipes that span the gamut of mixology---each easy-to-use 3 x 5-inch card contains a handsome image of the finished drink on one side and Branche’s complete recipe on the other. Branche’s convenient recipe cards can help any bartender increase his skills and repertoire, and they make excellent staff training tools for bar managers.
Imbibe!: From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to "Professor" Jerry Thomas
David Wondrich
Perigee Trade
Cocktail writer and historian David Wondrich presents the colorful, little-known history of classic American drinks in this homage to Jerry Thomas, father of the American bar. The 336-page book includes never-before-published details and stories about Thomas, along with definitive recipes for 100 punches, cocktails, sours, fizzes, toddies, slings, and other essential drinks, plus 20 new recipes from today's top mixologists, created exclusively for the book.
Buy at amazon.com >> 1001 Questions Every Bartender and Lounge Lizard Should Know How to Answer
Robert Plotkin
Barmedia
Santé Contributing Editor Robert Plotkin covers every facet of bartender knowledge. The questions (1,001---no more, no less) are arranged in four main sections and several speciatly segments (e.g., 21 questions on "Testing Your Vodka Geography"). Entry-level, intermediate, and advanced exams are included, along with all 1,001 answers.
Buy at amazon.com >> Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776
Ian Williams
Nation Books
A book that should be immensly appealing to history buffs and rambunctious rummies, Ian Williams traces the Caribbean spirit from its pre-rum roots in Asia and North Africa and its first iteration in Barbados, through the turbulent Colonial and Revolutionary War periods, to is exquisite expressions today. The author's thorough research, when combined with a gift for storytelling, lifts the book high above the ordinary.
Buy at amazon.com >>
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