Cheers

Cheers September

Cheers is dedicated to delivering hospitality professionals the information, insights and data necessary to drive their beverage business by covering trends and innovations in operations, merchandising, service and training.

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www.cheersonline.com 36 Cheers • September 2014 drink, Balchum says. They seem to appeal to all demographics and now account for 20% to 25% of all cocktail sales. Founding Farmers, a farm-to-table American restaurant and craft cocktail bar, with two locations in the Washington, D.C. area (and another slated to open in the fall), has been offering personalized "Dealer's Choice" drinks for more than four years. "The concept started as an opportunity to showcase the bar's depth of knowledge, and to give our loyal fans a little something extra they could enjoy," says beverage director/chief mixologist Jon Arroyo. Along with gaining an idea of guests' spirit preference and the type of tipple they usually order, bartenders at Founding Farmers will also poll their penchant for something sweet, sour or savory. They will then draw on the bar's 200-recipe database to, as Arroyo puts it, "create something spectacular that fi ts the fl avor profi le or mood that the guest is in." Founding Farmers guests love the option, and it has garnered buzz around town. "Dealer's Choice" drinks account for 10% of the operator's cocktail sales. AN INTRIGUING LIQUID JOURNEY Balchum sees two major benefi ts of personalized cocktails. For one thing, they present a perfect opportunity to introduce guests to the unfamiliar ingredients behind the bar that appear on drinks menus. If a customer perusing a bar menu sees an unknown ingredient listed in a description of a drink whose other components sound appealing, he or she may end up being disappointed by the outcome. "But being able to take what a guest tells you they like and make something unique for them takes a lot of the pressure off thinking about whether or not they'll be happy with their decision," Balchum says. Second, when the bartender steers the customer in a certain direction while still allowing the guest to have input into the fi nal product, it results in an eye-opening, intriguing liquid journey. "It makes a great guest experience to offer them a progression of drinks during the course of their night—taking what they have been drinking and modeling their next cocktail off of it," Balchum says. Drinks menus at ambitious craft cocktail bars can be intimidating, with unfamiliar ingredients and lots of choices. The "Bartender's Choice" option at The Gin Joint was designed to address this. "Our menu can sometimes be a little overwhelming; [this] allows people to enjoy and learn about what we are doing in an unintimidating manner," says Jared Lane, bar manager for the 54- seat pre-Prohibition cocktail bar in Charleston, SC. Guests at The Gin Joint select two descriptors from a list of 16: refreshing, tart, savory, fruit, strong, spicy, sweet, fi zzy, licorice, herbal, vegetal, non-alcoholic, bitter, unusual, fl oral and smoky. A bartender then makes a drink that falls into that fl avor category. The $10 drink is wildly popular, and responsible for about 60% of The Gin Joint's cocktail sales. "Guests love it. They get excited because it's different, and it gives them some control in the fi nal product," says Lane. It also allows The Gin Joint to vastly expand its cocktail offerings. "We can't have a cocktail menu with two hundred drinks, but the 'Bartender's Choice' allows us to pull from a large library of cocktails…which makes our menu fun and interactive." Lane says the concept's biggest benefi t is that it keeps things interesting. "We stay hungry to learn cool new drinks and share them with guests." Most challenging is getting stuck in a rut and turning to the same recipes again and again, especially when the bar gets busy. Continuously rotating the house-made ingredients—from violet cordial to smoked maple syrup—allows The Gin Joint to keep things fresh. GETTING IT RIGHT A bartender's choice option offers many benefi ts, but they can pose several challenges as well. "The hardest is when people say they like everything, and refuse to give any preferences whatsoever," notes Betz. "You are shooting blind." Indeed, the "Tender's Whim" inspires some guests at Park to leave it all up to the bartender. But Balchum prefers a little more direction. "Some guests tell us to just go wild, but we'd rather not take a shot in the dark," Balchum says. "It's always nice if guests can tell you about a recent cocktail they had that they really liked, even if it was one at another bar." That's why staffers need adequate training about the program, as well as buy-in about the philosophy and the process of creating drinks that are subject to change with every guest, every time. Providing plenty of reference material helps bartenders get better at matching drinks to guests. Park stores several industry books behind the bar, as well as an ever-expanding, 30-page recipe book stocked with classics, house creations and popular FOUNDING FARMERS

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