Cocktail Culture - Be the Pie, not just a Slice

Cocktail culture in the last decade has become prolific in most major cities and has spread to any city with an ambitious bartender and an open-minded bar owner. Events like Tales of the Cocktail, Portland Cocktail Week and San Antonio Cocktail Conference showcase the best and brightest from around the world, further fueling the spread of the culture into smaller markets. Take these gatherings of industry professionals and add in multiple websites, cocktail books and resources available to create a cocktail culture in your corner of the world.

           But when we start to break down the metrics of the cocktail business or for craft beer and wine, the saturation point of knowledgeable clients that utilize our services is quite low. We currently exist in a bubble somewhat, social media and the algorithm that funnels information onto our feeds whether it be Facebook, Instagram and Twitter shows us that the bar world we exist in is somehow making a difference within the population that our bar exists. Going back to the knowledge point saturation of your city, when reflecting on the work I have been a part of in my hometown of Victoria, British Columbia and my travels; I would postulate that most cities have a ten percent saturation point of knowledgeable, passionate and loyal consumers. And this figure isn’t a straight-line extrapolation compared to population, it is more of a bell curve where the sweet spot is the right size city population somewhere in the middle between a small town and a big city like London or New York.

           This saturation point of consumers is an integral piece in the sustainability of the culture whether drinks or food. Without a continued growth of the consumer base, the explosion of cocktail culture in a city can fizzle as quickly as it blew up. This leads me to an analogy that don’t be a slice of the pie, make the pie bigger. This came out of a conversation I had with a liquor rep years ago, I was about to leave my long-term post at Clive’s Classic Lounge to open my own space and after that a couple more other venues in the city. He asked me what I thought about opening or updating these venues and just cutting up the same size pie that two venues in the city occupied; it got me to thinking about not being a slice of the pie but being the baker making the pie.

           Creating a bigger saturation point of knowledgeable consumers is a multiple tier strategy that encompasses your staff, the guest, the venue and the city. Firstly, you must spend 3c on consumer education to every 1c on bartender education; if you host an industry tasting during the day, then you replicate that tasting for your guests; for free. Bartenders will self-educate themselves on their craft but educating the clientele on the exact same knowledge the bartenders have will raise the bar on both sides of the bar. The aligned elevation of both the industry and the consumer will make it easier in the long run to introduce new products, techniques and cocktails into your venue. When your venue becomes the epicenter of consumercentric events that raise awareness to brands, brand ambassadors and visiting bartenders; it creates a sense of mutual comradery but also expands on the market base or the pie if you will.

           Creating this epicenter for the culture and scene attracts more notable speakers to the market, these speakers most often than not are industry stalwarts that vote for various awards and recognition. There has been a lot of negativity around awards, whether it’s “only big cities get noticed” or “we don’t need this award anyway”; which is an opinion you can have. From personal experience from being in a small market, that a nomination or award can lead to media and marketing (that most small venues can’t afford) and notoriety that can mean the difference with breaking even or making profit. For good or bad, attention is a great asset to any business and in many markets, there is either not enough or too much creating a lot of white noise.

           Your venue has become the cocktail culture epicenter, creating meaningful education programs for both the industry and the consumer, you find that you can push the envelope with your drinks further than ever before because your guests know what they want. Brands and ambassadors reach out to you to host events because they know the ROI is larger than other markets and you’ve scored the attention of awards shows across the world which has led to more free media, guest shifts and accelerated brand awareness. All of this has been based on the philosophy of making the pie bigger instead of just being a slice.