Journal
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WORLD WHISKEY DAY – May 20th
Imported whiskies are growing in volume and value, and more outlets are choosing to stock them - make sure you have a couple up your sleeve that work as a strong upsell or a familiar favourite
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Alt // Spritz
The last year has seen spritz serves hit the 7th most popular cocktail in the UK*, and growing only behind the flavoured Martini in popularity...
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Irish Spirit
With gin, rum and tequila booming, it can be easy to overlook categories that can still be filled with potential that are a little less high profile. Whisky remains the second biggest spirits category in the off trade, only beaten by vodka, and is the only spirit to be on par with sales compared to three years ago*, meaning that there is a clear appetite
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Slammer Horror
For years the word ‘tequila’ inspired thoughts of sticky floors, hangovers and pangs of regret. The salt/tequila/lime ritual was born of a necessity to mask cheap spirit, which is apt given what we had to work with for far too long. Thankfully the spirit has managed to – mostly – shake this identity off in favour of premium production and serves
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Creating a Hit List
Creating a cocktail menu for your outlet can be a pretty personal experience. A lot of operators have worked their way up through bartending, making a cocktail menu refresh a pretty hands-on experience. Some prefer to let their bar team take on some ownership and create a menu between them, where some like to outsource entirely. There’s no real right answer here, just what works best for you and the time that you have available, but creating a cocktail menu always comes back to the same thing: balance
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Bean Machine
Coffee cocktails have been on many menus for a while now, the espresso martini now an essential addition to every spirits-led bar. We ask Patrick Kempinski, Reserve World Class Bartender of the Year 2018 for Kenya, why his is so special
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Highballing It
Tall, fast, profitable and unimaginably diverse - we're getting into it up to the highballs (and we promise that's it with the highball puns)
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WHISKY & ANYTHING
Ervin Trykowski spent years honing his craft as a bartender in the best bars, and also set up the Glasgow Bartenders Club. He now works as the global Scotch Whisky Ambassador for Diageo, and here tells us why the spirit is the perfect foil for food.