Spirited performance

Cocktails at Suede and Red Bar

drinks features

spirited performance

liquid assets, features, SEPTEMBER 2006, COMMENTS

Visability, mixability, quality and speed of serve - the crucial elements that determine how well a spirit will work in your club. Managers of four different styles of venue talk to NIGHT about choosings spirits that suit their back bar - and how they make them work.

Suede, Liverpool

High street bar operation finds flexibility and profit potential in value vodka brand

Honeycombe Leisure has developed an estate of over 95 individually managed venues during its 30 year lifespan, with everything from vibrant city centre bars in Liverpool and Manchester, to beautiful waterside hotels in the Lakes. Its Concert Square venue was the first to arrive into this now thriving Liverpool city centre circuit. Over a decade later, the venue continues to trade very strongly.

In the summer, Concert Square’s main attraction is the al fresco drinking area between the venues and Bar Suede’s GM, Makala Ellison, has registered the usual upsurge in cocktail sales that coincides with sunshine. Suede's bar offer includes draught beers and RTDs, but the biggest sellers are spirit / mixers, cocktails and bottled beers.

Says Makala, "We attract an asiprational, fashionable, mainstream crowd, and they like fashionable drinks - which is why the cocktails and bottled beers do so well.”

One of the cornerstones of Suede’s free pour spirit selection is Red Square vodka, which the bar has stocked for six years. “We stock it because it’s triple distilled, which makes it a good tasting vodka that can be drunk over ice, but its also versatile, and can be mixed with a variety of mixers,” she says. “The bottle also has a modern, distinctive design that makes it stand out on the back bar. It’s good value too - which obviously helps.”

This value, explains Halewood’s head of on trade Adrian Hirst, is what’s helping fuel Red Square vodka’s distribution - up 22% in the on trade this year.

“We don’t purport to be a top end product but for mainstream clubs and venue bars, Red Square vodka offers a tremendous opportunity to enhance general profit,” he says. “By pairing it with the right mixer to suit specific occasions - by selling ‘Red on Red’ [Red Square Vodka with Halewood’s Red Alert energy drink], for example - the product can deliver 5-15% more return than a competitor equivalent.”

Red Bar, Soho

High end cocktail bar takes an innovative approach to often overlooked back bar staple

The number of ways you serve a spirit will affect how much value is deliverd to your business. If you only sell gin with tonic, for example, you’re limiting the appeal of the drink to people who like tonic. If you offer it with cranberry or bitter lemon, suddenly it can become attractive to a much wider audience. And if you can get people buying spirits instead of alternative drinks on a more regular basis, the implications for profit are huge.

Think of the most mixable spirits and chances are you’ll think of vodka, or maybe rum. But according to head bartender Mitch Hafizov at one of Soho’s most established cocktail bars, Red, there’s another spirit you need to consider. Southern Comfort has been a regular fixture on Red’s back bar since the venue’s launch, featuring in many of the cocktails on its extensive list.

“It’s so versatile - it goes with anything,” he says. The bar, just a stone’s throw from the Cosmopolitan magazine offices, has a reputation for great drinks, great ambience and great music - and staff keep regulars happy by constantly updating the available selection of drinks. The venue’s approach to cocktails made them an appropriate choice as host for the recent Southern Comfort Training Roadshow in London.

“Red Bar is really service focused and the staff are very knowledgeable about drink brands, including Southern Comfort,” confirms Bruce Ray, Trade Marketing Manager for Bacardi Brown Forman Brands. “Staff are really helpful in recommending drinks to customers as well, which is great for their patrons who are new to cocktails and also works in Red’s favour as they up-sell from default choices to a classic drink like the SoCo Smash or the SoCo Mule.”

“Customers are always asking questions,” explains Mitch. “We encourage this by doing branded cocktail evenings for members where their first drink is free, to get them trying new things, and we also change the back bar regularly to generate interest in what we stock.”

The Fridge, Brixton

Dance club secures a slice of the cocktail action with refreshing, easy serve drinks

One of London’s largest clubs, The Fridge is a London institution that underwent a refit in 2004 to see the 1930s former theatre restored to its former glory - and a state-of-the-art sound and light system installed.

The 1,500 capacity venue trades three nights a week and has a reputation for well attended, hot and sticky, hands-in-the-air style dance events. Until earlier this year, the club’s drinks offer consisted solely of bottled products - but when the Jose Cuervo brand team offered GM Marco Barrancos one of their new frozen margarita machines, things started to get a little more interesting. The machines - of which 60 have so far been distributed since their introduction to market in May - lend themselves to large clubs, explains GB Tequila Ambassador for Jose Cuervo distributors Diageo GB, Mark Barrett.

“The machines are suited to high volume late night outlets because of their speed of serve - and the fact that with minimal management they can keep churning out frozen drinks of a consistent quality all night.”The branded frozen margarita machines can generate up to 150 10 oz servings in one hour, and are part of Jose Cuervo’s mission to grow the current interest in tequila in both the on and off trade. At The Fridge, the strategy is working. “We’ve gone from selling 1.5 cases to seven or eight each week,” comments Barrancos. “Clubbers didn’t understand what we were selling at first, but we did some sampling, and put some posters up explaining what frozen margaritas are, and now they’re really popular. The great thing is that a lot of this is incremental sales.”

“There’s a definite buzz about the tequila category at the moment but we’ve still got a long way to go to eradicate the misunderstanding and stereotypes,” adds Mark Barrett. “The quality of classic tequila cocktail the margarita varies enormously, and one bad experience can put people off tequila altogether. We’re hoping that by providing a consistently great product, consumers will start to recognise the machines as a quality kite mark - which will in turn engender confidence in the tequila category and encourage repeat purchase.”

Jimmy's Club, Bournemouth

Glamorous style club picks spirits to suit the aspirational attitude of its R&B loving clientele

MD of Bournemouth’s City Centre Leisure Group, Josh Simons sought out bright blue speciality liquor Hpnotiq for his high-end nightclub Jimmy’s after his DJs spotted it in US R&B videos.
“Jimmy’s is a glitzy, glamorous club where we play R&B and pop music, and Hpnotiq fitted,” he explains. “We’ve now been stocking it for about a year.

”Hpnotiq joined an extensive spirit range already available at the 200 capacity club, which pitches itself at the aspirational end of the local market. Jimmy’s affluent clientele is consumed by cocktail culture and the club caters for their thirst with a bespoke approach - asking clubbers for their favourite spirit and flavours and producing a drink to suit, rather than working off a set list.

Events co-hosted with the brand - such as the recent Hpnotiq Clubber Tour, which started its 10 date UK tour at Jimmy’s in August - have been key in driving sales. The club sells between four and six cases of Hpnotiq - a blend of vodka, fruit juice and cognac - over two nights’ trading each week, with clubbers opting to drink it in shots, over ice or with champagne. A table rather than dance club, they often sell the spirit by the bottle, for groups of clubbers to sip throughout the night.

Realisation Director Glen Gribbon has had responsibility for the brand since it was acquired by Chartered Brands earlier this year. “We are very excited about the opportunity for Hpnotiq in the UK,” he says, pointing to clubs like Jimmy’s that demonstrate how well it can work in the right context. “We’re marketing a unique and clearly distinguishable speciality liqueur which has great potential. The brand will be supported by targeted sampling activity and in the forthcoming launch of a new UK specific website to reinforce the UK positioning of the brand and firmly link the product with celebrity lifestyle and dance music.

“Our job will be to ensure that the product is positioned correctly within our target market’s repertoire of drinks, using the bespoke UK lifestyle associated PR campaign to build awareness and strengthen the brand.”

Words: Alex Eyre

From: September 2006 Issue

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