Getting Personal

Back in the day when I first set out on my voyage of cocktail discovery and didn’t know my vermouth from my vodka or my bitters from my bourbon, much of my judgement of how good a bar was was determined by the quality of service I received.  In the main, I wanted those who served me to be affable individuals who delivered my drink efficiently and with a smile.  Whilst I could spot a terrible drink, many of the subtleties between similar drinks were lost.  Over time and with a lot of practice I learned about my own taste preferences and it wasn’t long before I was correctly guessing the gin used in my Negroni or rum in my Daiquiri.  With such knowledge came a focus on the drinks themselves, and for a period I considered the level of service to be second in importance.

As time passed it became apparent that once I became skilled in picking out drinks from a menu that were likely to appeal to my taste preferences, the vast majority of drinks that I consumed fell into the ‘good but not great’ category.  Occasionally I would hit upon one that would stop me in my tracks, making me sit up and take notice.  But for the most part, the drinks themselves were broadly as enjoyable as each other and so much of the anticipation of what was to arrive in my glass receded.  This was coupled with the realisation of the importance of service in providing differentiation between bars.

 

On a superficial level most cocktail bars that would generally be considered to be decent offer a reasonable level of service; certainly they don’t stand out as being bad.  But hailing from the service industry myself, I know that genuinely excellent service means more than just being generally amiable.  To be at the top of one’s game what is required is to tailor the service to the individual; to make it personal.  And it is here that we hit upon a problem: truly personalized service in even the most highly acclaimed bars is a very rare thing.  The problem, it seems, is that too few bartenders and floor staff ask themselves the question “who is this customer in front of me, what are their needs, and how can I best meet them?”  The result; service that is pretty much the same irrespective of who you are or what you want.

Ultimately, cocktail bars operate in the service industry and for those aspiring to be at the premium end of the market individual service is crucial to their long-term success.  It might not be fashionable, nor easy to market, but let’s hope that the next phase of cocktail culture moves on from obsessing about the drinks and onto getting personal.

 

 

The Cocktail Geek