{"id":9436,"date":"2013-02-06T18:32:14","date_gmt":"2013-02-06T17:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.socialandcocktail.co.uk\/?p=9436"},"modified":"2014-07-28T18:04:13","modified_gmt":"2014-07-28T17:04:13","slug":"professional-cocktail-bartenders-for-all-events-we-interview-the-bartender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialandcocktail.co.uk\/professional-cocktail-bartenders-for-all-events-we-interview-the-bartender\/","title":{"rendered":"Professional Cocktail Bartenders for all Events!! We Interview “The Bartender”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bartender<\/a><\/p>\n

Cocktail Bartenders<\/strong> have never been more in demand. Professional mixologists<\/strong>, mobile cocktail bars<\/strong>, uniformed waiters<\/strong> and even a bit of “cocktail flairing”<\/strong> have all become the latest must-have<\/em> at the typical fun-packed birthday\u00a0celebration,\u00a0office party, hen party or just a standard girls house party. Many cocktail services have launched across the UK over the last decade, offering tailored cocktail party solutions, from cocktail bar menus, waiters, bartenders, cocktail making classes, mobile cocktail bars and even cocktail waiters in the buff!<\/p>\n

We decided to get an interview with The Bartender<\/strong>, one of the most well respected and successful businesses offering cocktail bartenders and consultancy in the UK. The Bartender<\/strong><\/a> was officially set up by Lewis J. Spindlove<\/strong> in May 2007, although he had been playing with the idea since September 2005. The company is based out of Bristol and the strong growth of the company over the years has been mainly down to word-of-mouth, although they also have a team of business development and marketing managers who concentrate on targeted PR and advertising.<\/p>\n

What is the concept behind The Bartender?<\/h3>\n

When we first started, there were a lot of large cocktail companies offering fantastic services to include mobile cocktail bars, drinks, staff – the whole package. Unfortunately we didn’t have any of those resources as a tiny one-man band, so offered a simple ‘bartender hire’ service where the client could purchase their own stock, glassware and prepare a table to use as a mobile bar. We began writing shopping lists based upon the client’s cocktail preferences to ensure that everything we needed was there. As we progressed and became busier and busier, we made the decision to purchase mobile cocktail bars, glassware and lease a unit to house everything in. Now we still offer our great bartender hire service with the option of adding extras such as bars, glassware, stock etc.<\/p>\n

Whats your Unique Selling Point?<\/h3>\n

As far as I know, we are the only bartender hire that can offer our services the width and breadth of the UK. We have a really great team of approx 150 cocktail bartenders scattered in all the major cities in England<\/strong>, Wales<\/strong> and Scotland<\/strong> and we hope to offer this in Northern Ireland<\/strong> soon also. We also have a training scheme in place to recruit even more bartenders across the first half of 2013 to ensure we always have staff available.<\/p>\n

Do you cater for the home market or corporate events?<\/h3>\n

Our focus is on home events, however we do a large number of corporate events too, especially across Christmas time. These usually consist of us sending a team, bar etc to an office and turning a simple conference room into an awesome cocktail bar.<\/p>\n

\"THE<\/a><\/p>\n

Do you think there will be a big increase in cocktail services such as The Bartender in 2013 and beyond?<\/h3>\n

We have seen many of our past cocktail bartenders set up their own companies, some with success, most just as one-man band as a sideline to their main career. Unfortunately if the market does become saturated, clients looking to save a buck will often choose one of these sideline companies, who more often than not do not have the resources or large staff numbers to cater for any accidents or errors. If their main bartender breaks his ankle on the day of the party, they won’t be able to replace them and will let the client down. This is where we differ – we have back-up bartenders across the UK ready and waiting to replace any bartenders at the drop of a hat (including me!). We regularly receive calls from clients who have been let down last minute.<\/p>\n

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How do you train your staff and what do you think makes a good cocktail bartender \/ waiter?<\/h3>\n

If we receive an application from a skilled bartender, we will ask them to attend one of our events on a trial shift so that we can vet them and show them how we run our events. If they do well and we like the way they work, we can send them on events almost immediately.<\/p>\n

Unskilled cocktail bartenders will attend a training day in their city headed up by our training manager James<\/strong>, who will go through the basics of event bartending. They will then attend an event on a trial basis before being let loose on small parties on their own. We have a number of guys who have started out like this and gone on to become really great event bartenders.<\/p>\n

Are people becoming more knowledgeable & demanding about cocktails?<\/h3>\n

Definitely. I’m still shocked when we are asked to work an 18th Birthday and the birthday girl demands a Raspberry Mojito<\/strong><\/a>! When I was 18 all I knew about cocktails was that they came in a funny glass, but I could never name one! We provide a great service called the Cocktail Clinic<\/strong> which we use to teach small groups the basics of cocktails and for them to have a go at making the drinks. Sometimes the groups know so much about cocktails I’m blown away!<\/p>\n

What cocktails prove to be continually popular for your business?<\/h3>\n

We have a list of the top ten cocktails of 2012 viewable here: thebartender.co.uk\/archives<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"Bartender<\/a><\/p>\n

Do you believe cocktail making will become more popular at home or do people still prefer to leave it to the experts?<\/h3>\n

Bit of both. People love having parties at home as they feel like a celebrity in their own living room, with their own private bartender for the night – it’s not just about the cocktails, it’s about the atmosphere having a bar with free cocktails made by a charming and chatty bartender creates. However, if you’re a cocktail aficionado, with great preference over rare and obsure ingredients, visiting a great bar will always win – as long as you don’t mind paying for your drinks!<\/p>\n

Do you think cocktails are still mainly seen as a “girls drink” or is this attitude shifting?<\/h3>\n

Shifted years ago. Often when discussing drinks requirements with a client, they will say “there’s going to be 50 guests, but half of them are men and they won’t want a cocktail” – this is never the case. As soon as Mr. Ale of Beer Road sees a bartender making some crazy concoction, the immortal line is “well I’ve never tried one, so I’ll work from the top to the bottom of the menu!”.
\nEven among the younger market, guys see cocktails as the drink of choice – can you count the Jager Bomb<\/a> in that?<\/p>\n

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What is planned in 2013 for The Bartender?<\/h3>\n

A lot! Three new office staff employed as of January as well as a new operations manager, all being trained under the watchful eye of our bookings manager Chlo\u00eb. We’ve also got two new vans arriving next month, all with the aim for The Bartender to become bigger, busier and better than ever.<\/p>\n

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Cocktail Bartenders have never been more in demand. Professional mixologists, mobile cocktail bars, uniformed waiters and even a bit of “cocktail flairing” have all become the latest must-have at the typical fun-packed birthday\u00a0celebration,\u00a0office party, hen party or just a standard … Continue →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":9440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1308],"tags":[1311,1315,2040,1312,1313,1316,1314],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialandcocktail.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9436"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialandcocktail.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialandcocktail.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialandcocktail.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialandcocktail.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9436"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialandcocktail.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14331,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialandcocktail.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9436\/revisions\/14331"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialandcocktail.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialandcocktail.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialandcocktail.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialandcocktail.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}