Instant cocktails
From deepest Yorkshire comes the story of Pete the Postman. Having celebrated the end of each shift with the same pint of bitter in his local for several decades, he suddenly switched to Margaritas.
It's the kind of tale that does the rounds whenever a new type of drink is introduced to the pub mix, but you get the impression there may be something to it with cocktails. The growing acceptance of spirit-and-mixer long drinks in the traditional end of the on-trade is not in doubt, and now there is a host of products on the market designed to make mixing a cocktail as easy as, well, posting a letter through a letterbox.
The benefits to pubs of cocktails are clear, but so are the downsides. They offer incredibly high margins compared with beer. But, for busy staff not trained to the levels of a bartender on the high street, and working behind a cramped bar lacking resources, there are major practical issues.
That's where products such as Funkin, Finest Call and Stirrings come in.
Picking up increasing distribution, they are blends of the ingredients found in classic cocktails. Open, add to a measure of spirit and ice and there you have it - a good-looking cocktail for which you can charge between £3 and £6. West Eleven, meanwhile, is a posh ready-to-drink (RTD), with the spirit already combined with the mixer in the bottle, but made from premium ingredients that differentiate it from a WKD or a Smirnoff Ice.
Funkin founder and MD Alex Carlton explains that his mixers evolved from his attempts to market an earlier purée product to pubs. To make a classic cocktail with these fruit purées, staff needed a spirit, ice, sugar syrup and a squeeze of lemon or lime.
To someone with a diverse background in hospitality, this seemed simple, but it proved too complicated a process for pubs. This gave rise to the range that is now the main Funkin product for pubs.
Spirits brand owners too are latching on to how easy cocktails need to be to produce for pubs to make them. They are realising the virtues of the new wave of mixer products. Bacardi has been running a campaign since last summer that aims to persuade pubs how profitable and easy it is to make Mojitos.
Last month, the rum producer partnered with Funkin to launch a co-branded mixer, realising it needed to further simplify the process in many cases.
"Bacardi were being ambitious in urging licensees to sell a Mojito made from scratch," says Carlton. "But being able to offer a cocktail, however it's made, is a good weapon in a pub's armoury."
Funkin increasingly consults with brand owners to develop mixers based on cocktails that have enough mainstream popularity to appeal to pub customers. For example, it recently worked with gin brand Bombay Sapphire on a Bramble product.
Despite this clear need to simplify cocktails, Carlton says he has been surprised by the appetite for cocktail culture among pubs. Even though the instructions on packs of Funkin don't mention cocktail shakers as a requirement, many barstaff choose to make the drinks in the devices. "They feel empowered by it," he says.
It is the theatre and visual appeal that come with serving the drink that largely drive cocktail sales. Carlton stresses the need to promote any cocktails you're serving around your bar. "Menus are very important," he says. "In an establishment where they have not tried cocktails before, persuading people to order them is a visual thing. And, as soon as one customer orders one, others will say 'I want one of those'."
Maybe that's how Pete the Postman started on Margaritas.
- Click on Related Stories to see a range of cocktail mixers put to the test behind the bar, and case studies showing the profits being made by pubs making Funkin cocktails
