Myths and legends in the cocktail card

It's always very interesting to try something new, isn't it? There is a huge number of amazing bars with incredible cocktail cards. Sorted by blocks and tastes, by main ingredients or strong part, but I would like to tell you about something else.

During my time in the hospitality industry, I noticed that most guests remember cocktails in any way, but not by their names: "You used to have such a red one, with foam! Can I have it?" or "Last time I had something with whiskey, there was a big ice cube in it." I think every bartender has heard this phrase more than once. And when I told a guest about a new product or just a bottle that is on the shelf, most often he lost his interest very quickly to the boring description of the characteristics of production, aroma and taste. I noticed a similar situation when colleagues were learning the cocktail card - without much interest and by heart, just because you need to know it.

Before I started working on my cocktail card for the Social Club restaurant, I analyzed every conversation about a cocktail or alcohol with guests and colleagues, went to other bars and asked about different cocktails on their menu, trying to understand why they have such a name. The most frequent response about the name was: "Yes, we just took this name and called it like that".

On one of the shifts, a man sat down at the bar and, without looking at the menu, declared boldly "Milan-Torino". At first it seemed to me that everything is logical, this is a classic, and everyone knows the classics. After a short dialogue with him, I realized that once a long time ago, his friend the bartender told him the story of this cocktail and why it has this name, although the guest himself did not even remember the composition, even if there is only a couple of ingredients.

Then I immediately realized which direction I wanted to go when creating a cocktail card. Anyway, even from my childhood, I remember fairy tales best of all! I remember interesting facts, myths, legends and stories best of all. After that, I began to talk about alcohol and cocktails not from the side of the characteristics and history of the plant, but from the side of the legend of each drink! This approach attracted much more attention from the guests, and some of them even started looking for something interesting about their favorite drink and shared it with me.

After analyzing all of the above, my team and I came up with 15 cocktails, 13 of which have their own unique history, from allusions to the work of William Shakespeare to spells from the books of J. K. Rowling, from references to the Beatles to mascots of medieval navigators. The main idea was not to invent a story about a particular cocktail, but to make it not just relevant, but inextricably linked to it. A wide range of stories helps you find more interesting topics to communicate with our guests.

I was pleasantly surprised by the result:

   
1. Thanks to the stories, my colleagues learned the composition of cocktails on the menu faster.
   
2. Guests remembered the name and main ingredients better, while getting not just a drink, but also an interesting dialogue about it.

Here are some of them:

Green Eyes

Gin Tanqueray Infused rosemary, Midori, Apple-vanilla cordial.

Avada Kedavra - refers to the three unforgivable spells, for the use of which you can get a life sentence in Azkaban. Our spell is the same color, but absolutely safe and delicious.

Aquamarine

Gin, Absinth, Blue Curacao, Sparkling Wine, Sorrel Cordial.

Aquamarine has the ability to change its hue when the weather changes, just as the sea changes its color in clear weather and in a storm. The pale blue color fades to a greenish hue before rain or storm. It is for this quality that aquamarine was highly valued by medieval navigators. No matter what part of the world they went to, they always took with them aquamarine talismans that showed them the right way and protected them from storms. Ancient navigators believed that aquamarine is the materialized soul of the sea. It was believed that it was able to tame and calm sea storms.

Mexican Pink

Tequila Blanco, Dry and Sweet Vermouth, Maraschino infused Parsley, Purple Basil cordial, Olive.

Artist and designer Ramón Valdiosera many years ago marked the beginning of mass and the conscious use of the color, which varies from fuchsia to bright pink tones – as one of the symbols of the country. He was involved in promoting Mexican culture, and in 1949, at a fashion show in new York at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, one of the journalists asked where this color came from, to which Ramón replied: "It is part of Mexican culture." After that, this color was called "Mexican pink".

Shakespeare's Final

Gin infused Butterfly Pea Tea, Aperol, Dry Vermouth, Barberry syrup, Plume Bitter.

An allusion to William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet". The main flavors - barberry and plum - are two plants that, according to the law of nature, cannot grow side by side, but we decided to fix it. The cocktail is served in a small bottle, not because it is a poison, but because it is an antidote to the sad stories in the lives of our guests.

Yellow Submarine

Vodka, Dry Vermouth, Suze, Vanilla-Apple cordial, Pickled Capers.

A famous song of the legendary band "the Beatles". Few people know, but most of their songs were recorded at Apple Records, whose logo was a Granny Smith Apple. Yes, this is the kind of Apple we use to make cordials for cocktails.

James Bond's Secret

Rum, Cynar, Chartreuse Jeanne, Dry Vermouth, Red sweet vermouth, Pineapple cordial, Marinated Pineapple.

In the 1960s, in Italy, "Cynar" was actively promoted by commercials on television, in one of which agent 007 received extraordinary abilities after drinking this drink.

Mike Fedotovsky is the bar manager at Social Club in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Follow Mike on Instagram @mike_socialclub_spb