Jorge Balbontin

Age: 47
Originally from: Santiago, Chile
Profession: Brand Development Manager
At: Barcelona

Jorge Balbontin is on a mission to break down the barrier, that mystical glass wall, that exists between the bartender, with his secret kingdom behind the bar and the consumer, and to do so he’s got some enterprising strategies underway. Just as gastronomy and wine have laid themselves open, he believes that the world of spirits and cocktails should be open too. With his passion for the industry, and as a born communicator, he’s certainly got the tools to do so.

Cocktails in buckets

A Chilean national, Jorge was born in Cuba “by mistake”. “My father didn’t like Pinochet and Pinochet said to him why don’t you just go”.

His family returned to rural southern Chile, thousands of kilometres from Santiago, when Jorge was just one. At his father’s behest, but knowing it wasn’t really for him, he had a go at a philosophy degree but after just a year he was back in the country working on the land with a chainsaw and in local bars. And here he learnt just how much he loved the human interaction that bar life offered.

A couple of years later when a friend offered him free accommodation in Barcelona he jumped at the opportunity, but not without first blowing on farewell parties virtually all the travelling cash his father had given him. A contact in Barcelona came up with a job in Magaluf, Majorca where his baptism into the European bar scene was “horrible cocktails served in buckets”. “My question to the customer would be would you like a litre, five litres, seven litres or fifteen litres? And what colour would you like? Flavour wasn’t mentioned”

Becoming a specialist

Magaluf was also where he met his future wife Gemma, and the two of them decided to give London a go. Though he had no knowledge of tequila and knew nothing about the place where he was about to start work, Jorge took a job advertised in the paper and ended up in Tomas Estes’ Cafe Pacifico as a bartender. Here he worked his way up to Bar Manager and learnt everything there is to know about tequila. “I really needed to know what I was talking about. The brands offered us A-class training and sometimes we were even taken to Mexico. I was inspired by Tomas Estes who is one of the greatest communicators I ever met”.

When the offer came to be Brand Ambassador for Cuervo, Jorge and Gemma moved to Barcelona and Jorge progressed to Global Brand Ambassador. It was incredibly hard work, “travelling the world, presenting in the same week in Siberia and Australia, so from minus 29 degrees centigrade to plus 34 degrees in the same week”.

Four-and-a-half years on and Jorge became increasingly concerned about the narrow range of his knowledge. “I wanted to learn more about other categories and products.”

Back to the university of life

Thanks to the incredible patience of his wife, Jorge then spent an extraordinary year in London working, often for nothing, in the city’s best cocktail bars. “Some people go to university, in bartending I came back to London and I worked in the best places, some of them paid me but some didn’t.” And so Jorge did the rounds of Milk & Honey, Callooh Callay, Barrio North, Nightjar, The Lonsdale and 69 Colebrooke Row.

There was also some consultancy work for Global Premium Brands (now Vantguard) which eventually turned into a full time role as Brand Ambassador and later Brand Development Manager.

“There are just eight people in the company. The thing that keeps me alive and turns me on is that because we are so very few the hierarchy is flat, I can really speak my mind to the owner and be really involved. It’s hard word but the reward of being part of what you had as an idea three weeks or ago is really rewarding and motivating.”

“When I started in the role the company needed to talk to bartenders and explain production processes and versatility with drinks. We needed to gain credibility in the bartending scene which was growing very rapidly at that time in key cities like Ibiza, Barcelona, Seville and Madrid”

Breaking down the invisible wall

Now, four years later, the company has a strong reputation and with Jorge’s help has begun to evolve a new marketing strategy. “It’s now not about trying to make people fall in love one by one, we need to be more strategic which is why we are developing strategies to get consumers and bartenders to understand better through us. “We need to talk to the premium consumer, and we need to offer unique experiences or moments. We still want bartenders to be our vehicle so we are still in communication with them.”

So what is this new approach? Well in a nutshell it’s about educating and inspiring the consumer through interactive experiences. “We may say to a bartender in Berlin we can offer your premium experience loving customers a Mediterranean evening with Gin Mare” and Jorge will get the bartender out from behind the bar and set him up at a table with the customers making cocktails. “My work is to make this whole concept appealing to the bartender so that he can flow the product message through to the premium consumer. “The distance between what happens behind the bar and the consumer is a physical distance that is too wide. “The consumer doesn’t know what’s going on behind the bar, it’s a scary place for him so he’s not even going to try and understand it. That’s why a lot of people still order the same safe comfortable drink.”

By making the bar visit more experiential Jorge intends that the moment of consumption will be more approachable, more friendly. “The worlds of gastronomy and wine have managed this. Now the bartending trade is asking for this kind of thing, for more depth”.

Is a good cocktail bartender equivalent to a sommelier then? “Sommeliers are a little bit enclosed in wine and maybe cognacs and whiskies, they never got their heads around other categories or cocktails whatsoever. “On the other hand the bartender often has a limited vocabulary when it comes to flavours. Both trades can learn from each other, but in the sense of the service that a sommelier offers in assisting you make an informed decision, yes.”

Startender or bartender?

Jorge has clear ideas on what makes a really good bartender. “…someone who remains humble and understands that he can always learn something else. He knows that his primary objective is to satisfy the needs of his customer. It’s all about service. If he thinks it’s about showing off or being the quirkiest one he won’t be a versatile bartender”.

“Though a good bartender needs to know a bit about every category, technique and possible drink he definitely needs to take a conscious decision to be a specialist in a particular area, such as agave spirits or gin. “Be the best in your field so that you become completely necessary. “Being bar manager of the Pacifico gave me a number of things, one of which was knowledge about tequila as a category”.

Global Premium Brands is doing well as a distributor in its home market of Iberica where it achieves 50 percent of its sales, with the sum of all other countries accounting for the other 50 percent. “There are really big things to come this year. We’ve just opened distribution in the US. By the end of 2015 were going to be rocking and rolling in China, another planet, in all senses – in its way of thinking, of doing business, in language, in skills and in consumption.”

A Bartender at Heart

And what are Jorge’s dreams for the future? “I would like to be involved in the development of a brand from scratch and be 100 percent part of the brand”. But at heart Jorge is a bartender, whether he’s behind the bar or not, so inevitably he can’t avoid the never ending dream that one day he’ll have his own bar. If he wanted to make money it would be in London but really he’d like a place in the mountains near Barcelona. It wouldn’t be profitable, he says. “It would be a place to hang around with friends. I won’t get many customers but I will have a great time.”