Utlizing ‘AI’ Artificial Intelligence Software in the Hospitality Industry
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DIAGEO WORLD CLASS 2014 COMPETITION
In this global winner-take-all competition, you’ll compete with bartenders from around the country to show off your speed & efficiency, outstanding service skills, and product knowledge. After the national final, the US winner of World Class will go head-to-head with bartenders from around the globe to determine who will be 2014′s World Class Bartender of the Year! But World Class is much more than a competition. It’s a product knowledge academy; a training facility for adding cutting-edge speed to your accurate pours; and a path toward delivering top-notch service to every guest, every time. Deadline is March 15, 2014.
For more info you can CLICK HERE!
FREE 60 DAY TRIAL OF THE USBG!!!
PRESS RELEASE
For a limited time, the USBG is offering a very special opportunity: The chance to experience our learning, resources and access to industry leaders will be FREE for 60 days. Hurry, this offer expires March 15th!
This is a free, no-strings-attached opportunity to experience USBG and USBGPulse for 60 days. Here’s what we are offering:
This comes at no obligation to you—all you need is an email address. Just click the button below and use registration code “joinusbg” to get started. Membership includes access to USBGPulse, which serves our community online. On USBGPulse, the USBG’s local leaders, events, learning experiences, and national competitions such as World Class are provided to boost your knowledge, expertise and marketability in bartending. Elevating the Craft & improving bartenders’ careers is what we’re all about! If this sounds like something you can get on board with, I hope you’ll sign up and join us. Simply Click Here http://usbgpulse.com/60daytrial/ and enter the trial code “joinusbg” and you’ll be able to start enjoying USBG trial membership immediately!
NIGHTCLUB & BAR SHOW LAS VEGAS, NV 2014
PRESS RELEASE
This is THE industry’s most important bar, nightclub, beverage, restaurant and hospitality event of the year! The Nightclub & Bar Convention and Trade Show is THE right place and THE right time to make connections and learn. More than an event, it’s an experience you can’t afford to miss with 37,000+ industry professionals flocking to the entertainment capital of the world—Las Vegas!
View the digital conference brochure here.
In just 3-days, you’ll take home a year’s worth of business advice:
Nightclub & Bar Show 2014 is marketplace for innovative ideas and opportunities, with over 28 years of delivering an experience like none other. 37,000+ industry professionals attended in 2013 representing the U.S. and 47+ countries. Join us March 24-26, 2014 as this is the right time to conduct business and watch your business grow!
For more info you can CLICK HERE!
THE ST GERMAIN BARTENDER EXCHANGE
Started during the formative years of the cocktail renaissance, the St-Germain Bartender Exchange has been facilitating the interchange of ideas amongst the world top bartenders since 2007. St-Germain arranges for two bartenders from cities around the world to swap bartending shifts over the course of the same three-to-five day period. Bartenders have the chance to learn the host bars menu and share tricks of the trade with fellow cocktail comrades while St-Germain picks up the tab on travel and ground expenses for participants. Past esteemed participants include Phil Ward of Death & Company and Mayahuel (NYC); Brian Miller of Death & Company; Thomas Waugh of Alembic (San Francisco); Kamil Foltan, Zetter Townhouse (London) and Joshua Fontaine of Experimental Cocktail Club and Candelaria (Paris). Bartenders interested in participating in the program can email bartenderexchange@stgermain.fr with the bar and city where they are currently employed and why they should be considered for the next exchange.
For more info you can CLICK HERE!
THE ROADHOUSE UK FLAIR COMPETITION
Roadhouse is an American themed bar & diner in the heart of London’s Covent Garden. Known throughout the world for its phenomenal bartenders and elite bar team, Roadhouse is also reputable for its recruitment process where only the ‘best of the best’ bartenders are selected to grace their presence & skill – making their own contribution to the success of the world famous Roadhouse.
That was then……..the year of 1999. Roadhouse identified the interest on Flair through the bartenders’ skills fast becoming a competitive game on shift, that we recognised the potential of bar teams all over London & beyond that we hosted an in-house Flair competition against another fellow Flair bar team, TGI Fridays. The night was so successful Roadhouse decided to develop the idea and open it up to the public…..this was the night where it all started.
Over the years the competition has been tweaked and molded to move with the times. People change, and so does the face of Flair. Roadhouse remains the leader in this field with the innovation of multi objects and strategic judging criteria. Still working on a ranking system and part of a league, Roadhouse utilises every month to make sure that the grand final holds host to the biggest names of flair in the world.
A special recognition must go out to Brett Seychelle who identified and pursued the interest in Flair to develop the Roadhouse Flair Competition. In addition to all who have participated, competed or contributed to Roadhouse Flair, we also thank previous organisers Troy, Andy Collinson, Lord Tugworth and Jay Du Toit for their involvement and promotion of the Roadhouse Flair competition, for whose efforts have made this competition the biggest in the world!!
FLAIR CALENDAR
Tom Dyer’s winning round from Roadhouse in February.
Open to all international competitors. 2 places will be available for the Grand final in November.
(UK entrants will have their scores separated from international competitors and will be measured against their UK peers for the UK final in August. 3 spaces will be available for the UK Final)
Roadhouse will be holding the third ALL FEMALE flair competition in 13 years. Its a chance for all the great female flairers out there to show off their moves, and compete against an all girl line up. First place will win a whopping £1000, and a place in the Grand Final in November. Its a day not to be missed!!
Open to all international competitors. 2 places will be available for the Grand final in November.
(UK entrants will have their scores separated from international competitors and will be measured against their UK peers for the UK final in August. 3 spaces will be available for the UK Final)
Open to all international competitors. 2 places will be available for the Grand final in November.
(UK entrants will have their scores separated from international competitors and will be measured against their UK peers for the UK final in August. 3 spaces will be available for the UK Final)
Open to all International competitors. 2 places will be available for the Grand Final in November.
Open to all international competitors. 2 places will be available for the Grand final in November.
Every year, the UK’s finest dominate the Roadhouse stage to earn their UK ranking order. Battling it out live on the stage, we witness 25 of Britains Finest Bartenders going head to head, to see who will be crowned the UK champion.
Roadhouse will be holding the fourth ALL FEMALE flair competition in 13 years. Its a chance for all the great female flairers out there to show off their moves, and compete against an all girl line up. First place will win a whopping £1000, and a place in the Grand Final in November. Its a day not to be missed!!
The Zante reunion has been a summer workers tradition thats working its way into its 8th year. After 6 solid months of drinking and working 7 days a week in the bar industry in the sunny island of Zante, all the workers meet up at Roadhouse for one last celebration to raise a glass to a great summer and to cheer on their favourite bartenders/conquests in true Zante style. This is a day NOT to be missed!
DAY 1
The first day of the Grand Final runs between 1pm-5pm, and will see all the World Final competitors completing a working flair drink, and getting their rankings for the next days exhibition flair.
DAY 2
The Grand Final will be in full swing, with the Best in the World competing for a whopping £10 000 1st prize!!!!!
For more info you can CLICK HERE!
J&B UNVEILS SKIN-LIKE TATTOO BOTTLES
By Amy Hopkins
Only 25 skin-coloured bottles of J&B blended whisky were tattooed by hand and sold in two stores in Champs Elysée.
Sébastian Mathieu, owner of Le Sphinx tattoo studio in Paris, reportedly took around 20 hours to complete the design of each bottle.
The bottles are made to look like skin through a complete latex covering and are contained in a customised wooden box which also has a tattoo design.
The design was inspired by the origins of mainstream tattooing practices in the late 19th century – the same period when J&B whisky first launched.
French studio Button Button oversaw the art direction of the collection and claimed there were no immediate plans to release any more bottles.
The bottles were exclusively available in Publicis Drugstore and L’Eclaireur Rue Herold.
SOFT DRINKS INDUSTRY CONTRACTS GADGET FEVER
By Tom Vierhile from Datamonitor
Is at-home carbonation set to be the next battleground for the soft drinks industry?
Are new gadgets the key to turning around the fortunes of the long-suffering CSD market? That is certainly possible with “gadget fever” beginning to sweep through the market on the heels of Coca-Cola Co’s recent purchase of a 10% stake in Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) and the expected roll-out of the firm’s new Keurig Cold machine.
The actual debut of Keurig Cold is not expected to happen until next year, but the revolution won’t wait. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters sold nearly 5m units of its Keurig branded single-cup coffee makers in its most recent fiscal quarter, and single-cup coffee pods have taken over a huge amount of shelf space in the packaged coffee market. The prospect of a machine unleashing a similar frenzy in CSDs is irresistible, and Coca-Cola is acting like Keurig Cold is a long-term game changer.
The Green Mountain Coffee Roasters agreement is for ten years, and reaches across Coca-Cola’s global brand portfolio. On the collaboration, GMCR CEO Brian Kelley said: “We believe there is significant opportunity to premiumise and accelerate growth in the cold beverage category by empowering consumers with an innovative, convenient way to freshly prepare their favourite cold beverage at the push of a button.”
The mechanics of Keurig Cold are believed to be somewhat different from SodaStream’s eponymous machine. SodaStream, actively used in over 6m homes worldwide, uses a cartridge-based system, with carbon dioxide provided in a separate cartridge. Drink flavours are added manually to the carbonated water in a second step during the beverage-making process, although SodaStream has recently launched SodaStream Caps flavour concentrates that make the process more hygienic.
Keurig Cold reportedly does away with the carbon dioxide cartridges and also appears to boil down the process into a single step, something that should please the less technically-inclined consumers. Aside from this, and the fact that Keurig Cold has the potential to be used for a variety of beverages from CSDs to juices, sports drinks, waters and teas, few technical details are known about Keurig Cold.
Little is being said about the ability to customise drinks, a discussion that has come up organically with SodaStream. Already, consumers have found ways to ‘hack’ SodaStream units to create custom cocktails. Aside from warning that the use of anything beyond water in a SodaStream unit may “gunk things up”, SodaStream is not necessarily trying to throw cold water on the practice, and may have actually stumbled over its next great innovation opportunity. SodaStream’s recent collaboration with the popular Skinnygirl cocktail mix brand and a planned mid-2014 launch of Skinnygirl flavours tacitly endorses the concept.
That’s not to say that Coca-Cola itself hasn’t also figured out that customisation carries huge potential. Coca-Cola’s own Freestyle vending machine concept capitalises on customisation to deliver over 100 different soft drink flavours from a single machine.
The key is the use of small cartridges of ‘micro-dosed’ ingredients that can create a multitude of flavour choices – a number of which are only available in the Freestyle format. Freestyle-only flavours like Coca-Cola Raspberry, Sprite Peach, Coca-Cola Cherry Vanilla and Barq’s Vanilla would most likely be non-starters in the packaged arena, given shelf space issues, distribution headaches and production challenges. This may prove to be the real opportunity with Keurig Cold – the ability to become your own soft drink mixologist from the comfort of your own home.
Home-based gadgets could prove to be the ‘sweet spot’ in this coming wave of innovation.
One development to watch is Samsung’s new SodaStream Refrigerator. Launched last year, the refrigerator comes with its own built-in SodaStream-branded sparkling water dispenser. The fruit of a partnership between the two companies, the unit dispenses sparkling water right from the refrigerator door. The dispenser uses a standard SodaStream ‘carbonator’ that rests in a small, concealed area inside the refrigerator. This solves the countertop space issue that Keurig Cold may run into. Saving space is not cheap, though: The Samsung SodaStream Refrigerator carries a retail price of just under US$3,000. And, this fridge does not yet make flavoured soda, but SodaStream says that the ability to do so is “on the horizon.”
SodaStream isn’t putting all of its technological eggs in the Samsung basket, as development on an “all-in-one” water solution called the AquaBar shows. AquaBar is a “plumbed-in, plugged-in” countertop unit that caters to a range of home water needs and completely eliminates the need for plastic bottles. Designed by Stefano Giovannoni, the unit dispenses double-filtered purified water as well as sparkling, hot, cold, and ambient water on a single-serve basis. Not yet available to consumers, despite a flashy 2012 preview, AquaBar opens the door to potentially producing flavoured soft drinks right from the tap, something that could leapfrog Keurig Cold and almost any other at-home carbonation concept.
This collective outbreak of gadget fever presages what Coca-Cola believes could mark a significant shift in consumer markets. The company clearly believes that home is not only where the heart is, it is also where future profits will come from. Indeed, consumers are spending more time at home; between 1999 and 2010, the US Census Bureau logged a 35% increase in American consumers working at least one day from home.
In a BusinessWeek magazine interview, Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent recently said: “When you look at how beverages are consumed at home, and when you look at trends in the next ten years, people are going to spend more time at home.” In that context, Keurig Cold, Samsung’s SodaStream refrigerator and AquaBar may prove to be just the first wave of soft drink gadgets for the home.
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