Whilst I could write a thesis on my findings, these are 5 things you need to know to get in, and stay in, the most influential venues of the on-trade.

Advocate for the advocates.

Our industry pours vast sums of money into trying to win over the bartenders that make the trade go round. But for some reason this logic hasn’t spilled over to the kit we supply them. By far the most loathed item from anyone I spoke to was branded tools. Namely because they’re almost always mass-produced, cheaply made and terrible quality. A brand ambassador I spoke to referred to brands doing this as ‘spreading glitter’. It might catch your eye initially but it’s going to end up in the bin and it’s killing the planet . Whether gifting individuals or supplying for service, create or source to the same standard the best hold themselves to.

Get rid of that glassware.

From luxury hotel to cutting-edge indie, venues go to great lengths to curate every aspect of the experience. Glassware is no exception and the choices made not only compliment these spaces but represent them. Luxury brands understand this well enough to style their studio shoots, but not to influence what they commission for the trade. The Moonpig school of glassware design, i.e. slap a logo on something that can be bought in units of 10,000, is fine for pubs and chain bars, not for The World’s 50 Best.

The bottom line is these bars are in themselves brands, so unless you’re also paying for them to be used, you’re diluting the most important brand in the hierarchy. It’s generally a hard sell but if you insist, do something different. Work with the trends of the moment, be a bit sneaky with design, make 500 standouts and disperse tactically.

Make it big.

As established the more exclusive the venue the slimmer the chances your merch will be left pride of place for long. The one exception? Magnums, Jeroboams, Balthazars. For those of you who don’t speak French that’s big bottles. Ornamental grandness naturally draws the eye in a busy space, and on a backbar they bring a kind of titillating hedonism to even the most proper of establishments. The same can be said for ice buckets, props, and figurines. Although staff will have a lot less fun nipping pours from them after a shift.

Make it personal.

Everyone likes to feel special, bars are no exception. For those with deep enough pockets a long-term view cultivating relationships can look like custom-made bitters, edible perfumes, collaborative serviceware collections. Some even commission bespoke liquids. But for those without, it is still truly the thought that counts. Never underestimate the power of an engraving laser.

Make it beautilitarian.

The pieces that routinely stood out were a mixture of beautiful and useful. Stuff that made bartenders lives better and looked good doing it. Often we saw this done intuitively, the inherent human desire to keep a little box and use it for something else, does not stop when the sleeve garters go on. But you only need to witness one service to observe metal spill trays will last when rubber bar runners disintegrate in a dishwasher. Garnishes are always housed at eye-level on the counter. Beautiful ceramics make chic tip jars. There’s marginal gains to be made and a plethora of gaps to plug that could make everyone happy.
Except whoever creates the POS catalogue.

P.S. If you’ve made it this far spare a thought for George. My tour mate & design partner in crime, who was so sick of me by the time this was over he moved to Australia.

P.P.S. Imbibine is also on Instagram.

In the world of drinks, celebrity alcohol has become a fixture not a feature, and we consumers have an uncanny skill identifying who isn’t drinking their own cool aid.

Having made a Daily Mail sidebar or two for her tequila consumption over the years it’s refreshing to see someone who genuinely has right to play, enter the category, as Megan Thee Stallion launches her long-anticipated tequila brand.

Chicas Divertidas has the kind of Polly Pocket tactility that millennials of a certain age will understand on sight. Set within a world best described as Moulin Rouge on Steroids, the unabashedly maximalist mishmash of creative references – from Vegas showgirl to ‘80s airbrush ad, Dalí surrealism, all wrapped in a hot pink bow – suspends no disbelief between the artist and her entrepreneurial art.

This is a brand designed solely for the female gaze, even naming its drinkers ‘Hot Girls’ (an extension of Ms. Stallion’s established lexicon) and it poses an interesting question: In an age where most legacy spirits are desperately trying to win that younger more diverse consumer, what can going all in on a target do?

Moreso in a cultural climate where the sober-curious have evolved into the sober-conscious, Chicas Divertidas throws a bedazzled top hat into the ring for the belief that we can, and should, still drink to party. The Chicas jingle ‘Where are the girls that like to have fun’, serves as a call to action that could have even the most militant run club enthusiasts, sacrificing a Sunday morning for a night of being a Hot Girl.

The aesthetic bust to this visual boom? Ghostlabs, a collection of clarified, low-calorie RTDs, designed around a single flavour profile and released in ‘collections’.

Successfully ticking off every buzzword in the category (and then a few out of it), this line of canned cocktails is what you get when an ex-Diageo drinks scientist, an architect, and an award winning chef, walk into a bar.

Using the codes of contemporary skincare and fashion, Ghost Labs has been described as ‘eerily minimalist’, which in a space littered with the flavour-as-a-hammer tactic of product design, can only be a differentiator.

And its ‘not embarrassing to drink on the Overground’ design philosophy solves two problems with one cocktail. So often ready-to-drink ‘healthier’ alternatives are signalled through blue stickers, giant calorie labels, or an indiscriminate use of the word seltzer. Ghost Lab’s futuristic understatement and heavy reliance on copy, quietly signals ‘less bad for you’ does not have to mean ‘less desirable’.

What we can extrapolate from these stark opposites is, for drinks brands being seen in the age of social, has greatly evolved from the bog standard Key Visual. Whether at the minimal or maximal end of the spectrum, both speak to audiences in a language they understand – ‘the vibe’. Inviting us into an entire universe built from a unique creative vision. And vibe brands matter because they reorient what the status symbols are. And status drinks matter because according to IWSR, it’s one of the few sub-sectors seeing growth in the category.

Will the distribution gods have their way before either reach critical mass? Perhaps. Will both serve as a marker of taste for a group of highly influential people?
No proof needed.