Overview
A Retrospective
Historians Anistatia Miller and Jared Brown on a decade of change in the world of drinks
W
e have witnessed sweeping changes in our three decades in the drinks industry. However, this last decade has surpassed them all in our living memories – a time of evolution within hospitality, within the brands. It’s been turbo-charged by social media, which also became global and ubiquitous this past 10 years. Here, we’ll look at some of those changes as well as some of the areas in which we’d like to see more change. One shock was seeing the Martini surpass the Negroni in UK sales for the first time. The Martini, forever genteelly the second bestselling gin drink after the Gin and Tonic, was finally eclipsed by a drink so rare that 20 years ago it was a secret bartenders’ handshake. Wellness and mindfulness have inexorably shifted from the fringe to mainstream – as they should. People who commit to a lifetime in the wonderful professions offered in this industry should live long and healthy lives – as should our customers. When Seedlip launched in 2015, it was received as a novelty, a curiosity seemingly embraced by a few expectant mothers and recovering alcoholics. Few imagined the noand low-alcohol market would blossom to an estimated 3% of the global alcoholic beverage
16 - The Cocktail Lovers
market in just a few years. Today, there seems to be a race to launch non-alcoholic line extensions. These drinks are not just selling to teetotalers but to responsible drinkers. This revelation is as shocking as when brands were still pushing larger serves 20 years ago while Milk & Honey in New York and London proved you could sell a smaller serve for more money – if you made it well. The most notable spirits to take the spotlight this past decade are mezcal and gin. Once reserved for specific religious holidays in Mexican villages, mezcal is now the hardcore bartender’s latest crush. Without discussing its merits here, it is easy to point fingers at two irrepressible and passionate entrepreneurs for this surge. Such is the power of Del Maguey Mezcal’s Steve Olson and Ron Cooper. Such is the powerful effect of sharing knowledge. In a world in which the past few generations have had the exact same rum-and-cola, ginand-tonic, whisky-and-soda experience in every bar on the planet, the ultimate experience is now a local one. Local spirits producers, local mixers producers, local beer producers, even local wine producers have found lucrative demand for regional flavours. This has signalled the return of a lost business model in alcohol production – the small business. For decades, it seemed the standard business plan for a start-up spirits brand finished with a goal of selling to one of the multinationals. The pandemic has also had an enormous impact on the industry – even on consumer
habits. Drinking at home will undoubtedly continue. This doesn’t mean there’s an ongoing shift from on-trade to off-trade spirit sales (although there was a significant change during lockdown). Suddenly products such as the NIO line of letterbox cocktails make sense. While BrewDog launched its version, so did Mr Fogg’s and numerous other bars. A new playing field emerged with odds not so steeply pitched in favour of big brands over bars. Consumers will invariably spend more time drinking at home over the next few years, so this opportunity will remain. Similarly, sales of ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktails have soared in supermarkets – another pre-pandemic change – that has now hit visibility levels unseen since the 1970s’ RTD boom. In the midst of this, consumers continue to buy cocktail books and search the web for recipes, as home mixing increases in popularity. Pop-ups have gone mainstream, emerging as a viable business model rather than an occasional occurrence. In the past six months, Cölin Crowden, creator of Campfire Trailer Taproom & Street Food in Swadlincote, Derbyshire, has staged five pop-ups in woodland settings complete with campfires and archery. “The pop-up format has been really liberating for us,” Cölin says. “In a year in which we haven’t been able to gather folk together to enjoy traditional restaurant or bar settings, we had to innovate and approach it with a ‘what can be done’ mindset rather than what couldn’t be done due to restrictions.”
