This month DRAM asked managers and licensees what they were seeing flying out across the bar and what their predictions were for this summer. Nicola Walker reports.
Nathan Sparling – Allied Leisure, Glasgow
“People do love a nice cold pint over the summer from our range of Heineken products. The favourite non-alcoholic products are Corona cero or Asahi 0.0% as people generally feel they taste most like the real thing. I also think in the coming months we’ll see the return of the popularity of the spritz but this year well see a significant rise in non-alcoholic spritz options.
“Soft drinks wise we have moved to using Vimto post mix and the range is great. We’ve seen the popularity of Irn Bru as a draft soft drink option rise due to the flexibility of Vimto’s mix and match options. So we’ve now got brands such as Coca Cola and Schweppes alongside Barrs Irn Bru. They have a great sales team, follow up support and fast technical support.”
Vimto is only UK supplier of post mix able to install both leading cola brands – Coca-Cola and Pepsi. It offering also includes Vimto, IRN BRU and Old Jamaicas as well as its own Premium Mixers by Vimto – a range of classic drinks that match the quality of the leading brands but offer better margins. It also offers you as many as eight brands on a single post mix gun – which is double the average.
Stuart Fraser – The Oak Tree Inn, Balmaha
“A lot of our decisions are made around our green credentials and sustainability is something people are asking more and more about. This is even more noticeable over the summer when people are spending more time outside in nature. “We use Sea Change Wines and we’ve also just started using Let it Bee which is nice wine – low intervention, organically sourced and donates money from every bottle to bee conservation. “We have a lot of seasonal cocktails and one that is local and unique to us is our ‘Honeybee’ – a blend of local whisky, Balmaha Honey, ginger ale and lemon juice. Mocktails are also doing extremely well as a lot of younger people don’t seem to be drinking as much at the moment.”
Operators have the potential to boost sales by encouraging customers to choose soft drinks over tap water. Statlistics suggest licensed venues could unlock an additional £170 million in sales by persuading just 10% of customers to opt for a soft drink instead of tap water .
Becky Roy – The Triplekirks, Aberdeen
“I think spritzes will be popular as always such as Aperol, peach and elderflower. We do special cocktails seasonal cocktails as well. We also see an uptake in craft beers in summer which we definitely don’t see as much over the winter. We have a varied non-alcoholic selections as well such as Old Mout, Peroni and Heineken etc. “I think Pimms will also come back round again over the summer and a frozen cocktail is always popular – sometimes I don’t even think people care what the frozen cocktail actually is, they’ll just try it anyway.”
Marc Ferrier – Bearsden Athletic Club, Bearsden
“We sell margaritas like you wouldn’t believe so I’d definitely say mezcal and tequila-based cocktails are insanely popular. Spicy Margaritas in particular and also Palomas. People have also been going mad for the Jubel Peach lager that we have on draft as well as Weihenstephan which has been selling very well. I think German beers will be big this summer.
“People do drink non-alcoholic beers and we sell a lot of Erdinger 0% and Lucky Saint. I’m not so convinced by the non-alcoholic spirits however we still do non-alcoholic cocktails like making berry margaritas without the tequila but with strawberry, lime and agave topped up with soda.”
Michael Davies – The Three Sisters, Edinburgh
“We have seen a big increase in the Low and No category and also growth in seltzers like White Claw with the younger crowd. We are also doing some work to widen our beer category and now include nonalcoholic beer options right beside the other beers on our menu and not as a separate entity – this is because there has been such a big surge in it.
“We have also rejigged our cocktail menu and taken out some of the classic serves to add in 10/12 spritzes. We also want to appeal to people who prefer a ‘Low’ choice, so we are offering all of our spitzes as a highball option with half the alcohol – this way they still get the same flavour profile. We’ve launched that in the past week and have seen sales skyrocket particularly for Aperol, Hugo and Limoncello spritzes.”
Bobbie McShane – McLaren’s on the Corner, Edinburgh
“On our large terrace we have already seen a lot of wine go out already this year, especially rose wine. Cold Towns’s new XPA has also been going down really well for us. Cocktails wise we’ve seen an uplift in mojitos and a lot of people are looking for low/no alcohol options. So mocktails are super popular, like our non-alcoholic Pornstar Martini.
“For the same reason I feel spritzes will be a huge trend this year, we are even going to be doing a full spritz menu and I think Hugo Spritz might even take over from Aperol Spritz this summer as we are already seeing a huge rise in its popularity.”