26 Apr, 2024
How To Craft Seasonal Cocktail Menu
Seasonal cocktail lists bring more than just fresh flavors to the bar — they also capture the attention of prospective guests and excite your regulars, keeping the revenue flowing for your bar. Here are some tips on how to create the ultimate seasonal cocktail menu for your bar, and the factors to consider before diving into research and development.
WHY SEASONALITY MATTERS
Drinking with the seasons has been a trend in cocktail bars and restaurants for decades, but seasonal serves bring more to the table (or bar top) than just fresh, trendy ingredients — they’re also good for business. With 59% of consumers being more likely to purchase a menu item if it’s described as seasonal, not capitalizing on seasonality can be at the detriment of any bar or restaurant’s bottom line.
In terms of growing your bar’s brand, changing your drink menu with the seasons offers periodic opportunities for bringing guests into your establishment. Your regulars get a chance to renew their love for your bar by tasting the limited-time drinks and bites, and the buzz generated from the menu could inspire new guests to visit — after which, they’ll hopefully be converted into regulars!
Add eye-catching cocktails to your menu to attract groups of customers looking to enjoy a few drinks.
The Buzz
This buzz is fueled by both word of mouth from your business’s local community, and by leveraging your bar’s social media handles to bring the seasonal offerings to life. Using platforms such as Instagram—a platform that rewards timely messaging with high-quality images—is a great way to engage and reach both regulars and prospective customers. Give your followers (i.e., potential guests) a behind-the-scenes look via Instagram stories and posts into how you developed the new menu, building anticipation for the launch of the seasonal offerings — guests love to feel like a part of the process! You can also consider running a contest, or giveaway to increase your bar’s social media engagement. There are endless options to promote your bar by integrating seasonal menus into your bar concept, but these are just a couple of examples.
In addition to the potential of gaining more customers for your bar, and therefore increasing the bar’s revenue, there are also savings to be had by developing seasonal cocktail menus that use abundant, in-season ingredients. In the fall, squash, quince, mushrooms, figs, apples, carrots, and beetroots are just a few ingredients that can be bought at an affordable price due to their abundance. While creating bespoke cocktail ingredients with these seasonal foods may seem labor-intensive, the trade-off of having lower food costs and keeping your bar on-trend will always be worthwhile.
CRAFTING A SEASONAL MENU THAT FITS YOUR BAR
Seasonality is relative. A seasonal cocktail menu from the mid-90s or early 00s looks much different than the ones you’ll find at most cutting-edge cocktail bars today. At the beginning of the contemporary cocktail renaissance (the late 80s, 90s and 00s), bartenders often used the ingredients that were at their disposal; meaning seasonal drinks relied heavily on the bottles on the back bar, and various simple syrup recipes (cinnamon syrup, ginger-honey syrup, raspberry syrup, etc.)
Culinary Approach
Today, the world’s best cocktail bars take a culinary approach to creating seasonal ingredients for recipes, making layered infusions, ferments (lacto-ferments, natural ferments, kombuchas, fruit wines, etc.), pickles, acidified cordials, and other refined cocktail components that were rarely found behind the bar in eras prior. What was considered hyper-seasonal during those decades (cold-weather drinks, such as toddies and Irish coffees; or hot-weather drinks, such as simple spritzes and Collins’), is now considered minimally seasonal (they are fitting for the weather, but don’t require any custom ingredients being crafted). Moderately seasonal cocktails can include drinks that call for a simple seasonal ingredient to be added, such as a syrup or infusion (a spiced syrup for a toddy or Old Fashioned), but don’t require significant preparation or labor. Hyper-seasonal serves require a bit more thought, refinement, time, and labor than they did in the past, and can often include cocktails that have sourced ingredients directly from local farms, like beets infused with Don Julio Blanco for a Margarita riff — a trend that an increasing number of consumers look for when ordering food and drink.
Smoking not only entices the senses, but also takes the old-fashioned cocktail to a new level of flavor and comfort.
STRIKE A FINE BALANCE
Before diving into R&D for your seasonal cocktail menu, though, you’ll want to be sure you strike a fine balance on this spectrum of seasonality as every bar, and what they can manage on the day-to-day, is different. Here are a couple of factors to consider that will help guide how seasonal your menu should be:
- The ability of the staff. First and foremost, it’s important to establish how the seasonal menu will be maintained on a day-to-day basis. If you have a dedicated prep person who’s well-versed in the kitchen and can handle the volume of hyper-seasonal ingredients that need to be made for service, then this might be less of a worry for your bar. But, if prep for service is dependent on the bar team itself, it’s vital to appoint a couple of bartenders or staff to lead this aspect of preparation for service. Understanding the ability of the bar staff is vital to striking that balance of hyper-seasonal (i.e., prep-heavy) serves with minimally seasonal serves, and so on. If your team is filled with all-star bar professionals, then a list of twelve to eighteen hyper-seasonal cocktails may very well be feasible; but if you have a lot of newbies to the industry, then you may want to dial that number back to somewhere between two and four.
- Mapping out the cocktail list. How many cocktails do you wish to feature on your menu? In what style? With which base spirits? What sells and what doesn’t at your bar? Which seasonal ingredients do you feel most excited about highlighting? Answering these questions will help your team develop some sort of framework that ensures you’re striking a balance of seasonal drinks that guests will enjoy of all styles and flavors, drinks that will sell, and cocktails that your team can easily manage for service.
- The longevity of the seasonal ingredients. Not all ingredients share the same peak season, so it’s important to consider how long certain foods will be in abundance before deciding to put them on your seasonal cocktail list. All too often, bars get excited about a specific seasonal ingredient only to find that in a few weeks, they’re unable to source it at the same volume and price. This can lead to disappointed guests who were excited to try this new serve, only to discover that it wasn’t on the menu that day due to a food shortage; also, that cocktail is likely, now, costing you more than it was when you initially planned the menu. Be sure to consider how long the seasonal ingredient will be available for at the price you desire as certain foods might lend themselves better to a special menu (ramps have an extremely short peak season) instead of the main seasonal list.
From the alcohol and mixers down to the garnishes and even the ice, every ingredient has to be of the utmost quality and freshness.
FINAL THOUGHTS: BE CREATIVE, AND THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX
When it comes to seasonal drink-making, don’t be afraid to express your creativity in unique ways and utilize the talented personnel you have around you. If you have a creative and talented chef who loves finding ways to utilize surplus ingredients or off-cuts from the kitchen, then explore ways to integrate those foods into your cocktail list (you also save money!). Maybe the back-of-house team wants to run a special food item to move through some product and there’s an opportunity to pair a cocktail with it (Fig Prosciutto and Ricotta Crostini with a Tanqueray Bee’s Knees made with fig-infused honey syrup), or the bar team wants to create a seasonal specials menu completely dedicated to food-cocktail pairings — there are no boundaries, so embrace the seasons and balance the art with the science.
As you embark on crafting your seasonal cocktail menu, remember that the right bar equipment can make all the difference. From classic shakers for perfectly chilled martinis to high-powered blenders for creamy winter delights, and even slushy machines for refreshing summer concoctions, the right equipment can elevate your cocktail game to new heights. With the versatility and efficiency of these essential tools, you’ll be ready to impress your guests with a diverse array of flavors and textures throughout the year. So, equip your bar with the best and let your creativity flow as you mix, shake, and blend your way to cocktail perfection. Cheers to a season filled with delicious drinks and unforgettable moments!