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A cocktail requires consistency through carefully measured ingredients and should be delivered, to the customer, with no variation in volume, taste, or appearance. All without wastage!

'Easier said than done,' we hear you cry!

Have you ever had a scrumptious meal at a new restaurant, but then returned a month later, with the friends you’ve been raving to, only to be disappointed?

Perhaps there’s a different chef on? Or maybe the same chef was more rushed and less consistent in his cooking?

No chef or restaurant manager wants their customer to experience that inconsistency of service. And it’s the same behind the bar too.

Claire Boscq Scott, Business Strategist at Small Business Forum 

Tools Key for Consistency

In the same way chefs rely on the best knives for consistent slices and the best pans for consistent cooking, so too must bartenders rely on the tools of their trade for consistency in the drinks they serve.

Jiggers are designed to help bartenders measure accurately and therefore get them closer to consistency. But did you know that the standard round jigger has a design flaw?

A simple matter of physics means that the round jigger creates a bubble of liquid on top (known as a meniscus). And that bubble means for every pour, you’re basically overpouring. Need to see for yourself? Take a look at the science here! 

Unfortunately, most jiggers are round. Except for one… or, four to be exact.

What is the Trilobal Jigger?

The Überbartools™ range of jiggers all have a completely unique trilobal design. This trilobal design was created specifically to remove the bubble formation on top of the jigger and therefore eliminate the over-pour that all other jiggers are responsible for.

No over-pour means no excess measure in your drink, which means, (you guessed it!) a consistent drink.

The ProJig™, ProBarJig™ and the ProMegJig™ not only look striking and professional, but they all feature the revolutionary trilobial model that is unique to Uberbartools. They are the only jiggers on the market that give the bartender piece of mind that they are getting the accuracy required to deliver a great taste experience for their customer – in time, everytime.

Save Time, Save Alcohol, Save Money

And it’s not just about speed and consistency when it comes to accuracy – it’s also about waste. We already know that liquor loss causes huge headaches for bar managers.
As the guys at Clique Hospitality know, consistency and efficiency go together:
 
“When running a restaurant or club, it’s important to streamline your systems and to create efficiency. Not only does this increase profits, but it also reduces waste. And by “waste” we don’t just mean food, but also resources and time as well.”
 
The trilobal jigger is the key to accuracy and consistency, and consistency is the key to great customer service. So, don’t you think it’s time you got jigger with it?

Want to find out more about the Uberbartools range of Jiggers? Visit our website for more information or talk to our team today.

Anyone can pour liquor right.

What's not to know.. pick up a liquor bottle, pour into a jigger, serve into a glass of some sort...yawn.. it's so easy.. a child can do it?

Pouring alcohol consistently, without spilling or wasting a drop takes lots of skill, whilst it may appear so easy, yet many of us know intuitively the simpler something appears the more difficult it’s likely to be.

Ironically when children play games, it takes practice, practice and more practice before mastery is attained.

To prove have you taken: A series of deceptively easy tests (or are they?) to challenge:

1. TEST WASTE: Pick up a liquor bottle, pour alcohol into a jigger, tin or glass without spilling a drop.

2. TEST ACCURACY: Pour an exact shot of alcohol - i.e 1 oz, 30 ml etc. repeat (3 times)..then measure each portion to check for accurate measurement.

3. TEST CONSISTENCY: Prepare the same cocktail 3 times ensuring it LOOKS and TASTES the same.

4. TEST SPEED: Prepare 3 cocktails in quick succession, just like a real bar situation, except don’t waste a drop, serve each drink accurately and consistently!
Did you complete each test without failing any test?

Odds are that most people will fail some if not all the above? Why?

Possibly the answer may lay with bar managers not really understanding the impacts and consequences of pouring failure.

From experience people don’t treasure what’s not valued.
The impact of inconsistently made cocktails affects the bottom line, reducing Spend Per Guest, increasing costs as liquor is over-poured or just wasted.

Once drink inconsistency is identified as an issue, one can then start looking at impacts on business outcomes such as provided guest value for money, quality and ultimately guest satisfaction!

Bars wanting to sustain profitability long term need to get the Pour Challenge right, there's nothing childish about disappointing guests...it's not a game!

Most of us sit back and say what happened to the day that was.

We wear too many hats, meaning we spread ourselves thin, not focusing on activities yielding the highest returns.

Throw in some distractions and a lack of urgency, it’s then easy to see how a day is blown!

When next in this situation, here’s a great Über technique to maximize time and results.

Here’s where to start:
 
Take all known jobs for a day and then allocate a reasonable amount of time to get each done.

Before starting a job set your phone’s stop watch/alarm for the expected duration of the task at hand.

Do not accept any interruptions, until a job is done.

After each job is done allow 5-10 mins max to attend to anything super urgent that’s come up in between or use that time to clear your mind before the next job commences.

You’ll be surprised how much more you’ll get out of your day.

World liquor behemoth, Diageo, through its Bartender/Bar Owner outreach program - Bar Academy, is now promoting the importance of a consistent and accurate liquor serve.

The biggest surprise in the Bar Academy advocacy program is that finally: Diageo is recommending NO FREE POURING of alcohol.

For far too long the liquor industry has refused to see the relevance and importance of ensuring that alcohol, a key ingredient in every cocktail, is treated seriously with respect to the guest by serving the correct volume of alcohol, with no guessing.

At Über we believe that the 3 crucial elements to pouring a perfect serve pivots around:

1.    Cocktails must be memorable – to delight the guest
2.    It must be consistent: accurately measured and served to meet compliance standards.
3.    Must be profitably made to guarantee a long term sustainable business.

Any single element missing in a serve, the delivered result fails..

To many bartenders Free Pouring equates to skill and elegance, a prized commodity. Yet on another level this could be considered nothing more than ego.

Making cocktails is not about a bartender, ego or looks – it’s revolves about the guest – delivering a valued experience, gladly paid and hopefully re-ordered.

It has taken a big Company like Diageo to admit that free pouring alcohol is bad, ultimately reducing quality and profits.

The drinks business is the perfect Business to Consumer relationship.

Brands, Bartenders and Bars (3B’s) work in unison to  produce happy and satisfied, consumers (C).
 
The 3B to C relationship is a bottom up one, predicated on a simple cocktail formula.

The argy bargy of brand, bartender & even bar are all predicated on one thing delivering a served cocktail memorably, consistently & profitably into the hands of a consumer.

Drinks produced super-fast produce more Dollars?
 
Rubbish!!

This refrain is one commonly heard in the US, from venues where bartenders are paid minimum or less wages, relying therefore on tips to make an adequate living.

On the other hand speed of service can be a critical barometer of success provided the finished product is always consistent, (the ability to reproduce the same drink identically every time).

Fast drinks are predicated on a number of considerations:

1.   Bartender skill/experience
2.   Quality and accuracy of tools required to make the drink.
3.   The number of drinks expected for a bartender to make per hour to maintain bar profitable.
4.   The style of bar.. night club versus style bar.

In the US it’s expected that drinks are served fast with scant regard to consistency and quality. It doesn’t always follow that the faster a drink is made and served the more profitable a bar will be.
 
Mostly without adequate training, tools and systems in place drinks made fast tend to over-pour alcohol.

We know it takes 1 second of alcohol pour time to dispense 10ml or 1/3oz of a shot of alcohol with a half a second (a blink of an eye) to dispense 5ml or 1/6oz.

Repeated on an industrial level, fastness usually means sloppiness which in turn quickly corrodes a bar’s profits.

Like anything that’s quality a due amount of time must be invested to create the desired outcome.

Anyone that thinks that fast served drinks increases profitability is too focused on either tips or fast cash in the till rather than watch what’s pooled and wasted on the bar counter tops or the floor!

While on a recent overseas trip it got us to thinking... a seasoned traveller is often provided with some of the most interesting and varied snap shots into emerging trends percolating the hospitality world.
 
One commonly re-occurring theme restaurants and bars are adopting is a “deconstructed” or simplified menu.
 
Subscribing to the “less is more” school turns confusion into an easy experience by simplifying that decision process. When you think about it, the menu kicks off the entire experience… and first impressions count!
 
Of course, if a guest likes pages of choices pick a menu that has simplicity whilst actually presenting a larger array of options. Less is more should be smart.

After all, “less is more” suits the world we live in. Deconstructed food and drink menu design literally means we trust someone else to make a better choice for us. In a world where we constantly cram more into our busy lives – more hours at work, more hours on the move, more travel, more to buy, more to see, more to do - this is a moment of simplicity and ease for the customer.
 
Still not sure? How about tacking a black board of seasonal specials onto your menu options?
 
And if that doesn’t convince you, think of it this way: paired down selections create faster order turnaround times, which means fewer server created mistakes and less wastage…