TALK
Below is a transcription of Josh’s chat with Aaron Hatchell. You can also view it on our Instagram.
Josh Introduction: Welcome to Independent Study Day. Lots of new faces lots of returning folks. Great. Thank you for making the time to come and hang out and not just learn from your peers but also to make new friends and get an idea of who it is your guests are sitting in front of when they aren’t sitting in front of you.
As per usual, I will remind everyone here that just because you work at your bar 36 or 46 hours a week doesn’t mean you know how everything works for everyone. Everyone being the rest of the people in this room, so talk to strangers. It’s incredible what you can find will work at your bar that you have never thought of before.
We want to thank Tj and the team from Giffard for helping us out this month. Very happy to be in a room with Giffard liqueurs any time. Anyone in the room that isn’t familiar with Tj or Giffard Liqueurs and non-alc options, make sure you talk with him and taste through some of these. They truly changed the way that I made cocktails when I first got introduced.
Anyone that was here last month or watched online or saw what we have posted about this month, knows that we are working to make sure there is something for you to bring into work right away. This month we chose something that is potentially a kind of dry subject: Pricing Your Cocktails.
Talking with Evelyn the other day she said she paid 80 dollars for 3 cocktails. That’s fucking London in 2012 prices and bad news for all of us, Toronto, or Canada, all that aren’t London. So we want to talk a little about how we are pricing our drinks to make sure that our guests aren’t scared to come and spend money at our bars when they know that they are getting quality cocktails that have been priced in a way that makes sense.
Not to be too much a schill here, but using falvourful and consistent liqueurs like Giffard products is a good way to keep costs a little lower while still have full flavoured and exciting drinks.
So we played against type here. We could have brought in someone that works for a giant restaurant group and could have told you about spreadsheets and brand partnerships across several venues or even provinces. And a lot of those people are boring as hell. Sometimes they are barely even restaurant or bar people, they are just accountants who like to drink. We like them just fine and many of them are our pals. BUT our guest this month is Aaron Hatchell. For anyone that hasn’t met Aaron yet, you should. He is super friendly and very funny and creative and I am gonna sit here and ask him a bunch of questions about all that, and also, how he approaches building cocktails and drink menus while treading the line between approachable and adorable.
Bartender Atlas: Aaron, what was your major full-time gig before you started working in bars?
Aaron Hatchell: I maybe used to skate for Disney on Ice.
BA: So now, knowing that, and this is the thing, Aaron had done different cocktail competitions and submitted stuff when brands would hire us to design cocktails, we’d get Aaron involved, and a big part of that was that all his drinks are so elaborate all the time. Then we found out he was part of Disney On Ice and it all started making more sense. Do you think that that’s affected the way that you approach making drinks?
AH: Yeah, I think so, especially like traveling so much and doing everything. You can pull from different countries and all of that.
BA: Not even only the skating end of it but what you saw as well. What was the first bar that you worked at and how do we trace your career to a present day?
AH: I first started making drinks was Montana’s in Woodstock. I started there when I was young. Started in kitchens, and then worked my way up, and then left for Disney on Ice, and the next actual bar that I worked was Langdon Hall. I went from Montana’s, Woodstock, to that. How? I have no idea.
BA: We met you when you were at Langdon Hall in Cambridge. If any of you’ve been to Langdon Hall, it’s wild, man. It’s a storied institution. Very high end, very refined style of service. The clientele shows up expecting that. I remember Jess got really nervous. She surprised me with a dinner there once and packed different pants for me because you’re not supposed to wear jeans. So did you feel that when you were working at Langdon Hall and it was such a prescribed sort of thing, did you have to fit into something or were you able to work your way into what they’d already designed?
AH: I was kind of lucky-ish in a way because when I started there it was November and there wasn’t really a set bar program there. That place in November-December is a shitshow because it’s Christmas, it’s very very busy so I just put my head down. I’d never worked in fine dining before and they just had decent cocktails. It was a smaller cocktail list so I was kind of learning and navigating through that. Then getting to know all the clientele. Working in the bar there is a little bit different because it’s a little more casual. The people like to come and spend the day there and then have drinks before they go to their nice fancy dinner. So I had to learn certain things but I got to help curate that as well. Being there for seven years, I helped create a bar program for them. But it was also difficult because there was no mentorship there because there was no one to learn from.
BA: Cambridge isn’t necessarily a cocktail hot spot. How much of what you learned working at Langdon Hall do you apply going forward? S&V was the next spot that was definitely sort of yours but coming from a giant storied institution like Langdon Hall and going to a smaller independent spot…how did that work for you? How much could you bring from Langdon Hall into that different program?
AH: I learned a lot at Langdon, but I would say more the stuff that I learned at Langdon was all service-wise and how you should clear plates and set things down and what things should look like and I think it really worked. It helped like the Disney on Ice stuff. You have to always smile and put on a show for everyone even when it’s stressful, especially when you’re skating and not speaking English and using your mouth. So you have to always put on a show. It’s like how you always put on a show like you’re bartending and then using that going into Langdon kind of fake it till you make it. Which I did successfully there. Then going to S&V I was also very fortunate because my best friend owns it so and she had a smaller restaurant and then was moving to a new space that was a lot larger. We talked about creating something a little bit different, a little bit more upscale, which kind of meshed the two worlds together making that same kind of Langdon experience but more approachable so anyone can go and you can win.
BA: And I was allowed to wear jeans.
AH: We did it just for you.
BA: Thank you. Super appreciate that. Also, that menu was incredible. It looked like a high fashion magazine. It was awesome. Did you have a running list of what works and what doesn’t? Like when you were at S&V, how long of a time, you come up with this drink, you take time, you make whatever housemate ingredients, you build a thing, how long does it stay on the menu before you’re like, yeah, no one gets it?
AH: Those menus were very elaborate, so there was usually like 16 cocktails, two low-alc, two no-alc. I kind of created drinks for every type of person so it would hit certain things. Working at Langdon for seven years, it was a very similar market. You get similar clientele, so you know those types of people that you’re going to create cocktails for. So really know your guest. Know your guests, kind of anticipate their needs before they even walk in the door. Then for me, storytelling is very important and persuading the guests, taking the time to show them certain things and convince them, I can make you drink a drink because it looks pretty. And you can convince someone to drink something because it’s pink or in a flamingo glass or something. But then you can create a conversation and be like, “you don’t know what you’re drinking, do you? Let me tell you.”
BA: OK. I want to talk a little bit about social media presence for S&V Uptown. And it’s in Kitchener. Kitchener is a big city compared to where I’m from. But you and Jill, your best friend, the owner, you put together these incredible runway-style photo shoots to launch menus and to talk about specials for the week. You have these big, elaborate things. It would just be a photo of you looking hot as hell. Is that something that you purposely would do because you want people, when they come in, to see a drink that is also hot as hell?
AH: It was kind of weird because when we started, she had a photographer, Amber, and she was just taking photos for fun and had a full-time job doing whatever and we just continued to use her. She’s great and amazing. Our concept was just to create something so that people would feel like they knew us. But then those photo shoots were so stupid but the best. For three hours, we’d have racks of clothing and just change and have a shit show. It was wild. I would have 18 drinks lined up and we would just pump them out and go, go, go, go. But we weren’t trying to be anything. We were just two friends having fun. When you love what you do, you don’t work a day in your life.
BA: Sure.
AH: Also that is bullshit because it’s fucking a lot of work.
BA: Yeah, speaking of working way too hard, before we go on to your present day job, I’m gonna take a minute. Can you tell us a little bit about the CAP program at Tales of the Cocktail?
AH: Yes, I can. How much time do you have? It’s a cocktail apprenticeship program. It’s at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans every year. So the world’s largest cocktail conference happens there every year. And basically, the CAP program helps run all of the seminars. It is a wild experience. It’s like the most amount of work you’ll ever do in your life, but the most amount of fun and the most amount of networking. Basically, you can start applying as a Red Coat. 40 people in the world get accepted into red coats. It’s really only for the first time.
BA: How is it only 40? It feels like CAPs are everywhere!
AH: Yeah, so that one (Red Coat) you can do the first year basically you go and you’re just kind of told what to do You do it, obviously. And you do it very well.
BA: What happens if you don’t do it?
AH: You just do it.
BA: Okay, heard.
AH: Yeah so you do that you go and then the mentorship there is wild. The next level is Gray Coat. So you apply again and then you’re asked to come back and every Gray Coat looks after two Red Coats and kind of mentors them. The Gray Coats, they help facilitate the seminars so you’re in contact with like all the presenters which are the top people in the industry in the world, like Monica Berg. They’ll come and at the end of the day we have seminars, we have private chats with people like them as well. Then after a Gray Coat, you can keep applying and keep doing it a bunch of times. I did Gray Coat twice. Last year was my last Gray Coat year. After that there’s four people in the world that …you don’t apply you get asked to do it…to be a Black Coat. Then you help select the Red Coats. So you read all of the applications select everyone and then above that is White Coat and that’s top tier. They’ve done it so many times and they mentor a Black Coat.
BA: A couple questions to follow up on CAP stuff. Was your mind blown the first time you got accepted to be a CAP and when you started talking with peers and everyone else, these 40 other people, specifically from places like the US, about how much liquor costs?
AH: Price difference is wild. I’m like: what they get, how much they pour and it’s insane. I’m talking for people in different markets. It’s like very different. And when you’re in the States, it’s also very…yeeeah.
BA: Do you not drink the whole week?
AH: We have to taste things. Make sure the large batches are done correctly. We’re done working, around, seven-ish, and we’ll have dinners, and then we’ll have brand parties and stuff like that. But we’re treated very nicely. It’s also educational. And then after that, usually we’ll go out and decompress a little bit at night. If you’re hungover, you’re like, “I’m fucked.” So you don’t want to be, and you can definitely tell the people who you’ve been part of the night before. And, honestly, it’s a lot of fun. A lot of work and sometimes you just want to stay back. One day I stayed in my hotel room and missed Ludacris. And I cried a lot, but then I applied the next year and for every answer in my application, I referenced Ludacris and got back in.
BA: So the way to become a CAP is to talk about Ludacris?
AH: Yeah.
BA: Back to your present day. About six months ago you started working at the Ace Hotel here in Toronto. How many venues are inside the Ace Hotel?
AH: Three separate bars.
BA: How similar are the cocktail lists between each room and each bar?
AH: We have an Espresso Martini on every list and then basically everything else is different.
BA: So you’re designing three different menus to reflect the vibe in those three different rooms. Coming from working at S&V in Kitchener, where it was one room, and you had all the time to do all these high fashion photo shoots.
AH: Yes, all the time.
BA: Whereas now, how do you balance your time between the three different venues? And how often are you working with your staff to redevelop things? Is it just an ongoing?
AH: It’s ever changing and ever evolving and it’s just kind of based on what the guests want. When I started there I did a lot of observation of what each space was. Then we’re going to look at the structure, to develop an ethos for the bar program or for the whole hotel and then each venue has the tangent that they run off. Giving each space a purpose and then creating the bar programs based on those. Because I think intentionality of great cocktails is really important.
BA: Another thing I wanted to touch on coming from S&V, where it was you and two other bartenders that you had on staff?
AH: I was like the only main bartender and there was another gentleman that helped, James. He was great. So the amount of work I was doing at S&V was more. No one has any idea the amount of work that Jill and I did. We were even running the food.
BA: But also you looked hot as hell while we were doing it.
AH: That was our fun. That was the fun. And we drank the drinks after.
BA: So now, with these three different venues, how many bartenders are you responsible for each day?
AH: Total is about 20 bartenders and barbacks. Then there’s the floor so, there’s a lot of staff.
BA: And how do you approach having 20 different personalities that you need to deal with in a week? Is there like baseline of things that you try to drill into everybody? Or is there a give and take with each person’s sort of personality and skill?
AH: Yeah, there’s a baseline for respect for people, I think. But then everyone has their own experience and where they’re coming from. Each person has their own personality, everyone fits in but you should also be able to be yourself. To me, I want to work somewhere where I don’t have to be NOT myself. I’ve worked at Langdon where it was like that. It’s very…you have to be a certain way. You can still have a personality so you can have little moments with guests. Whereas with Ace Hotel, when I did that job interview they said “we want you to be yourself”. But then going through it I was like, oh I can actually like myself and I actually enjoyed that.
BA: Do you have bartenders that switch between venues, or like the people that start in one, like the lobby bar, can decide they want to move into the dining area, or I want to go upstairs?
AH: Yeah, we have some people that work multiple venues, not a lot,. We have people that barback in the group, transition and start to rise through the company. The roof is…it’s own beast. It’s a unique space with cocktail focus from open until 10pm. Then a DJ comes on so it becomes “Vodka Soda/Tequila Soda” and you have to be able to do all of that. I am a pain in the ass and like intricate cocktails and everyone should be able to get those things, so batching is life. So it’s just finding out those ways to do that. But I love mentorship going back to the CAP program. The most, and for me living in Kitchener and Waterloo having no mentorship, I learned from Charlotte Voisey online. She was my idol. I love her.
BA: Me too. Big fan.
AH: But literally that’s how I learned. YouTube, reading books, everything. So for me taking like seven years to learn all the things. I hate gatekeeping so like: “here’s all of the information and take it and do what you want and come to me and ask questions and I will give you all the opportunities in the world” because I just want people to grow and succeed.
BA: You know, when we do this, I give my guest speaker sort of an idea of the questions we’re gonna ask and what we’re gonna talk about and I feel like you maybe studied a little hard because that is the greatest segue that’s happened so far at an independent study day. You’re not into gatekeeping and you’re willing to give everyone all the information. I was about to move into the super boring stuff which is like what’s the baseline cost for a drink at the Ace Hotel? Like when you’re designing a drink and you know how much you can charge for it, is there a percentage that you or the Ace or whatever management has decided like is it 18% is it 22%?
AH: There’s not like a specific percent but I like I like a nice range of like 15 to like 24. Then it depends what venue you’re in. The lobby is a little bit like cheaper and cheerful but still super high quality and done really well. Then Alder, the restaurant, it’s a little bit more experiential so the price points go up a little bit. Then the rooftop is a cocktail bar we use a lot more premium spirits up there as well but it’s kind of based on what you can sell the guests and then what’s going high volume so it’s a lower percentage. The things that we sell more of are at a lower percentage…
BA: That’ll offset. So you don’t need to charge $36 for this drink. You can charge $21 for the drink instead and balance it out.
AH: Yeah, so I like percentages that can go multiple ways depending on where you’re working. If you work somewhere small it’s slower and you’re gonna need to kind of manage that cost a little bit more tightly, but there’s a little bit more room.
BA: How precise are you when you’re costing each cocktail and each recipe talking about mils versus ounces and whatnot?
AH: I’m an ounce girl. Yeah Yeah, super precise and thank god for Excel. I don’t like math but Excel can do it.
BA: And as someone who loves elaborate garnishes and loves elaborate glassware, how do you figure all that into your drink costs as well?
AH: Yeah so that’s a fun thing for me. Talking about garnishes it’s kind of easy because a lot of people when you’re juicing you don’t take into cost like the zest of the lemon or lime. So I always put in a few cents for each lemon or lime just what I’m generally costing and just throw that into the juice cost. Then see when you make a lemon or lime zest or orange zest a lot of people just zest and throw it in, but you can take just a couple seconds to make it look nice. Cut the friggin’ edges. Even if you work in high volume, you can do it. I have seen it done and I’m sorry it’s annoying but if you don’t have cute drinks, that’s on you, because you’re lazy.
BA: Sure. What’s your breaking point? Like at what point in creating a cocktail and looking at how much it costs to make and coming up with an elaborate, not so much just trimming zest, but I swear I’ve seen you light bouquets of flowers on fire. Wait, what’s the tall blonde woman that’s working with you?
AH: Avery Rose.
BA: Avery Rose! They have a note that they light on fire when it’s presented to you. Like at what point are you like “yeah I don’t know if we need to light a piece of paper on fire at every table.” Obviously you said yes to that one but has there ever been something where you’re like “this is too much?”
AH: No.
BA: Has there ever been something you’ve developed, gone to ownership and not necessarily the Ace, and you’re like “this is how we’re gonna present it” and they look at you like “absolutely not”.
AH: It took a little convincing with the fire at Ace. Because they weren’t used to that. I’ve done this before, many times. But, honestly, if you can convince a guest and you can sell something, which you just have to be persuasive, then you can do it. That’s our job. So at Langdon, I had a cocktail that was a $60 cocktail. It was served in a huge planter like this with an agave plant. The servers hated me because it probably weighed 20 pounds. But I still made them do it. And there was a whole story behind it. So, just dream big and do shit that you want to do and convince people. Because it’s just liquid and cups, so just do stupid shit and make people pay for it. But give them a quality product. And have fun. Why do you just want to make serious drinks? I’m not having fun. Like, have fun.
BA: Yeah. 100%. Is there anything else you want to talk about?
AH: Anything else? I think just to keep coming to these things is super important and mentorship. For me not really having it or having it like from a distance with people, it’s super important. If you can, come to these things or do cocktail competitions. I freaking hate competitions. They’re a pain in the ass. So much work and it’s so stressful but the people that you get to meet it’s wild and the connections that you make… just apply for everything you can say no after.
Do crazy shit, but have fun. It’s stressful but you literally meet the best people in the world and that, like the Cocktail Apprenticeship Program, I can’t like say enough about it. It is wild and the people that I met there from all over the world and we still stay in contact. I talk to them more than people that live an hour radius of me, and it’s back and forth and constant. We will meet up in New York or go somewhere else. The people that you can meet, it’s not just the community here. That’s small. This is super important and to help everyone grow. Just help everyone. That’s what we’re here to do. If you ever have questions about anything anytime, about any competition, anything – I’ve done a bunch of things, hated all of them – but I will answer any question to anyone about anything always.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
ACTION
This is an example of how to calculate the cost of a drink and how to price it on your menu. This is meant to be a sample and prices will vary depending on where you live and how your workplace runs their business.
SAMPLE MENU:
Welcome Cocktail
1 oz Ginslinger Gin
1 oz Giffard Rhubarb Liqueur
0.75 oz Lemon Juice
.33 oz Giffard Cane Syrup
3 oz Sparkling Water
Low ABV Cocktail
1 oz Giffard Pamplemousse
0.25 oz Giffard Orgeat
1 oz Lime Juice
2 oz Sparkling Water
No ABV Cocktail
1 oz Giffard Elderflower NA
0.75 oz Lemon
4 oz Sparkling Water
To calculate drink cost:
- Calculate cost per ounce for each ingredient
- Calculate cost per ingredient in cocktail
- Calculate total cost of all ingredients in cocktail.
- Take total cost and multiply it by 5 for final cost on menu.
ANSWERS:
Welcome Cocktail:
Total cost- $3.59
Gin- $32.95/750ml = $0.04/ml or $1.27/oz
Liqueur- $26.80/700ml = $0.03/ml or $1.13/oz
Juice- $14.00/litre = $0.14/ml or $0.42/oz
Cane Syrup- $20.99/litre = $0.02/ml or $0.63/oz
Sparkling Water- $2.65/330ml = $0.008/ml or $0.24/oz
Not including specialty ice, garnish, glassware, labour, lights, time spent fixing coat hooks etc…
Low ABV Cocktail:
At 20 percent drink cost: $10.90 on menu
No ABV Cocktail:
