P(our) Symposium explores modern bartending
What makes a modern bartender? Alice Lascelles travelled to Paris for the first ever P(our) Symposium, where the question sparked some lively debate.
“You’re not going to like what I’m about to say, but…” was a common refrain among speakers at the inaugural P(our) Symposium in Paris last month, which saw professionals from the drinks industry and beyond tackle issues including sustainability, alcohol dependency and social responsibility in pursuit of an answer to the question: what is a modern bartender?
The two-day programme of talks, which took place in a space donated by Paris’s annual bar-fest, Cocktails Spirits, was the first for the not-for-profit think-tank P(our). The bartender collective was launched earlier this year by a committee of industry luminaries including Alex Kratena and Simone Caporale, formerly of Artesian, Monica Berg of Himkok, Oslo, Ryan Chetiywardana of Dandelyan, Joerg Meyer of Le Lion, Hamburg, and ECC’s Xavier Padovani.
The topics represented a radical opening salvo, made possible in part by the fact that P(our) is funded by donations rather than sponsorship – Whitley Neill, Fever-Tree, Moët Hennessy and De Kuyper all gave £10,000 towards the launch with no strings attached, but P(our)’s website also lists numerous other individuals, law firms, design agencies and brands that have given money or time so that P(our) can pursue an agenda that’s resolutely un-commercial.
“Some of these topics may be uncomfortable but we needed to start to talk about them,” says Kratena who, like all P(our) founders, runs the collective for free. “Up to now most of us have only been enjoying all the exciting things that have been happening in the industry, but now we need to realise that it’s not only about taking but also about giving something back and taking responsibility for our actions.”
Sustainability featured heavily in a number of the TED-style talks. Tracy Ging, a sustainability consultant for one of the US’s biggest coffee roasters, made a persuasive call for incremental change by demonstrating how an increase of just one-tenth of a cent in the price of a cup of coffee had allowed clients including Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds to finance dramatic improvements in the sourcing of their beans and quality of the life of their suppliers.
Chef Douglas McMaster, founder of the world’s first zero-waste restaurant, Silo in Brighton, also challenged the notion that luxury and sustainability were incompatible by showing how his restaurant produced award-winning food (and clean surfaces) with minimal impact on the environment.
Another hard-hitting talk came from PDT’s Jim Meehan, who issued what he called a ‘call to the mirror for bartenders’ seduced by the excessive lifestyle of the bar world. “This is an industry that celebrates heroic appetites,” he said, “but we need to realise it’s not a sprint any more, it’s a long race.”
Bartenders wanting to emulate the careers of veterans such as Peter Dorelli or Salvatore Calabrese needed to go from regarding themselves as “tortured artists, needing to blowing off steam, to craftspeople”, he said, urging the industry to go to greater lengths to “take care of each other”.
Nick Strangeway of Strangehill consultancy also rattled the cage with a talk drawing comparisons between the bar industry of the late 80s, when he was just starting out under the tutelage of the late Dick Bradsell, and the bar scene of the 21st century, an era of restaurant-grade bar set-ups, world-class ingredients and online resources on-tap. The 1980s bartender may have used sour-mix, he argued, but they brought other things to the table, unlike many careerist bartenders today.
“The industry’s in danger of disappearing up its ass,” he told the packed crowd. “If we spent less time on Facebook talking about cocktails and more time in the theatre, in restaurants and in art galleries we’d be better bartenders.”
The rise of bartender-as-entrepreneur was also a hot topic, with several experts sharing insights from their own experiences setting up premises, launching products and creating brands. The recently-launched Edinburgh Food Studio, a Scottish collective of chefs, food writers and academics with the strapline ‘Keep Food Interesting’, gave a candid talk about the challenges of launching their own restaurant and test-kitchen, which now offers communal dining to the public three nights a week, as well as regular industry workshops, chef exchanges and consultancy services for big brands and institutions.
Corrado Bogni, head concierge at the Connaught since 2008, reminisced about the night he had to deliver a £350,000 diamond to a client in Hong Kong against all odds, before sharing his philosophy on what it takes to create a successful team and his faith in the ‘power of intention’.
The role that good design can play in branding, product development and customer experience was highlighted by graphic designer Alec Doherty, who made a call for more dynamic, close-knit partnerships between the art and drinks worlds by showcasing a series of seasonal labels he’d created for Partizan, a Bermondsey craft brewery specialising in seasonal and special-edition brews.
He heralded the demise of the long-life “concept menu” in favour of lists and products that were “more seasonal and responsive”. Award-winning product designer Martin Kastner of US agency Crucial Detail also spoke about his pioneering collaboration with Chicago’s three Michelin-starred restaurant Alinea.
In between each talk, there were also bite-sized presentations and tastings from small-scale, artisan drinks companies including the ethically-sourced Rare Tea Company, Hackney soda company Square Root, France’s first grain-to-glass craft whisky distillery Vulson and Workshop Coffee, which had all produced limited edition drinks specially for the occasion.
The closing toast was made with P(our)’s own Amazonian Acquavit, a bespoke acquaivit created by Monica Berg using botanicals from a trip to the Amazon undertaken by Kratena, Berg and Caporale earlier this year. It was this trip which inspired P(our)’s first charitable project, helping to fund the construction of a plant for the production of traditional yucca sauce, a product whose growing popularity in the restaurants of Lima is now transforming the livelihood of indigenous Bora communities.
“Our aim is to host three small events each year and one big symposium, as well as doing a P(our) project like this which has direct impact, which really changes someone’s life,” says Kratena.
Those who can’t make P(our) events in person don’t need to miss out either – everything is broadcast live on Periscope and freely available online at www.pourdrink.org.
“Ultimately, we know where P(our) starts but we don’t know where it’s going – we’re looking for partnerships, for content, for events to collaborate on,” says Kratena.
“For a long time we’ve been separating baristas, cocktail bartenders, sommeliers – there are so many exciting wonderful people in the drinks industry,” he says, “but if we want to create a future for it, we need to do it together.”
For more information about P(our) visit www.pourdrink.org
