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#3 - Ivar de Lange - Using psychology for bartending and cocktails
13 Plays5 years ago
Did you ever go into a bar and felt comfortable and relaxed but didn’t know why? In this episode we talk to Ivar de Lange (ivardelange.com), an award winning bartender and entrepreneur with a background in medical psychology. Ivar gives us insights into how bars are setup and walks us through pitfalls beginning bar owners should avoid. We also touch upon the impact his medical psychology background has on his bartending career and expertise.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, what's up, everyone? This is Ajmore Savari and welcome to another podcast episode. Today, we talk to my friend Ivar de Lange. He's an award-winning bartender and he reveals how he uses his medical psychology background in his bartending profession. Enjoy.
00:00:30
Speaker
Hey everyone, and welcome to another podcast episode. If you're new here, my name's Ajmal. I'm a neuroscientist and entrepreneur. On this podcast, we explore the links between science, technology, business, and the impact they have on
Ivar de Lange's Career and Insights
00:00:45
Speaker
all of us. Our guest today is Ivar de Lange. Ivar is an award-winning bartender and entrepreneur with a background in medical psychology.
00:00:53
Speaker
For his bartending skills, he has been awarded first place at the Maker's Mark Maxology Sessions, NPC National Championships, Roses Cup Netherlands, Diageo World Class Netherlands, Diageo World Class Western Europe Speedround. He was also within the top 10 at IBA World Championships, Roses Cup Europe, Diageo World Class Global Finals.
00:01:17
Speaker
On top of that, he also received the Golden Bow Tie Award for Best Bartender by the Dutch hospitality and spirit industry.
00:01:25
Speaker
Now he helps clients to design bars, menus, train staff, and much more. He also works at Lucas Bowls as the global education manager and as master bartender. In our conversation, we talk about the cocktail and bar experience, how the industry is set up, and where it could go. We also touch upon the impact Ivar's medical psychology background had on his bartending career.
00:01:49
Speaker
At the end, he also mentions specific questions he has for science. You can find Ivar at his personal website, Ivardalange.com. That is I-V-A-R-D-E-L-A-N-G-E.com. Enough background. Let's get into it, shall we? Thanks so much for taking the time. Absolute pleasure. It's a beautiful Friday today and we're sitting inside.
00:02:16
Speaker
Well, I think it's a bit too windy still. But it is a beautiful Friday, especially for Dutch standards. Especially for Dutch standards. Well, we're in beautiful... I want to say Amsterdam, but that's not true. Just outside of Amsterdam. Just outside. Sandam. Sandam. Yes. Yes. In your beautiful house.
00:02:34
Speaker
So today what we are going to talk about is the UX of cocktails or beverages in general and bars, bar designs. And I mean, we can see where this all goes depending on what you say. I'm definitely not the expert here and that's why you're here. But you know, I have a personal curiosity question. I don't think I ever asked you this question before and I should have since all this time we know each other.
00:03:04
Speaker
Well, okay, maybe you wouldn't have told me that either. Well, let's see.
Mixology and Bartending Techniques
00:03:08
Speaker
Okay. So my personal curiosity question is, what is the limit for a very high quality spirit to be used in a cocktail until you can't taste that out anymore? Actually. So let's say I would, I love to, in your old bar, I always used to order the Cuba Libre.
00:03:34
Speaker
People say, oh, that's super easy to make, but I didn't come across many places where that actually did taste as good as at your place. And I always ordered it with the Havana Club three-year-old. Now I know some people have told me, no, no, you should order this with the Havana Club eight-year-olds. And then others went up and up and up. Is there a limit?
00:03:55
Speaker
Well, it's an interesting question. I come across a lot of aficionados, so to say, and rum is still okay. But when you touch whiskey, there's like people who say, don't mix my whiskey. So even a drop of water would be too much. Almost blasphemy.
00:04:15
Speaker
For them it is. I've seen a lot of change there in the past 20 years now, more and more people say, okay, it's good to mix. And this is also...
00:04:30
Speaker
Well, I think to answer your question, I can, I can use that whiskey example. If you do it properly, if you do it properly, then you enhance the character of that spirit. So if you have a beautiful, let's take an, an islay, which is a very smoky whiskey 16 year, beautiful islay 16, and you know how to, to pay homage to the character of the Lagafelon 16.
00:04:58
Speaker
and really enhance the flavors maybe pair or match them in a beautiful way then that's a perfect cocktail and the same goes for that that Cuba Libra if you take a Havana three with a bit more nutty character small vanilla notes.
00:05:13
Speaker
and you add a coke to that, it's a great combination. Yet, if you take a rum agrico, which is often not aged, and it is from pure juice, which has more apple grassy notes, and you mix a coke, you get a completely different drink, and you need to change the balance. So, if you would have ordered a, let's say, a Nirvana 7,
00:05:40
Speaker
If you would have ordered that, I might have changed the balance with the coke and the lime. So is there a limit? No, but it takes somebody that's experienced or educated as a bartender. People like to talk about mixologists, which I think is very difficult.
00:06:01
Speaker
You sort of insult scientists if you say that. People try to put science into bartending, which in my opinion is very, very difficult. But a good bartender or mixologist
00:06:18
Speaker
knows how to use the proper amount of coke and balances it out according to your choice of rum. And might also say, yeah, okay, this is a rum agree call. That's so grassy. You might not want to mix this with coke. But what about taking a dark and stormy with ginger beer? That's a better combination. Oh, wow. Okay. That that makes a lot of sense. It's so from the
00:06:45
Speaker
Well, the consumer end, because I really have, I wouldn't know how to mix any of these things just because I like the training. It makes a lot of sense that you say, well, excuse me, if you have the higher level drink, of course the flavors are different. And then if you want to, it should be accent, accentuating those flavors, right? Finding the right accents and.
00:07:08
Speaker
So of course, if you were to stick to exactly the same, let's say, I don't know how much milliliters of coke goes in a normal Cuba Libre, but let's say it's 40 milliliters, and normally the alcohol is 20, that you then expect just by changing the alcohol, but not the entire, let's say, composition, the recipe, just a better experience, like, oh, okay, so that's not how it works. You really have to know.
00:07:36
Speaker
know these details about these drinks, then mix them together in a way. But that means also you need to trust the bartender a lot. Yeah, exactly. Not exactly. And this is also, in my opinion, where well-trained bartenders separate themselves from untrained bartenders. I always say you don't put a Ferrari engine into a Fiat Punto because the Fiat Punto will explode. The Fiat Punto needs a different engine. And the same goes for cocktail. You can't just
00:08:05
Speaker
you know, take ingredients and mix them out. So let's take a mojito, which is a very popular drink. I make almost every mojito different for each sort of rum. So you can adjust that. But that makes sense. Interesting. Thank you. You're welcome. This has been on my mind for years. And it actually has led to many, many discussions amongst friends.
00:08:31
Speaker
I don't know how it goes. Everyone has an opinion about this. But I mean, if it's in the end, if somebody if what one person at the let's say you are at a higher end cocktail bar.
00:08:44
Speaker
And one person at the table orders a Kuba Leaver with eight-year-old ram, somebody orders it with three-year-old ram, they would say, oh, look, this tastes better. And because they have no idea what the bartender did, they would just all blame it on the ram. And often it's, but it's also, I think it's also, this goes further, obviously. I think if you chose that.
00:09:07
Speaker
older age rum in your mind because you know bartending especially flavors it's it's also it's a lot of very suggestive it's very it's it's all about the experience and if if you think that 8 year old rum will be better then probably that 8 year rum will be better but it's also probably because that 8 year rum has more of more because of the longer aging more chocolate more vanilla notes that you might like where he is a 3 year old might be more nutty which
00:09:36
Speaker
you know it brings out different flavor in your coke as well so there's yeah there is a
00:09:42
Speaker
For me as a bartender, I made what the guest wanted, but the moment they started ordering very expensive whiskey and added Red Bull, I frowned, but as a bar owner, it made me money. But if it comes to Red Bull, if there's so much sugar in a product and such strong flavors,
00:10:06
Speaker
Those details sort of go away. The same goes for orange juice. Orange juice is the acidity, but the sweetness of orange juice, the nuances become smaller and smaller.
00:10:22
Speaker
I think when it comes to sugar, I hear often, yeah, it amplifies the flavors. Then I often think, yeah, but there must be a limit because otherwise you would just eat sugar. But that's not how it works. There is an absolute limit to sugar. Like an amplifier, I guess. It just goes up and at some point the speakers will be clipping and then, yeah, you don't get anything.
00:10:47
Speaker
No, there's also with, in a sense, it's also with coke, rum and coke. If you just add a shitload, pardon my French. This is an exclusive podcast, by the way. I should have told you at the beginning, you don't have to watch your language here. But if you just add a lot of coke, you'll be drinking coke, which is okay, but that's not why you go to a bar. It's too much sugar.
00:11:12
Speaker
So just to back panel a little bit. So obviously, now you see this piece of paper in front of me. I did my research, and I found out lots about you that I didn't know before. Lots of me that I didn't know as well. No, no, no, no. I hope lots of you that you knew. I'm actually quite sure. But lots of the things that I didn't know. So I actually thought that
00:11:36
Speaker
that your cocktail bar that you had in Nijmegen where we met was your first bartending experience. But I only now realized that was completely not true. You already had experience in Amsterdam already, I think. Can you tell us a little bit about your
00:11:56
Speaker
Your experience trajectory. So I started behind the bar when I was 15. Well, two weeks before I was 16. 16 was allowed. 15 not yet. But I worked in a hotel just outside of Amsterdam. A van der Valk hotel, which is a big Dutch chain and they're not known for treating their stuff.
00:12:22
Speaker
They're no Google, let's call it that way. Okay. The HR is...
Bartending in the Netherlands
00:12:27
Speaker
Well, anyway, I was on the floor serving in a restaurant and I hated it and I dropped stuff. And then the manager, she said, why don't you jump behind the bar? We need somebody. And after two months, I was running the bar by myself for a 500 restaurant.
00:12:47
Speaker
wine, beer and mixed drinks and some easy cocktails and I really enjoyed that. So that was sort of the start here and then when I was 18 I graduated high school and I stopped the bartending part but I started traveling.
00:13:05
Speaker
worked in some small bars. And then when I got back, I started studying in Nijmegen. And that's where I also got back behind the bar, the bar called Stere, where we ran the cocktail program, my later business partner and I, we ran the cocktail program. And that's really where I got the virus, so to say, we had the privilege. You were infected.
00:13:31
Speaker
Yes, and we had the luck that at a certain point we were making some of the cocktails and then the bar was bought by another
00:13:41
Speaker
owner, and he gave us a lot of freedom, but also education. And for me, that's still a- Super valuable. Yeah, exactly. And it's very funny because the hospitality scene has a big image problem here in the Netherlands. Oh, really? Yeah, nobody really wants, especially we're a knowledge economy. Everybody in the Netherlands
00:14:05
Speaker
gets an education, gets a diploma and then says, well, I'm not going to work in a bar. And it makes sense because it's night work. It's highly underpaid relatively because physically it's demanding. It's in a sense dangerous at night work and something like that. So it had sort of a bad reputation.
00:14:24
Speaker
The main thing for me is that it lacks an educational path. There is no carrot, as I call it. So you're a bartender, and then you want to go up. So you're a nut tree, or you're in the Dutch, you're a condidato, you're a student nut tree, and then your partner, and then you own your firm, and stuff like that. That's missing. So you're a bartender, you may be a bar manager.
00:14:47
Speaker
Then you got to own your own bar, but bar owners don't own a lot of money. So no, not everybody does. And that. But I guess even, I guess even when you have your own bar, you're kind of expected to be behind the bar. Exactly. So even though maybe you go through these stages, your workplace doesn't change. No. And we say there's a debt saying, or I maybe isn't saying, I think it's a saying made up a saying, but no, one bar is no bar. I see. On average, net profit in a bar is eight to 12%.
00:15:17
Speaker
Okay. So if your revenue is a half a million, it's quite a lot. That's quite a lot. You still, and often then there's two owners, you still only make 40,000 split in two. That's 20,000, but then tax pension. So that leaves about 900 to a thousand euros a month. So you work very hard and then you got to open more and more bars. Because it really is very labor intense. Absolutely. At a hundred hours. Yeah. It's all, it all has to be made.
00:15:45
Speaker
It's not just like, hey, Kuberly, we're out to tap, no? No, you have to make, well, you can do it on tap now, but you have to make it. And the problem there is that since there's no education, it's seen as a student job. So you also, people leave after now, a year, half a year, you've invested in education, the whole thing starts over again. So as an owner, you're constantly training new stuff.
00:16:11
Speaker
that education that I got at Stera where that owner said, okay, you go with the partner to a bar academy for two days. That was very valuable for me and that opened my eyes that there are educational possibilities. So at Stera, when I got my master's degree, when I was, I think it was right after I bought the bar,
00:16:38
Speaker
Because I worked in the Rannadbout. You studied psychology. Yes. Or was it a clinical psychology? Clinical psychology. And I didn't want to... I noticed during that, because I sort of did an internship and then turned into work. And for me it was quite clear, no, that's not going to be... So then I just... We started the bar.
00:17:05
Speaker
No, I got my mask. Yeah, I was finished then we bought the bar, but I got the physical diploma because we were painting everything and then at one o'clock, I believe, I had to pick up my... The diploma. I was sort of covered in paint and my mom came and my brothers and the guy, the professor was giving a speech and said, well, here's your diploma, but if I just bought a bar, it's like a bit of an interesting...
00:17:33
Speaker
situation and period. But yeah, that's, I started, that's 23 years ago when I started. And from the fog taught me how to work hard. Because as I said, as I said, they're not known for their HR. So for their, how do you call it treating their staff the best, they're not doing anything wrong, per se, but it's not like,
00:17:56
Speaker
It's hard work and it's demanding. But it's not like, hey, if you're tired, you can sleep there in the corner. No, no. No, no. Exactly. Take some food home. No, no, no. It's you need to work. Yeah. You need to, you dare to work and you get minimum wage and you work your ass off.
The MA Cocktail Bar
00:18:13
Speaker
And if you can do a little better, you do a little better.
00:18:16
Speaker
But that formed me. That's been a very important part of my career. That's also probably why my parents allowed me to do that job. Discipline is important to learn, especially when you start your own thing. You can only rely on yourself.
00:18:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And you have to work very, very hard. So that's what I learned. And so Fondafalque has been, but that education at Steter, that moment that was, I was thinking, okay, there could be a profession, could be a career. So what was it then from all these experiences that you had, that you had in these previous jobs, the experience from Fondafalque you mentioned, okay, they taught me to work at Steter because you got sent to these workshops or
00:19:03
Speaker
bootcamps that you could see, okay, I can gain knowledge here, there might be a path. But what other things from these jobs helped you to come up with the concept for your own bar?
00:19:19
Speaker
because you didn't just open a bar, it was supposed to be different. And when I came to Naimehin and when I came, Demar, your cocktail bar, already existed, it's the only cocktail bar that I knew about when I came to Naimehin. There was nothing else.
00:19:43
Speaker
And I thought the MA was very special. I've been to many cocktail bars, but I thought was very special. Well, people thought we were utterly crazy starting the MA. And we were. Yeah, absolutely. We were 27. And so being from Amsterdam, I was from Amsterdam. During my university years, I sort of spent half the time in Nijmeg, half in Amsterdam.
00:20:07
Speaker
So, you know, not to be negative about Naimer, but especially when I got there 15 years ago, there was a big difference between Amsterdam and Naimer. It still is. We shouldn't forget it. Now we have internet. When we started the bar, the man in 2007, eight? I believe Instagram wasn't there yet. Facebook just started. The iPhone just came out in 2007.
00:20:35
Speaker
So it was not like you go on the internet and look for cool bars. Now, if you pop up your Instagram, you see amazing pictures of the most beautiful bars, stuff like that. But I was very much inspired by, we wanted to create a luxury drinking experience, a quality drinking experience. So what we did is we
00:20:55
Speaker
We took about six months, I think, to write all the plans down, to really make a concept. We even did a small research and they made what people wanted. We went down the street. Being a psychologist, there was nothing scientific. No, but it doesn't matter. Often that doesn't even matter. It's just to get information. To get information and looking back at it, we were... Get a feel for it.
00:21:22
Speaker
Yeah, but we were more looking for confirmation than the information, but it's a different thing. It's a slippery slope always. Slippery slope. But we got some valuable information. We just went on the streets, gave forums to about 200 people. But people were looking for something new. They were looking for two things. One thing was something to dance. That wasn't there around any night, maybe.
00:21:49
Speaker
And then I was sort of a more upscale luxury. It wasn't per se cocktails. Yeah, because cocktails was a very unknown concept. Yeah. People came to Stata for Pina Colada, but yeah, like high end cocktails. No, it was so.
00:22:05
Speaker
We sat down, we started writing, and we really wanted to do that. We believed it was possible. And people say, yeah, but Nijmegen, Havana, Andebal is what they call it, a left-winged student city. I said, there's, I don't know, 150,000 people. For me, that's... And they're not all students. They're not all students. It's a representation of the Dutch
00:22:27
Speaker
of the Dutch people, maybe slightly more to the left, but still, we just need 400 people a weekend to come for a novelty product too. I thought that that should be possible. In general, Dutch people and cocktails, because here in Amsterdam, I sometimes work at one of the best bars here in town, which is a great opportunity for men. They all be there.
00:22:55
Speaker
a couple of shifts a month, but 95% I think is tourist. Oh, wow. And because Dutch people.
00:23:05
Speaker
First of all, they start counting. Yes. So I spend 12 euros on a cocktail. That means four beers. But dude, why would I pay 50? They don't do that. Yeah, they don't do that. Unless they want to impress somebody on a date. That's true. And then not even because they got to split the bill and then they think, yeah, I cannot let her pay that much money. So there comes the Dutch.
00:23:29
Speaker
I'm very happy that you're saying all these things and not because I know I know I'm done. But this is this is also what I noticed in the when I came to the Netherlands, I didn't expect there to be much of a difference between Germany and the Netherlands. But when it came to the service industry, not how the service was in general, but the
00:23:50
Speaker
what the customer valued was so different what they were willing to pay a premium for. And in the Netherlands, I was so surprised they were just not willing to pay a premium at all. There is a current trend that premium spirits, everything is about premium spirit. You see premium spirit rising everywhere. Not that much in the Netherlands, only in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, maybe where you have tourists. So in Nijmegen, when we opened it,
00:24:19
Speaker
People really said we were crazy. But what I also knew is that we had a sort of a fan base. Can you call it a fan base? It was a hip spot and we started spreading the word. And when we opened from day one, it was a line outside.
00:24:42
Speaker
We went through a whole learning curve, but we never had to, luckily never had to complain about the volume of people coming to the bar. And it was a big, big gamble. But yeah, we wanted to have a luxury place. And one of the, we had, there was a good match. I had a very good friend of mine that time.
00:25:05
Speaker
who is an interior designer, quite a successful international interior designer currently. And we were his first project. So he made a beautiful... Well, you've seen what it is. He made a beautiful design of the bar and he helped us a lot there with helping us out with material and stuff like that. And that was a good match. The man wouldn't have looked the way it did.
00:25:34
Speaker
if he wouldn't have been there. We were lucky as well to get money from the bank and some of our own money. It wasn't cheap, but it was a good match there. Those two things, us deciding we want to have a luxury drinking experience and did some research with a bit of the knowledge in the background of cocktails.
00:25:59
Speaker
together with having him on board to design the bar and to help us realize it, that cost for demand to be what it was.
Bar Design and Efficiency
00:26:11
Speaker
No, and I thought the MA was... So I didn't know that you actually had an interior designer. I actually thought you guys made that all yourself. No, no, no. I was very impressed. I mean, when you walk just for the listeners now, you walk in and...
00:26:25
Speaker
you don't see a giant room with 50 tables all stacked up in like a grid. It was more like an elongated place where you walk through and you could have max somebody on the right side and maybe then a table on the left side and then walk in between there, which I think was great because it still gave the people that were sitting there
00:26:55
Speaker
a big sense of more space and privacy to enjoy it with the people that come. But it was not, you know, there was nothing that was actually separating you from any other guest. But it created this nice perception. And then when you get in the bag, this elongation changes into
00:27:15
Speaker
into a left turn, and then there basically you have a bit more space, but you still had that same perception. And I especially, especially enjoyed the fireplace. I would never thought of putting a fireplace in my own bar and especially not in a golden, because the, I don't know how you call it exactly, but it was put in a golden wall. We sort of build a golden wall and fireplace in the middle so you could see through the fireplace.
00:27:44
Speaker
That was so beautiful. In summer we couldn't put it on because it was an actual fireplace. It got so hot. It was so hot. And sometimes people even came, especially on dates, in summer asking, can you put the fireplace on? I don't think so. No, but it was the uniqueness of what I think
00:28:02
Speaker
of the design was that it is warmth of the colors. It was several layers. What do I mean with that? Several heights of sitting. That gives a very layered feeling where you can have both your intimate place where you have a good conversation or you can be with a group but still intimately be with that group.
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah, the golden bar with sort of an arch, I think it was. Yeah, that was also unique. It shows that interior design is not... Because you think I'm going to... And a lot of bar owners that start a bar now think I can do it myself.
00:28:49
Speaker
I would definitely advise to get somebody with expertise because they don't only look at, this is a beautiful chair, not a look at the whole picture, but also on the height of the seats, of the whole atmosphere, of the colors.
00:29:06
Speaker
I mean, yeah, I mean, they just think about other dimensions that you might have not considered yet. I mean, might have not even thought that play a big role. The only thing you should always design yourself is the actual bar, the workstation. Yeah. Because architects or interior designers don't think of volume, routing and stuff like that. So that's one thing you should always.
00:29:27
Speaker
Okay, oh, that's a good design yourself. That would have been actually my next question. But it makes it makes a lot of sense that I mean, if you have to stand there, it needs to fit your workflow. So you can deliver quality and speed. Yeah, at the same time. So currently with my company, I get a lot of clients and my first question when I come to a new client when they open a new bar or a new place, have you designed the bar yet? 99 out of 100 times here. Yeah, our architect did it. And then I'm like, oh,
00:29:56
Speaker
And what bar owners often forget is, is it the Parachio principle 80-20? Yeah, the Pareto principle. Pareto principle. That also goes for bars. So in 20% of the time, you make 80% of your revenue. So that's a peak. So that's maybe two hours, three hours. You got to bang out drinks. And if your bar station is not set up for success, that might cost you
00:30:21
Speaker
four or five cocktails an hour on one station. That's 10 cocktails an hour times 12. That's a lot of money. Yeah, there's quite some money you lose in the peak that's easily four or five hundred euros. I mean, it's not only that. So let's say you were to do this and the customer
00:30:41
Speaker
is still waiting for those cocktails. And in the long run, you're just going to lose customers because they don't want to wait 30 minutes for a drink. And that's, we had that at the mall. You had that at the mall. Yeah. In the beginning, horror stories in the beginning, but you know, we,
00:30:55
Speaker
And then think of that 8% to 12%. So then think of those 500 euros a night you could lose by bad design. That is very important. I always would advise to hire a specialized interior designer, but also somebody that knows about routing, about bar, about efficiency, so you can
00:31:20
Speaker
You know, we do a lot of calculation, but if you have four people on the floor selling one Coke an hour extra, that's 10 euros an hour on an eight hour shift. That adds up. That adds up on a yearly basis. So it's all these, and if they have to go all the way to the bar, and there's a small fridge that needs to be restocked three times a night with Coke, it just doesn't, you lose money. You lose money. Yeah.
Consulting and Beverage Programs
00:31:45
Speaker
Okay. So when you advise, so from,
00:31:49
Speaker
the company that you now have, you are advising people that want to open bars. Yeah, or run bars, run beverage programs. Is it also for creating cocktail menus or beverage menus? Absolutely. When you do that, what's your specific focus then? I mean, you mentioned already a little bit of, OK, you making sure the owners or the people that want to open it or running it,
00:32:15
Speaker
things are focused on efficiency, but not only just speed. I guess it's not supposed to be McDonald's. It's efficiency and quality at the same time. But what other aspects are you thinking then? What's the process that goes into it? First of all, I start talking to the owner manager.
00:32:41
Speaker
And the first thing I think is how can we create a program that creates healthy revenue and healthy profit. And sometimes, because it's not only often I don't even, well, cocktails is all sort of always involved, but sometimes I also run programs without cocktails because after talking to them,
00:33:01
Speaker
We find out that cocktails might not be what they want I see or because it's a lot of work. Yeah, and I always try to manage expectations and if I believe that the Expectations of a clients are unrealistic. I tell them and I will never do a
00:33:21
Speaker
a project where I think, okay, this is not going to work. Then I step out and I say, okay, you might look for somebody else to execute because I don't feel comfortable with that. So the first step is really that business program, that concept. Is it feasible? Is it realistic to do that? It can be anywhere in the country.
00:33:44
Speaker
been all the way to the south a couple of weeks ago for a cool little project. But you got to do a different project in the south than in New York, for instance, which is completely different. But often that bar owner in the south takes New York as an example.
00:34:06
Speaker
I mean, they do look at the big ones, right? I can understand that. And what's very, what's often, I often start asking with sort of why, the why of the cocktails. If the why of the cocktails is revenue, because owner think I can ask 10 euro for a cocktail or 250 for a beer. So if I sell as many cocktails as beers,
00:34:34
Speaker
I see so but then the cost that you know you you margin on a cocktail is lower than your beer so I wouldn't per se go for it but if revenue is the reason you make a completely different menu you bang out if if image you can is the reason or passion is the reason passion you got a
00:34:56
Speaker
go on the whole other side, you got to say, well, of course, you can make a beautiful old fashioned with a Kappa 23. But you can't put that on a menu because it has to cost 25 euros. But you know, you have a lot of young bartenders that want to have a crazy bar back bar. And yeah, then you lose money. So, you know, I really, I look at revenue, I look at a feasible, realistic project, and I look at the why, and then we start filling in the pieces.
00:35:26
Speaker
We do calculation, we do service training, we do upsell training, we really analyze the project, we gonna start with them and that, yeah, you look at a lot of different things.
00:35:43
Speaker
Oh, okay. That sounds very interesting. Um, so I got a bunch more questions and what exactly, and specifically also with your background in psychology, but we come back to that later. Of course. So now, okay, this might come a little bit out of the blue eye. There's no real segue to this, but how would you compare a bartender to a kitchen chef?
00:36:11
Speaker
Well, the big difference to start with is that often a chef that has no interaction with the guest. So a bartender is always in the spotlights and is very multitasking. But besides that, a bartender does the exact same. We look at drinks and foods and make a combination that we serve. A chef does the same.
00:36:34
Speaker
A big difference, obviously, we work with alcohol, which takes a little bit of responsibility and stuff like that into account. But besides that, everything I see food-wise, I can use in a cocktail. And nowadays, guys, the limit, we use the same techniques.
00:36:53
Speaker
a chef, some of like in the molecular kitchen. Oh yeah, the molecular, yeah. Yeah, we do that a lot, but also fat washing, smoking, stuff like that, where you can smoke a ham, but you can also smoke a cocktail. So there's a lot of similarities there, but... How can you smoke a cocktail? So you have a smoking gun, do you know the smoking gun that you're using, chef? No. It's sort of you put, let's say, sandalwood or applewood in a smoking gun.
00:37:21
Speaker
You light that, you put the smoking gun on that it sucks the, so the wood starts burning and the smoke gets sucked into the smoking gun. There's a little hose and you put the cocktail, I'm taking a glass, but obviously the listeners can't see that. You have the cocktail and you put a sort of a glass globe on top and you smoke.
00:37:46
Speaker
Blow the smoke into the glass and you keep it on there. Yeah. So you smoke the cocktail that way. Oh, that's super interesting. And if you want to do it, if you want to, if you, you can, this is how you do it at the bar. This is more for visual effect and for smell and stuff like that. But you can also have a vacuum seal bag, put the cocktail in there, smoke the wood.
00:38:08
Speaker
Blow the smoke in there, close it, vacuum seal it, and maybe put it suvida, infuse it, or just let it rest. And then you smoke it for an hour. Wow. So the cocktail gets the flavor of the smoke. The flavor of the smoke. And then you can use cinnamon, you can rosemary, you can use wood, you can anything dried that burns and tastes good. And then it should taste good. You could choose.
00:38:35
Speaker
So a chef and a bartender is very, there's a lot of similarities there. And it reminds me of the, that you say, okay, the normally the chef is not interacting with the customer directly. It reminds me of the, the, you know, the, the Japanese type of restaurants that God, I'm gonna pronounce this wrong. Teppanaki style, where the chef is literally cooking right in front of you.
00:39:03
Speaker
Um, and I performed a few tricks as well. I thought, Oh, okay. This, this could be a bit more. It's like that. It's like that. And I, I always, for me, bartending. And that's why another reason why I like that mixo don't like the mixology term, because there's way more to it. I can make you an average drink.
00:39:24
Speaker
but create the best experience you've ever had. Fun, knowledgeable, great service, and you have a great night. You'll come back for that. You'll tell everybody. I can even make that mediocre drink taste amazing. But if I have a great tasting drink,
00:39:46
Speaker
But there's no experience and you sort of have a boring night but with a great tasting drink. You go to another bar.
00:39:58
Speaker
Often, and this is also what we did in the men, we created an experience. And that experience is because if you would have had the same drinks, but it would have been in a very sterile atmosphere where we would have put the drinks through a sort of a small open window. Right. Oh yeah. Like a vending machine. Yeah, exactly. You wouldn't have had the same experience. And this is where bartending
00:40:30
Speaker
It becomes tricky because it's not only about taste, knowledge, education. So you got to understand how you pair flavors and how you mix them. But it's also about being a great host, about being a fun personality, knowledgeable. I always train my bartenders to read the newspaper to be able to talk about different things with the guests. And you have to do that.
00:40:52
Speaker
Five nights a week, no matter if you had a bad day,
Bartending Challenges and Education
00:40:55
Speaker
because if then you're just rude, you know, if you had a bad day as a bartender, you're not funny. Yeah. Let's say you come to me three nights in a row and you had a greatest night and then the fourth night, well, I had a very tough day plus four nights, three, and I'm not as entertaining anymore. Plus.
00:41:11
Speaker
The guests are getting a little bit tipsy. It's crazy. It's two o'clock in the morning and you close and they don't want to leave. And then you still have to be that entertaining host of that. That's sort of maybe the difference with the kitchen as well, because the kitchen, you if you have a grumpy day.
00:41:29
Speaker
There's a bit more separation. But not in a Tipenaki restaurant. There was not much conversation going on. So when I was there, where was that? I think it was in Los Angeles at that moment.
00:41:45
Speaker
And then when I went to that type of restaurant, it was just a conversation between the, like me and my friends and the chef was cooking in front of us and was performing this trick, but there wasn't really any type of, okay, how's your day going? And there was no bartender type of conversation. It was purely focused on the cooking that was going on in front of us.
00:42:10
Speaker
and the tricks that were performed. But there wasn't much other deeper social interaction. So I would say, yeah, I think the bartender has a harder job there.
00:42:20
Speaker
Yeah, or I think you have to be a certain personality to be able to be a bartender. And if you are that personality, it comes natural because you enjoy that. The problem is not five nights a week. That's where it becomes tricky. And this is also, and this is a danger in our profession. And I wrote an article on my website about drinking.
00:42:45
Speaker
Because it's, you know, what bar owners, they realize that and what they see it and then often to get you sort of over that bump, they offer you a shot or alcohol or guest offer you shot. And this is also why some bartender started drinking because
00:43:02
Speaker
Or even worse, drugs is a problem as well, because that keeps you going. And that's a big threat to our profession. And I would, at my bar, when it was very busy, very, it has been very busy, and everybody has been exceeding, I believe we would close, well, there was no closing time, but if we would close at two and everybody was sort of, it was quieter at 1.30, I would offer the team a little shot or a drink, but mostly we didn't do that.
00:43:32
Speaker
And nowadays you see bartenders just being sort of drunk or high on drugs because it's so difficult to keep on going. And I always advise my clients to do not five nights, but four nights, maybe a little longer shift or make 36 hour contracts instead of 40 because it's so demanding. Yeah. And it does make a difference. I mean, if you
00:43:59
Speaker
and it hampers it dampens basically the experience the customer in the index gets and that's what i try to to explain to my clients as well so they say yeah but then i need more stuff and then then it costs me money and 36 hours and do i have to pay them for 40 i said this will always benefit you because of what you say yeah
00:44:23
Speaker
People come back from that bartender and you almost need to do it like rapier in the casino where they have to be changed on the table every two hours or something for different reasons. But technically you would like to have a set of bartenders that you do two hour shift and then you go in the back, chill a bit and then
00:44:42
Speaker
You keep on rotating, so there's always somebody that's fresh and full of energy. Yeah, exactly. Full of energy without having to drink 50 Red Balls. There you go. Yeah, because it's such an unhealthy profession, unfortunately.
00:44:57
Speaker
I mean, you're exposed to all these things while you see you want your customers to enjoy it. And then I think it's a very, it can be a very slippery slope because you're so exposed to it thinking, what's the harm just a little bit now? And then before you know it.
00:45:14
Speaker
One week has passed and it's a little bit every day. It's a little bit every day and then guests offer you. Right. And how do you refuse that? Because that's rude. Yeah. Well, I will say that's very kind of you. I'll take one after work or what we had, we, you know, I.
00:45:33
Speaker
I had a bottle of just water. I said that it's vodka, my own bottle, or I would have water when I added some Angostura bitters in there to make it look like a very light rum or something. So there's tricks or, you know, if they're a little bit drunk, when you do a shot, the moment your head, when you shoot it, put your head back.
00:45:57
Speaker
And that's where they don't see you. So you just then I see shot or anything. But there are owners that push you to do it because the guest pays for it. So it's revenue. It's rare. And that's that's where it's well, that's the slippery slope you were talking about. Yeah.
00:46:13
Speaker
But so it's a big thing now as well in the bar scene together with food, sleep, but also back problems and neck problems. We are developing, it's a young or relatively young profession again, like really the cocktail started, really the bartending, the high end bartending.
00:46:36
Speaker
started again in 2000 second golden age of the cocktail, what we call it. Right. Um, but we're learning now and now you sort of see that first second generation of bartenders that started again with making cocktails. And I'm not talking about flare tending like the Tom Cruise cocktails or the sex on the beach is really the
00:46:56
Speaker
But and you see that my generation, we encounter physical problems. So we really focus on that. And that's an interesting, it's important. I mean, honestly, I had no idea. I was just a good friend of mine.
00:47:13
Speaker
He has a, it's not that he owns a bar, but he's having event, he's offering event services and he has lots of drinks at his place. And when I visited him, he asked me, what would you like to drink? I make you whatever you want.
00:47:31
Speaker
And so I don't remember what I said, but he made it and I realized he just made one glass. And then I asked him, aren't you going to have one with me? And he said, no, I'm not, I'm not drinking. And I asked him, why not?
00:47:46
Speaker
And he was basically explaining to me exactly the scenario that you're explaining. It's that slippery slope. And he was afraid that if he even allows himself a little bit, that he might get sucked into somewhere where he doesn't want to be, which then hampers his business, the service he offers, and so on and so on, that he said it's much easier for him to just say,
00:48:10
Speaker
None at all. None at all. I've seen a lot of bar owners making that mistake getting high in their own supply. Yeah. And well, when I was 27.
00:48:19
Speaker
It was my bar. We had 300 bottles on the back bar. Oh yeah. Well, you've seen my, my, my liquor room downstairs. I have 300 bottles that I never drink at home, not a single drop. And you have to be strict because it's so easy to just have one. Yeah. And with, you know, you're at your own bar and somebody offers you a whiskey and you take a cocktail and a beer and then, all right.
00:48:45
Speaker
It's just three drinks, but it's a Tuesday and you know, that's, that's how it starts. And I know a lot of bar owners that, and they don't, for them it's normal because bartending could also, you can be functioning alcoholic because your shift starts at eight. So you have to show up at work at seven and you go on till three and then you start drinking till five, six in the morning.
00:49:12
Speaker
But you just have to wake up at three again. Exactly. Nobody notices it and people think it's normal. But a lot of people in the profession are actually.
00:49:21
Speaker
could be, according to the DSM, be diagnosed with alcoholism. The only... It's the functional part. The functional part is where they're not alcohol dependent. And that's the danger if they stop barking. For them to get back into sort of a normal nine to five job, it's impossible. Because then they'll... You're basically in the rut.
00:49:48
Speaker
I think that's a slippery slope also with the DSM is that functional term. It's really, it's who defines that. And it just means, are you able to do the tasks that you have to do to earn a living? Yeah. I think that's kind of all it is. Of course, the DSM and the whole, the whole psychology is normation, norming.
00:50:11
Speaker
So if a norming, what does norming mean? If society doesn't really know this, then you're okay. If society sort of sees it as a bit weird or it's disruptive.
00:50:24
Speaker
then there is a classification. And it makes total sense that it's that way. But in this case, you see, well, there is, of course, a distinction between alcoholic and alcohol dependent. And alcoholic is just a number of, so they're alcoholics. But they're not alcohol dependent, hence there is no need for them to be, you know, go for treatment or anything.
00:50:49
Speaker
I mean, if they change their job, they will realize that they might be actually alcohol dependent. Yes. And now we start seeing sort of the first examples in the cocktail scene, because I'm saying that first, second generation, because it's also when you start, when you're 25, 26, it's fun. When you're 30, it's still fun. Your body can still take it. Your body can still take it when you're 35, a little less fun.
00:51:16
Speaker
And you turn 40, like me, almost 40. Well, then it starts becoming pathetic. And then at 40, and you see that realization with a lot of bartenders.
00:51:28
Speaker
I'm 10 years, I'm 50. I'm not going to do this for another 25 years till I get retired. You can't. You can't. Physically, you can't. Physically, you just can't. This is also where I was talking about carrot and this is also where our industry needs improvement because there's no educational system yet that sort of
00:51:51
Speaker
gives that the possibility for bartenders to add 30 or 35 say alright because it's a bar manager you're still in the bar and then you're going to become a bar owner it's the same problem you're in the bar and there's a constant supply of alcohol so
00:52:09
Speaker
What is, you can work for brands, but then you fly the whole world and you drink everywhere. So there's a lot of things that we still need to work on. So I can tell that your background in psychology actually must have helped you a lot seeing all these things because it's no offense to anyone, right? But knowing what the DSM is, having just the education of a
00:52:38
Speaker
of a bartender, I would not expect them to learn that. And you knowing these aspects just makes you think about this slightly differently. Exactly. It pays to do an education, kids. It's a good example. I mean, even if you don't end up in that profession, it doesn't mean that you haven't learned anything or that you can't apply it. And because of my education, I can build my career path.
00:53:08
Speaker
still being in the industry, but way less in the industry. I built educational. It's like a bird's eye view almost. Yeah. And because of the psychology, I can build educational programs for hotel groups or brands or anything. And I can be
00:53:24
Speaker
I have a nine to five job while I travel constantly, but I do have a nine to five job that can give me more and more and more and more. I can grow, but that's because of that education. And I'm fully aware that not everybody in the bar scene, but I do stimulate people in the bar scene to
00:53:43
Speaker
at least think of it, now it's fun, you're 25, you're 26, of course it's fun, but get yourself educated, do an online marketing course, I don't know. Now it's so much more available than it used to be. There was no Coursera in 2007, 2008, I just know, forget that didn't exist. Exactly, it's way easier and I think that this is also where employers shoot
00:54:11
Speaker
have because it's also no bar will have sort of a amount of money available for their staff for training or education, but a lot of companies. They do that. They do that. Yeah. They do that. They have a small jar for money if you want to get educated. Yeah. I think if bars do that as well, one of my clients does it and they also, because I sometimes say, well, if we do this now, we educate them, they might leave the bar.
00:54:40
Speaker
And that hotel group says, yes, we want that. Because we want them to grow into their career. We don't want them to stay with us in this role for 10 years. We want them to grow. I appreciate that a lot. But that's one out of very few. And I would say, I mean, honestly, whoever has helped me in my career path with training or their time for giving advice,
00:55:07
Speaker
I do not forget that at all and I will do anything I can still to promote those people or send anyone that asks me for where can I do this and this to those people because I know they will be taken care of.
00:55:24
Speaker
Plus, from the perspective of those people putting that investment in, it shows that it will pay off. If you do your job right, if you do it right, if you just treat the investment as in the idea of 50 euros, leave me alone, you're not going to get that. But if you put in the care, I think it will pay off on the long run.
00:55:47
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And especially in industries where there is so little attention and little focus on education, then there it pays off.
Enhancing Cocktail Experiences
00:56:02
Speaker
And we need that in the bar industry.
00:56:05
Speaker
No, I can see that. And then also with what you mentioned before, it's not just training, I guess, for how to make cocktails. I guess it's also the training for what is around just the recipe of the cocktail.
00:56:22
Speaker
Um, the showmanship, I would say the, the conversation. And so you are now also a global judge for the both around the world competition, which isn't next week, the final in two weeks. So we're recording this in the beginning of June. So in two weeks, it's the world finals in Amsterdam. And what I thought was very interesting is that you.
00:56:48
Speaker
you in a in a call to the participants you mentioned that you want to see more rituals ritual of the creation of the cocktail no and and i guess this has to do with you already knowing that there's just so much more to the cocktail experience than just the cocktail yeah absolutely people come back for a ritual and and i mean how do you
00:57:16
Speaker
How do you think these specific rituals, so with ritual now I mean the making the cocktail, how do you think experiencing that as a guest, and now I'm asking again for your psychology background, impacts that experience?
00:57:35
Speaker
because I know, so I'm sure you know of these studies, which I was fascinated by. So I used to drink a lot of wine. I used to love wine. Now I barely drink anything anymore. Just, I don't know. It just faded kind of. We're getting old. Yeah, we're getting, I guess that's it. So it's like, it goes with the age. But what I...
00:57:59
Speaker
There was this one study, two studies actually, and I just couldn't believe what came out. They gave a glass of white wine and a glass of red wine to a professional sommelier. They blindfolded him or her.
00:58:16
Speaker
And they were at a 50% chance guessing if this was red or white wine. It blew my mind. It blew my mind. I couldn't believe this. Because the sommelier training is hardcore. It's really hardcore. And it blew my mind. And then there was another study where they had to just average guests, they poured exactly the same wine
00:58:44
Speaker
but one the customer paid more for and one was they paid less for. But it was exactly the same one. And it impacted how people tasted it. But it's the same as if you buy a pair of Nikes versus a pair of non-branded shoes and you go running on them, the Nikes are always better. It's just a perception. But how do you play with that in that scenario? Do you play with that? Absolutely.
00:59:10
Speaker
And that's why I said earlier on a mediocre drink can become a great drink if there is the whole experience and ritual experiences is what we call it. But if let's say a chef, you go into a kitchen and he's making his recipe from a cookbook.
00:59:32
Speaker
Well you immediately think that won't be a good recipe because a chef needs to be an expert and if you take that to the complete other side if you see a bartender with amazing skills showing you amazing evening telling you about the history of this of the spirits the way it's produced and why they mix it with that. You know in your head you give them that expert role and an expert can only make a good product like
01:00:00
Speaker
an expensive wine can only be better than a cheaper wine because you paid more for it. So probably that process has been, um, and that's always the assumption, right? That's always the assumption. And for instance, I have a client in, um,
01:00:15
Speaker
in Luxembourg and they opened eight years ago, put cocktails on the menu there. I was there for the opening and we did the cocktails and it didn't work after half a year. 10 euros he asked for the cocktails. Then he upped the price, still 15 euros.
01:00:34
Speaker
Now, everybody, because Luxembourg is a champagne country. Oh, yeah. So it's just a value that people. It's a value. And it's not only that they think, oh, this might be good, but it's also like. Or the expected value, basically. The expected value, yeah. But it's also that if something is cheap, it cannot be good. It's so imprinted. It's so imprinted. And I do the same. If I buy headphones, something I don't, I'm not really knowledgeable
01:01:02
Speaker
in headphones. I go to the shop and I buy the most expensive noise canceling because I think, well, and they're good, obviously. But are they the best on the market? I wouldn't know. So if you go into the whole experience, the whole ritual, and the ritual, I'll tell you why we're looking for a ritual. There's a slightly different sort of reason why we're in that case. Well, tell me, tell me. So think of the tequila.
01:01:33
Speaker
Yeah. We know the tequila ritual, basically made for disguising the badly mixed dough. So not the 51% agave tequila and the rest is cheap sugar distillate, molasses distillate. Whereas you have 100 agave tequila, 100% that we barely have here in the Netherlands, but super expensive.
01:01:52
Speaker
It's super expensive, but it's worth the investment. I agree. But this is expensive because the agave has to be cut by hand, it has to be roasted. It's all the manual labor that goes into it. Exactly. So you pay for that. But the rituals basically to do the salt.
01:02:10
Speaker
So you first do the salt. Well, what the salt do, it sort of takes away the water. And on your tongue, there's the epithelial cells that open when the water hits it. That's why we produce saliva when we get hungry. So the salt takes away sort of the saliva, the water on your tongue. Let's call it that way. So the epithelial cells don't really open when you put the tequila on there. And then as fast as possible,
01:02:37
Speaker
You take lemon. That's the background of the thought behind the ritual. But that ritual caused such a massive, massive growth in volume of tequila sales. People like rituals. Everything that has a ritual is important. A drinking ritual is something that a brand is looking for.
01:03:06
Speaker
So if you can invent your new drinking ritual, you can potentially create big, big volumes. In the Netherlands, we have the Kopstoy, your neighboring beer. Oh yeah. There you go, it's a ritual.
01:03:18
Speaker
This is interesting. So this reminds me of the IKEA effect. Have you heard of that? So the IKEA effect is basically the idea that whatever, well, it's not an idea, so it's a bias. And it basically means that if you put work into something, it becomes more valuable. And I'm saying IKEA bias,
01:03:48
Speaker
IKEA effect because you are building your furniture yourself. That's the part where kind of it has been ritualized by IKEA as well and it has been hugely successful obviously. And I find this quite interesting is that I never thought of something like that
01:04:11
Speaker
in a cocktail environment or in a beverage environment, but it makes total sense what you say. You do a little bit, adding to your experience as well, which then most likely makes it, well, not only does it make it more fun,
01:04:30
Speaker
Well, no, it makes it more fun and that fun transmits into the value you attribute to this beverage or whatever you're consuming at that moment. And I can tell you the Americans are crazy when it comes to these rituals. When I was in Texas, what was that street called?
01:04:51
Speaker
was an Austin, oh God, I can't believe I forgot the name of the street. Sixth street. I've not yet been to Austin. But wherever you walk into a bar and you order some type of cocktail, it comes with some type of game. And yeah, so to anyone listening in Austin, order a blue wave. You see what I mean? But it's the same in New Orleans. Wow. Now I forgot the name. What's up? But it's, it's very fair. I go to New Orleans every year as a big cocktail fair and it's not a grenade. It's
01:05:21
Speaker
Well, it's just a big lie. Everybody drinks it on Bourbon Street and it's a ritual. Yeah. And, and, um, what's, what's very trending now in, in cocktail world. And I'll be in the right after balls around the world. I'm going to Negroni week in the United States. Oh wow. Where's that going to be? All over the States. So I'll be doing three cities in six days, I believe. Oh my God. Washington DC, Tampa and Chicago. So it's everywhere, but it's, uh, it's okay. Wow. Um, but, um, we're going to serve a red light Negroni. I live in Tampa.
01:05:53
Speaker
I can't wait for the good weather there. We served a red light Negroni in a red light bulb.
01:06:02
Speaker
And from the build, we serve the bulb with the glass and guests pour the red light and groany over ice themselves. Just that simple pouring, that's the experience. It's the experience. And that's why we are looking for an experience. And the ritual is more, well, that's the same actually. And an experience
01:06:25
Speaker
gives people a good feeling, so to say. Well, it's also a sense of ownership. Yeah, a sense of ownership. No, exactly. A sense of ownership that gives them a good feeling. Yeah, exactly. Because that good feeling is what we want, that positive emotion about their experience that makes them come back. Yeah, exactly. It's very, people don't, spreading a positive message is
01:06:52
Speaker
Well, people do that, but not too often. A negative message is spread to everybody. But we want to create those positive association. And for instance, Bacardi had the commercial for the Mojito. That was a great commercial, I have to say. Yeah, but everybody was getting their mottler and making Mojitos at home and completely ruining their mint. You should never model mint, but that's a different thing.
01:07:23
Speaker
I think it was that song, yeah, it was that. And even when I was bartending, well now luckily they don't ask it, but in the 95, 96, when I started bartending, oh, Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise. That's the experience, it's showing, your dream could be bad, but it's the whole thing around it.
01:07:42
Speaker
And then indeed for the ritual could be it's also part ownership that you own the ritual that you do it yourself and that makes them come back. And the reason why we do want that with bulls is that there's a lot of brands on the market.
01:07:59
Speaker
And you got to stand out. And Bulls is actually very good at it. It's a small Dutch brand, but we're very good at standing out. And ritual and experience is part of that. And if we as a brand, in this case, if Bulls as a brand can help
01:08:18
Speaker
a bar owner with that experience, the bar owner is helped. Yeah, of course. And here goes that. And gets education. And gets education. And gets education. Yeah. And here goes that 8%, 12% revenue again. All those little things are important for a bar owner. Yeah, no, I totally agree. Oh, that's interesting that you mentioned that. I never thought about it this way. This is...
01:08:43
Speaker
Well, I'm definitely going to look at cocktails very differently now. Yeah, it's still, we don't have to, yeah, well, you have to shake a cocktail, of course, but there's a whole, the whole ritual in making the cocktail and letting guests experience them. It's even more powerful if you, okay, how do I say this without, if you give them the idea that they've made the cocktail themselves. So Taylor made cocktails.
01:09:13
Speaker
guests come back for their own cocktail. If you help them together with them, you create a cocktail. So if you take them on a journey, they'll come back, you'll have guests for life. And that's the ownership.
01:09:28
Speaker
I mean, well, okay, you mentioned now a lot of things. You mentioned the ritual part, you mentioned the specific aspect of what salt does and why in that tequila drinking ritual, why you lick that first, then comes the shot, then comes the
01:09:48
Speaker
Yeah, lemon. The huge acidity which blows away all the flavor anyway. And with these, I mean, what you explained to what you said to me when it came to what the salt does sounded super scientific. Do you do you use these specific parts that you know, to design specific rituals exactly in this manner? Well, yeah, yeah, in a sense, you try to do but the problem here comes a problem.
01:10:18
Speaker
You never know why a ritual is ritual for tequila, but a ritual should also be stupidly simple. Yeah, stupidly simple. And if you overthink things, it becomes so difficult. So that's where science sort of stops. But yeah, you can use, for instance, in upsell training, we use several scientific principles like the chameleon effect. Would you like to have another beer?
01:10:50
Speaker
Yes. So you nod. So you nod while you were asking. Yeah, exactly. And if you do that the first time, so they had a beer and when it's almost done, you ask, would you like another beer?
01:11:00
Speaker
And then the third time, you just nod and say, beer? And I say, yeah. Fourth time, you just nod. The fifth time, you only have to blink your eyes. And so you keep on selling that extra beer. Or the primacy, recency. So if you want to sell a certain product, you can use primacy, recency, where if the decision have to be made straight after what you tell them, then you use the recency effect.
01:11:29
Speaker
If there's a little waiting time, you use privacy. So if you show them the menu and you have a big group and one says, oh, can you help me? I have to think maybe. Maybe. And then you say, okay, well, we have blah, blah, blah. And you say what you want to sell first. And then later you come back. So there are small little things that you can use in that. But there's also bartenders that
01:11:56
Speaker
I want to measure the signs of dilution. So when you stir a drink, how much it dilutes. And then they say, well, if you stir it like that with that amount of water and they test it in their bar and they try to use those results, but they're not copy pastable, applicable on other situation because humidity, temperature, temperature of ice, stuff like that. So in that sense, it's difficult to use.
01:12:26
Speaker
So you science these these scientific concepts then. So for me, it sounded like okay, you describe now two different camp one is more at the camp of scientific concepts that that you can take from decision making, and the computer effect primacy, recency, IKEA effect, whichever one it is. And the other one is more trying to get these cocktails
01:12:53
Speaker
as accurately reproducible as possible. And that's where bartenders try to use a lot of signs where it's, in my opinion, never applicable. I see. And also because, well, if it's always the same dilution, then you serve it to the guest, but the guest will never taste it as in a
01:13:14
Speaker
experimental environment. Right. The guests will taste it while having conversation, listening to music, not focused at all. Yeah, that's what I mean. I mean, there are so many more. You also mentioned so many more factors involved into the taste. Exactly. Let's say let's be precise in the experience of the taste, rather than just the ingredients of the cocktail. Exactly. And those other factors are often more controllable, per se, than
01:13:44
Speaker
Having to have 22.5 milliliters dilution in your cocktail, you can't control that. But you can control a lot of other factors like experience, like temperature, like volume of music, like tempo of music, all these things that you can do that add up to the experience.
01:14:06
Speaker
Okay, so this I find very interesting because for me, this was where I wanted to go, is just wondering what concepts are used in bartending, where you think, okay, maybe these should be scientifically tested in the first place, or which concepts are taken from
01:14:28
Speaker
from a scientific method, making it super precise, but completely leaving out that this is not a lab environment. And therefore, we should not look at just the recipe, but actually all the other things which would be so much more effective to control, easier to control, and cheaper to control.
01:14:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, there's, so, so, um, ice is something that, that, that people always want to talk about scientifically eyes, but there's, you know, there's so much different in, in, well, um, calcium in ice. So all the components in water, for instance.
01:15:09
Speaker
But ice is something bartenders always want to scientific fice. How do you call it? Make scientific? Yeah, yeah, make it scientific, yeah. And yeah, then temperature, volume of music, stuff like that. These are, for me, the interesting things that you should check, like beats per minute in music. That's what I would check. Temperature, colors.
01:15:39
Speaker
even the way a bartender looks could influence what you drink, the way they approach you. What they say. What they say and very, very important menu design. I was about to ask you. Tell me. Well, first of all, bartenders and cocktail makers, they want to write all the ingredients. People don't care.
01:16:07
Speaker
People, the average guest doesn't even know what Angostura is, doesn't care that you use a certain vermouth from a certain region and that you have this very rare Japanese, they want to know flavors. But a lot of menus have 60 drinks on there. This is ridiculous. They basically give you a book. Yeah, because only one third of your guests
01:16:34
Speaker
Order from the menu there's a lot of research done on that so average thirty three percent the rest people the majority of people come to the bar can have a beer can have a coke can have a mojito and this is where you should train your stuff this is your first
01:16:55
Speaker
experience moment, your upsell. All right, oh, you like to have Coke? Well, we make our own homemade soda. Maybe you'd like to try that. Experience starts. Or, oh, your beer? Well, we have several beers. Well, if you want to make money, you say, well, we have, if you have a good deal on, let's say, Heineken, Dutch. We say, we have Heineken, we have Groß, we have Bavaria, we have an IPA, but we also have Heineken. All right, there you go. They'll probably take Heineken.
01:17:22
Speaker
And then while they have it, you say, okay, we also have a cocktail menu with 10 cocktails where you put them on the right because that's where they start reading. What they also always want to do is cheapest and then go down on the price and that's stupid. Yeah. So just.
01:17:39
Speaker
put them on top, one or two expensive one to make the other look cheaper. And it's also, I don't know the name of it, but for instance, when you would go to a supermarket and you can choose a five or 10 euro or a five or 10 euro wine for doing a party, a lot of people take it sort of the five because the 10 is quite expensive. But if you do a five, 10 and 15, everybody takes the 10.
01:18:04
Speaker
You can apply that on your cocktail menu as well. Signs behind the bar, the way you display your bottles. And then all those things and the way your guests talk to your
01:18:22
Speaker
If your bartender talks to you, you guess that the way the bartender interacts, that's way more important than the delusion of ice or the way you dash your bitters or all these things that people want to, want to, again, make scientific. Because if we start with ice, you got to start with water. And water is differently everywhere here in Amsterdam. It's different than Nijmegen.
01:18:52
Speaker
So that influences both the speed of the dilution, but definitely the taste. Why focus on those very small little details?
01:19:08
Speaker
There are a lot of things that come from our science, from psychology, that you can actually apply and use. Yeah, but that's beautiful. I think that's so beautiful. And I have not... It's actually super interesting that you bring up music, because in the previous session, I was talking to a friend of mine, Erwin de Boer,
01:19:29
Speaker
And he is a sound designer. So he makes, oh man, I hope I get this right. He's not listening. No, he will be. If you're listening, you're in Surrey. Yeah, sorry. Damn it. Sonic house style type. So for brands, how they should sound. And we were also talking about,
01:19:55
Speaker
I asked him specifically about music in restaurants because I'm an audiophile, I like good music and I like high quality of that music. Now I spend a lot of time figuring out what's the best headphones and all this stuff.
01:20:13
Speaker
But I like that. So when I'm in a restaurant and the music is a little too loud, I get annoyed super fast. I get very, very fast. And nobody else seems to mind.
01:20:27
Speaker
And that's so interesting that should bring up the BPM as very specifically even. So, volume is more difficult than BPM because, for instance, if I go into a shopping street, a big shopping street, you're... Every city has a big shopping street.
01:20:44
Speaker
Often you have this hip, young shops where sometimes even a DJ is playing with very loud music. I would never enter that shop, yet it's full of people. Yes, that's right. So volume, in a loud bar, if I'm in a loud bar, I'll tell my friends, shall we go somewhere else? And I'll say, no, it's nice here.
01:21:10
Speaker
But what we can say, and there's also research in that, is that beat per minute is very important. If you play slow jazz music, people drink slower automatically because you have a glass of whiskey, you order a type of drink in a jazz bar, they have Chesterfield chairs and you sit down and then you listen to...
01:21:34
Speaker
Miles Dave is not too slow but like really slow jazz. It literally sets the tone. It sets the tone but also your heartbeat drops and drinking tempo is very related to heartbeat as well. It's the same as bartending. If you're free-poor you count your heartbeat.
01:21:54
Speaker
Yeah free pouring is not using a jigger but just using the bottle and counting often you use your heartbeat as a reference so if it's very quiet and you're relaxed you got a one two three four but if it's busy and or you're stressed in a competition so if you want to have a good measure of whiskey always ask are you relaxed bartender?
01:22:18
Speaker
No. Okay. And then go to the next part in order with them if they're fruit. But, and, but there is sort of a sweet spot of beats per minute. I don't know the exact number, but because if you go to a techno party with very high BPM,
01:22:34
Speaker
you're not per se going to drink faster because there is a point where you start feeling uncomfortable. But there is a sort of a BPM ideal spot. So it's like an inverted U shape basically. It does go up, but as soon as you go over it, it goes back down. Yeah. And then you can look into it, but that sweet spot is where you want to
01:22:58
Speaker
where you want to be with your music and then volume is very much, well, I like lower volume. And I think this is very much related to target group. I think if you have an older target group,
01:23:18
Speaker
us or even older because a lot of bar owners or restaurant owners forget the 55, 65 plus group, which is actually the most interesting group. I mean, if you think about it economic wise. Economic wise. They have the most to spend. They're willing to spend. They're willing to spend, exactly. Kids are out of house. University college has been paid for. That's all taken care of.
01:23:47
Speaker
They got their pension. They're not worried about it anymore. Actually, they think, let's spend it, because I'm building. It's time to enjoy. It's time to enjoy. It's a very, very interesting group. But they don't want loud volume. But if you start going for a younger target group, which probably the clothing shop that we mentioned goes for. Yes, for sure. It's not me that they are aiming for. But if you go for a younger audience,
01:24:16
Speaker
Yeah, then you should maybe go hiring volume. That also goes for a bar. If you want to, if you have a shot bar, yeah, loud music, high BPM.
Music and Bar Atmosphere
01:24:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's in tune. I think that's the important part that you mentioned that it's in tune with
01:24:34
Speaker
offering, or let's say that the primary offering of that bar, if you have, let's say, techno music or something with higher BPM, and you have a shot bar, it fits perfectly that fast music, talking, quick shots, keep talking another quick shot. But if you have a
01:24:54
Speaker
I'm exaggerating now, but let's say 40 or 50 year old aged whiskey, you don't want to just shut that down. Well, maybe as a bar owner, you'd like them to shut it down, but it's not meant to be shut down at all. It doesn't fit that same experience that you wouldn't normally attribute to it. And the bar owner will adjust price anchor, price point to drinking.
01:25:20
Speaker
tempo, because it's like you don't sell a very expensive BMW cheaply because you sell a couple a year. So if you have a jazz bar, you will have a slightly average higher price point, so a bigger margin. In shots bars, often they have a slightly less margin because they
01:25:43
Speaker
are going for the volume. Yeah. Yeah. It's like mass market versus premium type. Yeah. No, yeah, exactly. And that goes for a bar as well. It goes for bars as well. Yeah. In general, but in an average bar, if they have, they might also choose to
01:25:59
Speaker
make the very expensive products are slightly cheaper to get more volume in there, but then the goal is volume. And if you want people to really enjoy with good food in a Michelin star restaurant, that's why they're so expensive. It takes longer, so you are a bit more expensive. And if you want them to have dinner a little bit longer and really enjoy and get that extra cognac, yeah, then you put lower music. Probably the restaurant where you think that the music is too loud,
01:26:28
Speaker
They want to have three or four coverings of their seats, so they push you. Yeah, I guess so, but I've been wondering about this because when I was at restaurants, and so I mentioned this in my conversation with Erwin as well, when I was at restaurants that actually had excellent music choice and volume,
01:26:51
Speaker
I like to compliment them on this. And then they are very, first they are very surprised because they think you would normally compliment them on the food. So yes, of course the food was great, but what really stood out was your music choice. So they don't expect that. And then they normally just look at me like it
01:27:09
Speaker
weirdo like what's what is weirdo talking about music and then and then they they reply simply by saying oh this is just some spotify playlist and that makes me wonder is that if where it is good it's just good by accident it makes me wonder if a lot of other places where it's bad maybe it's just bad by accident so this is really don't care i think there's not a lot of
01:27:37
Speaker
bar restaurant owners that look into music. They have a playlist, a Spotify playlist. And it could be that in that restaurant that the person you asked just put on a Spotify playlist.
01:27:48
Speaker
that had been made with a thought behind it. I hope so. But I'm quite sure it's hardly ever that idea. And if I look at the model, I had my playlist. The playlist was great, by the way. Yeah, I tried to adjust and play with that, and also with volume. But I'm pretty sure that my staff would have just told you it's just a playlist. Right.
01:28:14
Speaker
I happened to ask the owner, so he also said it was just a playlist. Oh yeah? Okay, okay, okay. No, they don't look in that. Maybe it's his personal flavor, or I don't know. Yeah. But I think you can make money if you design a...
01:28:28
Speaker
a playlist scientifically sort of structured. And then because it's also time of the night in a bar, you never want to start too slow. Because even if you open at eight, you want people to, but if you have some open seats, right, you can go a bit slower. But the moment you see that
01:28:51
Speaker
People go away because there's no free space. Put those beats per minute up and there you go. Yeah. Yeah. No. So, I mean, whenever I was throwing a party for me, the most important thing was the music because I knew this was going to drive everything else. It's going to drive the conversation. It's going to drive the movement and it's going to drive the consumption.
01:29:10
Speaker
Not that I was so happy about the consumption because I was paying for it. But I wanted my guests to always have a good time. So then maybe I went a bit overboard with over analyzing this. But then I thought, okay, people come at eight, nobody will start dancing at eight, I would be the only one. So we start slower. And over time, the BPMs move up, move up, move up.
01:29:32
Speaker
until roughly nine, quarter past nine, because at that point people would have had two beers, three beers for sure, maybe a higher spirit type of drink, which they drank slowly, but at that time thresholds would have been reduced. What does alcohol do? You start to drink a little bit, starts to elevate your heart rate, and then you can start to drop faster.
01:29:57
Speaker
PM, and then you get into the party type of dance scenario, which of course doesn't make sense for a cocktail bar. But that's how I was. Well, it depends on there's cocktail bar where you want people to dance, but there's definitely a cocktail bar where you want people to drink fast. Exactly. If you have people waiting. And it's never a guarantee for success. No. But if you would look as a bar owner more into those details,
01:30:23
Speaker
I think because often it's said that you never know exactly why a bar is successful, why this concept work and that concept doesn't work.
01:30:39
Speaker
But I do think if you look into all these things, you can sort of make the ideal sort of Megatron bar that could potentially, but then you have to look in every single detail.
01:30:55
Speaker
And the biggest detail is, yeah, it's the people, the staff, but you can even do, you can do personality tests, you can do character tests. Or do training for it. Do training for it, but you can, even if in hiring your staff, and in bigger companies do that, they want an all-around team. So we did, I forgot the name of it.
01:31:19
Speaker
But for instance, the one where you can be blue, green, orange, and that describes your character in a certain team, like a marketing team, you want more blue and yellow, but in production team, you want more orange, you're red people. You could do that. You can do that behind the bar, in the kitchen and on the floor. If you look for a manager,
01:31:41
Speaker
you know, get it, because especially in the bar scene, managers leaving. Okay, we need a new manager. Oh, that guy's a good bartender. You want to be a manager? Yeah, of course I want to be a manager. Let's be a manager. It happens. Or because you're not gonna, in the bar scene, they're not gonna hire a manager that comes from another profession. They will never say,
01:32:04
Speaker
All right, that's he's been managing a pet shop and he's been very successful. He got the right numbers. So let's get him into the bar. No, it should always be somebody working in a bar where he is. There's no real rationale behind it because just a familiarity. Yeah. And.
01:32:23
Speaker
I always confuse soft and hard skills, but you sort of hire them on an experience, like there's a good bartender, so he has experience, but you don't hire them on the hard skills, the skills necessary to actually manage your bar. And in a sense, managing a bar could be the same as managing a pet shop, because you're the manager.
Bar Management Skills
01:32:45
Speaker
The product is different. The product is different. But principle wise, the same principles should apply. Yeah. And I'd rather have a manager that has to study on the product to know the basics of the product. And then come from an outside perspective. Yeah, but be a great manager that knows how to calculate gross profit, how to work with that, how to do marketing, HR, stuff like that.
01:33:10
Speaker
then having a manager that knows everything about cocktails, but knows nothing about how to manage people and all the aforementioned things. Yeah. Well, so we went through a lot of things that you also said that can be done, color, music, excuse me, color, music, design in general. If you had access to a research institute. Yes. And they would
01:33:40
Speaker
look into anything you would want. What is something that you would like them to figure out or to study? I would like them. What I would like to study is the ideal set of
01:33:58
Speaker
Personal personality quality so make that sort of super bartender so you can do a personality test because on your on your on your team how to construct an ideal team that's what what if i have to do one thing i will pick that why because that makes the heart and soul of your bar.
01:34:21
Speaker
And then obviously music and everything that we've already talked about. No, but it's interesting that you say that because in the end that is.
Future of Bartending and Technology
01:34:30
Speaker
Irrespective of the music, irrespective of the bar design, you always have the human interaction. Yes. Always. Yes. And that can drive a lot. Yes. And sell a lot. And sell a lot. So it can make sure that you sell these through three cocktails an hour extra. It can make sure that guests have a great experience. So there's a lot of things that those personality
01:34:53
Speaker
that it can do. And then I would like to maybe look scientifically at your menu. So menu design, menu flavor, colors, temperature, setup of the bar. But also type of furniture. There's so many things that because people always say I want a lounge chair.
01:35:19
Speaker
Like a chair that you can lean back on. Lean back or a sofa. In a bar? Yeah, a lot of people like that. In the mall, the most popular was the orange lounge sofa or the big chairs. But what do you get if people sort of hang in a chair, not in an active position?
01:35:38
Speaker
Temple of drinking goes down. If you're in an active position on a chair, you drink faster. Of course, it's got to be comfortable. You don't want to sit on a wooden bench, but still even on a wooden bench that's very hip now.
01:35:51
Speaker
But, you know, those are also things that I would definitely look into. Yeah. Okay. Oh, that's interesting. Because I'm not that I wouldn't be that interested in, again, the dilution, the temperature of your cocktail, which is very important. But if it's one, two or three degrees Celsius, your drink after shaking,
01:36:17
Speaker
In the end of the day, that's important in a cocktail competition, but not per se for your bar experience. Acidity and lime, lemon juice, how do you use that? All these things, how do I make clear eyes? It's not what I would focus on.
01:36:37
Speaker
This is super interesting. So then my goal will be to find somebody who can look into these personality tests, somebody else who knows about decision making, so menu design structure.
01:36:49
Speaker
I have never thought about the impact of furniture design on behavior. But now I will definitely find someone who can tell us about that. Yeah, but it's so, and it could be, and maybe, and that's the funny, and in a sense, it's a funny thing about a bar. We could look into all this, build a bar, and it could flunk, it could fail. I don't think it would though. I'm so,
01:37:19
Speaker
If you do it right, I'm so sure and confident about science.
01:37:26
Speaker
that I think we can build that Megatron bar. Is Megatron the correct word? Yeah, I don't know. Is it like a super bar? I don't know if it's a Megatron, but yeah. Yeah, super, that super ultra bar. The old Megatron was the bad guy from the transformer. Damn, I knew it. But it doesn't matter. Who is the good guy from the transformer? Optimus Prime. Optimus Prime. So you make an Optimus bar. Yeah, and then we call it Optimus Prime. Yeah, definitely. Oh, that's good.
01:37:49
Speaker
Yeah so it's funny because now and I see them more and more actually the bar that I did in the south of the Netherlands had a cocktail robots. More and more companies try to do that but they always fail because people miss that personal interaction you don't go to a bar to be.
01:38:07
Speaker
for your product to be made by a robot. And this also shows that all that science into making your drink doesn't show, but it also convinces me personally that all that science into making a cocktail, because what's more scientific in a sense than letting your drink be made by a machine. It doesn't get more accurate than that. It doesn't get more accurate than that.
01:38:29
Speaker
But people will not go to a bar where robots make your food and your machine, your cocktails, you just don't do that. Yeah. So yeah, that's. And if you, if you think about, so this, I think, have you seen the movie interest? No, no. What's it called? Passengers. No. So it was with Chris Pratt and, um,
01:38:50
Speaker
Jennifer Lawrence, and they're the only ones on the ship. And there is only one other, well, maybe I shouldn't call them person, but one other
01:39:02
Speaker
humanoid to interact with and that was the bartender bartender was a robot, but interacted with them just like a human would. It wasn't just a robot who mixed the cocktails and then said bye bye. Actually, you know, had the conversations did the shaking and all of those things. And I thought, now that you say all these things,
01:39:25
Speaker
It makes sense that people don't want a cocktail experience or a higher quality beverage experience out of a vending machine. No, it just, and that's the experience you would get if it's a robot doing it in front of you. But then you have the also philosophical or psychological discussion, whether they
01:39:47
Speaker
The human is a robot or, you know, it's been a long time since I started. So I forgot the name of it. If you can make a robot like that in person, no, but definitely a machine. No, people don't, people don't like their cocktails to come from machine. And it's also why I'm really curious.
01:40:08
Speaker
To see the, if the, if the ordering things at McDonald's, well, McDonald's, you might not go for the experience. But let's put, there wasn't actually a restaurant in Nijmeg that wanted you to order via an iPad. Right. Where all your dishes were on an iPad, but that wasn't a takeaway or anything or junk food restaurant. It was a regular restaurant. I think it was there for six months. It was on Plainfield Theatre.
01:40:31
Speaker
Okay. Because people, you want to talk to your waiter, you want to get advised, you don't want to order from an iPad. Yeah. I think it really depends on what type of, and again, I think the target group, what you are offering is very important to have that in line. And it's not just this one thing that's going to cause this huge difference.
01:40:57
Speaker
Well, I think it's, and that's what we started the discussion with. This is also very much your concept that sort of decides where to go to. Because on the airport, a lot of restaurants, especially in the States, you can order via IPE. But on the airport, I wear my noise cans later. I don't want to talk to anybody in the airplane. I don't want to go into the airplane as fast as possible. Yeah, exactly. Different environment. Different environment. Makes a huge difference. So the concept sort of decides,
01:41:27
Speaker
But yeah, I want that would be fun to me. It would definitely be fun. And I just want to be clear. So it's not that these biases or anything that we've been talking about always work 100%. So it's not about that. It's in the end, it's still humans you interact with, but they.
01:41:43
Speaker
they change the likelihood into your favor substantially, and then it becomes a number. Exactly. I don't know any of the results, if they were, but it would be interesting to look into that and to do research on that. Yeah, for sure.
Closing and Contact Information
01:42:01
Speaker
Well, Ivar, thank you so much for taking the time. I learned a lot. It was a lot of fun for me. And you gave me an entire list of who I need to seek out next so these people can answer your questions. Cool. So that's definitely the idea also of this podcast. That is great. So when people want to work with you or just reach out to you, where can they find you?
01:42:28
Speaker
Best will be on my website efardelonga.com, where I write about my project, but also of interesting things like peer pressure, for instance, on bartenders to take shots, what we talked about earlier on, and how to say no.
01:42:44
Speaker
but also the sort of what alcohol does to your body, but also about basil, mint, all these very various topics that could be interesting for bartenders. My email address is under both business as private, as is my phone number, I think.
01:43:03
Speaker
Okay. All right. So nobody has to write this down to all the listeners. It's going to be in the show notes as well. All right. You can just click on the link and you can get to that website. Otherwise, I would spell it, Ivar de la... No, no worries. I will spell it for sure. No, thanks again, Ivar, for your time. Absolutely. And yeah, to everyone who's listening, you have a great day.
01:43:29
Speaker
Hey everyone, just one more thing before you go. I hope you enjoyed the show and to stay up to date with future episodes and extra content, you can sign up to the blog and you'll get an email every Friday that provides some fun before you head off for the weekend. Don't worry, it'll be a short email where I share cool things that I have found or what I've been up to. If you want to receive that, just go to achmal.com. A-D-J-M-A-L dot com. And you can sign up right there. I hope you enjoy.