Drinks, Circumventing Distributors, Gimmicks

All the recipes are designed for small ice cubes, the right size glass, and garnishes, that extra touch. Sometime, you will have an employee who won't follow instructions and garnishes can be the one redeeming feature of even a bad drink. The right garnish can make the customer come back because of the extra effort put forth.

Sometimes it is cheaper to buy from a liquor store than a distributor, When this happens, you have to make a moral decision: whether to continue to buy the item from the distributor at a higher cost to you, or whether to buy the equivalent brand from a store and hide it in your maze of bookwork you are required to send to the government. Of course, the first option is the easiest. If you choose the latter, it is somewhat more complicated. For every quart or liter bottle, there are approximately 32 ounces in the bottle, although not all of it is usable because of spillage, mistakes, etc. If you have an automatic measuring machine, it diminishes the percentage of spillage, but you still have room for error with mistakes, machine malfunction, etc. Of 32 ounces, approximately 29 are usable. If you are pouring 3/4 ounce per highball drink, the maximum you could actually pour is approximately 34 drinks because some drinks require 7/8 ounce and some require over 1 ounce. This depends on your business, but as a general rule, 34 could be the maximum you could pour from a quart bottle. Naturally in a cocktail lounge, 25 might be closer to the actual figure, and in a beer and shot place, 33 drinks might be closer. Only the owner would know by his cash register tape entries, his Daily Reports, and his Profit and Loss statements. Anyone with the right background could accurately compute for the owner or manager what number would be closest. The cost of the quart or liter must be deducted from the salable price of the usable ounces. The figure you derive at is the figure that must be deleted from your cash register tape, your Daily Reports, and your Profit and Loss statements. This figure may be recorded under Other Income in your Profit and Loss statement. The are other ways to make Other Income, such as raffles, games, etc.

There are many gimmicks that can be used to promote business. One of the most successful is the Shake-A-Day. For $.25 each patron is allowed to shake 5 dice once a day. Five natural numbers, nothing wild, is a winner of everything in the pot that had been collected through the Shake-A-Day contributions. Four natural numbers win a 6-pack of beer, and the cost of the beer is taken from the pot and added to the cash register under 'Sales'. Three natural numbers win a chance to re-shake the dice for the money or 6-pack. Raffles are popular, as is any game of chance to win something for nothing. Anything that makes an occasional customer a regular customer is worth considering, whether his regularity is based on a daily basis or a monthly basis. If the business is where a lunch trade could be established, a lunch trade might be wroth considering. If a business is where a cocktail trade could be established, a double-bubble hour, where 2 drinks are served for every drink ordered, it might be worth considering. LasVegas tickets, with the prices of drinks ranging frof $.10 to full price, give a return of about 60% of full price. As with every new idea, give it 6 months to determine whether it is successful or not.