Bartender interview

Damien works as a cocktail manager at the Leprosound Inn in Ireland. Cocktails are popular during the summer, and Damien's job is to create cocktails with unique inspirations and stories. He is inspired by people enjoying their time and experimenting with different flavors. Communication with customers is important in creating a connection through cocktails. The appearance of the cocktail is also important as it can attract customers through social media. Different seasons influence the types of cocktails created, with refreshing and cold drinks for summer and warm drinks for winter. Damien loves his job and enjoys making people happy with his cocktails. It takes time and effort to become skilled in cocktail making, but seeing customers' positive reactions is rewarding. The goal is to have customers come back for more cocktails. Today I have Damien here with me who works in the Leprosound Inn as a cocktail manager. While enjoying summer in Ireland, many people go out with their friends for a drink. Cocktails are a key for the bars in Ireland. They invite people in from all over the world to reminisce and celebrate the new summer season. Damien has a very important job of creating cocktails with inspirations and stories behind them. Hello Damien. Hello everybody, how are you people? Now I understand that you work as a cocktail manager in the Leprosound Inn. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, I mean I recently just got that position there so it's very nice to carry on with everything that's happening there. Cocktails are a big thing, I know we are very busy with our cocktails, especially during the summer time when it's hot and people are sitting outside enjoying the sun. Sometimes we also offer them a free cocktail once in a while just to lighten up their mood if they're having a bad day. What inspires you as a cocktail manager to create new cocktails? What inspires me is basically just people enjoying their time. Some people will take a sip of beer and they'll never drink for the rest of their life. For cocktails, it's completely different. Some people have their variations of their vodkas, their rums, their tequilas, their Malibus, they like their suntan lotion in their drink. It just takes a while for them to get used to it, but for me, you kind of have to love working with cocktails, not just drinking them. I'll have a Mai Tai once in a while, that's one of those, and I don't drink a lot of rum. I like my whisky instead, but it carries on just as a normal drinking day, just a lot of people just enjoy the different types of stuff. Do you have a strategy when creating cocktails, like how do you make a connection with the customer through your cocktails? This is where the customers are a big part of any industry in the bar. Some people like it sweet, some people like it bitter, some people like it sour. You kind of have to take a big grasp in life and just take it by the chin and be like, okay, she likes her vodka, she's obviously having some vodka white and vodka 7-up, so a lot of them might then go for like an ashtroot poisson martini, where that's just basically vodka, ashtroot, a little bit of sugar, a little bit of lime, shake it, off you go, top it with a second. That's what I like the most. Some people like a bitter taste, some express martini, some vodka, coffee, vanilla, sugar, off you go. So do you ever have a memory that you would connect to, like a certain cocktail, or not even a cocktail, but like a time you went out with your friends to the bar and you just remember having a certain drink? Well, most bars that I've been to have been cocktail worthy. So there's this one place, so there's a place in town called Ananasiki Bar, and it was mainly cocktails when we went there, it wasn't just like the vodka black, the vodka 7-ups, the party, whatever. This has been a cocktail bar that I've really enjoyed. I went off there and I'm like, I went there with one of my girlfriends at the time, and she was trying two cocktails when I was trying six. So she was hammered off two, and I was still going, trying my seven. So you can tell how much I enjoyed those days, if I keep going and have seven cocktails each time. And ever since then, that kind of inspired me to look into cocktails, because especially when they make it behind the bar, they make it fun, they make it lively, you're laughing, you're laughing with them. But it keeps going, it's on and on, and soon as you like a cocktail, you kind of either like it or you don't like it. So do you think having communication behind the bar with the customer as well, while making cocktails, is very important? That is a big, massive key. It's important if you want to call it like that. It all revolves around the customer being happy. Because if you can make the customer laugh, you can get them to stop. If you're being dry and you're not talking as much, you're just there shaking and getting it out, I wouldn't order it all from the beginning. It's all about fun, it's all about chatting, it's all about laughing. Everyone's there for a good time anyway. Whether you had one drink or six drinks in you, you're there for a good time. Is there a story your cocktails have behind them that give them a sell? Cocktails behind the scenes, not so much. I'm just kind of thinking of the different flavors. I've asked multiple people in work, what would you go for in a cocktail? I've done a full survey in work just to see what people like. Everyone's going to say vodka because it's the most simplest, you can't taste it. You basically have your drink in front of you and you have to try and make it look pretty as well. That's my thing, it is all Instagram worthy. I don't want to say it's free advertisement, but it's free advertisement because if it looks pretty, you're going to take a picture. A lot of people will be like, oh where did you get that? I'm here at the left end last weekend and we had this, you should go try it sometime. That's what I aim for, it's delicious, colorful, it's Instagram worthy. Personally, I like the ones that have the fire ones on the fruit. I saw that one on someone's Instagram and I went off and I got it. It was really good to be fair as well, that looks really cool. In each season, they bring a different cocktail. Would you use the seasons as an inspiration for an emotional memory to some customers? When it comes to seasonal, it does tend to have a bit of an impact on the cocktail. During summer, you want something refreshing, something cold. In the winter, you feel like something warm. I know in wintertime, you have a lot of your Irish coffees, your Galepso coffees. Something warm, just to warm the inside up. That's where you can get your slipping cocktails, your old-fashioned, your Manhattans, your Revolvers. One of those type of cocktails there, they are very warm inside. As soon as you take a sip, you'll feel the drink go down into your stomach and you can feel warm after. During the summer, it's all refreshing. For autumn and spring, it's a bit of a mix. I just hope the weather's good. I just aim for summer and winter on those days, so that tends to be it. Personally, I love a Mojito in the summer. A good old Mojito, so refreshing. Can't go wrong with that. No. Do you think you like working in a bar? Do you think it's important when creating cocktails and selling your product to the customers? Working behind the bar is not for everyone's sake, basically. Either you like it or you don't. When I was in Manhattan, I liked the cocktail. I just wanted to make them. I wanted to get to their type of standard, their level. I've asked multiple people in the bar if they do like making cocktails. They only answer, it's not for me. Do you think with the type of cocktails, what they make will not come out as well as if someone did them who liked doing their job? See, a job's a job for everybody, everyone else. A job's a job. They'll just wake up, go to work, get paid, go back to sleep. I'm excited to get up in the morning to go and do this. I'm excited to go make cocktails. I'm excited to go make people happy. That's the whole thing about the whole cocktail bar. You have to be there. You have to have the right mindset. You have to enjoy what you want to do. You can't just take the piss off everyone and then just be like, yeah, you're being rude to me. You're not making a cocktail. But it's not like that. You can still get your drink. It's just not as good as a tip. You still get a tip. Do you have anything else you'd like to add about being a cocktail manager? It takes time to get where you want to go. It takes time to get people, the right ones and the right people in to work with you. It's very hard for other people just to get thrown into the deep end and have to learn their way out. It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. You're going to hate it. You're going to love it. You're going to think it's the worst thing in the whole entire world. But eventually you're going to be seeing these people's reactions. They're going to be like, that's actually really good. Thank you very much. I'm going to get in love with you. That's like the most important thing overall, isn't it? Yeah. You just want customers to come back to try your cocktails. Well, thank you for being here with us, Damien. Thank you.