Couch owner Katie Rouse urges bartenders to share their creative processes for the good of the whole community.
The creative process – the road from lightbulb idea to the final shiny product – can be arduous. It comes with its failures; hard lessons learned. Work arounds, solutions and tricks found come at a cost of time, effort and resource. It’s all valuable – and worth guarding.
But I urge you not to. In fact, I want to compel you to do the opposite of what feels most natural and share your insights far and wide. When bartenders – from your team or another – ask for recipes or want to understand a technique or process you’ve applied, open the gates. You won’t regret it. Limiting access and guarding your secrets shrinks your sphere of influence and stunts the growth of the industry. I know because before I opened Couch that was my thinking. I’ve come to realise how gatekeeping of ideas, information and insights can hinder us personally, professionally and communally.
So, your incredible competition drink with lacto-fermented cordial that you paired with a fat-washed distillate that you seasoned with huckleberry eau de vie and then carbonated. Well, it’s awesome that you’re proud of it, but don’t miss the opportunity to share it with the world. There’s another level of pride you feel when another bartender uses your recipe or idea – or takes an element from it. They can take it on a new journey, bring a fresh approach to the flavours and share that knowledge back with you.
Take Iain McPherson of Panda & Sons, who has spoken of how his Switching and Sous-Pression techniques have taken on a life of their own because he let go of them – sharing their principles with the world. He now judges global competitions which feature drinks made with his own techniques. That is what progress looks like.
There’s one more reason to consider – you need to keep your creativity fresh. By letting go and moving on to the next drink, you are exercising the creative muscle. Creative people always have the next idea – it’s how we tick.
Paying homage
This sharing of knowledge is actually what makes our industry so great. Those cocktails that made it into cocktail books and have become our industry’s references are the ones whose recipes were shared. Think about how many classics you’ve slung over the years – at some point a bartender created them. Every time you make a classic, you are paying homage to its creator.
And although classic creation isn’t the first thing on modern bartenders’ minds, if you have aspirations to create a drink with legacy, the worst thing you can do is keep the recipe to yourself. Classics become classics through repetition – first locally, then nationally – some internationally. In a hundred years’ time, it’ll be Pornstar Martini creator Douglas Ankrah and Espresso Martini maker Dick Bradsell who have their pictures in cocktail books – or for a more modern reference perhaps, Kevin Armstrong for the East 8 Hold-Up.
As an owner of a bar you also start to think more about the bar and less about your individual career. You’ll be amazed how much pride you have from inspiring members of your team to create things that have stemmed from your experiences. It’s from these branches that the tree grows.
The bar isn’t about one person, it’s about the team, so everyone shares the glow of the limelight of individual success. What’s the quote? “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit?” When I make someone a drink at Couch and they say they’ve had the best time, I’m so proud of the five of us for serving up such a great experience. I’ll always talk about my colleagues when talking a customer through the process of the drinks or bar creation.
This – teamwork – is what a bar should be about and the creative process is no different. It should be an open gate, it should be collaborative and, for our industry to progress, it should be transparent. There’s no better way of saying it than this: do you think I wrote this article on my own?