This post originally appeared on October 2, 2019, in "Add to Cart" - the weekly newsletter for people who love shopping (...
Problem
Demand for craft cocktails is increasing globally, but the supply is limited
Craft cocktails pose a major challenge for the service industry. It’s practically impossible for non-specialist bars and venues to offer quality cocktail programs efficiently or cost effectively––a good cocktail takes time, expertise, and significant inventory and ingredient management. Some businesses choose to offer cocktails anyway, risking inconsistent quality and slow service, while others opt not to serve cocktails at all.
Solution
Quality cocktails for modern customers and bars
Wandering Barman provides top quality bottled cocktails that help bars move toward smarter, more sustainable cocktail programs. Our easy-to-serve, delicious, and interesting cocktails offer 100% consistency in taste and quality. By pre-bottling each cocktail, we cut service time dramatically, making customers happier and boosting bar sales. For example: 1-10 extra drinks sold per night for some venues can lead to an additional $25K+ of revenue over a year. Additionally, Wandering Barman can offer craft cocktails to untapped markets such as airlines, hotel mini-bars, and music venues.
Product
Handcrafted and bottled in Brooklyn
We combine our own bitters, syrups, and infusions with quality spirits to create original cocktails. Each bottle is crafted and bottled by hand. We use precise measurements, guaranteeing dimension, consistency, and scalability. Our recipes include twists on the classics as well as original concoctions, ensuring we have a favorite for any palate.
Our eye-catching aesthetic appeals to today’s discerning and experience-driven consumers. We pride ourselves on word-of-mouth diffusion driven by our thoughtful branding.
Traction
Incredible re-order rate
Since launching, Wandering Barman has maintained a re-order rate close to 82%. Our first run of the Miss Casanova cocktail sold out before the drink had even been batched and bottled. Popular Brooklyn establishments such as Elsewhere and Roberta’s have featured our cocktails. In total, Wandering Barman can be found at 123 different locations, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, local restaurant chain Bareburger, and at major social events, like the Bronx Museum of the Arts Ball. In January 2019, we partnered with an established distributor, helping us to triple last year’s volume in the first six months of this year.
Customers
Serving bartenders so they can better serve customers
Our unique handcrafted cocktails help bartenders serve their customers more efficiently. By eliminating the time required to create recipes and source and purchase ingredients, Wandering Barman makes bartenders more mobile and social. Our cocktails satisfy consumers seeking new experiences, ensuring those consumers will never wait for a drink again. You can find our cocktails in a variety of venues:
- music venues (National Sawdust, Blue Note Jazz Club, Joe’s Pub)
- clubs (Elsewhere)
- restaurants and breweries (Blue Ribbon, Bierstrasse)
- hotels (Dream, Cambria), Bars (Roberta’s, Broadway Dive, Three Diamond Door)
- museums (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
- co-working spaces (Convene, Rock Z0 Rockefeller)
- restaurant chains (Bareburger)
- liquor stores
Business model
Serving bars so they can serve more people
Wandering Barman takes a new approach to selling cocktails, becoming the cocktail ‘producer’ for all types of venues.
On-premise
Why do we target on-premise accounts? We have found that on-premise accounts sell considerably higher volumes than off-premise accounts. Over time, this approach drives off-premise sales, when customers wish to purchase cocktails for home consumption.
Built by bartenders for bartenders
Patrons trust their bartenders and servers. Through serving our cocktails and educating their customers, these bartenders become organic ambassadors for the Wandering Barman brand.
Word of mouth
Once served, our cocktails speak for themselves. With fun, colorful branding and a delicious balance of ingredients, the brand’s growth and exposure can quickly become viral.
Tap room bar & education
Our new state of the art production space will incorporate a 50 seat tap room. Think brew pub, but focused on cocktails. This first of its kind cocktail ‘capital’, of sorts, will be home base for our community of Wanderers. We’ll also use the space to host seminars on cocktail batching and sustainable bar practices for the service industry, thus reinforcing our position as pioneers in the field.
Market
$3B market potential
Wandering Barman appeals to nearly every channel of the service industry, particularly sectors in which craft cocktails have been too expensive and time costly to consider.
Competition
Affordable, single-serving, handcrafted premium cocktails
A distinction must be made between RTD (ready-to-drink) alcoholic beverages and RTD craft cocktails. RTD alcoholic beverages include hard seltzers and other low abv high-sugar mixed drinks. They’re considered indirect competition, as are wine and beer, since they provide an alternative ‘type’ of alcoholic beverage option.
There are only a handful of RTD craft cocktails that we consider direct competition. Our key areas of competitive advantage with respect to this competition are:
Business model: on-premise vs. off-premise
Quality: our cocktails are crafted to taste as good as or better than made to order cocktails.
Affordability: our cocktails are priced to deliver a 4x-5x profit margin without overcharging consumers.
Branding: our thoughtful, vivacious branding appeals to discerning consumers.
Your investment will help us overcome our current challenge: accessibility. By increasing production capacity, we can continue our expansion into new states and markets.
Vision and strategy
Leading brand in batched craft cocktails
Our goal is to continue creating handcrafted cocktails while expanding our offerings and our markets.
Your investment will be used to expand nationally, with immediate plans to launch in key states on the East & West Coasts and to move into the broader production and tap room space to sustain volume growth.
Travel will be a key new market. We recently hired a brand representative for all travel channels, and we are currently in negotiations with railroad lines and major airlines for May 2020 onboarding.
Funding
Bootstrapped for the first two years
We have bootstrapped our way through our first two years, with the three of us producing, distributing, promoting and selling. In 2018, we raised $50k investment through a SAFE agreement offering.
Founders
Brooklyn-bred, industry-proven
We’ve been bartenders, waiters, managers, and owners. We successfully opened the world’s first all-draft cocktail bar back in 2015, after two years of batching R&D, so we’re at the forefront when it comes to large-scale craft cocktail batching techniques. Our expertise has been sought out by industry professionals from all over the world. Most importantly, we've been working as a cohesive team for over five years.