Make The Shooter Most Wanted in Your Venue

Despite their teensy bar-glass footprint, shooters are a big cocktail category that can be adapted to suit almost any venue theme or clientele, from the casual college bar or club to the sophisticated lounge. Pour for pour, the liqueur component that is a common ingredient in most shooters represents the most profitable of all spirits behind the bar.

Fun In A Shot Glass
    As Tim Borden has observed in his 15 years of promoting them for Chicago’s Ala Carte Entertainment group of bars, nightclubs and casual dining establishments, Shooters are the fastest draw when it comes to boosting check averages and bar tips.
    “Shooters do not detract much from regular drink sales,” Borden says.
“So they are almost 100 percent incremental sales.”
    At Ala Carte venues such as the Apartment, an upscale lounge located in downtown Chicago, as well as its popular Excalibur nightclub and its Lion Head Pub in Lincoln Park, Borden says management and staff adhere to a shooter sales strategy that has withstood the test of time.
    “Shooters are not pushed at the bar itself,” Borden says. “We make them available by having waitstaff circulate throughout the crowd with a variety of colorful products.”
Other important prerequisites for maximizing revenue include making them with relatively low-proof liqueurs, so as not to over-serve customers, Borden says, as well as taking a low-key approach with patrons.
    “You have to be careful not to be so aggressive with the shot tray. Customers can get irritated by repeated solicitations. It’s a fine line.”

Towering Shooter Sales
    The Tavern at Phipps Plaza in Atlanta attracts an older, mainstream clientele. Yet as Bartender Dave Beck will attest, shooters have become a significant part of the success of the venue.
    Big draws are Red Snappers (Crown Royal, Amaretto and cranberry juice) and the Kamikazes and the Jäger Bombs served up by Beck and other bartenders who are as well known for their trick bartending skills as for their ability to make a wide range of classic and trendy shooter cocktails.
    Whether the glassware is juggled, bounced off someone’s head, towered or stacked to dizzying heights, other local shooter favorites include the Key Lime Pie (Liquor 43, half and half, and lime juice), Red-Headed Sluts (Jägermeister, peach schnapps and cranberry juice) and the Hollywood, an extremely popular libation made with raspberry vodka, Chambord and cranberry juice.
    When tough guys come into his bar with their girlfriends in tow and ask him to make them “whatever,” Beck knows just what to put in front of them.
    “That is time for the Prairie Fire,” —tequila with Tabasco dropped into it. “It is funny, because they are being tough in front of the ladies, and you see them go, ‘I will never order one of those again in my life.’”

Quaffing and Bombing
    Many products on the market can make traditional shooters more exciting for customers.
    The Quaffer (www.quaffer.com) is a patented shot glass with a built-in chaser. It measures 2.25 ounces on the bottom, where the chaser goes, and 1.25 ounces on top for the liquor. Another product, SepraShot (www.seprashot.com), is the newest shot glass on the market with a built-in chaser and is touted as perfect for Jäger Bombs.
    The Bomber from Hurricane Shooters (www.hurricaneshooters.com) is an innovative vessel offering a safe, sanitary way to serve bomber-style drinks. It’s set up as a combined shot glass/rocks glass tumbler to deliver bomb shots as a 2-part house specialty drink.                    NCB