Bacardi has pledged £1.5M specifically for the Western Europe bar industry through #RaiseYourSpirits.
The latest brand initiative comes your way from our friends at Bacardi who are focusing their efforts on supporting smaller, independent bars who ‘have no corporate back-up but do have a fighting spirit’.
Bacardi have acknowledged that there is no single, magic solution and are taking the time to understand the particular needs of each of their bar industry partners and how it can best answer those needs through #RaiseYourSpirits.
Their plan covers several areas through their initial £1.5M investment.
Deliveroo partnership
They are launching the ‘first-ever virtual bar’, partnering up with Deliveroo Editions (basically a series of dark kitchens ensuring that they can deliver to more people without the restrictions of localised postcodes) to provide over 120 outlets and their bartenders with a platform to generate revenue from their cocktails.
The #RaiseYourSpirits virtual bar kicks off on April 16th in Deliveroo Editions kitchens in London and Manchester giving bars the ability to deliver their fantastic creations to a much wider consumer base. One of the bartenders creating cocktails for the #RaiseYourSpirits virtual bar is Chris Tanner from The Proofing Room in London, who had this to say:
“The Bacardi #RaiseYourSpirits virtual bar has given us a huge boost. Having a way to earn money, keep busy and be creative while doing what I love most is fantastic. The current situation is changing everything for the bartender community, but this kind of online platform is a huge opportunity for us to step up our skillset and showcase our cocktail creativity. Personally, I can’t wait to get making our ‘Le Golden Highball’ cocktail with local Bermondsey Bees honey and Aberfeldy whisky – our locals love it, so we look forward to being able to deliver it to their doors soon!”
Bartender Support
Bacardi is also hiring bartenders to host training events or to serve cocktails at events and pay their fees in advance. Included in this they are commissioning bartenders to film themselves making their favourite Bacardi cocktails and share them on social media so folks at home can learn and enjoy them as well.
On top of this they are also buying cocktail vouchers from bars and prepaying for events they are planning on holding in bars after the lockdown is complete.
These are all fantastic initiatives and importantly have come from the industry itself, with the Bacardi team speaking to bars and bartenders to find out what they needed to receive the support they urgently require. This is not the end of their plans though, there is more to come as Bacardi’s UK & Ireland On-Trade Sales Director, Steve Young explained:
“In the first week of the crisis we made over 100,000 calls across Western Europe to lend our advice and support for our friends in the On-Trade. We’ve crafted our #RaiseYourSpirits initiative in response to everything we heard. We’re proud to be taking positive action to help, but this is just day one. Our support for bars and our bartender community will continue right until the day they can reopen their doors, and then beyond. We’re in this together.”
Awesome work Bacardi. We’ll certainly be enjoying those cocktails next week.