To Be, or Not to Be the Perfect Serve
- Drinks Provisionist
- Jan 30
- 5 min read
Mention 'perfect serve' to any brand manager and they'll happily tell you how their product is best enjoyed and explain why it's an important aspect of their marketing mix. But step into the real world and you'll see far fewer examples of brands delivering their perfect serve at point of purchase. In this post we explore the reasons why this is the case and discuss what can be done to close the gap between brand desires and real-world execution of product serves.
What is a perfect serve?
The origin of the term is unclear, but it's fairly simple to define practically. Plainly speaking a perfect serve is a positioning tool for a brand that places the product in its ideal consumption setting. We instinctively know when we see them - a Gin brand pushing a G&T makes perfect sense when you consider that around 85% of the world's Gin is consumed with tonic water.
Beyond the formulation aspect, there's the need state and occasion. Today's data rich trading environment is able to tell us that certain occasions are more important for categories than others. The after work casual get-together, the after-dinner drink. A perfect serve acts as proof that your brand is relevant in the occasion that you've got pinned in the brand's crosshairs.
Understanding consumption occasions, and the drivers behind them, allow brands to optimise their product via a serve to meet them. The recent trend of Whisky brands serving their highballs cut with tonic water is a blatant move to recruit fatigued Gin drinkers into the Whisky category using a familiar and refreshing taste profile in the form of tonic.
As categories wax and wane in popularity, forward thinking brands are constantly looking at their serve strategies as a way to maintain relevance in the trade and the minds of consumers. Brands that are not reviewing the relevance or effectiveness of their perfect serves risk being left behind. For proof of this look back just a short decade, when most brown spirits (and indeed Vodka Brands) were pushing ‘with coke’ as the ultimate serve. As reducing unnecessary sugar consumption has become higher on most people’s agendas and the ‘age of coke’ is officially over, we see this shifting. Spritz’s are in, along with highballs and other ‘lighter’ options.
But if a perfect serve is such a simple concept to understand, why do so many brands get it wrong? We recently held a focus group to discuss this very issue with a cohort of on-trade professionals.
Perfect serves must be fit for purpose
An elaborate garnish of rare fruit that works seamlessly with your niche Gin brand might be beautiful, but you're going to be hard pushed to sell in a bespoke garnish to outlets unless they're VERY committed to your brand, and in today's climate (especially in Gin) that is highly unlikely.
Garnish fatigue is a real thing, and whilst notable examples like Hendrick's tonic with cucumber, exist they are the exception, not the rule. In order to seed a unique garnish for your brand you don't just need the perfect serve… you need an entire drinks strategy geared toward establishing the serve, creating enough demand for it to make it stick. Hendrick's and cucumber was not simply a neat, novel idea - it was a remarkably consistent brand message delivered flawlessly for 20 years, and by the way, still only has circa 65% compliance in the UK on trade.
A drinks strategy is not simply a perfect serve
Whilst a perfect serve is an important part of a drinks strategy – it's important to note that a drinks strategy contains more than just the serve. When done correctly, a successful drinks strategy should be linked to both insights and commercial opportunity and include mechanics and mechanisms that set the serve up for success in the trade and can translate to the at-home experience. This could take the form of a sampling campaign, staff training blitz, point of purchase communication or rate of sale driving initiative (or all of the above!)
We work with clients to identify opportunities for new serves to move their brands forwards, and with our deep experience in the on trade and developing at-home rituals, we can help brands differentiate between a great idea and one that is going to work. Just like a crafting a great drink – balancing these core factors is essential, but here’s a checklist brands can use to start sense checking their thinking:
Does the serve fit within an existing, or new consumption occasion?
Does it match with a consumer need state? Is there genuine potential demand for this?
Is it practical for bars to achieve? (Are ingredients bar staples? Does it cost them more in materials or time?)
Can it be seeded, sampled and trained before being scaled?
Is it aligned to adjacent macro trends?
Finally, we turn our gaze to garnishes, often a real focus for bands seeking to differentiate their product within a ‘standard’ serve (like G&T). How effective is simply looking at garnish as part of a drinks strategy? If you ask Hendrick’s Gin, they’d likely say ‘very!’ But unless you’ve got great insight, taste or consumer buy-in to back your suggestion, it’s likely to be met with resistance. The reason? Increasingly, it comes down to two factors: waste and cost. Sustainability is something that everyone is thinking about in more and more aspects of their daily lives, even garnishes are starting to come under scrutiny for the impact they have on a drink's ecological footprint.
On estimation by Calum Fraser of Discarded Spirits cited in a seminar at the Tales of the Cocktail conferences explained that using 8 lemons (1kg of juice / 32 cocktail garnishes) has the same carbon impact as a 20-minute journey by car.
After years of maximalist food trends bartenders are starting to embrace minimalism. This throws up some interesting dilemmas for brands, as they consider their recommended serves and drinks strategy approaches.
Creating a ritual as part of the serve strategy
If we go beyond garnishes and formulation, we can create vibrant and engaging rituals around drinks. Removing a garnish feels bold, but if pitched as part of a well-considered wide, multi-channel strategy, it places more emphasis on the drink, suggesting the serve is 'perfect' as it is without the need for further embellishments.
Drinks Provisionist are developing alternative serve strategies for drinks brands in Australia based around ritual serves and linking brand consumption occasions to adjacent trends. Get in touch to discuss what Drinks Provisionist can do for you to help you stay relevant.
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