I was at a bar show recently chatting with bartenders from across the UK whilst whipping up batches of sherry cobblers using different Funkin purees (a dash of Funkin pineapple was the favourite variation). I began chatting to a perfectly amiable young bartender who I believe was working in Brighton (though this fact is irrelevant). Apropo to nothing the bartender announced that; “Funkin’s a bit shit now though isn’t it?”
Let’s overlook the fact that I have worked with Funkin (the product) for 12 years and that I was manning the Funkin stand at the time (and therefore perhaps not the person to engage in this dialogue, unless a row was the desired outcome) and concentrate on why the bartender made this point despite the product having not changed for a decade.
I call this the Bacardi syndrome; bartenders see a product that is widely used and judge it negatively irrespective of the fact that it is probably widely used for a reason (quality of product and price). It is merely the product’s ubiquity that it is being judged against, often in favour of a lesser-known brand. “High-end” bartenders are often guilty of this, a kind of snobbery that really doesn’t make any sense as the lesser known brand will often be harder to source, more expensive to deliver, more costly generally and often no better than the known brand.
The connotative value of a brand is, of course, hugely subjective; I would urge bartenders who feel they may suffer under the influence of this to engage in a spot of blind tasting. It was a fair few moons ago that, whilst in Miami at the Rum Rennaissance, I blind tasted a host of white rums only to discover that Bacardi was by far my favourite. Nuff said.
