Refreshments. Colors. Alcohol. Liquids. Speed.
/If you have ever been to our place, you have certainly noticed our showcase of bottles, bigger or smaller, colourful. And they even have labels. Have you ever wondered what they are? It’s very simple, they are lemonades, sodas, fresh cold pressed juices and cocktails.
If you ever asked us where we buy them from, we like to joke and say: China. But it’s just a joke, we don’t buy them from China. They are all made by us every morning. Sometimes even in the afternoon, if we have the time.
Why are we doing this, you ask? Because we don’t like wasting any time. We better come to work earlier in the morning, we make all the drinks, we bottle them and we keep them cool in our glass case.
But let’s do an imagination exercise:
“Hello, I want a fresh with mandarines, clementines, oranges and pineapple.” And one second later, you have the fresh in your hands. Sometimes, it’s less than a second. Ordered, payed, delivered. One second.
Let’s do another imagination exercise, in which you sit down, the waiter comes to you with the menu, you look at it, you see the fresh, you wave at the waiter that you’ve made up your mind, he gives you a sign that he will come right away, he takes a while until actually arriving, takes your order, writes it down, hands it to the bartender, the bartender takes the mandarine, the clementine, the orange and the pineapple, he washes them, he peels them, he puts them in the juicer, he starts squeezing them, he realises he doesn’t have any clementines left, he tells the waiter, the waiter come to you and lets you know: “I’m sorry, we don’t have clementines”, you say “It’s ok, make it without clementines”, the waiter tells the bartender it’s ok without the clementines, the bartender squeezes the fruits, he pours them in a glass, he puts the glass on the bar’s counter, the waiter sees the order and brings it to you. Then you savour your fresh, you finish it, you wonder where the waiter is, you see him, you wave him and tell him to bring your check, he goes to the cash register, brings the check and leaves it on your table. You take the check, put a 50 lei bill on it and you wait. The waiter doesn’t come to take your check and exchange the cash. You have to him again, he comes, takes the check to the bar, prepares the exchanged money, brings them to you, leaves it on the table. You take them, get dressed, say goodbye and leave. And you wonder, how in the world have one hour and twenty minutes just passed?
This happens when the place isn’t even full.
At least this happened one morning as we were sketching the DOT project and there were a few of us meeting to talk out some things. We said, guys, this should never happen. How do we do it?
This is how we decided that it’s worth it to come a little bit earlier than the opening time to wash them, squeeze them, boil them, infuse them and bottle them up, to keep them in our glass case. We made labels for them so we can identify them fast. With this strategy we realised that we can actually start working with more complex things, with many ingredients, reductions, cocktails, fermentations. When you come to us and you ask for a cocktail with “palinca”, jasmine, chamomile, honey, cloves and ginger beer, you can have it in your hand in one second. We’ll tell you another secret: we make them in larger batches, like a broth, so every time the liquid in the bottle will be the same. There’s no chance that a tired bartender forgets an ingredient. Once the recipe is fixed for 20 portions, you cannot miss an ingredient in the concoction’s data sheet.
It’s more comfortable for us, it’s handier, it’s more professional, it’s faster. And we also realized we get more time for ourselves. We decided what to do with that extra time as well: we think how we can do better, how we can make something with ginger be tastier, in short, how to innovate.
Here’s a fast list (maybe we’ll expand more on it in a future article) of things you can find in our glass case: Homemade coke, Homemade ginger beer, Jamaica, seasonal fruits cold pressed fresh juices. Lemonades: mango and turmeric, apples and winter condiments, peach shrub, lime and malt, coconut and coriander, black currant, thyme and green tea, cold brew lemonade with cardamom and other 7 ingredients. And cocktails.
