Beverage Trends for 2016: Wine

It’s that time of year again. We dust off our crystal balls and look ahead to the new year and predict what fun awaits us after winter. Last week, we looked at cocktail and spirit trends to watch in 2016. This week, we venture into the wide world of wine. 2015 saw big growth for sparkling wines like Prosecco, and the rise of Rosé brought us the amazing term “brosé.”

What wine trends will break out in 2016?

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Creating Dynamic New Marketing with Digital Menus

If you run a restaurant, you’ve tried your hand at in-house marketing. Maybe you’ve had the unfortunate pleasure of stuffing daily specials into table tents, only to see your customers push them off to the side like a dirty plate. Or you’ve looked into the glazed-over eyes of a customer who is clearly not listening as you list off the night’s specials. If not, then you’ve definitely shuttered in horror at the blatant typo on the event flyer you just printed and planned to tuck into guest’s checkbooks.

Many of these methods are used all over the restaurant industry, from mom-and-pop diners to white table cloth bistros. But these efforts are often overlooked by guests because they’re scattered advertisements that don’t come to guests at the right time.

But if you’re restaurant is using digital menus, you can better integrate marketing to guest’s into the dining experience. And you’ll never have to worry about replacing table tents again.

Here are some tips for using digital menus for marketing.

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Beverage Trends for 2016: Cocktails & Spirits

It’s an exciting time to drink in America. In most cities, you can head in any direction and find a bar to saddle up to that will serve you an inventive and original house cocktail. The current cocktail and spirit renaissance has brought on a new golden age of imbibing. With a refocus on ingredients, technique, and integrity, bartenders have helped drinkers shake off the hangover from the days of over-sweetened drinks made with premixes of unearthly colors. Bar patrons only seem more curious and open to trying new things, so there doesn’t look to be any signs of the renaissance slowing.

What will the beverage trends for 2016 be?

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Image of Culinary and Vegetable Cocktails

How Your Restaurant Can Create Innovative Cocktails

Cocktail bars have reinvigorated drinker’s imaginations over the past decade. They’re the lifeline that has pulled cocktails from the depths of saccharine swamps filled with frozen daiquiris and sugar-rimmed cosmos. While these bars have certainly been innovative hubs of creativity, they’re most notable achievement, on a whole, has been as revivalists. While cocktail bars often look to the past for inspiration, one cocktail trend is set in the present. Culinary cocktails celebrate the philosophy of the kitchen. In today’s dining world, that means locally sourced ingredients with fresh flavors that reflect the seasons. Though exciting and inventive, culinary cocktails haven’t made as big a splash as some other beverage trends. More so, they’ve been a ripple: subtle but widespread. If you’re a restaurant thinking of revamping your cocktail program, you should look to the kitchen for inspiration.

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Bootleg Liquor and the Future of Mobile Advertising

Earlier this year, international wine and spirit suppliers began efforts to combat the large and profitable counterfeit alcohol market. Utilizing new technology, they’re attempting to change how consumers interact with products in stores. Suppliers are looking beyond security measures, though. The fraud detection technology also opens up new marketing channels. It’s an interesting two-fold effort that looks to combine two distinct areas: consumer fraud protection and marketing. Industry leaders Diageo and Pernod Ricard have focused on the future of mobile marketing. But will the efforts pay off by reducing bootleg liquor sales and changing how marketers advertise to consumers?
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Wine Trend to Watch: English Sparkling Wine

When you think of England and alcohol, wine doesn’t necessarily come to mind. Beer? Of course. It’s tough to beat an English ESB. Gin? Certainly. There aren’t many labels more iconic than the Beefeater yeoman warder stationed on their London dry gin. But English wine, and specifically, English sparkling wine? No, that doesn’t bubble to the forefront of the mind. But be warned: that may soon change. Read more

Must-Ask Questions When Considering New Restaurant Technology

Questions you should ask restaurant technology vendors, even if you’re not technical

There’s a myriad of new technology solutions, from restaurant iPad menus to reservation systems, point-of-sale solutions and pretty much anything else attempting to improve front or back-of-house restaurant operations. And many of these new technologies can greatly increase your sales, improve the customer experience or make your operations more efficient. But evaluating technology solutions for your restaurant can be downright intimidating, especially if you’re not a tech guru or IT professional. And yet there’s certainly important considerations you need to be aware of with any new restaurant tech product you’re evaluating, whether software or hardware, cloud-based or on-site. So here’s a brief guide to help you out with important questions to ask so you’ll be prepared. Read more