3 Springtime Drinks That Bring Crowds

Springtime is here, and that means that your guests’ drinking tastes have changed to reflect the warmer weather. In the springtime, your customers are clamoring for lighter, fruitier drinks that they can sip while lounging on your newly opened patio. These warm-weather drinks are the kind that inspire your customers to sit for hours in small, informal gatherings and laugh at the college students who walk by in flip-flops, shorts, mini-skirts… and goose bumps. To help you select your new featured drinks for your digital wine menu, I’ve compiled a list of what springtime drinks your customers are wanting right now.

Wines

The brisk spring air and the fresh smell of new earth will inspire your oenophiles to drink in more than just your patio’s view. Your wine enthusiasts will be leaving their robust reds in cellars at the house and heading to your bar to order delicious, light, and acidic wines such as rosé, sauvignon blanc, or pinot noir.

In fact, almost all of your light, fruity whites are a good thing to highlight right now on your menu, and to further entice sales, use clear, well-worded descriptions that focus on the springtime aromatics of your whites, such as melon, citrus, and green tea.

Cocktails

Spring fever will be the main drive behind your guests’ sudden drinking clamor, so why not play into their interests with a selection of springtime cocktails. Popular drinks during this season include the ever-fashionable whiskey sour (make it less sour in spring, but more sour in summer and fall), as well as rosemary-cucumber gin and tonics. Another good idea for a springtime cocktail is a green tea mojito, made with green tea and white rum (try cold-brewing your green tea to bring out its fresh flavor).

Once again, this is the season to highlight the lighter, crisper alcohols that your menu holds. Springtime is all about new beginnings, and for your guests, the term “new beginnings” means more crisp, clean alcohols held in gently perspiring glasses with lightly clinking ice cubes.

Beers

Spring can be a tough season for beers, because your customers will either fall into the “dark, stout, heavy” camp of beer drinkers, or the “light, crisp, casual” camp. To please both groups, focus on bocks, which are the most traditional springtime brew. Maibocks are quintessential springtime drinks (a springtime month is even in the name), and the doppelbock and weizenbock are also classic barley sippers that’ll please your guests in warmer weather.

Some of your customers may argue that saisons or sour beers are traditional for spring as well, though they are actually more of a summer beer, so make sure to have those available on the menu for your guests who are looking for a very light, summery drink to celebrate the end of winter.

No matter what drink each customer chooses, the important thing is that you can provide for his or her wants, no matter what the weather is. Because spring can have such unpredictable weather, you’ll want to keep an alternate “springtime” list of scotch ales, red ales, heavy red wines, and bad-weather drinks like scotch, on your list.

When you have a digital wine menu, changing your featured drinks list is as easy as tapping the screen, but if you only have paper menus, you’ll need to print two separate menus to address the changing weather. Inevitably, rainy, windy, cold, or unexpectedly snowy days will arrive, and if you have an alternate spring menu available, you’ll have the flexibility to easily replace your warm weather featured drinks list with the more comforting cold weather featured drinks list, so you can keep every customer happy, every day.  

Photo copyright by Moyan Brenn on Flickr