It doesn’t matter where your bar is located be it in a hotel, a restaurant, night club or as a stand alone bar, wastage can be one of your worst enemies to your bottom line and also one of the most avoidable. We have put together a list of our top wastage saving tools, although cutting out all wastage is surely a pipe dream, bringing it down to negligible levels is very achievable. Generally all it takes is a little training and the right tools, here is what we would recommend:
TD 105-30
The TD105-30 pourer is sold in over 32 countries, employed in some of the best bars in the world and used in 100’s of bar schools. Using a high quality pour spout will certainly save your bottom line in the long run from a wastage point of view. Firstly, the high level of chrome applied to the metal part of the TD105-30 ensures the highest durability of any pourer on the market, which of course means more washes, more uses and no rust. In turn this means you are having to replace your pourers less often.
Furthermore, the rubber compound on the cork on the TD105-30 has gone through a huge level of testing to ensure that this too remains highly durable, yet flexible enough that you are able to get the TD105-30 in and out of your bottle necks with relative ease. Most importantly however, the compound we opted for will remain firm enough to ensure that your pourer wont fly off the end when you turn your full bottle of alcohol upside down to pour – as many bartenders and bar managers will know, this can sometimes be the main cause of wastage as a quarter of a bottle of expensive liquor ends up all over the front bar and the bartenders arm as the pourer pops out under the pressure.
The rubber cork can also get damaged over time, this happens to many of the lower quality pourers where the seal gets eroded by many uses and washes. A poor seal of course leads to leakage, you may have seen this behind a bar you have visited, the consistent drip from a bottle as it is poured or even the odd drip. All of these drips add up and on average you can lose somewhere between 10-15ml per bottle. If you multiply this across every bottle of alcohol with a dodgy pourer, the wastage starts to rocket upward.
The Pro Pour
The Pro Pour goes hand in hand with a decent pourer such as the TD 105-30. The Pro Pour is more about bartender training with the aim of reducing wastage by ensuring they are not over pouring. Another common issue in many a bar across the world is over pouring, this can really add to your wastage figures over time as you realise you have many millilitres unaccounted for.
As previously stated this is down to bartenders free pouring without sufficient training, or overflowing their thimble measure when pouring. The Pro Pour is employed by Bar Schools across the world, as well as many bars as it allows bartenders to test their pouring into a receptacle that retains all of the liquid poured and sits perfectly in a Boston tin. This allows blind pour tests with no worry of your Pro Pour tipping over during the test.
Pourer Cap
Without a pourer cap you leave the door to your bottle wide open, you wouldn’t leave the door to the bar wide open when you close up for the night – so why do it with your bottles? Most bars, hotels, clubs and restaurants will know that the fruit fly can be a consistent visitor and even lodger during the warmer months. Storing your bottles un-capped leaves your alcohols open to fruit flies. And just to top it off, it has now been proven by scientists that fruit flies will actually actively seek out alcohol when they have been unlucky in love! I think we can all relate to that one.
Apart from protecting your bottles from love-stricken fruit flies, the Beaumont pourer caps will also stop evaporation of any liquid inside the bottle. Again making them very suitable for the hot summer months, or if you often operate an outside bar. Furthermore, although cling film is often thought of as a cheaper option – over the medium term and long term – pourer caps are more cost effective. Relatively inexpensive anyway, Beaumont pourer caps will stand the test of time, so long as they are looked after.
Spirit Measures (Optics)
An alternative to hand held spirit measures, the optics spirit measures are the most sure fire way of avoiding any and all wastage. Just make sure whoever is fitting the optic spirit measure, turning the bottle upside down and fitting it into the wall bracket – knows what they are doing! If there is one thing we take very seriously here at Beaumont, it is our spirit measures. All of our spirit measures are manufactured in the UK and to considerably high standards including ISO 9001, the Weights and Measures Act as well as various articles around food and drink regulation and the highly coveted German LFGB approval.
We have a variety of spirit measures to choose from depending on the style, functionality and size you want to employ. All government stamped our spirit measures are available in 25ml, 50ml and 35ml for those on the continent that still use this as the standard measure of alcohol. The spirit measure has a separate chamber that stores the exact amount of alcohol depending on the size you have chosen. Not only are our spirit measures made of the highest quality materials, ensuring they remain durable and sturdy following hundreds of uses, they are also tested to a very high standard before they are approved for distribution. You can have a look at our testing process and discover our best-selling spirit measures in greater detail here.
Wine Bottle Re-sealers
Similar to our pourer caps, the wine bottle re-sealers are fantastic for ensuring your wine and champagne wastage is kept to a minimum. As many pub and bar owners will know, all too often a bottle of wine that is used for pouring glasses is left with a half screwed on cap or without a cork and placed back in the fridge or back bar and forgotten about. This of course leads to the cultivation of a beautifully vinegary wine, that all too often is picked up and poured into a 175ml glass for a customer – who quickly returns it with disgust.
Our wine bottle re-sealers look to solve this issue once and for all. Don’t chance it with the screw top, remove it all-together and have a basket of wine re-sealers next to the bottles of wine on the back bar. Brightly coloured to ensure they aren’t forgotten and easily spotted the Beaumont TM wine re-sealers have an obvious lever lock system that ensures the bottle is kept air tight once the cork has been placed in the bottle neck and the lever has been pushed down into place. If you prefer something a little more specialist and fancy for your champagne bottles we also have our champagne stopper.
