Customer engagement is a big focus of marketing efforts these days, as guests who feel emotionally invested in a restaurant are likely to visit it more often. Convincing guests to spend a little more money during their visits is a big focus, too, as many operators grapple with stagnant or dwindling traffic.
A number of restaurateurs are finding that they accomplish both of those tasks by offering drink flights. Often ordered after dinner, these themed tastings of multiple drinks allow restaurants to display their expertise in a particular type of beverage while educating customers and convincing them to linger.
And with some priced upward of $30, they are a nice way to boost checks.
“People like flights,” said Walter Pisano, chef at Tulio, an Italian restaurant in Seattle. He has translated his own love for the Italian wine-byproduct distillate grappa into a constantly evolving $20 grappa flight, chosen from his selection of 38 to 40 bottlings as part of his 8-10 p.m. Grappa Happy Hour.
“I think it’s because they get a little bit of everything,” he said. Tastings also help guests understand the diversity of the beverage, he added.
At Picán, a Southern-themed restaurant in Oakland, Calif., bar manager Sam Babalola reinforces the restaurant’s expertise in American whiskey by offering flights of it from his selection of more than 130 bottles.
“Part of the Picán experience is being educated by the staff,” Babalola said, “but not in a pretentious way.” Talking guests through flights helps to reinforce that, he added.
Picán offers a $16 Introductory Flight for whiskey novices, who are given a taste of three fairly mainstream brands.
The most popular choice, however, is the Connoisseur Flight, which is $20 and gives guests a sampling of whiskeys from smaller distilleries or small-batch productions from larger houses.
Three reserve whiskeys can be sampled by those ordering the $69 Aficionado Flight.
Babalola said they sell up to 12 flights on a weekend night, although they average four to five flights per shift, sometimes shared between two people who might both then pick their favorite whiskey and order another shot of that.
“We have really fun bourbon drinkers, and we’re starting to build a following,” said Babalola, who added that his guests now point him in the direction of new or obscure whiskeys. In fact, the restaurant has started a Royale Bourbon Society and is planning a dinner at which they will taste whiskey from four different barrels of a single distillery and then pick one that will be the society’s signature barrel, giving members a sense of ownership.
“They will come in and say, ‘I chose this,’” he said.
In the coming year Babalola is planning to mix his flights up a bit, offering an all-California whiskey flight and flights from single producers.
The spice of life
Josh Brown, beverage manager of Wood in Chicago, has a menu of seven different whiskey flights, each comprising three three-quarter-ounce shots that range from $6 for Irish whiskeys to a tasting of premium Scotch for $25.
“We just wanted to show a variety of the different aspects of whiskey,” he said.
“We really enjoy talking about what a bourbon is versus a whiskey or a rye or a Scotch. Hopefully people come in with questions, because it’s fun.”
The best-selling flight is the $8 rye option, but when choosing between the $7 bourbon flight and the $13 flight of Bourbon Wood’s Way, more customers go with the premium choice.
Brown said that although the more expensive flight gives customers a chance to try something that might otherwise be out of their price range, he added that the “heat” of the less expensive bourbons can be off-putting to novices when compared to the smoother premium options.
“The Wood’s Way helps them ease in,” he said.
Although Brown said some people precede their dinner with a whiskey flight, it has caught on more with a late-night crowd of people who have either finished their dinner at Wood or are coming from another restaurant for a nightcap.
His next step is to offer premium flights of Armagnac, Cognac and sherry priced in the $20-$25 range to give people a chance to enjoy small tastes of other luxury items.
Although guests at Wood and Picán often will order another drink after their flights, Pisano has found that three samplings of grappa is enough for Tulio’s customers. However, they do make a note of what they’ve tried and come back.
“We sell more grappa now than we have before,” he said. “It’s all about creating an experience.”
That’s what Brian Means has in mind at San Francisco’s Fifth Floor, where he’s bar manager, with his $13 Fernet Trio, comprised of an ice cream made of the Italian liqueur Fernet Branca; a cocktail of Fernet Branca, bourbon and crème de cacao; and a lighter version of the liqueur called Jelinek Fernet.
“Fernet is romanticized in this city,” Means said, noting that 25 percent of all Fernet in the world is drunk there — a figure corroborated in a 2008 story on the spirit by Wayne Curtis in The Atlantic. “A shot of Fernet is like a shot of authentic San Francisco,” Means said.
He also sells flights of Cognac for $56, Armagnac for $55 and Calvados for $42, as well as flights of fairly obscure bottlings of Scotch and Japanese whiskey.
Morimoto Waikiki highlights its Japanese cuisine by offering sake flights. For $30 guests get 2-ounce pours of four sakes that vary from season to season.
Although drink flights are becoming trendy, they’re not new. McGillin’s, a 152-year-old bar in Philadelphia, has been offering beer flights for about 15 years.
Unlike many beer flights, McGillin’s offers six 6-ounce pours.
“It’s definitely far more substantial than your average beer sampler,” manager Christopher Mullins said, adding that you need more than two sips to appreciate a beer.
The flight consists of four standards — the house ale, the house lager, a local stout and a local pale ale — a seasonal beer from a local brewery plus the guest’s choice of any beer on tap.
Mullins charges just $9 for the flight, and that reinforces the bar’s reputation for value, he said.
“We’re never out to make a quick buck. We want to make sure you come back, tell your family and friends, and make sure there’s always a good party here.”
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected].
Follow him on Twitter: @FoodWriterDiary.