Working to a brief

BY STU BALE

One thing that I’ve always taken particular pride in, is our ability to work to a brief. Really, in any kind of work, this is the most important element and it is too often forgotten. It can be so easy to get caught up in the process and try to put your own slant on things, while the reality is that you are there to help bring the client’s vision to life – not using the client to do the opposite! Saying that, the client has obviously employed you for a reason – while it can be at times a fine balance between letting your personality shine through without taking over, maintaining the client’s wishes is the root of everything. After all, I believe that you can achieve great outcomes when that collaborative aspect is executed correctly!

A couple of weeks back, at the annual Bad Sports Super Bowl Party, I was reminded of what probably was my favourite cocktail menu I’ve ever created for anyone. The guys approached me about the project in late 2016 and to be honest, at the time it really wasn’t the usual kind of work for me. Most of the projects I work on are more high end fancy cocktail-y bits. Bad Sports (RIP) was basically the opposite of this: downstairs of the venue was like a dive bar / party bar / carnage; and upstairs had some very excellent tacos (Nuno Mendes did the upstairs menu actually). I’d previously worked with Will and Dom on the Edition Hotel a few years previous, and I knew Liam from ‘about’ – they trusted me to do the menu because they just thought I’d get it.

In a way, it was really liberating to go back to making drinks without using any equipment – it just fit that kind of ‘party bar’ ethos. While it was a ‘dive bar’, the drinks still had to be delicious, but also fast to make and GP efficient. It was kinda funny to see the other bar menus we were up against for ‘Menu of the Year’ back then, as the contrast was stark.

Here are some of the drinks from the Bad Sports menu:

• The Hammerstein – named after a picture of some NFL player they had on the wall at Bad Sports. Hammerstein had a very ridiculous moustache but looked like he’d be quite fun at a party, so we named a drink after him and it stuck. I made this drink just after Malibu Red had been discontinued (although just writing this looks like it’s BACK!!!) – it was basically coconut tequila and it was fucking delicious. So Hammerstein was basically just tequila Malibu and coke and it fucking flew out the door.
• Banana Daiquiri – the absolute best banana daiquiri recipe with a foam banana garnish 
• Coatbridge Negroni – the infamous drink that people still occasionally send me pics of, as it’s popping up on various menus around the world, which I guess is kinda cool. Vice magazine wrote an article about it – read it here, there used to be a video attached actually that was up around half a million views before it got taken down sadly.. It even eventually led to me speaking on BBC radio 4 about the gentrification of Buckfast which was nothing but fucking hilarious – listen to the radio programme here.

Anyway, the moral of the story is: work to the brief, good things come out.