A great promo item

[Baudtender]

If this is a topic repost, I apologize up front - but I'm having
so much fun and success with this that I'll take that risk.

I like the appeal of chilled shots. I don't like to carry 20 different
bottles in my coolers, and I don't like the bar space (not to
mention the added compressor noise and $$$ investment)
those single-brand inverted bottle frozen shot refrigerators
demand. I'm Scottish. I like maximum effect for cheapest price,
and I've found a good one.

I'm hoping I'll get back lots of great ideas on this - this to me has
more potential and less headache than Tooters or other
novelty liquor/cordial presentations. The container is dirt-cheap,
adds signifcant value, and you own the means to remanufacture
it ad infinitum after (compared to most stuff in this business)
a reasonable up-front investment.

Mmmm.. sounds pretty.

There are a couple of companies that sell molds that make
frozen shot glasses - that is, you fill them with liquid and put
them in the freezer, and once the liquid is frozen and removed
from the mold, it's a perfect shot glass. Of course, the directions
tell you to serve it in the bottom mold - I don't know why - I
dip the mold in warm water for a few seconds and they pop out
real nice. And I don't like the idea of putting the molds into the
customers' hands where they can walk away (my precioussss,
my preciousssssssssss). With properly applied creativity and
marketing, these suckers are worth their weight in gold.

We started out using these as the manufacturers suggested,
using just filtered water for vodka, schnapps, Jagermeister,
etc. and the customers loved them. Then I got inspired to
start making flavored shots. I made orange juice shots and
sold "Frozen Gooses" (Grey Goose Orange vodka inside.) I froze
grapefuit, cranberry, pineapple, and maraschino cherry juice, and
came up with all sorts of complementary liquors to fill them with.

I leave it up to the readers' excercise to tell me if the pickling brine
****tail olives are bottled in will freeze - I intended to but never
got around to finding out. My thinking was Martini shots with
a single ounce of gin and a spritz of Dry Vermouth but at full
Martini price with the olive shot. I forgot, but need to mention
that the molds I bought all average out at a straight 1 ounce
capacity, but because of the novelty, no one figures it short.
You can hear the sound of the Scottish bar owner saying "Oh,
profit, my preciousssssssssssssssss."

And no, I don't know about tomato juice or Bloody Mary mix
either, but I'll find out some day. Maybe something super hot and
spicy with that shot of vodka in it.

In the process, I found that straight juices make really sticky
shots and a mess on the bar. If you're going to serve them,
give them an empty rocks glass to set it in after the shot is
quaffed so they can take their time chewing up the evidence.

I started playing with drops of flavored candy extracts you can
buy at drugstores mixed with water, 7-Up, or Ginger Ale and,
where appropriate, food coloring and confectioners sugar - I've
had really good success with bubblegum, peppermint, spearmint,
vanilla, coffee, peach, pineapple, and watermelon extracts
without the mess, and every time I go to the drugstore I pick up
another flavor or two to play with. They've got about 75
differerent extracts to choose from, and when I've exhausted
them, the online companies offer a plethora of untapped
possibilities with a simple search engine inquiry for "Extracts."
I get more profit from a sour apple shot glass and a shot of
rotgut vodka than from a shot of Apple Pucker in a regular
shot glass.

As I mentioned - there are several companies that make these
molds and you can use "Frozen Shot Glasses" in Google or other
search engines to find them. My particular brand is Arctic Ice:
http://www.iceshots.com
and I bought them from a couple of my former bartenders who
operate:
http://www.bottlesup.com
although I'm sure they're available from several other online
sources as well - do your own legwork, Jack.

I'm having a ball with these, and as an owner, I appreciate that
they are made in advance and easy to inventory. I'd love to hear
other folks suggestions for these!

Baudtender

[Dale J]

This is the kind of novelty that keeps the nightclub industry interesting for patrons......I must admit that I wish our local clubs had something similar to try.. :-)


Anyway, as I'm opening a teen nightclub soon, this might have some appeal to the younger crowd as well. I'll have to come up with an idea of what I could put into a frozen shot glass for minors......hmmm.......

.....there HAS to be a way that the underage crowd might be able to enjoy this little gem...


THANX!!!

[Baudtender]

How about this for teenage boys:

Appeal to their baser instincts - contrive yourself a rite of
manhood and challenge and comradery.

A raw oyster in a frozen seriously hot and spicy virgin bloody
mary mix shot. You invent a group-oriented hollering ritual
and call them "crammers." Let the boys decide the only
"proper" way they are to be consumed and celebrate loudly
the act of participation (ringing bells, flashing lights.)

Print up cheap T-Shirts that border on mysterious profanity.
Create a cultish respect and let them express their individuality
by doing what everybody else is doing, and if they're not doing
that, they're weird. Oh wait, that was just cheap exploitation,
and has no place among this well considered exploitation.

Follow up:

You make different batches and rate them in heat from 1 to 10
(and price them accordingly for each 3 points on the scale and
require a waiver form for #10 signed by their parents.) You start
a Hall Of Fame gallery on your wall. If it starts to taper off,
challenge the girls to come up with a hero to match the boys
bravado.

If I had a teen club, my whole menu would revolve around this
sort of concept - I'd be serving alligator tail nuggets, buffalo
burgers, and rattlesnake soup. But that's just me.

Thinking this boy ain't right, but I'm mostly harmless
Baudtender

[David]

It all makes sense to me now! You are Scottish. So 'm I.

I like the idea of your shots. I have done similar things. Once the patron has consumed the liquor in the frozen shot and you have then placed it in the rocks glass, offer them an additional shot of liquor on top of the ice shot. More money from the same sale. I have made ice cubes out of a 1/2 liquor 1/2 water mixture. And, I would take orange juice, place it in an Mickey Mouse, or any other type that you can find, ice cub tray and freeze it. I would then add one or two of the cubes to any drink that required OJ as a mix. I also did it with Cranberry Juice, Grape Juice, Grapefruit Juice and Bloody Mary Mix spiced with a little Tabasco. The possibilities are endless. Like Dale J said "This is the kind of novelty that keeps the nightclub industry interesting for patrons......". Try making ice cubes out of lemonade and drop two or three into a glass of Wheat beer. You'll be amazed at the taste it adds. Or, lime ice cubes for Corona. You know that Cinco de Mayo is just around the corner.

Try adding a jelly been to every tenth or fifteenth flavored ice cube before you freeze it. We did a promo with Jelly Belly jelly beans a few years ago. We would place a jelly bean in one or two ice cubes in each tray. There were prizes or award points for each different color. The main prize was a Home Theater System for the person that found the Black Jelly Bean. Of course, we didn't place the black jelly bean into the game until the last night of the promo. We hyped it up pretty good. In our advertising, in-house and radio, we continued to inform people that the Black Bean was still out there. The last weekend of the promo, we said that it has to be found this weekend. This created a good weekend business. Of course we had a few people that would bring in their own Black Jelly Bean. We anticipated this. We carved a secret word into the winning bean. This eliminated all fake beans.

I hope that this adds to your great idea.

[Dale J]

*evil laugh*........ :-)

I LOVE your idea Baudtender!!!!!!!!

I think you've helped me with a great promotional item that can run longterm.... I can't wait to get that started!! I thought I had good ideas, but THAT just oozes GENIUS!! .......

This hits on the EXACT mentality of the male teen crowd...... I'll have to remember to think back to my days of fun and frolic for more insanely stupid yet profitable stunts........ :-)

Thanx!!!

[Dale J]

Leading from the ice thing again, I decided to post this seperate...

I was laying in bed last night thinking of what other unique ideas you could use ice for.......

-- Stirsticks ... a rod of ice...This actually sounds like a lot of extra time and trouble...but, it was a thought....maybe only for specialty drinks..

-- "Slow Release" alcohol shot ... a lot of prep work, but a unique thought... if you were to use the ice shot glass and fill it with (ie blue caracao or another colored liquor). Cap it with another flat piece of ice...then freeze again to create a closed block of ice with the alcohol inside. drop it in a clear drink and let the patron play with the drink until it thaws enough to release the alcohol. It has some merit but would be a lot to create the effect. Not sure if this is worth the trouble, but a floating amount of color in the drink with a lime (etc.) might make an impression on your guests.

Well, maybe someone could refine these and come up with a quick and easy way to make these an effective add-on to a specialty drink.....

:-)

[Baudtender]

Ooooh - I love that idea of topping it off with an extra shot!

I bet your lemonade cubes could be extended to a lemonade
shot glass sold as a whiskey depth charge with the wheat
beer. We've been selling a lot of Irish Car Bombs here - it's
a great profit item but I get enough chipped shot glasses back
to make me uncomfortable (from what I can see, it usually
happens when they slam the pint glass down after drinking
it, so I don't see any danger to the customer.) With a
frozen shot glass, this would be entirely eliminated. We have
goofy liquor adulteration laws here that prevent us from
pre-mixing liquor with anything else, so I might try to make
a shot glass for this from a mix of vanilla ice cream mix with
Irish Cream coffee flavoring syrup.


Baudtender