bringing drinks to life

There are times when I wonder what on earth made me think that it would be a good idea to start the bitters&twisted blog. I guess I kind of assumed that writing a blog would be pretty easy… you know, bash out a few hundred words every now and then and snap a couple of pictures, click post and you’re done!

 

How wrong I was! Actually writing a drinks blog is time consuming, frustrating and at times feels like hard work. First you have to come up with ideas, then you have to research them, maybe come up with a couple of cocktails, set up the camera and lights and that’s before you’ve even written a word. That being said it is also incredibly rewarding.

 

In the time since I started the b&t blog I have seen the visitors to the site grow from about 100 visits in the first month to over 5,000 a month now. Bartenders have been very kind in their praise for my site which makes it all feel worthwhile and I have slowly made contact with new brands, bartenders, bloggers and fellow drinks geeks who share my passion for cocktails and spirits.

 

I know I started my blog as a way to get the bitters&twisted name out to a wider audience while I am in the process of building a bigger and more ambitious website, but recently I have been thinking about fellow bloggers and why they do what they do.

 

The next addition to the bitters&twisted website is going to be a links page that will include amongst other things links to some of the blogs I particularly enjoy. So now seems like a good time to talk about a few of the other sites I check out on a regular basis and have a look at what they do and why.

 

There seem to be a lot of different reasons to blog, but the one thing most drinks blogs have in common is a passion for great cocktails and spirits. This combined with a desire to share knowledge as well as personal opinions drives people to actively maintain their blogs.

 

 

 

 

There are a few bartenders out there who maintain a blog about drinks and drinking and Chris is one of my favourites. His blog has a great tone of voice, the subject matter is varied and always interesting and most importantly for me it comes across as someone sharing information, not preaching down to you.

 

I caught up with Chris via email and asked him a few questions about his blog, here’s what he had to say:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course it isn’t just bartenders who blog about drinks, quite often bloggers have full-time jobs outside of the drinks industry, but indulge their love of great cocktails through their blog. Tiare is a great example of this with her blog A Mountain of Crushed Ice.

 

It was a bottle of El Dorado 15 year old that got Tiare interested in drinking and learning more about tiki drinks and rum in general. Now this is a major focus of her blog where she shares her thoughts on new products and old favourites as well as offering up classic tiki drinks and new cocktails for people to try.

 

When starting her blog Tiare was worried that she would run out of subject matter, but as she told us “in the cocktail world so much is happening, and there is always a drink to write about or a new rum to try, There is a sea of cocktails, spirits and liqueurs to choose from!”

 

There are two things that strike me as being important with a blog, one is that you shouldn’t write just for the sake of it. Have a topic in mind and make sure you have something to say about it. The other is that you should try to create a style, Tiare has done this through her photography and her attention to detail when it comes to garnishing and presenting drinks. This definitely helps make people want to read on when they click on your site.

 

 

 

There are some bloggers who simply seem to love cocktails and like to share what they are drinking or discovering along the way. Jay’s blog, Oh Gosh! Is one of these and has developed into a fuller website including Oh Gosh! TV.

 

“I started blogging as a way of recording the drinks I was trying, and also a way to force me to consider why I was enjoying the drinks I was trying. If you make a drink at home and like it you think "I like that" and that’s it. However when writing about the cocktail I was forced to start thinking about why I liked it so I could describe it to my readers. 

 

Since then my knowledge has grown a lot, but I still enjoy the way a blog post makes me sit down and really think about the cocktail or spirit I’m writing about. 

 

My mission, if I have one, I suppose is to share all the great spirits, cocktails and experiences I have with the rest of the world. I really enjoy turning people on to new spirits and drinks, as well as sharing things with people who perhaps wouldn’t get a chance to learn about something were it not for the Internet. “

 

 

 

We live in a very fortunate era, where communication via the internet means that ideas and thoughts can be shared in an instant. For me this is the essence of blogging. It is about finding a voice to share the great things in the drinks industry, be they cocktails, spirits, bars or bartenders. A well-written blog can inspire you or make you look at drinks in a way you may never have thought of before. They offer you the chance to discover new products or techniques or simply to see what other people are interested in.

 

Of course there are a lot of blogs out there that are less than inspiring, simply regurgitating press releases from drinks companies or poaching ideas from other sites and presenting them as their own. But there are also many that are well worth checking out. Sites like http://www.jeffreymorgenthaler.com/ and http://rumdood.com/ or https://spiritsandcocktails.wordpress.com/ or http://caskstrength.blogspot.com/ every aspect of the drinks industry is covered by one blogger or another and many of them are well worth a read.

 

I think the important things in a blog are that the subject matter is interesting and relevant, of course it should be well written with a style that reflects the blogger’s personality, it should have a look and feel that makes you want to read on and perhaps most importantly it should come from the heart. It doesn’t take long to work out whether a blog is being written by someone who is passionate about their subject matter, or a self-promoter just trying to make a name!

 

Be sure to check back to the site soon to see our recommendations on our links page (as soon as I get a moment to put it up) and let us know which drinks blogs you enjoy reading so we don’t miss them off of our list.