Iron Bartender of Minneapolis

I think we've created a monster!! About 6 weeks ago, the barstaff and management were brainstorming (I know, an oxy moron) about how to generate some more and additional business.  I put together a pretty detailed list of ideas and submitted it to the management staff.  I had suggested we do a Hospitality Night and gave a list of specials I believed would be matched by no one.  The management staff came back to me with a bunch of promotional ideas for our Hospitality Night and I immediately took the Iron Bartender idea and ran with it...fast!  Basically I took some of the concept from the TV show on The Food Network and added some fun twists and turns and replaced kitchen chef's with bar chef's.  Rules are simple, after I unveil the secret ingredient bartenders have 15 minutes to plan, execute and present a shot, a cocktail and a martini to each judge on the judging panel.  Judges then judge based on three categories presentation, taste and originality.  Bartenders are matched up in a bracket style format and go mano e mano, with the winner moving on the next round and the loser dropping down into the losers bracket, my version of March Madness.

After about 10 days of planning, we managed to attract 24 teams from all different restaurants from around the Twin Cities and get the word out via word of mouth using no marketing dollars!  Little did I know we would attract 150 patron the first week through our doors, 200 patrons on the second week and over 300 on our third week and it set the town a buzz about our "cute" little competition.  We have a local celebrity judging panel that changes weekly, and judges are calling us to be on the panel versus us finding people to fill up the panel.  

This all culminates into the finale/championships on April 26th.  Going into this competition I knew there are some talented freakin' bartenders in this city, but what surprises me is the level of imagination and ingenuity going into these cocktails!  Last week we had a rosemary bong make an appearance....a freakin' bong!  On lookers and competitors alike I believe are trying to out do the next guy and everyone is bringing it.  Every week is bigger, better and louder then the previous.  I can't wait to see where this goes and more importantly what it becomes in the future, you can bet your ass I'm doing this again!

This is from Week 2 of the competition.  More to follow for sure, stay tuned!