About building a culture

Not more than 6-7 years ago, the definition of a cocktail bar in Oslo was a place you could get a Mojito. Perhaps you could also find a sticky cocktail menu stashed behind the register somewhere where you’d find your Bloody Mary, Slow Comfortable Screw Up Against the Wall and a small selection of cocktails copy-pasted from the IBA-web site. Manly-men would order their Long Island Iced Teas, ”´cause that´s delivers the most bang for the buck” (sic.) and the ladies had their Cosmos (vodka and cranberry juice, served up with a slice of lemon).

Then something happened.

When the Mad Men-fad hit Oslo, I was working in one of the city´s most popular night clubs. All of a sudden we had guys lining up to order Old Fashioned’s at the bar (with SoCo, but nonetheless) and the ladies were screaming for Manhattans (”can I get some Sprite in this?”). It was still a long way to go, but clearly change was in the making. Guys would start dressing up like Don Draper, feather boas were all of a sudden everywhere, and major spirit companies were throwing speakeasy-themed parties faster than you could say the word ”bandwagon”. The problem was that while other major cities, even in Scandinavia, already had an infant but blooming cocktail scene, Norwegian bartenders and bar owners weren’t prepared for this. We had to grow up and we had to grow up fast!

A small click of local Oslo bartenders, exctied by the prospect of being recognized as more than just a human drinks dispenser, started trafficking New York startenders to and from Oslo to help raise the standards in the industry. Before long, independent bars with their eyes set on the world started popping up all over town, and slowly spreading to the rest of the country. Together with a new dawn in Norwegian gastronomy, a whole new customer base quickly embraced this, and the supply of new bars was quickly met by the demand for a decent drink.

But here´s the problem.

When this all started, the way to rise within the ranks of the industry was to work yourself up. Maybe starting as a bar back, going on day shifts, manning the beer taps etc. until, when you had enough experience, you might be allowed behind the bar for when shit really went down. As the demand for bespoke cocktail concepts in everything from sports bars to burger joints continue to grow in the last couple of years, the supply of experienced bartenders is exhausted. Today, if a bartender has more then six months experience behind a half decent bar, they´ll have employers lining up with promises of ”executive bartender”-positions and the likes.

Don´t get me wrong, young talent needs and deserves to be recognized, but as these young talents are left to find their way without guidance and without learning about all the boring sides and sometimes gritty facts of the industry, we´re running the risk of sacrificing their true potential. And as the market grows, so do the growing pains. If we are going to keep raising the bar in this industry, we must not pull the ladder up behind us.

Bar consultants such as myself (in Behind Bars Consulting) and also the Swedish company Liquid Managment (who has done a great job re-vamping the chic hotel bar at Grims Grenka) has seen the potential in this and there´s now a gold rush to find new talent to nurture within the industry. This is important, and it´s good, but it´s not the solution.

I love Oslo, and I love what Oslo has become. In a few short years it has gone from being a barren wasteland of franchised ultra commercialism or at best a place where drinking trends went to die, to become a real destination for bon vivants. But my plea to everyone who wants to open a bar in my city over the next years is: have patience! Let the kids grow up in their own time, and they, together with the Oslo bar scene, will bloom into something more amazing than you could ever imagine.