Restaurants' proprietary poursRestaurants' proprietary pours

Stephen Beaumont

As 12-unit Bugaboo Creek Steak House celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, president Christopher Campbell decided to go beyond new menu branding and refurbished decor and partnered with craft brewer Harpoon Brewery to launch the restaurant’s own beer — Bugabrew.


“We went and toured the brewery and found that they had the same kind of culture and commitment we had,” Campbell said. “We tested four or five beers — pale ales, stouts, lagers — and arrived at the Bugabrew recipe.”


More than just another rebranded house brew, Bugabrew is part of a new trend toward licensees contracting the creation of unique beverage offerings available exclusively in-house. And it’s not just beer that’s getting the bespoke treatment.


Sandy Block, vice president of beverage for Legal Sea Foods, has been working with winemakers the world over for years to create unique labels for the 32-unit Boston-based chain. He said the effort pays off in four ways.


“One, it fills a need when we can’t find the wines we want at the price points we want,” Block said. “Second, it excites our serving staff, who all love to tell the story of the wine. Third, a lot of our guests love these wines, so it draws them back to the restaurant. And finally, there is enhanced profitability, since the fact that the distributors and wineries don’t have the work and expense of promoting and selling the wines allows us to get better margins.”


H. Joseph Ehrmann, owner of Elixir in San Francisco, takes both product and concept a step further at his saloon, buying his own barrels of bourbon, both alone and in partnership with another bar. He said it provides a form of entertainment.


“We have one bourbon that I use in a house cocktail because it fits the mixology profile the best,” Ehrmann said. “But the majority we sell with our tasting mat program, which effectively ropes our customers into a whiskey night.”


Ehrmann combines the tasting mat with a staff education program that enables servers to explain the differences between the four bourbons, thus taking a single whiskey purchase and multiplying it by four. 


“It’s partly to show our customers that, in addition to finding great spirits, we can go out and get them something unique and different,” Ehrmann said. “But it’s also about adding entertainment value.”


Ultimately, that entertainment value may be the strongest argument in favor of house-branded beers, wines and spirits. Because if customers get hooked on an experience they simply can’t find anywhere else, repeat visits are pretty much guaranteed.

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