The Philip Duff Show
Liquor, bars, cocktails: the people and companies who make them, sell them and drink them, plus everything & everyone in-between, with your host, globetrotting spirits guy and escaped bartender, Philip Duff.
The Philip Duff Show
#41, Kurt Schlechter, owner Cause + Effect (Cape Town) and bar trainer throughout Africa
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Great chat with my old friend Kurt Schlechter, who has trained bartenders in every country on his continent from Cape Town to Cairo, and splits his time between the three branches of his award-winning cocktail bar Cause + Effect, and training bartenders throughout Africa.
Kurt on IG: https://www.instagram.com/kurtschlechter/
Cause + Effect on IG: https://www.instagram.com/causeeffectbar/
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And we're live with the Philip Duff Show, all the way from the dark continent where all the economic growth for the next 50 years will come from, because everybody is shagging like rabbits and having lots of babies. Our man in Africa, Kurt Schlechter. How the hell are you, Kurt?
SPEAKER_02I'm fabulous. Good to see you again, my friend.
SPEAKER_05Always a pleasure, Kurt.
SPEAKER_02All good, yeah.
SPEAKER_05I see you've poured yourself some of the local, uh, the local wild juice. What have we got here? It's that rare, amazing stuff that you can't get here. We have a severe lack of amazing South African brandy in America, something that I'm hoping to sort out with our mutual friend Christelle. I, on the other hand, because I'm not a fucking savage, have uh an insufferable bastard. The adaptation of Africa's first cocktail, the suffering bastard. Yes, brilliant. Uh Joe Skialom, who invented it, I guess, in the 1940s, uh, used, in his words, smuggled South African gin. Um, we're using 100% malt wine geneva, of course. Uh a bit of cognac, I'm using Armagnac, uh, row lime cordial, lime juice, uh, some other bits and pieces, and it's supposed to be topped off with ginger beer, but I don't have anybody. Any so I'm gonna use a touch of soda water because he was making this during World War II, so he very frequently had to uh adapt to what was available.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, as we do, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Indeed. What's the most uh what's the most annoying thing you can't regularly get there? Or that's like too expensive. Cheers, by the way. Cheers.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think it's like uh shoos. I don't think you can get anywhere. Green chosen, yellow shoos, we don't get that often. But there's there's you know, there's just so many gins on the market here now and so many spirits, whereas 10 years ago, 15 years ago, there wasn't much. You know, so now everybody produces there's 465 gins on the market at the moment in South Africa that's registered, and that I got from DAF, which is the agricultural department, so it's accurate. And I was I was I was talking in a seminar the other day, and someone I said, I think there's about 200 gins. And I said, actually, I work for DAF, there's 465. Of course, not all of them sell, but every person now with a with a great with a great importing license to import one great bottle has got a great gin now as well, which is great for the which is actually good for business for us, but also there's good and bad quality that you get. So, but I suppose Luxada was something that we couldn't get here, but now we can. So that was something that we really missed. It's no chino, um, the liqueur, and funny enough, dramburi we don't get in South Africa anymore. Um, and I stand corrected, and Grand Moriet, we don't get it, you know, it's just one of those things that's not imported by anybody, which is interesting. So not you can't really make any rusty nails, as far as I know.
SPEAKER_05Oh no. So for anybody who doesn't know you, let's have a quick, as I say in America, 101. Who is Kurt Schlechter and what dizzying career path took you to the top achievements of finally getting on the Philip Dove show?
SPEAKER_02On finally getting to the Philip Dove show, yes. Um, so I'm a career bartender, I've been doing that for 30 years. I think I've known you for odd 20 of those years or more. And um, I've been a bar trainer for very long, and I really specialized in bar training, mostly for many, many years, running Africa's most prestigious bar schools, bartenders workshop. And then I had a few nightclubs in my time and bars, and I think the pinnacle was actually running bar stars, which is a bar stars program in Africa. So spending a lot of time in Africa in the last 15 years, spending so much time, so many stamps of Nigeria, Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, all of these places, West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, training bartenders for a large liquor company. And then, of course, the last six years I've been doing my bars, cause and effect. I actually started bartending in the Navy, actually. The first time I ever actually poured a drink for profession was in the Navy. And it's compared to the American Navy, a South African, a South African heavy armored South African ship is like the size, like the size of a tugboat compared to the Americans. And I remember fondly in in the Navy, was he that they used to have they used to paint these orange barrels and throw them overboard when we would be in the Indian Ocean, and they would take a 45 millimeter gun, which is works with joysticks. Actually, actually, it's like almost uh from the World War II almost, these this old guns, and they would shoot at these barrels. And I always said, and in my time in the Navy, two years, I never actually saw them hit one barrel in all the practices they ever did. And I always said, I said, lads, look, if this uh if we get if we actually get into a fight with someone, I'm just jumping over the off the back of the ship and swimming away because we're gonna lose. But that was the first time I actually made pineapple beer, and I started doing that, and you know, I think that's probably where it bit me is making the pineapple beer, and of course, we got into flea and all that stuff, as we do in the olden days, the flea bartenders association and all that stuff, and I've been serving drinks all that time, and I think it's just the people that I enjoy the most, the shits and the giggles, mostly the shits, you know, and the shits and the giggles behind the bar. And I think it always comes back to having a really good time with people, and it's really it's look, make no mistake, bartending's fucking hard work, especially at my age. Um, but uh, I think that's what it boils down to. So, yes, so that's what I've been doing. We've been uh bartending all this time. I was just now traveling, I think I did like 15 bar shifts in this in 35 days now. So that's quite well done. Only four hours, of course, nothing more strenuous than a four-hour bar shift. Star tender, and uh so that's that. Yeah, and here I am based in sunny Cape Town today. It's a beautiful 30 degrees. I'm at home at seven o'clock on a Thursday evening, and so I'm probably not doing too bad if I'm at home at seven o'clock in the evening and all my bars are running. Cheers.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, your wife probably thinks you've been uh been arrested or kicked out of your own bar.
SPEAKER_02No, she's actually I'm actually at home. So my wife's actually in the in the in the bedroom doing some schoolwork with my daughter's writing exams at this moment. Of course, when I came home, I'd been away for very long. When I came home, my wife's like, you're taking the kid to school till she finishes school. Yeah, and that's the so that's the dad.
SPEAKER_05Still not equal, then she's still done more to raise the kid than you have. If you took her to school, come now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, my kid's like a mini me. She's like uh all she wants to do is make things, she wants to mix things, make things, makes frozen lemonades and all kinds of weird stuff. She's always cooking, she cooks her own breakfast and all that stuff. She's 10, so I suppose maybe that's the way all kids are at that age, you know. How's your daughter doing, by the way?
SPEAKER_05She's great. Uh she's 18. So an actual adult, and she's gone away to college. She's gone to a place in the deep south because you know, I often think about her. She she's grown, born and raised in New York City in Manhattan, had an iPhone when she was 10, had a Metro card to get around town when she was 12. So she is fucking done with cities. She could give a shit. She is sittied out. So like a lot of her um friends, she wanted to go to a small town college and she wanted to wear the jersey and cheer for the team and all that, and she's doing exactly that. She's loving it.
SPEAKER_02Amazing. But I suppose we wouldn't give our kids at 10 years old a phone, but I suppose it's because of the safety issue and to track them all day long. I assume that's why they have a phone.
SPEAKER_05It's the devil's bargain, you know. You don't want to, but this is New York, you know. So, but yeah, she has been riding the rails. She's had the complete freedom of New York City and Brooklyn uh for you know uh a third of her life. Could you imagine let loose in Manhattan when you're 12? And your your mom gives you a metro card, and they're like, good luck, try and get back by 6 p.m.
SPEAKER_02Jeez, yeah, exactly. I mean, kids here in South Africa, they've driven to and back from school. You know, you don't walk to school. I mean, well, the kids that are do, but not like my my my cousin who I spoke to today, his daughter's finishing, his second daughter is finishing school, matriculating next Friday, and he's saying it's 25 years of driving he's done every day. And driving them to and back from school. He's obviously in the form industry, so he doesn't when he travels, his wife takes over, but mostly he's at home, and he was just saying they didn't never walk to school once in Africa in Africa. That's that's the weird thing. Yeah, it's because we get yeah, because you can't walk to school in Africa, you get attacked by the lions, you see. That's why there's the elephant, elephants and the lions are dangerous, but the hippo, now if you give kosher pause the hippo, that will definitely kill you.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, those fuckers can really run.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I was in Zambia now, and there was uh I was actually walking in the middle of so I was staying in a hotel. We were doing an event up there, which we actually did on a train. So it was in Livingston, right on the Zambezi River, and I got there late in the afternoon, and and one of the guys I was working with who's organized and all things, he said, Hey Kurt, just be careful of the crocodiles and the hippos, you know, if you're walking back from your hotel, because there's two hotels, and one's where the main bar is where everybody has a good drinks and then I was walking back to my hotel like at two o'clock in the morning, and I thought, What the hell is this thing? It's like pitch black. What the hell? It's like just the moonlight. What the hell is this thing standing? Like, is it a is it a rock? And I came close there, and it was a damn hippo that turned around and looked at me. And I slowly just reversed backwards. And apparently that hippo had broken in there, it broken through a steel fence, like metal steel, like this, had broken through that fence that night, and they said, So lucky I didn't just bump into it. And I and I could have bumped into it because I was jolly careful at that time of the morning.
SPEAKER_05Jesus Christ. I mean, for people who are people who haven't been to Cape Town, that there aren't actually lions and zebras in the streets. The biggest danger there is you know, somebody giving you a cappuccino instead of an espresso. And exactly. I also Cape Town's the best place in the world if you have a gun and know how to use it.
SPEAKER_02Exactly, of course. I mean, I think the fact is that, and it's quite funny, is that when you travel, you actually, you know, for me, I accept that Cape Town's one of the most beautiful destinations in the world and voted as one of the most beautiful destinations. Everywhere it has crime, it has all its issues as well. Not like unlike a lot of the countries that do as well. But when you come into Cape Town, you see the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean that are meeting right at the bottom of this mountain. It's quite special because you can be swimming in the Atlantic, and then two hours later, you can be swimming in the Indian Ocean. So, and of course, most importantly, there's lots of there's there's the penguins. Now, don't forget about the penguins, of course. I know you've gone to see the penguins a few times.
SPEAKER_05I I have picked up more than one penguin uh in Cape Town in my time, and I've I've case times with great whites and and all that kind of fun stuff. In fact, um I'm overdue to come back to uh to Cape Town. When I was living in Holland, I'd I'd show up about once a year. It's a marvelous place. But you gotta bear in mind, I I now live in a country where there's more people have been to Australia from America than Africa, and fuck all Americans go to Australia.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. No one goes to Australia, or no Americans go to Australia, me and Angus Winchester have a thing that we we discovered Australia.
SPEAKER_05Um, not actually, that was Captain Cook, but in the world of cocktails and spirits and mixology, he was doing a lot of work for DiAgio, and I was going out there for balls, and I remember getting there, I mean, almost 20 years ago and looking around saying, fuck me, this is amazing. Like, does anyone else know? Because it went from this is something I want to ask you about Africa, Australia. I saw it happening in the space of two years, it went from all the bartenders drinking Jim Beam and Coke after a shift to all the bartenders drinking exquisite old fashions after a shift, and it's only spiral up. Like Australia is so good that somebody of the caliber of Sam Ross was surplus to requirements, like they could afford to export Sam Ross, right? Yes, you know, inventor of the penicillin and the paper plane and all that. So I was there for a lot of the sort of turnaround in South Africa, but you were really, really there, and you've seen it happening in all the other African uh countries that you teach in. Could you pin it down to a date when you know modern cocktails really got going, first in SA and then uh between Cape Town and Cairo?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think that the the what people don't know is actually there is one the there is one ball, it's called African ball, that's actually been in 50 best. And I think people and it's called Cluf, uh, it's called the Ahsoka. And the Ahsoka was owned by I would say the era was really when cocktails, when bartenders started realizing that there's great drinks and started changing it. I would say that era was already in around 2010. I mean, that's it, it was before its time, but then Ahsoka was up and Eclipse was here, and that was a time where I think it it kickstarted and it started, and it sort of died out, you know, again. But there was the old-fashioned already, but and and then I would say again in 2000, it sort of actually it's about 2005, then in 2015 it became really revitalized, so that's about eight years ago. But the first bars really making great old-fashioned yeah, was definitely Ahsoka, son of Dharma, um, and it was Paul, British guy, um, that was making the drinks. And of course, we had a lab year as well.
SPEAKER_05I want to talk about that, but specifically, I want to ask you it tips over when the bartenders start drinking a cocktail off shift. So if you had to try it to, you know, a year or a two or three year period, when do you think that happens?
SPEAKER_01I would say that's probably 2000 and uh yeah, 2000 and it's it's recent, it's not that far away, it's 2015.
SPEAKER_05All right, well, let me pause this for a minute because if we're talking about lab, we've got to have a drink to our dear departed mate. I'm just gonna pause the recording. And we're back. So for the younger viewers, uh, the cocktail, this cocktail revolution, the second cocktail golden age, kicked off in 1995 in London. It took five to ten years for it to catch on in the USA and a bit later around the rest of the world. And it started with a very beautiful, fancy, late-night venue called the Atlantic Bar and Grill in London that was opened by an Irish guy called Oliver Payton. And he was a very famous guy called Dick Bradsell to make all the cocktails and run all the bars. And Dick trained up a generation of bartenders, including people like uh Dre Masso, who went on to work in and open other bars. And the most famous sort of uh let's shall we say, less glitzy, more everyday bar after that was the London Academy of Bartending, the lab bar, yes, which had been a bar school and sort of pivoted to being a uh bar on Old Compton Street, right in the middle of London's Soho. And this was absolutely seminal. It was the place, it's you know, home of the porn star Martini, which was invented.
SPEAKER_00What a time to be a lab.
SPEAKER_05And you opened the lab. Uh, it had a short run. I'm very pleased I went to go there with you. But uh, can you tell us a story from soup to nuts about the magic genius that was Douglas Anchra and uh your experience? Because I know you trained in London at the lab as well.
SPEAKER_02Correct, yeah. And I met I met uh the first day I walked into the lab, it was in couldn't have been I must have been 28 or something at the time. And I obviously had been work making cocktails in South Africa. I'm gonna I've got a little Geneva here as well. I'm gonna pour. Oh, look at that! The stuff called Old Duff Geneva.
SPEAKER_01Heard of it? I don't know, but what an amazing bottle. Looks it looks delicious. That's the lot, that's the last of my liquid. I'm gonna have to get some ocean.
SPEAKER_05Um, believe it or not, we are in the process of exporting uh old Duff Geneva to the royal Ashanti family in Ghana. So there will be some season. We'll see if we can get uh a case or two down to uh the mother city, but that's another story. So go ahead.
SPEAKER_03Let's talk about uh uh cheers.
SPEAKER_05Cheers to the memory of Douglas Anchor. God God rest them, and long may they sail in his uh passion fruit uh scooped out thing.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Lovely. Wow, um that's yes, I remember I walked into the lab, it was an early morning, and and the funny story about it is my first memory of Douglas is actually eating a eating a passion fruit. And he was literally eating a passion, and he said, Wait, what do you want? I said, Oh, my name's Kurt from South Africa. I'm here to come and train with you guys, I'll be helping you. This is oh I said, Oh, I see eating granadilla, and he said, What's it what? I said a granadilla. He says, Oh, this is a passion fruit. And I said, Yeah, granadilla, and we call it granadillas, and that's how I met him. And it was actually the guy that I worked with was old Jamie Tyrrell, which I had a lot of fun, a lot of a lot of good times with in the time as well. And he came out here to Cape Town as well to open the lab, and we opened it in a building. Funny enough, the story goes, we opened it in a building who had had three or four restaurants there before, but never successful ones. And we actually had a witch doctor come on the opening night, and the witch doctor blessed the place and said it had bad juju, basically. Interesting story. And the name, the main owner was a guy called Toby, and uh we were just small partners in the business. I wasn't actually a partner, I was just helping them uh open the bar, and it had a great run. But the problem was is that it wasn't like the lab there, we had like they had a dance floor, and guys were drinking coal rain coolers and they were partying at three o'clock in the morning, jumping up and down, as they did in those days in Cape Town, having the time of their lives, and they would be downing these coal rain coolers. Like, can I have another? Can I have another? And uh the guys were they couldn't really keep up because it was like sort of transformed into a nightclub. But there's a lot of fond memories of the lad because obviously that era of cocktail making, which you know, the the the pureade collins, you know, the raspberry collins, the light cheese collins, those I fucking love those drinks. They to me, I've actually put two drinks on my in Causey Fact Camps Bay now for summer. I'm doing a raspberry cinnamon collar, like easy things, you know, just two of them with crushed ice because I love that drink so much. I think it's one of the best, but the way they the the the lab style of making it with the crushed ice, the puree, the quick, the quick stir with the spoon, the the lemon juice, the ginovodka, and and crowned with soda. That drink is probably one of the best drinks I would say in the summer that you can drink. It's absolutely damn amazing.
SPEAKER_05Well, that was another, if not by him, inspired by a Dick Bradsell thing. It's kind of a riff on the Russian Spring Punch.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and I mean that was a drink which I know fondly, and I used that recipe for years. I mean, the Russian Spring Punch. I mean, that was definitely Dixon. I was in, you know, in Dix Bar, obviously, when Jamie was working there, and Jamie redid, Dami Terrell redid. I actually have a copy of that menu here in my house of the Atlantic menu they did. Um, so that's a classic style of drink making. That's the style and which is style to carry today, where we garnish came from on top of the side of the glass into the glass and not hanging off the side of the glass like we did in the previous years. And people when I came, when I was in South Africa, guys would say, 'But I can tell you drinks because you're not putting you're not putting your garnish on the rim of the glass, and you know, that still sticks today.' Actually, which is this garnish on the top of your drink. But yeah, that those fruity cocktails, that and I remember the one story that I'll tell about the lab is you know, they used to get it, they used to get spearmint from down the road from Portobello Market. You know, they used to get spearmint that would be delivered to them every time they had spearmint. And spearmint is obviously one of the best mints to use to make a mojito. And you know, they would hit the front of the bar counter with this bushel of fucking spearmint, you know, and and to get it to smell nice. And it was quite a small space. So you walk in there and you and people would say, Wow, what smells, what smells so amazing? They said, Oh, it's our mojitas. Would you like one? You know, and then off they would go. They'd be selling me hitters all night long because and and because it was like uh a seasonal thing where they only got the spearmint at certain times, that you know, they had to get rid of all the spearmint they bought. And it was quite a quite a cool way of doing things in those days, you know. And I think, of course, um the passion fruit being the euro flavor in a lot of their drinks, and the Koran cooler was uh with Zubrovka and Goldschlager, you know, um Apple, apple, apple soda, Zubrovka and Goldschlager was the was the was an amazing drink, you know, which I always remember fondly as well.
SPEAKER_05And Lab had to close down, wasn't it? Um noise complaints or something?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was mostly noise complaints. They turned it into quite a banging it was it was busy. It was busy and it was loud, and they got a lot of uh a lot of complaints about the sound. Um, and they couldn't really le relocate it, and and the guy that was involved, the financier involved that had I can't remember what the story was, but it was basically about that about going over their license time, getting fines for that. That was a big problem, and then the noise, and so I think the the license was revoked eventually. And that was a common thing in Cape Town. Yeah, that was a common thing in Cape Town, that's what they did. I mean, I had a bar called industry in Cape Town, I'm sure you remember industry. I do, and we they didn't well, yeah, it wasn't the license wasn't revoked, it was like ours. The the lease wasn't renewed. That's the story, you know. The lease wasn't renewed, like the industry, our leases wasn't renewed renewed either, because we used to have the the the the the voice residents phoning him complaining about the noise that we used to make, because I think when you're building a bar, especially the one with the lab, it was on like it's on like a downhill, and somehow where it sits, it sits in a tiny little basin, and that basin, when you're sitting in the bottom of it, you're actually just pushing out sound. So it actually is like it's actually sending out sound, and it was the same way I was at industry. We were we were sitting at the top of the basin, but our music was coming into is flowing down. So I think you know, in hindsight, all the bars I've always picked, I've always always looked at the sound implication, you know, like where's the sound gonna go, what is it gonna do, and it becomes a big issue for especially for your neighbors, and especially when people are are trying to leave your bar at four in the morning, they're not really they they make a bit of noise.
SPEAKER_05Well, that was why Sasha Petratsky had that rule, wasn't it? Um he had all his rules, no name dropping to start, but one of them was um make your onward plans before you leave the bar. He actually lived upstairs. And he said, Look, I don't really want a bar here, I don't like the noisiness. And Sasha says, I promise you, if you ever get one noise complaint, I'll close the bar. And that's one of the reasons why he came up with that.
SPEAKER_02That's amazing. And uh, I mean, I I there's a very ball, there's a friend of mine in a bar that I'm really fond of, which is called Rim in Trastevere in Rome, in the Roma. And uh great place. We've been traveling, yeah, we've been traveling together for a bit now. Lorenzo, Ricardo, and you know, they actually in a place as well where there's like right above them is actually, and you can see in the daytime the the the the matrix of the house is actually leaning out the window looking down the street, and they have to really be careful. And you know, you reminded me now. I think I think they should actually they should use those words that you put it somewhere up in their bar that says, make your plans before you leave, go stand outside. Because everybody goes and stands outside, starts discussing where they're going and what they're doing. And so that's actually quite a good thing. I must actually say that tell them that that's a good thing to put on your menu. No, it really is.
SPEAKER_05But before Lab closed down, uh, due to their patronage of a certain other establishment in Cape Town, uh Douglas came up with Chambelay. Well, he came up with what would become the porn star martini.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_05Like I tell the story very cheerfully, and I have to explain to non-Americans, this is possibly the best-selling new cocktails last 20 or 30 years, way beyond a penicillin. Uh, obviously, in its large UK, like in the UK, every supermarket chain sells, they either call it a porn star martini or they call it a passion fruit martini, they sell versions in tins. It's utterly massive, but it was invented in Cape Town. So, do you want to explain that?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, and I think the appeal of the of the porn store martini is that it's obviously vanilla passion fruit, and then this the the the sparkling, I mean, the the spark, sparkling nature of the champagne on the side. I mean, what could you think of better? You know, it's it and there was a version I think that he also served, which was just passionate fruit, vanilla sugar on top of a passion fruit, and you just eat that and you drink the the you drink the bubbles as well. I remember he did some version like that every now and again. But yes, it was actually clear the the idea, and you know, a lot of the things are foggy in those days, and the history of cocktails can sometimes be misinterpreted, but we but we know mostly that the idea of the cocktail came to him at a very famous place called Mavericks here in Cape Town, and the funny thing is is that Mavericks is what is is sort of a men's ballet theater, if you like to call it. Oh, that's it, yes, that's what I meant. Yes, and um so he called it. There's no men dancing there, no, there's no men, and there's actually it was actually originally called the Mavericks Martini. Yes, so it was called Mavericks Martini first, that was the name of it, where he said he's gonna do this thing, and somehow the idea of the concept came to him, and maybe and um it evolved to the porn star martini, which is of course what it is today. But there is um obviously a few versions of that have come out of it, but there's some interesting stories about uh um about him creating that drink and putting on the menu. And I think the home of the porn store martini today is Asuka, which was also good friends with uh Douglas. Paul was friends with Douglas, the guy in Catholic that owns another restaurant called Klufaus as well. And I mean, who would have thought how big that drink would be? And so I think that I mean, in his mind, every bartender, great bartender, wants to invent a great drink that's that has a legacy like this. I mean, that is a one in a million great invention, if you understand what I mean. I mean, today there's so many cocktails being invented, but that one really stuck because it's I think it's because of its simplicity, and I think it's got a lot to do with simplicity and drinks that we can identify quite easily.
SPEAKER_05Well, it's a lot of things, it's the name, too. I wrote an article once uh because some big chain like Tesco's took the porn star martini and they put it in a tin. So they're gonna sell a billion units, and they call it the passion fruit martini. And I I disagree. I mean, I know why they did it, but if you're gonna be a bear, be a grizzly, you will reach more people if you call it a passion fruit martini, but they won't be, pardon the phrase, passionate. Whereas you will sell less if you call it a porn star martini, but those people will tell all their mates, and you will reach all those people.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, but it's always gonna be about the buck as well, and then it comes into the thing, which is a question we all get asked quite a lot, actually. People say, Well, and I actually there's a few stories I can tell about this. The first story I want to say is that we get asked it a lot that how can I how can I um protect my cocktail? What's the word? How can I um trademark patents? Copyright, how can I trademark my you can't, and that's the bottom line. I mean, I actually had a an interesting story where bartender actually asked me, he said, Hey, um, if I create a cocktail for you for the bar, can you give me a percentage of the sales as my trademark rights? This was asked to me the other day, actually, and I'm not gonna mention his name, but if you're watching this, then you know I'm talking about you. And but he was so yeah, okay, and and I and I was just looking at it like he and I thought he was joking. Then I realized, oh, he's actually dead serious. And I said, No, bro, it doesn't work like that. I mean, if you work for me and you've been a cocktail, you want to put it on the menu, you have to convince me that I must put it on the menu, and if it's amazing, we will, but you don't get any royalties for it. Just like you don't this, just like you don't invest in my bar, you know. But that's that's the same thing. So it just shows how many little people know about um how people misinterpret the the recipes, you know, and how they how they feel that uh there should be a copyright of some sort on it, but it's never gonna happen. No, I mean if it's expresso martini, that's arguably the probably one of the I mean, porn stall I would say is more reproduced in terms of cans than that that I've seen in Espresso Martini. You know, obviously.
SPEAKER_05Oh no, that's coming.
SPEAKER_02Oh, really? Like uh I mean, even in South Africa, we've got porn stall martini in bottles here. I've never seen espresso martini in South Africa in a bottle.
SPEAKER_05And it's the reason it's coming is um for my American listeners, passion fruit's not in the supply chain here. It's not any supermarket in Europe, you go to the supermarket, there'll be passion fruits there. You know what they are, you know what they look like. Uh there's passion fruit syrup, people use it. It's normal. That's why the porn star was, you know, a hit drink waiting to happen. It is people Americans don't know what a passion fruit is, they don't know what it looks like, have no idea what it tastes like. Uh it's not that easy to get hold of. That's why the porn star never did it here. But obviously, they drink coffee. So the Americans have adopted the espresso martini in a big way.
SPEAKER_00Big way, yes.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and it's gonna, you know, coming coming soon to a shop near you. But something to talk about. Is that something we don't know? Oh no, I mean, I see there's also something I want to bring up is the porn star rose to great heights and then it went away. Yes, and it didn't ever go completely away. You mentioned uh Ahsoka, there was a place in Rotterdam in the let's say late 2000s that liked porn stars and just kept making them, even when they fell out of fashion. It was called Level in Rotterdam. Bar manager was a great guy called Jordi, and it didn't matter that everybody was making because you remember all the fruity cocktails, the Raspberry Collins and porn star martinis, they all went out of fashion, and cocktails got drier and stronger and about brown spirits, and yeah, they kept making them and Australia fell in love with the espresso martini, which came out you know, more or less the same time, and even after it fell out of fashion, they kept making it. I was in Australia eight or nine years ago and I learned you could order kegs of uh pre-mixed espresso martinis from Absolute over there.
SPEAKER_00So I heard about that as well.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, they incubated the Espresso Martini. So when it was ready to infect the whole world again, there was already a sort of uh you know, an incubation batch, and that's what happened in various pockets around the world with the uh with the porn star martini, I believe.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think and the cold brew espresso martini is amazing as well. I mean, it just tastes it just tastes wicked, you know, so it's really, really good. But yeah, the porn store martini exactly is is just uh and it's an icon year as well. Funny enough, you know, we didn't really have Persora year in South Africa for a long time. It's actually just come back now into literally, I'm talking about a month ago. And you know, we the we plan to do a few things with especially with uh porn stomachini next year with some of the bars. So we've got some plans that should be coming out in January. But um, yeah, it's it's it's it's it's a great, easy drinking drink, and of course old Douglas didn't only make those drinks, he made many other drinks which were absolutely amazing as well. I've got you I've got his first cocktail book, Shake, I think it's Shake and Not Stirb. My favorite about Old Douglas was is that he had all the non-alcoholics. He had the he had in his menus, he had the names of all the Bond girls, Pussy Galore, uh let's name some Bond girls, yeah. Tiffany Tiffany Case. Tiffany Case, um Octopussy. Octopussy. Yeah, so you had all the Bond girls' names, and he had really good drinks for that. And I think um the one drink that I always enjoyed on the menu in the lab was just a simple, a simple banana mango lassie or mango lassie. You know, mango lassey was amazing. I used to love that drink as well.
SPEAKER_05Mangolassie is also a great name for a Bond girl, especially if she's Scottish, like half Caribbean, half Scottish.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, talking about cocktail names, they they become more, you know, the names are the hardest bit. Exactly, exactly, especially when I do menus. I mean, we've got a new, we've got some, so we we we've got a so we've got a martinian uh expresso martini in our new menu, and it's and and it's made with Cromora. And you know, Cromora is obviously, I mean, I'm just checking this it's the same brand name, it's powdered powdered milk. Yes, but we've got a very famous ad in South Africa, it's called Nodd's. It's it's basically where this guy opens a door, and I don't know if it's it could be an English ad brought over to us to South Africa, but it's basically a guy in the middle of the he opens the door and he shouts at his wife, he says, Honey, there's no there's no camora in the refrigerator, and she says, It's not inside, it's on top. And he goes, It's not inside, it's on top, and he looks up. And that ad was so well known, and we've got a we've got a drink called It's Not Inside, it's on top, and it's Cremora Express Martini, and it's made with uh Pravda Expresso, which is just a very amazing flavored, like a type of TMR type of Kalua flavor, really, really caramelly. Uh, so it tastes fucking great, but that's a great name, you know. So it's that some of those names just come to you like that, and other times you go like, oh fuck it, let's just call it anything, you know. But it's the ones that you think about that really come and give you that that people like, put a smile on your face. Because after all, I mean, people are very, very serious about drinks, but in the bottom line, we really just want to be having a great time, and I mean that's what it's really about. I'm still of the of the philosophy that social imbibing is supposed to be fun at 99% of the time. Or we can just uh in the olden days, like in South Africa, we could I could teach you how to drive a car instead.
SPEAKER_05Well, I think we did that with your car once in Joburg. Every now and then, it's it's at least 12 years ago now, it might be long this. Yes, um you were living in Joburg, and kids don't do this at home. The Philip Duff show does not advocate for Trump driving in any form.
SPEAKER_03Exactly.
SPEAKER_05But I was on another continent, and we went out. I think this was after the Good Food and Wine Show, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_02It was, yes.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, we did the BBC Good Food and Wine Show with the hairy bikers, you know, cooking celebrities from um from the UK, and we were done early-ish. So we went to what you savages call a four roads, a crossroads, and there was a bar there. They had like shooter girls at about like two in the afternoon. Uh we imbibed and then went out to a series of increasingly dodgy bars in Joburg. And then, as I remember, uh you were like, Philip, you were you were so drunk that you thought I was less drunk than you and insisted I drive your Audi TT. And I think I took a selfie of us booming along the highway while I was driving. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I'm surprised you didn't end up in the world.
SPEAKER_02At the irresponsible. And I'm glad that in those days it was less of a crime than it is today, and I'm glad that it is more of a crime, and I certainly don't get behind a wheel with Philip Duff ever again. Um, I mean, I wouldn't sober or not sober, I wouldn't either. But yes, like going back to the idea, I said, you know, one of the parts that I joined the bar is the fun that people can have, you know, and that's I like the I was sort of enjoying the high energy moments we're having in our bars at the moment as well. You know, it's it's and and then that's I really dig that. And we obviously always playing hip hop and having a good time. We've had some really good guys out here. I've got Colin coming out here, Asparia coming out here now as well. I'm seeing you at the end of the month, and we're planning on doing a little bit of a small cocktail, cocktail week in March, perhaps busy arranging it. And then I remember I mentioned you doing a bigger one in November, which is the Cape Town Bar Show. And so that's I can actually say we we we're close to to just getting the final detail done. It's been a while, but I've been traveling a lot, and then probably November next year we're gonna be having that Cape Town bar show being done. So maybe we can get you guys over then as well to have some, then we can go, we can go ride some motorbikes instead this time.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, because that sounds dead sober, of course. No one ever, no one ever got injured on a motorbike. Never, never ever. Well, actually, let's let's talk about fun because when before mixology, you went into bartending because you were either desperate or you fancied a laugh. That was it. It wasn't fashionable, it wasn't cool, there were no bartenders on Channel 4 Sunday brunch or anything like that. Nobody was calling up bartenders to ask for their Thanksgiving cocktail recipes. It just was not a thing, and it's become a thing, and that's it's engendered a whole bunch of people who you know don't really give a shit about the business or the industry, they just want to be on tell and they see cocktails as even easier than you know being a chef or a cook or some kind of a culinary influencer. But as someone who's owned and operated bars for a long time, longer than I did, uh what are the crop of people, not the ones you hire, but the people who come for interviews? Are there people with life and who are themselves fun and can communicate that? What's what what do recruits look like these days?
SPEAKER_02Uh it's a great question because that's a question always on the top of my mind. Um to so we're going through a phase now where we've had some great bartenders work with us, and just like Australia's rugby team that was young and got kicked out the World Cup very early. Sorry, sorry, Ozzy. Um, you know, they have to create another team. And I'm in that situation now where I've got a young team, and it's boiled down to two things. The the the rock and roll bartenders that I've had in the past, which I love and are all my friends and I love deeply, uh, they just wanted a party, you know. They I mean, when I say party, I mean party go after work, go out until six in the morning, get some sleep, go back to work. And that's been the theme of bartending for many, many years in South Africa. And I've been part of the ringleader in that theme, I'm sure, for a very long time. But I find the bartenders that are the successful bartenders are the ones that aren't going out after work anymore and that are taking the craft a little bit more seriously. But the question about where who comes to interview? Well, we've got like uh just under 40% unemployment, well, 37% unemployment in South Africa. So, you know, under 48 million people, that's uh that's a travesty. Um, so we have people that we bring that we interview daily. So normally what would happen, you would drop off a C V you'd be screened by one of our managers who's who's trained to screen you. Um a lot of the time the CVs, which we're very much aware of. Are plagarized and not written by them. And the and some guys won't even be able to tell you what's in their CV half the time. So that we get a lot because it's it's literally written by they're smart, it's written by AI, you know, and that's the one thing. Number two, when they once you get through that process, then you'd either be interviewed by myself or one of the senior managers, and then we would look at your capacity for hard work. And that's probably, I think, there's either guys that have that don't have the personal skill set in terms of openness, uh, knowledge, understanding, just of their personalities to be able to do the job. Um, so that's a that's that's a barrier we find as well. And I do believe if you stick long enough in bartending, someone gives you a chance, you learn that personality. You can you can, you know, the youngsters that start out shy in bartending become much better. But the problem is that we the the biggest problem I find is number one, is that the guys don't want to work that hard. Really? And they yeah, that's that's that's that's one of the problems that we have here in South Africa, and we are hardworking individuals in general, but a lot of the guys that I've had that I've trained up recently, youngsters and of all ages and colors and races and and uh pronouns, they um they just say to me in the end, they say, Look, I'm actually just gonna go live by my parents again, it's much easier. I mean, literally, someone told me that. And then I get a group of guys, so it's my job to find the right guys that want to be passionate about bartending. So we do find those guys and we have them, but we have to be training constantly. And that's why I run bar unity, you know, with the F and Deventer, the drinks writer here in South Africa, we run a bar school every year. We take 30 students, we train them and we and we employ them. Uh, not I and unemploy them, but I I have bar tech uh uh bar uh other other bar venues that uh bars and restaurants that employ them as well. And out of the three that I trained for a month, which is a lot of work and a lot of intensity, I think uh only 15 of them are actually still are gainfully employed still, maybe even 10. Because the hospitality industry, I think people have seen, and this is just my understanding of it, is if you've seen how people can make money on just by posting pictures of themselves, guys are thinking, look, this hospitality game is a lot of work, it's a lot of hard work, and and that's the thing. The guys realize because you if you're a bartender, I mean, making drinks for eight hours straight, ten hours straight, we used to bartender for longer than that, but we're talking about eight hours now, making drinks for eight hours straight, it's it's the guys uh they think it's super hard work, you know, so they don't really want to be doing that anymore. So there's two parts. One is I've got some serious guys, bartenders, very young and long way to go, and then I have the guys that are are just passing through, that are so I always say this either there's a serious guy or a guy that's just passing through, and you need both in your enterprise, you know, you need both of them. But the guys that are sticking with me are the guys that are still having fun behind the bar. And I try to say to them, look, if you play, if if you can work, if you can work your magic with people, maybe even with just the basic workflow with tin and jigger, um, it's but can it can become like skateboarding behind a bar, it becomes like surfing. You see it like this, where it's actually an art form where you're where you're having this great dazzle of an evening, and it must be none to music. You know, you have to have a good set of music playing while you're bartending, otherwise you can't keep that vibe the whole evening. And you know, in training, I always say to guys, you don't have to be, you you can be, you have low energy, um, high energy and full energy, and you don't have to be high full energy the whole night. You pick your moments where you go from low to full to high. And that's how I, as a bartender, if I sustain myself in long shifts. Well, it's cooking, it's cooking, then you're banging it and you and you and you um, you know, you full energy, and you're entertaining people at the same time while you're doing it. So that is that's part of the job. But you have to you actually have to pace yourself, otherwise, either that or you have to drink a lot of tequila, one of the two.
SPEAKER_05Both sound rational strategies, uh, advised by the World Health Organization. But let me jump in and say uh what's unusual about your commentary, which is like, oh, young people don't want to work. Um, there is a staffing crisis all around the world, it's particularly acute in the UK, and it was acute before COVID, before Brexit. Um we went through it in the US as well. However, the key difference is, you know, if you're unemployed or even homeless in America, you know, or the UK, it's like, okay, you know, you you can get by. There's many, many organizations to help you. In a country with 30, 40 percent unemployment, it is kind of baffling that you've got people showing up who don't want to work. You would think just purely by the numbers, or is your sort of recruitment drive not reaching the people who want to work? Or does nobody want to fucking work anymore in Africa?
SPEAKER_02Like so guys do want to work, but they don't have the set of skills first to do it. And that some of them, and and can I just tell you that it's that uniformly across the board, it's a discipline problem. I hire guys with the best intentions, but the bottom line is the most problems we find is the problems that we find across the board, and is is discipline to adhere to coming to to to time on work, so the guys rock up late, and or they don't, if they don't, a lot of the guys, and this is like you know, we we actually have an HR platform, which I shouldn't be telling you this, but we have an HR platform we call the Twilight Zone, which is where we post all the the most ridiculous things that happen. I mean, one day I'll share it with you. We can write a book about it. It's just a WhatsApp group where all the managers share the excuses and the stories and what happened, why you couldn't make it to work. And brilliant, brilliant, guys, guys. We call it the Twilight Zone, it keeps us all all entertained, but it's also to show people just to understand that you know we we're showing the managers that this happens a lot. So so I think is we've a problem. And the other thing is what I've had a lot of problems is drinking. Guys, guys come to work drunk. So I don't know if it's if if if if it's because of the the the the because they haven't been employed, so they've they they've gone to the they've gone to drinking, and then when they get a job, they they can't hold it because they just want to carry on drinking. But look, as I said, it's not everybody. There's a lot of lot of people that we've got in our which I think I've got the best management team I've ever had. It's a young team, but they're amazing. Uh they need a lot of they need we have to train them, you know. Like normally in South Africa, which happens with us, you become a bar, you become the the best bartender in the bar, and then we give you a bar manager job and we crush your soul, basically. And that's that's not the that's not what you want to do. Then you have all this responsibility. And I think in the past, I've even made those mistakes. I've taken great bartenders, made them bar managers, and they've and and you know, they've sort of not enjoyed it, not excelled, and then sort of moved out of the business. So I'm very wary of taking people from because everybody wants to become a manager, but the but the but the responsibility is is for for a lot of young kids, it's it's quite heavy. So you have to first give them the orientation of what they're gonna do before you actually just put them in the job these days. You have to you're gonna be have to train, and that's I think my focus is for the next year. Well, my focus is always training, but now it's dedicated training workshops that we're doing next week and the week after with all our staff. So now I take them away from the environments and I spend a week with them just training uh and getting to know each other and talking about why we do things instead of just why you why you must do it, you know. And I think that's the joy I've I'm starting to find, and I'll and I will find in the the future bars we're building is that track that that taking someone from uh uh one position to another and actually training them to do it. Because in the whole world, everybody gets trained, even salesmen get trained to do their things, but I find that the least untrained is our poor managers. You know, we just expect you to make the right decision at the right time. It's not actually always that easy, you know. You you have to manage people, and you need to you need to certain have a set of skills, and it's our job to find them and train them. So there is the the there is a lot of guys that want work, not a lot of guys that are um so we get as I said, we get thousands of CVs every day, but there's a lot of language barrier, for example, and there's a lot of uneducated people that can't read, for example, you know, which is a fact. So if you can't just train on a menu, um, and when I train the disadvantaged groups, we have to make a prerequisite that you have to be able to read. Unfortunately, you know, because how can I train you through a training program if you can't read? And it's you know, it's it's sort of not fair, but unfortunately, that's the that's as far as our capability can reach to help people, is giving back the knowledge we know.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that reminds me of when I did um I executed Tiagio world class for two fleets of cruise ships. So basically, apart from the odd, weird English person or South African, I was spending the entire day with the most awesome Filipino people you've ever met because they comprise the the sailing and engineering crew of almost every cruise ship, but overwhelmingly the hospitality crew. And they are the fucking best. But you know, they they'll learn the skills and make the cocktails, and they'll be fast, they'll listen to everything. But where they would lack, uh, for want of a better phrase, was chash planter, because in many cases they're not recruited from Manila, they're recruited from rural Philippines. You know, they might have grown up in a place, you know, that didn't have brick walls. So they're talking to a retired insurance broker from Arizona and his wife, you know, and they they could chat, but they just don't feel confident. You know, that's something you can kind of teach that to a degree, but it's difficult.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, cause and effect. Uh we did a pop-up last year in Dubai, and the bartenders we trade with Filipinas as well. And to the T, the the the drinks making skill, you show him show him what to do, and he does it. But the but the but the actual conversation with guests, you know, that he couldn't do at all. So we had to be the faces, you know. He's so he's just he just made making drinks. And that's of course, that's and that's what I always say is uh in in especially in our business where everything's where we we we we pushing creative boundaries while offering amazing guest experiences, the guest experience, you must be able to read your guests and be be this great personality even before you start making them drinks, and then your skill will dictate the their um their confidence in you as you they watch you pour these drinks, they're gonna go, wow, this guy really knows what he's doing. But it boils down to being able to have you converse. Make drinks while you're talking, all those old, all those old chestnuts, you know. And that's why the Filipino guys, you're right, are very, very good at at like we show we we were I was there 10 days and we ran the bar for 30 days, and I had one of my bartenders that I left behind with a Filipino guy making drinks, and he said he really excelled in making the drinks at speed. It was just that my bartender had to do most of the talking.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I mean it's the old, you know, bartender is the aristocrat of the working classes. There's there's a young bartender I've got to know here in New York in New York. He's my bartender in one of my favorite bars that I go to, and he's he's leaving and he's going for a job in like a Michelin-starred place. He's a little nervous about it, and he's literally from central casting, he sounds like a New Yorker from the Bronx or Brooklyn. And I said, mate, if you play this right, you'll fucking crush it. Because all the people that come into a Michelin-starred restaurant in New York City, it's it's intimidating, even if you're a billionaire. And when you hear somebody who looks like you with your accent, this is like a little secret about New York. Many of the five-star hotels with the old school union bartenders, they're all from Bay Ridge and Brooklyn or the Bronx or something like that. And that's why they're there, they're there for the color, you know? Oh, yes, um, I I know Stefano, he always looks after me. He's got a heavy pore, and Stefano's like, hey, how you doing? Like that guy.
SPEAKER_00Love that. Yes, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_05So, young young Jimmy, if he gets the job, Jimmy, if you're listening, you know me. Um Jimmy, rock and roll, he will potentially kill it, you know.
SPEAKER_01So you could use my name, it'll help.
SPEAKER_05That's it. Yeah. So tell us uh about the rest of the dark continent. Africa is going off. All economic growth for the next 50 years will come from Africa or Asia. Um, some countries are incredibly wealthy and doing well, thinking of uh Nigeria. Uh others are you know on their road. Tell us about a few of your experiences and where the the cocktail and drinks culture is at in a few of the places you've been to over the years.
SPEAKER_02Well, well, I think my favor I think one of my favorite places to go, which which is growing growing at a massive rate, is Ghana. Uh Accra. They've got some amazing restaurants there. Uh uh Ciao Bella, which is a very fair friend of mine, is an amazing Italian restaurant, Italian guy living there, a restaurant that's full every day, all day and nights. Uh, and then of course, there's there's uh there's old Chris Beanie, the British guy who's also a chair for Tales of the Cocktail, I believe he's still chair. Um, he's been there for very long. There's the the Ghana bartending guild, and there's some really good cocktail bars there, and it's just getting better. And some of the good cocktail bartenders, I think Ace Johnson, who works in in the States now in the Caribbean, he's from there as well. Um, Joel, uh who works in Nigeria now, very famous bartender. So I think Ghana is my favorite cocktail destination at the moment. Of course, Kenya being coming in second for sure. Um, Nigeria's cocktail scene is growing. I mean, it's it's it's it's still the African cocktail scene like South Africa. We we're not at the I think uh we we would like to be at the danty cocktail, cocktail glass stage, find fine small glasses and that, but they're just too expensive to have in South Africa. A glass like that would cost you equivalent to 220 Rand versus one we can buy a yeah, Nicodemora for 40 Rand. You know, so that's why I think it's a cost factor as well, and I think it's more substantial. But going back to Ghana, Ghana's gross acre, they've got a beautiful beach there called Labadi Beach, where the party always ends the next morning. If you're up to that, to go sit on the beach and swim in the ocean, amazing. And um I think that Nigeria, in terms of sales of spirit, is leading the way for sure. Um, a lot of the liquor brands that I've worked for are doing exceptionally well from no growth in the last 10 years to amazing growth. Um, so Nigeria is definitely a place you want to be in if you're distributing some uh products, and then of course, there's a smaller places like Zambia. I really enjoy a very tiny but still good little cocktail scene coming along. Um I would even the even the so all so nearly all the African markets that I go to on the up and up. So, like you were just saying, there's just growth, and I think it's got a lot to do with people coming that are ex-Congolese, ex-Nigerian, living from America, coming back and investing in the country as well. So in the Congo, um, I've seen a major change. There's actually some as there's one or two South African nightclub owners that have bars in the Congo, and remember, they're not making rands, they're making dollars. So it's it's great for business. And there's a lot of South African franchises in all of these. So I'm talking about takeaway franchises, Pizza Hut style, um, pizza hut style venues that are all South African, those are also in Africa. And I think that the uh the the fact that what makes Africa so appealing is that the bottle culture, the nightclub bottle culture, that when you're going into a bar, you're buying a bottle. You're not gonna waste around going back and forth to the bar a hundred times to get your drinks. You're gonna buy four bottles, you're gonna put it on the counter, you put it amongst your friends with some mixes, and off you go. Um, and but like I said, the cocktail culture is still much the same. There's not many, not really bartender-owned bars like there is in South Africa already. And I think, as you know, the progressional steps is bartender-owned bars too, then um all the all the cocktails seem to change, and so I think that's um, and of course, also other places I traveled to is Mauritius and Reunion and those places also growing small islands in in the Indian Ocean, but yes, the growth is there, and of course, once again, I think I mentioned that Kenya also amazing. Kenya's got a lot of they've got a bar in the top 100, uh, World's 50, um, as well, that's uh doing very well, and I think that there's massive potential for growth, and hence why we we want to do the we're doing the the Cape Bar show is because there's a lot of people that really want to be learning and getting to a place we can meet, and the closest place is obviously um Cape Town, and I think that's the that's the joy of it. And there's there's a cool cocktail, vibrant cocktail cats are coming out there that's intertwined with the local ingredients and and uh um local cultures, you know.
SPEAKER_05Well, uh someone else doing good stuff in Africa, um and I I don't think you guys have met. Have you met Guy Brennan from uh Procyrogen?
SPEAKER_02I don't think I have, no.
SPEAKER_05I interviewed him recently. Um he's a good lad, he's Australian. And he moved to Mighty might have made him and he moved to Africa to set up micro financing things, right? And they set up and he's in Kenya one night, he's Australian, so he drinks like fuck, and him and his mates are having G and Ts. What's the name of the gym? Pro Sera.
SPEAKER_02I might have an example of it actually. In my bottle, I think he might have someone might have sent me a sample. Is it like got a leather label around it?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's a square bottle, you know, recycled glass, no text on it at all. Yeah, but his thing was they were drinking you know, Bombay sapphire GTs in Kenya, and they were actually looking at a forest of juniperus procedera trees, because there's many different varieties of juniper. Most junipers made most gin is made with common juniper, which is called juniper communis. You can also in the UK and Europe make your gin from uh juniper oxycedrus, so-called red juniper. But the one that's native to Africa and the Middle East is called Juniper Procera. And it's an 80-foot-tall tree. It's just a fucking enormous thing. And it gives off massive berries, like two to three times the size of a regular, you know, Italian or Macedonian or Eastern European juniper communist berry. And he was like, we could do that. And the gin's very nice, you know, fresh juniper, all this kind of thing. But his thing is it sells, it's it's expensive as fuck. It's like, you know, $90 or 90 pounds for a bottle. And his thing is he wants to reshape people's perception of Africa because most people have not been to anywhere in Africa, and if they know about Africa, it's starving children and dictators and more starving people and charities. He wants to reshape it and think, well, look, this is a place where amazing stuff comes from, and the djinn, by his own admission, is just the first step of that, like a luxury product whereby you pay more, not because it's Africa, not because it's a charity, but because it's awesome.
SPEAKER_02Yes, exactly. I like that. And I think that's that's that's one of the things in uh that that you have to come to terms with is that you that if you've got an awesome product, then sell it, sell it for what it's worth. Don't unders undersell yourself, rather take that route. And I think I've learned that as a businessman over and over and over, is that um don't underprice yourself. And I'm talking about my cocktails, talking about consulting, all that, you know, if you That's how you value yourself, and that's how people will value even more when you when you're going to be giving them the price that you think you're worth or that you believe your product is worth. And I mean, I've been involved with many, many developments of many products, and involved with some brandies now in development. And you know, when the guy says we're going to sell it for this much, and I'm going, but look, the process takes so long, and it's like it's not like a gin where you you know we and not there's anything that it's not like gin production where South African brandy has to be aged for three years. I mean, that's a long, that's a long time to have something in a barrel. And if you're just charging, you're charging less than a gin for it, I would say that you're making a mistake because most of the most of it's gonna be sitting in a f barrels of five to seven years, you know. If you're gonna just be looking at the some decent South African brandy. So that's what's important. Never undervalue yourself or your great products. And I learned something about that. So about the juniper berry in Kenya, it's called again Pro Serra. What did you say? Procera. Lovely, I like that. And we like because I love using different styles of plants. So when I was doing um, we got a drink on the menu, uh called Monkey Bear, and it's made with whiskey and monkey shoulder, and then penny gum leaf. And penny gum leaf, if you if you we macerate a little bit with fresh pineapple, a little bit of vinegar, and we leave it in to just age slightly for a few days in in a sous-view, and what happens is is that it brings out these slight mental flavors, but strong guava flavors from the leaf, you know, and it when we blend it up, finally blitz it up and strain it's like this bright green color. It's an amazing drink. And I was making it in some of the bars, very easy to drink, a high bald style drink, you know, and that's what I love. Extracting other flavors from something like a eucalyptus leaf, you'd be surprised that you can get a bit of barber out of it, like the penny gum we use. Yeah, and I think that's what it boils down to when the flavor is unique, even though it's so simplistic, you're getting a beautiful flavor out of it. It's it's something special.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but going back to beautiful brandy. Yeah, I just need more brandy myself. Uh, I've actually got some nice armoniac. But just to get back to what you were saying, it's not about a straight line value for money proposition. It's about adding value. Um, whether you know, whether I create brands, own my own brands, work as a consultant when I owned a bar, you know, and price cocktails, you know, charge whatever price you like. Charge $100 or $1,000 or $10,000 or $50,000. But if you charge $50,000, it has to be worth in perception terms to the clients, $50,001 at least. That's your job.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_05Like if you create uh a South African brandy, and there are amazing South African brandies to be had, criminally few in the USA, uh, but there are amazing brandies. Obviously, they have a pressure to uh shift bottles, and if you look at it like, well, brandy takes longer to make than gin, so we should charge more than gin. It's like that is a fair thing, but you're going to have to give the perception of being worth more, and that's harder. Like it's harder. I I always think you should build a small ride or die tribe of people who will cross the street or get in a subway for half an hour in New York or London to go to the one shop that sells your stuff. So they have it at home and they can crack it open for their mates and say, You've never heard of this fucking stuff, and here's why it's amazing. Even 10 of those people are a lever for your brand rather than 100 people are like, oh yeah, it's nice.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_02No, for sure. And that's why there is a lot of uh we've got a lot of good new brandies coming out in South Africa, just like the gins, and they have to stand apart from each other, you know. And it's gonna boil down to uh it's gonna boil down to it's really to me, it's always about flavor, but to a lot of other guys, it'll be about the with the bottling and the way the bottle looks and the way it's packaged, and and all of those things that we know is all the all those marketing things that we know that's important to people. But like you say, it's a story. If they can tell a story about it that's quick, simple, concise, and and really delivers a strong message, then then you also have it. And if it's all combined with flavor and taste, then happy days. And if it's got a high alcohol percentage as well, even better. You know, that will help. Now as you know, what yes, we're gonna say the same thing. As you know, is alcohol 3% stronger than the rest of the world, yeah. But you always is 80-proof, ours is 86 proof.
SPEAKER_05Well, that's the law, yeah. Why don't you explain that to people? Not everybody is oh fay with the SA liquor laws.
SPEAKER_02The liquor laws in South Africa are have been around for this same law's been around since 1965, and it really was created to combat um to combat any other imports into South Africa. And basically the law states that if you bring a bottle into South Africa, no matter what brand it is, it has to obviously be in an appellation category or just a category. And if it's in a Kvotka category or any Scotch brandy, bourbon doctor, or any spirit category, um, there's a set of rules. And the first rule is it has to be in a 750 mole bottle, not a 70cm bottle. And the second rule is that it has to be in uh 43%. Uh it can't be, which is ABV 43%, which is 86% proof. So that has to be as well. I mean, that's quite uh so even a lacure isn't 18%, they have to be 24%. So it means if you drink a cosmopolitan, technically, um you're drinking a drink that's got nine percent more alcohol than others. You still there?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, sorry. I just have to uh answer somebody. I'll put my uh my video back on.
SPEAKER_02I'll share with a very pretty picture of Elaine there.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, she set up the she set up the account, so that's the pause.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so yeah, yeah, Elaine.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I'm sorry, it's back to me now. Uh that's that's why that's what's that's one of the reasons why you don't get everything in SA, because you essentially have to do a separate production run just for South Africa. If your regular stuff is 40% AB, you've got to make a 43% at least for SA. If your regular liqueur is 15, it's got you've got to make a special run for did you say 18?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so it's so so it's so liqueurs in the rest of the world is 18, but in South Africa it has to be 24 or stronger. So, like I said, if you're drinking a cosmopolitan, you're actually drinking, you're actually drinking three plus six, it's nine percent more alcohol than anywhere else. So mad, and that's why if you're drinking tequila, you're drinking 86% proof and not 80 proof. That's why when we go to Mexico, we can drink a lot.
SPEAKER_05Because a lot of it there is 38%.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_05Bless them.
SPEAKER_02I'm enjoying this conversation, Mr. Duff, but I can't be much longer because I have to help my daughter with her homework still tonight before we finish, and I have to be sort of sober for it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but you've had a couple of glasses of brandy. Exactly as much as you should have before you help a kid with her homework. You're probably at the stage now where you can't really help her much more with uh maths.
SPEAKER_02No, luckily she did maths yesterday. Tomorrow is just language, so it's it's something that I can excel at. Not uh if it was maths, it would be the mom.
SPEAKER_05Do they study foreign languages there at her age?
SPEAKER_02Uh they do no. They well, she does do she does do French and she does causa in English and Afrikaans. There's four languages actually, but they don't French is extramural, so they don't write exam on it, it's just COSA and Afrikaans in English.
SPEAKER_05So it's three languages that they so they still you do you have to study Afrikaans?
SPEAKER_02Yes, in this school. It's a private school, and we choose that though.
SPEAKER_05But like the national exams, assuming there are national exams.
SPEAKER_02That's English. Just English, English, just English, national exam. And it depends so you know, you can if you choose to take COSA and Afrikaans to as a language to um to matrix, then you can do that. But one of your other subjects will fall away. But you know, this I mean they study coding, you know, stuff that we don't never heard of that they're studying now, you know, like she does coding to coding, which is the compute computer coding, you know.
SPEAKER_05Oh no, she can quit that. All all the moms on the Upper East Side in New York, 10 years ago, they're all like, oh, coding, coding, coding, coding, coding. And we even put our kids in a summer camp one summer, you know, she built a laptop, she coded, it was amazing. And then, like, a year ago, chat GPT came out, and chat GPT can write code. So exactly, you might as well tell your daughter to skip class because there's also 1.3 billion Chinese kids who are working harder than her.
SPEAKER_02No, absolutely, but I think the fundamentals of it is very good to have a to have an understanding of of computer systems and the future of it. So I think it's it's I think it's it it it helps them a lot in terms of just understanding devices and things like that, and what you can be able to do if you want to follow a career in that type of environment. And that's why when you later on in life or later on in your studies, you can decide what you want to specialize in, you know, if it's gonna be, you know, could instead of learning to some of the things that you're never gonna use in future life. How's that um uh how was that insufferable boss of yours?
SPEAKER_05Oh, that went in the first 10 minutes. That's been gone for a while.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well done. Uh excellent.
SPEAKER_05It's a it's a refreshing kind of a mule type drink. And actually, Jeff Barry wanted to sex it up a bit, he found it a little bit flabby, and that's why he chose Geneva, actually. That we you know, he wanted to give it a bit more uh oomph, oomph, but probably an amazing maltiness in 1940 in Egypt, but you know, taste changed.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01No, I've really enjoyed our conversation, Mr. Duff.
SPEAKER_02It's been a great uh evening. Well, likewise, uh we I hope that we can see each other soon next year. I think we should be doing some visits. I haven't looked at my path to tales for next year yet, but hopefully we might be doing something with they say brandy as well. So we never know. We might be doing something like that. So hopefully we can do something together. I see I've been called by my wife as well. Oh these uh definitely happening.
SPEAKER_05All right, let's wrap up quickly. Quick uh question for a young bartender, whether it's somebody who comes and works for you, and assuming they can read and all that, uh what are the three things apart from you know drink making that make you a better bartender? Things you can study or read, books, courses.
SPEAKER_02I think you know, I'm very much for the history of bartending, and I mean I know you love that as well. I think that you should be, you know, you should own your own cocktail books, read that. And and you know the funny things I tell a lot of guys is which I it's not always correct, but not but but like especially when I'm doing training now, I say, hey guys, I'm here to motivate you to be a great bartender, but let me just tell you a lot of the things I'm gonna tell you, you can actually find on YouTube. So I want to give you my advice, and thank you for asking it. I'd say for a young bartender, you must master two things that's self-study and procurement. And that is, and you know, that is where do I get the information to have to make the best drink? Who can I follow on social media to get me to show me or give me tips? And once you get that going, then you're gonna master the most basic thing, which is taste. So you want to be you want to be a master procurer of of flavors, which is spirits and and great ingredients. You want to start at your local supermarket just by tasting every single fruit that's there in something. Every time you see something you've never seen before, you are like a chef, you're gonna taste that and say, hmm, how can I put that in a drink? And that is the self-taughtness and procuring of information, flavor, and then of course, taste everything. Taste it and taste it, have an opinion on it. Because how can you because taste is something you need to acquire to be able to give your opinion on what is great and what is not great? Because if you can't master the taste aspect of it, then you can't master, you will never be able to tell yourself honestly if your drinks taste good or bad.
SPEAKER_05Pop notch advice for the young bartenders under us. Kurt, this has been an absolute pleasure. When this podcast ends, which is very soon, how will people be able to find you online?
SPEAKER_02They can find me on my Instagram, which is Kurt Schlachter. Um, but the easiest way to actually track me down is on cause effect bar on IG Instagram. And if you ever want to ask me any questions, you can literally post on Insta on Cause Effect Bar. You can just say, Hey Kurt, I want to ask you a question. Um, hey Kurt, I'm coming to Cape Town, I'd love to meet you. Hey Kurt, what is the five best restaurants I should go to? Just ask me. I am a host of of Cape Town, a absolute um uh passionate uh brandy person and and cape town person. So I I have an email on standby if you want to know where the best restaurants and wine bars are. And if you lucky, I'll just come and join you and we can have the best experience ever of our beautiful city.
SPEAKER_05Top notch. Kurt Schlechter, thank you very much.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, full duff. Good to see you, mate. I'll chat to you soon.