Storytelling and Storytellers
I am a storyteller. I often get asked what my favourite bar is - it was (and kinda still is) Milk & Honey in New York. That’s just an answer though, it’s the story behind the answer which is usually the thing worth knowing.
“We are all storytellers. We all live in a network of stories. There isn’t a stronger connection between people than storytelling.”
- Jimmy Neil Smith
Now, while the short answer is accurate, it’s nowhere near as interesting (hopefully) as the story, and if you make or talk about drinks, write menus, train staff or sell booze, you would do it all better I think if you consider the story at least as important as just the facts alone, that’s if you really want people to listen and learn from you.
Back in 2002 when M&H was opening in London, the press around it was incredibly exciting. A secret bar selling just classics and only stocking things you’d have found in a real speakeasy in 1920’s New York. A collaboration between the iconic Match group and an enigmatic Sasha Petraske, who whenever he felt his NY bar was getting too popular, changed the phone number you needed to book a coveted table and shared it with only the chosen few guests he liked, which prevented it ever becoming too busy with those he didn’t. It sounds bloody brilliant doesn’t it?
As soon as I was able, I made the trip to the new London outpost, and it was even better than I hoped. Drinks, lighting and most importantly the heart and soul made it one of best bars in world. A few years later I made a trip to New York for work (telling stories about gin) and I insisted to my hosts that my first drink had to be in the original M&H, that’s how important the idea of this bar was to me.
Well blow me down if it wasn’t everything I’d loved about the London bar, but even more so and all jammed into a single room. I ordered a Manhattan to begin my night (I still do) and Sammy Ross, resplendent with mohawk made me the best damn Manhattan I’ve ever had (Pappy 13 in case you’re wondering, this was so long ago that bars could actually afford it) and I fell forever in love with both the bar and New York City. A Happy ending!
But it gets even better. I came out again to tell some more stories a year or so later, and while sipping a Manhattan (again) in Little Branch with Sam, a friend of ours from Belfast who worked (and now owns) M&H popped into the bar, saw us and came over to say hello;
“Sasha is at the bar, do you want to meet him?” “No way” was my reply. Never meet your heroes, it mostly ruins everything. Mickey however insisted, and despite Sasha being as ever the reserved and elegant gentleman, and I as always behaving like a drunken sailor on shore leave, and us seeming to disagree on nearly everything about how a bar works, we became friends and he kindly showed me around his city whenever I visited, and I even got to take him round my beloved Edinburgh in return once. An even happier ending.
It didn’t end happily ever after though I’m afraid.
Milk & Honey New York shut, but the bar rose again from the ashes as Attaboy - helmed by former bartenders and now owners Mickey McIlroy and Sammy Ross, and that room remains my favourite bar on earth. Lose some, win some.
A potentially more permanent loss, our M&H in London closes its doors this September. Whether you’ve been there or not you have likely been influenced by the incredibly high standard of drinks and service that radiated from those three rooms, which helped change cocktail culture for the better across the UK. As I write this, I am planning on making my last pilgrimage next week, I bet you can you guess what I will be drinking with Pierre to say goodbye.
Most tragically though, we lost Sasha five years ago. His influence lives on though far and wide, he changed cocktail culture around the world, and the world is better for having had him in it. I will raise a daiquiri to you next week too pal.
“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.”
- Johnathon Gottschall
We love stories, from the bedtime tales we were told as wee tots, to nights of Netflix sagas over lockdown, we never tire of hearing them. If you can manage to weave a story into what you do, it will become more memorable to those you are doing it for. If you are good, they will even tell that story again on your behalf, and possibly again and again if it’s a real belter, just as I have done for years about Sasha’s beautiful bar Milk & Honey.
“Storytelling is the greatest technology that humans have ever created.”
- Jon Westenberg
In our world of booze and bars, it’s easy to see the importance of the story a brand tells us about itself, which then morphs more importantly into the story we tell ourselves about why we like Mezcal more than Mixto. The story fuels our choices, and our choices then in turn shape the future of bar, brand and industry. A great story can change the world.
Big brands may have weaponised storytelling for mass markets, but they are often dogshit at delivering them to savvy bar folk like yourself, which is great for two reasons. Firstly this means there will always be a plucky, small, windswept and interesting brands bursting through and challenging the status quo in the bars who care the most, and secondly a lot of these brands big and small will need bartenders to deliver the stories in an effective way on their behalf, and so old fuckers like me don’t have to leave the industry completely when we can’t bend down to reach glasses on low shelves anymore.
I don’t mean this cynically at all; I fucking love this trade, and the stories and storytellers are a big part of why. I don’t want you to lie about shite drinks, I want you to find the best pubs and bars and tasting liquids you can and learn how to make folk as excited about them as you are. That’s what a good story really is, it’s an experience you had and an emotion you felt, that you are skilled enough to communicate in such a way that someone else who wasn’t even there, can then feel excited too. It’s bloody hard to do well though, and just telling people “honestly, it’s delicious” is fucking useless as all the lying cunts are saying just that.
So how do you become a good storyteller?
If you’re extremely lucky, you may have been born brilliant at it, and if you ever spend time in a pub with Jake Burger or Dave Broom you’ll have this rubbed in your face in a most enjoyable way. Most of us though will need to work at it and be prepared to fail before we get better. Don’t despair though, as like making a great cocktail, there are rules and recipes we can follow and learn from, which will in time enable us to become ever more creative and truer to the voice in our head.
Pixar, who know a thing or two about telling stories say there are six pillars to making a great one.
1. Great stories are universal. You need to tell it in a way the listener can relate to.
2. They have a structure and purpose.You need to have a clear reason and hoped for outcome.
3. You need a hero. There needs to be someone to root for, preferably an underdog.
4. It must reach people’s emotions.Be it happiness, anger or surprise, if it isn’t emotional, it’s not a great story.
5. They need a surprise along the way. We need the unexpected to make us think or do something new sometimes.
6. A great story is usually simple and focused.
God may be in the detail, but if there is too much of it, most folk will get lost or switch off.
“Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them”
- Eudora Welty
I personally have learnt most from listening and learning from my betters. I remember many moons ago the marvellous Mark Ridgewell pulled together a WSET2 course on spirits, and each category was taught by a world class expert and storyteller. Dave Broom on whisky, Desmond Payne for gin, Tom Estes discussing tequila, Tony Hart on rum and Nicolas Faith for cognac. Without coming across as a total wanker, I could have rocked up to just the exam and scraped a pass I reckon, and I did learn lots of new facts but the real reason I attended was to hear the stories behind them (and indeed steal some to use myself), and they didn’t disappoint. They helped shaped not only how I understood spirits, they more importantly gave me a much better understanding of how to share that knowledge in an engaging and enjoyable way.
“Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them”
- Eudora Welty
When taking to fellow trade, don’t make it just a nuclear arms race of who knows more facts, and it also doesn’t need to be overly dramatic, Sasha was quietly spoken and reserved in his delivery, yet his story will live on because it was such a great one. Find your inspirations, listen and learn, work on your stories and I promise you will become better at your chosen craft, and maybe get paid more too. Equally, your favourite pub will be full of storytellers, and I bet even when it’s empty and you are first to prop up bar, the room itself tells a tale too. There are lessons all around us, we just need to notice them.
“Inside each of us is a natural-born storyteller, waiting to be released.”
- Robin Moore
Now to start you on your journey, the best book I read in lockdown was The Founders Tale, which is also probably the most important book on whisky you don’t know about. Pip Hills helped not only bring single malts out from obscurity, he spins a cracking yarn.
I hope you enjoy it.
The End.
