October 2009

With any luck this year, I’ll finally be able to release my latest drink book,
titled “Cocktails of the American West”. It’s been finished for over a
year now, but sometimes you have to wait for the timing of final production
into material form to be just right, which includes what format(s) you want
the content to be in as a product for people to be able to utilize in the best
way possible. Keep checkin’ back ever so often, or drop me an E if you
want one, and I’ll let you know when it becomes available.

So far, so great !  The test run of my cocktail recipe cards in Ralph's
Grocery store in July and August is doing really well, as far as shopper
interest and card movement, FREE to the customers in the liquor/mixer
aisle. This is the first-ever POS tool of it's kind, and the perfect placement
for them. In the first six weeks, 300 recipe cards moved, of the initial floor
inventory of 360. 36 cards x10 of each. Since then, all 500 cards have
moved off the rack. The photography and layout of each card is very
attractive, with the recipe being on back for the shoppers to use to
purchase the drink ingredients, to match the card and drink they want to
try. The cards are free for the customers to take home and file. To the left
is a close-up photo of the display stand, which can be placed either in the
middle or at either end of the aisle, gauging for performance.

In early 2008 I had a spark of an idea that stemmed from my Hotel book
produced in 2004. So within the course of a month I brainstormed real
heavy and created a new board game titled “Cocktail Hotel”. I designed
/ drafted the entire game board in about six hours of line-drawing. It’s big
in size, has 10 floors as the going-up challenge, 12 categories to land on
the board, and as a great beverage education game, it’s a little bit of a
drinking game too, if you wish to imbibe during the play. It’s designed for
2-8 players, uses cool 8-sided dice, and has a pass-around hand-held
computer that contains all the game’s Q & A, Multiple Choice, and True
or False content. It’s still in the development stages, as you can imagine
how long the road is to get this from idea to the market, but it’s a totally
cool game to play, and quite a challenge at the same time. The first one to
the Penthouse wins !  Secondarily, I also want it to eventually become an
online game too, where people can play other people from anywhere in
the world at anytime day or night. We’ll see what the future holds with the
completion of this great idea for a board game.

A very talented Russian friend of mine, Mikhail Nosikov, is currently at work
slowly assembling the capabilities of designing a creative iPhone App
based from my 1000-page book work, "The Hotel of Naughty Cocktails".
With text, audio, video, cocktail photography, cocktail calendar, and recipe
cards to possibly add into the fold, it's sure to be an entertaining product.
Mikhail did the original content-transfer work from the hotel book onto disc,
which at that many pages was really the only way to have it available. If
possible for us to do, we may have something to roll out by early 2010.

As a private on-call bartender in Los Angeles working an average of 150
bar gigs a year, I have the opportunity to connect with many professionals
in the movie, television, and entertainment industry. I’ve had the idea to
write a book about many of my various experiences working as L.A.’s # 1
private bartender. Then I thought let’s write a series of articles and short
stories for submission to print magazines. This eventually lead me to write
the original idea in the format that would be best-suited for the involved
content – Television. As the visual in my mind was so exciting to see play
through, I wrote a treatment for a 1-hour dramatic television series based
on how I do what I do here in the L.A. and Hollywood areas. I mean, just
imagine everything I’ve seen over the course of bartending and bar
managing over 1200 private gigs in the City of Angels, and Devils too . . .  
We’ll see what happens. Things take time, but thankfully I have a couple
scriptwriter friends interested in writing the episodes and series bible, in
what could be a dream come true for me, not to mention all the potential
12 million F & B industry-strong in the country that would tune in to the
fresh, new and unique idea this series can be. I have some cool twists
written in as well with the character based after me. I know. I haven’t told
you the title of the show. But I can’t yet. Some things need to remain
secret, like a recipe for success !

Let’s hope 2009 or 2010 is the year for my industry travel show,
titled “Beverage Road” to get sponsorship. Sante Magazine's website
publisher is working with me on it for an internet-based production. It's
full of good-quality segment content, and I'm looking forward to get it
underway whenever we can.

Someday I hope this comes to fruition for all of us in the industry,
regardless of who finally gets the ball rolling with it. I've been talking it
up for years, and though I have a listing of about 30 show idea concepts
for a Beverage Network, I haven't been able to gather a serious team
of like-minds in the field, and essentially build it from scratch, in basic
direction similar to the Food Network. It's not like we'd be lacking brand
sponsors. Like anything though, it does require money and the dedication
to a project through to it's working completion. This is a big idea, that no
one person can do alone. There are a couple people on the team, but
much more needs to be done, as you can imagine. We'll see what the
future holds.

Historic Taverns of the United States is the show I've had in the
cooker for years now, about 6 to be exact. I have one of the original
registered listings of historic taverns that you can't get anymore, from
what I've gathered. I caught it just in time before the Feds closed down
the office. A great documentary series, I'm looking to move this forward
in a serious way, and a historical one as well. If you want to read the
show overview, just go to the 32nd Floor.

I’m hoping to resume the next phases of my cocktail photography series
this year, but I was so buried with other projects since 2008 I didn’t have
the chance to pick it back up where I left off. I’m looking to shoot another
100 drinks to complete phase 3 of the project, which will then lead to more
recipe cards, calendars, and producing my first cocktail photography book.

Look forward to checking out my new Cocktail Art calendars for 2010.
I did the first one in 2009, and it came out great. I have enough current
photography to do about 10 different themed calendars, and they’re fairly
inexpensive, so check it out. They make great gifts and stocking stuffers
during the holidays.

I probably won't be doing any more article/story/feature writing for quite
a while. That's a good, healthy thing for me, taking a long break after
writing so much in the last year and a half. I just need to drop the pen and
work on some other projects so I avoid getting burnt out in any one area
of my work.

If anyone wants to check my blog out, go to:
www.cocktailhotel.blogspot.com

Until next update,

Kyle

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