Bars and restaurants across the country are cautiously reopening after a year and a half of pandemic related closures and global uncertainty. However, now that venues are beginning to welcome guests back, they have found themselves facing yet another hurdle–a nationwide labor shortage. As the service industry attempts to navigate high turnover and unfilled positions, it is leaning on canned cocktails and ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages to help fill the void.

The National Restaurant Association recently reported that as of July of this year, the service industry still needed to fill nearly 1 million jobs in order to return to 12.3 million, its pre-pandemic level. The task was made even more difficult this past August, when a surge in coronavirus cases prompted an industry loss of more than 40,000 additional jobs.

Furthermore, data suggests even when industry positions become available, they are not being applied for. 7shifts, a service industry-focused shift scheduling software company, reported bartending positions were among the hardest in the industry to fill post-pandemic. According to 7shifts, nearly half of the examined job listings for bartenders have gone without applicants.

The nation is divided when it comes to placing blame for the labor shortage. Some believe the culprit is enhanced unemployment benefits, while others are pointing their fingers at low wages and poor employee benefits. As politicians and business owners argue amongst themselves, former bartenders and industry employees are seeking out new careers. A study by the management consulting company, Technomic, entitled Crisis on the Front Lines found that instead of returning to restaurants, almost 30% of former service industry workers were hired for office jobs, while another 17% explored careers in teaching/education.

Enter canned cocktails.

As bars and restaurants struggle with staffing, venues are looking towards RTD and premixed cocktails to ease the workload of their remaining staff. RTD beverages offer an easy and convenient drinking experience that does not depend on seasoned bartenders to produce.

Crafting a balanced cocktail is an artform. It can take ample time and know-how to perfect a cocktail and authentic recipes often demand immediate access to multiple fresh ingredients. Canned cocktails do not require any of the above and already come infused with fresh ingredients. As consumers learned during quarantine, when RTD beverages skyrocketed in popularity, canned cocktails are a low maintenance and enjoyable alternative to cocktails crafted while you wait.

Now don’t get us wrong, nothing can replace the knowledge and skill an experienced mixologist brings to the table. In fact, many premium canned cocktail brands rely on the expertise of acclaimed bartenders and bar-quality ingredients when developing their beverages. More than ever before brands are utilizing recipes created by industry professionals that feature real spirits and natural ingredients such as fresh juice…a far cry from the overly sweetened and extremely artificial wine coolers of decades past.

Post Meridiem Spirits, for instance, boasts “timeless cocktail recipes, fine tuned by real mixologists to create perfectly balanced drinks.” The award-winning brand’s line of premium cocktails includes The Real Lime Margarita, made with 100% lime juice and silver tequila, as well as The Double Old Fashioned, The Lemongrass Vodka Gimlet, The 1944 Mai Tai, and The No. Four Daiquiri. All of Post Meridiem’s cocktails are crafted with real spirits, fresh juices and authentic ingredients.

LiveWire Cocktail Co. is another brand serving up premium cocktails created by some of the most prominent bartenders in the industry. LiveWire’s RTD Crystal Shiso Mojito, for instance, is the brainchild of Yael, a mixologist who earned the title American Bartender of the Year at the Spirited Awards in 2018. She was also named a Rising Star in 2017 by Star Chefs.

Erin Hayes, inventor of LiveWire’s Rocket Queen, managed the bar at Chicago’s famous tiki venue, Lost Lake, where she co-wrote the drink menu in 2018–the year it was named “Best American Cocktail Bar.” Rocket Queen is described as a “seamless combination of Magdalena Rum, red pomelo, cinnamon, pandan and absinthe.” Ingredients like pandan, a tropical plant often used for flavoring in Asian cuisine, are unlikely to be found in most drink establishments, let alone those that are short-staffed.

Mixologist Shannon Mustipher, is the co-founder of Women Who Tiki and the author of TIKI: Modern Tropical Cocktails. She is another of LiveWire’s talented bartenders and is responsible for the creation of the brand’s Holy Tyger cocktail, which “comes out swinging with bourbon, lime, coconut, lemongrass, Rockey’s Liqueur, and Bittercube Jamaican No. 1 Bitters.”

Social Hour Cocktails was founded by Julie Reiner and Tom Macy, renowned bartenders and the owners of Brooklyn’s iconic Clover Club. Social Hour’s canned offerings include a Navy Strength Gin & Tonic, Pacific Spritz, Straight Rye Whiskey Mule, Prizefighter, Sunkissed Fizz, and a Strawberry Rhubarb Spritz. Reiner and Macy believe “a canned cocktail shouldn’t mean a compromise in quality and we only wanted to put a cocktail in a can if it could be as good – or better – than ones we make from scratch behind our bars.”

These are just a few of the bartender crafted, premium canned cocktails making things a little easier for under-staffed bars and restaurants. RTD beverages are a win-win for consumers and alcohol industry workers alike as venues struggle for normalcy in a post-pandemic world.

Shirani Jayasuriya
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