410 - Lessons Learned From Building The Biggest Bourbon Bar with Josh Howes and Tommy Craggs of Watch Hill Proper

Bourbon Pursuit

Hobbies, Food, Arts, Leisure

4.9 • 866 Ratings

🗓️ 18 May 2023

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The dream of owning a bourbon bar. That sounds pretty awesome doesn't it? In this episode, we get to hear Watch Hill Proper's journey. Joshua Howes and Tommy Craggs join the show to talk about the initial concept of the bar and the challenges they faced not coming from a restaurant background. We dive into the finer details of the business such as staff training, retainment, and revenue between food and beverage. But for us whiskey geeks, we talk about building a collection of unicorns that are proudly on display but also available by the pour. Show Notes: Above the Char with Fred Minnick (@fredminnick) talks about why Maker's Mark doesn't use age statements. How did you get into bourbon and what's your bourbon journey? Did you know what the concept of the bar was going to be before you started? What challenges did you face since you don't come from a restaurant background? How did you come to the design and the feel of the space? What percentage of your revenue is food vs beverage? How did you procure the unicorns in the collection? How do you train the staff on how to be knowledgable on all the whiskeys? What was your business plan and how many drinks you have to sell to keep the doors open? Can you talk about how membership communication backfired? How did the name Watch Hill Proper come to be? Support this podcast on Patreon

Transcript

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0:00.0	because there's probably a lot of people out there that have the dreams and aspirations of what you did.
0:04.4	And so you'll be able to say, here's where we tripped up.
0:08.0	Oh, man.
0:08.9	How long is the show?
0:11.0	Yeah, we don't want to, yeah.
0:12.9	We want to try to stay positive.
0:14.7	Oh, yeah.
0:15.0	That's right. This is Bourbon Pursuit, the official podcast of Bourbon, bringing to you the best in news, reviews, and interviews with people making the bourbon whiskey industry happen.
0:37.7	And I'm one of your hosts, Kenny Coleman.
0:39.9	The Dream of Owning a bourbon bar.
0:42.0	That sounds pretty awesome, doesn't it?
0:44.0	Well, in this episode, we get to hear of Watch Hill Proper's journey.
0:48.0	Joshua Howes and Tommy Craggs, they joined the show to talk about the initial concept
0:52.0	of the bar and the challenges they face not coming
0:54.7	from a restaurant background. We dive into the finer details of the business, such as staff training,
1:00.2	actually retaining those staff members and revenue of what you see between food and beverage
1:04.8	sales. But for us whiskey geeks, we also talk about building a bourbon collection of unicorns
1:10.2	that are proudly on display, but
1:11.9	also they're available by the poor. And as well, what other kind of mistakes should you not
1:17.1	make when trying to build the world's biggest whiskey bar? With that, enjoy this week's
1:21.8	episode. And now here's Fred Minnick with Above the Char. I'm Fred Minnick, and this is Above the Char.
1:30.0	This week's idea comes from Jonathan Salkey, who writes us on Patreon, one of our Patreon
	...

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