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Barware is a hot retail category these days -- consumers in their twenties and thirties have discovered the romance behind serving cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. Though the category may seem to sell itself, if you put just a bit more effort behind the brands you stock, you just might find yourself with sales that are shakin' instead of simply stirred.
So to that end, we've culled the promotional aisles of retailers across the country to come up with ten great merchandising ideas for barware that you may consider implementing in your own store.
Building a Better Basket
Julie Zanetti, owner of Johns Island, S.C.-based Doin' The Charleston, sells a plethora of barware in her gift-gourmet store. Her favorite way to promote the category is via gift basket sales.
"We do a lot of gift baskets. We have acrylic ice buckets shaped like a top hat and we fill them up with great items like corkscrews, wineglasses, wine-themed cocktail napkins, Wine Away, and wine charms. Just about anything you can think of can go into the basket -- there are so many barware accessories to choose from. You can build a beautiful basket out of the top hat. We call it thinking outside the basket."

Business Networking
C&J Boutique in Lincoln City, Ore., specializes in wines and gourmet foods. And along with those sales comes an expanding array of barware and wine accessories.
"Every time I go to market, I expand our selection of wine accessories. We do a little bit of everything and the best-selling item is the stainless steel spout wine pourers from Prodyne," owner Julie McBee said. "We have a unique wineglass line called The Girlfriends Line. There are also cocktail plates that accent the line. Wine Bitch and Vino Slut are two of our best sellers from Girl Talk by Leslie."
During the summer months, McBee relies on the tourists who descend on this seaside community. She promotes her retail store to tourists through local radio, a coastal business magazine, and a hardcover tourist guide that is distributed to area hotels. But in the winter months, retailers in Lincoln City depend upon the support of the local community to warm their registers. McBee keeps her store at the center of the community by participating in Chamber of Commerce events, particularly in the Chamber After Hours evenings.
Once a year, we are able to host the Business After Hours event. I like to do it close to the holiday, but we take what we can get. We serve wine, cheese, and other specialty foods -- promoting the items in the store. In addition, we ask the other seven stores in our strip mall to participate to make it a really special evening," she continued. "We really want to promote the whole area because although we do receive a lot of tourist trade, we really need our local people in the wintertime."
McBee is also involved in the Chamber's annual Holiday Showcase at which she serves up more wine samples with wine accessories and regional wines packaged neatly for sale nearby.

Beverage Aisle
Creating your own beverage station -- whether you're a kitchenware store or a specialty food store -- is a great way to not only improve sales of barware but to also show off new kitchenware and sample new beverages. First, check out vendors that might also carry home furnishing lines for portable bars, such as those for outdoor use or stand-alone units for home use. Purchase one of these bars for use in your store and promote it as a special-order item.
Stock your new bar with everything you'd want to have in your own home bar -- stirrers, cocktail napkins, glasses, cocktail shakers, shot glasses, and more. Set up an espresso machine, a blender/smoothie maker, and flavoring syrups. Twice a day, offer free samples to customers and write out the "beverage special" on a chalkboard hanging over or behind your bar. For example, serve up specialty coffee drinks in the morning and in the afternoons, sample freshly prepared smoothies or nonalcoholic daiquiris. Besides giving you a chance to show off your specialty barware and glasses, it also provides you with an opportunity to demonstrate equipment, including blenders and espresso machines. Use recipes from bartending books -- such as those by Anthony Dias Blue -- to cross promote your cookbook inventory.

Texas-sized Displays
A multitude of events is held for customers by Conroe, Texas-based Accents, including a much-anticipated Riedel Wine Tasting event. Still, some of the most memorable barware promotions are created simply by good design.
Mary Ann Albritton, president of the gift-gourmet store, pulls out a 100-year-old whiskey barrel and a nine-foot tree once a year to put everyone into a partying mood. The tree sits neatly between the store's Texas specialty food area and the barware section. Albritton dresses it up with bar, wine, and Texas-inspired ornaments.
"We decorate the tree with Texas and barware ornaments -- little martini glasses and such. It's a fun tree that people go directly to this time of year. I top it off with a felt hat in the shape of Texas. It's fun to do it every year. Our customers expect it and look forward to discovering what's different about it each holiday season," she said. "We do a big business in the Screwpull from Le Creuset and this year, they have some really exciting new products. We'll be merchandising those new items fully, using our 100-year-old whiskey barrel to accent the display."
The three-foot-high antique whiskey barrel is just one more way Albritton makes sure her displays stand above her competition. She works on the premise that a classic accent, such as an antique, creates a memorable sense of style in a display.
"We'll set up a massive display for the Screwpull introduction, but we'll keep it from looking like a mass-merchandising technique with the antique whisky motif. We use a lot of antiques in our displays," noted Albritton.

Wine Clubs
If you carry wines, begin your own VIP Wine Club and invite customers in for monthly wine tastings that showcase specialty wines and the accessories that make serving them a special occasion. If you don't stock wines, talk to your local wine retailers and offer them a space in your store in which they may hold special monthly tasting nights. You may consider alternating months to allow traffic to flow through both locations.
Invite wine connoisseurs (wine vendors can provide you with experts) to attend your monthly events and explain the complexities of the featured wine. Demonstrate wine openers, wine tags, thermometers, decanters, and proper wineglasses during the event. Cross merchandise your wine accessories with complementary inventory, such as cheese service items -- knives, cheese tags, cheese boards, and serving platters.

Charity Cocktail Party
While fourth-quarter celebrations and open houses lend themselves to sales of barware and accessories, Dolores Kroop gets her customers in the mood for cocktails year-round via in-store fundraisers.
"We host fund-raisers for local charitable organizations in the store, offering them a percentage of sales from the evening. During the event, we serve cocktails or wine using the barware inventory," explained Kroop, president of gift/gourmet store Padua in San Marino, Calif.
Invitations are sent out to members and supporters of the charitable organizations inviting them to the special event, which brings new business to the store while simultaneously raising funds. Kroop also hosts holiday open houses during the fourth quarter as another way to celebrate the season and create an event around the shopping experience.
"During the open houses, we offer promotional pricing on select items," she said. "Barware items make great gifts and we usually stock more during the holiday shopping season. We carry cocktail napkins, antique corkscrews, and unusual bottle stoppers. They make great gifts for a boss or a coworker, so we point them out to people who aren't sure what to buy."
Kroop displays her bottle stoppers in a large crystal bowl to highlight her colorful selection.
"We have a set of acrylic tops that are very Matisse like. They really stand out in the crystal bowl because of the primary colors. Customers are attracted to them because they look fun," said Kroop.

The Best Bartender
While many people want to create home entertainment centers with bars in their homes, many of your customers may not have a clue about how to prepare specialty drinks. Others may have cursory knowledge of wines and cocktails but want to receive more information from classes, books, and demonstrations.
Create a resource center with interesting cocktail recipe books. New releases this quarter include Party Drinks!: 50 Classic Cocktails and Lively Libations (Harvard Common Press, Available Now), Cognac (Wiley, March 2005), and Wine for Every Day and Every Occasion (HarperCollinsPublishers, December 2004) by Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher.
Create a promotion around your barware section and resource center by hosting a "Best Bartender" competition for local bartenders. Invite bartenders from area restaurants to participate in a contest in which they face off against each other, preparing cocktails that customers request, as well as creating their own signature drink specials. The number of contestants you have will determine the length of your promotion. For example, six contestants could compete each Monday evening for a month by having two bartenders face each other for the first three weeks, with a final competition pitting the three finalists against each other.
During each event, encourage customers to vote for their favorite bartender. You may also promote the establishment where the bartender works, thereby building community ties and cross-promotional opportunities. During each event, offer discounts on cocktail cookbooks, bar accessories, drink mixes, and glassware.

Vendor Cooperation
Paul Fricke, owner of Cincinnati, Ohio-based CooksWares, uses the resources vendors provide when he's introducing new products. The barware category is no exception. In fact, this fall will bring a big introduction of Rösle's new stainless steel barware collection to the store. Fricke will feature the new pieces in a tabletop display provided by Rösle that helps highlight the utensils, shakers, and ice buckets comprised in the collection.
"The line is really exciting. We'll be promoting them in our catalog and in a new in-store display courtesy of Rösle," Fricke said. "And then it will be accented with stemware -- wineglasses, margarita glasses, and martini glasses -- from companies like Artland and Stoelzle-Oberglas and WMF."

Partners in Town
Chagrin Cook in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, doubled its size in September, moving from a location just outside of town to the downtown area. In her new location, owner Pat Beech found herself next door to a wine shop -- a perfect entry to creating promotional events.
"I wasn't able to really do any events in my old location," Beech explained. "I've just started conversations with the wine shop owner to do some wine tastings and create events for the holidays together."
Beech will have a lot of inventory to work with as she stocks her store's shelves with wineglasses, martini and margarita glasses, and accessories. In the wine category, her focus is Riedel glasses.
"Our big feature is that we carry the Reidel," she explained. "We also sell a ton of accessories -- flasks and wine openers -- the biggest selling items are the vacuum wine savers and the Cork Pops."

Telling the Tale
Creative Cookware LLC is a kitchen essentials store located in the historic town of Murphys, Calif., a town that dates back to the California gold rush. The store benefits from its idyllic location, as well as the 14 regional wineries and the tourists visiting them.
"We have people who are strolling and enjoying the ambience of the town. When they come in and see eye-catching displays that create an attraction and a need, they are going to want the products and have to take them home. Of course, we ship and bubble wrap and whatever else we have to do," owner Barbara Blume explained. "We're lucky here because we have the wineries, excellent restaurants, and local organic produce. People are here to enjoy those things so the gourmet store is a natural fit."
Blume creates her barware displays by telling stories with vignettes and fun merchandise. During the summer months, she ordered drink umbrellas in bulk and packaged them up for sale. Displaying them in stemware and margarita glasses encouraged sales of both items. In addition, she complements her barware and accessories with additional specialty items, such as cocktail items from Shonfeld's, anchovy-stuffed olives, and drunken olives.
"Visual merchandising is the key -- putting things together, making pictures, creating vignettes. We augment the section with great shakers in fun colors, as well as stainless steel," Blume said. "We do a nice little bar business that way."