Tony: Could you give us a run down of your very colourful bartending career as you seem to have done so much.
Wayne: My Bartending career started in 1989 at an uncle's pub in Hoxton. I was 19 at the time and prior to that I was a green grocer from about the age of 12, working in the fruit and veg markets of Soho and Camden. Upon becoming an adult, I soon learnt that the early mornings played havoc with my social life so I thought the opportunity of working in a pub would give me more social freedom, and it was when working behind that bar that I found my forte. With that, I got more interested in the skill of bartending and started to read a couple of cocktail books. It was also around this time that the film Cocktail was a hit so there was a huge rise in interest again in cocktails and being a cocktail bartender.
In 1990, a new cocktail bar called Bar Royale opened in Camden Town. It was the freshest and biggest bar to hit the urban bar scene for a generation and it spawned another generation of budding influential bartenders; Robbie O'Neil, who is now a well established Bar Owner and also Will Riley who now runs Soho House in New York. It was here that I caught the Flair tending bug. Yes, I was able to flair a little in my previous bartending life. After working there for a year or so, I went out to spend a summer season in Cyprus in 1991 where the Ayia Napa club scene had just started to emerge. I worked in a bar there called Gemini for about 6 months and honed my cheesy skills at serving cocktails in watermelons dressed with sparklers. A great summer!
On returning to London a few bartenders from Bar Royale had moved on to work in bars in the West End. A big influence for me around this time was a guy named Lee Chapel, who used to run the Long Island Iced Tea Shop during the late 80s cocktail boom. He was the bar manager at the Bar Royale and had a strong career in working on Caribbean cruise ships. He was the first bartender that I worked with who made me look at bartending as a long term career, and that if you took it seriously, the world was your oyster. We teamed up together again in the early days of the Roadhouse, where we built one of the most dynamic barteams working the West End.
In the early 90s, I was head-hunted to work in a new nightclub opening in sunny California. Within two weeks of been given the proposition I was boarding a Virgin Atlantic flight to LA, where I began a very successful and fruitful 18 months bartending in Newport Beach, Orange County. I returned to London in late '94 and once again worked for the Maxwells Group for a short time training before joining forces again with Robbie O'Neil at Mwha Mwha on the Fulham Road. This was the sister restaurant and bar of the hugely successful Beach Blanket Babylon that was also run by Robbie. I worked here for about 6 months before once again joining the Maxwells group who were planning the opening of Cactus Blue on the Fulham Road. I worked for a short time at PJ's on Fulham road where I did a little stint there with Ben Reed who went on to open Cactus Blue, before his Met Bar fame.
Around this time I found it hard to settle as so many things were starting to happening the London bar scene. I worked a number of little stints at various bars, including one at The Collection, before finally settling down at Navajo Joe's from 97-99. In the summer of '99, I teamed up with Jennifer Griffin Howell and Dick Bradsell, to help set up and run Tsunami. In 2000, I worked once again with Robbie O'Neil, first opening 19:20 and then on to the much lauded High Holborn. It was here that I was approached by Mark Dodd of Absolut Vodka and took up the opportunity to work on the other side of the fence in the drinks industry with the Ideal Brands team at Seagram UK. This was probably the most important door that has opened in my career to date, as it has now led me to work with the great brands within the Maxxium UK portfolio.
Tony: You, more than anybody I think, could give the best overview of the British bartending scene as you are constantly meeting and training bartenders all over the country. Where are the new hotspots of the British scene, what emerging trends are there?
Wayne: I strongly believe that the British bartending scene is leading the bartending scene globally today. Just the sheer amount of passion, knowledge, creativity and great service that is currently present throughout, is mind blowing. It is not just the British bartenders, but also the Italian, French, American, Australasian and other global bartenders working over here who are making their mark on the UK scene, and making it first class. Ten years ago, the focus was centred around London, but now there are just as many great bars and bartenders, if not better, in places like Nottingham, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh. What's started to happen in these other major cities is what we have witnessed happening in 90s London. The current drink trends are no longer coming out of the capital, but are popping up all over the place. Every other UK city seems to be putting their own interpretation on the best of what's happening. It's like the fashion industry who are forever reworking something that's great or classic.
Tony: I always liked the way you had the back bar at High Holborn where you picked specific products from a range that you liked whilst not having others. This symbolised a change in the way bartenders were looking at products and the freedom of choice there is. Could you elaborate more on your philosophy at that time.
Wayne: Well, at the time, not many liqueur and spirit suppliers could offer a decent full range of flavours and line extensions. I often found that one flavour from one brand was better than the same flavour from another in terms of natural taste and texture, so I would research and experiment with a variety of different products to establish why one would make a particular cocktail that called for a particular ingredient better than the other. Basically the better the quality the product used, the better the drink is going to be. When you look at old cocktail books a lot of them would list the ingredient but not the brand. Why not? You look at a recipe for a Blood & Sand and it will say 1oz Scotch Whisky. Have you ever tried making a Blood & Sand with a big Islay malt? Don't! Today, bartenders are very aware of this and so are careful in their selection of ingredients. I have always wondered why some bars will use a premium Vodka in a cosmopolitan and then go and insult it with a cheap triple sec.
Tony: Another important barrier I think that you crossed was with your involvement with the making of Plymouth Cup. This, I think, is a modernising of what our predecessors did by making barrels of liquors. But for a major company to ask a bartender what they would want to make was a giant leap in the right direction. Could you tell us how this came about?
Wayne: It came about one inspired afternoon in the Seagram UK offices whilst chatting with Nick Blacknel (MD of Plymouth Gin) about what drinks were quintessentially classic British creations on the market today, but that needed refreshing. I stressed that it was a shame that there wasn't a more premium version of classic Victorian fruit cup drinks like Pimms. He asked if I knew what the formula was and I said I don't know exactly but I can make a bloody great version of it from a variety of products within a bar. So myself and Nick, along with Mark Dodd, headed off into town, ending up in Che. We asked Nick Strangeway and Danny Smith if we could use there bar for ten minutes while I rustled up my version of a fruit cup. They were so impressed with the first prototype that they arranged for a more formal meeting on this with the owners of Plymouth and Shaun Harrison, the Head Distiller. We met one afternoon in Zander and I knocked up a few various recipes using similar but different products, each one getting better as time went on. We decided on one and then Shaun and I spent some time together at the Plymouth Distillery were he sourced the best ingredients, produced it in batch and the rest, as they say, is history.