Nightclub & Bar - October 2009

a post was listed and Heugel discussed what he loved about his new draft system. This posting actually drew in new customers — beer fanatics who didn’t realize Anvil’s beer program was nearly as interesting as its cocktails — and spurred discussion on the blog among beer lovers. While recognizing the power of the blog to market the bar, Heugel is wary of retaining his readership and not selling out.

“The blog is for information and it is a PR tool, so I try to balance the two. I maintain that it not be too advertorial. I want to keep those readers who aren’t in Houston. I was able to open this bar because I started a blog three years ago,” Heugel admits. “If I hadn’t started Drink Dogma and it hadn’t set so many things into motion, I’m not sure I would have been able to open the bar at all.” NCB

For those not immersed in the online cocktail blog world, it’s been growing and organizing exponentially since 2005. One of the most respected cocktail blogs is Cocktail Chronicles, the creation of

Seattle-based writer Paul Clarke.

Cocktail Chronicles was the first blog Anvil’s Bobby Heugel recalls seeing and one he has read since first logging on to the online cocktail community.

“Around 2007, it started
expanding in earnest, and we
[bloggers] started working to-
gether in many ways and meet-
ing each other in person,” Clarke
explains. “While we’ve counted
members of the beverage media
and professional cocktail com-
munity as readers from the very
beginning, I think late 2006 and
into 2007 was when we really
started attracting readers in
force, especially those who work
in the industry.”

Web-based gatherings like Mixology Monday and

Mixoloseum sprung up as a way to link bloggers together into a group forum, and the Cocktail

& Spirits Online Writers Group (CSOWG) formed after Tales of the Cocktail in 2008.

Clarke estimates that between cocktail fanatics and people working in the industry as journalists and bartenders, there are about 100 blogs devoted to cocktails right now.

“I’m increasingly seeing bartenders utilize blogs to help advance their interests and careers. Bobby [Heugel] has taken it to the ultimate step of opening his own place, but bartenders such as Jamie Boudreau and

Jeffrey Morgenthaler have used
their blogs as online showcases
to demonstrate their skills, and I
think that’s helped both of them
with their careers,” Clarke says.
The passion of the bloggers
for their craft is often in evident
in their posts. “Before I wrote
anything on my blog, whether
it was a spirit, method or the
history of a cocktail, I read and
researched everything about the
topic,” Heugel explains. To him,
and others like him, blogging has
always been an effort to push
the cocktail revolution forward.
Next up: Anvil’s co-owners
Heugel and Kevin Floyd and
have collaborated on a list of
“100 Classic Cocktails to Drink
Before You Die,” which will
make its appearance in the bar
as well as on Drink Dogma in
the near future.