As January draws to a close, I've been looking at our sales leads. Last year we posted an incredible 209% increase in leads during January. My target this year was a modest 10% increase as I don't think it is possible to keep growing at the rate of 200% per year. As it turns out we have posted a 95% increase on last year, which equates to almost 500% up on the year before! Chocolate Experience has added some of the increase as last January we didn't own that business, but stripping that out we are still some 85% up on last year.

Everything is in place for the bar business, including a number of confirmed bookings for weddings. After looking into the market I noticed that there are plenty of bar companies offering complete packages for events with 100 plus guests, but very few catering for the smaller 30-40 guests event. We are quite happy providing services to events at both ends of the scale, and as a result have launched a new microBAR service offering draught, spirits, wines, alcopops and soft drinks on one of our Victorian style carts, or one of our new contemporary illuminated bars at a fixed price. Details are available at microBAR Package. This uses one of our new european designed integrated draught chiller/dispensers along with bar butlers to hold the optice and some mini wine coolers allowing us to provide everything in a much reduced footprint.

We also sold the square helter skelter just before Christmas. Unfortunately we had to borrow it back for the 4 days of Stockton Christmas festival and I ended up having to build it up and pull it down after I had thought I had seen the last of it. Whilst at Stockton, we received the snow ahead of the rest of the country, with an incredible amount falling within the space of a couple of hours. On the final day whilst taking the ride down, I discovered that the chutes contained a thick layer of ice, not good when you have to walk up them. I eventually used boiling water to pour onto the chutes and defrost them, this lasted around 5 minutes after which the water cooled down and refroze and we had to repeat the process.

Once we had the ride dismantled and taken back to a nearby yard for storage (as I didn't fancy driving it on the roads in blizzard conditions), all that remained was to wait for better weather and return the ride to its new owner. As it turned out that took nearly a month, as everytime the weather in Yorkshire was ok it was bad weather in the North East, and vice versa. Anyway the ride is now safely back at Rotherham and off my hands again.

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We tend to add additional lines to our portfolio in a number of different ways. Sometimes, as is the case with our new mobile bar service, our existing clients ask us for it, with others such as the milk shake cart I think it has some potential, buy the equipment and then set about winning work for it, and with the Chocolate Fountain company we acquired it was a mixture of luck, being in the right place at the right time, and the fact that someones wife had decided to have an affair causing her husband to sell us the business.

In addition to the aforementioned bar business we have just launched, we also added the option of a specialist JagerMeister bar. We have now added by demand a Baileys drinks fountain to our , and an Absinthe bar, simply because I like the ritual involved in preparing the drink.

For those who have yet to sample the delights of the Green Fairy, as Absinthe is commonly called, it is a herbal spirit, which according to popular legend was invented in Switzerland by Dr. Pierre Ordinaire for use as a medicinal remedy. A mistaken, although widespread belief that the drink had strong hallucinogenic properties led to it being banned in many countries in the early 1900's, although surprisingly Britain didn't ban it, making it one of the few occasions we were less stringent when applying bans than our Euro cousins.

In the early 1990's the drink made a comeback and the ban was gradually rescinded. The preparation of the drink is a ritual in itself. Absinthe can be anything up to about 89% proof, it is not intended to be drunk neat, (some people do drink it that way, but some people also drink meths or industrial alcohol), and needs to be diluted with water, not only to lower the alcohol percentage, but also because this releases different flavours and aromas which are otherwise locked into the neat liquid. To prepare it, a shot of Absinth is added to a glass, an Absinthe spoon is placed across the top of the glass, these are usually decorated spoons, which are perforated to allow liquid to drip through them, a sugar cube is placed on the spoon, and a small amount of iced water drizzled onto the cube, this is then left to dissolve and drip through to the Neat spirit. After this more iced water is slowly drizzled through the spoon and into the cup, the Absinthe is louched, which refers to a process where the clear green liquid is gradually turned into a paler, cloudy substance due to the various oils being released and mixed into the water. It is then drunk!

The weather here was just starting to thaw, when it started to snow again, not heavy but we have had about half an inch since tea time. Arthur hasn't experienced any of this yet due to the fact that he is sunning himself on a beach in Sharm El Sheikh, expect news of war breaking out in Egypt at any moment!

We have also just taken delivery of a batch of wedding chair covers we ordered from America. They were ordered on the 8th of January and we received them on the 13th, a mere 5 days from order to delivery. The same day we ordered them, I ordered some addiitonal equipment for our new bars, this was ordered from an English company, and we are still waiting for it.

On Monday I am due to collect our new bar sections, and a wine cooler allowing bottles of red and white wine to be kept at different temperatures in the same cabinet. We also took delivery of some heavy duty counter mounted corkscrews, you insert the bottle in the bottom, pull the handle and the cork is removed and ejected, if when first examining the mechanism you tip it upside down whilst your finger is inside, it neatly corkscrews through your hand as I found out a couple of days ago!



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Well, this time last year saw a massive increase in inquiries for our services. Truth be told I was a little worried about this year as I felt sure things would start to slow down. However they have done just the opposite. Not only are the level of inquiries almost four fold up on last year, but we also have over four times as many booking confirmed for the coming season as we had at the END of January last year. Of course the Chocolate Experience business has helped boost the total, and as the mobile bar business picks up steam I hope that will make a similar contribution.

We have already added two new lines for the coming season, the first is a new pick and mix stand that offers twenty different sweets on the same display, and can carry upto sixty kilograms of confectionery. The other is a stand alone JagerMeister bar. For those who have never tried it, JagerMeister is a liqueur made from various herbs and barks giving a very dark almost licorice tasting drink. It is best served at minus fifteen degrees centigrade, to which end we have acquired JagerMeister Tap Machines for the perfect temperature control. The drink is also served in test tubes giving it another distinguishing feature and providing an interesting talking point at any event.




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