Blogging and hay - all in a normal day at the Muddler HQ
Welcome to the first post on the Muddler Cocktails blog.
Everything is work in progress for us: the website; publicity material; the label printing (or technically speaking sealing); sorting storage space; and many more things. So the look and feel of this blog is not quite there yet... but it will evolve around these posts and eventually (within a couple of weeks I hope) come close to fitting in with the rest of the website (when we have one).
Please check back most days to see what we've been up to. We won't guarantee to post every day and they wont always contain loads of photos... but we hope to make this vaguely entertaining (possibly even informative!) and will get stuck in to updating it most days. I'm sure you'll all soon realise that it is actually us writing the blog because of the appalling spelling and grammar (there are no fancy PR/ Marketing guys helping us out)!
Anyway, enough introductory waffle, let me get onto what we've been up to today.
Basically, we are trying to prepare everything for when we have the actual Muddler Cocktail bottles in just 4 working days time. Then we're off on the road to get this into Freehouse (or small chains) Bars/ Pubs/ Clubs as soon as possible, so that you all actually get to taste the finished product!
I spent the first few hours of the day ripping my hair out trying to balance the books, but with a little manipulation (enough said) they all add up now! Then I was interrupted when the motorcycle courier that is my business partner (aka Henry) hit the buzzer to the flats and said 'Got a delivery for a Wupert'.
Having trekked down to greet him, be amazed (again) at his monster of a motorbike and snigger at the fact that he drove for an hour and a half into London with a hay bale strapped to his bike:
(The observant ones among you will notice that this is actually an opportunity for me to publish a photo of my legendary Clio on the Internet)
Not believing that the mentally taxing work I had been performing that morning was enough, he roped me in to carrying the hay bale into my flat:
Yes this really is a hay bale! What the hell do we want one of those for? It's all to do with the marketing for the pubs that we are initially focusing on. We've had made up some amazing looking wooden promotional boxes that are currently in the Muddler store room (also known as my living room). We are going to fill them with goodies and give them to some trade customers. All the goodies will be laid on a bed of natural Welsh hay (thanks Rod and Rachel the hay was perfect - you know who you are!).
The first items that we had ready are Muddlers (not the drinks but the real things), some stickers (for the Muddlers) and the hay. So in the spirit of being prepared it was time to put all this together so they can just be finished off with a piece of printed material (known as the Cocktail Menu to those in the know) and a bottle of 'The Real Fruit Cocktail' when they arrive in the next few days.
So having debated the merits of how much hay you put in a wooden box we set off filling 100 of the things.
This picture of Henry trashing my kitchen does not show you the full impact... this was right at the start, by the time he was done the kitchen was effectively a farmyard:
Henry was so amazed that we only used a fraction of the hay that he told me about 75 times. So the spare stuff is now tucked round the corner of my block of flats (aka Muddler HQ)... hoping that we get to the situation where we need some more!
We did do some other stuff today (I managed to write this post) ... but most of it was Henry waffling.
I think we should make Henry post tomorrows blog post for a couple of reasons:
1. I can spend most of the day laughing at his technical ineptitude, then the rest of my day trying to explain how it works over the phone and pulling my hair out.
2. He is bound to write about the fluffier stuff so it will be a good mix. Possible topics include how the labels look, creating our first Press Release, the joys of creating a brand, the tough decisions we face on designing Point of Sale (POS) material, explaining what a Muddler actually is, Muddlers on Facebook, or maybe we should just say who we (and Alex) are etc
Henry.... that should be enough hints to get you started for the first day!
Everyone - feel free to post your comments. Helpful or just plain fun, get involved with the Muddler experience and enjoy the ride (we are)!
Cheers
Rupert
Everything is work in progress for us: the website; publicity material; the label printing (or technically speaking sealing); sorting storage space; and many more things. So the look and feel of this blog is not quite there yet... but it will evolve around these posts and eventually (within a couple of weeks I hope) come close to fitting in with the rest of the website (when we have one).
Please check back most days to see what we've been up to. We won't guarantee to post every day and they wont always contain loads of photos... but we hope to make this vaguely entertaining (possibly even informative!) and will get stuck in to updating it most days. I'm sure you'll all soon realise that it is actually us writing the blog because of the appalling spelling and grammar (there are no fancy PR/ Marketing guys helping us out)!
Anyway, enough introductory waffle, let me get onto what we've been up to today.
Basically, we are trying to prepare everything for when we have the actual Muddler Cocktail bottles in just 4 working days time. Then we're off on the road to get this into Freehouse (or small chains) Bars/ Pubs/ Clubs as soon as possible, so that you all actually get to taste the finished product!
I spent the first few hours of the day ripping my hair out trying to balance the books, but with a little manipulation (enough said) they all add up now! Then I was interrupted when the motorcycle courier that is my business partner (aka Henry) hit the buzzer to the flats and said 'Got a delivery for a Wupert'.
Having trekked down to greet him, be amazed (again) at his monster of a motorbike and snigger at the fact that he drove for an hour and a half into London with a hay bale strapped to his bike:
(The observant ones among you will notice that this is actually an opportunity for me to publish a photo of my legendary Clio on the Internet)Not believing that the mentally taxing work I had been performing that morning was enough, he roped me in to carrying the hay bale into my flat:
Yes this really is a hay bale! What the hell do we want one of those for? It's all to do with the marketing for the pubs that we are initially focusing on. We've had made up some amazing looking wooden promotional boxes that are currently in the Muddler store room (also known as my living room). We are going to fill them with goodies and give them to some trade customers. All the goodies will be laid on a bed of natural Welsh hay (thanks Rod and Rachel the hay was perfect - you know who you are!).
The first items that we had ready are Muddlers (not the drinks but the real things), some stickers (for the Muddlers) and the hay. So in the spirit of being prepared it was time to put all this together so they can just be finished off with a piece of printed material (known as the Cocktail Menu to those in the know) and a bottle of 'The Real Fruit Cocktail' when they arrive in the next few days.
So having debated the merits of how much hay you put in a wooden box we set off filling 100 of the things.
This picture of Henry trashing my kitchen does not show you the full impact... this was right at the start, by the time he was done the kitchen was effectively a farmyard:
Henry was so amazed that we only used a fraction of the hay that he told me about 75 times. So the spare stuff is now tucked round the corner of my block of flats (aka Muddler HQ)... hoping that we get to the situation where we need some more!
We did do some other stuff today (I managed to write this post) ... but most of it was Henry waffling.
I think we should make Henry post tomorrows blog post for a couple of reasons:
1. I can spend most of the day laughing at his technical ineptitude, then the rest of my day trying to explain how it works over the phone and pulling my hair out.
2. He is bound to write about the fluffier stuff so it will be a good mix. Possible topics include how the labels look, creating our first Press Release, the joys of creating a brand, the tough decisions we face on designing Point of Sale (POS) material, explaining what a Muddler actually is, Muddlers on Facebook, or maybe we should just say who we (and Alex) are etc
Henry.... that should be enough hints to get you started for the first day!
Everyone - feel free to post your comments. Helpful or just plain fun, get involved with the Muddler experience and enjoy the ride (we are)!
Cheers
Rupert
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