In today’s digital age, what was “hip” a week ago is likely old news by now. Trends and tastes are changing faster than ever, and nowhere is that more prevalent than with bar and beverage selections. The group with both the influence and the buying power spearheading these changes are Millennials. For restaurants, bars, and nightclubs, it’s important to offer bar and beverage selections that reflect this generation’s tastes. But before you offer the newest craft cocktail, you want to first understand what quenches the thirst of this demographic.

Over the past several weeks, we've looked back at the last century to see how far we've come in the world of bar and beverage. From the 1917 wine vintages in Europe to cocktail trends through the decades, it's been fun reminiscing about what bars were serving 100 years ago. But now we'd like to take a look at why Perlick is here and the reasons we're still in business after all these years. Let's take a look back at 100 years of bar and beverage equipment innovations.

As the entire country gathers around the television on Super Bowl Sunday, we’ll all have our rooting interests. Some will be pulling for their favorite team and others will be rooting for the host to announce, “The wings are ready!” However, a good number of us will have far more interest in the commercials than the football game itself. Ask someone about their favorite play in the Big Game or their favorite commercial and we bet they’ll recite the advertisement first!

The year 1917 began with our nation on the brink of World War I, which would eventually happen a few months later when President Woodrow Wilson declared war on Germany. On a different gridiron, the New Year began with Oregon beating Pennsylvania in the third annual Rose Bowl. And throughout the year and across the country, bars, saloons, and taverns were as popular as ever. But what were bars serving 100 years ago?

Throughout the food and beverage industry, there's no denying a trend toward everything "craft." From beers and cocktails to coffee and chocolate, consumer preferences are trending toward small batch, locally made, sustainably created, and artisanal focused. But how is this trend affecting things that are more traditional, specifically as it relates to bar and beverage? What is happening to all the Irish pubs? Are we losing our love of all things "green"?

One of the biggest revenue makers for sports venues and stadiums is food and beverage, but unless you take a deeper dig into the statistics, you might not realize how important those sales really are. According to a report from oBizMedia, two thirds or more of a facility's total concessions come from food and drink like hot dogs, cracker jacks, and other ballpark F&B staples.

Oktoberfest is one of the most celebrated beer-drinking events in the entire world. Though the original began in Munich in 1810 as part of a wedding celebration between Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese, the event has spread across the world as an annual celebration of German culture, music, food, and beer.

It started last year, and the trend is continuing to grow. Hard root beer and other hard sodas are taking the country by storm. But what is hard soda, and how does its popularity translate to profitability for bar and restaurant operators? The hard soda category includes standard cola flavors and derivatives like cherry cola, but the true leader in the category is hard root beer. Hard root beer exists as an anomaly somewhere between a fascination with American nostalgia and the ever-popular craft beer craze.

Eat. Drink. Shine. That's the way life is in Boulder, Colorado, where one of the most established groups in the local food and beverage industry has developed their latest legacy... potions.

If you stop and think about it, you can probably come up with a few cocktails that incorporate vegetables -- Bloody Mary's, Mojitos made with cucumber, or even a jalapeño-infused Margarita. And while fruits are still far more popular than vegetables when it comes to cocktail flavors, don't count out the veggies just yet.

Summer is here, and one of America's greatest pastimes is traveling the country in search of the Great American Ballpark. Here at Perlick, we're doing the same thing, though we're not just limiting our tour to baseball. From the World's Greatest Arena to the Frozen Tundra here a little closer to home, let's take a quick look at the evolution of stadium beer and beverage service from famous arenas across the country.

If there's one thing we recall from high school science class, it could be that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. What Newton was basically saying was that nature has a way of balancing itself out, but what he might not have realized was the same goes for an effective beer system. Everything you do, every change you make, has an impact to the system as a whole.

On Tuesday, April 24th, Tobin Ellis participated in a Restaurant Development + Design webinar on Bar Evolution. Moderated by Joe Carbonara and attended by fellow panelist, Peter Vestinos, the event recapped important bar and beverage trends such as creating immersive experiences for guests, the balancing act of curating the right bar equipment packages, developing new bar and beverage concepts, and understanding what you want and what it takes to grow.

Whether you want to call it a sodium chloride infused libation, or a simple salted cocktail, the case for adding salt to your drinks is a pretty solid one. And we're not just talking about margaritas, either. Why would you add salt to a cocktail? Our palates can detect five flavors: sour, bitter, sweet, umami (glutamates), and...you guessed it, salt. Adding salt to a drink allows other flavors to more fully develop on the palate. And because we're talking about a very small dose of salt, salted cocktails won't actually have a salty flavor.

You can't judge a wine list by its cover just like you can't judge a wine refrigerator on just the glass. While making a design aesthetically pleasing is certainly important, it's not the only component of a high quality commercial wine refrigerator. Let's take a quick look at some others.

For many of us, it feels like the spring weather takes longer to arrive every year. When it does finally arrive, springtime brings with it trees blossoming, birds chirping, and crisp, refreshing beers to pour. Of the four seasons, spring is often overlooked when it comes to associating beer styles, and it can be attributed to a lack of specific seasonal flavors tied to spring.