The colorful drinks on the “Glass in the Garden” seasonal menu at Le Meridien St. Louis Clayton came about through a synergistic collaboration with Bangers Only, a new consultancy from local cocktail icons Tim Wiggins and Kyle Mathis.
The two are launching the mixology consultancy at a time when bar programs face a multitude of challenges, from staffing shortages to the high cost of ingredients. “Our focus is on sustainability—things that actually work and are practical,” Wiggins says. “We want to show that drinks done well can be easier and faster and earn you more money.”
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The Mixologists
Wiggins brings a decade of experience from bar programs at Yellowbelly, Retreat Gastropub, and Lazy Tiger. Mathis was one of the founders of Taste by Niche, which revolutionized the local craft cocktail scene, and he guided the bar programs at Westport Social, Boundary, Basso, Three Sixty, The Train Shed, and The Soda Fountain at Union Station.
“Kyle made me some of my first craft cocktails 10 years ago at Taste, and they changed my perspective of what cocktails could be,” Wiggins says. “He was a huge inspiration for me.”
Together, the two plan to help hospitality destinations implement new programs or revamp existing programs to feature dynamic cocktail menus that are efficient, consistent and profitable.
The Cocktails
At Le Meridien’s Café la Vie, the staff frequently looks to European culture and art for inspiration as it formulates its seasonal menus. For the “Glass in the Garden” menu, available through October 15, they and the Bangers Only team were also influenced by the wealth of blown glass on view in St. Louis this summer. We recommend seeing this ephemeral artistry at the newly opened exhibit at the Missouri Botanical Garden, where Dale Chihuly’s blown-glass sculptures unite color, light, form, and space to deliver immersive experiences. Another favorite venue is Third Degree Glass Studio, where the public can watch glassblowers in action the third Friday of each month.
With those bright, clear visuals in mind, here’s what the Bangers Only team crafted for Café la Vie:
- Jasmine Chandelier: Buffalo Trace bourbon, jasmine-infused sweet vermouth, and bitters
- Glacial Spike: Grey Goose vodka, pineapple, coconut, blue curaçao, lemon juice, and ginger beer
- Translucent Garden: Hendricks gin, aloe vera liqueur, Velvet Falernum, Lillet Blanc, and lime acid
- Golden Hour Daiquiri: Appleton Jamaican rum, Big Heart Tea Co’s Sunshine Dust, almond orgeat, and lime juice
Notable ingredients include rum—one of Wiggins’ favorite spirits to work with—and jasmine-infused sweet vermouth, which gives the bourbon-based cocktail a different character from a traditional Manhattan.
“You don’t have to reinvent what a cocktail is,” Wiggins explains. “You can just have one unique element.” Some of those elements that he’s most excited about are rhum agricole, sugarcane juice spirits, and Mexican rums.
The Concept
Wiggins started to conceptualize Bangers Only about a year ago. He was delighted to partner with Mathis, who shared the same dream of creating a consultancy that would help bar programs hone their consistency, quality, and profitability while leaving plenty of space for creativity and fun.
Bangers Only’s services fall into three categories:
- Wiggins and Mathis will help in the ideation stage, when there’s nothing more than a concept.
- They’ll work with operations that have a liquor license and are about to open but need to ensure everything is running smoothly.
- They’ll assist established businesses in refocusing, rebranding, or differentiating their beverage offerings.
For Wiggins, Bangers Only is also an opportunity to share things that he wishes he’d known when he was starting out. One such learning experience involved mezcal, one of his favorite spirits. “At Retreat eight years ago, one of every five mezcal cocktails would come back because there wasn’t the literacy for that flavor profile. People didn’t know what to expect,” he recalls. “Now it’s the No. 1 spirit we sell at Yellowbelly.”
Wiggins and Mathis are willing to gently educate restaurant and bar owners in the many little ways that a beverage program can fall off and end up losing money quickly—without any consternation about past missteps. “It’s a competitive, tough market, and people don’t always want to reach out and say they need help,” Wiggins acknowledges.
In particular, restaurants may have set up a cocktail program that complements the food but not kept up with trends behind the bar, Wiggins says. “Once you have a thing that’s yours, changing it is scary and difficult. But you can become archaic very quickly.”
A decade ago, for example, customers would wait patiently while bartenders in vests and ties painstakingly crafted drinks with long descriptions and tons of mystique in speakeasy settings. “Now everything is trending to simplicity and how to execute a flavor profile well,” Wiggins says. Cocktail drinkers still value quality and service, but they are less serious about the heady information that sometimes triggers overload.
Wiggins, who says one of his superpowers is positivity, is confident that building a relationship with Bangers Only will benefit businesses’ bottom lines. “I look forward to being able to help people use spirits that are actually more cost-effective and interesting to guests in simple, really cool cocktails.”
