Everything you need to know about Drink the Change project
What is Drink the Change?
Drink the Change is a project aiming to spark conversation and further awareness about climate change via mixed drinks as a medium. Our first action is a week-long cocktail event taking place in cocktail bars and restaurants, aptly named Climate Cocktail Week. We’ve created six Climate Cocktail recipes that are inspired by a unique cause or impact of climate change.
The team is composed of a science curator, a liquid curator, and a few climate change communicators. The goal is to link the cocktail community to the education, awareness, and action arm of climate change mitigation.
When is the Climate Cocktail Week?
October 21-27, 2019
What is a climate cocktail?
A climate cocktail is a mixed drink that tells a story about climate change. They may have features built into them that explain how a local ingredient is threatened by climate change, or they tell a story though the name or technique used in making the drink that illustrates a climate change effect. All of this is grounded in solid climate science.
How do I participate in the Drink the Change?
Sign up through the Drink the Change website and make a donation to one of Drink the Change’s Conservation partners. This will give you access to the climate cocktail builds along with their specific climate-related stories and science. Plus it puts you on our Participating Establishments list, and provides access to event marketing tools such as table tents and posters. Contact your local purveyors of Rémy Cointreau and Beam Suntory.
What is required of my establishment?
Venues participating in Drink the Change are required to sign up and make a donation to one (or more!) of Drink the Change’s Conservation Partners. This allows venues to use marketing materials to advertise Climate Cocktail Week plus give consumers a place to go to find more info about Drink the Change and the featured climate cocktails.
How can we help Drink the Change grow?
Post a link to our webpage on your social media (tag us @drinkthechange), actively market the week with Drink the Change posters and table tents, and make great cocktails. Educate your staff about where to point curious consumers to Drink the Change and sell lots of drinks.
Contribute to our Conservation partners generously. The better our Conservation and spirit partners do, the more incentive they will have to grow Drink the Change into a movement.
How does your establishment benefit from partaking in Drink the Change?
If you create a Climate Cocktail Week Facebook event and co-host it with Drink the Change, our conservation partners will share it as a promoted post to people in your area. This generates business for you, and recognition for Drink the Change’s cause. Plus we’ll tag you on social at signup and throughout Climate Cocktail Week.
Drink the Change is marketing heavily though traditional and social media markets. Our Conservation partners are hundreds of thousands of members strong each and they are committed to get the word out to their membership to help bring new guests to your establishment for this event. There is also a great opportunity for positive branding.
Why these Conservation partners?
Our Conservation partners have been carefully curated to present a mosaic of climate change action that is broad, and also not terribly overlapping. The goal is to engage imbibers in a full spectrum of information and action options available to combat climate change causes and solutions.
Why these spirit partners?
Both Rémy Cointreau and Beam Suntory have a history of delving deep on sustainability issues and understand the importance of climate change on the world at large, as well as their own viability as users of agriculture products for their business model. They also have the capacity and reach to grow Drink the Change into a national/international annual push.
What about the climate impact of production and shipping in the spirits industry?
We aren’t calling for a complete reorganization of society and markets. We are using a medium to activate people to work toward reductions in fossil fuel usage and power generation. While every industry needs to look at how it does business, the generation of fuel is a big part of that picture, that needs to be addressed now, and can be in a way that is nominally disruptive to everyday life, and most likely comes at a policy level.
How does Drink the Change support itself?
Its been mostly elbow grease so far…we are reliant on contributions from concerned citizens, aka, crowdsourced. To remain viable and grow, we count on you to contribute which you can in our Crowdfunding section!
Do I have to use Drink the Change cocktails?
No. Drink the Change cocktails tell great stories, and should be used as desired, but also act as a template for how to build your own cocktails and stories. We encourage you to create cocktails that tell stories local to your establishments that will engage local audiences.
How else can you help Drink the Change be a success?
Send Drink the Change an email to let us know what worked well and what could work better. connect@DrinkTheChange.com
And DATA– share your sales totals with us, it will help us let our partners know that we are reaching people and incentivize them to go big for 2020. We’d love to hear about any great conversations or experiences that stemmed from the week as well.
