The drink works. The guest asks for it every evening for a week, and then the yacht changes crew and the new stew makes it with lime instead of lemon and rich syrup instead of simple. The guest says nothing but stops ordering it. A signature drink that lives only in your head is not an asset — it is a liability.
The Spec Sheet
A spec is a recipe written so that a competent bartender who has never met you can reproduce the drink exactly.
| Field | Why it exists |
|---|---|
| Name and date | Identifies the version; specs get revised |
| Glassware | Volume changes dilution and perception |
| Ice | Cube, block, crushed — not interchangeable |
| Ingredients in ml, in build order | Order affects layering and cost of a mistake |
| Brand where it matters | "Gin" is not a spec; a London Dry is not an Old Tom |
| Method | Shake hard 12 sec / stir 25 sec / throw / build |
| Dilution and yield | Confirms the drink is landing at the right ABV |
| Garnish and aroma | Expressed, dropped, dehydrated, sprayed |
| Batch note | What can be pre-batched, what must be fresh |
| Allergens | Nut, dairy, egg, sulphite, gluten |
Write in millilitres, never in parts or dashes-by-feel. Photograph the finished drink and attach it to the spec so the presentation is also reproducible.
Naming and Presenting
A name should point at the brief: the place, the guest's story, the yacht, the ingredient. Avoid names that are hard to pronounce across the languages your guests speak, and avoid anything that could be read as a joke at a guest's expense. Keep it short enough to be ordered without embarrassment.
Presentation is part of the spec: one considered garnish beats three. The aroma the guest meets before the first sip does more work than any visual flourish.
Costing a Menu
Owners and charter brokers will ask what the bar programme costs. Pour cost is the standard measure.
- Cost per ml = bottle cost / bottle volume in ml.
- Drink cost = sum of (each ingredient ml x its cost per ml), plus a garnish and consumables allowance.
- Pour cost % = drink cost / notional sale price x 100. Ashore, 18-24% is typical; on a private yacht there is no sale price, so the useful figure is simply cost per drink and cost per guest per evening.
Worked example: 60 ml gin at EUR 30 per 700 ml bottle = EUR 0.043/ml x 60 = EUR 2.57. Add 22.5 ml lemon (EUR 0.15), 20 ml house syrup (EUR 0.08), garnish (EUR 0.30) = roughly EUR 3.10 per drink. Twelve guests, three drinks each, seven nights = 252 drinks = about EUR 780 of ingredient value, before the bond spirits are counted.
Building the Menu
- Six to eight drinks is a working signature list: two long and refreshing, two spirit-forward, one sparkling, one dessert-adjacent, and at least two genuinely good zero-proof options.
- Make ingredients overlap. A house syrup that appears in four drinks earns its shelf space; one that appears in a single drink is dead stock at sea.
- Note prep lead time on each drink. A menu where four drinks need a 24-hour infusion is undeliverable on a turnaround day.
Onboard Notes
- Keep the bar book in a shared location — the interior folder or the yacht's document system — not on your own phone. Crew turnover is the enemy of consistency.
- Never publish or post a signature menu, guest name or photograph on social media. Confidentiality clauses are standard and dismissals over them are common.
- Cost the menu against the actual bond stock, not the retail price of the same bottle; duty-free bond value and shoreside retail are different numbers.