Bars and restaurants in Rio are seeing a recovery in drink sales after the crisis caused by the contamination of spirits

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– The only time I saw a significant decrease in beverage consumption was during the pandemic – recalls waitress Jessica Sanchez, consultant at Casa Horto.

P’Alma – which is part of Casa Horto along with Pátio and Empório 1839 – sold about 500 drinks a week before the crisis erupted in September. In the week after the first cases of poisoning were recorded, only 50 cocktails were sold. Demand gradually returned and today it is already around 350 per week.

— Casa Horto has had stressful days, but I believe customers’ confidence in our drinks has been restored — says Sanchez. – I think that this crisis made people start consuming products of this type more consciously and only in establishments where there is no doubt.

At the height of the methanol crisis, Palma turned its efforts to drinks such as Aperol Spritz, for example. The decision was taken after realizing that consumer interests are more focused on spirits such as vodka and gin, which are the focus of counterfeiters. The fact that Casa Horto produces its own gin, OBY, has helped a lot in maintaining customer confidence. Handcrafted using 22 botanicals from the Atlantic Forest, it is the most commonly used beverage there.

– Every bar or restaurant where distilled drinks are a relevant part of the sales mix has taken a hard hit from this crisis, said Fernando Bloer, president of Rio de Janeiro’s bar and restaurant association, SindRio. – The institutions most affected are those that have done nothing wrong at all. But thanks to misinformation, they ended up being punished for the practice of those who used adulterated drinks.

At Cafe Kavovo, in Botafogo, the sales recovery is halfway through. The organization claims to have sold about a thousand drinks per week until the methanol crisis. Today, the house sells about 500 items every seven days. In the first two weeks after the start of the crisis, cocktail sales there fell by 95%.

– Demand is on an upward curve. Fortunately, at this time we have not lost any audience, which has mainly migrated to beer – says businessman Marcos Tulio Filho, one of the partners.

He recalls that at the beginning of the crisis, many consumers switched from cocktails to a specific type of beer: non-alcoholic ones. The explanation may lie in a combination of ignorance of the causes of the problem at the time and a decision not to take any kind of unnecessary risk.

Among his companies, the one that sells the most drinks is Quartenho, also in Botafogo, says Jonas Eisengart, a partner in the group that owns Pop, Quartenho and Chanchada, a total of 11 restaurants and bars in Rio — a 12th facility, Trattoria Giancarlo, in Botafogo, is about to open. Beverage sales reached 1,500 units per week. Today production is around a thousand per week. At the worst moments of the crisis, weekly beverage sales dropped to 200 drinks.

— Demand is growing — Aisengart guarantees.

This incident led the group to begin fulfilling a long-standing dream: developing its own brands of gin, vodka, cacaça and rum. The goal is to produce them with external equipment.

“We will closely monitor every stage of production,” says Eisengart.

The goal is to launch four brands in the first half of next year.