Eastside Distilling | Product Launch Campaign

Bartender vs. Barista

Campaign Development & Execution

Project Overview

After the launch of Hue-Hue Coffee Rum in early 2018, Eastside Distilling discovered that bar managers and liquor stores were interested, but hesitant to make room for it on the shelf. Hue-Hue Coffee Rum is in a category of its own—with one foot in the coffee shop and one behind the bar.

Eastside Distilling needed a way to spread awareness about Hue-Hue and show people in the industry how they could use it behind the bar.

My Contributions

The solution I developed was the Bartender vs. Barista campaign. To highlight Hue-Hue's clean crisp coffee flavor and subtle sweetness, we turned to the professionals. In a city known for its love of both coffee and cocktail, who better to show us how to work with Hue-Hue than Portland's bartenders and baristas?
Eastside Distilling
Digital Marketing Director
October 2017 - November 2018
Marketing Consultant
November 2018 - July 2019

In The Hands of Experts

If there's two things Portland, OR has an abundance of, it's craft cocktail bars and obsessive coffee shops. While one industry rules the day and the other the night, they both share a passion for making tasty beverages and a mastery of the ingredients they're given.

With Hue-Hue Coffee Rum embodying the best of both worlds—coffee and sprits—we wanted to see what would happen if we pitted the two against each other in a head-to-head coffee cocktail competition.

With this campaign, we posed a simple question to our community: Who can make a better coffee cocktail? Bartenders or baristas? I worked with 5 of Portland's top coffee roasters and paired them with 5 popular craft cocktail bars. Each was given a bottle of Hue-Hue Coffee Rum and the challenge to make an original coffee cocktail that prominently featured Hue-Hue.

Unlocking Creativity

Each bartender and barista developed a new Hue-Hue Coffee Rum based cocktail using their unique set of skills. During the month of September, each participating bar hosted a special menu featuring a cocktail developed by one of their bartenders and one cocktail created by a barista.

We then encouraged people in the community to go try each cocktail during the month and tell us which one was their favorite.

Building Product Affinity

This campaign resulted in 10 original cocktails featuring Hue-Hue, and great regional exposure for the brand. Many of the bartenders we worked with ended up making Hue-Hue a permanent part of their back bar, and we saw a steady increase in Hue-Hue case sales throughout the campaign.

Eastside Distilling - Brand Websites
Simple Finance - Social Media Growth