SB meets… Kai Myhre, Cocktail Club - The Spirits Business

Cocktail Club is a digital platform for home bartenders who want to mix perfect serves. Its founder explains why he created the business, and how spirits brands can work with his team.

What was your inspiration for creating Cocktail Club?

I didn’t have a clue what to do with all of my spirits bottles from my travels. You know when you go through an airport and you grab a bottle you’ve heard of? Well, I had plenty of bottles.

As a novice home bartender, I noticed a significant gap in the market. Existing tools and platforms failed to inspire the millions of potential home bartenders to use their unloved bottles. This realisation was the catalyst for Cocktail Club.

I wondered how brands were being perceived by consumers, and why people bought certain bottles only to leave them unused. From my personal experience and then data gathered from the market, I realised the right education and tools were essential for demystifying home bartending.

How did you set up the business?

We were three founders – a small bunch of FFF (friends, fools, and family) investors who collaborated with two developers and a team of content creators in Barcelona. For our early‐stage development, we partnered with Diageo consultant Kenji Jesse, and now we work alongside renowned local Spanish bartender Adriana Chia. We set out to create a product that would revolutionise home bartending by supplying both digital and physical tools. The first step was designing a bar set tailored for home use. This set quickly became a favourite among professional bartenders on the go, thanks to its comprehensive and portable design. Next, we focused on developing software that provided clear, consistent recipes for beginners. This platform guides users to perfect serves every time, addressing the inconsistency and quality issues I found in existing online recipes.

How has the business changed since you founded it in 2018?

Cocktail Club has grown from its humble beginnings in Oslo, Norway. We secured a distribution agreement with a kitchen utensils distributor, making our bar tool series a hit in the Nordic and Baltic markets. These are recognised as essential by industry professionals, including Steinar Jensen, a trainer at the Diageo Bar Academy, who was so impressed that he invested in the company, and is using the digital platform for training bartenders. Adrián Michalčík, the winner of Diageo World Class Global Bartender of the Year 2022, has also invested in Cocktail Club, and is helping to develop a new cocktail shaker. His collaboration underscores the growing recognition and potential of Cocktail Club in the industry – not only catering to amateurs, but also to professionals.

What lies in the future?

We envision Cocktail Club as a go‐to platform for both consumers and bartenders. It’s so important to use digital channels to reach users who prefer nonbranded, user‐friendly platforms. We aim to link brands to perfect serves through our software. We want to set spirits brands in front of consumers, so they can enjoy them even more with inspiration from us.

Imagine the user data we can receive, with insights into what the general public really drinks – this summer’s top favourite on Cocktail Club was the Gin Basil Smash. We’ve just taken our first steps into the on‐trade with internal learning tools for some hotels and smaller bar chains.

Our initial activities have shown promising results, with low conversion costs for users downloading and signing up for the free software. We’re confident that with the right organisational structure and continued investment in user conversion, Cocktail Club will become a staple in the world of home bartending.

The final stage of becoming a global brand is funding; we have just secured funding and will set out on another funding round in late 2025 to help take the brand to new heights.

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