Vendor Spotlight: The Bar Association

French’s Point Estate is thrilled to continue our series of blog posts spotlighting amazing Maine wedding vendors that help to make weddings at our waterfront wedding venue not only successful but truly the embodiment of the experience our clients strive to craft for their family and friends. This series will showcase some of the best providers from our vibrant, talented, dedicated wedding industry community we are so proud to be a part of here in Maine and New England. This group of professional wedding vendors understands and adheres to our guiding principles for the service we endeavor to provide our clients: Be Responsive, Be Kind, Provide Excellent Customer Service, Provide the Very Best Product/Service. Because of these wonderful people, the celebrations here are French’s Point Estate is the stuff of which dreams are made!

The team from The Bar Association is one of my favorite “go-to” bar service providers in Maine. They provide trained professional bartenders with all required permits. They are fully licensed and insured in the State of Maine, ensuring your event goes off without a hitch…legally. Their goal is to provide exceptional service to their clients and their clients’ guests by serving custom cocktails, craft beer and specialized wine selections. They don’t just pour drinks, they provide a customized bar package that reflects their client’s vision of their perfect evening. The Bar Association offers a huge array of bar service styles that are personally suited to meet your needs and budget. The knowledgeable and friendly staff serve with the enjoyment, safety and well-being of your guests in mind. With over 50 years of experience in the hospitality and customer service realms, they are well equipped to provide an outstanding experience. The Bar Association will manage all of your bar service needs, so this aspect of your celebration will be effortless, seamless and fun! I am pleased to introduce you to my friends at The Bar Association.

How long have you been operating your business?

The Bar Association has been in operation for three years.

Please describe your services.

The Bar Association is first and foremost interested in sharing the talent and gifts that Maine artisans have to offer its fellow Mainers and folks “from away.”  We bring local quality and integrity to our catered bartending service and enjoy learning about the incredible things created by or brought to our attention by our Maine friends and most especially enjoy sharing these gifts with our clients.

We specialize in Maine beers, a thoughtful wine selection, and custom hand-crafted cocktails, and we aim to add a personal, unique, and memorable atmosphere to any social event.  In addition to using high-quality ingredients, we provide a staff of charming and professional bartenders and a creatively rustic aesthetic.

Do you help your clients create signature cocktails?

Yes, we do help our clients with creating signature cocktails. It is actually the most treasured part of working with our clients. There is nothing more rewarding than making something personal and unique for our clients, as it is typically their wedding day, which is a unique, special, and memorable union.  That’s how we feel about signature cocktails, it’s a union. We take the theme of our clients’ wedding, their personalities, and their likes and dislikes, and do our best to make a signature cocktail that is exceptional and particular to their shared “fingerprint.”

If so, what is your favorite cocktail to date?

We created something we penned the “Lavenderby” for one of our weddings last year. The Lavenderby was a concoction that starts with lavender and honey made into a simple syrup. Other ingredients include lemon juice, grapefruit juice, bourbon, thyme and lavender flowers. We also enjoy toying with recipes to create our own twist on the more well-known drinks. For example, the French 76, for this one, we opted to use gin as the base, instead of vodka and added pink peppercorns to our simple syrup. It makes it unique to us AND our clients!

How many hours of open bar service do you feel is reasonable and safe to provide at a wedding event?

We often recommend five hours of service as a reasonable and safe amount of time for weddings. We have found time and time again, that if the service is longer than five hours, things start to unravel.

Can you provide customized bar packages?

We specialize in providing customized bar packages. We want to make sure our clients’ day is unique to them, so we do our very best to create the best package that matches their unique needs, wants, desires and capabilities. We typically start out by sharing our standard brochure with our clients, this helps them understand our basic price points and services offered. Because we have a Class 1 Liquor License, which not all bar services do, we are able to make every event customizable for them. We are able to incorporate full open bars and/or full cash bars into the event, whatever helps the client make their budget. Some clients want an open bar for the first hour and a cash bar for the remainder of the event, because of our license, we are able to do that for them.

Catherine Caswell
The Bar Association
120 Whitney Road
Gray, ME 04039
(207) 650-0481
www.thebarassociation.me
tbamaine@gmail.com

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All photos courtesy The Bar Association