More than what’s in the glass.

  • Drinks menus for bars, restaurants and hotels.
  • A way into the Nordics for spirits and liqueurs.
  • Masterclasses and events that fill the room.

Two award-winning bartenders, one in Copenhagen and one in Amsterdam, on your side of the bar.

Start a conversation See what we pour
Stir the glass, or change the pour

The back bar

A members’ area for recipe specs from our masterclasses, event seats and menus in progress.

Two sides of the bar. We’ve worked both.

Twenty years as bartender, bar owner and brand ambassador on one side. A chemistry PhD and an award-winning cocktail menu on the other. Whichever side you stand on, we know what the other one needs from you.

Erwan Le Bonniec shaking a cocktail behind the bar

For bars, restaurants and hotels

A drinks list that earns its place on the table, and a team that can make it the same way on a full Saturday.

  • Beverage programmes built around your kitchen, your guests and your margins
  • Signature cocktail menus that become the reason people come back
  • Food and drink pairing for tasting menus and one-off dinners
  • No and low ABV serves that are ordered on purpose
  • Team training on technique, speed and consistency
  • Zero-waste prep that gives ingredients a second life
Erwan pouring a tasting measure of amaretto at an in-store activation

For brands and distributors

Bartenders recommend what they have tasted, used and trusted. We put your bottle in their hands the right way.

  • Nordic market entry for spirits and liqueurs, from first listing to first reorder
  • Brand activation on-trade and off-trade
  • Product launches with serves designed for the bottle
  • Masterclasses that teach bartenders something they keep
  • Brand collaborations that neither side could do alone
  • Ambassador work by people the bar industry already knows

Every serve starts as a question about the guest, long before it is a recipe.

Serves from the archive

Drinks we have built for our own bar, for brands and for other people’s menus. Drag the row, or touch a glass.

A stirred red cocktail in a coupe with a brandied cherry
Stirred and bitter, with a brandied cherry
A ruby red cocktail with a white foam and a lemon twist
Ruby, shaken to a foam
An amber whisky cocktail glowing in a low glass
French single malt, lit from inside
A white foamy sour dusted with orange zest
White amaretto, citrus, orange zest
Close view of a dark cocktail with two orange peels
Orange oils over a dark stir
A pale green cocktail in a coupe with a basil leaf
Green, cold, one basil leaf
A pink sour served on the head of a barrel
A sour, served on the stave
A rocks glass with a large clear ice cube and lemon peel
Clear ice, cut by hand
A red drink over ice garnished with an orchid
Red, long, with an orchid
A tall brown drink with a thick foam head on a black mirror
Long and cold, with a proper head
A cocktail being flamed at the bar
Fire, for the whole room
An old fashioned with a lemon coin
Old fashioned, lemon coin

Rooms we’ve poured in lately

Masterclasses, takeovers, pairing dinners and brand activations. Some are for the trade, some are for anyone who likes a good aperitif.

  1. Masterclass

    Rethinking fruit in modern mixology

    With Ponthier at Nobis Hotel Palma, Mallorca. 22 October

    Straining, infusion, shrubs and clarification with fruit purée, from no and low ABV to full-proof serves.

  2. Apéritif

    The French Apéritif

    With BITE Organic Mixers at Kongens Nytorv 8, Copenhagen. 5 November

    Low ABV drinks and finger food by Esmée, for the hour between work and dinner.

  3. Brand collaboration

    Tikitaly

    Amaretto Adriatico with Planteray rum, across Denmark

    What happens when Italian amaretto walks into a tiki bar. It ended with amaretto resting in rum casks, and rum in amaretto casks.

  4. Pairing dinner

    Asia meets Italy, in five courses

    A cocktail menu with Amaretto Adriatico

    Yakuza, Sakura Sour and Italian 75: sesame-washed whisky, yuzu, sencha, baijiu and limoncello, one glass per plate.

  5. Event concept

    Limoncello, oysters, paella

    A summer aperitivo for long afternoons

    Light citrus drinks against the salt of a fresh oyster, and one big pan in the middle of the table.

Photos on this page are from the Tru Studio archive of our work and may not show the event listed beside them.

Next pour

3Dec

The French Apéritif


Copenhagen

Add to calendar Google Outlook Apple or other

Want a seat? One short email when there is a masterclass, a takeover or an aperitif you can come to. Nothing in between.

Notes from behind the bar

We write down what we learn. Take what is useful.

A slice of blood orange resting on a drink

Fruit does not have to follow the seasons

A good purée gives you the same strawberry in January as in June. That consistency is what lets a bar team stop firefighting and start creating: shrubs, clarified punches, sorbets, and garnishes made from what used to be thrown away.

A bottle of French whisky beside a red cocktail

Being seen is cheap. Being recommended is not.

In the bar trade, a brand grows through people: one bartender telling another what worked on a busy night. A collaboration is worth doing when it gives both brands something to pour that neither could have made alone.

A tall pale highball in a cut glass

Lower the alcohol, raise the table

Aperitif culture was never about strength. A light, citrus-led drink next to something salty keeps people talking for three hours instead of one. Design the drink for the conversation and the food, and the rest follows.

The technique shelf

Six things we teach most often, in two sentences each.

Clarification

Removing the solids that make a liquid cloudy, with milk, agar or a centrifuge. You keep the flavour and gain a drink that is clear, silky and stable for weeks.

Shrubs

Fruit, sugar and vinegar left to get to know each other. The acid does the work of citrus, keeps for months, and makes a no-alcohol drink taste like a grown-up one.

Fat-washing

Stir a fat such as sesame oil or brown butter into a spirit, freeze it, and lift the fat off. The flavour and a rounder texture stay behind in the bottle.

Enzymes and ageing fruit

Enzymes such as pectinase break fruit down gently over time. The juice clears itself and the flavour moves from fresh to something deeper and more wine-like.

Zero-waste garnish

Spent citrus husks, purée leftovers and herb stems become dehydrated crisps, sorbets and foams. It costs less than buying garnish and gives the guest a story.

Building a low ABV serve

Start from a fortified wine, an aperitif or a liqueur and lengthen it. Without the weight of a spirit, texture, bitterness and temperature have to carry the drink.

Different backgrounds, one belief

Hospitality is about much more than what is in the glass. That is the whole company in one sentence, and the two people behind it.

Erwan Le Bonniec in a navy suit, tasting a whisky cocktail

Erwan Le Bonniec

Copenhagen

Twenty years across hospitality: bartender, bar owner, brand ambassador and brand developer. Recognised by the Bartenders’ Choice Awards in 2026 as Improver of the Bar Industry.

@blogtender.cph

Bérenger Roth

Amsterdam

More than ten years in cocktail creation and beverage development, with a PhD in chemistry and WSET Level 3. His work won Best Cocktail Menu in Denmark at the Bartenders’ Choice Awards, and he is General Manager of Shakerato in Amsterdam.

@behind.le.shaker

Tell us what you’re pouring

Three taps and a sentence is enough. We read every message ourselves and answer within a few working days.

Erwan smiling behind the bar with a shaker
You are
You would like help with
Open Instagram Open LinkedIn