Part of the Spirits Mastery school. Class 6 of 6.
The capability: you can build a back bar from the room's demand rather than from a shelf's logic.
Prerequisites: Modules 20, 25, 55, 57.
The practice
The two-column audit. Sales mix in one column, back bar in the other.
Find the dead SKUs, the gaps, and the redundancies.
Then check velocity against format for every perishable product — because a room selling four Manhattans a week should not open a large vermouth, per Module 25.
Then audit the short categories. Do your four Scotches cover the conversations you actually have, or the range a textbook lists?
And find out what guests ask for that you do not carry, over a month.
The reference
The sales mix. That is the evidence and everything else is preference.
What you are building
The portfolio view — a back bar as a set of positions rather than a collection of bottles.
And the recognition that a program with no stated purchasing basis will be shaped by whoever shows up, per Module 57.
Verification and boundary
The audit, with a list of decisions attached.
Boundary: trade practice rules govern what a supplier may provide to a retailer — know them before accepting anything, and questions belong with TABC and a licensed attorney.