Bottoms up culture

“Gan bei! Gan Bei!” was one of the first Chinese words I learnt when I arrived in Asia 8 years ago. 

“Gan bei” meaning “bottoms up”, in other words “you’d-better-empty-that-glass-quickly-my-friend-or-we-won’t-respect-you-anymore”

Well, I guess, you just need to know about that habit and live with it.

But that’s when you DON’T work in the wine & spirit industry.

If you DO, then you have to be more cleaver than them, in order not to end up dead drunk in your plate after each dinner.

The first few events, you fail. And you end up at karaoke singing Shakira with the CEO of a very important client. 

At that stage, you need to learn how to forget about shame.
Until you find out after that they actually loved the fact that you were singing louder than anyone and emptied the bottles of Camus Family Legacy at 800$.

Remember that it is NOT a solution, no matter how much that CEO likes you after all.

The best trick during a Cognac dinner, is to actually mislead your guest by drinking black tea instead. Really perfidious, isnt'it?

But it becomes more challenging when it comes to red wine.

Just make sure you control the service and the pouring.
Make sure your audience get a full glass and that yours is almost empty.
Then smile.

At the end of the day, I don’t want everybody to know how good I am at singing Shakira.