E183 Ray White

This week's guest is Ray White, who joins us from Tel Aviv, Israel. Originally from St. Petersburg, Russia, Ray relocated to Tel Aviv over a decade ago. Ray got her start in the industry in her late teens when she landed a job at a pub in St.

Petersburg. This helped cultivate Ray's interest in whiskey and beer. From there, Ray's interest grew to explore wines, fine cuisine, and cocktails. Currently, Ray co-owns a ready-to-drink product line and offers bar consulting services, organizes private and large-scale events, and hosts a monthly alcohol-themed TV show called Sane Drink.

We had a terrific time in conversation with Ray, and you'll enjoy it too. We're back with another episode of the industry podcast. I'm Kip. This is Dan.

How are you doing, man? Doing well. I got to go and do some snowboarding this past week, and so I was happy about that. There was something different from the didn't involve work.

What about you? Where did you find the snow? I went local here. They actually got a lot of snow on there.

I was actually surprised. They've done a good job of keeping what we've had. I'm making snow tonight. Thanks.

Yeah, a little last one in a couple more weeks. Yeah. What about yourself? I think it's good.

The birds are running. We're in a bit of a slog of January 3 right now, but January was not as bad as previous January. Oh, really? Good.

So yeah, if you're in the area, the bar is our sugar run downtown. You can follow that at Sugar Run Bar on Instagram or uptown Waterloo is Babylon Sisters. Why do you call it? That bar is at Babylon Sisters bar on Instagram.

We are doing we have DJs every Friday. We have live music every Saturday. They're sugar run live music. Comedy on Wednesdays live music on Thursdays and then rotating DJs for less shows, etcetera.

On weekends. Exciting stuff. So come check it out. Yeah, I guess that's about it for that.

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So they tell us. Yeah. This is episode 183. We just found out that we're getting into lots of great stuff in the archives.

If you want to take a look back there, if you missed any of the episodes. Oh, there's one nifty feature coming up in the podcast. Actually, the coming weeks is transcription of the podcast. So for those in case you want to actually real long, that'll be available.

I don't know what the hell you want to do that, but that's coming up a couple of weeks. Maybe if you're more of a reader than a listener. Yeah. Yeah.

So I've got a notification that said that if you want to keep your podcast on the platform, that's kind of nifty. Interesting. All right. Well, we should mention that if you want to be a guest on the show, you can email us info at the industrypodcast.club.

We're always looking for great industry stories. Pretty much all the industry stories are great. So we always get this all the time. I don't know if I have that much to talk about.

And all these stories will find something interesting. Trust me. So the other way you can reach out to us is at the industry podcast on Instagram, where you'll find the amazing artwork by Zacana, ZAKH, AAH at Zacana.co. That's where you can reach out to him.

He needs some graphic work done for you because he is amazing. And I think that's all we really need to battle on. And as mentioned, there's always everything we talk about in the show notes for any links or sites you want to check out. So make sure you check those out.

Great. Okay. So we have an awesome guest. As usual, this is Ray White joining us from Tel Aviv, Israel.

How are you? I'm good. Hi. Good afternoon for us.

Yeah. Well, thanks again for doing the show. We really appreciate it. And yeah, let's just dive right into it.

So talk to us a little bit about how you got involved in the service industry at the beginning. And sorry, I should ask you first. So you grow up in Tel Aviv or? No, no.

It goes like this. I'm, you know, it's a very sensitive moment for a lot of people because of what is going around. So I will start with the joke. Okay.

I was in the Athens bar show two months ago, you know, the big Athens bar show and I was a speaker there and I had a guest bar tendering shoot as a beluga ambassador there. I'm hanging around at the speaker, autorexhibition. And people asking me, how's the way from? I'm like, I'm from vodka beluga.

Like, yeah, but ambassador of which country you are. And like, I'm from beluga. And then like, where are you from? I'm like, I'm from Russia and Israel.

Two countries you don't want to hear about right now. You want to drink something? Yeah. Yeah.

So basically I'm originally from the biggest work right now. Which is close to Finland. It's a beautiful city. Go up there until the age of 23.

I was right, right, I'm doing from the age of 17. Oh, wow. So basically it's the only job I had in this life mostly. Hey, I started with the Irish pub and beers and whiskeys and then I fall in love with the wines and the Italian cuisine and cigars.

And then around the age of like 20, I met the cocktails and that's it. I was learning about cocktails and competing on the competitions and going to master glasses. And when I moved to Israel, when I was 23, basically I was managing cocktail bars, building them events, like everything that connected to cocktail work. And then I was like, you know, I'm like, you know, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, you know, I'm like, okay, I'm going to master glasses.

And when I moved to Israel, when I was 23, basically I was managing cocktail bars, building them events, like everything that connected to cocktail world. And I think for like 15 years of my career, I was believing only in the service as we spoke before that you know services, we are hospitality people. So I was always teaching people that people come in for people, the bartender is the owner of the bar. Doesn't matter who is the real owner of the bar, you know, for the customer.

We had the owners. But actually Corona changed its perspective. And now I'm also producing my own ingredients. So not always I need to be behind the bar and sometimes my products can be behind the bar and I can talk to you guys right now for example and my cocktails are working somewhere.

Right, and so better you still are physically working in a bar as well? I'm not managing bars anymore. I can do guest shifts, I can do workshops but I'm not working in a specific bar unfortunately it took taking too much time and too much like a light source, you know. The last bar I was managing I spent at work around 300 hours a month.

So it was too much because you need to have orders and you buy tenders that seek and then somebody's water to come and so you have to be there and then the government is broken. You have to do all this stuff and then you don't see anything else and you're like so I decided to do it a different way. Well and we were talking before we started recording too about like how the pandemic has opened up all these new doors for different ways that people in the hospitality industry can work without physically working in a bar or restaurant. So we talked to so many people with the course of this show that have done this, have made similar moves.

So just like you're still in the service industry, you're still in hospitality but you're just finding different ways to do it which is great that exists now. Absolutely absolutely. I think there was some like amount of people that in the pandemic just left industry because they you know they became to work in high-tech or maybe they went to work in whatever. So at least here what happened when the pandemic finished is that there was no middle bar bartenders.

There was either experience bartenders that decided to stay in the industry and they became more like bar owners or owners of some companies connected to alcohol, the middle bartenders all left and only like the very young ones also wanted the bartender. So we had like this gap for a year or a year and a half and now it's all get balanced back. Yeah that really happened. I noticed like trying to hire people when like we all got to open the bars again because so many people left and you had a bunch of people quit and then trying to sort of restock your staff.

Like you said, so many of them had like zero experience and made it really challenging. That's one of the reasons why I did a consulting company and also not only consulting but like I called the babysitting program because I'm a month so it's like it's natural for me because sometimes you can consult, you can give your heart to the project, I can build you like the best cocktail menu with amazing ingredients and choose you the most perfect dustware but then nobody can maintain it. No there's nobody there. I have a way to have.

Can you build me a cocktail menu? I'm like no. And it will not work. So that's why we did some like adjustments that for example before I would never think I would use because I was so like snowish about bar bartenders craft and now to find solutions I think it's much more important because people come people go not everybody stay in the street.

Yeah, the turnover is way crazier than it used to be that's for sure. Backing up a little bit. Can you tell us a little bit about just because we haven't interviewed very many people, I don't even mean anyone who's worked at St Petersburg or Tel Aviv. No.

Great. So your efforts. So tell us, can you tell us about the sort of the bar and restaurant scenes in Tel Aviv and in St Petersburg and the similarities are differences? Absolutely sure.

St Petersburg, you know, if you know something about the city is if you take Russia, it's a beautiful culture capital and it's also the cause of bar capital. So we have a lot of bars, pubs, sport bars, wine bars, whatever bars, you know. And exactly when I was growing as a bartender, it became a lot of foxal bars. So bartenders becoming the kind of, the syrups making infusions and you know, you know, the vibes.

So it's very beautiful. I really like the style of bartenders. There are people taking everything very serious because even if it's not Soviet Union anymore and things that it's not Soviet Union anymore, people are very strict about what they're doing. If you're a bartender, you're a bartender and you need to know everything you have on the display.

You can't go to the ship without making three reading exams. You need to know all the classic history, even if you're working in a coffee shop and have only babies on display. Okay. So I love about the approach there.

And also Russia is a huge country and people coming to Moscow and St. Petersburg to make money. So if you don't learn your chat, somebody from a village will come and kick your ass. They will learn it and they will do it better than you.

So it's always a good competition. And also the service, I don't know how it's going in your country, but the service is very cold and polite. So this is the way you do it. You only know the person like it's regular, then maybe you can, you know, a bit general.

It's very polite. And I think it's not like a sleazy bar, but I never worked in a little bars. And if you're taking a history, it's completely opposite. It was so hard for me because I will give you a simple example.

In Israel, when the guest is coming, it doesn't matter which ages he and her and them or whatever, you say, how are you doing? And you also can say, brought my brother or something like that. Or you can say, oh, my beautiful, how are you? You never saw this before.

Okay. It's not in Russia. If you say the person that you don't know how you're doing, you can say, what the fuck are you asking? I'm talking from the criminal 90s, you know, from before.

They can say, fire this stupid girl. How are you talking to me? So I was in the beginning, when I came to Israel, I was very close. I was like, hi, here's your menu, please.

Would you like some? They were thinking I'm just a weirdo. So it took me some time to break the ice. But now I can't, how you say, well, snowboarding.

So I can let snowboard on all the styles of hospitality, you know, and remind them and steal the customer, because if I have tourists and I say that they are made from Mr. Europe, so I can use that, too. And if they see these are Israelis of Greek or Italian people that are very Middle Eastern but they are a vibe, you know, I can use the other language. And it's even every language is the language is everything.

And also that very special thing about Israel, nobody knows nothing. Most of the bartenders doesn't know nothing. They're making amazing money according to, you know, like through their life standards. And it's okay that they don't know the display.

It's okay that they have to at least then the shift somehow survive. I remember I was consulting the bar and I came to their opening and they're making, I don't know, for example, if I convert it to a huge rose, let's say they're making 35 US per hour. Okay, it's a nice money, right? Yeah, it's good.

So they're making 35 US per hour and he's getting the tickets that this day school was, yeah, which is a con yark, you know. And she can't even read it. What is it? What is it?

How many notes? What is it? Where it is? I wanted to kill him, you know.

Like, you can't say, it's funny. Can you learn what you have? At least doesn't even know for where it is, you know. But here it's common.

And because there's not a lot of workers and people that doesn't think it's serious. But they're not, but here people are much more fun. Like the coolest person can make it the evening of your life, you know. Right.

That's pretty interesting difference because the contrast is pretty severe because you're dealing with on one hand people with a immense amount of knowledge just to keep their jobs and but very close to often formal and then so not as fun a work atmosphere. So now you're in a more fun work atmosphere, but with people with no knowledge. That's really, that's about a stark difference to get. Now people here also starting to pick up the knowledge because the level is going out and there's a lot of bars here, people coming from abroad with master classes, but when I came here 12 years ago, wow.

And the funny part also that here we have this small shot of like 30 milliliters alcohol, like not 60, 30, which here we call a chaser, which is completely wrong with what you know with a chaser. And if the bartender just doesn't know something, if he feels stupid, he will pull your free chasers. There you go. Yeah, you can guys sit on my bar, for example, and have a beer.

Okay. And I feel that, you know, we have a good vibe. So that's probably one shot round of whiskey and another round of whiskey and nobody cares about it. It's like normal.

Yeah, we have a little bit of that here, but if he gets too out of control, then your owner is going to say something for sure when they start doing him in the third. Of course. You don't pour Macallan 18 years old. Oh, I got to ask a question about tipping culture.

Are people expected to tip when they buy drinks at the St. Petersburg or Tel Aviv? It's very different as well. Actually, good that you mentioned that because in not only in St.

Petersburg, in Russia, maybe in Petersburg, but in Moscow, I'm a bit better because people travel, people have money in the cities. Again, not now, nobody travels in Russia, but I'm talking about before. So who the tip was 10%. Okay.

Okay. The good people don't want to give it 10%. They can leave you like change. It's going to be 3%, 5%.

But you never say anything to them. You never like to complain. You can also get nothing. It's also kind of, it's not normal to get nothing, but it's okay to get nothing.

It's okay to ask for. So, 5%. But in Israel, it's very different because in Russia, bartenders and waiters have salary. Like you have salary per shift and then the tip is on top of that.

In Israel, it's a very high taxes. So if you're not working in the hotel, which is a different system, if you work in the bar, you work in the car, there is no salary for bartenders. The salary is made by your tips. I will give you examples of that a bit better.

So for example, if today by Google, the minimum salary in the country is $10 an hour. Okay. Whatever. So, the constructor or washing streets, this is the minimum we can get.

So if I work in the bar and I work 8 hours shift and then we split the tips with all the crew and we didn't get to the minimum salary of this day or $10 per hour. So the place will add us this small amount. So we will get that if you get more, for example, like $5 an hour. Then the place doesn't pay me anything.

Wow, that's crazy. It's crazy. And before, one year before Corona started, they make him another look because before it was only cash flow. So at least you're getting this money and you're going home.

So the year before Corona started, they also started taking all this money that you make and tips and put taxes on them. Yeah, great. Yeah. Oh, wow.

Which one of your people did they pay by cash or credit? 90% credit card. Okay. So like here, okay.

That's the same everywhere now. Yeah. That's, that's why I mean that's the same because then like, I mean, it sounds pretty good for the bar owner, but yeah, the way you can survive the bar because of the taxes, I mean, I was a bar owner, but here in Israel, everybody usually take minimum 15% because they know bartenders have no salary because they all will wait for one day or their friends were working on the bar. So they know the situation.

Like I would not say teenagers, but 20 years old. Yeah. If they don't have enough money to keep on the bar, they might not go to the bar and they would drink somewhere else because they don't want to offend anybody. And if you get 15%, it means everything was cool.

If you get 20, it means it was great. If you get 10, it means it was not good. But if you get less than 10, it's like a red light to ask the manager to come and ask what was wrong. Oh, wow.

Interesting. Yeah. I got once first year I was here and it wasn't even like the situation of service. I wasn't the beach, you know, this beach place with plastic chairs and I had a beer and French rice.

It's not like somebody gave me crazy service, you know. And I was like three months in the country. You know, they were the rooms. I like paid and I left some coins for a tick because it was a beer and French rice, you know.

And this guy was running after me with this change. Like, what he didn't give me, I don't know about 10%, what was wrong? And I was like, I'm sorry, like, you know, I want to offend you. They know it's like crucial.

Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. And what point did you start sort of transitioning into doing more of the ambassador type roles and consulting?

Like how, at what point after you moved to Tel Aviv? Basically it happened naturally because the industry here is very small. Israel is super small and all the bars are in Tel Aviv and just the little business in Australia. So everybody knows each other.

And not like in Russia, usually like the pop guys know each other and the wine guys know each other and the cocktail guys know each other and the club guys know each other. Here we all know each other because it's so small. So it was so obvious because the more places started to open and they always wanted to be like in Tel Aviv. So I was managing the coolest bars in Tel Aviv.

So they, okay, Ray, can you build this a cocktail menu? Can you give us some lectures? Can you make a special mixology course for our team? So it was kind of coming naturally, you know, I wasn't saying, okay, I'm stopping this and starting this.

So for many years I was combining because projects you never know when you're going to get them. So you have to have a base. And ambassador also, when I was ambassador of Mescal Iba, it was a hard job because I was still managing bars. Mescal is not such a big thing.

Now it's a big thing. But then we were the first in the sky coming to Israel. So nobody like smoking the groni was still like, oh, what the fuck is that? Now everybody drinks it.

So it was interesting. And also, for example, working for Volkabe Luger, which is a well-known brand and being the ambassador for two years was a crazy experience. It was the first time I was working in such a big system. Like my bosses are abroad.

I'm along in the country working in front of Israeli markets with a distributor and it was a very different experience from what I was thinking that I know everything. I know the history of alcohol. I love it. I know all the type of mixology techniques.

I know the psychology, all the customers and all these lectures that I collected my experience. And I'm sitting on the meeting and they're talking about containers and shipment. And they're saying, well, no, no, no. Okay, there was another part of the industry which is completely different.

These guys don't know what is going to happen probably. But they know some other stuff. It was interesting. And in the end, it just integrated in my life and that's it.

And then you just get so busy doing all the projects that you don't have time for the managing of the bars anymore. So yeah, it's sort of a seamless transition. And not really. Because if I would like really want to manage the bar, I would find the time.

I just corona, up in a day, maybe appreciate my time much more. And also not being afraid. Because before I thought, okay, I have a salary. I have according to other bar managers and they seek to have a good salary because I have a good name.

But I can't let go. I can't go into nowhere also because I have kids. So I can't just go with the phone. I want them to have a good life.

So I was always afraid. But pedemic also teaching me that nothing is stable and tomorrow everything can change. And if you don't try and if you don't put higher standards, you will always manage the bar and how much you can manage the bar. Okay.

It's the same thing. It's a different bar. It's a bit different coffee machine and a bit different, I don't know, cocktails, but it's the same thing. So I prefer to build them, to help them, to create them and to let them go.

Yeah. I like that idea of it as well because when I'm opening bars, that's the part that I like the best is like the building of the program, the training of the staff, all that stuff. And then once it's open and running, things start to kind of run themselves. And then you're just like, well, no, I'm kind of bored.

Either you get stuck with employees that always sick, they are good friend, they are good friend, they are something. And then you just stop doing shifts instead of them because then you are managing. And so it's not that I don't love this part of the job. I just really started to push it down with my kids.

I have three. And yeah, my big one is 12, my middle one is seven and my daughter, her name is Martini, he's three years old. So I want to be with them as well because when I have the two boys, before my two boys, they grow up with me managing bars, they didn't see me. They were coming to my work to eat at my work.

So they will meet me sometimes because I do double shifts and I can't go because everything is crushing, you know, or I was coming up to late, couldn't wake up, you know, all this thing. So I really want to be with them. But still, if I have a guest shift and I'm trying to be behind the bar just once a week, this is my happiness. Yeah.

When they're going to be older, I'm going to stand in some proud and full Guinness. I love Guinness. Yeah, me too. The drink, Guinness.

I love it. Yeah. Big Guinness fan. Yeah.

I have this too from the age of 17, which is a Guinness guy. Oh, yeah. Nice. Yeah, I don't need to dress up on St.

Patrick's. So she has a club because this is an audio media mobile just double. She has a tattoo of a Guinness Clover on her neck, which is super cool. So I think you have it on your shirt right now.

The Celtics Clover? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So I wanted to ask you as well about the TV show that you're involved in. Can you describe that to our listeners? Oh, yeah.

It's really cool. It's more like, you know, it's more like a project for the soul. If I can say so, it's not like for money or something else. These guys, they are a cornerstone of Israeli outdoor industry.

They are few people that are all older than me in 15 years. Okay. So they all had their own bars, their alcoholic journalists. They had their own radio show for eight years about alcohol and they are well known.

Everybody knows them. They're very cool alcoholics. Yeah. They can do it.

Okay. So when they moved to the TV format, they needed some fresh blood because they had the show for eight years on radio and they're all kind of this like this guy's that you meet on the pub, you know? So this guy with more about wines, this guy's more about whiskey's but you know, this is their start and the old bear experience. But they wanted something fresh.

So they invited me to be like a mixologist of the show. So every time we take some theme, it can be some holiday that is happening. It can be the weather, whatever. And then I'm preparing my cocktails.

They prepare something about whiskey's wines, spirits, whatever. And then we just drink in for 40 minutes in front of the cameras and invite in some chefs to make it some food. But we're trying to be not too geeky because, you know, sometimes we can get into details that nobody cares. Right.

What is the name of the dog that is living on a distillery in Iraq? Okay. So nobody cares. But we're trying to make it like fun and dynamic.

And people like it. And it's forbidden in Israel to have alcohol on the main channels of the TV. But now nobody watched the main TV. It's all like, how is it cable TV?

Able TV, yeah. Yeah, when you had additional channels, so it's like on TV, but it's like something plus and then you have one alcohol. Oh, yeah. The streaming services.

Yeah, but they're very popular here because there's like three main channels with all the reality shows and news and everything else is on this extra channels. So we're there. So you can't, are there any other sort of strict weird rules and televib regarding alcohol? There is not so many.

For example, according to Russia, again, if we want to compare. Yeah. So if you go to the app of food deliveries or supermarket deliveries and I can order alcohol, I can order by the wine, I can order by the gin until 11 o'clock. Okay.

Not at night, but at night, you can still order it from the bar. Yeah. Like as a portion of the cocktail, if you order it in Russia, you can't order alcohol online. You can't order coffee delivery.

You can't order alcohol. It's forbidden. So the only cocktail service exists in Russia online is the cocktails without alcohol, like a frozen mix. And then you buy alcohol and you mix it, come.

Yeah, I got it. Okay. Here you can get whatever on these deliveries. You know, if you have a prescription for weed, you can get it on these deliveries.

Yeah. That's fine. Can we do the deliveries yet? I've got one coming tomorrow.

Okay. There you go. Just have to sign for it at the front. No, here's work and if you have a prescription, like, and you can for some reason get out to the pharmacy, you can get it like with this prescription thing.

Interesting. Yeah. Whatever works. Yeah, there's not so many weird rules.

You know, it's very easy here. There's no like, of course you cannot drink with under age, but I think it's everywhere, everywhere like this in the world, you know, because we also working here with Intellivv less, but the Jerusalem more, sometimes we're working together, we call them our cousins. It's Arabic people. Yeah.

We know what you see on TV, but we all will all live here together. Yeah. Okay. We all work together.

We like together in one bar. Like you can have Arabic cook and Arabic also Muslim. Yeah, like cook or maybe a waiter, usually not a bartender because they're not allowed to touch alcohol by their religion. Right.

So this is, for example, the thing, but if you are a bit Christian, of course you can. Like, so say a cook, but they'll work in an establishment that sells alcohol as long as they're not touching it. No, they can work as a cook, they can work as a waiter, they just can touch alcohol by their religion. Right.

I say it's something in Islam that I don't really know why, but they can't touch it. And also, for example, if it's a tale and there was a Jewish religious people, like really, religious and the one, the wine to be kosher, you know, what is it? It's kind of bullshit, but whatever people really like, the religious people really stuck in this. So for example, the Muslim cannot open for them the wine because then it will become not far from it.

No, it's so funny. Oh, now I know what you're funny. Okay. About the religious stuff.

It's very funny. I know there's a rules in the bar with the customers don't joke about religion, sports and politics. Yeah. When I just came to the country, I know that the kosher, you know, the seafood is not kosher, right?

Or pigs are not kosher. Obviously everybody knows it. I'm a Jewish kid. When I was a Jewish kid, I know that the shrimp is not kosher.

But I'm coming to this country and I'm starting to make events and weddings, you know, I'm making my cocktails on events and the rabbi is coming to me. And like, is this passion for the kosher? And I'm looking at what I mean? It's passion fruit.

It's not big. And she's like, no, you need to show you the kosher certificates. Apparently, there is a lot of rules about what's kosher, what is not. For example, it needs to be grown in the farm that the workers are not working in Saudi, which is Shabbat.

It needs to be washed in specific ways. So there is no specific bugs. And for example, if you have alcohol, what's making kosher? That the factor is not working on Saturday and it's blessed by the rabbi and sometimes it's just unbelievable.

So I'm working on this event and I don't know how to prove him that my passion for the kosher because I didn't bring in a certificate of the passion fruit, you know, and then he kind of blessed my passion fruit and then he blessed my bar equipment as well. He blessed my shakers because maybe if I was working on that kosher event, so he like did something with them and I had blessed shakers. That's crazy. But it sounds so ridiculous when you say it like that, right?

Because all you have to do is say some words and then everything is fine. Yes. Or also you can open the wine, the rabbi and it's becoming kosher. It's funny because I always don't like this moment because why my work needs to be changed by the people who believe in ghosts.

Yes. You know, I respect everybody but I don't want to change my... For example, you can't use the coffee machine in Shabbat if it plays a kosher. Or if you go to a coffee machine, you can't use any electricity tools in the bar.

And then every rabbi has his own limit of idiotism. For example, one told me not to shake loud. I said, okay, but I need to shake. Shake.

So. Oh man. But it's like, you know, in Tel Aviv and the bars, they all not kosher. All the Tel Aviv is like wild and everybody eating seafood and drinking, champagne and whatever.

So here it's less. It's more big hotels or big events. That's why eating this weird things. So and if you don't want to talk about this, this is fine.

We can just cut this out. But how are you finding it? Since the war began, like I know you're saying in the bar restaurant scene, everyone's working together, like what the outside world doesn't see is how you guys are unified when you're in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem or whatever. But have you noticed any effect on the service industry or the types of or like more?

I don't know how to say this properly. I understand what I mean. I will divide it into two parts. Okay.

So the first part is a physical part and the second is a mental part. So physical part is that a lot of bartenders are now in our. So a lot of bartenders, bar managers, restaurant managers, they just physically can't work because they are not here. Okay.

So some places even kind of open back for the first time. Everything was shut down. Everybody was a shock and very sad and helping each other volunteering. For example, one of my colleague, Bartender, again, if you want to cut it out, okay, like my colleague from the doctor world, he was on that party on 7th of October as a party person.

Okay. And he was one of the survivors and he was like in this, they run away when it started when they started to shoot people on the dance floor that they were just running and imagine people in 6th of the morning in the party. Okay. How they feel when people started to shoot them.

So they run, they found some abandoned building and they run into this building and then they came and started to shoot just everybody. And they were on like 40 people in that small building and he was discovered by the corpses of his friends. Oh my God. And then they kind of get out of there and then somebody with a jip, big them up, you know, but he wasn't a hospital.

So fuck that he's had what he saw. I don't want to imagine what he saw. Okay. And so we were sending him Guinness to the hospital.

So it's like, so this is the physical part. So a lot of people damaged a lot of people not here physically. They have to be somewhere else. And a lot of people just upset, depressed.

Like this is the physical part and the emotional part exactly with the connection with the Arabs that I'm here for 12 years. And I was always saying, wow, how beautiful we all live together. Some people hate each other, but some people always hate each other. It doesn't matter if you are Jew or Arab or Russian.

Somebody don't like each other. And it's okay. Somebody that's like stupid people, somebody that's like smart people, whatever. But because I'm working also in Jerusalem, I'm a beverage consultant of the Five Star Hotel, which is the most luxury hotel in Israel, which is older than Israel.

So I was like a palace of some Turkish guy before. And because it's Jerusalem, there's a lot of Arab workers and some of them doesn't speak Hebrew. They speak only English, which means they are from that part of Jerusalem that doesn't want to be Israel. They don't accept.

And we all work together. I work there every Friday and sometimes Saturdays. And you know, since that has happened, I came back. They didn't need my services for a few months because they didn't have customers.

So I'm an extra service. I'm like a pop-tail. I'm like a chariot and a poli-fi. And I'm coming there like three weeks ago, we started to do it again.

And all of this Arabs, most of them Muslims, they're like, hey, we're so happy to see you. We missed you. We missed your service. And guys, I missed you too.

And they're giving me a recipe, how to make best shakshuka, like a dish or whatever. So it's all about people. Good people love each other. Right.

And I wish there were not existing this way. Yeah. Well, that's a lovely sentiment. It's a good way to end this.

Tell us our listeners where they can find you on social media or follow any of the businesses that you're currently involved in. Okay. So as I told you before, I changed my philosophy of being a bartender and also because I cannot be behind the bar all the time. And also because even the people I teach cannot be all the time behind the bar.

So I produce sites consulting, I produce some products. I don't know. They exist in the world, but in Israel, we're kind of pioneers of doing that. I have a company with my husband and his best friends called R2D.

We're ready to drink, very simple. And we do tap cocktails, which is cocktails on tap. Yep. So we have all the manufacturing license and stuff.

We do it with a dry, the hydrated garnishes. So basically you don't need to be a bartender. You need to be a good person standing behind the bar. So what's happening sometimes, you know, people getting a ticket with a cocktail and they don't know how to do it and they get them stressed.

And then instead of being nice, they're like, oh my God, where is this? Upper old, where is this? Whatever. So in this case, you don't need to be stressed.

You just do like this and the cocktail is ready. And we do a former, which is like just a few drops. You shake it and you have a vegan foam. You don't need to egg or apple, faba.

Also because it's very warm here. I wish I could snowboard here. Now it's like the coldest days and it's just raining, you know, you can do window notes. Now it's like the coldest time.

It's like plus 12. So, yeah. So using raw eggs is just not safe. Like if you're in the bar, like outside places, it's just not safe.

So the former is really cool. We call it AI foam. Everything is AI now. And we create AI mix, which is also kind of a solution for people that want to make cocktails, but still, you know, they don't have big places.

They don't have time to make lemon juice. They don't have time to make simple syrup. So it's simple syrup with lemon and foam together. So you take any bottle of alcohol, shake it, then you get a cocktail with a foam.

I mean, it's cheating. Permexologists, please take your seasonal lines to visit them, the drink. And the tears of unicorns and vee be happy, okay? No.

No, I think it's a great idea. It's like one of my black people to the places now where they're turning over heavy craft cocktails all the time. So like having a product like that would be super valuable. Just like shortens the time.

And it's like, it's the same product. You're just making it easier. Listen, it's the same like few years ago, at least here in Israel, nobody was using batches. Everybody was making free hands cocktail, you know, you have all the ingredients on the spot.

I was managing a cocktail bar that Marion Beckett was consulting. It's amazing, mixologist from London having a night jar bar, you know, and we had cocktails with 12 ingredients sometimes. And also cotton candy on top and we had a chocolate sundew on the bar. So you take a glass, you dip it in the film, do say, I have chocolate here, put such a pepper.

Anyway, it just didn't possible to work without a batch. And then we made batches and everybody's saying, oh, they're making batches. They're cheating. You have to batch.

You have to. Like if you, the places they don't batch are busy. Is that simple? Yeah.

You make one cocktail a day. Okay. That's great. That's crafted from the ground up.

So I make some kind of the same solution. I guess maybe it's cotton creativity in some way, but it's for big places that's also bartenders. They're usually, they're not creative. Yes.

Okay. I would put it nicely. So yes. So I will ask you as well what people drink such a bar is the most, what is the most trendy drinks there for cocktails?

We're still, we're always a little bit behind like the major cities here and where we live in Kishan, Waterloo. But like I find it cyclical and it's a lot of it's based on what the hot TV show or movie was recently and what they were drinking on that. Like for instance, like a few years ago when Mad Men was a big deal, everybody wanted old fashions, right? So yeah.

So we, and we still make a lot of old fashions. And now the grownees are big again and martinis are coming back. Like it's, it's just, it's just a cyclical. Well, this is amazing.

People drink smart TV. It's so hot. Nobody drinks them. Oh, right.

Yeah. Yeah. And like most people want the stuff that's on your signature menu, right? Like the, the stuff created by the bar.

And the signature flavors are still based on gin. Like the main trend is the typical. Oh, like, yeah, it's all over the bar. Gin rum, vodka, whiskey, tequila is big now.

Mescale is big. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know if that's the same, is that the same in Tel Aviv?

What did you say? Yeah, the killer ones were very high two years ago, like together with Mescal and Kazuo It's like people that, you know, like three years ago, they would say, I, I want control on this. I'm sorry, we don't have to turn and we have to kill. I don't drink to kill at all.

Yeah. So we always have these guys in the bars. And what about because I feel for me personally, because I love to drink. Yeah.

On some point, I turned more to natural stuff. So the organic and natural wines becoming more popular. Yeah. Also, I started to feel that I don't want to be drink big, big brands anymore.

Right. Also, even in whiskey is that before I was a huge fan of like very famous brands and smoke you whiskey. And now I'm one more drinking small batch or local distilleries that I know that I know how it's made, you know, is there is an entrant like this or no? Yeah, I think so, because there's constantly new, like there's been a real boom in small craft distilleries in our area.

Like for a while, it was the craft breweries and now it's craft distilleries. So it's a, yeah. So people are now asking what you have that's local or you're getting a lot more of that. So you'll have to have it for sure in your bar.

Like there's still people are going to be like, I just want Jameson's or whatever. And it's only whiskey or is also James and other stuff. It's I would say it's more gin than anything else. James and vodka is because they're the easiest ones to make quickly, right?

Like you know, to age them. So like all these distilleries that pop up, they start making vodka and gin and then they'll make whiskey at the same time, but they're gonna wait three years minimum for it to bottle it, right? So yeah, all the stories are pumping up gin and vodka and then you wait for them for their whiskeys to show up. So basically the world is going out the same direction as far as I say.

I really believe that, you know, as much natural stuff we will drink, it's better just for our body because if we already choose to damage it without call, I know, we will take the best, not the best in a way that, okay, this whiskey paid for 100 years of marketing, that's why it's the best. Right. I don't want to drink the marketing. I want to drink the product.

Yeah, no. Yeah, I agree. And yeah, it's definitely moving that way. Well, Ray, thanks so much for joining us.

This was super fun. It was great getting to know you and talk to you about all your experiences over there. It's been a super fascinating conversation for us. Like I said, no previous guests from St.

Petersburg or Tel Aviv. So you're a unicorn. Thank you. Listen, if you will have somebody asking some questions afterwards, you know, don't hesitate to send it to me.

I will be happy to answer because there's a lot of sensitive moments now, but I believe that we are the hospitality people, all these things that doesn't matter. I mean, you know what? Yeah. So we make other people happy and run can happy.

Yeah. So this is my motto. Okay. Amazing.

Thanks again, Ray. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Yeah.

Yeah. That's not fun.