Marketer by day, Jonny Cosmopolitan by night. One of Canberra’s biggest cocktail sensations and rising entrepreneur, Jonny Day sits down to talk about having his own business and how he’s shaking things up in Canberra’s hospitality industry.
Jonny Cosmopolitan began as an idea during Jonny’s studies in Marketing and Business. Initially catering for private parties, he has now broadened to catering for corporate events. Jonny describes the business as “the fusion between Jim’s Mowing and Sex in the City”. Looking at the man in front of me this odd combination makes a lot of sense.
Jonny has been breaking new ground and I was keen to find out if he’d spotted any trends. “Cocktails have really been creeping into the kitchen, it’s a full science now, with techniques like molecular mixology (mixing liquids so that one forms a thin cell around the other). It turns the liquid into a kind of caviar,” he says, “I could do it with cranberry juice so that in your Cosmopolitan the cranberry would pop in your mouth.”
Jonny Cosmopolitan is the only business in Canberra which exclusively delivers drinks catering. I asked Jonny to talk a bit about his unique service; “I offer a fully customised menu for my events.” He describes the process he goes through, discussing with the client what the theme is for the event. He gives the example of a recent B.M.W. launch where he catered. The drinks included an “X3 Mojito, a Z3 Smash” and even “The Designated Driver”, a non-alcoholic mocktail.
Another of his recent events was running the Tiki bar at the recent Foreshore festival, where over 2000 cocktails were served. “People could not believe they were drinking these drinks with pineapples and monkeys hanging off the glass at a festival, while cool music was playing!”
“I don’t try and tread on other catering companies,” he says. “Instead, I offer a service which molds extremely well with other businesses.”
Jonny believes that because of its size and unique market “Canberra is the perfect place to develop a small business”. He is looking at developing a consulting service as a part of Jonny Cosmopolitan, where he plans to teach bar tenders how to develop specialised cocktail menus. He is also hoping to release a book of Jonny Cosmopolitan cocktails in the future.
With the interview nearly at an end I couldn’t help but ask this chimerical man who looks like he could be anywhere from nineteen with his young looks, or in his late thirties with his business acumen, how old he is. He laughs. He’s 24 he says. Aside from running a novel business, he just started what he calls his first “grown up job” in marketing… meaning that Jonny manages three jobs, the one in marketing, one in catering and he is currently a resident bartender at Hippo Bar.
“Marketer by day, Jonny Cosmopolitan by night.” he laughs. By the end of the interview, I do believe there must be some kind of superhero aspect to Jonathan Day a.k.a. Jonny Cosmopolitan.
