Matt Dale on what the brand ambassador role is about in 2025

Before we get into it: a big thank you to everyone who has supported Boothby with a paid membership so far this year. To make sure you get every issue of the print magazine delivered to your door — the next issue lands at the end of February — you can sign up and support Boothby right here.

File this one under ‘What’s it like to be a brand ambassador in 2025.’

The brand ambassador gig is often a stop for many a bartender in their careers; we’ve written before about bartenders who go on to be ambassadors to then open a bar, or become a distiller, or launch their own brand; some even get cast on competitive cooking shows on television.

Matt Dale isn’t there yet — he’s just settling into the ambassador life. He’s the first person to fill that role for Rhubi, the Australian rhubarb aperitif from bartenders Evan Stroeve and Tim Philips, and a product which grew out of their experiments in flavour at the much missed Bulletin Place in Sydney.

In this week’s Drinks At Work episode, I’m talking to Matt about what the role entails, who he’s leaned on for advice and mentorship, and how he approaches the job.

But Matt has also worked in some impressive and well renowned bars as a bartender: he says his approach to bartending evolved when he stepped behind the stick at Re, the innovative (and now closed) zero waste bar from Matt Whiley in Sydney, and we talk about what he learned leaving Sydney for London and working at two world famous bars: Remy Savage’s A Bar With Shapes For A Name, and Bar Swift in Shoreditch.

Below, I’ve got a couple of takeaways from the chat, but do give the full episode a listen.

A return to the classics

Matt has worked in some pretty forward thinking and avant garde bars, but it’s his time at Bar Swift working with then co-owner Bobby Hiddleston that informs what he thinks is coming next in the world of drinks.

“I watched Bobby for hours at Bar Swift in Shoreditch and make 20 of one drink, changing one millilitre, five millilitre [to the recipe] at a time,” he says. “One dash, two dash at a time to perfect one classic.

“And he was going through a list of 500-plus classics.”

What makes a great bar?

“It’s atmosphere,” Matt says. Not the drinks, not the complexity of your cocktail recipes nor the hours of prep you do before service. And the atmosphere begins the second you walk in the door.

“You feel right at home,” he says. “You’re greeted instantly at the door. I don’t want to walk into a venue and kind of stand around, not knowing what to do. Do I order at the bar? Do I sit down? I want to be greeted right at the door.”

Acts of service

Hospitality is about looking after people, and it’s that approach that Matt is taking into the brand ambassador role, he says.

“I want to go out into every single bar and just perfect my relationship with everyone. And I don’t want to just treat people as a client or a customer, but as a friend. Everyone’s got KPIs and I wanna help them reach it,” Matt says.