One of my pet peeves is when I go into a liquor store, I see someone doing a tasting, usually a good looking woman in a tight dress, and they know absolutely nothing about the product they are tasting you on. I have even seen them completely ignore customers as they walk by.
A friend said they walked by a table five times, looking at the table, before the taster asked if they wanted to try a sample. Some are so busy texting or playing on their phones, they might as well not even be there. A poster of a good looking woman and a self-serve table would be a better use of resources. There are a few exceptions to this, as I have seen the pretty woman doing a tasting and they had an intimate knowledge of the business, the products and the processes. Never assume.
Here are a few signs that the person doing the tasting does not work for the company. They have their nose buried in their phone. They are not actively engaging the customers or the staff in conversation. They have no knowledge of the product in general. They come into the store and have to borrow everything for the tasting (that one is for the liquor store employees).
We joke that the other distilleries send out good looking women to do their tastings while we, a woman owned distillery, send out our stable of good looking men, who know about the products and the processes involved in making them, because on any given day they are part of the process. It started out that way because there were only two of us that made up the business and the distiller was doing most of the tasting demos. Our first intern/employee was Alex, a woman, who later went on to graduate school then we hired our first full time employee, our marketing guy Sam, who now does most of the tastings. It just seemed to go on from there. We chose knowledge (and rugged good looks) over just good looks because I think people want to know about what they are drinking, the company and about the people who are making it. When was the last time you got to talk to the person who actually made your Spirits? Yes, our distiller still goes out and does tastings. Cheers!