After two years, Flair bartending was over, because then I discovered Le Bon Lion and was fascinated by the classic style of cocktail. Later, Eberhardt's in Hamburg was an important stop. Achim F. Eberhardt was a bar legend with his "Old Fashioned Bar." Then he turned it into "Eberhardt's" and I took care of the management, thus expanding my scope of activities and gaining new experiences. It was great and we were immediately nominated as the best "Newcomer Bar". Unfortunately, the bar was sold by the owner after only nine months for private reasons. Then I got my first brand ambassador function for St. Germain and together with Fabio Haebel I started my own business with 'Barwerk' as a bar school for events and training."
Baumann at Bacardi
Baumann then joined Bacardi almost six years ago and began his mission as brand ambassador for Patron Tequila. Before that, he always had close contact with Bacardi through Thorsten Husmann and Karim Fadl. When a brand ambassador position for the Bacardi and Bombay brands became vacant, the company invited Baumann to its Hamburg headquarters. The statement was then, "We can't give you the job!" Baumann stumbled briefly. But the explanation followed on its heels. He had answered the question about his favorite spirit with "rye whiskey". Well aware that such a spirit is not part of the Bacardi portfolio. So he followed up with, "And second place goes to tequila." And that's exactly what Bacardi wanted him for, as they wanted to activate their Patrón brand more strongly at the time. Germany seemed to be ready for tequila. Experts like Sven Sudeck and Tom Jakschas had paved the way for Tequila to develop from a drinking ritual distillate into a liquid delicacy. Baumann was happy to be on board.
Along the way, Marcel was always immensely busy and describes himself as a 'caterpillar never-ending': "I always needed something in addition to my job. A balance, a challenge. In the beginning it was flair bartending, then cI explored wakeboarding. When I do something, I really throw myself into it. On a drunken evening, I had the idea to get a fishing license. This resulted in the "Stickleback Fishing e. V." with 20 members and a job for a fishing magazine. Then, together with Jan Hrdlicka, I participated in a competition in the Netherlands and suddenly we were world champions in street fishing, a discipline where you fish from the shore with light gear."
The tequila stayed. For three and a half years, bartenders in Germany, Austria and Switzerland were able to experience Baumann as a passionate tequila ambassador. He likes to think about the time: "I had so much fun working with this brand. It was so exciting, because with tequila you don't knock down open doors everywhere. You have to do some convincing."
Then a whole new position was created for him, where he was targeted to help specialty retailers. Then disaster struck. A serious slipped disc prolapse knocked him off track.
