Hire a mobile bar and you’ll often have the opportunity to customize your bar package with add-ons such as outdoor furniture, personalized glassware, themed props, garden games and signage.
Haily and Nick Dutton, owners of The Drunken Burro, have taken bespoke bar packages to a whole new level by allowing clients to hire a beautiful horse trailer bar as well as bottle service via burro!
The Drunken Burro Mobile Bar was born in 2019 and operates out of Yuba City, California. Farm owners, animal lovers and no strangers to event planning, Haily and Nick are perhaps the perfect pair to launch such a venture.
Haily filled us in on how the early days of The Drunken Burro unfolded.
“My now husband Nick and I were beginning to plan our own wedding and we had an old two horse trailer that wasn’t being used for our animals. So, I started to do some research and found that there weren't any mobile bars in our town or even the surrounding area. Nick is very handy and started to rebuild the trailer into the mobile bar that we both had started to envision. With the onset of the Covid pandemic, he was off work and had plenty of time to renovate!”
As you can see from the photos in this feature, Nick did an awesome job on the conversion. Wrapped in porcelain white, the trailer’s huge rear door and side windows open up to reveal dark, stained wood walls as well as cleverly positioned chalk board panels ready for custom messages.
Four taps allow for draft beer and other kegged drinks service. Wooden shelving set on a white tile backsplash hold the bottled spirit selection. Outside, the bar is flanked by aged barrels repurposed as cocktail tables.
All in all, The Drunken Burro delivers an aesthetic very much in keeping with its rustic, horse trailer roots.
A mobile horse trailer bar is one thing, but when were donkeys added into the mix?
“I had seen an article in a cowgirl wedding planning magazine that highlighted beer burros and I became obsessed”, Haily explained to us. “I was already in love with donkeys as we had rescued one a few years before from the Paradise fire. So, I started looking into buying miniature donkeys, and that's when I got our two Burros, Vino & Cerveza. From there things just took off! We had a few of our first clients take a chance with us and we were able to hit the ground running!”
The burros are certainly a hit with guests. Dressed up to match the theme of your event in anything from sombreros to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, to flower crowns for spring weddings, Vino and Cerveza are photogenic, versatile and practical.
Most commonly used to greet guests at cocktail hour, the donkey double act can carry signature cocktails (Moscow Mules are a favorite of course) or bottled drinks in their saddlebag pouches.
The burros have even recently trotted through the corporate offices of Red Bull for an employee event, delivering drinks from desk to desk.
“What we enjoy most about our mobile bar business are the clients and guests that we meet. Most of our customers have since become friends that we keep in touch with. We also love sharing our burros with everyone. Some of the people we’ve met have never been around a donkey before. We take the time to educate all who are interested. We also share facts and safety tips with younger guests.”
That’s right, The Drunken Burro isn’t just for adult events. Book the Pink Unicorn package and the mini donkeys will arrive complete with unicorn horns, carrying non-alcoholic mocktails in their saddlebags. That's a children's birthday party that will live long in the memory!
So, what’s next for the Dutton’s and their most unique of mobile bar businesses?
“Our plan for The Drunken Burro is to keep growing whilst maintaining the quality we pride ourselves on. This year we look forward to new opportunities, we hope to book more of a variety of events, and to just keep pushing forward with building the company.”
The horse trailer bar and mini burros can be booked together or separately, with satellite bars and add-ons such as a giant LOVE sign also available.
Popular wedding month weekends in April, May, September, and October are filling up fast in both 2022 & 2023 so the couple recommend reaching out as soon as possible if you think your guests would enjoy a cold beer (or mocktail) served by a burro or two!
You can contact The Drunken Burro mobile bar via Roll To here.
Thanks so much to Haily and Nick for speaking to us and for allowing us to showcase their mobile bar business. We wish them (and their growing family) all the best for the future!
Find more Drunken Burro event photos below as well as on Instagram here.
