LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Heine Brothers Coffee in Louisville is celebrating one passionate barista at its Clifton shop.

Adam Hill might be the Louisville coffee chain’s best salesperson, however, he’s usually not pitching coffee. Rather, convinced more than 1,000 customers that what they actually want is an ice-cold cup of milk.

Hill works to brighten every customer’s day, and hundreds of times, he’s done that with his favorite drink.

“I’ve been in love with it ever since I was a kid,” Hill said of milk.

As an adult, Hill single-handedly kept milk sales high at several area coffee shops, including the one where he now works.

He eventually applied to be a barista at Heine Brothers since he spent so much time there and says the work baristas do is work they can be proud of.

However, once he was behind the counter, Hill noticed he was mostly just selling coffee, other drinks, and pastries.

“My coworkers, I asked them one time, like, ‘How many milks do we sell on a single day?’ And they were like, ‘Well, Adam, now that you work here, none.’ And I basically said, ‘I’ve got to change that,’” he smiled.

Hill began perfecting his pitch, asking customers after they order what they came in for, if they’d also like to buy a refreshing cup of milk. He encourages them it’s a great option and that the numbers speak for themselves, since he’s already sold so many cups.

Hill is a classic 2% milk guy himself, but doesn’t discriminate against dairy-free customers, offering oat, almond and soy options. He also learned he could sell more milk if he offered it, with flavoring usually reserved for coffee.

“I try to do it based on like, what they order,” he explained, detailing why he likes to take people’s coffee orders before making the milk pitch, “So if it’s oat milk, I’ll always pitch oat milk. If it’s almond, I’ll pitch almond. And, kind of like the flavoring, I’ll just kind of take a random guess sometimes and sometimes if I’m wrong, I’ll attempt a second time, and if the second time’s not the charm, I’ll just back off on the sale.”

Enough times, however, it worked. Hill was often selling 30 or more cups of day during the summer, eventually reaching his lofty goal of selling a thousand.

“I never thought something this funny would turn into something that was not a joke,” he smiled, saying he hopes his feat encourages others to go for a big goal.

His success is also a win for Heine Brothers. At $3 to $4 a cup, Hill has made the company thousands of extra dollars in milk sales alone.

As the weather gets colder, Hill is already scheming about how he’ll grow his sales skills further.

“Hot chocolate is basically chocolate milk that’s warm, and I think it would be a fun challenge,” he smiled.