Lights, Camera, Singani It Was While Filming Che That Steven Soderbergh First Tasted the Smooth, Spare Bolivian Spirit

COCKTAILS Lights, camera, singani It was while filming Che that Steven Soderbergh first tasted the smooth, spare Bolivian spirit. Soon afterwards, he became a global distributor. By Scott Snowden. Illustration André Carrilho he spirits of South Soderbergh says that after that interesting producers like America underpin first sip his “goal thereafter became Steven Soderbergh, like Pete many classic figuring out how [the casting [Nevenglosky] who owns Avuá cocktails. Cachaça, director] could keep me supplied Cachaça [in Brazil], going to the from Brazil, has been for the next five months of the distilleries and finding great things in vogue for years (it’s shoot – I was that enamoured, that and bringing it into the States.” Tthe base for caipirinhas) and is one fast. We would literally drink it The feedback Soderbergh has of the most widely drunk spirits in every night, just with ice, while received from bartenders such as the world. Peru’s pisco is frothily we were editing. Then a few people Meehan and Kaplan has been popular in the form of pisco sours. started suggesting the idea of extremely positive. “[It’s] not Now it’s singani, from Bolivia, that importing it.” anything I ever would have is hoping to shake things up. Soderbergh bought the considered when I got in on this, The cocktail and drinks international distribution rights which is what is the practical professionals who gathered in and renamed the drink Singani 63, application of singani for a New Orleans this summer for after the year he was born. Having bartender? Because I was just their industry confab, Tales of the shipped 250 cases to the US, he drinking it on the rocks, and I was Cocktails, were joined by a singani then hired a brand management never even thinking what else advocate of surprising extraction. company. “That three-hour meeting should you be able to do with it. Film director and producer was terrifying,” Soderbergh says, It’s incredibly flexible. You can Steven Soderbergh, who first “because I got a more in-depth use it to replace vodka, rum, gin, came across the drink while view of what’s actually involved in whisky, you can swing it in all filming the biopic Che, owns global starting to try and get a brand going these different directions.” distribution rights to the biggest in New York. I knew we just had Soderbergh notes that the brand of the drink – a sideline to get on with it – you’ve got to go Bolivian climate gives the spirit a that predates his self-confessed to one place and start small.” clean, spare taste: “You got really disenchantment with Hollywood. Soderbergh’s sales manager got hot sun during the day, really cold (He told this magazine in 2013: a sample to Jim Meehan, legendary temperatures at night. I feel like it’s “I’ve seen a shift in why people go mixologist and the man behind the pulling out those harsher notes and to the movies. They’re moving speakeasy-themed Please Don’t Tell so that was the thing that stunned toward an attitude of: I want it all cocktail bar in Manhattan’s me about it. I’m used to drinking spelled out and tied up at the end.”) hard liquor straight or on the rocks, Soderbergh recalls his first taste: ‘My goal became and this was like, ‘Where’s the “During the start-up party for Che burn? There’s no burn.’” in Madrid in the summer of 2007, figuring out Singani 63 has so far made it to my Bolivian casting director how to keep more than half a dozen cocktail bars presented me with a bottle of Casa supplied for the across Manhattan and Los Angeles Real singani. He tells me it’s the and one or two in San Francisco. national drink of Bolivia and that next five months “Our approach is to go city by city. he has a family connection to the of the shoot’ And so when we’ve talked about distillery. I used to be a vodka outside of the US, we haven’t talked drinker, which I’d drink straight, bohemian St Mark’s Place, famous about countries, we’ve talked about on the rocks, but this was smoother for being “that one you enter London. That would seem to be the than anything I’d had before.” through the phone booth”. next place.” Made from white Muscat of “That was the first time I’d ever As they did in the US cities, Alexandria grapes, singani is a even heard of singani, let alone Soderbergh and his team will look pomace brandy produced in the tried it,” says Meehan. “It reminded in London for someone with “the Bolivian Andes. First made in the me of an elegant Peruvian pisco right kind of reputation” to frame 16th century shortly after the and when I heard about the story the Bolivian newcomer “in the right Spanish arrived in South America, behind it, bringing it in became way”. In the drinks business as in singani is apparently christened for a no-brainer. It’s a very versatile the film industry, Soderbergh values a pre-Columbian village of the same ingredient and we now feature it in the luxury of independence: “No name near the mission that first a cocktail called the Hanami.” one is over my shoulder; we’ll go to distilled it. The vineyards from Please Don’t Tell is not the only the places that matter and make which it is made must be planted bar in New York using singani. sure we do that right. The business at an elevation of 5,250ft or higher. David Kaplan, co-owner of Death model is to get through enough Its character and production & Co in Manhattan’s East Village, cases to where I’m not losing methods are closer to those of eau- says: “[South American spirits are] money. We don’t have to do crazy de-vie but it’s classified as a brandy the next big thing. They’re very numbers to become sustainable, for international distribution. cool and we’re seeing some very and that’s all I want.” 6 ft.com/magazine october 10/11 2015 30.

Load more