SPIRITS NICHE: Acquired Tastes

Fringe players like shochu and cachaça are gaining more followers thanks to the marvellous medium of mixology. Barmen love new products and they love to talk. Alice Lascelles reports

Some people argue that niche spirits are niche for a good reason – because they taste awful. But probe a bit further and what it generally boils down to is the fact that these spirits are not bad, they’re just a little misunderstood. Whether it’s shochu from Japan or cachaça from Brasil, most of the spirits below are united by the fact that the majority of Brits wouldn’t have a clue what to do with them once they got them home. That, or these products depend on a single serve – be it a shooter or a hard-to-pronounce signature cocktail – which helps them get a foot in the door but no further.

But it is possible to shed the “niche” tag, as tequila has shown – and the on-trade plays a key part in this. There’s no better person to tell your story than a bartender, particularly if you lack the financial muscle for more mainstream marketing. And as the cocktail market continues to flourish, mixologists are increasingly looking to more niche spirits
for inspiration.

The UK trend for premiumisation has also pushed many niche spirits to up their game and introduce more top-end offerings in an attempt to attract the attention of the connoisseur who might traditionally have sought out a single malt or an XO Cognac.

Meanwhile, the rise of online retailing has offered more hard-to-find products a whole new route to market, while a growing interest in international cuisine has helped to buoy categories including shochu and grappa.
So which spirits will be trying to make their way into the mainstream in 2007?

Sambuca and grappa
One of the biggest success stories in niche spirits right now is sambuca. This is mainly thanks to the shooter market, a third of which is sambuca, which leaped an impressive 14% in the 12 months to May 2006 (ACNielsen).

At the top of the tree is Luxardo, with 72% of the market and current annual growth of around 20%. “Shots have always been popular, in the 1990s it was tequila but since 2000 it’s been sambuca,” says Catherine Rigby, marketing manager for Luxardo’s UK distributor, Cellar Trends. “People like it for the sweet aniseed flavour and the simple serve.”

Multi-award-winning mixologist Jamie Stephenson agrees: “It’s not a challenge to drink, it transcends gender – and there’s not that many spirits you can say that about.”

In an attempt to cash in on sambuca’s burgeoning popularity, the market leaders have also chosen this year to launch a number of flavoured sambucas and sambuca-based line extensions. Back in the spring, Luxardo introduced Sour Apple and Limoncello varieties, “mainly as ingredients for cocktails like the Apple Martini,” says Rigby.

Antica Sambuca, meanwhile, is now rolling out Apple and Orange & Mango variants for the shot market.
The ubiquitous black sambuca Opal Nera, distributed by Inspirit, has kept itself in double-digit growth by playing up sambuca’s racy side, populating a variety of parties and events with its S&M-clad “Opalette” girls. “Shooters get a lot of bad press, but a shot needn’t be a punishment,” says Inspirit’s Maria Aller, rather fittingly. At the same time, sambuca’s more sober Italian stablemate, grappa, has been arousing the interest of the UK’s off-trade. Earlier this year, Sainsbury’s took the decision to list the riserva version of Italy’s best-selling premium grappa, Nardini, in 176 of its UK stores. Priced at £12.99 for a half-bottle, it was aimed at fans of Jamie Oliver and the River Café Cookbook who fancied going the extra mile at a mediterranean-style dinner party.

Several months down the line, Nardini importer Nick Hopewell-Smith says sales have been “consistent rather than spectacular, but it is clear that there are now a substantial number of consumers repurchasing, which is gratifying.”

But the on-trade has been a harder nut to crack. Like just about everyone else, Hopewell-Smith hopes to get his products onto the cocktail list, but bartender Michael Butt sounds a sceptical note on this front: “I think the flavours are too hectic for most people. I like some of the slightly sweeter ones and aged ones but there are so many more spirits which are more inclusive.”

At London style bar and restaurant Aurora, meanwhile, Italian manager Alessandro Palazzi has been making valiant efforts to push super-premium grappas as a digestif to no avail: “They are wonderful products, but people are just not interested. I have had some of these bottles on the trolley for two years…”

Absinthe

Barely a year goes by without absinthe being heralded by some misguided journalist as the next big thing. The next vodka it will never be, but absinthe nonetheless looks set for some interesting developments in 2007.

Off-trade leader La Fée, which already offers both French and Czech-style absinthes, will be launching two new superpremium offerings targeted at the XO market. Classed as “extra-superieure”, La Fée XS Francaise and La Fée Suisse are hand-crafted, small-batch absinthes designed to be drunk in the traditional way – with sugar and water – with an online RRP of around £45 for 50cl. “We do a lot of business online,” says George Rowley, MD of La Fée’s owner BBH Spirits. “We expect to sell around half a million pounds’ worth online this year, exporting to over 20 countries in three continents,” he adds.

Meanwhile, the core La Fée brands are flourishing; Rowley says a distribution with niche spirit specialists Cellar Trends has seen sales jump 40% in the last 12 months. A new deal with student union body NUSEL, which has taken on both standard varieties at a special lower ABV of 45%, also kicks in this winter.

The reduced ABV versions of La Fée allow for a lower price-point, but were also created to give a “softer” introduction to what is often considered a rather racy spirit, says Rowley. “We take responsible drinking very seriously. Our packaging comes with written and visual instructions, and we put a lot of energy into making sure it is served correctly in bars. The thing is if you serve absinthe correctly it should be at about 12% ABV, but with a punch that’s herbal rather than alcoholic. It’s a product you dilute and it’s important to get that across.”

Jeremy Hill, MD of Hi-Spirits, the drinks company founded on on-trade leader Sebor Absinthe, believes the green spirit is now starting to overcome its image problems: “Operators are beginning to realise that absinthe is not the bogeyman. Among  consumers there is also now a trend towards more challenging spirits – you can see that in the growth of brands like Jägermeister.”

Sebor has been in continuous growth for the last five years, says Hill, mainly thanks to the rise of shooters; the vast majority of the 120,000 bottles of Sebor sold in the UK last year were consumed as a shot. “So, following a rebranding this December, we’ll be trialling a new machine which serves Sebor in shots chilled to -16C,” says Hill. “Sebor will definitely be the main focus for Hi-Spirits in 2007.”

Cachaça
Top-end bartenders will tell you that cachaca’s signature drink, the Caipirinha, had its day in the UK four or five years ago. While that may be the case in the rarefied world of style-bars, the drink’s key ingredient, Cachaça, has yet to register on the UK’s consciousness. Now, however, the boom in rum, cachaça’s sugar-cane cousin, suggests that brighter times may lie ahead.

That, at least, is the hope of the folks at Sagatiba, the cachaca brand which made a very splashy entry into the UK in 2005, one year after it was created.

“Our goal with Sagatiba is to focus on creating a strong brand and develop the category to become a true global spirit,” says director for international markets, Lucas Rodas, who, to date, has taken the Brazilian brand into markets including Italy, Norway, Germany and global duty free.

After an on-trade launch, Sagatiba hit the off-trade towards the end of last year, and Rodas claims sales for 2005/6 leapt 1,200%. Certainly Sagatiba, with its strong, almost vodka-like packaging, is now a common sight on back bars around London. Rodas, however, insists that they are not trying to emulate the vodka category: “We do not market Sagatiba as vodka or as any other white spirit. Sagatiba is the ‘Pure Spirit of Brazil’ … this is at the heart of our marketing strategy.”

Nonetheless, he admits that Sagatiba has had to entertain some very un-Brazilian serves in order to expand its market in the UK: “We are also suggesting people try our hot cocktails to combat the British climate this winter!”

Another common sight on the back bar is Germana, which has adopted an entirely different strategy to Sagatiba. Available in two-year-old and 10-year-old expressions, and wrapped in banana leaves from the estate where it is distilled, Germana is targeting the connoisseur. It sticks firmly to more traditional serves such as the Batida, Caipirinha or as an after-dinner digestif sipped neat in places such as the Dorchester’s China Tang restaurant.

According to Harry Georgiou, head of Germana’s distributor, Amathus Wines, off-trade is still limited to outlets such as Harvey Nichols, Selfridges or online, where the 10-year-old goes for as much as £50 a bottle. But he remains optimistic that the brand can build on its 20% year-on-year growth in the UK since, “It is Brazil’s answer to rum!”

For Michael Butt, creator of rum-based menus for Trailer Happiness and the newly opened Mahiki in Mayfair, the Caipirinha also makes great business sense: “It’s a great way to serve drinks quickly and cost-effectively, definitely. And although people may make that grappa face when you suggest they try it, I think most people actually like a Caipirihna.”

Shochu
It may be only a twinkle in the UK on-trade’s eye, but the Japanese spirit shochu has started cropping up on cocktail lists around the capital. Half the strength of vodka, and attributed with all kinds of health-giving properties, it has found particular favour with the healthy-living, sushi-eating set. The huge variety of natural flavourings such as shiso (red basil) and yuzu (a sherbety citrus fruit), also make it suited to sipping neat, hot, or in cocktails. And in Tokyo it has risen in recent years from being the drink of old men to overtake vodka as the spirit of choice among young hipsters.

“Over here we are normally about 10 years behind the trends in Asia, so I definitely expect to see interest in shochu growing,” says Benoit Dulche, sales manager for Tazaki Foods, Europe’s largest supplier of Japanese food and drink to the on- and off-trade. A key client for Tazaki has been the Shochu Lounge, Tony Conigliaro’s bar which opened to great acclaim in London’s West End last year, but Dulche says interest is now spreading further afield to cities including Manchester.

Off-trade distribution, however, remains the preserve of a handful of specialists and online retailers. “Packaging is still a big problem, as it’s generally all in Japanese,” says Dulche. “And I don’t think it will change in the near future because there are hundreds of different types of shochu, Japanese is hard to translate, and if, say, I order 100 bottles of one type for two or three restaurants from little brewers you can’t expect them to change the packaging. But I am trying to get them to improve the information that comes with the bottle.”

But if the rise of sake is anything to go by – Selfridges has just opened a new department dedicated to the stuff – a change in the fortunes of shochu cannot be far behind. 

© db November 2006