‘Craftsman bartenders’ push Italian spirits growth
If the Italian back bar was once considered a joke, it is now bouncing back in a bittersweet moment of triumph – driven by experimental bartenders pushing drinks boundaries, discovers Tom Bruce-Gardyne.
“Has Jimmy ‘Chainsaw’ McPhee been in?” Billy Connolly asks the barman in an old Not the Nine O’clock News sketch. “Wha’ aboot ‘Big Jock the Knee Cruncher’ or ‘Hacksaw Hegarty’?” he continues.
The barman shakes his head each time, and when Connolly is finally satisfied that the coast is clear he asks in a lisp: “Can I have a Campari and thoda, pleathe?”
That was in 1980, but even today there will be bars in Glasgow where it is probably wise to check out the clientele first. And there are still plenty of Scotsmen who couldn’t bring themselves to order a Campari, any more than wear one of those pastel cashmere V-necks beloved by Italians of a certain age. Elsewhere, however, from London to New York, Campari is on a roll, surfing the great Negroni wave.
Julka Villa, Gruppo Campari’s global senior director, Italian portfolio, claims the cocktail has been “absolutely key” to the brand’s success in the US. “The phenomenon began five years ago,” she says. “It really started as a bartender thing, and is now expanding to the end consumer to the point where, at the end of last year, we decided to launch the ‘Negroni ready-to-enjoy’.” A litre bottle retails for around US$40 and “for the time being, it’s doing very nicely”, says Villa.
“It is aimed at consumers who are not connoisseurs or that good at making cocktails at home, but who want the same quality they can find in their favourite bar,” she continues. “For us, it’s a way to strengthen the relationship between Campari and Negroni, more than being an exercise to push volumes.”
The brand’s US sales have doubled to around 100,000 cases in five years, according to Dave Karraker, VP for engagement and advocacy at Campari America. In January he told the Chicago Tribune that the growth was thanks to “the rise of bartenders as real craftsmen” and the fact “the palate in the US became more bitter”.
And not just in the US – Villa has spotted the same trend in the UK. “We are talking of products that require a bit more of an effort when you start drinking them, because you have to get your palate used to them,” she says. “For some years we’ve been seeing a growing interest towards everything that is bitter.”
The real boom market is Argentina, where “the brand is growing incredibly”, says Villa. While any decent bar from Buenos Aires to Mendoza will serve you a Negroni, most Argentinians drink Campari with freshly squeezed orange juice. The appetite for Italian spirits is huge in a country where 62% of the population is estimated to have some degree of Italian descent.
Leading the way is Fernet Branca, which has been locally produced since 1941 in the brand’s only distillery outside Milan. Until the early 1990s it was a mildly popular digestif and Argentine production hovered at around a million gallons a year. Occasionally it was prescribed to settle upset stomachs and mend broken hearts, while older folk would often spike their coffee with a few drops.
The brand owners realised they had to drag Fernet Branca outdoors and convince a younger generation to share it among themselves on the pavement bars as a long drink with Coke. The ‘Fernando’ or ‘Fernandito’ has virtually become the national drink of Argentina, and the ever- expanding distillery on the outskirts of Buenos Aires can barely keep up. As of 2013, according to the IWSR, production was 14.8m gallons and Argentina accounted for 75% of global sales.
With many spirits, particularly unmixed brown spirits, there is a certain pain barrier to overcome for first-time drinkers. Traditionally there was a ‘rite of passage’ with spirits like Scotch whisky before you could be admitted into the clan. However Scotch is as a soft drink next to that bitter, bilious first shot of Fernet Branca. Its intensely medicinal taste has prompted many to wonder what ails the Argentines so – whatever it is it must be bad. Yet it has been catching on among the world’s bartenders for some time.
Ian Melville, business development manager for its UK importer, Hi-Spirits, calls it “a brilliant brand”. He recently visited the Fratelli Branca distillery in Milan. “A former brand manager told us that ‘Fernet Branca is the truth: nobody likes the truth at first, but when they do it’s all they like’. When we get people to try it, they have to taste it more than once.” Arthur Motley, sales and purchasing director at Edinburgh’s Royal Mile Whiskies, echoes the sentiment, adding that “bartenders are obsessed with Fernet Branca”.
There is endless speculation about the drink’s secret recipe of 27 botanicals, with production reportedly accounting for 75% of the world’s saffron consumption. As well as its role as a pick-me-up for tired staff on a busy night, it is said to be a magical hangover cure known as the bartender’s handshake. Ask for it in any bar from Boston to Berlin, and you may well be taken in as a fellow member of the bartending society.
While Billy Connolly was having fun at Campari’s expense, actor Leonard Rossiter was doing the same to Cinzano, and being paid by the brand owners for the privilege in his comic duo with Joan Collins in a classic British TV campaign. Viewers loved the adverts but had trouble remembering the brand name apparently, and the effect was to boost sales of arch rival and market leader, Martini & Rossi, now owned by Bacardi. Yet in Britain and elsewhere, vermouth was a shadow of its pre-war self.
America embraced low-grade domestic brands after Prohibition when the supply of Italian while bar staff everywhere often neglected to look after it properly. Stale, open bottles stored like spirits behind the bar would do nothing positive to any cocktail they were added to. This merely hastened the drinks’ demise, added to which was the hoary old debate of how to make a dry Martini. If you followed Winston Churchill you wafted your gin in the general direction of France, while fans of Clark Gable’s 1958 film Teacher’s Pet simply wiped the cork of a vermouth bottle around the glass and filled it with gin. Either way, it didn’t do much for sales of vermouth.
But the renaissance of classic cocktails and vermouth’s rich history – the drink dates back to 1786 when it was invented by Antonio Benedetto Carpano in Turin – have helped rescue the category. Brands like Cocchi, Carpano Punto e Mes and Antica Formula – now owned by Fratelli Branca – and, of course Cinzano, which has been part of Campari’s stable since 1999, are definitely on the rebound.
“I think it happens many times when you have a brand with a long history, that when you jump a generation it’s the right moment to start again,” says Julka Villa. “There are two ways vermouth is coming back. One is in classic cocktails, and the other, which is very interesting, is neat or on the rocks where you can really understand and appreciate what it is.”
Villa talks of a triangular relationship between Italy, Spain and Argentina in terms of culture and shared history, and says: “In Spain we’re seeing exactly what we’ve seen in Argentina, where 25 to 40-year-olds are really getting into vermouth and sharing it with their friends.”
She believes the standing of Campari’s Italian portfolio in the domestic market is crucial. “We’re offering brands that are extremely credible, and are consumed and loved in Italy,” she says. “Being strong and recognised in the motherland is extremely relevant in my opinion.”
Helped by the resurgence of premium gin, the botanicals in these drinks clearly have an appeal, and when mixed in pre-dinner cocktails their lower strength also helps, according to Ian Melville. “People are looking for lower abv menus where you’ll see a spread of vermouths and amaros that can be the main element of a drink rather than a weighty spirit at 40% abv,” he says.
Indeed the runaway success of Aperol as a light 11% abv apéritif proves the point. Married to Prosecco as an Aperol Spritz, it is pure “sex in a glass” according to the Daily Mail; sales leapt 800% in Waitrose in 2014.
Aperol has done wonders for Campari, whose back bar contains such Italian delights as the artichoke-based Cynar or the hazelnut-infused Frangelico. All are waiting for their ‘Aperol moment’, as is Sambuca Molinari which has been breaking out of the traditional digestif market and is repositioning itself with a younger crowd.
Molinari’s Anna Maria Tarrus explains how the brand has been developing new cocktails like the Molijito, and building sales as a shot drink in nightclubs. Meanwhile Ilva Saronno has been collaborating with Italian fashion houses like Versace, and most recently Cavalli, and launched Disaronno Riserva in October 2014.
This hybrid expression with malt Scotch whisky aged in old marsala barrels took the amaretto category to new heights with a €300 (US$336) price tag. Whether it’ll ever catch on in Glasgow, I’m not so sure.
