WTF is Singani 63? Steven Soderbergh Tells Us
Words by Christina Dean
Traffic, Out of Sight, Erin Brockovich, Magic Mike, Ocean’s 11 (and 12 and 13), Solaris, Contagion, Logan Lucky, Singani 63….that last name might look out of place amongst Steven Soderbergh’s back catalogue but it shouldn’t. It’s a passion project that’s kept him occupied for over a decade and it has nothing to do with the movies – well, that’s not entirely true but more on that later.
Singani 63 is a spirit brand that Soderbergh has helped bring to market, and though you may not know what it is now (with the strapline ‘WTF is Singani 63?’, the marketing strategy leans heavily into that mystery), having tried it and spoken to the man himself about it, wider recognition won’t be far off.
Singani is the national spirit of Bolivia. Existing for around 500 years, it’s made from Muscat of Alexandria grapes high in the Bolivian Andes. It’s produced like a brandy or an eau de vie but it’s more floral and aromatic on the nose – the altitude gives the grapes a thicker skin, which imparts the flavour, so it tastes more like gin without the juniper. It’s also remarkably smooth, with none of the afterburn or “second swallow” that you experience with most spirits. Historically drunk neat, it’s also extremely versatile when it comes to cocktails; it can be used as a base spirit, it can split a base and help temper another spirit, and it can even be swapped out for dark spirits, something that’s particularly unusual for a clear liquid.
Singani 63 is produced in partnership with the Granier family and Casa Real, one of the leading singani producers in Bolivia, who have been distilling for over a hundred years. Made using single-estate grapes and double distilled in copper pots from France, Singani 63 (the number is the year of Soderbergh’s birth) has both a Designation of Origin and a Geographical Indication because it can only be produced in a specific area and at an altitude of 5250 feet. It’s also a Gold Medal Winner at the International Craft Spirit Fair, so this is serious stuff.
How on earth did an Oscar-winning American film director get involved with a spirit that had never been officially exported outside of Bolivia before? That’s where the movies come in. In Madrid in 2007, where Soderbergh was preparing to start production on his Che films, he was given a bottle of singani, sourced on the black market, by his Bolivian casting director. “He thought it would be a good present,” says Soderbergh. “He told me later he almost got me a t-shirt instead”. He was instantly hooked and soon set about creating a “mule train of singani that followed us throughout the shoot”, which went from Spain to Puerto Rico to Mexico before finishing in Bolivia.
His little operation gave many others working on the movies the singani bug as well, so it was suggested to him that he become an exporter/importer of singani in the US. “I had no idea what was involved to become an importer. It turns out it’s not simple,” he admits. “So that was a seven-year process to get us to market. We came to market in January 2014 in New York, and now we’re in year eleven.”
“This is never something I’d have done if I didn’t love the juice”
So Singani 63 is another celeb-backed booze brand? Yes and no. Yes Soderbergh is a famous person and he’s using his name to help market the brand but no, this is not a slap your face on the ad and cash the cheque situation. “I’ve been fortunate enough in my career to never have to do something for money, in fact, everything I’ve ever made I would have made for free, and sometimes I did! This is, especially now that I know what’s involved, this is never something I’d have done if I didn’t love the juice,” he explains. “I have a day job. This is something I pursued because in my opinion, and this is what I do all day at my regular work, is distinguish the ordinary from the exceptional and in my view, this was the best distilled spirit I’d ever tasted. If it wasn’t the case I wouldn’t be spending all this time and effort trying to convince people of that.”
He does acknowledge that his day job comes in rather handy for this endeavour. As he says, “there’s no question that narrative plays a central role in trying to bring a spirit to market and trying to convince the public to drink it. Because their first question, after ‘what the fuck is Singani 63?’, is ‘why should I drink this? What’s special about it?’” Luckily, there are several narrative threads he can pull on. There’s the story of the movement of the grapes, from Egypt to Spain to Southern Bolivia, and their ability to flourish in a difficult environment. There’s the story of the Granier family and Casa Real, and how they helped industrialise the production of singani, hitting sales of more than four million bottles a year across a number of labels. And there’s the story of his own discovery and entry into a new industry.
Soderbergh has already done an industrial film about Casa Real but he’s also been exploring other, fictional, filmmaking avenues for Singani 63. “I do want to use all of the experiences from trying to bring singani to market somehow but I think, for me, the best use is going to be a series, a fictionalised series about a young woman who tries to bring a brand new spirit to the marketplace,” he says. “I think that would be the best way to do it. It’s a fascinating business and I’ve never really seen it portrayed before.”
From award-winning dramas like The Bear to glossy documentaries like Chef’s Table to reality cooking competitions like MasterChef, the food industry has been mined extensively for our entertainment. There’s nowhere near as much content that reflects the drinks industry, certainly not in a serious way, which is interesting “because it’s very cinematic. You travel a lot, you meet interesting people, you’re in hotels and bars, a lot of it takes place at night. You could really dress it up in a fun, sexy show”.
The singani business may not have its own show yet but Singani 63 is no stranger to the silver screen. In fact, it’s carved out a bit of a niche as the spirit that’ll go where other brands won’t. There’s a bottle of it on Nick Dunne’s table in David Fincher’s Gone Girl and it has quite a prominent feature in an episode of Billions, which was created by two of Soderbergh’s friends and colleagues Brian Koppelman and David Levien (who wrote Oceans 13 and The Girlfriend Experience).
“I got this panicked phone call from them asking if I could send them half a dozen bottles to the set. They’re like, ‘we have this scene where one of our characters is drunk and has taken an automatic rifle out into his backyard and is trying to shoot these deer that had been bothering him, and nobody wants their brand associated with this scene’. And I thought, ‘sounds great!’ So we sent the bottles out there and they shot a giant close-up of the label,” he explains, to the point where the Showtime execs questioned the length of the shot. “So I got a lotta calls after that, ‘dude I saw your stuff’’.
As a filmmaker, he finds that using real brands in a movie or TV show helps to root in the real world but he’s had his own struggles with brands nervous to feature in something that doesn’t align with their image. As a brand owner, that’s something he’s working against. “I should take out an in one of the trade papers saying, ‘you got a killer on the loose? We are your spirit,” he jokes.
“There’s no question that narrative plays a central role in trying to bring a spirit to market”
If you want to see Singani 63 in real life, it’s officially on the UK market. “There was real receptivity here. Our experience from day one was mixologists and people who are very serious about spirits sparked to it immediately,” says Soderbergh. The brand is stocked in a real variety of places in London, including Hawksmoor (it’s in the Lychee Martini and it’s excellent), Bar Swift, TT, Nobu Portman Square, Dram Bar, Florattica, Dorian, The Natural Philosopher (where singani drinks tend to be bestsellers), and Archive & Myth at The Hippodrome (a nice tie-in as that’s where Magic Mike Live is playing). It’s also been on at The American Bar at The Savoy, which “was kinda great to be able to go in there and see that on the menu”.
Though he concedes being on this side of the industry, with skin in the game, has definitely changed – “I think the word you’re looking for is ruined!” – his experience of going to bars. “It’s been ruined. I used to love going to bars and restaurants, now it’s ruined. All I’m looking at is what’s on the back bar, what do they have in the well, what’s on the menu, why’s that on the menu. It’s terrible.”
But it’s all paying off. A year and a half ago, after an eight-year process, Soderbergh and the Singani 63 team managed to get Singani its own spirit categorisation in the US (work is underway to get the same category recognition in Europe). This is not something the authorities do lightly so it really was a momentous achievement, and it made front-page news in Bolivia. “As Luis Pablo Granier said when we were doing an interview together, somebody asked him, ‘what does this mean getting this category? What does it mean really?’ And he goes, ‘well it means for the first time we feel like somebody’s calling us by our proper name’,’’ explains Soderbergh. “Because as it is here, as you saw, you have to put these little stickers on our label that says brandy where in the US on the original label it now says singani. So for Luis Pablo to be looking at this bottle all those years and it says brandy, it really was like somebody not calling you by your correct name.”
The Steven Soderbergh name is intertwined with Singani 63 but he makes it clear that the brand “has to eventually take off the training wheels and go ride around on its own” without him. He is, however, reflective on his role in getting the spirit itself the attention it deserves via that category, saying “It’s at least one thing that I can point to that if I weren’t here, that wouldn’t have happened. There would still be singanis, there would still be Casa Real singani, and everything would be fine but if I hadn’t rolled up or if I was never born, that category would not have happened.” And he’s ebullient about its future, “I’ll go head to head with anybody, juice to juice.”
Find out more about Singani 63 here.
