How to sell sherry to Gen-Z, and other spirits breakthroughs
The last 12 months have been full of challenges, although the one that’s been on the mind of Tim Holt is how to sell fine sherry to Gen-Z.
“There’s a dual image of sherry with the young,” he says. “You have the OAP association, especially with standard supermarket sherry offerings. But at the same time a number of younger people know sherry from their travels and associate it with Spain’s lively bar and tapas culture. The word ‘sherry’ itself has these old-fashioned connotations but we may be at a stage where it sounds so old-fashioned it has retro appeal, making it interesting to hipster cocktail bars.”
Holt, who works for Spanish sherry producer Barbadillo, thinks he may have come up with a surprisingly simple solution in Ataman Vermut: “We have made an insanely good sherry-based vermouth to help convert people. When I first tasted it I thought it would make a very good Negroni,” says Holt. “But actually it is in itself a Negroni. You don’t have to do anything, just add a block of ice and a slice of orange and away you go!”
Barbadillo is based in Sanlucar de Barrameda, which makes up one side of Spain’s Sherry Triangle, the others being Jerez and El Puerto de Santa Maria. The vermouth is the result of a happy accident: it’s been aged in sherry casks since 1970, looked after by the bodega workers but without management being aware of its existence.
“About four years ago a colleague of mine came across them along with some old tonic wine (‘Quina’ from quinine) and did a limited bottling of these purely for vermouth fanatics in Spain. We then decided to do a proper new vermouth based on these. Also, importantly, a little bit of the old vermouth and tonic wine is blended into the new version, which has a Manzanilla base.”
If you’re looking for something even more unusual than Ataman Vermut, seek out Fractal 2.0, a collaboration between Michelin-starred chef Anne-Sophie Pic and Audemus Spirits, is a uniquely flavoured digestif that can happily replace cognac or whisky in a cocktail. According to its makers, it “breaks away from traditional categories” and is “unbridled by rules”. Combining rose geranium eau-de-vie with cold-infused coffee, it’s the creation of Audemus’ Australian distiller Miko Abouaf, one of a new generation of drinks disruptors specialising in experimental hybrid booze.
Abouaf says his work is “a ceaseless search for poetry…. at the cross-roads between distilling, perfumery and chemistry.” This takes him to some strange places, with his Umami Spirit including Parmesan cheese. Abouaf says his hand-crafted spirits are born from a desire to combine modern techniques with traditional methods, and his research involved an 80-day journey around France on an old postman’s bike.
“It’s about moving away from the rule books. For consumers who are open minded and want to experiment and try something different, you can offer them something unique. You can produce a spirit which could look like tea in a bottle, but then surprise the consumer with complex flavours. It’s a very fun process”
For Umami that process also involved experimenting with ingredients including capers, sun dried tomatoes and mushrooms, all from a makeshift laboratory in his living room. The future is now, people.