That Time I Had a Drink With Steven Soderbergh
The Oscar winner loves Chicago and came here to promote Singani63, a 500-year-old Bolivian spirit.
I don’t often find myself sitting across the table from an Academy Award winner. Sure, I’ve interviewed plenty of celebrities and notable folks, but an Oscar winner? I can’t say I ever have. That is until acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh pulled up a chair and we started chatting. We didn’t get together to talk about his upcoming projects. Or him working with some of the biggest stars in the world. We simply chatted about a 500-year-old Bolivian spirit called singani.
When Soderbergh was in Bolivia in 2007 filming “Che,” the movie about Argentinean revolutionary Che Guevara, starring Benicio del Toro, someone introduced him to this national spirit of Bolivia. As a vodka drinker — dirty Ketel One martinis to be exact — he immediately noticed something different and wanted more.
For the next six months, he and his crew drank this aromatic, floral, flavorful spirit distilled from Muscat of Alexandria grapes grown high in the Bolivian Andes (at a minimum of 5,250 feet above sea level). Toward the end of shooting, someone suggested he import singani into the U.S. and Soderbergh found himself with a new career and Singani63 was born.
The U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) classified it as a brandy, similar to Peruvian pisco. But early in 2023, years after Soderbergh applied for and appealed to the TTB, singani got its own designation. He came to Chicago — one of Singani63’s top markets — to celebrate and promote it.
Singani has shown to be a versatile spirit and bartenders across America have helped promote it in a range of cocktails from classics like a Martini, Daiquiri, or Sazerac as well as their own originals. It can sit in for vodka, gin, bourbon, tequila, and other spirits. In fact, Soderbergh hopes singani will one day be considered the eighth base spirit.
Over a couple of Bee-Flys, a Singani63 riff on the classic Bee’s Knees with Q Hibiscus Ginger Beer, lime, and gomme sirop, Soderbergh and I chatted about his first reaction to tasting singani, growing the brand, discouraging anyone from entering the liquor business, his favorite restaurant anywhere, and more.
Chatting with Oscar-winner Steven Soderbergh
So the TTB finally gave Singani its own designation after lobbying for what, like eight years? What took them so long and why are you hyping it now?
Steven Soderbergh: Actually, I would argue it happened faster than it could have because when I reached out to Steve Luttmann who created Leblon Cachaça, they petitioned to get their own category. That was a 10-year process. And we actually followed his template, which was to create a reciprocal recognition of Tennessee whiskey and Kentucky bourbon in Bolivia. That’s what he did with cachaca. So I feel like as long as it took, and it felt like a long time, we actually were 20% earlier.
But it's a huge moment in the brand because we've been saying for eight years to mixologists and consumers this is its own thing. When somebody says, what's it like, and you say, well, it's not really like anything, they just think that's just a pitch. So to have the U.S. government go, “No, it's its own thing,” is a big deal. It will have a huge ripple effect, not just in terms of the U.S., but globally. Everybody's looking to the U.S. when it comes to categorization. And this means you'll probably get a category in Europe, we'll probably get a category in Asia. For us, it was a watershed moment.
So does it frustrate you then, because they were calling it a brandy. People were saying it's like pisco. Singani is its own spirit that's been around for 500 years, yet the TTB is still saying it's still sort of like a brandy.
SS: Well, no, they're not saying that. They've given us our own lane. We have our own lane in the same way that pisco has its own lane. And cachaça has its own lane. We have our own lane. It is a distinct category type. We're getting into the weeds here, but I want to be clear. We now have an approved label that says singani that used to say brandy. That's a big thing. Binny's is now going to have to have a shelf that says singani instead of putting the brand wherever they had us.
Luis Pablo Granier, the CEO of Casa Real, our distiller, which is a fourth generation family owned business, described this when we were at Bar Convent Brooklyn a few months ago when somebody asked him, what does it mean to get this category recognition from the U.S.? And he said, “It's like somebody's been calling you by the wrong name your whole life, and now finally they're calling you by your correct name.” And I thought he put it exactly right.
I heard you on the “Smartless” podcast a few weeks ago where you …
SS: Oh no, I don't even remember what I said.
You adamantly dissuaded anybody from getting into the liquor business.
SS: If I can do one thing on this earth <laughs>, it would be to discourage anybody from getting into the business.
OK, so that being said, now that you have the designation, what's your ultimate goal for Singani63? What do you want it to be?
SS: What I want it to be is recognized as — however many base spirits you consider there to be, let's say seven — I want singani to be considered an eighth base spirit. That's number one. The second is, at some point, I want to grow the brand to where I have a partner. I don't want to be bought out. I didn't get in this to make money. I got into it because I think it's unique. And I felt like if I had the reaction to this spirit that I had, other people can, and it seems unfair that it's locked into Bolivia. Literally landlocked. Which I should have known, because the second Che film has that as a central plot element.
But I didn't think about it in the booze context. When we started actually talking about how to get it out of there. And I was like, oh no, there's no port. I totally forgot that. But honestly, my ultimate goal is to hook up with a partner who has an infrastructure that I can use to escalate this. I also want to be clear to those potential partners, this is hard to make. This is a bespoke spirit. There is a finite amount of singani that can be made to the standards by law that it has to be made in a calendar year. This is not beer. We are never going to do the volume that a tequila can do. I'm in a weird netherworld of having something that's special, but that ultimately definitely has a ceiling.
What is the annual production? How much can you do in a year?
SS: Right now, Casa Real, our distiller, has just doubled the size of their facility in anticipation of this becoming bigger. Currently they sell about four million bottles of singani a year in Bolivia. So look, if it works, we're gonna push right up to the edge of how much good singani you can make in a year. But Casa Real is ready. I've talked to them about this. I ask, if this blows up, what can we do? How fast can you do it? They're ready. In fact, now they've kind of pushed it back in my court going, “Well, we just doubled the size of our company. Get out there and sell it.”
It's kind of cool though that you've made your name as an indie filmmaker, and now you're an indie spirits maker. You want it to become the eighth base spirit, along with vodka, tequila, and gin. So do you recommend people to have it more in a cocktail or having it on the rocks? What's your favorite way to have it?
SS: It really depends on your tastes. I drink it on the rocks — a big rock and singani. Given what has been done with it by the mixology community since we went to market, our narrative has been this is the most versatile spirit on the planet. There is no other base spirit you can make all these cocktails with. We have a booklet that we created of 24 of the classic cocktails that exist in which singani is either the base or a modifier to make that cocktail. So to your point, there are these two different trajectories of accessibility and versatility.
Someone earlier today described singani as egoless. They said it seems to have this ability to find its place in a cocktail that is like, “If I just need to be over here, I'll just be over here. If you need me to sing solo on a verse, I'll do that.” It just seems to have an ability to play well with others. But you've gotta get to the consumer who is ordering a vodka soda. How do you convert them?
So we created this campaign we're testing in certain markets. It's funny.
“What the fuck is Singani63?” Because that is the question that's hanging in the air, right? And we're like, OK, let's just embrace that. And we're not a corporation, so we can create a campaign that is …
A little bit dirty?
SS: <laughs>. Well, yeah. But I think when I see brands advertised in a way that's serious, I always go, “Why? Drinking is supposed to be fun.” I've always wanted the brand to make you smile, and I've always wanted anything we're putting out there to be fun, cheeky, and avoid the obvious. That's how I've built my whole career.
When you were in Bolivia shooting “Che” in 2007, somebody said, “Here, try this.” What was it about singani that captured your attention?
SS: I was a lifelong vodka drinker. I was a Ketel One dirty martini drinker. That was my thing. So when I tasted this, there was a three-stage reaction. First, I'm not used to there being a bouquet. That was new. And it's a really pleasing bouquet. Then I tasted it and I was like, “Wow, I'm getting a lot of notes here, a lot of different notes. The longer it's in my palate, the more notes I'm getting. It arrives like this, then it moves to that.” I was like, this is really interesting. Like this is really complicated.
And then I swallowed it and there was no burn. And it kind of vanished. My experience of a spirit at that ABV level was, there's always a second swallow or a shudder or shiver. I felt this just checked boxes I didn't even know you could check. I didn't go from there to wanting to become an importer/exporter. It took six months of shooting the two “Che” films in which I and the camera department and the editorial department were drinking singani every night. Then people started telling me I should take this out of Bolivia. And this is where naivete, which in most contexts is a bad thing, turned out to be a good thing in the sense that I was like, OK, why not?
I've been in bars and restaurants and have seen all those bottles. So how hard can it be? Which was a really stupid context to apply to this. That’s like saying there are a lot of cars out there, how hard can it be to bring a car into the market? That’s how stupid that thinking was, but I went ahead anyway. I applied to the U.S. government to become an importer/exporter. I had to send them a sample. They gave us the brandy category, which I didn't understand, but there was no choice. We got a label and suddenly there were 252 packs in a warehouse in New Jersey. Now it's getting serious. Like really serious. And I have to figure out what I’m doing. I've got to hire a brand manager and salespeople. And I’m making this up as I go.
Did you ever take a step back and ask, “What am I doing? Why am I doing this? Do I really want to be doing this?” Or were you full steam ahead the whole time?
SS: <laughs>? No. I ask every day. I was on a plane this morning flying here to a market where we're doing really well. It's one of our best markets. And I've shot four movies here. I love Chicago. But I'm still going, “What is this?” It’s like a campaign that you're staging to run for something, but the election is never actually going to happen.
At the same time, I really like turning people onto it. I never get tired of people having the reaction that I did and going, “I've never tasted anything like this.” That never gets old. Whenever I have those moments asking, “What am I doing? This just takes up so much real estate in my life.” But every time I come to a market and I talk to people and go to an amazing account where people behind the bar are doing incredibly creative things with this, it’s worth it. That never gets old.
That's exciting. I mean, it's got to be like when you get a good reception for one of your films, right?
SS: This is kind of better than that because that can be manipulated. You can't manipulate something somebody's going to put in their mouth. You can convince somebody through advertising and reviews that this show is amazing. You kind of get hypnotized and all your friends are like, “The show's amazing!” But if you're talking about something you're going to drink, you can have the best advertising campaign in the world. If it doesn't taste good at some level, they're going, “I don't like it.”
Exactly, but they might tell you they do, like people will tell you they like your movie.
SS: But they're not gonna buy it again, they're not gonna order it again.
Quick-fire Round with Steven Soderbergh
When you’re not drinking Singani63, what’s your go-to spirit?
SS: Well if I'm not able to construct a Potemkin Village in which Singani63 is available all around me, I will either do a dirty martini or blanco tequila.
What music are you currently listening to? Any favorite bands? New or old?
SS: <laughs> Let me do a little Binny's shout out. And, because this has never happened to me in a business that sells booze. As I was walking from the area where we did the podcast to here, I heard a song over the loudspeakers I thought was really interesting. So I Shazammed it. And so that's what I've been listening to.
The XX? Were you not familiar with them before?
SS: I am, but not that particular song. But to go into a place like this and hear that over the loudspeaker, that's not normal. So good on them.
What's the last good book you read?
SS: Well, I can tell you right now …
<laughs> I love that you're pulling out your phone to show me your Kindle.
SS: I just finished this right here.
“Ripe: A Novel” by Sarah Rose Etter. Okay. I'll check it out.
SS: That's the last thing I read and it was great.
Other than your own, what recent movies have you loved?
SS: Over the weekend, I just saw “Oppenheimer” and I know Chris — or Christopher [Nolan], however he wants to be referred to. And I'm a huge fan of his and just really happy for him. It's a really good movie. I hope that the success of that and “Barbie,” which is made by another auteur filmmaker who came up through the independent world just as Chris did, sends a message. This is how we bring people back to movie theaters. I hope that's the sort of fallout of these two movies blowing up.
They first have to deal with that little issue of the strike going on, but we're not gonna talk about that <laughs>.
SS: It's a smart movie made for grownups and it's blowing up and this is a good thing.
What have you binged lately that you loved?
SS: On streaming? Other than my own shows? <laughs>
Yeah, do you watch anything else? <laughs>
SS: Sometimes? Hmm, what did I binge recently that I watched?
There's so much TV.
SS: There's so much! I've been watching “Quarterback.” It's a doc sports series that covers three quarterbacks over the last year in the NFL. It's great. Their job is a lot harder than mine, but they're not dissimilar. So I was into it.
Yeah. as the director, you are kind of the quarterback.
SS: Yeah, exactly. But, I don't have a 300-pound defensive lineman.
You could. Ok, favorite vacation destination?
SS: Turks and Caicos.
Favorite restaurant — and what are you eating?
SS: In the world? Wow.
If you want to localize it. Do you live in LA?
SS: No, I live in New York. OK, it’s not a restaurant, it's a pizza parlor. It’s a family-owned place called Il Mattone. It's two blocks from our apartment in New York on Beach Street in Tribeca. That's my favorite. If you said tomorrow there's only one place you're allowed to order food from, it would be Il Mattone.
What's your go-to pizza?
SS: Just regular cheese.
Wow. Cheese pizza. Awesome. Lastly, uh, if you could pick any two or three people to sit around and drink Singani63 with and have a great conversation, who would that be?
SS: Somebody I've never met. New people who are tasting it for the first time and I'm asking what they think. Yeah, two or three new people. That’s how you get the story out, you know?
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Chicago's Woo Lady
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Little Stories by Maggie Hennessy
You’ve read her words in Time Out, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, Food52, Salon and more. You heard her voice alongside mine on the Overserved podcast. Now my very dear friend, close confidant and constant source of inspiration and gut-busting laughs has launched her own newsletter. While she has only put out one officially — about her time fishing with grizzlies — you know it’s just gonna be great. Go sign up now.
Jungle — “Back on 74”
This video is pure brilliance, as is the new Jungle album, “Volcano.” Damn I love this band.