Boozehound (14 page)

Jägermeister sales chiefly rely on shot consumption by young drinkers, and this presents the company with a tricky marketing situation—one in which
responsibility
is the buzzword. We discussed this responsibility over shots of Jägermeister at lunch. “To promote shots is not to promote overconsumption,” insisted Alexandra von Tschirschky, Jägermeister’s head of public relations. “Maybe just have one or two shots.”

“Well,” said Franke, with a chuckle, “maybe three.”

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. An old liqueur from old Europe, made with a secret old formula and traditionally enjoyed by old men, somehow makes its way into the U.S. market and becomes wildly popular among the college and postcollege crowd, who knock back shot after shot of the stuff. In fact, this odd European liqueur inexplicably becomes the shot of a generation.

In the not-so-distant future, we may be telling that story about another strange spirit, called Tuaca. This one is not bitter herb and cinnamon, but a citrus-vanilla liqueur from Tuscany that is reputed to have been created during the Renaissance for Lorenzo de Medici. There are those who believe that Tuaca may soon become the new Jägermeister. It’s certainly already extremely popular in Western states such as Colorado. Which prompts the question, What is it with strange liqueurs and ski areas anyway?

Tuaca’s popularity means that the sweet liqueur is already mixed with Red Bull in a Tuaca Bomb and with tequila in a Tuaca-rita. There is also, as with Jägermeister, a Tuaca shot-chilling machine. I recently was sitting in the kind of place where the patrons—young, flannel-clad, and bearded—were drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon, with their fixed-gear bikes parked out front, and I was surprised to see the chalkboard advertising three-dollar shots of Tuaca, right alongside the Jägermeister. “When did Tuaca get so popular?” I asked the bartender.

He stared at me blankly and said, “When it got to be three dollars a shot.”

It’s not just drunk college students who’ve noted Tuaca’s appeal. I, for one, enjoy it. And Nigella Lawson, on whom I have a deep and abiding crush, has written, “I can’t help reaching for the Tuaca … Think panettone in liqueur form.” I don’t really understand the panettone comparison, but Nigella—well, she can pretty much tell me anything she wants and I’ll go with it. It’s true that nearly everything tastes good with a little vanilla, and golden-brown Tuaca is no exception. But the vanilla is balanced with brandy and notes of orange and nutmeg.

Tuaca still has a long way to go to overtake Jägermeister, of course, but its growth trajectory is strikingly similar. U.S. sales of Tuaca more than doubled between 2001 and 2009, from 60,000 cases to more than 140,000 cases. As I write this, in 2010, Jägermeister has long been the best-selling brand in the cordial/liqueur category, but in 1985, it was only selling about 140,000 cases.

On a trip to Italy in late summer 2009, I decided to pay a visit to the Tuaca distillery in Livorno, on the coast of Tuscany. Tuscany! Could you dream up a more romantic spot for a liqueur to come from? Tuscany is, of course, the biggest fantasy destination for American Italophiles. Think rolling vineyards and olive groves, charming peasants, fiascoes of Chianti, hilltop villas, al fresco dinners of figs and prosciutto taken leisurely at long tables filled with beautiful people, Frances Mayes renovating her dream home in
Under the Tuscan Sun
, Liv Tyler’s sexual awakening in
Stealing Beauty
.

All of that adds up to a fairly saccharine vision of Tuscany. So I have to admit I was hopeful when everyone, including my guidebooks and the Tuaca people, called Livorno “the ugliest city in Tuscany,” with few recommended tourist sights. Most visitors simply pass through on the way to the ferryboats that leave from the port. Livorno to me immediately felt like a real, workaday Italian city, and I loved it. The evening before my visit to Tuaca, I sipped
aperitivi
at a few of the waterfront bars, and then as the sun set, I wandered along the quiet canals to a restaurant where I ate a striking, briny-sweet sea urchin spaghettini, and squash blossoms stuffed with bacalao. The restaurant itself was raucous, and the crowd that dined along with me that night included a local Harley-Davidson club with a dozen motorcyclists dressed in leather, a loud group of thirty-something women on girls’ night out, and a family who brought their tiny dog. The owner joined me at my table, and when I couldn’t get a taxi, the waitress offered me a ride to my hotel on the back of her scooter.

One thing I noted during my evening out in Livorno, however, was that none of the bars had a bottle of Tuaca. When I asked for Tuaca in the restaurant, they acted as if I’d requested something impossibly foreign or exotic. I’ve spent a great deal of time in Italy, and it made me realize, thinking back, how rarely I’ve seen of bottle of Tuaca anywhere in the country.

This was not unusual, I was told when I arrived at the Tuaca distillery in the morning. “Tuaca is much more well-known in the United States than in Italy,” said Stefano Amico, the operations manager. “Two years ago, they tried to distribute Tuaca in Italy, but it was not successful. In Italy, we are practically selling only to the old men who know Tuaca from long ago.”

Tuaca was actually purchased in 2002 by American liquor giant Brown-Forman (which owns Jack Daniels and Finlandia vodka, among dozens of other brands). Prior to that, Tuaca had been owned by the Tuonis and the Canepas, two Jewish families that found refuge in Livorno during World War II. The name, originally Tuoca, was derived by combining the two names. American GIs got a taste for the stuff while stationed in Livorno during the war, and an entrepreneur began importing it to the States in the 1950s. That’s when the spelling
Tuoca
was changed to
Tuaca
, because Americans had a hard time pronouncing it. “Tuaca looks a bit like a Mexican name to me,” Amico said.

Now, 98 percent of the bottles produced in Livorno are shipped to the United States. If that’s the case, I asked, then why doesn’t Brown-Forman move production to the States? Amico chuckled uncomfortably. “Well,” he said, “we certainly hope that doesn’t happen.”

Then, Amico thought for a moment, and added, “The reason Tuaca is made here is that all of their marketing is based on ‘Made in Italy.’ This is the important reason. The Italian style of life, Italian food and drink, Italian fashion. People know that Italians have good taste in these things.” (In fact, the “Made in Italy” thing will soon become even more of a facade, since a Brown-Forman executive told me in May 2010 that they would move Tuaca production to the United States.)

On the distillery tour, I was struck by how automated the place was. Amico, who’d previously been an economics professor at the University of Pisa, was clearly pleased with efficiency. “We have a robot,” Amico said. “As you can see, there’s practically no manual intervention at all. It only takes twelve people to run this plant. We are one of the most profitable brands at Brown-Forman.”

“But the blending is done manually, right?” I asked.

“No, it’s not,” he said. “The only thing they do manually is to cut the bags of sugar open and pour it.”

He showed me where the brandy is blended with neutral spirits and sugar “and our natural flavors, which of course I cannot disclose.”

In its marketing, Tuaca makes a big deal out of tracing the recipe’s ancestry back to the Renaissance and the Medicis. In fact, the Medici crest is on the bottle. I asked Amico if that’s the same formula the Tuoni and Canepa families used. Is it true that the recipe really dates back to the Medicis? “I cannot tell you because I have lost the tracks of history,” Amico said.

What we do know is that when Tuaca was launched in 1938, it was originally called Cognac al Latte, or “Milk Cognac”; this was, of course, in the days before Cognac was an AOC-protected name. In the beginning, Tuaca clocked in at 42 percent alcohol by volume, or 84 proof. Now, it’s sold in the United States at a much more accessible 70 proof. “Tuaca has an easy taste. It’s not difficult to drink. I’ve never found someone who doesn’t like it,” Amico said. “I tasted the old Tuaca, at 84 proof. It could be that it was even a little more tasty, but the current recipe is easier to drink. So probably you can drink more of the current one.”

I noted that Jägermeister is also sold at 70 proof, and I wondered if that was coincidence or whether Brown-Forman saw Tuaca as a competitor to Jägermeister. “Yes,” Amico said. “For some reason, the benchmark in this category is Jägermeister. But I really don’t understand why Jägermeister is the benchmark.”

After our tour, we went to lunch at a restaurant overlooking the port. We were joined by a dozen Brown-Forman distributors who were visiting from the United States, mostly New York. During a wine-soaked lunch, I sat next to a guy named George Sideris, who’d been in the spirits business for more than thirty years, and who’d handled Tuaca when it was originally distributed by Seagram’s. “I remember it before they dropped the proof,” he said. “Man, when it was 84 proof, it was like turpentine.” Back in the 1970s, the main Tuaca cocktail being promoted was a winter warmer called Hot Apple Pie. “It was supposed to be an after-skiing drink,” Sideris said. “Tuaca was also popular in the gay community in San Francisco. There was a drink called a Bear Hug, and they served it in a glass with a little bear on the stem. If one guy was interested in someone, he would send over a Bear Hug. And if the other guy accepted the drink, that meant he was interested.”

At the other end of the table, one of the younger distributors was saying loudly, “Tuaca, man. I probably drank a case of Tuaca my freshman year at college!”

A Round of Drinks:
Secret Old Recipes

How do you know that you’re in a real cocktail bar? I’ve found that there are always a couple of bottles sitting on the back bar that will serve as a sort of secret handshake or knowing wink. One is maraschino liqueur, which I described in
chapter 2
. The other is Chartreuse, usually the 110-proof green version. If you spy those two, you can be pretty certain you’re in a bar that takes its cocktails seriously. In fact, when I see a speakeasy menu these days, I am shocked if I don’t see any drinks using either of those two spirits.

Perhaps the finest use of both liqueurs is in the Last Word. This is a Prohibition-era cocktail invented at the Detroit Athletic Club and resurrected a few years back by Murray Stenson at Seattle’s classic-cocktail haven, the Zig Zag Café. Its fame has spread as far and wide as the classic-cocktail movement itself, spawning numerous variations. A bit sweet, a bit sour, a bit herbal, a bit pungent, with huge, bold flavors, the Last Word is definitely not a poolside drink, and probably not for the Cosmo crowd. It’s a thinking person’s drink. A drink with a swagger.

THE LAST WORD

Serves 1

¾ ounce gin

¾ ounce freshly squeezed lime juice

¾ ounce green Chartreuse

¾ ounce maraschino liqueur, preferably Luxardo

Fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice. Add the gin, lime juice, Chartreuse, and maraschino liqueur. Shake well, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Another great use of Chartreuse is in the Bijou, a turn-of-the-twentieth-century cousin of the martini. Just like the Last Word, the Bijou harkens to a time when bartenders were adept at mixing Continental liqueurs with their gin. This recipe exists in all the great early cocktail books. Always be sure to use green Chartreuse.

BIJOU

Serves 1

1 ounce green chartreuse

1 ounce gin

1 ounce sweet vermouth