We may not have been on the set, but that didn’t mean we didn’t have the director’s chair set up for Steven Soderbergh yesterday as part of our Singani seminar at Mission Wine & Spirits. It’s been about six years since Steven filmed Che in Bolivia and fell in love with the spirit, to the extent that he started a brand and an import company just to fulfill his own personal drinking needs.
Using my Burbank backyard to talk, sip Singani, eat lunch, and do a deep dive for the rest of the staff, I think it was a pretty persuasive event. “It’s almost like a cigar,” our Pasadena store manager Vahi stated; “In that you’re trying to figure out what you’re tasting and if you like it, but after a few sips it’s all you want to keep drinking.”
For those of you unfamiliar with Singani 63, it’s a Muscat grape-distilled spirit from Bolivia, that drinks like something in between Pisco and eau-de-vie. I’d lean towards the latter, as you definitely do not need to mix Singani in order to enjoy it. With it’s intense aromatics and combination of fruity/floral flavors, there’s enough going on to keep your interested straight out of the glass. Plus, it’s so damn soft on the finish it’s almost like air.
If you followed the blog and our Instagram over the summer, you may remember my Singani running challenge, where I would run the same number of miles as the amount of Singani cocktails I drank the night before. Part of the charm of Singani is that—if you don’t mix too much sugar into it—you can pretty much wake up fresh as a daisy the next day. Something about the internal processing feels cleaner than other spirits.
For 30 days, I came home from work, drank usually three Singani 63 and soda cocktails (with a twist), then ran three miles without a hitch the following morning. Always interested in research, Steven hung around after our staff seminar to see the plan unfold in person. If you notice the Sole 63 treadmill model, with the exact same color branding as Singani, I think there’s a pretty obvious co-marketing opportunity here.
-David Driscoll