Why is it called a “cocktail?”

February 18, 2019 No Comments

The mystery is solved — sort of

Ever wonder why it’s called a cocktail? I have, and I set out to learn the answer. So, I checked with Gary (Gaz) Regan, my friend and business associate and, a fountainhead of information about all sorts of booze business matters. He has written 18 books on the business including, 101 best new Cocktails, The Bartender’s Gin Compendium, and The Joy of Mixology.

It turns out that in the new revised and updated edition of The Joy of Mixology, Gaz addresses this question at the outset of this amazing book, which is full of anecdotes, stories, and cocktail recipes. With his permission here are some excerpts on “How Did a Cocktail Come to be called a Cocktail?

On May 13, 1806, the Balance and Columbian Repository of Hudson, New York, answered a reader’s query as to the nature of a cocktail: “Cocktail is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters—it is vulgarly called a bittered sling.” The cocktail had been born, it had been defined, and yet it couldn’t have been very well known by the general populace, or the newspaper wouldn’t have considered it a fit topic for elucidation.

Where does the word cocktail come from? There are many answers to that question, and none is really satisfactory. One particular favorite story of mine, though, comes from The Booze Reader: A Soggy Saga of a Man in His Cups, by George Bishop: “The word itself stems from the English cock-tail which, in the middle 1800s, referred to a woman of easy virtue who was considered desirable but impure. The word was imported by expatriate Englishmen and applied derogatorily to the newly acquired American habit of bastardizing good British Gin with foreign matter, including ice. The disappearance of the hyphen coincided with the general acceptance of the word and its re-exportation back to England in its present meaning.” Of course, this can’t be true since the word was applied to a drink before the middle 1800s, but it’s entertaining nonetheless, and the definition of “desirable but impure” fits cocktails to a tee.

A delightful story, published in 1936 in the Bartender, a British publication, details how English sailors of “many years ago” were served mixed drinks in a Mexican tavern. The drinks were stirred with “the fine, slender and smooth root of a plant which owing to its shape was called Cola de Gallo, which in English means ‘Cock’s tail.’” The story goes on to say that the sailors made the name popular in England, and from there the word made its way to America.

Another Mexican tale about the etymology of cocktail—again, dated “many years ago”—concerns Xoc-tl (transliterated as Xochitl and Coctel in different accounts), the daughter of a Mexican king, who served drinks to visiting American officers. The Americans honored her by calling the drinks cocktails—the closest they could come to pronouncing her name. And one more south-of-the-border explanation for the word can be found in Made in America, by Bill Bryson, who explains that in the Krio language, spoken in Sierra Leone, a scorpion is called a kaktel. Could it be that the sting in the cocktail is related to the sting in the scorpion’s tail? It’s doubtful at best.

One of the most popular tales told about the first drinks known as cocktails concerns a tavern keeper by the name of Betsy Flanagan, who in 1779 served French soldiers drinks garnished with feathers she had plucked from a neighbor’s roosters. The soldiers toasted her by shouting, “Vive le cocktail!” William Grimes, however, points out in his book Straight Up or On the Rocks: The Story of the American Cocktail that Flanagan was a fictional character who appeared in The Spy, by James Fenimore Cooper. He also notes that the book “relied on oral testimony of Revolutionary War veterans,” so although it’s possible that the tale has some merit, it’s a very unsatisfactory explanation.

A fairly plausible narrative on this subject can be found in Famous New Orleans Drinks & How to Mix ’em, by Stanley Clisby Arthur, first published in 1937. Arthur tells the story of Antoine Amedie Peychaud, a French refugee from San Domingo who settled in New Orleans in 1793. Peychaud was an apothecary who opened his own business, where, among other things, he made his own bitters, Peychaud’s, a concoction still available today. He created a stomach remedy by mixing his bitters with brandy in an eggcup—a vessel known to him in his native tongue as a coquetier. Presumably not all Peychaud’s customers spoke French, and it’s quite possible that the word, pronounced coh-KET-yay, could have been corrupted into cocktail. However, according to the Sazerac Company, the present-day producers of Peychaud’s bitters, the apothecary didn’t open until 1838, so there’s yet another explanation that doesn’t work.

Another theory has it that in England, horses of mixed blood had their tails docked to signify their lack of breeding, and were known as “cocktailed” horses, but since I first wrote that, the term has been clarified. David Wondrich, cocktail historian extraordinaire, has concluded that the word’s origins did indeed involve horses and their tails, but with a difference: “cocktail,” he found, was a bit of ginger or cayenne pepper that crooked horse dealers would put into tired old horses’ bums to make them cock their tails up and act a little more lively than usual.

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So, there you have it… five possible explanations of the origin of the word cocktail.

I don’t know about you but I’m going with the last one, but I much prefer “down the hatch” than “bottoms up.”

The Future of the Booze Business

December 13, 2018 2 Comments

RNDC and LibDib join forces

It was announced recently that Republic National Distributing Co (RNDC), and Liberation Distribution (LibDib) have formed a strategic alliance and will be working together.

I consider this a huge development for the wine and spirits industries and I was anxious to learn what it means for the future. I very much admire Tom Cole of RNDC and Cheryl Murphy Durzy of LibDib and was thrilled to have an exclusive interview with both of them. The three of us talked about how this development came about and what it means for the distribution of both large and small brands.

RNDC is the second largest distributor in the US, operating in 22 markets with a long history dating back to before Prohibition. It is an organization built on the strong foundations of three family-owned companies. What I’ve always admired about RNDC is their values, marketplace effectiveness, and people you enjoy working with.

LibDib is the first technology company to offer a 3-tier compliant model that provides an option for the growing number of makers (suppliers/manufacturers) that are entering the market. Launched in June, 2016 and they describe themselves as: “A wholesale distributor of alcoholic beverages enabled through a web and mobile platform.” (An earlier article I wrote about LibDib is here.)

As reported by Wine and Spirits Daily, LibDib suppliers will be able to use RNDC’s logistics and expand throughout their footprint, while RNDC will have access to LibDib’s technology and data. To me, it is also a union of the traditional and new routes to market.

So, what does this mean?

According to Tom Cole:

“When I first learned about LibDib, I was fascinated by the commitment to the 3-tier system…I believe in and am a passionate protector of that system, so the LibDib approach offering effective online ordering, satisfies the need for small makers that are having difficulty getting to market…”

Cheryl added:

“We use the term evolve — How are we going to evolve the 3-tier system to meet the needs of the modern consumer and what they are looking for in spirits and wine.”

In effect, LibDib will have the opportunity to expand from its current operations in New York and California and ultimately operate in RNDC’s 22 markets. They’ll be able to tap into RNDC’s advanced logistics to deliver craft products to buyers in all available markets.

In turn, RNDC will have access to LibDib’s technology and data collection, thereby enabling them to further expand their value and services. In effect, they will be offering their large supplier organizations access to the rapidly changing market place by offering insights and actions into the new and evolving consumer.

What I think is particularly appealing, is that RNDC, which doesn’t currently operate in NY and CA, will have access to those markets in a new and unique way.

The problem being solved

Let’s start with craft spirits products and small brands.

IWSR has produced the Craft Sprits Report 2018, which looks at the current and future growth of craft spirits in the US.

They report that in 2017, the craft spirit volume share of all spirits sales was 3.3% which is 7.5 million 9-liter cases and up 25% from the previous year. They forecast that by 2022, craft spirit brands will account for close to 20% of all spirits and more than double its share at 7.9%.

In terms of value, craft brands accounted for 4.6% share of all spirits and, by 2022, they forecast it to be 10.4%.

What really caught my eye was this statement: “To put the current size of craft spirits into perspective, the 7.5m case total is roughly equal to the entire U.S. brandy category in 2017.”

So, what’s the problem?

The route to market available to large brands is not generally available to small brands, particularly start up ventures or fledgling brands from small craft or other distilleries. The result is a hodgepodge of distribution solutions. Some large distributors will take on these brands but more as an exception than a rule. Come on… you would do the same if you ran a spirits and wine distributorship. It’s a volume driven business that largely depends on mass and mainstream brands. As a distributor put it to me once, “hey, you want my sales folks to stop focusing on a proven winner to sell your maybe-it-will-make-it brand?”

As a result, small spirits companies often rely on wine and beer distributors. Both wine and spirits companies will aim for importers with a distribution network or companies like MHW LTD or Park Street Imports (both with distributor licenses in a few key markets). All in the hope for an effective route to market and in compliance with the 3-tier mandatory system.

The large company conundrum

Developing new products/brands and getting them to market is difficult for the large makers as well.

Imagine you’re a major player in a leading spirits and wine company. You look around and, while your mass brands are doing okay, the craft/small batch brands are eating away at your volume. The cocktail focus has won the attention of bartenders and consumers alike and your mainstream brand is in danger of becoming yesterday’s newspaper.

Your options are to stick your head in the sand and ignore the changing market place and consumer behavior. That won’t work because your kid needs braces so your bonus might be in jeopardy. So, you figure out that you need to enter the fray and either start acquiring some of those fledgling brands or build your own through your innovations group.

Now you have another problem. The distribution and business models are based on large volume and you don’t want your people, or your distributor’s people, focusing on your new “baby” while ignoring the brands that need the attention. You can either launch a small brand-focused business unit or find a better, more cost-effective solution.

As many of you know, at Seagram I ran new products at one point and this venture of combining the clout of RNDC and the LibDib model would be just what I needed to succeed. In short, this strategic alliance between a top distributor and a company focused on small brands would have made my mouth water by allowing me to get into the small producer game, while still keeping my eye on the (big brand) ball.

How this came about

My hats off to Tom Cole who has the vision and smarts to see where the industry is going and to move his business in an advantageous direction. And to Cheryl, whose tenacity and foresight will reap benefits to her innovation.

I’ve known Tom a long time and he’s a visionary, always attuned to the changing marketplace, and willing to explore new opportunities and directions. It’s no surprise, therefore, that when he learned about LibDib, he looked into it.

Cheryl and her family ran a small winery in northern California and learned firsthand what a nightmare it is for a small company to get to the shelves of restaurants, bars, and stores. She created LibDib as a solution. In a relatively short period of time the company has attracted large numbers of makers and retail (bar and store) accounts in New York and Los Angeles. LibDib has become a viable and growing go to market resource.

After a number of exploratory phone calls, they met at the WSWA and learned that they had a great deal in common — the yearning to find a solution for new brands, a shared vision of the future, the support for the 3-tier system, entrepreneurial focus, and approaches to business management. Back and forth conversations and due diligence followed and a year later RNDC invested in LibDib and they are now partners.

What’s next?

There is much work to be done to maximize the potential of this venture and 2019 will involve some beta testing in NY and LA. Beyond that they will be exploring efforts on a state by state basis. There’s a lot to learn and this is a work-in-progress, undoubtedly with a slow and steady pace, making sure all the kinks are worked out. As Tom put it, “We will do things thoughtfully and correctly and increase our likelihood success.”

So far as I’m concerned, this development changes everything.

Tom Jago: The Passing of an Industry Icon

October 14, 2018 No Comments

The Dean Of Global Spirits

This is from The Last Drop Distillers, a company that Tom co-founded:

It is with profound and heartfelt sadness that we announce the death of our co-founder and inspirational president, Tom Jago, aged 93. Beloved by us all, we give thanks for his brilliance, his incisive humour and, above all, his deep affection for the team and the industry he so loved. Rest in peace, Tom.

Tom Jago. 21st July 1925 – 12th October 2018

There is no one I have met in my booze business journey that I respected more than Tom. He was a true gentleman, a creative genius, and a warm, fun, person. I wrote his story in this blog and in my book and I thought it would be worth re-telling as my personal tribute to a terrific man and friend.

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I first met Tom Jago in the early 1990s when he was part of James Espey’s scotch and cognac team at Seagram. My immediate reaction was, here is a man who is gifted in product development and marketing. He’s also affable and fun to be with. I’m not sure he’s really British.

Over the years he taught me a great deal about the spirits business, above all, how to choose and enjoy good Claret (Bordeaux).

Together with Dr. Espey and Mr. Peter Fleck, he is a principal in the Last Drop Distillers Ltd. (The full story of the company is here.)

Here’s how their website describes Tom:

From a village school in the remote countryside, via a scholarship to Oxford and service in the Royal Navy during WWII, Tom Jago found his niche in the wine and spirits trade. He led the team that developed new ideas on old themes, like Croft Original Pale Cream Sherry and Le Piat D’Or brands, which revolutionised British drinking habits forever. He cooperated with the ‘gang of three’ in the invention of Bailey’s Irish Cream and Malibu.

But wait, there’s more. Tom was instrumental (as in the driving force) in such brands as Johnnie Walker Blue Label, Hennessy, Chivas Regal 18 Year Old, Martell, The Classic Malts and many others.

If that’s not enough, while at Seagram, Tom helped in the creation of Imperial Blue and Royal Stag, now an important part of Pernod India.

In preparation for this article, I’ve spent some time talking and emailing with Tom on a range of topics and his thoughts on the industry.

Tom’s Career

After the war, Tom “slipped accidentally into advertising.” He applied for a job as a photographer but was mistaken for someone else and got a job as a copywriter. He later became an account director at an ad agency that ultimately became Ogilvy & Mather. Among his accounts was a small company that hired him, called Gilbeys. Through mergers and acquisitions, Gilbeys became IDV and finally Diageo.

Next came four years at Moet-Hennessy, followed by United Distillers (with James) and later Seagram.

The area of focus throughout his career was innovation and new products. As Tom puts it, “I was not very good at being a marketing director (at Gilbeys) so they gave me a small budget, an office and secretary and said try and think of some new drinks we might profitably sell.” The string of successes mentioned earlier, attest to the accomplishments.

Product Development Philosophy

Tom Jago’s focus over the years has been simple, and straightforward, guiding principles.

First, “Make the drink agreeable to the palate, the eye and the nose. Baileys and Malibu are good examples of this.”

The other principle was to develop products that inherently persuade drinkers that there is virtue in drinking them and in learning to appreciate their quality. Interestingly, it’s the same motivations of palate, eyes and nose but applied to whisky, cognac and even tequila.

But above all, Tom has a powerful way of looking at the acceptance and growth of a brand – patience.

“It is clear to me that the motivation to drink alcohol is very deeply buried in the human subconscious… therefore, attempts to market distilled spirits must be subtle too. A spirits brand is bound to be slow growing, so promotions must be long, steady and consistent.”

In my experience, new products and brands often fail because the companies behind them, particularly the global ones, lack the fortitude to see them through to fruition. That’s why the successes in the US (e.g., Grey Goose, Tito’s, and Patron) have come from entrepreneurs.

Another interesting and worthwhile notion from Tom is not to let drinker research get in the way. “It is of course useful, but in the specific case of alcohol drinks, not to be relied on, given the essential illogical responses of people to alcohol,” says Tom. He goes on to say, “No one will tell you the truth about their feelings regarding drinks – mainly because they don’t know what they are themselves.”

I tend to put it another way. Consumer research is like a lamppost, some people lean on it while others are illuminated by it.

Whisky

Despite the drink inventions that favor light, sweet and palatable drinks, Tom is an unabashed devotee of Malts.

“These are, I must confess, my favourite of all the alcoholic drinks… I admire them partly because of their enormous variety of nose and taste (cognac, no matter how fine, all tastes much the same – compared with the vast difference between a malt from Islay and one from the Spey). Much of their appeal, of course, lies in their relative rarity – the amateur can ‘discover’ them for himself, so he feels that he owns a part of the brand. It is interesting that when a malt gets as big (in volume sales) as for instance Glenfiddich or the Glenlivet, people stop thinking of it as a malt, rather as just another Scotch brand.

His focus on whisky over the years has been extraordinary. Johnnie Walker Blue Label was created in 1987 to reassert the perceived value of the Johnnie Walker brand in Asia, where grey market discounting had damaged it. He also developed Classic Malts, a collection of outstanding products from individual malt distilleries, which became brands.

At his current venture, Last Drop Distillers Ltd, he and his partners are using 70 single malts in their blend. Some are from distilleries long since closed. It’s truly an amazing venture and you might want to look it up. (Today, The Last Drop Distillers is owned by Sazerac Limited.)

Throughout his career, Tom helped to define and advance product quality. While at Hennessy, for example, he learned about the sophisticated use of oak in spirit maturation. No one in the scotch business knew about this at the time and one can only imagine the battles that ensued between this young upstart and the tough and crusty old timers who ran the whisky production.

Perhaps based on these battles or just plain good common sense, Tom taught me to be wary of production managers.

“A word of caution concerning those splendid fellows…Don’t let them ruin a great luxury brand by economy measures unrelated to the essential perceived value of the pack; I have seen a production man try to save less than a penny by spoiling the closure of Johnnie Walker Blue Label – this on a brand that sells for £100.”

India

In the late nineties, while at Seagram, Tom was called to Seagram India to help with new product development. One of the chemists, had the idea of making a good admix whisky by using both imported scotch malt and local grain spirit. The resulting products were successful and have stood the test of time – Royal Stag and Imperial Blue. As Tom puts its it, a number of factors accounted for the success – branding, packaging, price (above the competition) and the unique use of TV advertising outside of India.

# # #

Tom Jago was indeed a man for all seasons and the most extraordinary spirits marketer I’ve ever met.

Industry executives, both young and old, can learn a great deal from his business strengths and skills – innovation and outside the box thinking; patience and tenacity; an understanding of people; how to build brands and the price/value relationship in marketing. Above all, Tom has a skill set all executives need, but not all have – a sense of humor.

Side Bar

What I love about the spirits and wine business is that it’s an industry of people, relationships and stories. No one I’ve met has better industry tales than Tom Jago.

Vodka

Real change began in 1949 when a Mr. Kunett, a Russian émigré in the USA, sold his tiny Smirnoff distillery to Heublein. At the time he was making about 5,000 cases a year. He and Heublein began seriously to promote vodka as the spirit with negligible taste, which mixed with fruit juice, tomato juice, or even ginger beer, to give a drink that was actually NICE. So vodka drinking spread to the civilised world (in Russia, it was never that civilised, the vodka was always sold in 50cl bottles with an aluminum capsule – non-reclosable!)

I was closely involved in this period of change. From 1957 I had been helping an old drinks merchant called Gilbeys with their advertising.

Gilbeys had been smart enough to get the rights to Smirnoff vodka for a large part of the world, so we were engaged in promoting vodka – which was entirely unknown in Britain. We began to understand the revolution that was taking place, although research produced some unexpected results: we used an ad showing young men in their digs preparing for a party. One of them was cleaning his teeth; the advertisement was badly understood, and it emerged after a few enquiries that only some 12% of young English males owned a toothbrush!

And when we claimed that Smirnoff doesn’t give you a hangover, we got the response “What’s the point of having a drink if you don’t get a hangover?” Binge drinking is nothing new, it seems.

About Gilbeys:

There was lots of fun to be had at Gilbeys. In the first place they owned a beautiful chateau in the Medoc (Chateau Loudenne), which I used as a cool place to plot things with co-workers. The cellar had first growths from 1875 on.

And board meeting were delightful on occasion. Walter Gilbey said one day, “Tom, I just got a lift back on Hennessy’s little jet – ever so nice. Do you think we might get one?” I said I thought it unlikely but would search and report back. Next week I said “we can’t afford it; costs £2m and that’s about our overdraft. And anyway, you would have two pilots to feed and clothe.”

“Oh,” said young Walter, “Couldn’t Hawkins learn to drive it?”

The joy of this was that Hawkins, an old family retainer, was 56, a serious drunk, and only worked one day a year when he drove the Gilbeys to Royal Ascot race meeting in the coach and four.

Product Placement in Films:

James Bond was in part my baby. I was with Gilbeys in the ‘60s and they had the franchise for Smirnoff in what used to be the British Empire. When Cubby Broccoli (Albert Broccoli, the producer of the Bond films) was rounding up funds for Dr. No he approached Gilbeys and got a flea in his ear; they were broke, in fact. But one of them told me and I persuaded them to let me give him two cases (one blue label 100 proof, the other red, 37.5) I said I hoped that they could include both in the film, and they agreed, with the great scene where Bond rejects the red and makes his martini with the stronger vodka. When I asked for a few more cases for their wind-up party to which I was told to get lost – no more money. So we lost the chance to be in all the Bond films. No money changed hands. Times change, huh?

And when I was down at Pinewood negotiating this, I lunched in the canteen with Terence Young (director); at the next table was Ava Gardner. She took a mouthful of steak and salad, drew deeply on her Camel, and started chewing. Never forgot that.