Gimlet in the stomach
Could Aperol be a winter drink? The art of a restaurant playlist, Discoveries from digging into cocktail histories, Documenting your gimlets, Food travel tv show hosts and more!
Hello readers,
Welcome back to another drink seco newsletter.
This week:
Campari wants to make Aperol a winter drink
Surprises from The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails
The art of the playlist
Murakami had a jazz club
Men on trips eating food
Brooklyn Beckham’s next endeavor
Gimlet in the stomach
A gimlet for your stomach
A reminder Drink Seco is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Campari wants to make Aperol a winter drink:
The Campari Group has started their “deseasonalization” marketing strategy to broaden the association of Aperol from a ‘summer drink’ (which it has done very well at marketing in the past few years). The campaign includes concerts in the Alps and boosting marketing in ski resorts across the U.S and Europe.
As reported by Katie Deighton in the Wall Street Journal “Aperol sales have climbed every year since Campari Group bought the drink in 2003, increasing 23% in 2023 from the prior year to about 700 million euros, or $780 million. The liqueur comprised 24% of the company’s sales last year, up from 4% in 2004.”
I’m definitely interested to see how this goes…
Surprises from The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails:
Punch Drink interviewed the writer and historian David Wondrich and writer Noah Rothbaum who recently published The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails and the surprises they found collating it. “The monumental 864-page tome weighs in at over three and a half pounds and is packed with 1,150 entries written by more than 160 contributors.”
Campari’s Roots Are… British?
“The direct connection between Campari and Stoughton’s, the 17th-century London bitters considered to be among the first of their kind, was hiding in plain sight.” Campari was then known as Bitter all’Uso d’Holanda and you can see the original recipe at the Campari Museum in Milan. Wondrich uncovered “other copies of the original Stoughton’s Bitters recipe in Italian distillation books”. Wondrich reveals how in the middle of the 1800s, Gaspare Campari brushes off the old Stoughton’s recipe, tinkers with it, dilutes it to sipping proof.”
Bourbon and Rye: Complicated Bedfellows:
“While they each have their own histories, mash bills and production methods, bourbon and rye are often grouped together, and seen as interchangeable in a drink. But which spirit you produced or consumed was often a nuanced affair and had a lot to do with where you were from and even your political leaning.” This divide even went all the way to the White House, Wondrich reckons JFK was a “rye guy”.
Rum Isn’t From Barbados After All:
Contrary to popular opinion rum wasn’t invented in Barbados. Wondrich found “that while the earliest confirmation of cane spirits in the New World can be traced to around 1600, there is archeological evidence of distillation in India’s cane-growing regions from the 700s. Its presence in Northern India is documented in the late 1200s, with cane arrack widespread in Bengal by the 1500s, where the Portuguese established colonies in the 1510s.” It wasn’t until the early 1600s when the British colonized Barbados that they began distilling and selling the boiled down sugarcane “skimmings” into “rumbullion” and until the 1680s when they started adding molasses to strengthen the fermentation.
The art of the playlist:
“Simon Kim knows exactly how many beats per minute are in each song played in his restaurants. During dinner service’s peak — around 10:30 p.m. at Cote, a Korean steakhouse in Manhattan, and 9:30 p.m. at Coqodaq, his Korean fried chicken restaurant just down the block — the songs range from 105 to 120 b.p.m.”
We all know the importance of music in any situation, “Tempo has the power to make or break a dining experience. Slower music can encourage lingering, said Rita Aiello, a music psychologist and professor at New York University. “If they play fast music that is more energetic, it can get people out the door.”
Every restaurant and bar takes a different approach to their music, from different playlists, to expert consultants, jukeboxes, vinyl albums, staff curated, customer led, and tailored choices. The New York Times wrote a little piece on why your favorite restaurant sounds the way it does and the work that goes on behind the scenes to make it that way.
Murakami had a jazz club:
A little fun fact for you all this week from NTS Radio, speaking of music and dining:
“In 1974, long before his first novel, a young jazz-obsessed Haruki Murakami and his wife Yōko Takahashi opened a bar in Tokyo - neither had even graduated college yet.
The bar – named after their pet, Peter Cat – was a small basement space, where the couple cooked, cleaned, served drinks, hosted live musicians and played records, all day and into the night. Murakami would pull from his collection of then-3,000 records. A number that has reportedly ballooned to over 10,000.
The success of his first few books led to Murakami selling on his jazz bar business in 1981, enabling him to focus on the obsession that would define his public life: writing.
But once the jazz bug bites, its tough to get rid of – in 2015, Murakami wrote: “When I retire from writing, I’d like to open a jazz club in Aoyama. If so, I’d wear a white jacket, like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca (I wonder if Comme des Garçons sells such things?). I would sit at the bar, sip a Laphroig and say to the pianist, “I told you not to play that tune, Sam””
Men on trips eating food:
Last month The Atlantic published an article titled ‘Men on Trips Eating Food: Why TV is full of late-career Hollywood guys at restaurants’ by James Parker
“White-guy-goes-a-wandering, white-guy-goes-a-gourmandizing—that’s the rubric. Specifically, right now, late-career Hollywood white guy. Phil Rosenthal, the creator of Everybody Loves Raymond, has Somebody Feed Phil on Netflix. Eugene Levy has The Reluctant Traveler on Apple TV+. Stanley Tucci has Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy on Discovery+.”
I got a chuckle out of this read and how Parker describes each host’s “shtick” and the pervasive “niceness” in these shows (although Parker claims Conan O’Brien refreshingly breaks this mold. I could also link this back to last month’s newsletter about ‘Why there won’t be another Anthony Bourdain’. It seems like Parker, we’re all craving something more.
Brooklyn Beckham’s next endeavor:
You might remember the infamous photography book published by Brooklyn Peltz Beckham that sparked endless memes and nepo baby jokes. Most famously from this photo and caption:
He then went on to have some other, let’s say… flops. Self-proclaimed “nutter in the kitchen” his “experimental” gin and tonic springs to mind (spoiler it was a pretty standard g&t).
It seems he is now entering the Hot Sauce game.
Hot sauce is really having a moment recently (It’s always having a moment for me, but I mean in the public consciousness). ‘Hot Ones’ is a hugely successful YouTube show where celebrities are interviewed while eating increasingly hotter hot sauce.
Brooklyn Peltz Beckham launched Cloud23 a “luxury line of condiments”. He was interviewed in Bon Appetit. I can’t say I’m so convinced… I’m also confused about what it means to be a “luxury hot sauce” other than expensive.
Instead of reading that interview, Doug Mack from Snack Stack has A brief history on extra mild hot sauce. And The Cakewalk has a fun ‘Some like it hot’ edition.
Gimlet in the stomach:
I am always exploring alternative and creative internet web pages. Recently I stumbled across one called ‘Gimlet in the stomach’.
Gimlet is called Songgot in Korean. In Korea, there is a proverb that says, “The Songgot is in pocket.” This means that outstanding people are known to people even if they are hidden.”
The website is just a record of the owner’s gimlets drunk with a note of where, when, and a rating. As someone who loves categorizing, documenting, and organizing this was right up my alley. I also love the less commercial, organic, secret, personal web pages people create. Many people track their movies on Letterboxd, others track books on Goodreads, and a special few track their gimlets.
A gimlet for your stomach:
It seems only fitting after this I give you a gimlet recipe. This one from ByEvie is a recipe for a Honey Rosemary Gimlet.
Ingredients:
2 rosemary sprig
½ oz rosemary honey syrup (recipe below)
¾ oz lime juice
1½ oz gin
garnish: dehydrated lime wheel + rosemary sprig
Directions:
Carefully light the rosemary sprig with a wooden match until smoking — carefully place on fireproof surface. Flip a chilled coupe glass upside down on top of the smoldering rosemary to capture the smoke. Set aside.
In a cocktail shaker, combine rosemary honey syrup, lime juice, and gin. Add ice and shake for approximately thirty seconds, until chilled.
Double strain into smoked coupe glass.
Garnish with a dehydrated lime wheel and fresh rosemary sprig.
And for the Rosemary Honey Syrup:
Ingredients:
4 rosemary sprigs
½ cup honey
½ cup water
Directions:
Combine sugar, honey, and rosemary sprigs into a medium sauce pan and bring to a simmer. Once honey is dissolved, remove from heat and let the flavors steep while the syrup cools completely (about 30 minutes to an hour). Once cooled, strain out the solids (rosemary sprigs) and transfer syrup into an airtight container. Store in the refrigerator for about two to three weeks.
That’s all for this week. Enjoy!
Carlie xx
lol Love the cat picture