Hey, welcome back to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Pat from the Specialty Spirits Department. We're in the Lincoln Park Upstairs Tasting Room, and Brett's here, which means it's one thing, a Whiskey Hotline episode. Welcome back, Brett. That's now renamed the Singani Hotline. Singani Hotline. Nice. Who else? Roger's in the room. Hey, Roger. Hey, everybody. Jim, Communications. Producer Jim. We have a couple very special guests today. That's right, we are now pulling in the same guests as the Smartless Podcast, so we've really reached stratospheric podcast popularity apparently. So we want to welcome in Steven Soderbergh, legendary Hollywood producer, director, writer, etc. Editor. Great to be here. Thank you. Steven, you've brought along on the phone here your distiller that you work with down in Bolivia. That's correct. Hi, glad to be here. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you. Luis Granier. Welcome to the Barrel to Bottle Podcast. Thanks for joining us. So Steven, I guess, where do we really start with this? We heard about Singani fairly early on because a friend of ours who is working with the local wholesaler of yours kind of brought it to our attention and talked about how cool it was. And our reaction was like, wait, what is this? What is this thing? Well, that's why we've created this campaign that we're in the middle of. WTF is Singani63 because that's the question that's in the room that everybody wants to ask. What it is, and Luis Pablo will talk about this in more interesting detail, but it's a grape distillate that's made in Bolivia. It's been around for around 500 years. It was industrialized about 100 years ago by antecedents of Luis Pablo Granier. It's a fourth generation family owned business. And so I got exposed to it when I was shooting the Che films. And it was given to me by our Bolivian casting director. And I had an immediate reaction. I was a vodka drinker. And as soon as I tasted this, I knew I was going to have to have a one on one with vodka, where I was going to have to say some really difficult things. Well, you set the bar fairly low as far as an intensity of flavor goes with the vodka, though. That's true. But, you know, I think to your point, everything about the Casa Real, Singani that I sampled was a better version of what I had experienced with being a vodka drinker. So it was like a three act experience. First, there's the bouquet of it. It's very floral. So that was a new thing. Oh, it smells great. And then I tasted it. It's very active on the palate. There are a lot of different notes you can pull out. If you talk to 10 different people, they will tell you, I got a little bit of this. I got that. It's like this spirit. It's like that spirit. And then you swallow it and it just disappears. And that was a new thing because I was used to the second swallow that was, you know what I mean, where you get the burn. Yeah. And that's just the price of entry to get into the end zone. And so I literally grabbed Rodrigo by his lapels and said, what is this? Like, what is this? And he started telling me the history, but he didn't know, he knew a little, but he didn't know a lot. And so one of the pleasures of being involved with this brand was getting to know the Granier family and their history with Singani, which I think, you know, there's probably a better person on this podcast to tell that story. Yeah. Can we hear a bit of a background on that? The distillery's actual name is Casa Real? That's correct. And how long does that go back there? You said four generations. How many years are we talking? Actually, it started, like Steven said, that my family started on this business in 1925. And so it goes back almost 100 years ago. And yeah, it's never easy to explain what Singani is. And Steven covered it up very well. It's been around for 500 years ago. The Spanish conquistadors brought this great variety, which is Muscat of Alexandria. And they needed to drink something. So they made wine. First they made wine and then they distilled it. And the history goes that there was a small valley in Potosi that was making this wonderful spirit called Singani, changed to Singani. But I'm talking 500 years is even before Bolivia was a country. Yeah. Was there a history of distillation in the area before the conquistadors came over with this grape or did they bring the stills with them as well? That's a really good question. Not that I'm aware of. The conquistadors are the ones who brought the distillation processes. Okay. And Singani was made in a very artisanal way. And in 1925, my family decided to make a brand, and they brought technology from France. That's how the family got involved with Singani and wine producing. They're not exactly the same processes, but we tried to keep that knowledge pretty much intact from the beginning. And Singani is pretty much, we have these vineyards that are very, very high, 500 feet above sea level. That's really, really high. 5,000. 5,000. 5,000. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah. Some of the highest in the world, right? Yeah. That's more than a mile. Argentina and other countries do have some parcels or some acres that are at that altitude. But in our case, all our viticulture is up that high. And that is the point that we start up. At our geographical locations, we are not supposed to be growing grapes. I mean, if you come to Tariha, it's an extreme, extreme weather, extreme altitude. Our soil is alluvial, but it's very poor. But everything plays out a major role in how our grape behaves in this environment. And that has made, pretty much what we do is we make, we make a wine out of this grape, and then we double distill it. And that's how, I mean, in general terms, that's how Singani is produced. Yeah, so this is hyper terroir. Yeah. Like this is approximately 20,000 acres in the southern portion of Bolivia. And that's it. As Luis Pablo's, yes, to call it Singani, it has to be done there like that. In those roughly 20,000 acres, wow. As he was saying, this is not a great place to grow anything. You know what I mean? Like they had to consult with agronomists from the Middle East and Africa to figure out how do you arrange the topography of the vineyards and irrigate them to make anything grow. But as a result, these muscat grapes grow very thick skins. And that's where the aromatics come in. And also you have to remember, you have a different boiling point for distillation. And my theory is that differentiation in boiling point and the fact that Casa Real distills in cognac copper pot stills is what results in this very soft profile that you usually don't get in a spirit at this ABV. Yeah, certainly in a musk brandy like this. So that's an important distinction we should lay out. Well, that's what I was going to say. The whole thing, this dispels a lot of myths about Singani vis-a-vis Pisco because Pisco is a more mature product for American consumers, at least. But, you know, a lot of people associate them as it must be just the same. It's just South America. It's the same tradition. It is some of the same grapes, but it's not because Pisco was winemaker driven. Pisco was driven by Italians. Multiple varietals. And much later. And much later. Two different countries. You know, that's been part of the education process is on paper. First blush, Singani looks like a Pisco, and that's part of how hard it is to bring something like this to market. Look, we got our category in February from the TTB. Big deal. That's helped a lot. Right. Well, and you predate, right? So Singani has to predate Pisco. Well, that's a that's a law suit. I'm not going to pursue. You're right. But I'm just happy that we, you know, after an eight year process, that we finally got that distinction because it's one thing to go out and say to people, you know, they're like, well, what's it like? And when you say, well, it's not really like anything, that just sounds like a pitch. And so now for the US government, whose default mode is to say no to things like this, to get this recognition is not only, selfishly speaking, helpful to the brand, but maybe Luis Pablo can talk about what that recognition means for Bolivia and all of the producers of Singani. This is, it's a real, it's a wonderful moment for Bolivia. It can only be made there. Yep. Period. It can only be made in Bolivia. That's right. And you have to see this as, this is so relevant because it goes back to something as fundamental as someone calling you by your actual name and recognizing who you really are. Because like many other products, Singani is, we're not just talking about the steel product. We're talking about a cultural product that took so many years to, to, to, there's millions of Bolivians who recognize this product as it is, not just Bolivians, but the Bolivian government has laws in place that determine where Singani can and cannot be made or produced. So this recognition goes, I mean, it's, it's very, very relevant in that sense. And obviously, now people are going to start calling us by who we are, and not just another brand around. Now, to put the size of this industry in the spirit and perspective, I mean, you're talking only around 20,000 acres it's grown. How many other producers are there? There's around 30 to 40 producers. The law says that you can produce Singani up to certain high, which is 5,000 meters, feet. I always get confused. I'm sorry. No worries. So do we. Yeah. Now, Tarija is the main region that produces Singani, but there's other valleys around that are also very high, and they produce their own Singani types. But yeah, there's around 30 to 40 producers. And then how many farmers would be then involved providing the fruit for the producers? There's around 4,000 to 5,000 farmers. Muscat of Alexandria is 90% of what we produce here in Bolivia, because this grape variety is very, very important in our social, economically, in our region. We use it for Singani production. We use it for wine production, table wine production, which is delicious. It's just delicious. Table grape, I'm sorry. Table grape. When you say Alexandria, this is from Egypt then, right? Yeah. That's pretty wild to have this Egyptian grape growing down in Bolivia to be used to make a Odovi. Well, I've talked about this. I just want to be clear. I'm not trying to say these two things are equally important. I'm just saying two random events led me to this podcast. One is a grape that moves from Egypt to Spain, to southern Bolivia, in a place that is really inhospitable when you're a grape to become Singani. The other is me at this startup party for Che in Madrid, where my friend Rodrigo had to go on the down-low to get a bottle of Singani because it hadn't officially ever been exported outside of Bolivia. So he had to find some friends to get a bottle secretly, to bring to me. And here's how it gets even more random in terms of how easily this could not have happened. He told me later, you know, I wanted to bring you something. I was going to bring you a T-shirt. And then he goes, and I thought about that. And I thought, like, that's not, I need to bring him something that I feel represents who I am and what I've contributed to the movie. And it was a bottle of Casa Real, Singani. So, when you think of, what are the odds of these two events playing out over, you know, very different time scales, sort of aligning, that was June 2007. And so now- Wow. That was a while ago. And so now, here we are. It's a, if you wrote it, nobody would believe it. So we kind of know what your first date was. When did you really dig deep into exploring this as a potential product or exposing it to the world? Well, so here's what happened. So this is the startup party, because if you're going to make a movie or two movies about a Marxist revolutionary, you've got to have a startup party. And my immediate thought literally is, okay, how do we get a mule train to follow the shoot from Madrid to Puerto Rico to Mexico? And then we were going to finish in Bolivia. So this is a six month, you know, endeavor. And we hooked it up. We managed to get enough Singani over the course of the shoot to satisfy the camera department and the editorial department. When we were all in Bolivia at the end, the people that were part of that group started, you know, pitching this idea, like, dude, you should import this, like, this is amazing. You know, we've all been drinking it for six months. Like, this should be available. And I, I, I was like, that's a great idea. Because I like your buddy, George Clooney does it. So you're just like, how hard could this be? Okay, talk about timelines. We need, we need to acknowledge I was first. Oh, you hear that Clooney? Yeah. I said, okay, well, what does that involve? And it turns out it involves a lot, but that's, that's the least interesting part of this story is 2008 to 2014, when we come to market and start to figure out, well, how do we do this? I didn't know how to do it. I knew that it was a good product, and I knew that it had a great legacy and a real narrative behind it, but I didn't know much else. And so it's been a fascinating for me, immersion in a business that has some similarity, there's a little bit of a Venn diagram overlap between the entertainment industry and the booze business, but there are significant ways in which they're very, I imagine. And so learning that has been fun. Had you brought it in in 2014, what would it had to have been called? Do you remember what category it would have been? No, we were brandy. But this is part of my learning process is, you send in, once the government has agreed to grant you status as an importer, you send them the thing and then they analyze it and they come back to you. They want to make sure it's not going to kill anybody. And then they tell you it's this. So it comes back as brandy. And I'm a dilettante, so I go, why is it a brandy? And the people I'm working with explain to me, anything distilled from a fruit is technically a brandy. That's confusing to most people. And in our case, really an obstacle. And so I said, well, how do we change that? And they said, well, you petition the TTB and try to explain to them why this should get, you know, its own designation. So we began that process in 2014 because I said, well, this, we got to figure this out. Like, this is a barrier to me of explaining to people why this is not like other things. But I have to say, you know, it was a fact, even that was interesting. Like, you're interacting with the government. Turns out, it's not just the TTB. It's also ATF, FDA, and Treasury. So the first meeting, I was across the table from 17 people. Telling my, doing my, like, Willy Loman act, you know, telling them like, this thing is amazing. And so it's, it's, it's, like I said, but it's a new thing. Like, this is a new thing. It's a new skill set. I've got to develop this business. Navigating bureaucracy. Yeah. You got plenty of that in Hollywood, I'm sure. Better or worse than trying to get funding for a project. No, this was a little different because, you know, when you go into a meeting to pitch a movie to somebody, you know, they make a lot of movies. When you go into this meeting and you're asking for a new category, you know, they don't give out a lot of categories. Their default mode is, no, no. And so we knew that was an uphill battle, but we kept going. And when I have my dark midnight of the soul moments of like, why did I, why did I do this? Like, yeah, I know I like it, but I could have just gotten some shipped over here. What? Why did I do this? I go back to that original reaction that I had, and the fact that it never gets old seeing somebody else have that reaction. Like, that's always, that's like an evergreen thing. And how many things can you say that about? That, like, the fair, you know what I mean? The first time is every time after the first time is like the first time, like watching people taste it and go, wow, I've never tasted anything exactly like that. That's, that's fun. And it's, it's, it is a story. I am telling a story. And what makes it the reason I go everywhere and talk to everybody is it's not about me, actually. I would imagine too. I didn't make it. It's not always easy to have to tell that story through the lens of brandy then, especially since the brandy, most people probably are most familiar with is Cognac and they might not even think of it as a brandy. They're a Cognac drinker. But again, so different being a brandy that's aged in barrels. And the two just have some exist in such different realms. So, yeah, to your point, most people who make brandy as it's popularly understood, consider Singani to be unfinished. When you put a spirit into a casket, you know, a cask, not a casket, into a barrel, the, you're changing the molecular structure of that spirit. It's not just, oh, it's brown now. It's like, no, it's different. It is a different thing. And that's why I think it's appropriate in a brandy category to, you know, sort of pull Singani out and go, yeah, actually it's, this is different. Like this is just different. And you're starting to see this a little bit in Mezcal, which I know Tequiluino is aged. Mezcal typically is not aged or it's not aged in active wood. It might be stored in very neutral wood. But now we're starting to get Reposado and Añejo, Mezcal that are coming into the market in Satoles and other different agave products from Mexico. Is there any tradition at all of putting Singani in wood to gain a little bit of character? And I'm guessing that you've had a bunch of people weighing in and saying, well, you should really put this in wood and age it and make it like everything else. I was just thinking that we needed to re-engage Luis Pablo in this conversation. You just did that. So Luis Pablo, here you go. I'm getting all the tough questions. The law allows you to use old barrels. There's no prohibition there. And some producers, including us, have been playing with aging Singani in the past years. Now, it's very important to understand that other brandies, like Cognac, for example, they use this great variety, which is Unique Blanc. That variety doesn't add any aroma to the product, to the final product. They try to be as neutral as possible. In our case, we try to make it as aromatic and elegant as possible. Whatever wood we use, we try to maintain what the Singani character is, why it is called Singani as it is, and why it's so floral and aromatic. Wood is just going to be something that opens up a bouquet, but it's not going to be the main character. That's what we're aiming for. But we're still playing with it. We're still innovating. It could detract, actually. I mean, that's the first thing that could happen. If the first thing wood is going to remove are the brighter, fresher, more estuary characters that you get out of things. So if anybody can figure this out, it's the Granier family. You know, I think you're right. Look, what's great about Singani63, which is the estate grapes of Casa Real. That's an important thing to mention. And we hadn't gotten that. Interesting. Yeah. How specific it is. That is not to say that there isn't a variation that you can create that somebody with a different palette goes, wow, I like that note. I like that new note that you've introduced. Like that is absolutely worth exploring. Well, and there's something to be said, too, for to get this amount of floral expression without very, very sharp, like acetone elements. There is a lot of skill and distillation that has to exist and be practiced to get this much aromatic character without acetone, acetylaldehyde, and some of those other high alcohols that are very, very pungent and can overpower just the natural I think partly it's remarkably plush across the palette and full-bodied for an unaged brandy. It's really, it's a chewy spirit, and you don't expect that a lot of times going into a clear spirit like this. And certainly out of, in my experience, other other must brandies. So, you know, this is made in very similar to Grappa, right? Where there's still some grape skins. Yeah, I don't know if I drink. Wow. Grappa straight is. Yeah. And I think Grappa tends to be kind of can be thin and harsh and bitey. And this is a little harsh. This is so inviting. And they're also going to a copper again. They're getting the they're going to a copper pot, whereas Grappa is actually done by steam pressure a lot of times. And I think Casa Real's double distillation also plays a large role here because certainly makes a clean spirt. Well, they're very aggressive about the top and the tail. Okay. You know what I mean? Like they're really going for the heart. And it shows. You know what I mean? Like it's so approachable. Somebody in the early days, when we were taking it around in New York and bringing it to people at the heart of the mixology universe, one of the words that they used to describe it was ego-less. They go, it just seems to find its place. I can use it as a base. I can use it as a modifier. They all said, it just seems to find its role. If it needs to solo, it can do that. If it needs to play tambourine, it can do that. Roger is a big tambourine guy himself. I don't know if you can tell. I can tell. Call him Mr. Tambourine Man. Well, people can't see it, but it's right there. Yeah. Talking about how to bring a brand to market and how to do it. All of them were encouraging us to say, this is the narrative that you should be selling, is its versatility and how approachable it is. Now, that's not a one-line thing, and we had a lot of other people who had very successful brands going, no, it needs to be one cocktail, like create, say it's this cocktail, that's the Singani and X. You know what I mean? Keep it really simple. We resisted that. I think that's great because look at what happened to Pisco. Pisco is so pigeonholed into the Pisco sour. Like when was the last time you had a Pisco served another way or talked to somebody who had a Pisco served a different way? Everybody tries it once and they're like, complete one trick pony. Well, exactly. That's what we believed. And we were naive enough. And it's just me and a small group of people. And we decided, no, we're going to stick with, it's super friendly. And if you're somebody, if you're behind a bar and somebody gave you this, you would go, oh, I know what to do. This is ketchup. This is good news. You brought me. This is good news. Thanks. And I'll call you and show you some stuff that I've done. It's the new St. Germain and I was thinking of the same way. It's like there's another there's another spirit that is going through that sort of learning period in the United States, in the US specifically, which is Shochu, because the question that you get, well, what's it like? It's like Shochu, because it's so true. What's it like? It's like Singani, right? Because it's not it's like Singani. Shochu is not like Saki. Shochu is not like vodka. Shochu is not like whiskey. It's Shochu. And Singani is Singani. It seems like maybe some of the magic of this, then, is to go back to the grapes. It seemed like the grape process and the terroir kind of reminded me of the Curaçao orange journey, of a Seville orange being put in this inhospitable environment. And turning into something different in the Caribbean. Right. So I'm curious, could you talk a little bit about what the harvest is like and what it's like to grow these grapes? Harvesting happens from mid February to the end of March. We have one month to get everything harvested. And you need to understand that we are so high up and temperature amplitude is very, very high between days and nights during harvesting time. So what happens, it gets very, it gets hot during the day and then it cools down during the night. And that gives the grapes some time to rest. Compared to other regions around the world. Besides that, in these harsh conditions, if you're a grape, you're a plant, you need to protect yourselves. And that's why how the plant reacts, it creates more chemical, for example, antioxidants or other types of chemicals, or in our case, aromatic molecules, in some sense to protect itself from these harsh conditions. And our soil, I mean, our soil is poor in terms, and that gives us low yields. And by that, I mean that we have low yields and that concentrates even more the aromatic profile, yeah, the grapes. It's amazing that considering those kind of yields and environmental pressures and production timeline pressures, and just how much this speaks to such a sense of place versus many other spirits, this is on the shelf at your local Binny's for under $30. It seems kind of crazy. Well, I mean, we had a lot of conversations about pricing, and honestly, I felt it's the national spirit of Bolivia. It's an every person's drink. This is not a luxury brand. It's a beautiful product, but it is not, in Bolivia, a luxury brand, and I don't want to present it that way outside of Bolivia. I want to present it as everybody has access, and this is just, this is a one bottle bar. In a way, you're doubling down on the authenticity of it at that point. And you should be running Mazcal. Well, you know, what's interesting about it, to me, these two converging stories is, so you have a spirit that has a signature, that has a very specific profile, and yet it's doing a lot of different roles, and I felt like, oh, well, that's how you would describe my presence in my day job. Which is, hopefully, I do things that have a specific signature, but I also do a lot of things. Yeah. A lot of different styles of things. Yeah. On that job, yeah. But it's all built from this core of being distinct. Everything grows out from that. Like, you've got to be unique. And it's refreshing to see it at that price point, because then it becomes something that everyone can just not ruminate over whether or not they want to give it a try. It's not precious. Like, give it a try. Try it in all kinds of different drinks. And that's why it's there. Well, that's been my attitude. It was my, again, it was my attitude about myself as somebody trying to break into the entertainment industry. I grew up in a subdivision in Baton Rouge. I didn't have any connections to the entertainment industry, but I always believed if I could get in the room, I could talk my way into something. And so I feel exactly the same way about Singani, which is like, if I can get in the room, which unfortunately is your mouth, your mouth is a room. I feel like if I can get in your mouth, then like I will live or die based on that because my reaction was really positive. But as I've discovered, this is an incredibly competitive industry, the spirits, the booze business. Like it's, I didn't, it's ruined bars and restaurants for me. Like these used to be places that I was happy to go. And now all I can do is- You're just MFing on when you want to. Yeah, like what's on the back bar, what's on the menu, why, what's the program here? Like, well, like it's all been ruined. But at the same time, the entertainment industry is a very personal relationship-based industry. This is that cubed. Like you can't- Dan Ackroyd told me this when I was like pumping him for information about Crystal Head. No, I go, what am I looking at here? And he goes, if you're not willing to show up, do not do this. You've got to show up. Go everywhere. Go anywhere. Talk to anyone. He goes, literally, if you're not willing to do that, just don't do it because it's just there are too many. There are too many brands out. Have you ever crashed one of George Clooney's parties and gotten everyone drinks and gawning? No, no, but early days, it's early days. That could happen. There is at the Magic Mike live show in Vegas, which I would encourage anybody who's in Vegas to go see. This show is amazing. It's why I made the third Magic Mike film because this is a dance cabaret show unlike anything you've ever seen. But we do have a cocktail on the menu in which it's a split base, Casamigos and Singani. And so look, if I have to draft off of George's success as I've done before. What do you call that cocktail? You know, I'd have to look. If it's not a Mi Casa Es Sucasa, you've really missed the boat. You know, actually, Ricky Lin, who created that program is here. What we were able to do, and I'm not kidding, this show is like amazing. What Ricky did was it's a cocktail menu that matches what you're watching in the show. The title of the cocktail, the combination of elements. It's like you're watching a show and having a drink that matches the mood of the show. It's kind of amazing. I don't know if anybody's been able to do it this specifically before. That's really cool. I like that. Obviously, this spirit's extremely versatile. In Bolivia, how is it typically enjoyed? Is this something that a lot of people are using in a lot of different ways, or is it oftentimes, you know, straight on the rocks? Luis Pablo. Mainly, how Bolivians drink it is in the cocktail is called Chuflai. Chuflai is a Collin's glass, full ice, one-third of Singani, and two-thirds of ginger ale and lemon. It changes because instead of ginger ale, you can use soda or we mix it with roots. Singani lives in our daily culture and it's imbedded in it. So as far as we use it even in the kitchen. I always tell this story about my grandmother using it for making a strawberry pie, or some grandmothers uses it, use Singani when you get a cold, they use it, they rub it on your chest and they believe that they'll make you well. So my point is that Singani is part of our culture. So it is strong and it is very versatile. So mix it with fruits. Yeah, I could see this. We've hammered this home, but I could see why mixologists like this a lot. Yeah. You have some good promotional materials. I like the interviews with mixologists who say that it's a tool in their toolkit. They don't always get a whole new thing to work with. We didn't even really do our normal, really taste through it and hunker down on what we taste and smell. You guys are off camera, so to speak. You guys have been doing your diligence here. It has a florality to it, not just to the nose, but to the finish as well that I think is obviously one of its signature aspects. It has kind of a honey character without being sweet. It's undeniably still brandy though. It does have that honeyed character, but it's not sugary though by any sense. You can tell there's some semblance of residual sugar in there just because of that body I mentioned earlier, that plushness to it. It's really great. There's also a green character that I would think people that are into the Mezcal movement is having a thing right now. Thanks to the must in the distillation, I would assume. Yeah. I mean, there's some green character here that's very pleasant, I think would appeal to agave and agave adjacent drinkers. No, that's true. But also we've had people who like gin go, oh, this is a great, I'm a gin drinker and this is like a great variation. They're pulling out all these gin notes when they taste it. I can see that from especially the newer type of gins that are like American gins. I mean, those characters are in every gin you ever have. Yeah, they're less about juniper now and more about florality and whatnot. Yeah, there's so much florality on this thing. It's crazy. Yeah, but I don't want to pin it as one note floral. We all talk about how floral is, but there's a lot more to it though. Yeah. But it does bring that floral lift. We joke about that Saint Germain sometimes called bartender's ketchup and like ketchup, it's sweet. So I would like that this is adding some things that make you think of Saint Germain without kind of the almost cloying sweetness of it. I mean, it's the liqueur, whereas this obviously isn't. It's really cool. It's cool that you're so passionate about it too. And I think that comes across in a genuine way, which is refreshing. Well, I think in the long run, that stuff matters. This was motivated out of a desire to see other people have the same response that I had and the same reaction. And believe, well, if I'm reacting this way, it's the same thing as making a movie or seeing a movie. You're like, well, if I like this, other people will like this. Like, I'm not a snob, you know. I was a sort of professional but uninformed drinker. I grew up in a world in which there were like five cocktails, you know, and I was fine with that. And until this, and then I had to call vodka and have that conversation. How broad is this brand for you now? How many states is Singani63 available in? I think we're, I mean, you know, in terms of being able to walk in somewhere and pick up a bottle, I think we're in like 32 states. You've got to be careful. Once we got the category, we were getting calls from everywhere in the world, but the problem is like, I can't open up too many fronts. We're ready for everything, but we've got to be smart. I don't want to roll up anywhere and fail. You want a very passionate, activated partner wherever you're going to go. Because as I said, I can only have so many fronts open that we are responsible for. It's moving in the right direction. Like I said, the category was huge for us. And honestly, for me, knowing what's involved, that alone for me is just a big thing. If my obit said, he did this in the film world and he got this category recognized, I go, that's great. Just do that. That's good. One sentence. Have your friends and family been on board right from the get-go or do they say, oh, he's going to talk about Singani again, isn't he? You know, that's funny, but it's also a serious question because I feel like I've got to be very careful about that. You know what I mean? People would think like, well, you know people that could promote this. You could really get so-and-so. Yeah. Are you not just going to put a product placement in every movie you make now? Well, I put them in my own and Fincher was very kind in Gone Girl to display a Singani bottle. I'll have to look for that. Oh yeah, no. Oh, it's there. He was not shy. God bless him. So, you know, but the point is, yeah, as soon as I start talking about that, they're not my friends anymore. Yeah, true. And it's not worth it to me. I'm not, you know what I'm saying? You're not turning the personal relationships into business ones. Yeah, I'm not gonna cross that. I'm not thinking internally of this brand doesn't work. Like, I'm done. And so I know they don't need me to come at them with that. Like, now it's awkward. Now, you know what I mean? Like, now it's, we're in a different, I can't do that. I can't do that. I'm not above, like, rolling up. If I'm invited somewhere, I'm not above rolling up with a bottle. But that's different. That's different. Oh, that's a that's a bake-off right there. But that's different than like, hey, will you post something about like, I'm not, I can't. That's better. You can't ask a friend to do that. Like, you just can't. Well, that's not you either. I mean, I still think you've I've always been a fan of the Oscars. I don't really know why it gets harder and harder to watch. But I think you gave one of the best Oscar speeches. Congrats, by the way, I'm being nominated twice in one category. That's something else. Do you wear this in the same year? That's the only only one ever, right? No, no. One one of my huge influences, Michael Curtiz, was nominated twice in the same year in 1938, 39. So it doesn't exactly happen often. It's it's that was that was an insane year. It seems like a long time ago. I mean, it was 23 years ago. It kind of was. A long time ago. Even Coppola didn't do it in in 1974 with The Godfather in the conversation. No, yeah. I had two best pictures. But not best director. No, but it's pretty amazing. Here's some real trivia. I'm going to go deep here. It's a triple double because picture director screenplay. Wow. So not too shabby. No, like I said, I peaked. Good work if you can get it. I peaked 23 years ago. I'm on the, I'm in the part of the ski slope where I'm about, the best part actually, it's over and I'm about to go into the lodge and drink. Yeah, I was going to say you already started the drinking on the way back down. Yeah, exactly. Like that's, I mean, I'm so close to the fireplace and the Singani, like I'm very happy. You, unlike Orson Welles, you're not pitching vintage dated California sparkling wine, you're pitching Singani. Wow. Something to be excited about. Yeah, well, if we have that level of success, I'd be thrilled. Hey, you mentioned earlier about how it was so popular with the crew and you mentioned the camera crew and the editing crew. Which crew on a film set is going to be the hardest partying during a film production? Oh my God, that's such a softball. Oh, I should just assume it's the best grips or whatever? No, it's a softball for film crews. The camera department is what the feds should be. Are you in the camera department for most of your movies? I'm the head of the camera department. You shoot most of your movies, right? So I'm giving you inside information here. Like the camera department is just a hornet's nest of... You go visit Luis at the distillery and you pull up a camera guy. He's like, oh, the camera guys are here again. It's just the way it plays out. Every department has its own personality, but this is well-established that the camera department is ground zero for, I don't know, just an alternative take on everything. That's great. So, if people go, they need to go out and buy a bottle of this. When they sit down, they enjoy it. If they were going to watch one of your movies, you're known for so many iconic, you know, very well known blockbuster movies. What movie would you like to recommend people maybe haven't seen from you that they could watch while they enjoy some of your Singani63? Oh, well, that's interesting, because I was going to say in terms of when I think of Singani, it feels to me like an oceans movie. Oh, okay. You know, I'm just saying in terms of my reaction to it. But having said that, your motivations for making things evolve over time. And there's a movie that I made quite a while ago called Bubble that I don't think a lot of people have seen. I'm not going to lie, I haven't seen it. Okay. Well, it's, talk about, it's its own thing. It's its own thing. It's short. That's the good news is it's like 75 minutes long. So it's really short. It's just a very specific sort of snapshot of a small group of people in a very specific place in this country doing jobs that are, you know, repetitive manual labor. And yet, you know, there's a, there's a very intense emotional sort of mathematical relationship that happens within this very short time span that becomes very dramatic. And it's, it's, I had such a great time making it. When people go like, is there something of yours I haven't seen that, that maybe I should look at it and go, yeah, you should watch Bubble. Like that's, that's, it's, it's, I'm not saying you're, you're going to go like, oh my God, I love it. I'm just saying in the context of the things that I've done, it occupies a very singular space. I've never made anything else like it. And so that's why I think of it fondly. If there's one genre of movie you haven't made that you'd like to, what do you think it would be? I feel like I could be wrong. I feel like I've gotten to most genres. The only one that I will never get to is I will never make a Western. No? Never. It's not going to happen. Interesting. Terrified of horses. I don't mean to laugh when you say you're terrified, but- No, I'm terrified of horses. Okay. No, they terrify me. I executive produced a very acclaimed Netflix series called Godless, and I told Scott Frank, you are not going to see me. Good luck. I'm sure it's going to be great, but I won't be there. Horses scare me, and I once had an animal intuitive, also known as a cat psychic, tell me that all horses are assholes. Really? She said they think they are just the shit. Horses think they're the shit. Well, they are. This is my point. They're not wrong, but I just don't want to be around that energy. I just don't. That's fair. If you can't trust your cat psychic, I don't know who you can trust. Well, I'm here, I've survived, and so I'm going with her. You have a very eclectic portfolio of films that I think maybe people don't fully appreciate. It's pretty amazing. You're a big Hawks fan, right? Howard Hawks? Oh, huge. I mean, I think anybody, anybody that's any good has swallowed, you know, Howard Hawks. I mean, it was, he, he did that thing that I think is, it was certainly my goal, which was he made really commercial movies that were really smart about how people behave, you know what I mean? Like the behavior, the behavior aligns with how people behave in the world. And yet he attached it to, you know, very commercial. Well known and not just art house type. I mean, there's no filmmaker that I respect that doesn't feel like His Girl Friday is a kind of clinic in comedic cinema You know what I mean? It's mostly verbal, which would seem to like argue against like, well, is it really a movie? But it's also when you actually analyze it, it's very sophisticated visually in the sense that Howard Hawks knows when to just let something play and not to get fancy. You know what I mean? At the end of the day, all anybody cares about is the story and the characters. That's all they care about. They don't care how fancy the directing is or anything else. They just care about the story and the characters. Howard Hawks throughout his career understood this, and that means he had a lack of pretension and a lack of ego to understand the story comes first, I'm servicing the story. I really took that on when I was younger, starting to watch things through the lens of wanting to do this as a job. I can argue it. You can ask Steven Spielberg. Jaws, like, you can tell Steven Spielberg saw a lot of Howard Hawks movies when you watch Jaws, because the humor and the character interaction is absolutely sort of standing on the shoulders of that. You know what I mean? So, yeah, huge influence. But there's so many, like, you're influenced by everything, including sometimes things that are terrible that you hate. You know, those can be a huge influence because they tell you, well, don't do that. It's sort of the equivalent of if you were distilling a spirit and going through, you know, various iterations and your process is eliminating the things that it shouldn't be until you get to the thing that it should be. That's exactly what I do on set. I'm trying to eliminate everything that it shouldn't be to get to the thing that it should be. And so that's why, you know, there are these, there is a Venn diagram of what I do during the day and what I do at night with Singani. So, you know what I mean? Like, so it's familiar, but it's different, which keeps it exciting. That's great. You brought it all back together. Like an Academy Award-winning director. Like a guy with a cat's like it on the payroll. Like a guy who's been drinking Singani for the last. Well, look, if I'm anybody out there who feels they can speak to cats, please, please reach out. I want to hear from you. Well, I don't think we can really answer any of those questions here at Binny's Beverage Depot. You guys told me, I'm going to out you publicly, that I couldn't come on here until I'd done Smartless. Yeah, that's true. That's true. We have very, we have a popularity standard here. No, it was very, and it took me six months to get on that one. No, Cooney's been banging down the door, and we said, you know, we got to wait. We're not quite sure you've reached the big time yet, buddy. Is it going to be around next year? That's the question. Yeah, really. I mean, now that they have a live tour, what kind of podcast needs a live tour? That's really what I want to know. Your real podcast, nobody wants to see your face. So anyway, thank you for your patience. You're very welcome. I know it's just been the honor of your life appearing on this liquor store podcast. What can I say? I didn't have to get on a plane to be on Smart List. I had to get on a plane to do this. So that's the metric. You learn from Dan Aykroyd, though. He comes out. We can attest that he comes out. He was a frequent visitor at Binny's Beverage Depot. Believe everything Dan Aykroyd says. That I just think should be a constitutional amendment. Just do it. Well, some of the lore behind the Crystal Skulls thing that I'm a little questionable on. But it's good vodka. It seems to work. Can I add something to that? Absolutely. Really quick. How we see it here or how I see it is that you have this guy who pursues excellence in everything he does. You mentioned it. His speech, his Oscar speech was very inspirational and one of the best. And he believes that if you create something, then you have left something to this world. And he had the courage to do everything, everything that he has done for Singani for so many years. And he takes the time and not just the time, but the effort and everything that's in him. And he happens to be a celebrity. And that's how we see it. But it's not the other way around. He's very, very honest and authentic. And that's what we value. He's been truly an inspiration to all of us. And even to Bolivians to have our product recognized, no one else got the cojones to do it. So thank you so much. And that's my comment. That's the nicest thing anybody has ever said about me. That was very nice. But like I said, the reason that I like going everywhere, I like talking to everybody is it's not my story. It's not my story. I'm not here pitching a thing that I made. I didn't make this. Casa Real made it. Like I'm a guy with a backpack and a bottle. Like going around, you know, tasting people on it. Like it's not my story. And so that's why it's not soul crushing the way it is to go and do a junkhead to talk about like a thing that you did, because it just feels just so egotistical. This is not, this has nothing to do with me. Like I'm literally just a megaphone. Hopefully I'm a megaphone to tell somebody else's story. So for me, it never gets old because it's not about me. Steven, thanks so much for your time today. Luis, thank you as well. Really kind of remarkable age we're living in here. We've got Hollywood in the room and a Bolivian on the phone. All right. So listeners, we hope you appreciated this episode. If you got any questions for us, hit us up at comments at binnys.com or at Binny's Bev on the social media of your choice. If you ask us a question and we answer it on the podcast, we'll give you a free $20 to Binny's. We'll be back in your feed with something next week, possibly not celebrity related. Until then, I'm Pat. I'm Roger. I'm Jim. I'm Brett. I'm Luis. I'm Steven, but I won't be here next week. Keep tasting. Constantly keep tasting.