Elegant fluted bottle. Stunning graphic and package design. Art Nouveau/Fin de siècle France-inspired styling. Tasty liquor contained within. Sold!
Despite being a hopeless consumer, it's usually not my thing to rave here about specific commercial products. But here goes my Rob Walker-esque tip of the hat to St-Germain elderflower liqueur's entry into the American marketplace.
It's the most brilliant branding, marketing, and ad campaign I've seen in quite some time. I first heard about it through a mixologist I interviewed, and then started noticing the stuff popping up in restaurants. From what best I can tell, the marketing folks figured how best to get the product into able hands of skilled practitioners at respectable places. Programs like the Bartender Exchange and recipe competition help build the product's street cred (or bar cred?) and get it used properly. Then they let it trickle down to the rest of us. Then there's probably some Kim-Kardashian-posing-with-a- St-Germain-bottle-at-a-red-carpet-event type of tactics.
Elderflower liqueur wasn't necessarily non-existent in the U.S., it was just obscure. A few years ago I could only find it in the food marketplace section of Ikea when we tried to replicate vermont's Edelweiss martini. This is hardly the most extreme or exotic ingredient; mass-marketing a floral, sweet alcoholic ingredient that can serve as a more pungent simple syrup makes perfect sense. And the ads and packaging are just so damn pretty. The product offers the retro aesthetic appeal of absinthe, minus the opaline glow and mythic effects.
Having considered buying a bottle for a while, the retro courtesan photo postcard insert ad in Food & Wine finally won me over. And after watching Moulin Rouge this week, I was extra primed to totally give in to the New Year's campaign. So now I have my bottle at the ready to make St-Germain enhanced champagne cocktails and toast like it's 1899.
I know, I love this stuff! I think I first had it in a cocktail at Slanted Door in SF. Now, seeing the distinctive bottle at someone's house is like seeing the membership card of a mutual club. :-)
Posted by: Cicely | January 01, 2009 at 11:01 AM
It makes an *amazing* champagne-or-anything-else-sparkling-and-white cocktail. I like to top an ice cube soaked in blood orange bitters with 1/2 inch of St. G, and then top with COAESAW.
When you *don't* have a bottle of bubbly around, try one part St. G, one part citrus vodka, two squeezed lime wedges and two parts club soda, in a tumbler with some ice. It's based on another one of those drinks-thought-up-by-bartenders, this one called the Casper, courtesy of the folks @ R+D Cafe in Santa Monica.
Posted by: Kate | January 04, 2009 at 06:16 PM
can anyone tell me exactly how i can find the folks that do the event marketing for this beverage......was at a saatchi holiday party a couple of years ago and the presentation was spectacular.....the drinks....magnificent!!!! now i cant find them anywhere!!!!!
and i need them!
Posted by: urbnomad | January 27, 2009 at 11:47 PM
some damn pretty
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