Boozehound - Jason Wilson [13]
Yeah, well, me neither. When I first began writing about spirits—basically before I learned to ignore 99 percent of the emails I received—I got this from the Pear Bureau Northwest: “Pears Make a Splash as Fresh Drink Trend for 2007.”
Okay, so pears were the New Black. This, of course, made total sense … if I just could overlook the fact that pears have been cultivated and enjoyed by humans since about 5000 BCE. But I kept receiving the same message. In another breathless news release, a spokesperson for Absolut vodka declared pear to be “the next big flavor.” Said this spokesperson, “We constantly have flavorists on the hunt for all the new scents, flavors, and tastes, and pear was ‘ripe’ for us.” Not surprisingly, Absolut was, at precisely the same moment, launching a new flavored vodka, Absolut Pears. Within weeks, Grey Goose unveiled its own pear vodka, La Poire.
Now, anyone who understands lifestyle journalism knows that three of anything is a certifiable trend, and so by early 2007 we were getting dangerously close to the tipping point on pear vodka. When I tasted the two new pear vodkas, what struck me immediately was how differently each company interpreted pear flavor. Grey Goose had a delicate, sort-of-natural-ish pear bouquet. But the mild flavor was so subtle as to be nearly lost in the mouth. Absolut Pears had a strong candy scent and an assertive, “fruity” taste that no pear in nature could possibly convey.
So what was one supposed to do with pear vodka anyway? That is a very good question—one that I ask myself every time I see those two three-quarters-full bottles that sit in the back of my liquor cabinet. No one else seemed to know, either. This post on the industry site Webtender was typical: “I work at a rather nice upscale restaurant in Manhattan and our bartender recently ordered Absolute [sic] Pear. After we all tasted it in several drinks we decided to make a few drinks based around it for our signature drink list. We aren’t having much luck.” Or this, regarding La Poire, on the website Chowhound: “I don’t get it, personally. I’d rather drink poire eaux-de-vie.” Or harsher still: “I tried it straight and would’ve rather of [sic] drank warm piss through a dirty sock.”
I kept waiting, but a year or so went by, no third pear vodka ever appeared, and the pear vodka trend came and went with a whimper. But no matter. By then, people had moved on to sweet tea or bubble gum or some other ridiculousness. People, people, people.
By “people,” of course, I mean the vast majority of spirits consumers. The largest liquor companies in the world haven’t launched more than five hundred flavored vodkas because no one wanted to drink them. Of course, whenever a vast majority pursues any kind of macrotrend, there will always be a backlash from a smaller group who vehemently resists the mainstream. Which means that, as usual, we’re right back in high school. In the world of spirits, these vodka rejecters might be called cocktail connoisseurs or aficionados. But since high school continues to be a useful metaphor here, let’s just call these people what they are: cocktail geeks. I must confess that I usually sit at the cocktail geeks’ lunch table.
What the cocktail geeks’ rejection of the most popular spirit wrought was the alternative trend of the so-called classic cocktail, culled from the dusty pages of antique drinks guides