category focus At San Francisco’s Nopa,

Neyah White makes the

“Sherry Shrub” cocktail

Sherry, Baby
Can the Cocktail Save Spain’s
Classic Fortified Wine?
By Jack Robertiello

F
or years there has been a struggle to overcome the
musty image from which classic sherry suffers. It’s
been a labor to acquaint sommeliers and retailers
with the wide range of flavors sherry bodegas produce in
fino, manzanilla, amontillado, oloroso and other styles.

This work has won many fans in the
industry—in fact, at January’s Copa Jerez
international food and sherry pairing com-
petition challenging chefs and sommeliers
to develop and defend the best matches,
American sommelier Roger Kugler took top
honors. And sales results have been good but
modest, as imports to the U.S. last year grew
by 1.7%, according to figures provided by
the Sherry Council of America. The recent
popularity of Spanish food and tapas dining
has helped, as neophytes are inevitably more
willing to try a glass of fino or manzanilla to
go with their croquetas.
Yet getting restaurants to carry more
sherries and offer them by the glass hasn’t
created much breakthrough in on-premise
consumption. An insightful campaign
started nearly five years ago, however, has
established the fortified wine as part of the
cocktail renaissance.
On the Menu
Could bartenders be capable of
giving sherry new life? Sherry
cocktails are now showing up
at many destination bars. At
Cantina in San Francisco, you’ll
find the “Jerez Margarita” (re-
posado tequila, Grand Marnier,
lime, agave nectar and Savory &
James amontillado) and the “Car-
men Amaya” (Rittenhouse rye, Cointreau,
lemon, muddled basil and amontillado). In
New York City, the Mexican bar and res-
taurant Mayahuel, recently opened by no-
table bartender Phillip Ward, features the
“Smoked Palomino” (amontillado, mezcal,
grapefruit and lime) and the pan-Asian res-
taurant Pranna included on its summer list
the “Bengal Tiger” (saffron and cardamom-
infused vodka, manzanilla, ginger juice and
sparkling water).
All this is no accident, but the result of a
slowly building program challenging bartend-
ers to develop and defend sherry cocktails. In
the past few years as quality ingredients, clas-
sic cocktails and mixology experimentation
have taken hold of the bar business, these ef-
forts have been bearing fruit.
As unusual an ingredient it may seem to
today’s untutored cocktail fan, sherry’s ad-
dition to mixed drinks predates the classic
American cocktail, one of the reasons Steve
Olson and his aka wine geek team launched
the competition in 2005. Originally intend-
ed to be a small part of the overall sherry
promotional campaign, the contest became
crucial to turning around the image of sherry
in the U.S. Olson says the move to all-fresh
ingredients and high-end premium versions
has helped sherry by association.
“If you have a good product, it’s just a
matter of time before it becomes an impor-
tant cocktail ingredient and a lot of people
catch on,” he says.
Competition
Breeds Creativity
Many products employ bartender contests to
spur interest and mixability in a particular
category. But few are as tough as the sherry
competition. Not only must drinks be listed
on a restaurant’s menu, but each competitor
must explain its food friendly qualities, how
it fits with the rest of the menu and why he
or she used a particular sherry.
The competition has drawn
a response—and a high quality
of entries—that surprised even
organizers, according to sherry
ambassador Andy Seymour. “Bar-
tenders love new products and
flavors, and while sherry isn’t
new, it’s undergoing a reawaken-
ing and getting back to where it
 sherry
was in the past: a key cocktail ingredi-
ent,” Seymour explains.
For his winning 2008 entry, Neyah
White of San Francisco’s Nopa combined
a childhood love for shrub (a drink made
from fruit preserved with vinegar) with
sherry. The drink, mixing the slightly
briny manzanilla with the seasonal fruit
drink made from sour cherries, plums,
persimmons or strawberries, is a staple
on Nopa’s menu. “It’s a great base, very
accepting of other flavors and a lot of fun
to work with,” says White. “We carry a
couple of amontillado and oloroso sherries,
but the brightness of the shrubb needs
the manzanilla to help it pop,” he adds.
“If you have a good
product, it’s just a
matter of time before
it eventually becomes
an important cocktail
ingredient and a lot of
people catch on.”
— Steve Olson,
aka wine geek
Chris Hannah from Arnaud’s French
75 in New Orleans credits the competi-
tion for the opportunity to sample in-
spiring sherries and recipes, which has
set him on a quest for more. Building
on the New Orleans love of the Pimm’s
Cup, he offers two cup-style drinks—
the “Jerez Cup” (rum, sherry, muddled
cucumbers and strawberries, lime juice,
simple syrup and Cava) and the “Span-
ish Bay” (Chartreuse, Dry Sack sherry,
orange juice).
All You Have
To Do Is Try
“People are a bit wary of sherry here in
the South. They’re drinking vodka cock-
tails and bourbon, and I’ve found they
can be a little afraid of the maltiness of
Resting barrels
of Lustau sherry
sherry,” Hannah adds. But he’s found a
good reception for his cup recipes.
“The biggest hurdle is consumer mis-
conception about what sherry is; people
may think there is only sweet sherry,
or that it is old-fashioned,” says Marc
Destito, director of the Sherry Council.
“We need to communicate the versatil-
ity of sherry to consumers and get them
to taste the various types. Unless we get
them to taste, they don’t have an under-
standing of what sherry is.”
The Council has other activities—
it’s recently launched the consumer-
focused Secret Sherry Society; the group
presents at annual events like the Food &
Wine Classic in Aspen; and a branded ad
campaign and retail POS is forthcoming.
Sherry ambassadors are working in Chi-
cago, San Francisco, New York, southern
Florida and Las Vegas this year.
But the cocktail is king now, and
while the competition mostly targets
cocktail influencers, Olson says it won’t
ultimately do much good if sherry cock-
tails don’t go beyond those limits: “Every
bar in America has Tio Pepe, Dry Sack
and Harvey’s Bristol Cream—or at least
one of them. But most bartenders have no
idea what to do with them, and the bot-
tles have been sitting there for months.”
Rather than allowing bottles to lose
quality while they sit on the warm back
bar, he recommends bartenders offer ba-
sic drinks like Sherry Cups or Cobblers,
where fresh fruit is the main ingredient.
“Think sangria,” he says. “The smart-
est thing you can do in a bar to control
pour cost is take red wine before it goes
bad, add brandy and fruit and there’s a
gorgeous summer drink. The Sherry Cob-
bler is the same basic principle and every-
one has limes, lemons and oranges.”
But Olson knows he and sherry pro-
moters still have a tough road ahead:
“There are people who will never, ever
drink sherry. But if they have it in a
cocktail that they like, it might open
one more door.” n