Retro design trend sweeps wine and spirits world

Wine and spirits brands are dipping back into their archives to communicate their history and heritage in response to a recession-led consumer desire for authenticity. As reported on db.com, Kevin Shaw, owner of design agency Stranger & Stranger, has seen a surge in demand for retro labels from clients including Jack Daniel’s.

“Retro says authenticity and harks back to a time when things were made with care by hand,” said Shaw, whose retro design for The Kraken Black Spiced Rum has been hugely well received. Housed in a Victorian flagon-style rum bottle with glass loop handles, the label features a monstrous squid swimming up the side. “Kraken is killing it. They have an online store where you can buy Kraken shower curtains, wallpaper, lamps, even Eau de Kraken perfume – I’m sure it’s all down to the old school charm of the brand,” Shaw said. 

Sherry brand González Byass started the retro trend two years ago, when it delved back into its archives to re-release the first ever Tio Pepe label on its limited edition Tio Pepe Fino En Rama line. This year’s En Rama, due to go on sale later this month, features a vintage Sherry label from 1857. The company continued the retro theme with its Palmas range of aged finos, released late last year.

“We went for retro labels because both En Rama and Palmas were resurrections of products that featured on our price lists in the 1800s,” said González Byass marketing manager Jeremy Rockett, adding, “the labels have been so well received they have almost become the message of the wines.”

Capitalising on the retro trend, Plymouth Gin has had a historical revamp, ditching its Art Deco skyscraper bottle in January in favour of an embossed flint glass bottle modelled on its original 18th century shape created by design agency Design Bridge. “The previous bottle failed to communicate the brand’s heritage, which is a major part of its DNA. We needed to bring the heritage back to the packaging,” said Paco Recuerdo, international brand director at Plymouth owners Chivas Brothers.

Legendary filmmaker-turned-winemaker Francis Ford Coppola has also borrowed from the past with his 3-litre “Carmine” wine jug. Named after his father and featuring sheet music written by him on the label, the jug is inspired by those stocked in Carmine’s cellar where Coppola would play as a child. 

Cocochan

Having only been open a mere three months, Cocochan, the new pan-Asian kid on the block, is already being compared to modern Chinese heavyweight Hakkasan a few tosses of the wok away. Walking into the dimly lit venue just off Oxford Street (my bright white featured photo is somewhat misleading), the comparisons soon become clear. From the deep purple lighting and metallic, mirrored latticework, to the carved wood partitions and black bamboo tables, Cocochan is highly stylized, but manages to pull the look off with modish insouciance.

The names Cocochan and Hakkasan are remarkably similar in their three-syllable, trip off the tongue, ending in 'n' playfulness. They even rhyme. But enough of the comparisons, for Cocochan does more than ape its role model, it succeeds as a destination venue in its own right. The chefs here champion the sous-vide technique, where food is slow cooked in a vacuum pack to ensure consistency and retain vitamins.

The menu is formed around the three 'cultures' of Asian food – southwest (Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan and Burmese) with its focus on spices, northeast (Chinese, Korean and Japanese) famed for its frying fetish, and the aromatically influenced southeast (Thai, Laotian, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Indonesian and Malaysian). Divided into sections, such as 'small dishes', 'dim sum', 'large dishes' and 'sides', the menu allows you to choose between Asian-style sharing or British plate hogging. I'd strongly advocate the former – it makes for an exciting dining experience; a tastebud tour of Asia and all its flavour nuance.

My journey begins with cocktails in the basement bar that seems somewhat disjointed from the restaurant above. While Moorish music blares from the speakers, I sip on a Scarlet Club – a mixture of Beefeater gin, Galliano, lemon sherbet, raspberry syrup and egg white. The colour of a pinched cheek and garnished with an edible pansy, it's satisfyingly sharp, and has a pleasingly creamy texture from the egg white. Before making my way back upstairs, I find time for a second, opting for the intriguingly-titled and dangerously strong Secret Garden, made with Plymouth gin, Cachaça, apple brandy and grenadine.

Craving nourishment, my dining companions and I take our seats upstairs, among the quiff-sporting fashionistas and bespectacled media types. Preferring the small plates concept, which so many London restaurants have successfully adopted, our dishes are brought out individually, and considerately come in threes, meaning less squabbling and more gobbling. Our feast begins with piping hot edamame, and quickly moves on to an innovative take on sesame prawn toast (£4.25). The size of a snooker ball, they are perfectly round and flecked with poppy seeds. Designed to be dipped in the accompanying sweet chili sauce, their spherical shape renders the journey from plate to mouth problematic, but the flavour rewards are worth the effort.

Our taste tour of Asia continues, amidst glasses of steely, lime-laced Domäne Wachau Grüner Veltliner, with crispy duck spring rolls (£5.25), thick as a Cohiba and enhanced by the salty hoisin, glutenous chicken and chestnut gyoza (£4.25) served in a spicy broth, and pleasingly fishy scallop and prawn siu mai (£4.75) topped with jewel-like orange caviar. The crab-fueled California maki (£7.75) and salmon sashimi (£4.25) are textbook, while five paper-thin slithers of hamachi (£8.75) sprinkled with emerald green flying fish roe and laced with truffle soya mirin are too tiny to merit their price tag.

Main events include well judged, juicy tiger prawn tempura with spicy mayo (£8.50), and an outstanding aromatic duck and watermelon salad (£7.75). Ablaze with red and green, the juicy duck, cooling watermelon and mint, and salty hoisin and cashews create a flavour crescendo. We finish on a high note with a Korean dish: 'bulgogi' ribeye in a wasabi jus (£18.50). Meaning 'fire meat', our version, served medium rare, is perfectly pink, packed with meaty flavour and wonderfully soft – an ideal match for our opulent Opportunist Shiraz. Pudding comes in the form of an almost airborne pomegranate crème Brûlée, served with a pair of windmill-like peanut brittle sails.

Cocochan certainly seems to have been modelled in Hakkasan's image, but this is no bad thing. The service is impeccable, food almost faultless, and most pleasing of all, the prices are incredibly fair for its central London location. Hakkasan may be the pan-Asian king, but this princely pretender is a deserved heir to the throne.

Martini masterclass at Dukes

Keen to learn more about cocktails (through drinking as many of them as possible), on Saturday I attended a martini masterclass at Dukes Hotel in Mayfair.

Christened 'the home of the perfect martini' by The New York Times, Dukes Bar has a reputation for making the best martinis in the world – Charles and Di used to stop by and Bond author Ian Fleming was a regular. Legend has it he coined his double agent's famous 'shaken, not stirred' line during a particularly fruitful drinking session at the bar.

With such a reputation, I was excited to sip on one of the world-class martinis myself. Run by Italian bar manager Alessandro Palazzi, an amiable John Malkovich lookalike dressed in a white tux, the two-hour class walks us through the history of the martini, from its original form, to the truffle-infused martinis of today.

With 36 years in the trade under his belt, Palazzi is full of praise for London, dubbing it 'the capital of cocktail innovation', and concedes that France and Italy are still conservative in their approach to cocktails, doing things boringly by the book rather than taking risks.

Dukes are keen to keep the theatrical element of cocktail making alive – Palazzi makes all his martinis at guests' tables on a wooden trolly. The bar itself is surprisingly small, which only adds to its charm.

The masterclass begins with the 'original' martini, made with Angostura bitters, red vermouth, Old Tom gin and Maraschino cherry liqueur. A lot of the ingredients, like gin and vermouth, were originally used for medical purposes. To finish, he dusts the rim with a strip of Almalfi lemon peel, then drops it into the glass to garnish. The glass gets passed round and we all take a sip. It's delicious but ludicrously strong. We're basically drinking pure alcohol, albeit wonderfully mixed. Luckily a sip is all that's required at this stage.

The class is made up of six martini fans, and we each get the chance to make a different take on the drink. One of Palazzi's golden rules is that martini must be served cold – the colder the better, but ice should be avoided. With each new martini he magics a bottle of gin or vodka fresh from the freezer. Martinis should also be, contrary to Bond, stirred, not shaken. Another tip is to stick to gin, as the botanicals give the martini more flavour.

The 'classic' martini couldn't be simpler – a few drops of dry vermouth to coat the rim of your glass, a generous measure of gin (preferably Beefeater or Plymouth), and a strip of Amalfi lemon peel. Palazzi folds the lemon peel over the glass and squeezes out drops of lemon oil, giving it a zesty lift. The glass gets passed round. It seems even stronger than the last. Much more of this and I'm going to pass out.

Soon it's my turn and I'm summoned to the trolly. I'm tasked with making the Vesper martini, named after Bond's lover Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale. In an unashamed homage to the secret agent, all the martinis on Dukes's list are named after Bond characters. To make the Vesper, I coat the glass with Angostura bitters and pour in one part Potocki vodka and one part Crown Jewel gin, topping it off with Lillet dry vermouth and the customary twist of Amalfi lemon. It's a lethal combination. The glass gets passed round and eventually finds its way back to me. I take a few tiny sips. Palazzi clocks this sidestepping and warns me that I'm not allowed to leave until my glass is empty.

It's a charming afternoon, and I feel wonderfully civilized sitting in Dukes Bar slowly sipping a martini made by a barman at the top of his game. 'Simplicity and balance are key', Palazzi tells us. 'It doesn't matter what you throw in a martini, it's how you throw it in.' Before we go I have one last question: 'why the olive?' 'Ah', Palazzi says with a grin. 'The olive brings out the saltiness, but it's meant to be served on the side. Franklin D. Roosevelt always had three'.