The caipirinha missionary

Steve Luttmann couldn’t hide his joy when it was announced that Rio de Janeiro will host the 2016 Olympics. No, he doesn’t live in Rio. Nor is he an athlete. He is the businessman behind the Leblon cachaça, the drink bearing the name of a Rio district and that is market leader in the US. Steve (a sort of one man army in promoting cachaça worldwide) had reasons to celebrate. On that October day, he recalls, the word “caipirinha” was used in the title of a US press article for the first time. “On the day of the announcement, the Associated Press told the whole world that Rio de Janeiro people were ‘drinking caipirinha on the city streets”, he recalls at his company headquarters, a large Manhattan loft where an alembic glitters amid computers and photos of the beautiful Leblon beach (close to Ipanema). Steve and his partners produce (in Brazil) and sell around 450,000 bottles of Leblon per year, enough to make seven million caipirinhas. Only 16% of production is sold in Brazil – the rest is exported to 12 countries. But Steve does more than just produce and distribute. He has two other, self-adopted missions: the first is to educate Americans on cachaça and caipirinha. And the second is to ensure that the US government officially recognizes the proper identity of cachaça, instead of the disastrous “Brazilian Rum” label – as it is officially classified in the US. There is also a third mission, exclusively for Brazil: Steve wants to remind upper/middleclass Brazilians that caipirinha is made with cachaça.

Vodka is for Russians. “It has no taste, in every sense”, he says. “However, sugarcane gives cachaça aroma, taste, personality and layers of complexity, just like tequila does for margarita”. In this mission, he has an ally: the highly-renowned Brazilian chef Alex Atala, who chose the Leblon brand to make the caipirinhas for Dalva & Dito – his Brazilian food restaurant in São Paulo. Atala says he fully agrees with Steve. Is a margarita with no tequila still a margarita, asks the chef? No, he replies emphatically. And the same criteria should apply to caipirinha. “Let’s use vodka for what it was intended”, says Atala. “You have to respect cachaça, and vodka”. In the US, Steve’s campaign is called “Legalize Cachaça”. In Brazil, he uses the phrase “Save Caipirinha!” Both are very funny. When Rio was chosen to host the Olympics, Leblon held Caipi-hours in bars of 10 US cities. He even created a special caipirinha for the occasion, in the colors of the Brazilian flag: lime, lemon and blueberry. And he didn’t forget the losing cities. “We also offered the “Consolation” version to Chicago, and two recipes reminiscent of Madrid and Tokyo – all four are delicious”, he says. Leblon also holds parties and parades with the theme “Legalize Cachaça” in New York bars, amid Los Angeles traffic and on Bourbon Street (the New Orleans drinkers’ street).

The cachaça cause
On a Monday, PIB accompanied the pro-cachaça posse at one of the three New York bars visited by the parade. Steve was there, amid banners and trays of caipirinha. It’s all registered on YouTube, which Leblon also uses to promote the drink, explain its origins and teach Americans how to pronounce the word: “ka-SHA-sa”. Armed with banners and megaphones and wearing green shirts with the Legalize Cachaça! campaign logo, they make their presence felt. They make a lot of noise, like someone defending a political cause. Sometimes, they read out a statement in public in favor of the drink’s official recognition. In New Orleans, they even wore those white wigs used in AngloSaxon courts. Leblon’s US launch was coordinated by the British consultancy firm McKinney Rogers, specialized in developing business strategies and international expansion of global brands, especially in the beverages business. Damian Mckinney, McKinney Rogers CEO, was recently in São Paulo, where he opened the company’s first office in Latin America. What was it like to work with a drink so strongly identified with Brazil in the US market? “It was easy”, replied McKinney, highlighting the creativity with which Steve is trying to popularize cachaça among Americans. Steve explains the reason for breaking from the routine: the job of educating US consumers, he says, must start by changing the import mentality. It would be much easier and cheaper for someone in São Paulo or Belo Horizonte to close the container with the drinks, send them to the US and leave the rest of the work to the importer and distributer. “But that isn’t how it works”, explains Steve, who worked in the fine distillates division of the French brand LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton). There, he learnt a lesson: when the French wanted to sell champagne in the US, they came here, instead of simply exporting it from France. “They joined the local market and taught Americans to say cham-pa-gne”.

 

The cachaça lobby
Steve is following the same path: “We sell Brazil in a bottle”, he explains. “When you drink a caipirinha, you are momentarily whisked away to Rio de Janeiro, without having to buy the airfare”, he says with a smile, recalling that a 750ml bottle of Leblon costs US$25-30. Steve has a team of celebrity bartenders all over the US who help him spread the word about caipirinha and drinks made from cachaça (they are paid for this). They are people known in the business, owners of their own bars, who create drinks and are self-proclaimed “mixologists”. “We spend a lot of time with these guys, teaching and inspiring them” says Steve. The result? “They create incredible recipes, and teach us a few things as well”. It’s a long journey. In the US, margarita is still the number one cocktail drink. But Steve recalls that when the Mexicans entered the US with tequila, they endured the same problems he is facing now: the Americans called tequila Mexican Rum. The bureaucratic process of removing the name Brazilian Rum from the cachaça bottles sold in the US is finally coming to an end, he guarantees. It was difficult: the Brazilian government has spent the last 10 years trying to have the name “cachaça” approved by the US government – a request already turned down on several occasions, says Steve. Why? Well, the Americans didn’t understand what a legitimate drink is, so they tried to label it from a technical standpoint, related to the raw material and the production process. “It’s like calling Mary someone who was born and raised as Jane”, he explains. “You can’t swap a product’s cultural value for the scientific criteria; and besides, cachaça tastes nothing like rum; it’s much more like tequila”, he argues. But the cachaça market has been growing in the US, although Steve says that only 20% of Americans have actually ever heard of cachaça (though this is still twice the percentage who had heard of the drink in 2008). The Brazilian Cachaça Institute (IBRAC) hired a lobbyist, took the problem to the Brazilian Embassy in the US and, together, they visited the US agency responsible for labeling drinks to explain that, as the Brazilian Carnival song goes, “cachaça sure ain’t water”…and much less rum. Steve himself got involved in the process and says that the resolution changing the drink’s official classification is set to be passed any time now. Once published, it becomes law in 70 days.

Minas Gerais distillery
Steve was introduced to caipirinha in 1997 in São Paulo, where he also lived for a while. He fell in love after his first sip. As time went by he remained amazed that his fellow Americans had never even heard of Brazil’s favorite tipple. Upon noting the success of mojito (a Cuban drink made with rum, lemon and mint) in the US, he realized that caipirinha could also enjoy its day in the sun. “Mojito broke bartenders’ resistance to crush lemons, which is essential to make a caipirinha”, he says. “What they really enjoy is mixing drinks.” Steve blended this vision with his experience, added a middle-age crisis, shook and stirred things up with a major dose of enthusiasm, a few more pinches of sugar and founded Leblon, in partnership with his Brazilian father in law Roberto Stoll Nogueira, a French partner, Gilles Merlet, an Englishman and an African. “Brazil has everything that guarantees a vibrant brand: a party atmosphere, beautiful people, stunning wildlife and the Real Plan, which brought innumerous benefits to the country”, says Steve, who is married to a São Paulo woman. The name Leblon comes from the famous beach, located next to the Dois Irmãos hill. “It’s a two-syllable word, kind of French sounding, a sophisticated and well-known district with real pedigree”, he explains. After spending several months driving round in search of the right distillery, Steve, his father in law, and their French and English partners found what they were looking for in Patos de Minas, in the Alto Paranaíba region (Minas Gerais state). They bought the ranch with the full backing of Gilles, who went from consultant to partner, bringing the know-how of his family, which owns a distillery in France. Each year, they improve the distillery, which is now called Maison Leblon. “It’s a piece of France smack bang in the middle of Brazil”, says Steve. He says his partners have already invested over US$15mn in Leblon, which has 60 employees evenly divided between the Brazilian distillery and the commercial and distribution operations in the US. In Brazil, Leblon has another motto: “celebrate Brazil, celebrate this fantastic drink!”, says Steve. It was this motto that led him to join up with Alex Atala – known for using Brazilian ingredients – to raise the campaign flag. Atala explains that he chose Leblon to make the caipirinhas of his Dalva & Dito restaurant because it is a cachaça that combines high quality with production volume. “The fact that they have a French master distiller who is a brandy connoisseur shows they aren’t playing around here”, he says. Steve stresses that Brazil has great cachaça brands, but that consumers need to understand the difference between industrial pinga, which, in his opinion, reminds you of ethanol production, and cachaça. “Cachaça is totally homemade and pure; it uses every last inch of the sugarcane”, he explains. “And what’s best: it doesn’t give you that headache the next day”. And on that note, cheers!

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