Raj Nagra

UNITED STATES

MEET BOMBAY’S STAR

Drinks World was lucky enough to sit down with Global Brand Ambassador for Bombay Sapphire, Raj Nagra to talk about the popularity of gin, the brand’s latest initiative, the Glass House Project and ginstronomy.

DRINKS WORLD: This was the first year that Bombay Sapphire ran the new Glass House Project for bartenders, changing from The Most Imaginative Bartender Competition. What is the Glass House Project about and how was the response to it?

RAJ NAGRA: Last year we had a new team come into the business and we looked at competitions in general, and there’s kind of a lot of saturation and there are a lot of really good competitions out there. I think The World’s Most Imaginative Bartender competition was a great competition, so we might continue to do that. Having said that, we looked at competitions and thought, “Well, it’s a little counterintuitive because thousands of people will enter a competition and one person wins and that’s a lot of potentially upset bartenders that put a lot of time and energy into creating what they think is the best cocktail in the world, potentially”.

So we thought, what is the upside of competitions? What is the best part of it? The best part of competitions is the camaraderie, the networking, the education, great experiences, interesting locations, and that is what people take away.

Let’s remove the competition element and just try and do an event that’s really forward thinking and actually focuses on a specific education and is a gathering of great minds, and try and be inspirational to people. Which are equally, if not more creative as creating drinks.

So for The Glass House Project, we took professionals from different fields. For example, we had a design company that designed the Olympic torch and they took us through the process of the different terrains and the parameter tests of the different designs so that the torch wouldn’t go out. They came in and talked about glassware, and they basically showed a template for how you would create a glass from scratch, so the psychology behind it, the feel of it, not so much the functionality because the bartenders have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn’t. So basically they went through the whole process from start to finish, which only took a couple of hours and by the end of it, every bartender had a sketch of their own specific style of glass. Then the design company went away and created like a 3D plastic cup of everyone’s idea. So people went away from the experience understanding how you would create something like this, and everyone put their own flair into it. When would somebody in the industry have an opportunity to do something like that? They just wouldn’t.

We had loads of interesting sessions, one was with a lighting company, one was with a theatre company, and we also had Dr. Rachel Edwards-Stuart, a food scientist who has trained with Heston Blumenthal. We took them through loads of different concepts that were kind of peripheral but kind of linked to the industry. It was really about pushing their creativity and we didn’t push the brand or force it on them. It was very well received and all the bartenders said that experience was like nothing they had ever seen before. Everyone was refreshed and inspired by it.

I think based on the success of The Glass House project we will try to hold multiple events next year.

DW: What have you been doing for the Bombay brand while you’ve been in Australia?

RN: We did the Summer Soiree, which is about fashion, the aperitif moment and entertaining at home and largely based on the Esquire handbook for hosts. I did a seminar a few years ago at Tales around the three-martini lunch, so the late 50s to the early 70s in America, the Don Draper period. It’s kind of a romantic period in history and I really like that period because in the 50s you had television, incredible music, white picket fences, sex appeal and the culture changed so much. I think even today, there’s so much influence is taken from that period. A friend of mine, Doug Miller works at the Culinary Institute in New York who has an incredible library of books, magazines, and resources from that period, so we kind of got together and reviewed a lot of content. That kind of influenced the Summer Soiree. That handbook would tell you everything like, if it was a Monday and you were entertaining your boss this is what you should cook, this is a drink that you should make and these are what games you should play. It’s almost comical in a way but entertaining was huge during that period.

Where we are now, people want new experiences and the industry is changing, and bartenders are doing such a great job in educating guests. Even the curiosity around gin is phenomenal right now. We also had Project Botanicals that’s really about that culinary experience, what we call “Ginstronomy” - the idea of food matching cocktails is not a new concept, but something we’ve really been driving. We feel that particularly in Australia it is gaining traction with consumers and really opening their minds to how gin is made and how it can be applied to pairing with food. It’s not the newest concept in the world, but it’s really resonating with where the consumer is at the moment.

DW: You mentioned how bartenders are helping to educate people, are there anything that bottle shops and off-premise could be doing?

RN: I think we’ve seen a lot the off-premise pair items, like bottles of tonic water paired with gin. Simplicity is good and things don’t have to be complicated. I think having that sort of complementary idea is great, I mean gin and tonic, for example, is still probably the most famous mixed drink in the world. It’s a very simple drink, there are lots of different types of tonic water and, in terms of gin, probably half the people would quite happily find a brand they like and stick to it, while the other half tend to be quite open to trying new gins.

There’s a lot more education to be had by consumers on discovering the intrinsic aspects of mixed drinks and cocktails. The great thing about gin is that more often than not people will happily try a gin and tonic.

I think cocktails are a really good platform for people to get into the idea of mixed drinks as well and gin kind of has the arsenal in that sense to really be applicable once people can get their head around it and really understand it a bit more.

DW: We have been seeing a number of craft gins hit the market over the last few years. What is your take on the craft gin movement and what are the differences for the bigger players?

RN: Craft really is kind of like a buzzword, like mixologist. Craft really just means hands-on. It’s a two-sided story. People could say that maybe imperfection is a good thing and I think it can be more of a romantic idea. I can’t be too controversial but you can’t for a second assume that these small gins don’t want to be big gins. Nobody creates a gin just to produce 100 cases a year. And so, in an adverse way, big gins almost want to behave small and be a bit more nimble. I think there’s always going to be support for local products and gins when they started to come up as small craft gins. You don’t have the same budget, the marketing, the capability or the reach so the easiest way for you to get traction is to do it on a small scale. Trying to get from that point to a bigger point can be complex.

The kind of exacting processes and the experience and the investment that comes along with a big distillery, I don’t think anyone could honestly say that the gin is worse.

We’re the only gin distillery in the world that has a master of botanicals, it’s probably the most experienced person in his field, so how can you say that’s not craft and not hands-on?

Craft is important and accounts for a really interesting segment of the gin category. It’s also propelling the gin category forward and all of these things contribute to the success of gin. Gin still is the fastest growing spirit category in

the world, by value and by growth. So gin is in a really good place.

DW: The buzzword for us in cocktails at the moment is sustainability and foraging. Can you tell us about the sustainability of the Bombay distillery at Laverstoke Mill?

RN: It’s something that we’ve been talking a lot about because we have an onsite horticulturalist, and we’ve been working a lot with some of the best natural and organic farms. The whole area of Hampshire has a lot of flora and fauna that habituates that area, so there’s a lot to discover. Sam Carter who is our ambassador onsite at Laverstoke does a lot of foraging and there are a couple of small stills at the distillery, so he’s always distilling local ingredients.

Laverstoke is one of the most sustainable, if not the most sustainable distillery in the world today and I think it’s the new benchmark for all gin productions really. It’s not just another distillery, it’s the greenest distillery there is. The glasshouses are actually heated by excess heat from the still, so we have two different climates. It’s not really just about putting out a mass product, there’s a lot of care and attention that’s gone into every batch of productions.

DW: We’ve heard you’re in your 15th year as an Ambassador, are you doing anything special to celebrate? What are your thoughts on the journey as a brand ambassador? Do you have any standout memories that come to mind?

RN: I think it’s officially at the end of this year. It’s been a lot of fun and I don’t think there’s been a better time to be involved with Bombay as a brand.

Obviously, with any job, there’s always ups and downs, but I’ve been fortunate to live all over the world as a result of being an ambassador and I’ve traveled quite extensively, so I’m quite grateful for that. I get to go to Florence about three times a year, which I absolutely love. I’m still enjoying it, the moment I stop enjoying it I’ll leave.

The best experience is being able to have friends in different places around the world, traveling is great but if you don’t have the network of connections and if you can’t go to a place and integrate, it doesn’t make it quite the same.