Steven Soderbergh on Oil Prices, the Oscars, and Why He Likes to Drink

Steven Soderbergh and his latest project. (Photo: Courtesy of Steven Soderbergh)

Food and drink journalists are invited to a lot of weird events to get their attention.

I’ve been crammed into a small room with contortionists to show how versatile a tequila was, suffered minor burns while figuring out how to blow my own whisky glass, and chowed down on a taco full of crickets.

And then there was the time I found myself sitting in a basement bar on the Lower East Side of New York chatting with director Steven Soderbergh about the stock market. He wants to know why low oil prices are bad for stock prices, and since I haven’t brushed up on my macroeconomics since college, I try to avoid sounding like an idiot by asking him if he has seen the Showtime series Billions.

I don’t interview “famous” people very often, so I still get a bit starstruck. And, I mean, Soderbergh has directed a ridiculous number of hit movies and is the kind of guy who brings up his friend Julia — Roberts, of course — in casual conversation.

He has seen an episode of Billions — he’s friends with the creators, duh — and he’s really excited because a bottle of Singani 63, the spirit he imports from Bolivia and the whole reason I’m even talking to him, is going to be used in a scene in an upcoming episode.

A superrich guy will be shooting up a forest, holding an AK-47 in one hand and a bottle of Singani 63 in another. Soderbergh then brags about the placement David Fincher gave him in Gone Girl with Ben Affleck — it’s that bottle Affleck ends up breaking in his kitchen in frustration.

“We can’t do an ad that says, ‘The go-to drink for when you murder your wife,’ because we didn’t pay for the placement,” Soderbergh jokes — well, I think he’s joking.

“No other brand in the world would allow themselves to be used like this. We want to be the brand you go to when you have very objectionable behavior … because here’s the thing — it’s a movie,” he stresses.

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And after so many movies — he directed 37 of them before he “retired” and is still producing, directing Cinemax series The Knick and even an off-Broadway play — well, he certainly knows the importance of a story. And he knows that Singani 63 has one.

Soderbergh says he discovered the unaged Bolivian brandy while shooting Che in 2008. He was a vodka on the rocks guy — he says he has thin blood and metabolizes alcohol too quickly to get a decent buzz from wine and beer. Trying the Bolivian national spirit, he found it to be like a “vodka with a better bouquet.” But unlike vodka, he says, he and his camera crew could tie several on and not be in pain in the morning. Before he jumped through a lot of legal hoops to get it to the U.S., Singani 63 hadn’t been available outside of Bolivia. And now Soderbergh has all the rights to sell it across the globe.

What’s it like to drink Singani? Soderbergh says it gives you a better high than drinking beer and that you hang on to your motor skills while going to that “happy place.”

“Of course, we’re not allowed to talk about this stuff in advertising,” he says. “The government will shut you down. The funny thing is, that’s why we all drink, but let’s all just pretend.”

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Here’s where I should mention that I wasn’t alone with Soderbergh — I was with four other feature writers who all wanted to ask questions, ranging from his take on the lack of diversity in the Oscar nominations to paparazzi following the actors he knows. We were also doing a bar crawl to three different venues, designed to show us professionally skeptical drinkers that the spirit is more versatile than pisco, a brandy produced in Chile and Peru that has been the “next big thing” in spirits for years without ever actually becoming that big of a thing.

That means conversation is all over the place, and Soderbergh doesn’t seem to self-edit much. He talks about how the idea of winning an Oscar for Traffic was so off his radar that he had been slamming vodka cranberries during the commercial breaks (fun fact: the Academy Awards used to have an open bar), so he was tipsy when he went to accept it and didn’t have a speech prepared. That’s where the line “I have a lot of people to thank; rather than thank some of them publicly I’d like to thank all of them privately” came from.

And he’s just kind of over those awards, and the publicity push, and the money behind them in general.

“It’s like if you had a friend that said every week from October through March, ‘It’s my birthday.’ Wouldn’t you just be like, ‘F*** off, it’s not your birthday?’” he asks.

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And that off-the-cuff attitude is apparent in the way he’s marketing the spirit. The website is fantastically bizarre, describing Singani 63 as a “culmination of a 51-year, privately funded project known as the Steven Soderbergh Adventure, the purpose of which is to identify the exceptional in all areas of humor endeavor.” The name refers to the spirit’s name in Bolivia, Singani, and 63, for 1963, Soderbergh’s birth year.

Imagery includes Soderbergh’s face superimposed on that photo of Vladimir Putin riding a horse shirtless, and a bottle of Singani 63 superimposed onto Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam — right between where God and Adam’s fingers are touching.

Singani 63 — and Soderbergh — superimposed onto Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam. (Photo: Courtesy of Singani 63)

Scott Gerber, a friend and entrepreneur behind the successful Gerber Group hospitality company, told Soderbergh that if he decided to really pursue entering the spirits business, “It’s a movie that never stops shooting and gets released once a week for the rest of your life.” He also got advice from Dan Aykroyd on the set of Behind the Candelabra on how to launch a successful spirit brand. Aykroyd, who owns Crystal Head vodka, which as of last year had sold 7 million bottles, told him he had to commit to “showing up.”

And he seems to be. He knows the nitty-gritty of decisions like whether the next city Singani 63 expands to should be Portland, where there’s been a lot of demand from cocktail bars, or Miami, where the Bolivian heritage might resonate stronger. He personally visits a lot of the bars that carry his booze. He’s writing content for the website. He’s debating a visual advertising campaign. He’s spending four-plus hours on a Wednesday night talking to reporters.

Someone wonders if he’s ever tried Singani 63 in a Kamikaze shot, the college favorite made with vodka, triple sec, and lime juice. He hasn’t, so now it’s time for everyone to try a Singani 63 Kamikaze shot. A bartender at Employees Only brings out a version of nearly every cocktail on the menu made with Singani 63 instead of the original spirit. Straws come out and then are discarded as we start passing around the drinks. Another editor asks me if I’m feeling high.

I’m not, but then Soderbergh starts talking about his daughter’s dating life, recommends I read The Gift of Fear, and asks if will I vote for Hillary Clinton.

So, yeah, maybe just a little bit high.

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