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Interview: Director Steven Soderbergh talks filmmaking, Singani 63 and why the world needs to know about this Bolivian spirit
By Shivani Dubey | 11 September 2024 | Culture, Food & Drink
Steven Soderbergh has made classic films like the Ocean’s Eleven series and Erin Brockovich. Now, he ventures into the world of Bolivian spirits with Singani 63
Steven Soderbergh is one of the most acclaimed filmmakers in Hollywood. The Oscar winner has made blockbusters like the Ocean’s Eleven trilogy, Erin Brockovich and Contagion. And on one such filming project, the director discovered what would go on to become his biggest passion project to date: Singani 63 — his new spirits brand, with 63 being a reference to his lucky number.
The story goes that while Steven was getting ready to film the movie Che in Madrid over a dozen years ago, his casting director, who is from Bolivia, gifted him a bottle of Casa Real singani, explaining that it is the national drink of Bolivia. After his first taste, he knew that he needed the world to experience this special spirit.
“We drank it on the rocks, and I had this instantaneous reaction in the same way that you meet certain people and immediately know that this is a person that’s gonna be in my life for a very long time,” explains Steven. “I used to be a vodka drinker, but once I had singani, I called vodka and went, ‘I’m sorry, I just met somebody else’.”
There are three reasons why Steven is so passionate about singani, he says: the way it feels on the nose, its complexity and activity on the palate, and the fact that it vanishes immediately as you take a sip. In fact, he was so enamoured with the drink that he made sure he could source singani through any channel possible throughout his entire shoot over Europe.
Today, Singani 63 is available in over 30 markets across the US and the UK. Made from white Muscat of Alexandria grapes that are only grown in high altitudes of the Bolivian Andes, Singani is distilled twice and then stored in copper pot stills. The result is a floral and aromatic spirit that can be enjoyed in a cocktail — it works well as an alternative to gin or vodka in a martini — or simply like Steven enjoys it: on the rocks.
What started as a venture with a simple personal desire to stock his own bar, turned into a partnership with the nearly century-old Casa Real (Bolivia’s leading singani producer), which is now available across the US, as well as the UK.
Over the years, Singani 63 has featured in many of Steven’s famous friends’ films. One such friend is David Fincher, who featured Singani 63 in his critically acclaimed 2014 thriller Gone Girl. In a scene where Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) is seen sitting on the kitchen table, he is drinking a bottle of Steven’s singani. 
“David asked me if I could send over some bottles of Singani 63 because he simply needed a brand to feature in the background. It’s funny because it has kind of become the drink of the bad guys,” he laughs. “David, being the perfectionist he is, would keep turning the bottle around after every few seconds so the label would be visible throughout the shot.”
Having made some career defining films, Steven knows all about how important it is to get the right shot. And while he was working on Ocean’s Thirteen, it really tested his limits.
“There’s a scene in the third film where they’re in this tunnel and there’s a table and it’s got the plans for the casino on it and everybody is around the table. I get everybody down there, we’re running the scene and I’ve got a viewfinder and I’m trying to find a shot worth shooting and it’s really nothing,” he explains. “And after 45 minutes of trying, I sent everyone away and asked the set coordinators to remove the table altogether.”
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In the end, as Steven sat down where the table initially was to try to figure the shot out, he discovered that the camera had to be the table. And he got everything filmed and sorted in two hours.
“What I’ve discovered in those situations is that the only move is to stop, pretend there’s no clock, send everybody away and try to create a space for yourself in which you can just really relax and try to figure out why this is not working,” he says.
Deciding to launch Singani 63 was a similarly large and at times frustrating undertaking for Steven. From eight years of waiting to be recognised as a different type of brandy in the US to having the jitters of backing a business in its early stages, he went through it all. But in the end, what persisted was his love for the spirit.
“I try to pride myself, when it comes to my day job, of being able to tell when a project, at a certain point, starts to turn into a thing,” he says. “So I gave myself a year to sort of read the tea leaves, and then after I looked at the accounts and saw the support we were getting, I just had to keep going.
“I’m doing it because I love it, and I want to turn people on to it,” he adds.