Negroni, from Italy, but now in a new guise. Ready-to-serve, the three ingredients of which are prepared according to traditional methods in Belgium. Meet Stefaan Maes, the man who is on a mission to get the Belgians to drink Negroni en masse. Pleased to meet you!
Can you briefly explain to our readers who Stefaan Maes is and how Conte Negroni came to be?
Stefaan is nowadays mainly someone who is very far from Conte Negroni and the catering industry. The past twelve years I have worked for several large companies, including five years as a consultant. During the course of last year, when we were at home for a few weeks due to corona, Negroni began to develop into an effective product. How did that come about? I am a very big Negroni fan myself! I’ve actually learned to drink and appreciate it since about eight years ago. People who come to visit me, always get Negroni. It even went so far that I was asked if I could make a bottle for them so they could take it home. Negroni consists of Malt, gin and Campari. I used to get these three bottles from the shop and mix them together. At a certain point, you wonder what you are doing. Then I came into contact with someone who makes liqueurs and spirits. We looked together at making our own Negroni. We then set to work creating our own three ingredients. It took us half a year to do this. At the end of last year our product was at the level we wanted. We made our first batch of 200 lite, about 400 bottles. Not too much to start with, with the idea that if we didn’t lose it to anyone, we could fill our own bar cabinet with it. The label also got a nice design. After the first 100 or so feedbacks, especially from friends and family, we were like, “OK, we should be able to do something with this.
Developer and owner Stefaan Maes
Was the launch of Negroni an instant success?
We started selling loose in corona. That was on 1 February 2021. We then had to focus mainly online on the consumer, with modest budgets. There was also an article about Negroni in Het Laatste Nieuws. It went pretty fast and the first positive feedbacks came in via Instagram and also people from the industry showed interest. After 200-300 bottles were out the door, we hardly got any negative comments and then we thought our launch was successful.
Stefaan, is local production important to you?
Yes, indeed. In Belgium, we are simply good at everything we do. Just look at the catering industry, both restaurateurs and local quality producers. If we can make an improved version of the classic cocktail, we should be able to show that it is of Belgian origin.
Can you tell us something about your local producer?
Yes, Sybren is actually a young guy in his penultimate year of electromechanics, totally unrelated to booze. His father is beer brewer and owns a local, mainly private label brewery. He has marketed a well-known beer in the region, the Kwibus. A nice blond and dark beer. His son is more interested in stronger drinks. He himself had already brought out Moonshine, an American secret distilled drink of the time. Moonshine was brewed at night during the Prohibition. That was his first introduction to spices and fortified drinks. So I actually approached him to ask if he’d like to join me in the search to finalise those three ingredients so that we could make a tasty Negroni, and he did.
For those who are less familiar with Negroni, can you explain what Negroni is and where it comes from?
The myth or story, it has never really been confirmed, is said to have originated in19 when the Count Camillo Negroni ordered an Americano at his cocktail bar in Firenze, Italy. The classic Americano consists of Vermouth, bitters and soda or sparkling water. He then suddenly asked his bartender to make something stronger and the bartender replaced the soda with gin. That’s how Negroni was named after the person who ordered it. Normally it is made the same everywhere: ⅓ gin, ⅓ Vermouth and ⅓ Italian bitter. That can be Campari, there are also those who use Aperol, but Campari is of course the most popular and well-known Italian bitter.
Count Camillo Negroni
From where does your love and passion for Negroni come, Stefaan?
This is actually something bizarre, because I am not so for bitter. I’m not a fan of Campari either. It was someone who introduced me to Negroni at a café in Antwerp. I tasted it then and liked that bitter sweet taste. It is also a reasonably strong drink, so you should not drink a full glass in one go. You have to get used to the taste. Just like Whiskey and Cognac, you need a few to really appreciate it.
Is it true that your Conte Negroni is a finished product?
That’s right, this is a finished product. We don’t do anything different than the way the bartender makes it. We develop the three ingredients beforehand, then mix them and let the Conte Negroni rest for five weeks in the barrel so that the alcohol blends nicely into the three types of drink.
Can you describe for the readers the taste profile of your product?
Negroni is, in any case, abittersweet aperitif. On the one hand, you have the bitterness of the orange which is very recognisable. This is often offset by the sugar content of the Vermouth. We have created a soft atypical Vermouth that is not too sweet, so that in our Negroni, the orange taste is very present. With a 22 degree alcohol content the Conte Negroni is accessible and easy to drink.
You can drink it straight, of course, but can you also use it to make cocktails?
Yes, indeed that is what we are working out now in order to also get a broader audience to commit to that Negroni. Negroni is a niche product, especially because of the taste experience. It’s not a sweet mojito that 8/10 people in the room like to drink, rather 1 or 2/10 will appreciate Negroni.
Can you tell us about your collaboration with Gemelli tonic?
We didn’t want to launch a tonic ourselves, but we did want to start a search for which one would go best with our Negroni. Since Negroni is an Italian product, I wanted the tonic to stay in Italy. Gemelli is a brand, founded by two brothers, called the Gemelli’s, which means twins in Italian. Two years ago, they decided to launch their own tonic, as they were not convinced by the tonics they were getting with a gin tonic. They have launched an fully organic range of tonics whose sweetener is natural Mexican agava. So no sugars are added to the tonics. The combination with Conte Negroni is sublime. The tonic is also very accessible and makes the Negroni just a little sweeter.
As purebred Italians, Gemelli’s brothers might have been critical of your Negroni, but you managed to convince them, I suppose?
Yes indeed. They were pleasantly surprised too. I am still not putting Italy at the top of the list of countries where I want to introduce Conte Negroni. That’s a bit like selling Flemish Champagne in the Champagne region. I don’t know how smoothly that would come in. I think it would take some time and we would have to be recognised as a tasty or standard Negroni first.
Stefaan, who are your main customers and where do you want to grow to?
As I mentioned earlier, we are a niche product. In order to be successful, we need to be able to market our product through as many channels and as wide as possible. We cannot grow on a few large events with a lot of volume, that is just not possible. Who are we looking for? I think, those who already drink somestronger aperitifs, the slightly older audience. I think the younger audience is perhaps not yet part of our target group. Although those who drink gin tonic would qualify. My eye is mainly on restaurants and brasseries that strive for a certain quality, but do not always have the time or knowledge of the staff to serve that quality Negroni.
So you are actually offering the convenience of serving a quality Negroni?
Partly, because I feel that within a certain segment we are still convincing people that our bottle is ready-to-serve, high-quality and tasty. There are some companies that focus on pre-made cocktails, but they focus purely on the work. They mix the drinks and you only have to serve it, but we have gone much further. We developed our ideal Negroni, which of course you can buy in bottle from us.
Do you have any references that you can give to our readers of where you are on the map?
It is difficult to be on the map anywhere, because then you have to convince things to change their map. I hope that will happen soon with the first map changes. In the region, Conte Negroni is already being served, on the one hand in fine dining establishments like Pacht 26 and on the other hand in nice and cosy brasseries like Balthazar and Au Casino in Kortrijk. Also the wellknown Pakhuis in Ghent already serves our Negroni as their standard Negroni.
Stefaan, you are someone ambitious. What are the next steps you would like to take with Conte Negroni?
The first year we would like to sell 8000 bottles. That is really just the translation of fulltime working on our drink on the market. That should be feasible. For the next few years, get steady growth to sell 20-30,000 bottles a year within this andthree to four years.
How do you plan to achieve that growth, is it mainly with a focus on Belgium/Flanders?
At least towards export actually. I think that if we want people to recognise Conte Negroni as the accessible Negroni, we have to be internationally recognisable. To be a distributor of chains that strive for a constant quality. I am thinking of hotels, but it could just as well be the Hard Rock Café. If you order a Negroni in Barcelona or New York, it has to be the same one, our Conte Negroni. I certainly look for that. In Asia , Belgium gets a big quality connotation, so we are now also looking at whether the Asian market could be something for us. But also other European countries are on my list of where I want to distribute.
Stefaan, do you have the ambitions to develop Conte Negroni as a full-fledged company with employees?
Yes, I do. On 1 May I hired someone to work in sales. I also work for another activity, which I spend most of my time doing anyway. If you want to go for it, you have to be able to make time for it, and I’ve made that time by hiring someone full-time on the road , visiting new business every day and making sure the pipeline of new addresses is filled.
How did you experience working on your business during corona?
To be honest, for us it was a little bit of a blessing. We were able to prepare very well when everything was at a very low ebb. We were constantly on the road talking to bars and restaurants and we also took care of the packaging, the label and the stock. This way we could launch our Conte Negroni on the 8th of May in the catering industry.
Stefaan, something tells me that it’s not going to stop at Negroni. Are you working on other projects within the hospitality industry, maybe another drink, or is the focus on your Conte Negroni?
We are indeed focusing as much as possible on our Negroni, but behind the scenes we are also perfecting our Vermouth to market as a stand-alone, quality product. Our Vermouth from the Negroni mix still needs some adaptation to stand alone. We are now looking at how we can make a pleasant and accessible Vermouth from that good basis, that 7/10 people appreciate.
So in the medium term, can we expect a finished Belgian Vermouth from your hand that people can drink separately or even work with to make a Negroni?
Gosh, that’s the extension of wanting to make your own cocktail and I get that. For example, there are people who like to make Negroni with Tequila instead of gin, which is then a Tegroni. It would be nice if they used our Vermouth. For me, our Negroni is the basis, the standard. In addition, we can then experiment a little further. So we also started to create a non-alcoholic Negroni. We hope to be able to release it on the Belgian market before the end of the year. We are pleasantly surprised with the current result.
Can you tell me the greatest compliment you have ever received that has made you believe in it and go for it?
Most people I spoke to at the beginning about my idea to create Conte Negroni, all said I was crazy as the beverage world is huge and competitive. I can see that now. There are a few big players who determine everything and who are very strong financially. We should not compete with them, you are lost in advance. Yet, I have already heard from a few people, with responsibility at larger companies, that my product is astonishing and that if you throw yourself into your dreams, you also realise them. And that is a compliment. The market is alsoready for bitter and you can see that in beers. Consumers increasingly prefer the special beers that are less sweet. The success of gin also reinforces this view. Since Negroni consists for ⅓ of gin, this is quite an opportunity. In 2021, Negroni was the most-likely- to-be-ordered cocktail in 23% of cocktail bars surveyed. That’s almost ¼ so I think there’s a lot of potential there. There are still a lot of people who don’t know Negroni.
Do you think it is important that your bottle stands out in terms of packaging and design?
That’s right. If you look at the beverage racks, they are often very dull. Labels all look the same apart from the colours and the thickness of the font. Recently I saw a series of wines with character photos of people. I thought that was a top series in terms of wine labels. The label of Conte Negroni really needed to be an echoic label. The cocktail is 100 years old and for me the bottle had to breathe theroaring 20’s. Think of The Great Gatsby where in every scene they were drinking Negroni in the cocktail bar. Gin tonic was unknown to anyone. The logo looks veryluxurious because we used copper. The photo is also very important to get the right look and feel. There are a few people from the industry who have also said that because of the copper and the font, the label is not always readable. I think that is perfect. It attracts people, people want to see the bottle up close. They don’t just walk past, because they have to look really closely to be able to read it. That may be an atypical reasoning and it may break the marketing rule that it has to be easy to read, but I find that interesting.
When I look at your bottle, I already have the desire to be at that party that is on that bottle. The packaging at least triggers to grab the bottle. Well Stefan, let us toast to hopefully some kind of remake of the roaring 20s and that we can indeed all find the joy in life again. In your case, with a good Negroni in hand! Thank you, Stefan, for the wonderful interview and I wish you lots of success with everything!
All information about Conte Negroni can be found here: Website Conte Negroni
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