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[title]‘I’ll have another shot of the chewbacca stuff, love!’
The demand – usually slurred, often unnecessarily loud – is as familiar to a Brighton bartender as the sound of a seagull clattering onto someone’s plate. Anyone who’s ever worked at a bar, club or pub (as I did for more than two years), will have been on the receiving end of it.
Despite living in Brighton my whole life, I only learned of the fragrant, syrupy amber beverage – better known as Tuaca – when I got my first job as a bartender at a raucous, city centre pub called The Victory. Within a week I was just as well-versed as the rest of the team in explaining to any well-watered tourist that ‘it’s actually pronounced ‘‘too-waka’’, mate!’
Bartenders of the city are bonded by it, locals take pride in it, and while working a shift in the handful of Brighton pubs, Tuaca is glugged down like water. But how did this alluring Italian liqueur journey all the way from the continent to the land of pebble beaches and fish and chips? Here’s the strange story about where Tuaca came from, and how it became Brighton’s unlikely flagship drink.
So, what actually is Chewbacca … I mean, Tuaca?
Tuaca is a super sweet, golden Italian liqueur which (according to the brand’s website) dates back to the 16th century Renaissance. It was rustled up by followers of ‘Lorenzo the Magnificent’, a former ruler of Florence who was a great supporter of the era’s artists, with a view to commemorate him after his death.
The drink was allegedly created in his memory and while we don’t know exactly what the OG recipe included, a version of it was recreated in the late 1930s by Gaeto Tuoni and Giorgio Canepa, two Tuscan brothers-in-law.
‘Tuaca – being a liqueur – contains a distilled spirit, which in its case is Italian brandy, plus flavourings which include citrus fruit, vanilla, spices, and sugar,’ says Jane Peyton, a Brighton-based drinks historian and founder of the School of Booze. Mix all of those ingredients together and you’re left with a drink which tastes like a sweet-but-spicy medicine with a distinctly sharp, boozy kick. Lush.
But how is this stuff drunk? Italians tend to treat it as a digestif due its sweet flavour, either on the rocks or in a chilled glass. In Brighton, bars use Tuaca in an assortment of intriguingly named cocktails. Add it to coffee and you’ve got a Tuacaccino. Mix it with Amaretto, cranberry juice, lime and red wine, and you’ve got an ‘Italian Job’, concocted by bartenders at the cosy little cocktail joint, Twisted Lemon. They recommend mixing Tuaca with ginger and apple juice, or even adding it to mulled wine.
Jane’s custom cocktail is dubbed the ‘G-Whack’: the ‘G’ for a splash of Brighton Gin, the ‘whack’ for (you guessed it) Tuaca. Mix with a drop or two of bitters and you’ll get what she describes as ‘a distant cousin of a Negroni.’ My personal favourite? It’s got to be a Tuscan Mule. One (or two) shots of Tuaca topped up with ginger beer, the juice of a lime, a sprig of mint and as much ice as you can fit in the glass. It tastes like a sweet, zesty, dark ‘n’ stormy, but with much more of an aperitif vibe.
Tuaca’s journey around the world
While those ancient Italian origins are somewhat dubious, we do know more about Tuaca’s recent journey. ‘It was brought to the states by US soldiers who’d fought in Italy during World War II, or so I’ve heard,’ says Louise, a Brighton resident and founder of wine, beer and spirits shop, Seven Cellars. ‘They tasted it and loved it and so went home and imported it – there’s a few places in the states where it’s popular.’ These days, Colorado and Texas are considered to be the biggest Tuaca markets in the US, but it was first imported to Northern California, according to Jensen’s Liquors.
It turns out that after the old Renaissance recipe was revived by Tuoni and Canepa in the ’30s, it was discovered by American soldiers in Livorno, Tuscany. From there, Jane can fill in the blanks: she explains that a Brighton resident named Sammy Berry sampled Tuaca during a trip to Colorado years later, in the mid ’90s. ‘When she couldn’t find the drink in the UK, her boyfriend, Poul Jensen, found the producer in Italy and imported a case,’ Jane says.
According to an interview in local newspaper The Argus, Poul’s mum spoke fluent Italian, helping the couple to order a couple of cases – before ordering ‘five more, and then ten more.’ Poul and Sammy soon took over St James Tavern in Kemptown (which still has a Tuaca plaque on the wall) and orders went through the roof as customers spread the word. Other pubs caught on, and before long, more than 30 venues were stocking the buzzy new drink. In other words: Brighton had gone gaga for Tuaca.
The couple ran the pub until 1999 when they moved out and started importing Tuaca as a business – they even paid a visit to Tuscany for a meeting that sounds like something from a Coppola movie. ‘I remember a lot of shaking hands – the first four years of our ‘‘exclusive distribution deal’’ was all really on a handshake,’ Poul said to The Argus about their initial meeting with Enrico Tuoni, a descendant of the original Tuscan pair who revived the recipe. ‘I half-expected to wake up with a horse’s head in my bed.’
Sammy said: ‘At first we had nowhere to store the cases, so they were piled up under our mattress. There were hundreds – I had Tuaca box steps up to my bed, and if you sat up too quickly, you’d hit your head on the ceiling.’
The couple toured the city’s boozers, offering samples of Tuaca to any wary or intrigued bar staff for them to try. It wasn’t long before the entirety of Brighton was gasping for a shot or five. ‘When I had to pick the stuff up myself [from ‘‘some bloke’’ at Gatwick Airport], it was just a case of ‘‘back seats down and pile it in’’,’ said Poul. ‘All you could see were these yellow boxes heading down the M23. People used to toot us in their cars because they knew Brighton was gonna be stocked up again.’
Pour it and they will come
Nowadays, it’s thought that Tuaca is sold in 95 percent of the city’s pubs and you’d be hard pressed to come by a newsagent or bottle shop that doesn’t sell it. It’s even become something of a souvenir.
‘There’s no way you could have a shop selling booze in Brighton and not sell Tuaca – it’s a vital product for us,’ says Louise. ‘We have a little shop in Brighton station and we sell miniature bottles of it which are really popular with stag and hen dos.’ In August last year, the miniature bottles completely sold out from Seven Cellars, as visitors were grabbing memorabilia on their way home after the weekend. ‘We ordered in 120 thinking that’d keep us going for weeks and weeks, but by the end of the month they’d all gone – they just flew out,’ Louise says.
Peter Thornton is a landlord who managed The Green Dragon – one of the first pubs to jump on the Tuaca-wagon – as well as the likes of the Hobgoblin, The Grosvenor and the Caroline of Brunswick. ‘Tuaca was the number one shot in every pub I ran,’ says Peter. But if this liqueur has such a moreish flavour, has it ever spread beyond Brighton? ‘It’s simply not exported in general to the UK,’ Peter says. ‘I’ve got a northern mate in Manchester who I’ve sent bottles up to because they just can’t get their hands on it.’
‘Brighton is a party town, and word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool,’ says Jane. ‘No-one I know outside the area had heard of Tuaca until I mentioned it to them, but they all wanted to try it immediately.’
Getting ‘twackered’
Pretty much everyone in Brighton has been involved in some late-night mischief induced by one (or seven) shots of Tuaca – the problem is, it’s notoriously good at wiping your memory. Thankfully, some Brightonians can recall at least a portion of their evenings.
‘I couldn’t tell you where we’d been, or where we were going, but I can tell you this,’ says Fin, a Brighton local who’s now based in Newcastle. ‘The coolest I have ever felt is being greeted by the landlord of a pub and having Tuaca poured down my throat. I can’t remember much of that night apart from it, but I think that says a lot.’
To others, the memory of Tuaca-fuelled nights are all too vivid, particularly for Elle – who once vomited in her laptop case and bedside table drawer after a night of Tuaca shots. And then there’s the tales from those behind the bar.
Jude, who worked in a central Brighton bar for two years, has witnessed some pretty enthusiastic Tuaca fans. He recalls one relaxed Monday night shift, which was interrupted by a lady storming into the pub, dragging along a friend who had never tried the drink. ‘This situation with a non-Brightonian is classic,’ Jude says. ‘We went through the usual spiel – the ‘‘Tuaca talk’’ – telling her all about how it came to the city, and then the lady told us to pour ourselves one and whipped out her phone to start filming.’
He recalls the customer adopting the mannerisms and patter of a BBC documentarian. ‘She showcased the bottle, explained its connection to Brighton, and announced to the entire pub that someone’s Tuaca Virginity was about to be lost,’ says Jude. ‘There was laughter all around.’
It’s a Brighton institution
Ask most Brightonians, and they’ll tell you that Tuaca is part of the city’s DNA. While it’d be misleading to say that everyone is a fan – ‘makes one feel sick,’ was one regretful, dreary response from a Facebook user on the ‘Brighton Community’ page – it’s a sweet smack of nostalgia for most locals.
‘For me, it’s the taste of a little stop into a pub with my chums before the walk home through town,’ says Laylah. Peter the landlord even has a big-old tattoo of the stuff on his calf. ‘It had to be done,’ he says. ‘Tuaca is an institution in Brighton!’
The air of mystery surrounding the stuff makes it a great asset for business. ‘Tuaca provides such a unique selling point for drinks in Brighton, since people can’t get it elsewhere,’ says Denise, who runs The Victory.
I can attest to this: it’s rare to offer the drink to a ‘Tuaca virgin’ and not have them slurp it down in pleasant surprise. I can also attest that it’s rare to find the spirit outside of the seaside town: I’ve been living in London for five months and still haven’t seen it perched behind a bar. Never say never, though. I was recently on the receiving end of an excited phone call from a pal on a night out in Leeds, who screeched: ‘You’ll never guess what I’ve found!’
So, will this mysterious Tuscan liqueur achieve its cult status outside of Brighton? Who knows, though given it has remained an almost exclusive resident of the city for 27 years, the answer is probably not. But that’s okay: it’s certainly found one loving and devoted, if slightly hungover, home.
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