Let’s go low… alcohol, with the immortal low-ABV Adonis Cocktail and deep… as we define the ‘Commerce Market’
Issue №21 - We are not going dry this January, but we are going drier! This week we explore the first popular low-ABV cocktail, the Adonis, as we contemplate what to call this market.
Many will relieve their excesses and reset their quaffing habits this month, jumping on “Dry January” as fast as a gym membership promotion. While we here at Cocktails & Commerce love to feature the occasional mocktail, we also like to be just a little off center - a little different - so we are going low-ABV instead. In this issue we look at a low-alcohol classic with a great back-story - the Adonis. Sip on that as we explore why we call this the ‘commerce market’ and what that means. Oh, and how did ‘Dry January’ become a thing anyway? Let’s find that out too while we are at it.
Cheers!
Cocktail: Diving into moderation with the ideal beauty of the Adonis cocktail
Well, another year has passed and we once again find ourselves in the calendar-desert of cocktailing - Dry January. (Kidding!)
Close readers of this newsletter will know we want everyone to feel welcome - whether they are not drinking this minute, today, this week, this month, or ever again - for whatever reason. We enjoy featuring the occasional mocktail (see here, here and here) and have even built it into our calendar every quarter when we look at public company results in this market. So it would be natural to expect us to feature a mocktail in this first issue of the new calendar year out of respect for Dry January, but rather than going dry, we have chosen to simply go drier - to embrace moderation and feature what many consider to be the first ‘popular’ low-ABV cocktail in history.
The supremely simple, handsome, sophisticated Adonis!
Not every cocktail needs to be a laborious affair, nor do they always need to be spirit-forward concoctions packing a wallop. Sometimes it’s nice to have an easy-drinking, simple, low-alcohol sipper like this handsome marvel - the Adonis cocktail. Made with just sweet vermouth, fino sherry, and a splash of orange cocktail bitters - this cocktail still manages to be nuanced, smooth, and sophisticated.
The Adonis was first crafted sometime in the late nineteenth century by bartender Joseph K. McKone at the legendary bar at the Hoffman House hotel in New York City. McKone created it to celebrate the five-hundredth performance of the musical Adonis on Broadway.
Few bars in its day could match the elegance and international reputation of the Hoffman House’s hotel bar, a mahogany-walled grand bar and salon a short distance from Broadway. The bar was famous for being a place that the titans of industry, power brokers, and celebrities would meet over cocktails - from Boss Tweed, Buffalo Bill Cody, and William Randolph Hearst, to Ulysses S. Grant. It was also famous for a very racy painting (for its time) that hung in the bar. Typically covered by a curtain, “Nymphs and Satyr,” was a suggestive, eight-foot depiction of voluptuous young women by French artist Adolphe Bouguerneau that ended up becoming a huge tourist attraction in the city - to the frustration and disgust of many with the relatively puritan, Victorian-era sensibilities prevalent at the time. Adding the allure and excitement, patrons were only allowed to view the painting in the mirror on the opposite wall of the bar. McKone led the team of esteemed bartenders at the Hoffman House, and was also reputed to be the most handsome bartender in New York City. (The “Adonis of Bartenders”? Maybe.)
First staged in Chicago during the summer of 1884, the musical Adonis moved to Broadway's Bijou Theatre in New York City on September 4, 1884. Set in Greece, the musical is a burlesque romp that spoofs the Pygmalion myth. But instead of a female statue at the center of the story, the musical tells the story of a gorgeous male statue of the mythological Adonis that comes to life. In so doing, the story is no longer one focused on the sexual objectification of women, but instead places a man as the objectified, embodied object of sexual desire. In the end, Adonis finds human ways so unpleasant that he chooses to turn back into stone.
Adonis was the longest running musical of the Gilded Age. Some historians of musical theater history have described it as “Broadway's first hit musical” because it was the first Broadway stage work - musical or otherwise - to surpass a performance count of five-hundred performances in a Broadway theater - and at the time was the longest running play or musical in Broadway history. This musical was indeed the Hamilton of its day - breaking Broadway box-office records for profits, ticket sales, and the first to achieve a performance longevity surpassing five-hundred.
This cocktail lives up to the billing. While likely a lot more sophisticated than its Broadway musical namesake, it most certainly would make for the perfect pre-func sipper before a show - and is a great example of a low-ABV cocktail that more than holds its own up against its boozy cousins.
But let's not dance to the show dry, let’s shimmy lower… ABV
The Adonis is an example of what is often referred to as a “shim”- a drink that has a lower alcohol content than a traditional cocktail. I’ve written about shims and low-ABV before (See Issue No. 6), so will spare you the rehash here - though there can be little question that mixology is swiftly embracing low or no alcohol mixing - which is overall a good thing.
Shims were originally designed to be drunk in the afternoon, basically - like before a show - so you don’t have to be. Shims are also great before dinner. Over the holidays I mixed some holiday-inspired shims for our get-togethers with family and friends, to prolong the reverie and reduce the haze of boozy holiday spirits (and keep Santa on his feet!). In fact, I decided not to even tell anyone I was even mixing low-ABV drinks - and most had no idea - they simply just enjoyed the drinks.
Which leads us to the long and short history of Dry January
Perhaps obviously, January can be an important month to reset habits and focus on one’s goals - health and weight being a key ones for many people - and eliminating alcohol can certainly play into that. But that is not the real origin of Dry January.
Dry January has its roots way back in World War II, or specifically in what the Finns term the Continuation War - when the Finns joined Germany against the Soviet Union after the Soviets conducted air raids against numerous Finnish cities. The conflict is called the Continuation War as it began just over a year after hostilities between Finland and the Soviet Union ended in the Winter War.
In 1942, the Finnish government - in the depth of their conflict with the Soviets - initiated a massive movement to sober up the Finnish people and ration national resources - and money. They called it Raitis Januar, or Sober January. As countries globally rationed, reduced, or eliminated sugar, the Finnish government encouraged their people to stop drinking alcohol entirely for at least the month of January, 1942 to save on national resources. Finnish newspapers and magazines dutifully promoted the government’s initiative, and the Finnish people responded. Though it was a drastic cultural shift for the Finns, the public health and rationing campaign is considered one of the most successful in Finnish history. Sober January was good for the troops and the country as a whole.
However, it wasn’t until 2013 that “Dry January” became a popular, mainstream concept - promoted by a UK organization known as Alcohol Change - founded in London in 1984, the organization aims to reduce the harm caused by alcohol. Since 2013, “Dry January” has grown internationally, adding more participants each year and entering mainstream consciousness.
But let’s not go dry, let’s go drier - with the supremely handsome Adonis!
Cheers!
I would like to acknowledge the sources used in research for this article:
“The Art of the Shim: Low-alcohol cocktails to keep you level” By Dinah Sanders, Sanders & Gratz, 2013
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. An amazing resource for us all, please consider supporting it.
“Signature Cocktails” By Amanda Schuster, Phaidon Press, 2023
Adonis Cocktail Spec, serves one:
1.5 oz (~45 ml) - Fino sherry (Lustau Jarana Fino Sherry recommended but Manzanilla, Palo Cortado, or dry Oloroso can also work, see note)
1.5 oz (~45 ml) - Carpano Antica Formula sweet vermouth (Alternative: Cocchi de Torino)
2 dashes - Orange cocktail bitters (Reagan’s Orange Bitters recommended)
Garnish - this drink may be served without garnish, but I love an orange twist here.
The process:
Combine all ingredients into a cocktail pitcher. Add ice. Stir and strain into a small cocktail coupe, such as a ‘Nick & Nora’ glass (See note). [Preparation time: 5 minutes]
Notes:
The sherry specified in the Adonis varies across specs found online and in numerous books. We are calling for Fino sherry as it has a nice, dry flavor profile - but Manzanilla, Palo Cortado, or dry Oloroso sherry can also work well in this drink.
To make a variation of the Adonis, make it with Amontillado sherry instead, serve it in a small Old Fashioned glass, garnish with a flamed orange peel and you have the ‘Duke’s Son’ cocktail - a relaxed variation on yet another nineteenth century cocktail called the ‘Duke of Marlborough’. The nineteenth century was the heyday of sherry!
And close observers may notice that the picture above, includes a torch for a cocktail smoker. Smoke this one! Recommend cherry wood chips if you do. We commit to covering smoking cocktails - and a few other things - soon!
If you want to go even lower-ABV, play with a higher proportion of sherry in the drink. It will change the character some as well, tilting the drink drier in flavor profile as well.
A ‘Nick & Nora’ cocktail glass was made famous by legendary bartender Dale DeGroff, from New York’s equally famed Rainbow Room. Originally from the 1930s - and termed a "Little Martini" glass - DeGroff bought it back and named it after Nick and Nora Charles, a pair of fictional detectives in Dashiell Hammett’s novel “The Thin Man”. It tends to be smaller than most coupes, and has an elegant shape. Riedel makes a wonderful one.
Looking to connect with Bill or Brian at NRF?
If you are at NRF and want to get away and prop yourself on a shi-shi barstool for a spell, meet Bill & Brian during “Office Hours” at the bar (surprise!) at the Equinox Hotel near Javits on Monday, January 15. Good chance we will be drinking mocktails or low-ABV as will there most of Monday afternoon. Safe travels everyone headed to New York!
Analysis: Defining the “Commerce Market”
In my mind the market I have worked in now for years is ‘the commerce market’. It is a market that evolved from the early days of e-commerce to encompass much more than that. It encompasses how businesses and organizations of all kinds interact with and serve their customers digitally - either directly through websites and mobile experiences, or through digitally enabled ‘touchpoints’ where another human being or system is engaged, such as in a store in front of a point-of-sale system or in a contact center. The technologies and solutions that make up this market all connect to make that happen - or should.
That then means that the ‘commerce market’ encompasses the multitudes of technologies and solutions that come into play as they market-to, serve, and sell to customers - consumers and businesses - through those digital and digitally-enabled channels. It is not only commerce platforms - but includes content, search, product, order, customer, and marketing solutions.
Yes, that is big. And yet, it seems to still be open to debate in some circles what ‘commerce’ means, and if that term is the one we should use to organize all these various solutions together in the marketplace of technologies and services. That is what we aim to explore today.
Dropping the “e” in e-commerce
It is well over a decade ago that we “dropped the e in e-commerce” and started calling this market simply “commerce”. In my mind, the change was driven primarily by two related factors - the rise of mobile as a channel, and the growing realization that most businesses needed to think holistically about the entirety of their business and customer experience - across all their channels together, not only online. In other words, to think and execute as an omnichannel business.
Customers increasingly expected that businesses could serve them consistently across all the channels they engaged through and businesses needed to respond. And thus the technology used to deliver and execute those experiences also began to be used across many different channels. That is of course even more true today.
As a market, when we “dropped the e” it also seemed as if we grew up somehow, as if a new era had begun. The vision and ambition of the solution providers took a step up, along with the expectations of customers and their requirements. The technology and solutions needed to support the increasingly digitized customer experience and business processes now needed to envision the whole experience and enterprise - across and between all channels .
And yet, there are some who think this newsletter is only about ‘e-commerce’.
Recently we had a conversation with a senior consulting leader in this market who was concerned that our newsletter’s name is too narrow. “Why write about only e-commerce,” they asked, “When you can cover so much more?” (Um, we are.)
To them, ‘e-commerce’ and ‘commerce’ are effectively synonyms. To them, ‘commerce’ really means ‘e-commerce’, and thus this ‘commerce’ newsletter must be about the e-commerce technology and services market. (Nope!)
That confused me, to be honest, so I brought it up with a different services leader over lunch later in the week. As we ate woodfired pizza and NA beers on a typical, gray January afternoon in Seattle, this services leader - at a top-5 consulting firm - relayed an internal debate that had only recently percolated up inside their organization - what should the group focused on digital commerce and customer experience consulting and program delivery be called? In this services leader’s mind it was clear.
“Commerce covers the full range of what we should be talking to customers about - the entirety of their business and customer experience,” they shared, “We can’t be talking channels or just e-commerce or digital with clients or we miss the big picture.”
And yet, there were those inside their organization who pushed back and wanted them to be “digital” or “e-com”. The problem with that, this leader felt, is that it will narrow the scope of the problems and solutions they should be working with customers on - and how the solutions they consulted on should be used. The push back was that, “Commerce is everything.”
Exactly.
A step back, Commerce is core to the entirety of human society and always has been
Commerce is arguably core to human experience. Commerce traces its origins to ancient localized barter systems, leading to the establishment of marketplaces and currencies to facilitate efficient trade at scale. In medieval times, trade routes with pivotal commercial hubs - think Silk Road and Venice - connected regions and continents, enabling long-distance trade and cultural exchange. From the fifteenth to the early twentieth century, European colonial powers dominated global commerce on an unprecedented scale as technologies and ideas from across Afro-Eurasia came together to facilitate the age of exploration, colonization, and global commerce - from the kamals, clocks, and cannons to stock markets, carracks, and accounting.
Broadly defined, Commerce is the large-scale organized system of activities, functions, procedures, and institutions that contribute to the smooth, unhindered distribution and transfer of goods and services at scale. It incorporates the need for these goods and services to be at the right time and place, with the right quantity, quality and price, and through various channels - from the producer to the seller to the final consumer.
In the last thirty years, the internet and many other technologies converged to transform commerce and our entire society and culture. The internet is of course now central to how businesses create inspiration, market, sell, and deliver for nearly every business big and small.
E-Biz anyone?
When I began as an analyst at Forrester Research, I was an E-Business technology analyst working in the E-Business group. Even then it sounded dated, but one thing it did do was enable us to talk about how we could help clients “add the e” - whether they were in retail, B2B, financial services, travel, media, or so on. In truth, most of the time we were engaged with clients trying to simply execute and scale online - and omnichannel was still a nascent concept for most organizations, especially those that did not understand how their customers were already behaving and living their lives.
But what happens when every business is an e-Business? What happens when the silos must disappear; when the entire customer experience is inherently digital and digitally enabled - regardless of channel; when the best can engage consistently and in a personalized way across every interaction because they have the data, business processes, and technology to support it.
Which brings us to today.
The range of solutions needed to effectively conduct commerce in today’s omnichannel and increasingly digital-first world is vast. In today’s increasingly composable and MACH-like architectures and solutions, the landscape expands even more. Look at any marketchecture or partner ecosystem in the market today, and it will look something like Jenga - stacks of capabilities or “services” that will come together to deliver “commerce”. If that is the case, how can you say, “Commerce is commoditizing?” when there is focus and innovation happening all over the Jenga-stack. People who say commerce is commoditizing risk defining commerce too narrowly.
Hyphenated or not - eCommerce or e-Commerce - specifically relates to the buying and selling of goods online, over the internet - and yet, many of these capabilities extend beyond just the website or mobile experience - and thus, beyond eCommerce (There, I put a stake in the ground for ‘eCommerce’ - if it weren't for search engine optimization we would have settled the fucking ‘hyphen debate’ a long time ago!)
The Case for ‘Digital Commerce’
It is true, as illustrated by the conversation I relayed above, that ‘Digital Commerce’ is a strong candidate. Calling this the ‘Digital Commerce Technology and Services’ market is in many ways accurate. But what happens when effectively all commerce is ‘digital’ - or certainly ‘digitally enabled’? We could, I suppose, narrow to ‘digital self-service’.... Nah.
While there is plenty of pipeline for technology and services businesses that still very much relates to their websites - or encompasses mobile and other ‘digital’ or ‘e-channels’ - and that is a practical reality. But let’s be honest, the capabilities you bring, the processes you support, the value you bring should - and in many cases do - extend well beyond that.
It’s commerce. It’s all commerce - the entire Jenga-box.
So what is this newsletter about then?
We are focused on delivering great cocktails and thoughtful perspectives on the commerce market to commerce technology and services industry leaders and professionals. We define that commerce market as encompassing the entirety of the Jenga box above. Yes, we have plenty of work to do ;)
If you are looking for Brian online, you can find him here, here, and here - and find Bill here and here.
Be well, be safe, and here is to good business! Cheers!
Cocktails & Commerce™ is a wholly owned subsidiary of StrategyēM, LLC.
Cheers to a (slightly) dry January, friends. I'll take my 2024 a little stirred, especially on the commerce shelf. It is, indeed, everything.
Another great read.
One thing I’m thinking about lately is this conversation in the All In podcast about how saas may be seen in the future as a temporary arbitrage of the dearth of engineering resources.
If you’re an insurance company or a small retailer you probably wrote some code 25 years ago but as talent got Hoovered up by Amazon and Silicon Valley, that strategy became untenable so you rented the software you needed, albeit with compromises.
With GenAI improving efficiency of engineers - effectively giving 5 to 10 engineers worth of output for every one actual engineer- will those same insurance companies and retailers put up with compromises from saas vendors?
I think “build” is about to be a more serious competitor to almost every box on the Jenga grid.
I’m looking forward to seeing you guys in New York! Safe travels!