HAS OBAMA EVER HAD A BAILEYS?

What really scares me is a drinks party where the only people I know
are the host and hostess. I’m a bit late and I walk into a room full of people, maybe 30 or 40. Everyone is going at it full tilt and all the separate cadres of friends have formed into tight little phalanxes which appear almost impenetrable. How am I going to join in? How will I look cool and at ease when I am all on my own and don’t know a soul? It is a truly daunting experience. It was a bit better when I smoked. My cigarette could keep me company. But I gave up years ago. And nobody smokes at parties any more.

Then rescue : the host appears, he’s been pouring drinks, and he forcibly insinuates me into a small group of men and women. “This is my friend David,” he says, “He has a really interesting job.” “Oh my God”, I think to myself, “Not again,” and then out it comes. As instructed by our host, one of the group asks me what I do for a living. Someone has to ask. It’s been set up by the person giving us his drinks.

“Actually this may surprise you” I respond with a face so blank it conjures up the character ‘Nothing’ Yonson from 1950s Dick Tracy comics. (He was without features.) “I’m an….. undertaker. I run a small family business that has been established in the profession for over 80 years. It was started by my grandfather.” My audience looks utterly nonplussed. Remember, we have just met and it’s London, one of the centres of the universe.

I begin to warm to the story and the tempo quickens. “It’s a really exciting business to be in and I’d like to think that we are a forward-looking company, always experimenting with new ideas. We’ve recently introduced a ‘Burial at Sea’ package, out of Newhaven on the Sussex coast and it’s really taking off. We think it’s a major growth area in these ecology-conscious times.”

The momentum builds and my eyes gleam with manic enthusiasm. My audience becomes morbidly fascinated. Or are they embarrassed? I try to keep within the boundaries of good taste and omit to discuss my disappointment at Bird Flu’s failure to help us achieve our forecasts. My audience remains quietly gobsmacked.

But, of course, none of this is true though I did try it once at a drinks party outside London where I was confident that I would never meet any of the other guests again.

This is what really happens.

“And what work do you do, David?” asks a mildly interested fellow reveller. “Well, it’s a rather strange occupation” I reply diffidently, hoping to cut the conversation off at the knees, or that someone will interrupt with a tray of canapés. But no such luck. So with all the enthusiasm of someone on the verge of root canal work, I mutter “Actually, I invent drinks. I’ve spent the last 40+ years doing it. It’s been an interesting way to make a living.”

“You invent drinks?” is the usual puzzled reply. “Do you mean cocktails? Are you some kind of barman who has this lab where you experiment with exotic concoctions? Or do you invent soft drinks like Red Bull? Are there any drinks you’ve invented that I might have heard of? This is really weird.”

By now I am becoming pretty embarrassed by the whole thing – which is why I invented the whole undertaker get-out ploy. But, in the words of Mastermind’s Magnus Magnussen, “I’ve started so I’ll finish” and I reluctantly soldier on.

“Well, actually, I invented Baileys. You know, Baileys Irish Cream. I did that back in 1974.” If one of the unfortunate listening group is a woman – and this is based on actual past experience – she is likely to respond something like this : “Oh-my-God. Baileys. My mother absolutely adores it. Did you hear that, Jocasta? This man invented Baileys. It’s unreal. I don’t believe it. He must be terribly rich. Baileys Cream. Wow!”

And it’s not as if these rather posh people really adore Baileys. Or even hold it in the same esteem as say, Bunnabhain (a distinguished, but not widely-known, Islay Malt) or a fine white Burgundy from Meursault. Not a bit of it. They might have respected it years ago but most people of legal drinking age regard Baileys as rather naff. It comes in loads of flavours, at Christmas it sells in Tesco for under a tenner a bottle and a call for a Baileys in a smart West End bar has about as much chic as a call for a suppository at a séance. Offering a Baileys after dinner is on a par with serving Coq au Vin made with pickled onions.

By now the conversation has developed a life of its own and I become surrounded by people who start asking me about other drinks I have created. If they are over a certain age, then Aqua Libra will ring a few bells. And Purdeys too, which is still around today. Piat D’Or? Well a few of the older ones remember it. Or if the group is younger, modern and hip, then drinks like Ciroc – a Grape vodka known to the cognoscenti in New York as ‘Diddyjuice’ – and Tanqueray Ten, the world’s first Fresh Botanical gin will evince nods of recognition.

A few years back I read somewhere that on 3rd December 2007, Diageo
announced the sale of the billionth bottle of Baileys since it was first introduced in 1974. That’s a thousand million bottles. And they will have sold at least a further 150 million bottles in the five years since then, bringing the total up to something in the area of 1,150,000,000. That’s one hell of a lot of bottles.

And if we then assume that every bottle of Baileys delivered 8 generous
servings that means that over ten billion glasses of Baileys have been
poured since it all began.

The next thought was about which people might have tried Baileys. Who might they be?

Did Gorbachev and Reagan study a bottle up-close and ask each other “who
exactly were R&A Bailey?” Has Vladimir Putin tried it? Or Madonna? David
Hockney? And how about the world’s most famous man; has Obama ever had a
Baileys? With more than ten billion glasses, the possibilities are enormous.

It all came about through a chance meeting with a man called Tom Jago in Stresa on Lake Maggiore in Italy in May 1969. Having muddled through both my academic and working life till the age of thirty, I suddenly found myself presented with the opportunity to do something I really enjoyed – to create new products, and especially, new drinks.

It has been the most thrilling working life. And my story will unfold in the months ahead.

ICARUS, SMICARUS. WHO’S COUNTING?