Vaughan brothers team up with heavy hitters from Toronto restaurant scene to launch ready-mix Caesar

Vaughan Citizen
May 7, 2014
By Adam Martin-Robbins

Bruno and Davide Codispoti knocked it out of the park with their first foray into the alcoholic beverage market in 2012.

Now the brothers are swinging for the fences, once again, with Uber Caesar - the latest in their lineup of Crazy Uncle ready-to-drink, culinary cocktails featuring all-natural ingredients, fresh herbs and spices.

And this time they’ve teamed up with a pair of heavy hitters from Toronto’s restaurant scene - brothers Michael and Guy Rubino - in hopes of turning out another all-star.

“If we do a good job of reaching out to people and creating some awareness then the product will take it from there,” said Guy, well-known as co-host, along with Michael, of the Food Network’s Made to Order and as former executive chef/co-owner of Rain, fine dining restaurant.

“We just need to get the player up to the plate. Once he’s up to the plate, I think it will be a home run. The trick is to get to the plate in a stadium where everyone is going to see this guy hit a home run.”

That may prove tougher than it sounds.

When the Codispoti brothers, veterans of the food product world, made their LCBO debut at Christmas time in 2012 there wasn’t really any direct competition for their unique Blood Orange Rosemary & Maple Punch, created with well-known “mixologist” Frankie Solarik, of BarChef Toronto.

This time they’re playing in the big leagues against well-established brands in the ready-mix Caesar category, produced by corporate giants with huge marketing budgets.

Still, they’re confident their beverage will stand out in the crowd.

“All the other companies, the larger ones generally, have inferior products,” said Michael seated alongside his brother in a booth at Strada 241, the rustic Italian restaurant he co-owns with Guy.

“They’re loaded with MSG, all kinds of chemicals, and when you start looking at it, you think ... there’s a huge opportunity here. And not only is there a huge opportunity here from a business perspective, but there’s a real opportunity for us to give the public an opportunity to try an all-natural product that is basically ... a restaurant-style Caesar.”

As with its predecessors in the Crazy Uncle line of cocktails, Uber Caesar comes in a clear, one-litre moonshine jug.

And there’s a small packet, hanging from the bottleneck, containing a celery seed, sea salt, lime peel and spices, for rimming your glass.

Uber Caesar is “medium spiced” and packs a 9 per cent alcohol punch, while most of its competitors sit at around 5.5 per cent.

It tastes fresh, with lots of celery flavour upfront as well as notes of vine-ripened tomatoes, horseradish and Worcestershire sauce capped off by a clean finish.

That, say its creators, is precisely what they were aiming for and it comes from using all-natural ingredients.

“You can read every word on (the label) and be able to find it in a market,” Davide said. There are no chemicals, right down to the colour. The colour is made from carrot juice and elderberry juice.”

The Codispoti’s decision to enter the ready-mix Caesar market wasn’t made hastily.

They knew it would be tough, but they were keen to try to repeat the success they enjoyed with their first culinary cocktail venture with a product that has broader appeal.

“We started off thinking that we wanted to do something really crazy with the Caesar, like how do we infuse balsamic and yada, yada, yada,” Bruno, a longtime Vaughan resident, said. “But when you distill it down, it’s one of those Canadian drinks where you don’t want to mess with it too much because people are going to mess with it at home.”

The Caesar was created 45 years ago by bartender Walter Chell.

He was charged with creating a signature cocktail to celebrate the opening of a new Italian restaurant inside the Calgary Inn (now The Westin Calgary) where he worked.

He reportedly used a mixture of fresh tomato juice, vodka, Worcestershire sauce, hand-mashed clams and spices.

When they started developing Uber Caesar, the foursome agreed the best course was to stay true to the drink’s origins.

As the chef on the team, Guy was tasked with coming up with the recipe.

He began by tasting the competitors’ products then he quickly moved on to studying the history of the Caesar.

“Like everything else in life, it’s usually better at its origins than what it has evolved to, in most cases, with food anyways,” Guy said.

Once the research was completed, Guy broke the drink down to its core ingredients and started experimenting until he achieved his goal.

“This is a Caesar about the way a Caesar is supposed to taste,” he said. “At the end of the day, if you’re going to call it that, someone’s going to buy it with the intention of saying it’s like the one I had at the restaurant or bar. ... So let’s make it as clean as possible so that maybe it’s actually even better than what people are having.”

Early taste tests suggest that’s the case.

“Anyone who has tried this, their reaction is, ‘This is really good,’” Michael said.

“We’re not going to launch a product we’re not proud, but this is one of the ones, that since we’ve been in production, we’ve been proud to share it (with people) because it tastes so good,” Davide added.

Now there’s only one thing left for them to do.

“We have to let consumers know that we’re changing the game.”

Crazy Uncle Uber Caesar costs $18.95 for a one-litre jug.