France has given the world Burgundy and Champagne. New York's contributions include the Manhattan and the Long Island iced tea. Even the tiny Caribbean island of Curacao has placed a bright blue bottle in the pantheon of potent potables.
And Los Angeles? How about a vodka flavored with pomegranate, blueberry, acerola cherry and acai berry? That's the flavor profile of our fair city according to Swedish brand Absolut, which has ginned up 25,000 cases of a limited-run vodka called Absolut Los Angeles that started trickling out to bars and stores in late July.
Absolut's brand director, Ian Crystal, said it took the lab-coat-wearing innovations team in Sweden a good six months to find the right mix, whittling down two dozen formulas through focus groups with bartenders and vodka drinkers and even a field trip to Los Angeles to tune the palate.
The result was a basketful of the so-called superfruits -- vitamin-rich, full of antioxidants and marketing potential, some with exotic origins and names. In short, the hot young starlets of the produce aisle. "We found that L.A. people are very into the New Age berries," Crystal said without the slightest hint of irony. "And all of these flavors -- just like the citizens of Los Angeles -- are very trend-forward."
Loren Dunsworth, owner of Lola's on North Fairfax Avenue, thinks the superfruit mash-up matches the city's mind-set. "People in L.A. want to at least give the impression that they're doing things that are healthy," she said. "And that goes for their alcohol as well."
In its natural state, Absolut Los Angeles smells like flavored ChapStick, and it tastes like a cartoon version of the city: amped-up faux-fruitiness with the curative zing of DayQuil. It's a visitor's first impression, like the belief that the weather never changes or that the people are as see-through as the vodka bottles. There's not a trace of the myriad flavors in our arsenal: the hints of salty sea spray or orange blossom that waft in on the Santa Anas, the licorice-like notes curling up from the pavement after a rare rain, the sweet enigma of jasmine, the smoky bite of taco truck chile peppers or the subtle cinnamon-nutmeg double punch of a drive-through doughnut shop.
