Flora Watkins has narrated this article for you to listen to.
Babycham, the drink you perhaps last sipped while tapping the ash from a black Sobranie as Sade played on the jukebox, is coming back. Launched in 1953 by Francis Showering of the Somerset cider family, it was aimed at giving women something to drink in the pub other than a port and lemon. Demand for the ‘genuine champagne perry’ soared after it became the first alcoholic drink advertised on the new ITV in 1955 – to the extent that Babycham was once said to be stocked by all but two pubs in the country.
It’s a ‘champagne’ rather than a ‘sparkling’ perry to this day – an attempt by Bollinger to sue for abuse of their trade name in the 1970s was dismissed by Lord Denning. The case, he declared, was not about wine, but ‘perry from pears’ – and ‘We English do know something about [this]’.
Even those too young to have poured one of the little bottles into a champagne coupe decorated with the dancing deer remember the ads. ‘I’d love a Babycham,’ says the Sloaney woman in the TV commercial of 1986, silencing the achingly hip bar – until the cool dude in dark glasses clicks his fingers and declares, ‘Hey… I’d love a Babycham’ – and everyone goes wild for it. But by then Babycham was already on the way down, that advert playing with the naffness of what was once known as ‘the landlady’s tipple’. The brand, along with the Showerings’ company, had been bought by Allied Breweries in 1968. Sales of Babycham tailed off from a high of 144 million bottles in 1977.
But now the Babycham Bambi statue is refurbished, ready to go back rampant on the roof of the Showerings’ cider mill in Shepton Mallet. Francis’s four great-nephews have bought back both the building and the brand.
They’re currently tinkering with the recipe and the look of the product with the plan to attract the sort of younger drinkers who’ve embraced cider. A major relaunch is due sometime next year. The current market is about as far from the hipster craft beer crowd as it’s possible to be. On Tesco.com one reviewer – who gives it five stars – elaborates: ‘The wife enjoys her Babycham & brandy as her nightcap.’
Nick Showering, scion of the family and a recent contestant on The Apprentice, sends me some Babycham to try. Drunk chilled, from a champagne coupe (of course), it’s less cloying than I was expecting, but still very sweet. (The label states ‘perry with sugar and sweetener’.)
I wonder if they’ll lose this during the re-branding? Showerings’ fine cider – which is served at Michelin-starred restaurants and is the only cider on the menu at Rules – is proudly free from such nasties.
But it’s light and crisp and at 6 per cent alcohol, is more restorative than my usual gin in a tin on a week night. Though ‘Better than I was expecting’ or ‘Not as bad as I’d always assumed’ rather lacks the enthusiasm of ‘I’d love a Babycham’.
Showerings say many people would prefer Babycham to prosecco, because it doesn’t have that ‘dry rasp’. We’ll find out when Bambi (actually a Chinese water deer) bounces back next year.
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