The Family Coppola announced today that they have secured a craft spirits license and will be launching a spirits line, adding another venture to the wineries, restaurants and hotels already run by the famous filmmaking family. The new brand of “small-batch, house-crafted, classically styled spirits” will be called Great Women Spirits and will include a gin, vodka and brandy.
The spirits, made from spring water from the site of Coppola’s historic Inglenook winery in Napa and vineyard grapes and herbs, are named after three historic women. The gin pays tribute to English mathematician Ada Lovelace, who is considered the world’s first computer programmer. The vodka is named after Marie Walewska, the influential mistress to Napoleon. Finally, the brandy, commemorates Maria Gaetana Agnesi, the first woman to serve as a mathematics professor at a university.
“My mother, sister, wife, daughter, and granddaughters have all inspired me, as have all of the incredible women we celebrate with Great Women Spirits,” said Francis Ford Coppola, Oscar-winning filmmaker and co-proprietor of The Family Coppola brands, which he operates alongside his wife, filmmaker Eleanor Coppola.
Eleanor Coppola adds that the important role women have played and continue to play far surpasses one as simply a source of inspiration, but that this has been overshadowed by the fact that men have been the narrators of historic records: “You know why we don’t hear about famous women in history? Because the history books were written by men.”
Great Women Spirits are available poolside and at RUSTIC at Francis Ford Coppola in Geyserville. The new spirits officially launch October 10, on Ada Lovelace Day, at Cafe Zoetrope in San Francisco. TheFamilyCoppola.com
