Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey guys, Brad Nickum here with tasting Tequila with Brad. I got a really great treat today. One of my favorite blancos and the owner of this tequila, Antermanas. Alan is going to be here to tell us about the product. So stay tuned.
Hey guys, I got Alan here. Alan, how are you doing today?
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Everything it's good. Just a regular day here at the. My house actually.
[00:00:23] Speaker A: Fantastic. Now I think I'm coming to you from a little town called McCordsville, Indiana, which is on the northeast side of Indianapolis, Indiana. And if I'm not mistaken, you're coming to us from Mexico, right?
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Yeah, from Guadalajara.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: Yeah, from Guadalajara. Fantastic.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: A couple. A couple minutes away from. From Tequila Matitana, you know, the valley region of Tequila.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: Now is that where you're originally from?
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Yes, I'm from Guadalajara. Born. Raised in Guadalajara. My family is actually not from Guadalajara, but I was raised here since, you know, since I was a kid actually. Just grew up a few blocks away from where I'm living right now. So it's. It's great.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: It's super cool. Yeah, well, you know, we met on the phone or on WhatsApp back in August when my wife and I actually came to Tequila. And we, we have to say the Guadalajara airport is one of the best airports we've ever been to. That place was fantastic.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: I have a good collection actually of tequila. So a couple few places in the world you can get a good quality tequilas on the bar as walaha. Most of you know, most of their airports usually got just the regular commercial. Yeah.
Spirits. But in waha, you could get Cascad, you could get tapatio. You could get a lot of. A couple of good, good tequilas there.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: We. We looked at the tequila store in the airport. Not so much there there.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: No, there's. There's a store. There's a store. It's called. Yeah, they sell all the. For c. They sell cas. They don't say cascad. They sell tapatio. They 110 and the regular one.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: No kidding. The only store we found in the airport was just one big major brand.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I know that one. Yeah, I know that one.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: And good for them, right? They're selling to people and people like it. So tell me, how did you get into this tequila business?
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Okay, so I actually, I'm a. My background is an engineer, design engineer. And before the. Well, first of all, I'm 28 years old and I'm not that old.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: And I knew you were a youngster.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So as a Mexican, we always, we always like our tequila and me being from Guadalajara, I always try to try different stuff. So when I was around two, I moved to study abroad to Valencia in Spain.
So with me I brought of course tequila. So I want, I wanted to. I, I took actually a, a, a tasting course before going to Spain with Partida Tequila. Partida.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: No kidding?
[00:03:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And it blew my mind because I wasn't, you know, I was drinking as a youngster, 22 or 21. I was regular drinking whatever it was, you know, available to, to us. So I then I, I met the brand Partida and I fell in love with the tasting techniques they, they gave me. And actually the, those are the ones I keep after. Six, seven years later, I'm still drinking that. It was same way Fertida taught me how to do it. So I brought that to Valencia and I start teaching my Erasmus or my abroad friends in Valencia from people from Germany, France, Vienna, and I start teaching them how to drink tequila because they have this misconception of drinking tequila something. You know, in Europe you only get really, really like poor quality tequilas like Sierra and things like that. But because that's the market and it started so, so it's okay. That's how actually Mexico started that way. Then the US and Europe is in the same, it's right now in those same steps. So I, I felt like I was like kind of a ambassador of tequila. Ambassador of Mexico. When I was there, I would study for the eight months and I came back and I was like, I want to get more into this. So it was more into a hobby. It was more just getting to get the spirits Mezcal and tequila. I was getting to that. Then Racia came, I started drinking Racia and then the pandemic hit and I started designing furniture. So I was. Wall is a big. It's not only a tequila business is, well how it's big on furniture. And my family, it's been in the furniture business since 35 years now. So for me it was, you know, the safe choice was going into furniture. I was designing and manufacturing furniture. And one day I was thinking of sending my furniture to the US So I wanted to get some advice on exporting. So my dad contacted me with John Monroy, which is now the CEO and co founder of Entre Manos also. And he, I went to his office and he was like, okay, I don't know anything about furniture, but I know what I do is export tequila and mezcala and I help small brands to get a repackaging and rebranding so they can sell things in the US So I was like, oh, that's interesting. So he started helping me with the furniture. Then we found out that it was just not, like, good.
It wasn't a good business to just send furniture to us.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: So he was like, no, I want to keep helping you, because I feel like I let you down in a way. So I was like, why don't you come with me? And you helped me design bottles for this Mezcal and Tequila companies to send it to the US So I was like, oh, that's. That's something I like. I like Tequila. I like Mezcal. I'm really into spirits, and I am a designer. I'm the engineer. So I was like, okay, sure. So I started working with him. We had a company. We helped a couple of Mezcals. We wanted to send Tequilas and Mezcal to China. So we were doing a couple of things, and then the opportunity came into a brand. A brand for our own, not just because we were helping other brands. So that's how entrepreneurs came in. So I got into the project to be in charge of all the things about production, the rope, the bottle, everything about the final product. And that. That then is when I met Jaime Villalobos, which is a master distiller. And we built a team of. Right now we're seven, and a couple of other advisors. But we started just. There was just four of us.
A couple of us.
So that's how it started in Tequila. It was, you know, I wanted to do furniture and end up, you know, selling Tequila. Yeah. So I had to close my. I had to close my business because the Tequila was just something I was. Felt more passionate about. I was like, no, I love this. I love to work at Tequila. I had to close my business with furniture, and I'm really happy I did.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: That's awesome. So now instead of giving somebody some place to sit in the furniture, now you help them fall out of it with the tequila.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: That's a good analogy.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: So how did the name. And what does the name intermanas mean?
[00:07:25] Speaker B: Okay. Intramanus, you know, in Spanish, intramanus means between hands. You know, the top on the cap, you see there's two hands, you know, holding.
So in order to entremanos mean, it's when you do the hema, when you harvest the agave, it has to be between hands. You have to toss it around all the way to the. To. To the big truck, and you have to cut it with the hands. Then you have to melod. Distill it, fermented, bottle it, then put the rope around. And everything has to be between hands. There's.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: Right.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: There's nothing you can do in the tequila world. Only you has to be between hands. It has to be between someone else. So at the end there's. You cannot like, toast the shears if it's not between hands. You cannot do it with yourself. You just can't go like, salute.
Has to be with someone else, has to be between hands. So it's a way to say, let's respect all the hands, all the people involved in the process, all the time that was involved. For example, respecting the time, honoring the time there was for the agave to grow, for the seven years to mature and the time to ferment, the time to distill, the time to put the rope, you know, the tequila and Romanos. It takes us around two to three minutes, depending who is doing it, sometimes five minutes to put the rope. So for me, every time I have a box, I have like, I don't know, maybe like 10 boxes, cases of tequila, just empty bottles of Intromanos. I don't want to, you know, throw them away because I know how. How long it took to. To make.
[00:09:00] Speaker A: So for somebody to make that. Yeah, yeah.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: So I usually we. We like to say to tell people to use it as a base for flowers or something like that, because it was. It was way too much work into it just to throw it away. And actually the first lot of entremanos, lot number one, which went to Spain, I think it was 6,000 bottles. And out of those 6,000 bottles, I think I did around 2500 of them. I did it.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: You did it yourself.
Wow, that's pretty awesome.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: Because we didn't have actually the machine. We. I built the machine. I designed it and build myself. I welded the machine, I printed everything. And it was only one machine. And I was the only one that knew how to do it, how to use it. So after the 2500 bottles I did, I had like someone installed me. So I teach the ladies at the distillery to do it by hand and do it with the machine so we could work faster because we were really going really, really slow. So then I decided five more machines to do it. But at the end, still, it's something that you have to do it by hand. The machine just aids you, helps you just turn the. The. The. The. The bottle, but you have to put it by hand still, which, which really.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Fits into the hands that you're talking about. And one of the things I say to people about tequila all the time, because my, you know, I. I love to share the story of the spirit. Right. I've been a tequila drinker for a long time, and what I tell people all the time is this. This little glass of tequilas, it's sipping, you know, seven to eight years of sunshine, and it's. It's sipping a spirit that has really gone through the hands of many people from, from the farmer, from the humidoras, from the person that is cutting it in halves and quarters and cutting out the kagoya and stacking it into an autoclave or a stone oven, and then, you know, putting it through a chihuna or putting it through the roller mill and then watching the people work in the bottling.
And, you know, in the States, you know, we're kind of used to a whole bunch of just manufacturing and not a human touching a bottle. Right. I don't know if you're familiar with Maker's Mark. It's a. It's a bourbon, right. And every bottle is dipped into a thing of wax, and that is still done by hand. They sit at a conveyor belt, and there's people on each side that take that bottle off, dip it in that wax, and put the bottle back on there. And, you know, they've kept the spirit of the worker to do that. And I think that's really neat. But you don't find that in the state a lot. And a lot of people here think, you know, and I'm going to pour it in a shot glass and I'm going to lick some salt and then swallow some lime. And they're used to that party shot and to try to help educate people of what tequila really is and how to really respect what's in your glass and where it came from. Learning the story of the name is such. That's. That's so awesome. That's a great piece of it. So that's really cool.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: Now, what does the rope represent something as well?
[00:12:03] Speaker B: Yeah, actually, it's just to resemble to the handcraftmanship of something. And also, you know, when you have to remember something, you have to. You sometimes tie something around your finger.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: So that's.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:12:18] Speaker B: That's to remember all the time that it took to get the tequila done. So some people, when we started and we had the design, because the design was made in Barcelona, so it was one of the best companies studios in the world, designed the. The bottle and they gave me a render and I like, okay, so how am I going to put the robe and what type of material is it? And they were like, okay, my, my, my work was done when I designed the bottle. That's your, that's on you? Yeah. So you had to figure out how to do it. So it took me six months to, to figure out the rope, how, how to tighten it around and everything. And sometimes people would just go like, why didn't you just put a label with the, with the texture? And you know, I like, no, I, I really want to do that. It's easier if I do that. If it's easier if I just. A label with the rope texture or something like that. But I was like that this is something people will remember and that we will remember every time we do it. So it's like, no, let's, let's not cut corners and do it the way it was meant to be and to represent that same thing. So every, every time I. Tighter. Because, you know, the, the, the high proof, it's only 1800 bottles. Out of those 1800 bottles, I think I made more than half. I think I did around 800.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: No kidding.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: A thousand twelve hundred bottles. I did myself by myself.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Because we didn't have time. The, the guy was supposed to do it to spare Luna. So, you know, it's like I had to do it myself. So every time I do a bottle, I was like, this is, this is going to the hands of someone else. So I cannot look. If. What are they going to look on this? They're going to appreciate. They're going to. Every people that see the bottle, they always go like this. They always touch the. To see what material.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: Absolutely. I think that's the first thing I did when I got mine was I was like, wow, that was awesome. Like, yeah.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: So we know it's a big, big part of the product and we want to keep it like that. And people would say like, oh, so how are you going to do it? If you want to scale it up to, I don't know, do thousands and thousands of bottles a day. Like just more hands.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's more people in your area that you get to help. And that's really pretty awesome.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: And actually that's why we started Cultivando Lassos, which is an, how do you call it? The association. A foundation.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: Foundation to help empower women at this, at the tequila industry. And right now we're helping them to establish their own company because now the ladies that used to work at the distillery are no longer working there due to any different circumstances. They got widow or something like that. They're gonna be the ones now doing the rope and they're gonna get paid straight instead of, you know, interview. So they're gonna have new businesses. And the idea is to bring all the ladies around the community to not only do entre manos, but to do different brands of labeling or bottling whatever they can so they can have the control of their finances and to make them believe and understand that their work is really valuable for all of the industry. So we are actually working with that right now. The next lot is going to be 100% labeled by the self women's. And.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: That'S fantastic. I mean, I know a lot of brands that are really working hard at giving back to the communities. And it's something that a lot. A lot of people lose sight of. Capitalism one, everybody else zero. Right. And thank God for capitalism. But to know that a company is doing something that is, you know, sustainable, responsible, helping their people, that. That puts even more meaning really behind what you do. And that's what's hard for a brand to be able to do, is put that out there and tell people that. So I'm glad that we get to tell your story a little bit because it's really important, but that's awesome.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for hearing that.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: How did you end up at NAM? 1522. So did you do a lot of like, check with other distilleries or. No. Okay, so there's another story there. I love it.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: Yeah. So the thing is that we started this. The opportunity to do intromanos came up from a friend of. Of Jan's, and he's a doctor. And he was like, okay, I know a friend of mine. Kiss. 60, maybe 70 years old. And he's like, okay, a friend of. When I was studying medicine. He's also a master distiller, and I want him to do the tequila. So we went with him and he was like. We talked about what we wanted and everything. And he was like, the best fit for this tequila is going to be my son. So the guy we went into is Jaime Villalobos Diaz, which is the father of Jaime Villalobos Salsa.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: I say he's a salsa right? Yeah, yeah.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Hi, me, Jimmy, the. Our master distiller. He's from the salsa family and his dad.
[00:17:13] Speaker A: That's what I thought.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: His dad is also a master distiller. He's not from the salsa family, but he's really involved in the tequila industry. And he's been doing tequila for more than 50 years now. So he Was like, okay, the best fit for your product is going to be my son. We met with Jimmy. Jimmy was just like, like it was the perfect fit. And he was like, the only place I feel comfortable working, it's at Asina del 1522, which is where Tequila Partida be. It was sure that's where they started. They started. So for me, we're like, okay, this is nice. This is the first time I actually experienced something. It was, you know, in that, that same place. So the thing is that the Partia family has been doing tequila for more than 25 years now. And they've been agave growers for more than 50 years.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: And there's partitas all over. Right.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: So many people. Yeah, there's a lot of Partidas, which is a big family in Arenal. And so they started doing the, you know, they started doing partida and everything. Then Partida moved from distillery to the Nam. So they started from the ground up. Now they took everything. That's why they got at 1522, which is, you know, are they higher the number they knew where the distillery? Yes.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: So Jimmy, you know, it's, it's. It's five brothers of the Partida. And Jimmy is considered the sixth brother because he's been working there since 15 years now. And he's not like an employee there. He's. It was like his small lab. Right. Ileana Partida. And back then he was David Partida, Ileana's father, who gave, gave him the freedom to do whatever he wanted in distillery. So every time he brings a new product, he takes over basically of the distillery, the production and everything. So it's. If he wants to, you know, do whatever he wants, it's easy to do, just as long as he doesn't damage his. Any equipment.
[00:19:11] Speaker A: Right.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: Everything is cool. So that's what we.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: So he, he becomes the magician to make this be as good as it is.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. So we have different processes that the stealer had never done before. And it was just old Jimmy. Jimmy is still. He's a purist. And what he's doing, he's saying that he wants to do the best. Tequila was already invented.
So he's like, I'm not trying to invent the wheel. It's just not, it's not possible. The best tequila was already met that. So let's try to do the thing. It was just to do the thing that was already done in the best way. So his philosophy before the additive free movement, before everything of that, he was doing the tequila the right Way. Would she say way as water agave and gist the right way. Yep. So it's only three ingredients, Right.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: So. And you guys are. You're lowlands agaves, correct?
[00:20:06] Speaker B: Yeah. B. Yeah.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: So lowlands agaves and then high pressure autoclave, is that right?
[00:20:12] Speaker B: Yeah, it's that. Here's the, here's the interesting part about our autoclave. So the ba. The distillery used to have an r back in 1999. Yeah, 1999. So but it wasn't that popular back then.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: So the autoclave came in at the early 2000s. So it was the most popular thing. It was the most efficient. People really don't. Didn't care about how it was made just to make it faster. So the autocave claim and they took, they, they just teared down the, the, the brick oven because it wasn't needed and they kept just two autoclaves. So Jimmy wanted to do something different. He wanted to do the same process cooking as a brick oven, but we just didn't have it. And it's not like we're going to go cook somewhere else and then bring the cook.
So he was like illustrate something different. Basically. It's just, you just have to inject steam into it. The same thing as a brick oven. The difference is time and pressure.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: So are you doing a little more what they call low and slow?
[00:21:14] Speaker B: It's low and slow. So it's, it's a combination of both. So it's 10 hours with high pressure.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:21:21] Speaker B: Eight to 10 hours depending. Sometimes it's eight hours slow, high pressure. And instead of opening to cool it down for 12 hours to 10 hours, we just keep it closed for 48 hours the whole week.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: Okay. So you're, you're almost getting that low pressure cook for another couple of days before you even open it up.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: Then we have the same time as a brick oven.
[00:21:44] Speaker A: Right. Or if you were doing just a true low pressure autoclave, you're, you're running that same time frame. Yeah, that's awesome.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: But because you, you put the high pressure at the beginning, you're going to get a little different notes, more for all notes. And because of the longer time, the 48 hours. So it's 12. Oh, it's almost 60 hours on the, on the, on the, on the oven. So that will give, you know, a different profile. The unfolding of the sugar is going to be a richer. So you're going to get more fur for all. You're going to get more burn material, organic material, which going to give you those aromas at the End of the product. So Jimmy is like, okay, we. We have to adapt to what we have, and we have to. The best way. So then we have a roller mill, regular roller mill. And then we do a natural, spontaneous fermentation. No G, static, whatever. It's in the environment.
[00:22:32] Speaker A: Whatever's in there. Yeah. So letting nature be nature.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think the one you have, it's what, lot number five or four.
[00:22:40] Speaker A: I think this is lot five.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: Yes. If doesn't have anything on the front. That's lot five.
It's blank.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it's blank. And you told me that it was lot five.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it's lot five. So a lot five took nine days to ferment because there was. There was somebody on the distillery that wanted. That wanted to cap the whole time. The. From January to July. He was like, I'm gonna take over the server for six months. So we were like, okay, we cannot do that. We usually cook the second week of ferment, the second week of February because it's when the temperatures start going higher, which is better for us. So we have. We had no choice, and we decided to ferment in January, which is really risky because the most could die.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: So you can get too cold in.
[00:23:30] Speaker B: January, gets too cold, and the middle of the fermentation simply just stops fermenting. And every mustard, everything is dead. So no longer useful. It's just. It's so. It was like, okay, let's. Let's take the. The risk. And we did. And fortunately enough, it took nine days to ferment, which is really, really long. And it gave this more malolactic notes to it, more lactic notes. Uh, and it gave the peppermint side that we had on lot four and lot three, it went a little bit down, which is good for. For me, I love more into the malolactic notes. I know there's people that doesn't like that cheesy, funky nose, but I. I like that.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: I also like that it's got a real pepperish finish to me.
[00:24:11] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: Which I usually get that when somebody did fermentation with fibers.
[00:24:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: It seems like it's a hotter finish to me. So that I. I was going to ask you, did you ferment with fibers? Because to me, it has that, like, long, like, peppery finish that would remind me of that.
[00:24:28] Speaker B: Usually that's due to the. The. The. The methanol content that you get. We cannot, because we use a roller mill. I don't know if you know this, but when you use a roller mill, you. The Crushing of the fibers is more aggressive and that will actually produce more methanol during the fermentation. So if you do CR roller mill and you ferment with fibers, you have a higher. You're going to have a higher level of methanol.
[00:24:55] Speaker A: Right. Also creates a lot of bitterness too, correct?
[00:24:58] Speaker B: Yes, a lot of bitterness. And you will get that peppermint finish. So usually when you do taona with fibers, you might get that peppermint, but it's not gonna be that harsh. Right now we are gonna do. We have. There's a new tawana finally at the distillery. They're still fantastic, you know, fixing it because it wasn't that efficient. It was around 30 kilos per liter. Oh yeah, they're fixing it, they're fixing it. The tweaking, everything, it's. So make it more efficient. So we might start doing things with fiber. We might start doing half and half. Just a little. We're going to start, you know, mixing because you know, we are only at the kilak company with blanco. We don't do repositories with any h expression. It's only blanco. That's the way we want to keep it, all the way and.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: Okay, so your plans to stay just a blanco and the high proof and maybe or whatever.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: Different type of experiment.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Player have different experience.
[00:25:56] Speaker B: We're going to do wet fermentation tauna. We're going to just. We want people to understand that what the impact of the process will provoke will create on the. On the product, on the final product. It's going to be the same water, it's going to be the same type of cooking, same type of thing. But if you do different things, you're going to have a different profile. So people will understand and we'll see that on the final product, which is something that Jimmy is really passionate about and I'm really passionate about. I've Learned, I think 85% to 90% of what I know about tequila from Jimmy. Jimmy's a talker and he loves and he studied it and he's also. So he, he really, he really enjoys talking about tequila. And we are doing a special release on this, on this spring, which is going to have a different type of fermentation. I cannot tell you what is it, but later on I might send you a sample so you can just give us a try.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: We do an update video.
[00:26:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: So deep well water, right? That's what you're using?
[00:26:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:57] Speaker A: Cutting, cutting heads, cutting tails. Distilling twice. Right. Ordinary. And then. So then when you guys proof it down because it's probably coming out at like 54, 50.
And then when you proof it down, are you using the same well water, demineralized, or you just doing the regular water? Same water.
[00:27:17] Speaker B: Same water, yes. Okay, so that's going to give you the final profile always.
[00:27:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I, I, I taste that vegetal mineral taste that you get in valley tequilas. It's, it's one of my favorite things about the valley tequilas is having that mineral flavor. And I know a lot of people say that comes from that volcanic water. And I just, I, I love that piece.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: I, I can tell you the, out of the whole thing, out of the whole fermentation production, distilling everything, the final profile and the aromas will come from the water. Yeah, this is, this is, I know this is kind of a, some people say it's a terroir del teruno, but I'm just.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: Well, water, Water is part of your tarar, right? When you think about it.
[00:28:05] Speaker B: Yeah, if you put it that way. Yeah, in that way, I would say Tara will have actually a great impact on the, on the, yeah, on the final product. But that, the idea that I can take this, I can take agaves from the highlands or the Altos, Altos de Jalisco and bring it to the distillery and cook it. It will taste the same. The final product will be the water. Or I can take the water.
Yeah, you know, you know, he's a big Felipe, he's a master of water.
[00:28:36] Speaker A: Three types of water. Yeah. It's amazing.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: And you can, you can really taste the difference between that. At the end, there's no minerals that can be distilled out of the water. Out of the water.
You cannot do that. You cannot distill. And the small minerals go up and then to the tear. The minerals you get, they will be from the water and then the terror will impact. Because what minerals had around that deep water or the spring water. Rain water.
[00:29:04] Speaker A: Yeah, that's why I wanted to, you know, some people are using a demineralized water to proof down. And to me, I think they're taking that right out of it, you know, because that water is special to each area. So I think that's a big part of it.
[00:29:17] Speaker B: For example, in what cases? In which cases, I see that could be a good thing. When you have a specific, for example, Don Fulano has its own yeast, and then it's a secret and it's something they created. So you want to push that on out. So those aromas will be under fermentation because of the ch. You water down with something which is. Has a lot of presence of minerals and has that specific flavor. It might impact on the, on the idea of the, of the yeast. If you want something really clean, you might use dementia water to, to. To proof it down. But it will depend on the profile that you're looking for. Actually I just uploaded a video about natural G and and, and. And added yeast and people would say like, oh, which is better? Like. No, it's depending on the profile. If you want something really specific you might add G or you want something just whatever the environment wants to give me do natural gist. But at the end there's, there's no wrong and right on this either. We like to do that the way we do it in Tremanos. But I really like Don Fulano which is that just added. So it's, it's. It's a matter of what the producer wants to, to. To have.
[00:30:33] Speaker A: For me, I'll come out to my bar. There's. I probably have a hundred bottles right on the bar and I'll go today I really feel like maybe this is going to be a Sergio Cruz day, right. You know, or today maybe Felipe day, right. So. And as you can tell, it's an intramones day a lot.
[00:30:51] Speaker B: That's good, that's good because it, it is.
[00:30:54] Speaker A: Like I said, I do, I'm a blanco guy. I do like some repos. But I, I very seldom drink an oniejo or extra on yejo that maybe when it's snowing outside and it's really cold here, I'll make a old fashioned with tequila or I'll drink an aneo, but for the most part I go gravitate straight to a blanco. I drink it neat, a room temperature and I sip on it until I go to sleep at night. That's what I say. So I love watching your videos. I only have one problem.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: It's in Spanish.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: I don't speak Spanish and my wife and I are booking a trip. We're coming down in February and we're going to do a couple days in Tequila and then four days in Arandas.
[00:31:36] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:31:36] Speaker A: And in Tequila, when you talk to the hotels, they speak English. It's pretty easy to book your hotel when you're booking a hotel in Arrondissement, they don't speak English. So it's like I'm calling a friend to help get it all put together. So hopefully when we come down in February, we can actually meet up and get to Go grab a drink and see your facility and what you guys do. That'd be really awesome.
[00:31:58] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. You know, here's your. Your home, your distillery. Whenever you want. I'll see you in February.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: That'd be awesome. Okay, tell people where they can find you. Give me your socials. All of the things out there that you're doing that people can look for. And then I'll put them in the. In the notes as well. This will go out on YouTube, it'll go on my Facebook, it'll go on Instagram. I'll do some teasers on Tick Tock and I'll do like a couple of teaser shorts, you know, in reels as well, to drive people back to the video. But where can people find you so I can tell them where to find you?
[00:32:28] Speaker B: Well, our handles for Instagram is Dramanos Tequila, I think in TikTok is the same. Yeah, I think TikTok is the same. I think so. And you can get Dramanos basically in the 41 states through E commerce. So we could. Yeah, there's passionspirits.com they have a Romanos, I think sip tequila has intromanos, Old Town Tequilas and Romano if you want to get it online and. But you can get it in retail. You could get it in California, basically. From the south, all the San Diego to all the North Norcal.
I think we are around 47 total. Wines are spread around California, Arizona.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: And we're going to start working on Texas next year. You know, we just started in January because we are a company. We've been here for two and a half years now, but we just started in the US In January. So we've been working slow but with a good pace. So we have distribution California, Arizona, Flor. Florida, Florida, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut.
I think that's. That's it right now. But we already have a deal with Texas, Colorado, Illinois, and Michigan.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: So you're getting close to me.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: Yeah. So actually I'm in charge of the expansion for next year for distribution in the US because we want to start, you know, working in different states because we know it's not.
It's really hard to get distributors to just get the ball rolling. It took us almost four months just to get everything done for New York. And it was. It was just crazy for California. It took us two weeks. That's it. And we were selling already.
[00:34:15] Speaker A: I was told it's easier to find a distiller, come up with your batch, pick out your bottles, get your label approved, get your import Approved, get it into the United States. And then the hardest part is getting it on somebody's shelf so somebody can see it to buy it. And, and that's where, you know, I want to try to help, you know, brands that I enjoy as much as I can to let people know. Do you have a website that they can order from directly as well?
[00:34:41] Speaker B: It will direct you to Passion Spirits.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: It's a website within Passion Spirits which has everything about Entromanos. It's a dedicated website for entremanos. And I think it's the price on that one is 59.99, just the retail suggested price. So of course they're going to charge you the shipping and the regular things.
[00:35:02] Speaker A: Got your taxes and a lot of places you order enough they waive your shipping fees. So that's a great price for a great blanco. So I'm looking forward to finding that high proof. I can't wait to try that one.
[00:35:13] Speaker B: I, I'm going to make sure to send you a sample for that one because I know we might not be getting any soon to, to Illinois, to Indiana and might. It might. We just did 1800 bottles and distributor in California just have bought yesterday. He bought half of it so.
[00:35:30] Speaker A: Oh, no kidding.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: That's all.
[00:35:33] Speaker A: So I know how busy you are. I'm. I'm really impressed that a 28 year old guy who' already got his engineering degree, who started another business figured out man, I can make tequila work. And then the name and how you've come up with really how it is all about the hands is really impressive to me. I love the bottle. Presentation's a big piece for me. So I keep one of every bottle that I finish and I actually have a wall and on Amazon I've found these clips that screw to the wall that then screw around the bottle so then they can hang. So I'm going to float a whole wall of bottles and my wife gives me a hard time. She. She made me throw bottles away because I, I realize how much work not only goes into the tequila, but a lot of times this is a, a hand blown glass bottle. Putting this rope on. They're. They're putting on this care to it and then you throw it in the trash and I'm always like no. So there's no bourbon bottles, there's no any other spirit. It's all tequila. There's still a little bit of bourbon over here. I, I need people to come drink it to give me more tequila shelf space. That's why I say all the time well, Alan, I really appreciate you taking your time and sharing everything about it. It's pretty awesome. So.
[00:36:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you, Brad, for having me. And it was. It was a great time chatting with you.
[00:36:55] Speaker A: Perfect. Thanks, Alan.
