Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: We're recording this on a Sunday early afternoon during football season, and I wanted to catch up with my buddy Greg and see how things are going over at Takia Spirits. How you doing today, Greg?
[00:00:12] Speaker B: I'm doing well. How are you, Brad?
[00:00:13] Speaker A: And I'm fired up to be able to talk to you. And you give me a reason to drink tequila a little earlier than I normally do, so.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: Cheers.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Lheim, is that the repo?
Perfect. That's great. Are you. Did you get, like. We got little. Buried in a little bit of snow?
[00:00:28] Speaker A: We did, yeah. We've had the most snow we've had on the ground since, like, 1989, this early in the year. So I'm not a fan. I'm ready for it to be 80 degrees again.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Well, I. That's why I just came in from clearing the drive a little bit. I'm thinking I just want to prevent any accidents and a sheet of ice taking over. So that was just like, oh, before I ever talk to you, I'm going to take care of this. But it's. It's not bad. I could definitely take it or leave it.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: So it's. You are in Michigan, near Detroit, is that correct?
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Yeah, Metro Detroit right out. You know, Metro Detroit can be a lot, but Oakland County, West Bloomfield, Royal Oak, those. That's like. But we live in West Bloomfield, so.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, we. So we got Hanukkah coming up, and we got a kosher tequila here. So let's talk about the Hanukkah holiday. When. When does Hanukkah start? And what are some of the things that you do differently when Hanukkah starts than what we do on the Christian side for Christmas?
[00:01:29] Speaker B: I mean, really, it's next week. So Sunday night. All the Jewish holidays always begin at. At sundown the night before. So next Sunday night, you would start. It would be then going into the first day, which is Monday, and it's eight days. It represents the miracle of the oil lasting that they had found. They only thought they had enough for one.
One day, basically. And the oil burned for eight days, and it got them through a period and, you know, just struggle at war. There's always something going on. You're struggling, and.
And honestly, it's just a time to celebrate and remember that. So when you get together, your family, it just. It's become for, like, more along lines of Christmas, the gifting, and the kids have the eight nights of Hanukkah. Eight, eight. Adam Sandler, eight crazy nights. And we get together and we have the family Together, you celebrate. You have traditional things like potato pancakes, potato latkes. You play games with the dreidel with the gold coin, which is, you know, the.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Chocolate candies you'll find all over the place. Um, and. And everybody just has a good time and the kids get, like, a small present each night. You light the candles and you progressively go from one to the eight full hanukiah. Boom, There you go. And so it's just. It's a. It's a nice, fun, festive, joyous holiday. Of course you drink, you have your takiya. Now the takiya, of course, it's kosher. So if you are kosher, observant, you want something kosher, the quality is there. But takiya's represents Judaism, represents being, you know, the heritage of the Jewish culture and, and celebrating and, and being joyful of being Jewish. And so that's why I created to have something that, you know, it would give that pride and joy into having a really great lion with a great spirit, which, boom, there it is.
I love how they made this trophy. It's amazing. It's like that agave leaf and double gold. Like, I still can't get over this thing. And the awards are coming up again, and so I'm getting ready to have an Yeho up here soon, and that would definitely go into the next Gavos Awards.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: Fantastic. So what was the double gold for? Was it for the blanco or for the repo?
[00:03:50] Speaker B: The reposado.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: Okay, that's what I thought. I wasn't for sure.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Grover did that post where it. He described everything about the tasting profile and the notes and top. His top five had the double gold. And then, I mean, it was that. When I saw this was a silver, I was thinking, whoa, that's a heavy hitter tequila. Look at all the brands that are in the silver. When I was looking through the results, I was like, double gold. I mean, that's pretty good.
Are you. Is that. Is there a mistake? Like, let me check this out. Like, this is for real. And I was really, really surprised because the thing is, like, you, we try a lot of tequilas. I know what I taste, what I like, what I think tastes good to me. Does that mean it's going to be something that everybody else would think, is that good?
So to have that kind of validation and somebody else really great taste, palettes and backgrounds, trying it and giving it that kind of score was, I don't know, it blew me away. So that, that was amazing. So it's been really great. And then now it's Just a matter of almost completing a full year of product out in the market and still getting a lot of. Still seeing so much more momentum picking up, getting to the point where I'm branching it out from where I am in Michigan to now. I need to look at those bigger markets I consider the major leagues and. And scaling it out and now really scaling out Takia.
So that's going to be the next phase, and, you know, that's going to be the growth phase beyond what I've done so far.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: What's the thing that you think you've learned the most through this first year?
[00:05:24] Speaker B: I think honestly it really just being.
Being authentic, you know, who you are, your. Your motivation, your why.
And. And that's always kind of been the same. Nothing's changed. And so going out, telling people about it, telling them the story and connecting and just like I said, being authentic. There's a very strong reason as to why I did this, and there still remains to be. When I had the idea, it wasn't something that I was intentionally doing pre October 7, right? Let's say I grew up Jewish, and that was a big part of who I've been and who we are and what we're doing with our children.
But when that happened, it switched to a big switch in a lot of people, and now this has become something that represents even more of a source of pride and just making sure that you have a l', chaim, you're celebrating and you're doing it in a positive, joyful way, and you're sending out that vibration of positivity that. How can you not, when you drink a great spirit like this, it's called a spirit for a reason, and that. That spirit will emanate and you are going to give off a joyful, positive vibration. That's all. Same with music. Like, same thing. Like, I like listening to music that makes me feel good, that I. That I really, I. That's how I would want to. I don't want to be held down or felt heavy. And no, I'm not going to listen to too much email. Like, I don't want to be in a sad state. I want to be up. I want to, you know, I want to feel good. Tequila. I feel good.
And that's the whole thing. Like, and that's where I've had such a great time spreading that. And that's what I want to be doing with this. And, you know, so we're proud and we're having a great Liam together. And that. That's. That's the idea of the message and keep doing it. So I think it's. I think it's doing. It's doing very well. And I love seeing reactions when I go out and do tastings, and people all tell me, oh, tequila, that I don't do tequila. Like, well, what tequila are you talking about? College Cuervo Tequila. Are you talking about this tequila? Let I dare you to try it. And then I get their reaction.
Wow, that's really good. And they say the forbidden word in tequila speak. It's so smooth.
Yeah.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's a hard word to keep out of the mouth. I mean, it's. Sometimes it's hard to explain.
I. I catch myself saying a lot, too. A tequila is so good. It has all of these flavors, and it's easy to drink that. That smooth word slips in there because there are some like yours, which is easy to drink, has a great flavor profile, has a really nice finish. It doesn't have a horrible bite, but it has a great agave bite. It's the agave bite that I like versus some of the ones where you get that.
More of that fake chemical bite, Right? Yeah.
So I'll say one that has a nice hit to it, that it's smooth, because to me, it didn't have that chemical reaction taste. I've always liked your tequila and the. The small amount of group of Michiganders, I think that's what I call y', all, that live in Michigan. I don't know if that's a real term or not, but so I have a lot of friends in Washington Township area in Clarkston, you know, around that Detroit suburb area. They. And I've all told them when they ask me a tequila, I tell them to look for it, pick it up, and they do, and they have. And they always have a really positive reaction when they try it. So I. I love that. And I'd like to see in some other areas where we can talk about it and have people go pick it up and try it where they live, too.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: That's amazing. Thank you. That's great. Like that. That's word of mouth of people trying it and then experiencing it for themselves. And that's what I've been seeing. And you can go all day long and tell them what it is, but liquid ellipse right there in person has been the best sales. Right. People love it, and they realize it's good and. Yeah. And then people's palates are so different. I think one's, yeah, they love the blanco. The repo is too much and it's vice versa. It's so funny. And I like, I don't know, it's whatever you like and that's going to be different for everyone.
But that's awesome. Yeah. And then Yeho is going to be great. 17 months rested basically.
And it's been a little bit of, a little bit tricky there because we did have like, there were some labor strikes around the area with farmers and truckers and it slowed down some of the industry. So now we're getting, getting it going again. But I mean it's all, every day, whatever happens.
[00:09:48] Speaker A: It's.
[00:09:49] Speaker B: Can't really control everything. But then on holidays now, so I figure it'll be in after the first of the year and we'll have Blanco, more repo and then the Anejo. And that's gonna be, that's gonna be exciting. So there's just been a lot of those kinds of just planning and progressing and making those moves to really build it out. Cause there's so much. I'm always scratching the surface. I've done, I've done a lot of stuff, but I still have so much more that I wanna be doing. I'm excited. What's really cool is I've had people reaching out. You wanna talk about a reason to drink and say Lahayam is Shabbat. Every Friday you have Shabbat. You're going to roll into the weekend to have your day of rest and have your great family connection and dinner and spend time together and you want to have a nice l' Chaim and Shabbat's perfect. So this Friday there was the Art Basel in Miami is this weekend and there were two big Shabbats and they all, they were both featuring Takiya at the bar. And then the same time in New York City there's the Kibbutz Shabbat, which is big Shabbat gathering that these guys are putting together. Younger generation Jewish adults in New York and Miami, all over. But specifically they're reconnecting with one another like this pride, this movement. I feel this momentum and they're coming together and then like groups of 300 or more. And this guy reaches out and I got to know him now and Jake said, hey, I want to do it, I want to have Takia. And now you get an audience of 300 plus people having L' Chaims with your tequila and like, boom. There's never been a Jewish branded, never been a Manischewitz of tequila before.
And so it's very exciting to see these kinds of reactions because that was all just me conceptually thinking.
That's what I was thinking. Maybe other people might like the same idea. And now it's kind of like proving that concept. And that's what I've been so excited about, seeing it just getting more amped up.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: It'll be exciting to have the anejo because then you can do a tasting and explain a blanco and taste it and then explain a repo and taste it, go through the ano and taste it. Those tastings give people a whole set of knowledge and a whole nother experience.
And it's fun to watch them buy all three bottles when they're all done. So that's. That's pretty awesome.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: I totally want to like. And I still have that, that blend of hoven that I have and I really want to do that. But you know, I'm kind of looking at things. I'm having to be lean and mean smart with what I'm doing. So the amount of production I can do all at once is going to be the tradition. I want to get mixture of vignette like you said, to round out everything and have that nice flavor expansion. I have so many things I'd like to do and that's part of the.
The build out like the growth phase that I want to do and bring up different types of barreling and flavors and really get creative. But. But have that strong base and then you're going to be awesome. I recently had a chance. I sent you a photo.
I finally found a 4 laser Anejo. And I was like, hey, this is. Wow. Now that's a great anejo. Like this is what you want.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: Exactly. And it was of all places in Beverly Hills and going out Beverly Drive and the guy's like, oh, wait, you have for Laza Blanco G have a high proof. No, you know, no, still strength. But you have the blanco and the repo. I know, I have tried those. I've never gotten a chance to try on Yale because you never find it. And there it was. And he said, I'll open this right now. It'll be gone tomorrow. And they. And people just devoured it. So I'm like, man, I can't wait to have tequila on that bar next to that bottle of nail. And so.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: And as for states, right now you're only in Michigan. But people can buy it off your website, correct?
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Yeah. So primarily it's Michigan on and off premise. And then you can buy it on the website, which you go to takiaspirits.com, it goes, you can click on there to the store. If you want to go directly to the store, it's buy.takiaspirits.com and so we're shipping it all over. But technically I've opened up Florida and so I'm going to start putting. Working on that to get it on premise in stores, off premise too. So I'm opening up Ohio. I've worked out something with Cameron Mitchell restaurants. They have the.
The Taquilla at Big Rock and Ocean prime in Michigan. And so they've been amazing. And we're going to put it in some select places in Ohio.
So I'll open up that. Because that's a great little market to be in. Aside from that, I opened up California, so when I was out there, I was at a holiday boutique sale. It was great. People were buying it online, sold about seven cases, and that was a nice little day. But I was able to reach out to a really great kosher spot, Tarzana Wine and Spirits on Ventura Boulevard. If you're in the Valley and it's very, very like Jewish populated there, you have Israeli Jews, you have, you know, just American Jews. It's. It's a nice, big dense area of population for that. And that's where you go for all your kosher stuff. The guy, he's like, whoa, I've got a kosher, but I've never had a Jewish tequila. Like, well, there it is. And he brought it in. And I was at Lenny's Casita, which this place is one of, like the premier spots to go eat. It's on Pico Boulevard in la. This guy Lenny is like, from Israel. He's an amazing chef and he decided to create that vibe of the Israeli experience with Mexican food. And he built it up slowly and he's been growing. And this restaurant is unbelievable. And I ate there and I just happened to be talking to the manager and then that led to him, well, I want to try your tequila. Let me pull it out of the car.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Here you go.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: And the mishka, which is the guy who verifies what is kosher, what is acceptable.
He took it back. He's like, whoa. Not only did he say it's, oh, you kosher, that's great, but it's Jewish. He's like, this is a Jewish tequila. He goes, can we get some? Are you kidding me? I would love if you got some, because this is exactly the place it should be. And there are a lot of kosher restaurants in la, Miami, New York, where this is the perfect fit. Like that Was. That's. It was designed for that and so you can get some great cocktails there. And I'm working on another account as far as upstore Beverly Hills. So it'll be like select locations in California to start until I can really amp up my inventory, have it ready to go for that market, for the South Florida market, Miami for New York, New Jersey, and that's where I'll go.
This is my. That's my next year phase. Aside from that, I think, like, I would love to open up Illinois. I'm trying to do it at a slow, steady, calculated scale and keep it controlled. I really. I'm in love with the process and I really want to do it the right way and make sure that I'm growing smart.
So that's where that's. It's been. And, you know, I also have two kids. I have a wife where she's running a business, where I'm running a business. We're doing things. I can't just say, I'm going to take off for a week, check in with the boss and make sure we're all good.
[00:16:47] Speaker A: Yeah, and you still got to keep your drum chops up, Right. You still got to be playing on the weekends, right?
[00:16:52] Speaker B: I just played this morning, so. But yeah, I played a little bit. It was nice. I really also want to make a plan to get down to Mexico, and my. My cousin Adam's getting. I already know he's getting married next October, but I want to be there way before that. Like you, I know you've been there quite a few times already.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: Yeah, we were there, I think, 13 times in the last 12 months. So, you know, we were down August and then a couple weeks later in September, and then we were in Cabo in October, flew home for two days, was back down to Arandas again in October. So we did a really quick run there.
Not November and December, but we'll be in Matatan and Tequila in January, running a 10K. Leanne, the Partita, has a 10K charity run, so we're running that and going to a couple places to taste some special things that are being worked on down there. And then I haven't booked any other trips for the year yet, so it's kind of planning on when those trips are going to happen. So.
I love going down, though.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: I was gonna say you need to. You need to have a. A place down there now.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: That'd be great.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: That's a lot of really fun travel and things to look forward to and a lot of. I mean, you're training, you're working hard. Goals that, like, that's. That's amazing. The feeling you must get. And then you were. When you were in Cabo, isn't that like when they do the big Sammy bash?
[00:18:14] Speaker A: Yeah, we. That's actually my reason for falling in love with tequila was 2003, at the Sammy Hagar birthday party. I had the first ceramic bottle of Cabo Wabo that the.
The oldest tequila. And for me, that's when I went, wow, this. I drank a bunch and I didn't get sick, and I felt great the next day. And this really tastes good. And so that. That kind of baptized me into tequila, if you will. And we've been going to the Sammy Hay Bar birthday bash. We've only missed one year, 2016, when I think it was 16 when Hurricane Odile hit Cabo. And then for the last five years, I've been playing.
I play guitar with a buddy from Chicago, and we play a bar called Santos. And we this year played for four hours and 45 minutes to raise 59,000 pesos that goes to a orphanage and a children's charity in Cabo. This was our fifth year doing that.
[00:19:10] Speaker B: That's amazing.
[00:19:11] Speaker A: A lot of fun.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: Can't talk the next day after seeing.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Hours, but yeah, that's amazing.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Yeah, we've done it for a long time. This year, we're doing something a little different. We are going to play one show in Indianapolis in August, and then we're going to play a show probably in September in Chicago, where he lives. And we're going to raise money at both of those and then play our normal marathon day at Sancho's. And our goal is to raise a hundred thousand pesos, and we think that'd be amazing. So people don't understand how far that goes for an orphanage and a charity like that. Like that. That. That money goes a long ways. It helps a lot of people.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: No, I can imagine. That's great. That. That's unbelievable. That's so cool. Very nice.
[00:19:56] Speaker A: I say thanks for taking your time today to do this and thanks for catching us up. I'll put the website where people can pick you up online.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:04] Speaker A: And I'll also put all of your social media on there. And I hope you have a fantastic Hanukkah holiday.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: Yeah, no, you too. I hope you have a great holiday. Great Christmas, great new year. Great. And I can't wait for 2026. Like, I was excited for 2025, and I can't. I mean, I just get even More excited and it's going to be amazing, so.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: Well, I'm excited for you. I. I love watching your videos. I know you have like a ton of stuff going on. You kick out some really cool cocktails as well on your social media when you make those.
[00:20:34] Speaker B: You know what you make me, you remind me of so many things, but one of the things I haven't done yet is the kosher pickle juice martini, so look out for that one. There's something about it, like when I would have maybe a couple glass or something and you were tasting, there's something about the way that the brine and the pickle combines and enhances some of the flavor. I mean, you do your typical chocolates or cheeses when you do a tasting or like crackers and things, but something about the pickle I thought was a great compliment and that it did.
On our anniversary, my wife and I were at the Big Rock and Birmingham great bar. And I, the bartender they had there said, hey, will you make us a. A pickle martini instead of olive? And this is great.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it should be. It'd be fun. But yeah, I will. Definitely a lot of post ideas. I need to get to it and I, I'm really having a lot of fun with that too. And it's, it's just, it's a really fun.
Every part of the process, it's just enjoyable. It's a great journey. And I really appreciate what you're doing and I'm watching what you're doing and your growth has been unbelievable. And I see the back bar and I see your posts when you see the other bar and like, oh, it's great.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: So, yeah, it's been a lot of fun.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: It's been an amazing year.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: Well, I'm gonna watch for that pickle martini drink and I will make one of those too.
I want to say thanks, Greg. I appreciate you so much. You too. And thank you. Thanks for sharing with us. I can't wait to try that on.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Yo.
Likewise.
[00:22:03] Speaker A: I'm.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: I'm looking forward to it.
[00:22:04] Speaker A: Thanks so much, Goofy face or something that I could use as a thumbnail because the thumbnail is the hardest part.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Ready.
