Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, guys. Tonight's going to be pretty cool. You're going to meet Ilia Lerner, the owner of Di Lanteros, and he's going to tell the story of how he started in the spirit industry and moved to tequila and also make a special announcement of a partnership that Dilantero Tequila and he have entered into. And it's pretty exciting. So check it out. I hope you enjoy this interview. It's tasting tequila with Brad.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: All right.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: Ilya, I'm so glad to have you here today. How are you doing out there in California?
[00:00:37] Speaker B: I bet. How are you? I'm fine. I'm a little hot, but now I'm parked in the shed and trying to multitask. I'm happy to connect. It's been a while since we actually got in touch, so we waited for a specific reason, which I'd like to discuss a little bit down the line.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: So, yeah, yeah, I'm excited about those special reasons, too. In fact, when I seen the press conference and the information come out, I think I messaged a couple days after, like, hey, let's make it happen.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: First of all, tell everybody who you are and what you do and kind of a little bit about your journey into learning about tequila.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Well, I actually. I came from Moscow back in 88, so I've been doing different things. I was in high tech then I was, like, in real estate. And at some point back in 2012, I wasn't. I was kind of in the middle of things, and I was introduced by. By a mutual friend to a owner of a very expensive boutique Russian vodka brand. And he needed somebody to help him to develop it on the west coast here. He lives in Connecticut.
And I started doing it, and I kind of, like, realized I can probably try and maybe bring my own brand. And I started doing research and fast forward. I brought in my own vodka brand, and I made it.
I used to make it in Siberia in the Russian Far East. That's where the tigers live, the Siberian tigers. And it was caught White Tiger.
So White Tiger was a beautiful bottle and everything. And then I had a partner who had an accident, and he wasn't able to help me. So eventually this brand kind of, like, faded out. I brought another brand in, and I got into Jean, and I got into Mezcal eventually.
And then when war with Ukraine started, products were banned from importing in the United States.
And I got.
I always wanted to get into tequila business, but I was kind of, like, not sure because I knew how bad the competition is. So it's Brutal. But when I came up with a brand name, I thought I got to give it a try because this kind of separates because whatever saw what other tequila doing the old ones and the new commerce. And it's not like they're similar. They have all the different flavor profiles, different packaging. But the few that I noticed are really meaningful that and I thought Delantera, because it's a soccer striker position in the team. And I thought that it would be great to align the brand with sports fans, specifically soccer, especially knowing that soccer in us is becoming very, very popular last few years because of what Beckham did with Inter Miami. He founded the team and he brought in Messi and then Suarez and then other MLS teams started getting into hiring international stars. And that pretty much made my made me make a decision to get into tequila. And I wasn't sure how to do it, who to call, what distillery to use.
And I knew that it would have to be excellent, absolutely excellent quality. Otherwise there's no repeat business.
And preferably coming from famous distillery.
So I started going to Mexico off and on. I met with different distilleries. I met with Chava at Cascarine. I met with Filippo Camarena at 1579.
I also met with Orange people, but they were like too big for me. I was like, there's nothing to offer them as far as volume. And then eventually somebody mentioned to me that try 1414. And I started researching and then I called, I was able to reach to Sergio Ivanka and he was very upfront and he was very nice to me. And he said what you should do is just jump on a plane, come over here and we'll talk. So I did exactly that. And I went to Arandes and I met Sergio and Sergio Cruz and other people at the distillery. And then it took a little bit time, a little bit of time because initially I was going to do another brand, the same brand that Miami Skull, but that somehow didn't work out. And I guess it was for good because I eventually came up with Dell and Terra. And once Sergio saw that, we basically signed up and we started doing it. But the way obviously in terms of flavor profile spent some time. Sergio Cruz made few different profiles to try. We picked up, I believe it was three different profiles which I brought samples with me and I went to my miscology contact people and everybody picked the same one, number two. So it was easy decision for me. So that that how it came to be. So that was a number two profile out of three in a bottle.
And now we're trying to like move forward, I guess.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: That's fantastic to talk about it a little bit. I've read that it's, you know, estate agaves and they're cooking them in those awesome stone ovens that they have there at 1414 roller mill for extraction and then stainless steel, a little bit of champagne yeast, Mozart method.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: Mozart music blasting. Yes. And then copper, double double distillation, cup of steel. And then it was rested a few weeks, a couple of months in the steel tanks before it was bottled. So it kind of oxygenated and settled. And so it's, it's, it's, it's, it's delicious, you know. Have you tried it yet?
[00:06:22] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. I've actually already rated on Tequila Matchmaker as well. Yours has a really great cooked agave. It's light on the nose, it's got a really great flavor. And I, I pick up some banana, I put some melon, but an apple all in that flavor profile. And then the finish has got a little bit of heat in it with a little bit of pepper and kind of a little bit of cinnamon in the finish. It's, it's right there with my top blancos. It has all of the flavor profiles that I like in my blancos.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: I knew I was going to like it as soon as it got here. I was like, it's a 1414 and it's not a, you know, mass produced brand. And I knew I was going to love it.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a small batch production, edited free. Everything from 1414 comes edited free, traditionally made.
I'm looking forward to moving forward with doing Reposado soon, hopefully. I was waiting and I was waiting to talk to you because I was looking into signing up with the soccer team and luckily enough we have a professional soccer team here in Orange county where I live. It's right between San Diego and Los Angeles. And it's a USL league, which is a Division 2, MLS is Division 1 and USL is Division 2 league. So it's much more approachable financially to partner with them.
So we literally signed up the partnership right before the end of April and they put out the press release on Cinco de Mayo on Monday, May 5, announcing our partnerships, a four year partnership.
They're excited about it. I'm excited about it. Happy that tequila spot was open because they just brought in another spirit which was a single mouth scotch by Alexander Murray company, which is very established company. And for me it was, I believe it was great milestone because I'm new. I mean, I'm new and I was able to get in a team, in a club as a partner. And it comes with a lot of opportunities for marketing, advertising instead of social media, different kind of promotions and events and stuff like that. So, yeah, I'm hoping from now on it's going to start moving much better because there's more people would know about it, you know, And Orange county, this is the only professional soccer team in Orange county, so. Yeah.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: Well, what a great way to introduce soccer players to great tasting traditional tequila.
So many people go to sporting events and the tequila that they have there to choose to drink isn't. Isn't the ones, you know, that give you this traditional flavor. So fantastic job getting that to where you can share this with soccer fans that haven't had maybe this great tequila and the new bottle so that you didn't change anything. The tequila is the same. Just the label is a little different.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: And actually the label is the same too. It's just different color scheme.
Different color scheme which looks much better. And the reason I decided to do that because original one came up a little bit different than I kind of like imagined. It was gray background. The gold didn't come out exactly how I wanted it. But then I was looking at what I need to do to change it. And since I'm a sucker tequila. And when you look on the soccer Joshua, they're all colorful. They all like different. Different bright colors. So I decided to do like a rich blue color on a blanco. For a passada, I'm gonna do like a green, rich green color background with gold elements the same way. And then for anieja, eventually I'm thinking maybe a nice maroon color, let alone maybe. But some. Some point we can do some special editions for some sporting events, or if I'm. If I'm able to maybe collaborate with some more or less famous soccer players to get some special edition with them, something like that. Soon I decided to go that way to kind of separate myself from the. From the tequila crowd because I didn't really know how to.
How to knock it within the. The usual flow, you know, I would say I wanted to do something different.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: And that'll introduce you into the tequila crowd too, though, because we were doing something special like that and you're doing special releases, you know, Then. Then us tequila nerds get all excited, right?
[00:10:53] Speaker B: And in fact, in soccer, even though it's becoming much more popular in US especially like a younger generation which still cannot drink, but eventually they can celebrate with tequila, there's a lot of Spanish speaking Communities here in California. There is a lot of Spanish speaking regional supermarkets and I'm actually getting into, I got into one of them which is a Northgate market, which is also a, a partner, official partner of the same soccer club.
So they have this field board, the 20 foot field board, Northgate market on the field. And I have now mine the Lantera Tequila there as well.
So it's kind of like.
It's a match. It's a match. And we can work together with the supermarket to promote the brand, you know.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: Fantastic. Where can people find your brand? Where is it readily available at?
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Well, my main market is primarily Southern California. I have few stores in up north. But because I'm a one man show, I do everything, everything, everything you see about the brand from logistics compliance, supply design.
I have to do everything myself because I'm self funded and obviously the funds are limited. So I had to learn a lot of things including like putting together the website and on my website actually there's a map at the bottom. When you zoom in you can see and you can see the addresses of those spots where it sells. The biggest markets would be like Ralph's supermarket which is like, I think it's like 69 stores that carry the product.
Also a few total wine stores doing test Jones Market, which is another regional supermarket chain. There's probably like 19 stores.
And now the Northgate Market which is 48 stores. And they have to do the reset literally in June to put the product in all their stores.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Do you have any stores that have online sales available yet?
[00:12:53] Speaker B: There are some stores that have online sales. I'm not sure which ones are doing it, sending it to different states. But on my website you can buy it on my website.
And a store that does fulfillment, they can ship to 47 states. So if you, if you, if you're buying on my website, obviously there's shipping involved, shipping charges, but shipping charges are flat anywhere up to 12 bottles. So it kind of like it permeates. But yeah, 47 states. They are able to ship it to 47 states.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: We'll put that website somewhere right here.
It's showing up right there somewhere. That way someone can find it.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: So reposado. Reposado coming out. What's your time frame on that coming?
[00:13:41] Speaker B: You know, I was thinking to do first maybe like a hyper roof or steel strength. But I think, I mean it would be great product for tequila, fish and others. But for me to gain the more traction to get more cases going, I think Posada makes more sense.
So just Have Blanco reposado for now because I can put this right next to my blanco in all the supermarkets because of my relationships with Bias. So I think this next step, I'm thinking to fill up the casks probably in a couple of months. So hopefully by holidays it'll be available by the end of the year.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: Okay, fantastic. And then are you thinking on Yeho after that too?
[00:14:22] Speaker B: I'm thinking on the Nieja. I don't know exactly how and when I'm talking to a couple of people at this point to bring, potentially bring the partner slash investor that would allow me to get some help. I definitely need somebody in the marketing arena. Somebody. I wouldn't want to just bring somebody just for the sake of financial support. It would be nice to have somebody who can be. Who is in spirit slash, maybe more even in a sports space, in the soccer space, who can help to promote it in that area. You know, not necessarily a spirits kind of guy, you know, but that's, that's not easy to achieve and a lot, a lot depends on how fast I can get this accomplished.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: Sure.
So at the soccer games, do they make your tequila available at the games?
[00:15:18] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. There's like eight bars at the stadium. And during home games for Orange County Soccer Club, this is a exclusive tequila on all eight bars at the stadium. I mean, there's so other spirits, but as far as tequila drinks, it's all over the place. Yeah. So people can try it actually. I mean, most people do like cocktails because you're not going to start doing shots because you forget about the game.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:45] Speaker B: But yeah, people can try that. And then actually tomorrow that Orange county soccer club, they're having a second annual golf tournament here in Orange county at the golf course. And I obviously sponsored that event as well. And we have a separate. We're going to have like a main bar with all the drinks and everything with my tequila exclusively. But also they're giving me another bar and I hired the bartender to make special drinks with the Lantero Tequila. And somebody helped me to design those recipes for the drinks. But we called them the Striker, the Shootout and the Sudden Death. All the sports, all the sports names for the drinks. So yeah, it will be fun.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: You'll have to send those recipes so we can show those here in the video so people can send it to you.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: I'll send it to you. Yeah, I actually made those recipes for the drinks and I also made somebody help me also to do the recipes for the those shots. I have five different shots each of Them has one single ingredient, like the mint, the spice, the spice, the lime. So five different. The honey. So five different shots with different. One single ingredient. And they all taste differently. So that'll be. I'll send them to you. I'll send you the. Yeah, all the recipes.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: We'll put those in here. That's a great. You know, people are always asking me about cocktails, and this is actually my favorite cocktail right here. Just one ingredient. A big old glass of tequila.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: That's how I like my spirits. I always like my spirits neat. I'm not a big mixed cocktail, kind of like drinker, but I just like to try it. They taste. A lot of them taste pretty good, you know, But I prefer. I prefer it neat. Yes.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: So I'll sometimes start off with a cocktail, but mostly just tequila. Neat's my favorite.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: Paloma is probably like, if I would drink mixed drink, I'd probably choose Paloma, I guess. Yeah, that's basically what I'm doing. I'm focusing on a very narrow geographical area. And I started doing some social media ad campaign and it's much easier to target very specific small area because for the same money, you can get much better results. You can hit more people who are in my criteria instead of like spreading out even for the whole state, because I picked up just a few cities in Orange county basically around the stadium. And I can also do the campaign that's gonna last for three hours, beginning like one hour before the game when people get into the stadium and start like buying drinks and food and during the game. And basically you can target. You can, you can, you can, you can, you can drop the pin at the stadium. And it basically covers 1 mile radius when people start driving in and stuff. So that's another way to kind of like put ads out there very precisely targeting people who are soccer fans.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: That's very cool. I mean, you got such a good niche, and it's a. It's a big growing niche. I mean, we're. We're in the process in the city of Indianapolis of working for Both a Division 1 soccer team and the mayor is fighting for or one's a Division 2 soccer team and the mayor's fighting for a Division 1 soccer team and where they're going to build the stadium, it's a big fight between a couple of developers.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: You know what? US7 announced that they're going to introduce division one in 26, 27, and basically they need to pick up like 12 teams, I believe from division two. And my team has a potential. I mean hopefully get into Division 1 and that's going to be like rival to MLS. The only difference is they're going to try to introduce promotional relegation, which MLS is a closed franchise. They don't go up and it's like European model. The teams can go up, division, down division depending on performance, which increases. Obviously it becomes more competitive. You know, teams are becoming players, becoming more competitive. So that's what USL is doing. And I think yourself has a great future in the next like two, three years and beyond. You know, it's a good place to be at.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: It's a sport that I'm learning. I, I am a motorsports person. My son was a professional motocross racer. We live in racing capital. I didn't watch a lot of sticking ball sports. So now that we're not involved in racing now I'm branching out and learning about sticking ball sports. And baseball to me is too boring. I can't watch baseball.
Yeah, football, soccer. I've watched a little bit of soccer people explaining it to me so it becomes easier for me to watch the more I understand what's going on.
[00:20:33] Speaker B: Right, exactly, exactly. Sometimes it feels a little bit slow for like people who used to like American football or hockey. I mean you can have 1, 2, 3 goals during like 90 minute time frame. But I mean when you look at the professional games, I mean there's such incredible moments come up all the time and once you get into it, you really enjoy it. I mean I was, I grew up with soccer and hockey back in the day in, back in Russia. I Left, I was 27 when I came here like 36 years ago. So those are my games.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: Tell me this, since you, you've been in the liquor business, what is the thing about tequila itself that is most surprised you from the other spirits that you've worked in?
[00:21:19] Speaker B: As I mentioned when we spoke before, I think that the engagement level of aficionados, tequila, fish and others is. Can't, you can't. I can't even compare like I've been doing vodka and gin and I haven't seen the level of engagement from, from the, from, from people like I see in tequila space trying to learn, people trying to understand people looking more now into professional, not professional, traditionally made airy free tequilas versus like the ones not naming the names but the ones that basically loaded with ingredients and sugary and I don't know what they put in there but they don't taste like tequila. So I guess the level of engagement, the thing that people try to educate themselves on what tequila is and what it should be, how it should taste.
That basically surprised me as soon as I got into the space.
I felt how that basically separates tequila from other spirits. I mean, Mezcal could be comparable because there's a lot of varieties of Mezcal as well, including.
Mezcal is made from different agave types. The vertical is made from blue agave. Mescal is made from all different types of agave. And it gives you significant variations of flavor profiles, you know, but still the engagement level is not the same by far. So that's main thing that surprised me positively, I guess. And yeah, and I learned myself a lot because before that I did drink tequila, but I was never into into it in terms of like understanding everything that I started understanding once I decided to bring my own brand. And I've tested, I think not all of them. I've tested hundreds of different brands on my, on my adventure to get my own stuff.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: And I think that adventure of you learning about tequila and starting a brand probably helps you relate with the people like, like myself, who's just a big tequila fan and the people that watch that you were thirsty for that knowledge and you can understand why so, so many other people are as well.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:23:30] Speaker A: I find that pretty awesome.
[00:23:31] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: The tequila community is pretty amazing. Really.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: Pretty amazing. Yeah. And a lot of like people doing what you're doing, different reviews, video reviews on Internet, like write ups and stuff like that.
And yeah, coming from 1414, I didn't expect anything less that the reviews I'm getting, so I'm happy with the feedback.
Also, I got 96 points from testing panel magazine, which is pretty high for spirits. You know, usually wines go into 90s spirits usually hang out 1992 or below.
So it was a great achievement. I guess. So. Yeah, I'm happy with the product and now it looks better than the original color scheme.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: So yeah, it's very elegant is the word that I.
It's the colors and everything just kind of show elegance. And that's kind of goes with what you were saying with soccer and how colorful they are, but you really pick colors that make it look really high end and quality.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Now I'm thinking about the orange because orange is a color of my team I partnered with, so maybe some special edition. But when I get, maybe when I get to high proof, I'm gonna do the orange label.
[00:24:48] Speaker A: The high proofs are the things that get all of these aficionados and myself extremely exciting.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I like high proof tequilas, especially like steel strength because especially steel Strength because you don't add any water. So you get this full agave punch without any dilution.
But again, for general public, first of all, they're not there yet. I mean, the masses are not there yet. They drink. And for some people it's difficult to drink higher proof spirits, you know, even like scotch, they drop in like an ice cube or put some water in it and high proof scotches. So 40% ABV is more approachable for most people, especially for women. And so I decided to stick for now at least there to gain more traction for the brand in terms of like people recognizing and trying and liking it. And then obviously a high proof is a must at some point. Yeah.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: Well, I know that when I go to Arandas to visit Sergio Cruz, I have to train to be able to sit out of the patio and be able to drink those high proofs profiles out of those plastic bottles and still make it till the sun goes down. Because it's hard to make it till the sun goes down.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: Yes.
Took me once, it took me once around the distillery, he put some tequila from, literally from steel.
And it was so even. I mean, for me it was not difficult. But you can feel the heat, you know, you can feel the heat. Yeah.
[00:26:21] Speaker A: So very warm. But all the flavor that is there.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: Amazing.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So, yep, this is pretty much.
[00:26:30] Speaker A: I have another good question for you. So now that you've, you know, you've kind of designed what I'm going to call your baby here in this tequila. You've found a great tequila, you picked a great bottle, you have a great logo, you've come up with this amazing partnership.
So now if you could sit down with anybody and share your tequila and the story of where you're at with it and the partnerships, who do you think would be just so cool to sit down with and share your tequila?
[00:26:57] Speaker B: You know what, I'm already doing this because I have two girls and they basically they participate all the way since day one. They are the only two people who I actually consult on a lot of stuff. Not consult, but I run ideas by them. One of, one of them is here in California. One is in Miami, where I just came from. I was visiting for like 10 days. She's coming actually here for my birthday in June.
And those are two people who I'm very excited to share with my ideas, to discuss which way to go and how to properly do the design, not only for tequila, but like other things. We probably going to do some merchandise, so we're doing some stuff that they always help me on this. They always. Those are the two people, I guess, who are basically the most fulfilling for me to share what I've done and what I'm doing going forward.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: That's very cool. It's great that you have somebody like that to share this with.
Family is the most thing that I hear. And it's Tequila, to me, brings people together. Tequila is something to be shared with friends and family, so that's neat that you have them with you. So that's awesome.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah.
[00:28:06] Speaker A: All right, well, I think we've covered, like, everything there is to cover, don't you think?
[00:28:10] Speaker B: Yeah, it was interesting. Thank you so much, Brett, for your time.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: I appreciate your time. I. I hope we didn't make you sweat to death in your car. Looks like you're staying cozy.
[00:28:20] Speaker B: I'm good. I'm good. Thank you. And I can share the link with friends and everything on Instagram and stuff.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: Absolutely. 100. 100. And we'll put your. We'll put your logos up here. We'll also put on here where people can find your tequila. Click on the website. And thank you so much for coming and doing this. I appreciate you. And again, thank you for the fantastic tequila as well.
[00:28:41] Speaker B: Thank you for inviting. Thank you, brethren. Have a good day.
[00:28:44] Speaker A: You too. Thank you.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: Thank you. Bye. Bye.
