Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I gotta say, it's pretty amazing to sit down with a guy that's been in this business for many, many years. Coming from a brand perspective of the big major marketed brands, this phenomenal industry machine that he's been a part of for years and what he decided to do, create a traditional tequila traditionally made in the greatest way. Polanco tequila is phenomenal. He tells an amazing story. He talks about the production method, the bottle, the agaves, how they're making it. Stick around for this one. This is a tequila that you don't want to miss. It's tasting tequila with bread, man. Chris, I am fired up to drink a little Polanco tequila and learn about this with you tonight. How are you doing today?
[00:00:53] Speaker B: I'm doing fantastic, Brad. Thanks for having us. We are so excited to be on your show today.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Well, I'm fired up to have you and as you can see, appreciate the bottle. I've been hitting this juice. I wanted to get to know it a little bit before we talked. I opened it up, I drank a little, I let it rest, I drank some more and it's not going to last very long because you got a really good juice here. So appreciate that. If you could do me a favor. You're a new brand for my channel, so if you could tell everybody who you are and kind of your story into tequila and agave spirits.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Brad. My name's Chris and I'm a tequila ambassador for the last 20 years. Gosh. I started my career with Jose Cuero back in. Back in the day when there wasn't a lot of options. I think There was only 700 brands on the market. And so I'm dating myself. Take a while to guess how many brands are there today. Close to 3,000, right?
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Yeah, 3,000.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: It's just an incredible, humbling experience to see the agave category grow the way it has over the last 20 years.
But it's, I think also more important for us and for consumers to know about the transparency behind those brands. When I was going out and selling Jose Cuervo in New York, this was their higher end tiers, right? The Reservo de la familia, the platino. They were really focused on buzzword premiumization of the category at the time. They owned a 50% stake of Don Julio. They owned the rights to Don Julio in Mexico, split by Diageo. Diageo was their importer. They were trying to buy Cuervo and unfortunately it didn't happen.
They went full force on Don Julio. I had an opportunity to join the Don Julio brand team.
This is back in the day when people were not necessarily drinking Don Julio, they were drinking Patron. We saw phenomenal growth with the brand. Year after year was selling less than 300,000 cases per year.
As you know, Brad, today Dunhole is selling more than 3.5 million cases.
They've done a terrific job at marketing. I think that there are some issues that have arose recently with some of the transparency about what goes in behind the scenes of 100% agave and all the different types of additives that go into tequila. We were inspired by my tenure working for brands like Cuervo, Don Julio, I launched Casa Dragones.
Really inspired by working for those fantastic companies, large companies, to do something on a much smaller scale and with a lot more transparency. And. And that's kind of my tequila journey as an ambassador. A lot of trade education, lots of getting in front of people and telling the story and changing perceptions, and that's really kind of the backbone for my career. Introducing Polanco.
Have you ever been to Mexico City? I'm sure a lot of your listeners have. Mexico City is the social epicenter of Mexico. It's where all of the Michelin star restaurants and Ricky Albera's cosmetics, some of the world's top 50 bars, are in Mexico City. And we were inspired by Mexico City. We partnered with some of our leadership in Mexico in Mexico City so that we can get this product out. The name Polanco is a district of Mexico City, just like you have Rama Norte and La Condesa. Polanco is kind of a nice part. It's where the museums are. It's a fantastic part of the city. And so that's kind of the cultural background behind the brand. But nothing about tequila is made in Mexico City. It's obviously made Jalisco or the other regions where the Appalachian abortion allows. But for us, we're leaning on culturally, the epicenter of Mexico, which is la ciudad de Mexico.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: That's awesome.
Okay, so I want to go a little deeper than that. Tell me about your tequila journey. When's the day you woke up and went, holy cow, I like tequila?
[00:04:28] Speaker B: Yeah, let's go down the rabbit hole. I think we've all had that experience with tequila. That might not necessarily been the best first experience. Right. Maybe you were drinking a mixed dough and you had the worst hangover you've ever experienced in your life. I think we've all had those experiences. And for me, my journey really started when I had the opportunity to try some really good Tequila. Going down to Mexico often with my family, we had an experience where I got to visit some distilleries at a really young age and just was really taken back by the artistical nature of what makes Tequila Tequila. Also having great mentors throughout my the tenure of my career, working with people like Jake Glustig from Artenom, really great mentors like Julio Romejo from Tommy's in San Francisco. Recently got to connect with the guys from G4 and Package. And so Grover, obviously from Tequila Matchmaker. Just leaning on a lot of these people that I had access to at a very early part of my career to kind of focus on where we wanted to build tequila and to do it the right way.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: Gotcha. So you obviously had great connections already in, in Tequila and Arandas. When you decided to start this brand, how did you land at Noms? Is it 1633?
[00:05:36] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: Did you interview a lot of different distilleries before you picked 1633? Or like, what was your process there?
[00:05:43] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, Brad, that's a great question. It's not that hard to create a tequila. You basically go to a distillery, you have a contract distillation agreement. You could be in the market very quickly. For us, it was different. We went to Grover from Tequila Matchmaker. He was phenomenal, helping us make some introductions. We, during my career have been to over 30 distilleries. We all obviously love Fortaleza. We love distilleries that are doing things artisanally and that's part of the inspiration behind this product. After the 30th distillery visit, we were running into a lot of dead ends because nobody could make our tequila the organic way. There's very few organic tequila distilleries out there. And the ones that you might be familiar with, they're producing the majority of the organic tequila brands coming out to market. Some of them, they don't have a proprietary formulation. They literally just bottle it.
It's the same product that you're going to taste. Maybe six different labels, six different prices, and six different bottles. Same liquid, same juice inside. Right. We had to be able to make it on our own, proprietary, not like anything else that exists in the market. 1633 Casoloi brand new distillery. We are their first commercial partner coming out of that distillery in the US and the first tequila to be organic. They had the capacity to do it the way we wanted to do it, which is obviously the old fashioned way. Right. And we'll talk more about that in a second. But more importantly, they had access to organic agave. For us, organic is crucial. It's our ethos, it's who we are.
A lot of people might say, well, you can't really tell the difference between organic tequila after distillation. There's a lot more involved behind the CRT and the USDA than just making growing organic agave.
And we could dig a little deeper into some of the rules and the new rules that made our lives very difficult but eventually overcame.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: Yeah, so many rules. Let's, let's dive into production. So let's go first. Agaves coming from, are they all highlands agaves or Valles agaves?
[00:07:38] Speaker B: That's correct, yeah, they're all highland agave. They start in the highlands. Castelboy originally was a large agave producer. They sold their agave to other distilleries.
I think they were obviously inspired by the success of tequila as a category. They invested a tremendous amount of resources into their own distillery. It's a state of the art, brand new distillery, but they have the capacity to make tequila the old fashioned way. As I mentioned before, for us it was important to have agave that was harvested when the agave was mature. So not just plowing down a whole field, but kind of that telltale sign of the agave pulsating. The red SAP lets the humidor know that agave is ready. That's about a six year cultivation period. As you know, the agaves in the highlands grow a little larger, but as a result they grow a little sweeter compared to the lowland agave. That was also appealing for us. We took those agaves into the distillery where they were cooked for over 72 hours in volcanic stone brick ovens.
They go from cooking where some of those agaves, Brad, are going to be overcooked, some are undercooked, some are going to be just right. That Goldilocks zone, it's not the most efficient way to produce tequila. It's more costly than autoclave and obviously a diffuser. It converts those sugars that we so love into our profile.
Once those agaves are ready to be pressed by our 2,000 pound stone to hone wheel, they're going to be the juices, the aguamile will be extracted and then we're going to go right into our natural yeast fermentation. They recently invested in some in some wood fermentation tanks. This was pre wood fermentation. We will be graduating to wood fermentation, but we use natural yeast fermentation, stainless steel vats.
Once the tequila and we're not, you Know, we're not obviously the first to use natural yeast fermentation. A lot of brands do it for a number of different reasons. We embrace that way of doing it. But we're also going to have kind of an inconsistent profile from batch to batch as a result. And so maybe Fortaleza has, you know, their bottle number, their date, their winter blend, depending on the fermentation. We wanted to create a more consistent profile so we wouldn't have to do the bottle date batch member. So what we did, Brad, was we took reclaimed Lynchburg, Tennessee barrels from Jack Daniels.
[00:09:58] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:09:58] Speaker B: And we aged our Blanco for 45 days. We felt like that was a pretty good consistent profile. Without adding any color or. Those barrels have not been retoasted. So they're still.
The liquid is pretty clear. You can probably see in your glass, if you put it next to a white piece of paper, it's got a little bit of color. After 45 days, we thought it had too much oak. Under 45 days, you know, we were worried about the consistency from batch to batch. So we think that that 45 day period nailed it. And that's our blanco. It goes straight from the barrel into a hand blown bottle. Hand blown by Ippolito Gutierrez. You've probably met Ippolito in part of your experience.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: Not yet I've heard the name, but.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: We'Re taking him on tour. He's like a rock star. He's famous all over the world. Obviously for Fortaleza, everyone knows IPPOLITO. It takes 10 minutes to make every bottle. It's a labor of love.
It's hand blown from recycled mineral water, like, you know, Topo Chico style water bottles. I think what really, really resonates for us is that each bottle is unique. No two bottles are the same, which means it's got a custom cork stopper. That's something that has to protrude so that each bottle can maintain that. But beyond the beautiful bottle and the glass and the, the labeling, what do you think, Brad? What, what are your, what are your thoughts on the profile?
[00:11:20] Speaker A: Oh, it's a great profile. Each time that I've had it, it's. It's rounded out a little better for me. The first time I wasn't in the best sinus world and I was like, ooh, I got some really good cooked agave, but that's kind of it. But that's. It was more me than the bottle. The next time I got, you know, all of that minerality that you get, you know, in the highlands, I picked up a little Citrus. I pick up a little bit of cinnamon in the finish as well. It has a nice creaminess to it. And I didn't know that you rested it in a barrel because I was trying to figure out where that wood or oakiness, like really light hint that I got in my mind.
I really figured you were aging in pine. I figured you were aging or fermenting in pine because it has that moderna type flavor in it that I thought maybe that was coming from fermentation. So now I know it's coming from that barrel. It's a perfect amount. It's just enough to confuse a palate of. Not sure how you made it. And I also didn't know that you were tona extracted. I. I do get a little bit of a pepperiness in the finish. Are you fermenting with fibers or are you fermenting without.
[00:12:29] Speaker B: Without fibers and.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: And yeah, I like that you're picking up on some of the citrus notes. When I divide the glass into three different parts, I guess the part of the glass that's closest to my nose is where I'm starting to get some of that wood.
Again, those barrels have not been toasted. Those are some ancient barrels. And then towards the middle of the glass, that's kind of where I'm getting. That's where I'm getting some of that raw agave, some of that nice citrus that you mentioned. I get a little bit of jackfruit, almost some tropical hints there. And then the top of the glass is where we should get our distillation. You don't want to any metallic aromas here.
I get that copper pot still. And I brushed over that in the background. But this is a twice copper pot still. Tequila the traditional way.
[00:13:12] Speaker A: And I use. I use this big fat glass because I put. I can have more in the glass. And I get to me a little bit more of the aromas than I do in a regular glass. But I think, you know, maybe when my sinuses aren't as good, I need. I need more tequila to smell. I gotta dump it in a bucket.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: Great aroma, great taste. It has a great mouth feel too. It's got a lot of viscosity to it. You can tell there's a lot of those agave oils there. And one of the things that I've noticed in your finish that's different to me is the finish, like starts a little bit and then it falls short for me and then it picks back up again.
Yeah, you think, okay, well, that was kind of a short fit. Oh, Nope, there's a little more. And then some flavors come back and I, I pick up cinnamon in it. But I also get just a hint of anise in the very end of the finish that brings. I, I use the word bitter, but it's not the right word. But it's a balanced, almost balanced bitterness in the very end of that finish that makes you want to take another drink.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And I appreciate that you used the word. I think viscosity. There's no, obviously there's no additives in here. Some tequilas add glycerin. Right. Cause they might chill, filter their product, which is going to take away a lot of those oils from the agave. Those are crucial for us. I think it creates a more smooth profile. And on profile, Brad, it was really, this took a lot of time for us to find the right profile that we were looking for because we know that consumers that are not used to drinking additive free, they're going to have an issue with an agave buster, an agave bomb.
They're not used to drinking pure agave. Right. They're used to drinking a heavily built influence tequila, vanilla extracts, different isotates, caramel for coloring, sweeteners, all sorts of BS that goes into tequilas. We don't add any of that. And so what was important for us, Brad, was to have a profile that was smooth enough for a consumer that might not use, that may have never tried an additive free tequila, but also, also captivate an audience like yourself and your followers, your following that you know, are the G4 and Fordalenza and you know, Carlos Camerina consumer. So, so, so we feel like we've, we've, we've developed a consistent profile along the lines of maybe a Lalo or even a Mi Genta that I think is a good door opener for a additive free first timer. And I say that with confidence because as you know, 90% of consumers, they're not drinking additive free. And we're just trying to do a small part to kind of convey people into the right direction.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: I think you're actually more complex and equally as approachable. Right. So Lalo is a great tequila, don't get me wrong. And I show Lalo to a lot of people. I make a lot of cocktails with Lalo. It's a great tequila. But when it comes to the complexity of a tequila, their high proof delivered that complexity.
Their standard tequila to me is a very approachable, easy to drink, light tequila flavor. So you have the approachableness of that tequila, but you have a much more Complexity at I believe I didn't look. I believe you're 40 ABV. Yeah, 40 ABV. So you, you have the more complexity that some other people's high proofs have in your flavor profile. So who's your master distiller?
[00:16:35] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I appreciate you saying that. That, that means a lot for us. And yeah, I think there are so many great kind of new up and coming entry level tequilas for those consumers. And I appreciate the more comple working with a distiller that has been in the industry for a long time. He's worked for a lot of different tequila brands and his name is Juan Pablo Gutierrez. He's kind of for us, someone that really worked with us. He did things that no other distillery would do for us because we were so patient about going through all of the different CRT regulations that ended up taking a lot longer than we had anticipated. But also making the tequila in a way that was, you know, takes a lot of time. 45 days in barrel, stainless steel age and utilizing some of the resources that they had on site, you know, that were a lot more costly for them as well.
So it was a, it was a group effort that we had to really embrace. And the Kosovoi family, they are an incredible team to work with. They don't have a lot of brands coming out of their nom, but they do have the capacity to produce some fantastic tequilas.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: How did you get the idea of aging in that barrel for that light age amount?
[00:17:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I wish it was my idea. It's something, you know, it's been done ancient for, since, for 250 years, you know. Hiro Dura after visiting their distillery, I realized, wow, there's blancos that are aged because usually you think of blanco, it goes straight from distillation in the bottle. In the case of they're also aging their tequila for a similar reason. Natural yeast fermentation creates a really inconsistent product.
They've got access to some great barrels and so that's their justification. I think that there's also some other underlining ways. I think Casamigos might age their tequila, perhaps to make it smoother, perhaps to hide any imperfections in production. There's, I think there's a lot of different reasons for people to age tequila. For us it was to have a consistent profile, but more importantly so that we could never use additives and build the brand and scale it in a way if we needed to.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: I mean I can get like, even in that last taste, I got a little bit of a, I call it A musty taste, but to me it's the smell. Smell of a barrel room that. Yeah, like. Yeah, like smell. And you get that in the taste a little bit and I like that. And I think it's a great idea. A lot of brands, you know, are resting in stainless steel or, you know, putting it in glass, you know, letting that. If you think about what's been done, we, we grew a plant for six to eight years. It just set out there in a field, soaking up some sun. And then all of a sudden in a five day process, we rip it out of the ground, we chop off its arms, we cut it in half, we cook the heck out of it, we smash it, then we it after it's been fermenting. And then you expect this product to just be calm and quiet. Molecularly, we've destroyed it. Right. So letting it rest and come together is, is a great thing. But doing it in something that imparts a little flavor I think is fantastic as well.
[00:19:31] Speaker B: Well, you nailed it, Brad. And for us, yeah, I think pushing the boundaries, right, not a lot of people realize a blanco could be aged for up to, you know, up to two months before it becomes a reposado. And we are working on a repo that is pushing the boundaries as well. It's going to be aged for about a minus a day.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: And so a lot of people probably have never had a repo that has been pushed that long without any additives or anything involved in our anejo, which will be a single cask will be aged for about three years in Jamaican run casks. Bottle that, bottle that cask strength and you know, kind of getting more into that niche. Rare, hard to find, but something that we haven't seen out in the market.
So we're putting the boundaries on the crt.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: I'm hitting the rewind button.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: Okay, let's go back to this repo. So you're shooting for almost the oldest repo made that, that five. What is it, 11 months and 364 days and 19 hours.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:20:34] Speaker A: So are you doing those in the.
A different barrel than what you're resting the blanco in?
[00:20:39] Speaker B: Yeah. So we have a little rum brand called Myrtle bank and it's a Jamaican rum. We have access to all these incredible orphan barrels of Jamaican rum coming out of Worthy Park. They went to Liverpool where they spent 10 years and then we shipped them to Mexico, to Jalisco, to our distillery. And so we've been experimenting with these barrels. The repo will be finished in tropical wood. You're not allowed to say rum, Jamaican rum cask on the label, but it'll say H in tropical wood. And that'll give it a really nice profile that's consistent with a tequila that has that pungent kind of that copper pot of distillation that we all love.
[00:21:17] Speaker A: What, what kind of notes are you pulling from that barrel? Is it becoming that banana trout melon?
[00:21:24] Speaker B: Totally. I'll tell you. Yeah, exactly. What, you nailed it. The idea for us was to get some of that consistency from our Jamaican rumors that has kiwi overripe banana. I'm also getting a little bit of, you know, toffee and toasted. Toasted nuts. The flavor profile for a repo that has been aged for a year essentially is a little bit more oaky than your traditional. But again, those barrels have not been retoasted. They've been used. So there's not. It's not overly, like, over oaked or dark for what you would expect in anejo repo to be.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: So how wet are those barrels when you're doing your dump? Are they still moist wood?
[00:22:05] Speaker B: Yeah, we did have to refurbish a couple of the barrels, which took the skill of, you know, cooperage to do because those barrels are so old. But yeah, we're, you know, they, they have been dried out of the Jamaican rum, the original use of. Of the barrel. But you're still picking up a lot of those incredible notes. And this will, you know, obviously be on a much smaller batch than our blanco, but it's something that we've got coming. It's cooking. I'll be traveling down to Guadalajara next week to kind of finalize some of those elements.
Yeah, we're curious just to see what's out there in the market. What are consumers leaning towards?
And these will be very niche, not scalable in any way, but equally, equally fun to collect.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: So always a great business plan to go. Okay, we can't scale this, and we're only going to be able to sell nine of them.
[00:22:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And look, we all love. We all love the Guillermo Salzo Ericsson story. I know there's a lot of frustration about people that can't get access to the bottles. I think it creates a really cool story. It creates a really cool niche. And now you're getting some of these Pappy Van Lincoln consumers drinking tequila. So we'll take it.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: Absolutely. So another question kind of pulling back a little bit. Same blanco going into the repo. Same blanco going into the anejo, Correct?
[00:23:17] Speaker B: Yep. That's Right. And so obviously there's some timeline issues there. We have been working on this project for over three years and the project came to fruition when we got our B Corp certification, which took over a year. Also the climate partner certification, which is something that we're really proud of. We have a carbon footprint, obviously. We have calculated, they have third party calculated that carbon footprint and they've determined what steps we need to take to become fully carbon neutral. Our distillery runs on agave fiber, the byproduct of producing tequila.
And that agave fiber, it powers a generator that powers the steam ovens, electricity and everything.
It's about the size of a house. So when you come to visit the distillery, love to show you around deep well water. But one of the coolest things, Brad, that we had the opportunity to do through our B corp was to provide 3% of revenue. Not our profit, but revenue to provide access to clean drinking water in Mexico City through a non for profit called East La Urbana.
What they do with our resources is they build rain catching water devices on rooftops with the water purifier. And just through this first batch this year of sales, we'll be providing 60% of water for hundreds of families in Mexico City through each and every bottle that sells. And we're really excited about that.
[00:24:32] Speaker A: That's fantastic. Thanks for doing that. That's.
[00:24:34] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:24:35] Speaker A: Tequila with a purpose is, you know, I mean, tequila always has purpose, right? There's a song, Tequila makes your clothes fall off. So maybe that's one purpose, but that's, that's a purpose that helps repopulate the world. Your purpose is helping the people that are here that need it. And it's, it's great to see a brand that is giving back to the area that it comes from. You see these big brands and you see, you know, these superstars and you know, maybe there's no, no pantalones and they're excited about their tequila, but are they helping somebody local? Are they helping build generational wealth and take care of the people there? And I appreciate that you're doing that. That's amazing.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: Well, Brad, you nailed it. That is the very essence of our cause. There are so many brands, they're owned by companies in England and France, New York. Very few resources go back to the people. We've spent so much time there in Mexico, and not just in tequila, but traveling throughout.
There's a lot of people suffering and there's a lot of people making a lot of money off of that. And so there is a deeper purpose Behind Mexico. Behind Mexico. Polanco. My father's a professor from Stanford that got his degree in Latin American studies. I followed suit. So deep down, you know, we're embracing our heritage, but we're also trying to do something that a lot of brands we hope are inspired by. So you see all of the B Corp added the recycled glass bottle climate partner. The label's printed on agave fiber with vegetable ink. So everything about, everything about the packaging has been intentional. And we appreciate you getting behind that.
[00:26:05] Speaker A: And coming in price point wise.
You sent me this bottle and I appreciate that.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: Yeah, sure.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: But I believe most what I read somewhere around 50, $55. Is that right?
[00:26:14] Speaker B: Yeah. From 49 to 54.99. That's kind of where we've seen it. We didn't want to be more expensive than that, obviously, which means we have a very small margin, which is okay for us. We think that the consumer needs to have access to additive free.
They should have access to something made the right way and they should have access to something with a purpose. And so we were really intentional about making this approachable as well.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: I mean, you've gone one further than that. You've delivered a hand blown glass bottle that's all from recycled. You're using agave fibers and vegetable ink and you're like, you're doing all the things that cost more to hone a crushing long cook, you know, so that people need to realize what they're picking up off the shelf. This, this is a great tequila with a great story. That's, that's amazing. Thank.
Thank you.
[00:27:02] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you, Brad. Absolutely. We're happy to. You know, I think one question I always ask people is, of the 3,000 brands on the market, do we really need another tequila? And I think the answer is yes, but it has to be made the right way. And there's, there's a lot of great ones out there, but there's, there's more bad ones.
[00:27:20] Speaker A: That's true. But also I think if we can tell this story right.
[00:27:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:24] Speaker A: Somebody hears this story and they're in the liquor store and they see your bottle next to maybe something in a really pretty glass that has a dragon in its name. And they go, well, I know about this one. Right. This is clean and additive free and they're giving back to the community. And I don't even talk as much about additives anymore. Right, yeah, that's an important thing. But it's also a thing that there's a lot of controversy around. And now everybody's Saying it. So what I talk about is traditional versus industrial.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: Right. I mean, you're, you're making this the old way and your bottle has more hands on it than the average bottle. I mean, you talk about hands, the hand blowing the label, the bottle and the way the labels are done and then tojona crushed. And you're doing all of the traditional ways to bring out a fantastic tequila and, and even resting it in a barrel before you bottle. It's great. So I, hats off, I did not know all of this about this tequila before we did this. So this is, I'm going to try to figure out how to get on your tasting panel for those other ones that you have.
[00:28:28] Speaker B: Let's, we would love, we would love for you to do that and we, we can figure that out.
The last thing I would say that I skipped over was the organic. The usda, you know, they're not encouraging brands to be organic. They're making it very difficult.
I think that for us, I mentioned that's our ethos. You know, I go to Whole Foods or the local grocery store, I bring back bananas that aren't organic. My wife, like bring those back to the store. You're not feeding that to our kids. So that, that resonates for us. But the organic also has some really heavy restrictions on the glass has to be chemical tested, the label, the cork, everything had to be tested. And then even when we ship the product in the container, they require proof that that container had never had anything non organic in it.
So if they had some gas bananas in there that we couldn't send our bottles that are in packaging wrapped in boxes, they couldn't be in the same container. It was really, really challenging and expensive.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: Crazy. Okay, here's a question for you. You have this big experience with all of these brands and Tequila sounds like it's been your career. But now as a brand owner, what's the thing that you absolutely were shocked the most by?
[00:29:39] Speaker B: Gosh, you know, honestly, selling making good tequila is hard, but it's easier than selling the tequila, right? Because there's so many brands that are underrepresented, that aren't selling enough that they should be because of marketing and, you know, consumer demand. But for us, we were really humbled to have an incredible importer and distributor in seven states that in just the last month or two have gone out there, they've hit the ground so hard. We are now selling at over a thousand on and off premise retail accounts, including specs in Texas and throughout Colorado and Arizona and Florida. And Illinois, Minnesota, and we'll continue to open new markets as we close out 2025. And as a career tequila ambassador and having worked on the sales side, I'm just really humbled by all of the support that we've had, Brad, from the community, from events that we've done in last week in Breckenridge. Just all the positive feedback we've had has been really inspiring. And to be honest, I knew that this was going to be challenging, but selling it hasn't been the most difficult part.
The CRT has been.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: Yeah, crt.
That's awesome. Well, you know, I talk to a lot of brands, and I know there's so many different challenges. So just getting it. Just getting it on a shelf in a store is such.
Such a victory, Right? And then having such good tequila is really awesome as well.
Okay, so here's a question I ask everybody.
Because you've worked for everybody else's baby, when you think about it, right, You've done nothing but tend to everybody else's family, and now you have your baby.
So if you could sit down with anybody past, present, alive, dead, famous, whatever, just anybody in the world and sit down and pour a glass of your tequila and share it with them, who would that person be?
[00:31:22] Speaker B: You know, for me, just, you know, I've worked for Don Julio, and we all love the Lalo Gonzalez story. I would choose Don Julio Gonzalez. I think that his story is really, really inspirational. We ran a campaign called make your move at one point because he was someone that was a mover. And I would love to have a glass of. I've got a bottle of don Julio from 1992 that I've been saving. He actually signed it.
I've got bricks from the original distillery. So he'd be someone that I'd love to share a glass with and congratulate for, you know, taking steps to change the category in a good way and obviously honor the tradition of traditional tequila.
[00:32:01] Speaker A: And you'd bring him some good tequila?
[00:32:03] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly.
[00:32:05] Speaker A: That's awesome. So you spilled the beans a little bit. We know you have this repo coming out soon. We know you have an anejo coming out soon. Is there anything else in the works that may be coming out that someone would be excited about?
[00:32:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, you know, the. The momentum that still strength has, I think, is. Is really exciting to see. When we launched our Jamaican rum, we came out at cask strength, really, you know, 60% alcohol. So I'm glad to see that the tequila consumer is trending that way. You know, whiskey, scotch, it's the right. It's the right trajectory. I know that we have some still strength of our polanco that is not commercially available, but it's something that we would consider as, as. As we kind of progress down the line.
[00:32:46] Speaker A: That's awesome. All right, where can everybody find you? What's your social media handles? What? Social media?
[00:32:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Really? It's all about Instagram for us. Elanco Tequila is our handle. We just launched a really fantastic website. It's Polancotaquila US we also have a Mexican site where we sell but the US site is great because you can buy the bottle all 50 states through our third party. It's really easy. You just go on click and Apple pay. So I think that's a really fantastic way to find it. I will be in California soon, but really prioritizing the Southwest for the moment.
[00:33:21] Speaker A: So I did, I was on the website today and I did see you can order a trio pack. So is the blanco and anejo available to order it now?
[00:33:29] Speaker B: They're coming soon. I think it says restocking or something. Coming soon on the website. They will be available by the end of the year or sooner. I think for us it's about just getting the blanco out, getting some liquid to lips. You'll see us grad. We'll be at a lot of different tastemaker events. Aspen food and wine, Monterey Tequila, Louisiana Tequila Fest. We just wrapped up Agave fest in Colorado this weekend. So we're prioritizing getting it out there and available.
[00:33:55] Speaker A: Wow. Well, I. I really appreciate you one sending me a bottle to try. It was very, very nice for you and it's amazing Tequila. I. I appreciate the time that you've taken to do this because I know I haven't met a guy yet in this business that is sitting around twiddling their thumbs with nothing to do. So to take your time with me today, I really appreciate it and I just want to say thank you and hopefully lots of people call and order this tequila because it's fantastic.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: It's been an absolute pleasure, Brad. And I'm going to do one final toast to you and thank you for bringing transparency into the industry, into the consumer. And like they say in Casablanca, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: Totally agree. Cheers. My friend.
