Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Man, here is going to be another great video. How about not a celebrity Tequila? Exactly what we're all excited about. A tequila that is about the tequila that's not about some crazy celebrity. And you've got a guy, Andrew Bushbay, who comes from Scotland, not a tequila drinker, learns about tequila because he's tired of getting hangovers and his wife tells him what to drink, creates an RTD and then moves from there to this fantastic, authentic made tequila. And you've got to hang on to the end because at the end there's a brand video that talks about how they started this whole thing and how it went from a joke to an amazing brand. I hope you enjoy tonight's interview with Andrew. Thanks for tuning in.
Hey, Andrew, thanks for coming on tonight. How are you doing today?
[00:01:00] Speaker B: I'm doing very well, Brad. Thank you for having me.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: Well, I'm excited to have you on. I'm so excited about your tequila, your story. But what I want to do first, because I, I have. This is like a. No, no. I have an empty glass here, so I think we should fill up. So we got some great tequila to drink and talk.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Excellent.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: I'm going to have to start working out more because these corks keep getting harder and harder.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: I'll tell you what. So, and we'll go into more detail about everything, but we, we bought an off the shelf bottle and cork system. Right. Like, everybody recognizes this bottle. It's the O bottle. And the day before we did our first production, I got a call from the distillery. Like, I was. Maybe it was. Maybe it was maybe three days beforehand. I was, I was about to fly down and they were like, yeah, we can't get the corks in the bottles.
Yeah. So we had bought them, we bought them off a local supplier and the corks were just a little bit too big. Luckily, we worked this out. Yeah, it was about two days beforehand. And our partner down there, he's been in the space for a while. He has a friend, he was able to make that call. And he got the guys working through the night to actually get these corks done in time so we could bottle everything and keep to schedule. So. Yeah. So you thought that one was hard to get out. Imagine what it was like with a mallet. And they were like, hey, we can put these all in with a mallet. I was like, you know, then they'll make a great paperweight, right? Yeah.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: No one will get them out.
[00:02:35] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: I was picturing you saying that you had a guy that knew a guy that was Going to help. And then some big giant guy came in and just like shoved him in.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: We have one of those guys as well. He normally drives us around.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: Everybody needs one of those guys when you're there, I'm telling you.
All right, tell me a little bit about your background because not everybody wakes up and has a tequila brand. So you've got to have some kind of journey that's taking you into this and I'd love to hear like what you, the professions that you started in and how you built your business to all of a sudden go, hey, I'm going to start a tequila brand.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, I'm just going to loosen the lips a little bit.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Cheers.
So good. Wow, that is so good.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Thank you, thank you. Yeah, we're very, very proud of it. So we rewind the clock. I actually, I started my career in real estate similar to you, the finance side of it, but more working in development for like a big private equity firm. So I was, I was based in London, I went to university in Scotland, which is where I'm from, originally went down there and spent, spent eight years working for this US firm called Blackstone doing all of their kind of development type related projects. And then having done that for about eight years, fancied a move over to New York and so up sticks and came over here and carried on the real estate finance.
And then it was during that time that I met my wife and that's when my introduction to tequila happened. Because if anybody who's watching this knows what the tequila selection is like in the UK, it certainly was like 10 years ago, you'd know that the only time we'd have it is maybe if we were making tacos or fajitas and someone's mixing a big batch. But you know that you're going to feel bad the next day because the only things that are available at Mixedo, that's changed a little bit now. But you know, we can get, we can get old Mecca brand over there, which is great. But other than that it's still slim pickings. There's a lot of celebrity tequilas which, you know. But yeah, real estate into New York, met the wife and then that's kind of where the journey into tequila started.
[00:04:50] Speaker A: So was she a tequila drinker?
[00:04:52] Speaker B: She, she was, she. So she is, she's actually Thai American. So she was born in Thailand, raised in la and it was one of her friends who got her into the tequila drinking mode. And it was all down to the, you know, I like to say associated health benefits of tequila because we can't that it's considered a health drink. But I don't think the surgeon general does. But it's definitely, you know, has that upper effect. But it's the, the non hangover situation that is associated with like drinking tequila. And, and that's how she kind of got me hooked on it is she said, you know, during one of our early dates, she said to me when I was complaining about, you know, my hangovers as I was approaching the end of my mid-30s, and she was like, no, you should start drinking tequila, like seriously, because you won't get a hangover from it. And yeah, I tried it out, you know, thinking at first, you know, she sounded crazy because of my history with tequila. Let's same as everyone, right? Like I, I try, I try to sell a brand. I do a lot of tastings, get people who come up to the tasting stand and say, yeah, I just have a bad history with tequila and I have to go, just, just hear me out. Just smell this, right? And I asked them to smell this brand. And, and, and that's kind of what we've tried to design in this. And I think people will certainly find that like, this is tequila with training wheels. This is additive free tequila with training wheels. And it's supposed to be that kind of stepping stone into the additive free space. And so that's kind of what we were going for to start a conversation with the branding. You know, the name is, is definitely out there. And then make sure that the liquid itself was really approachable. And that's kind of a term that we use a lot. So we say that it's a very approachable blanker. People go, oh, I prefer to drink a reposado because it's smoother. And I'm like, hear me out, give it a try. And I, you know, I've been on the road this week in Atlanta with our distributor and I'll say to anyone, I go, I guarantee this is the smoothest blanco you're ever going to try or your money back. And they'll try it. And they go, okay, that's great, fantastic. Can't believe it. So, yeah, we set out to achieve something sort of special and slightly different from what everybody else is doing. And we've managed to do that. Yeah, I think that was part of that journey of learning or having that historic experience with port tequila meant that I was very much inclined to create something that would change the mind of the lay drinker. You know, just reintroduce them to tequila. As it's supposed to be.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it seems like that's what. I'm always in that same mode too. You know, my friends will say, oh, you know, I had tequila one time and I'm like, yeah, but you went on a bad date one time and you're still talking to girls like you didn't give up there. So let's give this a try, right? I kind of relate it back to those simple thoughts of what. Let's give it a try. Let's learn why this is much better than what you are thinking about from your.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: That's a fantastic analogy. Think it's. I think when people remember that hungover feeling, you know, how bad they felt and they go, well, I'm not necessarily never going to drink again, but maybe if I like avoid what I did before, they think it's going to be okay.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: I still have never had peppermint schnapps again. So I guess that does reign true.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not top of my list either.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: That's what. So were you, were you more of a scotch drinker coming from Scotland? Like that's, that's your guys's. That and what, dark beers, right? Those, those are the two things from.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: Scotland that, I mean, to be honest, I. In the uk, we drink everything. We'll drink whatever anyone puts in front of us. And that's kind of our reputation. And that, that was my, that was kind of my dance card. Generally on a night out would be, you know, I'll start off with the beers and then I'll move into fog sodas and then maybe throw a couple of scotches on at the end. And that's like the scotches for me, that's what really gets me. I though that I could just have one of those and then the next day I feel absolutely brutal. But I never get that with additive free tequila. And so that was kind of like a big, a big light bulb moment. But it's also like something that I'm really curious about. So I've been digging into the research because I'm like, why is, why is it that I can drink half a bottle of this and wake up the next morning like I haven't drunk. Whereas if I drink two whiskies, I wake up the next morning and I'm like, dry mouth, head is sore.
And so just been digging through. There's a lot of research papers that are out there and available.
There's stuff that people have done to try and identify what makes up, you know, certain agave spirits. And so They've put through this gas chromatography machine different samples of agave spirits. Whether that's going to be like tequila, whether that's, you know, from the blue weber, whether it's so tall, whether it's ricea or mezcals and stuff. So there's a lot of data out there. So I'm like, sifting through all of this stuff to be like, okay, all right, well, either something is missing from these agave options that's in this, in the other stuff, or there's something in these agave spirits in terms of the congeners and the, the extra bits, the byproducts of the. The fermentation and distillation process that's actually helping the body recover. And whether that's through the process of, you know, metabolizing the acid aldehyde that's in your system as a result drinking, or that's also within the alcohol, I don't fully know. But it's something that's actually got me so curious that I'm working with City College New York to, and we. They've got a gas chromatography machine there, and we're like putting samples of different alcohols through. And then we're basically trying to go, okay, well, let's see what we can identify in the kind of various time range. To be like, okay, well, we know there's going to be ethanol in here because ethanol is the same whether it's alcohol that's fermented or if it's distilled. The ethanol molecule is. Is effectively going to be the same. But is there more methanol as a byproduct of what your starting position is? Have you got more of the heads and the tails in there? That all plays. Plays a big part. But there is. I think there's so many. There are so many variables. But I just, I want to kind of see if I can get to the bottom of like, what is the thing that's. That's. Or is it all just in my head? So. But it's something that, like, I'm lucky enough to have the relationship with them there. They've restored this machine. They want to dig into it as well. So we're kind of. They've got like, samples. I've sent them samples of Tito's and Jameson and Deers and obviously some celebrity tequilas as well, because we like it. So, yeah, watch this space. Hopefully, like, you know, later this year we'll be able to come up with the results and share those. But I think it's sort of quite an interesting idea. I know that I probably nerd out about it.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: I think you may have just ruined your tequila by having it not. Not a celebrity tequila. You may end up getting a Nobel Peace Prize on why everybody should drink tequila. Then you're going to become a celebrity, and then you're just going to have to take the knot off the front of it.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: Be sitting in the distillery with a Sharpie.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You'd be like the. With your Nobel Peace Prize beside you. So I've saved a. I've saved the world drink tequila. That's awesome.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: It's very interesting to me as well. There is a book by David Sorrow called Agave Spirits.
And that book is. It's. It's amazing. It goes into the full history of agave and they go into the health benefits of the agave plant and how it actually works. Like a GLP one. It slows your digestion down.
They've shown, you know, this could actually help the diabetes problem in Mexico if they used it as a sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. I tell everybody I'm just. I'm drinking something healthy and some people roll their eyes. This stuff is healthy, I'm telling you.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: Yeah, no, a hundred percent. I mean, it's the.
It is the sugar and everything. The fructose that comes from it is. Is so much better. Better than, you know, regular sugar and certainly high fructose corn syrup.
Trouble with high fructose corn syrup. It only takes a year or less than a year to grow that corn. Right, right. With our precious. Our precious babies. Take, you know, seven to eight years.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: Right. And to throw a disclaimer in for YouTube. We are not saying that you should just drink tequila as a health product. It is alcohol. Please drink it responsibly.
[00:13:38] Speaker B: Well done.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: Daily but responsibly. That's what I always say.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: Daily but responsibly.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: So how did you get the. I mean, the crossover from real estate to spirits, That's a big jump.
Did you have some guidance or like a mentor that helped you show you how to navigate this?
[00:13:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I kind of. I blame my old boss, like, you know, for. Back. My first boss, because he was very good at, you know, we had a. We had a new project that was coming in. He was very good. He's like, right, we've got to build the team. We've got to work this out, you know, top to bottom, try and find out what it is that we're doing. And I kind of Took that mentality into this and, and, and not being afraid to pick up the phone and talk to people that it. It started during COVID So, you know, like everybody else, we were stuck at home and had a lot of extra time on our hands. And we were seeing the popularity of the ready to drink space and were, you know, surprised at the lack of tequila options that were available at that time. It was basically just cut water. And so we said, okay, there's an opportunity here for somebody to do 100% agave product, you know, and as. As we were kind of coming up with the idea, so we're a bit about 10 other people, it turns out, but we ended up kind of creating. Creating bonaf, which is our RTD cocktail. And that was the beginning point of, of it all. And it was that process. It was sort of picking up the phone and learning the ins and the outs of. Of how the industry worked. Because I, I built buildings and, and I thought kind of like building a brand and a business would be similar. It turns out it's very, very different.
Yeah, both things take time and cost money and they're both things usually cost a lot more money than you expect. But I sort of took that attitude of, right, well, I'm going to start out, I'm just going to ask as many questions as possible. And it got us to a point where, you know, we had the RTD in, in 12 markets and we, you know, I think we, you know, sell it by about kind of 4,000 cases of that.
And it was, you know, we, it was during that kind of whole process that we, we birthed the tequila. But again, it was. That was very much like university, RTD university. Expensive but you know, kind of learning as you go. You know, there's a lot of. There are a lot of people in the industry who will be very quick to come and help you who don't necessarily have the best and fastest route to get to where you want to go. There's a lot of people who are just trying to make a living and they'll sell you all their services, so you've got to look out for those people. And we just got very lucky that the. What the group that we were working with introduced us to our now now partner based in Mexico because we were. And it came down to the fact that we wanted to do 100% agave cocktails. You can't do that outside of Jalisco. And at that time there was one canner in. In. In the, in Jalisco area and well, sorry, Outside of the five. The five states. But there was one canning company and they were working with a few. A few different people. But there was one main, main gentleman who was managing that and he turned out to be one of the original founders of Grand Valejo, which, you know, is a fantastic tequila out of 14. 14. So. So we ended up getting introduced to him and he has been fantastic partner and he's kind of. Matt helped us by managing everything on the Mexico side because obviously when we created this brand, the CRT were not over the moon about the label and they were, they were not in a hurry. Yeah, funny that they were not in a hurry to give us this label. And it actually, it took a long time to get.
Took us about six months. And it's because we also wanted to include Tequila in the brand. And there's not a lot of, you know, there's a handful of brands that use the word tequila in their brand, but there's no one who's kind of really like sticking their finger in people's eyes while doing it. So it's, it was a tough one. But he, you know, he knew the right people and was able to tell the story and he was able to show them that I only had about 400 infl. 400 followers on Instagram at the time, that I wasn't a celebrity to be like, okay, all right, we'll let him have it. But when they went, the day they went to ship the product the first time out of the distillery, the rep from CRT came up. He basically opened up the sheets of the paperwork and looked at the label and he was like, how the hell did you guys get this label approved?
[00:18:34] Speaker A: I was actually going to ask you how hard that was because the CRT is really tough on labels and names and you're giving a major chunk of the industry the giant middle finger of look, we are not a celebrity Tequila. I was going to make the joke when I popped it. I forgot. But as I was pouring, I thought, you can hear George Clooney crying right now as we're pouring in this non celebrity tequila. Hundred dollar bills, thousand dollar bills. Easy on the guy with thousand dollar bills.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think he cares. I think he's.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: No. Yeah, but I love it. And you really kind of did it. Based on what I've learned is you kind of put it together as a little bit of a joke.
You've got a name that could blast off and I, I love it. And that's kind of how it worked. Right. Didn't you you have the idea and.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So we were. We. We were kind of, you know, fully pregnant with this at the time, and we were, like, realizing that, hey, no one's paying attention to quality products at the moment. And so we were like, right, we need to raise a budget. Like, raise a marketing budget. We'll do a crowdfunding exercise. Do that. And so we put this thing out on. Put this crowdfunding campaign out on StartEngine. And I'd had this brand idea in my head for a while, and I'd said to one of my investors and. And my wife, I was like, I. I really want to do it. And they were like, just. Just wait, like you've got the canned cocktails to deal with and focus on those. And I was like, well, I'm going to put it out as a reward in the crowdfunding. And they're like, all right, go. Go for it. Do it. And so we. We created the bottle. I mean, it was. I downloaded, like, a stock image in bottle from Adobe and, like, Photoshopped this label onto it. And then I was like, okay, if you invest a certain amount, I'll give you a bottle. I'm not a celebrity Tequila. And we put it out in one of our updates that, you know, we were doing this, and we got a call from someone like our brand manager for the can cocktail, got a call from someone at Total Wine, and they were like, hey, we've. We've seen this thing. We think, you know, you're actually onto something. You should. You should turn this into a commercial product. So I was like, okay, well, this is. We've never had a reaction like that. You know, when you go from. When you start doing something in this industry, you realize that it's like you're constantly knocking on doors and making phone calls and trying to get people to pay attention to you. And literally the last thing any distributor wants right now is another RTD or another Tequila brand. So, right. We just. We were getting left on red, left, right and center. And. And anyway, so I was like, well, this is the first time that somebody has told me that, you know, hey, you've got something, and you, you know, you should really pursue it. So I flew down to the distillery, like, two days after that. Said, like, I think this is. This is it, you know, and we were just going to bottle up the same tequila we were using in the canned cocktails, because this is a. So this is an organic. This is completely organic. I'll try not to mess up my autofocus, which Meant that we were using an organic tequila at the time. And this is how we ended up in the partnership with, with the Galindo distillery is at the time they had one of the few organic tequilas that was available. And so I put some of that in some bottles, brought it back in my suitcase. You should have seen how many bottles of tequila are in that. I mean, this becomes a running theme, right? Like I'll send you the pictures of how my suitcases look when we were kind of bringing back the first productions of this. But anyway, so I bring it back, I get home, it's late, and my, you know, I give it to my wife and I'm like, okay, so this is, this is what we'll do. And she basically takes it and sips from it. And she was just like, no way. This is, this is not it. Right? If you've got, you've got this brand, you know, somebody has taken notice of it more. That means more people are going to stand up and pay attention to it. What goes into the bottle matters. And if you're going to take a fight to, you know, all these overly manipulated celebrity tequilas and just the mainstream ones as well, the liquid needs to be something that's really light, really clean, easy to drink. I know we're not supposed to say this to, you know, the tequila aficionados, but smooth, because we, if we want to get the people who are drinking the silky, syrupy stuff to pay attention to the additive free stuff, we need to give them something that's not going to scare them off first. And I think, you know, that was, that was our thinking. That was certainly her point that she was making to me. And then she finished that by saying, yeah, and you can't use any additives, obviously. So I was like, okay, great, honey. It's very easy to say, but you know, you got to, got to try and make it happen. So I, you know, call up our partner, the guy who helped with the coke, and I said like, this is, this is what we want to, this is what we want to do. And he said, you know, we can actually make this work and this is how we'll do it. Come down and, you know, spend some time with us and we'll see if we can come up with the profile that you're looking for. And so went back down there and yeah, we, we rolled up the sleeves, it got to work. And yeah, we came decided on this profile and that's effectively what we've described so far tonight. It's very light, you know, we don't hide behind how we make it because people are very particular about the process. They. They're not fans of the high pressure autoclave. And it's like, yeah, I know A. It makes it more affordable and it makes it faster, but it also allows us to make a. The profile. It's not going to end up being quite the same as something that's going to be. It's not going to be as complex as something that's been cooked in a, In a brick oven. Right. And I think, you know, the two. Two of the decisions that we made were like, okay, we want to try and remove a little bit of the complexity. We want to make sure that we're using all of these, like really sweet agaves as well. So you're still getting that sweetness, but. But it's also not too green. And, and so that was kind of like part of that first hit of it is like, we don't want it to necessarily be too vegetal or too green agave forward. Right. Because we think that's. That can scare people off. So if we can get that sweetness to come through like that look like that sweet cooked agave bit to come through. And then that was the starting point. And then it sort of went from there to try and make sure that we did, you know, get some of that minerality from the well water, you know, that brininess and. And then also that really clean, clean finish using a couple of other techniques. You know, time and technique is what we say.
And, and it's. So it's a little bit. People will say it's a little bit thinner and it. And it is thinner, but that just means that it sort of leaves the mouth faster for people. So it leaves the palate, it doesn't linger. And then they go, okay, so that's not as bad. It doesn't give you the.
The sitting there for too long a period of time. But anyway, that's me. I'm rambling.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: It still has a nice finish, though. I look at this as a very approachable blanco. It's something that has an agave forward flavor. Has. You say not to have the green agave, but I get. I pick up like a really clean flavor, which, yeah. Reminds me of the smell of the cut agave versus the cooked agave. Right. So.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I kind of see. I see where you're going with that. You get a little bit of that in the back.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's a nice cleanness to it. It has a. All spice in the finish. Has a Nice little tingle to it, a little bit of cinnamon. Not, not an overpowering hotness, but a nice finish. It has a. A nice agave forward sweetness in it. I still pick up a nice minerality. I'm a first timer. This is an easy to drink blanco.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. This type of profile as well is very popular with the locals in that area, in the Arandas area as well. And it has those elements that you're talking about. Well, you do get that little bit of heat, whether it's pepper or allspice. So you're still getting those attributes that you would expect, but they're just being delivered in a slightly more manageable fashion.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: Yeah, not. Not wham. Like some of the. I'm a high proof drinker. Right. Bring me a 120. You know, let me, let me have something off the still that I can't bring home. You know, give me one of those because I love that. But yeah, this is, this is very approachable.
[00:27:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:18] Speaker A: So how did you end up at 15, 17 and Tequila Galindo, which is, I believe, one of the oldest distilleries actually in the highlands, and multiple families, like I think 60.
[00:27:33] Speaker B: We ended up there working with them because of the organic tequila here. And so that started the relationship. And then they actually, because they have so much equipment at that facility and they have the ability to, to try and pull various levers for working on this next idea. It just seemed like the right fit because we knew the guys, we knew, you know, Miguel and Rodrigo, and it was, it was very easy to just be able to kind of go, right, what do you think? Do you have the time? I mean, they're busy all the time because, you know, they sell a lot of their own brands, but they make a lot of tequila for other people as well. And so it was like they've had plenty of practice, you know, coming up with these different profiles, different cost points, able to take our kind of comments and feedback and go, okay, well, we, we have this way of doing things and we have that and then we can kind of bring that in. So the relationship was there. And then they also actually had all of the facilities that we needed to combine with the skills from the team to be able to produce this finished product that, you know, we had envisioned in our head.
[00:28:47] Speaker A: What a great pedigree too. I mean, that distillery's been there. They make some great brands. And I know you mentioned the autoclave. Some people get really hung up on high pressure, low pressure. For me, it's about the taste, Right. If I Like it. I really don't care what the process was.
One thing I can say though, I haven't found one that I know is made with a diffuser that I like how it tastes. So I guess I draw the line at that cooking, right? You gotta cook it.
[00:29:14] Speaker B: You gotta, you gotta cook it because otherwise if you don't cook it, it doesn't taste like tequila because tequila is cooked agave. You know, that's exactly what you're expecting to get if you don't cook it. It's, you know, it's vodka or.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: It's nasty. It's nasty, yeah. So all highland agaves, right?
[00:29:33] Speaker B: All highland agaves we all picked based on the bricks of the agave as well. And just to make sure that it's like, right, very high sugar content, we're not gonna go too young because we don't want that greenness. Just, just want the sweet and just, I mean, generally, like, we haven't been specific as being, you know, we're gonna. Going from a particular, particular plant like field, the Garvey field, etc. But what we are about to introduce going forward, which we're really excited about, we will be actually working with our partners to pinpoint the harvest and location of every harvest in our future productions. The bottles that come after this production, this was actually one for Europe. We're very excited. We're going into being in Switzerland later this year. But we currently have all the production information on the back. What we're going to have as well accompanying this is an additional QR code that will be specific to each batch. And that's going to actually tell you exactly when on the date that those agaves were harvested, where the geolocation, as to, you know, so where, where and when, when they went in for the cook, how and how long, when they came out, when the fermentation started, et cetera, time and temp and all of that good stuff. And then when we move into the barrel aging, recording all of the barrel types and details as well. And we just think that transparency is the way that the industry is going and the opportunity is there to kind of track all of this information. You can do a lot of it with a cell phone now. So our partners down there, the guys at Global, they've created this software to allow us to do that. And I think we'll be one of the first brands that's actually including as much of this information as possible. And so excited.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: That's very cool. Like to, you know, I looked at your bottle and the first Thing I did is I read the back, you know, and some got some great information.
It kept me from having to go research. Okay, are they using a roller mill or, you know, are they using copper pots or stainless pots with copper. Oh, wait, it's all on the bottle already. Right. And that, that's important for one us people who are. I call us tequila nerds. You know, like, we love all of that.
That's really cool.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: Yeah. I think that there can be information overload in the world that we live today. But at the same time, I think we're all asking questions these days about where our food comes from. It should be the same with everything else. And I think the push of all the additive free guys, like what Grover and Scarlet started out doing, they were pioneers. And by doing things like this, I think we're helping to just keep that movement going, even if it's not in the same form. It's making sure that people stay cognizant of where stuff is coming from and making sure that they're choosing quality over. We say quality over celebrity, but quality over. I love that mass produced junk.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: Yeah. I have another brand that I did an interview with that they had a T shirt that said, you make the movies, we will make the tequila.
That's pretty good. Yeah, I agree.
So there are not to dog them all, there are a couple of really nice celebrity brands out there. I don't want to lump all celebrity tequilas into this, but most of them I do.
I'm gonna say 99 of the celebrities have no connection to tequila in any way, shape or form. Right?
[00:33:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm not, I'm not by any means here to hate on everyone. Yeah, I know it seems that way, but really, you know, we gotta thank the celebrities who drew attention to the category. Right. I think, you know, by sort of, you know, putting more eyeballs on has opened it up. It has made it easier for people to come in and create good brands and get attention on the space as a whole. So I, you know, I can't wholeheartedly hate on that. I just, I think from my point of view, it's like the ones who. That we see is the cash grab. Right. Like that from. And we'll talk, we talk about that when we go into bars and we try people on bars and liquor stores. We try people on Tequila, they, you know, overwhelmingly the response is like, oh my God, this is incredible. This is so smooth. You know what, why, why do you do this? And it's like we could have actually Taken this liquid, put it in a fancy bottle and charged $80 for it, and then put the. Put the marketing behind it to be like, yes, this is luxury stuff. Yeah, but the goal wasn't to do that. The goal was to put a label on there that's going to make people ask questions about everything. Why did these guys do this? And that was because as outsiders, we saw that the industry was a little bit broken, and we wanted to just shine some light on it because, you know, that's where you can help clean stuff up. You know, if you get more eyeballs on things, it makes it harder for people to hide the clandestine behavior that's going on behind the scenes.
And we figured, you know, a name like this, very British sense of humor, and it would get people talking, and they do talk. And. And so it's not necessarily to hate on the celebrities. It's a conversation starter, is to try and get people to ask, you know, why did they do that? Oh, the reason is because, like, there's so many garbage tequilas out there, and everyone's putting a ton of additives in them, yet they're not telling you how they make it. You know, the luxury brands that are using acid hydrolysis, and it's like, you know, watching the success is like, well, good for them, but at the same time, it's like they're stealing from people by, you know, it's like a used car salesman just putting sand in there, the engine to keep it quiet from rattling a little bit. And then, you know, when you get halfway down the road, you realize you've been robbed. Like, that's. That's what that stuff is like. And, you know, we just. We wanted people to be a bit more honest about how they're. How they're making their stuff.
[00:35:58] Speaker A: I totally agree. And when you say that, a lot of people don't understand how the industry has changed for the people in the region, Right. When you look at some of the major tequila brands that switched from using a tohona and a roller mill and cooking the amount of hands that go into making a good tequila, and how many of those people have been replaced by machinery? So thank you. For one, not just looking for a cash grab, but figuring out, how can I create something that's sustainable and really good? How can I make something approachable to bring people to tequila? And then how can I give everybody a laugh? Because tequila is freaking supposed to be fun. So you. You knocked it out of the park and in all of those areas, and from a guy that loves tequila, thank you for doing that.
[00:36:47] Speaker B: No, my pleasure, My pleasure. The tequila was supposed to be fun thing, obviously, like, you had the Matthew McConaughey and his wife just do their pantalones. Tequila, Tequila. And I was like, come on, guys, this is one step. One step.
[00:37:00] Speaker A: I'm not sure if you're supposed to have pants or not supposed to have pants, like tequila pantalones, as you're supposed to have pants. But they're marketing. There's no pants. I don't. I don't know. Like, I'm not wearing pants right now. You didn't know that? You know, I never know what's supposed to happen.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: I was, I think when that. When they came out with that one, I was like, gosh, this is really. This has got to the point now.
But, yeah, no, it's. I think, you know, we wanted to have fun. We wanted it to be, you know, fun for people, but at the same time, we wanted them to be able to pick it up and enjoy it. So we say funny name, Serious tequila. So we got a. When we launched it, just before we launched it, we submitted a couple of bottles to the SIP Awards, and we got a double gold medal in the blind tasting competition. So no one really saw that, like, the label and everything. And it was not being judged on that. So it's definitely, you know, getting that trifecta, drawing the attention, getting people to then try it, because, you know, why wouldn't you try tequila that's called not a celebrity tequila, and then go, okay, well, that's what additive free tequila tastes like.
So, yeah, it's been fun. It's been a fun project for sure.
And it's the name remind. I don't know if you ever saw this story, but in the UK there was a money, a load of money that had been donated to the Coast Guard, and they were going to buy a new boat. And they decided, what we'll do is we'll put this out to the British public and they can all suggest and then vote on names for the. This new Coast Guard boat. And somebody put up the name Boaty McBoatface.
[00:38:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Boaty McBoatface. Yeah.
[00:38:42] Speaker B: Overwhelmingly, the country decided that's the name of the boat, and it won by a landslide. Now, they never actually ended up up calling it Boaty McBoat face, unfortunately, but that's the kind of, like, British sense of humor coming through. And that's, like, part of. So it's not. It's not just a dig at the celebrities. It's kind of like, yes, it's A British sense of humor. It is funny. I just try to have a lot.
[00:39:04] Speaker A: In Indianapolis, they named a snowplow, plowy McPlow face.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: Oh my.
[00:39:09] Speaker A: Yeah, they. They did it as a whole thing in the city for some new snowplow. I thought that was hilarious. So let's go. That is cool. Okay. So I love it when I can get something leaked that nobody else knows about. Do you have any new products coming out that nobody knows about yet that we can slip out and let people know?
[00:39:28] Speaker B: We, we're working on some stuff. We're working on a few things at the moment, actually. We working on some repo.
[00:39:35] Speaker A: Okay, awesome.
[00:39:37] Speaker B: So we've had like, people go, when's the repo coming? Because everybody, everybody wants to drink repo right now. I just came back from three days in Atlanta and they're all drinking Don Julio reposado and I'm like, guys, come on. There's so much better, so many better options.
But don't worry, I made that mistake once myself. So we, we know the importance of it for trying to get people to try the brand. But at the same time, it's like we're not rushing to do it because we want to do it properly.
So we've been testing out some barrels with, with our guys. We like the leaning towards a Hungarian oak, but it is very pricey to get those barrels, but we think it'll be worth it. So that's one side. But on the can cocktail site, we had been fully focused on this and then we got into a conversation with an influencer, which is obviously why it's separate from this brand. Separate from this brand. And, and he had expressed interest in doing an RTD tequila soda, pretty much tequila soda. So we're trying to work on a variation of just getting back to, you know, simple, you know, the 12 ounce can tequila soda, lime tequila soda, grapefruit and that, you know, that's it. Good quality, additive free tequila. And. And then out of a. Another conversation because we will be going into duty free at JFK and Houston later this year, hopefully soon. And we had conversations with them about, you know, bringing in a small margarita cocktail. So that's something else that we're working on as part of the. The born of a brand. We're going to test it there first. Sort of 100 mil easy travel size cocktail that you could take with you if you're, you know, flying somewhere like the Caribbean and you want to pick up a couple of cocktails to have because you don't just want to be spending 20 bucks from your minibar before you're getting ready that night, you know, maybe you want to take something for $6 that you know is well made. So we're testing, testing that out at the moment and we will hopefully see if we can get that launched before summer this year as well. So.
[00:41:54] Speaker A: Yeah, you got all the wheels running. That's pretty awesome. And the repo, I can imagine this is going to be a great repo. I didn't know if you had like maybe a high proof coming out that was going to be called not a hot celebrity.
[00:42:11] Speaker B: They give you 10% of every one of those that we sell because, you.
[00:42:15] Speaker A: Know, sometimes those high proofs can be a little hot. So maybe you make a really approachable high proof, not a hot celebrity.
[00:42:21] Speaker B: So. Yeah, yeah, I think, yeah, from, from. We've sort of thought about, you know, that with this brand and doing the high proofs and going sort of beyond that with different barrels and things. And our view is that's really for the guys who are trying to make those more complex options, want more variations. I think our view is as a, as a brand and as a business, let's just see if we can keep being that conduit firm for people who have been drinking, you know, that heavily manipulated stuff and bringing them across and just stick with kind of what we're doing. Because we. The reactions that we're getting to this Tequila is overwhelmingly positive. And so let's keep getting it out there. Let's just keep doing what we're doing and. Because if I start making too many things, then I'll just. I'll run out of time. And I think, you know, we don't want the messaging to get lost all the noise. And there are, there are so many brands doing some wonderful things at the moment as well, that it's like, I don't want to necessarily go up and start competing against, you know, the, the likes of Ensueno and Montegave who have been released and Cascanes who get. Those guys have been just releasing all these amazing variations.
So that's. It's not our wheelhouse. And I think we'll just, we'll try and stay in our end of the sound pit and, and leave those guys to, to do those. Those sort of, I guess, like I said, like, more advanced.
[00:43:51] Speaker A: Sure. There's specialty drinks that usually us in aficionados are the ones that go down that rabbit hole anyway.
[00:43:57] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. I mean, we would like, we would like to think about doing.
We would like to think about doing something As a, an additive free alternative for people who are, you know, picking up 1942 and class Azul. And so we're looking at that as an option as well. But for today the focus is just purely like let's get the blanco out and then potentially the repo and we'll go from there because it's, this is providing enough work for us at the moment. You know, we're a small, small startup. We're, we're raising money. We've just got an agreement to go into North Carolina. We're just financing, finalizing the paperwork there. So it's like we're slowly opening up some, some new states and things. And so we want to be able to give that all the attention without bringing on too many things to overcomplicate the situation.
[00:44:54] Speaker A: Well, good opportunity here because I'm in Indiana so it's hard to find good tequila in Indiana. And if I was looking for your tequila, what states can people find your tequila? And then what states can people order your tequila from to be able to get it?
[00:45:08] Speaker B: Yeah, so we are available direct to consumer on 47 of the 48, sorry, Utah in terms of, in stores. We are currently in New York.
We are in Massachusetts and Georgia. Those are our first three states. We are expecting to open up Washington state later this year, Oregon shortly after that and North Carolina hopefully in the next few weeks.
So just chipping away.
[00:45:41] Speaker A: That's fantastic. That's. And then they go direct to you directly to your website to order off of your website. Is that where they can find.
[00:45:48] Speaker B: Yeah, directly to our website.
And I, I'll do ourselves out of it a little bit here. I say if you do go to, if you go to Union Square wine and liquors website, actually they do sell for a little bit less than we sell on ours.
So you can get a two dollar discount if you go to their website.
[00:46:11] Speaker A: Fantastic.
[00:46:12] Speaker B: I'll tell you what, why don't we do like a, a 10% off code for, for your listeners for, for the month. That would be a good, good way to see if we get some interest.
[00:46:21] Speaker A: That'd be fantastic. Yeah, and we'll promote that everywhere. So I have like an exit question. I love to ask people this question. I get the coolest responses. So now that you've gone into this journey from real estate to not a celebrity tequila, who would you like most to sit down with, share a glass of this tequila and talk about your journey? And they can be alive, historical family. Who, who would be like the most rewarding person to sit down and say hey, salud. Let me tell you this story and talk about your tequila.
[00:46:59] Speaker B: That's a fantastic question. I think, I think for me would probably have to be my grandfather.
You know, he was, he was an entrepreneur himself as well. And I think some, somebody that definitely look up to aspire to be like. And, and he was just a bloody good time and he liked to drink, but he was a vodka man. But I would like to be able to sit him down and be like, okay, I want to get you on this tequila. But yeah, he, he, he started his, he did a number of businesses back in the day. Started he post, post first World War. He was selling fake tan to, to US Servicemen who are based in Germany mail order. He, his father passed away and he got this chemistry textbook and started coming up with, with ideas and that was one of his first businesses. He ultimately ended up creating a glue for the DIY community, like, which was obviously huge back in the 80s.
But yeah, I would like to, I'd like to sit down with him and be like, hey, you know, I didn't, I didn't totally screw up. I know, I know this is not where you thought the economics degree would get me, but, you know, try, at least try it first.
[00:48:14] Speaker A: I can say this from, from the story I've heard of you, the videos I've watched about you and the brand that you've created. There's no way that he couldn't be anything but incredibly proud of you. And that's really awesome. That's a great answer too, Grandfather. Actually, if I took like notes, Grandfather's the number one answer of that question. Because it's amazing how somebody that usually isn't in our life long enough makes such an impression in our lives and know that hopefully we can have that same impression, you know.
[00:48:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:49] Speaker A: Our grandchildren. So that's pretty awesome.
[00:48:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a, that's a very good point. It's a very good point.
[00:48:54] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate you question. Say that again.
[00:48:58] Speaker B: Did you ever ask yourself that question?
[00:49:00] Speaker A: So I've had two people ask me that question in the video and my answer has been not as cool as yours because my, I, I, you know, so I haven't birthed a brand to be able to really share something with that to go, this was mine. Right. This is a little different being on the social media side. So the Tequila journey that I think would be the coolest was, would be to sit down with Sammy Hagar, who.
[00:49:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:25] Speaker A: Who brought me to Tequila. And I've been, you know, such a fan of what he's done over the years and as a guitar player and a musician and somebody that's been a big fan of his, to actually get to sit down and talk tequila with with Sammy would be probably the coolest one to have a tequila conversation with just because he'd be on the same wavelength. But honestly, it's like talking to you because you and I have a connection through this crazy, amazing product that brings tequila people together. So, you know, that's kind of a neat one. But for me, really, the best fun is talking to brand owners and tequila creators and getting to share this all the time because I learned so much more and I get so much more connected to the community, the product of the people every single time.
[00:50:11] Speaker B: That's a good answer. Can I change mine? George Clevely.
[00:50:17] Speaker A: That's freaking fantastic.
[00:50:19] Speaker B: I, I, I made a, I made a. Because like sometimes I get ideas and my wife is tired of me getting ideas. She's like, the last time you had an idea. Now we have a tequila company.
But I know I did an advert the other day. I say advert just to post it. It was, it was 10 out of Ocean's 11 prefer not a celebrity.
[00:50:44] Speaker A: Wow. Andrew, I want to say thanks for taking your time. I know, I appreciate the fact that everybody's not sitting at home with nothing to do thinking, I want to talk to this crazy social media person about my brand. But I really appreciate you taking the time and sharing your story and I think people are going to really be excited about this. And thank, thanks for having the really the thought process of bringing something that is drinkable, approachable, authentically made and additive free to the market. And I appreciate that. So thank you very much.
[00:51:14] Speaker B: Pleasure. And thank you for having me. And thank you to you for having this platform that we can let people listen to me bang on for a few minutes about it. Bore them to death.
[00:51:26] Speaker A: Yeah, nobody is going to be bored during this one. This was fantastic. So you have a fantastic night. Thanks for the great tequila and cheers, my friend.
[00:51:32] Speaker B: Salim Miguel Saloon. It's.
