May 20, 2025 • 54 mins
I have known the Levys for years. I've known them as restauranteurs and gracious people. They fell in to the restaurant business and it was sink of swim; swim they did, creating an iconic establishment in heart of Southern California. From the restaurant came what one would consider the first of its kind in the San Gabriel Valley...a craft cocktail lounge. No one had heard of such falderall out of downtown Los Angeles, a craft cocktail bar...the idea.
Well, it turns out to be a brilliant idea and the bar 1886 became a destination in itself for lovers of hand made, exotic cocktails.
Enter the RTD market. I mean, they enter the RTD market. At the time of the success of 1886, the Levys brainstormed a premium, in the bottle, cocktail. Focusing on the classics and nothing but the best ingredients, Knox and Dobson was born.
Rob and Leslie Levy never intended to become restaurateurs, much less champions of craft cocktails in a bottle—but as you’ll discover, some of the best ideas come when you’re busy doing something else. In this episode of Wine Talks, you’ll find out how a couple just trying to buy a Pasadena apartment building accidentally inherited an iconic restaurant, survived the baptism-by-fire of the food business, and spun that hard-earned wisdom into revolutionizing the ready-to-drink (RTD) cocktail world with Knox & Dobson. You’ll hear tales of kitchen crises, the quirky genius of naming a brand after a childhood Chicago street corner, and what it really means to translate the heart of a five-minute, hand-crafted drink into a shelf-stable bottle that still surprises—and delights—even the most jaded bartender. Paul and the Levys dig into the gritty, exhilarating reality behind building something new: wrangling with distillers for barrels, battling the sneaky complexities of upscaling classic recipes, and learning the hard way that shelf space is gold and distributors want more than just a good story. Along the way, you’ll pick up rare insight into why most canned cocktails are disappointments, the secret advantages of a deep purple apothecary bottle, and the surprisingly emotional connection people make when you pour—literally and figuratively—your passion into a public tasting. Whether you’re dreaming of your own food and beverage business, fascinated by the science and soul of the perfect martini, or just want to know whether you could actually run a bar without losing your hair, this is the episode that will pull back the velvet curtain on both the chaos and the romance of bringing real cocktails to a thirsty world.
✅ Ever wonder how a legendary restaurant sparks a craft cocktail revolution?
✅ Rob & Leslie Levy share their wild journey from owning Pasadena’s iconic Raymond restaurant to launching their own high-end ready-to-drink cocktail brand—on the latest episode of Wine Talks with Paul Kalemkiarian.
✅ Hear how a real estate deal gone sideways led to 18 years in hospitality, and later, to breaking new ground in the premium RTD (Ready-To-Drink) cocktail market with Knox & Dobson.
✅ Takeaway: Want to know how to turn setbacks and industry surprises into flavorful success? Tune in for lessons on innovation, grit, and the secret to a perfect bottled Manhattan. You’ll never look at your next cocktail the same way! 🍸✨
Listen now to Wine Talks!
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#KnoxAndDobson
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The bar has been set very low. So people's
expectations for a you tell them a bottle of
cocktail or can cocktail, whatever, they expect it to not be great.
And so when they're surprised when they try it and they're surprised that
it's good, that's what we hope will bring them back to bite
again. Sit back and grab a glass. It's
(00:22):
Wine Talks with Paul K.
Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul K. And we are in studio in beautiful
Southern California today about to have a conversation with Robin
Leslie Levy. Yes, got that right.
Why do I doubt myself? As soon as I start introductions
in just a moment. I just got back from our
(00:45):
editor the episode for Song of America,
which is the Agogenian family, starting with an Armenian Los
Angeles racing history family. Incredible conversation. Look
for that to come out soon. But not why we're here. Here to have a
conversation with Rob and Leslie. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Thank you.
It's good to see you guys in a professional environment. We always have dinner
(01:06):
or whatever. That's fun. You
guys are founders of the Ready to Drink Cocktail.
And for the listeners, RTD's, which is quite a
acronym these days, Knox and Dobson.
We're going to get on that subject in a minute. In fact, I see you've
got like, how many more do you have now? We have six now and
(01:26):
soon we'll have seven. Wow. Yeah. When we first started, two or
three. Yeah. Yeah. We originally launched with four, but
yeah, it's beginning to grow and we're seeing what, what takes and what doesn't
and people like. And we're going to go back a little further. Not
like when you met and all that kind of stupid stuff.
Because we're. Going to talk about restaurateur
(01:50):
because you guys were the proprietors of the very famous
restaurant, an iconic restaurant in less in this Pasadena called the
Raymond. We were. And I think where this idea burgeoned
from. But talk about the restaurant business. How long were you doing that? 18
years. Yeah. That's long enough to pull your hair. Out, I would say. 18
long years. Yeah. Yeah, you all have your hair. So
(02:12):
that's good. A little bit. Not, not much more in
the first place, you know, we, we never, never intended
to own a restaurant. We were buying and selling real estate
and the. We knew the owner
of the Raymond. We were fixing up a building across the street and
having lunch there and asked her if she would sell an apartment building she
(02:35):
owned behind the restaurant. And initially she
said no. And we just, you know, we kept Going in, she finally said, you
know what? I'm ready to retire here. If you'll buy the restaurant, I'll sell you
the building. Oh, wow. And so we had a good friend
who was a chef, and
this was her dream. I mean, this was like buying Chez Panisse in
(02:56):
Pasadena, which was great. And so she agreed
that she would take the restaurant. We had no interest in the restaurant at all.
And we went into escrow, and two weeks before closing, her
investors pulled out and we owned a restaurant. Wow. I can tell
you for sure that is not the way you want to learn the restaurant business.
It's a crash course, that's for sure. Did you go right into the kitchen or
(03:19):
what did you do? I mean, like. No, we. I mean, our
initial thought was we got to sell this thing before we go
bankrupt or crazy. And we
had to hire a chef. Had to hire a chef because she was the chef.
And that's the. That is a fun experience. It was. Yep,
yep. Chefs, as you may know, can be
(03:40):
temperamental. Yes. The kitchen was
50 years old. The building was falling down. That part we
knew how to do, but the rest of it we didn't. And fortunately, we
had enough good friends from around town that were in
the business that kind of kept us from going off the rails. And
we. One thing led to another, and
(04:02):
18 years later, we were so. But it was fun. Was. You said
the Chez Panisse. And for the. For the listeners, Jezebel's is a famed restaurant in
the Berkeley area owned by Alice Waters, who probably
single handedly changed the direction of food in America. But that's
what you felt like this place was at the time. The reputation of Raymond
Craftsman Cottage. Yeah, right. It was really cool,
(04:24):
1800s, but no one steps into the restaurant business like, you
know, not knowing anything. Right. And honestly, you know, if it
weren't the Raymond, we would. I don't think we
would have stood a chance. I think we, you know, we. We lucked out in
that it already had a history. Yeah, right. And the former owner, the
founder of the Raymond, she came up with
(04:46):
Julia Child. Really. So they were. They were
compatriots. They were local. Julia Child was from Pasadena
and. Or lived in Pasadena. And so there was. There
was a lot of history. A very formal French restaurant when we took it over.
White tablecloths, very formal. And
what we found is that when you're going to a formal restaurant, you go about
(05:09):
once a year for your birthday or your anniversary. So we wanted
to make it more casual so that people would come Every day.
So it kind of became kind of like the cheers of Pasadena.
Yeah. I mean, were you guys there every day in the beginning?
We were here a lot, Leslie. More than me. You know, I had my
business and. But the, the goal
(05:31):
was to make it. Instead of wearing a suit, you're wearing jeans
and it was okay to come in shorts and hang out. And you know,
that, that was. The goal was to make it more of a
neighborhood hangout where you would. Drop by more often.
Yeah. Can you even, you know, can you even run a restaurant
without being there? I mean, is that, is a restaurant a non proprietor type? Unless
(05:53):
it's corporate America, like where, you know, you know, Black Angus or something or,
you know, Olive Garden. But if you're running a restaurant like that, that's specific. And
then we'll get into this, this idea now. But is that even possible to do
without being there every day? Practically? I was there
every day, but just. Not, you know, you weren't waiting tables.
I wasn't waiting tables. But you know, we, we wined and dined people
(06:16):
there. We had our friends there. We were always entertaining there.
It was like having people come over to your. It's like having a party every
day. Would you, would you trade that? I mean, like,
you're looking at the wine shop picture right there. My dad, my dad acquired that
wine shop because it was sort of an opposite thing. He's. I won't buy your
pharmacy unless you sell me the wine shop with it. Sort of the opposite. But
(06:37):
thank goodness that's what happened. My career came from this insistence. And
so here you are now, you know, in the marketplace with, with Knox and
Dobson rtd. Would you trade now the experience as a restaurant tour for
anything to get here? I don't think so. I mean, I think
it really helped us, like
partnership with the community. We've done a lot of
(06:59):
events. We've had events, political
events, fundraisers, all kinds of things at
the restaurant, which we never would have been able to do if we weren't involved
in the restaurant. We've met amazing people. I
mean, it's been a real eye
opening experience. You know, operating a restaurant, not
(07:21):
so much fun. But the people and the social aspect of
it was phenomenal. But it's put you on this treadmill right here.
You wouldn't possibly be ready to drink cocktails without the restaurant. Not at
all. In fact, as you may recall,
in 2010, and this is what launched
us in this direction. We knew
(07:45):
early on that we had to build a bar. We had a bar but it
wasn't really a bar. It was more of a service bar. And
they were doing virtually no business in the bar, really.
$1,500 a month. Would that formula even remotely work
today without the margins in a liquor? Not a chance. And
so we knew we had to build a bar. We didn't know how. We didn't
(08:07):
know what it should look like or feel like. And Leslie, by
chance, through a friend, met some people
who had built all the crazy
successful craft cocktail bars downtown.
And she came back and, you know, said, we've got the
idea. And so I went with them on this little bar
(08:30):
crawl, and together we just said, well, this is it. And just by
chance, by luck, it happened to be at
the very beginning of the craft cocktail craze,
and. And even more lucky, we were the only
ones to do it outside of downtown LA. So we were
the first in the St. Gabriel Valley, and it made
(08:53):
us famous. You know, it wasn't a big space, so
actually, probably. That probably lent to some of the success, like, well, it's very small.
You can't just walk in and expect to get buffalo wings here. You're gonna have
to time this and make it work. And
it created this whole vibe in the community. And we
had regulars who were there. You all the time,
(09:15):
and just. But it was a really wonderful
experience. And at that time,
bottled cocktails really didn't exist. Yeah, right. It's not that
long ago. No. This whole phenomenon just kind of happened in the
last 10 years. And so we were at the very
beginning. We just couldn't get it right
(09:38):
soon enough. And then Covid hit. Covid
hit our bottles. What was it called? 18.
1886. 1886. The year I. I knew about it, but I
had. I'd only been there a couple of times, but it was. How old was
that bar when you sold the restaurant? We built it in
2010. Really? It's that young? Yeah, I'm gonna say it's that
(10:00):
young. Yeah. And, you know, before that, it was. It truly was just
a service bar. It was just. There was nothing there. It was part
of the dining room. And so
it kind of took on a life of its own and became
its own special little gem. And,
I mean, there were people that would come to the bar
(10:23):
that didn't realize we had a restaurant. Now, see, this is
really interesting because I think in most formulas of most restaurants that
I've experienced through all my career doing this, doing the liquor and wine
thing is that if the bar, if you have to go through the Restaurant to
get to the bar. They're not generally that successful. People don't want to have to
like interrupt dinner, walk through a path and get to a bar.
(10:45):
And I've seen it fail many times in many different places. But here you
kind of had to do that. Right. To get. We had a separate entrance for
the bar. Oh, you did. Okay. But most people came right through the front door.
And you know, most of our seating was on the patio anyway. Yeah.
So the main dining room was actually pretty small. Yeah.
So what would craft cocktail mean when you. When you were out
(11:07):
bar crawling in la. And I remember
that, I remember when this all started. But what would you
consider what was considered a craft cocktail? Fresh ingredients.
Yeah, fresh ingredients. Everything was made in front of you
right there. You know, you spent five minutes watching
the guy make the fancy. So whether it was a six to one gin
(11:30):
martini or whether it was a, you know, a muddled, you
know, mango margarita, you. You watched
it. You watched that take time and money and energy to do it. Did it,
did. And, and part of what led us down
this path was we had days at the restaurant
on a busy weekend when people were waiting 20, 20, 30 minutes
(11:52):
for a drink because every drink was so labor
intensive. Right. We started batching our cocktails
and so we could get our most popular
cocktails into the hands of customers quickly.
And that's where this all kind of came from. So
now let's jump to Knox. Knox and Dobs.
(12:14):
It's. Yeah, there are. There were surprise. Some big
houses that started this idea of a ready to drink cocktail. I mean, I think
there were other types of canned and bottled beverages.
Club canned cocktail. Yeah. Right. That was it that you could buy. My dad even
had them at the store at some point in time, but
cans. Yeah, most of them had a lot of
(12:35):
sugar in them and other
ingredients. And we just wanted to do it exactly the
way you would have a cocktail at a bar. Right. And that's
what took us so long to figure this out, is because
we spent all this time with flavorists and
food scientists and all these different
(12:59):
secret, fancy methods of trying to make it taste like
a cocktail, when in the end we
wanted to make a real cocktail, just a cocktail. And so
it took some time. That's an interesting proposition because my niece,
who's coming today, you might meet her on your way out, is. Had started a
brand of salad dressing I think we might have spoken about a little bit and
(13:22):
that she had the same experience. You know, here's my salad dressing. And
then now we've got to figure out a way to put it in a package.
And the immediate response is, let's get a food scientist on
board and start manipulating the things that we have in our quivers
to make these concoctions. When the reality is, you know, we just
want gin and vermouth in there. Right? That's right, Yes. I
(13:43):
mean, the trick is when you're making a thousand gallons, the
recipe is different than when you're making one. So. Okay,
that, so is that, that a scale issue? Like if I
took, I, I make my martinis sometimes eight to one,
six to one, something like that. My dad prefers, you know, six to one. He's
an English guy. You know, he grew up in an English environment. So
(14:05):
if I was to make 20 gallons of it, I wouldn't do 6 to 1.
At that point, there's a balancing act. Yeah,
the, the flavors either become too,
too intense or too diminished. Yeah. You have to
balance it out and adjust your, your recipe to make up. For that
martini is a tricky one because everybody likes their martini just
(14:27):
slightly different. So we're, we're, we're having fun
with, with pleasing people that love a gin martini.
Ours is not a bike martini. So, so right there
we have our crowd of gin connoisseurs.
Well, omg, go to Paris and try to order a dry martini and you just
get the range of what you taste from one bar to the other is
(14:51):
just unbelievable. It's like, no, I just want a little martini.
When you walked in and I was telling you about Connor, I had both my
son in laws out when he first gave me some samples. And I tasted
your gin martini against mine, which I consider myself an expert in this field thanks
to my father, Manhattan's as well. I've done a lot of experimenting with
(15:11):
Manhattan's and man, they were so close.
I mean, I will say that the fresh one made, I made right then was
maybe 3%, you know, more interesting.
You mean ours was. Right, Ours was just for the show? Yes,
yes. So
that process then you're saying that you recanted from that process,
(15:33):
you stepped away from the food scientists and you went a different direction? Is that
what happened? We did, we, you know, we kind of came full circle and said
if we're going to make a really, a real mark, a real
cocktail and make it taste like what
we serve in the bar, we have to serve what we serve in the bar.
Right. And so. Which is aged spirits. Yeah. We ended
(15:54):
up going to distillers and convincing them to sell us
whiskey in the barrel that we then aged two to four years,
I had to convince Angostura Bitters to sell
to us because who are we? Yeah, right. In bulk. Because you
can't buy those little tiny bottles. And I can see Leslie going
there, that doesn't work. Yeah.
(16:18):
So there's so many parts to
the puzzle that required extra work
to make this all come together. Okay, so
back it up a step. So here you guys are having success with 1886
and there's people coming in. Maybe somebody said, hey, you ought to bottle these things,
or maybe you didn't, maybe you did on your own. But there's a. That's a
(16:40):
huge leap from what you're doing today.
Packaging design, TB approval. Beside, we just talked
about formulation. I mean, there's a lot of moving parts. When you
decide as two restaurateurs to take something to the market
and get it on a shelf, that's a whole different part of the business
that possibly we were aware of. Yes, we're
(17:02):
more aware of it now and we've discussed this before, but
so what was the thought process in how this was would feel
to the consumer? Like you guys were sat at dinner table
boring each other to death with details about this product. That was a
joke. And
I've been through these same conversations, by the way, many times.
(17:26):
But you're discussing what this thing should feel like, and it's not High
Noon. I mean, that stuff looks like crap and it doesn't taste much
better. So how did you come around?
This idea of a name like Knox and Dobson was very English sounding. The
octagonal, or not octagonal, but the bottle shape, the color,
everything takes a decision. It's kind of like building a house. You got to know
(17:49):
where every plug's gonna go and every light switch. That's true. Well, I will say
that one thing we learned from the restaurant business is people eat with their eyes
first. And so we wanted to make a product that
looked like quality. And so that's where
we came up with the hex shaped bottle. By
chance, our partner is a
(18:11):
artist by trade, graphic artist, and he helped
us design the label and the bottle. And you know, there's some
science in the color of the bottle. It's a deep purple, which
protects what's in the bottle. So, you know, the old
apothecary bottles from back in the day protected what
was inside. And so there's that. And so
(18:32):
we started there and you know, we knew, we knew we had a good
cocktail. We knew how to make a good cocktail.
Now translating that to the market and
making people see that this looks
really good. So maybe I should try it. It's not, you know,
(18:53):
High Noon. It's not, you know, a can on the shelf in the sea of
cans on the shelf. Isn't that interesting, though. You would think that corporate America,
these giant organizations that have these boardrooms full of people
would have a similar thought process at some points, in other words. Or they're just
like, well, we got to get the thing out as cheap as we can get
it, and we're going to use the worst materials that we can find, and we're
(19:13):
just going to get on the shelf and take our market share to, you
know, rely on our market share to get these things out there.
That is generally the thought process is they, they use
their clout and inexpensive
ingredients. Yeah, they, they, they.
The bar has been set very low. So people's
(19:37):
expectations for a. You tell them a bottle,
cocktail or canned cocktail, whatever, they expect it to not be great.
And so when they're surprised when they try it and they're surprised that
it's good, that's what we hope will bring them back to bite
again. It's kind of interesting. Jog. They thought, which doesn't
happen very often, that in
(20:00):
the wine trade, the stuff on the shelf that we walk in and we see
the apothecary reds. Apothecary reds, and we see the Josh's and we
see all the same stuff at all the markets. It's annoying, but it's a very
important part of the industry to get people that otherwise wouldn't
drink wine to start trying wine. They're sweeter, they taste. You know, they're not
very complex. And it sounds like maybe that's
(20:22):
the segmentation that's happening maybe in your trade that. Yeah, the
High Noons and all the other canned beverages that are coming out
aren't really necessary. Competition for a craft cocktail
in a bottle, is that segmented yet?
Not as much as we would hope. Yeah, it's.
(20:44):
People are kind of grabbing whatever's easiest. Yeah.
If you look at the majority of cocktails on the shelf,
they're very low abv. So less
alcohol, more profit margin. They usually
make up for it with flavorings and sugar and all of that,
but you can drink a few of them. It's like drinking a beer. It's very,
(21:06):
very low alcohol. These are serious
cocktails. They're exactly what you get in the bar. Yeah. So it's, it's,
you know, you're not going to down three or four of these. It's it's
almost the first thing I look at. Just maybe because I'm in the industry, when
somebody brings something to the table that's one of these, I immediately go to the
alcohol by volume. I look at that, right. And I realize I can
(21:28):
tell it by looking at it. What kind of canned
cocktail this is, Is it real or fake? If it's. If it's a low
alcohol cocktail, then it
that they've made the decision to make a cocktail that
tastes like a cocktail. Yeah. Right. But it's not a real cocktail,
you know, so it's. So you got to the point where you've got this bottle,
(21:49):
I got the design, which is great. The name. Where'd the name come
from? Corner I grew up on in Chicago.
Come on. Knox and Dobson. That's
great. We had a group of kids that hung out
literally every day on this corner. There was a park right
there. That is so clever. Yeah, well, you know, we went round and round
(22:11):
with names. I mean, we were writing down names
that nobody could agree on. And
one day I just threw this out and we just kept coming back to it.
Yeah, it just sounds like an old. Pub and yeah, it's beautiful. It's very
English sounding. Yeah. And the packaging too. Very old school.
Yeah, I've been through that 25 times,
(22:32):
naming wine brands and I get the same reaction. And I'd come up with something
wacky because that's all that wasn't taken. Because Oak
everything and bridge everything and Valley, this was all taken.
There are actually books on the history of street names
and we looked through them and we were really hoping that these would have
some value. Civil War general or something. Turned out to
(22:53):
be so much banker and a builder, it was
nothing ex. Con, which would
be Chicago. It wouldn't be best. So
I want to stop right there. Timeline. Now, you
decided all this and you still haven't taken it to market yet,
but you think you've got a formula. Had anything surprised you up
(23:16):
until that point, like, why do we get into this? Or
can't wait to get this thing going because this is so much fun. Well,
we had gone so far down the road with this. It was sort of a
decision of, are we going to do this or are we not? And
we had just put so much time and effort into. Into it. We just, it
(23:36):
was a natural. We just, we had to do it. And
so. But literally every,
every turn has been an education. I mean,
every, like you said, the ttb. Oh, you need an approval for
that. Oh, you need an approval for the label
or the formulation or the. Yeah, we're working on a
(23:58):
margarita. Working on that right now. So we need very close. What's the
problem? There's no problem. It's just time consuming. We're
importing 100% blue agave tequila. Oh, tequila. Yeah.
And yeah, that's apparently a headache giant.
If you want it to be actual tequila. Right? Yeah. So you can buy
truckloads of what they call mixto, which is, you know, not really
(24:20):
tequila. We wanted to do the real thing just like the rest of
these. But it's taken us two years to get through the. Very
close. I've heard that. But when you taste.
Where were we? At the Gardens. One of the. One of the
disconsol gardens. And they had a. Halfway through they had this little hut and you
could get a shot of tequila and it was Cuervo and it was
(24:41):
undrinkable. I mean, we've gotten so used to having. I mean, that's the right thing
to do is get the right stuff. Because I don't think anybody accepts
those brands anymore as far as legitimate tastes.
We're actually really excited. We're going to be importing a.
A family owned. Are you elevating it as well? We
are. They've never been available in the United States and
(25:03):
so we're bringing them in for the first time and we're gonna, you know, co
brand with them and. Wow, that's great. Excited about it. Okay, so you jumped
in two feet. You're. This is going. We got this cool bottle. We got
this thing and you get it in the bottle.
Did you say, oh, crap, what do you do now?
Or you had relationships in the liquor business
(25:25):
because of the bar. You had some kind of guidepost that was. We had
a lot of people that wanted to see us be successful in this. So
we have a lot of support behind us, just people that want us to do
well in this. So we're feeling appreciating
where we are. I mean, we're like a little company
and we're already now in Bristol Farms. But you
(25:48):
are cutting new teeth here. I mean, you're cutting new teeth for
yourself and you're cutting your teeth for a market segment that really hadn't been
tapped that way. At least a premium cocktail. And so all those things
in our industry take a little bit of extra
persistence and perseverance. It has been
a challenge, no doubt, because
(26:12):
the bar has been set low and people do expect
less convincing retailers that there's
a market for premium has been. That's an Interesting
point. Same with wine. It's like, can we sell that
$150 bottle of wine on our shelves
when everybody's looking for the $20 bottle of wine? So it's the
(26:33):
same thing here. It's been a, you know, when they try it, they love
it. But now then they have to make that extra decision of can we sell
it? You know, so I'm going to lay the landscape for the listeners a little
bit. You have a product like this, whether it's wine or ready to drink cocktail
or white claw or whatever you're trying to sell. In the beverage world, the competition
is extremely high. The shelf space is limited and the budgets are
(26:55):
down. And, and not only that, like if you ever been to Arthur J
in the restaurant in Manhattan Beach Steakhouse?
No. No. Part of that Simsies group. Anyway, they have an incredible list which
you don't see wine lists like this anymore. Yeah. Why?
Because. Well, because if you have 75, and I guess there were 75
vendors for this one list, there's actually like a hundred. Well, that's a
(27:18):
hundred different checks you've got to write a hundred different salespeople. Number of
salespeople, let's say 20. But you've got to have just
exponentially grows the amount of work it takes to put something on the shelf. Yeah.
And I'm going to assume that when you walk into a retailer or a
restaurant or whatever you're trying to sell and say, look, I've got this product and
you're going to. Every objection in the world, at least the least of
(27:39):
which now is the quality of the product. This is
really good. But I don't want a new vendor.
At some of the hotels we're at, the bartenders actually
want to taste it. And some of them have actually liked
ours better than what they actually make. So
that's kind of fun when that happens. That's really great. Yeah. And
(28:01):
that has been a good market for us. You think about, you check
into a Hotel, it's 10 o'clock at night, you'd like a cocktail.
Either the bar is closed or room service comes 30
minutes later with a watered down mess. Or they can bring a bottle, has
two cocktails and a bucket of ice and it's actually good. Yeah.
Right. And so we're getting some traction there and people are starting
(28:24):
to. It's a great service actually. Yeah. Yeah. Because I never want to open the
bottle of wine that's there. It's too much and it's probably not that good.
Yeah. Or there's you know, a half bottle of tequila and what
am I going to do with the rest of it? And you're staying one night
and they're expensive. They're expensive. Okay, so you've got it in the bottle and you're.
You started brainstorming who might carry this. And for the
(28:45):
listeners, you know, you. There's two pieces of this business,
and it wasn't always like this. You could rely on a
distributor to sell the brand that create
the brand. And that happened in the old days a lot. You know, you'd hand
it off to somebody as hungry and aggressive and they would
go build this brand for you. And then the problem in most
(29:06):
cases is there's no allegiance in our industry. So once they built the
brand, if you thought you wanted to go to a bigger house, you would just
pull it from the people that made it for you. Well, that doesn't happen anymore.
You have to build your own brand, as with my niece and her salad
dressing, that no one's going to just shop it for you. So was
that a surprise? That part of it? It was. We
(29:27):
went into this thinking
that if you gave a distributor a great
product, that they would see the value in that
and simply take it and run with it, right?
Negative, negative. So literally
(29:49):
every sale that we've made in this company has been us
and it. And I guess short of you
having to put it, in fact, I have very close friends and just
got their daughter a nice internship in Bordeaux, France.
She's an enology student, but she got interested in wine
because they built this little vineyard in their house in the valley and they created
(30:12):
the wine. They had a co op come pick it and make the wine. Well,
the other day he pulled up here to pick something up. He's an architect by
trade, and there's six cases of wine in his trunk. I go, what are you
doing? He goes, making a delivery. And so I guess your option
would have been go shop it yourself. You have the licensing, go
pour these things, and then when they order 10 cases, you got to put it
(30:33):
in your truck and drive it over there. Right. So really now your supplier
is. Your distributor is doing that part logistical part for
you. Your job is to make it go to the point of
purchase locations and pour it and then they'll make sure it gets to
the location. Yeah. Build and collect it and all that. The one thing I
will say is being with a large
(30:55):
distributor, it does
open doors. Yes. So when I'm having a
conversation with whatever Marriott
corporate or, you know, a
retail chain or you Know, whatever. And I tell
them the name of our distributor, they'll say,
(31:17):
okay, you know, you're legitimate and
come talk to us. Good point. When we were first starting out,
we were with just a boutique, you know, distributor that
new brands start with. And there were many
occasions when we had a conversation with a hotel or somebody,
and they say, well, when you get with one of the majors,
(31:40):
then call us, because we don't deal with these
guys, you know, so It's a catch
22. It's a. You know, what I made is that
like there's. Well, there's much less small distributors than there used to be anyway.
But, you know, we don't want to deal with all these people. Right.
You know, the accounting department is, like, not into this. And we already know the
(32:01):
structure of the large houses. We know who to pay. We know when they're due.
We know all those issues already. We don't have to worry about it, because I
don't think listeners probably don't know, but there's very
serious restrictions on credit in our industry. You can't
just ask for 60 days credit. If you're a retailer or a
restaurant, you're entitled to 42 days, and then you're on a COD
(32:22):
basis. And some of the big distributors are. They will not
budge from that. Other ones are a little more flexible. We learned that
along the way. Well, we also learned that when you're with one of these little
boutique distributors, collections are on you. That's right. You got to go
collect. And that's hard. Yeah. When you're with an rn, DC, or a Southern, or,
you know, a breakthrough, one of the big guys, you don't pay, they don't
(32:44):
deliver. So how is that relationship then with you guys? You do. You
display the landscape out. So if you have this brand and it
goes into the Southern book, which it has, which is very thick these days,
and there's pages and pages of different types of competitive
beverages. Do you have to educate the sales team? Yes.
Oh, 100%. No question about it.
(33:08):
Well, often, because their
landscape changes. You know, they. You know, our
company, Southern, had a big layoff, so all the
people we were dealing with were no longer there. Yeah, there you go. So now
we gotta educate a whole new group. And then if you're talking to the hotel
group, that's a whole different team. The chain division
(33:29):
is different team. So there's. It's always
a. You're always. And you know, you want to be friends with these guys
because they're doing. They're. They're doing work, you know, they're. You want
them to be inspired to pull it out of their bag and talk about
you. I can't tell you how many Gazotchkas and
espresso machines. And I even my wife was going through her jewelry
(33:51):
thing the other day and there was this bar of silver that somebody had given
me. There was a Tanqueray thing. And so because they're
incented by these organizations, as you probably know by now,
like if you sell 10 cases of this Mondavi Cabernet, I'm going to send you
to Italy. And that takes their priority out of the field. So it makes
a smaller company like yours a little. A little more difficult to get the
(34:13):
attention of the brokers. If you can be a friend. I
mean, and I'm saying that because one of the first lessons I ever learned at
Xerox by one of the old school sales rep was
become the buyer's friend. In your case, become the
seller's friend because it's very hard for the friend to tell you
no. And however long it takes, however relationships you have to do whatever you
(34:35):
have to do to become them and be friend, I mean, earn their trust,
right? That they trust you and vice versa and that they go to bat
for you. So now you are in this field,
when we've talked on the phone a few times, you're on our way to San
Diego, you're on your way to wherever. And you make that little
stanchion at the Whole Foods or wherever you're at and you're pouring off
(34:56):
a quarter of an ounce, right? Is it the maximum you can pour. Of an
alcohol in a retail. Does anybody keep going to the line more times until they
get you like an axe? It's
happened. So how is the response then on
the point of sale? At the point of sale, like you're standing again for
the listeners. I don't think anybody else could do this
(35:18):
part of the work. In other words, you could job this out to somebody else.
Right. But where's that enthusiasm and that commitment, that passion
it takes that you have to do this? Well,
as we get bigger, we'll be forced to go down the road.
But we have hosted the demos ourselves
from the beginning. And that whole sips
(35:39):
to lips, if people try it, they buy it. So there's no
question. And we have tried to work with other people to
train them to do what we do and stuff, but they're not as
engaged. No, they're not. You know, we're as passionate as you
can get. And so anytime we have a
live, wet demo where people actually can try it,
(36:02):
we always sell out. We always sell out. It's.
It's just an. It's a very easy sale
because. Kind of an interesting thought, because you wouldn't think necessarily
with liquor. It is about the story. I
mean, if you two are standing there and you're telling this story,
and the passion's coming from your eyes, that
(36:26):
sells. I remember at Whole Foods, we were in Columbus Circle in New
York, and the guy was supposed to be cutting apples and putting peanut butter on
him, and he had no idea what he was doing. He was sent there, being
paid to stand there, asked me if I had a knife if he
could cut the apples. And I thought, this is the worst
demonstration of service I've ever seen. But I'm thinking to myself now, you know,
(36:47):
wine is about the story. That's what has to sell today,
because you'll get lost in the myriad of
choices. And here you guys are telling the story. Point of sale. I think that's
a great position for you.
You know, it makes instant fans. You know, if
people like the product, they like us.
(37:09):
They like the story. Like you said, they continue to buy.
Yeah. And they tell their friends, and so. Do you give them. Like, here's. Like,
you're in a store, so they obviously. That store or that is selling
the product. Right, right. So they know they can come back to that store to
get more. Right, right. And of course, that has to happen in order for the
store to continue wanting to have the product there, because. Exactly. It's taking up
(37:31):
shelf space. Right. And how are you finding these locations to. To go
pour at? Well, we've been
to. I mean, they're all. We've been all over California. Who
sets them up? You guys are making fun of them. We do. Well, for example,
like, with Bristol Farms, they're. They're a great client of ours.
They have six locations in California that are licensed
(37:52):
for wet demos. So we can
do dry demos where. Spray it in a cup or, you know, talk. Just tell
the story. It's not as effective, but, you know, we've done
those. But we've gone all over California
to do the. The wet demos. And they have a. A
system, a very organized one, actually, where, you know, vendors
(38:15):
can go on and just schedule it on their calendar,
and then we just show up. Yeah, that's great.
That's. You know, they. So I have a legal question, a
technical question. I went to Whole Foods here, and they were pouring Corona
non Alkali, but I had to stand in line and
said, People 21 are over.
(38:38):
I didn't understand it. I don't quite know why that
is, but probably because it's in the liquor department. Yeah. I don't know. It's
actually the olives. Yeah. So tell me what we brought today. You brought
the. I've tasted the gin martini, I've tasted the Manhattan.
I tasted the bourbon based old fashioned. Yeah, the Old Fashioned.
We have a rum daiquiri that's. That's brand new. That's the newest one.
(39:01):
And that's a kill that tastes the mule. The Moscow mule.
Moscow Mule. And then we have the improved whiskey cocktail, which. That's the
one that won best in class in double gold at the San Francisco World
Spirits Competition. They've all won awards. They've all won
gold or double gold. And that one
is special. It's kind of a fancy old fashioned. It
(39:24):
was one of the first cocktails ever published in a book. 1862,
really. In fact, when we submitted the name to the TTB for our
approval, they kicked it back and said, no, you need to call it something
that is a real cocktail. And we had to send them the
historic pages from the books to
show them that this is actually the original cocktail. And
(39:46):
so it's rye whiskey, marasca
maraschino liqueur and angostura bitters. And it's
a. It's a great. I think I tasted that one too. That was one of
the first. You might have. Yeah, you really did. So when you submit to
these contests, which are probably relatively new when it comes to, you
know, wine tasting and judging has been around for a long time, but probably alcohol
(40:08):
judging are not as, you know, popular, but
I'm sure it happens. Are you seeing more and more brands as you
submit? Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. There are a lot of brands, a. Lot of
people submit, but the, you know, the,
the circle that the winners are actually really good.
I mean, we've. Their competition is fierce and
(40:32):
you know, naturally there's a million tequilas and bourbons and, you
know, all kinds of different things. And that as.
As tough as our market is, the. I would not be
wanting to launch a tequila brand or a, you know. Well, I don't get
it. It's. I've never understood that. A million of them. How many?
But very popular. And there's a lot of good ones. A lot of. A lot
(40:54):
of really good ones. But. But it was a really interesting
experience this past year when we won the big award. Yeah. We were invited to
be at the top Shelf tasting and did a whole big dog and
pony show and. And it was not only great
to talk to other winners and other people in the
industry and learn from them, and we just had just
(41:16):
a really spectacular experience. And San Francisco is
the most respected competition
in the industry. Are you enjoying this side of the fence, then? We're
having fun. Yeah. Yeah, it's been. It's been a lot of fun. You're still together?
Yeah, so far, so good. She hasn't kicked me out yet,
but we've. We've met some really great people
(41:39):
and had some really great experiences, you know.
You know, it's interesting this side of the fence because I.
I work with Sandra every day for 25 years, and we even had a
rolling window between our. Our offices, a couple of
different buildings, and I swore I'd never do that again, but.
(41:59):
So it's not up in a door between like an idiot this time,
but we're. We're enjoying. Even though I don't sell wine
anymore, this podcast and other things I do in the industry
have opened more doors for us when we
travel and people we meet. Have you seen
a change in the relationships outwardly from now that
(42:22):
you're out in the street pouring stuff off, meeting the reps
in their own place and teaching them about your product? Have you seen a different
set of relationships? It's a different kind of
relationship. I mean, when we had the restaurant, it was more,
you know, we've met a lot of winemakers and a lot of,
you know, distillers and things like that, but now we're.
(42:44):
It's a different part of the industry, and we're meeting a lot
of just different, interesting people,
as well as, you know, the people on the retail and whether it's a hotel
or a restaurant or a, you know, a stadium or, you know, whatever it is,
it's. It's been a very different dynamic, but a really
(43:05):
interesting one. I know that you were kegging
these things. You still doing that? We are. In fact, we're going to be
launching the Alameda Fairgrounds in the next couple weeks.
To me, it just seems like a. I've had kegged wine and it's terrible.
I mean, generally, they put crap in the keg, or go ahead, just put in
the keg. You know, who's going to care if they're getting a spigot full of
(43:27):
wine? But in this case, wow, what an opportunity
for a venue to have a real cocktail
that doesn't require crafting on the fly. As you experience at the
restaurant no labor. No labor, no waste,
no prep, no training. Literally anybody can
pour. And the life in the keg is probably endless. Pretty much,
(43:49):
yeah. Is there shelf life to these right now? Even the fruit based
ones? So long? We've tested them up to three years now and they're
as good as it really made them. They're really good. Well, that's kind of interesting
because we were in Paris. We went
back last week, two weeks ago, but the first time we went to this restaurant,
Le Tupli, which is part of the LVMH group. And we
(44:11):
were having a great time there. And the menu came and there
was a while there, and I didn't know they did in Paris, but there was
a while there where restaurants in New York were serving like 25
year old Jim Beam and they had a 35 year old
Gordon's gin martini. Wow. I don't know where
you find this stuff. And I had to do it because that was my dad's
(44:32):
favorite gin and he drank martinis and so I ordered this
thing and it was, it was interesting. There were little black specks in it. I
think that was very good. Bugs.
I don't know what gin throws off cocktails and diamonds. Avoid black
specs. But I thought, how interesting. This is like
vintage gin. I never heard of that before.
(44:54):
But the fact that you can have that
without refrigeration, it could sit there for shelf. Yeah. Unlike, you know,
wine ages in the bottle. But this does not. Liquor does not.
Liquor does not. And so, I mean, even after we open it,
once you put the top back on, it stays for the longest time.
The citrus ones, I would refrigerate after they're open, but otherwise,
(45:16):
no. And just this whole idea of cocktails on
tap for venues, as we learned in the, in
the restaurant industry, just makes so
much sense. And, you know, it's hard to find
labor. It's hard to find. You know, it's a different pitch when you're going
out. It is, it's a different pitch, but it's an easy one.
(45:39):
We actually did a side by side. My partner
Pete was our bar manager from the Raymond and
he's a real bartender. He knows what he's doing. I am not. And
so we did a side by side and he made a simple old
fashioned, just, you know, start to finish a
couple shots of bourbon, some bitters, some sugar. In the time he made
(46:01):
one, I made 14. So that's
money. And when you're at a Dodger, what. A great
study, right? Yeah. And it's just
I'm sure you have too. I've gone to Dodger Stadium, waited in line
for 25 minutes, missed an inning, and
to get a $30 bad drink. Yeah, that's
(46:23):
amazing. And so this can pump them out in seconds. And how do we get
to these venues? Like, how would you go to Dodder Stadium? Well,
those are tricky. You know, you're talking about AEG and the, you know,
the big sponsorships and
so it's. Smaller venues
(46:44):
are easier. Yeah. The national ones require
some finesse. You think like the Whiskey a Gogos and this. All those places like
on Sunset would. Oh, yeah. Eat this up. Yeah.
Because, you know, they're cranking out cocktails like crazy. And so for
your growth then. And we're out of time already,
you can add skus. Continue to make cocktails that
(47:06):
people we. Don'T want to, you know, have. You don't have like endless list of
cocktails. You know, that kind of, when you, when you said that and that shelf
kind of reminds me of that. There was that chocolate wine that came out, the
Danish based chocolate wine that was really hot like 15 years ago.
They ended up with like 30 flavors, you know, mint and cream, de mint and
this and the raspberry and strawberry. And I thought, wow, I'm overwhelmed
(47:27):
just looking at the shelf, you know, and I was not into chocolate wine, but
I wanted, I was studying something at the time. So I think you're right. You
know, you got to keep your balance and your mix to the popular things. But
this is such uncharted territory. What do you think is next?
Well, I think, you know, as we go, customers will
tell us what is good and what isn't. You know, it may be a
(47:50):
great cocktail, it just may not be popular. Yeah. And so, you know,
we're, we know a margarita is going to kill it and
the daiquiri is going to be a smash. And our Old Fashioned
is a winner every time. But as we go,
we'll probably maintain the six to eight cocktails on our list of
cocktails, but we'll remove one, one or two
(48:13):
that maybe isn't as popular as others.
I actually would like to do one non alcoholic cocktail
just because there's, there's a demand for that.
And, and like with our group of friends, when you have 12 people
and somebody's driving somebody home
and doesn't want. To drink, you see my face go. Blank like, I know, I
(48:35):
know, I know it's true. But I mean, what about. I, I just want,
if somebody doesn't feel like drinking, I Want everybody to have the
same experience and just feel like they're part of the group. I just
put brown water in a bottle. It's like
decaf coffee. It's like weird fancy
food show a couple years ago when they moved into Vegas from San Francisco,
(48:58):
and the preeminent theme for beverages was non alcoholic everything. So
there's non alcoholic Prosecco and white wine, red wine, and then there's. I don't know
how many non alcoholic distilled spirit type
products there were, but there were a lot. And for me,
they made zero sense that they were undrinkable. But they were trying. They were using
Indian spices and trying. I don't see what the point of that is. But, you
(49:19):
know, you see at Whole Foods, you know, a $7.50 of non alcoholic
bourbon, you know, they're 35, 40 bucks. It's. It's there.
But, you know, then you also get back to this whole thing of making something
that tastes like a cocktail. Yeah. Instead of making a
cocktail. So I, you know, that could be a philosophical.
This could be the first argument. Yeah. Well, you know what? Honestly,
(49:42):
it took us years to crack the code on citrus.
And so now we have the Moscow Mule and the
daiquiri and the margaritas coming out. Now that we have
figured that out, I think that will lead us to a. When you
guys came up with this, and then we'll wrap it up. But when you guys
came up with this, you're sitting at the bar, who knows what you're doing, but
(50:03):
you're at the restaurant, you're talking to your bartender, and the
idea comes that you're already making
prefabbing cocktails, so to speak, for that. Nice work.
Was there a point there where you, like, you couldn't wait to get started? Like,
I was just like, wow, this is so much fun. This is going to be
really fun. And wow, I got to get out of here. Kind of
(50:24):
thing with this. Yeah. I think we
reached a point where we actually had it ready to
bottle and in the bottle. And we were so
excited about what it was and the quality that it was
and what it represented as a. A turn in the industry
that we couldn't wait to see it on the shelf. Wow. It
(50:47):
was a. It was an interesting
experience going to some of these
retailers and having them say, we love it. We have no space,
or we, you know, that was, that was the education
that was challenging and frustrating
that, you know, building a brand like this when
(51:11):
literally we've never had anybody say we don't like it. Yeah.
But now will you buy it? My only regret is that we weren't out
during COVID because people wanted to treat themselves, make
themselves feel a little bit better, you know, trapped at home.
And this would have helped. Well, I don't, I, I would agree with that.
But then there's, you know, as you know, my daughter's living with us because
(51:34):
they got displaced by the fires. That house didn't burn, but they can't live there
now. And that generation, you know, they are into
convenience and they are into experience and
they are pretty critical of cocktails. I mean, they're
sushi bars and they spend $300 for dinner. And I don't
think you missed that curve. It's just me to tell more people about it to
(51:56):
get them to understand. But doordash and, you know,
postma and all that stuff is part of their lifestyle. Yeah, yeah.
And that whole convenience thing is part of their lifestyle. Dried meat.
But I think that this is a huge part of that. Well,
and that's why, you know, back to the demos and things like that, if
they try it, they will buy it. And there's never a
(52:20):
barrier with price or anything like that. We're probably the most expensive
one on the shelf. You know, we're, you know, this is two to
three cocktails in a bottle, and it's anywhere from 14 to $16,
depending on where you buy it. It could be 13. And so this is how
many ounces? That's eight ounces, 200 milliliters. So
206 and a half ounces, something like that. So, yeah, that's
(52:42):
just sort of two cocktails maybe. Yeah, well, it depends. Maybe at the
Raymond, they're a little cocktail. But
you know, where can you go and get a real high quality
cocktail for seven bucks? Oh, you can't. That's impossible.
Yeah. So when people try. Amazing. Really, you think about it that
way, right? I can't do it. Great value. Yeah. And even at
(53:04):
the hotels where they're charging 25 or 30 bucks for a bottle, they're
saying, well, you can go down to the lobby bar and pay 20 bucks for
one martini or we'll bring you two. And yeah, you
know, so it's. Well, this is, you know,
it's about time we had a chance to tell the story and I hope
we can do it again. Thank you. Your next level of,
(53:26):
of not to say success, you're already successful, but I mean, the next level of
sort of the complications that arise and the changes in our market, in our
industry, it's such A. I think you've learned the passion of this
industry is critical, but once you see it and
you realize what it does for people and how it makes them feel and the
things you're providing or. There's nothing like it.
(53:48):
You know, I related to golf. It's like, I'm a terrible
golfer, but in every 18 holes, I'll hit that one
ESPN highlight shot. Yeah, right. And then. And then you're excited
again. It'll bring it back. Every time we get a yes, we're like,
this is great. You know, this is fun. So interesting to hear the story from
the ground up. And thanks for coming, and thank you for having us.
(54:11):
We'll do it again. Thank you. The Raymond. No, I'm kidding.
Cheers. Cheers.
The bar has been set very low. So people's
expectations for a you tell them a bottle of
cocktail or can cocktail, whatever, they expect it to not be great.
And so when they're surprised when they try it and they're surprised that
it's good, that's what we hope will bring them back to bite
again. Sit back and grab a glass. It's
(00:22):
Wine Talks with Paul K.
Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul K. And we are in studio in beautiful
Southern California today about to have a conversation with Robin
Leslie Levy. Yes, got that right.
Why do I doubt myself? As soon as I start introductions
in just a moment. I just got back from our
(00:45):
editor the episode for Song of America,
which is the Agogenian family, starting with an Armenian Los
Angeles racing history family. Incredible conversation. Look
for that to come out soon. But not why we're here. Here to have a
conversation with Rob and Leslie. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Thank you.
It's good to see you guys in a professional environment. We always have dinner
(01:06):
or whatever. That's fun. You
guys are founders of the Ready to Drink Cocktail.
And for the listeners, RTD's, which is quite a
acronym these days, Knox and Dobson.
We're going to get on that subject in a minute. In fact, I see you've
got like, how many more do you have now? We have six now and
(01:26):
soon we'll have seven. Wow. Yeah. When we first started, two or
three. Yeah. Yeah. We originally launched with four, but
yeah, it's beginning to grow and we're seeing what, what takes and what doesn't
and people like. And we're going to go back a little further. Not
like when you met and all that kind of stupid stuff.
Because we're. Going to talk about restaurateur
(01:50):
because you guys were the proprietors of the very famous
restaurant, an iconic restaurant in less in this Pasadena called the
Raymond. We were. And I think where this idea burgeoned
from. But talk about the restaurant business. How long were you doing that? 18
years. Yeah. That's long enough to pull your hair. Out, I would say. 18
long years. Yeah. Yeah, you all have your hair. So
(02:12):
that's good. A little bit. Not, not much more in
the first place, you know, we, we never, never intended
to own a restaurant. We were buying and selling real estate
and the. We knew the owner
of the Raymond. We were fixing up a building across the street and
having lunch there and asked her if she would sell an apartment building she
(02:35):
owned behind the restaurant. And initially she
said no. And we just, you know, we kept Going in, she finally said, you
know what? I'm ready to retire here. If you'll buy the restaurant, I'll sell you
the building. Oh, wow. And so we had a good friend
who was a chef, and
this was her dream. I mean, this was like buying Chez Panisse in
(02:56):
Pasadena, which was great. And so she agreed
that she would take the restaurant. We had no interest in the restaurant at all.
And we went into escrow, and two weeks before closing, her
investors pulled out and we owned a restaurant. Wow. I can tell
you for sure that is not the way you want to learn the restaurant business.
It's a crash course, that's for sure. Did you go right into the kitchen or
(03:19):
what did you do? I mean, like. No, we. I mean, our
initial thought was we got to sell this thing before we go
bankrupt or crazy. And we
had to hire a chef. Had to hire a chef because she was the chef.
And that's the. That is a fun experience. It was. Yep,
yep. Chefs, as you may know, can be
(03:40):
temperamental. Yes. The kitchen was
50 years old. The building was falling down. That part we
knew how to do, but the rest of it we didn't. And fortunately, we
had enough good friends from around town that were in
the business that kind of kept us from going off the rails. And
we. One thing led to another, and
(04:02):
18 years later, we were so. But it was fun. Was. You said
the Chez Panisse. And for the. For the listeners, Jezebel's is a famed restaurant in
the Berkeley area owned by Alice Waters, who probably
single handedly changed the direction of food in America. But that's
what you felt like this place was at the time. The reputation of Raymond
Craftsman Cottage. Yeah, right. It was really cool,
(04:24):
1800s, but no one steps into the restaurant business like, you
know, not knowing anything. Right. And honestly, you know, if it
weren't the Raymond, we would. I don't think we
would have stood a chance. I think we, you know, we. We lucked out in
that it already had a history. Yeah, right. And the former owner, the
founder of the Raymond, she came up with
(04:46):
Julia Child. Really. So they were. They were
compatriots. They were local. Julia Child was from Pasadena
and. Or lived in Pasadena. And so there was. There
was a lot of history. A very formal French restaurant when we took it over.
White tablecloths, very formal. And
what we found is that when you're going to a formal restaurant, you go about
(05:09):
once a year for your birthday or your anniversary. So we wanted
to make it more casual so that people would come Every day.
So it kind of became kind of like the cheers of Pasadena.
Yeah. I mean, were you guys there every day in the beginning?
We were here a lot, Leslie. More than me. You know, I had my
business and. But the, the goal
(05:31):
was to make it. Instead of wearing a suit, you're wearing jeans
and it was okay to come in shorts and hang out. And you know,
that, that was. The goal was to make it more of a
neighborhood hangout where you would. Drop by more often.
Yeah. Can you even, you know, can you even run a restaurant
without being there? I mean, is that, is a restaurant a non proprietor type? Unless
(05:53):
it's corporate America, like where, you know, you know, Black Angus or something or,
you know, Olive Garden. But if you're running a restaurant like that, that's specific. And
then we'll get into this, this idea now. But is that even possible to do
without being there every day? Practically? I was there
every day, but just. Not, you know, you weren't waiting tables.
I wasn't waiting tables. But you know, we, we wined and dined people
(06:16):
there. We had our friends there. We were always entertaining there.
It was like having people come over to your. It's like having a party every
day. Would you, would you trade that? I mean, like,
you're looking at the wine shop picture right there. My dad, my dad acquired that
wine shop because it was sort of an opposite thing. He's. I won't buy your
pharmacy unless you sell me the wine shop with it. Sort of the opposite. But
(06:37):
thank goodness that's what happened. My career came from this insistence. And
so here you are now, you know, in the marketplace with, with Knox and
Dobson rtd. Would you trade now the experience as a restaurant tour for
anything to get here? I don't think so. I mean, I think
it really helped us, like
partnership with the community. We've done a lot of
(06:59):
events. We've had events, political
events, fundraisers, all kinds of things at
the restaurant, which we never would have been able to do if we weren't involved
in the restaurant. We've met amazing people. I
mean, it's been a real eye
opening experience. You know, operating a restaurant, not
(07:21):
so much fun. But the people and the social aspect of
it was phenomenal. But it's put you on this treadmill right here.
You wouldn't possibly be ready to drink cocktails without the restaurant. Not at
all. In fact, as you may recall,
in 2010, and this is what launched
us in this direction. We knew
(07:45):
early on that we had to build a bar. We had a bar but it
wasn't really a bar. It was more of a service bar. And
they were doing virtually no business in the bar, really.
$1,500 a month. Would that formula even remotely work
today without the margins in a liquor? Not a chance. And
so we knew we had to build a bar. We didn't know how. We didn't
(08:07):
know what it should look like or feel like. And Leslie, by
chance, through a friend, met some people
who had built all the crazy
successful craft cocktail bars downtown.
And she came back and, you know, said, we've got the
idea. And so I went with them on this little bar
(08:30):
crawl, and together we just said, well, this is it. And just by
chance, by luck, it happened to be at
the very beginning of the craft cocktail craze,
and. And even more lucky, we were the only
ones to do it outside of downtown LA. So we were
the first in the St. Gabriel Valley, and it made
(08:53):
us famous. You know, it wasn't a big space, so
actually, probably. That probably lent to some of the success, like, well, it's very small.
You can't just walk in and expect to get buffalo wings here. You're gonna have
to time this and make it work. And
it created this whole vibe in the community. And we
had regulars who were there. You all the time,
(09:15):
and just. But it was a really wonderful
experience. And at that time,
bottled cocktails really didn't exist. Yeah, right. It's not that
long ago. No. This whole phenomenon just kind of happened in the
last 10 years. And so we were at the very
beginning. We just couldn't get it right
(09:38):
soon enough. And then Covid hit. Covid
hit our bottles. What was it called? 18.
1886. 1886. The year I. I knew about it, but I
had. I'd only been there a couple of times, but it was. How old was
that bar when you sold the restaurant? We built it in
2010. Really? It's that young? Yeah, I'm gonna say it's that
(10:00):
young. Yeah. And, you know, before that, it was. It truly was just
a service bar. It was just. There was nothing there. It was part
of the dining room. And so
it kind of took on a life of its own and became
its own special little gem. And,
I mean, there were people that would come to the bar
(10:23):
that didn't realize we had a restaurant. Now, see, this is
really interesting because I think in most formulas of most restaurants that
I've experienced through all my career doing this, doing the liquor and wine
thing is that if the bar, if you have to go through the Restaurant to
get to the bar. They're not generally that successful. People don't want to have to
like interrupt dinner, walk through a path and get to a bar.
(10:45):
And I've seen it fail many times in many different places. But here you
kind of had to do that. Right. To get. We had a separate entrance for
the bar. Oh, you did. Okay. But most people came right through the front door.
And you know, most of our seating was on the patio anyway. Yeah.
So the main dining room was actually pretty small. Yeah.
So what would craft cocktail mean when you. When you were out
(11:07):
bar crawling in la. And I remember
that, I remember when this all started. But what would you
consider what was considered a craft cocktail? Fresh ingredients.
Yeah, fresh ingredients. Everything was made in front of you
right there. You know, you spent five minutes watching
the guy make the fancy. So whether it was a six to one gin
(11:30):
martini or whether it was a, you know, a muddled, you
know, mango margarita, you. You watched
it. You watched that take time and money and energy to do it. Did it,
did. And, and part of what led us down
this path was we had days at the restaurant
on a busy weekend when people were waiting 20, 20, 30 minutes
(11:52):
for a drink because every drink was so labor
intensive. Right. We started batching our cocktails
and so we could get our most popular
cocktails into the hands of customers quickly.
And that's where this all kind of came from. So
now let's jump to Knox. Knox and Dobs.
(12:14):
It's. Yeah, there are. There were surprise. Some big
houses that started this idea of a ready to drink cocktail. I mean, I think
there were other types of canned and bottled beverages.
Club canned cocktail. Yeah. Right. That was it that you could buy. My dad even
had them at the store at some point in time, but
cans. Yeah, most of them had a lot of
(12:35):
sugar in them and other
ingredients. And we just wanted to do it exactly the
way you would have a cocktail at a bar. Right. And that's
what took us so long to figure this out, is because
we spent all this time with flavorists and
food scientists and all these different
(12:59):
secret, fancy methods of trying to make it taste like
a cocktail, when in the end we
wanted to make a real cocktail, just a cocktail. And so
it took some time. That's an interesting proposition because my niece,
who's coming today, you might meet her on your way out, is. Had started a
brand of salad dressing I think we might have spoken about a little bit and
(13:22):
that she had the same experience. You know, here's my salad dressing. And
then now we've got to figure out a way to put it in a package.
And the immediate response is, let's get a food scientist on
board and start manipulating the things that we have in our quivers
to make these concoctions. When the reality is, you know, we just
want gin and vermouth in there. Right? That's right, Yes. I
(13:43):
mean, the trick is when you're making a thousand gallons, the
recipe is different than when you're making one. So. Okay,
that, so is that, that a scale issue? Like if I
took, I, I make my martinis sometimes eight to one,
six to one, something like that. My dad prefers, you know, six to one. He's
an English guy. You know, he grew up in an English environment. So
(14:05):
if I was to make 20 gallons of it, I wouldn't do 6 to 1.
At that point, there's a balancing act. Yeah,
the, the flavors either become too,
too intense or too diminished. Yeah. You have to
balance it out and adjust your, your recipe to make up. For that
martini is a tricky one because everybody likes their martini just
(14:27):
slightly different. So we're, we're, we're having fun
with, with pleasing people that love a gin martini.
Ours is not a bike martini. So, so right there
we have our crowd of gin connoisseurs.
Well, omg, go to Paris and try to order a dry martini and you just
get the range of what you taste from one bar to the other is
(14:51):
just unbelievable. It's like, no, I just want a little martini.
When you walked in and I was telling you about Connor, I had both my
son in laws out when he first gave me some samples. And I tasted
your gin martini against mine, which I consider myself an expert in this field thanks
to my father, Manhattan's as well. I've done a lot of experimenting with
(15:11):
Manhattan's and man, they were so close.
I mean, I will say that the fresh one made, I made right then was
maybe 3%, you know, more interesting.
You mean ours was. Right, Ours was just for the show? Yes,
yes. So
that process then you're saying that you recanted from that process,
(15:33):
you stepped away from the food scientists and you went a different direction? Is that
what happened? We did, we, you know, we kind of came full circle and said
if we're going to make a really, a real mark, a real
cocktail and make it taste like what
we serve in the bar, we have to serve what we serve in the bar.
Right. And so. Which is aged spirits. Yeah. We ended
(15:54):
up going to distillers and convincing them to sell us
whiskey in the barrel that we then aged two to four years,
I had to convince Angostura Bitters to sell
to us because who are we? Yeah, right. In bulk. Because you
can't buy those little tiny bottles. And I can see Leslie going
there, that doesn't work. Yeah.
(16:18):
So there's so many parts to
the puzzle that required extra work
to make this all come together. Okay, so
back it up a step. So here you guys are having success with 1886
and there's people coming in. Maybe somebody said, hey, you ought to bottle these things,
or maybe you didn't, maybe you did on your own. But there's a. That's a
(16:40):
huge leap from what you're doing today.
Packaging design, TB approval. Beside, we just talked
about formulation. I mean, there's a lot of moving parts. When you
decide as two restaurateurs to take something to the market
and get it on a shelf, that's a whole different part of the business
that possibly we were aware of. Yes, we're
(17:02):
more aware of it now and we've discussed this before, but
so what was the thought process in how this was would feel
to the consumer? Like you guys were sat at dinner table
boring each other to death with details about this product. That was a
joke. And
I've been through these same conversations, by the way, many times.
(17:26):
But you're discussing what this thing should feel like, and it's not High
Noon. I mean, that stuff looks like crap and it doesn't taste much
better. So how did you come around?
This idea of a name like Knox and Dobson was very English sounding. The
octagonal, or not octagonal, but the bottle shape, the color,
everything takes a decision. It's kind of like building a house. You got to know
(17:49):
where every plug's gonna go and every light switch. That's true. Well, I will say
that one thing we learned from the restaurant business is people eat with their eyes
first. And so we wanted to make a product that
looked like quality. And so that's where
we came up with the hex shaped bottle. By
chance, our partner is a
(18:11):
artist by trade, graphic artist, and he helped
us design the label and the bottle. And you know, there's some
science in the color of the bottle. It's a deep purple, which
protects what's in the bottle. So, you know, the old
apothecary bottles from back in the day protected what
was inside. And so there's that. And so
(18:32):
we started there and you know, we knew, we knew we had a good
cocktail. We knew how to make a good cocktail.
Now translating that to the market and
making people see that this looks
really good. So maybe I should try it. It's not, you know,
(18:53):
High Noon. It's not, you know, a can on the shelf in the sea of
cans on the shelf. Isn't that interesting, though. You would think that corporate America,
these giant organizations that have these boardrooms full of people
would have a similar thought process at some points, in other words. Or they're just
like, well, we got to get the thing out as cheap as we can get
it, and we're going to use the worst materials that we can find, and we're
(19:13):
just going to get on the shelf and take our market share to, you
know, rely on our market share to get these things out there.
That is generally the thought process is they, they use
their clout and inexpensive
ingredients. Yeah, they, they, they.
The bar has been set very low. So people's
(19:37):
expectations for a. You tell them a bottle,
cocktail or canned cocktail, whatever, they expect it to not be great.
And so when they're surprised when they try it and they're surprised that
it's good, that's what we hope will bring them back to bite
again. It's kind of interesting. Jog. They thought, which doesn't
happen very often, that in
(20:00):
the wine trade, the stuff on the shelf that we walk in and we see
the apothecary reds. Apothecary reds, and we see the Josh's and we
see all the same stuff at all the markets. It's annoying, but it's a very
important part of the industry to get people that otherwise wouldn't
drink wine to start trying wine. They're sweeter, they taste. You know, they're not
very complex. And it sounds like maybe that's
(20:22):
the segmentation that's happening maybe in your trade that. Yeah, the
High Noons and all the other canned beverages that are coming out
aren't really necessary. Competition for a craft cocktail
in a bottle, is that segmented yet?
Not as much as we would hope. Yeah, it's.
(20:44):
People are kind of grabbing whatever's easiest. Yeah.
If you look at the majority of cocktails on the shelf,
they're very low abv. So less
alcohol, more profit margin. They usually
make up for it with flavorings and sugar and all of that,
but you can drink a few of them. It's like drinking a beer. It's very,
(21:06):
very low alcohol. These are serious
cocktails. They're exactly what you get in the bar. Yeah. So it's, it's,
you know, you're not going to down three or four of these. It's it's
almost the first thing I look at. Just maybe because I'm in the industry, when
somebody brings something to the table that's one of these, I immediately go to the
alcohol by volume. I look at that, right. And I realize I can
(21:28):
tell it by looking at it. What kind of canned
cocktail this is, Is it real or fake? If it's. If it's a low
alcohol cocktail, then it
that they've made the decision to make a cocktail that
tastes like a cocktail. Yeah. Right. But it's not a real cocktail,
you know, so it's. So you got to the point where you've got this bottle,
(21:49):
I got the design, which is great. The name. Where'd the name come
from? Corner I grew up on in Chicago.
Come on. Knox and Dobson. That's
great. We had a group of kids that hung out
literally every day on this corner. There was a park right
there. That is so clever. Yeah, well, you know, we went round and round
(22:11):
with names. I mean, we were writing down names
that nobody could agree on. And
one day I just threw this out and we just kept coming back to it.
Yeah, it just sounds like an old. Pub and yeah, it's beautiful. It's very
English sounding. Yeah. And the packaging too. Very old school.
Yeah, I've been through that 25 times,
(22:32):
naming wine brands and I get the same reaction. And I'd come up with something
wacky because that's all that wasn't taken. Because Oak
everything and bridge everything and Valley, this was all taken.
There are actually books on the history of street names
and we looked through them and we were really hoping that these would have
some value. Civil War general or something. Turned out to
(22:53):
be so much banker and a builder, it was
nothing ex. Con, which would
be Chicago. It wouldn't be best. So
I want to stop right there. Timeline. Now, you
decided all this and you still haven't taken it to market yet,
but you think you've got a formula. Had anything surprised you up
(23:16):
until that point, like, why do we get into this? Or
can't wait to get this thing going because this is so much fun. Well,
we had gone so far down the road with this. It was sort of a
decision of, are we going to do this or are we not? And
we had just put so much time and effort into. Into it. We just, it
(23:36):
was a natural. We just, we had to do it. And
so. But literally every,
every turn has been an education. I mean,
every, like you said, the ttb. Oh, you need an approval for
that. Oh, you need an approval for the label
or the formulation or the. Yeah, we're working on a
(23:58):
margarita. Working on that right now. So we need very close. What's the
problem? There's no problem. It's just time consuming. We're
importing 100% blue agave tequila. Oh, tequila. Yeah.
And yeah, that's apparently a headache giant.
If you want it to be actual tequila. Right? Yeah. So you can buy
truckloads of what they call mixto, which is, you know, not really
(24:20):
tequila. We wanted to do the real thing just like the rest of
these. But it's taken us two years to get through the. Very
close. I've heard that. But when you taste.
Where were we? At the Gardens. One of the. One of the
disconsol gardens. And they had a. Halfway through they had this little hut and you
could get a shot of tequila and it was Cuervo and it was
(24:41):
undrinkable. I mean, we've gotten so used to having. I mean, that's the right thing
to do is get the right stuff. Because I don't think anybody accepts
those brands anymore as far as legitimate tastes.
We're actually really excited. We're going to be importing a.
A family owned. Are you elevating it as well? We
are. They've never been available in the United States and
(25:03):
so we're bringing them in for the first time and we're gonna, you know, co
brand with them and. Wow, that's great. Excited about it. Okay, so you jumped
in two feet. You're. This is going. We got this cool bottle. We got
this thing and you get it in the bottle.
Did you say, oh, crap, what do you do now?
Or you had relationships in the liquor business
(25:25):
because of the bar. You had some kind of guidepost that was. We had
a lot of people that wanted to see us be successful in this. So
we have a lot of support behind us, just people that want us to do
well in this. So we're feeling appreciating
where we are. I mean, we're like a little company
and we're already now in Bristol Farms. But you
(25:48):
are cutting new teeth here. I mean, you're cutting new teeth for
yourself and you're cutting your teeth for a market segment that really hadn't been
tapped that way. At least a premium cocktail. And so all those things
in our industry take a little bit of extra
persistence and perseverance. It has been
a challenge, no doubt, because
(26:12):
the bar has been set low and people do expect
less convincing retailers that there's
a market for premium has been. That's an Interesting
point. Same with wine. It's like, can we sell that
$150 bottle of wine on our shelves
when everybody's looking for the $20 bottle of wine? So it's the
(26:33):
same thing here. It's been a, you know, when they try it, they love
it. But now then they have to make that extra decision of can we sell
it? You know, so I'm going to lay the landscape for the listeners a little
bit. You have a product like this, whether it's wine or ready to drink cocktail
or white claw or whatever you're trying to sell. In the beverage world, the competition
is extremely high. The shelf space is limited and the budgets are
(26:55):
down. And, and not only that, like if you ever been to Arthur J
in the restaurant in Manhattan Beach Steakhouse?
No. No. Part of that Simsies group. Anyway, they have an incredible list which
you don't see wine lists like this anymore. Yeah. Why?
Because. Well, because if you have 75, and I guess there were 75
vendors for this one list, there's actually like a hundred. Well, that's a
(27:18):
hundred different checks you've got to write a hundred different salespeople. Number of
salespeople, let's say 20. But you've got to have just
exponentially grows the amount of work it takes to put something on the shelf. Yeah.
And I'm going to assume that when you walk into a retailer or a
restaurant or whatever you're trying to sell and say, look, I've got this product and
you're going to. Every objection in the world, at least the least of
(27:39):
which now is the quality of the product. This is
really good. But I don't want a new vendor.
At some of the hotels we're at, the bartenders actually
want to taste it. And some of them have actually liked
ours better than what they actually make. So
that's kind of fun when that happens. That's really great. Yeah. And
(28:01):
that has been a good market for us. You think about, you check
into a Hotel, it's 10 o'clock at night, you'd like a cocktail.
Either the bar is closed or room service comes 30
minutes later with a watered down mess. Or they can bring a bottle, has
two cocktails and a bucket of ice and it's actually good. Yeah.
Right. And so we're getting some traction there and people are starting
(28:24):
to. It's a great service actually. Yeah. Yeah. Because I never want to open the
bottle of wine that's there. It's too much and it's probably not that good.
Yeah. Or there's you know, a half bottle of tequila and what
am I going to do with the rest of it? And you're staying one night
and they're expensive. They're expensive. Okay, so you've got it in the bottle and you're.
You started brainstorming who might carry this. And for the
(28:45):
listeners, you know, you. There's two pieces of this business,
and it wasn't always like this. You could rely on a
distributor to sell the brand that create
the brand. And that happened in the old days a lot. You know, you'd hand
it off to somebody as hungry and aggressive and they would
go build this brand for you. And then the problem in most
(29:06):
cases is there's no allegiance in our industry. So once they built the
brand, if you thought you wanted to go to a bigger house, you would just
pull it from the people that made it for you. Well, that doesn't happen anymore.
You have to build your own brand, as with my niece and her salad
dressing, that no one's going to just shop it for you. So was
that a surprise? That part of it? It was. We
(29:27):
went into this thinking
that if you gave a distributor a great
product, that they would see the value in that
and simply take it and run with it, right?
Negative, negative. So literally
(29:49):
every sale that we've made in this company has been us
and it. And I guess short of you
having to put it, in fact, I have very close friends and just
got their daughter a nice internship in Bordeaux, France.
She's an enology student, but she got interested in wine
because they built this little vineyard in their house in the valley and they created
(30:12):
the wine. They had a co op come pick it and make the wine. Well,
the other day he pulled up here to pick something up. He's an architect by
trade, and there's six cases of wine in his trunk. I go, what are you
doing? He goes, making a delivery. And so I guess your option
would have been go shop it yourself. You have the licensing, go
pour these things, and then when they order 10 cases, you got to put it
(30:33):
in your truck and drive it over there. Right. So really now your supplier
is. Your distributor is doing that part logistical part for
you. Your job is to make it go to the point of
purchase locations and pour it and then they'll make sure it gets to
the location. Yeah. Build and collect it and all that. The one thing I
will say is being with a large
(30:55):
distributor, it does
open doors. Yes. So when I'm having a
conversation with whatever Marriott
corporate or, you know, a
retail chain or you Know, whatever. And I tell
them the name of our distributor, they'll say,
(31:17):
okay, you know, you're legitimate and
come talk to us. Good point. When we were first starting out,
we were with just a boutique, you know, distributor that
new brands start with. And there were many
occasions when we had a conversation with a hotel or somebody,
and they say, well, when you get with one of the majors,
(31:40):
then call us, because we don't deal with these
guys, you know, so It's a catch
22. It's a. You know, what I made is that
like there's. Well, there's much less small distributors than there used to be anyway.
But, you know, we don't want to deal with all these people. Right.
You know, the accounting department is, like, not into this. And we already know the
(32:01):
structure of the large houses. We know who to pay. We know when they're due.
We know all those issues already. We don't have to worry about it, because I
don't think listeners probably don't know, but there's very
serious restrictions on credit in our industry. You can't
just ask for 60 days credit. If you're a retailer or a
restaurant, you're entitled to 42 days, and then you're on a COD
(32:22):
basis. And some of the big distributors are. They will not
budge from that. Other ones are a little more flexible. We learned that
along the way. Well, we also learned that when you're with one of these little
boutique distributors, collections are on you. That's right. You got to go
collect. And that's hard. Yeah. When you're with an rn, DC, or a Southern, or,
you know, a breakthrough, one of the big guys, you don't pay, they don't
(32:44):
deliver. So how is that relationship then with you guys? You do. You
display the landscape out. So if you have this brand and it
goes into the Southern book, which it has, which is very thick these days,
and there's pages and pages of different types of competitive
beverages. Do you have to educate the sales team? Yes.
Oh, 100%. No question about it.
(33:08):
Well, often, because their
landscape changes. You know, they. You know, our
company, Southern, had a big layoff, so all the
people we were dealing with were no longer there. Yeah, there you go. So now
we gotta educate a whole new group. And then if you're talking to the hotel
group, that's a whole different team. The chain division
(33:29):
is different team. So there's. It's always
a. You're always. And you know, you want to be friends with these guys
because they're doing. They're. They're doing work, you know, they're. You want
them to be inspired to pull it out of their bag and talk about
you. I can't tell you how many Gazotchkas and
espresso machines. And I even my wife was going through her jewelry
(33:51):
thing the other day and there was this bar of silver that somebody had given
me. There was a Tanqueray thing. And so because they're
incented by these organizations, as you probably know by now,
like if you sell 10 cases of this Mondavi Cabernet, I'm going to send you
to Italy. And that takes their priority out of the field. So it makes
a smaller company like yours a little. A little more difficult to get the
(34:13):
attention of the brokers. If you can be a friend. I
mean, and I'm saying that because one of the first lessons I ever learned at
Xerox by one of the old school sales rep was
become the buyer's friend. In your case, become the
seller's friend because it's very hard for the friend to tell you
no. And however long it takes, however relationships you have to do whatever you
(34:35):
have to do to become them and be friend, I mean, earn their trust,
right? That they trust you and vice versa and that they go to bat
for you. So now you are in this field,
when we've talked on the phone a few times, you're on our way to San
Diego, you're on your way to wherever. And you make that little
stanchion at the Whole Foods or wherever you're at and you're pouring off
(34:56):
a quarter of an ounce, right? Is it the maximum you can pour. Of an
alcohol in a retail. Does anybody keep going to the line more times until they
get you like an axe? It's
happened. So how is the response then on
the point of sale? At the point of sale, like you're standing again for
the listeners. I don't think anybody else could do this
(35:18):
part of the work. In other words, you could job this out to somebody else.
Right. But where's that enthusiasm and that commitment, that passion
it takes that you have to do this? Well,
as we get bigger, we'll be forced to go down the road.
But we have hosted the demos ourselves
from the beginning. And that whole sips
(35:39):
to lips, if people try it, they buy it. So there's no
question. And we have tried to work with other people to
train them to do what we do and stuff, but they're not as
engaged. No, they're not. You know, we're as passionate as you
can get. And so anytime we have a
live, wet demo where people actually can try it,
(36:02):
we always sell out. We always sell out. It's.
It's just an. It's a very easy sale
because. Kind of an interesting thought, because you wouldn't think necessarily
with liquor. It is about the story. I
mean, if you two are standing there and you're telling this story,
and the passion's coming from your eyes, that
(36:26):
sells. I remember at Whole Foods, we were in Columbus Circle in New
York, and the guy was supposed to be cutting apples and putting peanut butter on
him, and he had no idea what he was doing. He was sent there, being
paid to stand there, asked me if I had a knife if he
could cut the apples. And I thought, this is the worst
demonstration of service I've ever seen. But I'm thinking to myself now, you know,
(36:47):
wine is about the story. That's what has to sell today,
because you'll get lost in the myriad of
choices. And here you guys are telling the story. Point of sale. I think that's
a great position for you.
You know, it makes instant fans. You know, if
people like the product, they like us.
(37:09):
They like the story. Like you said, they continue to buy.
Yeah. And they tell their friends, and so. Do you give them. Like, here's. Like,
you're in a store, so they obviously. That store or that is selling
the product. Right, right. So they know they can come back to that store to
get more. Right, right. And of course, that has to happen in order for the
store to continue wanting to have the product there, because. Exactly. It's taking up
(37:31):
shelf space. Right. And how are you finding these locations to. To go
pour at? Well, we've been
to. I mean, they're all. We've been all over California. Who
sets them up? You guys are making fun of them. We do. Well, for example,
like, with Bristol Farms, they're. They're a great client of ours.
They have six locations in California that are licensed
(37:52):
for wet demos. So we can
do dry demos where. Spray it in a cup or, you know, talk. Just tell
the story. It's not as effective, but, you know, we've done
those. But we've gone all over California
to do the. The wet demos. And they have a. A
system, a very organized one, actually, where, you know, vendors
(38:15):
can go on and just schedule it on their calendar,
and then we just show up. Yeah, that's great.
That's. You know, they. So I have a legal question, a
technical question. I went to Whole Foods here, and they were pouring Corona
non Alkali, but I had to stand in line and
said, People 21 are over.
(38:38):
I didn't understand it. I don't quite know why that
is, but probably because it's in the liquor department. Yeah. I don't know. It's
actually the olives. Yeah. So tell me what we brought today. You brought
the. I've tasted the gin martini, I've tasted the Manhattan.
I tasted the bourbon based old fashioned. Yeah, the Old Fashioned.
We have a rum daiquiri that's. That's brand new. That's the newest one.
(39:01):
And that's a kill that tastes the mule. The Moscow mule.
Moscow Mule. And then we have the improved whiskey cocktail, which. That's the
one that won best in class in double gold at the San Francisco World
Spirits Competition. They've all won awards. They've all won
gold or double gold. And that one
is special. It's kind of a fancy old fashioned. It
(39:24):
was one of the first cocktails ever published in a book. 1862,
really. In fact, when we submitted the name to the TTB for our
approval, they kicked it back and said, no, you need to call it something
that is a real cocktail. And we had to send them the
historic pages from the books to
show them that this is actually the original cocktail. And
(39:46):
so it's rye whiskey, marasca
maraschino liqueur and angostura bitters. And it's
a. It's a great. I think I tasted that one too. That was one of
the first. You might have. Yeah, you really did. So when you submit to
these contests, which are probably relatively new when it comes to, you
know, wine tasting and judging has been around for a long time, but probably alcohol
(40:08):
judging are not as, you know, popular, but
I'm sure it happens. Are you seeing more and more brands as you
submit? Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. There are a lot of brands, a. Lot of
people submit, but the, you know, the,
the circle that the winners are actually really good.
I mean, we've. Their competition is fierce and
(40:32):
you know, naturally there's a million tequilas and bourbons and, you
know, all kinds of different things. And that as.
As tough as our market is, the. I would not be
wanting to launch a tequila brand or a, you know. Well, I don't get
it. It's. I've never understood that. A million of them. How many?
But very popular. And there's a lot of good ones. A lot of. A lot
(40:54):
of really good ones. But. But it was a really interesting
experience this past year when we won the big award. Yeah. We were invited to
be at the top Shelf tasting and did a whole big dog and
pony show and. And it was not only great
to talk to other winners and other people in the
industry and learn from them, and we just had just
(41:16):
a really spectacular experience. And San Francisco is
the most respected competition
in the industry. Are you enjoying this side of the fence, then? We're
having fun. Yeah. Yeah, it's been. It's been a lot of fun. You're still together?
Yeah, so far, so good. She hasn't kicked me out yet,
but we've. We've met some really great people
(41:39):
and had some really great experiences, you know.
You know, it's interesting this side of the fence because I.
I work with Sandra every day for 25 years, and we even had a
rolling window between our. Our offices, a couple of
different buildings, and I swore I'd never do that again, but.
(41:59):
So it's not up in a door between like an idiot this time,
but we're. We're enjoying. Even though I don't sell wine
anymore, this podcast and other things I do in the industry
have opened more doors for us when we
travel and people we meet. Have you seen
a change in the relationships outwardly from now that
(42:22):
you're out in the street pouring stuff off, meeting the reps
in their own place and teaching them about your product? Have you seen a different
set of relationships? It's a different kind of
relationship. I mean, when we had the restaurant, it was more,
you know, we've met a lot of winemakers and a lot of,
you know, distillers and things like that, but now we're.
(42:44):
It's a different part of the industry, and we're meeting a lot
of just different, interesting people,
as well as, you know, the people on the retail and whether it's a hotel
or a restaurant or a, you know, a stadium or, you know, whatever it is,
it's. It's been a very different dynamic, but a really
(43:05):
interesting one. I know that you were kegging
these things. You still doing that? We are. In fact, we're going to be
launching the Alameda Fairgrounds in the next couple weeks.
To me, it just seems like a. I've had kegged wine and it's terrible.
I mean, generally, they put crap in the keg, or go ahead, just put in
the keg. You know, who's going to care if they're getting a spigot full of
(43:27):
wine? But in this case, wow, what an opportunity
for a venue to have a real cocktail
that doesn't require crafting on the fly. As you experience at the
restaurant no labor. No labor, no waste,
no prep, no training. Literally anybody can
pour. And the life in the keg is probably endless. Pretty much,
(43:49):
yeah. Is there shelf life to these right now? Even the fruit based
ones? So long? We've tested them up to three years now and they're
as good as it really made them. They're really good. Well, that's kind of interesting
because we were in Paris. We went
back last week, two weeks ago, but the first time we went to this restaurant,
Le Tupli, which is part of the LVMH group. And we
(44:11):
were having a great time there. And the menu came and there
was a while there, and I didn't know they did in Paris, but there was
a while there where restaurants in New York were serving like 25
year old Jim Beam and they had a 35 year old
Gordon's gin martini. Wow. I don't know where
you find this stuff. And I had to do it because that was my dad's
(44:32):
favorite gin and he drank martinis and so I ordered this
thing and it was, it was interesting. There were little black specks in it. I
think that was very good. Bugs.
I don't know what gin throws off cocktails and diamonds. Avoid black
specs. But I thought, how interesting. This is like
vintage gin. I never heard of that before.
(44:54):
But the fact that you can have that
without refrigeration, it could sit there for shelf. Yeah. Unlike, you know,
wine ages in the bottle. But this does not. Liquor does not.
Liquor does not. And so, I mean, even after we open it,
once you put the top back on, it stays for the longest time.
The citrus ones, I would refrigerate after they're open, but otherwise,
(45:16):
no. And just this whole idea of cocktails on
tap for venues, as we learned in the, in
the restaurant industry, just makes so
much sense. And, you know, it's hard to find
labor. It's hard to find. You know, it's a different pitch when you're going
out. It is, it's a different pitch, but it's an easy one.
(45:39):
We actually did a side by side. My partner
Pete was our bar manager from the Raymond and
he's a real bartender. He knows what he's doing. I am not. And
so we did a side by side and he made a simple old
fashioned, just, you know, start to finish a
couple shots of bourbon, some bitters, some sugar. In the time he made
(46:01):
one, I made 14. So that's
money. And when you're at a Dodger, what. A great
study, right? Yeah. And it's just
I'm sure you have too. I've gone to Dodger Stadium, waited in line
for 25 minutes, missed an inning, and
to get a $30 bad drink. Yeah, that's
(46:23):
amazing. And so this can pump them out in seconds. And how do we get
to these venues? Like, how would you go to Dodder Stadium? Well,
those are tricky. You know, you're talking about AEG and the, you know,
the big sponsorships and
so it's. Smaller venues
(46:44):
are easier. Yeah. The national ones require
some finesse. You think like the Whiskey a Gogos and this. All those places like
on Sunset would. Oh, yeah. Eat this up. Yeah.
Because, you know, they're cranking out cocktails like crazy. And so for
your growth then. And we're out of time already,
you can add skus. Continue to make cocktails that
(47:06):
people we. Don'T want to, you know, have. You don't have like endless list of
cocktails. You know, that kind of, when you, when you said that and that shelf
kind of reminds me of that. There was that chocolate wine that came out, the
Danish based chocolate wine that was really hot like 15 years ago.
They ended up with like 30 flavors, you know, mint and cream, de mint and
this and the raspberry and strawberry. And I thought, wow, I'm overwhelmed
(47:27):
just looking at the shelf, you know, and I was not into chocolate wine, but
I wanted, I was studying something at the time. So I think you're right. You
know, you got to keep your balance and your mix to the popular things. But
this is such uncharted territory. What do you think is next?
Well, I think, you know, as we go, customers will
tell us what is good and what isn't. You know, it may be a
(47:50):
great cocktail, it just may not be popular. Yeah. And so, you know,
we're, we know a margarita is going to kill it and
the daiquiri is going to be a smash. And our Old Fashioned
is a winner every time. But as we go,
we'll probably maintain the six to eight cocktails on our list of
cocktails, but we'll remove one, one or two
(48:13):
that maybe isn't as popular as others.
I actually would like to do one non alcoholic cocktail
just because there's, there's a demand for that.
And, and like with our group of friends, when you have 12 people
and somebody's driving somebody home
and doesn't want. To drink, you see my face go. Blank like, I know, I
(48:35):
know, I know it's true. But I mean, what about. I, I just want,
if somebody doesn't feel like drinking, I Want everybody to have the
same experience and just feel like they're part of the group. I just
put brown water in a bottle. It's like
decaf coffee. It's like weird fancy
food show a couple years ago when they moved into Vegas from San Francisco,
(48:58):
and the preeminent theme for beverages was non alcoholic everything. So
there's non alcoholic Prosecco and white wine, red wine, and then there's. I don't know
how many non alcoholic distilled spirit type
products there were, but there were a lot. And for me,
they made zero sense that they were undrinkable. But they were trying. They were using
Indian spices and trying. I don't see what the point of that is. But, you
(49:19):
know, you see at Whole Foods, you know, a $7.50 of non alcoholic
bourbon, you know, they're 35, 40 bucks. It's. It's there.
But, you know, then you also get back to this whole thing of making something
that tastes like a cocktail. Yeah. Instead of making a
cocktail. So I, you know, that could be a philosophical.
This could be the first argument. Yeah. Well, you know what? Honestly,
(49:42):
it took us years to crack the code on citrus.
And so now we have the Moscow Mule and the
daiquiri and the margaritas coming out. Now that we have
figured that out, I think that will lead us to a. When you
guys came up with this, and then we'll wrap it up. But when you guys
came up with this, you're sitting at the bar, who knows what you're doing, but
(50:03):
you're at the restaurant, you're talking to your bartender, and the
idea comes that you're already making
prefabbing cocktails, so to speak, for that. Nice work.
Was there a point there where you, like, you couldn't wait to get started? Like,
I was just like, wow, this is so much fun. This is going to be
really fun. And wow, I got to get out of here. Kind of
(50:24):
thing with this. Yeah. I think we
reached a point where we actually had it ready to
bottle and in the bottle. And we were so
excited about what it was and the quality that it was
and what it represented as a. A turn in the industry
that we couldn't wait to see it on the shelf. Wow. It
(50:47):
was a. It was an interesting
experience going to some of these
retailers and having them say, we love it. We have no space,
or we, you know, that was, that was the education
that was challenging and frustrating
that, you know, building a brand like this when
(51:11):
literally we've never had anybody say we don't like it. Yeah.
But now will you buy it? My only regret is that we weren't out
during COVID because people wanted to treat themselves, make
themselves feel a little bit better, you know, trapped at home.
And this would have helped. Well, I don't, I, I would agree with that.
But then there's, you know, as you know, my daughter's living with us because
(51:34):
they got displaced by the fires. That house didn't burn, but they can't live there
now. And that generation, you know, they are into
convenience and they are into experience and
they are pretty critical of cocktails. I mean, they're
sushi bars and they spend $300 for dinner. And I don't
think you missed that curve. It's just me to tell more people about it to
(51:56):
get them to understand. But doordash and, you know,
postma and all that stuff is part of their lifestyle. Yeah, yeah.
And that whole convenience thing is part of their lifestyle. Dried meat.
But I think that this is a huge part of that. Well,
and that's why, you know, back to the demos and things like that, if
they try it, they will buy it. And there's never a
(52:20):
barrier with price or anything like that. We're probably the most expensive
one on the shelf. You know, we're, you know, this is two to
three cocktails in a bottle, and it's anywhere from 14 to $16,
depending on where you buy it. It could be 13. And so this is how
many ounces? That's eight ounces, 200 milliliters. So
206 and a half ounces, something like that. So, yeah, that's
(52:42):
just sort of two cocktails maybe. Yeah, well, it depends. Maybe at the
Raymond, they're a little cocktail. But
you know, where can you go and get a real high quality
cocktail for seven bucks? Oh, you can't. That's impossible.
Yeah. So when people try. Amazing. Really, you think about it that
way, right? I can't do it. Great value. Yeah. And even at
(53:04):
the hotels where they're charging 25 or 30 bucks for a bottle, they're
saying, well, you can go down to the lobby bar and pay 20 bucks for
one martini or we'll bring you two. And yeah, you
know, so it's. Well, this is, you know,
it's about time we had a chance to tell the story and I hope
we can do it again. Thank you. Your next level of,
(53:26):
of not to say success, you're already successful, but I mean, the next level of
sort of the complications that arise and the changes in our market, in our
industry, it's such A. I think you've learned the passion of this
industry is critical, but once you see it and
you realize what it does for people and how it makes them feel and the
things you're providing or. There's nothing like it.
(53:48):
You know, I related to golf. It's like, I'm a terrible
golfer, but in every 18 holes, I'll hit that one
ESPN highlight shot. Yeah, right. And then. And then you're excited
again. It'll bring it back. Every time we get a yes, we're like,
this is great. You know, this is fun. So interesting to hear the story from
the ground up. And thanks for coming, and thank you for having us.
(54:11):
We'll do it again. Thank you. The Raymond. No, I'm kidding.
Cheers. Cheers.
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