speaker-0 (00:00.43) If you love bourbon, if you love whiskey, you’re gonna love these conversations. So make sure you subscribe to The Bourbon Lens starting now. Welcome back to another episode of The Bourbon Lens with your host Jake. Scott is not able to join us today, but we are excited because one of the marketing geniuses of bourbon and whiskey and spirits is joining us today. So sit back and buckle into the latest episode of The Bourbon Lens. We are joined by Steven Grass. He is a marketing genius and done a lot of different things. You may have known him. from like Hendrix or Sailor Jerry, but he also has Tamworth distillery. So we’re excited to talk to you, Steven. It’s been a couple years since we last talked, but how are things? How’s life? speaker-1 (00:40.194) Things are good. mean, considering the, the world of, spirits has imploded and it’s a full on apocalypse, things are going pretty good. speaker-0 (00:52.502) It is. I feel like you have a really unique viewpoint here with the way you’ve been able to create viral brands and blow them up. So let’s start there before we get into what’s happening at Tamworth. Like as you kind of look at this landscape and this downturn of just bed alcohol in general, you know, how do you see this as kind of a marketer, but now an entrepreneur in the spirits industry? speaker-1 (01:16.972) Well, I mean, it’s interesting because, you know, on one hand it’s, it’s cyclical, but the question is how long is the cycle? Right. So is it a quick cycle or is it like a 30, 40 year cycle? I mean, obviously we all know what happened overproduction. you know, everyone thought that, that, that the sales during COVID would last forever until they didn’t. And, And there’s just, you know, that famous Warren Buffett quote, no, don’t know who’s swimming naked till the, till the tide goes out. Right. And, you know, if you borrowed a lot of money, if you ever expanded, it’s not a good time. If you, if you have a strong brand and you’ve got a war chest, then you’ll see, it’s not a good time either, but you’ll see your way through it. It depends. I mean, I think it’s interesting. let’s say, what’s the quote about, the new CEO from Diageo, said I’ve got 200 brands all going after the same consumer. so I think there’s just, it’s just bound to be a shakeout because I just think it was a good time for a long time. And so some brands will not make it. Some brands will, You know, and some, some manufacturers with deep pockets and long family histories will, uh, we’ll ride it through like they did prohibition or whatever, you know, it’s like, um, we’ll have to see. mean, I think it’s a very different story for, for craft. I mean, it also coincides with, uh, you know, the falling apart of R and DC. And, um, if you’re, if you’re a craft distiller or, you know, smaller manufacturer. And you’re not a million case brand. I think it’s hard to get the attention of your distributor right now. And I think that’s where strong branding, product differentiation, all the things that we preach. The last time I was on your podcast was when my book brand mysticism came out. But all those principles are more important than ever. But it really depends on how much whiskey do you have in the barrel house? speaker-0 (03:29.398) Exactly. speaker-1 (03:40.918) And how much of it do you need to sell before the sand runs out of the hourglass? So, and I think that’s where a lot of people are right now. And, and it’s interesting because I’m, I’m a marketer. So I make my money in, two ways. What’s funny. I make my money and I use my money. I make my money with, Quaker city mercantile. Yeah. And we have, you know, we work with a lot of different, distillers, both big and small. We work with Gallo, Diageo, Grants, Brown Foreman. We work with a lot of, a lot of different, distillers, but we also work with a lot of smaller craft guys, a lot of startup guys, a lot of these RTDs, a lot of whatever. so that, that’s what generates Quaker City’s income. And then we, it’s funny. It’s like, I remember, and then we take, give that money to Tamworth and watch them diving over a cliff. speaker-1 (04:42.4) Really, but almost but not really Again, it’s funny. I I remember when I was starting in this business I I met a he’s quite a now quite a famous artist, but he had two portfolios one was called bread and one was called butter And his bread book was all the work he did for money all his work for hire stuff and his butter work was all the stuff he did for love That was what I do for love. speaker-0 (04:46.082) The principle’s there, speaker-1 (05:09.856) I think, I think are my principles on Tamworth or why I think we’re in a very solid place with Tamworth because, we have grown very slowly and stubbornly and have focused on doing some, making great whiskeys, great gins and also some really weird shit. Right. So, and that got us the, I mean, food and wines innovator of the year. Got an Esquire Spirit of the Year for the weird shit. Like we did a smoke brandy. We did the Deer Slayer, which is a venison whiskey. We’ve done, you know, it’s funny. We actually had the BBC at Tamworth Distilling today doing a whole film documentary on our crab trapper whiskey, which is the one green invasive crabs. We make a whiskey from a beaver Castorium, which is the anal gland of the beaver called Odomos. And hey, Beaver Ass gets people in the door, right? speaker-0 (06:13.036) It does. speaker-1 (06:14.546) And and but it also and then we also we also just came out with our first our first single malt Which is excellent, it’s finished in our vsop, brandy cast And it’s a really I I mean i’m not gonna you know, I think it’s i’ve also gotten some confirmation that it’s a very good single malt so And we also I mean this is our speaker-0 (06:22.35) like that. speaker-1 (06:42.702) Old man in the mountain. It’s our, our, uh, our bourbon. And he’s had more serious offerings and they do quite well. Um, we make some great gin. So, but we’ve, after 10 years, we, we own the state of New Hampshire. We’ve just gone into Boston after 10 years. So I’m not stuck with, um, barrel houses full of unsold product. Which, it’s also, it’s interesting. I mean, we were lucky when we sold Sailor Jerry, that allowed me to build the distillery and operate it without any investors or partners. speaker-0 (07:18.158) Yeah. speaker-0 (07:26.519) Big deal. speaker-1 (07:27.436) And we’re able to make very different kinds of decisions, as opposed to, whereas this other brand that we started called the pathfinder, which is our first non-alcoholic spirit. I have, three partners on that. One of them is Guy Eskom, who used to run Johnny Walker at Diageo. he was my client at Guinness and when he left, he asked if I wanted to start an on out brand with him. speaker-0 (07:50.286) Yeah. speaker-1 (07:58.314) And I, I had tried, I’m not gonna, I don’t want to put another brand out. I tried another brand and I laugh and I thought this is snake oil. Cause I just thought this is like bullshit. It just is flavored water. So I actually thought with Pathfinder, I would create a, an actual snake oil brand. And so Pathfinder feels like it’s a snake oil brand. but man, that thing is caught on. I think we’ve raised like $10 million and it’s still like crazy. And, but that’s a very different kind of project. Cause that is the purpose of that brand is to grow with velocity and volume. And I’m not, I’m not using my money to do that. I’m using it’s different process. Whereas Tamworth is, slow and steady wins the race. yeah. And it’s funny because, speaker-0 (08:33.23) It’s nuts. speaker-1 (08:58.818) the weird stuff we do, we call them creative grenades, right? Because you throw them out there and that’s what gets the attention. But it’s interesting. Food and Wine Run, a very interesting article about our strange whiskeys and said it was the bar card of the future. Said what started out as a joke is actually quite serious and And so I’ve noticed when we put these things out now, it’s not. It’s not met with it. I’m sure with you, whiskey snob, I’m sure there’s a bunch of people watching this. They’re like, oh, shut up. I’m like, why? It’s not met with the same sort of like, oh, the side. It’s now met with like because we we looked at it. Molecular gastromony is what we’re doing on a molecular level. And our our distiller, Matt Powers, is a he’s a PhD in molecular biochemistry. And so we have a very different approach to that part of our business. mean, we have, we do a lot of coal distilling with a rotary evaporator. Yeah. The gins and the, and the liqueurs and the, that, that the weird whiskeys we do are made with the rotovap. speaker-0 (10:13.077) huh. speaker-1 (10:22.862) We make them like a gin so you have take your age spirit, but then you take the the infusions and you you infuse them into the into the whiskey the way you would The gin wow, that’s good. Yeah speaker-0 (10:38.358) Interesting. Yeah. It’s a, you said a lot of things. And I think the one thing I’ll go back to is, and we’ve been preaching this for a while is own your state, right? There’s no reason to have to run and expand because there’s enough whiskey drinkers in a general given region that can support your brand. you’re growing the painstaking way, right? was just slow and methodic. speaker-1 (11:00.75) Yeah. You know who told me this? When we opened the distillery 10 years ago this year, Gallo’s a big client of ours and Ernest Gallo, who’s now the CEO flew out and he said, I’m going to give you some advice. My advice is all these craft distillers rush to distribution and go to too many states and the product just sits there. He goes, own the state you’re in. Yeah. Now. We happen to be in a control state, which is amazing. Yeah. Most people don’t want to control states, but I got one buyer and that buyer is, is, we’re, we’re, the number one vendor. So we can get them on the phone and we can get placement and we can, and, and they’ll help us sell it in and sell it through. So it works really well. speaker-0 (11:57.142) No, no, that’s awesome. Yeah. I do think it’s, it’s really cool. that way, because like, if I were to ever start a brand, I couldn’t own Kentucky, right? Like that would be impossible. There’s too many brands here, but like, if, you know, you’d have to figure out a distribution path, but you all like doing something very unique and, and, in state that’s not known for whiskey production, right. Own the own that state. And I’m, I’m all for that and create local. regional super fans, right? Like that’s what you want. Like you want somebody who’s going to be like, that’s the bottle I’m reaching for every time. Even though I grew up on old granddad or early times or whatever, that’s the bottle I grabbed for every time I grabbed a whiskey. speaker-1 (12:40.59) Yeah. Then going into Boston, Boston is, I mean, it’s funny. just saw this rating. It’s the second most expensive city in the world to live in after New York. And I’m like, there’s a lot of money there. So it’s interesting. And a lot of those expensive Boston people vacation where? In the white mountains. Yeah. so it’s a natural place for us to expand. and, but you know, it’s interesting, like, Our brandy are, are we make a, um, a wonderful, uh, Apple brandy that, uh, wine enthusiasts gave a score of 95. Wow. And, uh, it was in their best spirits in the other world for 2020, 2025 this year. So we’re making, you know, it’s not just that we’re making weird shit. We’re making whiskeys, but we’re also making really. whatever we make is perfect. Yeah. Where’s perfect as, as it can be. So that’s our goal. Whereas it’s interesting. a big growth part of our Quaker city mercantile business, the agency business is, obviously all these RTDs, canned RTDs that are coming out. Yeah. Very different business. It’s like, it’s like a rocket goes up and it comes down and The goal is not slow and steady on those at all. It’s fast and furious. Yeah. And that’s where all the acquisition action is right now. You know, you saw Atomic just sold for a ton of money. Beatbox just sold for a ton of money. speaker-0 (14:22.304) Once buzz balls kind of got sold, like it was like the wild, wild west of who’s buying what RTD. speaker-1 (14:28.002) And it’s amazing. mean, hats off to Sazerac. They, they, they, they knew where this was going a while ago. and they’ve, they basically caught everyone else flat footed because, no one else was, no one else wanted buzz balls or, you know, I mean, it’s really amazing. So, but again, I don’t know how long that shit’s going to last, but, we’re in it. Tamworth is a crown jewel, untouchable, but man, we’re in the weeds at Quaker City working with lots of brands that are making Stuff in a can. speaker-0 (15:11.34) Yeah. It’s, it’s a, it’s an interesting business. I still am in and out on RTDs. me personally, I’ve had some good ones. but it’s just, there’s something about a cocktail for me personally. I want a cocktail made. want the experience, whether it’s me making it and messing it up. Cause that’s when it’s going to happen or like going out and paying. speaker-1 (15:35.606) It’s a ritual. Yeah. And that’s the point of, yeah, it’s interesting. it’s funny since opening Tamworth, I really don’t like cocktails anymore. I just, I just drink this stuff straight. Yeah. As it is, but so it’s, it’s curious. Yeah. I don’t know. I also think it’s interesting though. My daughter’s 24. She works here at Quaker City. And she said, young people are drinking. just, they’re just not paying $24 for a cocktail. They don’t have any money. And she said also, they want to have fun. You know, this guy I met the other week, he started Donna’s Pickle Beer. Have you seen that? speaker-0 (16:30.19) I have seen that actually on Instagram. speaker-1 (16:33.585) He started during COVID. He was a mixologist and started during COVID and didn’t know what else to do. And it’s blowing up fast and furious. And he said the same thing. goes, there’s growth out there. People just want to have fun. I think the craft thing. speaker-1 (17:00.92) Too many people doing the same thing. Yeah. And, and I mean, I get why you got to charge 60 bucks for a bottle. speaker-0 (17:03.949) Yeah. speaker-1 (17:12.654) But if it’s the same bottle that I can get from bullet for half the price, it’s a hard sell. it was when it first out, when, when the craft movement first started, it was, it was very interesting and it’s a novelty and you could sell it based on, you know, provenance and, but even that, and then there was too many people telling them the fake story of the fake story, but they bought it at MPG. And I think that, I don’t want to say this greed that, that screw things up but in some ways It is, you know, and I think the hubris of like even the, like the Casa Migos lawsuit, people start saying like, what am I paying for here? I know that lawsuit was tossed out. I think it was, but it’s not the point damage done. speaker-0 (18:04.95) A perception becomes reality in a heartbeat, right? And that’s the thing that’s really been the interesting thing, whether it’s the American single malt movement, which I think has a really big opportunity. Originally that was priced at such a high price, it priced people out of the market so you didn’t enjoy it. speaker-1 (18:26.142) Why why why does it deserve that? Yeah, no, and I think that’s the thing too. It’s like I mean we’ve made that mistake we’ve charged too much for some products and You learn pretty fast if you overcharge for them, and I’m very conscious of that now it’s like I don’t want to I don’t want to charge too much for stuff because But but it’s interesting to like if I’m making crab whiskey and it stinks up the whole distillery for a week And we literally have to go find the crabs yeah, I’m going to charge you 65 bucks for a little bottle. speaker-0 (18:59.564) Yeah, for sure. speaker-1 (19:01.656) But speaker-0 (19:03.15) Yeah. I mean, if the, if the juice is worth the squeeze, if the story is there, right. People will, will engage in it. But you know, we, we talk about all the time, like everyone started to live for the 75 to $200 price point. And that’s not where most Americans are this at the stand age, right? They, they’re, they’re double, they’re double clicking on. 25 to 40 $50 bottles like that’s where the market is and then you have your ultra premium people that are going after 250 plus and now you’re competing against world scotches world whiskies Japanese Irish all of those things. That’s a hard thing to do when you’re an American spirit That’s only you know, 15 years old like that middle middle ground That’s 75 to 200 is a hard bottle to sell now. It does still sell out but for the average consumer, which I, know, lucky enough, I get to try a lot of whiskey. But if I’m buying and my wife who walked by here just a minute ago, it’s like, Hey, why did you buy a $150 bottle? Like you’ve got so many, she’d be like, you should only be buying things that may be used for cocktails or if people are coming over or something like that, you shouldn’t be buying a $200 bottle. Like those budget decisions are scrutinized at a higher level. speaker-1 (20:17.976) Did you see- and you probably know about this, but I don’t know what the name of it, but I was seeing posts about this bottle that has a hot dog on it. speaker-0 (20:26.062) Oh, the Costco, the rare character Costco bottle. Yeah. So rare character did a single barrel and they put the hot dog label on it. It’s in, it’s in the only in the Costco in DC. It’s sold for $99. The bottle is going for a thousand dollars online, if not more. speaker-1 (20:29.44) It’s actually from Costco. speaker-1 (20:42.542) But again, it’s it’s a creative grenade. It’s kind of weird. speaker-0 (20:49.326) Smart play by Costco. Your name’s everywhere right now in the whiskey community. speaker-1 (20:54.442) It’s, and, and who would have thought, right? Yeah. So it’s, mean, it’s, it’s that it, it’s, that’s part of having fun. speaker-0 (21:02.626) I’m all for it. And you know what, if you want to pay 10 times the price of the bottle on secondary market, that is something that you have to do. I think consumers do what they don’t understand a lot of times is we have screwed ourselves on a pricing perspective. Cause you’ll go try to find a bottle and the marketing’s already been done. One person tried it and it’s like Henry McKenna. Used to be a $49 bottle, one San Francisco. And then all of a sudden, that one singular barrel that no one could find that was dubbed the best whiskey in the world. Everyone went hunting for it. And then you couldn’t find what used to be an everyday chauffeur, 10 year old Heaven Hill product. And we’ve done that time and time again. And I’ve heard it from high up people at a distillery that gobbles that said, we looked at what the secondary market is charging. Why wouldn’t we charge you $350 for a bottle? We want to get our cut. Why would we charge at 99? We could. Yeah. But we’re going to charge $350 because we know you’re going to pay for it and flip it. speaker-1 (22:04.268) Yep. Yep. So speaker-0 (22:06.958) These brains are not stupid. speaker-1 (22:10.902) No, but then it’s like, what’s, what’s the, what’s the expression? The revolution will eat itself. I mean, that’s kind of what’s happened, right? Is the whole thing just collapsed and, and the Phoenix will be reborn in the shape of buzz balls. speaker-0 (22:29.888) Yeah, well, let’s hope not. speaker-1 (22:32.238) Interesting too, you know, Quaker city. we’re doing the RTD thing. We’re also getting a lot of clients that are non-alc and they do not have any budget, but they do now. And it’s interesting. Um, when you look at their case sales, it’s like, Oh, this is becoming a real brand. So, and I think the THC thing, uh, I mean, who knows where that’s gone, but the point is there’s viable alternatives now that are eating into everyone’s, you know, everyone’s share. So. speaker-0 (23:12.302) 100 % we see we got pitched Kava the other day. That’s like a T that is non THC non-alk but like has attributed amenities to like help you go to sleep. And so there’s more and more viable options. And you know, the prevailing sentiment out there, you know, as a marketer, you probably hear this. is that Gen Z doesn’t drink. Well, the funny thing about Gen Z not drinking is that Gen Z, half of them are not of age to drink. So you’re looking at a 15 year period of time when only seven years of them are in the middle of being over 21. So I find the story is interesting, but you say it enough, it becomes a thing. Everyone buys into it. Again, perception becomes reality. speaker-1 (24:02.038) I went, I remember, last spring going to a bunch of graduation parties and me and other guys, my age were like, where’s the beer? There’s no open, they open the cooler and it was all full of like white calls and, everything, but beer. I just like, I cut like, obviously. The kids were in charge of filling the cooler because they weren’t even, but they don’t even think about, you know what mean? speaker-0 (24:35.33) Yeah. So it’s not going to buy in a case of Bud Light or whatever. but like this shows you how things shift. mean, 10 years ago, 13 years ago when I was graduating, like it was coolers and coolers of Miller Lite, Bud Light, Coors Light. That’s all it was. The claws were just a thing, barely. speaker-1 (24:51.82) It’s all white. Now you see high noon, white cloth, surfside. Surfside, those guys sold 11 million cases last year. speaker-0 (25:02.24) Nuts. They’ve taken over. speaker-1 (25:03.928) They’ve taken over and, so don’t tell me it can’t be done. Don’t tell me that it’s about innovation. It’s about, and it’s also, what’s also interesting is for the big guys like Diageo, relentless line extensions don’t work anymore. Like you can’t keep putting, like custom migos in a can. You can’t, they don’t want it. People want new to world interesting ideas. They want fucking hot dogs on bottles. speaker-0 (25:32.514) Yep. I mean, that’s what they want. speaker-1 (25:34.178) Wacky world, it’s full of chaos, everything’s upside- it’s the upside down in Stranger, Stranger Things. That’s what we’re living in. speaker-0 (25:40.718) For sure. that leads me with kind of the last question. I know you got a jet here in a few seconds, but you know, what is next, right? You’ve done the beaver glands, you’ve done the crabs, you’ve done dunts, you know, you’ve done a lot of different things. Is there any new exciting things kind of on the horizon? speaker-1 (25:56.383) Yes, we have two new products coming out this summer. It’s funny, people’s April Fool’s posts? speaker-0 (26:06.988) are your actual post. speaker-1 (26:08.416) are my reality because I’m like, I was laughing during it seems like some of the, what did spirits business put out? Like our favorite April fool’s things. were two things in there that we’re already doing. And I’m like, this is hilarious. yeah, I can’t, I’m not really able to announce them at this point, but we have a, we have one whiskey coming out that is, along the lines of, you know, Beaver and crabs. It’s another, it’s another, non-vegan wildlife product. we have another, we have actually two other things that are, have to do, cause the white mountains is a big, you know, it’s way about national forest, literally borders on the distillery. so we have two products that are coming out that will aid you in camping. speaker-0 (26:49.006) That’s speaker-1 (27:08.195) And capping and cocktailing will be big this summer in Tamar. speaker-0 (27:13.666) Man, I can’t wait to see what this is all about because it’s very interesting. And you never cease to have fun with this. And I that’s most important thing. speaker-1 (27:22.286) fun and the sales will follow. But that’s me saying this from a guy who sold a brand that was in a million cases. So I have a little different realities with this, but I still believe all you craft guys out there have a little more fun with stuff like orthodoxy, make great bourbons, make great rise, but have a little more fun, be a little more playful. and get that press, get people talking about your product and it’ll work. know, don’t be afraid to reach out to me on LinkedIn and stuff, because I’m always happy to answer questions and talk to people. speaker-0 (28:05.314) Yeah, that’s one thing I have seen is, and I’ve heard is, is your engagement. So thank you for not bottling up your knowledge into once one spot again, if you want to know more about brand mysticism and like how to build a brand, go buy that book. It’s awesome. It’s in the show notes below, but it’s really. speaker-1 (28:22.382) It’s to be on the keynote at the ADI conference in Miami in August. I’m sure a lot of you guys go to that. I will be making a rare appearance in public because I am the Howard Hughes of New Hampshire. speaker-0 (28:29.193) amazing! speaker-0 (28:42.798) I appreciate you hanging out with us. Thanks everybody for listening to this episode of the Burberry Lens. We’ll catch you next time. Cheers. speaker-1 (28:48.29) Thank you. Yeah, bye. Have a good weekend. speaker-0 (28:51.608) Thank you for listening to this episode of the bourbon lens. If you want more exclusive content, go over to patreon.com backslash bourbon lens and join our growing community. If you just want to stay friendly with us, you can go over to Instagram X and Facebook and follow us there. Also our YouTube page is growing and we’re producing more content there like Thursday thoughts and five minute Fridays. So don’t forget to smash the subscribe button and catch all the content that we are producing every week until next time. Cheers.