← Digital Social Hour
Digital Social Hour
Robert Laird : How One Startup Took Over a $19B Tequila Industry | DSH #1568
00:23:13
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- [00:00]
A
Holy. That is the best tequila I've ever had. Like, that's our plata. So that's age three weeks. We do our reposados age nine months in a cabernet, and then our ano, which is my favorite. This is aged two years, which is twice as long as most. You got to try this tequila. It's the best I've ever had. And I go, yeah, or I'll be the judge of that.
- [00:24]
B
All right, guys, we got Robert here, good friend of mine.
- [00:27]
C
Deal.
- [00:28]
B
Seul.
- [00:28]
C
Cheers.
- [00:29]
A
Cheers, brother.
- [00:29]
C
One of the best tequilas I've ever had.
- [00:31]
A
Thank you so much for having us. Yeah.
- [00:33]
B
I was telling him you could drink this straight.
- [00:36]
C
Yeah. You know how many tequilas you can say that for?
- [00:38]
A
No. You certainly can. Now, this is. That was the whole point. And really on why we want to bring this to market was because it sort of found its way into my life in a really serendipitous way. And I decided, you know what? As a fan of tequila, of what I've been told is the best. Right. I told you earlier before the show, good and better. This absolutely outperforms it in every sense of the word. Yeah. I mean, to really understand, like, this is what tequila is supposed to. To taste like has been really fun to discover.
- [01:07]
C
Absolutely. And everyone thinks. Everyone that owns a liquor company thinks they have the best tasting. So, of course, when we first met, I was skeptical, of course. And then at Power Slap, you were giving out samples, I was like, damn, that was fire.
- [01:17]
B
I know.
- [01:18]
C
And I took another one right after. Yeah.
- [01:20]
A
Yeah. It's amazing to actually get to a point where, like, okay, I can actually enjoy this. And it's one of those. One of probably the most euphoric buzzes I've ever, you know, I've ever had. As you decide to indulge. And no hangover, because we don't use any diffusers. We use open air. It's really artisan approached. And more importantly, we grow the agave ourselves. Right. With our family and our partner down there. So we maintain the age of that agave when we actually harvest it.
- [01:45]
C
I actually love that because I used to love this. I don't want to call out anyone in particular, but I used to drink this tequila brand, and there was a bunch of PR about them lately, about how they add stuff to it.
- [01:54]
A
Yeah, yeah. It's actually a class action lawsuit with that particular group, I think, right now, which is ironically, you know, in Mexico, there's a very small. And this is, of course, something I've discovered. And we'll talk about here in a minute becoming a kind of an industry expert, right? You have to, if you're going to start any business. I don't care what side of the market you decide to go into, whether it's media marketing, AI, you know, pharmaceutical diagnostics, whatever it is, you better figure out how to become an expert in that space. And so, of course, I dove into this, the space and the heritage and what goes on to actually produce it in Mexico over the last 18 months since I discovered this. And it's. It's wild that they'll shift distilleries quite often after they're acquired by larger companies, and then they just basically change the whole formula. And that's basically what happened.
- [02:43]
C
That's a bummer.
- [02:44]
A
Yeah, it is a bummer.
- [02:44]
C
Because they try to make more margin.
- [02:46]
A
100%.
- [02:47]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because tequila is supposedly one of the healthier alcohols, right?
- [02:51]
A
It is. It's. The agave plan itself is almost like a superfood. Right? I mean, whether if you have diabetes or if you're autoimmune, I mean, it's the one spirit you can enjoy. We actually digest agave.
- [03:05]
C
Right.
- [03:05]
A
Like a vegetable. Unlike some of our other spirit friends, like a vodka or a whiskey. I'm a whiskey guy. I'm Scottish, ironically, I'm with a tequila company. So usually it's, you know, even if you're doing a really impressive Macallan 18 or 20, whatever, it still leaves you, you know, a little hungover the next day because of the way we digest it internally. Yeah. Yeah.
- [03:28]
C
I used to be big on wine, but as I've gotten older, I get a headache now.
- [03:31]
A
Yeah. Real bad. Yeah. And the tannins, the sugars, that's really. The sugars that'll do that to you. And so because agave isn't a sugar. Right. There's no hangover. And trust me, I've put it to a test. I probably should.
- [03:43]
C
You probably drank a damn near a whole bottle.
- [03:45]
A
I'll try more than that. And obviously, you know, we're doing this day in and day out, you know, and really trying to build the brand in an authentic way by leveraging phenomenal hospitality partnerships and key account markets.
- [04:00]
C
You guys have crushed it with that. Can you name some of your partners?
- [04:02]
A
Yeah.
- [04:02]
C
You're only seven months in.
- [04:03]
A
We're seven months in. Yep. I, you know, I strategically launched this in San Diego, so that that market has been phenomenal. I live in Northern California, so not far. Sacramento, east of Sacramento, El Dorado Hills, father of two. So I'M a little, you know, taking care of not just fatherhood, but also growing a business is not easy. But this product deserved to be in a hospitality market that was going to appreciate it. And so I chose San Diego specifically because of relationships with really impressive hospitality partners like Click Hospitality RMD that owns hard rock groups like Sidebar. And then of course, we ended up moving in with Insomniac Group, so Nova and Oxford and the club, the club scene in San Diego. And my good friends down there really embraced us early on. So very lucky.
- [04:55]
C
Now you got some major ones in the works. You got power slap.
- [04:58]
A
Power slap. Came on. Yeah. Our first, you know, I'll mention our very. Our most pivotal partnership that obviously opened the doors. Right. To create some legitimacy behind the brand. Right. Not easy getting into the space. Very competitive, a lot of money. I mean, tequila does 100, almost 19 billion a year in revenue.
- [05:18]
C
Wow.
- [05:19]
A
So your conglomerates are making a lot of money. Spending a lot of money was to get in with the MLS team of San Diego, which was an emerging franchise. So they were coming into the limelight and creating their brand themselves the same time we were. And I was fortunate enough to run in to Tom Penn, who's their CEO, and Tom Penn actually founded. I shouldn't say founded, but ran and put together LAFC in 2012 and then ended up partying ways with them and got kind of touched on the shoulder to launch San Diego fc, which is currently ranked first position right now. I know, I believe they're crushing. Just, I mean, they're in first position. Just knocked down the former champions, you know, LA Galaxy just took down Vancouver. I mean, they're on fire.
- [06:09]
C
Soccer's growing pretty fast and.
- [06:10]
A
It is. And of course, the pairing between the heritage, you know, Hispanic culture, San Diego soccer, Chuki Lozano, who they had just signed, you know, that we've had at the distillery and nurtured the relationship with him. That was a big win for us to secure sdfc, that new MLS team, and more importantly, Snapdragon Stadium, which is in San Diego. So this old Qualcomm. So we took over that whole stadium. We got all the bars taken over and the official Tequila of SDFC opened a lot of other doors for us.
- [06:42]
C
Let's go. Nitro Circus as well, right?
- [06:44]
A
100%. That was the next one. So as I discovered this, you know, amazing product and decided to take on a multi billion dollar industry, I decided, hey, we're going to need to have a hell of a team to do it. Right. Can't lift it on Your own. So I was able to put together really a pedigree, I would call it, you know, and I attest that to, you know, years. This is 20 years in the making, Sean. You know, really kind of a slum dog millionaire type story. Right. I go back to my years running Mercedes Benz dealers for 12 years. A lot of similarities to what we do in the, in, in this industry. Between fixed ops and sales and incentives and managing inventory. It's very. Yeah, a lot of similarities. And I did that 12 years in my 20s. One of the youngest, you know, managers in Mercedes. You know, really across the country. It's 22 years old.
- [07:38]
C
Wow. Yeah, you leveled up quick there.
- [07:40]
A
Leveled up quick. Yep. Instead of doing college, I got into the school of hard knocks. And like a lot of my, you know, mentors I'd call or a lot of guys we've looked up to here. Right. You know, your Grant Cardone, your Bradley, your Andy Elliott. These are all car guys, you know, that's true. All G. I didn't even think about that.
- [07:55]
C
But you're right.
- [07:56]
A
Yeah. I mean, the one thing you can't, you can't beat us every single month.
- [08:00]
C
Even though there's like a negative connotation.
- [08:02]
A
With youth, they're typically, yes, they typically followed us. But you know what, down at the bottom, bottom or end of the day, we, you know, we've got to get up every month and perform, you know, and we got to take care of clients because we got to ensure we get them to come back. You know, Mercedes taught us incredible, you know, know, best practices in, in hospitality. Right. How do you, you know, take care of a client who's spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a car that we all know depreciates tomorrow, like the day they leave, and then get them to buy multiple per year, which is the name of the game. So as I've taken a lot of those techniques, best practices and of course, resilience, that's how I launched this team where we brought in some really heavy hitters. So former president of Walmart's a great, you know, shareholder of ours. I mean, that's part of an incredible job we did in actually my sales, distribution line of work, which over the last four years and then brought on former COO of Fever Tree and John Soto. So he actually put the, the deal together for us with Dana on throwing.
- [09:09]
C
Entertainment shout out to him.
- [09:10]
A
Yeah, no show.
- [09:11]
C
What's it like negotiating with Dana, Getting to learn from him, seeing him like day by day.
- [09:15]
A
Yeah, yeah. It's funny when we Got. When we first got introduced to the opportunity, it was kind of like, all right, throw in entertainment, all right, Travis Pastrana, God, he's like an idol. Going up. Yeah, we're interested for sure. And at the same time, my COO was nurturing a deal because I hadn't brought him on full time yet. Because we were, you know, building this plane as we're flying it, right? Self funding basically, from day one. Over the last 18 months after discovering it on a job site of a project I funded, which is what I do now, real estate development. And that's literally how we found deals as well.
- [09:47]
C
Crazy.
- [09:48]
A
Isn't that wild? So imagine me on a job site and my general contractor, you know, tells me, hey, you gotta try this tequila. It's the best I've ever had. And I go, yeah, all right. I'll be the judge of that.
- [09:59]
C
You've heard that a million times before.
- [10:00]
B
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- [10:29]
C
Go anywhere without it.
- [10:30]
A
I tasted the reposado the back of a truck in the middle of June and like, you know, 90 degrees. I go, holy, that is the best tequila I've ever had. Like, whose is this? Because it's Pedro. I go, who's Pedro? He goes, Pedro's doing our drywall. Pedro's doing the drywall. And he, he made this. You gotta be kidding me. I gotta meet him, bring him down there. So Pedro comes down and Pedro has been in the States for several decades, actually creating a life, you know, in the construction industry, running a drywall company in central California. The project I was doing was a multi family project, like 48 units, nothing huge, but you know, so it's. He's got a humble but hard, you know, but, but nice existence with what he does. And he basically, you know, grew up in Amantetan, which is right outside of Tequila. One of the, the heart of where the agave is grown and where we produce right now.
- [11:19]
C
Of course, an actual city. Tequila.
- [11:21]
A
Tequila is a natural city. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So Jose Cuervo is there S is there for delays produced right there.
- [11:27]
C
I never knew that.
- [11:28]
A
You need to go, my friend.
- [11:29]
C
Sounds beautiful.
- [11:30]
A
It's gorgeous. Very, very cinematic. You know, cobblestone, gorgeous church, center of the town. We just got done shooting our first episode with Travis Pastrana in Nitro Circus. So it's on tour with the Ozul.
- [11:46]
C
So.
- [11:47]
A
Yeah. So Dana White had them come down while they did Nitro Circus in Guadalajara, which we sponsored, was our kind of, our big event just four, six, eight weeks ago. So I had Travis at the distillery. I mean, imagine that. I mean, I grew up watching him. You're a little younger than me, but I mean, he was, I mean the.
- [12:04]
C
Guy, he was a Tony Hawk.
- [12:05]
A
He's. Well, Tony was the same thing, but as far as Moto MX, I mean, he's, you know, 17 time winner of X Games. It's like ridiculous. Gold medals, I should say. So that town where Pedro grew up is actually where the distillery is and it's his family's distillery. So after spending two decades here in the States creating a, a great life for him and his family and his two kids, twins that went to SF State, and, you know, I think he was looking to sort of leverage what he, his family had done for four generations and create the best tequila and sell it to his friends and family is basically what he was trying to do. Nice. Now, Pedro doesn't speak very much English and he certainly doesn't know sales, distribution or marketing and probably was gonna be able to raise the capital. So as I'm staring there pulling back the layers of the onion on this and, and really contemplating, am I crazy enough to take on a multi billion dollar industry which I know all too well. I mean, I was in the space for three years during the coven run as the senior vice president of Medea Vodka, which is Shaquille o' Neal's vodka. Right. So he was a big shareholder and became a good friend. He was a great guy. And you know, we, that team pivoted to ppe, so we did a bunch of other stuff in sales, distribution, but nevertheless, I understood what, you know, enough to be dangerous, how hard this would be to launch. And I said, we're going to do it, Pedro. We're going to tell the whole world your story. And here's how we're going to do it. We're going to put together a pedigree team, we're going to raise the capital and we're going to go to work. So luckily, during my course of sales distribution, I did a lot of work in Mexico with The government over Covid Era sold them PPE and masks through my group in a large quantity for a lot of money. And that was with a partner of mine who's out of Mexico City. And so after meeting Pedro and tasting this, I called him and said, hey, I need you to just. Just do a little due diligence for me. Tell me a little bit what's going on down there. I'm not down there enough. I don't know. And you're from there Five generations he's been manufacturing. Does very well, has a great life. I helped him move into Beverly Hills as his lender. So that's how we met. And he called me the next day. He goes, this family's amazing. The partitas are incredible. This is their operation. Leticia is Pedro's aunt. It's his aunt's operation, and his cousins now produce most of the tequila. They actually produced this. So Albert Partita actually produces diocesol. He's our master distiller. He's 38 years old. This guy has a master's degree in farming, Studied abroad in France on how to produce cognac and wine, which is the reason why ours comes off so incredibly smooth. It's the arrow, the barrel aging component.
- [14:53]
C
Right.
- [14:53]
A
So we're aging in Napa wine barrels and Kentucky bourbon barrels. I mean, that's how we age our tequila. Yeah.
- [15:01]
C
Rather than just a regular barrel.
- [15:03]
A
100 or still. You know, if it's coming out of a still, you're not going to get the flavors from. From that oak.
- [15:08]
C
All right.
- [15:09]
A
Yeah.
- [15:09]
C
Wow. Good timing, too. Because the growth of tequila is. Is insane right now.
- [15:13]
A
It's taken over more and more market share. Right. And what I've loved, what I've loved discovering and. And educating myself on, is that the u. S. Consumer. I'm going to pour some more.
- [15:24]
C
Yeah, go ahead.
- [15:24]
A
Is as finally has a palette.
- [15:26]
C
Right.
- [15:27]
A
And they. And. And they're done getting bamboozled by celebrities who say they've got the best tequila, when in actuality, they're ranked in the bottom third of distilleries.
- [15:36]
C
People didn't know what good tequila was.
- [15:37]
A
No, they don't. Yeah. Pretty easy to look up. But I mean, even your top performers in volume and value right now, and some of our favorite. Favorite actors.
- [15:47]
C
I love them all.
- [15:48]
A
Okay. But, like, literally, it's like, almost comical. Like, nobody told them to even look at it. Like, you guys are literally in the bottom third of quality.
- [15:58]
C
Wow.
- [16:00]
A
Of distillery.
- [16:01]
C
I wonder if they even know, Honestly.
- [16:03]
A
They may not.
- [16:04]
C
There's a good Chance they don't.
- [16:05]
A
I doubt Mark's been doing. Or Kevin.
- [16:08]
C
Yeah, I mean, they just see the knowlers.
- [16:10]
A
Hey, and I love you guys.
- [16:11]
C
Yeah, it's always love, but always they probably just see the numbers and they're like, yeah, I'll invest in that.
- [16:16]
A
Exactly. Yeah. So those down. So for me, as I sat there and. And you know, leaving the car industry, going into real estate development over the last 10 years, that's what I. Or I kind of broke into the entrepreneurial role. Right. After making people a lot of money, decided to go ahead and venture on my own and do that. So I own a hormone company that does TRT nationwide. I've done this. And then during COVID I was with a remarkable team out of the Bay Area called Medea, which turned to Medea Medical. And we did all the COVID testing for like, you know, the super bowl, you know, the Lakers, Staples center and basically was one of the unsolicited awardees of the very large White House contract. So I helped put that whole deal together for $200 million.
- [17:00]
C
Yeah, I know. Yeah.
- [17:02]
A
So while that knucklehead Biden was deciding to give away Covid tests for free and didn't realize that none existed, we actually solve the problem for the White House. And. And we were gifted, you know, by getting a pretty good contract. And because of that, I ended up with an interesting network for sales, distribution. We worked with Kroger and Walmart as well. That's how I met George Riddell, who's one of our shareholders and become a dear friend. He was, you know, he's been the president of health and wellness for Walmart for nine years. Prior to that, he was the president of Walgreens. Right. So he's on our advisory board and a shareholder. So he's, you know, we're leveraging his resources on sales, distribution and things of that nature.
- [17:40]
C
Yeah, distribution is the whole game in alcohol. Right?
- [17:42]
A
It is the game. And right now it couldn't be more in shambles. I mean, we just had R&DC fold in California. That's a $9 billion company that lost Tito's and then Jack Daniels and then Cut Water all in a 9,120 day span. How'd they lose them by from what I can tell, mismanaging, perhaps.
- [18:00]
B
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- [18:30]
C
Cost of similar brands.
- [18:31]
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- [18:51]
A
Expectations or you know, and I say quality. How you take care of your customers. Everything.
- [18:58]
C
Yeah.
- [18:59]
A
And what we're noticing in this space above all else, the reason why we are excelling in such a short amount of time is because we're bringing just rudimentary hospitality back to hospitality. Okay. Like how do we take care of our clients and more importantly, how do we help our clients or our, our customers take care of their customers? Right. So the patrons that are going to restaurants want to experience high end hospitality. Right. High end cuisine. I mean we're partnered with Sam Nazarian, SBE Hospitality Tao Group. We just placed in all of their clubs here and in Las Vegas and in going in the California market, you know, just did spe's Zooks, you know, hide, you know, Katsua just opened up their new facility or new restaurant in Century City la. Gorgeous. Grand opening two days ago. I was at and they deserve to have as, as you know, a partner in spirits as they have in and food. And that's where we're trying to fill the void. It seems to be really, really resonating, let's call it that with our food and beverage managers.
- [20:02]
C
I love it. Is there three flavors or four?
- [20:04]
A
We actually have four varieties. Okay. So we have our Plata. Love that. That's aged three weeks in a Chardonnay barrel. So it's not your normal blanco. It's really amazing finish. Full body. That's our Plata. So that's aged three weeks. Chardonnay barrel from Napa. So really, really fun. Full body. We do our reposados age 9 months in a Cabernet Napa barrel and then our aneo, which is to be honest, my favorite.
- [20:32]
C
That's the one I'm having right it is.
- [20:34]
A
This is aged two years which is twice as long as most nails. And we use a combination of that Cabernet barrel and then a Kentucky bourbon barrel, I think.
- [20:43]
C
Smooth.
- [20:43]
A
It's incredibly smooth. Yeah. And this is all you get, that taste, the sweetness, the great finish because we're using seven year agave.
- [20:50]
C
Wow.
- [20:51]
A
Seven years, not three year four. Which is what most of our, the big wigs do.
- [20:55]
C
Which is too early. Right.
- [20:56]
A
Way too early. It's bitter. It's like when you, if you're going to do banana bread, right, you have a nice, you know, bruised up the browner the better you're going to do that. This one's exceptional. It's our extra nail age 5 years which is incredible. Most of nails extras are about three. And this is a little more bit a higher blend of the bourbon. So if you're an old fashioned fan and you don't want to have a hangover the next day after having four.
- [21:19]
C
Yeah.
- [21:20]
A
That's what you should have it made.
- [21:21]
C
This is the one I had. A power slab, I think it is. Yeah.
- [21:23]
A
That thing exclusive. Yeah. And our price point's amazing too. I wanted to bring this to the, to the market, to where people could enjoy it. So we're priced right at most of our competitors, you know, 50 to 60 bucks.
- [21:33]
C
Wow. Which is insane because the quality is way better.
- [21:35]
A
So it's, it's hard to compete. I'll tell you what, you go side by side against even your top two contenders on the high end ultra premium.
- [21:43]
C
We should do a blind taste test with like five brands. I'd love to see the results of that. Get like five people. Yep. Let's set that up for sure, dude. Yeah. Well what's, what's next for you guys? Where can people find you and can they order this online anywhere too?
- [21:54]
A
Yeah. So online@ DLC.com. yep. All 50 states obviously. Distribution right now we are in California, Nevada, Arizona comes online next month along with Texas and then we're in Nashville. So Nashville goes live on the first of July and then Florida has been alive for online for about four months. So we're total wines over there and working with some of the top distributors right now. Southern Wine Glaciers just took us on for Nevada, which was a big, big win that happened just a few weeks ago. So they're off and running. Which was, you know, seven months in given the landscape of distribution. Huge win.
- [22:32]
C
Pretty unheard of.
- [22:33]
A
Yeah.
- [22:33]
C
Like for someone new in the space to pull that off with very self funding. Like you said.
- [22:37]
A
100. Well, Dana White gets a about a case of a nail a week. And he's a big fan. He's been a big, big help. His whole team's been a big help.
- [22:44]
C
Nice.
- [22:44]
A
But we're coming in. We'll be the official Tequila. The Padres come in August 1st. We're already in Petco, Snapdragon Stadium. And then we'll be adding the warriors here as well.
- [22:55]
C
Let's go. I know, baby. Love it, bro.
- [22:57]
A
No, you love it.
- [22:57]
C
Thanks for hopping on Power Slap.
- [22:59]
A
Let's do a power.
- [23:00]
C
All right, guys, check them out. See you next time.
- [23:07]
B
I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. It helps the show a lot with the algorithm.
- [23:12]
C
Thank you.