Wine and Spirits Daily and Shanken Daily News have each had stories on
Hiro Sake and its co-founder, Carlos Arana. In fact, there’s been quite a bit
of press about them lately.

Since I’ve known Carlos for most of my booze business days, I thought I would chime in.

At Seagram, Carlos and I suffered through the foibles of our Latin American boss and managed to survive the adventures of Patron in the early days. Carlos went on to run the Asia-Pacific whiskey business.

Next came an 8-year stint with the Beckmann family running the tequila business with impressive results and literally put Jose Cuervo on the global map. He managed to double sales and triple profits and increased market share by five percentage points. Not shabby.

A brief tour of duty as President of the Arnell Group was enough to convince him that doing your own thing is far more rewarding than working in a corporate setting.

So, enter Broadway and Hiro Sake.