Brand Building and Communications, Industry Matters/News, New Brands, vodka

The Best Dirty Shirley: More than the drink of the summer

June 16, 2022 No Comments

The Shirley Temple Grows Up

The internet, press, and TV are all abuzz with the Dirty Shirley. It’s described as the drink of the summer 2022. The NY Times was among the first to write about it. The Today Show recently went so far as to describe it as overtaking the Aperol Spritzer as the summer drink.

So, it’s not surprising that I thought this drink was worth looking into. Among the first thing I came across was this press release from Black Infusions, makers of Black Fig (Double Gold at San Francisco Spirits Competition), Gold Apricot (96 points from Wine Enthusiast), and their newest product, Dark Cherry. The latter addresses the Dirty Shirley two ways — used as a cocktail at bars and restaurants and a canned version as a Ready-To-Drink (RTD) cocktail.

Black Infusions was created and is owned by the husband-and-wife team, of Michael and Barbara Davidson. I’ve known them since 2018 and wrote about them then. I figured I’d check in with them and learn more about what’s going on in general and with their brands. So, we spoke at length on the phone and here’s the interview:

BB: Before we get into the Dirty Shirley… how’s business overall?

Michael: Business is good, we’re gaining traction from consumers, largely because of our retail distribution. But, you know, it can always be better, so we keep pounding the pavement.

BB: What accounts are you in?

Michael: Off-Premise we’re in Total Wine & More, Kroger, Wegman’s, Whole Foods, Stew Leonard’s, and more. On-Premise we’re in a range of what you might called “marquis” accounts like Fig & Olive, Balthazar, Eleven Madison, Jean-George’s restaurants, and a bunch of others.

BB: How did the Dark Cherry infused vodka come about?

Michael: Our position in the market is based on vodka naturally infused with fruit — just fruit and neutral grain spirits, no artificial flavors, no other additives, no extra sugar. At 60 proof, consumers love our Black Fig and Gold Apricot products because they can enjoy it by itself and in cocktails. When we thought about other products, cherries came immediately to mind.

Barbara: I would add that finding the right blend and especially the right cherries, took time. Like some fine wines, we needed to find the right balance of cherry types. Our blend is 80% Bing Cherries and 20% Rainer.

BB: And how did the RTD product come about?

Michael: Lots of our bartender fans and friends kept making different kinds of drinks with Dark Cherry. One was a Cherry Coke. But the one that got our attention was a Shirley Temple with Dark Cherry vodka… The Dirty Shirley. Then…

Barbara: We felt that just adding vodka to the traditional recipe was wrong. If you order a Dirty Shirley at a bar, the recipe calls for lemon lime soda like sprite, grenadine, and maraschino cherries. Much too sweet and artificial tasting. When we taste our product with the trade, the response we got was, “You ought to put it in a can as an RTD.” So, we did.

Also, It’s special, unique, it’s fun, it’s yummy, and after the last two years, I figured we could all use a reminder of simpler times. Our new Dark Cherry vodka gives us a delicious yet all-natural twist with the convenience of a can.

BB: How is it different than the Dirty Shirley made in bars?

Michael: The RTD has our Dark Cherry vodka, fresh lime juice, some real ginger, and a touch of carbonation.

BB: How is it going so far?

Barbara: We just launched in May and only in a few markets, but we can’t keep it in stock.

Michael: From a business standpoint, the RTD will hopefully accomplish several things: promote the Dark Cherry infused vodka as a brand, highlight our full line and raise awareness of our other real fruit products, and perhaps open the door to other RTD entries.

BB: So, it’s not just a new brand, it will play a strategic role.

Michael: That’s right.

BB: Where can my readers find the RTD?

Barbara: We launched in Boston, at Big Night Live and sold 130 cans in 3 hours. BevMo/Gopuff requested availability in CA. We will also launch Gopuff in MA and DC, and Total Wine in MA.

BB: The best of luck with all your products. You’ve come a long way from when we originally met. Here’s to continued success. Thanks for your time.

Coole Swan: A Whiter Shade of Cool

March 12, 2021 2 Comments

Move Over Bailey’s, Here Comes the Swan

According to Impact Databank, Bailey’s Irish Cream is a 1.5 million 9-litre brand in the US and grew 6.5% from 2018 to 2019. But after you read the story about Coole Swan Irish Cream Liqueur, you might wonder if Coole Swan, with the right resources, might just make a dent in those numbers.

The Back Story

David Gluckman, whom I’ve written about in the past, spent 45 years in the drinks business primarily in the new brand development area. Much of his career, 36 years to be exact, was with International Distillers and Vintners (IDV), the company that became Diageo. Along the way, he created Sheridan’s, Le Piat d’Or, Tanqueray Ten, Bailey’s Irish Cream, among others.

In 2005, he left Diageo and decided that, together with some former clients/colleagues, they would develop products for their own company. As he puts it in his book (That S*it Will Never Sell):

“When I think back, I was isolated from most of the tough stuff… working for a company. All I had to do was come up with ideas. Other people looked at production, finance and marketing. Now that I was working on a brand of my own, I came to realise how difficult things could be at the deep end.”

Among the products they developed was Coole Swan where they saw an opportunity for a product with lower sweetness and more modern, sophisticated packaging which broke with the Bailey’s template.

Currently, the brand is an independently owned family business run by husband and wife team Mary Sadlier and Philip Brady. Interestingly, Mary Sadlier’s background was in corporate finance at Diageo.

I’ll come back to her in a moment, but about now you’re probably wondering where the brand’s name comes from.

Coole Swan

As Mary put it, “the name Coole Swan was inspired by The Wild Swans at Coole, a poem written by one of Ireland’s great romantic poets; W.B. Yeats. In this poem Yeats writes about finding everlasting beauty in an ever-changing world – just like our wonderful Irish Cream Liqueur. Coole Swan, an eternal beauty, we just bottled it.”

According to David Gluckman, he and his associates had a hard time coming up with a name for the cream liqueur they invented. Either the name didn’t fit or was already taken. By chance, David was catching the last plane out of Dublin and looking for inspiration, picked up a copy of a book of Yeats’ poetry. He found one of his most famous poems, as he put it, “a wistful reflection on the passing of time called The Wild Swans at Coole,” a park near County Galaway.

(A link to the poem is here.)

About Mary Sadlier, the owner

Mary Sadlier, who with her husband Philip Brady, run the Coole Swan business, hails from Navan in County Meath. The Coole Swan company is based nearby in Tatestown near Navath in the same county.

Mary is an amazing businessperson and struck me as someone who is always learning, always growing.

As mentioned, she was in corporate finance at Diageo. In my view, after talking with her at length for this article, it was clear to me that she has a keen overall sense of all aspects of business, marketing and sales included. She has participated in Going for Growth a six-month part-time program, supported by Enterprise Ireland and KPMG, which assists ambitious female entrepreneurs to achieve their growth aspirations.

I found this quote from her on their newsletter:

“The Going for Growth program was of tremendous benefit to me. To be among so many brilliant women made me grow in confidence and allowed me to ‘lean-in’. The fellow participants are like really good neighbors – they are there with you when need them but not when you don’t,” says Mary.

What Mary and her company lack is the corporate resources to meet the challenge of Bailey’s and the dozens of Bailey’s knock-offs and wannabes.

About the product

The best way to describe the product is to compare it to Bailey’s:

Coole Swan is made with Single Malt Irish whiskey, Belgian white chocolate and fresh cream. It is only produced in Ireland. Bailey’s is made with Irish Whiskey and a propriety recipe of chocolate flavors. The company reports that it is made in both Dublin, Ireland and in Mallusk, Northern Ireland. But given its volume and widespread global distribution, I suspect it may be produced elsewhere as well.

The alcohol by volume is similar for both, around 16/17% AbV. The price points vary with Coole Swan selling for (roughly in the US) $29.99 and Baily’s at $25.

So long as we’re talking comparisons, I found this review from Common Man Cocktails:

“BAILEYS’ has a really deep nutty/chocolatey nose hitting your nostrils with a fairly potent ethanol all along whereas COOLE SWAN is far more tamed (with an actual cream thickness when swirled around the glass) with a lot more components coming through at once, not standing out or taking over one another but all having their say and coming out nicely…”

The Future for Coole Swan

The brand does around 10,000 9-litre cases in the US and currently is in New York Metro, Colorado, New Hampshire, Kansas, South Carolina and Massachusetts. Mary is smart enough to know the US market and is looking at LibDib (and other approaches) to expand into Wisconsin, Illinois, Florida, California, as well as Maine Vermont and New Jersey.

Globally, the brand is in Ireland (of course) and elsewhere in the UK, Germany, Australia, and Alberta Canada.

My takeaway

From a personal perspective, my wife and I have always been Bailey’s Irish Cream lovers, considering it as a special treat, upon occasion. However — and at the risk of offending my Diageo friends — Coole Swan is at an entirely different level of cream liqueurs. It is, as the label indicates, a “Superior Irish Cream Liqueur.”

I’m well aware of the trend toward low and no alcohol and one might wonder as to whether the drinking climate will inhibit the growth of all cream liqueurs. However, the sales data shows that the leading brands, have grown one percent recently — basically flat but not declining. With all due respects to the trend followers, not everyone buys into it (what’s the point of drinking a no-alcohol tequila) and, regardless, a bit of indulgence goes a long way these days.

The challenge Coole Swan faces is resources, and, to make the brand grow by expanding in current markets, adding meaningful and strategically important new markets, building awareness and trial, and the human resources to make all this happen.

What Mary and her team have going for them, and why I believe in the growth potential of the brand, is tenacity, passion, intelligence, and strategic thinking. They need that and more to make a dent in the category and Bailey’s sales.

I love a good David vs. Goliath story. Don’t you?

Misunderstood Whiskey

December 3, 2020 3 Comments

A Ginger Spiced Whiskey from Two Creative Entrepreneurs

What I particularly enjoy about the craft spirit movement is that it attracts people with vision and who are willing to think outside the box. This is the story of two childhood friends who had an idea and the tenacity to make it happen, in no less a difficult and complicated endeavor than the spirits business.

JD Recobs and Chris Buglisi, founders and owners of Misunderstood whiskey, have been friends since childhood, age seven to be exact. They grew up a block apart in Montclair, NJ and often worked together in various “enterprises” ranging from lemonade stands to DJ events to house painting.

Their college years were characterized by the usual and expected choices until graduating. The end of college and entering the workplace also brought a graduation from Captain and Coke to bourbon. Unfortunately, their ardor for whiskey was not shared by their friends who hated whiskey. And, yet their friends were drinking flavored whiskey and liking it. A eureka moment followed and the idea of a new and different flavored whiskey came to the surface.

As they put it on their website:

“We started this business with absolutely no experience besides drinking the stuff. We just had a vision. This made us work harder to develop a unique, high quality whiskey that was the perfect balance between complexity and drinkability. We spent many sleepless nights running home from our corporate jobs to blend, infuse, and spit out lots of homemade infusions. In 2017, after four years of development and feedback, we finally bottled Misunderstood Ginger Spiced Whiskey. The next question was, would anyone buy it?”

The Journey

Satisfied with the product they had developed in their kitchens, the path to launch involved the usual obstacles — finding a manufacturer, raising money, getting distribution, and much more. Fortunately, they found a manufacturer in Bardstown, KY and began production of what they describe as the whiskey for everyone — “an introductory whiskey for the novice yet complex enough for the connoisseur.”

So, after bottling their first run, they drove overnight back to New Jersey with cases in their car and launched at The Jersey City Whiskey Fest (the inaugural event in 2017) and 1,500 thirsty attendees. On the way they dropped off cases to an online retailer. They quickly depleted their first production run.

Here’s how they describe the reaction to Misunderstood Whiskey:

“1,500 people were in attendance to taste products showcased by nearly 100 established brands…and well, us. Much to our surprise, we were overwhelmed by the people’s reactions as Misunderstood became a crowd favorite that night. No one actually believed it was our first day in business. We immediately knew we had something people wanted …”

What followed next was a back office and distribution relationship with Park Street Imports and adding Florida and Upstate NY to their market repertoire. And, if you can imagine, all initially sold by the guys and delivered by them.

As many startup booze business entrepreneurs will tell you, launching a brand is not for the faint of heart or the lazy.

Enter 375 Park Avenue Spirits

Sean O’Rourke was the head of the craft spirit division at Fedway Associates, an important and powerful distributor in New Jersey. Sean is one of those executives with a strong entrepreneurial orientation and a keen eye for high potential brands. Somehow, he knows intuitively which craft or startup will make it. So, when he heard glowing reports about Misunderstood from the trade, he reached out to JD and Chris and added them to his portfolio. It quickly became the number one craft brand at Fedway.

The scene shifts. Sean left Fedway and joined the Sazerac Company, which in addition to the namesake brand company, also has the Bond & Royal and 375 Park Avenue Spirits divisions. Sean is the GM of Bond & Royal. As luck would have it, Sean ran into the guys at the Louisville Airport and what followed was a press release with this headline:

MISUNDERSTOOD WHISKEY BECOMES FIRST DOMESTIC BRAND TO JOIN SAZERAC’S GROWING 375 PARK AVENUE SPIRITS PORTFOLIO

They have entered into a strategic alliance with plans for regional and national rollout over time. According to Sean, “JD and Chris set out to make a whiskey for everyone and it has proven to resonate with novice drinkers and cocktail enthusiasts alike. In an age of fleeting brand loyalty and increased consumer curiosity, Misunderstood is one of the few brands I’ve seen consumers return to time and time again as a staple in their pantry and cocktail repertoire.”

Jason Schladenhauffen, president and CEO of 375 Park Avenue Spirits, added, “The success that Chris and JD have been able to achieve…is a testament to the strength of the brand and the stewardship they’ve provided,”

I’ve always said that for a new brand to succeed, it needs to be relevant and unique. But let’s also add the drive, enthusiasm and hard work of the founder.

About the product

Misunderstood is an American Whiskey blended with two types of all-natural ginger. In fact, the ginger is visible (well ground up) in the bottle and collects at the bottom if it’s left to sit for a while. The product is distilled at 80 proof from 100% Midwest grains in Bardstown KY, and aged in American Oak barrels. The SRP is roughly $30 for a 750ML.

I’m not much of a taste expert but their description resonated with me as I drank the product. The aroma (nose) provides ginger (of course), but also vanilla, and a bit of citrus. I loved the taste — ginger bread, toasted oak, caramel, vanilla. The finish is a very enjoyable butterscotch and baking spices.

I tried it many different ways, but on the rocks with a twist of lemon peel was my favorite. I asked about a signature drink and was told that the “Stood and Soda” (a High Ball) was becoming popular. It is not a shooter product, in my view, but a very pleasant sip and savor experience. As you can imagine the Misunderstood Mule is outrageous.

* * *

The obvious question is, what’s ahead for JD and Chris. With 375 Park Avenue Spirits providing the wind to the brand’s back and with their work ethic the formula for success is there. Remember, a winning new brand needs relevance, uniqueness and hard work by the founders.

Interestingly, the subtitle on the label is “Legend One.” So, I’m guessing that Misunderstood Ginger Spiced Whiskey is just the beginning.