5 minute read
Brand Owner Profile
Bertito (or little Bert), better known as Tito, grew up in San Antonio, Texas and was always an artisan at heart. While his career history was checkered at best, he inadvertently took a path that led him to help pioneer the American micro-distillery movement and create one of the smoothest handmade vodkas in the United States. Yes, that’s right, made in the USA and in Texas, no less. Tito believes his success is either the result of total stubbornness or just pure stupidity. We like to believe it was just fate.
Tito’s educational background is in geology and geophysics, which led him into the gas and oil business before starting a drilling company and doing ground water geology. He then handed in his rubber boots for a suit and tie upon entering the mortgage market. He eventually found himself searching for a different career when the mortgage racket became too unstable. Handing in his suit and tie, now what would he do?
Throughout all of his career moves, Tito’s one passion remained constant. He loved crafting flavored vodka for himself and his friends. The recipients of his homemade potables would always compliment his recipes so he figured he could sell his concoctions to local liquor stores. As you could imagine, this did not go over well. A local distiller rolls in with his homemade flavored vodka asking that it grace the shelves of Stoli’s twelve flavors. Yeah, not happening.
This sent Tito back to the drawing board with the notion of creating the smoothest, best tasting vodka, while putting the imports to shame. “It’s important to create something you like,” Tito says. “First of all, I knew I would be drinking a lot of it. So I needed a pure foundation, a clean, fresh, pure spirit. Secondly, if I enjoyed it, I hoped that other people would enjoy it. I wanted a vodka you can sip, straight up.” Tito admits that he is demanding and picky when it comes to getting his handmade vodka right. “Smoothness is the goal,” says Tito. “I had and still have a clear idea of the taste I am going for. Every now and then I hit it perfectly. But corn is to vodka what grapes are to wine and there are many variables in the crop that produce small changes from year to year and from field to field, which affect the outcome. I taste everything and if a red flag is raised I usually know how to fix it. I’ll do this with other brands, too. I have made some really terrible stuff being a self-taught distiller. But once I got the vodka right I was determined to get distribution. If I’d known what kind of nightmare it was going to be I would never have gone forward.”
Going back a little more than a decade ago, huge companies and big money brands monopolized the spirits industry. There were very few micro-distilleries and virtually no artisan brands to speak of. For Tito, navigating his way through this complex, multi-tiered system of retail distribution, laws at the state and federal level and environmental regulations were a complete test of his will. “Being the guy out front is like a double-edged sword,” Tito recalls. “Paving the way for small batch distilling and being a forerunner in that movement is humbling but it’s still torture being the first guy to hack a path through the jungle.”
While hacking his way through the path less taken, Tito describes this time in his life as painful. “It’s like the world says, okay, if you can handle all this then you will deserve it. I was broke, in debt, with no investors and doing everything myself because I couldn’t afford any help. I was being told by everyone around me that I was crazy and needed to quit. But as I made it through each level and eventually overcame each obstacle, it became like a quest for me. I had invested just too much of myself to turn back.”
Tito credits old school ideals that he learned from his grandfather as the driving force behind his determination to succeed. “I knew I had a great product, one that was of fair price and of good value, one that people would tell their friends about. I counted on personal relationships and word of mouth and did business like they used to back in the day, with handshakes and family oriented loyalty. But everything just moves so slowly and takes such a long time. It was all so complicated.”
Finally, Tito’s Handmade Vodka got the validation it deserved. The vodka started winning awards and getting rave reviews on the circuit. Tito’s belief about his product was confirmed and he finally turned a corner. “I never thought we would reach this level of production,” says Tito. “It started out just for fun, as I was hoping to sell enough cases for just a couple of years until I got a ‘real’ job. Then it all became so complex and I got sucked in and couldn’t let it go. I would say, just let me sell 3,500 cases a month and I can get in the black. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that we would gain such momentum and sell ten times what I was hoping for.”
Tito’s Handmade Vodka currently sells 300,000 cases a year, a far cry from handing out bottles as gifts. The years of hard work and stick-to-itness paid off. And what advice would Tito offer to someone who wants to follow in his footsteps? “The hard times make you appreciate success more,” maintains Tito. “Get past the stuff that is out of your control and realize that without the possibility of risk there can be no opportunity for success.” FuN FAcT:
Tito has been defending his packaging for years. The label’s design is the original font and logo created by Tito himself because he couldn’t afford artists. He maintains that consumers are intrigued by the simplicity and charm of it and don’t need a fancy bottle, just quality juice. We’re with you, Tito!
The Texas sipper
INGREDIENTS 1 1/2 oz. Tito’s Handmade Vodka 1/4 oz. Elderflower Liqueur 2 oz. Fresh grapefruit juice 1 oz. Grapefruit soda PREPARATION Shake Tito’s, elderflower liqueur and juice over ice. Top with soda.
