Why Are Spirits Brands Bypassing Bartenders for Somms?

(upbeat music) - From Vine Pairs New York City headquarters, I'm Adam Deeter. - And I'm Joanna Sherino. - And in Seattle, Washington, I'm Zach Treball. - And this is the Vine Pairs podcast. - All right, EIC. What have we been publishing, what's your reading, what's important on the site right now? - What all three things? - We published a piece from Aaron Goldfarb this week on the 12 most important IPAs of the 21st century. - And then David and Fonte trolled him. - Trolled so hard. - Posted a meme that said, that is the last thing that someone says before they get divorced. - A millennial dad. - A millennial dad specifically. - Specifically. - Well, Dave, you should know that this piece is driving a ton of traffic right now to all you millennial dads reading it. - Also, Dave, you should care, you're at the Craft Brewers Conference. Maybe you should make fun of people that care about the beer. - Or you should. - That's his thing. - Yeah, I think yeah. - Trolls is completely out of it. - No cows are sacred with Dave even spotted. - No, no, no. - Do you know what the first one he picked was? Did you guys read it? - I did. - Okay, I said, can you guess? - I have notes. - Oh yeah. - Okay. - No notes. - I do, but. - No notes are being, I'm excited about this. - No, not from me, fair enough. - Dogfish head. - Yep. - 90 minute, I think. - Yeah, of course. - So I think he did a really great job with this. I had assigned it to him. He was like, I had a great time right? - Cool. - Which is so funny. Okay, one note, what's your note, Zach? - Oh, I just think that the one other beer I would have perhaps considered, not so much because of, well, in a way, that's true for several of the other beers on that. Like for what it symbolized in the moment in the last, you know, 25-ish years of craft beer was the space test IPA from Elysian. And just in part for like Steve would going up on stage at maybe it was CBC, actually, I remember which - I knew it was CBC, right? - Yeah, with the like, you know, fuck AB and Bev shirt. - Right. - And like that beer being such a touch point for this. Like, and it was really IPA, I think, at the heart of that. So that was my only note, but, you know, I think it was a really cool list. And, you know, it's like, it's one of those ones where you could have probably, you know, well, maybe Aaron would have had as much fun if it was twice as long, but there are plenty of other beers that could have certainly merited note there. So, you know, it was like-- - I like being good athletic. - Yeah, absolutely. - Run wild. - Important. - Yeah. It's a good piece. - Yeah, what about you Adam? - I'm just, I'm riffing off of what you've been reading, you know what I'm saying? - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, I'm like, I really push. No, I mean, I liked, I did like Dave's hot take on, you know, the finished long drink. - Oh yeah. - I think he has great analysis and has good ideas as to why it's happening and all that stuff. - Wait, can I tell you something? So Dave sent me a link, I was almost going to share it with you guys. He sent me this link to a podcast called Who, which is like a celebrity and pop culture podcast. Do you guys know it? - No. - I had never heard of it. And he was like, listen at 1330. And they start talking about Miles Teller, Rory McElroy, whatever, and their investment finished long drink. And then they're like, and then the news about this is that like white cloth parent company bought it this week. And one of the hosts was like, I was listening to, or I was reading this in Vine Pair. And the column, the, she said, the country columnist said that it was a very smart deal, very smart investment. And then the other host was like, Conti columnist at the liquor blog, basically is what they call Vine Pair. And she was like, no, Conti in a good way, right? Like, and so I thought that was so fucking hilarious. Yeah. - You've been put that on a hat before too long. - He's like, no one in a good way. - So, but I thought that was so great. We got a little pick up in this pop culture. - Never heard of this pop culture. - Our liquor blog, Adam. - Our liquor blog. No, that's the Irish liquor blog. Anyways, that's a real liquor blog. You read anything, Zach? - Yeah, on the, on the yield liquor blog, I enjoyed Hannah's piece recently about the, you know, kind of decade by decade, the most important American wines, or most important wines period, I guess, that helps shape sort of drink sculpture. I, you know, again, I thought fun, like definitely brought up a couple of, a lot of wines that would have occurred to me, in that space, I think, you know, whether it was New Zealand's South Blanc, which I was like, this has to be on here when I saw the headline, you know, "Romber, or Shardinay", obviously, on there, lots of others. I think the only thing I kind of was like, "Huh, I wonder how to work it in?" And she did mention Stagg's Leap Cab in the '70s, but I was like, I feel like there needs to be another cabernet, specifically, like probably a Napa Cab somewhere in the '90s and 2000s, but I couldn't even, you know, in Hannah's defense, that that she needs me to defend her own piece, but like, I couldn't think of like a specific wine that was like, okay, this is absolutely the one, but it felt like we're like kind of like, this other thing that drove wine culture, you know, maybe something that Michelle Rolont had consulted on or something like that to tie several recent episodes together. So, but I really enjoyed it. And again, it's like interesting to see how the way, the kinds of wines, and in particular, how it's less about specific brands over the last couple of decades and more about broader categories, which I think is absolutely right. I don't think that's a mistake. I think that's just like how it is earlier on in the wine. The history, it's single brands that really drive entire categories, and now it's a little more categories with a number of different brands sort of jockeying for position within them. - Yeah. - Cool. So today, I wanted to talk about Psalms as spirits experts, and what that sort of means for the broader drinks world, but also what wine especially could learn from sort of strategies this way. So, there have been a few instances that have occurred over the past few weeks of sort of. - That we've seen. - That we've seen. - Yeah. - Of media and trade targeting Psalms and getting Psalms sort of serve as spirits, experts in place of actual spirits professionals. And I've talked to a bunch of spirits professionals about this, and while some of the things they're not fans of, for example, like the New York Times using the Somalia as their spirits expert in their spirits tasting round up instead of using actual well-known bartenders who've spent their entire career working with these spirits while the Psalm has spent their entire career working with wine, there are times that they can all admit this is smart. And especially where a few very prominent bartenders and I was talking yesterday about this, where it's smart is when some certain spirits brands just don't have the luck that they might normally have with spirits professionals. - That their product doesn't resonate with. - Because of one reason or whatever reason. - One of these products, I won't name it, but it's a mess cow that's trying to break out. So this is the example I want to use. A mess cow is trying to break out that like for whatever reason it hasn't found a fit with bartenders, right? I think it's kind of expensive, it's a little flashy, it's kind of like as it was said to me, the 1942 of mess cow, right? It's like trying to be really high end, it's very well funded, I think, raise a lot of money from very successful, other very successful entrepreneurs, et cetera. And so like bartenders for whatever reason haven't embraced it. I think there's always been the same kind of bias in spirits as there is in wine for emerging, especially with emerging brands, where bartenders really want to support like small, independent, especially when it comes to certain spirits from certain places, like spirits that are made by people of those places, they can draw a lot, like year generations of heritage to those places, et cetera. That's just same as when we talk about wine professionals and certain wine regions, et cetera, and emerging wine regions. And so this brand instead has run this really big press trip with a lot of really famous Psalms, including AldoSom, Amy Racine, et cetera. And they're all on this big trip with this brand. And I was talking to bartenders about this yesterday, and they were saying how like, it's actually smart. - They said it was smart? - Yeah, like they said, like, look, we wouldn't go on that trip. - Yeah, yeah. - Right, it's not for our bars, right? It doesn't, this liquid doesn't fit, but it potentially fits at the restaurants that they run. - Yeah. - And the beverage programs that they run, especially as like a neat poor, it's a lot of people don't consider this to truly be a mess cow, like a lot of experienced professionals, it's very smooth and easy to drink, it's not a smokey and aggressive, et cetera. But like, that's the exact reason why like, it's the greatest entry level gateway mess cow for a lot of restaurant consumers. And I think that there's a lot of parallels here for what we've been arguing for with some wine brands and experienced professionals. I think the same could be done with them, where there are lots of wine brands that I think focus a lot on these, you know, press trips, et cetera, to try to bring psalms to their properties. And psalms, if they don't want to come, are interested because it's not the hot region at the moment, et cetera. But like, most bars also serve wine. A lot of these cocktail bars have, you know, usually at least a few reds, a few whites. I mean, they're not like the insane wine programs with seller storage, et cetera, that the wine bars and restaurants will have, but they have wine on their menus because they want to have something for, a customer that may not want to drink a cocktail, right? And they almost never get targeted, right? They almost never get invited on these same kind of trips. And so I think that there's a lot that could be learned from this, because in the same way that this spear spray is like, huh, you know, why are we trying so hard to fit square peg and round hole here? Like if we're not having luck with like the craft cocktail world, right? Let's go after a more like beverage, dinner focused world. It's the same could be true for some of these wine brands. It's like, we're not having luck with or we're just not getting that attention because right, you know, we're California wine and the Psalms in New York City really only care about wines from Europe or whatever. Think about the cool kid bartenders that would go and also really want to learn about wine. I mean, most people in beverage are interested in all beverage. They're obviously our few, you know, silos. I think mostly wine professionals themselves, like executives may be only care about wine. But for the most part, like people in the service industry, especially I found in their 20s and 30s are like really interested in all of it. And so like inviting them on these journeys could be ultimately really beneficial for these brands, especially when they're not having, you know, a lot of luck with the primary on trade gatekeepers. Yeah. Well, Adam just made every point there was to make in this podcast episode. So all right. Well, this need to be a short one anyway. Well, okay. Well, I want to pick up on a few things that you just said. I think that, well, first of all, as we've discussed extensively, the wine marketing budgets are probably a lot smaller than what these spirits brands have. Right. So they're not hosting, probably not hosting regular press trips to bring some of them do though. Some of them do. A lot of regions do. A lot of regions do. Okay. That's a good point. Too big regional trips. I mean, I'm sure Zach's been on them. I have. Yeah. A lot of regions do. Brands less so because I think a lot of the brands, like the spirits brands don't have a problem with it. They're willing to be like, yeah, we'll bring you down for three days and like, we'll just find enough shit for you to do for three days. Right. We don't care that you're drinking, you know, Jack Daniels the whole time. But they have the budgets to do it too. But I think wine brands get nervous about that. Like, oh, can we really have them drink like, I don't know, Kamus for three full days. Like, that's, they're going to get bored with that. They're not going to want to do that in spirit, special, like, no, like we can make cocktails with it. We can drink it straight. We can like go to the bars in the area and whatever. Yeah. And see how it's using all the different bars and like, I think wine has a harder time figuring out how they would do that. So yeah, that's why the individual press strips for wine doesn't happen a lot, but regional trips happen. It's fun. Yeah. And then the other thing I wanted to mention was, you know, and you kind of touched on this that Amy Racine, I feel like, is a very good example of this. She is a beverage professional. She is a beverage director. She handles this across restaurants for a whole group, right? It's not just, I think by trade, she was a song, right? And now she's a beverage director. And so I think investing across categories from when people are earlier and younger in their careers is just, again, super smart. You don't know where they're going to be in five, ten years. And then they have this fondness and familiarity with your brand because you took them on this great trip. And now they're in this role and they think of your brand. So I think that that is so smart. And though it looks maybe a little contrived, right? Like bartenders didn't pick up your mess cow. So let's go after Psalms. But I think that these can be decision makers in one way or another or another at some point in their careers. And it's just smart investment. Yeah, I think it's both that for sure. It's this idea that you want to reach the buyers and the decision makers and maybe as a brand, you don't really give a shit whether that person, you know, wears a pan or not on the floor. Like that's just kind of a, that's the, that's just who you're trying to get, right? And who runs a beverage program for a larger restaurant group, like you want that person, whatever their background, whatever their perceived area of expertise. I also think that like a piece that sometimes is a little bit, not well understood outside of the trade. And, you know, I think you were kind of getting at this atom is like, there's generally a lot of interest across category from, from professionals. And even, you know, again, some of the days and wine professionals that I've known and worked with, many of them have deep interest in, in spirits, right? There's a lot of, you know, similarities, a lot of these spirits have their own, you know, very specific histories, their specific kind of, you know, culture, you know, techniques. And all these kind of things that you can nerd out on in the same way that you can with wine. And while there are obviously some wine pros who are like, well, wine is where I start and then, you know, whether that's spirits, whether it's, you know, other ferment or distilled beverages, whether it's, you know, things that are non-alcoholic, like there's often a, kind of, I don't say creep, that's the wrong way to put it. Like, you tend to become, you know, stay interested in learning more about, you know, the broader beverage world. And so it's not to me sort of like, strange to be like, wow, look at these wine people. They drink mezcal. Like, and I know that's not what we're saying. I think there's just sometimes that's like perception that like, well, if you're a, if you're known as a wine professional, how, how could you possibly know or care about anything else? But I also think that there's this other piece of it that's really interesting to me, which is to what extent outside of their own individual restaurants, like, you know, whether Amy or not puts this mezcal on the list that any of the restaurants are not is not really the thing I'm interested in. It's whether by doing this, by, you know, being public about it, being on social media, et cetera, it creates more interest around the brand, whether that's from bartenders or whether that's from other buyers around the country. I mean, look, Amy's been someone we have talked about, you know, we've awarded. She's obviously very highly thought of and she's not the only one on that trip in that, you know, kind of camp. And so I think there's some, there's some benefit of like, you know, maybe yeah, you're not getting the most high profile bartenders. But if you're getting high profile beverage professionals to go on your trip and be kind of associated with your brand, that's probably a big enough win, even if they're not the exact prototype. And the last thing I will say about this in this specific vein is I also think that like, it's sometimes hard to get the same amount of traction with, with bar folks because bar buyers, if they're, if they're cocktail side generally have just fewer outlets and they don't necessarily want to be as beholden to an individual brand for, for probably good reason. And so I think you actually would, from a just pure dollars and cents standpoint, it actually makes more sense to try and get in with people who are going to be maybe less interested in having 30 mescels on their list than having three. And if you're one of those three, you are probably going to do better volume than being one of a lot of bottles on a back bar, even if it's in a great cocktail bar. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a good point too. What do you think to, to, to a little bit because I think we've, we've channeled this a bunch, in terms of why this is smart? One other question I do have though to both of you is, do you think there is something to be said for when that expertise is presented publicly, like staying in one's lane? So a little bit of like the, you know, is it appropriate to like have the Psalm be a public spirit's expert or it, or should you have the Psalm as a spokesperson for your spirit's campaign or vice versa? Like, does that matter? Do we care about that? Or if it upsets some professionals in that specific camp, like if it upsets some bartenders, like who kind of cares? Yeah. I mean, I feel like industry people probably care about it. We probably, we're obviously, we've taken note of this, but I would say for, especially in for publication, right, for a lifestyle or general publication, it doesn't matter to the average consumer. And you can say, this is this person's, like these are this person's credentials. And that's why they're, you know, able to speak about the best of autgos, even if they're a wine person, like I would just guess that for most people, it doesn't really matter. Right. Whereas for like the other members of like the spirit trade, they're like, but I have more of an expertise in this wine, I ask basically. Yeah. Right. And I think there's, there's kind of two things I would add to this. One is a little bit kind of how do you carry it, right? And I think there are just some people who, whether they're, they're best known as wine experts and professionals, just have kind of the ability to, to convey a degree of expertise and authority that just, you know, makes it sort of so that the average reader, the average person kind of encountering that content is just going to be like, Oh, okay, sure, this makes sense. And some people can't. And that's, you know, maybe where, if you're the person, you know, putting together these tasting panels or building these campaigns or something, you got to be a little bit thoughtful about who you're reaching out to. And then the other piece of it, I would say is like, I think there is some truth in the idea that sometimes, I don't think it's a wine specific thing, but I think there's sometimes a way in which you, some people are just better at kind of communicating through the, like if you're talking about, especially, you know, putting together a tasting panel or something like that, I think sometimes I've, you know, I've sat in on these for every category of bevel. Like I've done wine tasting and wine judging, I've done spirits, I've done beer, et cetera. And sometimes you do see this challenge that I think people, because like the wine lexicon is much more robust. And it's just for better for words, the way that wine people talk about wine is often a lot more verbose fundamentally. Like there's just more terminology. There's just more expectation that if you're a wine professional and a wine expert, you are able to talk a lot about wine and in differentiate between wines, even if a lot of that is kind of bullshit, honestly, it still carries into this space more effectively than I think spirits pros sometimes have a harder time sort of being like, let's tease out the specific nuances, the specific nuances here, because it's just lots of part of it. I mean, yes, you will definitely see in some categories and in some settings where like, hey, if we're tasting, you know, a number of different bourbons against one another, then yes, what spirits pros are going to talk about, you know, well, what is the, you know, aging regimen, mashmill, et cetera, you know, the specifics of the distillery and stills and stuff like that. But the language there is not as well developed and well understood by the average public and it's just sometimes a harder time. conversation to have. And so I get a little bit reaching into the wine world and saying, hey, these people are effective or these theoretically effective communicators in this way. I do think though it's probably if you're putting together a tasting panel, like it's fine, I think it's fine to include a wine professional. I think they can't be the only professional you include. That seems like a mistake to me because yeah, there are bartenders out there. There are spirits experts who are just as good at communicating and their expertise feels a little bit more natural in this space. Yep, I don't I'm curious what other people think. I think that you should just have a podcast at VineBerry.com and let us know and we should figure out what the sirens are going on outside because it's like been a lot. I will say one last thing. Yeah, please. And I am judging a brisket competition next week. Whoa. You used to be a food lover. Feel a little bit like like a wine professional giving spirits advice. But is it smoked brisket or all kinds of brisket? I think it's all kinds of brisket. That's a little I'm a little scared. That's a little all over the place. It's too broad. It's not just it's not just smoked. It's not just barbecue brisket. I don't think so. I think it's all I have to learn more. Well, Joanna will tell us what she's been eating on a future episode. Can't wait. Can't not wait. All right, well, let us know what you think about this. It's about podcast at VineBerry.com and I'll talk to you both on well, I'll talk to you, Joanna, on Monday. Yes, have a nice weekend. Do you both? That's great. Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair podcast, the flagship podcast of the VinePair podcast network. If you love this podcast, please leave us a rating or review wherever it is that you are currently listening to it all. It really helps other people discover the show. Also, tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your colleagues, basically tell anyone about the VinePair podcast. It's always very appreciated, especially by Jill Hannah. The podcast is hosted by myself, Adam Teeter, our editor-in-chief, Joanna Sharino, and Zach Jabal, Somalia, former Somalia, from Seattle, Washington. As we all know, theme music by Darby C. Sy, art for the podcast by Daniel Grinberg, VinePair was co-founded by myself, and Josh Malin. Thanks so much again for listening, and we will see you again the next time you listen to an episode. If you made it all with your these credits, I again consider you a super fan.