$1.5 Billion For BFY Brands. Why They're Worth It. Plus, 'Mission' In A Bottle.

27:58Based in Orange County, California, Mission Cocktails launched in 2023 and markets several products, including a Manhattan, a Margarita, and a Mai Tai, all packaged in 375-milliliter glass bottles. The brand is sold in over 500 retail stores, including Gelson's, BevMo, Pavilions, and Whole Foods. I met up with Marcin and Ahmet at BevNet Live Winter 2024, a year after the co-founder's memorable presentation in the event's Cocktail Showdown competition. The pair discussed the origins of Mission Cocktails and how their focus on liquid to lips and persistent effort to connect with retail executives has helped the brand make significant strides over the past 12 months.

28:49Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I'm honored to be sitting down with Marcin Molisco and Amit Singh, the co-founders of Mission Craft Cocktails. Marcin, how are you? Doing fantastic, Ray, and thank you so much for having us. We're super excited for the second year to be at BevNet Live. Absolutely. Ahmed, how are you doing? Absolutely fantastic. Love being here again. Comes full circle for us and really appreciate the time. As you have both alluded to, you were pretty new last year, joining us as contestants for our Cocktail Showdown competition. You guys really opened some eyes with what you're doing.

29:24Opened up some hearts too, because your brand is all about the mission. Ahmed, if you can talk about the origins of the brand and why you guys do what you do. Yeah, I think there's the origin of the brand and the origin of the product. You know, we really started with a product story first and the desire to create a better cocktail. And it really goes back to the fact that Marcin and myself are best friends and we really enjoyed cocktail culture, fine dining restaurants and really enjoyed great cocktails. COVID hit and like many others, that scene ceased to exist. So we tried to create our own.

29:57So we, like most people, went to YouTube to find out how we make great cocktails. And that was an incredible disaster. We absolutely learned that we love cocktails, but we're terrible at making them. Aside from the fact that our wives hated us for destroying their kitchens, bringing in hundreds of dollars with raw materials to make two lousy cocktails was not for us. So we decided to take the easy way out. We got handmade or canned cocktails from the store, and they weren't really hitting our taste profile. So we kind of leveled up. You know, the more you spend, the better it's supposed to get.

30:32So we ended up getting probably 60, 70, 80 different cocktails, you know, shipped to us. Kept trying them over and over and over again and came to the same conclusion that nothing really tasted the same as it did out of a cocktail shaker. So, you know, we like to say at 1 a.m. after trying a lot of cocktails, you know, the reason we got into the product side of it was, you know, 50 % was just drunkenness. 50 % was bravado. And the other 50%, now we're at 150 % because we're drunk, was just naivety about the business. And then the next morning, we kind of shook off the hangover, looked at each other and said, you know what, I think we still can do better.

31:10And the purpose at that point was, but why? Right? we probably can make a better cocktail, but why do we want to do it? And the world was really hurting. COVID was in full bloom. Food inflation was through the roof. And we said, hey, how do we design something that takes our passion for cocktails and our real desire to give back and our entrepreneurial spirit and expertise and combine them all to make a company? And that's where the mission was truly born. So the mission behind Mission Craft Cocktails is we give 5 % back of all of our revenues, not fictitious profits, to local food banks. And in the year plus that we've been in business, we're now at 84 ,000 meals delivered to California families in need, because that's where we're really focused right now.

31:52Outstanding. Originally, when you said we took the easy way out, I thought you meant the easy way out was to start a beverage company, which it most certainly is not. Definitely the exact opposite of easy. Totally, totally. I was reading an article about you guys, and the last part of the article featured a quote that one of you gave, and then one of you followed up on. And it was, the best cocktail doesn't just taste good. And then, Marce, that was you, Ahmed. And Marce followed up by saying, it does good. But in order to do well for our community, in order to be charitable as a business, the business has to do really, really well.

32:34And this is something I come across a lot where people have really good intentions, want to do something that is from the heart, but can't because their business or their brand isn't really doing what it's supposed to do, which is make money. I mean, let's be real. You know, these businesses are about making money. So how do you align that to you, Marcin? How do you think about we've got to create a great business first and foremost, and then also do exactly what Amit was talking about, which is 5 % of all revenues and not fictitious profits, which I love the way you put that, by the way. Yeah, it's a great question.

33:09And if you look at anyone with a business background or entrepreneur or MBA, the way we started the business is complete opposite to anyone that would give advice to. So we looked at, first and foremost, our passion desire to make a better cocktail. scale and me and Ahmed just committed, we're going to go down this journey and we're going to figure out at a certain point with economies of scale, we're going to get to be able to create a sustainable and profitable business. And we just always had that confidence and just that attitude that we will figure it out. Right. And then of course, looking at the market, us getting into certain stores and like realizing the business, we knew we had to get to a certain number of volume for us to get to a sustainable point.

33:50So again, it all comes down to sales, You can have the best heart and want to create the best impact in the world. But unless you have sales in a community that loves your product and rebuys the repurchases and has that high velocity, you're not going to be able to make any impact. So, again, for us, it started as an amazing cocktail and then looking at how do we get the highest volume in all of our stores. And that really just comes down to where we currently are at. Totally. I think if I were a retail buyer, I myself would be most interested in the liquid itself because I know my customers are coming in there looking for a great cocktail, just like you guys were in 2021.

34:29But then there are some other retail buyers that would say, you know what? I really love your founder story. I really love the hustle that you guys have shown. Some others would say, you know what? This mission is really gonna resonate with our consumers. The packaging might be something that really gets to some folks. What really rises to the top, Marcin? I mean, obviously, I'm sure you can say it's all of those four things. But is there one thing that retail buyers have really took to when they're bringing your product on? Yeah, I think it's a great question. And first and foremost, if you don't have an amazing quality product, no matter how amazing of a story or give back or angle that you have as part of your product, it's not going to be the reason they're going to bring you in.

35:07there has to be a consumer demand for in our category consumers that want to have a better option than what's on the current shelves right so for one it starts with the quality as we took two and a half years in r &d to create something that we will be proud to serve to our family and friends and we didn't cut corners or time and that's why it took us so long because we wanted to create a cocktail that tastes like a cocktail that came out of a shaker with fresh real juices real ingredients. The second piece is, I think me and Ahmed not coming from the space and just having so much passion in the business is when we do meet the buyers and we do share what we've done in the past with other stores and retailers is the commitment for a long-term partnership that we don't just want to get on the shelves.

35:50We're going to help them bring in a community of people that are going to fall in love with Mission Craft Cocktails due to the quality of the drinks, but also our gift back. So we've been huge proponent, our entire strategy and the business side has been liquid to lip. So we've done hundreds of tastings a month consistently where we're introducing the brand, sharing the story. And then when you have an amazing quality cocktail, you know, it's an indulgence to be able to feel good a little bit after the quality cocktail that you have is being able to have that proportion of every bottle that it sells, we fund one meal.

36:22So for anything, when you look at the four rankings, it's the product, I think it's us and the passion and commitment that we just do not want to get on the shelves. We will support whether it's social, influencers, Hastings, you know, being able to drive that consumer traffic. And then the third is, you know, the give back. I think all three of those are the trifecta to what really gave us the success that we're having now. And, you know, looking back at full circle, when we first came into BevNet of last year, we were in 20 doors, self-distributed, bought a Sprinter van, didn't think we were going to need distributors.

36:55again, being naive and not knowing anything in the business to them be here is such a privilege to, again, reconnect with so many people, give them some updates to where we're at. But we've had, you know, amazing knowledge. And we believe that BevNet has been instrumental to our journey. We're now in about 500 doors. We sign up with Reyes Distribution for all of California. We're in Whole Foods, Gelson's, Pavilions, Total Wine, BevMo, and, you know, have a lot of amazing news coming in 2025 and expansion to, you know, Hawaii and some other states in the new year. That's so exciting. And congratulations on all the wins that you've experienced this year.

37:34I think about great taste and I think about how, for the most part, it's subjective, right? Especially in cocktails, because for some people, you know, they'll go to their favorite bar and their bartender makes them a very specific type of cocktail. They go to another bar, they might get a different kind a cocktail, depending on the ingredients or the formulation or just how certain things are measured and mixed. When it comes to your cocktails, I think consistency is extremely important, number one, but also the fact that you can appeal to a pretty broad set of consumers. How did you think about the formulation, Ahmed?

38:07Who did you work with? And how do you get to that point where the flavors are something that could be universally loved or at least liked by a number of cocktail consumers? I love that question because that implies that me and Marston ourselves have great taste because the drinks were really designed for us. Well, tangent on that, because Marston and I yesterday, last night, had sort of a secret cocktail date, actually, where we were in the bowels of the hotel here sharing cocktails that we probably weren't. It's a long story. But anyway, and I thought I didn't tell Ahmed about that. So you kind of just put me under the bus here.

38:45Basically, we were surrounded by hotel, cafeteria trays and old food. It was a very weird experience, but still very cool. And I had a cocktail I wanted to share with Morrison, one that I particularly liked, but he was like, I'm not so sure about this. I don't particularly, you know, think this is as good as it was presented. Then I went and cried in a corner. No, but again, I think this just goes to show you don't necessarily always agree with what people will say about a particular cocktail. So again, I interrupted you, but you know, it's an important point, I think. Yeah, this late night meetup, clearly an important point that I was not included on.

39:23So I'm a little hurt. But seeing past that into your question, like I said, we really did design them all for ourselves. We did work with a couple of mixologists to help us kind of hone the recipes. So we did spend a lot of time in R &D, which was probably the best part of starting this company, was the R &D process. So, you know, every drink we made, and we've obviously, we've got seven. So truthfully, if people don't like one, there's probably one that does fit their palate. But it was really working through that R &D process. And then, you know, surprisingly for the first five that we developed, we didn't use a lot of consumer taste groups, right?

40:00Or really, you know, we loved them. Some of our friends, if you call that a taste group, loved them. And only on the second batch where we designed the espresso martini and the pineapple jalapeno margarita, we really did bring in some people because heat specifically on the pineapple jalapeno is a very relative thing. So, you know, heat hits me differently than someone else. So we probably had about 30 different iterations of heat levels and sweet levels on the pineapple to really figure out where the majority of people would lie. and surprisingly they lied within you know plus or minus 10 percent of where me and marston ended up so you know or maybe we just got a really middle of the road palette but we were pretty pretty spot on there and we've really started to use taste groups a bit more in our development how much does the influence of say a retail buyer impacts new product development maybe flavor iteration i would think that it is really important let's say you go to whole foods and they're like hey you know, and we're talking about Taylor from Whole Foods, just a tremendous, tremendous guy in this business and one of the most respected and influential folks in this business.

41:06If he said, you know, I like your Manhattan, but maybe you should dial up the rye. How much do you take that into account when you are saying making the next batch of Manhattans? A great question. And I would say because we're small batch and we can change things as we go, it's way more influential than people really think, right? So a lot of people will send in their comments to larger brands and corporations saying, I want you to change this and probably have no hope at all of that happening because we are small batch. We really do listen and we can alter things, you know, minutely. And shout out to Taylor, who is absolutely a champion for us.

41:41And I think the industry, there's someone in the world that truly loves his job and loves helping people. And we're such benefactors of his love. So we really appreciate that. Yeah. And if Taylor told us to create something, remove something, we would do it within 30 seconds. So So that much respect for Taylor. Yeah, well, he's really helpful and he's a great voice and advocate for this industry. Sometimes it's not as easy. Actually, it's almost never as easy to get ahold of a retail buyer and to be able to bend their ear in this business. It's just tough because there's just so many brands and people only have so much time.

42:14So if you're not a Taylor, if you're say a total wine buyer or a buyer from Ralph's or Gelson's, what's been your best approach? What's been the most effective approach getting to talk to them and hopefully getting your product in store. I'm only laughing at that because we have the most untraditional approach to getting buyers. I think of anything, not being from the space, you know, we didn't know what was acceptable on how to approach buyers and what's not acceptable. So I'm going to pass it over to Mars and answer this question because he really does lead the charge here. But I thought I'd at least preface it by saying that, yeah, we didn't know we weren't supposed to do the things we did.

42:52Okay. Well, that's true entrepreneurship right there, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's funny because month one, when we had our first little tiny order of some of our bottles and very, very, very minimal cases, we thought it's a great idea. And like what's acceptable. Hey, we're a new brand. we want to introduce ourselves that you can cold call and email executives at these large grocery chains the buyers the buyers bosses and you know very early on i think they were very nice to us and kind of let it slide a couple of times but at least for us when we look back a year and a half ago when we first started the outreach to all of the grocery chains and the total wine bevmo is they got to hear about missions.

43:38So now it was always that follow-up six months later, hey, this is what we've done here. This is the consumer asking here. We've done X amount of events that they keep on asking to go, for example, Whole Foods, like we're getting a lot of tractions for your consumers. And then six months later, when you have maybe one chain that took a chance on you and you have data and you can show the velocity and you're beating out the competition, then you're starting to now have a chance of, wait a minute, maybe I'm recognizing that brand or I've seen it again and there's another email. So yeah, not knowing the business and then, you know, becoming, I would say a friend of Taylor now as, you know, Whole Foods has been a fantastic partner for us in our journey and Taylor has been instrumental for that as well.

44:23We're starting to understand like the guidelines and the rules and what's the respectful way of getting in front of a buyer, but not being from the space, I think we're naive. I just wanted to add one, just because obviously people in the industry are listening to this and add some relative numbers. Our first production run was 600 cases. And we are now - I didn't want to embarrass myself. I know, I know you didn't want to say it. I just wanted to say a very low number. But it was 600 cases. And here we are literally sending emails to these SVPs of AVP group and to Whole Foods. And if anyone even actually took us seriously or took us up on our offer, you know, we didn't even know how screwed we would have been, right?

45:03Someone like, wow, that's a fantastic margarita. We want you in all stores. We didn't even know what to do with that. Didn't even know you had to be UPC compliant and anything else. So we had 600 cases and we're knocking on the doors and sending emails, cold called emails to the CEOs and SVPs of the large multinational groceries. How'd you get your email addresses? I call Marston CIA because sometimes you give him a bit of a, you know, give him the sense of something. And it's, I think it's his old gamer skill set, but I've never seen a guy keystroke faster than him in my entire life. And two hours later, he's broken through the code and he's got email addresses and, and mobile phone numbers for people.

45:43I don't know how he does that. I don't think he's ever going to give it up. I hopefully it's legal, but if not, well, it sounds like you got a positive response from some, if not all of the people that you emailed. Were you leading with mission? it sounds like you were in those emails, that is. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it was more of an introductory, we're a new brand. We believe that this is something that would be great and a great fit for your consumers. But again, we knew nothing about the space. So thankfully no one responded back to the emails. But I think as we got more confident and we started understanding the business and being in the business and from the small independent chains to, you know, Total Wine was one of the first retailers that gave us a shot.

46:20And then it was BevMo and then Pavilion, in Whole Foods, Gelson's, you know, you have this data that even though they gave you maybe no attention or they just saw you email come by, now you can actually say, hey, here's what we're doing in the areas that you're in. We believe we could do the same at your store and then have that confidence. Yeah. One of the things that the emails did do for us is we really did lead with the mission, right? So it was all about the mission for us and it was all about our give back. And the one thing we found out really quickly, and it almost answers back your earlier question of people didn't really care.

46:53You know what? In this business, product is king. So until people tried our product and we really got into that buying cycle, did the mission become at least more important as a secondary ancillary point of, okay, product's great, but now we understand how these guys will actually build their community, right? They'll build a community with mission-minded people who appreciate the give back and appreciate what we're doing. And God bless, they've got amazing liquid as well. Someone once told me, getting on shelf is the easy part. Staying on shelf is the tough part. You guys have got a good foundation now, 500 stores, multiple retailers, you're looking to expand, but how are you convincing?

47:32Well, I mean, you would think it's sales, right? Like the proof is in the pudding. If your product selling, it's great. If it's not, you're going to be pulled off shelf. So how do you stay on shelf? Going back to the basic strategy that we've always had is liquid to lips. So when we got into the business every shiny event every shiny opportunity we would jump and say yes to until we realize when we have a consumer that's in the store where they want to shop and they are experiencing a new brand and in a three-hour tastings we're going through 25 30 40 50 60 bottles that's incredible for us because now we have an opportunity to share our story allow them to try the product have them take the product to share with their loved ones or for themselves multiple times and And I think a really key factor for us is no one could share the story like us.

48:21And then having an agency do that would disconnect our story and being able to kind of give the training and expertise that we would like to have portrayed to the consumers. So we built an in-house tasting organization for Mission Craft Cocktails that knows our story, passionate about our product, loves our product. And we've had, you know, tremendous success. So for us, it's liquid to lips with tastings, looking at pricing strategy promo for that first trial for those individuals. And I also think it's just creating a price where the consumer is at. Because when we first started, to give an idea, Ray, we were$19.99.

48:57We said real juices, real ingredients, locally sourced. We give back 5 % and quickly we learned that's not where the market is at. So we continue just going down. And as we hit economies of scale, now we're, you know, a few bucks more than some of the lowest ones. And then we're still not the highest one. And you're a 375 milliliter bottle, glass bottle. So just for context, now your price point is probably like 17 or something? No, anywhere from$12.99 to$13.99. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Very affordable. I'm going back to you created a plan for tasting. I'm understanding this is sort of a playbook or a blueprint for how you want anyone to talk to people when they're sampling mission.

49:35And I think that's so important and so brilliant because you do want to speak with the same voice. And I think sometimes I'll go to a store and I'll see someone tasting something and you can definitely tell they're just pulled off the street. They do not care. But, you know, that's kind of inherent to the business, though, isn't it? I mean, sometimes to be able to find someone, you know, 20 bucks for three hours and they sit there and they're just not going to be very motivated. $60 is not a lot of money. So how do you get people motivated beyond the playbook itself? Yeah, I think as Marcin mentioned, right, we can't be at every one of these tastings.

50:07And just relatively speaking, we've got over 100 retail tastings this month, right? And for us, it is a representation of our brand, right? That person holding the bottle is important as the bottle itself and the liquid in the bottle because it's the only voice our brand is going to have. So, you know, we do have our in-house brand ambassadors, we train them all personally, we make sure they've got our salient points, right? So if you've got a tasting, you've got literally three seconds to pull that person walking by you. So most brand ambassadors in the agency will let that person walk by them until someone goes, oh, what do you got?

50:39So we're already teaching them, okay, you've literally got to hook and fish people in the aisle. And then how to speak to our brand and what are the three most important parts. It's definitely the quality of contents of the bottle. It's the give back. It's the local. It's made in California. And those are kind of the hierarchy of points we give them. So we train them all to have literally how to hook. Here's your 12-second pitch while you're pouring. This is how you have to pour it. It's got to be over ice. This is what you got to wear. So we are really, really hands-on with all of our brand ambassadors for as long as we can.

51:10Obviously, as we continue to scale and we're outside of California and other states, we want to take that same mentality, even though we know it's going to be harder to do. But for us, they are our lifeline. And that is where we get, you know, all of our marketing dollars are spent there, is really liquid to lips and focused in store. It's the greatest ROI. As Marcin mentioned, you know, we didn't even know, not being from the industry, what success was, right? So we'd go in and we'd sell 24 bottles. We're like, oh, okay, wow. You know, last time we sold 36. And then we start talking to a lot of retailers and they're like, okay, 12 bottles is absolutely fantastic.

51:45And so we figured out, however we're doing it clearly is working. and we're just passing that knowledge on to our brand ambassadors. Well, I think the through line and everything that you guys do has been lead with passion and lead with the vision that we set out for this brand. And I love, I love that's kind of where we're at right now because a year ago we heard this up on stage at BevNet Live. And sometimes it's difficult. Sometimes, you know, we hear people and talk about what they want to do with their brand and it doesn't necessarily work. but you guys are doing such a great job. And, you know, between really, really fighting for what you believe in, making sure you're always speaking in the same voice and a great premium product.

52:27I mean, I think listeners can understand that, you know what, that's a great blueprint for winning. So thank you both so much for taking the time. Amit, Marcin, I'm so excited for you guys and for the brand and can't wait to do this again pretty soon. Thank you so much for having us, Ray. Truly, we're so grateful. We're so happy to be here. And it's been another amazing, above that life. Yeah, really, truly appreciate the support. And for all your listeners, at Mission Cocktails, our Instagram handle, and buy it online, deliver it to your door and find out how great our cocktails are. We talk about how great your cocktails are on the podcast often.

53:02So I think people hopefully know, but if they don't, now they do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNet.com Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cratchy. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt. And our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smirlinski. And our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice.

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