Speaker 1: Wake that answer up in the morning.
Speaker 2: Breakfast Club Morning.
Speaker 3: Everybody is DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne the guy. We
Speaker 3: are the Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in
Speaker 3: the building. We got the brother Russell Fletcher. Welcome, Brother, Welcome.
Speaker 4: I appreciate you guys actually invite me to the show
Speaker 4: and giving me the opportunity to come in.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure this morning.
Speaker 3: Founder of Mishka Premium Vodka.
Speaker 2: Yes, I just found a master.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I am the Master's Stiller, Master Stiller of Mishka
Speaker 4: Premium Vodka. The company's name is This Life Forever. Something
Speaker 4: that I've held on to for a very long time.
Speaker 4: It's been kind of kind of my thing as far
Speaker 4: as just the way of life and also just being
Speaker 4: able to make sure that I could just promote.
Speaker 1: Good values, community based. We are alcohol driven, but we
Speaker 1: make award.
Speaker 4: Winning spirits and we try to figure out the best
Speaker 4: ways to be able to give back to the community
Speaker 4: and work in the community.
Speaker 3: Now you're distill a reason in Pennsylvania, Allentown. That was
Speaker 3: the day this weekend. Yeah, yeah, got like what fifteen
Speaker 3: fourteen inches of snow.
Speaker 1: DJ yep, it was it was pretty nastics to the brothers.
Speaker 3: So let me ask you how you got How did
Speaker 3: you get into liqum? Most people start off ether buying
Speaker 3: or selling marketing, but you actually learned how to make it.
Speaker 4: So I started off in amateur wine making, and I
Speaker 4: learned how to make.
Speaker 1: While I was in Stat nine.
Speaker 4: Living in Stat nine, I learned how to make wine
Speaker 4: in the garage from.
Speaker 2: Italians moonshine call it you was making that.
Speaker 1: It definitely wasn't legal at the time.
Speaker 4: But at the end of the day, I did, you know,
Speaker 4: kind of homing on my craft. I was finishing up
Speaker 4: my nursing degree and I just want to switch. And
Speaker 4: I say, hey, you know what, like I want to
Speaker 4: make a little.
Speaker 1: Bit more of an impact.
Speaker 4: And the only way to make impact is what financially
Speaker 4: impact things in order to be able to change things.
Speaker 4: So with alcohol being a multi you know, trillion dollar market,
Speaker 4: it's it was kind of the obvious. Seven years in
Speaker 4: wine making amateur, won some awards, got my license, so
Speaker 4: it wasn't actually illegal anymore. Right, I was no longer
Speaker 4: selling selling product my sparkling one out of the back
Speaker 4: of my Mercedes, and my mom helped me actually just
Speaker 4: legitimize everything and get my license together.
Speaker 2: How difficult was it to get your license?
Speaker 1: Very difficult.
Speaker 4: Again, you know, my mom just having just a bunch
Speaker 4: of like city work experience, and she was diligent on
Speaker 4: the paperwork. I was diligent on the marketing, and then
Speaker 4: you know, obviously now I learned all the paperwork and
Speaker 4: then so but difficult process.
Speaker 1: They ask a lot.
Speaker 4: You know, your partner is either the state and the
Speaker 4: federal government, but always the federal government first. And you
Speaker 4: guys kind of know how the federal government is. You know,
Speaker 4: it could be a difficult process. And we didn't use
Speaker 4: any lawyers, so we didn't use a lawyer to be
Speaker 4: able to put the paperwork through for us. Normally you're gonna,
Speaker 4: you know, pay a lawyer roughly about fifty to one
Speaker 4: hundred thousand dollars just to be able to put a
Speaker 4: paperwork through in order to be able to manufacture alcohol,
Speaker 4: because there's a difference obviously and making a brand, owning
Speaker 4: a brand and then actually manufacturing the alcohol and being
Speaker 4: able to make sure that you have all the regulatory
Speaker 4: things that are in place.
Speaker 2: So when you used to make your own wine, you
Speaker 2: had your grapes and what was in the tub with.
Speaker 1: Right in the barrels, plastic barrels.
Speaker 4: From went from crushing the grapes, then realizing that I
Speaker 4: could actually buy the juice already crushed, and then we
Speaker 4: started to scale. We were doing everything from NFL events,
Speaker 4: a bunch of different events. But you know, it's an industry,
Speaker 4: and it's not a lot of us in the industry.
Speaker 4: So the larger that I got, you know, the way
Speaker 4: my supplies were squeezing my you know, my margins just
Speaker 4: a little bit. Because in Pennsylvania, you don't you know,
Speaker 4: you normally don't have a vineyard. It's a cold state,
Speaker 4: so you know, you would either get your grapes or
Speaker 4: you get your juice from somewhere else, and then you
Speaker 4: fermert the wine and then you would actually bring it
Speaker 4: to bottle and from my bottling side of it to
Speaker 4: my grapes. And then suddenly started to squeeze me out,
Speaker 4: and uh, my finishing up my last year, just before
Speaker 4: I went to my nursing, like my nurse, my nursing
Speaker 4: like pre clinicals and my clinicals.
Speaker 1: I decided that I had enough, and I thought that
Speaker 1: I had.
Speaker 4: A good foothold just within the wine industry and I
Speaker 4: kind of had a little bit of brand awareness and
Speaker 4: had some you know, industry experience, knowing that you know
Speaker 4: behind music, fashion, but also at the same time.
Speaker 1: Alcohol, that's what's gonna drive the party at the end
Speaker 1: of the day.
Speaker 4: So I wanted to make sure that I kind of
Speaker 4: got into that and me surviving and having a license
Speaker 4: in UH in the state in the Commonwealth UH based
Speaker 4: on wine. They weren't even doing dual distillery license. So
Speaker 4: I had one of the first three dual distillery license
Speaker 4: dual winery and distillery license in the Commonwealth UH. And
Speaker 4: then I started doing vodka. I met my wife, my
Speaker 4: now wife. I was Ukrainian and I learned how to
Speaker 4: make up. I learn how to make.
Speaker 1: Vodka in the garage from Ukrainians.
Speaker 4: So battalions with the wine, Ukrainians with the with the vodka,
Speaker 4: and I'm here.
Speaker 5: Well, congrats on They said, you're the most awarded black
Speaker 5: owned spirits brand in the country.
Speaker 1: That is a fact.
Speaker 2: Break that down what those awards look like.
Speaker 4: So so the oldest Wana spirits competition in the world
Speaker 4: is the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. We're the only
Speaker 4: black owned spirit with a double goal double gold this
Speaker 4: one gold, this one, multiple silvers with these, so you know,
Speaker 4: and we just just continue to get better.
Speaker 1: So you know, you take.
Speaker 4: A brand like something that's more famous, you know, like
Speaker 4: an uncle Nearest, Our uncle nearest.
Speaker 1: They've won multiple awards.
Speaker 4: They are one of the top, you know, awarded Whiskies.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, we've been getting.
Speaker 4: Awards since twenty sixteen when I first actually dropped Mesha Honey.
Speaker 3: The awards in the liquor business mean anything. And the
Speaker 3: reason I asked that is, you know, I had all
Speaker 3: the time that this one gets an award, this one
Speaker 3: gets an award, But it always seems like regardless of
Speaker 3: the awards, it's brand recognition is what people buy, right,
Speaker 3: especially when you're dealing with, you know, people in the industry,
Speaker 3: they just want what's the dopest thing, which is sad
Speaker 3: sometimes because they could be drinking shit. But the ones
Speaker 3: with the awards, nobody's necessarily nobody knows cater.
Speaker 4: Right until you get a platform like this, which again,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm thankful in a way because it kind
Speaker 4: of sheds light because I chose not to go with
Speaker 4: celebrity endorsements.
Speaker 1: We are just a real story. This is my life.
Speaker 1: I've been in this business for fifteen years.
Speaker 4: We might not make you know what someone else makes,
Speaker 4: but it's similar to remaining independent. I own my manufacturing,
Speaker 4: I own ninety four percent of the company something like that.
Speaker 4: And from an award standpoint of it, So the San
Speaker 4: Francisco World Spirits competition is a blind tasting, so you're
Speaker 4: not buying that. So getting a double goal is like
Speaker 4: getting a Grammy in the industry as far as for us.
Speaker 4: So when someone says that, whether it be Somalier or
Speaker 4: whether it be somebody at the top of the food chain,
Speaker 4: who's a major buyer, they want to know. And then
Speaker 4: the first thing they ask is can I see that
Speaker 4: print it? And obviously we have those things printed. So
Speaker 4: it works for who we're feeding, which is the buyer,
Speaker 4: but you know, it works a little bit different obviously
Speaker 4: when it comes down to the recognition amongst the quote
Speaker 4: unquote common.
Speaker 5: People, why not do any celebrity in dodorship because we've
Speaker 5: seen so many other people do it, you know, of course,
Speaker 5: so Rock with Diddy or Casta Migos with George Clooney, Like,
Speaker 5: why did you say, you know what?
Speaker 4: I don't want to go that route because you know,
Speaker 4: when you take when you take both of those situations right,
Speaker 4: one it worked very very well. Billions were made, right,
Speaker 4: that's well cast some ego's on that side. But also
Speaker 4: as far as with I mean pufflicly, you know, I
Speaker 4: mean he took it to billions of dollars. But also
Speaker 4: at the same time, look at the parallels of what,
Speaker 4: you know, what the situation ended up.
Speaker 1: One thing could be a car crash.
Speaker 4: The other thing could be you know, it could be
Speaker 4: success and get out of the game.
Speaker 1: Uh So for us, it's.
Speaker 4: It's kind of like a blended of a Tito's route.
Speaker 4: You got to think about it, right, Tito's owns, you know,
Speaker 4: I mean, he owns.
Speaker 1: The Voka market.
Speaker 4: Right, twenty five years that they've been in business, it's
Speaker 4: Tito's period.
Speaker 2: I feel like they came out of nowhere too.
Speaker 4: But they didn't though they but they did right in
Speaker 4: general public. But in the industry we knew exactly what
Speaker 4: it was. So I started to kind of just track
Speaker 4: what we were doing and kind of just keep those
Speaker 4: parallels there because at the end of the day, this
Speaker 4: is generational wealth. I'm not looking for a quick sell
Speaker 4: in the company. What I actually did was I end
Speaker 4: up taking the company public on start Engine just to
Speaker 4: be able to give it to people that were like
Speaker 4: me who don't understand the industry. I mean, Tito's did
Speaker 4: one point four billion dollars from twenty two to twenty three.
Speaker 1: They paid roughly about four hundred and sixty.
Speaker 4: Eight million dollars in operational fees and operational.
Speaker 2: Costs with no celebrity endorsements, nothing.
Speaker 4: Just quality of product and going to a domestic aspect
Speaker 4: of it. Now, one thing that does set you know,
Speaker 4: companies apart, is what.
Speaker 1: What are your what's your relationship value?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: So our relationship value is based on people who can
Speaker 4: connect us with, you know, folks like you guys, but
Speaker 4: also at the same time who can place us with
Speaker 4: corporations uh, such as the Arramarks, such as the Marriotte,
Speaker 4: such as the Hilton.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: These are corporate placements that we have. Will be in
Speaker 4: Disney properties, come in may.
Speaker 1: You very much. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Even though that you get in these properties, and you
Speaker 3: get in these restaurants, and you get into these establishments,
Speaker 3: it's also people have to actually want the product or
Speaker 3: not only that the businesses have to push the product. Now,
Speaker 3: how do you fight through that?
Speaker 4: So that goes back to the quality of the product
Speaker 4: and the reason why I made the product. Used to
Speaker 4: be a big fan of graand Maier, right, so loved
Speaker 4: the Grand Mane for a good portion of my life,
Speaker 4: and I wanted to be able to create something that
Speaker 4: kind of kind of top Grand Magne, Right, So I
Speaker 4: started working on a honey vodka. Now, when you take
Speaker 4: the base of our products, the products are all natural,
Speaker 4: the products are gluten free, there's no added sugars, there's
Speaker 4: no added coloring into it. It's a quality product, and
Speaker 4: it's a flavor product that ends off at eighty proof. Right,
Speaker 4: normal flavor products they normally finish up roughly about seventy proof.
Speaker 4: So what we've done is we've made almost a cocktail
Speaker 4: in the bottle. So instead of doing five parts in
Speaker 4: the cocktail, which is what dehydrates you, gives you that
Speaker 4: sugar rush gives you that that taste in the back
Speaker 4: of your mouth in the morning, gives you the headache,
Speaker 4: we've kind of taken that.
Speaker 2: Go ahead.
Speaker 1: Man, I'm just like.
Speaker 2: You're looking at your eyes and was like that taste
Speaker 2: in the of your mouth and the.
Speaker 6: Meaning that again, So what we what we did was
Speaker 6: we completed it by making sure that you can only
Speaker 6: add you do only need two parts as.
Speaker 2: Far as in the contail.
Speaker 4: So that's advantageous to a lot of these restaurants, these
Speaker 4: corporate partners, because now they're saving on the cocktail juice, right,
Speaker 4: they're saving on that mixture, the simple syrup. Uh. We
Speaker 4: just try to just kind of just dumb it down,
Speaker 4: but also be able to make it, you know, to
Speaker 4: where there's value in it.
Speaker 5: Also, well, what is it about the honey flavor? I
Speaker 5: you've heard about the honey fleet? Was that the one
Speaker 5: in the middle, the honey flavor? What about this one
Speaker 5: that makes it stand up?
Speaker 1: There's no honey flavored.
Speaker 4: Vodka on the market that has the test of time.
Speaker 1: But that right there is the product that I created.
Speaker 2: First.
Speaker 4: I didn't want to just go all the way on
Speaker 4: the Tito's model, so I went with something that was
Speaker 4: exclusive to me first and UH and that's that's been
Speaker 4: the hit, that's our flagship. UH.
Speaker 1: And then we bought out.
Speaker 4: Then we then then I went to the to the unflavored,
Speaker 4: which is also gluten free and kosher UH. And then
Speaker 4: I went to UH to cranberry and now in the
Speaker 4: spring of the summer. We'll be really he's seeing Mango
Speaker 4: and Passion.
Speaker 2: And yeah, you hooked up with the NBA too, right
Speaker 2: in the seventy.
Speaker 4: Six Yes, seventy six is. I've done multiple spots with
Speaker 4: the seventy six is. It looks like via Ara Mark
Speaker 4: will be programming in Wells Fargust Center coming for the
Speaker 4: next season. That'll be coming, which would be pretty cool. Again, relationships,
Speaker 4: you know, doing good in the community. We do a
Speaker 4: bunch of just a bunch of stuff. As you mentioned
Speaker 4: you were in Allentown. You know, I sit on every
Speaker 4: single board, diversity board. I just try to just do
Speaker 4: the best thing that I could possibly do it from
Speaker 4: the community standpoint.
Speaker 3: Ever, now, is it profitable?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Like I said, you know, it's just like
Speaker 4: owning your masters and being an independent you know, so
Speaker 4: instead of my margins getting chopped out, our own distribution
Speaker 4: and as a company, we owned distribution not only in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 4: but we also own distribution in New Jersey.
Speaker 3: So question, so, why was it so difficult for Diddy?
Speaker 3: Didn't when he had his own tequil it and it
Speaker 3: seems like he couldn't get distribution, He couldn't do it himself.
Speaker 3: He was We've seen videos of him going liquor store
Speaker 3: to liquor store, and it seemed like stores really didn't
Speaker 3: want the product, right, because it was no distribution connected
Speaker 3: to it. Why is it so difficult for people to
Speaker 3: get their foot in the door, especially with him, because
Speaker 3: you figured, like with him, it wouldn't be a problem
Speaker 3: because he's Diddy. And this was before the as you said,
Speaker 3: car crash.
Speaker 4: Right, So we're legitimately less than one percent of the market, right,
Speaker 4: just being minorities, right, We're legitimately less than one percent
Speaker 4: in the market. So again, it's the difference between what
Speaker 4: baggage you're carrying, right, versus Okay, here's the story of quality, right,
Speaker 4: here's what our lineage is, Here's who our star face is,
Speaker 4: and that's got to be the way people get connected.
Speaker 4: I'm not saying you know obviously you know that that
Speaker 4: people didn't want to be connected to Diddy, But there's
Speaker 4: the Diddy angle and then there's the product.
Speaker 1: It's you and you got to be able to have
Speaker 1: that separate.
Speaker 4: I always believe that if you're gonna take the product
Speaker 4: just because of the fact that I've got a celebrity,
Speaker 4: how many times, are.
Speaker 1: You gonna buy that after the fact, you know, proposed quality.
Speaker 1: It's always about the the you know, the value proposition.
Speaker 5: Got you and you're uh, you're you're connected with like
Speaker 5: music Fest.
Speaker 4: Two music Fest, so we we are now so music
Speaker 4: Fest is uh, we need you to come out there
Speaker 4: and should come into Allantown. So we connected with music
Speaker 4: Fest roughly about about two three years ago. Became a
Speaker 4: small sponsor, blew it out of the water. The next
Speaker 4: year we removed another vodka sponsor that was there, got
Speaker 4: them out of there.
Speaker 1: Then it was us and Jack Dan's for the main stage,
Speaker 1: and then this.
Speaker 4: Year will will be with the with the partner the
Speaker 4: I don't think that we can say exclusive legally, but
Speaker 4: we are the partner that's programming all of the vodka
Speaker 4: for North and South Side. Music Fest does one point
Speaker 4: three million people a year, which is which is an
Speaker 4: excellent opportunity obviously to get liquids and lips.
Speaker 2: How did that help the brand?
Speaker 1: Was that your question?
Speaker 5: No, that was just crazy, A great way to get
Speaker 5: liquid to lips.
Speaker 1: We trademarked that.
Speaker 4: The reason right, but we trademarked that because that's been
Speaker 4: our model. We want to be able to get liquid
Speaker 4: to lips in order to be able for people we
Speaker 4: feel like we can win after hands.
Speaker 1: Down all the way around by doing that.
Speaker 2: How did that help the brand? Is it just eyeballs?
Speaker 4: So not only that, but we have tasting opportunities, which
Speaker 4: is great, which allows people, you know, music Fest draws
Speaker 4: people from the twenty thirty countries, you know, and naturally
Speaker 4: and being able to get those sampling opportunities, being able
Speaker 4: to get people to actually, you know, not only just
Speaker 4: the brand side of it, but also at the same
Speaker 4: time understand exactly who we are, be able to get
Speaker 4: a little bit of a little knowledge that actually pushes
Speaker 4: it forward, but also again you know, appropriate really getting
Speaker 4: liquid to lips.
Speaker 5: You know what's interesting, I feel like there's so many
Speaker 5: people getting it right, so many black people getting it
Speaker 5: right in the in.
Speaker 2: The spirit business. But it's usually the people who aren't
Speaker 2: relying on celebrity. It's think about up nerds when I
Speaker 2: look at what y'all doing, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: But y'all, it's real work. And that's where you that
Speaker 1: question that you asked, why is this so hard?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Because on the back end with a minority, right, with.
Speaker 4: The super minority so the people who are the majority,
Speaker 4: they're controlling this, and they've been controlling this for a
Speaker 4: very long time.
Speaker 1: So if someone's gonna let you in.
Speaker 4: To their exclusive club, they kind of want to know
Speaker 4: that you're going to do the work that's going to
Speaker 4: back that up. So to your point, you know, saying
Speaker 4: that the people who are finding success are the people
Speaker 4: who are actually not taking a celebrity route black people
Speaker 4: who are finding success.
Speaker 1: That's the primary difference.
Speaker 4: The primary difference is we're getting in front of these
Speaker 4: distributors and saying, hey, look, you know, I want you
Speaker 4: to take my product, and here's my capacity. It was
Speaker 4: difficult for anybody to even give me a meeting, you know,
Speaker 4: I would say before the pandemic, Before the pandemic, we
Speaker 4: were trying to get into different places. We were obviously
Speaker 4: owning our distribution in the state of Pennsylvania, but at
Speaker 4: the same time, nobody wanted to hear us. You know,
Speaker 4: right after the pandemic we won our first double goal.
Speaker 4: You know, during the pandemic or right before the pandemic,
Speaker 4: we won our first goal. Then we became the largest
Speaker 4: craft distillery to produce hand sanitizer. I mean, we made
Speaker 4: you know, We made a bunk of money just doing that.
Speaker 4: I dumped all the money back into the company, but
Speaker 4: we fed everything from frontline workers with meals. We we
Speaker 4: donated tons of hand sanitizer to our local hospitals. We
Speaker 4: sold a bunch of hand sanitizers to FedEx ups, the
Speaker 4: post office, Comcast, and like again, that started getting us
Speaker 4: media attention. With that media attention, you know, I took
Speaker 4: it and we ran with it, and you know, and
Speaker 4: now we're here at this point.
Speaker 5: So and I feel like it's something like the products
Speaker 5: to sell itself, right, Like I think, you know, with Sarak,
Speaker 5: it was something that people liked.
Speaker 2: The culture gravitator towards it.
Speaker 5: True, they didn't necessarily gravitate towards their leon, right Castle Migos.
Speaker 5: People likeds like like you can just a lot of
Speaker 5: these things you can just see organically.
Speaker 2: Like I didn't know who was behind Tetos. I'm just like, it's.
Speaker 5: Teetos everywhere everywhere, so clearly people just like it. Right,
Speaker 5: So it's like it no't matter what celebrity you are.
Speaker 5: If people don't like it, they don't like it.
Speaker 3: So I think it also in marketing too, because even
Speaker 3: with vodka, if you have to go to a bar
Speaker 3: or a club or even in the lobby, a lot
Speaker 3: of people just say, let me get a Voka cranberry,
Speaker 3: let me get a Voka sprite, or let me get
Speaker 3: a vodka thing.
Speaker 2: So it also plays in.
Speaker 3: Your relationship with a lot of these businesses and restaurants
Speaker 3: because you want to make sure when they're asking for
Speaker 3: a vodka cranberry that that yours is there, Yours is
Speaker 3: the one, that's the one.
Speaker 4: But hence you notice how you went to that most
Speaker 4: poor cocktail in the world, vodka cranberry. So when you
Speaker 4: take a vodka Amishka vodka cranberry, now you just added
Speaker 4: sold on to.
Speaker 3: You gotta mix it, you gotta shake it.
Speaker 1: No, it's just no, it's it's clean, it's clear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we appreciate it.
Speaker 5: And you got a partnership with Lee High Valley Children's Hospital.
Speaker 2: Yes, how the hell did that work? So we're not
Speaker 2: giving the.
Speaker 4: Okay, but what we are but we are basically trading
Speaker 4: the sales for cocktails and it's going back into our
Speaker 4: local children's hospital.
Speaker 1: So that's a blessing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well man, how do how do we support Michiga?
Speaker 1: I mean, look, we've got multiple ways.
Speaker 4: Our website is Mishka Premium Vodka dot com.
Speaker 1: We're still again.
Speaker 4: Like I said, we we kind of gave public offering
Speaker 4: just to be able to get folks like us involved.
Speaker 4: But also at the same time at drink Mishka is
Speaker 4: our handles across social media, so all those things are
Speaker 4: good ways to be able to kind of plug in
Speaker 4: and play for us.
Speaker 3: All right, well, we appreciate you for joining us. Russell Fletcher,
Speaker 3: founder of Michka Premium Vodka, Thank you, brother.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Guys. It's the breakfast clog, good morning wake that as
Speaker 2: up in the morning breakfast club