Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 2: Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3: All right, everybody, so our next guest. I think we
Speaker 3: last cut up. It was Saint Patrick's day. It was
Speaker 3: very appropriate. But as many folks know, we don't need
Speaker 3: an excuse to drink whiskey Irish whiskey to be excited.
Speaker 2: I think that's fair to say. There's also Scotch whiskey,
Speaker 2: US whiskey, Canadian whiskey.
Speaker 3: There's more. And listen, this is a big market, a
Speaker 3: global market. There's lots of players, but we want to
Speaker 3: bring in one who's got his own little take on
Speaker 3: it and back with us. Is Aiden Meghan. He's founder
Speaker 3: of Natterjack Irish Whiskey and he joins us once again
Speaker 3: in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio. Wearing shorts because it's
Speaker 3: hot out right.
Speaker 1: So it's hotter on the New York that it is
Speaker 1: in Texas.
Speaker 2: You're speaking my language. I came in and out every
Speaker 2: day here wearing shorts. Everybody gives me a hard time.
Speaker 1: I was instructed by my wife not to wear shorts,
Speaker 1: so thank you for outing me on that.
Speaker 2: We just did a.
Speaker 3: Story about shorts, no shorts in the office, and we
Speaker 3: did a whole segment on it because apparently some people
Speaker 3: are like, yeah, it's really hot, why not it's gotten casual,
Speaker 3: and others are like, you can't do it.
Speaker 1: You can do it. Okay, I can do it. You
Speaker 1: can do it.
Speaker 3: How are you.
Speaker 1: Amazing, really really good? Yeah, thank you for having me back.
Speaker 3: It's been a few months. Tell us something's been.
Speaker 1: Going, and things have been going great. So look, we've
Speaker 1: been traveling to anyone who will have us to go
Speaker 1: and promote the whiskey. We're now in fourteen states in
Speaker 1: the US, we'll be in twenty by the end of
Speaker 1: the year, and then with a bit of a tailwind
Speaker 1: twenty five by Saint Patrick Say and we open up
Speaker 1: New England. So it's been just been incredible. The reception
Speaker 1: to the whiskey has been great, and we got national
Speaker 1: national distribution through through Total Wine and More, which was
Speaker 1: massive because we won Irish Whiskey the Year for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four.
Speaker 3: Those recognitions are important, are Yeah, we've talked about it
Speaker 3: with our own crater on the restaurant side, in terms
Speaker 3: of like different global recognitions. What it global recognitions? Excuse
Speaker 3: me what it means for a restaurant, but for you guys, like,
Speaker 3: these are things that move the needle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the previous winners are like the massive, like
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty two bottle. That one is a thirty
Speaker 1: year old Irish whiskey and it's two and a half
Speaker 1: round a bottle. Ours is eighty. So you talk about value,
Speaker 1: and everyone loves value or it doesn't matter who you are.
Speaker 1: So it's a it was really just an incredible award
Speaker 1: and it was really well taken. It opened up these
Speaker 1: kind of chains. We've just opened up a big chain
Speaker 1: in Texas as well, so these are these are massive
Speaker 1: for Look, we've got a I think we've got a
Speaker 1: good story, but people are like where can I buy it?
Speaker 1: And it's really it's really frustrating when you're like, well
Speaker 1: there's local liquor store on sixth and and you're just
Speaker 1: like that's not a compelling story. So so this is
Speaker 1: this change this year. It's been amazing.
Speaker 2: So talk about that process of going state to state here,
Speaker 2: because I think a lot of people who've lived in
Speaker 2: different states might understand that local and state liquor laws
Speaker 2: very drastically across borders. Absolutely, So it's like it's really
Speaker 2: tough on a distribution level, especially if you're a small
Speaker 2: independent player to succeed here. How do you do it?
Speaker 1: So you partner with In our case, I'm gonna speak
Speaker 1: to our case, because we're not with one of the
Speaker 1: big distributors, with individual distributors in each in each market.
Speaker 1: So what we do is we go we educate them,
Speaker 1: we incentivize them to to incentivize them by bring them
Speaker 1: along on the journey, right, So meet them, spend time
Speaker 1: with them, spend time in market with them, telling the
Speaker 1: story so they can then effectively tell the story as well.
Speaker 2: That's a slow process.
Speaker 1: Oh, it is absolutely. I think I was home two
Speaker 1: days in May, so you're on the road. It's it
Speaker 1: is pounding the pavement. But that's actually what we've got
Speaker 1: to do. But then you add to the team, right,
Speaker 1: So we're now up to we have eight reps, we've
Speaker 1: a national sales director, we're just about to hire a
Speaker 1: national marketing director, and we've got three people in Ireland.
Speaker 1: So it's it's like it's a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of pounding the pavement. But as you scale you then
Speaker 1: you get them to tell the story and they can
Speaker 1: educate people.
Speaker 3: And I want to get to the story. But I
Speaker 3: do feel like it's a it's a moment in time,
Speaker 3: or has been for years that in the liquor market,
Speaker 3: the alcohol market overall, that starts newcomers can really find
Speaker 3: a niche for themselves, that people are interested. I think
Speaker 3: consumers are looking for different choices.
Speaker 1: They are, and they're looking for authenticity as well, right,
Speaker 1: And I think at the larger brand level that authenticity
Speaker 1: doesn't speak to someone who's who's into the process or
Speaker 1: into starting a business or those sorts of things. They
Speaker 1: struggle with that. So so for for a brand like ours, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's an amazing time to be able to actually go
Speaker 1: and meet the people and tell them our story.
Speaker 3: Remind us of your story for those tim was it here?
Speaker 2: I wasn't here.
Speaker 3: Do you like this because you know I missed us
Speaker 3: when you guys did this. Shanali was with us. Shanali Bosik,
Speaker 3: one of our reporters, talked to us though about your
Speaker 3: story remind our world.
Speaker 1: So I yeah, I was an equity trader and a
Speaker 1: hedge fund back in in twenty fifteen. I think was
Speaker 1: when I kind of had the moment. I was like, look,
Speaker 1: is this everything that I want to do with my life?
Speaker 1: Like I loved it. I think I was okay at it,
Speaker 1: like a decent career, but I was like I wanted
Speaker 1: to build something. I wanted to build a business. Now
Speaker 1: I was running the business with my partners and that
Speaker 1: sort of stuf. But I was like, this is the
Speaker 1: time for me to go do that, right, I had
Speaker 1: no real responsibilities at a house. I sold the house
Speaker 1: and moved back in with my parents, which they were
Speaker 1: very good to take me in for a couple of years.
Speaker 1: And that was it. Yeah, I sold the house and
Speaker 1: that was just like how much is this going to take?
Speaker 1: It turns out it took a lot more time and
Speaker 1: a lot more money than I ever fathomed. But then
Speaker 1: we got outside investment and our investors are based out
Speaker 1: of Michigan, and so so the first thing I had
Speaker 1: to do is I had to build a team. So I
Speaker 1: found Jordan via whose artist Doller. I found a team
Speaker 1: of industry guys to help me because had no idea
Speaker 1: what I was doing. And in some ways, I still.
Speaker 3: How do you do that? Or is that just the
Speaker 3: trader mentality, I don't know, let's figure.
Speaker 1: Outlet's figure it out on the go, right, So I
Speaker 1: built I found actually my first business plan recently. It's dreadful,
Speaker 1: like it is absolutely horrific. So you go and you
Speaker 1: you learn, right, and so the business plans that they
Speaker 1: as they as it grew, it kind of became its
Speaker 1: own kind of thing. And then and everyone.
Speaker 3: Told horrific, Like what was it about it that you
Speaker 3: went that everything like Jim's and NBA, he could have
Speaker 3: you get it.
Speaker 1: You could have putished it up for me, but like
Speaker 1: maybe maybe not. So the like it's the graphics were dreadful,
Speaker 1: the layout was dreadful. It was it my focus was
Speaker 1: in the wrong place, right. I didn't realize what it
Speaker 1: took to build a whiskey company. I had this idea,
Speaker 1: we'd buy a building, we'd put in stills, and we
Speaker 1: wait for five years and very and then of course
Speaker 1: no one, no one has any problem with the execution
Speaker 1: risk of someone who doesn't know what they're doing, doing
Speaker 1: it for five years and then finding out if what
Speaker 1: they did sales right. So I just didn't understand that,
Speaker 1: and it took a long time to kind of get
Speaker 1: my head around.
Speaker 2: That the five year time horizon is some seriously delayed
Speaker 2: gratification here. I mean, it's not like you're throwing an
Speaker 2: app on the app Store, the minimally minimally viable product
Speaker 2: to see if it actually resonates with consumers, like this
Speaker 2: thing has to hit or else you're out of luck.
Speaker 1: It does, right, and then but I also think what
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do was what a lot of
Speaker 1: my peers had done, which is release of vodka origin,
Speaker 1: and that was that's that. What I did know what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do was is that clearly, yeah, you
Speaker 1: and I could have a gin in twelve hours, so
Speaker 1: it could. I had a bath, Tim and Aiden's gym
Speaker 1: boom right.
Speaker 3: So so when Tim's not doing over the regat.
Speaker 1: So I needed to so but I wanted to do whiskey.
Speaker 1: So then we need to source whiskey. But this is
Speaker 1: back in twenty fifteen sixteen, that wasn't much available from
Speaker 1: a sourcing perspective. So I got you know, I got
Speaker 1: offered eight thousand liters of this two thousand liters of
Speaker 1: eight year old double still, and I was like, I
Speaker 1: could buy that. Now I've got the capital and we
Speaker 1: can take it to market. But what happens then if
Speaker 1: it's a success, I can't get any more of it.
Speaker 1: So then that was all that was available contract. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I learned that, you know, I learned that I
Speaker 1: wanted a plan for scale, that we wanted to go
Speaker 1: for something that could really take off and if it
Speaker 1: takes off, that there's not so many breaks on it.
Speaker 1: Because what I didn't want is to have them as
Speaker 1: a huge success and be like, Okay, you can have
Speaker 1: some more five years when everyone's forgotten about it and
Speaker 1: you sit around going bankrupt. So so I really we
Speaker 1: held off and held off until we could get that
Speaker 1: proper supply contract that would allow us to grow. And
Speaker 1: we've now secured five years is worth of what we
Speaker 1: need for the growth trajectory that we're on. So it's
Speaker 1: been amazing, But that meant we had to push it
Speaker 1: back a year, and that's a year. Don't forget me
Speaker 1: and my parents' basement, they're like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I'm like.
Speaker 3: How hard were you?
Speaker 1: Ye? Love five? I'm not being judging thirty five. It's
Speaker 1: like that's what parents are for.
Speaker 3: They take in when they need it exactly.
Speaker 1: And then but then I met my wife and I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I need to move back.
Speaker 3: Yes, you is going to go back to the parents.
Speaker 2: Hey, but she she loved you.
Speaker 1: Then yeah, that's a big thing, exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: But you also had to deal with the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and that was that put us into a
Speaker 1: kind of a tail spin. Right, So we had initial
Speaker 1: investors who weren't happy with how it goes. And the
Speaker 1: weird thing about the pandemic is Perna, Rickard and Diaghia,
Speaker 1: the big companies were doing really well because they own
Speaker 1: every part of the shelf. So if you wanted a
Speaker 1: twenty dollars or one hundred and twenty dollars bottle that
Speaker 1: were two hundred two two thousand dollars, they owned everything.
Speaker 1: We had one skew, right, so it's like who's taking
Speaker 1: a punt on a fifty euro bottle of whiskey. We've
Speaker 1: got the pricing wrong as well. But during the pandemic
Speaker 1: and so sales slowed, but they actually continued in the US,
Speaker 1: and because we pivoted a little bit to urs, so
Speaker 1: we were able to pivot because of our display our
Speaker 1: display box into the off prem the US. By the
Speaker 1: end of the pandemic, we were in kind of nine
Speaker 1: states and that was pretty amazing.
Speaker 3: Wow, which really kind of gives you some momentum.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, when you expand to a new state, how
Speaker 2: much do sales grow very briefly.
Speaker 1: At the start, very small, You've got to go. You've
Speaker 1: got a program.
Speaker 2: So it's not just being available, it's about educating the folks.
Speaker 1: Zoom shows. We go to shows, we educate. We do
Speaker 1: staff trainings in chains of bars or in bars, right,
Speaker 1: and you try and get onto cocktail lists and then
Speaker 1: you try and get the placement in the right place
Speaker 1: behind the bars that people can see because the toad
Speaker 1: people do call out the toad.
Speaker 2: So yeah, the toad on the bottle.
Speaker 3: I gotta say, like there are times like I'm buying one,
Speaker 3: I'm like, I kind of like that bottle.
Speaker 1: What it looks like.
Speaker 3: Your bottle is pretty cool. And we're going to get
Speaker 3: into the toad in just a moment, because you guys
Speaker 3: have actually been doing some really honorable stuff around that
Speaker 3: and making sure that the toad stick stays around for
Speaker 3: a long time. We're going to come back to Aiden
Speaker 3: Aiden Meghan, he's founder of Naderjack Irish whiskey. We might
Speaker 3: even sample some.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, it is Friday.
Speaker 3: It is Friday, five o'clock almost somewhere. No, it's five
Speaker 3: o'clock somewhere, was five o'clock here here. We want to
Speaker 3: get back to Aid and Meghan, he is founder of
Speaker 3: Naderjack Irish whiskey. Who is here back here in our
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. You brought us something. We want
Speaker 3: to talk about the mistake. What is the mistake?
Speaker 1: So our blend for Blend one and for a cast strength,
Speaker 1: it spends three and a half years expert one year
Speaker 1: Virgin Oak, right, So I thought we'd taken out in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty are Blend one blend and put it into
Speaker 1: steel containers for the next time we needed to do it.
Speaker 1: So the pandemic was on, we didn't have a huge
Speaker 1: need for whiskey. So about a year later I called
Speaker 1: up the guy who'd done it and I was like,
Speaker 1: where's that whiskey now? And he's like, it's still in barrel.
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, no, you can't, we can't take it.
Speaker 1: So I was like, well, we're going to do because
Speaker 1: I can't sell that as Natterjack and I didn't have
Speaker 1: a brand for it, so it's like, okay, So we
Speaker 1: left it and then Jordan, via our distiller, was so
Speaker 1: he tasted about six months and he's like, that is
Speaker 1: the best whiskey we've ever made. It's incredible. So he's like,
Speaker 1: so we said, okay, great, Well this is what a
Speaker 1: screw up becomes a good thing, right, and evolution is
Speaker 1: full of mistakes and and but we everyone was like, okay,
Speaker 1: let's let's let's really market this. We're going to say,
Speaker 1: you know, this was always your vision for the whiskey.
Speaker 1: And I was like, but that's all, like, it's a lie.
Speaker 3: Continue talking.
Speaker 1: So I was like, let's call it. Let's call it
Speaker 1: a mistake. I've made some huge mistakes in my life.
Speaker 1: So some of the best parts of life come from mistakes.
Speaker 1: And I was like, let's just own it. It was Wow,
Speaker 1: it was a screw up that sounded very good. It is.
Speaker 1: It's like our whiskey is a year older and one
Speaker 1: year later in virgin How big of a badge, forty
Speaker 1: six barrels. It's all sold. Yeah, huge, you can't. You
Speaker 1: can get some through natterjack dot com. And it's when
Speaker 1: I when I say it's sold, it's left our left
Speaker 1: our distribution right. So it's still in stores, but we
Speaker 1: don't have that's the I haven't seen a bottle in
Speaker 1: since I saw on today. Smells really heavenly, thank you. Yes,
Speaker 1: So it's really heavy on the outlass to walk us through.
Speaker 1: So it's a little bit lighter on malt than our
Speaker 1: original blend, but it's still in there.
Speaker 3: About seventeen or smell lighter, yeah, I feel.
Speaker 1: And then there's lots there's still the char number four
Speaker 1: and still for me, toasted walnut, a little bit of
Speaker 1: cinnamon and it got it.
Speaker 3: I just sit here and smell for the next how
Speaker 3: many minutes?
Speaker 2: Five minutes?
Speaker 1: It got amazing?
Speaker 3: So what does that teach you? As someone like these mistakes?
Speaker 3: So now are you guys experimenting more?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we are. We're playing around with it, we we do.
Speaker 1: You know what it taught me? It taught me that
Speaker 1: problems are only problems if you see them as problems.
Speaker 1: That's pretty nice, right, So you.
Speaker 3: This is why you make mistakes in life?
Speaker 1: Sorry? Sorry? Yeah, So my biggest trading steak was about
Speaker 1: Korean one non deliverable forwards, which is which cost me
Speaker 1: my job in the really yeah did yeah? I rolled
Speaker 1: the wrong amount. I didn't know what a non deliverable
Speaker 1: forward was. So I now know what a non deliverbal
Speaker 1: forward is and I no longer. So some mistakes cost
Speaker 1: a job.
Speaker 3: Some mistakes can make a great credible delivery, like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: and I think it's our I think it's our best whiskey.
Speaker 1: But then also for our first shipment to China in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, big shipment on a thousand cases, we had
Speaker 1: had a thousand case order was the first year of
Speaker 1: the business. Fay and I hand dipped all the bottles
Speaker 1: in black wax and they all got sent to China.
Speaker 1: But they went through the equator, which is fifty degrees
Speaker 1: liquid expanded because it's hot, wax man because it melts
Speaker 1: packed and so all the bottles opened. So it got
Speaker 1: to China and they said they opened it and it
Speaker 1: smelt amazing. There was no whiskey, so sorry, it was
Speaker 1: all open. So we turned that that was a mistake. Yeah,
Speaker 1: turned that into mister Wang Or, our Chinese distributor, came
Speaker 1: in and he was like, are you going to cover
Speaker 1: the cost of this And I was like, no, You've
Speaker 1: got insurance. He's like, my insurance doesn't cover wax melting,
Speaker 1: and liquid expanding in the equator, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you triple your order, I I'll cover the cost.
Speaker 1: The first one He's like, don't. So our year was
Speaker 1: a complete was amazing in twenty nineteen because this big
Speaker 1: fast at your feet there. Oh yeah, I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: When he woke down, it was like because I knew
Speaker 1: I was gonna have to pay if I wanted, Like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Aiden. One thing I wanted to talk about was
Speaker 2: just the changing viewer around alcohol that we're seeing here
Speaker 2: in the US. I was with some family like cousins,
Speaker 2: extended cousins, extended family over the weekend, and everybody was
Speaker 2: talking about, Hey, did you guys see that article in
Speaker 2: the Times over the weekend about people drinking less and
Speaker 2: alcohol actually not being good for you at all?
Speaker 1: And it seems like.
Speaker 2: Study after studies coming out that says like, okay, you know,
Speaker 2: even in moderation, alcohol isn't good for you. How do
Speaker 2: you think about stuff like that?
Speaker 1: I do think about it quite a bit, and I
Speaker 1: think there definitely is a movement that way. And look,
Speaker 1: I think we know that alcohol isn't in moderation. It's
Speaker 1: one study one day says it when the other day
Speaker 1: says right, but for me it's it is definitely a
Speaker 1: movement towards drinking less and also drinking better. So when
Speaker 1: we talked about authenticity and knowing the process and knowing
Speaker 1: the producers, I don't I think that's really an opportunity
Speaker 1: for us for people to say, right, well, if what
Speaker 1: I'm going to have tonight is one whiskey, I want
Speaker 1: to drink something where it actually means something to me.
Speaker 1: So it's an opportunity to connect with a consumer in
Speaker 1: order to really bring them along in the journey with you.
Speaker 1: If you only have the one whiskey, make it a
Speaker 1: natter jack, right, Don't spend like it's like anything, right,
Speaker 1: don't spend your calories on a cheap donut, Go and
Speaker 1: get a really nice donut. And the same is And
Speaker 1: I think that's how we try and tell that story
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 3: So like my mother, it's like when you're gonna go shopping,
Speaker 3: like you know you're gonna buy something, make sure it's
Speaker 3: something you buy really good and make sure it lasts forever.
Speaker 3: Like rate this idea of quantity over maybe quality, just generally,
Speaker 3: like you do wonder whether or not that kind of
Speaker 3: kicks in again in a world where we are very
Speaker 3: blessed by abundance, but you do wonder at some point
Speaker 3: where people are kind of like, well, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: you know, and certainly in a higher inflationary environment.
Speaker 1: I think that's right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the natterjack toad. First of all, if you haven't
Speaker 3: seen this bottle, I'm going to take a picture into
Speaker 3: it out but it is makes your bottles so distinct.
Speaker 3: Remind us about the natterjack toad, and I can actually
Speaker 3: hold it up for everybody so they can see.
Speaker 2: Can they see, Oh yeah, look at that.
Speaker 1: So the natterjack toad camel. Yeah, that's the mistake.
Speaker 3: But yeah, sorry, there's a little bit of a there's
Speaker 3: a little bit of a but there's a little bit
Speaker 3: glare for No, it's actually really kind of cool the
Speaker 3: way you guys did it.
Speaker 1: That was that was a mistake from the first printing
Speaker 1: of our The whole thing is just a mistake, all right.
Speaker 2: Mistakes are don't drop it or else that will be
Speaker 2: a huge mistake.
Speaker 3: Mistakes are good, But keeping these toads around are also good.
Speaker 3: And you guys have been doing it.
Speaker 1: Is Yes, natterjack toad is the only toad indigenous to ardent.
Speaker 1: But it's a very Irish toad. It can't hop, it walks,
Speaker 1: it can't swim with great and it does things its
Speaker 1: own way to survive. So it's very definite in how
Speaker 1: it walks. It has a croak that can be heard
Speaker 1: two kilometers away like or sorry, amazing, calling you herd
Speaker 1: two kilometers away, like like some whiskey drinkers.
Speaker 3: And it's not like those male toads are so desperate there,
Speaker 3: we got right.
Speaker 1: So so but as I say, they're not very good
Speaker 1: at swimming and they live in pools, so that's not
Speaker 1: a great combination. So what happens is they tend to
Speaker 1: die off. So they're endangered in Ireland. They're originally from Ireland.
Speaker 1: They're across Europe, but they're they're originally from these sand
Speaker 1: dunes in Kerry and so we released yesterday released a
Speaker 1: thousand of them. We reckon about twenty percent of that
Speaker 1: will survive, and then we do next week we do
Speaker 1: another thousand and so they're incubated at Dingle Aquarium and
Speaker 1: then they're released. Scott and Stephen, we're down releasing them
Speaker 1: into the wild in the West of Ireland. Portuate of
Speaker 1: your profits too are going absolutely so. We sponsor the
Speaker 1: program every year. It's a great program to keep them alive.
Speaker 1: And I think without them, well, this will probably called
Speaker 1: Aiden Meghan's Whiskey, and we wouldn't be sitting here.
Speaker 3: We love talking about it, and love hearing your journey,
Speaker 3: and we love hearing about the mistake. Pank kids are
Speaker 3: really kind of fun. Looking forward to what comes next. Well,
Speaker 3: have a great weekend you too. Stay safe in me again,
Speaker 3: Founder of natter Jack Irish Whiskey. And I'm going to
Speaker 3: send out a picture in just a moment, Carol Master
Speaker 3: timstand this is Woombrough Yah