The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Russell Fletcher Talks Mishka Premium Vodka, Making Wine From Scratch, No Celebrity Endorsements

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

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The Breakfast Club. Morning, everybody. It's DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha Guy. We are The Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building. We got the brother, Russell Fletcher. Welcome, brother. Welcome.

I appreciate you guys, actually, inviting me to the show and give me the opportunity to come in um it's a pleasure happy to be here this morning founder of mishka premium vodka yes and i just found a master distiller yeah i am the master distiller master stiller of uh mishka premium vodka the company's name is uh this life forever um something that i've held on to for a very long time it's been kind of my thing as far as just the way of life and also just being able to make sure that I can just

promote good values community based we are alcohol driven but we make award winning spirits and we try to figure out the best ways to be able to give back to the community and work in the community Now you're distilleries in Pennsylvania? All allentown right that was just there this weekend uh yeah y'all got like what 15 14 inches of snow when i was there dj yep it was it was pretty nasty

salute to the brothers for me in 25 so let me ask you how you got how did you get into liquor most people uh uh start off either buying or selling marketing but you actually learned how to make it so i started off in amateur winemaking and i learned how to make it. So I started off in amateur winemaking, and I learned how to make, while I was in Staten Island, living in Staten Island, I learned how to make wine in a garage from Italians. Moonshine. Call it what it is, Russell. You was making that moonshine.

It definitely wasn't legal at the time, but at the end of the day, I did kind of hone in on my craft. I was finishing up my nursing degree, and I just wanted to switch. And I said, hey, you know what? I want to make a little bit more of an impact. And the only way to make impact is what? Financially impact things in order to be able to change things. So with alcohol being a multi-trillion dollar market, it was kind of the obvious.

Seven years in winemaking, amateur, won some awards, got my license. So it wasn't actually illegal anymore, right? I was no longer selling a product, my sparkling wine, out of the back of my Mercedes. And my mom helped me actually just legitimize everything and get my license together. How difficult was it to get your license? Very difficult. Again, you know, my mom just having just a bunch of all like city work experience and she was diligent on the paperwork. I was diligent on the marketing. And then, you know, obviously now I learned all the paperwork and then some. But difficult process. They ask a lot.

You know, your partner is either the state and the federal government, but always the federal government first. And you guys kind of know how the federal government is. You know, it could be a difficult process. And we didn't use any lawyers. Which means? We didn't use a lawyer to be able to put the paperwork through for us uh normally you're gonna you know pay a lawyer roughly about fifty to a hundred thousand dollars just to be able to put all the paperwork through in order to be able to manufacture alcohol because there's a difference obviously making a brand uh owning a brand and then actually manufacturing the alcohol and being able to make

sure that you have all the regulatory things that are in place so when you used to make your own wine you had your grapes and what you was in the tub with it? Right in the barrels, plastic barrels. Okay. Went from crushing the grapes, then realizing that I could actually buy the juice already crushed. And then we started to scale. We were doing everything from NFL events, a bunch of different events. But, you know, it's an industry and it's not a lot of us in the industry. So the larger that I got, you know, the way my supplies were squeezing my,

you know, my margins just a little bit because in Pennsylvania, you don't, you know, you normally don't have a vineyard. It's a cold state. So, you know, you would either get your grapes or you get your juice from somewhere else and then you ferment the wine and then you would actually bring it to bottle. And from my bottling side of it to my grapes and then something started to squeeze me out. And my finishing up my last year, just before I went to my nursing, like my nurse, my nursing, like preclinicals and my clinicals, I decided that I had enough and I thought that I had a good foothold just within the wine industry. And I kind of had a little bit of brand awareness and had some, you know, industry experience knowing that, you know, behind music, fashion, but also at the same time, alcohol. That's what's going to drive the party at the end of the day. So I wanted to make sure that I kind of got into that and me surviving and having a license in in the state, in the Commonwealth based on wine. They weren't even doing dual distillery license. So I had one of the first three dual distillery license, dual winery and distillery license in the Commonwealth.

And then I started doing vodka. I met my wife, my now wife, who's Ukrainian, and I learned how to make vodka in a garage from Ukrainian. So Italians with the wine, Ukrainians with the vodka, and now I'm here. Well, congrats on, they say you're the most awarded black-owned spirits brand in the country? That is a fact. Break that down. What do those awards look like?

So the oldest wine and spirits competition in the world is the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. Okay. We're the only black-owned spirit with a double goal. Double goal this one, gold this one, multiple silvers with these. So, you know, and we just continue to get better. So, you know, you take a brand like something that's more famous, you know, like an Uncle Nearest. Uncle Nearest, they've won multiple awards. They are one of the top, you know, awarded whiskeys.

But at the same time, we've been getting awards since 2016 when I first actually dropped Mishka Honey. Do awards in the liquor business mean anything? And the reason I ask that is, you know, I hear it all the time that this one gets an award this this one gets an award but it always seems like regardless of the awards it's brand recognition is what people buy right uh especially when you're dealing with you know people in the industry they just want what's the dopest thing which is sad sometimes because they could be drinking shit but the ones with the awards nobody's necessarily nobody knows catering right until you get a platform like this which again you know i'm thankful in in a way because it kind of sheds light because i i chose not to

go with uh celebrity endorsements we are just a real story uh this is my life i've been in this business for 15 years uh we might not make you know what someone makes, but it's similar to remaining independent. I own my manufacturing. I own 94% of the company, something like that. And from an award standpoint of it, so the San Francisco World Spirits Competition is a blind tasting. So you're not buying that. So getting a double goal is like getting a Grammy in the industry as far as for us. So when someone says that, whether it be a sommelier or whether it be somebody at the top of the food chain who's a major buyer, they want to know.

And then the first thing they ask is, can I see that printed? And obviously we have those things printed. So it works for who we're feeding, which is the buyer. But, you know, it works a little bit different, obviously, when it comes down to the recognition amongst the quote-unquote common people. Why not do any celebrity endorsements? We've seen so many other people do it. You know, of course, Ciroc with Diddy, you know,

Casamigos with George Clooney. Like, why did you say, you know what, I don't want to go that route? Because, you know, when you take both of those situations, right, one, it worked very, very well. Billions were made, right? That's Casamigos. That's well, Casamigos on that side. But also as far as with, I mean, puff, you know, I mean, he, he took it to billions of

dollars, uh, but also at the same time, look at the parallels of what, you know, what the situation ended up. One thing could be a car crash. The other thing could be, you know, it could be success and get out of the game uh so for us um it's kind of like a blended of a tito's route you got to think about it right tito's owns you know i mean he owns the the vodka market right 25 years that they've been in business um it's tito's period i feel like they came out of nowhere too but they didn't though yeah but they but they did, right? General public. But in the industry, we knew exactly what it was.

So I started to kind of just track what we were doing and kind of just keep those parallels there because at the end of the day, this is generational wealth. I'm not looking for a quick sell in the company. What I actually did was I ended up taking the company public on a start engine just to be able to give it to people that were like me who don't understand the industry. I mean, Tito's did $1.4 billion from 22 to 23. They paid roughly about $468 million in operational fees and operational costs. With no celebrity endorsements, nothing. Just quality of product and going to a domestic aspect of it. Now, one thing that does set,

you know, companies apart is what, what are your, what's your relationship value, right? So our relationship value is based on people who can connect us with, you know, folks like you guys,

but also at the same time, who can place us with corporations, uh, such as Aramark, such as, uh, the Marriott, um,

such as the Hilton uh these are court replacements that we have will be in disney properties uh come in may wow which is huge for us thank you very much i appreciate it now even though that you get in these properties and you get in these restaurants and you get into these establishments is also people have to actually want the product or not only that the businesses have have to push the product. Now, how do you fight through that? So, um, that goes back to the quality of the product and the reason why I made the product. Um, used to be a big fan of grandma. Yeah. Right. So loved grandma. Yeah. And for a good portion of my life. Um, and I wanted to be able to create something that kind of, kind of top grandma. Yeah. Right. So I started working on a honey vodka.

Now, when you take the base of our products, the products are all natural. The products are gluten-free. There's no added sugars. There's no added coloring into it. It's a quality product. And it's a flavor product that ends off at 80 proof, right? Normal flavor products,

they normally finish up roughly about 70 proof. So what we've done is we've made almost a cocktail in the bottle. So instead of doing five parts in a cocktail, which is what dehydrates you, gives you that sugar rush, gives you that, that taste in the back of your mouth in the morning, uh, gives you the headache. Uh, we've kind of taken that. Go ahead, man. What? What? I didn't say nothing. Come on, Sean. I didn't say nothing. I'm just...

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. It's like, wow. You looked in everybody's eyes and you was like, that taste in the back of your mouth in the morning. Come on, man. Go ahead. Go ahead. That wasn't even that bad. the back of your mouth in the morning so what we what we did was we completed it by making sure that you can only add you only need two parts as far as in the cocktail so that's advantageous to a lot of these restaurants these corporate partners because now they're saving on the cocktail juice right they're saving on that mixture juice, right? They're saving on that mixture, the simple syrup.

We just try to just kind of just dumb it down, but also be able to make it, you know, to where there's value in it also. Gotcha. What is it about the honey flavor? I keep hearing about that honey flavor. That's the one in the middle? That's the one in the middle. Let me see it.

The honey flavor. What about this one that makes it stand up um there's no honey flavored um vodka on the market that has stood the test of time but that right there is the product that i created first i didn't want to just go all the way on the tito's model so i went with something that was exclusive to me first and uh that's that's been the hit that's our flagship uh and then we bought out. Then I went to the Unflavor, which is also gluten-free and kosher. And then I went to Cranberry. And now in the spring and the summer, we'll be releasing Mango and Passionfruit. And you hooked up with the NBA too, right?

And the 76ers? Yes, 76ers. I've done multiple spots with the 76ers. It looks like Via Aramark will be programming in Wells Fargo Center, coming for the next season that'll be coming, which will be pretty cool. Again, relationships, you know, doing good in the community. We do a bunch of, just a bunch of stuff. As you mentioned, you were in Allentown.

You know, I sit on every single board, diversity board. I just try to just do the best thing that I can possibly do from a community standpoint. Now, is it profitable? Oh, yeah. Like I said, you know, it's just like owning your masters and being an independent, you know. So instead of my margins getting chopped out. I own distribution. And as a company, we own distribution not only in Pennsylvania, but we also own distribution in New Jersey. So quite so. Question. So why was it so difficult for Diddy then when he had his own tequila and it seems like he couldn't get distribution, he couldn't do it himself. He was we've seen videos of him going liquor store to liquor store. and it seemed like stores really didn't want the product right because there was no distribution connected to it why is it so

difficult for people to get their foot in the door especially with him because you figure like with him it wouldn't be a problem because he's diddy and this was before the as you said car crash right um so we're legitimately less than one percent of the market, right? Just being minorities, right? We're legitimately less than 1% of the market. So again, it's the difference between what baggage you're carrying, right? Versus, okay, here's a story of quality, right? Here's what our lineage is. Here's who our star face is. And that's got to be the way people get connected um i'm not saying you know that obviously you know that people didn't want to be connected to diddy but there's the the diddy angle and then there's the product angle it's you and you got to be able to

have that separate um i always believe that if you're going to take the product just because of the fact that i've got a celebrity how many times are you going to buy that after the fact you know proposed quality it's always about the the you know the value proposition got you the product just because of the fact that I've got a celebrity, how many times are you going to buy that after the fact? You know, proposed quality. It's always about the, you know, the value proposition. Got you. And you're connected with like Music Fest too? Music Fest.

So we are now, so Music Fest is, we need you to come out there since you're coming to Allentown. So we connected with Music Fest roughly about two, three years ago. Became a small sponsor. Blew it out of the water. The next year, we removed another Vodka sponsor that was there. Got them out of there. Then it was us and Jack Danes for the main stage. And then this year, we'll be with a partner.

I don't think that we can say exclusive legally, but we are the partner that's programming all of the vodka for North and South Side Music Fest does 1.3 million people a year which is an excellent opportunity obviously to get liquid to lips. How did that help the brand? Was that your question? No that was just crazy Great way to get liquid to lips. We trademarked that.

Reasonably, right? But we trademarked that because that's been our model. We want to be able to get liquid to lips in order to be able for people. We feel like we can win hands down all the way around by doing that. How did that help the brand is it just eyeballs so not only that but we have tasting opportunities okay which is great which allows people you know music fest draws people from the 20 30 uh countries you know uh and and nationally and uh being able to get those sampling opportunities being able to get people to actually you know not only just the brand side of it but also at the same time understand exactly who we are be able to get a little bit of a little

knowledge that actually pushes it forward but also again you know appropriately getting liquid to lips you know it's interesting i feel like there's so many people getting it right so many black people getting it right uh in the in the spirit business but it's usually the people who aren't relying on celebrity it's when i think about uncle neris when i look at what y'all doing you know what i mean but but y'all mean it's it's real work and that's where you that question that you asked why is this so hard right because on the back end we're the minority right we're the super minority so the people who are the majority, they're controlling this, and they've been controlling this for a very long time.

So if someone's going to let you in to their exclusive club, they kind of want to know that you're going to do the work that's going to back that up. So to your point, saying that the people who are finding success are the people who are actually not taking the celebrity route, black people who are finding success, other people who are actually not taking a celebrity route, black people who are finding success. That's the primary difference. The primary difference is we're getting in front of these distributors and saying, hey, look, you know, I want you to take my product and here's my capacity. It was difficult for anybody to even give me a meeting. You know, I would say before the pandemic, before the pandemic, we were trying to get into different

places. We were obviously owning our distribution in the state of Pennsylvania, but at the same time, nobody wanted to hear us. You know, right after the pandemic, we went our first double goal, you know, during the pandemic or right before the pandemic, we went our first goal. Then we became the largest craft distillery to produce hand sanitizer. I mean, we made, you know, we made a bulk of money just doing that. I dumped all the money back into the company, but we fed everything from frontline workers with meals. We donated tons of hand sanitizer to our local hospitals. We sold a bunch of hand sanitizers to FedEx, UPS, the post office, Comcast. And, like, again, that started getting us media attention. With that media attention, you know, I took it and we ran with it.

And, you know, and now we're here at this point. And I feel like it's something like the product has to sell itself, right? Like I think, you know, with Ciroc, it was something that people liked. The culture gravitated towards it. True. They didn't necessarily gravitate towards De Leon. Right. Casamigos. People liked Cas culture gravitated towards it. True. They didn't necessarily gravitate towards De Leon. Right. Casamigos.

People liked Casamigos. Like, you can just, a lot of these things you can just see organically. Like, I didn't know who was behind Tito's. I'm just like, there's Tito's everywhere. Everywhere. So clearly people just like it, right? So it's like, it don't matter what celebrity you are. If people don't like it, they don't like it.

So I think it also in marketing too, because even with vodka, if you ever go to a bar or a club or even in the lobby, a lot of people just say, let me get a vodka cranberry. Let me get a vodka Sprite. Let me get a vodka thing. So it's also plays in your relationship with a lot of these businesses and restaurants, because you want to make sure when they asking for a vodka cranberry that yours is there. Yours is the one. That's the one. But hence, you notice how you went to that most poor cocktail in the world.

Vodka cranberry. Yeah. So when you take a vodka, a Mishka vodka cranberry, now you're just adding soda on top. You got to mix it? You got to shake it? No. Okay. It's just, no.

It's clean. It's clear. Okay. Yeah. We appreciate it. Hold on. You got a partnership with Lehigh Valley Children's Hospital? Yes.

How the hell does that work? They're not giving the kids a chance. Okay. So I'm not giving it to you. OK, but what we are, what we are basically trading the sales for cocktails and it's going back into our local children's hospital. So that's a blessing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, man, how do we support Mishka? I mean, look, we've got multiple ways. Our website is Mishka Premium Vodka dot com we're still again like I said we kind of gave a public offering just to be able to get folks like us involved but also at the same time

at Drink Mishka is our handles across social media so all those things are good ways to be able to kind of plug in and play for us. Alright well we appreciate you for joining us. Russell Fletcher founder of Mishka Premium Vodka. Thank you, brother.

Thank you. I appreciate you guys. It's The Breakfast Club. Good morning. Wake that ass up. Early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. As a kid,

I really do remember having these dreams and visions, but you just don't know what is going to come for you. Alicia shares her wisdom on growth, gratitude, and the power of love. I forgive myself.

It's okay. Have grace for yourself. You're trying your best and you're going to figure out the rhythm of this thing. Alicia Keys, like you've never heard her before. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Had enough of this country? Ever dreamt about starting your own? I planted the flag. This is mine. I own this.

It's surprisingly easy. 55 gallons of water, 500 pounds of concrete. Or maybe not. No country willingly gives up their territory. Oh my God. What is that? Bullets. Listen to Escape from Zakistan.

That's Escape from Z-A-Q-istan on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what

my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Marie. And I'm Sydney. And we're Mess. Well, not a mess, but on our podcast called Mess, we celebrate all things messy. But the gag is is not everything is

a mess sometimes it's just living yeah things like j-lo on her third divorce living girls trip to miami mess breaking up with your girlfriend while on instagram live living it's kind of mess yeah well you get it got it live love mess listen to mess. Listen to Mess with Sydney Washington and Marie Faustin on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, y'all. Nimminy here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Executive produced by Questlove, The Story Pirates, and John Glickman,

Historical Records brings history to life through hip-hop. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Listen to Historical Records on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.