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The Story of a Brand

First Light Whiskey - Smooth Coffee-flavored Whiskey for Everyone

The Story of a Brand

Ramon Vela

Business, Entrepreneurship

5145 Ratings

🗓️ 26 September 2023

⏱️ 54 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This episode is brought to you by Saral and Vdriven.


In today’s episode, we interview Ryan Espi, Co-Founder & CEO of First Light Whiskey. First Light Whiskey is a smooth, coffee-flavored whiskey that can be enjoyed neat, on ice, or mixed into your favorite cocktail.


It’s made with naturally gluten-free 99% corn whiskey, real coffee extract, and raw blue agave — crafted with love on the coast of Southern California.


Highlights include: 


* His Gratitude Story


* What his mentor taught him: “All Boats Rise.”


* What he took for granted about his parents


* Taking the Van Wilder path in college


* The lesson he learned from his design firm


* How did he get started with First Light, and why


* How his hobbies and passion make him a better version of himself


* Deciding what type of company they wanted to build


* Overview and challenges of the alcohol industry


* Breaking down the First Light recipe


* Why they want people to have a First Light moment: How they named the brand


* Internal challenges as a manager and leader


* Advice for founders


* Launching a D2C offer


* What he’s proud of about the brand


Join Ramon Vela and Ryan Espi as we break down the inside story of First Light Whiskey on The Story of a Brand.


For more on First Light Whiskey, visit: https://www.firstlightwhiskey.com/


Simply search for “The Story of a Brand” on your favorite podcast player.


*


Today’s sponsors:

 

Vdriven - A Partner to CPG brands:
https://www.vdriven.com/


Are unauthorized distributor deductions hurting your bottom line and cash flow? Vdriven has recovered over $1 million in erroneous deductions from distributors. Vdriven supports brands with deduction management and an array of services to accelerate sustainable growth. Schedule a call today.


SARAL - Your Influencer Assistant Tool for Brands): https://www.getsaral.com/champions/ramon 


SARAL is offering an exclusive 14-day free trial for my listeners. They will also do a special strategy session to make sure you’re set up for success. Go to my special link. 

Transcript

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0:00.0

So first lie of whiskey, so we're a coffee-flavored whiskey.

0:03.0

So just to everybody listening, we blend real coffee extract with American whiskey and add a touch of organic agave nectar,

0:09.4

which gives it this little bit of sweetness, pairs well with the coffee.

0:12.4

So you get this really smooth, not overly sweet coffee-flavored whiskey.

0:16.4

You can drink and eat or mix great in cocktails.

0:19.2

But the kind of, so it didn't start there.

0:21.4

Like the idea didn't start, hey, let's make a coffee whiskey.

0:23.9

It was we had the intention of making like a sustainable spirits brand, but like a something

0:30.7

that was leaning towards a triple bottom line, like some sort of some sort of, some sort of

0:35.0

spirits brand that had this foundation of preserving

0:38.4

like our natural landscape and doing things a different way.

0:41.6

One of the things too is like we decided we wanted to go with flavored spirits at the time

0:45.8

it was kind of right when screwball launch.

0:48.1

But even with fireball and screwball, they're both like really quite sweet.

0:51.8

And so as a bartender, like there's not a lot of drinks like I would like to mix with them, right? Like they're great products on their own, but they

0:58.0

were always a little sweet for someone like myself. And so we were looking at the category and

1:02.0

hey, we want to make something that's flavored, that's like approachable for the non-whiskey

1:06.2

drinkers, but not overly sweet that doesn't have as much sugar. So we have 10 times less sugar than like a fireball does.

1:12.6

And instead of using like artificial sweeteners, we're using like organic agave nectar.

1:15.7

So we wanted to make a product that was like different from the ingredients standpoint, that was like cleaner that I like knowing what I eat as far as ingredients.

1:24.6

I was on the, I was executive vice chair for surf writer San Diego for about four

1:29.0

years. So sustainability and trying to like take care of our environments, very important to me.

...

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