Who says you can’t find success in a bottle of booze? Bert “Tito” Beveridge has made not only a living, but a fortune peddling his fifth- generation handcrafted Tito’s Vodka. Beveridge’s story encapsulates the quintessential American dream. Not necessarily a rags to riches tale, it is one of trials, tribulations and triumph.
With a lot of determination and loads of elbow grease, Beveridge has been able to turn this formerly one-man operation into a multi-million dollar company out of Austin, TX. Amid a landscape of doubt and skepticism, Beveridge successfully launched Tito’s Handmade Vodka in the late 1990’s. However, the road to triumph was rocky in the beginning. We caught up with Beveridge and got his take on ascending the ladder of conquest
What is your earliest memory of vodka?
My first memory of vodka was actually sneaking some from my parents’ bar and mixing it with grapefruit juice. That’s really my first memory of vodka.
I was also reading up on your story, and your story’s very unique. You worked in the oil industry and the mortgage business. You were making vodka for your friends. How did you know your product was special? How did you know that the vodka you were creating had potential?
Well, when I first started doing it I was just buying vodka off the shelves and then I’d do infusions, so I’d put you know like, habaneros in bottles and I’d give them away as Christmas presents, and the next year I did a black cherry raspberry Vodka, just put them in the bottles, you know, it was like cherries and raspberries, and the next year I took a potato peeler and I peeled the rind off a orange and I put those in bottles and let it sit for about a week, until it got real orangey, and then I’d strain out the uh orange peels—that was my orange Vodka. So I was just doing them for Christmas presents, and then I later saw a guy on TV that was talking about if you’re trying to find your passion, to make a list of what you love and make a and list of what you’re good at, and then come up with your dream job. I made those lists, and I was like, man I should get in the liquor business.
Are you a self-taught distiller, or did somebody teach you?
Yeah, I’m a self-taught distiller. I’d worked in the oil fields internationally and I’d worked with guys that’d been over in like Libya and Saudi Arabia, they’re Muslim countries and you couldn’t have liquor there. You couldn’t buy any there, and these guys were all from Texas, Louisiana and Australia, so they’d bring yeast and enzymes and wood chips and all this stuff with them, and then they’d get there and they’d go to the local store, and they’d buy cornmeal and sugar, and they’d add some minerals to it and enzymes, and then ferment it. So they’d make their own beer and then they’d cook it off in these little pot stills. So when I worked internationally, we were always making wine just messing around and we kept saying we were going to build the stills but we never did. We talked about it, and just went down to the science library and got the boiling temperatures and chemical compatibility and stuff like that and built this little 15 gallon still and started practicing, and that’s kind of how I learned to do it.
How long have you been in operation?
We got our permit in ’95, I think is when we got it, and then I bought the land in February’95 and then I think the first batch that we sold was in. April of ’97.
What makes Tito’s Vodka unique? What sets it apart from all the other vodka’s that are out on the market?
I think it’s just kind of a stand-alone, sipping vodka. We’re kind of known for being 80 proof sipping vodka, and we just specialize in that. You can drink it straight—on the rocks. I’ll drink it with Chico’s water and a squeeze of lime; it’s delicious. With a lime and an orange and it’s great just like that. You don’t have to stick a bunch of sugar and stuff like that in it to drink it. We charge a better price for it. We don’t put it in those fancy, see-through, frosted colored bottles that cost a whole bunch to make. We don’t do any of that stuff. We look at it like we put all our focus into the actual vodka you drink, not the packaging and all that stuff. I’m a geologist. I came up with the label. I did all the label approvals on it. I did the artwork on the still. I picked out the paper—all that stuff. I came up with the package. I think that’s what makes us different.
And also no hangover?
You can’t make any medical claims with alcoholic beverage, you know, we don’t ever say that. But I tell you what, if I just drink Tito’s water with a squeeze of lime, I can just drink them all night long, get up in the morning and I’ll feel fine. I get people coming up to me all the time telling me ‘man that stuff’s amazing’ you can actually get up in the morning and get your work done. As long as that’s not the only reason people like it.
What are some of the success that you’ve experienced with Tito’s Vodka?
They’re just getting it out in Texas in all the liquor stores and a bunch of the restaurants, and that’s just a big success in my book. But we’ve won the World Spirits Competition for Best Vodka, we’ve won best Bloody Mary, best vodka and tonic. Recently, just last month, I was up in New York and I was named the “Global Spirit Brand of the Year” and Best Distiller for Wine Enthusiast magazine. So that was a pretty good one to win. We win a bunch of different stuff. But I guess the main thing, one of the biggest accomplishments is just getting it out in the marketplace and having people just enjoy it. I mean, that’s the biggest thing.
What advice would you give any type of entrepreneur who’s either getting ready to start up a business or who is in their business and is hitting those pitfalls and not seeing any success?
First of all I’d tell them to do the list of what they love to do and what they’re good at, and I think that if you enjoy what you’re doing, then you’ll actually spend more time doing it, you’ll work harder than the next guy at it, and you’ll just think that you’re lucky just to be able to do it. I think that’s the big thing, if it’s the right thing to do. I mean I’ve had some failures in my life. And just realize, that hey man, that only about 1 in 10 businesses succeed, and so, don’t be discouraged if you have a failure. What you learn in those failures actually end up being the foundation of what you build your success on. It’s really when you quit trying and don’t try that, to me, that’s when you’ve actually failed. To just be scared of failure and keep from following your dreams—that’s the worst. The best thing is to look at life like as a journey, it’s not a destination.
Text: Denise Nelson-Prieto