[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hey folks, I'm Ray Latif and you're listening to the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage, Taste Radio. This episode features an interview with Simon Ford, the co-founder of Ford's Gin, a revered spirit brand served in the world's most admired cocktail bars and restaurants. During my conversation with Simon Ford, he recited an adage that could be inscribed in the walls of any successful company. People don't do business with brands. They do business with people. Simon, who co-founded Ford's Gin in 2012, is keenly aware of the power of relationships. They've served him well throughout a 20-plus-year career that includes experience in wine retail, bartending, spirits marketing, and, of course, entrepreneurship. Alongside Ford's Gin co-founder and master distiller Charles Maxwell, Simon tapped his extensive connections in the hospitality industry to develop the 86 Company, a portfolio of high-quality and versatile spirits that could set a standard for modern bars and mixologists. Ford's Gin emerged as the definitive brand within that cohort and was key to beverage alcohol giant Brown Foreman's acquisition of the 86 Company in 2019. In the following interview, I spoke with Simon about his diverse background and spirits in hospitality, what he means when he says that he, quote, never pitches business, the reasons behind successful and unsuccessful relationships, his belief that naivete is a gift, and how he cultivated a strategic partnership with Brown Foreman. Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I'm supremely honored to be sitting down with Simon Ford, the founder of Foer's Gin. Simon, great to see you. Hello, Ray. How's it going? It's going. It's nice. We're in front of a bar slash distillery bar called Standard Wormwood here in Brooklyn. More specifically, the Industry City neighborhood of Brooklyn.
[00:02:15] Charles Maxwell: It's super cool. Why are we here? Why are we here?
[00:02:17] Ray Latif: We are here for the podcast, obviously.
[00:02:19] Charles Maxwell: I'm here for the podcast. Everyone is here for BCB. Bar Convent Brooklyn. Yeah, which is amazing. You know, bringing people together. Actually, I think this feels like the busiest it's ever been. And I think I'm seeing more friendly faces at this one than I've ever done in the past. So it feels good. The vibe's good. Simon Ford is Mick Jagger.
[00:02:36] Ray Latif: He's the Mick Jagger of BCB. Everyone, I've been here for five minutes, four to five, maybe eight people have come and hugged you, kissed you, just like kneels. And when you said Mick Jagger, I thought you meant I'm old, but I still have a bit of energy.
[00:02:50] SPEAKER_??: No.
[00:02:51] Ray Latif: Not at all, not at all. The one thing about BCB that I've never understood, why don't they call it Bar Convent, Brooklyn? Why is it Bar Convent? I don't know that.
[00:02:59] Charles Maxwell: I mean, obviously the first one was Berlin, and I wonder if it has something to do with the German language, but I couldn't speak to that. I assume the convent stands for convention, no? Yeah, I mean, I've always assumed it was an abbreviation, yeah.
[00:03:11] Ray Latif: Okay, okay.
[00:03:12] Charles Maxwell: Where are you based? Me, at the moment, I am based between Nashville and London. Okay, that's quite odd. And it's not because I like country music. It's got nothing to do with it. Why are you in between?
[00:03:25] Ray Latif: Well, London makes sense.
[00:03:27] Charles Maxwell: Nashville, why? London is where the gin is made. And Nashville is sort of close to the mothership of Brown Forman.
[00:03:34] Ray Latif: Oh, okay.
[00:03:35] Charles Maxwell: That makes sense. And you are still with, in so many ways, Brown Forman. Yeah. So Brown Foreman purchased Fords Gin back in 2019 and brought me on as the managing director of the brand. I oversee the marketing and everything.
[00:03:49] Ray Latif: You have a long history in this industry. Wine, spirits, bar. That was just last night. But I think you came into your own, and correct me if I'm wrong, as the founder and owner of a cocktail bar in Brighton. Wow.
[00:04:09] Charles Maxwell: That's going back some years.
[00:04:10] Ray Latif: It is going back some years.
[00:04:11] Charles Maxwell: Yeah. I would say that that was certainly my first foray into bartending. You know, I'd worked in the industry a little bit prior and had met some of the best bartenders in the world. people like Dick Bradstall, Douglas Ankara, people that had really sort of set the London bartending scene on fire. And they really inspired me. And I lost a job. How'd you lose a job? Well, just the company I was working for went bankrupt and everyone was made redundant. And I was like, this is my opportunity to bartend. And that's exactly what I did. And so Brighton was where I went. There was a guy called Jake Kempston who was wanting to start a bar, he'd come to me and we opened up this Markle Cobra together, but not many people know that.
[00:04:53] Ray Latif: The word Brighton to me represents one thing in particular. Can you guess what that represents? Brighton Rock. No.
[00:05:01] Charles Maxwell: Quadrophenia.
[00:05:03] Ray Latif: The Gulls. The Brighton Gulls of the Premier League. OK.
[00:05:06] Charles Maxwell: Oh, we're going straight in. They do well these days.
[00:05:09] Ray Latif: They're not a bad team. Yeah. And so the first of my 10 questions that I wanted to ask you is, are you a Brighton Gulls fan? I am not. What's your team?
[00:05:17] Charles Maxwell: The Brighton Gulls would be my second team if I, because living there, I would go to see some of the games. It was nice. But back then, they were a second division team, you know, so a long time ago.
[00:05:26] Ray Latif: Before you answer your first, because I was hoping it was Brighton. If you say Chelsea, we're just going to hang up the phone here. We're done. So please don't say Chelsea.
[00:05:34] Charles Maxwell: Well, my dad is from Birmingham. Well done. My grandparents had a pub outside a football team stadium. And so I have inherited the team Aston Villa. And I'm particularly proud of them the last couple of years, actually.
[00:05:49] Ray Latif: You know, for a team that was relegated three, four years ago, was it four years ago? They are just phenomenal. I mean, they are doing some amazing things under Unai. Unai Emery, who's the manager of the team.
[00:05:59] Charles Maxwell: When I was a kid, it was actually, they were a very successful team. And so it was kind of easy to become a fan. And then, of course, unfortunately, there's this thing called loyalty. My grandmother and grandfather had a pub where the gangsters and the police chiefs and everybody would go and drink. It was right outside the grounds. And she gave me my first cocktail books.
[00:06:23] Ray Latif: Wow.
[00:06:24] Charles Maxwell: And one of them was from 1899. And one of them was from the 1950s. I had to take it to Dave Wondridge, actually, because I couldn't find a date on the older one until he pointed out that there was Roman numerals at the very front. And that was the date. And I felt very, very silly. But he's like, this is a very rare book. And my grandmother would make cocktails in a upstairs lounge and downstairs where they were pulling pints for the majority of people. But that's what she was doing.
[00:06:50] Ray Latif: Amazing.
[00:06:50] Charles Maxwell: Yeah. It was your grandmother who introduced you to cocktails. Yeah. Well, actually it wasn't that way around. The minute I got a job in the bar, she went and gave me those books. She says, you're going to need these. I've been hanging onto them. Never knew I would find a home for them. And she said, you know, take these books. Amazing. It sounds like your grandmother was an important person in your life. Yeah. I would say so. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:07:11] Ray Latif: Very cool. You know, gin is a big part of your life as well.
[00:07:15] Charles Maxwell: It has been for a long time.
[00:07:16] Ray Latif: What was the first time you had a sip of gin?
[00:07:19] Charles Maxwell: Actually, it was a legal drinking age, interestingly enough.
[00:07:22] Ray Latif: Is that 18 in the UK?
[00:07:24] Charles Maxwell: Yeah. OK. So my first, I mean, everyone starts drinking cider where I'm from. I'm from the West Country in England. So I grew up in a town called Bath. And that whole area is where all the apples are, the orchards, there's brandies. It's where Wassail comes from. And it's home of English cider. So I would grow up drinking cider. But then I would get my first job in a wine shop at the age of 19. And I kind of like my palate started to become more and more sophisticated in that moment. And I started drinking wine and I moved on to drinking for some reason Guinness and gin and tonics if I wasn't drinking wine. And that was it. And I remember even then noticing the difference between the different gins in a gin and tonic. I'd be like, oh, that wasn't the same gin as the first gin I just had. And I would notice it. And so it piqued my interest from very early days. But it's always been one of my favorite drinks.
[00:08:17] Ray Latif: I don't think you can go wrong with Guinness Fords Gin and tonic. Well, yeah, the latter I think might be a problem. And you know what, that's a good point because I know a lot of people who are still steering clear of gin. There are people who just like, I won't touch gin. They had a bad experience in one way or the other, and it's just not for me. For someone who founded a gin company, how do you convince someone to try gin?
[00:08:40] Charles Maxwell: I would come across that. a lot, especially about 20 years ago. And of course, the journey there is so delightful. I would say that I'm not the only one on it. I met countless bartenders that when someone says they don't like gin, see this is this amazing moment to be challenged and go, Oh, you don't like gin. I'll change your mind. Right. And so for me, Obviously I spent 10 years trying to convince people through education, through cocktail experimentation, through showing people different ways to drink it, or just showing them a good gin and tonic versus a bad gin and tonic, right? Obviously Ford's Gin was launched in 2012, and I think I learned a lot from that moment. I wanted to make the juniper quite delicate and have a supporting cast of botanicals that really sort of highlighted that juniper, but also created balance so that people would just enjoy gin and it was, I learned from the tequila guys. I remember tequila was the thing I couldn't drink. Yeah. And it was all these mixtos that weren't so good when I was young and I was doing shots. And then someone introduced me to a hundred percent agave. And I was like, oh, tequila is good. And I feel like that's what I get to do often with with Fords. You know, I get to show people that don't think gin is good, that it's good just through a blind need taste test.
[00:09:56] Ray Latif: Is there a point at which, you know, you just kind of walk away and say, I can't convince this person it's not worth my time?
[00:10:03] Charles Maxwell: I mean, I'm never on any forceful mission at all to make anyone drink something that they don't want to drink. The way I kind of approach it is we're on a journey to encourage people to try new ways to drink, to come on an adventure. Even in the gin category, we say there's life beyond the gin and tonic. Try something new with us, right? If you love a martini, then we might try and convince you to drink a Negroni. If you love a Negroni, we might try and convince you to drink a Southside. We just like the idea of maybe broadening someone's horizons with something, because it's the hospitality from within. It's the bartender from within. And so I think that if you gave it a try, that's the best I could ask. You know, what's quite interesting is we do a program called Oysters and Martinis. And martini is quite a particular drink. It's strong. If you've never had a martini before, that's going to take you by surprise. You know, it's got a lot of complex flavors. Gin in itself is made up of all these botanicals. The vermouth is not necessarily the easiest of flavors. You add bitters. Let's add some bitter on top of all of these complex flavors. And then let's give it to someone, a very high proof, albeit nicely chilled with a little bit of dilution, some expression of lemon oils on it. Try that for the very first time, and it's an acquired taste. Sometimes an oyster's an acquired taste. And we give this, or people come up, and sometimes somebody who's never had a martini or an oyster is brave enough to come up and have an oyster and martini with us. And I love that. And sometimes they go, yuck, I'm never having oysters again. Martini, it's a bit strong. Can you suggest something else? We always have a backup drink just in case it is a bit too strong and they want something else. But we like to challenge people to try something that maybe they won't like, but they will always remember that moment. They will remember their first martini with Ford's gin. Love it or hate it, they will remember it. And I like that we put ourselves in a position to take that risk with the consumer rather than just go for a crowd pleaser every time.
[00:12:05] Ray Latif: Memories are created using senses, taste, smell, what have you. I think memories are also created when a great story is presented. And when you are at a tasting or experiencing something for the first time, the person who is in front of you has a big role in getting someone to appreciate what they're drinking and eating. And I think about that when I visited a lot of really nice restaurants. Noma in particular. Noma during forest and game season, there were a lot of things that I would never in my whole life ever thought I would eat, nor probably would eat since. I'm talking about like, you know, duck brain and reindeer heart and things like that. Reindeer penis, I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure that was on the menu. It probably was at one point. So I appreciate the story. So when one of the chefs would come over and explain the dish and talk about why they created what they created and the ingredients that they used, I appreciate it a little bit more. You yourself, you've been telling stories and talking to people for a long time and you're good at it. What makes you a great communicator?
[00:13:10] Charles Maxwell: I mean, I think storytelling is at the heart of all good brands. If you don't have a good story to begin with, you know, it's going to be a tough road. If you create something new, there should be a really good reason why you choose to exist.
[00:13:25] Ray Latif: Can I pause you there for a second, Simon? Everyone will say they have a good story. Public relations teams will say, this brand has a great story, this founder has a great story. What really makes for a great story? Sorry for the interruption there.
[00:13:37] Charles Maxwell: So I think a great story starts with, well, there's two approaches I'm going to sort of touch on. One is, if you have an amazing history already, and it could be a history that you were able to borrow from or tap into. Or it could be a true value of the branding. Your brand could actually come from that place and that time. You know, there are brands that have been around for hundreds of years. And of course, they've got multiple stories that they can tap into and tell over and over again. And repetition helps, right? You know, that's where memory structures are built. But if you are creating a new brand, then you don't have that history. So you can tap into someone else's history or a category's history. Some people have reinvigorated or reinvented categories that had gone away. But if you're doing something like gin, which is, you know, then why are you doing this when there's such good choice out there already? And I think that's the beginning of a good story, is the reason why you were doing something. For Ford's, the reason why we did it is because we wanted to create something versatile and mixable for the cocktail bartender. And how did we go about that? We talked to hundreds of bartenders for their advice, not just at the beginning when we were formulating ideas, but when we were developing the recipe. We looked at botanicals that would mix very well in the classic cocktails and flavor pair like a good chef would pair flavors. And so all of these things build into a reason why we did something. And I'm a big fan of the marketing guru Simon Sinek, who sort of says, you know, start with why you're doing something first. That's where the sort of emotions are built on a story. You know, if you think about gin, well, it's an alcoholic spirit made of botanicals. Every gin has botanicals. Every gin has juniper. Every gin probably has a master distiller and every gin probably has a nice cute little still and a method in which they make it. So we're all trying to make the best quality product. So the next part of the story is why? did you make the gin that you made? And what were you trying to achieve when you did it? And that's where the sort of stories are formed. But, you know, you get lucky sometimes. The guy that makes Ford's gin is an 11th generation master distiller, and I get to borrow some of his history when telling the story of Ford's. You know, we managed to buy, you know, botanicals from a company that been around for 150 years, you know, and we get to borrow a bit of their story. The still that every drop of fortune is made in was the last still made by the legendary gin still making company John Doar. And so, you know, there's things that are fun. And I would say that someone who's nerdy like me would be like, oh, that's cool. But then there's a lot of people out there that couldn't care less. But I think that people would care that, you know, we made this so that your cocktail experience at home and your cocktail experience as a bartender would be improved.
[00:16:23] Simon Ford: Vibrant Ingredients is the natural ingredient partner powering food and beverage innovation, delivering flavor, function, and protection through a science-backed portfolio. Vibrant delivers purpose-driven solutions that help brands create extraordinary experiences. Discover what's possible with Vibrant today. Visit VibrantIngredients.com.
[00:16:50] Ray Latif: You mentioned your relationship with Charles Maxwell. I think back to my college days and I had a class called Business Marketing. The first word out of the professor's mouth was relationships. The last word, the last class out of his mouth was relationships. You've had a lot of relationships in your time in this industry. What makes for a successful relationship? What makes for an unsuccessful relationship?
[00:17:16] Charles Maxwell: So we would have this saying that is, you know, people don't do business with brands, they do business with people. And so we've always put the relationship first. Second, Forge was built out, Forge Gym was built out of the hospitality industry. We see ourselves as an extension of it. So we are trying to act like someone might look after us when we go into their restaurant or bar. We want to look after them as a customer of ours, right? So that's how we sort of approach our ethos. We just want to be an extension of the hospitality industry. But I think the most important is everyone that we do business with could do business with anyone else. What's important is their business. and understanding their business and actually approaching them and their business with what can benefit them and us, right? If we go in with our own agenda, that's pointless. If we go in with an agenda that could benefit both parties, that's probably ideal. If we can come in with an agenda that benefits them, then they're a customer, so I think it's always good. in a relationship with your customer to find out their needs and see if you can accommodate, help, assist in any way, shape or form. And maybe you can't. And that's OK, too, you know. But I think that's what a relationship is about. Thank you very much for that.
[00:18:39] Ray Latif: This is a reoccurring theme on the podcast is when you are approaching a retailer, when you're approaching your customer, the question should always be, what can I do for you? What can I do to benefit your brand to bring incremental benefit, revenue, what have you, to your company?
[00:18:55] Charles Maxwell: Because they don't need you in most cases. And to this day, I mean, I even had an example from a bartender I was talking to yesterday. To this day, there are still people that go in with their own agenda. And they say, hey, can you change that drink to my product? Hey, you know, like I need to hit my number on this product this month. Can you buy this one? Not the one that you want, the one that I want you to buy. And it just constantly happens. And I think the advantage that the team I work with is we've never taken that approach. We've always been customer focused, customer centric, and they're our friends and we want to look after them.
[00:19:32] Ray Latif: Now I think that's true across CPG. I think in particular hospitality when it comes to the spirits industry, a lot of people who are buyers are headstrong. A lot of people who are decision makers are headstrong. as an aggressive person who's trying to sell, I think it's probably not going to work out very well for you.
[00:19:50] Charles Maxwell: Yeah. You should never pitch business. You should just tell your story. That's it, you know, and see if it resonates.
[00:19:56] Ray Latif: I like it. Part of your story that I heard, we're going to say this is question five in this type of questions here, is that you're a big martini guy. I'm a big Negroni guy and in our company at BevNET, we're big Negroni folks. But brass tacks, martini or Negroni?
[00:20:10] Charles Maxwell: That is like the meanest question one could ask anybody.
[00:20:13] Ray Latif: I'm so sorry, Simon.
[00:20:14] Charles Maxwell: Do you know what? Whatever the answer is, it's wrong. I don't think you can offend anyone in our audience, so don't worry about that. I mean, you're right now talking about probably my two favorite drinks and I have to pick one. I would say this is a politician's answer. A Negroni is probably the one I would order most. A martini relies on the skill of the bartender more. Now they both do, but I want my martini to come from a tried, true and trusted bartender. It's easy to mess up a martini, I find, and it's less, it's more difficult to mess up a Negroni from my palate. So I think I would pick a Negroni for the drink I would order the most. But I think if I had a desert island drink, I would probably pick the martini and have to pick the bartender that would make it.
[00:21:07] Ray Latif: I don't think that's the politicians. I think that's a fantastic answer. And I wouldn't even thought to answer it that way. So thank you. You know, it's so funny you answer it that way, because I was at the bar at the Chelsea Hotel a year ago. And it's a very sophisticated, very expensive bar. And I sat down at the bar seat and looking at the menu and I see this martini and it's like $32, $33. I'm like, what is in here that's worth $32, $33? Screw it. I order it. Man, if that wasn't the best martini I've ever had in my whole life. It was fantastic.
[00:21:45] Charles Maxwell: I was going to say, do you know what was in that martini? High rent prices.
[00:21:51] Ray Latif: You know, when I first came across Fords Gin, it was in 2012, and I had started at BevNET in 2011. And that was the year it was launched. So you're an early adopter. Yeah, well, when I saw the product, when I saw the press release, and I saw the bottles, I was like, wow, this is different. And this is part of the 86 company.
[00:22:07] Charles Maxwell: Yeah, that's right.
[00:22:07] Ray Latif: We have more. Many different products, but the Forge Gin, the bottle it came in. Actually, I think your rum came in a similar looking bottle as well.
[00:22:16] Charles Maxwell: They all came in the same bottle. Oh, did they? Okay. Yeah, yeah. There was a streamlining for a bunch of reasons. You know, one of them was for the environment. You know, we were just like one was efficiencies in bottling or, you know, one was efficiencies in the bar. We made a lot of mistakes, business mistakes. But yeah, all of those products came in the same bottle at the beginning.
[00:22:34] Ray Latif: How did you think about the bottle, the package design, the label design as being different, as differentiating from other products that were out there on the market, both on premise and off?
[00:22:46] Charles Maxwell: It's all about thought. It's all about purpose, right? I feel like what we try to do When we were looking at the gin, you know, I mentioned earlier that we asked bartenders for their opinions, right? We looked at the flavors in the botanicals and how they paired with flavors found in classic cocktails so that we could create a liquid that worked well in classic cocktails. Then we got second opinion, third opinion, in fact, over a hundred opinions to help us form how that liquid would Taste Radio how it would work in cocktails. It's a philosophy that was created in that moment. So it would make complete sense for us when it came to packaging, which is obviously the second part of the story. Once you've got a liquid, you've got to put it in something to ask the bartenders who are going to be pouring it on a daily basis what they would like to see in a bottle. At first, I took all of the stock bottles that were available to my bartender friends. hoping they would pick one. And of course, the answer was, oh, we like the neck on this one. We like the middle on that one. This one holds a speed pour best. So all of a sudden I'm like, all right, we're going to have to design a bottle and we're going to incorporate a lot of people's favorite features. And we even made some, you know, we didn't end up with any of these innovations, but we even tested some design innovations to see if they would make the bartender's life easier. So it wasn't cut and dry as design a bottle. It looks good on a picture. We made a mocked it up. We gave it to our friends to work at and shifts. see how it handled, see if it fit in the speed rail. We just made a limited run of 100 bottles and tested and tested until we ended up with one that I would say doesn't really reinvent the wheel. It sort of just takes in some of the best parts of classic bottles that have been out there in the world. A neck that liquid pours with a flow and an air bubble going up. measurements on the side of it so that you can batch cocktails or do stock counts, you know, that make life easier. So it was that thought process that went into liquid, went into the design of the bottle, and it also went into the label. We said, what do you want on the label? And honestly, honesty is the answer, really. Everyone was like, we just want as much useful and honest information as possible. no secret ingredients, you know, like carefully guarded secrets. They didn't want any of that. They wanted to know how it was done. And it made sense to me because today's bar back is tomorrow's bartender. You know, yesterday's bartender is tomorrow's bar manager and then bar owner. And then maybe they're going to become a spirits entrepreneur and do something like that as well. So there's a journey. And so it's my duty because I'm on that journey to share what I can, the best I can.
[00:25:18] Ray Latif: There was a lot of thought that went into the bottle to liquid. And you had a lot of people on your team that could produce that information to produce that kind of valuable insights, those kinds of valuable insights that would lead you to the development of the 86 company and the products that are a part of it. How much did founder expertise, that of distilling, that of bartending, again, employees only, two of the co-founders of 86 company are for employees only, which is for folks who are not familiar, one of the best bars in the world, one of my favorite bars in the world. And also, you know, branding. You, yourself, I mean, I would say at that point, you knew quite a bit about branding and, you know, how to build a great brand. So how much does founder expertise play into the potential success of a brand and the success of Fords Gin?
[00:26:05] Charles Maxwell: I think a whole lot, especially Forge Gen, right? Because it's a brand that's not ever been built on having a huge budget for marketing. So, you know, it's about being nimble and smart with limited resources. And so I do think that, you know, as founders, and I wasn't the only one, there was also the unsung hero behind the scenes, a guy called Malte Manikau, who came from business school, went to INSEAD, and he's the guy that put together the spreadsheets and ran operations. We had a guy called David Goodacre come out of operations and so you know I get a lot of the credit as the front man as it as it were but you know it's a it's a band and everyone's expertise played into making the right decisions because one wrong decision in the business could have been over and so we were very smart at deploying capital to make sure we had more gin before we spent money on a party, for example. We were smart to make sure we had enough glass bottles and labels before we hired agencies to do things like public relations for us. We had to do it all ourselves at the beginning. And learning that a P&L is something you look at, but cash flow is king if you don't have cash in the bank. And honestly, payroll. The number one most important thing you have to make every single month, you know, you need that money in the bank. That's so important. So for me, being a founder was so important because it was all about figuring stuff out and making the right decisions so that we could be successful. And every day in the beginning, there's a difficult decision to make. And you have to learn to make difficult decisions. And I was never very good at difficult decisions. I was a people pleaser before, you know, then I had to make them. I will say that The other part of the founder story that has always fascinated me, and any good founder, I think, is a founder wasn't built in a day. I mean, everything that I did draws on 25 years of prior work experience that I got, mentors from my past, jobs that I got to do. So I got the chance to work in retail. I got the chance to work in a cocktail bar. I had the chance to be a brand manager and run marketing programs for a brand. I had the chance to be in advocacy and know how that functions. You know, I had the chance of launching products around the world and other companies. And I worked with some of the great minds of our time. You know, I worked with Guy called Charles Maxwell, who created Fevertree. You know, incredible. John Murphy, who is the founder of Interbrand. You know, like these are like some of the marketing geniuses of that time. And, you know, personal unsung hero mentor for me is a guy called Nick Blackmore, who, you know, was always behind some of the most successful brands at some of the biggest companies in the world. putting his marketing genius to that. So I was in their shadows learning the whole time. And at the time, I didn't really think about it. But when I put two and two together about my present and where it all came from, I'm like, ah, I was learning every day whether I knew it or not. And that created the founder that I became.
[00:29:11] Ray Latif: Can I take what you said as, and you said a lot. No, no, no, and I don't mean it like that. But can I take what you said as, it's better to understand the industry you're going into than to be a novice coming into the industry?
[00:29:28] Charles Maxwell: Not at all. I think naivety is a gift also. I think if I knew, now that I know and I've done it, I almost don't know if I could do it again, right? Because I now know. The beauty is that now I know how to do it, so I probably would. But, you know, the journey I went on was perseverance. I mean, the odds are stacked against you. massively. It's hard to even sort of imagine, you know, there are companies out there spending tens of millions. in the same field that you're trying to go into, that have machines behind it of thousands of people, and they're going to have lower cost of goods than you, they're going to have higher budgets, bigger teams, and you're naive enough to join that world. You have to be a little bit crazy. So I genuinely think that a lot of knowledge does help, but it's not necessary. In fact, if you don't have knowledge, you've got a better chance of challenging the norms.
[00:30:26] Ray Latif: There's very few entrepreneurial brands out there that make it on their own, so to speak. I mean, Alliance with a strategic company acquisition by a strategic company seems to be the way that brands go from big to iconic. I think Fortune is a good example of that. Yes. Entrepreneurial company acquired by Brown Forman and then it's now on every back bar or most back bars that you can find in New York City and beyond. How do you develop a rapport with strategic companies? How do you get into a relationship with folks that might have been the evil empire, might have been your rival at a certain time, but are the gatekeepers of your industry?
[00:31:05] Charles Maxwell: Getting to know Brown Forman was actually one of the better experiences of the entire entrepreneurial journey for me. They have such a thorough acquisition team, but they just happen to be the loveliest humans. I mean, we were almost married to the acquisition team, I think for about two years, going through this process.
[00:31:26] Ray Latif: Did they reach out to you or did you reach out to them?
[00:31:28] Charles Maxwell: They reached out to us. And I would say that it's one of the best experiences of my professional career, going through that acquisition process with Brown Formant. And not a lot of people know this, but we went through the acquisition process once with them, and then they went, yeah, thanks, but no thanks. And one day they called up again and said, are you still interested? And we probably spent a year the first time. And I left that experience going, what an amazing company, what an amazing experience getting to know them. I was disappointed, of course, but I wasn't let down by Brown Foreman. You know, it was almost like there's two types of doorman, right? There's the doorman that lets you into the nightclub, but still made you feel terrible about it, right? Or, you know, there's the, you know what I mean? You know, the doorman that can reject you and you go, yeah, I get why I couldn't get in tonight, you know? And Brown Foreman were like, I get why you didn't want to buy the brand this time around, that's fine. You know, and almost what triggered the second conversation with them is I sent them bottles of Officers Reserve just as gifts. not thinking that they would ever be returning to purchase Forge Gin as a company again, but actually just because we'd built such a good relationship that when I made it, I was like, they're on my Christmas list, you know, they're on my holiday card list. And so I sent the team that I'd worked with bottles of the Officers Reserve, and that actually led to them going, are you still interested? But it wasn't, Again, it would be another six months before an offer from even that particular moment. They just were sort of interested in talking again. And what triggered that was just me sending a bottle of offices reserve. So I loved it. Now, what was the impetus to make the decision to actually do that? I'll be honest, my dream has always been to create a meaningful brand that lives on and on. And at this point, we'd been doing it for 10 years, and I felt we needed a strategic partnership if I was to achieve that. Now, could we have probably struggled along and the business kept going? I think so. I definitely had business partners that were exhausted by it, that wanted to move on. I don't know if I could have done it without them. And so one of the conversations we had, deep rooted in ourselves was, what's next? And I'm like, I want to do this. I want to take Forge to the next level. And my business partner was like, you know, it's been 10 years for me, I'd like to move on. And so I'm like, all right, let's talk to strategics. You know, we were either going to do one of two things, take an investment, hopefully, or talk to a strategic and create a partnership. And the Brown Foreman one was the one that was actually a little bit of a dream of mine at the beginning. You know, I'm a huge fan of Jack Daniels and how they have marketed it. And, you know, I grew up looking at that brand as the cool brand. It was on the, you know, Guns N' Roses t-shirts or whatever. Right. You know, and like, here's the company that built that and did that, you know, and they dumbled for the reserve, which had redefined you know, the Kentucky bourbon industry. And I felt I had actually stuff that I could teach them too, because we built Forged In on advocacy. We built it through the bartender. That's our strength, you know? And so coming together and sharing our strengths to build Forged In for the future, well, that was an exciting prospect for me.
[00:34:31] Ray Latif: You do have quite a bit of an influence in the company. How do you use that influence intelligently? How do you use it in a way that gets people to see your perspective as often as you can share it?
[00:34:43] Charles Maxwell: It's now been almost five years. And I'm not going to say that it was easy at the beginning, you know. I'd found myself in a very highly entrepreneurial mindset. As in survival of the fittest, only tomorrow matters. We got to get through the next month. And when you take a brand to a company like Brandt Foreman, now they're thinking about a 10 year plan. And I'm like, how can you think about 10 years from now? So it's taken me a few years to get used to their way of thinking, which I should have known. I've worked for big companies before, but I just love this entrepreneurial kind of mindset that you get into. And I wanted to bring that to Brown Forman because entrepreneurship to me isn't about big company or starting something up. It is about a mindset. And it's about being nimble and small. You can't really be entrepreneurial. Well, I guess you can be entrepreneurial if you're big, but even in a big corporation, you need to be entrepreneurial if you're small. That's the only way to build. And so I wanted to bring that mindset, but people thought differently because they'd been raised on bigger brands. And so, of course, we had lots of disagreements at the beginning, but it's been actually such a fun journey because the truth is, is we're both right. and it needs entrepreneurial thinking, and it needs bigger picture thinking. And right now we're in a place where we have brains that are working on both. And do you know what's really nice? It used to be one person thinking about how we were going to build ForgeGen, one person coming up with the ideas, right, at the beginning. Then we had a team of people that were the 86 team coming up with those ideas. Now, we have people all over the world coming up with those ideas. And not all of them are great, and some of them are embarrassing, and some of them are brilliant, and I wouldn't have thought of them, and everything in between, right? You know, and I'm getting used to it. I used to hate the bad ideas so much. I'd get emotional about it. Now I'm learning to toughen up a little bit, you know? And yet, sometimes I can't help but feel so elated that a team of people that I've never met are sitting in a room for three hours trying to figure out how to make Forge Gen the next big gen. It's kind of amazing.
[00:36:51] Ray Latif: Well, I think they care. It shows that they care, I hope. You know, that they are putting these ideas out there and that they have some sort of connection to the brand. I'm sure it's financially motivated, the fact that they have jobs, but hopefully in that they're trying to share some sort of sense of creativity.
[00:37:08] Charles Maxwell: Well, in answer to your question, my job, you say influence, but I would use the word inspire. And I inspire people, I hope, to think differently, to be more creative. But more importantly, I want people to have fun with this. If it's not fun, it's not worth doing. You should be working somewhere else. And so I try and make it fun. And I think one of the things I try to do to make it fun is give people creative license and challenge their creativity. I think it's very easy to get caught up in data and just getting agencies to do things, but that's boring. You know the brand better than anyone. Yeah. Work with that agency on the best ideas and bring them to life and take ownership of it. And let's do this together. And we're on this uphill climb to try and create the next famous London Dry Gin. And let's let's like motivate and enjoy. And so my job, I think a lot of the time is to inspire. I do will admit that, you know, my name is on the bottle. So sometimes it's hard letting go of certain things. But I'm getting better as time goes on.
[00:38:06] Ray Latif: Well, there's a good thing and a bad thing about Microsoft products. So when you think about a PowerPoint, okay, PowerPoint on its own is pretty stale. Teams, oh gosh, I don't know. But when you actually present, your PowerPoint can be great. When you're on Teams and you're excited about an idea and you're sharing it with a big group of people, that's what it is. So on its own, these Microsoft products are not so great. No stain on Microsoft. But I'm just saying, to your point, having fun is not on the deck. Having fun is not in the calendar invite. It's everything beyond that.
[00:38:38] Charles Maxwell: I think if one was to look at the 86 company, which look at forged in now and perhaps even my career. I think one thing I would have as a consistent part of that is making this fun, you know, for as many people as possible. I think that's the brand we're ultimately selling. Hospitality and fun. You know, the world's a tough world. We sometimes need our escapes and we're a part of that. And yeah, I think you see that with forged in.
[00:39:07] Ray Latif: I would say exactly. That's true. Last question. I understand you're a collector of records, LPs.
[00:39:15] Charles Maxwell: Yes.
[00:39:16] Ray Latif: OK. I want to ask you, for our audience, if there is an esoteric band or musician that you would recommend they listen to. Esoteric. Particularly on vinyl.
[00:39:25] Charles Maxwell: Gosh, that's a tough one. Esoteric, because we live in a world that's very homogenized and everyone's listening to the same stuff through their algorithms right now, so I'd say there's a lot that could be considered esoteric. I have to actually point to the Handsome Boy Modeling School, who obviously we did a record with, with Ford's Gin, called Music's Drink Martinis Too, but I actually think that their early work their first two records are just game changers, because there's everything from Requan, from the Wu-Tang Clan, to De La Soul, to Nas, but then also Jack Johnson and Cat Power. you know, and Mike Patton from Faith No More. I mean, bringing all of that eclectic music together in one place and putting it under the guise of hip hop. I mean, I think that was a brave move. I think that that album is almost like the DJs, hip hop DJs kind of album rather than the consumers album. But it's one to go back to and go, look at what those guys did. I think that's a good one. I think another one in that genre is James Lavelle's Uncle, it was called. I think that was with a K. That also, there was hip-hop on it and Radiohead on it, and it was just an instrumental hip-hop, just crazy record. I think that they're very inspirational. But they're old. They're like 20 years old, these records.
[00:40:55] Ray Latif: I like that. I'm glad that we're ending on inspirational because I think that's been a key theme in our conversation. Simon, I can't thank you enough. This has been such a fun conversation. I honestly didn't know what to expect. I mean, I've read about you and, you know, I've heard you speak and I know Ford's gin pretty well. And I just feel like this is such a wonderful conversation to share with our audience because it just touches on so many different parts of entrepreneurship. Throughout this conversation, folks, obviously we don't have a video camera with us. Simon has been getting closer and closer and closer to me across the table. And I can just feel the passion that you have for this industry, for what you do in every aspect of your life. So congratulations on following your passion and living your dream.
[00:41:37] Charles Maxwell: Thanks. And thanks for giving me a platform to share stories and hopefully inspire.
[00:41:43] Ray Latif: I think you've done all of that. Thank you so much again.
[00:41:45] Charles Maxwell: Thanks, man.
[00:41:50] Ray Latif: That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNET.com Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cracci. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt, and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smerlinski, and our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And, of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. Check us out on Instagram. Our handle is bevnettasteradio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at Taste Radio. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
[00:42:40] Fords Gin: you
