Full Episode HERE.

In this episode, I sit down with the one and only Eric Tecosky (Also known as ET). He’s the creator of Dirty Sue olive juice (finally, bottled olive juice that doesn’t taste like disappointment), former national brand ambassador for Jack Daniel’s, and yes, he’s the bartender who invented the “Surfer on Acid.”

Expect to Learn:

• Why Dirty Sue changed the dirty martini game (and what most bars still get wrong)
• The hilarious, chaotic origin of the “Surfer on Acid” shot—and how it spread nationwide
• What it takes to go from bartender to national brand ambassador for Jack Daniel’s
• The surprising truth about Jack’s quality, craft credentials, and why it deserves more respect
• How a cocktail garnish company started with two bartenders and a UPS pickup
• Why good customer service sometimes means not cleaning up someone’s table
• How the old school bar grind prepped ET for a national brand and viral success
• Why Bloody Marys deserve more love (and how to actually make a great one)
• What we lose when everything is optimized and frictionless—and what bartending teaches about doing it the hard way

Links:

• ⁠ET on Instagram @superhype1⁠
• ⁠Dirty Sue Website⁠
• ⁠Dirty Sue Instagram @drinkdirtysue⁠
• ⁠Jack Daniel’s⁠ (In case you live under a rock)

Service starts now.

Follow the show:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

I talk mostly to people in and around the service industry space. I’m looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in restaurants. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess of a life, and help others that are feeling similarly confused and/or lost. You can find more of my work at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠my blog⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and all my social links are at the bottom of that page.

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As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.

Cheers

Andrew Roy (00:02.038)

Hey, how’s it going?

ET (00:04.985)

Good man, how you doing?

Andrew Roy (00:06.712)

Good, yeah, it’s been a while. What, like seven years or so, huh? Yeah, look at this. Yeah, so my brain just won’t let you not live in California. I know, and as I thought back, I remember talking to you and I remember you telling me that you moved, but I’ve double-checked everything today. I was like, no, did I mess this up? Yeah.

ET (00:11.181)

I know it. Yeah, crazy.

ET (00:25.273)

Yeah.

ET (00:31.229)

It’s all good.

Andrew Roy (00:34.178)

Yeah, I already, I had some emergency plans in place. I was like, I work later and I’m actually interviewing a manager about like, all right, I can delay them. I’ll get my private dining coordinator to do round one. Yeah. What’s life been like since the COVID? What have you been up to?

ET (00:56.079)

Same man, living in Atlanta, dirty sewing it, doing a little bit of jack on the side.

Andrew Roy (01:01.41)

Yeah. The same as always, Cool. Yeah. Well, cool. Just so I know, I remember you were about to go on vacation. So do you have any timelines, anything I should know about? Just make sure. OK. yeah, we did this early so that we wouldn’t have to wait till after. That’s right. Cool. I probably do need to

ET (01:06.069)

Yeah, if it ain’t broke, you know what mean?

ET (01:20.139)

no, that’s next week.

ET (01:26.552)

Right, right.

Andrew Roy (01:30.562)

go by about one year time if that’s okay. Cool. And then just the platform notes. If you don’t mind, whenever we’re done, just leaving the browser up until it says it’s uploaded, because it kind of uploads on both sides. And yeah, I was just gonna ask you about Jack and Dirty Sue and see how you’re doing and just jive for a little while and then take off. That’s cool. Yeah.

ET (01:33.465)

Yeah,

ET (01:56.975)

Sounds good. Dig it, dig it, yeah.

Andrew Roy (02:01.58)

I was thinking about how to start this and you know, I don’t think I ever asked you why did you decide to go with ET? Are people just afraid to pronounce your last name or?

ET (02:12.386)

no, I don’t think I decided. think it was decided for me when the movie came out. I was in grade school and once my friends realized my initials were just like that alien, they’re like, that’s funny. We’ll call them ET. And I, I definitely didn’t love it as a kid. I don’t think it was started as like a endearing nickname. And then I went to college.

Andrew Roy (02:34.19)

You

ET (02:41.868)

in upstate New York, I was like, all right, I’m done being ET. And then of course, like five people I grew up with also went to the same college. So then ET became a college nickname. And then when I moved out West to LA, I’m like, all right, I’m done with nicknames. And then yes, like 10 people I knew lived out in LA and it just stuck. And then I just kind of gave into it because, you know, part of it is no one forgets ET, right? So like,

Andrew Roy (03:09.468)

yeah.

ET (03:11.534)

that always worked in my favor. And then also like as social media started getting crazy, if you’re only known as initials, people have a harder time finding out stuff about you. So you’re slightly more anonymous in the worldwide web. So yeah, it’s fun. I will tell you a funny story though. I ran this bar in LA for about 15 years called Jones and a high school friend of mine,

Andrew Roy (03:21.445)

yeah.

Andrew Roy (03:25.848)

Hmm.

ET (03:37.391)

I think it was probably around the beginning of Facebook. So found me on Facebook and like, I’m going to be in LA. Love to see you. I’m just going to be there one night. And I happened to be working that night. So I’m like, Hey, I can’t go out, but if you want to come by the bar, I’d love to see you. Told the name of the bar, when I’m working, all that good stuff. And at like 10, I didn’t see this person. Then I get a text, Hey, just stopped by. They said you weren’t there. I’m behind the bar right now.

I might come back. So I went out to the door guy and I was like, Hey man, did someone come by asking for me? He’s like, no, I’m like, no one came by looking for me. It’s like, dude, no one’s, no one’s asking for you. Like, don’t say I’m like, someone just texted me that they were here. He goes, no one came looking for the only person that asked for anyone all night. Like, Hey, is Eric working? I’m like, there is no Eric here.

And I guess my high school buddy didn’t realize that that nickname carried 20 years later. So they just asked for me by my, my name name and didn’t work out.

Andrew Roy (04:44.27)

Eric never heard of him. Now, in college, one of the first days, someone asked me, because my last name’s Roy, and they said, is it Roy or is it Wah, like Patrick Wah? And I instantly said, it’s Wah. You know, like, of course I’m gonna say yes to that. And I didn’t realize I was doing myself to 15 years of a nickname in just that one split second decision. So I saw people coming to bars and saying, is Wah here? And I was like, who are you talking

ET (05:00.494)

Right. Right.

ET (05:08.408)

Right?

ET (05:14.99)

That’s funny.

Andrew Roy (05:17.99)

So that’s funny. I think that’s kind of a fun way to enter in here. know, ET, if you have the abbreviations, they’re a little more anonymous online. I would say that you are probably, in my mind, the exact opposite of someone who would be anonymous online. I mean, national brand refer Jack Daniels, you run a company. What is…

What is it like to dance that tightrope of wanting a little anonymity and also being known nationally for something in a lot of people’s minds?

ET (05:53.863)

you know, when I was working full time for Jack, Jack’s really the star, right? Like Jack Daniels is such a big brand that everybody sees everywhere and loves. So that’s really, so I had a chance to represent Jack all around the country, which is amazing and a great experience. But

end of day, still Jack. So yes, I made a lot of friends and got in front of a lot of people through the job of Jack Daniels, but I still feel like Jack was the star of the show. And then for my brand, yes, a lot of people know me as the Dirty Sue guy, but I’m trying to promote Dirty Sue more than myself.

Andrew Roy (06:18.423)

Hmm.

ET (06:44.598)

Yes, they’re obviously because I own the company, people know me as direct relation to Dirty Sue, but I try to lead more with Dirty Sue than, you know, and I guess I’m just out of the bubble of social stuff where I care about putting my own personal stuff online. So it’s more about Dirty Sue. And yeah, it’s great to connect with friends you haven’t seen in years. Sometimes not great, but when it is great, it’s nice that that platform, you know, exists.

Andrew Roy (07:02.19)

Mm.

ET (07:12.6)

But I don’t go out of my way to be like, hey, I just ate ice cream. was delicious. I find a lot of that stuff inane. I just don’t get it. It’s not my world. I know my niece and nephew live online, and they want to see scrolling through all these videos. And it’s just not what I do.

Andrew Roy (07:17.836)

Mmm, yeah.

Andrew Roy (07:31.116)

Hmm. No, yeah. No, and I definitely get that. I look like I’m consistently online if I compare my usage to my wife’s, but if I compare it to my 18-year-old bussers that I’ve hired, then I don’t exist online at all.

ET (07:45.997)

Right.

Yeah, it’s look, I love the internet. I think it’s, it’s done amazing things for the world in small and big ways. There’s a lot of downfalls that come with it, but me personally, you know, I wish when I was 15, I started playing guitar and I didn’t. So I’m trying to learn now and it’s amazing. Like what you can, discover online. Now I do think when you’re 15.

Andrew Roy (08:07.95)

Mmm.

ET (08:18.08)

And if you grew up when I grew up and there wasn’t a Spotify, you know, or the internet where you had to like, you can just go on and say, how do I play a stairway to heaven? You had to buy the album or the tape or the CD and listen to it and try to figure it out. And while that’s probably a lot harder to do, I think the lasting effects of learning that way are probably way better, but we live in a world of I want it this second. So.

It’s also really fun to go on and just figure it out quickly.

Andrew Roy (08:46.264)

Sure, yeah.

Well, I mean, a lot of learning is being confronted with that level of desirable difficulty and finding a way to surmount it, which if you never get that, you, get a bunch of quick dopamine hits, but then it’s gone like that. No. Yeah. mean, there I’m the poster child for the generation that will never be able to navigate without a like Google maps. Cause I haven’t had to do it since I was 13. You know, that’s.

ET (09:03.394)

Right. Yep.

ET (09:17.996)

Yeah, look, I don’t know how we used to do it. You forget. Like when I moved to LA, there was something called a Thomas Guide and it was this giant like spiral book. And if you’d find your address where you were on like page, whatever, and was coordinates and like, here I am. And then you need to get to there. So you’re like watching the streets go, but then you turn to a different page, get to there. So you’re doing this, like you think texting is dangerous while driving.

trying to open a book and read it while you’re like, it was awful. but I quickly knew LA. mean, LA is not the toughest city in the world to navigate, but, you know, in second, you knew back roads, you knew this, you knew that because you had to focus with GPS. I, I’ve been in Atlanta four years now. And if you said, get to this restaurant that I’ve been to 20 times, I don’t think I could do it. If I didn’t have GPS.

Andrew Roy (09:49.122)

Yeah.

Andrew Roy (09:58.968)

That’s a grid, yeah.

Andrew Roy (10:14.306)

Yeah. Now, my last GPS story, then I swear we’ll, we gotta go to something else or people are gonna think this is like the old time hour. I still remember I printed out MapQuest to get to college. it’s amazing because when I left I had an iPhone. And so I was like right at that time when things were starting to happen. But yeah, I mean, I went to college, think you remember in Santa Fe.

ET (10:24.962)

Yeah.

Right.

Andrew Roy (10:43.854)

Santa Fe is the exact opposite of what a grid is. So essentially they turned the old like wagon trails into roads that loop around really condolented circles that don’t make any sense. And so I remember I was going to college, I took a wrong turn, I just had to turn around and then go back the same way and take the right turn because it is all looping. I made it, clearly. Yeah.

ET (11:06.52)

Right.

ET (11:11.63)

Good work.

Andrew Roy (11:13.602)

Yeah, well yeah, we can’t talk about GPS all day. Tell me, know, there are some people listening who haven’t heard from Dirty Sue. What is Dirty Sue? Because I think this is super cool.

ET (11:18.872)

I

ET (11:26.56)

Yeah. you know, coming from the bar world, I worked in bars since basically since soon after college. And by the time I got to Jones, which I guess around 2001, we made a lot of dirty martinis as did everybody. And back in the day, and still some people do this today, you take that gallon jar of olives you have behind the bar and you either pour that olive juice into a squeeze bottle.

some people still pour it into the little olive tray. And then when someone ordered a dirty martini, you you pour your vodka or gin and then you squeeze some olive juice in, or you take your hand, you go over the olive tray and you pour that olive juice through your fingers. and maybe that’s why it’s called a dirty martini. but yeah, and I, trust me, I’ve still seen those bars today and you know,

Andrew Roy (12:15.722)

We’ve all been in that bar, but yeah.

ET (12:23.768)

I guess I was working by myself one night and I had set up the bar, so I only have myself to blame, but at some point we got unusually busy for whatever night it was of the week, it was earlier in the week. And I was now like two or three deep and someone ordered a dirty martini. So I poured the vodka in and I grabbed the squeeze bottle and it was just about empty. So I went to the jar to get some more olive juice and I realized the jar I had used earlier is now empty.

which I did myself and didn’t back it up. And then there was another jar from days ago that was already empty of juice. So now I had to go to the store room, get a third gallon, wet hands opening that terrible jar. And then as I’m pouring this juice and seeing the other two jars just having olives that are going to spoil because there’s no olive juice to keep them fresh. was like, right. was like, how the fuck has no one bottled olive juice yet? And soon as I had the bar under control, I went out.

Andrew Roy (13:13.038)

The Gale Brown, yeah.

ET (13:21.87)

the office and I’m like Googling bottle of olive juice and it didn’t exist yet. So it just seemed like it was time, you know, for, to, make bartenders life easier, but also knowing nothing about olives or olive juice or the process of getting this. the time I found a company who actually imported enough olives where I could, um, create enough olive juice, you know, when I tasted

Andrew Roy (13:29.57)

Yeah.

ET (13:49.433)

the stuff they were putting in the jar, which tasted like the stuff basically we had in the jar. realized that was low quality, what they call pack brine. So a tiny bit of actual olive juice and then salt and water. So I guess luckily, and maybe accidentally, was like, is there a way to make this better? Like more olive flavor, more, I guess, umami. And we played around with different proportions of things and different recipes and different ideas and finally settled on the recipe for dirty Sue, which

looking back on it really was fortunate because all these years later with all the competitors I have, people still point to Dirty Sue as the best there is on the market. most of that was sort of by accident, sort of saying, hey, I want to make something better than we’re doing. I didn’t want to change it, right? So you don’t want, like take a margarita, right? Fresh lime juice. You don’t want to all of sudden order a margarita with fresh papaya juice only. It’s just not going to be a margarita anymore.

Andrew Roy (14:46.542)

Yeah.

ET (14:47.596)

I just, but instead of using bottled margarita mix, you want to use fresh. So I kind of wanted to use that concept. Like what’s the best version of a dirty martini I could offer someone. And I launched in Southern California. It was definitely a slow road. this is pre cocktail revolution. This is pre people, really understanding better ingredients, make better drinks. So I still had a lot of pushback, especially like bar managers.

Andrew Roy (15:07.694)

Mm-hmm.

ET (15:16.526)

or restaurant managers who never bartended.

Andrew Roy (15:19.128)

Why would I buy something that I can get for free? Yeah.

ET (15:21.206)

Right. And then I was like, well, if you get it for free, that should be your first clue that it’s not awesome. But they didn’t, know, back then value was more important than quality. So I would just give them bottles. like, you know what? It’s Friday. Here’s two bottles. Give them to your bartenders. Let them try it over the weekend. Let them ask the customers what they think. And nine out of 10 times on Monday, they would order a case. And if not for just the simple fact that bartenders

could take a bottle of dirty Sue and put his poor spout on top instead of having the extra. Yeah. So, and then the fact that it was better, you know, and to be honest, when I really did the numbers, it’s almost a wash cost wise, because if you think about those jars of olives nowadays are depending on the season, 20 to $30 for a gallon of olives. So we were throwing away a third to a half of jar of olives every single time.

Andrew Roy (15:52.75)

No, it’s easy. Yeah.

Andrew Roy (16:12.312)

Mm.

ET (16:18.616)

So if a bottle of 750 dirty soup costs you nine or 10 bucks and you can make 40 martinis, know, everyone kind of wins. Customer wins, the bar wins, the bartender wins, the olives win.

Andrew Roy (16:28.568)

Yeah, no.

Andrew Roy (16:33.774)

Yeah, no, mean, most of the people that listen to this podcast are service industry too. And like for the few that may not be out there, you don’t know the struggle of those gallon jars of olives until you actually experience it from opening them to just trying to get that juice out. If you’re working with those bars, it’s a nightmare. Yeah.

ET (16:54.626)

Yeah. Yeah, it’s terrible. again, it’s not quality was never meant to be a cocktail. No one ever filled that jar of olives with pack Brian and said, this is going to be a great cocktail one day. It just kind of evolved. And, you know, since then we’ve done, we do olives, we do, you know, stuffed olives, onions, cherries, and it’s been great. We just read tales of the cocktail last week and celebrated the 21st birthday of Dirty Suits. So finally legal.

Andrew Roy (17:23.712)

heck yeah. Yeah. You know, one thing I’ve read about that I haven’t seen from Dirty Sue, it’s apparently a jalapeno stuffed olive. Did I get that right or what?

ET (17:24.481)

Yeah.

ET (17:33.39)

We do have a jalapeno olive, which is delicious, it’s jalapeno onion.

Andrew Roy (17:37.506)

Maybe I misread it, yeah. that’s what I meant. I’m sorry, I said olive didn’t I? Yeah, how, is it just like inserted in or how does that work?

ET (17:42.85)

Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, so they’re called green dots because you just see the white onion with a little green dot where the jalapeno sticks out. I don’t recall if we were the first ones to do that or very close to the first, but it’s basically a piece of the onion is carved out and then a jalapeno stuffed inside and kind of like a turducken maybe.

Andrew Roy (17:56.814)

Okay.

Andrew Roy (18:09.902)

Okay.

Sure, yeah. No, just, when I read that, I know I said olive, but I onion. Like, I was trying to picture if maybe it was like a ring. Because I’ve seen, I’ve tried the, just the olives before, but yeah.

ET (18:23.758)

Right. Yeah, no, they’re great. They’re one of those things that I think when people just hear it, if it’s not something they already kind of know they’re going to like, some people shy away and they’re like, just try it. Like my wife, for example. And now we keep a jar in the fridge at all times because she just likes to eat a couple. They’re just kind of really crave worthy. They’re great for, you know, a spicy Gibson or a garnish on a Bloody Mary.

Andrew Roy (18:36.174)

Andrew Roy (18:43.639)

Mmm, yeah.

Andrew Roy (18:51.724)

Awesome. Do you guys do Bloody Mary mix too? You did? Okay.

ET (18:54.902)

I did. So at that same bar, Jones, I kind of stole the idea of the infusion from New Orleans. know, every time I was good in New Orleans, I’m always like, why are the Bloody Marys here so much better than now? Partially, maybe you’re more hung over in New Orleans. So it’s just as a good hair of the dog. Yeah, but.

Andrew Roy (19:17.678)

They hit better, yeah.

ET (19:21.268)

One time I started paying attention and all the bars I went to that I love the Bloody Mary, they had an infusion jar where they had like a gallon or two gallon jar, you know, like a, what are they called, dispenser. And they would have rows of olives, onions, pickled, different bars have different things, but pickled goodness basically. And then they would pour the

Andrew Roy (19:43.555)

Mm.

ET (19:47.331)

vodka over that and it would just infuse all that pickle flavor into the vodka. And then they had made their own Bloody Mary mix on top of that. So when you add the vodka to the Bloody Mary mix, they’re always better. And I started doing that at our bar and I already made a spice mix with dirty Sue as the base. So more than half of the spice mix was dirty Sue, then hot sauce and all the seasonings and stuff and horseradish.

So whenever someone ordered a Bloody Mary, we would just pour vodka, a little bit of the spice mix and tomato juice. When we started making the infusion, that’s when people were like, wow, your Bloody Mary went from really, really good to amazing. So I really wanted to bottle it, but what was difficult was reverse engineering the flavor you’re getting from the pickling jar. Because I wasn’t doing that and making it with, it was just a mix. There was no vodka. So.

Andrew Roy (20:37.326)

Mmm, yeah.

ET (20:44.8)

It took me a while to kind of nail that flavor. And then I found a company in Southern California that could pack for me. The issue was I was shipping olive juice from my warehouse in Louisiana to California, having it made and then shipping it back to my warehouse to sell. So before I even sold a jar, I was already kind of

Andrew Roy (21:05.805)

Hmm.

Andrew Roy (21:11.338)

Like cross country. Oh yeah.

ET (21:12.278)

outpricing myself. So it’s just been difficult to find someone close enough to my warehouse to kind of restart the process, but it’s definitely on my radar. You know, I’ve had some new products come out in between, but the Bloody Mary mix is something that I’m definitely looking forward to bringing back.

Andrew Roy (21:32.022)

It’s something that, you know, I think a lot of people don’t take that drink seriously, you know, especially if you don’t run brunch in a restaurant. I mean, enough people order it. It’s, you can really blow some away if you do it with enough care and concern, but yeah.

ET (21:49.293)

Yeah, it’s one of those drinks where the difference between not a great Bloody Mary and a great Bloody Mary is pretty vast. It’s not super subtle. It’s either, wow, this is a mix they bought from a food service company that just is bland or it’s awesome. The other arena people get a little bit, I guess, lost in the Bloody Mary mix is trying to be too clever where

Andrew Roy (21:57.613)

Yeah.

Andrew Roy (22:18.19)

Hmm.

ET (22:19.116)

you’re throwing in odd flavors that don’t really appeal to everyone, right? A Bloody Mary is a brunch drink. So if you’re having a brunch, you know, basically you’re serving two drinks, Mimosis or Bloody Marys. And so you don’t want to make a Bloody Mary that’s so unique that people are like, it’s not my thing, right? Like you don’t want to make the cilantro Bloody Marys where people love it or hate it.

Andrew Roy (22:34.668)

Yeah.

ET (22:47.586)

You kind of want everyone to love it.

Andrew Roy (22:49.55)

No, I hate cilantro, so that one hit hard when he said that. Oh, cool, man. I’m always so glad to see that Dirty Sue’s doing so well. I like seeing it in the background there, that corner. I like that, yeah.

ET (23:03.262)

yeah. Yeah, look, it’s been, trust me, I didn’t know where, if you would have told me 21 years ago, I’d still be in business and in national accounts. I’d be like, what? Cause you know, when it started, like I said, it was so small and I was, I had started the company with a local farm in central California, family owned farm, great people. And they’re the ones that helped me, you know,

patient with me, like kept saying, okay, can we do it a little bit this way, a little bit that way. But they were super excited about it and…

Literally when I started the company, this is, I had a launch party because I’m in Hollywood and you have to have a big party to launch, right? So I got really lucky because I was in LA. So a lot of like actors came to the party and we had press there and threw a couple of mutual friends. So lucky that Christina Aguilera showed up to this party and she stood in front of our step and repeat and got her picture taken, which, you know, thank you.

if you’re watching the podcast and I’m sure she is, right?

Andrew Roy (24:10.734)

That doesn’t show up in the data.

ET (24:17.624)

Yeah, but that picture ended up all over the world. Like if I Google Christina Aguilera, Dirty Sue launch at that time, it was showing up in like Japanese newspapers and all this different stuff. So people were calling me like crazy. Like, how do we get it? How do we get it? And I literally had one distributor in Southern California. That was it. And I wasn’t selling it on my website yet. I didn’t even know.

Andrew Roy (24:23.374)

Hmm.

ET (24:47.864)

This is how backwards I was. So people are like, we’ll pay, we’ll pay. How do we? So I would take a case of dirty Sue to not even a UPS store to like a mom and pop shipping store. I would have them pack it for me and pay retail for a label. So, you know, I was charging customers what they should be paying in like, you know, Syracuse, New York.

Andrew Roy (25:00.173)

Yeah.

ET (25:16.046)

but having to pay the VIG on everything else. So I was losing probably like 20 bucks a case every time I shipped it out for like three or four months before I finally, yeah, this isn’t a great business model. But I did remember there was one liquor store just outside of LA, like a big super store. It wasn’t like a Total Wine, but it was like something like that, but a one-off.

Andrew Roy (25:24.558)

It’s like, this doesn’t work out.

ET (25:42.221)

They were selling Dirty Sue and I remember seeing that they also sold a lot of wine online. So I called my buyer and I’m like, hey, you know, Dirty Sue is a non-compete for your wine business. Can you tell me how you do it? And like, yeah, well, first call UPS or FedEx and get a corporate rate. I’m like, what? And then he’s like, then talk to my guy about getting packing materials. So it went from losing 20 bucks to making a decent margin.

And UPS was coming to my apartment to pick up every day. And it got so busy, I started hiring bartenders and bar backs from the bar and they would show up in my apartment like 10, 11 in the morning, pack all the orders for the day. And then UPS would show up and then we’d go to work in bartend all three in the morning. And did that until probably right around the time I met my wife. And then she started coming over and then there’s like two dudes in my living room packing boxes all day.

Andrew Roy (26:15.434)

Thank

Andrew Roy (26:39.982)

Not sustainable. Yeah.

ET (26:39.992)

So it didn’t, it didn’t really, yeah. And, and we were also like filling a UPS truck, you know, on busy weeks. So I finally was like, there’s something called a fulfillment center where you send them pallets of your product. do it all for you, but you live and learn and. You know, it’s, wouldn’t change, you know, cause you learn and you, you know, your hands on and the world was different back then. So it was harder to find this information out.

Andrew Roy (27:07.394)

Yeah.

ET (27:08.226)

But it would have been great if I had a mentor back then that was like, hey, this is not the way you do business. This is how you do it.

Andrew Roy (27:14.802)

You actually don’t have to lose money on the sales. Yeah, no, that’s cool. I mean, I’m sure starting lean like that actually probably helped you get closer to the accounts in the beginning and get to kind of feel who’s looking for this sort of thing.

ET (27:17.336)

Yeah.

ET (27:26.829)

Yeah.

For sure. And also, yes, I still think that one of the big takeaways coming from the bar and restaurant world is customer service, right? That’s paramount for what any server, bartender, manager, busboy, like it’s all about the customer. You know, we joke customers almost always, right? Yeah, there’s going to be some not awesome customers in the world, but for the most part, like you have to have the attitude that

If you live in a city like LA or New York, even Santa Fe, there’s more than one option. They chose to come to your restaurant or come to your bar. You have a responsibility to give them the best you can give them because if you don’t, they can just go somewhere else. Having that kind of mentality starting a business, still feel like the customer, even when I was the only olive juice in a bottle on the market, that doesn’t mean someone has to buy it.

Andrew Roy (28:17.29)

Absolutely.

ET (28:29.164)

Right? So if people called me and complain like, Hey, the bottle broke in transit, even if it was the shipping company’s fault, it’s still my brand. So I’m always, Hey, let’s fix this. Let’s get you a new product. And I would call them and I still do when I can. people are always like, wait, you’re calling me to fix this? Like in a world of customer service being all AI driven, you know, press two for nothing.

Andrew Roy (28:40.61)

Yeah.

Andrew Roy (28:52.472)

Yeah.

ET (28:59.138)

They’re like, they can’t believe it. And I’d rather do that because, you know, my dad used to say, if you go to a restaurant and have a good experience, you’ll probably tell two or three people. If you have a bad experience, you’re to tell everybody. Right. So I would rather nip that in the bud before it becomes a bad experience and say, Hey, this happened. We’re so sorry. Let’s fix it. And.

Andrew Roy (29:16.654)

everyone this.

ET (29:27.586)

That model has served me very well. Even from one-off accounts, local bars to national accounts, because national accounts are so busy when there’s a problem, just, they don’t want to talk about it. They just want you to fix it. And I try to just fix it.

Andrew Roy (29:42.638)

No, mean, two points to what you just said there. One of the big things I always tell my management team is the guest isn’t always right, but they’re never wrong, which I think is another way of looking at it. Like, yeah, broken transit. It may not be your fault, but you can’t make it their fault either. Just fix it. No, I’ve often found some of our best guests honestly start off with complaints. Something went wrong. You know, we dropped the ball in some way.

ET (29:52.342)

Right. Yep.

Andrew Roy (30:11.946)

It’s when we win them back or go above and beyond what they expect that we get, you know, a slight negative to a really strong positive, honestly.

ET (30:20.876)

Yeah, it’s an opportunity. mean, I read somewhere a great quote that said failure is feedback. Right. Now, what do do with that feedback? Get defensive and say, my chef called in sick. That’s still not their fault. Right. That’s so, then you should close the restaurant if you can’t, if you can’t run without your chef or your sous chef or your server. but yeah, it’s never their fault. and.

Andrew Roy (30:28.084)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Andrew Roy (30:36.898)

Yeah, for sure.

Andrew Roy (30:43.886)

Mm-hmm.

ET (30:50.734)

It’s really important to make the best attempt you can. Some people can’t be satisfied. It just can’t be. They exist to complain, but that’s less than 1 % of the world, hopefully.

Andrew Roy (31:00.002)

Yeah.

Andrew Roy (31:03.372)

Yeah, of course there are going to be those crazy people out there, I think it’s pretty clear who those people are and 99 % of the time you are dealing with reasonable human beings and so, know, something went wrong. We’re all human. We all drop the ball.

ET (31:16.002)

Yeah. I will tell you a funny story that goes against everything we just talked about. Years and years ago when I was at that same bar, I spent 15 years at Jones, which is why it’s most of my reference points of modern times. And another bartender and I just got dolled and really good friends to this day. We worked a lot of shifts together and we always.

Andrew Roy (31:22.616)

Bring it on.

ET (31:44.729)

You know, we, we understood people have needs and some people are high maintenance, but there was always that one person, every blue moon that just you couldn’t please. And we had a way to deal with it. And one night we’re working and there was a guy on a date way above his pay grade, this date. So he’s trying to be the big shot. And if his glass is empty, he’s like,

Like that. And I even say, Hey, can I get another margarita? He’s just snapping and pointing. And at one point I was dealing with another guest. I think he snapped and I think I was like, I’ll be right there and try to finish working with this guest. And he threw a crumpled up napkin at me to, get my attention again. So then we employed our technique called bus tubbing, which meant we’re never going to clean up in front of you. So.

As they ate dinner, we would clean up the dates, plates, wipe the crumbs out from in front of her when she got a new drink, take her old drink away. But his area was just like crumbs and plates with dirty napkins on it and like two drinks that were empty and his third drink squished over here. And we just never cleaned it just to teach him a lesson. So, turns out two days later, the GM

Also a really good friend of mine and probably would have enjoyed this at the time if I told him, but he called us in the office and he’s like, Hey, um, a couple of nights ago, had a, a secret shopper in here and we got the report and it was from that night. So he’s like reading the report, ET and Dalton. They’re great. This, that compliment compliment compliment. They’re fun. Fast kept a really clean bar except.

Andrew Roy (33:23.822)

Mm-hmm.

ET (33:35.615)

Like they didn’t clean up in front of this one customer. We don’t know if it was a blind spot or what. like, we’re like after we, you know, we got a really good overall report, but like we walked out and I was like, do we tell them or do we don’t tell them? And then we waited like six months. And I’m like, remember that time. And we said, we bus tubbed the guy and he died laughing. He said, don’t do that again. But that’s freaking hilarious.

Andrew Roy (33:37.954)

the one spot.

Andrew Roy (33:48.11)

Mm-hmm.

Andrew Roy (34:01.432)

Of that’s a secret shop, every time, every time. man. It is kind of, it lightens my heart to hear that secret shops were going on back then. It is part of the industry, I guess. Yeah.

ET (34:03.214)

Every time.

ET (34:15.96)

Dude, years ago at this nightclub on Sunset in the 90s, had, this is an awful story, but we had this crazy manager who definitely drank the profits and probably did a bunch of other stuff. the owner was really, really, really strict, but never on site. So he really relied on this guy and secret shoppers.

And this is a packed, packed nightclub on sunset in back in the day. So he would know when the shoppers got there. I don’t know how he knew if they’re secret, but he knew. And he would tell us they’re shoppers here. Right. So if anyone was doing anything they shouldn’t be doing, they just didn’t do it. Right. Now we had two bar backs, Rick and Nick. Nick was like young actor kid and,

Andrew Roy (34:55.598)

Mm-hmm.

ET (35:15.79)

Rick, I don’t know where he was from, but very new to the big city and trying to be a standup comic and was a funny kid, but just definitely wasn’t polished at all. we get this emergency staff meeting and we got shopper reports back and everyone’s is like, you know, almost a hundred, except this guy, Rick, I think was like a 68, which is a

Andrew Roy (35:44.92)

Mmm… Yeah.

ET (35:45.689)

Big fail. So like, this is back when you could still smoke in bars. they’re like, Rick was smoking over the ice well and ashes fell into the ice well and he didn’t notice. And then girls came up to the bar and ordered drinks. He’s like, hey, let’s do shots together. And like, we don’t have any money. He’s like, don’t worry, it’s on the house. And like made them shots, drank with them and other people and like on the-

Andrew Roy (36:14.194)

man.

ET (36:15.139)

laundry list of all the terrible things. So.

ET (36:21.176)

We’re like, dude, what is wrong with you? You knew there was a shopper in there. At most, someone else maybe did a shot with a friend, but this guy was just blatantly disregard for the law. And we’re like, what is wrong with you? He told you there were shoppers. He’s like, man, I just thought that meant you couldn’t steal money.

Andrew Roy (36:31.982)

Does not care, yeah.

ET (36:44.002)

That’s what he said with the GM. So his career didn’t last very long, but it was funny for us.

Andrew Roy (36:44.066)

in the middle of eating. man.

Andrew Roy (36:55.662)

Jesus. Oh man, okay, all right. One story that I wanna make sure that we talk about you and your time at Jack Daniel’s, but my story, it’s not Secret Shopper, but it’s the most surprising thing I’ve ever heard when I’ve been investigating at work. So right before COVID, I work at a steakhouse and I’m running the kitchen because I helped them in the kitchen for a couple of years. This is when I joined their management team.

ET (36:56.622)

Yeah.

Andrew Roy (37:26.306)

Don’t know if I would recommend running a kitchen, but that’s neither here nor there. It was a good learning experience, but all of a sudden I had steaks go missing. And so we count the steaks and pretty consistently about every couple days, two strips. And so the only thing that makes sense is someone is taking them. They’re leaving somehow. So we have cameras.

ET (37:30.414)

Ha

Andrew Roy (37:51.974)

not through everywhere, but I could see most of the areas that I would assume I’d have to watch them leave. they play back at real life speed. So I’m going through it and I’m working through different scenarios. the guy in broil is he, I mean, literally I had talks with them. Like, he putting them in his pants and taking them out? You’re like, you know, he is baggy pants every time. And like, I’m watching edges to see if I can tell that he has something in his pants when he leaves the lock in.

I finally narrow it down to, it always happens when I have this one daytime dishwasher. And so I’m like, it’s gotta be him. And like, I can see him take the trash out. And sometimes it cuts out if there’s not enough movement. So I see that he’s been parking by the dumpster, but it always clips. So I can’t see if he’s going to his car. So I don’t have hard proof. But I’m like, I think I’ve got this guy.

ET (38:43.597)

Right.

Andrew Roy (38:49.766)

And he’s Spanish speaking. So I get a translator, sit down with them. Like, this is what I’ve seen. I’ve seen these go by. It’s when you’re here. It’s always when you’re parked here. I see you go to the car. I’m not leading on that. I haven’t seen him take them to the car, but just like give him a chance. And he’s, he’s talking to the translator and he tells the translator is like, I’m not taking stakes. I’m going to my car midday.

because I have beers in there. I’m sneaking beers. And so I’ve been sneaking out to drink beers. I remember he translated that back. I’m looking at the translator and his face is shocked. And I’m like, okay, but you are still fired. So this like, I think this is going to end up working itself out even though you haven’t admitted distilling these stakes, but yeah, they stopped disappearing all of a sudden. So, but yeah.

ET (39:19.576)

hahahaha

ET (39:32.94)

Yeah, right.

ET (39:42.766)

Yeah, is amazing what you see in the restaurant bar world.

Andrew Roy (39:49.102)

Yes, the excuses that are almost worse than what you’re investigating. Yeah, so Jack Daniels, if I remember correctly, in around 2012 or so when you started, their first national brand rep, like how did you get that job and how did all that go down?

ET (40:12.066)

Yeah, so Jack Daniels is always my spirit of choice since college days. honestly, think music really got me to Jack. I remember seeing that famous picture of Jimmy Page backstage with a bottle of Jack. Actually, it’s right here.

To act it out for you, can just show it to you.

Andrew Roy (40:42.604)

Heck yeah!

ET (40:44.206)

So I definitely saw that picture in my youth and I’m zeppelin obsessed to begin with. So when I saw that, I’m like, oh, what’s that? And then my father was all Sinatra all the time. And then I discovered Sinatra drank Jack Daniels religiously. So between the music my mother influenced me on, which is rock and roll, and my dad’s influence on Sinatra, they all meet at Jack Daniels. So when I was

21, I had my first Jack and I’m sure it was a Jack and Coke at the time. And it just became my thing. I just loved Jack and went from Jack and Coke to Jack and soda to Jack Rocks, splash the soda, Jack Rocks, and then my current existence, Jack Neat. So it was just my thing. And the bar that I ran, Jones, when the owner built the bar, he took

Andrew Roy (41:32.078)

Hmm.

ET (41:42.265)

three things from other places in LA that he loved to kind pay like a little bit of homage to. And one of them was Musso and Frank’s Steakhouse, where they make martinis in a sidecar. So your glass is full with the martini, but then the other half is sitting in a little craft in ice. So they had that, a version of that to kind of be like a nod to Musso’s. And then this other famous Italian restaurant, Dan Tanna’s

Andrew Roy (41:55.086)

Yeah.

ET (42:11.63)

super expensive place, but they still had the checkered red and white tablecloths. And so he had them. And then the third thing above the bar, he built these shelves and in these shelves was 144 bottles of Jack Daniel’s. And it was a nod to the rainbow to kind of say, Hey, this is rock and roll. And Jones was my favorite place to hang out before I worked there. And then I became friendly with the GM and some other people and

Andrew Roy (42:16.514)

Mmm.

ET (42:40.856)

when one of their bartenders was leaving, I had just been a part owner of a nightclub that I just was dying a slow death at. So I sold my shares back to my partner and I took that kid’s shifts at Jones. And then it was just like home. And because of those bottles and because there’s a couple of Jack drinks on the menu, the Jack reps would come in quite a bit. If the master distiller was in town, normally would stop by there, sign a few bottles. So around

Andrew Roy (42:57.23)

Mm.

ET (43:11.169)

2012, our local rep who knew how much I love Jack came in and said, hey, my counterpart out in the IE, like I think it was a restaurant in Rancho Cucamonga, there was an event, like a single barrel tasting they were doing for like guests in like a private dining room. And she’s like, she really wants someone to host it. Do you think you could host that dinner? And I was like, I guess, mean, you know, I don’t.

Andrew Roy (43:37.486)

whatever that means yeah

ET (43:39.191)

Yeah. And this is, I don’t even know that I’ve maybe even been to a dinner like this yet. So like, yeah, you just talk about the whiskey a little bit and you know how the difference between at the time it was Jack’s single barrel and gentlemen Jack. So I knew a little bit, but I wasn’t trained, I’m sure. But it was consumer. So I figured I would know more than anyone else. And luckily I did. So I kind of got through that dinner and that woman’s boss came to the dinner.

And she’s like, my God, that was great. She’s like, we’re doing a dinner in a couple of weeks at the Queen Mary. And if you don’t know the Queen Mary, it’s a giant, old school cruise ship, like ocean liner that’s just basically parked in Long Beach and it’s just for events. So they do events there and all this different stuff. So every year the beverage director at that, Queen Mary buys two barrels of Jack and then has a barrel dinner where

people that come to the dinner can get their bottle engraved and all this different stuff. So this, this was the second year and I think the first year he hosted, but now this year he wanted someone from Jack Daniel’s there. So I like, can you do it? I’m like, what’s it going to be like? Like kind of similar to this, just a few more people. So I was like, all right, I get there, man. That was a 30 person quaint little nothing consumer dinner. This is like 150 people. Um,

Andrew Roy (44:41.242)

that’s cool.

Andrew Roy (45:05.28)

Mmm, auditorium, yeah. Yeah.

ET (45:07.308)

like a banquet room, like a beautiful old school banquet room. Everyone’s dressed up. They paid a decent amount of money for this dinner and the beverage director gets up and is like, we’re so excited to have you here for our second annual barrel dinner. Yada, yada, yada. Here’s ET from Jack Daniels. And then I was the only one that spoke the rest of the night. And like, it was really nerve wracking because not only was there a lot of consumers there, there was a full table of

Jack’s distributor, a full table of people that worked for Brown Foreman, and then a full table of Squires, which are like Uber Jack Daniels fans. So I’m definitely feeling like I’m about to be outed as a fraud, but I had studied just enough to kind of get through it. And then someone’s like, hey, can you do cocktails for us? Hey, can you do this for us? And it just became…

Andrew Roy (45:40.46)

Mm-hmm.

ET (46:03.594)

It went from like a little part-time consulting to full-time US brand ambassador for Jack Daniels. And I did that for, you I stopped full-time working for them this past January. And now I just kind of back to just consulting again while I’m now full-time dirty Sue. as dirty Sue, obviously it’s a little different than how I was in my apartment all those years ago. So it’s picked up enough where I can sustain.

Andrew Roy (46:20.301)

Mm.

Andrew Roy (46:29.581)

Hmm.

ET (46:33.014)

a full day’s work every day on Dirty Sue. And then it’s fun to still kind of put my toe back in the Jack Daniels waters, because it’s, you know, it’s still really has a big place in my heart. That’s how I met you, right?

Andrew Roy (46:42.156)

Yeah. Well, I remember you. I know. Yeah. Now I remember you saying like, I forget exactly you describe it. You’re like, have an open relationship with Jack. I always explore, but I go back. We were talking about other whiskies.

ET (46:56.598)

Yeah, yeah, no, I do make that joke that I have a healthy open relationship with Jack where, right. I love Jack Daniels, but you know, I do go out to other bars and I’ll see pretty bottles on the shelf. And sometimes I want to try those bottles, but I always come home to Jack Daniels.

Andrew Roy (47:03.094)

I the healthy part, yes. Yeah.

Andrew Roy (47:15.416)

Yeah, no, I mean, I think you did such a good job with it. There are little things that you said like that that have stuck with me. I still call Gentleman Jack the Gateway Jack just when I’m getting people introduced. I do think, you know, I don’t, I feel like Jack doesn’t get enough respect these days. And I’m glad that there is like a very vibrant craft distillery movement and.

ET (47:26.83)

Yep.

Andrew Roy (47:44.342)

It’s something that like Jack is so affordable for how quality it is, how ubiquitous it is. It’s really mind boggling, you know?

ET (47:52.227)

Well, think what people have a hard time wrapping their head around is how do you make that much whiskey and still call yourself craft or still say it’s quality? And the reality of it is there is no definition of craft spirits. So just because you say you make craft spirits, we all know that a million craft spirits are just private labeling someone else’s whiskey. Now they might be private labeling good whiskey.

Andrew Roy (48:01.55)

Mm-hmm.

ET (48:20.76)

but is it really okay to say it’s craft if you’re not making it? And you really just have to look at what goes into making whiskey, right? The water. Jack has a natural source of water that is a cave Jack found himself, right? The grains. They use number one, grade A grains, which is what we eat. And grade B is what a lot of distilleries use, and that’s cattle feed, horse feed. And Jack used grade A and even

The only time Jack’s ever closed was Prohibition and then World War II because during World War II, the government said, you can’t use grade A for distillation and we need it for the troops. So Jack’s nephew at the time was like, hey, Uncle Jack only used the best. So if we can’t get the best, we’re going to pause. And after being closed all through Prohibition, they closed again, waited a full, you know, probably a full cycle of making whiskey.

Andrew Roy (49:06.242)

Yeah.

ET (49:20.182)

until the grains were available again. And that’s how important that was. And then you think about the barrels, right? Jack has, was it for up until very recently, it was the only distillery in the world basically that owned their own cupridge. And I think they finally perfected the barrel so much that they have patented processes. Now they let a bigger cupridge company make barrels for them, but still using those specific, like,

No one else is getting a Jack barrel. put it that way. Right. And then you look at charcoal mellowing. That’s how Jack was taught how to make whiskey. And now it’s the Tennessee way, but they hand make that charcoal at Jack. The yeast, right? Probably the number two source of flavor next to the barrel. They can legally date their yeast back to prohibition. And it’s so important to them that they cryogenically freeze their yeast at Woodford and Old Forrester. God forbid there’s ever

Andrew Roy (49:50.069)

Mmm, yeah.

ET (50:17.238)

something goes wrong at Jack, they can still access that original yeast strain. you know, it’s amazing how much goodness is put into making Jack and how hard it is for someone not doing their homework to believe that. And when you look at stuff like Jack Daniel’s Bottle and Bond, Jack Daniel’s Bond had won 2022’s World’s Best Whiskey.

Andrew Roy (50:17.676)

something happens, yeah.

Andrew Roy (50:35.822)

Thank

ET (50:46.06)

Right? Like, wow, that’s the craft Jack Daniels. Well, guess what? That is Jack at a hundred proof. And maybe certain barrels were, were fished out by the master tasters, but if they never invented bonded and put that in a bottle, all those barrels would go into Jack Daniels. So the foundation of single barrel of gentlemen, Jack bonded all the of Coy Hill, which people go crazy for when that comes out.

Andrew Roy (50:54.082)

Yeah.

Andrew Roy (51:05.378)

Mm-hmm.

ET (51:13.844)

All of that is built on the foundation of Jack. So you can’t love that and call that craft and then say Jack Daniels is just mass produced whiskey, right? Cause we all know you can’t build a house on a crack foundation.

Andrew Roy (51:20.174)

Without loving them. Yeah.

Andrew Roy (51:28.374)

Yeah. And you know, I mean, that is the amazing thing though. Just the sheer amount that they do produce of such high quality. It’s it’s mine. I mean, if you’re listening and you’ve never been, I went thanks to I believe you. But it’s mind blowing that this like the size of I forget what they call them, but those giant piles of wood that they use like burn to make the ash. When you actually see those, it’s like this is an insane operation.

This the size of the still like yeah Yeah

ET (51:59.363)

Yeah. And it’s just, it’s two guys that you met them, know, Darren and Tracy, that’s their job all years to make the charcoal, you know, grind the charcoal down, fill the vats, you know, change it out when the truck was not as active as it needed to be. and you know, real people that are doing that. And the other thing too, is I don’t know what, how many cases Jack sells a year, but let’s say it’s in the, it’s over 10 million and

If you go to any liquor store in the world and you see three, four, 10 bottles of Jack Daniel’s right on the shelf, they all look exactly the same and taste exactly the same. That is an art form. You find me a small batch craft distillery that can nail the same flavor and color without using anything artificial, which you can’t do in bourbon and Tennessee whiskey. That is an art form.

Andrew Roy (52:39.79)

Mm-hmm.

Andrew Roy (52:58.04)

No, and we’re saying like that’s Singapore to Atlanta to California to everywhere. Yeah.

ET (52:59.137)

ET (53:05.624)

So it’s pretty incredible. having spent so much time, especially after I moved to Atlanta, I can drive to Jack. So when I was full-timing it and I was getting there many, many times a year, I really got to know the people that made the whiskey, made the yeast, made the charcoal. Chris, the master distiller, Lexi and Josh, all these people that have their hands on a process at Jack. And I never…

I never peeled the curtain back. like, that’s how you do it. That’s the way you trick everyone. There’s no tricks.

Andrew Roy (53:42.732)

Yeah, yeah, you’ve seen, you’ve seen all their secrets. There are no skeletons in that closet.

ET (53:46.871)

Yeah. mean, Chris, the master distiller’s grandpa, Frank Bobo passed away a couple of years ago. He was the master distiller, I think from the sixties to the eighties. And when he was long retired and still living in Lynchburg, I remember every time I would come visit, I’m like, hey, Chris, if your grandpa is around, I’d love to meet him. And then his health wasn’t great. But then one trip, Chris was like, hey, my grandpa is feeling pretty good today. He said, come on by.

So we get to his house and first thing I didn’t realize was how much cool shit he’d have from all those years ago, right? All these old bottles. Yeah. I mean, from the sixties now, you know, it’s a 2000. So like he’s had stuff, but when he started Jack Daniels was still a very small brand. Wasn’t even distributed in all of the U S and definitely wasn’t exported. And then I’m like, well, how did you get from that?

Andrew Roy (54:25.121)

Yeah, 20 years of collecting, yeah.

ET (54:45.134)

Cause when he started to when he left, it was a different animal. And I was like, well, how did you go from making this little bit amount of whiskey to this giant amount of whiskey? And he’s like, well, when I got here, we had one still and we bought another still. You know what I mean? Like it wasn’t like they, you know, we had two charcoal Melovats and then we had 10, but the process didn’t change. Just they scaled up a little bit, but it wasn’t like they cut corners. just doubled their size.

Andrew Roy (55:05.838)

Hmm.

Andrew Roy (55:12.238)

Hmm.

ET (55:14.84)

tripled their size, you know?

Andrew Roy (55:14.958)

I mean you start off in the living room and you got one bar back with 30 soothe and you get to you and yeah Add them all like that

ET (55:19.982)

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But the product doesn’t change. Right. So that’s the key. You want to keep because if you have loyal people and Jack has rabid loyal. mean, I know at Dirty Sew I have loyal people that have been buying since day one. And Jack obviously is on another stratosphere of the amount of loyal followers. But you want to keep them happy. You don’t want to all of a sudden say, you know, we’re Coke now we’re new Coke. Right. Like.

Andrew Roy (55:48.654)

Mmm.

ET (55:49.689)

when they changed the recipe all those years ago, which obviously went back to it when people were up in arms, but you want to give people what they love. Like nothing’s more disheartening than going to your favorite pizza spot and one day it doesn’t taste the same. You know, and you’ve been gone for years. So it’s, and you don’t know why. And then one day you just stop going. You don’t, as a brand owner, you don’t want that for your customers.

Andrew Roy (56:16.206)

No, although the whole new Coke thing makes me think I think to get people into Jack we just need to do some more blind tastes, you know, get all the preconceptions out.

ET (56:25.902)

Yeah. That, well, blind tastes are helpful, but also like you said, going to Jack, meeting the people, seeing, cause they’ll show you everything. They show you the cave Jack discovered where the water still comes from today, right? They’ll show you, uh, all the stills. They’ll show you the fermenters. They’ll show you this, that, and the other thing. So it’s hard to leave there. I’ve, I’ve brought a few naysayers in my day to Jack.

Andrew Roy (56:33.091)

Yeah.

Andrew Roy (56:36.558)

yeah.

Andrew Roy (56:53.742)

Mm.

ET (56:54.678)

And all of them leave like shit I had no idea.

Andrew Roy (56:57.218)

Yeah, I mean, let’s be honest. A lot of people have the prejudice because it is affordable. You order a lot of it in college. So inevitably you probably overdo it. And it’s like, I don’t, yeah. Yeah.

ET (57:09.322)

Right, but that feeling that you’re describing right now, that college kid that had a big night out and woke up and missed his classes and is like, God, I’m never drinking Jack again. Well, guess what? That wasn’t Jack’s fault. That was user, that’s user error. Yeah.

Andrew Roy (57:18.69)

Mm-hmm.

Andrew Roy (57:23.554)

Yeah, know. User error. Yeah. It’s like playing dirty soup. You have too many dirty martinis. It’s like, well. Yeah. How did we get through an hour without talking about the Sopron acid? That’s what I Yes. So you truly made that trick. I always, yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah.

ET (57:31.18)

Right. Exactly.

ET (57:38.286)

That’s a very good question.

ET (57:45.197)

Yeah, it’s, yeah, look, mostly good now, because nowadays a lot of people, I’ve seen a lot of revivals of it in craft cocktail bars where instead of using the exact ingredients I use, they kind of fancify it with infusing rums or doing this or, but it’s still pretty cool. There was a book called Booze and Vinyl and the author’s pair

Andrew Roy (57:47.958)

Does that just follow you around?

Yeah.

Andrew Roy (57:56.686)

Mm-hmm.

ET (58:12.33)

albums with cocktails and then talk about the album, talk about the cocktail and why they paired it. And I was at a music store in Austin and I saw this book, Booze and Vinyl Volume 2. I’m what is this? I’m just like leafing through it. And then there was a pairing of Surf on Acid with Dick Dale’s Surf, like one of his albums and shouted me out in this book. And I was like, damn, that’s kind of amazing that all these years later that

Andrew Roy (58:37.934)

Yeah.

ET (58:40.61)

People still know that drink, I will say I did steal the name. That is not the name I originally called it. I was working at that nightclub on Sunset and this again is very early nineties and no crap. You have to imagine nothing’s fresh. No one’s using any muddling of anything. No one’s making their own ingredients. If you want watermelon in your drink, you buy watermelon, you know, liqueur.

Andrew Roy (58:46.83)

I’m okay.

Andrew Roy (59:05.4)

Mm.

Andrew Roy (59:09.827)

balls or something.

ET (59:10.614)

Yeah, right. So, you know, my palate really wasn’t what it is today. Like I still like sweeter things. And growing up, my family, we had like this secret pina colada recipe. So, coconut and pineapple were very dear to me. So, in that era, if I didn’t like something, I just added Malibu and pineapple to it and kind of masked whatever the flavor was. So,

Yeager was becoming really popular and I wasn’t ready for that flavor profile yet. definitely not in that era. This is like Apple martini, lemon drop, Cosmo era. So I was bartending one night. I this one bartender, we’d always like, try this, try this. And then I put my…

Andrew Roy (59:45.294)

I don’t think America was ready for

ET (01:00:06.85)

Band-Aid on Jaeger, which is Malibu and pineapple. And we both did it like, it’s really not that bad. It’s pretty good. So I’m pretty sure for like a few weeks that was like our house shot. I was calling it something super humble, like ET’s awesome shot. it wasn’t really catching on except for our bar. And then these seven or eight guys show up one night and like, we want 10 surfer on acids.

I was like, what’s that? And he’s like, it’s bellies and banana schnapps and cream and whatever, whatever, whatever. It like so many ingredients. And I’m like, trying to make this. I’m like, what bar makes this disgusting shot? He’s like, no, man, we were in my dad’s basement last night and we were taking stuff out of his bar and we made this up. I’m like, and he walked into a bar less than 24 hours later and asked for it by name. Like, I’m to know what it is. So they’re just drunk and high-fiving and walk away. And as I’m like mopping up this creamy, disgusting

Andrew Roy (01:00:39.046)

Yeah.

Andrew Roy (01:00:54.734)

You’re gonna ask it? Yeah.

ET (01:01:03.534)

bar, like it’s a pretty good name. That shot is not going anywhere, but the name’s pretty good. So I put the name on my shot and like two years later, you could not go into like a dive bar in America and someone not know how to make it. And I never understood. Like there’s no way that any, there’s no social media. There’s no way I did anything to create that kind of, um, viral shot. And then I don’t know how many years later I was judging.

Andrew Roy (01:01:25.102)

Hmm.

ET (01:01:32.982)

a cocktail contest and some guy comes up to me and he’s like, Hey, are you the dirty Sue guy? I was like, yeah. He goes, you’re the surfer on acid guy. I’m like, yeah. And he’s like, I was the Yeager rep in LA in the late eighties, early nineties. And I had heard about that shot and Sidney Frank who owned Yeager at the time or was the importer at the time. Also the guy that created Grey Goose. He was visiting LA.

So that rep was like, you got to try this shot they’re making with Jaeger. So they pushed the shot on like their recipe cards as a brand, like as a cocktail strategy. and that’s how it got around. Yeah. And what’s crazy is I still get anytime that’s ordered, I get a nickel.

Andrew Roy (01:02:04.553)

Uhhhh

Got it.

Andrew Roy (01:02:13.206)

Right place, right time, just weird.

Andrew Roy (01:02:20.45)

Really? wait, that wouldn’t be true. Yeah, I was like, man, I’m sure you’ve told that joke a thousand times. I’m sure you’ve told that joke to me. ET, thank you for taking the time. For those listening, where should people find out more about you?

ET (01:02:22.057)

Hahaha!

ET (01:02:29.486)

Hahaha

ET (01:02:38.958)

you can check me out, on the Insta at superhype one, or you can always check out at drinkdirtysoo.

Andrew Roy (01:02:48.27)

Awesome. Awesome. And I’ll have a link to that in the show notes. Thanks for taking a little time to come say hi.

ET (01:02:55.32)

Yeah, man. Thank you. It’s been too long. So let’s not have to wait for a podcast to stay in touch.

Andrew Roy (01:03:00.766)

No, no, yeah, let’s get some dirty martini soup.

ET (01:03:03.897)

Sounds good.