We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Louis Anderman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Louis, thanks for joining us today. Can you tell us about an important lesson you learned while working at a prior job?

I consider myself a refugee from the film industry, and one lesson I learned there that I still take to heart is that a quick no is always better than a protracted maybe. I occasionally get approached for custom projects; I love doing them, but always have to consider all the factors involved and decide if I can deliver 100% to the customer. If I have to say no, I try do so quickly, rather than leave them hanging. I never want to overpromise and underdeliver.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

It started as a hobby. When the cocktail revolution took off circa 2008, I dove head first into that world. However, a lot of ingredients that I wanted (e.g. long defunct liqueurs, certain flavors of bitters) weren’t available, so I started tinkering around and making my own. I became friendly with Joe Keeper from Barkeeper, would taste him on everything I made, and one day he said, “Hey, why don’t you start selling these here?” At first I thought it would be a little side hustle just for fun, but then I started getting noticed until I reached the crossroads of ‘Go pro, or go home.’

I want people to know that I’m still a one man band (unless you count my brand ambassador team, my pup Miss Moneypenny, and cat Pussy Galore), so everything from recipe development, manufacturing, bottling, etc. is all done by me.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

As it was for many other business owners, the Covid lockdown era was challenging. Overnight I lost all of my bar/restaurant business, and a good share of my retail. Fortunately, business was booming for my online retailers, so that helped keep me afloat. It’s taught me that I need to be more aggressive about finding new clientele.

BREXIT was another blow. I had an importer/distributor in the UK, but since BREXIT they lost most of their EU business, and it doesn’t make economic sense for them to bring my products in for UK only. I’m still working on trying to plug that hole.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I think it’s very simple: the people I work with know that there’s one person behind literally every single bottle. I also enjoy working directly with bar managers and occasionally doing bespoke products just for them. I also have one retail exclusive, an exclusive bitters for Umami Mart in Oakland, which took us a couple of years to bring to fruition.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: MMBitters
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/miraclemilebitters/
• Twitter: MMBitters
• Other: drunkardsalmanac.com

  A ‘drink of the day’ website that I run with my brother.

Image Credits

For portrait of me, Tatsu Oiye. Other are mine, IG photo from East London Liquor Co.