We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Markus Kypreos . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Markus below.
Hi Markus , thanks for joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?
You have to love what you do and people often say hard work, but you have to immerse yourself in the business and the brand. There are various ways to push yourself and motivate yourself internally, but for me, it’s all a competition. How can I get on the next shelf? How can we get on that cocktail menu? How can we get into that hotel? How can we expand into that state? There are always barriers and hurdles and excuses to prevent you from achieving those goals. How you overcome those hurdles and persevere through adversity is what defines a company’s growth and success. The definition of the essence of business can be summarized as simply problem solving. How well you problem solve is the determinative factor of overall success.
Also, I hate losing. If there’s an inferior brand on the shelf or on a cocktail menu, I’ll make sure we do everything we can to replace them. I used to lose sleep over it, but then I accepted that there are just people with poor palates or who don’t care about quality or who are doing a favor to a brand rep. by buying the watermelon raspberry flavored vodka made from organic sorghum and thereby promulgating this idea to the public that bad alcohol is somehow o.k. or acceptable. It’s part of my job to educate and ensure that everyone understands that quality should trump cheapness, it’s o.k. to demand and want excellence and to not buy the soghum flavored vodka, even if it’s happy hour or the bartender swears it’s good. It’s not and life is too short.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas. I practiced as an attorney for 15 years. At night, I attended culinary school and then pursued a wine education and then attended a number of schools and programs on distillation. I put a business plan together, left my firm in 2018 and built Blackland Distillery.
We make five spirits–vodka, gin, bourbon, rye whiskey and Texas Pecan Brown Sugar Bourbon. We are distributed throughout the state of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, New Mexico and Missouri with additional states launching this year.
We are unique in that most distilleries focus on one spirit, whereas we’re trying to cast a wide net as a brand. Men and women have different palates that also develop over time. What you drink at 20 is different than what you drink at 40 and if we made one spirit, we risk the possibility of alienating an entire group of drinkers that either don’t like it or have moved on. It’s much more difficult to promote and market five spirits, but I believe it’s beneficial to the brand over time and the diversity of the portfolio, diversity of revenue streams and the resulting diversity in customer base helps mitigate the overall risk of putting your eggs in a single basket.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
We’re unique in that we’re trying to elevate craft. We’re not a well spirit. From our custom bottle, to our non-commodity Texas grains, to the quality of the spirit, to our state-of-the-art distillation methods, to our water to our sophisticated tasting room and cocktail program, everything we do here is quality. Everything takes more time, but people appreciate the attention to details and what we aspire to produce.
As we all know, it takes a lifetime to build a reputation and only seconds to destroy it. People always ask me what celebrity I want to represent the brand? That person doesn’t exist. Celebrities can be great marketers and promoters and influencers, but they can also kill your brand in an instance with an unrelated, controversial comment. It’s my business and I control what we produce and the messages we send to the public. And that message has been and will continue to be that we make ultra-premium, quality distilled spirits for the consumer.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
In person. It’s the single biggest competitive advantage we have as a Texas distillery. When I see Grey Goose on the shelf, I ask the bar manager, or owner or purchasing manager if they’ve ever met the owner of Grey Goose. Of course they haven’t because he’s in quarantine in his chalet in France and will never step foot in our state. He doesn’t care about their location, nor will he ever send business or assist the establishment in any way. Similarly, there is a current outcry for Americans to pour out their Russian vodka in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I would simply ask, why are you buying and drinking substandard, foreign-made alcohol in the first place? We make superior spirits here using Texas grains from Texas farmers. If it’s made here and it’s better quality and it tastes better, then there really is no decision or shouldn’t be in the first place.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.blacklandfw.com
- Instagram: @blacklanddistilleryfw
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blacklanddistillery/
- Twitter: @blacklandfw
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY82T1cpoA1QHgqXEyrFOGw
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/blackland-distillery-fort-worth-2