SINGAPORE. In our new video series ‘Moodie Davitt On Location’, we bring you exclusive on-the-ground coverage from the most innovative brands in travel retail straight from the industry’s most important events.
In this edition, The Moodie Davitt Report Founder & Chairman Martin Moodie catches up with Tito’s International Managing Director John McDonnell at the TFWA Asia Pacific Exhibition in Singapore. As we discover, Tito’s is as much about great principles as it is about great vodka.
In line with its long-standing commitment to good causes (see Back Story below), Tito’s Handmade Vodka was the Diamond Partner and exclusive vodka sponsor at The Moodie Davitt Smile Raising Charity Dinner held in Singapore on 6 May, which raised over US$200,000 for international cleft charity Smile Train.
Tito’s Handmade Vodka also sponsors The Moodie Davitt Report’s popular Pet-sonality Profile column, to promote the work of brokenbiscuits.org, a disabled animal charity.
The back story
Tito’s Handmade Vodka was founded by Bert ‘Tito’ Beveridge in 1995 after he obtained the first legal permit to distil in Texas.
Born and raised in San Antonio, Beveridge was working in the mortgage sector in the early 1990s when he started making flavoured vodka as gifts for friends.
One night he was at a party when a stranger said to him, “Hey you’re the vodka guy.” Beveridge replied, “No, contraire, I am the mortgage guy.”
But the encounter got him thinking. He visited a few liquor stores to ask the owners and managers if they would buy his flavoured vodkas. They all turned him down, saying the category was already overcrowded. However, he was told that if he could make a vodka that was so smooth you could drink it straight then he might have something.
He set out learning how to distil, building stills based on old moonshiners’ photos using copper pipe and a simple outdoor fryer for heat. “I basically just kinda kept working at it and working at it,” Beveridge recalls. “We bought every vodka that was on the shelf, we put them in little mason jars and tasted all of them and came up with the two best ones. When mine consistently beat those two then I figured that I had my formula right.”
His battle wasn’t over though. Potential investors turned him down time and again, convinced he would never get the required permits as there had never been a legal distillery in Texas. Instead Beveridge used his savings and racked up US$88,000 of debt on 19 credit cards to fund the venture.
Having successfully fought to rewrite the Texas laws, he built the distillery – calling it Mockingbird after the state bird of Texas – and worked day and night in a one-room shack. He hand-bottled, screwed the caps on and put Elmer’s glue on paper labels.
Beveridge relentlessly canvassed Austin liquor stores and bars and took his vodka around parties. It wasn’t exactly an overnight success story but after about eight years, the brand had gained exciting national traction.
The rest is short but spectacularly successful history. Today Tito’s Handmade Vodka is available in 142 different countries, and is a frontline brand within the travel retail channel. Just as importantly, the company is deeply committed to various good causes.
The company started Vodka for Dog People to rescue and protect lost or abandoned canines. Tito’s has rescued over 120 dogs in Austin and supported thousands of animal-focused non-profits. The company works closely with Emancipet, a nationwide US organisation dedicated to providing every pet with high-quality care at affordable rates.
Early in the brand’s development, Beveridge received a phone call from a local non-profit asking if he would donate some vodka for a fund-raising event. He agreed and showed up with several cases, the beginning of a committed philanthropic mission that has been integral to Tito’s Handmade Vodka ever since.
As the company grew, the founder empowered each member of the team to support the local causes they were passionate about. Every time one responded to a request by writing, “Thank you for inviting us to help the cause,” they signed off with “Love, Tito’s.” The salutation became a mantra, which turned into a movement. ✈
