Transcription

• Speaker #0

  All right, hi Maxime.

• Speaker #1

  Hello my friend, how are you doing?

• Speaker #0

  Good, how are you?

• Speaker #1

  I'm good, it's a pleasure to host you today in Marceau, in the heart of Burgundy.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, we are actually in the heart of Burgundy, so this is a bit counterintuitive when you see this this wonderful bar that we have behind us, but we have the vineyard just in front of you actually. We'll dive into the spirit world today, so it's kind of out of usual episode for us but it's cool because it's very connected to the wine industry when you love wines usually you like good beverage and spirits and cocktails are definitely part of it and we'll talk about this in a few seconds but first can you introduce yourself like

• Speaker #1

  i'll try to keep it relatively short uh so i was born and raised here in murceau burgundy uh my parents are winemakers from Vincent Girardin and nowadays the main Pierre Girardin. So literally next door we can see the winery from here. And so I was born and raised here with that mindset of, you know, like growing the best grapes possible, delivering the best product possible to customers all over the world. And that's really like the mindset that I was brought up with. And that still like drives me today. And some additional background, like the reason why I came into Spirits was actually through my experiences in the UK. Because that's where I discovered that there's more than wine when it comes to beverages. And that there's a whole culture and know-how and craftsmanship and also a whole culture of service around the spirits. And that's very much in London that I discovered all of that. And when it came time for me to come back home, when I was about 25, I knew that I wanted to work into something as exciting as wine when it comes to providing it. top quality product to customers all over all of the world but I wanted something a bit more fun and with more room for creativity and that's really how I went into into spirits in the first place so what what I've what we've done so far with Pegasus is very much about a combination from my childhood and the old like upbringing surrounded by wine together with the the experience and and the exciting part and yeah probably like a way to go for more creativity that I took from from my experiences abroad.

• Speaker #0

  All right so let's dive into this. You were born and raised in Burgundy, you're son of winemakers. Usually what we see here is that son of winemakers tend to become winemakers and transmit that to their children as well and on and on for generations. So you said that spirits came in your life in your 20s, like mid-20s, but... At the beginning of it, like around your 14, 15 years old, I guess you were in the vineyards. I guess you have memories of you harvesting. Especially during the harvest. Yeah, exactly. So I guess you have these memories. When you traveled to the UK, did you add in mind to actually have a career in the wine industry? Or was it something completely different?

• Speaker #1

  I mean, from a pretty young age, about like fuck 14, 15, I told my parents that I love tasting wine, drinking wine, but I would not want to make wine. So that was pretty much, that was pretty straightforward from pretty early days. And I didn't necessarily know what I wanted to do, but I knew that I didn't want to make wine. So when I went into the, when I went to study in the UK, I did study something completely different. I did accounting and finance, and then I worked in oil trading for a bit. and then in some other very like more engineering focused industry for about like four years and uh and then i i came uh i came back here in burgundy for setting a pegasus but the wine the wine background i mean now we're safe my brother's taking over the family business and the name is gonna carry

• Speaker #0

  on and and that's all good but uh but i knew from pretty young age that it wasn't for me do you uh are you still in phase with this decision like do you regret it sometimes that you're not making wines today.

• Speaker #1

  Honestly, not at all. Because there's so much room for creativity in spirits. There's so much to be done, so much to create. And there's a phrase that still resonates with me today. What someone told me when I first started telling people that I wanted to go into spirits. That when you go into spirits, the great things about it is as long as the product is good, the juice is good, and the bottle looks good, you can do whatever you want. And that's something that's not true for wine, at least not wine in Burgundy or in Bordeaux, like in very prestigious areas. So that freedom of creativity is unmatched.

• Speaker #0

  with uh with spirits you know so so i'm still very happy about my decision do do you remember the first time you tried a good cocktail because like we all have memories of the first cocktails like the you know rum and rum and coke when you're like 17 18 village parties in france we all have these memories but like the first nice cocktails that that you had the first time that you were Like, actually, spirits can do really nice things. Do you have a memory of this?

• Speaker #1

  I mean, it was definitely in London when I was like 20 or 21. Because up until then, you know, I was like spirits. When you come from Burgundy, spirits are kind of like looked down on because you've got wine up there and everything else is below. And as you just mentioned, like the quality of cocktails, like the very basic cocktails that you make when you're 17, 18 is nowhere near like enjoyable. But when I first went to London during the weekends while I was at the university in the UK, and went to the first mixologist bars. And it's not only the quality of the cocktail itself, but the craftsmanship, the way it's done, the show that they put on to make the cocktail, the way they explain it to you, the surroundings that you're in, and also the people you share it with. And it's more than just the cocktail itself, but the whole experience that really struck a point in my mind. And this is something... that I enjoy and I'm having a great time and this is a memory that I'm going to keep for a long time and even to this day I still I still remember it it was actually I still remember the bar it was called Mr. Fuggs on Paul Mall and I still remember the place I remember who I was with and it really struck a chord because it was everything that I liked so good good quality of products and good cocktail in this case but you know easily accessible you know and it's what i like about spirits as well is like you don't have to ask yourself so many questions when you taste a cocktail uh it's not about like can you compare to something you've had before or can you relate to it or can you can you figure out where it comes from or how it was made it's just about the moment itself and whether you enjoy it or not and whether you're having good time at at this moment and uh and i loved it and today's day i i still do and and cocktails for what they are and for the experience that's around it is it's just great so what was the this cocktail i mean i it was it was an aviation cocktail to this day like still my top three uh i mean i'm a big fan of gin based cocktails to this day and gin is actually the first product that we came up with and uh i take this because it's my first go-to product i mean in the u when you're in the uk you cannot go yeah like gin is it has to be the go-to one

• Speaker #0

  So then you come back to Burgundy after this. Did you decide to come back anyway? And you were like, I'm going to see what I'm going to do. Or you come back with this idea of making Pegasus and this period brand?

• Speaker #1

  So I came back with the idea. I mean, I came back during COVID. I knew I wanted to set up the Pegasus Distillery at some point in life. I mean, not too late, but like further down the line. And like with many people, COVID accelerated things. And I was like, well, this is probably the moment to switch over life and to start doing whatever you want to do. So I came back to Burgundy in June 2020. I started the first couple of months figuring out how I would... I knew what I wanted to do, but I needed to figure out how to do it. So that took a couple of months. I was still like thinking and planning, I was helping out at the domain, you know, like for the harvest and stuff like this. And it's really like in 2021 that I started like working full-time on the Pegasus project, literally from scratch, because I had the idea and I knew like the, I was like observed and read a lot about like what should be done, what can be done. to try to have like a successful business in spirits because it's a very challenging industry and very highly competitive industry so before going to the details i just needed to figure out like what were the requirements to try to be successful uh there's never a guarantee but at least to to to see like what's worked and what hasn't worked in the past and that took a couple of months and then i really started diving into well basics you know uh what about distillation distillation what stills you want to use what products you want to make where do you want to source your ingredients what about packaging what about all the norms because it's a highly in the regulation because it's a highly regulated industry even more so than wine um so so there was a lot to learn uh but it's it It was the exciting thing as well. You know, like when you work from a blank page, the great thing is you can be consistent about what you do, whether it's from, whether it's about like the juice, the packaging, the marketing, the distribution. It's that consistency and you set yourself an objective and you know where you want to go and you build everything alongside that path, you know. And that's the great bonus of starting from scratch. The downside is like there's so much to be done and you have to learn like...

• Speaker #0

  many different fields and uh and it takes time and it takes money um so what's the do you remember the first kind of brick you lay for this project like you're basically like this place doesn't exist yet you're basically in your room and you're like okay so now i have a spirit brand do you like try to produce your own kind of gene to show that you can do it do you set up the like branding stuff first and try to see if you have demands like what's the first moment that you've moved this forward from id to actually making something well i think like the first like tangible action was to actually buy a small steel to

• Speaker #1

  start trying out like what kind of product we could come up with because you obviously want to make good quality products but it's one thing to want to do it it's another one to do it and then it's another one to do it at scale. So the first step was to try to come up with something actually good. And I mean, it sounds a bit cliche, but I bought like a small steel, like a six liter steel that we still have to this day in the lab that we use for when we come up with new recipes. And I started doing distillation in my parents' garage underneath the house. And obviously the first one, I mean, it took me at least three months to start like coming up with some decent stuff because you have to understand like how the steel works. how distillation works overall because remember it was during covid so forget about uh trainings forget about classes forget about going to the netherlands or bordeaux or wherever like you've got classes to to be trained about this so i did some online sessions and then it was very much about like trial and errors and and this is really much how we highest started from from scratch but with knowing well nothing about distilling so the people listening to this podcast are usually well informed about the way of making wines the fermentation and all the stuff how do you actually make spirits so this is many distillation so i mean i can talk about like the way we do it because uh unlike wine there is like many different ways to doing spirits because it depends on what kind of spirits you make uh what kind of still you use what kind of ingredients you use in the first place um because like even vodka which may sound like it's the most standardized almost basic I mean, I disagree with that, but many people see it as like a bear. basic spirit can be made from potatoes from wheat from from corn starch from anything really so and and this changes the way you actually process the product so but but in essentially it's about get turning the starch from products into sugar and then converting sugar into alcohol And then you concentrate alcohol through a first distillation. And then you just add a different distillation to either increase the ABV of your product or to refine the product, basically. And that's for what you call the neutral grain alcohol, so neutral grain spirit, in our case, if you use grain-based spirits. And so that's for the white alcohol, let's say. And then there's the whole other part. For gins and liquors, when you add flavor to it, so the maceration process for each of the botanicals, then the distillation process because you want to have stable products, so you have to distillate what you've macerated, and then you blend your white spirit together with your flavored white spirit that you've done through the maceration and the distillation. And then you blend that together, and you can make gin or liquors if you add... sugar on top. So that's like the main thing. So first you have to do your white spirit and then you can add water if you want to make vodka or add flavors if you want to make gins or liquors. But I mean there's a lot to be said about it because I don't know if we'll have time to go into a lot more details. But if you in our case I can explain the main difference. with the products.

• Speaker #0

  First, can you just tell me what is distillation? So fermentation is sugar into alcohol plus CO2. What is distillation? It's like you warm the...

• Speaker #1

  Yeah, so... Basically, the distillation is about separating and choosing the different molecules that you're going to keep after distillation. And you separate these different types of molecules through temperature.

• Speaker #0

  Okay.

• Speaker #1

  So as you go into distillation, temperature increases. And it's where the cuts are also very important because then you choose what you keep for your finished product or what you leave. So the heads that you remove are the tails that you leave in the steel. So it's very much about choosing the... the molecules that you're going to keep for the rest of your process through heat. Through heat, okay. So, yeah, I mean, like, it really all starts with your white spirit, as I said before. So in our case, we work with, like, all the ingredients that we work with are organic and are from France or Switzerland. So in our case, it's organic wheat that we source. is the base of our... all our products actually, regardless of whether it's the vodka, the gin or the liquors. And then through our process, we really like refine the alcohol, concentrate the alcohol and refine it as much as possible. And then we can talk about like the how with the steels that we use because we're using very specific type of steels.

• Speaker #0

  You have a very specific technology for that.

• Speaker #1

  We actually, at least the largest in France and probably in Europe, distillery using this type of steel. They're called iSteel, so like the iPhone. I think they probably got inspired from this. And it's a company that is based out of the Netherlands. And it's a pretty recent company in the distillation industry because most of the brands have been out there for 50 years, 60 years, 80 years, or more than 100 years. And this one was created in the mid-2010s, so I think 2015, 2016, something like that. So in 2021, when we first started working with them, it was very much new. And the people I told about my will to work with this brand were like, well, just be careful because you don't have a lot of background and feedback from them because they're so new. But they had what I wanted, which was...

• Speaker #0

  It was very regular in terms of the output of the product that comes out of the steel. So top quality, regular quality, extremely precise in the distillation process. And that for me was very essential. And so like the precision in the consistency, to me, that's essential.

• Speaker #1

  Being predictable.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, and predictability for sure. Especially when you want to scale up because that was our biggest challenge. I mean, it's one thing to start in a small steel in the garage. It's a different thing to produce like tens of thousands of bottles. So we decided to go with this and also because they're computer controlled. So that means that you don't have to sit by the steel all the time and taste what comes out of it because it might sound fun on the first day, but you don't want to do that like on a daily basis for the rest of your life. So yeah, so the fact that it's consistent, that it's extremely precise, and that it's autonomous on a daily basis. So they take for a while to set up, because there's so many settings that you can play with. But once they're set up, they run on their own, and it's really amazing. And what's really special about them, also the other main reason, was the fact that they could have a dual use. So they could be used to refine neutral grain spirit, but also to use... So that's like a column type of distillation, but also they could be used as pot steel for distilling botanicals. So that dual use to me was essential because most brands or distilleries tend to disregard the quality of the neutral grain spirit. They just buy like, they just buy in bulk and then just add the flavors to it for making the gin or the liquors because it's like a kitchen, you know, they focus on what adds the flavor, but they tend to disregard. The core.

• Speaker #1

  The ingredients at the beginning.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, exactly. But like the white spirit is essentially about like half of the bottle. And most people, most distilleries disregard it completely. It's like going to a chef's place and they say, like he cooks like a chicken with a great sauce and says, well, I bought like a entry-level super cheap chicken. I don't care about it because what matters is going to be the sauce. Well, I mean, you can have the best sauce in the world. If the chicken is shit, the finished dish is going to be shit, you know? So I wanted to be able to process, control, and focus on all the different steps and all different ingredients that come into play with the finished product. And not just with the sexy, funny, exciting part, which is the flavors. Yeah, exactly.

• Speaker #1

  I tried to do a limoncello once on my side, but it was only adding the flavor we already had. But I can say that at my scale, I can understand how true this is because the first time I tried to do it, We bought like a shitty white spirit. It makes a big difference. It makes a big difference. And the other time it was like friends of friends were doing like, you know, we distilled the wines and so we had like a good white spirit as beginning and it made the whole difference. For sure. At my scale I understand that, but I guess at the production level it's...

• Speaker #0

  And it's back to basics, you know, and it's actually one of the big uptake from my upbringing in Burgundy is you I've heard so many times my parents say, well, I mean, you can be the best winemaker in the world if you don't have good quality grapes, you're never going to make a good wine. And then for spirits, it's the same thing. You can be like the best extractor, like a guy to handle botanicals in the world. If your based white spirit is bad quality, you're never going to have a finished product that is top quality. So there's just, I mean, about like, whenever you play with natural ingredients, you just can't cheat. you you have to go for the best or otherwise you can taste the difference

• Speaker #1

  100 percent um so then you you start doing this in the garage of uh of your parents you start to have this recipe um how do you set up this brand and how do you like try to attack this market of premium spirits um like what's the next step more in terms of business like how do you set up this uh well i mean before

• Speaker #0

  going to like business i think it's what's important to have like strong values as a brand because you've started mentioning it but when you when you sell we're into spirits you sell a brand more than your name i mean in terms in case of like winemaking the name becomes the brand but when you're into spirits the brand will have to live on its own without a face on it i mean yes i created the brand and and i right now i'm the face of it but it has to live with or without me and outlive me. So it needs to have strong foundations and strong values to hold up on its own, basically. So even before we're going out to the market, it's about the way you source your products, the way you build. the distillery, the way you build the recipes, it has to have strong values. And that comes with, for us, having our products sourced only in France and Switzerland, being organic, being transparent about where it comes from, where it's processed, where it's going next. So that transparency, that focus on the quality of the ingredients, the fact that it's organic, the French-Swiss part of things, really are the pillars of what the brand is built upon. And when you talk about spirits and building a brand, that's almost as important as having a good product because otherwise it's just not going to unfold in a nice way. It's about building very strong foundations. And when you're into wine, you can always say, well, my next vintage is going to be different or so. In spirits, it has to be always the same. So you can't start not just okay and then improve because the market is just not going to go for it. So you have to be... If you want to do premium spirit, you have to be up there from day one, and you can never go down. And there's little added value to going up, to be honest. So you have to be at your top from the very beginning and just have to stay there. And that's one of the biggest challenges, actually, in spirits. So when it came to how do we first started to access the market, we had these very strong foundations about what we stand for, where we source the product, where we process them. Then we obviously need to have a strong brand identity because it's the first thing that people see. And in spirits, I think it's less true for wine, but it's true to some extent. People usually buy the name or the bottle before they buy the juice. So you have to have a brand identity that is different from your competitors, obviously, that stand out in a shelf or in a back bar and that want to make people buy that bottle, either for themselves to bring back home or to try it in a cocktail at a bar. So yeah, brand differentiation is very important in terms of the branding, but in terms of packaging as well. So coming up with the brand environment was the second thing that we did after coming up with the values and the juice and the recipes themselves. And that's, I think once you've got these two things, the juice, the brand environment, therefore the marketing and the packaging, then you can... start thinking about like how am i going to approach the market and that's that's the next big step do you remember your first client i do actually uh i mean it wasn't it wasn't much it was uh i mean the very very first one was uh our uh with keys and spirits or uh um an off-premise account in uh in boone so obviously you start locally and with the people you know and go to to the restaurants exactly everything who tries to buy viewer. that's really the idea so that was like the very first ones and gin was the first product that we sold I mean gin and vodka came almost together and then the liquors came later on but the gin yeah the first bottles we sold were bottles of gin and yeah it was pretty exciting and then you think at that time that you've done the hardest part you know you've set up things and then you realize that it was just the beginning and it's selling a couple of bottles selling a couple of hundred bottles is you Definitely not the same as wanting to sell like tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands further down the line. But it's challenging because one thing that we forgot to mention is spirits, highly regulated, and you've got customs. In French, or dear friends, les douanes. And it's extremely complicated to set up because it's highly taxed and it's highly regulated. So you have to start the whole process of being registered, being approved, being allowed to produce alcohol, and then being allowed to sell it. And obviously paying the taxes in the first place, because wine and spirits don't work the same way. You have to pay the taxes to the customs if you sell in France. I mean, if you sell directly to liquor stores or to bars. You have to pay the taxes and taxes are very high. So you have to be registered with customs. It's a lot more complicated than with the wine industry.

• Speaker #1

  You have to pay them upfront. Obviously,

• Speaker #0

  otherwise it wouldn't be fun. So yeah, you obviously pay them upfront. But it's a complicated process, highly regulated, highly checked. And it takes time to set up for sure.

• Speaker #1

  So you said you have gin, vodka and some liquors. is it still the case like what are the the stars of of what you do can you describe a bit the type of alcohol you have and why did you like I guess gin and vodka they are basically the base to a lot of cocktails so when you create a spirit brand it's critical and there are

• Speaker #0

  categories that are well known by both the trade industry and the consumer so it's it's more competition but it's potentially higher volumes and it's a bit easier to uh to there's less education to be done with the category but more for the brand for the liquors it's the other way around it's you have to do a lot more education about like how you're going to use these products is it going to be used for digestives is it going to be used for cocktails for long drinks short drinks spritzes whatever her. And it takes a lot more time to convince the trader or the consumers to go for your product. But in the range we have, so we have vodka, gin, the first two products that we came up with, like I said. And then we have three liquors right now. We've got two citrus-based liquors with actually pretty cool history. I mean, there's a story that dates back to the 1700th century. It's liquor that the kings of France used to drink back then. We found like old recipe books. that we got printed out by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. And we kept the same ingredient list, and we just changed the recipes themselves, you know. So that's the exciting thing. They're called Odor and Liqueur Royal, because they're made of citrus from Menton. So you've got lemons, you've got bitter oranges, and you've got orange blossoms. So it's very fresh, very fruity, very citrusy, obviously. And it's all about the French Riviera in a bottle. That's really the idea behind those products. And then we've got a mint liquor called Minty that we came, that's actually the latest addition to our range of products.

• Speaker #1

  This is a dangerous product.

• Speaker #0

  I can't tell you. I mean, it really was designed to not feel the alcohol, only with natural ingredients. So we only work with three different mints from the Swiss Alps. I mean, you've got American mint, orange mint, and Japanese mint. but all grown in swiss apps like i said and uh and it's a dangerous product it's very successful with the trade it takes a bit longer to educate and to convert the consumer because they're used to uh let's be honest like poor quality milkers and over the last couple of years you've had some like good names that raise up and and and increase the quality of mint liquors but for a long time mint liquors were i mean with weird colors and sometimes like too strong of a flavor to be natural And we decided to go against that by having a transparent product with certified organic, with mints that nobody else uses in the industry. So that's the exciting part of this product. But when you look at the range of products, it actually works well together. The idea was to be able to capture different opportunities of consuming alcohol throughout the day. So whether it's in the afternoon, like in the spritz, with the citrus liquor that can be used as a spritz. or gin for gin tonics or for cocktails like early in the evening then you've got the liquors that you can have after after dinner and then you've got the vodka that is either like martinis depending on where you're like in the u.s throughout the whole day they drink martinis even during dinner during lunch they they drink martinis and even more and more so that's something we can go back to later on but like cocktails especially in the u.s people drink cocktails during during lunches and dinner now and i mean it's not great for the wine industry but it's great for us And it's a trend that we need to capture. And then there's also obviously like the nightlife part of it. But people tend to overestimate, you know, the nightlife. For you,

• Speaker #1

  it's maybe not the most... I mean,

• Speaker #0

  it's important for like the image you want to be seen during nightlife. But when it comes to volumes, it's... I mean, it's... To be honest, it's starting to pick up. But it's pretty much not what it used to be. And people tend to overvalue, to overestimate the volumes of vodka they're consuming in their life and underestimate what's consumed during day drinking, you know. And when you look at it, you know, like in this day, I mean, vodka is probably about like 70% of our sales. All right. Yeah. Gin is about 15, 20%. And the rest are the liquors. So vodka and gin are very much the...

• Speaker #1

  key driver for a business it's huge because you you could think that vodka is very replaceable from like you know from my point of view i'm super novice in the mixology place so i'm like this vodka or this vodka i understand that there are categories but you know you could pick one product or another but if it's 70 of your sales it means that you're like actually targeting very interested customers like in the sense that they are really uh happy to buy your product specifically and they want this vodka for what they do.

• Speaker #0

  I mean, for sure. But to be honest with you, it's also where we invest most of our money in the vodka because it's where the volumes are long-term. And I think also it's a good timing for us because I mean vodka is a category that is up there in terms of volumes. It's still, I mean tequila like came up big time but vodka is still the biggest one. And it's still, it's not growing fast but it's still growing despite what everybody else thinks. I'm talking about like the premium categories of vodka. And so it's a category that actually doesn't have that many competitors. You've got very strong, you've got big strong competitors but you don't have that many brands. who want to come into that market and try to, well, I mean, try to like find itself a place, you know, a seat at the table in this industry. I mean, when you look at them, I mean, the big four, I guess we could call them like that, like the Grey Goose, the Belvedere, the Ciroc, the Belugas. These guys have been out there for like 15, for some of them 30 years, and there hasn't been any major changes since then. So it's a category that is still selling a lot. But that needs to be freshened up. That needs new additions because the values of these brands are not necessarily aligned anymore to the values of the consumers. And people still drink a lot of vodka when you look at it, especially with the cocktails, the new trend of cocktails. I mean, you've got so many vodka-based cocktails that I think it's a category that has still, despite what many people think, strong potential. And when you look at the numbers, I mean, let's be honest. I mean, the industry as a whole is not doing great, especially entry-level and mid-market prices. This is actually going down significantly. But the premium categories are actually holding up pretty well. And I think there's a pretty good future for brands in the premium categories, especially if you can make cocktails out of this product.

• Speaker #1

  How was the reception of Burgundy in... in what you're doing so you said that you still managed to sell a bit of bottles here and there at the beginning but so burgundy is very well known for its wine industry and and for all the different wine places that that you can have um how did people react here uh and like the environment react to having such a brand of spirits yeah and like being proud of being from Burgundy is part of your identity, I guess. So what was the reaction here?

• Speaker #0

  Well, I mean, to be honest with you, I'm not really someone who really cares about what people think about what I do or stuff like this, because I feel like otherwise, if you focus too much on that, you never do anything. But I think it was at the beginning, at least, it was mostly they didn't really understand why would I want to go into this when I had a name that was pretty... pretty well known and and and the domain and and stuff like this i mean basically most people think like why not take the easy path and just take over like the the the family business and stuff but as i said before i wanted something more creative more challenging and to create something from scratch um and and the reception i mean locally i mean we work very well with some bars and restaurants in in bone but i'll be honest this is not where like we do most of ourselves definitely not but the The real thing about Burgundy was like it was a very humbling thing to realize because when you go abroad starting selling spirits, you're like spirits, bars, restaurants. So these guys probably know about wine and then probably know about Burgundy. And then you realize that most of them have never even heard of Burgundy. And because when you grow up in like a wine environment, Burgundy is like the center of the world. And then when you go out of this, you realize that 99% of the people on this planet don't even know where Burgundy is, you know? And even less where Burgundy is. I mean, like, what it is or where it is. So it was a very humbling thing. And to be honest with you, we're very proud of putting forward the French heritage kind of thing. And for people who know about it, like Burgundy as well. But Burgundy has never really been our top-selling argument. Because most people simply don't know about it. and don't care and don't care definitely I mean let's be honest like if you're like in France obviously most people know even in Europe I mean if people are not don't care about wine most of them don't know about Burgundy and I'm not even talking to you about like the US where like unless you talk to a sommelier who don't know about wine everybody else is like Burgundy oh Bordeaux you mean no no Burgundy okay never heard about it you know so it's a really like humbling thing And coming from Burgundy, you know, like, I mean, when I was in the UK, I realized very quickly that it wasn't center of the world. When you grow up here, you've got that the tendency of thinking that that this is bad. place you know ever and that people are going to come to you naturally for your products and then you realize that this is not the case and you're entering a global competition market that you have to come well with your own tools and your own yeah your own like weapons to try to grab shares of that market and and being from burgundy is not going to be near enough to do that you know yeah but it's uh it's it's it's a great challenge and great learning opportunity Thank you.

• Speaker #1

  You said that most of your market is in the US so far, like it's a big place for you and a growing place for you. I guess you're well distributed as well in other places in the world, in France, in the UK, I guess. I mean, yeah,

• Speaker #0

  like the US and Western Europe are like the biggest market, but not going to lie, the US is far ahead.

• Speaker #1

  Do you witness some difference of habits between US people and... People from elsewhere in terms of what they drink, how they drink?

• Speaker #0

  For sure, especially about vodka. These guys in the US, they drink vodka all day, every day. Martinis is definitely in their culture. They drink martinis sometimes from 11 a.m. onwards. And they're not going to have one or two. They can have four, five, six. And they're big drinkers. I'd say the main difference is also when they sit at a bar in the US, they have to have a drink in a glass in their hands it's not like in more like in france or in europe where you go sit at a bar and you have a drink maybe two and then you sit there for an hour an hour and a half you chat and stuff there they're just not comfortable being somewhere not consuming so they have a glass they have second one and it's either the leave or they have another one and and so like the bar with the same size is just going to go through so much more product in the US than it will in Europe. the consumption approach is so different. They're so, I mean, in the US, they're very much extremes in everything they do. So in the good things and the bad things, but in terms of consumption, when they sit at a bar, they will drink. And that's the good thing for us. And when something is trendy, they're going to go full in. And when something is not trendy anymore, they're going to stop very quickly. And that's the challenge of the US. It might sound like very, Something very similar to Europe. I mean, they seem close to us in their way of living, but they're actually quite different.

• Speaker #1

  Shouldn't you be producing in the US?

• Speaker #0

  I mean, like, we don't want... I mean, as I said, we only source our ingredients from France and Switzerland. So it's too much of a... Yeah, and something we haven't talked about either is the water that we use. It's also very important for us. We've got our very own well water from Merceau. And it's water that doesn't even need filtration. It's drinkable as it is. So it's also very important for the quality of the finished product. So producing the juice out of France is out of the question. And at this stage, we also do the bottling here. At a later stage, there could be the bottling thing. It could be an option in the US. But the juice now is European-based. And just also for funding. Top of the game organic products. It's not the same elsewhere. And even to try to go beyond organic is to source the botanicals from the best terroir available around there. So all the citrus from Menton, the French Riviera, all the herbs and flowers from the Swiss and French Alps, mostly Swiss Alps, the water from here, from Burgundy, the grains from France. So it's more than just organic or just one place. it's finding the the ingredients from the best terroirs available around there.

• Speaker #1

  It's something that I definitely miss in Hong Kong. It's an island, so definitely everything is imported, obviously. And it's an island, plus there are mountains. So you can't do anything, you can't produce anything locally. And it's something that I miss a lot because a lot of products, we have very good products. Fortunately, we import very nice things. But, you know, it's not the same pleasure as having, the mint that comes from switzerland the water that comes from here like it's just feel less less fully um fully cool and just just to add with like the ingredients you know like and the fact that between france and switzerland because i'm half french half swiss from my mom that's why like there's a connection with switzerland and

• Speaker #0

  we just have like the best terroirs available you know so there's no need to go like at the other end of the world to find like some special like Peppers or stuff. I mean I'm not saying these are not great products, but we've got everything around it It's like less than three, four hours drive away. So you've got the ocean, you've got the sea, you've got the mountains, I mean, the Alps, you've got the plains for like the wheat. I mean, you literally have everything. So why go to the other end of the world to grab some botanicals? So we really want to source things locally as much as possible. We source everything locally. And it's just when we sell, we sell globally.

• Speaker #1

  But it's cool that a lot of people can then enjoy this product. made from a very specific place.

• Speaker #0

  That was part of the pride that we take in building this brand is being able to provide to people all over the world the best of the terroirs that France and Switzerland has to offer for spirits. And that's also very much part of the joy and pride that we get out of this business.

• Speaker #1

  You are passionate about aviation and aerospace as well. Are you distributed in an airline?

• Speaker #0

  already uh so in the lounge well lounges yes uh airlines not yet hopefully soon i mean like if there's somebody at air france listening i mean we're we're we're all ready um i mean it might even happen sooner in the u.s they will in france unfortunately but that's that's just how it is um yeah i mean aviation has been a passion of mine since been like 11 or 12 i mean i used to go like follow up my parents when they played golf or stuff like that in in bone and right next to the golf course is the airfield so i used to see like all these tiny teeny planes taking off and landing and one day i told my parents well this is i want to try that and and i did you know for like these open days like stuff that like a initiation kind of things and i loved it and they said yeah but you're too young and i was like yes but uh i'm i'm i can i'm committed you know like when i've got something in mind i want to do it and like do it well And I actually started taking classes when I was 13 years old.

• Speaker #1

  Do you have your license? I do.

• Speaker #0

  I've had my license. I've had my first license when I was 15. So I was able to fly planes on my own before I was allowed to drive. So that's the funny part of it. But it's more than aviation. It's like, I think aviation is about two things for me. It's about like traveling, discovering new things. And yeah, like just like the... the challenge of like going further and seeing things from different perspective and also about the technology itself you know and i think it also reflects in the brand like the the like exploring different cultures having different inputs uh going out there and also the technology side of things and being extremely like precise and consistent uh leaving very little room for for uh unexpected things and I think for Pegasus it's about that as well you know you've got like all that creativity in the first place but once you're set up you have to be consistent you have to be precise it's um every time I take the plane

• Speaker #1

  I have this feeling of what a miracle to be alive at this stage of humanity you know like you can just like we live in Hong Kong like in 12 hours it's crazy and think about it like 150 now we're in 2026 so 111 years

• Speaker #0

  ago was the very first flight so in in just more than a century we've come so far it's it's actually unbelievable and it's yeah like we're very lucky to to have that but you know like i was like another inspiration for the brand is as the stars and that comes from like the trips that i did in africa and then you realize you're living the same planet but you've got people who've just seen planes like high up in the sky and i think we're lucky to be living at this day and age but also where we are living. In our situation, 100%. And yeah, that's a given.

• Speaker #1

  But it's also true for technology, but it's also true for good products. Every time I'm having Conté, I'm like, you know what? Like 500 years ago, having this specific Conté would have been like...

• Speaker #0

  a crazy expedition to jura and for sure and i'm just like sitting in hong kong and having the best content in the world and i i understand you so much i mean like whenever i come back to france the first thing that i get is good bread with good cheese that's what i miss the most when i'm a bro but it's true for spirit as well you know like it's so nice to be

• Speaker #1

  living in in an age where we can be like okay you know what we're gonna do a vodka with organic wheat so locally do this process very specifically with ice steel and like... It's just pushing the limit of every product to the very end.

• Speaker #0

  That's what's great in this day and age. Now we've got the technology, you've got people who can afford to buy those products. So it's a great challenge. I could never have produced a product that I'm not proud of and that I wouldn't drink myself or that I wouldn't be proud of selling. So that's the exciting part of living in this day and age.

• Speaker #1

  So you mentioned the US as a very important place for you. How do you see the... So you said they drink martini from 11 a.m. until the end of the day. How do you see the future of premium spirits like yours? In the wine industry, we hear a lot about crisis of consumption, not being able to attract young people to... younger generation to drinking wines um like we have kind of these speeches around wines that are a bit sometimes depressing not in all regions and not all winemakers but a lot of them um how do you like

• Speaker #0

  feel about this and do you see a difference with spirit i i see a big difference and uh and i'll take the the case of the u.s because i think it's the the most obvious example um I think one thing that is a given this day and age is like the on-premise experience, so like at bars, restaurants, has just become a lot more expensive than it was before COVID or like in the past. And now consumers, when they go out to these places, they're going to pay in the US, I mean, in the big cities, $20 to $30 for a cocktail without tips, without tax. So that's going to be like a $35 to $40 glass. And now for this kind of cocktail, they want more than your cheap like nine dollars a bottle vodka in there they're like if you're going to charge me this much i want a good experience and i want a good quality of product and um so so that i think to me that's why like the the premium categories are still going up while the others are going down because consumers don't don't want to feel cheated on anymore uh and want to be respected and and i think that's why like for us being the premium spirits category we've got a big card to play card to play on the on-premise. a market and uh and you have to be honest like it's the new generation is also very much about like values to me and experience authenticity yeah yeah exactly like you have to be transparent you have to be you have to be to have values that that they share with you and then you have to have the experience and to me this is where like spirits and wine really differ because the experience with wine is still very much old school and hasn't changed much So it's still about like, I mean, I've got nothing about the sommelier there, but you know, you see like a very old school group of sommeliers in restaurants that kind of look down on you if you don't really know your wine, or that will push like the labels, you know, like for what we call in Burgundy, like the labels drinker. and wine is very much about like, I think that that's what they're hurting them so much is about kind of looking down on people who don't know about wine and it's about differentiate yourself, differentiating yourself socially. Whereas for spirits, it's completely different. It's about the experience and it's about the moment you're having right now. It's not about asking yourself so many questions. It's about like going back to basics. Am I enjoying this drink? Am I having... fun time with friends am i going to remember this moment this is what it's all about and this is what it should be all about and and i don't have that the experience with spirits you basically as a brand supplier you're giving the bartenders the tools to create something even more elevated and they can then customize those products in this case cocktails for the the the the place they're in or even for the consumer And the consumer can even have a personalized experience with personalized cocktails. And I think to me, that's really what is the game-changing between Wine and Spirits. The fact that you can adapt locally, right on the minute, to your customers' needs. And this is what they want. And then you sprinkle on top of that the whole social media experience. Because whenever you go to a bar, you can have an amazing-looking cocktail, whereas your glass of red is... Nothing looks like more... to a glass of red and another glass of red you know and and you have to and there's nothing you can do against that i mean like i'm i mean i'm i'm obviously like social medias are great for us as a brand to grow faster but obviously come with downsides but you're not going to go against the market like you just have to you just have to to ride with it and uh and i think that's that's what the spirits have managed to do and that's what wine is trying to figure out but hasn't really like figured that yet.

• Speaker #1

  It's funny what you said about the experience of having a cocktail and drinking spirits. Back in the days, we did a podcast about coffee as well, like kind of a side podcast about it. Because when you like wine, usually you like coffee as well. And this guy was telling us something very interesting. It was like, you know, when you go to a coffee place, the barista is actually doing the extraction of the product. Like it's as if you... would have the vinification in front of you uh just for this time and it's a bit the same for you with the mixologist and the baristas as well it's like they play a critical role in they sure do making your product shine

• Speaker #0

  and taste actually uh something no for sure and and you know like for us it's very important to connect with these guys to make them understand like what products we have i mean obviously going back to basics like your product has to be good i mean But to me, it's a given. It's not like an added value. Your premium product, it has to be good, full stop. And then it's like, what do you add on top of it? So try to give them new ideas. I mean, don't expect them to do exactly what you want them to do, but give them the tools to push your products in the direction you want them to push it. And it's about also convincing them, like in the case of vodka, that is, I think, a way overlooked spirit. The fact that when you use when they use our product the pegasus in especially martinis that it's less volatile so it's a lot more smooth uh it's uh it's almost sweet like i mean it feels and tastes almost like it's sweet when it's not um and and it's just easier to drink and then it's like it's a different type of argument but like when it's less volatile you're less likely to have like headaches as quickly and you can definitely tell if you have like a cheap alcohol It's going to hurt a lot more than top quality one. And you can actually justify that chemically speaking, you know. And it's just about like training and all these guys and making them understand that you're bringing something new to the table because they've been used to the same brands that we named before. And now you bring something different to the table without going against the market. Because if you go against the market, you're done anyway. I mean, nothing should be, nobody should be like full of themselves enough to try to go against the market. You just have to write it and just add what the consumer wants. Because at the end of the day, it's back to basics. It's what the consumer wants, you know. And like when it also comes to building up new drink strategy, like we're going to launch in February next year, our biggest campaign so far, our drink strategy campaign around vodka and martinis. I mean, I won't go into too many details because you have to keep some news for later. But it's going to be around like vodkas and martinis. And you have to bring the consumers and the trade industry people simple tools for simple execution, for simple... experience but that makes a difference i think we live in the world like everything is over complicated and the thing that actually gonna end up working are the things are simple you if it has to be good it has to look good it has to be a good experience and you have to make the consumer happy that's it

• Speaker #1

  I think it's a perfect conclusion to this episode, make the consumer happy. It looks like it's the good last words. I still have five last questions, three last questions actually, sorry. I was looking at Marine at the same time. Three last questions about you. First, do you have a book recommendation, not about wine this time, maybe about spirits, so like recipes or history or something, something that inspires you in spirits?

• Speaker #0

  I mean, in spirits specifically, you've got especially a cocktail book from the head bartender of the Savoy Hotel in London that dates back from the 19th century. That is the best cocktail book. It's all the basics, but executed perfectly. So that's the one I would recommend people to go to. I forget right now the exact name of the guy, but if you type head bartender of the Savoy Hotel, you'll find it straight away. Yeah.

• Speaker #1

  we'll put the link in the description anyway so we will find it for you guys and uh look at the description the link will be here um is there something you tasted recently and that you absolutely loved like a cocktail that you didn't knew or like a recent discovery that uh that you would recommend i

• Speaker #0

  mean you know it might sound a bit cliche and easy to say but like a super well executed basic cocktail is is there's nothing like it you know like coming back to the to the basics like we said i mean one of my favorite cocktail is the aviation cocktail because probably partly because of the name but also because i'm a big gin fan and uh and i think the best cocktail i've had in my life was actually in in portland oregon last year in the u.s i mean six months ago now and uh and it was just like simple perfectly executed the guy came with a trolley in front of the table like you know handpicked the bottles pour them perfectly like perfect temperature Perfect experience, great people with me, and that was like the best memory so far. So going back to what we said before, you know, like good juice, good experience, good people. That's it.

• Speaker #1

  Amazing. And finally, who is the next person I should interview?

• Speaker #0

  I mean, I haven't talked to him about it, but like there's someone I went to school with who actually lives in Marceau, who's got probably a good combination of spirits and wine, which is Felicien Rouleau. whose dad has done both wine and spirits. So it could be a good combination of knowledge. Cool.

• Speaker #1

  We'll reach out to him. Thank you very much, Maxime. It was super nice. You're going to teach me how to do a cocktail just after. I'll dive into it. So if you guys want to see it, we'll put the link in the description as well. And you will have to follow The Winemaker Show to find it. If you loved this interview, Sherry too. at least two people who need to drink more vodka and more gin or discover it or mix between in between wine glasses people who just want to have fun with good with a good crowd of people so yes send it to your friends if you want to discover pegasus obviously we'll put all the links in description so you will have like plenty of opportunities to to find them and i see you in a next episode maxim thanks again and see you soon thank you so much for having come to merceau

• Speaker #0

  Okay.