At that point, we were at very much at the forefront of the rum industry. So, I'm going to say something that you're not going to hear a lot of different places. Never be number one. Always be number five, eight or number 10. No, nothing like that. In ' 04, people looked at us like we were [ __ ] mad. Nobody would charge that. And then we did 8 million and we're talking 2,000. Then I just wanted to go back to basics. Daniel, thank you so much for accepting

my invitation to this podcast and thank you for being here. Yes, I can't wait to um be um be the first one to have the honor to sit in this amazing little studio you guys have been building for the last few weeks. You are and thanks to you actually we have this studio so we want to take this opportunity to say thank you and also I want to ask you to do a very short introduction of who is Daniel and uh how did you arrived in

this industry? Oh yeah. Okay. Uh how far uh yes okay so we had an hour right? Yeah. Um uh I started I got brought into this industry when I was 16. Uh I used to work at a place called Cafe Clapto. Mhm. Where actually a few others in the industry started. Um uh and then I was 16 and it was being our basically it was a kitchen aid uh running with food plates and we had like a little outside seating or not a little actually on

on cultur uh an outside seating and I was basically be helping the chef with running plates back and forth and basically start prepping food and all of that. Uh when I wasn't doing that then we used to have an old boss called Henrik and he would basically set me to do anything. I'm pretty sure I did a lot of illegal basic work back then because he would set me to fix electricity and plumbing and stuff and I was 16 and had no [ __ ] idea what I

was doing. Sorry. Uh my pardon my French. Um and then um so but anyway that was how I got started into industry. Uh so after doing a summer with him working in a kitchen I ended up opening up a wardrobe for him at the kind of nightclub he had. Um, and then from there I ran about his wardrobe in Cafe Club. So I think it was 96. Uh, and then in 97 I turned 17. And then I basically started bartending. Mhm. Uh, obviously we're talking 97

bars. So back then it was a lot of beers. It was a buttload of Fab Brona. Uh, the biggest cocktails we had, if we want to call it, it used to be Star Wars or Blue Lagoon. So basically just vodka, blue kasau, and some Sprite. Um, if we were really jolting it and really then it would be a classical strawberry daquiri of of course uh but it would wouldn't be the versions we make nowadays. It would be much more the old slush ice version I was

call them. So it basically be big old coups and then would fill them all up and the more higher you could build the ice stack then the better cuz then you know um and basically uh so yeah so that was in 96. Uh started there. Um from there I ended up in the bar. Uh, I ended up also DJing, uh, at the same spot. Uh, so I both did kitchen and bar work and we also DJed a little bit. Uh, and basically by the time I

was 21, 22, I had my little side business, catering, doing both bars and and kitchen work on the side for for private people. Um I was fortunate to buy um a flat in 98 in this nonsensical uh [ __ ] real estate market we pulled on ourselves for the last 25 years 30 years. Uh so that suddenly 2 3 years later gave me an insane equity. I could suddenly go and borrow a lot of money. So in 2003 we had the crazy idea of actually opening a bar

uh together with my siblings. Uh put up a lot of equity in the bank bought about a lot of money. Um then we did the f one of the first fusion concepts in in Copenhagen. Um and that was something called Barbarella. We did we opened basically it was a the idea actually came from Barcelona where my uh my two my brother my sister Barbara and Pablo had seen these some of these fusion concept stores but more it wasn't as such as fusion concept much more multiple

usage of spaces. So there would be a cafe in the day hours and then would turn into a bar at night or it would be a a clothing store in the day hours and then it would turn into something different at night. And we kind of had the same idea of doing something similar here in Copenhagen. We did though take it to a bit of a different level cuz my sister she was a clothing designer. So uh at the age of 22 23 then me and

her ended up going to she was a bit older than me uh when going to Portugal did a whole clothing line that was supporting the the brand new venue wanted to open and then we booked um we opened up Barbara in 2004 uh basically no experience borrowed 1.5 million Danish kernels in the bank uh put up about a lot of money more we rebuilt the entire place got all the paperwork and could apply for a liquor license and got it within like 6 7 months. Mhm.

Uh and then we opened up which is basically a clothing line store. We had uh vintage Danish design furniture we had refurbished that were also sold and then we had obviously the cafe and the cocktail bar. And obviously we introduced the mojito to the Copenhagen audience. We were one of the first places that really rocked that cocktail. And a few years later, we were the uncrowned mojito kings of Copenhagen. Uh basically, we had such a such a good deal with Havana Club because we were selling

a buttload of their three-year-old when had that uh making it to a mojito. Uh so we even could send u we basically at one point we um had we lottery we put a a lottery up for the 250,000th mojito we made. Mhm. that we called like four six weeks ahead we're going to make it and then it was a countdown and then whoever got the 250,000th mojito out of out of Barbarella uh basically got a trip for two to go to Cuba and see the the

Havana Club factory and all of that so we got that in the deal um and that was Barbarella um basically we're one of the few places to uh do a full-size cocktail bar like lounge with a pro setup uh that's actually thank god to another bartender came into our to work for us called Darden because before that we were just basically we didn't have bar stations you know basically everything that we have today in a cocktail bar where we have proper setups bar stations and you

can do everything with like not moving two three feet or supposed to be um that was nothing before the mid zeros. Um, so suddenly we had this guy coming in and he kind of helped us do a whole re rethinking of how we'd set up the bar so we could do a lot quicker service cuz basically we're just five headless chickens running behind the bar and everybody's running doing everything in all location. It was bit mess. So fortunately he got in and that helped us to

help Barbarella a lot uh raise it to a new level. Um, we always struggle a lot with our kitchen. We weren't the best to get uh to get a kitchen out and knowing, but we were very well known for our cocktails. Uh we're not being a lot of the industry hangout. Um so we used to have the whole normal crew in before they got the Michelink stars and they would come in and and have a lot of drinks. We basically had a lot of the bartenders

would come in uh as well and a lot of industry people. We would be the one spot that would be open to before but wasn't really a nightclub. It was much more of a lounge bar with DJs and obviously it's a bit of a dance floor, but it was more of that cozy kind of vibe going on. Um, and we had a lot of industry people looking at us cuz nobody truly understood how we could open a bar in ' 04. And by ' 06, without

any major press, without any major ass kissing, we would have a line outside our venue or a little cocktail bar club, whatever you want to call it, uh, from about 10 at night till about 3:00 in the morning. We had that continuously for a year and a half and we were not uh out to call promoting in that way. How many bars how many bars were they open in that period in Copenhagen? Uh so when we talk uh five and six uh when we opened up

Barbarell there would only be if I'm not mistaken and now people might correct me in the comments but back then it would be Guild who had opened up in um in Hanoskill. Um there would be obviously as a cocktail bar cuz it is one of the originals. Why don't you have it in our port? Um there would be an other place opening up in Elmel. I kind of forget what it's called. It used to be where Paul that now has Union Kitchen. He used to work

there. Uh that would be the only other cocktail bar that were actually and then it was hotel cocktail bars. So it would be the Sun Petri would be a cocktail bar at Mir of course Dang and Kar and Kar as well. Yeah. KBAR actually came out. She opened, if I'm not mistaken, she opened two years ahead of us as well. So yes, so those were all the cocktail bars that were literally in Copenhagen at that point. And then we opened up and I remember people got

mad at us cuz we were the first guys to charge 79 croners for a mojito in that standards. That was a lot. In ' 04, people looked at us like we were [ __ ] mad. Nobody would charge that. And basically almost was charging about 80 quarters for cocktail would be Petri and and and some of the other five star hotel bars. H but we shoved our cocktails full with alcohol. So we did the classical pour of 2 oz or six and we did that into all our

cocktails and that was also rather new. Obviously Kab doing it as well uh guild as well. a lot of the hotel bars they were still very under the measure dictatorship as I call it when unfortunately some people to keep measures and everything then then they ruined the cocktails. Um so we were basically that. Um and obviously and then I think it was this whole consortium with it being both a lounge and a and a DJ thing and we had live music on Thursdays. Uh, we had

one of the best jam sessions going for about 3 years with their Gami Brothers where we had anybody from Naughty by Nature to all run DMC rappers coming in on a regular Thursday night on in the middle of nowhere in Copenhagen and they would be giving a live concert, a little jam session. Um, and then we used to host a really giant street party as well. So that was kind of like where it all started. Uh, I obviously you learn a lot. I was 23 24

years old. I basically just mortgaged my entire equity in the bank and borrow a lot of money and then started. Um there are a lot of things that I would be very different um today if I had to redo it. That's one thing that I want to ask you. How much risk do you took then? Will you be willing to take it in today's days? Interesting question. Obviously when you're 24 the world is at your feet and you can do what the freak you want and

whatever you don't make up. can always catch up on, right? Um, and I will say back then I didn't really see it as much as a risk. I was very sure that what we wanted to do was so genuinely different so we could generate a space that where people would love that. Um, so I didn't really see it as much as a risk. It was much more like, hey, yeah, sure. I mean, and this real estate market is stupid. I got this all got all this

equity. I might as well do something with it. Obviously, this is very different from my parents wanted. My parents wanted me to be a diplomat. I was supposed to go and be in public service. I was supposed to go work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. That was the whole idea. Um, it didn't end up nothing like that. Uh, so I would say today I'm wouldn't be as risk adverse as I or how say I wouldn't be able to take on as much risk as I

would do back then. But you also maybe hit a little above a point that I think that the risk right now of being small independent entrepreneurs is very much higher than it was 20 years ago. Mhm. I think the world today does not welcome small entrepreneurs. True. You you said your parents wanted you to be a diplomat. What was their reaction when you said, "Mom, dad, we want to open a bar cuz you were with your siblings. We put all of your our money into a

bar." Yeah. when there's another temporaries open. I will say I don't know. I think they had a pretty good idea that I maybe I wasn't going to turn out the way they wanted it first of all. Uh but also I mean I don't know they always looked at it and were very much behind us. So in one way they were really scared and they really like but okay okay if this is what you want to do and you're putting up your own money for it then

obviously you can do what you want. Um it's not because it's you know they didn't go against it and I will say they supported us quite heavily. um obviously not having any experience and suddenly ending up as a basically I was 24 25 um I ended up being the back office guy ended up being the guy who did all the bookkeeping and did all the numbers and did all the paperwork. Um so it was very much it me who ended up with a lot of responsibility

on it. Um fortunately I had no basically I had no clue what I was doing. I had no uh studies or something that would tell me how to. So it was very much a leadership done by by the heart and how I felt and and also actually we had a lot of talks about what we hated about uh when me and my brother and my sister we sat down and did the whole idea behind it. It was very much also what do we hate about how

our bosses used to treat us when we were working. So we made a lot of unified rules in comparation to how we wanted to react over our staff for example. So, for example, we would never call and yell at our staff cuz I mean, we've all had the bosses who feel the need to call up and yell because you've got something stupid, you know. Uh, and that always deteriorated more our how do you get our wanting to go to work than it actually helped anything. Um,

so in that sense, I think that we so we made like some rules. So, for example, we would never shout at our staff and during our shift. uh if we need to talk about something we would note it down and then we'll sit down after the shift and then we'll sit down and have a chat. So a lot of these things we actually thought about but then in that sense I think we did a pretty pretty decent manage management style. Uh but then again running a

business uh benchmarks of what your cost should be benchmark of what your pay should be benchmarkable I had no freaking clue basically I was 25 and suddenly ended up with a business that we went from doing you remember correctly we did 1.8 the first year we did three point just under four the second year and then we did up and did six and then we did 8 million and we're talking 2000s. Yeah, we're talking basically 2004 5 6 7 uh yeah so we started in four

we did five six and seven and then we had the big break obviously in08 when the entire financial crisis hit us and then another thing also hit us is was the opening of uh the meat packing district here in Denmark. Um before that obviously there was just it wasn't anything but obviously we had um our municipality in Copenhagen went like ah we got to be like New York so let's do a meat packing district so they took this whole other this space and turned it into

all these bars and restaurants and basically in the summer of if I'm not mistaken the summer of '08 uh when that opened it was also was it 0807 I think it was 08 uh we lost our queue outside cuz a lot of the people who would come to our place, they would suddenly go to meat packing which obviously was slightly annoying but but you know what we survived it. Uh and then the other thing that hit us and which I think was much bigger was the

the obviously the '08 financial crisis in August. Um and after that so after Barbarella so you closed in ' 08 or you closed later. No basically we so this is the difference of the world we live in from before and then just what I have seen as a small independent entrepreneur in Denmark. Right. Um, so basically in March08 I look at my yearly balance and I go like, "Fuck, we made a big [ __ ] in the ground." But I was actually trying to do something good, which

was to pay most of my staff legitly, even the even the security team. So we had high wages and everything, but I paid everybody on the table and everything was done properly, but we went out with like half a million, uh, which obviously wasn't projected. So we're missing half a million. And I could see that in my books. Uh, and we needed to do something cuz we're kind of being challenged by the whole meat packing district. So, we needed to do something, reamp the place, do

something crazy for it. Um, and uh, so so I was I was in the whole half mill. Uh, our we had I remember we had a few hundred,000 on on our credit in the bank that we hadn't used, but I was kind of like looking at I wanted to do a proper reinvestment. Uh, so uh, so we wanted to do lights. So basically we're the first places with Barbarella to do archite architectctoral lights. Mhm. So all the color lights on the outside on the front and

we also did the entire bar and again we were like it cost us no. So the original price was supposed to be 500,000 for the lights. Yeah, that was nuts. But before because it was Martin which was a Danish lighting company who wanted us to use this as a project. We got it basically for 200k. Okay. which was really was a big deal and was really good and we did really well. Then they installed everything and helped us and we did um but we just ended

up spending quite a lot of money on it even installation and we also did a refurbished the sound system and because we want to do live music and all of that. So basically I called up the bank I was half a million in the hole that I knew that I needed to f find few hundred,000 in the cash and we needed to use about I think a half a million 700. So, I called up my bank uh advisor, whatever you want to call him, the the

guy from the bank, and I said, "Hey, mate." Uh, and he's like, "How you doing?" His name was Steve. And I go, "Hey, I'm I'm okay. I mean, I I mean, we've been doing okay, but I think we've made a little hole in the in the ground cuz we kind of paid everybody and I did some strategies that maybe ended up costing way too much money." And he goes like, "Okay, Daniel, what do you need?" And I'm going like, "I mean, hey, stay if you say

it like that, 1.5 million." And then he went like, "Okay, Dang, not a problem. Uh, I'll send you a PDF file, sign it, and the money's in your account this evening." And I I clearly remember this cuz obviously that has changed a buttload ever since, right? U so literally that was happened. So uh so he sent me an email, I printed a PDF file, I put my signature on it, I sent it back without even reading it obviously. Yeah. Yeah. It was just a standard document.

It was a standard payment we have borrowed money from before. So, it's one of the standard issues. Um, anyway, I sign it. I scan it. I They don't even need the original. They just need the scan, right? So, I scan it. I send it back. And two hours later, the credit was open in the bank. And that's really funny cuz today I cannot borrow money in a bank for a retail business or for my bar. Um, nothing at all. Mhm. So it's really weird to go

from a situation in a financial sector where we could borrow money into these kind of businesses to nowadays where funny enough Denmark loves portraying itself as being the you know enorma and new Nordic cuisine and all the Michelin stars and all of that but most of that industry is not supported by a financial sector. It's primarily done by private investors or people in that sense put the money down for it. It's not done by our banks. And the other side of it is that most of

the payments to um back in when I started you could actually borrow money in the bank to buy a restaurant. So if there is a price on a restaurant they've been running for 25 years at somebody to overt take the restaurant as a key money. I don't know how you say yeah uh yeah the key money for the for the for everything for the business. Um you used to be able to borrow that that you cannot anymore which is kind of hard but we shouldn't get

into all of that because then I know you will be a little bit yes. Uh but anyway, so yes, so that was in '08. So we brought about a lot of money. We redided the investment. Uh a lot of people uh some of us hated us for it, some of us loved it for it because it was a lot of light. Um and it wasn't really seen before in Copenhagen. We was talking 08. Right nowadays you see architectural lighting all over the city. Back then it

was something really really new. Um we managed the struggle because obviously we had a really big hit on ourselves as well together with financial crisis and losing all of the most of our clients to to the meeking district. Um and then uh and then so we rented until about 11:00. Okay. Uh we got out uh no 12, sorry. We we we handed over the keys to the landlord in August 12th. Um after running it for 8 years. Uh and we had had quite a few struggles

at the end because obviously we ended up going from the eight that we were had in sales at the max year. Uh in the end we were doing two three million. Mhm. Um, and what made you say, "Okay, I want to stop it now and start something else." Was it primarily the money? Um, we had quite a hot um, how do I say this? Landlords like anywhere else in the world here in Denmark, don't really care about their their their tenants. Uh so our idiot landlord

and we had basically he hadn't um I don't know we pay I don't know how to say this in English so basically we pay uh you know we pay a basically a monthly quarter into for example heating right and then they do is that the monthly quarter you pay into heating kind of gets uh at the end of the year you get annual account how much you paid how much you actually used of the heat and then you kind of get a deducted or you need

to pay more or you get some money back. Yes, my idiot landlord hadn't done that ever since we had the business. So, we've been running the business for like 5 6 years and he always charg us 4 5,000 kroners in uh in this heating and uh and then after four or five years and we never saw the annual account. So, we're just paying a big amount but we didn't know if we were actually using it or what was happening with it or anything. Um and at

the end we just uh I just stopped paying the heating bill. So, we would pay in our our our wage, calculate our rent. Um, but it took him like four years to figure out that we hadn't paid the 5,000. That obviously shows you also what kind of business he was running. It was basically an investment fund and a pension plan for his kids. Um, and uh and then he got really mad at us and I literally just told him, you know what, mate, I mean, if

you pay into if you pay into something, the idea is that you kind of tells us if we have used it all, you haven't, so we haven't paid it. So then he basically got really angry with us and wanted to put lawyers on and all sorts of [ __ ] happened at the end. And then at one point I just we weren't making so basically when we started we had a rent discount. So we started at a rent with 32,000. Mhm. After 8 years we were at 68.

So double um and that basically it basically wasn't a a business that made any sense at the end. So, at the end, we just chose to pack it all down. Uh, with a little buttload of money in the bank, but uh the bank was I don't know if they were nice enough. Obviously, they knew that we were going to pay we were person liable for the debt. Um, but I basically we shut it down in August 12 and then I started looking for a new venue

and then I wanted to do something else cuz already with Barbarella the Rumlo started. So, if somebody out there knows me, they know me a bit from the rum world. Um, and the rum love already started uh during Babarella. So at one point in Babela in ' 07, I remember me and my brother, we're like, we love rum. We want all the dark rum we could find in the entire Danish market. We want all the bottles. So we basically went out and bought everything. And at

that point, we could buy 150 or 160 bottles, all the dark rum you could find. That that was it. That was one of my questions, but you already the answer to it where that love for the Rome came. So it came when you were in Barbarella. Actually, I mean, if you had to be completely honest, usually blame my parents cuz my parents used to have in the 80s they would do summer coffees. And summer coffees is basically rum and coke with ice cubes put in a

thermos, but when you pour it out of your thing and when you're on the beach, it kind of looks like you're drinking coffee. Yeah. Uh so I used to blame them. Um, and then obviously in the '90s when Havana Club came into into Europe, uh, when that deal was done with Penova, then we pretty quickly got Havana Club into the club where we used to work, like I said. Uh, and then I don't know, Braum has just always been the one thing that kind of talked

to me. I think it's um the it's a little less harsher than a whiskey and obviously doesn't have the Pete um, but obviously still have the sweetness that we know from the white American oak barrels. Uh so in that sense I think that was basically what started it. Um and yes so basically at Barbarella we had a giant shelf on top of the bar uh with those 150 bottles. Um and we obviously had yeah we had all those rums in. Uh we kept on buying more.

Um we had a lot of people coming in for the rum. Uh we're talking this was before Yeah. Yeah, we started buying that and we sold a bottle of Sakava before it was bought up by DIO because that was overly in 08 um 0 or 708. Uh and then so basically we just had it as a cocktail bar and a rumba and that was basically what we ended up making a lot of and that was the main business we had for the last long years basically

from 08 to 12. From 08 to 12. And then you moved into Rum Club. Yes. Cuz then obviously then uh we we shut down the business. uh we still owed quite a few quite a lot of money in the bank cuz we never really regained what we borrowed before the crisis. Um and then basically I said to uh so basically we had all this rub and then I uh I closed a new venue in Studioville. Mhm. Uh in the old Latin Quarter here in Copenhagen. Uh

and then trying to turn our old shop also into a bar. Uh, and there then we went out and bought a lot more rum cuz it just wanted to be like I was with Barbarella we always had to explain what it was a fusion concept. We had a clothing line. We had furniture, we had cocktails, we had food and it was DJs and it was live music and it was you know basically anything in the [ __ ] world you could put under a roof and serve some

alulture will do it right. So after that where it was such a multiple what do you call a multiple faceted business then I just wanted something really simple. I wanted something that I didn't need to explain. I wanted something that would explain itself. Um and then I did rum club and it's and funny enough I still people coming down into my rum clubing asking so is this a whiskey bar? And you have rum club with a big side across the entrance. every the staff was standing

in in in bartender, you know, the wear vests was said rum club, the menu said rum club, but we still had people asking whether it was a whiskey bar. Uh but no, so then basically I just wanted to open something that was simple. I didn't want to do anything with food. I just wanted booze, cocktails, and I wanted really high-end booze. Mhm. Um and then we signed in, if I'm not mistaken, we signed in January, February, and Mar something like that in 13. And then I

took over the place I think 1 of February. We rebuilt it during like two three months. Um and then we turned it into the first ROM club that we did in Studio. Oh, actually no, that's not true. Uh I opened up a place called Studio uh freak. What was it called? Uh with another old Copenhagen bartender who unfortunately is not with us anymore. His name was Grit. Um he um he and me um we had uh obviously Gromit has been coming to Rum Club for an

offer to to Barbara for many years after he was closing down Petri. He would always come in with the staff and get shitfaced at at our place. And when I had to redo Rum Club and he was basically other proper rum geek here in Copenhagen. He he was actually the guy who to who had me start blending myself uh when we had to do the rum club blends in the beginning. Um and basically uh we started a place called Studio Bar and Spirits if I'm not

mistaken or spirits and bar. And the whole idea was a little bit what we are doing with Ram Club now is that it was basically a bottle shop with a bar as well and we ran that together for about 6 months. Mhm. So everything ties to Rob basically. Yeah. Yeah, it ended up going pretty much that way cuz cuz then after 6 months with that then we had a bit of a disagreement. I stayed with the venue Gromit. He started his uh catering with what you

call it the readym made cocktails and all of that. And then uh and then I stayed and I turned it from that into rum club. Just 100% rum nothing else. Didn't want to do anything else. And back then in 1415 uh for no 134 was been we had about 500 different bottles of rum at rum club. Uh I'd also brought out some of my old selection my my personal one. So we would have uh the gold distilled the routers 25 releases. We would have uh uh

we would make cocktails and a lot of the villia releases that now a day are the treasure trove of many rum collections. We would do cocktails on them because obviously back then we'll get them thrown in our by the distributor hinted Makods. You've had Max in here. Um or not in here but yeah. Um and then uh so basically we just do uh we just do rum cocktails and it was all about the rum. We had 500 different bottles of rum. We open four days a

week. Uh no food, nothing. And it was just uh rum rum rum cocktails. We were though in a bit of a studio is known for being a bit of a like party street and next to us was some a place called Bar 7 actually owned by by one of my old bar managers called Shane. That's a completely different story. We won't get that into that here cuz I want to be able to keep keep it nicely. Um and uh and basically uh we had a lot

of people who would come in cuz who like the overflow, right? And we were very two very different spots. His was very much a party going town and mine was like high-end cocktails and exclusive. Um, but people would come down to the rum club go like, "Ah, it's a rum tub. Can we get a I want I want a Captain and Coke." And at one point I got really [ __ ] tired of it. So I went to my distributor and I found the most expensive Captain Morgan

you could, which is like $250 for a bottle. And then I put it behind the bar and then I said to my bartender like, "Really? next [ __ ] idiot who comes in and asks for a captain and co ser it but it's with that Captain Morgan and it's going to be 250 kronos like 35 bucks for Captain and co and that's it and they go like sure Daniel we can't wait and to the first [ __ ] idiot who came through and like yeah yeah you must you're a

rum club you must have captain and co yeah for sure here 250 kroners I'm like okay it really be good so yeah so anyways that was the that was the rum club that was 13 14 15 but by the time I got to 14 and got really into the rum. Um, I was learning more and more about it, but was also realizing how much [ __ ] there was in the rum category. And then I um and then I basically just then I started going to rum conferences.

Uh, as you I don't know if we've come into it, but obviously my my I'm I'm I'm a descendant of Chilean parents. Mh. Uh long story short on that poll is that uh so ancestors from from France, Basque region and Germany. That's why I look like a white dude. Um but my parents are really from Chile so also speak Spanish. Uh and that obviously opened up the entire rum world a lot to me cuz obviously then suddenly I could uh first of all there used to

be a Kavad used to be have a conference called the Madrid Rum Conference. He would do once a year and uh I would just pop up and say my opinion and it was kind of interesting because obviously uh the rum production world in Latin America is kind of tight-knitted and there's a lot of people who know each other. It's very big factories or distilleries who produce a buttload of rum and then you have a lot of private label around it. Um, but they're also a lot

used to doing stuff in a certain way. And in 134 when I was starting it, I was really tired of all the [ __ ] in the rum world cuz the from 05 when I really started having a lot of rum in Barbarella and up until about when I opened rum club, we were basically uh regurgitating all the marketing spiel, right? So it just be all the marketing [ __ ] we will get fed by the brand owners, then we'll sit down and say it. Um but when you start

realizing how much of it [ __ ] and I don't really like lying to people uh then um then you obviously get a bit annoyed. So uh so in 14 I think 13 or 14 went to my first ROM conference and I pretty quickly got noticed cuz obviously this is all these Latinos were sitting in this it's not a big conference. We're talking 60 80 people maybe in a hotel whatever you know. Yeah. Um and uh then suddenly this young white dude who speaks fluent Spanish. So when

everybody discussing I don't know they might be discussing soler age statements might discussing problems and disadvantages in the rum world. And I was really tired of the [ __ ] And then suddenly this little young white dude gets up with a fluent Spanish and says hey guys could you stop wanking around cuz I mean you're just scamming yourself. you're not building the category because you want to build the rum category and the category has to actually grow and you're just turning into another [ __ ] [ __ ] consumer thing. Then

we need to be aware that that you need to be sure that the lack of transparency you have is not going to build it. It's going to be to the contrary. So if you truly want to build up the rum categories or start having something that could resemble the whiskey category, uh then you need to stop lying and stop bullshitting, you know, just like that. And obviously I'm standing in a room with some of the biggest producers of rum who are used to being bullshitting and

have been bullshitting for decades. So obviously you meet some some interesting counterarguments and people obviously some got really upset and first of all because I said that they were lying and obviously they're not used to being called out on on you know they they talk with marketing executives and marketing bureaus and they would be like you know no no you know this works fine all that. But anyway, so that was my first really like confrontation with the with the rum world. But I [ __ ] loved it.

And obviously I was brought up in the old school Danish uh tradition of saying your opinion and does doesn't matter if it's not well heard or if you like what he's saying, but you should still say it. So I basically started there and then obviously that quickly gave me a bit of reputation in the industry because obviously who the freak is this dude who just calls it for what it is. And then I started working with um ENA Scare. Okay. Which now is a lot more

known than it was back then. Back then it was uh done by it was run by the old CEO. He unfortunately is not with us anymore. H and I was one of the one of the guys who were actually allowed to come into their warehouses. And ENH gear is a is um is a Dutch company that is older than the old Dutch West Indian company. So we're talking we're talking centuries and basically Inish have been uh have been uh specializing in bulk rum Iraq um uh

sourcing. So basically buying up rum from all the different distilleries taking it all to Amsterdam. Um they would at any given point have between 16 to 20 million liters of rum in their in the holdings in Amsterdam. And basically what they would be do they would be doing what I would call rum building blocks. So they would get the same distillates from the distillery over and over again. So a 5-year-old column still from Trinidad. They would get a a pot column still blend out of uh

Barbados for example a 8-year-old. Mhm. Uh but they would be sourcing the same liquid out of the different distilleries and they would have a flavor profile that distillery would supply for them because then they could build it in a building block. So they would have a building block that would be an 80-y old Barbados for example or a three-y old worthy park out of hand out of uh Jamaica. So if you have all these different building blocks then you can also start making blending recipes and

that's basically what they were specializing in. So a lot of the big private label brands we know today all have come out of gear. Uh something like Bankstrom that's an Inish gear product. Uh CDI company is Indiana France that was and obviously mine as well. Yeah. We wanted to talk about as well because we have them on the table and we have them more under the table. So, yes. So, when I started the whole the whole show uh we started at as rum club rum cuz

obviously together with um with the idea that I had uh with the bar and then the idea was like perfect. We'll do we'll do the most amazing blends that I need for cocktails. Mh. And then at the same time then we can uh then we can start selling them. [Music] Um, when I did, uh, I actually started as Rum Club rum as we have it here. The was a small little uh, half a liter bottle. Uh, basically I didn't know what the [ __ ] I was doing

with this one. Uh, if you notice it kind of funny detail. Let me show you. I don't know if the camera can catch this. That one over there. Okay. Beautiful. Yeah. If I do this, you see it's blatantly clear and then afterwards becomes really, really blurry. And that is because we needed to add a bit of sugar to this. But because I was 100% amateur when I did my first batch and I and I didn't want to use any artificial flavorings, then I literally took um

organic sugar that I diluted, we boiled up that we diluted that we added back to the rum. And obviously then if you don't filter it, you end up with a product like this. Um fortunately, my Danish distribution company kind of uh didn't mind the the what do you call it, the learning curve. Yeah. uh especially when they saw that was the first batch that we called rum club rum uh that I basically did out of ENA scare. We took it over to a girl in Tab

P in Tabdk which is just a bottling plant. Um they helped us a little bit with some advice on how to do this. But uh basically I uh I mean we we did we did fine but obviously there was a lot to learn and there is a yeah we we actually got silver on the San Francisco uh for that PG blend. We actually got silver in the San Francisco spirit composition because we sent some of the products over which I will say for a for a

first time uh offense around I was pretty pretty uh uh gracious and and thankful for that happening. I guess it gave you a bit of a boost of confidence once you Yeah, of course. This one to make the new new releases and still continue with this one. Yes. Because basically what happened was that we were doing rum club rum uh due to some network we had in the industry. We we got a heads up. I'm truly not sure whether that was a just a myth or

it was something that was true, but we got a heads up that a little French company who used to distribute this little Cuban brand with a club in the name was looking at our rum club rum and was looking to see whether they could do copyright infring infringement. Um I talked to different lawyers, they were all like, "Daniel, they cannot proprietary club and rum because obviously club and rum, you know, it's doesn't make any sense." Uh, but all my lawyers told me, "Daniel, if you've only

done one one batch, find another brand because you don't really want to be [ __ ] with it because the little French company has a whole office building in Paris where the first three floors are just lawyers sitting waiting to do people like you over." So, we went from Rum Club Rum, which was the first batch. As you see, it was a little half a liter bottle. We bottle it here in Denmark. Uh, the label was also done here in Denmark. Uh, as you notice, some of the

details are not exactly at the high level we wanted to, but we did pretty well. Um, but then we have to redo it and then I had to find a completely different name for it. So, we ended up doing ectctor spirits or ecto rum. What does ecto means? So, ectctor in Danish is spelled a with a e. So, not this one. This is actually more of a Norwegian spelling, but we wanted I didn't want to do a a Nordic alphabet on a brand because I know

it can be kind of if you want to go international. So, it came from eum, which means basically uh pure rum, like unadulterated rum. Um, but then it ended up with a Norwegian spelling because we didn't want to do the a with a e, the Danish letter. Uh, and then cuz obviously in Danish is a with a e g t e, but then we do e k t e and then we turn into ect in that sense. Um, and then obviously I did one of the

things I think if I'm in hindsight learning with this process. Um, I really wanted my bottles to look like nothing else out there. Mhm. Um, the first thing when we did this rum brand, I said to my graphical designer because obviously we started there and then we went over here was like, "Okay, so you can take your you can take your uh beaches. I don't want to see anything on that in my brand. You can take your coconut palm trees. I don't want to see it.

I don't want to see an old man on my label. I don't want to see an animal. Uh I don't want to see a pirate ship. I don't want to see a pirate. So anything that you would normal see on a brand on a brand on a rum brand. Yeah. I didn't want that to be part of my brand guide cuz I was really tired of it. And my whole idea was that we need to raise the bar of the rum category. And if we keep

on portraying oursel with a with a pirate and a boot and blah blah blah, then we will never raise the bar. Um, looking in hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have prohibited all of it. We should maybe done a modern pirate or some mutton whatever rum because the brand I mean in hindsight it might have been a bit too different. Mhm. Um, everybody who had it loved it. Uh, and then obviously we did a lot of with packaging and the branding. Um I I was really tired of

a lot of rum being again all about uh first of all no transparency. So in the website we could generated we had a complete detailed blend history of what was coming how it was done and and everything that was done to it. If we added sugar to the blends uh which obviously we were the one of the first who actually openly talked about how much sugar we were adding to to the rums. Um for those of you out there who don't know any rum that is

sweet in your mouth is always an additive. So, uh, your biggest brand like Sakaba, Plantation, Diplomatico, that had that sweetness in your mouth, always an added sugar. Um, and that, uh, and we want, we didn't want to be part of the scam of trying to cheat consumers. So, we basically did a full transparency and everything. Um, and we did the whole, yeah, the whole transparency on the bottle, how it was made, the labels. Uh and then we also were one of the first guys to actually

bring the the wine glass uh cork into the spirit category back in 14. Um so we used quite a lot of value to put into the brand also the nice bottle and the label done. You also see the big difference between the two labels. Um and it was a lot about the product development. It did also help quite a lot that we went to a distillery to bottle this. um from this batch uh I read it to um a friend that I had we had connected

but we hadn't really thoroughly connected and he's a brother from he's one of my brothers from another mother his name is Santi um and he saw that and he saw the unfilled and he's like oh Daniel did you really get away with it and I'm like yeah kind of it's Danish and you know Danish the the Danish consumer love anything Danish so we kind of got away with daylight robbery and then he laughed his ass off and then he went like okay perfect angel we should

definitely improve that next time you do your batches, come down to Acha and then um Acha Distillery. [ __ ] I mean, it's another little hidden gem. So, about 30 km south of Bilbao in a little town called Amuro. Mhm. Um you have basically the second oldest familyrun distillery still operating in Europe from 1836 if I'm not mistaken. And funny story, the distillery has one of the best pure clean water supplies I've ever tried. Like the water they have is nuts. And funny story, the only reason why

the city has water is because the owner of the distillery brought down the water from the mountain and actually gave it to the city and that's why the distillery has free water forever. Um um and then suddenly I was standing in Acha obviously then we're in Spain they're used to producing both obviously I mean they distillery suddenly a lot of things could go a lot better. So we took the products I had and the blends we had that I had just manipulated myself with some sugar

and stuff like that and then we got it into more professional setup. Um so we started doing uh sweetness also added to it but with proper inverted sugars instead of just doing Mhm. regular sugars. And the good thing with inverted sugars to regular sugars is actually that mimics a bit more the sweetness you get from a barrel. So inverted sugars were where regular sweetness would usually hit your tip of your tongue as the first. So as soon as you have it, it just covers your tongue

where inverted sugars would normally actually more be resembling sweet you have in a barrel and would be more be sitting in the side of your mouth in that sense. Um and that and that basically changed a lot of the level of what we could do. Another thing that obviously I hadn't done which S introduced me to um was uh chipping. Mhm. Oak chipping, especially with blends, is a really good idea because if you have a blend, then if you really want to mash together the alcohols

after they've been blended, the easiest way is putting through some chipping and some oxidization because obviously if you do a bit of chip, it would be extracting some of all those out of the wood chips. If you add the oxygen to it, you are reinforcing uh how you call it um you're hurrying up an aging process because aging is just an oxidization of your alcohols. Yeah. Um and basically so we started doing chipping of our products which which uh with a lot of virgin American oak

chips uh which would tend to generate this a lot of butterscotch and molina nose that we loved but without having to add the sweetness to the to the rums. Um, so I would say that it was that was like the level from from where we went from basically me [ __ ] around with a big IPC container and not really knowing what the freak we were doing to taking it up a level and actually start producing with people who did this for a living. Um, I have one

uh one question for you, follow-up question on this one. Were you ever taking classes or you were learning it by doing it primarily into the Roma world? No, that's not true. I say I've never taken a class. That's is actually not true. I did um I drank my way through Louisville, Kentucky, so bourbon country. I went to um Louis Ayala who runs the rum magazine. He does rum university which basically is a a week course which is really beautiful where you get to learn everything like

all the basics for distilling and how to make your rum and what affects your rum production, your fermentation times, your obviously your yeast, uh your aging and what you're doing it and how you distill it. So if it's a column of pots still depending on what kind of liquid you do. So yes I did that but I think actually I did that course after the first batch of this one. So I done that batch and I've done this batch at the distillery where we work with

the I mean with the distillery and we worked with the guys at the distillery who are used to making products. Um and then I went to do the course which was kind of funny because obviously then a lot of the things going on at the course it was you know they were basic to me but also there was a lot of things that actually um that actually was clarified for me on that course. Um, and so the only course I've had is 5day 5 days course

at Moonshine University is actually called in Louisville, Kentucky. And then obviously I would say I had five three days ahead and three days afterwards where we drank our way through all the bourbon we could find in Louisville. Mhm. Um and uh and that's the only master that's actually the only course I've taken or else everything I know about this is learned by doing and passion obviously and passion and then obviously just drinking it and understanding and then also I think obviously having an understanding of the

chemical processes and everything that goes on in a barrel and everything that goes on in a in a spirit and what actually happen during your fermentation and what and at least what influence a lot on these different liquids that you can generate because obviously sugar and yeast and a distillation apparatus doesn't generate necessarily the same liquid. You can do 120 different liquids depending on how long you ferment and how how you pull out your liquid and all these different things, right? So yeah, so it's a

a very much uh like most other things actually I've learned myself, it's just been by doing it. Um it has been um it has been interesting I will say. Uh there is there I mean um so for example um obviously I got the medal for that one which obviously was a big uh how you say pat on my own shoulders. Um uh we gave the whole product range to a Danish distribution company and they were just getting started on the booze. They were really good at

selling wine but they came to me and actually asked me to develop a brand for them and then I'm like yeah sure I'll develop my own brand and you can have it not a problem. Uh I am thankful for the support they gave me. The guys are called Vinopler. Um cuz I don't know if a lot of people would take that kind of a risk today and it was very much just like yeah Daniel you go we'll buy first order 1 million cronis perfect yes okay

I can do that. Um I guess the competition in that time there wasn't such a high competition in Denmark at least with the somehow private label because No no no no. I mean this was I mean right now I mean if we uh today the amount of [ __ ] you get private labelled I mean it's nuts, right? I mean I can I think I'm down to 24 bottles of gin. I can call somebody up and make a label for it and call it my own. Uh that

is nuts. When I started this the the smallest quotes I would get would be four or five pallets and a pallet is usually around 600 bottles 600 bottles at least. Mhm. Uh so if you had to do five it's 3,000 units. That's a buttload. I mean, and if you don't know and you don't have sales and all that, that's a lot. So, yeah. Um, so, but fortunately, due to the fact I worked at the first the first batch we did here, I talked to P and

we could get down into how many MOQs there was and afterwards at the distillery through the network guy, I ended up getting with Santi uh and the relationship I got with the owner of the distillery down there called Gabby. He's also an amazing guy. Um, went down and going down to two pallets that we were allowed to put through the machinery. uh and then I would have a higher startup fee because obviously the cleaning of the machinery, the the the tubes for the filling machine and

all that that is actually what's end up taking a lot of a lot of the time for them too going from one batch to another. Um uh and so yeah, so that was so so so the learning by doing and uh and not at least all the little gimmicks cuz obviously if you're running into the still has been running forund and I don't know yeah almost gez [ __ ] it's going to be 200 years in not a long time. Um then obviously they have some um they

have some tricks up their sleeves and they can do some stuff with the liquids. And it's kind of interesting cuz the one thing I see actually with a lot of the bottlers here in Denmark now I see a lot of mistakes that are primarily mistakes and are not how you say that are not avoided primarily because we've had too many years with no distilleries. So all the knowledge that used to be in distilleries also here in Denmark basically on how you can make products better and

all of that the little yeah the little tricks are all most of it is gone. Mhm. Because obviously there haven't been a distillery there haven't been any any small distillery where that knowledge have been surpassed generations to generations to generations. All the distillery we used to have here in Denmark in the 80s and 90s there would be the big distilleries. So we're talking it's like your aqua in Norway right? So we produce Akavit, but it's it's Albo. Uh it's the Danish spirits factories, which is basically

just all the sugar beat factories is their one of their sister companies and they make a buttload of neutral alcohol and they turn that into schnaps. Not really interesting because obviously it's just it's just a neutral spirit and they add some common flavor and there you go. Mhm. Um, and that's kind of funny because obviously a lot of the tricks I learned under I see that we don't have them here and the knowledge is kind of forgotten in here because obviously we don't and all the

people gotten into the industry are fairly new. So that's kind of interesting cuz I see that that in the places where they've kept the distilleries running, they haven't forgotten all those little tricks. And the funny thing is there was that old dude in the tabil Jesus I forgot what his name was and he was like Daniel but if you need to figure out how that I mean there's an old trick I can tell you but you can't tell the owner cuz she doesn't approve of it.

I'm like, "What do you mean? Take that [ __ ] we just bottled or take that we just mixed. Take that, put it in the back of your car, drive around with it for 5 days, and after 5 days, you have a pretty good idea how the end product is going to be." And I was about to wait for 4 weeks. And I mean, what do you mean? And he's like, "Yeah, yeah, don't worry. It's the oldest trick we used to do." And the And then he told

me, "Whatever, it still used to work at like 40 years ago." And he's the oldest trick you used to do is just tuck it out there cuz obviously with all moving around and all of that, then your alcohols kind of settle in. And if you run around with it with like 5 days, then it's more or less the same. That's going to take like for a week. And I laugh my ass off. And what did I do? Of course, I took one of the bottles from

the to the back of the car. Like, yeah, sure. I mean, what the [ __ ] am I going to wait for four weeks for a week? I can do this in 5 days. Uh so, and those are the kind of the little things that I I kind of see and especially some of the releases that we see that for very little knowledge, you could improve it quite heavily and you could do something different with it, right? Um yeah I mean I see it as well in the

bartending world when when I started to to bartend personally I was taught by the OGs of the bartending to do it. you know somebody sitting into your back and say you don't do it right you have to do this which sometimes doesn't make sense as a young bartender say I know better but then your wrist starts to hurt and then you like maybe I should try but that is exactly it right so no and that's also the funny thing like you say yeah bars as well

right so um if you want to go into that the first the first few bars are made in comparison to the last bars we've been made it's obviously a very big difference. Obviously, what I've just done in Rum Club is a [ __ ] show, but that's we'll get to that story later. Um uh but yeah, no, no, definitely there's a reason many times why people do it the way they've done it and and but sometimes also it's the younger it's the younger's role to make that own

experience of going like, "Oh, [ __ ] that old wanker. He was so right. I mean, if I did it here, it would be a lot better and I wouldn't be killing my arm the next day." Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, in that sense. So, yeah. Um but no no so obviously we did we elevated completely level on the ecto spirits. Uh we had that for a few batches. Uh released the first one I think was 15 if I'm not mistaken. 15 16 and then we opened up

here in Denmark. We had distribution in Germany as well. Uh we had uh some uh we were trying to close in in Paris which was actually one of the biggest biggest talks we had for a long time. Uh we also had some small distribution in Spain. Uh, and they were trying to get it into Sweden and Norway. Mhm. Um, out of all of those talks, cuz the distribution company in Germany was small, they did they did okay. Um, in Spain, we had there wasn't really any

rum category as such. So, we had just a little bit out of the distillery and selling to a few people that I knew. Um, but the one that really I spent quite a lot of energy on and that was really the one I I if I landed that would have been a completely different story I would have written. That was a chat that we spent six months on with Laurier. Um, uh, because it is the big oldest champagne company. Um, they were looking for a new

rum brand for the French market. We ran into them at Rumfest Paris. um and uh they saw an entire portfolio and they just looked at it and went like, "Oh, this looks awesome. We would love to see if we can work with this." Cuz obviously one is we had all these regular ones. If you want to grab the box also over there. Then on top of that, then we quickly released uh after out of all the blends of the of the transparency, then we also released

the the this the single casks um that we um that we ended up uh doing. And basically the single cask we tried to do uh again with the packaging as you see it's probably one of the most luxurious packaging that you see in the rum world. Uh when we started doing that people they looked at me went like you're [ __ ] nuts. Nobody's going to pay for that in the rum world and I believed in it. Um so we did the whole storytelling also of the brand

inside and the distillery and all of that. Um at that point we were at very much at the forefront of the rum industry. At that point the only ones doing cask strength in the rum industry was obviously they've been doing it most of the time and then it had um CDI company desendes with fl back then uh he was also doing it and then we were doing it um and obviously the whole idea with single or castring rums was basically inspired by the whiskey world. Mhm.

Why would you I mean if you find beautiful bottles of rum or beautiful barrels of rum, why don't you just release it as it is after all the years and then do numbered bottles? And this is when basically we're talking 14 15 is where you start seeing the rum category trying to mimic a bit more the whiskey world. Mhm. Um, which brings me to I think one of the most interesting points I've I've I've ran into in the with all the talks I've had in the

industry is actually Richard Seal who runs uh who is the Seal family who owns the four square distillery at one of the conferences in um I think this was 14 or 15 or something like that in Madrid. He stands up and has a talk in front of all of these um and I remember this is I think it's the second or third year I'm attending. Uh, and I've already I've al already start talking about this thing about transparency and then we need transparency if we want

to grow the category and all of that. And then Richard Seal joins the room when he comes in and obviously it's really interesting because a lot of the English speaking rum world and the Spanish speaking rum world don't have a lot of things where they kind of cross reference each other. is still very divided, which I find really funny because obviously they're all producing the same stuff and they all, you know, but anyway, so he comes in and he basically says, um, the problem with the

rum category today is that it can go two ways. Either we go the vodka way, which is all perceived value. So that means that there's nothing about what's actually inside the liquid. It's not about how it's produced. It's all about how it appears. So fancy ass bottles with beautiful or whatever logos and writings on and blah blah blah all that crap like the Belvadier or the Grey Goo or I think the ladies we even have a Danish one called I am vodka with no intrinsic value

rather than being a [ __ ] n you know it's ethanol. Uh oh no sorry I forget the expense the difference between your expensive and your cheap vodka is that the cheap vodka always add a little bit of glycerin to it and they do this because you basically manipulate the alcohols. If you add a bit of glycerin to your regular alcohol, you change the viscosity in the liquid, so it smells a lot more smoother and you also encapsulate the alcohol molecule so you don't taste it. So it's

more pure. I would say it's more unpure because you're adding chemicals to it, but then again, most people would accept it being a much more high quality product because it's a lot smoother and we don't taste the alcohol as much. Um, and that is basically the only difference between your, I don't know, 100 kron of vodka in the supermarket and your 500 kron vodka in your retail store or your 3,000 kron of vodka in your nightclub. That is that those are added a little bit of

glycerin. That's it. The base product is the same. Uh, anyway, so yeah, so that's the vodka way. So it's all about perceived value [ __ ] And you know, because obviously you vodka cannot have a lot of intrinsic value. Or we can go the whiskey way. And the whiskey way is always about the the intrinsic value of the product. That means that preferably I would like to know what the master distiller had for breakfast, what kind of coffee you had and how that influenced the yeast strain that

you ended up putting into my wash the day you started fermenting before you even start distilling. Mhm. And if I know all of that about the product, then I have a pretty good idea what's going to happen with the when I put this product into a barrel. And that's going to be a pretty good idea of what's going to come out of the barrel after 15, 20, 25 years. What would you say would be one of the most important lessons that you learned while developing the

whole ROMs or the whole category of ROMs when you did your ECT? I would say, can I be honest? Yeah. So this is this is not this is this is this is not going to work with a blue pill of the world. So I'm going to say something that you're not going to hear in a lot of different places. Never be number one. Mhm. Always be number five, eight or number 10. Okay. Can you elaborate on that one? Yeah, for damn sure. If you're number one,

you're paying for the development of the market. And you need to have enough money to stick around until the market actually grows to the capacity you need to. Mhm. Obviously, if you come with big money behind you, you can wait all the time in the world and you can build that market. It's not a problem. If you're small independent guy, that can be hard. And especially if you're running everything out of your own pocket. Mhm. And especially if [Music] you how to say this in a

very nice manner. If you want to be number one, have enough money to stick around being number one because the biggest issue is whether or not you can actually ride it long enough for the market to actually grow up. So you can take the position of number one. So with actor, we started in 14 due to some let's just say difference of opinions with our with the investors that end up pulling into it. I closed the business in 18. I could have kept on but I

would have been one of these classical minority shareholders of their own businesses and we have a buttload of suits sitting behind you making all your money and I couldn't do that. Mhm. It didn't have an interest of me. I had sacrificed way too much to sit down being a minority shareholder of the work I've done myself. Um, and that was the backside of it cuz it didn't pick up enough quick enough for us to actually So, I would say never be number one. And I think

the other would be never hand out your never give your entire never give your local model your local market entirely to a distribution company. That would be the other one I I think I've learned from that. The biggest issue I had with Eggde at the end was that we were not allowed to do anything locally. Um, so when we tried to push some products and we tried to get some products known and get them out to work for us locally and obviously our local market was

supposed to be here the the the safe base, right? So that was generating enough sales so we could [ __ ] around doing all the things in the export markets and trying to see if we could open up other markets and yada yada. Unfortunately, the we didn't grow enough here in Denmark and so the orders from our distribution company wasn't uh they weren't reurring quick enough. Um and then we were picking up different markets. We started doing uh other products. So we did some organic products, different styles

um um because we're trying to besides the rum that we had, we had five different blends. So, we had a the white rum, we had a spiced rum, we had a sweet rum, we had a the same as the sweet rum, but just unsweetened because I liked both blends. And then we did a a rum geek version, which was basically a version of the of a Jamaican pastel that we did ourselves, but it was not so expensive, but it was really beautiful. Mhm. Um, and and

but the five blends, there were only two that were very commercially viable in that sense. Obviously, it was the spice room, it was the sweet room. Our white rum was a bit too expensive the way it came out because the white rum we ended up making was uh partially aged. So if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. So this white rum was uh 50% on comstead out of Trinidad. It was about uh uh 20% uh 3year-old out of Worthy Park. pot still um it was uh 20% if

I'm not mistaken um the Barbados 5 column pot column still blend or was it an eight I can't remember one of those and then at the end it was some uh some unaged uh worthy park so highest or Jamaican rum um and funny thing is that obviously the vados that is in here comes out of Richard Seal right and this is actually a funny story about this blend here yeah Actually, we can put it on top. Yes. So, that blend there, uh, the funny story with

that blend there is that the first time I gave this to um to Richard Seal, I meet him in that's got to be 15 or 16 in uh in uh in Berlin. Um I can't remember if it's the rum show or if it's the if it's the BCB, one of them, whatever. Um and it was before I actually had a stand at the show. I would literally just show up and I would have all my different bottles in in like a rolly bag and then I

would go in as a regular person and I would go around talk to everybody and I'll be pouring out of my bag cuz I didn't have the money. So, you know, that's how you like any other small distiller. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like all us small gypsy independent gypsies that walk around and try to make [ __ ] work, right? So anyway, so the funny story is that I gave this to the first time I gave this to Richard Seal and obviously some of Seal's rums in this

and I gave it to Richard Seal and I go like, "Hey Richard Seal, look look I improved your rums." And then he went like, "What do you mean you improved my rums and then he tried it and we're like, "Oh, you bastardized my rum with some Jamaican." I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no. You completely misunderstood, Richard. I improved it." Um, and that is kind of funny because this blend ended up so I had this blend for a few years running and after a few years

I tried the Luca Kakano and Richard Seals Veritas blend. I think in in Euro in US it's called Prohibitas or something like that. It has a different name whatever and I'm not saying it's completely my blend but I will say it's completely it's very much very very very much inspired by that blend there. Uh I uh I think it's fun to see how people have evolved also within the category. So the first time I met Richard Seal, he he would never bottle anything above 43 ABV.

The first time me and Danielle Leondi actually from Luca from Gaganos and Millia um Daniel Leondi we were trying to talk to Richard and go like why don't you just bottle come on keep just do a Navy strength 57 come on I mean dare yourself you know and he would always be sitting and we're talking 1450 be like no douies has never bottled anything about 46 and we will never do so which is kind of funny when you think about it nowadays that he has his

exceptional cask series that he's been completely known for around the world which is cast strength trouble GH dr rum. That is kind of funny, but obviously we all evolve and he also evolved because obviously he suddenly saw that people were actually demanding cast string drums and obviously not something that has always been around. Uh so that's kind of funny. I don't know. So yes, so uh I've been it's been a solo metal and that has been copied by some of the really big rum guys. So

I've had some kind of influence and at least I can see a lot of the packaging. So the packaging has gone up quite heavily in rum. Um where yeah 15 years ago they were all just packing in the cheapest ass cardboard boxes and now people actually care about the packaging. Um yes. So from this one from ECE you moved to the next one. Yeah actually so from this one we actually did a little of a detour. So we had that where let me put it. Yeah.

Okay. And then we Yes. And then the other one. Uh let me just see this one. Uh so yeah. So from from the actor when I started seeing so first of all we started we started having a bit of an office we started seeing different trends going around uh so already in this has been 15 [ __ ] it's already 10 years ago pardon my French um in 15 we ended up I had some few uh what do you call it questions and going into if I could

do an organic uh brand of booze um and basically I'm like yeah sure why not um like I usually do with most of my things. So I just went yeah sure I mean we can find some beautiful vodkas we can probably the distillery they have been at Acha distillery they've been making gins since 1850 something so you know so I called down to Gabby and he was actually one of the first organic approved distilleries in Spain from the midos and uh so I call him like

hey Gabby can we yeah sure Daniel and then obviously with Santi with Santi he's like like I said he's my he's my brother from another mother. I can talk flavor with him like very few. So I can literally have a phone call with him going, "Santi, I need a sample." And then I'll sit down and I'll tell him, "I need this and this and this and this. I want the tasting notes to be this and this and this and this. We need to finish to be

here. Can you please make sure that the back of my palette this is what hits me?" You've told me about this story and uh when we had a chat about vints ago, which we're going to get it in in shortly. Yeah. And so basically I just called him up and I went to both of them and Gabby's like, "Yeah, dang it. What the hell? Do what you need to." And then we'll figure out like, "Yeah, but MQs and stuff." Cuz it was still like a prior

trial. Yeah. Yeah. Dang it. You know me. You you're part of the family. So just come down. So we ended up making the rum we had some order for. So we made three pallets of this. And then we made also a gin and a vodka next to it. Mhm. Um uh and that was supposed to be the high-end version of it. Um and we got it sold into I can't remember if it was a Danish music festival or but the distribution company had that order. So

when we supplied them like yeah sure perfect why not we'll do that for you. Um it came out looking like this which I still find really like a sexy bottle. It's really pure. It's really simple. I've always been for the little bit more of the like clean Nordic design instead of too much [ __ ] Um, so we did that and they delivered the two pallets for the client. They had to and then we also did the gin and the rum. And then I started a bit to

go like, okay, if we can do this, but the problem is always been my packaging part. Uh, this lit is almost as expensive as the bottle, which is nuts. Uh, the label with a cutout and the gold is not the cheapest neither. Um, so we spent quite a lot in of on on the packaging part. So it ended up coming out a bit of an expensive product. Uh, if I'm not mistaken, this was needing to retail around 300 kroners, which is quite a lot uh 10

years ago. Uh, so they came back to me and they were like, "Hey, Daniel, we love it. The quality is spot on. We've sold the two pilots, but the other products seem to be a bit too expensive." So after that, then I'm like, "Okay, sure. I mean then if you we can always do a product and then you can flip around and change it and then wind up making something like this. So we did the Perua um this was my own brand uh that I did

but the Perua I developed together with Archae Distillery itself. So it's a brand I have with them um um which is calling it Perua spirits uh Perua comes from Basque and actually means pure so pure spirits. Um and my whole idea again with the expression of it as you seen simple obviously use a bit of gold but not in a clean the bottle is a completely different quality bottle and everything but then we could go down and hit a few price points that would be accessible

for on trade and off trade. Um and then we developed that um in yeah so we have four versions series where the spiced drum, the rum, the gin and the vodka. Um, and we're talking 167 1617. Um, but besides this, the whole idea was we will do it in five and 10 liters back in boxes as well because then we could take the prices really down. And the whole idea was I wanted to find a Danish distribution company that could get the gun to go out

and basically kill all the big because if we did a 510 liter backend box, we could basically beat the most, you know, uh, marketed prices from all the big ones. Yeah. at that point because then we didn't spend money on the glass. It was right before the sustainability trend basically like the actual sustainability trend when I would say yes I would say again I was out about uh year or no a year three ahead. Mhm. And funny enough, I with the distribution company I talked to

here in Denmark about this, like, "Oh, yeah, Danielle, but I mean, we would love to, but we don't. I mean, we don't we know if the market is still there, blah, blah, blah." And then I told them about the bag in boxes because I I one thing we truly do not understand in this industry and most consumers have no idea is that about 50% of your of your CO2 emission on your bottles of either wine or spirits or whatever is actually the bottle. the bottle and

the and the sand that is needed to make the bottle is an scarce product or I say resource. So the idea that we everyday think that we need to open every bottle that we use on a daily basis a brand new bottle is actually rather insanity. And that was a bit the whole idea actually for the backend boxes was that we my idea was to do backend boxes but do them a bit high ABV so people would water and d themselves cuz if you think about

it this if this is 40% it's cuz it's 60% water. Yeah. You know makes no sense like we should have prohibited water companies 10 years ago cuz we all know that water companies don't produce water. They only produce plastic you know. Yeah. Yeah. That's again all my [ __ ] So anyway so uh so yeah. So we did all of this. So we talked to all of them and we went out and we tried to find distribution for it and none of them they were like ah dang

it it's a bit too much and it's a bit and obviously they all now have their own versions of it. Um yeah so all of these products you've done through the the whole years obviously you did not stop in there I mean no based on how I know you privately apart from this podcast I know you did not stop there so you did everything as far as I know you started ect when in Barbarella uh no in Ram club in Ram club yes you started ect

you had the perua and also the eco spirits inco spirits Yeah. And then you moved locations with the ROM club. Yes. So basically in I sold the first ROM club in 15 to Shane that my former bar manager. That longer story. I sold it to him. That has been Yeah. 15. No, January 16. He got it. I was running Rum Club in studio 12 for 14 and 15. Yeah. More or less. Uh, and uh, and then we I sold it off to him cuz I wanted

to dedicate myself to the rum. Just the rum. I don't have a bar, nothing else. Um, and then I dedicated myself to that for like two years. So 16, 17. And uh, doing 18 I ended up folding it. Um uh and then it was a big hit on a personal level, financial, psychological. Mhm. On all I think major counts. That was the big hit. Um I also took on a personal level some other hits a few years before when I got divorced, but that was it

was that took me some time. I basically after I realized that I just shut down and I was stand left with nothing. Um, it took about 6 months lying in bed, sleeping, doing [ __ ] all and not really having the best time of my life. At one point, fortunately, I had my old dad who kicked my ass at one point just got enough of it. I like, Daniel, you need to figure something out because you cannot I mean, you were way too young to sit at home

and just cry. You need to go and go out there. Um and then that has been yeah that must been 18 and in 18 then actually I started working at um and my sister as well. So my dad kicked my ass and my sister went over and she was like Daniel you need to work you cannot just lie at home. And obviously I didn't have any finances for it neither. I was literally bankrupt and I was just I've never been a big spender so I can

I don't need a lot of money to live on. Um, that said, I don't like spending money cuz I've done that through my years. But anyway, so um, so at one point in 18, if I'm not mistaken, then my sister grabs me and she goes like, "Daniel, you need to go into work." And then I go end up being a event executor at Dicky. Mhm. And it was just cuz I needed something where people didn't know me, people didn't know who I was, people didn't I

was just another weird cat just coming in and doing work. and basically in diggy bean I end up doing um uh over the half year a bit more that I'm there I ended up I basically come back twice uh first of all it's great pay if you just walk in from the street and just get paid for the hours you're there um and then end up standing with all the big parties and the Christmas parties in I was the last guy always because all the other

people in charge went home at midnight and then I usually should close it at 4 in the morning and besides that then I ended up also I suddenly realized that there were missing people also in the kitchen staff. So I would either I would do kitchen as well. I used to work as a chef. Um so I would just go in and it was kind of interesting cuz it was like after years where everything was in my head and everything was computers and phone calls and

sales and strategies and all that crap. Then it was just like [ __ ] it all. Um I don't have any responsibilities. I come in, I get a ex I get a a plan whenever I meet in. I know I need to deal with all these [ __ ] issues over the next eight hours and that's it. Um, and then just execute. And it would either be in a bar or a bar setup or set up, you know, and I was in there is giant setup. So, you know, it's

1500 people coming in for Christmas lunch. You try to serve 1500 pieces of fried fish hot at the same freaking time. So, it's logistics. Um, and that really got me into the whole logistics part behind the event thing. Uh, and then I spent Yes, I spent uh I think 18 and 19 there. Um, on and off uh and they they kind of they knew they could have put me basically to anything. No, I just said, "Dang on it. He'll figure it out. It'll get solved." Um,

and I was there for about two years. They tried to offer me a job. I've never really been good at working in in in in organizations. I don't I don't do organizational politics really well. I don't know when to shut up. So, um so basically uh they offered me this position as what would call an it's basically it's one it's like a supervisor managerial position like a supervisor management position. Mhm. Um fixed pay come in and do the work. And it was actually down in the

they have I don't know if you know but they have this little bowling arena beneath the gy and I go down there and it was on a I remember was on a Christmas lunch day and I was doing co making conference and I was doing bowling the bowling thing and I was bit just walking around and nobody asked me anything cuz everybody know okay Daniel he's got it covered don't you know he'll do his [ __ ] Um and then um Y which used to used to run

like the whole food and beverage for Diggy, she would come up to me that one Friday and she went like, "Ah, Daniel, I mean we we've talked a lot about you in within like the middle management group and we would like for you to be part of our team." And I was like, "Oh, sure. Thanks. I mean, that's beautiful." And then uh but we'd like you to start down in the bowling to be part of that team and then work up your way all the way

up to the other conference and blah blah blah. I'm like, "Yeah, sure. Not a problem. Let me think about it." And it was the same night I was actually working in that bowling area. And I might be one of those old school guys who never really got the ADHD diagnosis. So when I get bored, I just start doing a buttload of work. So I was we were not very busy in the in the in the bowling area that Friday night. So I start cleaning up. And

when I clean up, I do like best ADHD guys and we split apart everything. So I literally end up going in. So I split apart out the entire bag area of of that whole bowling area and um I end up cleaning up beneath the draft beer machine. Um and the problem is that when I clean up beneath it, I find the rest of the the Python uh what do you call it? The hoses. Yeah. The pipes. Yeah. So basically the pipes that are in the the

pipe the system that runs the the beer system, right? Yeah. Um, those are called Python pipes in Danish. I don't know if English as well, but anyway, I find the leftover Python pipes that were cut off when they installed the beer tap machine under the beer tap machine. And I literally and and then so she she asked me during the afternoon whether I wanted to and then I ran into a few hours later and I go, "Hey, quick question. When did you guys change uh beer

uh what do you call it suppliers last?" Oh, that was when we went from Hel to Kalsburg or Tubbo, whatever. We have two big ones here in Denmark. So, whatever three years they would switch because then whoever pays the most, right? Yeah. And then then it was like two three years ago. I'm like, "Okay, Yina, I got to tell you something then. I just cleaned up your entire [ __ ] back room and I just removed those python pipes." Is it fair to say that you have run

a business now here for three years and even though you have professional cleaners, you have professional staff all over the place, none has cleaned beneath your beard tap system for 3 years. And she looks at me and goes like and she has no answer cuz it doesn't fit in her. And of I never got the job [Music] afterwards because I mean you don't want one who suddenly starts asking all these question or actually starts doing the job because of them you know. Yeah. So that's um

so yeah. So that was basically uh that was 1819. In uh in February 19 I signed the lease on the rum club which supposed to be open to today now in Copenhagen. Mhm. So 1st of February 19. But then I also start my first rum show called Commodic Rumf Fest which we host in the summer of 19 the first year we do it out in um uh the plant it's called as a venue the most beautiful rum show I mean for the looks of it alo

we paid a buttload I was really try I was really tired of all these shows where I would go out and it would look like [ __ ] basically whatever foldable white table would be set up and some white cloth than that and I was really tired of it also especially here in Denmark. So I really wanted to raise the bar. So basically what I did for my first drum show here in Denmark was I talked to um PB agency which is uh the producer behind or used

to be the producer behind uh BCB in Germany and also German Rum Test and I would literally just talk to them and I would uh I call them like okay perfect. I need you to deliver 40 stands into Copenhagen. I need a fixed price. I need you guys to deliver it, supply it, including print job and everything. I just need to know and I want deadlines and I want you guys. So, we set up all of that. It looked really beautiful. We only settle sold about

500 tickets. Didn't survive. Um, but I closed that business and then but I was very much I had an idea of what to do next. So we and then obviously I've been working at Diggy Bun which is sitting on top of a place called Urgnan which basically is the big slaughter house in the old historical slaughter house here in Denmark in Copen. Beautiful venue, giant venue, 5,000 square meters and I just talked to because obviously they were my bosses as well. So during 19 I talk

to the Gibb and say [ __ ] I want to do my next sorry guys I want to do my next uh big rum show here in Mhm. And then we start planning and everything went really really well. We sold a buttload of tickets. I remember we had sold. So yeah this is also how weird Corona was for me. So basically I I start the so we do this the we do the first show in in June 19. Uh I pro pretty quickly realized that that the that

the that the company wouldn't maybe not survive. So the reliable limited company will not survive because the the loss is too big. So it would transfer of of basically of all what's left of brand and all of that into a new company. We start the new company. We set up the we start selling obviously stands and all of that. Uh the industry is behind so they want it. Um and then I do an order cuz we need a lot of logistics. So uh you know dishwashing

trays cuz suddenly if you need to shuffle three 4,000 glasses around an hour then you need a lot of logistics to do that. So, we got all of that in and I ordered all of that in China in October 19 cuz basically I could order everything in China, get it delivered here for with the delivery for a quarter of the price if I tried to buy it from my European suppliers. Uh, and basically what what happened was that uh that so we put down the order

in October, I paid it in November. I have always seen a lot more international politics than Danish. Mhm. And then I uh in November I started seeing the first reports that comes from Wuhan and and China and all of this and the co the corona vir virus and all of that. I talked to my Chinese suppliers in November. They're like, "No, no, Danielle, don't worry." You know, it's a bit of a bug, but we got a cover. We got your things are done. They're packed. They're

ready to get shipped. In December, I get a second confirmation on everything is good, Daniel, because I asked for it to be supplied in March. So, I didn't have to put it up anywhere. Would just be delivered straight. Um, and then in at the end of December, I get a call from a plastic guy in China and they go like, "Mr. Nunes, yes, what can I do for you? We're so sorry. Everything is shut down." I'm like, "Yeah, I kind of, you know, I was kind

of waiting for that because we've seen how the progression since October, November, December with the whole Corona thing and how China was dealing more and more with it. Obviously, we here in the wide world, we didn't really we're just looking at those dirty Chinese thought and they couldn't wash their hands." Anyway, so um so in January um so basically I had to cancel it in December. That's for my IBAN number which is for all the American viewers is the international banking route number. Um and then

basically 5 days later I got the entire cash in my account. So you got the return of the full complete and I would say from from the Chinese company and usually they don't have the best reputation but those guys they were giant and they didn't really care. They prefer for you know for come back to more business and you knew you were going to stop that show or No, but that was the problem. We didn't call it here and I was still very very not we

didn't really know what was going on. So obviously I'm looking at so basically the first week of January we need to execute on third or fourth of April 20. At that point, people were still buying tickets because people didn't buy, you know. So, at that point with a good Christmas sales, we've sold 1,600 tickets before just doing up to Christmas. So, we were happy. We were thrilled. We need about two two and a half thousand tickets sold and we break even. And I was kind of,

you know, for if we still had like three months of running. So, I was pretty I was pretty convinced that we could do that. Mhm. Um and then so I need to until I don't know we canled then I I need to go like we normal. So in January I start being on the phone with different suppliers figuring out where the freak I can buy all the stuff at a decent price and all of that. So we end up ordering everything home to deliver it anyway

in March out of a supplier out of Italy through some network in Denmark. Um, but obviously the funny thing is that I'm just looking at this going like, [ __ ] I'm finally with my big show and obviously everything closing down and everything was like, okay, this is going to go. This is going to turn into [ __ ] Um, but obviously we need to I've got a green light until I know we don't have a green light anymore. And then basically we sit and I try to keep up

with the news and try to look where the [ __ ] and how we can do it. And I was just considering are we going to do masks? I was even considering ordering these masks where you could open up their mouth so they could have a sip of rum and then they could close it again. You know, stupid [ __ ] like that. I was I was we're just trying thinking out of the bag cuz we just need to figure out what to do. And then uh and then obviously

it's uh it turned out what 20 26 or so whatever March they closed down entire Copenhagen Denmark everything. Um and that was it. So no more no more show that year that year and obviously no more anything because let's agree us I mean the the the corona thing for a lot of people was very tough but I will say that I think the guys who paid the highest price has been the small independent entrepreneurs all over Europe um because obviously they haven't been able to get

the same risk reduction like many others have um and then from that one we moved to the the the whiskey and rum show. Yeah. So basically Yeah. So, and no, and then here's the crazy part about it, right? So, basically, when I sign in 19 when I finally decide to go to um uh tox and use them as my venue, they are so thrilled with what I've done with the rum show. So, during November, December, when I start telling them how many tickets we sold, they're

like, "Daniel, you should do a show again in the fall." And I was like, I hadn't really thought about it, you know? Yeah, Dan, there must be another show you can do in the fall because you're doing great and as one of our, you know, you've worked with us and all that. You know our venue, you know everything. You should be doing this also here. You should doing two shows a year. And I was like, yeah, okay. And let's agree. When you rent Urgnan, it's 135,000

kroners a day without taxes. So in international money, that's like 20,000 grand, 20,000 USD a day. Nothing included. Not a not a [ __ ] plug in the wall. nothing, just so you're aware. But I mean, the venue is big. You can sell a lot of tickets. You can take down the price of your tickets. You know, it makes sense. Um, and then basically, um, so I, so while I'm ordering this in China, while we're looking at it, while this whole Wuhan thing is coming up, I'm basically

signing to be the franchisee for Whiskey Life, which is the biscuit whiskey show in the world for Nordics because I'm like, okay, you know what? I mean, I know the rum world. Jesus, the whiskey world should be a lot easier. I can hard can be that. That's the approach that I can see a pattern in here. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's a one party. If you set up another party, I mean, if I'm anyway, if I'm buying all the all the structure and all the infrastructure

to run such a show once, we might as well do use it twice a year. You know, it's a double usage. Might as well work. So, basically, I had I had the head of of uh of Whiskey Life from the UK flying over here in I think it was February 9, February 20. And I was and and I was literally and they were like, "No, no, no. We're going to be able to do it and it's going to be fine and everything is going to work

out great. Don't worry about it." So I end up signing with them and I remember we paid and we paid the franchise fee and everything was good cuz then I thought perfect. We do a rum show in the fall. We do whiskey no sorry rum show in the in the spring before summer. We do a whiskey show in the fall before winter time. It's perfect. you know, I can have these two shows running and then if I do it well, then basically I can bucker off

six months of the year and do the other stuff other six months of the year and be happy, no stress. Um, and little had I know that four weeks later we got shut down and obviously everybody was stayed were told to stay home and and we couldn't run a business and we we closed down for a few for a few months and then we opened up again for a few months. Obviously I moved fortunately most people were very understandable here in Denmark so we could move

most of the ticket holders to the next year show and we did that. The problem was the next year show was postponed again because suddenly when we were about to run again then we got closed down again. So we end up having two years without any show. Uh and in the end we think we're going to be first in Kobe Halen because we move it to there after. So basically the Gian weren't very nice to me when they when we postponed. they basically kept all their

money and said go f yourself. Um and um so I ended up finding other venues because obviously I thought that wasn't the way to treat your clients or former worker for that matter. So we first went to Kobe Helen. We did a deal there but we got cancelled there as well. So I had to pay them the fee of cancellation and then we moved to full room and then at the end I got so tired of all the cancellation to different shows and I couldn't really

keep up. So, we ended up doing one massive show called the Whiskey and Rum Show. Uh, the first year we did 3,000 tickets sold, which was a lot of what we sold during Corona and before Corona and all that crap. Uh, and the second year round we tried to redo the whole thing and we sold 1,000 tickets less. And that was basically my that was basically what we end up going under with half a million chronos. And that's why I'm I've been I've been in uh

thinking about how to do if we want if we want to redo it cuz I think the biggest change between before and after Corona is that before Corona people would buy tickets and just keep them for half a year year you know. And it seemed like after Corona people don't do that anymore. They preferably buy the tickets when they need on the spot. Yeah. And when they get to the show and that was a big difference for me. Uh cuz obviously we only had 2,000 tickets

sold for the year. So that would be Yeah. the second year of the Whiskey Rum show. But I have thought that we would have giant door sales because we did a buttload of publicity all the way up to and we were all over the place and it was like and it wasn't really expensive. We even we even split it up to two different sessions. So people were paying like I don't know 30 30 or 35 bucks or some [ __ ] like that. 30 30 USD as well.

So it's [ __ ] all money. Uh but apparently we didn't sell enough tickets. Um, so that show is uh so so I still have it a back burner. I'm not sure to get Let It Go yet. We haven't done it for now. We lost last year. We didn't do it and not going to do it this year cuz I've have a fight with all the other [ __ ] I'm standing with right now. But I'm definitely thinking about getting back to it. But I just need to figure out

a way to turn it into a business. Mhm. Cuz when it cost me money. Yeah. Yeah. So I can see from bars, conferences, managing places everything but everything is related with uh with hospitality like why why still in this industry after that many I mean you had couple of successes you had couple of uh losses but you are still coming back and you are still going and going and going and we still haven't got it to the point where it's the present where you jumped into

a new And yeah. Okay. So, what keeps you still in this industry? Like, what motivates you to wake up every day and still going into this one? I have no [ __ ] clue cuz I've actually been asking myself that quite a lot lately. Um, okay. So, this comes down to the tiring. So, so until now it's been fun and giggles and all of that. Now, um before I get to the last product I've made, obviously we so I said earlier that in 1 of February 2019, I

signed a lease cuz basically after Ector and me running around basically I drove half of Europe uh I flew um when I launched uh my rum brand, my ex-wife at one point looked at me and went like, Daniel, you do realize over the last year you've all been home sleeping for what 32 days? the rest of was just on the road. So that was very nuts. Um so when all of that happened and obviously so I'd been divorced two years earlier uh took a big I

mean yeah that was very hard. Um and then after going bankrupt then I just wanted to go back to basics. The only thing I wanted to do make a [ __ ] mojito serve you old fashion be able to charge you for it and make my money. I don't want to kiss ass to anybody. I didn't want to, you know, it was just my little spot. All I wanted was my little spot. And I've seen a few of them because if you're traveling through Europe like I had

since what, 14, 15, I I had one point when we were doing all the rum launches and all the crap that I didn't know which European capital I was in cuz basically you were drinking with the same rum family. So all the rum brands and all the brand owners and all of that all the same. They all know each other. So basically would just travel Europe and whether you'd be in Paris or you'd be in Dudeldorf or whatever it would just be another night out with

the same crowd that you so you know where you were in Milan or you were in London who freaking cared. Um so after being doing that for quite some time then I was like freak no I just want to relax I don't want this anymore and I was tired of traveling. Um so I just went to open a bar. So I signed a lease 1 of January, no 1st of February 2019 on what I thought would be my most the best contract I'd ever signed cuz

basically what I did in this contract I did um um so in Denmark especially if you do old listed building first of all you need to uh if it hasn't been a bar before you need to rebuild it and refurbish it so it lives up to all the criteria you have for running a bar. This can be accessibility, you know, emergency exits, uh, you know, toilets, ventilation, all this crap, right? Yes. So, the first time we did Barber, we did all of that by ourselves. We

paid for everything by ourselves, but it wasn't enlisted building. So, it wasn't like a historical enlisted building. Um, and back then, the entire up from taking over our venue to actually sitting with the liquor license in our hand, it only took us like seven months, right, for all the paperwork. and then we're running a perfectly legitimate bar business. Um, the craziness with this story that I have right now is that I signed the lease 1 of February 2019. I gave the entire So, the project of

refurbishing it and getting all the paperwork in order so I can apply for liquor license I gave to my landlord cuz it's a very old invested building. It's in like 100 meters from the King's Residence. It's the most expensive neighborhood in Copenhagen. I'm not going to run that risk of having to run into some [ __ ] whatever and suddenly I get to put out so much money and it's not my building and blah blah blah. So I give it to them little had I imagined that I

would be waiting for now 73 months so more than 6 years and my landlord has still not fulfilled the contract which I find rather I don't know if annoying cuz annoying can't describe it but um it's mindb boggles me that the first time I did this without any experience of 20 24 23 year old 24 23 whatever Um, it took me 6 months, 7 months. Now with a full professional uh property, real estate business, that's what they do. It's their one [ __ ] job. And not at

least with a full professional uh what do you call it? Building consultancy firm like you know engineer consulting firm. They haven't been able to deliver the paperwork so I can apply for legal license now after 73 months. That is [ __ ] nuts and tells a lot about how this society over the last 20 odd years has wrapped itself in useless bureaucracies and [ __ ] paper and [ __ ] meetings. That makes no sense. So that said, uh yes I and that is exactly the reason why I have a hard

time actually answering your question. I don't know why I get up every morning. I haven't been able to run the business I was supposed to run now for six years. All I want to do was serve a [ __ ] cocktail. I have been running a retail store, a liquor store for two years because it opened during Corona cuz obviously I had no income uh unlike 95% of Denmark that all got fully paid and just wages put into the bank account. I didn't uh so I had to

make something work and fortunately liquor stores were still a life necessity. So that's why I ended up opening up a liquor store. Uh I did that for two years uh while we set up the other shows as well. Um waiting to be able to open up a bar. Um they told me that they knew what they were doing. We're supposed to be able to apply for liquor license next last January. So in after doing the last show last year and not being successful, I hunkered down

for about 14 days when it didn't feel very well and then I thought, "Fuck it. you got to get up again. So, I got up. Then I built a bar. Literally built a bar. Not like a lot of people say they build a bar. No, I literally built the bar. Uh and then uh I hoped he could open up as a bar in January. Figure out that my idiot landlord is an incompetent freak. Not to say the other word. Um and he didn't know what he

was doing. So I ended up turning my little it was supposed to be a stew two little cocktail bar station setup. And then I ended up turning it into probably the smallest kitchen in Copenhagen. I have four square meters of kitchen. Then I turned it into a little coffee station and I have a really small cocktail bar set up. Uh we only have 30 35 seats uh in the little venue. Uh we don't have a liquor license. Um officially we run a members club. Yeah. I

think I'll just leave it at that. Yeah. So, I don't know. I find it rather I I'm rather mesmerized that that that within the 20 years that I've been doing businesses in Denmark, we went from six, seven months of turning a shop into a bar that now I've been waiting for 72 to 73 months and we're still not there. So, I'll probably end up waiting six, seven years to turn this shop into a bar. That is staggering to me. And it's and it's nuts. And I

do have a few uh I do have a few ideas where why we are there. Um, but also have a few analysis that not a lot of people will will like to hear because I do point out some of the weaknesses of our modern day society. Mhm. And when you when you were with the with the cafe and then the bottle shop, how did you came up with the idea of uh making your a new product? cuz we have one more new product in here that

is more recome product which I love it and uh I tasted it last year. We can leave the box in here. Let's do it like this because the bottle is a bit taller. So you came up with a new idea of a Christmas thing. Yeah. Okay. So uh how this one shake? Yeah. Okay. So basically ever since uh I've been running bars and restaurants and all of that then me and my brother actually my brother was always the one who was more keen into the click.

Uh but we always made click our own click. So click is the Danish version of mold wine. Um mold wine is obviously heated red wine with spices that you would enjoy in the winter season. So when it's cold and you can heat yourself up with that. Um, so this basically came along with the idea that um, so I was running the I was basically running the the liquor store and it was during Corona and um, and everybody was, you know, wearing their masks and all the

covered up. We have no human contact to anybody. Uh, so I thought about doing something a bit different to the liquor store and just going like something let's do something that's a bit cozy and and and welcome and warming to people. So, I ended up just doing my own little uh inspired by all the old recipes we used to do with my brother. Uh used I redid um our old mold wine and obviously it's rum based. I'm a rum guy. Uh and then basically um with

we've always used good red wine cuz I've always been surprised of the poor quality of most of the mold wines out here. Uh I don't understand it. Um, and then basically I just uh I started making we I had like a little 15 L what do you call it? These pots uh you know with a little tab on Yeah. basically. Yeah. Heaters. So I would just be doing 15 liters at the time. Um I bought a beautiful red wine. I would heat off my spices, add

some rum to it. Um and the problem became that my neighbors kind of loved it. So I started having neighbors. So I would basically whenever people come down to my shop during Christmas I would give them a little glasses of mold wine like a little welcome go and enjoy see what bottles you need what you want me to wrap for your presents and all of that and it started with that. Uh and that was really beautiful the first year you know uh second year already people

could remember from last year. So people start coming down and asking if they could buy it, take it home. And in the beginning, I would just do 15 liters, but it would usually take me like 3, five days because it needed to merate enough time to pull enough flavor out of the spices and all of that. Um, and then on the second year, I had so many people coming down wanting to buy it that I kind of went like, uh, okay, bring your own bottles. So

then I bought another pot. So basically I'll be doing a pot and have a pot already prepped for for next week, right? Uh so I said to people, bring your own bottles and then then you can come and just pay for the liquid and then that's it. You know, have some fun. Uh and rather quickly, I couldn't keep up. So the little 15 liter pot would not survive. So I would have to do more and more and more. And then at one point I was like,

"This is really [ __ ] stupid, Daniel." Cuz I mean I mean you can do anything. You've made so many other products. Why don't just make this turn it into a product? So at one point I uh when we worked in Spain I went to see another little familyown distillery called Orodoki which is in the middle of Rioa country. So Rioa are rather fairly well known for all the beautiful red wines. Uh and at one point when I was working at Acha we went tooki cuz they he

needed some basically Santi was helping him develop uh some vermouth. So I was on the trip with Santi and uh we went down to uh to to the Vimouth and tried it. Uh and obviously I gave I was just part of the little bit feedback that we gave him on the vermouth. But the red wine they used for the remouth oh my [ __ ] god. I mean it does help a lot that you that your base product if you do whatever vine product that's a beautiful wine.

Um and then um I mean and these are also very old school. They have a like a little cover pot still from 1926 and they've been making and basically they've been specialized in buying up all the wines from the region. So they've been Yeah. So next year they have 100 years anniversary. Um, so basically they get to pick up. So a lot of the wine producers produce more wine, they can actually bottle, but instead of just handing over all that surplus wine to some industrial distillation,

so it may generate just neutral alcohol, then they prefer to sell it off to the little distillery. So they get used to making remouth and other like vinus product. Um, and then uh so so I tried all the different like samples they got and we tried the the remouth that make is beautiful. Um, so obviously when so suddenly I had to do this and then uh uh and obviously we've made the sample and and prep everything and all that and then obviously I call whoever I

always call Santi goes like hey Santi I need to do this and he goes like yeah yeah Daniel but remember I'm like oh yeah that little one. Yeah, yeah, I'll set you up with Reuben. You'll talk to them and then you'll make it happen. And I'm like yeah remember those red wines they were beautiful. Yeah, but call him up and see if you have a few thousand liters for you and see if you can grab some of that. I'm like, "Yeah, sure." And then basically I

called up the the little the little distillery. Uh Reuben is the is the guy in charge now for the family. And um and again, that's obviously Spanish being my mother, one of my mother tongues. Then I just called up Ruben, go like, "Hey, can we make this, you know, can we make like a a vermouth like for winter time?" And he go like, "Yeah, sure." And then I basically sent him down a sample. I tell him what I want. I tell him the spice how I

want it and the flavor notes and I want it produced cuz obviously there's a lot of different ways of doing it and I like doing it the proper way. So basically uh um I think the biggest difference between this mold wine and many other mold wines or basically any other mold wines out there cuz I don't know anybody's doing it like this. Uh oh, I just sounded really Trumpian. Um I'm the best in the world. No. Um it's basically like a mouth. So basically we take

all the winter spices and we do desolates of them. So basically we do uh vines uh so wine base neutral spirit. Mhm. Um that we take and we put all the spices into uh let it sit for about a week. Uh heat it up maybe up until 50 60° just so you get some heat into the spices. Uh and then you just let it sit for a week. After that you clean up the distillate. So basically you redistill it. Uh so you leave all the spices

out of it but you just get the spice aromas coming through in the distillate. Uh, and then we add that those winter spices back into the red wine. And that's why we end up at an ABV at about 18%. Um, so it's a bit higher than the the usual one. Yeah. I mean, most most supermarkets uh mold wine would be between 8 10 12. Um, I actually also had it on 21 and it was really beautiful, but I think it would be too much for most

people. Um, and then, uh, so yeah, so it's 18 ABV. And then again, my whole idea was just to make a mold wine that was that really raised the bar. I've always had this if I had to do products, don't do it like everybody else. Raise the bar. That has also been the backside of everything I've done cuz I've always been way ahead and and and Yeah. Uh, and maybe sometimes been too too different. Mhm. Um, so the same thing with this. I want to trace

the bar. So, we found beautiful. I called up Ruben and I said, "Hey, can you can I borrow about two three thousand liters of beautiful red wine?" And he asked me what kind and then I told him more or less what I wanted to within the red wine. And I told him what I wanted to do. And then he made all the different distates for me. And then we basically ended up uh I think with what a lot of people are saying is probably the best

mold best mold wine they've ever had. I have a lot of people who don't normally drink mold wine who end up going like, "Fuck, I can drink this because this is not horrible tasting." Yes. Exactly. And another thing is that it's not so plastic tasting as most mold wine. And I think it's got to do with unfortunately most mold wine are being produced to the cheapest price point. And the problem is you can always when you work within flavors and flavorings, you can always have the

how you say for example just an example 150 E Mhm. E or E 150 out of European catalog of of what you call additives. Uh E50A means natural caramel. So EN 150 is caramel. The A part at the end is comes from natural derivatives. That means that it's a natural derivatives of sugar. Okay. But you also have 150 E 150 set. I don't know how far it goes down whatever. But then it's a 100% chemical compound that is being to copy the chemical composition of the

caramel. But it's got nothing to do with sugar. But it's a distillate that you have made or it's a compound you've made out of raw materials that are not necessarily from sugar. Then I don't need to say more because then obviously it's caramel. It's not from sugar. Yeah. And that is why a lot of these cheap mold wines end up tasting so plastic in your mouth is because actually the literally it's just artificial flavorings and and and additives. Uh and I think I think that's the

that's the that's the biggest thing. Uh and the another thing with this is that it's actually a glass of mold wine you want to have more than one glass of. Mhm. Uh and those that is not the that that that's not how most wines work. Um and I usually say that it's the first time with great red wine. And so you have a beautiful you have the sweetness a bit you expect to to start with but you finish you finish off with a dry sense in

your mouth. And that was one of the things I wanted um cuz I was really tired of this uh sugarcoated mouth you ended up having after most mold wines and it's a Rome based wine. So after all of those years you are still going back to basis basics as far as I see it. You started the the war, you went through the whole story, through the whole logistics, making brands, making everything, but in the end, I can see it makes you still happy to have your

own little little spot and making it as a I Yeah. Okay. So, I think uh hosting is definitely something that comes very natural to me. Mhm. So and and the original old word of what we used to call um uh what do you call taverns and all that then then Danish would actually be vatus and vatus is actually just directly translated it's house of a host so in that sense yes I think in that sense I'm really old school yes I don't mind serving I don't

mind being working when everybody else is off um uh I don't know if I want to do this the rest of my cuz I do notice that all these years threading waters on not being able to run the business you actually want for that many years that is breaks you down to be honest and that's also why you ask why I keep on going to work. I actually have no answer for that. I think I'm just too old school not to go to work. I think

a lot of other people in this kind of diversity maybe we just sit stay at home and cry. Uh but I don't know cuz I I don't have a quick answer for you for that cuz I keep on going back to work. I keep on getting up in the morning. Um then I have one more question for you and with this one we can uh probably wrap out this uh conversation. If you have to give one advice to younger self, what would be that one? Put

a price on your own time. Mhm. And put a proper price of your own time. cuz I've always I've always believed that because I was doing what I thought was fun and I was fun. I mean, I've had I've had some crazy times, both good and bad. Um, but put a price on your own time. Make sure you get paid every way through the every step through the way. Uh, and then get a pension plan, I think. No, no, no [ __ ] I mean, this is probably

the most straightup [ __ ] you'll hear. Uh, and mostly that with putting a price on your own time cuz I think that I have I have never [Music] really I've never been good at pricing myself cuz it's always like, okay, so it's me, it's my brand, I do it, you know, who cares if I get paid this month, you know, I have a brand, it works, beautiful, come, you know, let's just move on. Um, but I think it's also why Yes. I think that would be I

think that would be my most is that that always make sure you you you because also if you don't get paid by your own businesses at one point it gets up to be a problem. Mhm. And you kind of get a tide of your own businesses because obviously you don't feel like you get that payout from it. Um, and I think that would be probably but then again if I if I had that attitude then I wouldn't have been waiting for 6 years to open a

bar cuz then obviously I haven't I mean it's it's if if I was this calculative and and and needed those I mean I know a lot of people and and and associates you know they need to make 50 60 70,000 a month or else their entire life goes down because obviously the mouse wheel they've set up for themselves in the mortgage of the of the house and the car payment. ments and all of the rest of the [ __ ] that is what drags them to that and

they need to be doing that 24/7 or else they [ __ ] Uh so I don't have that but I would definitely say put a put a price tag on your own time. I think that would be the one thing that I would say to myself. Um and the pension plan. Nice. Thank you so much. And without further ado, thank you Daniel and thank you for your time. Thank you Manuel and MK if I'm allowed to say so. Uh the guy behind the scenes who makes everything happened.

Uh yes, and congratulations on your [ __ ] little podcast uh studio here. What you guys have done here in 4 weeks uh Dames couldn't do in about half a year. So let's agree on that. Thank you guys. Hey, hey, hey,