Innovation is the lifeblood of any industry, driving growth, creating new opportunities, and occasionally changing the course of an entire category. The Park Street University team recently sat down with Whisky Magazine’s 2023 Brand Innovator of the Year, Seth Benhaim, the creator of Broken Barrel Whiskey, Infuse Spirits, and most recently a consulting firm called Badwater Brands.
Benhaim started his company in 2012 out of his grandma’s garage when he was 24, creating a line of naturally infused vodkas that has since expanded to about 40 States. Following the success of Infuse Spirits, he created Broken Barrel Whiskey, a concept in which he broke barrels with sledgehammers and put the staves of those broken barrels into the whiskey. Broken Barrel landed him the 2023 Best Kentucky Finished Bourbon and the 2023 American Whiskey Brand Innovator of the Year.
Over time, Benhaim found his niche in brand building, realizing he could help build brands after the successes of his own, thus creating Badwater Brands, a full-service management firm. We discuss his career trajectory, starting as a young entrepreneur, lessons learned, mistakes made, and where it all landed him today.
Our Interview with Seth Benhaim of Broken Barrel Whiskey, Infuse Spirits, Badwater Brands
What was the greatest lesson you learned starting your brand(s)?
You have to get out there. You’re going to get out what you put in so you have to work hard. I think I was at a certain time in my life when I started this business that allowed me to do more. I was debt-free, I wasn’t married, I didn’t have kids, I owned my car outright. I was living out of my grandma’s garage at that point, so I was not paying rent. My expenses were next to nothing and I was able to work late nights and work weekends, work events, and travel. Fewer people are relying on you when you’re younger so the earlier you can take a risk and become an entrepreneur, the better. Also, another lesson I’ve learned is that things generally take longer and cost more than you might think.
Did you have any mentors within the industry when you started?
Absolutely. I was very lucky. I met some wonderful people early on who were very kind and helpful. They invested in me with little to invest in, just concepts, ideas, and no experience. Not only did I have no experience in the liquor industry, but I had no experience in business. I didn’t graduate from business school, I didn’t have an MBA. So, I had to learn a lot of it as I went along. I am very confident and capable in my skills now 13 years later, but it took a while to learn these things. I do think, though, that learning them firsthand is better than from a textbook.
What’s your best tip for networking or establishing a network within the industry?
You have to get out into the world, you have to go to events, go to distilleries, go to production facilities. Learn how things work, ask to shadow people, ask to come volunteer for a day, and work for free. Read, watch videos on YouTube, take someone out for a cup of coffee or dinner or drinks, and pick their brain. Generally, people are willing to give you their time and help you out with some lessons. But you have to take the first step. You have to make that call or put yourself out there. You won’t take over the world or excel in your industry from behind a computer screen.
What are some of the resources that you used that you would recommend for early-stage brand owners?
Park Street University is a great resource that produces various industry reports, like the Craft Spirits Data Project. Also, using AI to generate reading material for you in the format in which you want to read- paragraph, bullet point, maybe things segmented or written out in a certain way that you understand. AI gives it to you in such a way that you can reorganize information into the format in which you want to receive it and that’s a very powerful tool today. So I highly recommend incorporating AI. You can use it for imagery, for taking old concepts and making them new, finding reports, and citing sources. AI can do all of that. It’s a different world today than when I was getting into this industry.
What channel did you target first and why?
We always targeted off-premise. I like the idea of selling bottles instead of shots. Cases are better than bottles, pallets are better than cases, and containers are better than pallets. I was cold-calling some of the largest retail chains in Southern California, and the state regionally: Whole Foods, Gelson’s, Kroger, and they didn’t know who my distributor was. I was selling and getting successful hits with grocery store chains, with distributors that no one had ever heard of which is a challenge selling both an unknown brand and an unknown distributor with no track record. We were hustling, we were slinging scotch and vodka out of the back of the truck. We had all the proper licenses, and warehousing, and everything was set up, but it was the two of us trying to make a name for ourselves and our two brands. So it was the Wild West. We’re a little more organized now.
What was an early challenge you experienced as a part of the expansion process with Infuse Spirits? How did you overcome this challenge?
We were trying to piggyback on the decline of confectionary vodka. So the whipped cream, Cinnabon vodka, Kellogg’s cereal Frosted Flakes vodka, Pumpkin Spice vodka, UV electric blue vodka. There was some weird stuff hitting, it was like the candy aisle. We would look at reports and see that even though flavored vodka was down 13% if you removed the big giant brands like Absolut or SKYY that were dominating the market, you could see that craft flavored vodka was actually on the rise in 2013 and 2014. Deep Eddy was flying off of the shelf at that time and making astronomical strides in terms of volume, and they were selling real flavors like grapefruit, lemon, peach, etc. So Infuse Spirits was trying to take it even a step further. We were trying to get past the “infused with fruit” text and show people the actual infusion with the fruit. And so that was a big component- don’t tell, show, and go the full mile of getting the real fruit in the bottle. We called it Infuse Spirits because we wanted there to be no confusion. We dominated SEO as a result of that. So the challenge was overcoming that phone call with a retailer who didn’t need yet another flavored vodka.
What’s your greatest achievement to date?
I think the inbound interest in Broken Barrel Whiskey from South Korea. They’re doing events with the whiskey and they’re bringing in celebrities. They came to us and showed interest. They placed the order and managed to get it out there. The identity of the brand is resonating with a different culture and a different consumer across the planet in a different language, but it’s working and it’s growing and there’s investment behind it. There’s a whole team of people who are putting in the time, energy, care, and consideration to make this brand into something. That’s huge. That is irreplaceable.
Tell us a bit about your transition from CEO to a more Creative Director role for your brands. What made you decide to take that step?
It was a timing thing. I wanted to be more on the brand side and work back-of-house, getting all the salespeople what they needed from a marketing standpoint. One of the first things I did was hire a PR firm as well as a head of marketing. I hired a social media director part-timer to come in and help us and so I started putting energy into marketing experiential events. At the same time, we had a guy joining the team from one of our contract manufacturers who was not only investing in the company but was formally the CEO of a much bigger company. And so the experience he brought to the table was important to all of us. So, his joining the team allowed me to kind of work on all those different marketing aspects, hire those people, and put those departments together. Before that, I mean I was doing our social media from my cell phone. It was not a scalable plan. So getting somebody who could plan content and marketing campaigns and run ads was very helpful.
What need were you trying to address in the market with Badwater Brands as a full-service management firm?
Earlier this year I started getting inquiries for opportunities to help certain folks with their brand development. I’ve decided that my favorite thing in the world is building brands. I love finding the glass. I love finding the corks. I love blending the whiskey. I’ve worked on gin and vodka and flavored whiskey and flavored tequila as a result of these experiences that I’ve been able to have this year with various clients. I’ve identified my niche which is brand development. My 13 years of experience as an entrepreneur in the spirits industry have provided me with a wealth of contacts. I know where to go. I know what prices can save clients money. I provide the toolkit they need to put a brand together. I suggest brokers and consultants that do sales. I’ll build you the racehorse, but you got to run your race.
I have been awarded Most Innovative Whiskey of the Year 2023 from World Whiskey Awards, I’ve got 12 whiskeys with 90 plus points in the last three years. I’ve got the Best Kentucky Finish Bourbon Award. I’ve gotten so many different accolades on the vodka. I know what I’m doing when it comes to blending and it doesn’t matter what it is. As long as it’s spirit, I’m your guy. I’ve got my studio where I can taste somebody on one of 2,000 different bottles of booze on the wall and let them figure out what their end product should be. We can look at packaging from all these different examples. We can look at the profile, we can look at a whole host of label materials. There’s so much to look at, review, and understand about the development process. That’s really where we thrive.
What’s next for Badwater Brands?
Right now we’re quite busy working on a lot of brands that will hopefully come out in 2025. Some are small brands, for some individuals that are just doing it grassroots on their own, and then some bigger companies that have lots of money and brand recognition that we’re working with that when their product comes out, it’ll be big and will make a lot of waves and splashes in the industry. I love the different aspects of both. I enjoy them equally, whether it’s a big brand or a small brand. We’re just looking to service as many as we can. I’m a master blender on a couple of projects right now where I’m blending up some whiskey which I’ll happily do all day. Product development is what I could do forever.
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