This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
Well you might remember that last week on the show, we were joined by Anne Muccharie Mukerjee excuse me, CEO of Preno Ricard North America. It's the huge liqueur company that owns beefeed Or Jamison, Malibu and Moore. They also recently acquired Screwball Whiskey. It's a company that makes peanut butter whiskey. And you might be scratching your head saying who wants to drink peanut butter whiskey, Well, it turns
out a lot of people do. Mukerjee told us that the US consumer absolutely loves flavored whiskey, and flavored whiskey is our next guest Specialty. Amani McCauley is the co founder of Duke and Dame. It's a spirits company that makes salted caramel flavored whiskey. Amani, good to have you back with us.
Good evening, Thank you so much, happy to be here.
I should know you came bearing gifts, which we'll get to in just a minute, but before we do, and we got plenty of time with you so we're really lucky. Give us an idea of your journey because we were talking a little earlier. Uh, you survived the financial crisis, worked on Wall Street, found yourself in Australia. Now you're distilling salted carmel whiskey in Florida. How did you get there?
You know, I was in finance here in New York, and you get to a certain point where you just, you know, you have to really think about what that next adventure is going to be, you know. And yeah, I knew finance had kind of run its course and I just needed to work different parts of my brain needed a different challenge. I wanted to go to go build something, and so you know, I left. I had no plans. When I left, I took some time off just to kind of.
How many years were you on Wall Street?
Eleven years?
Okay, eleven years? So you know, I did my time, Okay, so sorry, I interrupted, no plans.
No plans some times just to kind of decomps. Traveled a little bit, and I ended up in Miami hanging out with a buddy of mine, Chima Bury, who fast forward became my business partner and co fed of Duke and Dame but you know, we having one of those conversations at a bar, like, hey, man, what are you gonna do next. I'm like, you know, I'm not sure. I'm want to take my time and figure it out.
And he says, hey, you know, I had this crazy idea a few years ago about making a whiskey that kind of tastes like sugar Daddy or like where there's original And I go, huh, that's interesting. Not thinking anything of it, right, you know, you just it's just you know, drink buddy talk, right, And but you know, I had time, I didn't have a job, and started looking into it. And I think maybe a week or two later, we
went to a distillery. We spent four hours at this distillery just asking every question under the sun, learning about the process of whiskey making, et cetera. And and we walked out of that building that day looked at each other like, huh, maybe this isn't as impossible as we might have thought a week or two ago. And from there we just kind of jumped into it, started doing more research. You know, we we're drinking, buddy, so we we we drank a lot, right, and we we kind
of knew what we like. But we also one thing we noticed about the flavored whiskey space was that a lot of the offerings, and it was really starting to become a category back then too, a lot of the offerings, you know, a lot of consumers thought they were overly sweet syrapy, some had an artificial aftertaste to them, you know, they weren't really you know, you don't come home after long day at work and want to curl up by the fireplace with a you know, right, And so we thought, well,
wait a bitte, Why why do you have to give up quality just because you want to want a little flavor in your whiskey? Right?
Like?
Why can't you have a whiskey that gives you the same complexity and balance you would find in a higher end bourbon or sky? And why can't you have a whiskey that actually makes you smile when you drink it? You know, most of the time you take a shot of any spirit, you kind of do that little whiskey face or cringe. But that was really the questions. Those were really the questions we asked ourselves, and we set out to create Duke and Dame to answer those questions.
One thing that is so interesting to me about your journey is the point that you make that you had the headspace to think about it. I mean, not a lot of people have the luxury of that view, and it's great that you recognize that that's part of the process, but one for yourself. But the thing I'm really interested in is what was the thing that made you think.
This is it?
Because a lot of people have a lot of drinking buddies that have a lot of conversations in bark and those ideas are better left in a bar.
You know, that's a great question. I mean that that point came probably two and a half months later. So I left Miami and came back to New York. And at that point it was still this crazy idea my good buddy had and I was exploring other opportunities. But at the same time we were prototyping. So we had our kitchens, you know, Chima and Miami, Me and New York kind of set up like chemistry labs. We're experimenting
with different types of whiskeys, different types of flavors. We're calling each other every other day going through notes like try one mile of this, try one mill of that, you know, let's try more vanilla. Let's try more, you know, just just you know, trying different different mixes and formulas, and finally we hit one where we both were like, oh wow, this is it?
Is it a secret?
Is what a secret?
The formula?
Of course, it's a secret us.
Just like a few of the ingredients in it.
Well, I mean it's it's I can tell you the ingredients in it. It's one hundred percent corn whiskey base. It includes a two year age bourbon, and it's one hundred percent natural caramel flavor and aroma. And then you know, we had a dash.
Of salt and that's it.
That's it. It's very simple, one hundred percent natural, nothing artificial at all.
Do you do the distilling too, No.
So we don't own the distillery. We work with a distillery partner, Jacksonville Floyd, and they know, you know, they make they know how to make our formula, know how to make our whiskey, and it's a it's a great product. But just getting back to that story, so we have this prototype, I think we called it at the time code named Sugar Daddy because of the you know, the sugar Daddy candies, right, the caramel candies and so uh,
you know. We took old whiskey bottles, scraped off the labels, made batches and took them around to our friends and family, and I think at that point we were still kind of playing around, but the responses we received were just amazing. And we get in the same response in Florida and Miami and it blew us away. It's like, Wow, you made that. This is awesome. Dude, dude, you have to make this. You have to you have to sell this. And we get on the phone like, dude, are you
hearing what I'm here. He's like, man, it's it's incredible. What do you what do you think we should do? What do you want to do? We were like in a little pause and we say, you know what, screw it, let's do it.
I love it. I love it.
He later I moved to Miami and we started the business.
So that's the the voice of Amanie. McCauley's the co founder of Duke and Dame. He's with us right now in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio. Don't go anywhere, because when we come back, we're going to continue our chat with Amani and have a sample not just of the whiskey, but also of a cocktail sangria that he brought. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week, and this is Bloomberg.
You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio.
It is Bloomberg Business Week, Tim Stenevek and Jennifer Ryan in for Carol Masser this afternoon. Very pleased to have back with us. Before we were before we heard from Charlie, we were speaking to him, and we're gonna get you our conversation now. Immani McCauley is co founder of Duke and Dame. He's with us in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio.
They make a salted caramel flavored whiskey and we got some in our hands right now, So tell us a little bit about what we're gonna be sampling right now.
Yeah, we we'd love to have you try it. So, you know, we we created Duke and dang really to kind of bridge that gap between your hardcore whiskey enthusiast on one end of the spectrum and you know, maybe your whiskey haters or whiskey new comers on the other end, we wanted a whiskey that could, right. We wanted a whiskey that could be attractive and appealing to both. So what you're going to notice in your first sip you're get in that beautiful aroma, right.
I'm smelling. I mean it smells like a sugar daddy.
Yes, or where there's original, right, And so that really brings in folks who may not like whiskey, maybe turned off by whiskey. And you take that first sip, you get in the caramel notes, maybe some vanilla mm hmm, maybe some butterscotch mm hm. And what you notice it's very smooth and what's missing that harsh whiskey.
Burd Yeah, it's very very smooth. So with a lot of whiskey, if you're not used to it and you don't like it, all you feel is the burn and then all you say is no.
But you know what's nice. It's not sweet like I here about.
It's not cloying exactly.
I imagine it's going to be like, you know, sweet like a Starbucks striker.
Skin Dame only has one gram of sugar per serving, so.
It does have sugar, but it's flavored, yes for sure.
But it's one grammar sugar preserve and it's one hundred percent natural. Now in your second sip, that's where the magic happens. Now the bourbon notes become more pronounced, so you should start getting more hints of oak, maybe some spice on the back end, so you get this nice layered taste profile that's pretty unique.
It is good.
It's it's really nice to just sip it. Oh yeah, because you think caramel whiskets something like it's like an alcohol pop or something and just knock it back, and it's like, that's not the experience that you want to be having.
This is definitely an elevated flavored whiskey making experience. So you can sip it neat as you are now and magic sipping it on the rock. So you know, people love it just like that. But what I love about Duke and Dame is how versatilid it. It blends well with everything, all your traditional whiskey cottails, your old fashioned and whiskey sours, and then things you might not even think about, like a Duke and Day mohito for example,
or we make a French seventy five run. Well, no, we replaced the run with duke and day blends well with everything interesting. So what we have here is a caramel apple sangria. Like, who would put a caramel whiskey and sangria, Well we do.
You've probably had your sheriff c incria, right Spanish husband.
So this is two parts duke in Dame, three parts pino grigio, and five parts apple cider. Garnish it with some chopped apple slices.
It tastes dangerous, yes, meaning you could drink an entire class of this drinking.
It's the holiday season.
That is something else.
You're going to be having friends and family over.
You're not going to be on the subway after drinking this.
You mixed up a quick batch of caramel apple sangria, easy to make, and people love it.
That is good.
So I said earlier on the show, I am not doing any cooking for Thanksgiving. I think I will be made.
So before we let you go, we got about a minute left. Is this salted caramel whiskey the only product you have out rest right now?
That's the only skew.
You know.
We really wanted to build the brand first, get people you know, accustomed to do Condeme the brand, do Condame the whiskey, loving it and then well you know we're in the lab. Okay, you know we don't plan on introducing twenty different flavors, right, We really want to be thoughtful around In the same way that the caramel kind of gives you that nostalgic feeling, it takes you back to the Wather's original in your grandma's purse, right, we want to make sure that everything we create kind of
gives you that, you know, brings you back the home feeling. Right, So we're working on that. And you know, right now all the rage are the ready to drink cocktails arts and as you can see, Duke and Day make some amazing cocktails, so you know we might develop one or two of those.
Well, when you do, and even before that, come back in business one more time. We love it when Amani McCauley is the co founder of Duke and Dame with us in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokeers Studio. Also a huge thank you too, Jennifer Ryan on the Equality team for stepping into Carol's shoes this afternoon. Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you very much for letting me on