The Grim Future Of American Politics - Dean Phillips

Did you found Belvedere Vodka?

I did not find Belvedere Vodka, but I helped find Belvedere Vodka. In fact, we had a wonderful experience back in 1993, Chris. Uh, I was, uh, 24 years old. I had recently joined our family business after working for a startup company in the bicycle business for a couple years. Where my grandmother, who was the advice columnist Dear Abby, introduced, uh, my father, Eddie Phillips, and me, uh, to a man named Tad Dorda, who was a Pole, a Polish, uh, gentleman, who had a proposition, uh, relative to the vodka business. So we thought we could sell our Phillips Peppermint Schnapps, which we made in Minnesota, uh, to the Polish market. And we went on a trip to Poland in 1993, my father, Steve Gill, our business partner Tad Dorda. Uh, we thought we could sell some schnapps. Uh, what it turned into is the discovery essentially, uh, of what we thought was the most beautiful packaging we'd ever seen in the world and the most disruptive idea, the biggest category in spirits had ever seen, and that was what turned into both Belvedere and Chopin Vodka. And it was that trip that changed our strategy. We negotiated with the Polish government to obtain the distribution rights. Some years later, purchased the intellectual property and the distilleries, and created the world's first luxury vodka brand. And by the way, took on two big brands, Absolut and Stolichnaya. That is a little bit of a metaphor for what I'm doing right now.

What was disruptive about it?

What was disruptive, Chris, first and foremost, in- in a lot of industries, especially developed industries, you'll have a couple of really big brands, uh, that essentially command most of the market, and they spend all their time kind of fighting each other to the bottom on price, attacking each other. By the way, the analogy of course is Democrats and Republicans here in the United States. And what was disruptive is that we went into a category in which the most expensive vodka at that time was about $15 a bottle, and we came in at $25 a bottle. We came in with a cork finish. We came in with a very different proposition predicated on authenticity, but here is the special sauce. We recognized that this is in the analog era, by the way, Chris. You know, well before social media and- and the internet and the like. And people, but people were aspirational. You know, people want to always live better, do better, be more happy, have more stuff. And what we recognized is, you know, people couldn't buy the same house as the biggest celebrities of the day or have the same car or watch or dresses. But they could buy the same bottle of vodka for $25 that the most famous person in the world was drinking with his or her friends, and there was the disruptive nature of this whole thing. The luxury vodka category was created. It endured for over a decade. Now been replaced by tequila, of course. But it was the brand Belvedere that really redefined luxury vodka marketing and recognized that it's a fashion industry, just like so many others.