Page 27 - The Book For Men Spring/Summer 2024

Good as Gold
Tequila Tromba’s co-founder on bringing Mexico’s signature spirit to Canada
ERIC BRASS NEVER IMAGINED HE’D SPEND HIS DAYS SINGING THE
praises of Mexican blue agave. But, after a decade spent growing Tequila Tromba into one of the world’s leading craft tequila brands, the former finance professional wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. His journey began when he chose to spend the final year of his Ivey Business School degree on exchange in Mexico. “Most of my smart friends went to Hong Kong, France, Switzerland, and places like that,” says Brass, “but I went to Guadalajara, Mexico, and when I was down there I fell in love with tequila.”
Like many Canadians, Brass’s previous experiences with tequila had been the “close your eyes, plug your nose, and hope for the best” style of shots you’d commonly find in bars two decades ago. However, when he experienced high-qual- ity tequila in Mexico, he realized there was more to the agave-based spirit. And, after spending several years working in finance, Brass identified a gap in the market for an ultra-premium craft tequila at an accessible price point — so he set out to create one.
His lucky break came though a personal connection to Marco Cedano, the former master distiller at Don Julio and a Mexican craft tequila pioneer to whom Brass offered a role at his fledgling operation. “It was like knocking on Wayne Gretzky’s door and asking him to play in your men’s league hockey team,” Brass recalls. “We asked him anyway and he said, ‘I’ve always been an employee, so make me an owner of this brand and I’m going to oversee every step of the production process, from start to finish.’”
With that, Tequila Tromba was born. Over the next decade, Brass spent countless evenings visiting bars and sharing his passion for authentic 100 per cent agave Mexican tequila with as many industry professionals as he could.
“The conventional wisdom was to go and talk to the bar managers, because they wrote the checks,” says Brass. “But the bartenders were the ones who really cared about the story, the taste, and the value proposition, so talking to them was a big part of our strategy.”
Brass’s grassroots approach worked, and his timing couldn’t have been bet- ter. Thanks, in part, to the growing enthusiasm for craft cocktails over the last decade, Tequila Tromba is now a common sight on bars across Canada and the U.S. “It’s a very different proposition today than it was a decade ago,” Brass says. “I used to be able to count on my hands and feet how many good cocktail bars there were in a city like Toronto. Now, to have a good cocktail list is table stakes.”
Fuelled mostly by word-of-mouth, Tequila Tromba has grown from selling 100 cases a year to more than 50,000, and is now available in more than a half-dozen global markets from the U.K. and Australia to India and Japan. Here at home, Brass is proud to share that Tequila Tromba was recently named the official in-flight tequila of Air Canada, and will be available on the airline from this summer. This partnership, and others like it (Tequila Tromba is also the official tequila of the Vancouver Canucks) are part of a strategy that Brass hopes will continue to grow the market share for craft tequila, both at home and aboard. “Taking this Canadian brand to a global scale is a big thing for us,” he says. “As premium tequila continues to grow, there’s a movement towards authenticity, and we’re in a great position to take advantage of that.” Craft tequila currently only accounts for one per cent of total tequila consumption, and craft spirits make up just seven per cent of spirits overall, so there’s plenty of room to grow. But Brass is looking forward to the journey, and the chance to share his love for high-quality crafted tequila with the world.
TEQUILA TROMBA & SHARP
GOOD AS GOLD: TEXT BY JEREMY FREED
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