Last Updated on December 21, 2023 by nicole

Meet Eamon McDonald, a seasoned entrepreneur who excelled in circuit boards and off-road race cars. Inspired by a Belgian customer, he ventured into the sangria business, importing and selling thousands of cases. Facing a change in partnerships, McDonald collaborated with a legacy winery in Spain to create Pasmosa Sangria. Now, as Pasmosa Sangria’s President and CEO, McDonald’s commitment to excellence and innovation sets his premium product apart in a competitive market.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

• Explore the story behind Pasmosa Sangria’s inception and the journey to create a sangria that breaks the mold, boasting a robust flavor that doesn’t dilute on ice
• Delve into the use of quality Spanish varietals like Tempranillo and Garnache
• Uncover the staggering financial breakdown of the profit potential for bars and restaurants that choose Pasmosa Sangria over DIY alternatives
• Explore insights into importing premium sangria from Spain and Pasmosa Sangria’s retail pricing
• Explore the distinct flavor profiles of Pasmosa Sangria’s red, rosé, and white varieties
• Learn about Pasmosa Sangria’s white label program
• Examine the changing perception of bag-in-box wine and its positive impact on reducing waste
• Gain insights into Pasmosa Sangria’s seamless supply chain
• Discover how Pasmosa Sangria emerges as the profitable and authentic alternative for wineries

In this episode with Eamon McDonald

Join us as we dive into the world of sangria with Eamon McDonald of Pasmosa Sangria. Savor the artistry behind Pasmosa’s sangria, a concoction that defies convention with its shockingly unique qualities. 

In today’s episode of the Legends Behind the Craft podcast, Drew Thomas Hendricks is joined by Eamon McDonald, President, CEO, and Director of Pasmosa Sangria. From importing a Belgian blend to embarking on a transformative quest in Spain, Eamon shares the secrets behind Pasmosa’s success. Discover the financial benefits for bars and restaurants choosing a pre-made white label option over DIY, and explore the premium Spanish varietals used by Pasmosa. Uncover the white label program’s flexibility and the changing perceptions of bag-in-box wine. Whether you’re a sangria enthusiast, a business owner, or simply curious about the world of wine, this episode promises to leave your taste buds tingling and your business strategies reimagined.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• Drew Thomas Hendricks on LinkedIn
• Barrels Ahead
• Eamon McDonald on LinkedIn
• Pasmosa Sangria
• Tablas Creek Vineyard

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Barrels Ahead.

Barrels Ahead is a wine and craft marketing agency that propels organic growth by using a powerful combination of content development, Search Engine Optimization, and paid search.

At Barrels Ahead, we know that your business is unique. That’s why we work with you to create a one-of-a-kind marketing strategy that highlights your authenticity, tells your story, and makes your business stand out from your competitors.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Drew Thomas Hendricks here. I’m the host of the Legends Behind the Craft podcast on the show. I talk with leaders in the wine and craft beverage industry. Before I get on with the show, got to have a sponsored message. Today’s episode is sponsored by Barrels Ahead.

At Barrels ahead, you know what? We help the wine and craft beverage industry, build stronger bonds between their customers through authentic content. Go to barrelsahead.com today to learn more. You know, today I’m super excited. We’ve got a very interesting guest on the show. We’re talking with Eamon McDonald, who’s the founder and CEO of Pasmosa Sangria.

Welcome to the show, Eamon.

[00:00:32] Eamon McDonald: Hey, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

[00:00:34] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. Eamon, I am so stoked you’re on. We were, we’ve been talking kind of in passing together over the last couple of weeks about sangria and your product fascinates me. Tell us how you, before we get into your history and your story, tell us how you’re sangria is different. Cause it’s really shocking.

[00:00:51] Eamon McDonald: So, what we did is we seen in the market, I guess, probably in the on premise market, there’s really no great sangria. And a long story short, I imported one from Belgium and took off and run up with it. Sold a couple thousand cases in the first year. And then my partner in it did not want to be here anymore.

So I went to Spain and went to several wineries and, and made our own. So no different than somebody going to Mexico to make tequila. I felt the best place to make sangria in the world might be Spain or Portugal. And we came up with a, a great brand that would hold up on ice and,

[00:01:25] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s the key. I don’t want to cut you off, but I want to make sure everyone understands this. A lot of the sangria you have that once it gets to your lips, it’s a watered down version of something that may or may not taste like wine. The thing that really stood out to me is that your, your sangria comes in at what? 12 percent alcohol?

[00:01:43] Eamon McDonald: Comes in at 12 percent alcohol. It’s designed to go on ice. And the plan behind it was when we put it on a cup of ice, it would hold up for 15 minutes. And it did and it was kind of funny because in Europe your ice cubes are about two inches in diameter and it’s a big cube and I went out and bought ice cubes at the local. This was kind of funny I go out and I buy ice cubes at like their local 7 eleven and I come back and i’m breaking the ice cubes into pieces and the guys look at me like i’m nuts. He’s a third generation winery owner passed down from his great grandfather. And he’s like why are you breaking up the ice and I go well when it’s smaller ice like bars in America, It has to hold up on ice. And they thought I was crazy, of course.

So long story short, we formulated it, the red and the white and the rose all to go on ice and hold up for a good, you know, 15 minutes like any cocktail out there on ice. In fact, I’d say it probably holds up better than most cocktails, actually. But, you know, that’s, of course, my personal opinion, but it holds up very well.

[00:02:39] Drew Thomas Hendricks: And that quality that being able to hold up on ice and then actually having a consistent product. And I know we’re jumping around a little bit, but it’s the consistency of the product and the value that this product givers both the consumer, but also retail establishments like bars and restaurants.

[00:02:54] Eamon McDonald: That’s correct. And the sangria is here, like, now being in the market, the better part of 10 years, we don’t come across a lot of competition of other competitor ready to pour sangria as our competition. It’s somebody that’s making their own version, which we can get into more or they’re using leftover wine.

So we, we went and we made the red out of a Tempranillo and a Garnache. The rosé is made of a white Garnache and the white is made of -. So these are all very, very popular, quality varietals found in Spain. Where in the U. S. if you went to get Tempranillo, you’re probably going to start at 12 to 15 bucks a bottle for a raw material, especially California.

It’s not going to be cheap where we can retail it at that, you know? So, you know, and it’s not that, I mean, sangria is birthplace is definitely Spain or some guy’s bar, you know?

[00:03:47] Drew Thomas Hendricks: And you mentioned one thing that I had the, a lot of people’s perception of sangria is like one step away from the trash can punch that we had in college where you just throw everything in there and you get what you get.

And sadly, a lot of bars, that’s what happens. And they wonder, you might have a good glass one day and a bad glass the other, and the next day.

[00:04:07] Eamon McDonald: That’s true. So the, the 2 competitors that we see in this market is exactly what you said. The guy that, you know, he’s doing it his way and I make the best sangria.

Well, he makes the best trash can punch. Not necessarily sangria. We found sangria to be truthful with no wine in it and they’re labeling it sangria, but they got vodka or gin or tequila or something in it, fruit juice and granadine and, you know, exactly what you said, trash can punch. So it’s either that version or they’ve taken leftover wine.

I’m old, you’re a little younger than me, but back in my day, when you asked for a glass of wine, they had red and white, so now you’ve got 30, 40 bottles of open wine that it’s all going to oxidize and what they do is blend that all together and throw some simple syrup in it, maybe infuse it with fruit for a few days, throw the fruit out.

Stick some tequila or vodka in it. And usually you’ll see a lot of those sangria is like in a big clear vat that’s half empty and half full. So while they’re selling this sangria that I wouldn’t necessarily drink and wouldn’t advise most of the drink, is being oxidized even some more.

So

[00:05:11] Drew Thomas Hendricks: it’s almost the Madeira process where the punch never really ends.

They just add stuff to the top. So some total is you might have like a five year old sangria.

[00:05:21] Eamon McDonald: Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Or some of them will say, well, we make it to get rid of it. Otherwise, what will we do with our leftover wine? And I’m thinking, well, what do you do with your leftover pizza? You know, so, you know, of course they don’t look at it that way.

But truthfully, I mean, like, if it’s leftover oxidized wine, throw it out. You know, interesting story. I went to a restaurant here in Temecula before Covid. And I went in, I took my 93 year old mother. I look after great woman and still drives her car and everything. And anyway, I took her out for brunch on a Sunday and we went to a local place here.

And I said to the guy, “Hey, how’s your sangria?” And he goes, “Oh, it’s great.” It was actually a waitress. Sorry. And, sure enough, they came boarded me sangria. I took a sip and I go, “Oh, my God, that’s really bad.” It was made a leftover wine, obviously, but you couldn’t drink it, but she wasn’t very observant. And I ordered another drink and that sangria just sat there and, you know, brunch was like 120 bucks.

And my mom had one drink and I had two, I had the sangria I couldn’t drink it. Another one, but 120 later. So I go to her, I said, “Hey, who’s your bartender? Who’s the guy in charge?” “Oh, his name is so and so. And he’s in on Tuesday.” So I went in to see him on the Tuesday and I said, hey, he didn’t obviously know I sold sangria and I said, “Hey, I’d like to talk to you about sangria.”

He goes, “Well, we make our own.” And I go, okay, well, obviously I knew that and how bad it was. So, but I wasn’t there really to give him a hard time to be truthful. I just said, “Hey, would you mind sampling mine and see what you think?” And he goes, “Well, I already told you I’ve made my own.” And the guy wasn’t the nicest guy in the world.

And you know, come on. I’m still a customer. He didn’t know that I own a sangria company. So anyway, long story short, he refused to even sample it. And I said, you know, I said, I understand. I said, I just want to help you with your business. I said, I was in here on Sunday and I had probably the worst glass of sangria I’ve ever had.

And obviously you make it out of leftover wine and he goes, “Well, I rely on our customers to let us know if it was any good or not.” I just looked at I’m like, shocked to go and my lunch was 120. You’re 16 dollars for a glass of sangria and you rely on your customers to be your quality control. I mean, just totally shocking.

But to be honest, that’s not so uncommon, you know.

[00:07:29] Drew Thomas Hendricks: It isn’t. And what’s uncommon is for the customer to actually vocalize that they didn’t like it. He’s just like, oh, the sangria is not selling well because they don’t want to make him feel bad. So bad they’re going to go on Yelp and they’re going to talk about it.

But the chances by the time it reaches Yelp, the problem is so much bigger than the fact that he didn’t hear that feedback.

[00:07:50] Eamon McDonald: Well, and it’s not that if you’re the owner of the restaurant, if I own the restaurant and an employee told me that he makes that bad of sangria to sell to my customers and he relies on the quality control department to be the customer who’s paying 120 bucks for a brunch.

You probably might be looking for another job the next day. It’s like, seriously, you know, and it’s not to belittle the guy, but it’s like, if somebody’s red flag and that maybe there’s a problem here, like, how much money you’re really going to save with that leftover wine for the sake of a couple of dollars to pour the customer a great sangria that you’re going to sell for 16 bucks.

And there’s a 2 dollar investment in it. And the customer is going to buy two and three of the one I make, which one do you make more money on, you know?

[00:08:32] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. You were talking in the pre show about the, I forget the right word, but the financial, the way it works out financially for your sangria versus making your own, like the financial breakdown was staggering of the profit potential for bars and restaurants.

[00:08:51] Eamon McDonald: Yeah, we got a customer here. They’re a big customer, but not so far away. They were pouring 1200 glasses of sangria a month. Now that’s pretty big customer and at the end of the day, my average customer probably pours between 3 and 500. But this guy was doing 1200 and I went and seen him and he said, I hear you got a really good sangria.

And I was kind of shocked how much sangria and they made it by hand and they actually made it with some local wines and they actually did a pretty decent job with it. And I said, “Well, how much money do you have invested in this?” And he goes, “Well, about 50 cents an ounce.” So you’re putting about 6 ounces on a 16 ounce glass with ice.

So about 3 hours to make that and I said, “Okay.” So anyway, we’re talking and he sampled my sangria and he was very impressed. He goes, man, he goes, “This is a great product.” And I said, Well, we have it in bottles. We have it in bag in box. We have it in cans in the bag in box. It’s always stays fresh, you know, for 6 weeks after you open it.” He goes, man, we make new sangria every week.

He goes, “We got 3, 4 hours of labor in it to make these 1200 glasses. And sometimes we make too much and we got to throw it out.” At least he was throwing it out. What was going on? And he says, sometimes we run out and he goes, man, he goes, “I like this idea. He goes, we’ll never run out.” And I said, “Well, pretty much.”

And I said, we can put it on a tab handle for you or bar. Anyway, I said, “Would you mind sampling me yours?” So I sampled it. It was okay. I mean, it’s not sangria once again. It’s a concoction with hard alcohol and some other things in it, but it wasn’t bad. So, a couple of days later, they converted to ours.

That customer was 18 months ago. Within 90 days he went from equivalent to 1200 glasses to three and a half thousand glasses. And he’s been running three and a half to 4, 000 glasses a month since, well, he didn’t triple his customers since, but the customers have bought two and three glasses of our sangria white labeled for him and the product sells itself.

This same place has 150 Spanish wines and we outsell all of them. So we, 1 of the things I wanted to tell you, we’re kind of jumping ahead here a little bit, but we just white labeled 1200 cases and bottles so they can put it through their wine club. And I believe they have upwards of about 10, 000 in their wine club.

But, you know, the number 1 selling product he’s got, he says, is your sangria and, you know, it’s nothing to do with me. It’s just a really good product that, you know, they just have sangria in their menu and

[00:11:07] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah, you mentioned, you mentioned the handmade one was, you know, 50 cents an ounce and then three to four hours to be making it.

Plus the spoilage and the waste.

[00:11:15] Eamon McDonald: Each week.

[00:11:16] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Where does yours break down into?

[00:11:18] Eamon McDonald: Mine would be under two bucks there. It’s under two bucks a glass, about 30 cents an ounce. So 50 versus 30. We’re not trying to give it away, but we’re also making it a really good varietals and you know, like everything. So they’ve got about maybe a dollar 70 invested and sell it for 16.

[00:11:35] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s amazing. I want to talk to you about all the white label stuff, but let me, let’s go back a second. This idea of like a, a premium sangria imported from Spain. You’ve got a, where did you get that idea? I mean, let’s talk to some of our entrepreneurial listeners here. Let’s

[00:11:52] Eamon McDonald: Okay.

[00:11:53] Drew Thomas Hendricks: So fascinating.

[00:11:54] Eamon McDonald: Yeah, a little quick history of my, I’m a 59 year old gentleman and I started my first company when I was 22.

I built the equipment for making circuit boards and built it to about 8 to 12 million a year here in Temecula. And when the EPA shut down a lot of my customers, we had no choice but move it to China and got, anyway, here we’re doing between 8 and 12 million. I was selling to fortune 500 companies like IBM and Mcdonald Douglas and been to 75 countries in my life.

So I’m not afraid to jump on a plane obviously. And we were doing between 8 and 12 million every year. And we’re about 13 in the world. And I have 5 patents from doing that. And a long story short, as the EPA started shutting down a lot of the circuit board shops in this country, we had no choice but move it to China.

So I built a plan in Suzhou, China, or sorry, in Guangzhou, China. I got it all up and running and sold off that company. And then I get into building off road race cars and built another plant in Suzhou, China, and we built half the car there. The main structure of the car called predator off road. And we built a couple of hundred off road dune buggies.

They went on to race the Baja 1000 and won it four times in its class. And these were a buggy that you and your son could buy for 30 grand, but five or 10 grand in it and go race the Baja 1000 or whatever, a race around the world. So we had five of them enter the eco Africa race in Africa. And our cars came in second, third, fourth.

4 out of the 5 cars finished a 6, 000 mile race, and the number 2 car came in 3 minutes after the number 1 car that cost 1. 3 million to make. So we got a 30, 000 car came in 2nd out of 167 entries. And not only did we come in 2nd, we came in 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th of a 6, 000 mile race. So pretty crazy. And 1 of my customers had ordered a couple of cars for me.

He had a sangria in Belgium and that’s what drove me the sangria business. So, well, nobody had a lot of money. We built 220 of these off road cars, shipped them all over the world. Coincidentally, 2 to Belgium and that guy had a sangria company and me and him became good friends. And he said, “Well, what are you going to do when you hang up your, code on buggies.”

And I said, “Well, man, I don’t know.” He goes, “Why don’t you sell my sangria?” And I go, I know nothing about sangria. I know nothing about the wine business, which maybe I should have stayed that way. Just kidding. So at the end of the day, long story short, I sampled his sangria and I told him the next time I’m in Belgium I’ll stop in.

So I went in and seeing that he was doing a pretty fair job. They were selling about a million liters a year to about 3000 accounts. And I go, man, I can probably sell this in America and knowing nothing about it, I imported it and we sold a couple thousand cases in the first year and just me and knowing nothing about this business.

[00:14:39] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh, I’m pretty, yeah. That’s a couple of containers.

[00:14:42] Eamon McDonald: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we actually, we had brought in 3 containers total, because we had a lot of other stuff to go with it, like glassware and umbrellas and all types of stuff. So, brought that in, sold it and then he decided he didn’t like to sell to Americans anymore.

He was a very strange guy. The company he owned in Belgium, he did a million liters a year in the Flemish side of Belgium only. I don’t know if you ever seen a map of Belgium but it’s about the size of a postage stamp relative to countries in Europe. So I said, “Why do you not sell to the French?” And he goes, “I hate the F in French.”

I look at him going, you hate him. That’s why you don’t sell to him. I mean, not a very smart guy, but anyway, bottom line was a very successful. So we brought it in here. He didn’t want to sell it anymore.

[00:15:27] Drew Thomas Hendricks: So that was it. That was that original stuff you brought in. Was that from Spain or is that,

[00:15:32] Eamon McDonald: That was from Spain, but he had a company in Belgium. So it was all made in Spain and actually, not knowing it at the time he bumped it with pure alcohol. So it was not, it was really cheap wine. Now only hindsight 2020, as I got to know wine and sangria better, it was made of the cheap wine that all the other cheap wine sangrias that are, we are in the market today.

Six or 7 percent alcohol and then he bumped it to bring it up to 15 percent alcohol with pure alcohol. So it wasn’t truly a real sangria either. It was a modified version of a, whatever you want to call it. Only hindsight 2020 I didn’t know that at the time I was a virgin into this business, right? So, when he decided he didn’t want to do it anymore, I went to Spain and I went to like six different wineries and the winery that makes my sangria, he goes, “I can make it the best sangria in the world, but you can’t afford it.”

I said, “Try me.” You got it in Paz Maso. So, you know, they’ve only been around a little over 200 years. I’m going to say pretty great winery there phenomenal, but awesome people, you know. I even said to him, I says, “Anybody make a sangria like this in Spain?” He goes, “Nobody wants to pay the money you want to pay.”

And he says, “I don’t have no sangria like this in Spain or Portugal.” In Spain and Portugal is not that big. So he knows pretty much everybody, but so nobody’s really attempted to do what I did. And and honestly, you really to hold up on ice and have a really good quality product. It just doesn’t exist in America unless you open a bottle of Tempranillo and you’re an option, make it at home.

But, I mean, who’s going to go by to 20 bottles of Tempranillo or Grenache and still make their own and they’re still not going to make it as good as what we do. I feel because we’re making it to a formula, and it’s always exactly the same.

[00:17:10] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. And that’s so important for, especially for bars and restaurants. They want that consistency is what keeps people coming back and back at the minute that nobody wants to go and you’re all rolling the dice.

Is it going to be good today? You’ve got this formula. Now talk to me about, no, one’s making it like this in the Spanish market. It’s been about a decade since I’ve been to Spain. How, what would the Spanish sangria be like versus the way they’re producing it other than premium within the,

[00:17:40] Eamon McDonald: Yeah, your basic Spanish sangria is made in Spain is usually 6 or 7%. It’s mainly made for the tourists. And believe it or not, it will come in like, you know, your water bottles, like you probably drink out of every day, a plastic PTE water. So that’s pretty much how most of the sangria is made in Spain. Super cheap, maybe chilled, or maybe you put it on a big ice cube and that’s it.

So they, the market there is different than here. Here everybody likes a big cup of ice and a whole thing of sangria. And the 6%, you know, it’s just more just a refreshing drink, like a little better than a Kool aid with alcohol in it. But that’s how the majority of the sangria is made in Spain.

And they’re making it super cheap and it’s a tourist, more of a tourist thing that ever, even asked the winery that I said, why is it? I’ve probably been to I don’t know, 2030 bars. I’ve been to Spain at least 10 times. And I said, “Every time I go to a bar, nobody really has a good sangria.” He goes, wait a minute. “That’s all made for the tourist.” He goes, “If you want a good sangria, you’d have to go to somebody’s house.”

And I said, “Okay.” I said, that makes sense. And he said, you know, “When they make you a glass of sangria is going to cost a little more, but the quality is going to be there.” And he said, “You’re not going to find what you have anywhere.” He says, ” Nobody wants to pay the price.” And I said, well, to me, there’s a, a reason for a good quality sangria.

I mean, it’s kind of like comparing your tequilas. There’s tequilas for $28 a bottle and there’s tequilas for 170. We’re not the $170 bottle of sangria, but we

[00:19:07] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Well , yeah. Retail price to give our listeners.

[00:19:09] Eamon McDonald: Yeah. Retail is anywhere from 1199 to 13 nine for seven 50 in – I think total wine’s around 10 99 right now.

[00:19:20] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s not bad at all.

[00:19:21] Eamon McDonald: Not bad at all. Yeah.

[00:19:23] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I think this people talk, talking about premium premium premium in their heads. They’re thinking 40, 50, but this is a pretty, pretty everyday price point for something.

[00:19:34] Eamon McDonald: It is. So as some of our competition, in there and I don’t want to bring up brands, but some of them are 7 percent and they’re 799.

Well, to get to 7%, I’d have to put 40 percent water with mine. So, and, and there’s, is it made of any varietal that I don’t know if anybody could tell it was a varietal anyway, if you had 40 percent of the water to it, what does it taste like, you know, so, you know, that’s pretty much all of our competition in America is the majority and about, I’m going to say over half the sangria is on the shelf or made in the USA.

They’re not made in Spain. Yeah, there’s a couple of them coming out of Spain, but they’re all 7%, which is majorly diluted. There’s no premium product like this coming out of Spain or made in America that we know of.

[00:20:16] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Well, at 7%, you add ice, suddenly you’re drinking something that’s like 2 to 3%. It’s like less than a, I can’t imagine that tasting good.

Talk to me about the flavor profile of each one of these. So you’ve got the red, you’ve got a rosé, and you’ve got the white.

[00:20:29] Eamon McDonald: Yeah, you’ve got the red, the white and the rose. And depending upon obviously who tries it and what they like or don’t like, they obviously all have fruit essence with it.

And you’re going to find this pretty funny. When you put it on the ice, people get this great flavor. They love it. Five minutes later, they tried to go. Oh, my God, I even like it better. Now I feel all these flavors coming out. So depending upon who you talk to, everybody seems to have a different flavor profile coming out of the exact same glass of sangria.

So, you know, the tasting panel rated us at 91 points on the red and 90 on the other 2 and their flavor profile. And I’ve showed that to other people to go. Well, I don’t taste what they taste it. And I think it’s kind of funny because it’s all the exact same product. I think it depends upon the palate and who samples it.

I think the tasting panel probably has it closest to the right of what they feel it should be and and a majority of people that have tried it, but it’s all meant to be refreshing. Everybody says sundresses and patios and concert venues. And you know, you’re it’s, it’s meant to be a fun drink. The only difference is it’s a fun quality, you know, decent alcohol drink.

And, you know, we, we put it into different places. We put it in the Disney, Epcot. You’re going to find this to be funny. They called up and they wanted us in to sample them. And we sampled them on the red and the white. We did not have the rose at the time. And they give me an order for 1200 cases of red on the spot.

Within like 10 minutes and the guy said, “Hey, we’re going to do the wine festival at Disney. We want to have it as a Mexican Spanish sangria.” And they put a floater shot of the kill on. It went through 75, 000 glasses in 6 weeks and they sent over a half enough to make a half a million glasses of sangria from us, so you can easily add a floater shot to this if you want.

If you add a floater shot of the peanut butter whiskey, screwball to the red, it tastes like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

[00:22:25] Drew Thomas Hendricks: What?

[00:22:25] Eamon McDonald: Very interesting.

[00:22:27] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Now my mind is going weird. Okay.

[00:22:29] Eamon McDonald: I’m going to bring you some to your office, but it is amazing. Like, where people say they want to make their own sangria, I go, listen, number 1, you don’t need to do anything.

Just buy this, pour it on a glass, sell it to your customers. They’ll buy 2 and 3 glasses. If you want to do an upsell floater shot, I got some floater shots for you. So, because Americans love to make their own sangria.

[00:22:48] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah.

[00:22:50] Eamon McDonald: And they’re not really making sangria, they’re making trash can punch. Well, let me show you how to have a good sangria, pour it.

And then if you really want to add something to it, to have some fun, hey, do this, you know.

[00:22:59] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Kind of make it your own, use yours as the base.

[00:23:02] Eamon McDonald: You can kind of make it your own and, or people want a white label it like several customers do and a lot of people don’t know it’s our sangria. We’ll white label it for a winery. We’ll white label it for a you know, whoever wants it.

You know, it’s pretty simple. You know, I tasted a very big chain in this country. We’ll just say they’re in the top four. They have several thousand restaurants right before COVID and the guy had like five of my competitors sangria there. Well, each one of them, he picked up and took a drink, took a drink, took a drink.

He got to one of our competitors that was in a few chains. And when he sounds lit, he goes, man, that’s not what they said it was. And then he tried my red sangria and he put it down and he picked it up a second time and he picked it up a third time and he looks at me and he goes, “That’s one of the best sangrias I’ve ever had in my life.”

He says, “You make the best sangria, don’t you?” And I said, “Well, I like to think we’d make a pretty good one, but coming from you, you know, you manage a couple thousand restaurants. I’d like to think, you know, more than I do.” You know, obviously. So a very nice guy. And he says, hey, when he goes, that’s the kind of drink he says that our customers will buy two and three of.

He goes, “We make our own sangria today by hand and nobody ever makes it the same from one bartender to the next in all of our restaurants. Statistically, it’s too sweet. Statistically, people only ever buy one of .” And he said, “Your drink is the kind of drink people will buy two and three of.” I think, Drew, in my opinion, I think a lot of restaurants don’t think about that.

They focus so much on the restaurant and not as much on the cocktails. And if you notice all these craft cocktail bars are killing it, but they’re killing it because they got something special and people don’t have one of. They have to have a couple like if your favorite cocktail in a bar is whatever that is, you’re probably not going to have one of them.

You’re probably going to have a couple or maybe 3. I mean, just a fact of life. You know,

[00:24:49] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s the only place you’re going to get it. I mean,

[00:24:51] Eamon McDonald: That’s the only place you’re going to get it. And then, like, like, he said, he’s the same in our customers. Only we’re only going to sell them on entrée.

He said, “We need drinks. We can sell them 2 and 3 of.” So I think a lot of people don’t put a lot of thought behind that. Now that that was huge, you know, and it was interesting information because, you know, here’s a guy that really knows his stuff that, hey, they got several 1000 restaurants. It’s like, hey, this all makes sense to me.

[00:25:13] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. So for several thousand restaurants, let’s talk about the white label. How would somebody come approach you and get into the, your white label program? How many cases are we talking about? Did they have to get a container?

[00:25:26] Eamon McDonald: No, no, no, no, no, no. So well on bottles, if they want it bottled with their stuff on it would be a minimum of 600 cases.

We’d definitely like to see 1200, but 600 cases of bottles. And we can do red, white and rose on that and do a mixed bag on that one. What we did here, and we could start anybody off with is sell them the bag of box, put it on a draft handle, put it within a facade box that we have, so nobody knows it’s ours, and they can pour it right from the back of the box.

The huge advantage of keeping it in the bag of boxes when you open that, it’s good for up to 6 weeks. And it’s always going to stay fresh.

[00:26:02] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I am so happy that bag in the box is finally the stigma of it. I mean, like five, six years ago, people would not even touch it. They just assumed it was crap wine. Last year, Tablas Creek, one of my favorite wineries up in Paso Robles, they just started producing their Pat Linda Tablas, which is their 30 wine in three liter boxes, which is perfect.

Cause it’s a little bit of a discount. And even as a consumer, I can now, well, it also makes the recycling bin look a little less stupid when I take it out of the end of the week. There’s a little less bottles in there, but

[00:26:37] Eamon McDonald: A little less bottles. I like that.

[00:26:40] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah, it helps you hide your consumption a little bit, but that’s another story. But it also keeps the wine fresh and it’s so much nicer. I’m so happy that it’s, the stigma.

[00:26:50] Eamon McDonald: Right. And a lot of people, to be honest, don’t know that. Like when I go into a bar, I’ll bring bottles, I’ll bring a bag inbox and the, you know, years ago if I went with bag inbox three, four years ago, they’d throw me out.

Now you go in and say, I got this in bag inbox. They’ll say, we’ll take it. ‘Cause they realize it’s gonna stay fresh from the first glass to the last glass. We tell people six weeks, probably a little more than that, but at the end of the day. That’s really hard to beat. So there’s no waste, you know, and, and another little thing too, which to give you an idea, so obviously Eamon McDonald will be just a wee bit Irish, you know, I grew up in Ireland as a kid.

So, in Ireland, or even here, if you go to order a pint of Guinness here, a pint of Guinness costs that bar about two bucks to make it, and they’re going to sell it for eight or 10, a glass of sangria costs less than it’s going to sell them the same bar for 12 to 14 because your wife or girlfriend, she gets a glass of sangria if she wants it, you know, relative to your pint of Guinness.

So there’s a high perceived value on a pint of sangria or a 16 ounce wine glass of sangria, as opposed to a six ounce pour of wine. Hence why a lot of our customers like they sell a boatload of sangria. I was in interviewing a customer last week. He goes, they’re not a big company. They’re a little wine, a little, Mediterranean restaurant.

They had 12 wines. And I said, “Well, how does our sangria sell against the 12 wine?” She goes, “Well, we buy more of your sangria and we sell more sangria than all 12 of them combined.” And she says, “they’re all good wines.” But she said, “You outsell all of them.” And we see that where the sangria is put in the menu, it’s marketed properly.

It doesn’t have to have my name on it. I always tell them put our name on it authentic spanish sangria. So people have a stigma and what I see at the wine festivals we go to I sent you a video earlier on a wine festival and at Santa Barbara dana point, we’ll pour 12 to 1400 glasses in four hours and we’ll have a line of maybe, you know, anywhere from 40 to 80 people deep.

And the number one thing people come up to me when they try my sangria is they go, “Oh my God, that’s not what I thought it was going to be.” I go, “What do you think?” I already, I mean, I already asked the question 500 times. I thought it was going to be a sugar bowl. And it’s not, it’s, you know, a little bit on the sweeter side, but not overly sweet.

I, people always say, how do you describe it? I said, put a teaspoon of sugar on your coffee. There there’s how sweet it is. So it’s not overly sweet, meant to go on a glass of ice, but the biggest thing is, and it is a hard thing for us as a company, is that we have to overcome all the bad glasses of sangria you had before you got to me.

Because nobody goes, “Oh, my God, they have the best sangria on the planet.” Very few people have got to tell me that yet which is interesting. But in our booth, they’re like, this is the best sangria I’ve ever had. I hear it every day, especially we’re going to do a big San Diego wine festival this weekend, probably for 1400 glasses there in 4 hours.

And we’ll have a line, you know, 60, 80 people deep going, this is the best sangria I ever had. And the crazy part about it is, why didn’t they ever have a good glass of sangria before? And, you know, and if you ask people, what’s your brand of sangria? Nobody can tell you. If I ask you what your brand of vodka or gin is, you probably got a favorite brand.

So very few people can say, well, yeah, this brand’s my favorite. I don’t even know of a brand. I hear that all the time. So it’s kind of interesting, you know.

[00:30:02] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Absolutely. Fascinating. I’m twofold. You’ve got first building this brand and by the name Pasmosa, and then also helping bars empowering them through the white label process just to kind of create their own, sub brand using your product.

[00:30:16] Eamon McDonald: Yeah, because if they buy the bag in box, I can put it right on a draft handle or a bargain and nobody even knows it’s mine. So to get them going, that’s the best and answer that question. They could buy 1 case of red or white or rose or one of each and nobody knows it’s even our brand and let them go sell it if they really want to have their own sangria, but, you know.

And then obviously if they really get going, you know, I, I have one particular customer and he is moving through about, I don’t know, 30 cases a month, a bag in box. And he said, “What about bottles?” I said, “Wait till next year.” He looked, he goes, you don’t want my order? I said, “I wanna see you grow and build your wine base, and as you do then next year, you know, I’ll come see you and make it.”

He goes, “You really don’t want my order?” I said, “Let’s be patient.” So he just had to be in order yesterday for a half a container, but I told him not to about 4 months ago. So I said, “If you’re going to order, wait till November, and we’ll have it for you by April, because we still have to TTB approve it and, you know, all the label and everything that he wants.”

So, we’ll design, start designing his label next week. And the process is, you know, 4 to 6 months. Realistically, by the time it hits your doorstep, I just tell people 6 months, if you say.

[00:31:25] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s interesting. I’ve got a question from a personal standpoint. I’m sure our customers or our listeners do too, but I used to import wine, but that was before the bag in the box time.

When you import the vat, do you import the wines and vats and then put it in the bags here? Or do you import the bags from Spain?

[00:31:42] Eamon McDonald: No, I import it. Totally finished. So the wine’s already in a box and there’s four or five liters in a case. We can do a 30 liter keg, a disposable keg in a case. The bottles are already done and they’re all packaged and done. And I’ll bring some of these down to you. You’re not so far from me. So in the next

[00:32:00] Drew Thomas Hendricks: 30 minutes.

[00:32:02] Eamon McDonald: Yeah.

[00:32:03] Drew Thomas Hendricks: That’s interesting. So it’s all finished in Spain and imported here. Is there a possibility of bringing in like a,

[00:32:09] Eamon McDonald: No, no problem at all. About six weeks from the day I ordered it to the day I get, it’s about six weeks. 6 to 7 weeks that’s it. So quick. And we can do a container today where you’ve got an unlimited capacity.

[00:32:20] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Oh, wow. And that’s so important for restaurants and bars once they get something on their list. They need that consistency. They don’t want to run out because then they have to reprint their lists.

[00:32:31] Eamon McDonald: Oh, yeah. No, I have three to 5, 000 cases at all times in stock, so we never run out. We’ve never run out yet in 10 years. You know, we just keep accelerating more volume that we, we want to have at least a six month supply in stock at all times.

[00:32:45] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah, we were talking earlier before the show about once it gets on people’s lips, it’s an easy sell. It’s getting them on the lips and as you were trying to promote the company and promote Pasmosa that you had a story about a wine, one wine event that they didn’t know that you should even show up to, but you showed up and then they were begging you to come back.

[00:33:08] Eamon McDonald: Yeah, so this was funny. I don’t want to say the name, but 1 of the wine festivals, they wanted 1600 bucks for us to go to it.

And I said I’m not paying 1600 bucks. You guys are nuts. Anyway, long story short, I hired a gal in that area like a year later and she goes, you know, you should really come to this wine festival. And I go, “I’m not paying them 1, 600 bucks.” I said, “I’ll give away, you know, 2, sangria at this show.” I don’t, you know, if they want to buy it. I said, “I’m not paying.”

So anyway, it was funny, you know, stubborn Irishman. So anyway, she says, listen, I got the gal to say she’d do it for 200 bucks. And I said, well, okay for 200, we’ll do it, you know, so, and it’s a hike. It’s a three hour, four hour drive from here. So I drove down there and we set up our tent. They get about three, three and a half thousand people at their wine festival and we set up and we started pouring sangria.

We had over 50 people in line within a half hour. And I talked to this gal on the phone. Her name was Emily and Emily, I’m a six foot one big guy. She’s a little five foot, you know, sweetheart. And she walks up to me and she goes, “Are you Eamon?” And I go, “Are you Emily?” And she goes, “you’re. Never paying to come here again. You can come anytime you want.”

Cause it’s the number one hit of the show. And every time we go to a wine festival, we usually are the number one hit of the show that we pour a decent pour, but it’s a refreshing, it’s a warm summer’s day. It’s sort of a no brainer. You know, we’ve been to several shows, you know, and everybody’s like, “Oh my God, you’ve got a hell of a brand there.”

So, you know, like everything it’s liquid to lips, you know, I’ve had guys walk up, up to me with their girlfriend or maybe their wife. And I got to tell you that story that happened at that festival. Anyway, I’ll guys walk up to me and have a beer in their hand. I’ll say, “Here, let me trade that beer out for a sangria.”

“Hey, dude, I don’t drink wine.” I said, “You might drink this.” And put a sangria on their hand. They put down the beer and go – the rest of the day. So I had this wine festival that actually, it was that festival, the 1st festival. And of course, I’m a guy. You know, so there’s these two little honeys from Kentucky and they could pass off as sisters.

And one was the mom and one was the daughter. And they come up and get a glass of sangria. They walk to the back of the line, come back up again, walk to the back of the line, come back up again. Now they’re on their like fifth glass of sangria and I got a line 50 people deep. So anyway, this guy, cause I’m 6’1 when there’s a bigger guy than me, you tend to notice them.

So this guy walks up with the two girls and that’s the dad. And the dad’s like 6’7 and he’s got a heavy Kentucky accent and he goes, “Man,” he says, “You got the best shit here.” I just started laughing and he goes, he said, “My girls just love this.” And it’s heavy Kentucky accent. So he said, “Can you give me a pallet of this shit for tomorrow?”

And I look at him I go, “Now, out of curiosity, if I could get you a pallet of the shit for tomorrow, what would you do with it?” He goes, “I got 1 of them they’re layered jets. I’ll put it on it. Take it home.” I literally about fell out of the chair. This guy can buy any Napa Valley or Central Valley wine at this festival, and there’s got to be at least 50 60 wineries there.

And they’re all Napa or Central Valley, some Temecula wines there. But some of the best wines in the whole region, he wants to buy a pallet of this shit as he called it. So, you know, all just in. You know, but I, I thought it was so funny and I go, yeah, I don’t feel like losing my licenses right now to see if I can get you a pallet to move it tomorrow.

But he’s bought a ton of sangria from us since and we shipped it to him legally, of course, to Tennessee. But there’s a, that’s 1 of the funniest stories, of course. But, you know, here’s his, his wife and his girlfriend can, I think they can probably afford whatever they want to drink and, you know, and the best of those 2 is interesting because everything’s free anyway.

You pay 100, 120 bucks to get in. You can drink whatever you want. So, why aren’t you drinking, you know, some of the really popular Napa Valley wines and they do, they go around and sample a little bit of it all, but then they end up in my line, a big majority of the festival, obviously to pour, you know, 12, 1400 glasses and

[00:36:57] Drew Thomas Hendricks: They need a palate cleaner.

[00:36:59] Eamon McDonald: Yeah.

[00:37:01] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I’ve been to those festivals. You can get pallet fatigue very quickly and I would appreciate having a nice crisp sangria to

[00:37:07] Eamon McDonald: Yeah. So, so it’s really cool. You know, I, we love going to it of course. And obviously I don’t pay anything to go to these festivals anymore, but I piad 200 bucks once, but anyway they’re good people, you know, all good people.

[00:37:22] Drew Thomas Hendricks: So you’re getting the word out, spreading, spreading the footprint, looking for restaurants and, you know, any hospitality industries to get your wine. Where can people find out more who may be in the industry looking to add this to their portfolio or add this to their lineup?

[00:37:36] Eamon McDonald: Yeah. So a couple of things, we would love to get some local distributors, the big distributors like RNDC and Southern. I don’t think we’re the right fit for them. As you know, the distribution market in the last 10 years has changed a lot. We still got to build the brand no matter where we go. I’m interested in maybe microcosm distributors if it makes sense. A white label for the right people that make sense. I’m all ears on all of it.

If they go to our website or, you know, you can give them my email and stuff on here or whatever. I’m happy to talk about it. They can reach out to us. We’d love to hear from them, and bars and restaurants. What we’re going to do now is create an email campaign and marketing out to bars and restaurants to drive more of that business and wineries.

What’s really interesting is a lot of the wineries out here, they’re doing like a Frosé – the other day. You know, all these wineries have this Frosé and I’m like, why are you doing a Frosé and, and they’ll do like a shot of wine on top of the Frosé. Well, the Frosé is made of wine and you can’t sell a customer a bottle of Frosé to go.

But if we, if they sold our sangria, they could sell a bottle of our sangria to go. And some of these wineries are, we’ll sell it for 29 and it doesn’t cost them a third of that, you know, even brand labeled with their name on it. So I’m like, you know, this whole Frosé thing’s crazy that if you’re driving these younger generation people in for their weddings or whatever, and you’re pouring on Frosé, well, how are you selling them something after they leave?

Where if they poured them a really good glass of sangria and got rid of the Frosé machine. They’ll automatically make more money and because they’re going to sell them bottles to go or put it in their wine club, you know.

[00:39:15] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah.

[00:39:16] Eamon McDonald: That’s kind of amazing out here. Like, I’m going to tell you, I know of at least a half a dozen winery selling Frosés.

I’m like, why would you go to drink? It’s like a slurpee.

[00:39:25] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah, it makes sense on a hot day. But if you’ve got that sangria on ice, then that’s even a better alternative because you can recreate that. You brought up the best points against selling Frosés, customer can’t recreate that at home.

[00:39:38] Eamon McDonald: No, and they can’t the Frosés never going to be the same either.

And one of the wineries I talked to, they said, “Well, we’ve got 2000 cases of wine that’s going bad. And what are we going to do with it? So we make Frosés out of it.” And I’m looking at him going, this sounds like the same story. I hear at some bars. We got stuff going bad. So, I agree out of it.

And you wonder why sangria has a bad reputation with the typical consumer. And I’m just shaking my head going seriously, like you’re, maybe make something good. They’re going to want to buy more of. And, you know, another interesting thing too is if you look at the cost of a good sangria is under 2 bucks.

Right? And if you make your own homemade sangria with labor and everything else, do you have 50 cents or a dollar in it? Right? Let’s just say you got 50 cents in it for 8 bucks. Well, what if you sell it for 10 bucks and you pay me less than two to make a quality sangria? And you sell that same customer three glasses of sangria.

If it’s only $10, you just sold 30 bucks, it costs you six that 50 cents. And the guy never bought a second glass. How much business did you just lose? And it was never gonna be the same from glass to glass or sagria to sangria.

It makes sense to take that leftover oxidized wine and chuck it, charge an extra dollar or two for a really good glass of sangria. And if you’re paying me 2 bucks and you sell it for 10 versus take leftover stuff and sell it for 8, my sangria just became free because you paid me 2 bucks, but you got 8 profit in your pocket and you got to sell an authentic Spanish sangria. Math makes sense.

[00:41:12] Drew Thomas Hendricks: No brainer. Eamon, well, before we go here, is there anything else you’d like to talk about that we haven’t discussed?

[00:41:18] Eamon McDonald: No, I really do appreciate you giving us the opportunity to talk about it and my first podcast. So, I don’t know what to tell you. Hopefully I passed.

[00:41:29] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Fantastic conversation.

[00:41:30] Eamon McDonald: You’re a hell of a nice guy. You give me some great leads in the business. Definitely look forward to doing business with you here in the near future. Hopefully, if not, you’ve definitely got to be in the right direction, but I think we’re going to do business together. And most importantly, I had to get you some sangria here in the next week.

[00:41:45] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah, I’m dying to try it.

[00:41:47] Eamon McDonald: No problem.

[00:41:48] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Eamon, thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:41:50] Eamon McDonald: Thanks for having me.

[00:41:52] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Have a great rest of your day and good luck on the wine meeting this weekend. The weather’s going to be great.

[00:41:58] Eamon McDonald: Oh yeah. It’s going to be good. I think it’s going to be like 75 in San Diego food and wine festival. They’re saying about 5, 000 people, 51 restaurants. That’s in your backyard. Not that far away. That’d be a great one to come to. If you come to it, you know, I’ll hook you up.

[00:42:12] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I may see you there. Well, thank you. Have a good day.

[00:42:15] Eamon McDonald: Bye bye.