Brett Berish - CEO of Sovereign Brands on Building Luc Belaire, Ace of Spades, and McQueen Violet Fog

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Plus hold music. You want to avoid it and so do your customers. So say goodbye to holdmusic and hello to faster, smarter support with Salesforce. Make service more personal and agents more productive using built in trusted AI. Then watch costs and wait times drop and satisfaction soar. Support customers in a whole new way with Service GPT. Learn how@salesforce.com ServiceGPT what is going on everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. On today's episode we have Bret Barish here with us. Bret Barish is the founder and CEO of Sovereign Brands. Founded in 1999, Sovereign Brands is an independent international wine and spirits company. Family owned and operated for nearly two decades. The company is responsible for producing a growing list of leading global spirits brands across categories. In 2012, Bearish launched Bel Air, an award winning line of French sparkling wines. Since being notably touted by longtime ambassadors Rick Ross and DJ Khaled, their signature black bottles have evolved into symbols of self made success for prominent artists, athletes and entrepreneurs alike. In just five years, the brand's flagship blend, Bel Air, ranks as the top selling French sparkling wine sold in the United States. Tapping into the spirits of independence, Bel Air launched their Self Made Taste Better campaign to celebrate artists who have challenged convention and paved their own path to success. The campaign is driven by a video series that features Brett sitting down with various artists to discuss the process of building their career from the ground up. In addition to highlighting the journey of Rick Ross, DJ Khaled Belair has shared the self made stories of artists such as Nipsey Hussle, Steve Aoki, Post Malone, Dave East, a Boogie with a hoodie, Russ, and many, many more. So with that being said, before we dive into today's episode, I just want to say thank you to Rick Ross for making this interview possible and huge shout out to the Sovereign Brands team. I'm looking forward to meeting you guys soon in New York City. And with that being said, let's dive into today's episode with the one and only Brett Barish. All right, what is going on everyone? Casey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. Today we have Brett Barish on the show, the CEO of Sovereign Brands. Thanks so much for coming on the show, Brett.

Thank you, Casey. Appreciate. I'm beyond happy to be on and talking to you.

I appreciate it. So first off, I want to ask you, when it comes to sovereign everything you've built, where did this start and where did the journey begin of launching this company as an entrepreneur?

Oh, I think we're going to need a couple hours to have this conversation. For me, I'm an idea guy. I've always had lots of ideas. I've always wanted to try things. I've always been business oriented. I remember, I think it was a freshman in high school and a girl, her name was Meredith Bloom, invited me to her birthday party, and all of us went down to the White Sox game, and I went to her house, and her house was enormous. And I knew her dad was really wealthy. He was huge in real estate.

Yeah.

And I didn't care about Meredith. I just wanted to talk to her dad. I just wanted to talk to her dad. And to me, I don't know. I've always been. I've loved business. I love ideas. I love creating. But my biggest issue, Casey, was I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to choose something. So it's everything for me is. It was an evolution to finally choose something. That was the biggest change for me, just making a decision to finally pick something and say, okay, forget everything else. Be really good at this and see what happens. That happened 21 years ago.

I love that. So, Brett, when it comes to the way we connected, I obviously had Rick Ross on the show a couple months back, and that was a favorite for my audience. When it comes to your relationship with Rick Ross and Bel Air Champagne, where did that form and how did it begin?

All my. It's great because all my brands, I don't meet anybody unless they somehow connected with the brands. And in this case, it's all relationships. And someone likes something that you're doing. And Rick and I, I'm close friends with great DJ out of New York. DJ Clue.

Yep.

And it was early on with. When we had launched Bel Air, and the brand started getting seen all over New York. And Clue and Rick were at a club, and Rick saw these bottles, these black bottles of rose, and he loved it. He just loved it. But that's how, for me, that's how all our relationships have ever developed is it's not a business meeting. It's someone got a hold of our brands and we connected. And then we go from there. And with Rick, it's probably been eight, nine years Together. Wow. And now he's one of my closest friends.

That's amazing, man. When you're launching brands, especially the Bel Air, the black bottle, it was something that has never been done before. What was the original idea for that? You know, coming up with the black bottle, Something that was so different and that stands out. Where did you get that idea from?

Well, it's funny. All my brands have one thing in common. No one. If when I show people in my industry, they hate them, they don't like them, and I think that's where, for anybody listening, you got to trust your instincts. So when I first started this business, I listened to everybody. I listened to everyone's opinion and what I should be doing, how I should be doing it, and I kept changing the things based on what people say. When I introduced the black bottle, I wanted to do a black bottle. I wanted it to be different than everything else out there. I wanted to introduce Rose first. You don't do that. You traditionally launch what we call a brute. That's the main leader in a category. And my trade, our industry hated it and thought we'd never sell a bottle. And now it's the biggest. It'll be the biggest single volume premium wine in the United States by in the next 12 months.

Wow. That is absolutely incredible. When it comes to the way you guys roll out different brands, obviously. I know with McQueen and Wiz Khalifa and their entire brand there. I recently had Will Dzombak on the show, and we were talking about just that entire industry as a whole. How did that form when it comes to Wiz, McQueen and you guys partnering.

Up there, it's for me, as I said, Casey, it's very organic. It could be you and I talking, and we hit it off and you have an idea for me? Let's go try it.

Yep.

In this case, I don't want to be involved with anybody who, if they're not really behind something. And in this case, if you know anything about Wiz Khalifa, there's two things he loves more than anything, and then one is smoking, and the other one is gin. And I actually met Wiz because of Rick Ross.

Okay.

Rick knew I had this gin coming. He thought it was just amazing. And he's like. And he hooked me up with Wiz and said, wiz, you've got to see this guy. You got to talk to this guy. And same thing. We just hit it off. But there's a real relationship there because Wiz lives and breathes the industry, and he wants to be around this. So I don't want to work with anybody who's not. If it's not authentic, you're going to know it has to be real.

Yeah. What have you learned from working with these type of a list celebrities and just through that experience of partnerships and having such an amazing product attached to these high level people. What's been your experience there of just from a launch strategy to a rollout and everything that goes into that?

I think honesty is the most important. I think you got to be able to have a direct dialogue with a Rick with a Wiz, with, in my case, with a Little Wayne where you want them to have opinions and ideas and you want to disagree with them. Any good relationship has to have that. You want to yell and argue it out and that's what's worked fantastic. When you're talking about people, it doesn't have to be people. In music, it could be anything. It could be sports, it could be business. But if you're open and honest about what you both want to accomplish, you're going to get there. And that's why it works.

I love that. I did want to bring up your new New York City headquarters. Talk to me about that. I've heard it's amazing. You guys have some really cool stuff going on over there. What is this new headquarters in New York City?

It's. It's in SoHo. We've, I. We almost. It's supposed to be an office, but it's turning into this live living space that continues to evolve every day. In normal times, if there wasn't Covid, any day of the week you come in, something's changed. So it's. We've got walls that, that have imagery on it that changes. We've got crazy rooms that represent each of our brands. We've got a claw machine that picks up bottles. It's the first one ever made for picking up bottles. It's a place where we wanted people to come and hang out. The problem is they stay too long and just chill and come up with ideas and being able to release new music or talk to editors or, or have meetings. Just a very organic living space about culture, about our brands, about music, about sports, all in one. So I highly recommend, if you're in New York, if you're in soho, come and see us.

That's awesome. I'll definitely, whenever I'm in New York, I'll definitely let you know. I'd love to see it for sure. I want to talk to you about just your story prior to sovereign brands. Like where did you Grow up. What was your childhood like that led you to launching this?

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. That's where I am now. As I said earlier, I've always been. I wanted to do something in business. The first thing I wanted to do as a little kid is I wanted to be an archaeologist. I wanted to dig in the ground and discover things and find things. And then I had a billion ideas, and I just never committed to anything. I think that's very difficult. I think it's. I have a daughter who's 21, and she knows what she wants to do. And anytime you know what you want to do, appreciate that. The harder part is when you don't know what you want to do and where you want to go. To me, that's why I always tell everybody, if you don't know, pick something and be really good at it. And then opportunities will come. So for me, I grew up actually in the wine and liquor space. I love brands. I've always wanted to launch one. My father hated the fact that I got into this business because he wanted me to do something in finance. Something where you're not touching brands, you're touching money. I did finance and I hated it. And one day I quit my job and my brother and I. I was 31 at the time. 30, 31. I launched my first brand, and from then on, first five years sucked. The next 16 have been amazing.

Okay, what sucked about the first five?

Everything. Everything from not trusting my instincts, not believing in what we wanted to accomplish, listening to people that I changed my opinion. I think also in any business, it sounds strange to say, but I have no plan. And that's a really good plan because. Because it allows you. If, you know, I want. For me, I want to sell a lot of bottles. I know there's a market for the product I have. Until you get it out there, you're going to not going to know what works and what's not going to work. So you just got to let things breathe. That's what we're good at. So if my strategy is okay, I just want to sell to in California or New York, but I'm really doing well in Seattle. Well, then go all in in Seattle. Forget those other two markets. Just go. Go where you're successful. I interviewed a. I don't know if you know the artist. Russ.

Yeah, absolutely. Love Russ.

Russ was great and. But Russ's analogy for me was he saw that he had a huge fan base in the Middle East. Didn't know why he didn't Care. He just went there for them and built up that base.

Yep.

That's what you could do today. That's what. That's what I like. But everything happened to me, from my house being foreclosed on because I ran out of money to. I stopped paying taxes. And the government sweeps your account. They found my bank account, took all my money because I didn't pay my taxes for years. All with the intent of putting all my money back in my business.

Yeah.

But I found my way. And five years later, it's been 16.

Wow. Speaking of interviews, I know that you run a series called Self Made. Where did that start?

Self Made came out. It was an idea we had internally where we were trying to understand what our brands mean to people. And we realized it's to me and to everybody, they're like a trophy. You want to hold our bottle because you've achieved something, you've done something special. And it's about. I've done it. And that concept of being self made. And then I wanted to talk to people and hear. I don't want to hear. There's. I don't want to hear people's stories about success.

Yeah.

Because that's the easy part. I love hearing the hard part. The shit people went through, the difficulties, because I can relate to that. That gets me. That's the motivating side. So I think you always hear the good stuff. You don't hear the bad stuff. And that's what I want to hear, because every time I talk to people, that's what motivates me.

I love that. Do you have an interview that sticks out to you that is one of your favorites?

Nipsey was great. I think I have two. Nipsey I interviewed in California. And Nipsey was awesome because one, he showed up. Just him, no entourage, no one else. He showed up 10 minutes early. We just sat and talked. And he just was so. I like honesty. I like transparency. And he was just so real. And the other thing. And you always get. I'm sure with your interviews, you pick up little points that you take forward from an interview.

Absolutely.

I remember Nipsey talking about. And I didn't understand what the term went, pop your trunk. And his thing was, I got to go make fucking money and pop your trunk is I'm going to. I pop my trunk, and I'm gonna sell the shit that I got in my trunk on the street corner.

Yeah.

I gotta go get shit done. I can relate to that. And I love that, because to me, if you're willing to go all in and do anything. You know, sell it yourself, get it out there yourself. You're going to be successful because you're willing to do anything to get there. And Nipsey, to me was that.

I love that. I know you briefly touched on this, but what inspired the series of Self Made, and where did Self made tastes better come from?

It was a fun way of. I think. Well, one the Self Made was we realized that everybody we work with is self made. You know, when you think about an artist like a Rick Ross, it's him. He's doing this. He's making it happen. If you think about A Rhapsody or a. Or Deontay Wilder or Kamaru Usman, it's up to them. You know, Kamaru is the UFC welterweight champion. It's up to him to make this shit happen. No one else can force him. So it's telling that story, and then the idea, clearly, it's drinking, but it does taste better. When you've achieved something, when someone tells you you can't do it and you've done it, that tastes great. That's a feeling you can own.

I love that. And speaking of tasting better, I want to ask you, when it comes to the word self made, what do those two words mean to you?

No one's asked me that yet. To me, it's. To me, it's reflecting on all the difficulties and the struggles and reflecting on that allows me to feel good, that, Jesus, I did this. I tell everybody in my company, at the end of the day, I'm going to make that decision because I want to be the one to fuck it up. I want the responsibility. And I think if you want the responsibility, that's what Self Made is. You want to own it. I want to own the mistakes. I want to own the success.

I love that. How have you gone about building team culture and just what goes into your company culture that keeps it fresh and exciting? Every day.

I tell everybody the same things. I think, well, I always have new inspirations. So I changed my name to Brett All In Barish because during COVID I feel like I'm all in. Now I gotta. We're all in. We all have to do this. We're all in this together. I think doing little things like that creates culture. I think I tell my team all the time, there's no such thing as a bad idea. I have terrible ones. It's not about whose idea it is. It's about executing the good ones. I tell my team, try, shit, just go and try something. I tell my Team. You're on an island. When I interview people for jobs, I've been saying the same thing for 20 years. With us, you're on an island, you're on your own. We'll give you all the tools, but I want you to lead us, take us in a direction that we don't know about, that we've never been to. So I think we have an amazing. Our team works harder. We're better than everybody else. They love what they do. It's a 247 thing because you love it, you appreciate it, and there's passion behind it.

What have you learned just last couple of months, or last six months, I should say, from COVID and working from home and that transition in your business. What have you learned as a CEO during these times?

I was watching. I don't know if you saw the Jordan series, the Last Dance.

Yep. Love it.

Phil Jackson had a line in it, and this is where I like taking bits and pieces, but he had a line in it about when difficulty comes. You got to pivot and pivot fast. And I think that's what Covid did for us is. Is I'm really good under in bad situations at pivoting. And what do we have to do? How do we change things? How do we now all of a sudden, let's support our accounts. How do we support our accounts? How do we support online? How do we do delivery? How do we do curbside pickup? How do we show support? How do I get all the influencers and our brand ambassadors to get behind things? So, to me, that's. I'm proud of how we pivoted. I'm proud of how we've adapted quickly. And I think that's something I now will own going forward is let's keep doing that, keep changing constantly, because if we're not, we're gonna miss it.

I love that. What goes into your daily routine? Something that you stick to no matter what? I'm curious. Do you have one of those, like, a daily routine and set of habits that you rely on?

The only daily routine I have now is ever since COVID I walk. I walk eight miles a day. Eight miles my own eight miles a day.

Wow.

It used to be 10 to 14. I found a branch on the road. I whittled it. I sanded it, I polyurethaned it. I have a walking stick. I have a straw hat.

No way.

And I walk eight miles now. Every day. Every morning. It takes me two, two and a half hours. And I love it. I think. I think I get My work done. That's. I look forward to it now every day. And I think I've walked five times. What is that? I don't know, 1500 miles since COVID at least.

So every day, two and a half hours every day. Are you listening to anything during these two and a half hours?

You know, it's funny, in the first four months, I didn't listen to a thing because I was afraid I wouldn't be thinking. Like listening to something would allow me not to think. Because I get ideas. I get ideas. I don't know when the next idea is going to come from.

Yeah.

And then for the past two months, I've been listening to music and I still get ideas. So that's been great. So now I ask everybody to send me playlists. So I love that I get playlists.

Every day out of those ideas. What are you excited about in 2020 with everything you have? Everything you guys have going on?

Oh, we've got a new brand coming in 21. We've got line extensions coming on our brands. I've got a new brand coming every single year for the next four or five years.

Wow.

We want to hire more people. It's amazing. I love the things that exist today for me. I get more excited about the stuff that hasn't happened yet because it allows me to plan for tomorrow. I have no hobbies. I love working, I hate the weekend. So my life is generating what's going to help everybody, what's going to help all of us achieve more.

When you're launching a brand in the alcohol space, when you say for the next couple of years, you have different brands launching, what's your advice? Because obviously, if there's an entrepreneur listening, that's a crowded space. And I'm sure you would agree. How do you stand out? And how have you guys been able to build such a list brands?

Well, the first thing I'd say is there's no such thing as there's no space in any industry that's not crowded. Every. And again, I tell this to everybody. Forget me doing alcohol. They're all difficult, they're all hard. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. There's no shortcuts, there's nothing easy. So that's one thing that's critical, is recognize that. The second is, for me, especially in the early days, it's the same mentality of, you gotta be different, you gotta stand out, you gotta, you know, you gotta. For me, I have a branded product. It's a consumer product. You touch and feel and hold it. I have to taste better than the competition. I gotta look different than everybody else. I have to bet a better name. I have to have a better story. I have to have a better integrity. Everything has to be better and I got to do it differently. That's. That's any industry. That's any product, that's anything. What are you going to do to stand out if you don't have the money?

I love that. And I think you guys have done not only such a great job, but it's even. For example, I was at this gaming event last weekend in Hollywood with Lil Keed and they were doing this gaming rollout and he was carrying a bottle of Bel Air. And just. I talked to him and I was, hey, I just had Rick Ross on the podcast. And just the way that you guys are so dialed in in culture and how I feel, like everywhere I go that's in the music space, I always see a bottle of Bel Air. And you guys have done such a phenomenal job at that.

Yeah, but. But what's great, Casey, is we're not. I don't see it as. From a business perspective. We're doing that. We're just leaning in because Little Keat is an example. I interviewed little Keith. He wrote this dope song, the next day, sent it to me. I'm like, we gotta get involved in this. Yeah, we just did a video together. I introduced him to Rick Ross. He was at his house a couple weeks ago with me.

Okay.

That's it. To me, it's not business. This is life. This is lifestyle. I want to help these guys. I want to. I think he's got such a great Runway. I want to see him succeed. How can I help you? I don't want anything back. I don't need anything. How can I help you do something more?

I love that. Who are some young artists that you see so much potential in that are not mainstream yet?

Well, you just said Keith is a great one. He's a great one. Who else? Who else are we working with and talking to? Well, it's funny you say that. I'm not going to say one because I want to turn it a little differently.

Yep.

A few years ago, if you asked me the same question, we'd be talking about the Rick Rosses and the DJ Khaled's and the Lil Waynes. If you ask any of my team, I only want to talk about the up and coming artists because they're having such a. They're the entrepreneurs today. They're the ones grinding it and putting it out there, and people are discovering them. You know, that's. That, to me, is motivating. It used to be 10, 15 years ago, you know, which I love is the iconic ones, but the up and coming artists, it's NBA, YoungBoy, and, oh, there's so many. And there's so many good ones. But that's what makes this industry, especially music, so much fun, is there's always a new one coming. There's always somebody else coming.

I love that. How long have you been ingrained into hip hop culture? Or was that something that grew into you as the brands grew?

I, I ever. Well, since we launched this and before, I've always been a fan. I'm more of a fan. I love music, but I'm more of a fan of the business side. I'm more of a fan of the culture side. Of appreciating the fact that artists can move people and they have influence and the power of what they can do with that, I think is something I aspire to, and I think it's appreciating it more than the music.

I love that. And I have two more questions before we wrap up, and one of them is just I'm curious. I know that earlier you talked about Nipsey Hussle and rest in peace to him. I wanted to ask you what is not only a lesson you learned from him, but a characteristic that you took away from those conversations with him?

By far, it was. It was Nipsey. And I said this. It was Nipsey willing to. If you're willing. Nipsey put it in such eloquent words. If you're willing to pop your trunk, you do anything. And I just, I believe in that. I believe in the power of a person can get shit done and don't rely on anybody else. So here he is saying this, and here he is showing up by himself with nobody else. He's the only one who's ever done that. And I've interviewed 100 people, just him. That, to me, is a powerful statement. And I believe in that. I believe in that.

I love that. Last question before we wrap up. And that is just with everything happening in sovereign brands moving forward, I know we touched on it earlier, but what is something that you'd want the listeners to know about that you're excited about, that people can just play a part in the culture? What's the best way for everyone to stay in touch with everything you guys have going on and what are you pumped about?

Oh, as I said, I tell everybody this hit us. Come to us directly if you have ideas or something you want to do something you want to try again. I'm that. I'm the kid.

Who.

I wish I had somebody like me saying, hey, you got a good idea? Let's go do it. Yeah, I love it. I want to support you. I want to try this. So I want to be that person. That's my goal with our company. I want to. Whether it's an artist who wants to do a song or whether it's a video, we can help support whether. I just got hit up for product for a baby shower. I can facilitate things. I can make it happen.

Yeah.

Great feeling. So to me, it's just reach out to us directly. Contact us, pitch us, hit us. We have brand ambassadors all over the world. We have them because they hit us up. They appreciate what we're doing. They're part of us. We love them. That's what makes it fun.

Love that. And last but not least, I had one more thing, and that was, do you have any mentors in your life that have helped you along the journey or people that you would say have played a role in your career that you'd like to share with my mother.

Just my mother.

Love it.

And remember, my father was in the liquor industry.

Yep.

You need. You need from an entrepreneur, from a business, from moral support. It's. You need somebody in your corner. It doesn't have to be business related. You just need someone telling you when shit's bad. Don't worry, you can do it. You can make it happen. She's been there for me. She's my biggest cheerleader. She'd call liquor stores. I give her. She'd literally go in the phone book. This is back when you had yellow Pages if you didn't know what that is.

Yeah, yeah, a little bit.

Yeah. And she'd literally go through and call every single liquor store just to ask them if they had our product because she wanted them to hear the name of the brand.

Wow.

Like, you need people, just one person like that in your life makes a huge difference. Huge difference.

I love that. Well, last but not least, Brett, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the show today. Where's the best place for people to stay in touch with yourself? And the interviews that you do on.

Self made, you can go official Bel Air. Our Instagram. Go there. Or official or original Bumbu or McQueen and the violet Fog. Yep, Those sites. And you'll see the up and coming interviews. You'll see it's on YouTube. You'll see them. Yeah, but, Casey, I think what you're doing is great. I think when I read about you and I heard about you, I wish I was you at your age, doing this. I think it's awesome. I think it's awesome. I think, for me, it's inspiring.

I appreciate it.

You're young and you're committed, and that means a lot.

I appreciate that, Brett. Really do. Monarch Legacy of Monsters An Apple original series.

The world is on fire. I decided to do something about it on November 17th. This place, it's not ours.

Believe me. The most massive event of the year arrives. If you come with me, you'll know everything.

I promise. Legacy of monsters streaming November 17th only on Apple TV.

Plus.