Gerry Ruvo
Chairman & CEO, Skyy Spirits LLC

ON the company

The Beverage Network:Skyy Spirits is the sixth largest spirit company in the U.S., but small compared to giants like Diageo or Pernod Ricard. How does this size benefit you?
Gerry Ruvo: Because we’re smaller than those massive companies, we are agile. We can be quick to the market with new products. Our size—combined with the fact that we have the right parent company (Campari) which has heavily invested in the U.S. market for the last 12 years—enables us to be in the best position possible in the industry today. Additionally, all of the consolidation has played to our advantage—we were able to buy Cabo Wabo, X-Rated and Wild Turkey, and make them very competitive brands.

ON whisky

TBN: Speaking of Wild Turkey, how has that brand performed since you acquired it and what are your thoughts on the bourbon category in general?
GR: We had been desperately looking for a bourbon since we are strong believers in the strength of that category. Wild Turkey is a terrific brand that wasn’t getting much attention, and we saw tremendous opportunity—after all, there was a time when Wild Turkey and Jack Daniel’s were neck-and-neck. It’s only been about a year since we’ve had it and it’s growing nicely, and American Honey is flying. We have some exciting plans for Wild Turkey at the end of this year, so stay tuned.

TBN: Your portfolio is heavy in brown spirits, with an impressive portfolio of luxury Scotch. Where do you see the super-premium whisky category heading?
GR: Between Glenrothes, Bowmore, Glen Garioch, Auchentoshan and our recently-introduced Glen Grant from Scotland—as well as Yamazaki and Hibiki from Japan—we are seriously committed to the super-premium whisky category. What’s been fascinating about this particular category is that consumers have not shown the same penchant to trade down as they have in other spirit categories. They may trade across—someone may go from Glen Grant to Glenrothes, if they’re looking for a different style, perhaps—but they’re not trading down.

TBN: This trend, combined with the shift towards home entertaining, must mean tremendous opportunity for off-premise retailers.
GR: Absolutely. It’s very important for retailers to have a wide selection of single malts to take advantage of this. Consumers want flavor and premium Scotches are incredibly flavorful. And if consumers aren’t going to the bar to drink their Bowmore, they are buying a bottle of it and drinking it at home. Single malts are picking up a lot of cordial volume as an after-dinner drink, too. Although we’re known as a vodka company, we’re very aggressive about brown spirits and are proud of our broad portfolio of whiskies.
ON tequila

TBN: Tequila is another category you’re bullish about. The high-end hasn’t been performing as well, yet you’re optimistic.
GR: We purchased the Cabo Wabo brand and have completely revamped the package. It’s still going to be the “rock n’ roll” Tequila at the ultra-premium level. We also bought the distillery in Mexico that produces Espolon Tequila; it had been a very small brand packaged in a beautiful tall bottle and priced even above the ultra-premium level, so it never really performed very well. The liquid itself, however, is outstanding. So, we kept the liquid the same, but repackaged it to bring the cost down to make it more competitive. Cabo is our ultra-premium, positioned with Patrón and Don Julio, and Espolon was just reintroduced in the premium area, the $20-$25 dollar range.

ON VODKA

TBN: Has your flagship vodka brand also benefited from the shift to off-premise?
GR: It has indeed. We’ve always somewhat positioned Skyy as an off-premise brand. Consumers still desire products that are high-quality, innovative and stylish, and Skyy has offered all that from the beginning. It has certainly served us well over the last 18 months as consumers trade down in value, but not in quality. The vodka category has experienced immense growth over the last 30 years, and continues to grow faster than any other category—Americans simply love vodka.

TBN: Yet we’ve seen bartenders turn against it, as the whole mixology movement has gained momentum.
GR: Mixologists are always looking for different things to work with, and they have adopted a somewhat anti-vodka sentiment. But you can’t escape the numbers. Vodka is a mainstay spirit and consumers want it when they go out. I was at a bar on St. Patrick’s Day and there were more people drinking Vodka and Tonics than Irish whiskey! Vodka is strong and vibrant, and quite frankly, mixologists can’t ignore it. It’s a category that offers versatility and tremendous innovation.

ON FLAVORS

TBN: Innovation is an important part of Skyy’s identity with the creation of infusions. How are these flavors performing?
GR: Our marketing team did a lot of research and discovered that consumers value flavors, but they value infused products even more. We immediately stopped work on our flavored vodkas and looked for a new process that would give us this unique, real fruit taste that is more rich and intense. We introduced Infusions three years ago with three pretty basic flavors. Since then, we’ve gotten more innovative—passionfruit, pineapple and our just-released ginger—which bartenders are really embracing. We enable consumers to go home and make the drinks that bartenders are creating, without having to mix seven different ingredients. We’ll never have 20 different flavors, and we don’t necessarily want to be ahead of the consumer, but hopefully we’re observant of what’s going on in the marketplace. We saw chefs using ginger, we saw bartenders using ginger, we saw the use of ginger ale growing in the U.S., so we started working on our ginger flavor last year. So far the numbers are off the charts.

TBN: Yet while Americans love flavor, they have been slow to embrace Campari. Why is that?
GR: Campari is the number one spirit in Italy because the apéritif culture is so strong there. It’s a powerhouse brand in many other countries, too. Campari is one of the most unique brands in the world, but it has been a flat brand in the U.S. But as Americans begin to crave more flavors, and different kinds of flavors, I think Campari has tremendous opportunity here. It will just take time. Campari is also celebrating its 150th anniversary—how many brands out there can say that? We will have events all over the world to celebrate, including the Manhattan Cocktail Classic and San Francisco Cocktail week which took place in May.

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