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Trey Litel, President of Louisiana Spirits LLC
Mr. Trey Litel, President of Louisiana Spirits LLC, home of BAYOU® Rum, located in Lacassine, Louisiana.
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Owners of Louisiana Spirits with Troy Landry
Left to Right: Trey Litel, Skip Cortese, Troy Landry (Star of TV show “Swamp People”) and Tim Litel during the global launch of Bayou Rum at Tales of the Cocktail 2013.
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Louisiana Spirits Distillery
Louisiana Spirits Distillery in Lacassine, Louisiana
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Bayou Rums
Louisiana Spirits LLC located in Lacassine, Louisiana home of BAYOU® Rum: Silver and Spiced Rum.
Exclusive Interview with Mr. Trey Litel, President of Louisiana Spirits LLC, home of BAYOU® Rum, located in Lacassine, Louisiana
I first heard of Louisiana Spirits through a news article online. I reached out to the person who wrote the article and asked how I could reach out to Mr. Trey Litel. That same day I received a response with his email and phone number. I reached out to Trey and a few months later Luis and I had the pleasure of meeting Trey and the rest of the team in Louisville, Kentucky during the American Distilling Institute’s convention. This was about two years ago.
Last year Luis and I took a drive down to Louisiana and had a marvelous time touring their distillery, checking out all of their merchandise in the gift store and enjoying a few drinks with the group at their beautiful tasting bar. Today, I have the honor of conducting this exclusive interview with Trey and look forward to sharing his story with all of you.
I want to congratulate Trey and his team for their grand opening last year and the launch of their Bayou rums. I wish Trey and his team much success and I look forward to visiting their distillery again very soon.
Margaret Ayala, Publisher
What is your full name, title, company name and location?
Trey Litel, President, Louisiana Spirits LLC, home of BAYOU® Rum. Our distillery and visitor center is located in Lacassine, Louisiana conveniently on the Interstate 10 corridor at Exit 48 on 22 acres facing I -10 at 20909 South I -10 Frontage Road. The beautiful facility offers tours, tastings, and an incomparable gift shop experience.
Can you tell us a little bit about Louisiana Spirits, what inspired you to start the company, who are your partners, etc.?
I have long been a fan of rum since my days at Bacardi USA in sales and marketing. I often wondered why Louisiana didn’t have a world class rum given that our state produces more sugarcane than any Caribbean island! I wanted to do something to celebrate our state and its illustrious culture.
My partners are Tim Litel and Skip Cortese. We enjoy hunting and fishing together and we discussed and enjoyed rum on many occasions together. We got serious about this about 4 years ago when we learned that craft distilling is capturing the public’s attention with 400+ distilleries in the USA up from 60 a decade prior. Tim and Skip come at this business from the environmental services industry perspective. They have built tank cleaning facilities and water treatment plants and they know a thing or two about tanks, pipes, and pumps not to mention growing successful companies. We are smart enough to know that we need help and we have consulted with many industry experts and recruited a few to join us.
You are not the first distillery in Louisiana, but you are certainly the one making the biggest waves. Was this the plan from the beginning?
Absolutely! We believe in doing things right and that Louisiana deserves world class rum and a first class tourist destination experience. The funny thing is that our story struck a chord in Louisiana from the very start, when Channel 7 evening news interviewed and reported our first zoning meeting. We have been very open with everyone on our goals. The Louisiana sugar industry has my ultimate respect when you consider that they compete effectively against a world of imports. The sugar folks said that Bayou Rum is fulfilling a 50 year dream of theirs. This changed our perspective and made us realize that it is not about us, but for the citizens of Louisiana and the USA. If we do this right, Bayou Rum can be America’s Rum from the heart of sugarcane country.
We understand your Master Blender is perhaps the most experienced in the US craft rum industry, can you tell us more about him?
Yes, he is Reiniel Vicente who was born in Cuba. Reiniel is a second generation master blender who learned the craft of rum making from his father while working at a rum company in the Dominican Republic for many years. Reiniel’s father was a master blender in Cuba for 25 years. I don’t need to tell you that many believe that Cuba produces the finest light rum in the world. Reiniel has contributed to our taste profile working with Jeff Murphy our head distiller from Privateer and Rebecca Creek to perfect our distilling processes. He runs our QA lab running a Gas Chromatograph daily to check out standards. It helps that he is only a semester short of a chemical engineering degree. Reiniel is a passionate talent and we are very fortunate to have him on the team and enjoying his role in Louisiana.
What types of obstacles did you encounter in Louisiana when you tried to get all the licensing needed to start a distillery? Do you think your state is easier or tougher than others in the country?
The first obstacle was Louisiana alcohol laws did not allow tastings or product sales at manufacturing facilities. Our local Louisiana economic development representative is Marion Fox and I will never forget when she said “ I love a challenge!” Marion proceeded to introduce us to Senator Blade Morrish from Jeff Davis Parish and Troy Hebert, Louisiana’s Commission of Alcohol and Tobacco Control. We met them and shared our vision. The two saw the opportunity for Louisiana and did not want yet another exception in the law and worked on passing LA senate bill #64 into a new law which enabled any distillery to provide small tastings and sell a bottle to visitors. This leveled the playing field for us with wineries and breweries in the state and has resulted in 5 distilleries up and running now with 3 or 4 others in the planning stages. It was a beautiful thing to watch. I will just say that Louisiana has a pro-business initiative and they proved it to us in very real terms.
Why rum? Is it because of the historical role sugarcane played in the early days of Louisiana? Are you planning to produce sugarcane vodka, gin or other spirits?
Rum is the answer! We are focused on producing world class rum from Louisiana sugarcane. Historically, Louisiana had been making rum dating back to 1764 and up thru prohibition. The first settlers in colonial Louisiana were striving to survive and growing cane proved to be their answer. The French Chevalier in charge of the settlement shipped sugar, molasses, and 18 hogsheads of tafia (the French name for rum before the British named it!) to the King of France as proof of their success with the crop in 1764. A monumental “sugar rush” was kicked off a couple decades later after the 1795 growing season when Etienne de Bore crystallized sugar commercially and sold his sugar crystals for $12,000! Word travelled fast and people arrived in Louisiana to buy land up and down the Mississippi river, up and down the bayous, to establish sugarcane farms and plantations. It was fascinating and inspirational to learn that knowledge transfer from the Caribbean assisted Louisiana to become the sugar capital of the USA in the mid 1800s providing up to 90% of sugar consumed then. We celebrate this history with our “sugarhouse” recipe for Bayou Rum, and in our visitor center viewing room which chronicles the important Louisiana rum making milestones.
Please tell us a little bit about each of your rums.
We have two expressions of Bayou Rum on the market today. Each of them is quite flavorful and easy to drink.
Silver Bayou Rum:
Handcrafted in a traditional copper still utilizing our “sugarhouse” recipe which includes fresh Louisiana molasses and raw unrefined sugar straight from the mill, Silver Bayou Rum is smooth and full of flavor. It starts with a very floral nose that you would swear is sugarcane. I drink it on ice. It is incredibly smooth for a young rum.
Bayou Spiced Rum:
Our rum is rested with a “gumbo” of spices which infuses a traditional taste palate in a perfect balance. This product is great for sipping on ice and tastes amazing in traditional rum drinks and ginger ale for a Spanish Moss. Spiced rum is a vibrant category and Bayou Spiced Rum was blind tested against the major players, picked first overall for and the comments were that of balance, great taste and drinkability.
New products:
We filled up barrels early on and we expect to have our first aged rum, Select Bayou Rum available later this year. We have also been experimenting with another Louisiana agriculture favorite at harvest time, the Satsuma. Bayou Satsuma Rum is in development for summer release and it is infused with fresh Satsuma juice which is similar to mandarin orange for a unique and refreshing taste experience. Delicious!
What influence does Louisiana have on the flavor of your rum and do you think consumers outside the state will appreciate this influence?
Louisiana food and beverage is world renowned, and so is our celebrated culture. As we speak today, Mardi Gras season is in full bloom. Louisiana has influenced us deeply in our taste profile, packaging, and how we communicate in our marketing of Bayou Rum. We are proud of our heritage and proud to represent such an important cultural phenomenon, and we feel privileged to contribute to this wonderful culture with Bayou Rum. It is our hope that Louisiana fans distributed all over the world will recognize this and enjoy Bayou Rum with the same passion they exude for Louisiana. If our Facebook friends are any indication, we think they will.
Despite your production capacity, many would consider you a “craft” distillery because of your attention to detail. How do you feel?
We are definitely a craft distillery when you consider our use of local agriculture raw materials, our handmade batch distilling process and bottling line. Distilled and Bottled By Louisiana Spirits LL C, DPS LA-20001. What makes us different than most craft distilleries we have seen are our attention to detail and process excellence. We have temperature controls which measure to the tenth of a degree on our fermentation tanks and Vendome copper pot stills which enable us to dial in unmatched consistency. Our artisan distiller, Jeff, and Reiniel collaborate to make precision cuts by hand during each distilling run. Our semi -automated bottling line is operated by 5 people who touch and inspect each bottle.
What is different about how we have approached the distilling business is our scale. We have worked over the last 3 year s to construct a purpose-built distillery from the ground up and to employ state of the art process technology to perfect our craft distilling process. As far as we have seen, we operate on a grander scale than most craft distilleries.
What are some of your signature cocktails and which one is your favorite?
Bayou Daiquiri is tough to beat. The classic daiquiri is one of my favorites and fun to make because you get to shake it. Equal parts of fresh lime juice, freshly made simple syrup, and an ounce and a half of Silver Bayou Rum mixed up in a cocktail shaker – add ice, shake and serve up in a martini glass with sugar rim. When the balance is perfect, watch out, it is hard to stop!
Our most popular summer cocktail was the Bayou Breeze, followed closely by the Gator Bite - an awesome rum punch. When you have some good mint to work with, make a mojito with Bayou Rum, but we call that a Bayou Mosquito! Check out www.bayourum.com/recipes for the details and some other great Bayou Rum cocktail ideas.
Do you offer tours of your distillery?
Yes, and tours are free. We offer 3 tours Tuesday thru Friday at 10am, 2PM, and 3PM, and 6 tours hourly every Saturday. Tourism is important to us because positive brand experiences result in future sales! We hope that everyone has a good time and remembers that when they are in the gift shop and at their local bar or liquor store. Visit www.bayourum.com/distillery for details and to make tour reservations.
The “Hurricane” has always been a Louisiana favorite cocktail. Do you have plans on helping revive this cocktail?
Tough question because the Hurricane cocktail was invented by the bartender at Pat O’Brien’s in New Orleans to get rid of a glut of poor quality rum! A good Hurricane is supposed to mask the taste of rum for the drinker. That said, there is a lot of energy around this iconic cocktail lately. My favorite is a variation called a Blonde Hurricane which includes our great tasting Silver Bayou Rum. The bartender at the Ritz Hotel bar in New Orleans tried and tried to create a refreshing taste cycling thru a not to be named Puerto Rican light rum and a couple of other local choices before reaching out for Silver Bayou Rum. Skip and his wife Lisa consumed a couple of Blonde Hurricanes last weekend, and then a couple more and they are quite happy he did. By the way, we are participating in the 2014 Tales of the Cocktail bartender contest to recreate the Hurricane. To the talented bartenders, reach for Bayou Rum…get you some for great taste!
If people want to contact you or want to know how to get a hold of your rums, how may they reach you?
Check out www.bayourum.com for updates from us. If you want to contact me, I am most responsive on email, so drop me a line directly at trey@laspirits.net. Also, keep tabs on what we are doing via Facebook at www.facebook.com/bayourum or Twitter at www.twitter.com/bayourum. I am told we have a following on Instagram too.
Is there a particular message or comment you would like to share with our readers?
Ask for Bayou Rum and you will be supporting American sugarcane farmers!
Do you have any advice for someone who wants to build a distillery in the USA?
If you want to be authentic, use local agriculture, distill it, and bottle it yourself. Someone said that just because it is craft, doesn’t mean it is good. Be prepared financially, because milestones take longer than you expect in building a distillery.