Celebrating Camaraderie, Connection and Community - Chris Bishouty, Founder of Broken Tee Vodka

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 01:07

Colin, thank you so much. I really appreciate you having me on, man.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 01:09

My pleasure. And hey, I did not mispronounce your name. I know beforehand in the show we were going through about 19 different ways and I thought for sure you were going to jinx me here, but ah I totally crushed that with Bishouty there, didn't I?

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 01:20

Absolutely. Nailed it.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 01:21

There we go. All right. I managed to hit it off the first tee down the middle of fairway. Let's see if I can keep it going for the rest of the conversation here. Okay, Chris, before we get into Broken Tea Vodka and all the good things you're doing there and why, I always love the Why with entrepreneurs.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 01:29

Let's do it.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 01:36

I always love to ask this icebreaker question and I know that you play golf because I managed to get you to sit down today because boo-hoo for you first world problem you got rained out on the golf course today, so you had a brief window to sit down for this conversation. I know you play golf a lot. So you're living the brand. You're living the lifestyle here. But I'd love to hear this. Your first golf experience ever. And who was that person, that power of invitation in your life at whatever age that put a golf club in your hand and that first amazing experience that hooked you for life.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 02:14

My story is fairly boring. It was my father. at a very at a very, very young age. Some of my earlier memories are of him coming back from the course. 11 o 'clock in the morning because he would go out at the crack of dawn and I would talk to him about whether or not he won or he lost if he made any money off his buddies or not Didn't really know what that meant at the time, but he would take a lot of practice swings in the living room area of the house. I don't know how he figured out how to do that without damaging anything. But the other thing he would do is he would practice his putting. I would watch him do that. Sure enough I went and grabbed his putter and I was hooked.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 03:07

And well, that's the great thing about putting. That's how the game should be taught.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 03:12

Yep.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 03:12

I believe with Harvey Pinnock, the Little Red Book. I don't know if you ever read that. I read it years ago. One of the chapters was called Golf for Kids. And he was adamant about this as saying, seeing parents out on the practice tee with their kids at the range. And the first thing they do is they put a driver in their hand. And he said, you know what? Golf is played from the hole, moving back out. So putter. then chipping, then pitching, and then moving out. It makes complete sense to do it that way. So getting a putter in the hand was the way to go. So you were hooked and it was not on a golf course. So it was actually in your living room. I love that.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 03:44

it was in the yeah in the living room putting in yeah putting into a coffee cup

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 03:44

So that was your first golf experience with your dad.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 03:48

Yeah.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 03:48

There we go. Good stuff. Well, how's your putting these days?

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 03:51

One of the best parts of my game. 100%. I am an excellent putter, and as a matter of fact I use that Texas wedge as far as 40 yards off the green because my short game is awful. Yeah, I've got plenty of guys who would come in here and tell you the same thing. I can get that ball very close from way too far off the green with my putter.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 04:17

All right. Well, hopefully I'll be able to see that Texas wedge in action. We talked about when I'm at the PGA show in January that hopefully we spend a little bit of time together. We can get out on the course and have some fun and connect. That's the plan.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 04:28

Absolutely. That would be great.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 04:29

That's the plan. Okay, so I'd love to hear as an entrepreneur myself, four-time founder and working with so many entrepreneurs in the startup community all over North America, especially in Vancouver here where I live. It's part of what I've done. Entrepreneurs have this I call it, because of my background in architecture, I call it an open building site. And you can build anything you want. And I find sometimes a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of founders will then create something in the far corner of their building site and constrain themselves without considering the possibilities of what they can do. So I want to start with this. I don't know what your background is. I don't know if it was in liquor distribution and sales or if you actually worked at a bar or restaurant or hospitality. So I'd love to hear that. So tell us the why. When you could do anything you want as an entrepreneur in golf or anything else. Why did you decide to create a premium. vodka that focused on connecting with the golf industry?

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 05:29

So serial entrepreneur. My life has been about building things. I've always enjoyed that strategy that Creation process. I've got an ad agency background. I've spent a lot of time building direct to consumer brands and driving consumer response, building white label brands working for other people's brands. So that was sort of innate in my process and all along the way you know with the things that i've created or the businesses that have been purchased or sold or the the idea always is and comes down to one thing And what I was searching for.

And what I've always searched for is if you build something that you love, you never work a day in your life. And we kind of touched on that and earlier in the earlier part of our conversation before we got on here. But that is how Broken Tee ended up becoming what it became it was that solution to that how do I build the thing that I love. So that I don't feel like I'm working for the rest of my life. And so that agency background combined with the love of golf. I don't have a background in spirits not a traditional background in spirits that story is a little bit more unique and interesting I actually grew up, because my father worked overseas for a US-based oil company. in a compound in Saudi Arabia. So think of it like an air base and when you have a lot of expats going in that are used to consuming alcohol and enjoying a glass of whatever it is every now and then, and you go to a country where it's not allowed.

What they did to solve that back in the 70s was basically, hey welcome to your new life. Here is a pot still and an instruction manual called the blue flame on how to make your own. So when most kids were worried about their fake ids I was wondering, "What went in your mash? How long did you let it ferment? How many times did you run it through the still? I don't want to go blind drinking this". And yeah, so I have a much broader understanding of building a spirit than then most people would without direct experience in the space.

You put all those three things together. The way it ended up coming together essentially is I joined a men's group eight to 10 years ago now. And the camaraderie that you build, the community that you build with those guys or with those gals, it's the lifeblood of the course and the 19th hole is a natural part of that course as a natural part of the game. We would walk in we would all order our drinks whether it be vodka whiskey beer, you name it. And we would share the stories of the day. And honestly, the course that we played at the time was an absolute dog track. You wouldn't go and invite someone there and be "hey, let me show you a good time on a great course!" We were going there for the relationships. We were going there for the stories that we would share after the round and the fun that we were having before the round and you give everybody a hard time. You talk about the shots that you hit. And while you're there, I would notice looking behind the bar, there was really nothing that spoke to for as much as we spend time in there nothing that really spoke to that camaraderie, that lifestyle.

So Broken Tee became the embodiment of that idea. It is a celebration of the community and the camaraderie that golf is.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 09:27

I love the motivation and the why. As the French say, the raison d'etre, your reason to be with that and i also love the fact it was the creation of a Saudi moonshine that was the foundation for your chemistry experiments there that led to where you are now.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 09:50

Yeah, not your typical backstory.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 09:52

I'm assuming that as an entrepreneur, you're wearing so many hats that you're not the one with a lab coat on that's actually distilling Broken Tee Vodka. So I want to hear this. With successful entrepreneurs and where you are with Broken Tea Vodka, you've scaled this up. So you've had success and it sounds like on the brink of really scaling up here. But you cannot do everything. So tell us the early days here and give us a bit of a timeline here, Chris. of the sequencing you had, when you had the idea, you said there's this gap in the market for what we want to create here. I'd just love to hear about the team that you put together, those pieces to move it forward and get yourself off the ground.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 10:34

Yeah, so I've always been a self-starter, self-reliant. I would say that It is no different with any other business. The important thing is to find the people that you put around you. My whole thing is I can get it so far. You need a strong distributor. You need people that understand the social media getting the word out there With my advertising background, I've got a good understanding of a lot of things. but the specifics and the distilling that piece is about finding something that's going to go in the bottle that is going to that is going to express the brand in a way that makes sense and doesn't deviate from what you're trying to do. So one of those early on decisions were do we build the distillery or do we source the spirit? And when you are bootstrapping the whole thing, building a distillery is a little out of the question. So we are not in the building a distillery phase. And a lot of people will tell you, hey, vodka is vodka. That is not 100 the case but Again, a good vodka disappears in the cocktail that you're making and it shouldn't detract.

So what was important was finding a partner that would be able to meet the standards in terms of what we were trying to put in the glass. Then a lot of that is making the right connections doing your research and trying to what I would say is. Lean on the knowledge of the people who have the experience where you're getting started and say, "hey what mistakes am I trying to avoid here? What can you teach me so that I don't have to make the same mistakes or learn them the hard way?" And that's really what you're trying to do out of the gate. You're going to make mistakes. There's no two ways about it. and there is no better teacher than the mistake, but mistakes can be very expensive. So your ability to, and this was certainly sort of key early on, the ability to find as many mistakes as possible that you can avoid because you can find the right people who have done it, who have had the experience and can tell you "hey, these are things that you really want to avoid".

That is a key and in getting anything started but i would definitely tell you if you're looking to get in the spirit space, find the people that have done it before that know the pitfalls and potentially advise you against it. If you're not going to have the stomach for it because it is not an easy thing to do.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 13:28

Well, the challenge for entrepreneurs and founders is, that playbook I'm trying to reconcile when you should listen to advice and when you need to push through and have that confidence in your experience and your vision also. And again, there's no playbook. Sometimes you get it right, sometimes you don't, but the key is to make sure your course correct quickly. So I want to ask you this. With wine, Whiskey, Scotch, the different notes and the different tastings that you have. I'm quite curious because this isn't my world at all. In vodka, I'm sure it's as nuanced as that. So how would you describe as far as, I don't know, the tasting notes? Is that the right way to position that? Why don't you describe what you what you wanted to create and what you consider that differentiator and that flavour profile of Broken Tee Vodka that you're very proud of as compared to other vodkas that are out there?

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 14:28

So the goal of vodka is to be odourless and tasteless. That is the goal. That is the ideal. That's what you're trying to achieve. So the actual ideal vodka doesn't have flavour, doesn't have notes. It's hard to accomplish that because you can make a vodka thousands of different ways, just depending on the source of sugar that you use. Broken Tee happens to be corn. We chose corn because corn vodka is more identified from American-made vodka. Potato tends to be more identified with Russian or Polish vodka. The French seem to have that wheat piece cornered. Doesn't mean that you don't make a wheat vodka. You can make a wheat vodka. They all have different kind of notes to it. But the goal here was purity. So lack of particulate at in the end product because those particulates, those particular things that are the things that the more you have, the more you are going to tend to have that hangover. If you tend to get over if you end up getting over served it's a cleaner product from that standpoint so that was one Goal 2.

Most people when they think about taking a shot of vodka or having a sip of vodka, there is that sort of harsh finish that they've associated with it and it's one of the things that I enjoy most when we give people a taste is we do get the reaction of Oh! I didn't get that burn. I didn't get that feeling that I was expecting. What I was bracing myself for wasn't there. That's the carbon filtration right? So it's carbon filtered it takes that edge off it ends up being much smoother than a lot of the competitors out on the market. Some people actually like that burn. We've gotten the other side of it where they say, "hey, you know what? Doesn't have that bite. Great smooth finish. I am actually looking for that bite". To each their own.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 16:32

Yeah.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 16:34

Then again with the corn finish, the other thing is the responsible sourcing so that was a really cool piece about putting this together in that the distillery is hydro-powered. The corn that's being used is non-GMO and the entire corn stock is being used and not wasted with the process. So it is as sustainable with resources that you can you can possibly think about to make when it comes to putting a spirit together. So those are the tenets of what we were trying to do. We get really good feedback on the on the final product and a lot of people will tell you a lot of vodka is marketing. Marketing is very important as you know, telling the story having the story and the juice ends up being sort of secondary. We wanted to ensure that the juice really wasn't a secondary or an afterthought in putting this product together because of the community that we're looking to serve., who are golfers.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 17:41

Now, speaking of that community that you're looking to serve, of course, that golf community. I want to understand when you were starting, call it proof of concept or knowing there was a market out there because spirits are a hyper competitive space, very crowded space. Some massive players with multi multi-million dollar tens maybe hundreds of million dollars in marketing budgets every single year and you coming in as the smaller player in the market.

So I'm curious, how did you first get in the market? Were there are certain golf courses that you had connections with and relationships with? So why don't you talk about that? Because I know with products and services, the first thing to do is they develop a beachhead. Find that area first. Don't try to then scale it all over the world. Nail it and then scale it. So how did you first nail it and find out there was a market and then get that feedback flywheel going to get that messaging out of what you were about and why you do what you do?

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 18:48

Well, the first thing you pointed out in terms of the hyper competitiveness was thing number one. There is a vodka that is the Kleenex of vodka on the market, and there is really no second place. And when you look at the spirits category, and this is kind of how the thought process went, right? When you look at the spirits category, the every man vodka has already been created it's a done deal from the standpoint of unless you've got oodles and oodles of buckets of money to go and take on the 800 pound gorilla you're really not going to make a dent in that armour.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 19:22

Yes.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 19:24

How do we define the lifestyle? How do we define what's going to be the affinity with this brand and they tend to go off of these evergreen lifestyle concepts to try and attract a market based on what they think. If we put this description together, this is the type of person we're looking to attract and looking to pull in. And there's been a lot of success where you tied celebrity to the brand. Other brands who have attempted it became the thing to do It. That has become very inauthentic, and I do feel that people are pushing against that. You can't just tie a famous person's name so you're faced with all these challenges and you say "okay well how are we going to differentiate ourselves?" And to me in the spirit space - one, authenticity has to be at the core of what you're trying to do. And two, your market has to be someone that you know and someone that you can speak to flawlessly. With golfers we have a vernacular, we have a way that we talk. We have a way that we interact. and End.

The golf space became extremely intriguing because you have a niche market. I've spoken with other golfers and we all kind of think the same way. Did a little bit of research. Golfers drink three times more than the average American. You've got a bit of a natural moat there. Golfers are generally higher net worth individuals, golfers are extremely brand loyal golfers are also extremely picky with what they choose. We all spend a lot of time money and effort on the hat, the clothes. The clubs. The bag. You go on down the line and there's something in the lifestyle in the space that's been designed for that which we do.

18 times in trying to get that ball in the hole. And then one more time when we go to the 19th hole to have that conversation. It's an individual expression of who we are And for the amount of time, money and care that we put into that expression, the idea behind Broken Tee was se really should all be spending that time, money, and care into what goes in our glass and what ultimately ends up going in our body.

That's where the connection ended up being made and that it seemed kind of obvious. And that's really what we are looking to be. Part of the fabric of the conversation of the golf lifestyle. So it's a lifestyle brand that happens to sell vodka.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 22:35

I'm ah also curious to learn about your distribution strategy, how you started and how you're expanding. I believe you're in South Florida, right, is where you're living?

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 22:44

Currently in South Florida, yes.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 22:45

I'm looking at your store locator on your website, and it seems like the majority of the places that offer Broken Tee Vodka are in Florida right now. Some in Alabama and moving from there, but it sounds like you're really focusing on the region. So talk about that at the start. Are you right now more of a business to establishment, so more to business right now. To golf courses and building relationship with the golf clubs and the bars there. I'm in Canada right now, probably can't get it right now, but let's say if I was somewhere else in the States, let's say I was living in Seattle. south of me from Vancouver here. Do you also have a business to drinker model too that I could order a case of Broken Tee Vodka? So tell us about both that, the decisions that you've made and the ones you've decided to hold off on because you can't do everything at once. Because otherwise, we know as entrepreneurs, you're going to trip over yourselves and you don't have the bandwidth and the resources to do it.

So talk about that as far as the strategy and where you are right now as far as what you consider success with the distribution of Broken Tee Vodka and where you're looking to go in the future.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 24:00

Yeah, 100%. So, you hit the nail on the head, right? Small budget, small focus. Being in South Florida, Florida became a natural starting point, proof of concept market, over 1 ,200 courses in the state and year-round golf. So you're not really seasonal. So in terms of the brick and mortar, that's where most of our focus has been we've aligned with a couple of distributors who have wanted to take us into other states. I didn't go to a traditional distributor. Because you've got a lot of competing brands when you go to a distributor and unless you've got that footprint it's sort of a cart and horse thing. Or a chicken and egg thing more than a cart and horse thing.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 24:46

Yes.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 24:46

Once you've got that footprint, they want to say, "well, we i don't really have time for you, we've got 15 other vodkas." So we actually started and still do direct to consumers. So you can go right to the site and you can buy your bottle of Broken Tee Vodka and we ship to 46 states right to your door. There's a convenience factor there and we have different versions of the bottle. We're celebrating the four majors now with our bottles so that was our we did our first year of that this year we're gonna do. Year two is coming up. So we're going to have all new designs, all new ball markers. The ball marker is really a linchpin of the entire brand because it screams golf.

And we use that ball marker to do a lot of different expressions for the brand. So there's different ball markers out on the market. We can get into that but everything really started online building a social presence. Communicating with the golfing community and getting traction through people literally ordering it right to their door and through those interactions. That one-to-one connection, because to me, it was always about and will always be about building that connection directly with the consumer versus going through a distributor who ends up taking it. They really don't have the choice here.

They take that connection out of the story. Whereas, we sell it online and we talk about it in our socials, we have a community now that we're engaging with, which is what golf is all about. So it's more leaning in on what we all do naturally. So our whole thing is really leaning in on that direct to consumer piece. Working directly with our customers as well as working directly with golf courses. You don't really see that from a distribution standpoint.

Chris 26:44

In terms of how the model works we work directly with golf courses for what we call our 19th whole series where we take the Broken Tee bottle, we work with the golf course and we say, "Let's create a collaboration model". And that collaboration bottle will scream whatever course you are. For example we did Panther National, Justin Thomas, Jack Nicklaus Design Course. Beautiful community links style course they hosted The Skins Game earlier this year. Very successful event. But if you go there you will see the Panther National version of the Broken Tee bottle. It's a beautiful bottle. I was very excited to be part of that project and they've got their own ball marker and they've got their own label. But all of this is about, from where we started to where we are now and going on in the future. It's about the one on one connections more than anything else. And we'll bring on distributors. We want to go nationwide.

But it is one step at a time and along that way we've got to raise capital. I was able to bootstrap it to a certain point, but if you want to keep growing, you want to keep building inventory, you've got to make some friends who are willing to put some money in with you.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 28:02

Well, it sounds like you're way beyond proof of concept with validation here with what you're doing in Florida and expanding and the fact that there's almost 15,000 golf courses from private to daily rate and everything in between. You've got a massive market there. So the opportunity it's not lost on you.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 28:19

For sure.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 28:20

I know you've already done this. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know here, Chris. So even just in the United States alone, a massive opportunity and just staying in your lane, focusing on golf. And speaking of focusing on golf, one thing that's super fun that I really like is you have The Cocktail Club. So you have on your website you've got three on here, and I know you've extended beyond that. So the ones you have on here, you've got the Broken Tee with tea as in like iced tea, I see spelled a little differently, kind of clever, with the Breakfast Ball and the Cart Girl.

And you do have one other you told me about, but we're going to tease that out a little bit later because you and I, after we finish up with our audio podcast recording here. We're going to jump over to the ModGolf YouTube channel and you are going to be the mixologist. You are going to mix a couple of your signature cocktails that all revolve around a golf theme with one more that you've talked about whether you want to say that now or you want to hold off on that, which I think is super fun. So it's all about golf. All the time.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 29:23

Yeah. Absolutely. Well, look, the natural question is. Why vodka? And the you know we've talked about the market. We've talked about a lot of reasons why strategically it ended up being vodka but The other piece is when you look at. almost every signature cocktail that exists in the market for golf right now, whether you're talking about the iconic transfusion. The John Daly or hard Arnold Palmer however you wanted to call it the Bloody Mary the Water Hazard the Sand Trap and on on and on and on. The base for all those cocktails is vodka. So it really only made sense. That's a lot of what the lifestyle and the drinks are based around. That's our starting point. And that doesn't mean that's our ending point, but our starting point is. Felt natural for vodka.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 30:17

And I love what you're creating here. You're creating this platform for shared experiences and shared memories. And one of the ways you're doing it is the takeaway. And you touched on this earlier, the ball marker that's on the top of the bottle. Tell me about that. How did that come about? Was that right out of the gate? Is that something you white boarded right at the beginning? And how has that evolved? Are you now seeing that people are asking for them and are they collecting them? Are there limited release ones? You talked about doing ones for certain golf courses or events that could be very unique as part of their brand alignment. So I think you have a massive opportunity there and something shareable and memorable that people can create stories around. Share on their social media also, which I'm sure is a great marketing and advertising opportunity for you guys.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 31:14

It sounds like you've done this before, Colin.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 31:18

I've talked to a few people over the years and I've but i've built a few things myself.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 31:19

Yeah 100%. 100%. So the original idea of Broken Tee started in about 2020. I didn't pull the trigger and start getting really really serious about it until the end of 2023. And it was sort of in the back of my brain and it was constantly evolving. The ball marker was one of the last things that came to me. Your your big idea is an inspiration that starts from somewhere else, right?

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 32:09

Yep.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 32:09

Look across the spirit space and you will see other examples of the ball marker. You've got Lentens where you got the horses on top of the bottle and the collection is get every horse so you can spell blends. You've got Lone Star beer. The really cool thing about Lone Star beer back in the day is you would take the top off and of of a bottle and on the other side of the cap you would have a picture quiz. And the idea was to try and decode what it was saying. It was just these cool little puzzles so every time you got a Lone Star it was open the cap try and solve the puzzle. It's an engagement and an expression of the brand that helps to really build the community.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 32:58

Right.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 33:05

We're not doing anything that different with the ball marker. But yeah. Golfers. What do you do when you're out on the green? You got the ball. You got to mark it. A lot of people are fumbling around in their pocket for change. Well if you happen to drink vodka the bottle ends up getting finished but you have a keepsake that is essentially forever unless you lose it and again if you happen to drink the vodka you can have a nice little stack of ball markers that you can use at any point in time. You're 100% right in terms of the lto's or limited time offerings our four majors bottles all have a unique ball marker that doesn't look anything like the G2 bottle ball marker. We had an original bottle.

Our Hello Friends bottle, where the original ball marker existed, that bottle is no longer being sold. So you can still find them. There's a handful left at some total wines in Florida But we don't have them in inventory. We cannot put them online. We are only selling the G2 bottle now so if you want that original ball marker you're gonna have to go and find it. Again, with the 19th hole series. That Panther National bottle that we talked about, we don't sell it online. It is not sold in stores. If you want that ball marker, if you want that bottle you're gonna have to find a way into Panther National to go and get it and the goal is to build a 19th whole series with a bunch of iconic clubs and have an entire lineup of iconic bottles with iconic designs and iconic ball markers that that not only celebrate the game, celebrate the round and celebrate the course.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 34:49

Are you finding as you grow are you getting brand loyalty and customer feedback that people are loving your product? Are you starting to create this marketplace like you've got people that love sneakers and collect them. You've got the sneakerheads. Are you getting Marker heads now? Is that even a thing? Are you finding that people are clamouring or want to know what the next limited release is going to be for a for a ball marker because they want to collect them all?

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 35:05

Not yet.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 35:12

Kind of like Pokemon, they want to collect them all?

Chris 35:13

Yeah, that would be an ideal. Don't get me wrong. Don't get me wrong. Would be absolutely ideal. We're not, we're not quite there yet. Still a small brand. Hopefully the story gets out. People understand what the brand is about. They understand what the ball markers represent. There are some other clubs that do have their own 19th hole series. 19th hole series bottles. We did a new one this year. We did a handful in the Northeast. with some clubs in Massachusetts and I believe one in New York. But, yeah, they're out there. If you were to take it upon yourself you could collect them all. I don't even own all of them all.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 35:57

What?

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 35:58

The funny thing is yeah I don't even own all of them. I would have to make a road trip to actually go get them. I've got a couple here. We can't show them because obviously it was audio medium. I've got the original here. I've got our G2. I've got our Azalea ball marker here. I've got one from all the four majors. I had a Panther National one. But it somehow went missing from my bag. I know someone may have it, but I had the Panther National one at one point.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 36:29

Yeah. I think Gary at HR, he stole it. Look at his bag.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 36:34

I'm going to have to find it.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 36:37

You don't have them all. Okay, as we finish up here, I got a couple more questions I want to ask you before we jump over to the ModGolf YouTube channel. And hey, you're going to mix some drinks and you can show some ball markers on screen there too. So you're going to get a two for one there, folks, if you become viewers, after you finish listening up with ah Chris and I here. Okay, one of the last questions I want to ask you here, myself, four-time founder. sometimes it's such a struggle with the name and the logo and the mark and all that and it's agonizing. Sometimes it just comes like this epiphany, it's there. And I've had other times where we've workshopped it and it's just been painful and slow. So tell us about that as far as the name and then also the logo too. So tell us about that piece as far as landing on the name and maybe some ideas that were shortlisted then then rejected.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 37:28

So there was an original design. This isn't it. The one that's on the bottle now wasn't the original design. And it never made it to a bottle. But the original design was more trying to capture that obvious broken tee design. I'll get into the name after this Um, and For me as I kept looking at it, I put it on some hats, I put it on some shirts. and I just kept thinking to myself the obvious is not going to work here. It just didn't feel right. I wanted something more subtle. I wanted something clean. I wanted something that felt modern and not hokie!

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 38:14

It has an elegant, kind of sophisticated, elevated look to it. I'm sure you thought this through, that is synergistic with the vodka itself. That Steve Jobs, Apple notion of called impute that everything he had along the way, all the experiences, whether it's the first customer greeting at an Apple store, the way the Apple store is designed and it looks and things are shelved, to the packaging, to everything, it has to be at that high level. If one thing drops, then everything drops from there. so it Seems to me with what you have here, the graphics and the styling and the messaging it conveys a sophisticated elevated product.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 39:01

Thank you. Thank you. You've got the B and you've got the T. So it's built into what you see. The T is actually broken. It's just very clean.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 39:15

Yes.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 39:16

And there's actually two Ts in the logo. If you look carefully it's where that t breaks and the b comes across it actually makes a second t in a smaller font type.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 39:27

I'm looking at that now. Okay. that Oh, I see it now.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 39:31

Yeah, so there's a little there's some subtle nods in there and again the tee so yeah, that is how we landed on something a little bit more subtle. Not as well executed as a FedEx. I love that one. But you're playing with the negative space and you're getting some getting some additional meaning in the logo beyond the obvious.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 39:50

Yeah.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 39:55

So as you look closer, you see more. The name came from honestly how I play the game. The romantic side of it is a broken T is a sign of a game being played. If you see a broken tee on the box, you know that a game is being played and it is sort of an elegant description of it. More recently I do hit more driver. But for me at the time when I was developing the brand. I didn't hit a lot of driver off the tee box because it was a pretty errant shot for me. So I would always go to the tee box hitting less than driver, and I don't need a big tee for that, so I was always looking for the broken tee.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 40:40

Right. Hmm.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 40:44

So. The Broken Tee is about how I played the game. And it was just so fitting.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 40:51

I love that. Okay, we finish up here I see that the three C's are part of your pillars here. Really in your North Star, if you will. Connection, community, and camaraderie. So those three. Can you share with us as we finish up here, the fourth C, that's your name too, Chris. So we'll stick with three. Can you share a couple of stories on course, whether yourselves or maybe people reaching out to you. Maybe it could be people like why isn't Broken Tee in our golf club yet? Whatever it is, your fan, your fan people out there, or even one or two stories that puts a smile on your face and keeps you going because entrepreneurship, we have our ups and our downs and you've got to keep pushing forward. Tell us those stories that come back to you that fuel your fire and keep you going.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 41:41

Look, for every aspiring entrepreneur, I would I think it cannot be so overstated that every day is an adventure and it's not always sunny and roses. There are days that yeah you will have to survive because you feel like nobody knows the brand, nobody cares what I am doing. This entire thing is going up in flames. And then all of a sudden, the next day, you get that phone call from that person you talked about talked to three months ago. They want to bring the bottle in or they want to do a much larger engagement. More recently I got a phone call from a distributor. We want to bring you into North Carolina. Huge. North Carolina is a new state that we're going to be opening up here. Hopefully very shortly. Going to have a kickoff call next week. But those are definitely the stories that keep you coming back. Other than that on the more personal front we get a lot of people reaching out. With golf, people use the round for fundraising, they use around for tournaments that have a lot of really good reasons behind them and a lot of deep meaning.

I've gotten a lot of stories for people reaching out about what their tournament was about, why they created it, why they love golf so much, why golf is tied into what they're doing.

How they're moving forward with their life after a tragedy or creating awareness for these things and honestly i love those stories. We support as many of those as we possibly can. That's been a byproduct that should have been obvious I guess. But it's definitely those heartstrings that make, among other things, those heartstring stories really make the whole thing worthwhile. Like I said, we are a lifestyle brand that happens to sell vodka, but our whole thing is about bringing more awareness to the game, bringing people into the game, and really being a part of the fabric of the story of other people's lives and their lives in golf.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 44:10

I love this. I can really feel from the conversation here that you are playing the long game on this and you're deeply entrenched and passionate and it's not just about the money. It's not just about how many bottles that we can sell and sure obviously you want to scale it. Broken Tee is a for-profit business but i've met a lot of founders and entrepreneurs and they're jumping around with that whole serial entrepreneur notion. And I'd rather be a successful entrepreneur than a serial entrepreneur. But serial entrepreneurs quite often when things go a little bit sideways and when things get hard they're on to the next thing, whatever that is and i can see you've you've got meaning and connection to your community, not only in Florida, but beyond. Once again, it sounds like you're just getting started here. So, hey, I'm so glad we've had a chance to connect and we'll see each other in person in a couple of months. But as we finish up, if there are golf course owners and operators or perhaps they're on the hospitality side at a resort or or a club. or even people that just love a good vodka cocktail who are living in the US.

I'm up in Canada, so we can't get it quite yet, but most of our listeners are in the US. So why don't you let people know how they can find out more about Broken Tee Vodka and how they can find out about getting it on the shelves in their their grill room or bar in their own home.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 45:36

Super easy. Yeah. Thank you. So. It's BrokenTeeVodka.com. T-E-E, obviously for the T that we use to tee up the ball. So BrokenTeeVodka.com. You head over to the shop and we've got everything laid out for you. Super easy. Ideally, it's a really easy checkout process. That's what we're really going for here. Your best deal is to buy a three bottle pack because it costs just as much to ship one bottle as it does sauce as it costs to ship three, so you get a price break at the three bottle purchase.

Have it delivered right to your door in 46 states. And if you are looking to pick it up and you want to bring it to your club, send an email to [email protected] and we'll definitely reach out and get in touch, especially if we're in that state. And if we're not in your state, we can get into your state. That's definitely something with the 19th hole series that we've found in terms of placements that there really isn't a place we can't get to and we can usually partner up with the distributor fairly quickly.

Colin Weston - Host of The ModGolf Podcast 46:35

There we go. Well, why don't we leave it at that? As I did mention a couple of times during the show here, for all of our listeners. Why don't you join us on the ModGolf YouTube channel? In the show notes I'll include all of the contact information that Chris had just mentioned there and also the link to our YouTube video where we're going to mix some cocktails and we're going to see some ball markers. And I'm looking forward to that. So with that. Chris Bishouty, founder of Broken Tee Vodka. Thanks so much for it being rainy in southern Florida today so we managed to drag you and your soaking wet clubs off of the course down to your studio and in front of the microphone for the time we spent together here on the ModGolf podcast. I really appreciate it. I loved the conversation, Chris.

Chris Bishouty - Founder of Broken Tee Vodka 47:21

I loved it too. Thank you so much, Colin. Thanks again for the time, man.