How to Drink Wildcat Brothers Rum with Tait Martin

I have a penchant for wild cats; one, in particular, go tigers! Now there is another cat begging for my attention, and I just can’t ignore it. Who could when these cats are distilling rum?

On Lush Life today, sponsored by Louisiana Travel, I am thrilled to have Tait Martin, Ph.D., President & CEO of Wildcat Brothers Distillery who is with us to recount the story of how a cocktail made with their rum found its way to being THE official cocktail of the city of Lafayette, Louisiana and so much more.

Lafayette is the heart and soul of Cajun culture, a party to be found every night filled with live Cajun and Zydeco music, authentic gumbo, and of course, cocktails. 

Have you ever been to Louisiana? I love it for its Creole and Cajun culture, Mardi Gras, and the beautiful city of New Orleans, but the Pelican State, offers so much more, including the amazing live music scene covering everything from Jazz to Swamp pop and Zydeco, a fascinating history combining diverse cultures, over 400 festivals a year and adventures including kayaking on the bayous and lakes, hiking in the many National and State Parks throughout the state or the newly launched Louisiana Civil Rights Trail.   

If you didn’t know already, it’s the home of the cocktail, and gumbo, jambalaya, Tabasco hot sauce, King Cake, and beignets!  Louisiana offers a food and drink experience that is second to none.  Meet craft distillers, brewers, and mixologists who are working with local traditions and making a name for themselves on the Louisiana Culinary Trails or Louisiana Libations Trail.

Let the endless beauty of Louisiana feed your soul and inspire you. You can check out more by visiting www.louisianatravel.com.

Cocktail of the Week: The Jungle Bird

Here’s one of my favorite cocktails made with Wildcat Brothers’ Noire rum, The Jungle Bird:

Please enjoy this transcript of my interview with Tait. Just remember that I own the copyright in and to all content in and transcripts of Lush Life podcast, with all rights reserved, as well as my right of publicity. So if you want to use any of this, please email me!

This transcript is sponsored by:

Susan: I’m so excited to have you on the show. Thank you for being here.

Tait: Thank you.

Susan: One of the Wildcats, one of the Wildcat brothers, should I say?

Tait: Absolutely. First of all, thanks for letting us be on this podcast. It’s a crazy story. I’ve known David for about 30 years now and the whole brothers aspect of our company is we’re fraternity brothers. I was the fraternity chapter president of a Theta Chi fraternity back at Northwestern State University and David was the new pledge that came in and he was always a fun guy. He never got into trouble, but he always knew where the best parties were.

Susan: Very important.

Tait: Very important. We kind of clicked in college and then he went off to be a lawyer and I went off to be a scientist and professor and own a marketing agency and did all kinds of crazy things.

Susan: Wait, wait. Slow down. Slow down, slow down. All right. You said you were studying science. Was science something that you always wanted to study?

Tait: No, actually, I originally went to school for poultry science. I was going to be a chicken farmer and then realized that that was not my path in life.

Susan: Are you from a family of chicken farmers?

Tait: No, I’m not. I’m from a small town called Cut Off, Louisiana but grew up on a farm, a small

family farm. We had chickens and cows and stuff and were involved with the agriculture community and decided, “Hey, let’s be a good way to expand that and make a livelihood out of it.”

I realized about two or three years into college that was not my passion and then got into Public Relations and Marketing and in Journalism and really began getting excited about what moved people and getting messages out and advertising and took that path in life.

After I graduated, I still had some questions to be answered. So, David and I went up to Northwestern State University, which is in Natchitoches, Louisiana, the oldest town in the Louisiana Purchase. It’s a beautiful area.  After I left, there came down to UL Lafayette, University of Louisiana, and taught there and got a couple of master’s degrees and taught there for about a year and a half.

Susan: I know nothing about chicken farming. Okay. But I can imagine that it could be quite lonely as in, it, isn’t something that you go out and you’re meeting and chatting to people and all that. Your tending the farm. This is what I’m guessing.

Tait: Susan?

Susan: You’re nodding.

Tait: You hit it on head…the joke that I have is that I realized that the chickens don’t talk back and I hated it. Let’s get into someplace where it’s a dialogue, by nature and I’m sure during this podcast, I, and even David, I mean, we joke that we’re both lifelong learners and just genuinely interested in people and things, and we’re always great for a conversation. The thing is that David went on to be a lawyer and I went on to find out what else got people to tick. I didn’t get that in the chicken farming, but even though now, I mean, I’m still happy to be in the agricultural arena.

Susan: Yes exactly. We’re going to get, well, I was going to get back to that, I was going to get back to the fact that you have to have then come full circle, back to the farm.

Tait: A crazy circle. Yes.

Susan: So you were studying science, behavioral science, right? Getting, as you said, what gets people ticking.

Tait: So here in Lafayette, I studied interpersonal communication and organizational behavior and again still had some questions to be answered after the master’s degrees. I ended up at Florida State getting a PhD in Cognitive Processing in their Communication department, which is basically how people take in information and act on it.

Susan: So you can make anyone do anything really.

Tait: Well, no, not really, but I do joke that when people drink our rum, the experiment’s working. I mean, that’s kind of how it is and it really does. I mean, we often joke we don’t take ourselves seriously, but we take our products seriously and our approach.  My team has a saying that nothing at Wildcat Brothers happens by accident because we want to make sure that we’re doing things to get people to really engage with our products and also engage with us.

The thing is you own a distillery and you can make cheap booze and sling stuff out. But if you want to make really great spirits that attract people in and get them coming in and look, one of our passions, we’re doing this because of Louisiana, is getting people connected to all the great things happening in the state. Yeah. That’s a lot more than just saying, “Hey, we make some rum, drink it.” It’s talking about building that whole ethos around who we are as a company. That’s what excites us every day.

Susan: Oh, yeah, I’m sure.  Although you’re born and bred in Louisiana, there might have been a chance where you didn’t come back because you were doing your professor thing. David was being a lawyer. was there always the call to come back?

Tait: So, not really the joke, but I always said, when I moved to Florida and left Lafayette, I always said I would retire back to Lafayette. I mean, Lafayette, Louisiana is the heart of Cajun country. It’s the heart of Louisiana. It’s just, it’s the best people. It’s just a great place to live.

I always knew that I would end up back here, but I was expecting to be a lot older and a lot more, yeah, in a different, a different sense. But when David called and threw out this idea of coming together and I brought it back to my wife.

She says, “Oh, does this mean you’re retiring?”  I said, “Well, nope, but we’re going to live in Lafayette and we’re going to have a good time.” So it’s yeah. So it was a calling back because it’s just a great place to be.

Susan: All right. So let’s go to that call. So David and you are doing your own thing.  As you just said, I guess David picks up the phone and says, “Hey, you want to start a distillery?”

Tait: Well, so here’s the thing. We’ve been doing this for 11 years. David’s been doing it like a single person for about seven years. This whole distillery was created because, well, it was time for a change and David jokes that he started this distillery because he didn’t really get fulfillment out of his job. He would go out with the rest of his guys who he worked with every afternoon and go out to happy hour. The question kind of became, what’s the difference between a $7 bottle of tequila versus a $70 bottle. As they pontificate it David, and that’s the thing, Susan, we can’t, I can’t say this enough, we are geeks and we’re nerds and we try to figure stuff out.

In David’s mind, rather than just doing more research, he and his buddy said, Hey, let’s build a still. Then the realization came of, well, crap, I’m a lawyer and if we’re building this, it had better be illegal. So he went and got it registered with the state and come to find out we’re the second distillery in Louisiana, that we had the license number two. Actually today we’re, I believe, we’re the oldest continually running distillery in Louisiana.

Susan: That’s crazy. I cannot believe it. From the beginning of time?

Tait: Yeah, absolutely. Yep. We have distillery license number two. That’s the thing which excites me even more because our industry and just like craft distilling, we’re at the beginning, which is, really kind of cool.

So when I first found out, through social media, that David was producing alcohol. At that time, I owned an ad agency was teaching public relations at Florida State. I said, Hey brother, I would love to do your branding and marketing.  He said, Tait, I wish I would, but we’re trying to keep things just small here right now and that’s great.

Then fast forward, about seven or eight years, he calls and says, Hey Tait, out of the blue, like literally I had not seen this guy in person in 20 plus years. Out of the blue, he calls me up and says, Hey, I bought out my partners. Let’s revisit the marketing conversation. Of course being a complete funny brother, I’m going, what David now I’m too expensive for you. He responds back and says, Look. let’s talk about this. Next thing you know, I bought half a distillery and then I told my wife, which was the wrong way of doing it.  

But luckily, my wife Emily is a saint and every time I’m on a podcast, I’d give her a shout out to tell her, thank you.

Susan: I’m sure. I’m sure she loves what you’re doing completely and has bought into it because who doesn’t like someone who or be married to someone that’s a rum distillery.

Tait: But also too, it’s having that support and just encouragement is what’s amazing. That’s one of the lucky things that David and I have, and even all of our team, we have that family support of people. I mean, some people go I’m going to start a distillery to sell it,

David and I, we’re retiring here. I mean, this is where we want to look at because this is fun. We get up every day, we get to solve problems. We get to meet the public. We get to talk about things that we’re passionate about. But also too, we’re in on the joke. Like Susan, we are a lawyer and a behavioral scientist.

I mean, it’s almost like a joke walk into a bar…

Susan: The punchline is, the next thing you know, they have a distillery.

Tait: A distillery and even funnier, the second punch line is that. When we sat and talked about this, it was like, okay, David, I’m not a rum drinker. He says, Tait, I’m not really either. So David’s more of a tequila gin guy. I’m a whiskey bourbon guy.

Susan: So that was my going to be my question. When he called you, was he distilling rum at that time?

Tait: Yes. He was distilling rum. So, there was always, and Susan, I always told people, Louisiana, especially this area is like the Napa Valley of sugarcane. I mean, we have the best sugar cane in the world. So David, even though he was interested in distilling and the original thought was tequila. You know, we are in the most fertile and incredible fields of sugar cane out there.

I mean, literally walk outside of our factory and you’re in a field. So it was kind of like well, let’s distill sugarcane. Oh, let’s just do a rum because that’s what we have here. Later on, maybe we’ll get into other things. But what we found is that sugar cane be in such a perfect plant that actually through either aging or flavoring, we get, well, put it this way we get a lot of folks who think we make bourbon and whiskey or gin because they drink our rum and it’s flavored that way. It’s either flavored or aged that way. So it’s kind of a unique deal. So we’re really trying to take the rum category and flip it on his head.

Susan: Did he already have the Sweet Crude, your white rum, your stable yet? Was it up, it was up and running and exactly the way? Exactly the way he wanted it to taste/

Tait: It was, and one of the things I often joke, and again, remember I’m coming from the public relations and advertising world. So I’m always looking for the news angles. I mean it’s a podcast, so you’re always looking for that interesting story. So David, in all his wisdom as he developed this, because we were the first distillery in Acadiana, in this area.

So David had a lot of initial fans so he first got our rum included in the official cocktail of Lafayette, which is the Rouler, which we can talk about later. So the city was bought in and the tourism folks were bought in, but even bigger. I often joke with people that in our business, we realized quickly that our friends lie, because when you ask them, how does this taste? They either say, it’s great because they don’t want to hurt our feelings, or they say it’s great because they want more free booze.

So if you want to know how things are going or how you get better, you have to submit to you to tasting panels or contests. Well, at that time, about 2013, the big contest in our field with what was known as the Washington Cup.  It was where every American spirit was pitted against each other and they give incredible notes back.  That’s what David wanted. He wanted to find out how to make Sweet Crude better. Well, he ended up winning it. He was one of the five winners, right alongside Buffalo Trace and Knob Creek distilleries.

I mean, so, and he was making this stuff in a garage. So when David called our Sweet Crude was producing and it’s the same recipe we use today. I mean, this is the one that won all the awards and it’s phenomenal. He had a few aged things. But he already had it cranking and it was, I could see his vision and I could see,

I mean, you can taste it in wine, they call it terroir. You can taste the presence of Louisiana, it’s the pure sugar cane is incredible.

Well, it is some of the best of the best out there. It’s actually important for the way that we distill because the type of rum we make is called a French style rum. So whereas most English style rums, like Bacardi or Captain Morgan, they’re using, what’s called blackstrap molasses. That’s the end of the process. So that’s all after the sugar’s been taken out. So French style, you use the juice of the sugar cane. You’ll see that in a store sometimes it’s called an Agricole.

Susan: Yeah, like the Rhum Agricole, right.

Tait: It’s spelled R H U M. Well, what we do is we take the pure sugar itself, the crystals, and we create our own syrup. So that’s taking out the impurities, it’s starting with the crystals and we ferment that, so having quick access to the mills is important. So when we need sugar, we get our truck and trailer and go to the mill and pick up tons of sugar. So it really is important that that were close by to sugarcane farms.

Susan: Absolutely. Now when you joined, David, did he just have that one product? The Sweet Crude?

Tait: He did well, I take it back. He had another product that was our dark, our five-year blend product because he was doing some experimenting with some dark rums. Because David was in the oil field and actually my family was in the oil field and that’s why the Sweet Crude name of oil and Wildcats, but we can get to that in a second.

David had another product on market, it was called Black Gold. It was a just regular barrel aged rum that was getting some hits. He had a five-year blend that was known as Fine Rum, which has since been branded as Noire, which is still in the market today.

So he had a few things and, but really, you know when David bought it. The joke is, and my wife reminds me about this often when I convinced her, I said, Hey, life’s not going to change because we can still live in Tallahassee. I can still be President because all we’re doing is we just want to double David’s production. Well, that took about three weeks.

So then we realized, David and I, we have control issues in terms of like, let’s go and see what the market will take. Let’s go and have fun with this. Then, yeah, so, the growth was really taking the Sweet Crude and the dark rums that were aging and really kind of developing the products there. He also had the beginning thoughts of a spiced rum. So it was kind of a going in as a clean slate and also and I told this to my wife and friends and even David, I said, David, if the product would have been crappy, there’s no way I would’ve retired from a 25-year career in marketing and advertising.

Susan: You said that, at first, David wasn’t a rum guy and you weren’t a rum guy, what, what then converted you to being a rum guy?

Tait: Well, I think, first off David was what converted me to be the rum guy.

Susan: I know that was a silly question that I asked. Of course it was David.

Tait: No, no, it’s not at all. But because, and it’s funny, Susan, you say that because I love whatever people come to the distillery or Gator Cove and you could always tell that one person in the group, who’s just, I’m just here because my husband or wife or brother, sister drug me here, I hate rum.

I then go, okay. Tell me about the bad spring break story. Let’s have a cocktail. We’ll talk about it. But when David started producing it, as a fraternity brother, I started buying it and then realized, holy crap, this is amazing. So David really kind of got me into being a rum guy.  Then of course owning, owning a distillery, a rum distillery. It kind of does that, but, but now I consider myself a diehard rum guy because I’m new to this world and I want to taste it all.

So yeah, it was almost like collecting puzzle pieces in the journey that, yeah, I want to become a rum person and learn the most about it. So, that’s kind of how I became, and now every day at the distillery, it’s more like, okay, this is how we’re taking the rum as a product and taking it to have a more whiskey edge, or maybe a more gin edge or working with certain partners with certain flavor profiles.

It really becomes a barrier breaking thing because that’s the thing is most people think rum is a bad spring break trip. Sophisticated rum drinkers right now are phenomenal. I mean, we’re getting people coming in, searching for rums that we have that they can’t get anywhere else.

That’s why I’m looking at the rum industry is going to kind of become, I’m seeing, especially the dark rum  industry, almost like the bourbon industry here in America, because we’re seeing people now, call and ask for specific things that are tough to get.

Susan: Yeah, absolutely. Rum Old Fashioneds are, just even saying the words rum and rum old-fashioned it exists, it’s definitely a drink that people are drinking or ordering.

Tait:  That’s the thing too, is that we often joke sometimes because we’re very much applied people, down to earth people. When people ask, how should I drink this? Whatever the drink is, I’m going to drink it however, the hell you want it. I mean, I think drinking alcohol is a personal experience.

So we tell people, like our Sweet Crude, our original rum, anything you use a clear liquor for, you can use Sweet Crude. Even to the point where we’ve developed a rum specifically for Bloody Mary’s. It’s a game changer, and I actually have it right there right behind me. It’s called Sweet Crude Marie. It’s basically a rum that we said, okay, let’s take the market and maybe go a little crazy.

Susan: I’m going to interrupt you there because I’ve just skipped over so much of this. I want to go back because I always go back. We’ve done 10 steps ahead. So of course we have to talk about the name, the Wildcat. Was it always Wildcat or when did you become Wildcat brothers?

Tait: Yeah. So originally our distilling license is under the term Rank Wildcat Spirits. The reason why is because Wildcat is not, people will say, well, is it a Kentucky connection. Well, I am proudly a Kentucky Colonel, but sadly it’s not from Kentucky. Wildcat is an oil field term and it’s a type of well that people think you’re crazy to go out and try to drill, but when it hits, it’s unbelievable.

It’s kind of like when people have ideas in the oil field, well, that’s a Wildcat idea. So when David told his boss that, Hey, I think I’m going to go and register this distillery, he kind of popped up and said, well, Mo that’s just one of your rank wildcat ideas. He went, oh, I think I’m going to name it that.

Susan: Yeah. Great name.

Tait: Well, as the marketing guy, sometimes the word rank doesn’t work. So, we switched it up when we, came together in 2019. That’s when I joined and came there and we really said, okay, we want to keep the Wildcat idea because that’s, that’s who we are.

We’re very much a let’s take chances. We’re not settled people, but not settled in the way of we always having to do something, but it’s like, okay, if we’re great at this, let’s get even more great. Let’s see where it can go further. So, yeah. So when David and I, we kind of sat and talked, we said we got to keep Wildcat and then hell, let’s bring the brothers aspect too, because it really was.

I mean, when we, and people think we’re crazy, actually, David and I changed our lives together and we hadn’t seen each other for 20 plus years. It was like we saw each other and then it was like nothing ever skipped a beat.

Susan: It was a leap of faith that was meant to be.

Tait: Oh, absolutely. Susan, this whole existence that we joke about is that we absolutely believe in divine intervention or a universal intervention of whatever, because here’s the funny thing. So we’re really proud about our heritage. As we’re doing in developing the distillery, to kind of scoot my mind off of talking about rum, I would do genealogy.

I found out that David and I, our family, had been hanging out together since 1765 for the very first documentation of Cajuns in America. The very first little paper that said that our families were exchanging card money in New Orleans. The documentation is the Martin family followed them. I mean, we have been literally hanging out together for centuries and yeah, it’s really, really odd. Hell. There’s a lot of serendipity.

Susan: Yes. Since you brought up Cajun and Acadian, maybe you can tell me a little bit about how that plays into either the principles or how you make your rum, this Acadian heritage, which is so specific to your area.

Tait: Sure. Well, and if you look at our bottles, we talk about Acadiana’s own and Acadiana is really the area of Louisiana. I believe it’s 22 parishes of that. Really, if you look at Louisiana as a boot, it’s probably coming from mid to all the way to the heel, that’s Acadiana.

It’s where the Cajuns ended up after they were exiled outside of Nova Scotia. The Cajun people were all hardy. People who, we find solutions to things and we’re not afraid to take a chance and we always make sure to laugh. That’s one of the things.

So, David being from Opelousas Louisiana, me from Cut Off, we were ingrained. I mean, our parents and grandparents spoke Cajun French and I mean, it’s definitely, we wanted to make sure that pride came across in our rum.  When we founded our company, we really founded it on four big principles and the first one was conservation – conservation of our Cajun heritage.

We talk about that often. We also talk about the way that we make our rum, which is very unique and specific. There’s not many people doing French style rum because it’s tough to get. I mean, you have to literally live next to the field because shipping a ton of sugar is pretty expensive. It’s kind of unique in Louisiana. We care about the land here. I mean because our people have had to live off it. So, in terms of conservation, it’s making sure that we have the land, the water, the wildlife needed to sustain a good area, but also to make some good rum.

It’s really that conservation of making sure the farmers have support, making sure that we’re continuing to tell a story. So that’s, yeah, that’s really important to us. It’s kind of funny when we have visitors, we have a Thursday night happy hour. I’d say that most of the time, half of the people are from out of the country or they just come hang out because they want to interact with Acadian people. So that’s kind of cool. That’s really a big part of what we wanted to do, so, being Cajun and being from Louisiana is really important.

Susan:  You said there were four principles. What are the other three?

Tait: So conservation is number one. The second one is going to be moderation. If you drink a whole bottle of alcohol, you’re probably going to die. Don’t do it. We talk about the responsible use and the adult use of drinking because David and I sadly, the times that we’ve hurt relationships, been embarrassed, did something stupid. It was when we were drunk.

So we talk about, Hey, if you do this, make sure you do it correctly. Make sure you do it appropriately. If you want to get tipsy, that’s your decision, but make sure you have people who are there to protect you. That’s the thing too, is David and I, we’re still, as many of our team, we’re still involved with the fraternal movement and we talk a lot with college students.

I often joke that I would really prefer that the first time a college student drinks our booze is on graduation night to celebrate, because this is not cheap. That’s the thing, is we want to talk about drinking and being adult, in a way that’s adult. So we’re not going to be preachy about it, but as brothers, we’re going to say, Hey idiot, you might’ve had a little too much. So that’s a big one.

The third thing is innovation. Innovation is huge. David and I are not from this field, so we are taking it to the extent. When I joined with David, I said, David, what are the sacred cows that I can’t make hamburger out of?  he said, I created this recipe. It’s not like a family legacy or whatever. He said, let’s take it for a spin. We look at everything. I mean Noire, our five-year blend is known as bourbon’s Cajun cousin in Kentucky. I mean, it’s been a bourbon of the month at major bourbon societies!

Susan: I love it.

Tait: You kind of go in, okay, how much are you guys drinking?  if you can’t see, it says rum on bottle. Even now we have a product coming out that people, we’ve done blind tastings with people and they still haven’t realized that it’s rum. So it’s ways that we’re taking it and we’re going, let’s see where we can go.

That’s the thing. It all goes back to the science and it’s good that David and I are kind of geeks because it goes back to the science of the sugar cane, food science, and we’re looking at flavorings and biology and it’s kind of crazy. So even though we’re Cajuns, we’re pretty nerdy, nerdy about that.

Then last thing is celebration. I’m sure you have seen the world sometimes is people get down and what David and I both realize is that people sometimes just see that at the end of the day to celebrate that you made it through, Sit down and have a cocktail.

Susan: Yeah, amen to that.

Tait:  That’s the thing, Susan, it’s amazing. When we speak to groups coming in and stuff, it’s almost like that’s a light clicks that people are not thinking about that crap. I can make a celebration about anything, and we really want to tout that we make these rums to make a cocktail.

So at the end of the day, you can sit down and talk with a friend. We often say if you’re sad, depressed, angry, you don’t need a drink. You need a friend. So we’ll talk to you, I mean we’ll help you out, but in terms of, as looking for it from the spirit side, it’s like we want you to sit down and talk and tell stories and we want to sit down and learn more about you.

There’s a Cajun concept, a Cajun word called Veiller and its spelled really weird, but it’s pronounced Vay yay, Veiller, and it’s basically so important to the Cajun culture. They made an actual word for it. It’s basically at the end of the day, spending time with people, catching up on life, maybe gossiping a little bit, somebody has an instrument pulling it out and singing along.

So it’s just really a celebration of life that we saw is kind of missing sometimes. That’s kind of what we’re trying to bring back, so everything we do, if it’s not one of those four principles, conservation, moderation, innovation, or celebration, if it’s not one of those, we don’t do it.

Susan: I love that. Let’s talk about your innovation because we talked about two of your expressions. So the Sweet Crude and Noire.

Tait: Fifolet, so Fifolet is our spiced rum. There’s two big stories that kind of go along with a Fifolet like concept. So a Fifolet, in the Cajun culture, it’s kind of like spirit version of a boogeyman and it transformed itself as a glowing orb of light in the swamp. So if you’re a bad kid and you’re sassy to your parents, they’re going to say, well, the Fifolet’s going to pinch your toes at night. You better be nice. Or if you’re like a really sassy kid, you’re going to be overcome by the spirit and follow them into the swamp and never be seen again.

Susan: Oh my God. I love that, but I love that he just comes from the swamp. right?

Tait: Exactly. Exactly. I mean, that’s the thing. We’ll come to find out because we live next to a college, and so I’m going back to anthropologists and storytellers going. Okay, guys, y’all need to tell me where this story comes from. Yeah, so the two big ones. So that’s the one, but on the flip side, there’s the pirate story.

The pirate story is the concept of, as the legend was told to me, it was a pirate called Jean Lafitte. In New Orleans, he was a famous privateer and pirate and he would bury treasure along the coast. The way you would do it is he would bring a friend. So if I’m Jean Lafitte, I’m going to take you, Susan, as my friend, and we’re going to take our buried treasure.

We’ve got to go on the swamp with our shovels and I have my map and I’m writing it down. We’d dig the hole and we put the treasure in the hole. I shake your hand, say, Susan, thanks for your service.  I shoot you. Boom. You plop dead on top of the buried treasure. I fill in the hole.

Now, remember, I’m a pirate. So I know exactly where it’s at, nobody else has it. I wrote it on my map. Well, Jean Lafitte dies, the map gets lost. So the Fifolet is supposedly the spirit of the person guarding the treasure and you’re supposed to follow them. When they dips into the ground, that’s where you did to get the buried treasure.

So it was two big stories. We thought it was kind of funny.  If you notice on a bottle of Fifolet it says to chase the light. So aside from the morbidity, and that’s the thing, sometimes Cajuns have a little gallows humor we’re not afraid to laugh at a funeral.

Susan: It’s really fun. Now, what did you think that you wanted to start spicing your spiced rum with? Where do you start with the spices?

Tait: Well, first off, we joked that Fifolet is a rum we love to hate. The reason we love to hate it, not only is it the most difficult to make, and again we do it and it’s actually one of our best sellers, but the reason why spiced rum was invented was when you had crappy white rum. So remember David and the team at the beginning, they won the top spirit. The Washington Cup for the white rum. It’s actually the first time that a white rum’s ever done that.

Susan: Which is so amazing.

Tait: Yeah. That’s the thing to a white rum being sippable is a really crazy concept. So David said, okay, if I’m going to do a spiced rum, I want to do it my way. It’s all natural ingredients and it’s a very light, yet complex flavor. It has some cinnamon, some allspice, vanilla, coffee, and actually black peppercorns. It’s an amazing, sippable rum but it’s unlike anything out on the market. it’s perfect by itself. It’s incredible with club soda, but if you mix it in equal parts with hard pressed apple cider, it’s going to knock your socks off.

Susan: Oh, now, I don’t know if these are trade secrets, but when in the distillation process, if you’re allowed to tell me, do you add the spices? Is it like gin where you have it in a basket or how do you do that?

Tait: That’s a great question. That’s not a trade secret. I often joke with people on our tours. I say I’ll tell you the recipe right now. It’s water, sugar cane, and yeast. I told you the recipe.

Susan: Go try and make it yourself. Right. Have fun.

Tait: We were even jokingly going to start putting bags of sugar in the gift shop and call it dehydrated rum. But no, so it’s not like a gin basket. That’s a great question. So all of the mixing is going to be done after the fact. I use this analogy more than David, but I kind of look at life like Legos, okay, we’re going to put this piece together and this piece and that.

So in our distillery, we have extracts that we’re developing and we have different rums. So it becomes, okay, let’s mix these things together. So the Fifolet’s going to be an after-distillation mix, although with our new still, and we’re going from a hundred-gallon steel to now a 500 gallon still, and it does have the gin basket capability. So we may be doing some in distillation flavoring as well soon.

Susan: Yeah. It’d be a super neat to see how it turns out. Now, something that I love on your website is that you have the Snake Oil registry and that people can try it. I went to summer school, Middlebury.  It was at the time when a new ice cream company was trying out new flavors and they were near Middlebury, Vermont. They would give us ice cream to try, all different flavors. That was Ben and Jerry’s.

So I kind of see this as an adult Ben and Jerry’s. Try this as we’re going along to see how it goes. You have a list, so many – flavored marshmallow. The one that I’m desperate to try is the Sweet Crude Sugar Maple. Is this kind of like anyone can come and try it? These the attempts of I’m not sure what to call them.

Tait: Well, yeah, so, what it is we jokingly call Snake Oil are our drinkable focus group, because remember I said our friends lie, we love them, but they’re going to say everything’s great. So what we did for our 10-year anniversary, we decided, because we have a lot of great friends in the brewing industry and craft beer, they’re popping out different products all the time. As that’s a wild idea. I said, “All-right distilling team, for our 10-year anniversary, let’s do a different rum every month.” and they thought I was crazy.  I mean, I am.

Susan: Oh boy. Every month?

Tait: Yes ma’am. So we did 12. That’s the thing is Snake Oil started out as we made a hundred bottles available to the public, and we did a night where people can come and taste it.  We had a cocktail application, they tasted it to see what kind of crazy stuff we were doing. On each bottle, well, actually the funny thing was that each bottle, all the labels are the same. So if you want to know which one you have, you have to actually click the QR code on the side, go to the website, to the Snake Oil registry and see, but also it was kind of like an agreement that tell me how you’re using the product.

We got some incredible information and what we found and actually our Sweet Crude Marie, it was Snake Oil number three and people were drinking it and going, okay, you guys would be stupid if didn’t bring this to the product?

Susan: Ah!

Tait: So, my background in market research, it’s kind of, okay, let’s get this into people’s hands. We found a couple of unique things happening there. We got people who were afraid of the rum category to come out and say, well, okay, these guys are doing some crazy stuff. There are certain populations who want to collect everything or want to try everything. So we got those people, and then we had people who just genuinely wanted to find different rums. It was everything. For our first one we did a King Cake, which is a traditional Mardi Gras pastry.

Susan: Of course.

Tait: The thing too is we have a rule at Wildcat Brothers is that we don’t use any artificial chemicals. So we actually aged our rum over King Cakes and it was interesting, but it was the biggest hit. I mean, a hundred bottles sold out in I don’t know, maybe 25 minutes.

Susan: Was it super sweet?

Tait: No, it was not. That’s the thing. I always tell people about good booze. You need to get a flavor on the way out, not the way in. People would drink it and go, wow, this is very light and delicate. They breathed out and went, oh my God. It’s like, I just ate a piece of king cake. So the cocktail application was very simple for that. We put a little club soda, maybe a few drops of ginger extract or something. It was just like drinking a cake.

The funny thing is that, for example, the one you just said, the sugar maple, people think it’s going to be very, very sweet, but the maple is, because we age it on Sugar Maplewood. It’s actually kind of dry, like a dry white wine. It pairs perfectly with ginger ale. It’s not like people go, well, this is not what I would think rum’s going to be, we have a lot and actually we have a few more that we’re going to be likely putting out into a full production because we have a lot of fans who love some of that great stuff.

Susan: Well, tell me about the Marie.

Tait: Yeah. So Sweet Crude Marie was, I think probably one of our big surprises. First off, when you tell people we’re going to put rum in a Bloody Mary, they look at you like you’re crazy. But even we had fans here who were using Sweet Crude in Bloody Mary’s already. What it does is the same principle as, I don’t know if you’ve ever cooked tomato sauce and put a pinch of sugar in it.

Susan: Yes. Yes, of. course. I was going to say that tomato is sweet. So even though you don’t think about putting rum into the Bloody Mary, it kind of could go together. Yes. I totally know.

Tait: What it does, Susan. it just takes all the acidic flavors and it just eases everything out. What happens is that when you get a punch of say a vodka Bloody Mary, when it kind of punches you and the alcohol is in your face, The easing of the acid also eases the alcohol.

It makes it a nice, smoother drink. Now we tell people that’s great, but the big problem is that a typical Bloody Mary is a one to six ratio of one part vodka, six ports Bloody Mary mix. With Sweet Crude Marie, it’s about a one to two to three. So essentially, you’re getting a smoother Bloody Mary and you’re getting more alcohol content. So you may not have to drink more. But it really changes the whole dynamic of the Bloody Mary itself.

We’ve done lots of experiments with different Bloody Mary mixes with them. In everyone, it just really eases the acid. It’s an amazing drink and that’s the thing is when people go who in the hell would have thought about doing that? Well, we did! Because that’s part of innovation. Let’s take it for a spin and we do that often. That’s the thing is because we know that we have great products and they can exist in a lot of different spaces and that’s kind of cool to find the different spaces.

Susan: Yeah, I assure you that the majority of people who will listen to this will want to move to Lafayette just to go to those tastings. I know I kind of want to do that, right now.

Tait: Well, we do something called Rum School and it’s actually, it’s one of my favorite parts of my job, where I get a chance to sit down and talk and really drink with our customers and talk about the process.  It’s a couple of our experiences where were we go through our product line, but also make some cocktails.

I also ask people bring in your stuff, because again, I’m a learner too. I want to see how you’re doing things.  It’s actually kind of cool, Susan, because our place butts up against the airport in Lafayette. It is very surprising the number of people who either fly in just for that or this is our first stop.  I mean, that’s such an honor for us. We are so honored by that, grateful that they do that.

Susan: Oh, my gosh, I would so get to the airport early, check in my bags, go back to you. I’d probably miss the flight every time.

Tait: It might have happened one or two times before.

Susan: It’s a great way to say goodbye and hello and goodbye to Lafayette.

Tait: Hello and goodbye. We’ve had people come on the way in, come do up a class where we call it our heritage line, which is our Sweet Crude or Noire and Fifolet and then on the way out, they’ll do a class where it’s our Snake Oil and we go through our Snake Oil line.

So yeah, it’s kind of cool. I mean, that’s the thing is I joke when we, when David and I bought our facility, Gator Cove. I said, “Look, that’ll have a factory here, but I kind of want to see this place as PBS, after a few cocktails you know, what are we going to learn? What are we going to talk about?”

I mean, the thing is we’re right next to a university. Being a former professor, okay. Come give a lecture in the tasting room and let’s have a cocktail and talk about this stuff. Or tell us how to make our things better or take it to a different level. It’s kind of cool.

Susan: I have to admit you saying PBS. It just brings to mind that yours would be the cocktail bar of the Muppets. You could see Kermit hanging out here.

Tait: Oh, well, wait, funny thing you say that. We, David and I, one of the things that we are, I am a huge lifelong Muppets to, again, as we’re being nerdy, to the extent that I’m trying to recreate the two old guys in the balcony in my workshop at Gator Cove. Yeah,  that’s a huge compliment. So thank you for saying that.

Susan: Sure. Sure. Now if Kermit or Big Bird or anyone who buys one of your bottles, because you have a few products. Why don’t we talk about that? You know, if someone starts with your Sweet Crude, do you have any signature serves or the first cocktail to make with it, also the Noire the Fifolet too.

Tait: Absolutely. So, we have a saying a Gator Cove and at Wildcat Brothers. We’re not afraid of a Daiquiri. and that’s the thing is that there are some great books out there and that’s it. That’s the thing when starting out in this industry, again, coming here, David and I both, we just suck into how people are using cocktails and there’s a great book out called the Cocktail Codex.

It talks about how all cocktails start out from one of six. Well, the one that I really give a damn about the most is a Daiquiri. The traditional Daiquiri is two parts white rum, one part lime juice, fresh squeezed, nothing in plastic, one part or maybe three fourths part of simple syrup, depending on how sweet you like it.

That is the number one way to drink Sweet Crude. It’s amazing. That’s the thing too, is that with a Daiquiri,  and I tell people all the time when we compare or when we go out and pitch our products, make a Daiquiri with ours and make a Daiquiri with theirs and just, it’s such an amazing drink. If you want to spice up that Daiquiri, we have the actually the official cocktail of Lafayette is known as Rouler.

Susan: We’re back! It comes full circle.

Tait: Exactly. It is called the Rouler, as in “Laissez les bons temps rouler!” or “Let the good times roll!” So what we did is we took the classic Daiquiri, put a couple of drops of regular Angostura bitters. The yellow cap served over ice and top it with a little club soda. It changes a drink, makes it a perfect drink for a crawfish boil, sitting on the golf course, celebrating the afternoon. It’s just such a great refreshing drink. So, those are our favorites to make with Sweet Crude.

With Noire, anything you do, and that’s the way we joke anything you do with a white liquor, you can do with Sweet Crude, anything you do with a dark liquor, Noire is there. You said a Noire Old Fashioned. That’s our favorite.  It is just an amazing, an amazing product in an Old Fashioned.  One of my favorite drinks using Noire is at the Palace Cafe in New Orleans, which is the home of the Louisiana Rum Society. They do a product, they do a drink called the Sazarum. It’s a take on the Sazerac and they use our Noire and it is mind blowingly good.

So yeah, that’s the thing with a good dark solid dark rum. I mean, you can take it for a spin!  Now it’s going to be racing season and we’re using it in Mint Juleps. Actually the original recipe in a Mint Julep had rum in there, our friends in Kentucky. Remember that? It’s a good, solid drink.

With Fifolet, when we have Fifolet, we have a great party drink. You got a half gallon of fresh pressed, apple cider, a whole fifth of Fifolet and you put it in a jug, you pour it over ice, take a dash of cinnamon, pop it on the top. It tastes like grandma’s apple pie. It is amazing.

Those are the three signature ones that we tell people all the time. You can never fail also, actually for your listeners in London, my wife’s favorite drink is a shot of Fifolet in a Strongbow cider. Hard ciders that are that you guys in London are doing so well. Oh man, that goes incredible with rum. So that’s the thing is I think there’s a lot of different ways that you can take our heritage line products and go forward.

Susan Yeah, I think we’ve given a lot of tips for the home bartender, but maybe if you have any other top tips for the home bartender, whether using your rums or something that you’ve found along the way as you were starting to make cocktails yourself.

Tait: Sure. Well, I have to give a big shout out to our corporate mixologist, Kamber Jones  Jones, she lives in Los Angeles and she has been a professional bartender for years. I joke with Kamber that she’s a classic bartender and we’re the Cajun guys on a swamp. So we’ll take the classic recipes and kind of mess with it.

One of the things that I learned from her, number one, and again, this is from Canberra, if you buy any ingredient from the store, make sure it has just one ingredient. I get no plastic lime juice. You can find limes, squeeze them yourself. That’s easy, but also making a simple syrup. I don’t understand why home bartenders are spending good money on bottles of sugar and water. Do a simple syrup, one part sugar, one part water, dissolve, and it’ll last. What’s also incredible about that is that you can put in flavoring, you can throw in some mint in there. You can throw oranges, you can throw in pineapple and that’s a great cocktail.

Susan: Yeah, back to that Mint Julep with rum, there’s nothing better than mint infused sugar.

Tait: Absolutely. One of the biggest things, especially to the home bartender and just any bar in general, is that I have grown to have such respect for people in the mixology realm. I was a half-ass bartender in college, slinging beer, whiskey drinks, but really the modern mixologist and even home bartenders, they’re chefs. We’re drinking their creations that are masterpieces.

That’s something that I’m trying to do. I want to find the best bartenders out there because it’s my job as CEO to make using our product easier.  If I can go to bartenders and just say, Hey, what’s great, or what can be used. That’s awesome. I think home bartenders need to look to their local bartender or maybe a bartender on online and get tips. That’s the thing that for a home bartender tip is don’t be afraid to experiment.

Susan: 100%

Tait: And if you order a drink, ask for what you want, that’s the thing. Yeah. So that’s my home bartending tip.

Susan:  My next question follows on so well from that. If you could be drinking anything anywhere, right now, where would that be?

Tait: There are so many places, but if we’re getting sappy, I think having a beer with my grandfather. It’s one of the things of remembering having a nice adult relationship with a grandfather sharing a beer, a glass of whiskey. That’s always kind of nice. I’d definitely go back there and it was actually in his shop in his workshop and that’s my happy place even to this day.

But I think if you’re looking at a specific place where anybody can go, I, I think Havana Cuba, drinking mojitos, I had the opportunity when I was living in Florida to take a trip to Havana and tested their rum. So actually I lied, I became a rum drinker when I was in Havana. It was great to see the process made and I just kind of popped in. That’s life foreshadowing me owning a rum distillery.

Really just being able to sit at a bar in Havana and talk to people and really kind of exchange ideas and finding out that we’re not too different. So I think I’ll definitely go back there.

Susan: Well, that’s a great way to end. So thank you for sharing that. Look again, we came full circle.

Tait: This is phenomenal. This is awesome.

Susan: I could talk all day. I know, but you have rum to make. Thank you so much for taking the time it’s been so great to chat with you.

Tait: Absolutely. Well, we are just honored that you included us in your podcast and we invite everybody to come down to Gator Cove and Lafayette and drink some rum and see what Louisiana is all about.

Susan: Yes, definitely. My next trip to Louisiana, I am. So save some of that Snake Oil for me.

Tait: Oh, we got ya.

Susan: Alright, thank you so much.

Tait: Thanks so much.

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