Rum Connoisseur
Interview of The Week:

PETE NEVENGLOSKY
Avuá Cachaça Co-Founder

 

1. Who is Pete Nevenglosky?

I am a co-founder of Drifter Spirits, Avuá Cachaça, and Svöl Aquavit as well as an event called Tiki by the Sea.  My background is in brand marketing and innovation – but came to the rum world through a passion for spirits with geographic identity and history.  Myself, my business partner Nate, and our team have spent the past 7 years preaching the gospel of artisanal cachaça across the US and the globe.

I previously worked as a Brand Manager for Red Bull North America overseeing media allocation, creative development, retail marketing and consumer insights for the East. I have an MBA at NYU Stern, where I focused on marketing, entrepreneurship, and strategy.

 

2. Biggest achievement you personally feel you have accomplished for the rum industry.

Our efforts to bring to the forefront of cocktail bartending and craft spirits enthusiasts the beauty and uniqueness of native wood aged cachaça.  With our launch and focus around education and engagement starting with Avuá Amburana we have shown a new generation of bartenders a beautiful and complex profile rooted in hundreds of years of history in Brazil.  Amburana has been featured on menus and in cocktails books from the Nomad, Death & Co, Soho House and MGM.  To date, half of our business is in the complex and unique aged expressions.

 

3. What made you fall in love with rum and when did it happen?

My love of sugar cane spirits started with a general interest in spirits and cocktails from a consumer basis.  I had a number of friends in the bar world and was always curios about products with history and sense of place.  I was invited by one of these friends to a spot in Brooklyn, NY called Miss Favela that features amazing live music, delicious food and cachaça cocktails – and encountered the spirit for the first time.  I wondered why I had never tried it before and immediately fell in love with the profile.  As I dug deeper in a trip down to Brazil I was amazed at the variety of profiles, unique aging and artisanal quality of the production.  Bringing back a bottle of amburana aged cachaça from that trip and seeing the delightful response from my bar friends would set me on the path of launching Avuá.

 

4. What is that thing that makes you want to continue in the rum industry?

The last year of engagement in the US bar community on high quality sugar cane spirits has been exhilirating.  Seeing the quality and depth of back bars at high end establishments tells me that our community is starting to finally embrace and understand the difference between mass production and carefully crafted sugar cane spirits gives me much hope for the future.  Especially seeing the success of other pressed cane distillates like agricole, clairin, and mexican rums I think bodes well for growth for many producers doing things the right way and the ability to educate to a wider audience on these methods and traditions.

 

5. Favorite Drink + Recipe

First a story about how the drink came to be: My business partner Nate and I were in a coffee shop in the West Village interviewing somebody, maybe nine months before Avuá launched. We had a mock-up bottle out, and this guy kept looking at the bottle. I stood up, started talking to him. He mentioned that he owned a few bars.

We ended up tasting the Amburana, and he liked it. We met up at Little Branch, blind-tasted the Prata in a caipirinha against what he had there. He loved it and said, “When you get enough stuff, let me know”. That ended up being us previewing the brand at the construction zone that was the new Milk & Honey, where he moved it to for about a year before they ended up selling the building.

The Pan Am cocktail was created by Cervantes Ramirez at Little Branch as part of an internal cocktail competition, that Sasha Petraske held to find interesting ways to use Avuá Cachaça Amburana in advance of this launch event.

Pan Am

Ingredients

• 2 Avuá Cachaça Amburana
• ½ dry curaçao
• ¼ dry vermouth
• orange twist(garnish)

Instructions

– Combine ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled.

– Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with expressed orange twist.

 

6. Where do you see the rum industry today and in the next 5 years?

Seeing the excitement around curating strong back bars and home collections now I think gives an indicator of where sugar cane spirits are going!  I see more amazing producers of both rum generally and cachaça specifically being able to get their products to a larger audience as education and interest grows.  Unique special projects are on the horizon for us at Avuá and I believe that in 5 years there will be a strong market for such unique offerings.

 

7. What do you think needs to happen to grow the premium category of rum?

Sipping.  While the resurgence of tiki drinks and interest in the category is great – I believe the best way to appreciate depth and quality of spirits is on their own, sipped neat.  I hope that the interest in the macro category will encourage consumers to begin tasting these beautiful products on their own and start moving past mass produced, heavily sugared products and into the complex, geographically unique products like Avuá and others.

 

8. Which rum would you recommend a person that?

Given my expertise in the cachaça world I am going to answer this using the wide range of Avuá (as I am sure you have plenty of answers on rum side)

Sipping a premium rum for the 1st time

Amburana – Avuá Amburana Cachaça is aged in Amburana wood, found only in the forests of Latin America. The wood in the teak family provides notes of warm baking spices and is really versatile in cocktails.

Likes Scotch Whisky

Avuá Bálsamo Cachaça is hand-crafted and aged up to two years in bálsamo wood casks, a high density, burgundy colored hardwood native to South and Central America.  These tall trees with a fine grain impart a herbaceous aroma with a flavor that hints at minerality, citrus and bitterness.

Likes Bourbon

Avuá Tapinhoã Cachaça is aged in tapinhoã wood, an extremely rare hardwood found in parts of South America. The spirit is aged in a barrel used decades ago by our distiller’s father. After a lengthy recommissioning process, and up to 2 years of aging, we are proud to offer our second unique Brazilian wood offering. This wood imparts flavors of  toasted coconut, fresh honeycomb, and caramel.

Likes Gin or Vodka

Avuá Prata Cachaça is our unaged that is rested in stainless steel casks before being hand bottled at 84 proof.  The spirit delivers a dry, complex unaged profile with a true sense of place and notes of plantain, flowers and green olives.

Likes Cognac

Avuá Oak Cachaça, following Brazilian tradition, is aged for up to 2 years in French Oak, or carvalho, previously used to age white wine. Carvalho, the most common wood used for cachaça-aging in Brazil, imparts notes of vanilla and butterscotch. Oak-aged cachaça finishes dry with a slight bitterness that has many layers for an exquisite sipping spirit. It is also the perfect base for stirred cocktails and tropical cocktails like the Mai Tai or Planter’s Punch.

 

9. Share some (2-3) of your mentors and how they have helped you.

• Sasha Petraske – one of the reasons cocktails have come back to the forefront who was so generous with him time to us even before we had begun our journey
• Amy Taylor – an old boss of mine who was the VP of Marketing of Red Bull who is an incredibly creative marketer and general business strategist who has helped shape our approach from a business side significantly
• David Wondrich – the cocktail historian who really helped us in building the story of cachaça from its origins – most of which had never been translated before.

 

10. What 3-5 things do you have in your bucket list for the next 12 months?

Releasing the first of our special editions in partnership with MGM Resorts featuring our marks finished in Hardy Cognac barrels – Copan is the first starting with our unique Tapinhoã that is aged for 9 more months in Hardy french oak barrels.  We will be releasing this in the spring and only 600 bottles will ever be made.  Three more will be released over the next two years

Continuing to educate over a 100 more bartenders from around the world at Tiki by the Sea now entering is 6^th year of existence with our program in Wildwood, NJ

Expanding the Drifter portfolio by importing other amazing products from other parts of the world and telling their stories

Releasing a detailed video on our production which we have never been able to put together until this point

 

11. Any last words?

I have said a lot but overall thank you for the support we have had from the rum community and please do reach out if you have not experienced our products or want to learn more!

 

12. How can people learn more about you? Website? Social Media Page

Website: http://www.avuacachaca.com.br/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/avuacachaca/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peteofdiscovery/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/avua.cachaca