Jomaree Pinkard, CEO and co-founder of Hella Cocktail Co., joins Cheddar News to discuss the inspiration behind the company and receiving fresh capital from Uncle Nearest whiskey. 

Between Bells

Hella Cocktail Co. Secures $5 Million Investment from Uncle Nearest Whiskey

Welcome back Between Bells everyone. One beverage brand is all about advocating for diversity while delivering delicious drinks, helicopter company providing botanically inspired products and can be found in stores nationwide. The company sells craft bitter beverages, premium bidders and of course cocktail mixers and just secured a $5 million investment from premium whiskey company. Uncle nearest joining us. Now to discuss is Jamari Pinker, Ceo and co founder of helicopter company. Welcome to the show. Congratulations on the funding. What was missing from the space that inspired you to create this brand? Wow, what a great question. And thank you for having me. This is really a story of friendship. This story goes back about a decade. Were 10 years old this year. Uh, my buddies and I, Tobin Ludwig and Eddie Simeon are friends for over 40 years long before this brand was built and the kind of guys that like to make a homemade pizza and one of each other and getting a cocktail and now we're completely out of control clearly. But what that meant was we wanted to share in something we call flavor. Um, and so the story of friendship is really a story of friendship layered by the fact that we all love to share things. Um, Tobin was wanted to be a chef when he was a young man came to new york city and realized he wanted to spend nights and weekends at home and so became an Nyc bartender and he's really the chief liquid officer, responsible for everything and the taste of, of what hell is all about. Um, Eddie who, um, I wanted to be an engineer and production manager um, really is, is the lifeblood of the labeling, the design, the look, the feel of our brand. And I loved to make ideas into fruition. So we all love to share things that was kind of the culminating kind of genocide that makes hella hella. Um, and what's landing here, What you see in front of you is flavor. We're all about elevated choices through the idea of flavor. Well, let's talk about this investment from uncle nearest. What does that mean for your company and of course the fresh capital that you just got. Listen, Uncle Nerys, fawn weaver and team amazing crew over there. Um, we thank them for their partnership in this journey. Um, but what, what the $5 million allows us to do is a few things. One Enable us to find more talent. Right now. We have a 100% internal team of amazing women and we want to keep that going. Um, it'll allow us to fund more inventory. We're out of stock all the time. Thank you to everyone who is purchasing hell on a regular basis over the years. Um, and finally, what we've never done in the past was actually do any marketing. And so for the first time we actually use some traditional marketing so you can see us and out of home or on your digital social ads. And so those are the things we're super excited about doing because up until this time everything's been very, very organic and we again, thank the, the folks out there have been purchasing Hello the whole time. That is incredible that without marketing, your company has done so well. So really the sky is the limit now with this new funding round, tell us a little bit about the products and of course the flavors you keep mentioning. Yeah. So you know hell is all about elevated choices. Right? And so whether or not you are a um and the cocktail enthusiast that wants to break down your own uh, you know, make your own bitters at home or someone who just wants to invite and host at home without without showcasing your secret weapon. This is what hell is about, right? And so some of the products we have here or cracking poor mixtures are old fashioned on the left. Mix it with your favorite bourbon or some tequila. Um as well as our habanero margarita. These are two of our five flavors that are delicious. And then we have here is our newest innovation are ready to drink bitters and soda, their sparkling non aperitif to be consumed alone or with your favorite spirit. Now these are some of the spices in which we make our cocktail bitters. Please tell us about the spices. So we have things like cinnamon, clove, allspice, peppercorns. But what makes bitters bitter is gente en route um a bark of an indigenous plant um, in southern France that makes bitters bitter. If you think about tonic water to have quiNINE and cinchona bark from the cinchona tree is what makes quiNINE bitter and tonic water bitter. Um, but gente in which is delightful. I was saying this off camera what you're pouring now is five calories. I think it's about 5 to 10 calories, 1 90 calorie. So four of the five variants have zero sugar and the bitter sweet aromatic has a few calories. If you kind of don't know what you want to be invited to the journey. Again, it's all about inclusion, elevated choice wherever you are in your cocktail spectrum. This is our non alcoholic choice of today. Hello, this is delicious. This is so good. And you talk about the flavor it really pops as soon as you take a sip, I have to ask you. It's typically hard for entrepreneurs, especially of color to land VC funding. What unique challenges did you face when it came to this company? Well, it's, it's interesting. There's, there's a myriad of different challenges mainly. Um, there's always gonna be like a network effect challenge, right? You don't come from the place where someone knows someone that can connect you in those initial conversations, I think that's tried and true for many, many entrepreneurs. Um, I think there's also going to be things like, you know, communication styles. A lot of investors are looking and thinking about people that remind them of themselves, right? And if there's not that community out there, it's really hard to make it make that match. And that's why the uncle nearest partnership is so well. Um, well aligned in this moment. We have so many values that are aligned. Um, and we see each other, right? We're kind of almost mirrors of each other in a lot of ways. And so that's what's beautiful about it. And I encourage investors out there Vcs out there. Um, to not only think about how to find other, um, pipeline companies that maybe are diverse in a lot of ways because it's good business in the future. The demographics changing a lot. You know, we want to make sure that, that we, we represent and reflect the communities that we're serving. I want to talk about that because how can companies, especially liquor companies or drinks implement real change when it comes to diversity. And that's a great question. I think the first thing that, that I encourage a lot of companies to do is to listen, listen first and foremost to what's going on out there. Listen to these conversations. Um, I think second is really about your investment thesis, right? It's about what do you believe that thesis is? And I think a lot of thesis are again tried and true and old guard, um, thoughts about traditional products, traditional, um, consumer bases and I think those demographics are changing where people are spending their money are changing. People are becoming more and more informative about where they spend their money and to not attract investment, to secure to, you know, to to talk to that audience. There's almost a misstep. And so I encourage lots of firms to change their investment thesis. Open it, broaden it, widen it. Um, and and think through those lenses. Well, what great advice And I have to say, I can't wait to see what your company does next. Now with this funding considering you didn't do marketing before Please come back soon. Jamari Picard Ceo and co founder of helicopter company, cheers again, my friend. Thank you again, salute.