For Chaase Woodruff, making creative alcoholic drinks was just a hobby until he learned how much people loved his mixes.
“It dates back to my collegiate years. Let’s just say I called myself an unofficial bartender because I just used to love to make drinks and mix flavors and spirits to see what the potential outcome could be,” he said.
His love for mixology led to him using much of his own capital to find his alcoholic cocktail brand Pilt Persuasion in 2020. Woodruff still works a full-time job to fund his dream while giving out free samples at local events and providing his drinks for parties.
In February, Woodruff launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds, but the 60-day fundraiser fell short of its goal of $12,000.
“I kind of wanted to quit after I started looking up the capital that was needed to efficiently run a brand like this. It takes a lot of capital,” said Woodruff. “So if you’re not George Clooney, or you’re [not] a second-generation rich kid, then you’re doing a lot of striving on your own.”
Woodruff’s story is one of resilience. His determination to succeed was the fuel needed to turn his unsuccessful fundraising effort into the “driving factor” to participate in the 2024 InvestBev Accelerator, a Chicago-based cohort that helps beverage startup founders from all over the world with marketing and development strategies to help grow their businesses.
The accelerator opened Woodruff to the world of what it takes to build a successful alcohol brand. He is currently meeting with potential investors to help bring the product to market. The brand has four flavors ranging from a strawberry peach sangria to a twist on the Long Island iced tea that Woodruff calls “Pilt Paradise.” The cocktail mixes feature a selection of rum, tequila, whiskey and cognac.
Woodruff, a native of Austin, is working to establish his brand among the small number of Black-owned liquor brands across the country. Black people make up just 2% of alcohol brand executives but make up roughly 12% of alcohol consumption, according to Atlanta-based Pronghorn Capital, which invests capital into Black-owned liquor brands. He expects to go to market with Pilt Persuasion by the summer of 2025.
“[InvestBev] really challenged me in a good way. My background was specifically in bartending, and knowing the overall operation space of how it runs, I definitely learned a lot. It challenged me almost every single day,” said Woodruff. “A lot of times, I doubted myself. I might have cried once or twice. Absolutely well worth it, because now I feel like I came out 10 times better than what I was before.”
Through the accelerator, Woodruff learned tools to help solidify Pilt Persuasion as one of the premier Black Chicago-based alcohol brands alongside the likes of Funkytown Brewery, Moors Brewing Co. and Black-owned whiskey brands in the area such as Alexander James. The brand is based on the city’s West Side.
As a Black liquor brand owner, Woodruff exists in the tradition of Black entrepreneurs who experienced barriers to becoming the front person of alcoholic brands. One of the most notable stories of this experience is Nathan “Nearest” Green, the namesake of the Black-owned alcohol brand Uncle Nearest. Green was the formerly enslaved man who helped create the iconic Jack Daniel’s whiskey when he taught Daniel how to distill whiskey. Recently, Jack Daniel’s parent company announced its diversion from DEI efforts despite the history of its creation.
“I’ve actually been trying to reach out to as many Black alcohol brand founders as I could,” Woodruff said. He connected with Emmanuel Waters, the co-founder and CEO of Old Hillside Bourbon, a Kentucky bourbon that’s named for a historically Black high school in Durham, North Carolina.
“I reached out to him, I just asked him some personal questions and [for] some help, and he was very responsive and helpful,” Woodruff said. “He told me about the InvestBev opportunity. I send him samples of my flavors, of my drinks [and] he’ll give me his feedback.”
The InvestBev cohort accepts between 12 and 14 brands through its twice-a-year, three-month “boot camp” process. There’s a “Pitch Day” at the end of the cohort; one brand receives $100,000 in investments in the competition that’s reminiscent of the popular TV show “Shark Tank.”
Brian Rosen, the chairman of InvestBev, said Woodruff’s story is what intrigued him about Pilt Persuasion. “It’s a Black-owned enterprise, it’s from our own town.”
“[Woodruff’s] a guy who was a bartender and made his own drinks and made it better than drinks he could buy, and decided to make that a business,” Rosen said. “Pilt Persuasion was in that category of a guy who made his own path and wanted to create his own brand.”
Although Woodruff did not win the ‘Pitch Day’ competition, he said he was grateful for the experience. He was the only Black-owned, Chicago-based brand to compete in the fall 2024 cohort.
The competition taught him a lot. He now understands the ins and outs of distribution and the importance of relationships with distributors. Woodruff is currently working to find a distributor to get his product on shelves.
“I’m not officially in the market yet, so what I do is, whenever I have my product, I hand out samples to increase my brand engagement with people,” he said.
In addition to finding opportunities for professional development, Woodruff said he partners with local artists and participates as a vendor at local events where people can sample his product to get acquainted before he goes to market.
Woodruff began bartending in 2018 as a traveling bartender and then found the opportunity to serve his mixes on a larger scale at the start of the pandemic, just two years later. He created the ready-to-drink alcohol brand while attending Eastern Illinois University, starting off just making it for family and friends.
“I got a large container, and I started putting together my own recipes because that was always my dream,” said Woodruff. ” I started putting everything in mason jars, and I kind of let that do the bartending for me.”The name is also a term that Woodruff coined for how people feel after drinking his cocktails, akin to the word tipsy.
“The word ‘pilt’ itself, we actually made it up. [It] means not sober or barely intoxicated. It’s a state of exuberance that you only achieve after consuming our brand,” he said. “That was my goal in college. You’re not inebriated, you’re not intoxicated, you’re pilt.”
Woodruff gave the significance of using a phoenix as the logo for the brand, the mythical creature that rises from ashes and represents resilience and hope. “Through this brand, I found new life and new purpose,” he said.
Woodruff added that his ultimate dream is for the entire world to use the word “pilt” while sipping on his creation.
“I have a long way to go before that happens. I have to start here in Chicago, but ultimately I want the entire world,” he said.
The post Meet the founder of Pilt Persuasion, a rising Black-owned liquor brand looking to shake up the Chicago market appeared first on The TRiiBE.
