Sandwiches and cold milk. That's what greeted a five-year-old Gino Santos when the U.S. Coast Guard pulled his family off a sinking shrimp boat and brought them ashore in Key West. For a kid who had just spent the crossing crammed into a shrimp hold with his grandmother, it was heaven. That same resilience and hunger would define Gino's path decades later when he and his brother Henry built Premium Blend Cocktails from nothing. In this episode, Gino walks Forrest through:
The harrowing details of the family's escape from Cuba — a stolen shrimp boat, Soviet-era communism, a Bay of Pigs connection, and a Coast Guard rescue
His academic path through Stetson University and an MBA from the University of Miami
How a sales job with Oscar Mayer led him to discover a wine-based spirit product that nobody was marketing correctly
The origin of the Premium Blend partnership with his brother Henry, who was running a Colombian mining equipment company in Miami at the time
The critical role of Florida Distillers and a mentor named Chris Mitchell, who took a chance on two unknown entrepreneurs with no industry experience
Why education was Premium Blend's biggest early challenge — and how "getting the liquid to the lips" at trade shows and samplings changed everything
The wine-based cocktail space has exploded since the 90s, and Premium Blend was there at the beginning — grinding through skepticism one margarita at a time.
Learn more at premiumblend.com
@thebestwinepod
Discover More from The Best 5 Minute Podcast Network:
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
