Mélanie Masarin Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You're listening to Radio Cherry Bombe and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe magazine. And each week, I talk to the most interesting women and culinary creatives in and around the world of food.
Today's guest is Mélanie Masarin, the founder of Ghia, the non-alcoholic aperitif that I think has done a great deal to change the beverage industry. Mélanie joins me at Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center to share how the Ghia brand came to be, what she learned working at Glossier, and what's next for her groundbreaking brand. Stay tuned for my chat with Mélanie.
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What else is going on? As always, we have lots of fun stuff happening at Cherry Bombe. The best way to stay on top of everything is to sign up for our free newsletter. We'll be announcing Jubilee very soon. We have a fun shopping night coming up with Alex Mill and Soho and lots more. Head over to cherrybombe.com to sign up.
Now, let's chat with today's guest. Mélanie Masarin, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Mélanie Masarin:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
We're here today to talk about your role as the founder of Ghia. Before we talk about anything, so many people butcher the name and you know that.
Mélanie Masarin:
I know.
Kerry Diamond:
So tell us once and for all how to pronounce it and why you chose that name.
Mélanie Masarin:
Okay. It's Ghia with a hard G. It took us a year to find a name. For the longest time, we had a nameless company. It was called Project High Spirits, which is a terrible project name even. But Ghia, we wanted a name that sounded happy. We wanted a name that people could pronounce in a lot of different languages. And it's actually named after a famous car designer, or at least famous to me, called Giacinto Ghia, who designed a lot of cars. He had this car manufacturer called Carrozzeria Ghia that designed, among many others, the Karmann Ghia, which is a very famous car. And it's really beautiful, but also very approachable. It was a Volkswagen. It's really easy to maintain. And that's what we wanted, is that feeling of drinking and driving, not being drunk, and also something that's a very approachable luxury.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's go back a little bit. Where are you from?
Mélanie Masarin:
I'm from France. My mom's French and my dad's Italian, and I grew up between Leon, which is a very food-centric city for those of you who know, and the south of France.
Kerry Diamond:
What were your dreams and aspirations when you were little? What did you think you would do one day?
Mélanie Masarin:
I wanted to be a ballerina. So you always think you have a plan and then it never works out, but life has other plans that are just fine. But for the longest time I wanted to become a ballet dancer. And then when that didn't work out, I didn't really know what to do with my life and I decided to randomly apply to one school in the US. And I got in and it changed the trajectory of my life.
Kerry Diamond:
What college did you apply to?
Mélanie Masarin:
I went to Brown. I really wanted a super liberal education. So I was really lost. I was 15 years old and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. And in France, you have to apply to med school or law school or ballet school, and it's very siloed. And I just didn't really know what I wanted to do. And someone told me, "In the US you can just figure it out and you can study everything." And so I think I picked the most liberal school that was maybe the closest to France. So it was on the East Coast. And then very surprisingly, I got in.
Kerry Diamond:
Had you spent much time in the United States?
Mélanie Masarin:
No. We had been on a trip with my parents when I was a kid once, but that was it.
Kerry Diamond:
So you land in Rhode Island. What were your observations?
Mélanie Masarin:
I land in Rhode Island. I took the Peter Pan bus from the Boston airport to Brown, and my first observation was even though I had studied to take the SATs in the Bluebook, I actually couldn't understand a word of what anyone was saying because everyone that had ever taught me English was French and had learned in the UK. And so the American accent was really foreign to me. It took me a good first semester to be able to have a conversation with people.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's hard.
Mélanie Masarin:
So immediately-
Kerry Diamond:
Did they understand you?
Mélanie Masarin:
No. I mean, I couldn't really speak, I realize now. And it's funny because now, a lot of people ask me, "Where's your accent from?" And I think it's because they expect French people to have a much stronger accent than mine. But because I've been here for so long, I can actually speak English. But that was definitely a challenging time, and so I was like, "Okay, forget about the liberal education thing. The first semester, I'm going to take English." Brown was amazing and so I adapted quickly, but it was very surprising. And actually, I guess this was maybe coincidence, maybe just life doing its thing, but Providence is a huge food city. I ended up working at dining services. I first worked at the bake shop and then I ended up running dining services by my senior year. So I was overseeing 400 student employees and 10 restaurants, and that was just food continuing to guide my life.
Kerry Diamond:
So how did food become an interest for you?
Mélanie Masarin:
I just always loved cooking. I was very close to my grandmother as a kid. She lived in Cannes, but she spent a lot of time with us. We'd spend every summer together. She'd come every month, and she was just an amazing cook. I would say not in the follow recipes type of way, but in a very French way, like a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And you tasted along the way. And she used to have a restaurant, and some of my uncles were chefs. And I think growing up in Leon, I didn't realize how food was at the center of my life until I left and I went to the US where people don't cook dinner. But we never ate at restaurants when I was a kid. It wasn't really a thing. So we just ate at home all the time and hosted all the time. And when I left, I realized that was what felt like home to me and what I was missing.
I was an international student, so I had to work on campus. And it was the bake shop or the library, and I was like, "Duh." Or the school journal which, not speaking English, was just too challenging.
Kerry Diamond:
Were you putting the pieces together then that this could be a career eventually?
Mélanie Masarin:
Not at all, no. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I always had really good grades and my parents were very forceful about me doing a more scientific track, which I think is also why I escaped. Because in high school in France, they were like, "You're really good at math. You're going to do a math track." And I hated math. I wanted to read books and do arts, but my parents were just obviously really proud that they had a child that was really good at math. And neither of them graduated high school, so they were like, "This is so awesome."
So I got to Brown and I did the bare minimum to get an economics major, which was, I think... So first of all, I got there and I placed out of all the math, so I never had to do math again. But to my parents, I got an economics degree even though I think the other, I don't know, 20 credits, I only did art history, arts, visual arts. It was really great.
Kerry Diamond:
What made you decide you would stay in the United States? Because you didn't go back.
Mélanie Masarin:
Actually, that was very interesting. I always had plans to maybe stay for a few years after and build a career, but I got to Brown just as the financial crisis was hitting and so the only places that were really sponsoring international visas were banks. And I was lucky enough to get a job at Goldman Sachs. So I did an internship, and then they hired me. And it wasn't necessarily my plan, but I was good at math and it allowed me also to pay for an apartment in New York. And I graduated and actually ended up graduating early and going to Goldman so that I could get a semester refunded. And then I worked at Goldman for two years.
Kerry Diamond:
What did you do at Goldman?
Mélanie Masarin:
I did investment banking.
Kerry Diamond:
What was the big takeaway from that?
Mélanie Masarin:
That investment banking is not for me. It was interesting because I think there would've been maybe a path in which I would've stayed if I had been consumer retail or healthcare. But when I was there, it was obviously the real estate crisis, so I didn't get put in the real estate group.
And they were like, "What groups do you want?" And I was like, "Anything but FIG," which was the financial track. And they were like, "Okay, we'll put you in industrials." I was like, "No, no, no. Anything but FIG and industrials." And they were like, "Okay, we'll put you in natural resources." I was like, "No." So I ended up doing that and working on pipelines, power plants, and that just didn't really work for me and I didn't really see a path to a career. So I did my two years. I learned a lot. I highly recommend people do banking, especially if they have entrepreneurial aspirations because being able to understand business is really important. But it just wasn't for me.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you go right from Goldman to Dig Inn?
Mélanie Masarin:
I did a short stint at American Eagle Outfitters, which was a client of Goldman, and they hired me to work in their strategy group. But then I randomly met the CEO of Dig Inn because I sent a customer service email and he asked me to get coffee. And I loved Dig Inn and I think-
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, wait. You have to go back. What was that email?
Mélanie Masarin:
One day, I was going there with my coworker and I was having lunch. We used to go to Dig Inn all the time, and it was also a different time and place. It was 2014. There were very few places where if you had to order at your desk or just get a quick lunch and didn't want to have a heart attack, you could eat at. So Dig Inn was the pioneer in the farm-to-table movement. We're talking sweetgreen was not in New York City yet.
Anyways, I go there and it's absolute chaos that day. It's like a different plate and they're scrambling. And I ask why it's a different plate. We get completely different portions with my coworker. They were out of all the side dishes. And we were like, "What happened? And what is this funny plate that they gave us?" And it turned out it was the day that they had changed from three sides to two sides and changed the plates, and so they obviously had training issues and we didn't know. And my coworker, whose background was in consulting, not banking, and she previously had been at McKinsey, she said, "We love Dig Inn. We should give them some constructive feedback." I had never sent a customer service email in my life before.
Kerry Diamond:
That's not very French.
Mélanie Masarin:
That's not very French. And we had a slow day, and so we ran and we said, "Here are five things that we would've done differently today." So bizarre.
Anyways, the CEO responds immediately and asks us to get coffee, and so I had coffee with him. And I loved Dig Inn and I had all of these ideas for Dig Inn, and I also just loved food and had been obviously wondering in my time in the US why the food system in America was so different and why the quality of the food wasn't as good. I should probably say that as soon as I got to the US, I obviously gained 18 pounds and had crazy stomach aches. And so I was obviously trying to figure out my own wellness journey. And I think now, we have a little bit more knowledge. But when you're a freshman in college and suddenly you eat at the cafeteria, things are different. He said, "Do you want to come work for us?" And I joined the adventure.
Kerry Diamond:
So Dig Inn today is known as Dig.
Mélanie Masarin:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
How long were you there, and what was your role?
Mélanie Masarin:
I joined as director of strategy, and then that was at the time when they raised money to expand into Boston and other regions. And I raised my hand and said, "I think we have a lot of acquired loyalty because we've been in New York for so long." They had already been in operation for maybe six years or four years or something like that. And they had four restaurants, but now we were going after a faster expansion. And I said, "I think we just need to be more intentional with how we introduce ourselves to a new market and we do marketing." And Adam, the CEO, he was like, "Okay, great. You can do that." He was very trusting.
And so I became director of marketing, and then I started to have a lot of opinions about how things looked. And he said, "Great, you're also creative director now." So I did that and I ended up designing some of the dining rooms. And it was a great time, and I think it's the first time I felt at home in a job. Even though it was really intense job after my experience at dining services, it felt like a little bit of a homecoming. It felt like something that I intuitively knew how to do. And yeah, I loved my time there.
Kerry Diamond:
Your next job was a very interesting one. You made the leap from food to beauty.
Mélanie Masarin:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
And you went to Glossier. How did you wind up at Glossier? Because it was such an early time.
Mélanie Masarin:
Yeah, so-
Kerry Diamond:
Brand had just launched.
Mélanie Masarin:
2015, Glossier is the like hot startup, right? And it's also the rise of Instagram. I just thought, "Wouldn't it be so cool to work for a company like that?" And very randomly at a dinner party, I was sitting next to the COO and he had noticed the changes that had been made at Dig and he said, "Whenever you're ready, here's my card."
I messaged him, but then it took nine months for me to be able to jump the ship because I was waiting for my green card. And also, it was at the time when I had finished the rebrand of Dig. They were expanding really quickly, but it was less of a need. So it was a very amicable departure. It just felt like my job there was done and I could go on to a new adventure.
And so I joined Glossier actually hoping to work on international because by that point, I really missed home. And they told me that they wanted to expand into Europe, but then by the time I joined, it had been deprioritized. And they were like, "We don't really know what you're going to do, but everyone is asking us about retail and there's all these things." And so I worked on a few different projects.
Kerry Diamond:
So you're at Glossier. When did the idea for Ghia come about?
Mélanie Masarin:
It was while I was at Glossier and I was working so much. I accidentally stopped drinking. I still had occasional stomach pains, but my job at Glossier at some point had become so intense. We had the flagship in New York. We had the flagship in LA. We had one popup in operation always. We had something like a hundred part-time employees, and then we were always scouting for the next popup. So I was on two to three flies per week. And I was never a big drinker, but I definitely liked a glass of wine at night. And over the course of a few months, I realized I completely stopped drinking. And then I kept going like this and I left Glossier. So we opened the big store in New York, which was an amazing project. And then after Black Friday I was like, "Okay, let's go." And I was doing a lot of consulting, a lot of design work.
I actually ended up working for sweetgreen. It was while I was consulting that I realized I could be a little little bit more social and I could catch up with people. And I realized I didn't really want to drink. But truly, if I was out and about, I felt like everyone was just conditioned to drink and the other way was just not an option.
And so that was 2018, 2019. So it was a while ago, and truly so much progress has been made now because it feels crazy to think that drinks were being pushed on me. But I really felt like drinks were being pushed on me a lot. And I was always complaining about that, and it was actually one of the founders of sweetgreen that said, "I think that's what you need to do. Instead of complaining about it, why don't you try to make the magic drink?" So that's how I had the idea for Ghia.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. Thank you to OpenTable for supporting this episode. We just wrapped the second leg of our Sit With Us community dinner series with OpenTable that spotlighted amazing female chefs and female-led restaurants across the country. We visited Chef Evelyn Garcia of Jun in Houston, Chef Renee Erickson's The Whale Wins in Seattle, Parachute by Chef Beverly Kim, and just this past Saturday Chef Camille Becerra's As You Are at Ace Hotel Brooklyn. As you can imagine, I ate a lot of great food. It was so great seeing everyone who joined us, and we can't wait to get back on the road. If you'd like to experience any of these restaurants, and I highly recommend them all, head to opentable.com or the OpenTable app. If you visit any of these restaurants, be sure to tell them Cherry Bombe says hi.
I think listeners can tell that all the pieces were in place for you to do this. You got to see all these different founders do their thing. You saw all these brands emerge and evolve, and you had such a front row seat for them. But when you're making your own product, that's a little different. Where did you even start?
Mélanie Masarin:
It was so hard. I mean, I think I made Ghia for me. And that's why it's sometimes also... I think first time founders were so different from second time founders. If I did it again, I think I'd be a lot more detached, but Ghia just flows out of me. I mean, the way I dress looks like Ghia and my house looks like Ghia. Everything is so personal. And I made this drink because it was a drink that I was craving. If I was ordering a glass of wine, I wanted it to be dry. And when I made a drink, I really wanted it to be dry, and that's really hard to do. It's not something you can do in your kitchen where you can only juice fresh things.
So I asked all my friends who worked in food, "Do you have anyone that can help me?" And they put me in touch with a food scientist. I mean, I interviewed a bunch of them, and then there was one that seemed a little crazier than the other. And of course, I liked him more so we started working together. I used to make money designing things and then I would Venmo him. Very early stage, and it took about a year until we had a formula that we really loved.
And I asked everyone what did they think, and everyone was confused but supportive. I hosted a brunch for over a hundred people, and there were post-its everywhere. And I would force Ghia spritzes down their throat and ask for all the feedback. And I wish I had kept all these post-its, but they were like, "It needs to be a little sweeter. It needs to be a little more this and more that. More citrus." And also, I realized also a lot of people didn't know how to put the words to what they tasted. So this is an ingredient. There's yuzu in Ghia or there's... And they were like, "Oh yeah, I taste it." It's like sometimes, you just have to have the label for it.
And that was actually a big part of what saved us, because we were set to launch on April 1st, 2020 in restaurants only. So we had partnered with 50 restaurants to introduce Ghia through the culinary world. And two weeks before, all of the restaurants in the world shut down.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's go back a sec, though, because you are asking for feedback on a category that you essentially helped create. I do feel like Ghia kickstarted the category in so many ways. I know Seedlip was here already.
Mélanie Masarin:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and they're very different. So the way that I always describe the category in a nutshell is there are three subcategories for me. So one is the functional ones. They're trying to have a physical effect in a different way, buzz you in a different way or something else. And then one is just the analogs, and that's what Seedlip was in where they said... When Seedlip launched, they were a gin alternative. And I think that's why they've had mitigated success in the US because the drink of choice is not gin and tonic like it is in the UK. So there's a category of products like Lyre's and all these other brands that are non-alcoholic gin, non-alcoholic whiskey, non-alcoholic... Really trying to mimic an alcohol that already exists. And then there's Ghia.
And I think for us, we just... It's harder to explain, but we were just trying to make a really delicious product that used the same standard as some of the food standard that people today were aiming for. We're one of the only non-alcoholic drinks that only uses real ingredients. There's no artificial flavors. It's just pure ingredients. There's no added sugar ever. And so our drink is five or six times more expensive to make than any others because our yuzu is flash frozen in Japan. And I just really thought if I'm putting all this work in it, it has to be the best product ever. I mean, I drink three Ghias per day. I'm definitely... I believe in it so much. And so we just wanted to make something delicious, and there was a big social component to it.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, so it's 2019. You're working on the brand. 2020 rolls around. You have this plan that you're going to roll out in restaurants. Did you have a team, or were you doing this by yourself?
Mélanie Masarin:
I was doing this by myself, and then I had a friend of mine who left his job and joined me. And so same thing. For the first few months, it was like I was designing and then I was Venmoing him. And so he joined at the end of 2019.
Kerry Diamond:
And how did you fund Ghia in the beginning?
Mélanie Masarin:
So in the beginning, I bootstrapped. It was all of my savings. So it was actually my first bonus from Goldman Sachs that I had saved, and I spent the whole thing on Ghia. And then we did a friends and family round, so a lot of small checks from friends.
Kerry Diamond:
And how did you know the right food scientist? How did you know who to get to do the bottle? How did you know all those things?
Mélanie Masarin:
I didn't know anything. I think being a founder is just figuring it out and building a tough skin. I knew when it felt right for the brand and when it didn't. And so we interviewed a million designers we could. And then Henry, my COO that has been with us since the beginning, and I were just like... we were like, "We give up." On the name, we couldn't find a name we liked. And we went to a concert that night. I had tickets to Tame Impala. And then the concert was so fun and we were like, "That's the energy." You know, when you leave a concert and you're so hyped and you have this feelgood... And we're like, "That's Ghia. How do we..." It wasn't even named Ghia. It was like that's the feeling we want.
And so I figured out who had designed the show and then found this person on Instagram. I asked some people that I knew in common to introduce us. One person said yes. They put me on text with him. And he happened to be staying at the Bowery and be in New York for two days, had no intention of really meeting with me, and I just showed up in the lobby of the Bowery. And I begged him to take us on, and he just caved and he said yes. And he said, "Come to the studio when you're in LA."
And so I was just about to do this project for sweetgreen in LA. I went the following week and I went to the studio. And then he's now one of my closest friends, but he designed the whole Ghia brand. And he found the name Ghia after we did the whole thing of like, "Tell me about your life. What do you like? Tell me about cars you love." And then yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
It's so interesting how this came from someone completely outside the traditional food and beverage industry.
Mélanie Masarin:
Exactly. Yeah. But it's funny because I think sometimes, especially when you're designing, you look at so many things. And then everything starts to look the same and you have to step a little bit back from it. And with the name, it had been such an issue. There were names we loved. We just couldn't pass the trademark we wanted. Now, I understand why every beverage brand has no vowels because the USPTO, which is where you find all the trademarks, has never been cleaned up. So if anyone has had a beverage name in the '20s that is similar, even if it's defunct, you probably won't be able to get to use it. But as soon as he said Ghia, I just knew. And I texted Henry and Henry knew too. I said, "It's Ghia."
Kerry Diamond:
So March 2020 rolls around. It's clear your strategy has to change.
Mélanie Masarin:
Yes. Go to market is off. It was a little bit like that moment when you're a kid and you realize your parents don't have all the answers, because I asked all of our friends and investors and founders. I remember calling Adam from Dig, and he didn't know. His business was also hit. And Emily from Glossier, and she didn't know. And some people told us we should just pause, and some people said, "You should just launch." And we decided to launch because we had already made the product. We didn't really know how long it lasted. We know it was a few months, but we definitely didn't know how long the pandemic was going to last. And so we launched in June 2020 online only.
Kerry Diamond:
So direct to consumer.
Mélanie Masarin:
Direct to consumer.
Kerry Diamond:
No retailers.
Mélanie Masarin:
No retailers.
Kerry Diamond:
And what was the reaction?
Mélanie Masarin:
We actually had a really strong launch day. It was amazing. I mean, so the other thing that happened is that it was the week after all of the protests for Black Lives Matter. So we actually had to push the launch a few times. Our revised launch date was Blackout Tuesday, which obviously was... At that point point I was like, "There's just a much bigger thing happening. We're just going to pause." But we lost all of our launch press as a result. And so our launch really consisted of us posting on Instagram on this Instagram account that had been up for months now with coming soon.
And I think that all of the people that had come to the branch and had tried the first iteration of Ghia back in January, February just really rallied and posted and shared. And our message was very much like, "This is probably the least important thing that's going on in the world and in your life right now, but this is what I've been working on for the past two years," and "Try it and see." And I think the silver lining was a lot of people were at home stuck to their phone, willing to try new things. So we had a pretty solid first day of order, and then it was a slow build from there.
Kerry Diamond:
So you've raised some money. You mentioned you had a family and friends round. I don't know if you're comfortable saying how much you've raised.
Mélanie Masarin:
We raised a bigger round last year, but we had raised $600,000, which went quick because our plan was to launch in person, and then we had to develop packaging and websites and all of that. And money always goes faster than you think. We've raised more money and we're actually going through fundraising now because we just got accepted into Whole Foods, which is super exciting, but also just pretty massive capital investments.
Kerry Diamond:
Congratulations.
Mélanie Masarin:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
So you are in 1,000 different points of distribution essentially.
Mélanie Masarin:
Exactly, yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us what that consists of.
Mélanie Masarin:
So it's actually a lot of independence because the first 400 Ghia accounts, we're talking... 2020 was like Hustle Town, right? It was Henry, me, and then one other person joined. And so I was just messaging all these places on Instagram. A lot of the restaurants had pivoted to being markets and I was like, "I'll give you your first case free if you then sell Ghia." And we got a few yeses that were amazing. Gjusta was one of them and some LA accounts. And I was spending my day hand delivering with my little fabric mask around my mouth. And so it was a lot of independent. We have a pretty big direct business.
And then at the time also, no one wanted to take on the category, not large retailers, not distributors. It just wasn't a thing, and everyone was tiptoeing around it. And now, it's like a little bit of a race, and everyone wants to take on the non-alc beverages.
But the first chain to sign us was Foxtrots, which they have been an incredible partner and I'm so proud that we're there. We're now at Erewhon, Lazy Acres, Bristol Farms, all of these chains that have somewhere around 10 to 20 locations, which is really awesome. Natural Grocers. But the bigger ones, we're still working on. So yeah, working on Whole Foods is our next big launch.
We're starting in the Pacific Northwest and California. And if we do well, there's different regions that sometimes we are in the wine category. I guess what people don't understand about this, the non-alc business, is we're super impacted by alcohol laws, because where we can be distributed is often defined by alcohol laws. So in New York, we can't be sold in liquor stores. But in California, we do very well in wine shops. So we have to have regional hands-on distribution.
Kerry Diamond:
I didn't realize that you can't sell non-alcoholic things in a liquor store here in New York, which led to the rise of places like Boisson.
Mélanie Masarin:
Exactly. They're actually our top accounts. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Accounts for those of you who don't know Boisson, and I should have you pronounce because it probably sounds much nicer when you pronounce it, the first Boisson opened in my neighborhood. And I remember just thinking, "A non-alcoholic liquor shop? That's so interesting." Now, it's taken off.
Mélanie Masarin:
Yeah. I think they're doing very well and the stores are doing really well. They have three in LA. And so Boisson, for super curious folks who want to try a bunch of different things, has just been amazing because they are really good at educating people on the category. You walk in there and there's every single SKU under the sun. And you can reliably find these brands there.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about the terminology around this category because people are very confused.
Mélanie Masarin:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Folks in the industry hate the term mocktail. I don't know how you feel.
Mélanie Masarin:
Hate. I hate it.
Kerry Diamond:
You do too?
Mélanie Masarin:
Yes. To me, a mocktail is orange juice with an umbrella in the glass, and it's so infantalizing. I don't like it at all.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. I'll tell you why I like it because there's no other term that has come up that is clear to everyone. Because you've got no, low, sober curious. Does that mean you drink, you don't drink? I feel like when you say, "I want a mocktail," it's clear you mean absolutely no alcohol.
Mélanie Masarin:
Yeah, that's true. I like-
Kerry Diamond:
What's the term you prefer instead?
Mélanie Masarin:
Maybe zero proof, but I feel like a lot of people don't know what that means. The most thoughtful menu I've seen had a cocktail list with the percent of alcohol in each of the cocktail at the end. And some were zero, some were seven, some were 15. And I thought that that was the best one, but it's difficult.
Kerry Diamond:
Any other fun terms you've seen out there? I've seen spiritless, which I don't like.
Mélanie Masarin:
Yeah, spiritless... I don't like anything that makes it sound like it's a lesser version of something that already exists. That's why we like to say we're over the influence. That's our tagline, but we're trying to not even reference the alcohol component on it and just be a drink that stands on its own.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell me about the term sober curious. Who came up with that?
Mélanie Masarin:
The term sober curious, I believe, was coined by Ruby Warrington, who wrote a book called “Sober Curious.” Maybe it was 2015, '16, something like that. And she wrote this pretty amazing book about her personal non-drinking journey and how she felt better not drinking. And I think that at a time when... I guess socially, what was most difficult when I started Ghia was explaining why I wasn't drinking. It's like you need a medical excuse or are you pregnant or are you sick or do you have a drinking problem. And sober curious gave you a term that was like, "I'm not drinking because I'm exploring some sort of wellness something," without having to have this other medical shield, really. It gave people a reason to explore. And so I think the word sober curious, just like mocktail, has become a little buzzy and maybe polarizing, but the effect that it had on the category and the way that it opened up, it gave people permission to explore in a way that yeah, I really admire Ruby for doing that.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about what is going on in restaurants these days. I am surprised when I go into a restaurant, especially in New York City, a contemporary restaurant, that there is not a mocktail menu or a low-to-no, whatever you want to call it. A, I think it's such a missed business opportunity. B, I just wonder why they're not extending hospitality in that direction. You must be even more surprised than me.
Mélanie Masarin:
For sure. I think with Ghia, it has been our greatest success, was getting on menus, and it was always our highest priority even though it's very low ROI. When you focus on accounts that sell Ghia by the serving instead of by the bottle, it's obviously a lower return. But it was really important to me that the brand is very inclusive and people who don't want to have alcohol, for whatever reason, don't feel like they have to stay at home to be able to do that. So it was a bit of brutal force getting into some of these accounts.
But when I started Ghia, I really tried to understand. One of the things that took me that this was a good idea was that I realized that when I was going out to dinner and opting out of drinking, very often someone at the dinner table would say, "You know what? I'm not going to drink either. And so I realized" it was this social conditioning where you just needed to give people the permission to say, "I'm not going to drink either." I was hearing a lot "I don't want to go out because I don't want to drink." And to me, these things weren't mutually exclusive. Now, I think that sometimes we have to convince. And a lot of my strategy was like, "I'll give you your first case free." And then they would say, "Oh my god, people ordered this thing a lot."
I was really trying to get on the menu at Raf's. I don't know if you've been there. The chicken's so delicious, and it's obviously one of the New York hotspots. And I ended up going there for dinner and bringing Jen, the owner, bottles and she put it on the back bar. And then two days later, Hailey Bieber did her launch for Rhode, and there was a picture of Hailey Bieber with a bottle of Ghia behind her shoulder. And I noticed the bottle of Ghia was almost empty.
And so I texted Jen. I was like, "How's the Ghia going?" And she was like, "People are obsessed with this thing. I'm going to need to order it immediately." Because she said people would walk in and say, "Oh my God, you have Ghia? Great, I'll have a mocktail." And that makes me so happy.
Kerry Diamond:
You know what we didn't even really talk about? What is Ghia? What is in it?
Mélanie Masarin:
It's an aperitif. So for those who don't know, an aperitif is this anchor into the evening, your first drink of the night. It comes from the Latin word to open because it primes your appetite. It's very dry. It pairs very well with food. And to me, also socially it's the most important drink. I will often say one rule of hospitality is when people sit down, the first drink had to get there as soon as possible so that they can relax into the evening.
And so Ghia is made with only pure extracts and juices. So it's only real ingredients. It's dry. It's refreshing. It's complex, so we're really trying to have different notes that travel through your palate, not like a traditional mocktail which is often one note of juice or sugar. And it's meant to take the intimidation out of making a drink as well. One part Ghia, three parts sparkling water, and you have a drink in your hand. Yeah. It's-
Kerry Diamond:
It is not meant to drink straight up.
Mélanie Masarin:
You can if you have a very bitter palate. I think that especially our new bottle is really concentrated, so I would advise 99% not to do that.
Kerry Diamond:
You mentioned yuzu is in it. What else is in it?
Mélanie Masarin:
So the base is gentian. So gentian is a root from the Alps that's used in most traditional amaros. So it gives this slightly bitter, earthy notes to the drink. We have elderflower in it. The base is also grapes. We have rosemary. We have ginger. We actually make our own ginger juice, so we're very, very proud of the quality of our ginger.
We have the original bitter drink that's called Ghia, and we redesigned the bottle and we concentrated the formula more recently because I think another thing about this category is it's quite expensive, and we get the question a lot of why is it so expensive if it's not making me drunk. So there's a lot of questions around the perceived value of the function. And my answer is always we only use real ingredients in it, so our ingredient costs are much higher. So we concentrated it more back in May so that we would give better value to the customer.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, how interesting.
Mélanie Masarin:
So the same price bottle with 50% more. But we're working on a new bottle and new formula. It will be just a different flavor. So we'll have two bottles in the future.
Kerry Diamond:
You've also expanded into the spritz category.
Mélanie Masarin:
Mm-hmm.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us about that.
Mélanie Masarin:
So a lot of the questions that I was getting... When we launched, we only had the bottle. And it was like, "What's your perfect way of drinking Ghia?" And I think I realized that one, buying a full bottle was maybe intimidating to people that had never tried it before. And also with COVID, we couldn't sample our drink to anyone, which is extremely difficult, especially if you're trying to get into retail. So we started working on a ready-to-drink product that was my perfect spritz.
So the original spritz, which is the purple can, is one part Ghia, three parts sparkling water and a fresh squeeze of citrus with sprig of rosemary. And then we've launched new flavors. So we have the ginger one, which a lot of people really love that one, especially if they don't like bitter as much. It's made with our own ginger beer. So it's a ginger beer that has no added sugar, so it's really as pure as possible.
And then the third one, we're always trying to use some notes that are used in mixology but not available in non-alcoholic. And so salinity is something that you're always craving if you have a dirty martini or something like that. And it's almost never available on a traditional mocktail menu. So our third drink was lime and salt, which is actually a little bit inspired by Mexican sueros. And we say that it's like having a dip in the sea in Barcelona. That one is a personal favorite because I love salt.
And then our newest one is sumac and chili. And again, trying to create a spicy drink away from the traditional spicy margarita or virgin margaritas or all of that. It's both spicy and spiced.
Kerry Diamond:
I've had them all and I have to say I'm a huge fan of everything you do. One thing I did not understand is you did a hazelnut spread. Tell me where that fits in.
Mélanie Masarin:
I think we're always trying to surprise and delight people and doing fun stuff for the holidays, and the way that we always design product is what is the occasion, what is that moment, what is that feeling we're trying to channel. So our bitter aperitif was that feeling when you're sitting down and you get your first drink in your hand, and you suddenly relax into it. That's like a transition moment. To me, that aperitif in general is a transition moment. We make a transition drink.
I had all these memories. My grandmother used to love playing cards, and a big part of playing cards was what snack was going to be at a table. And it was always something really chocolatey. And so whether it was like... She used to make orangette, which are the candied oranges with the chocolate cover that you eat over the holidays. My dad used to bring this thing called After Eight. It's a peppermint bar that's covered in chocolate.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, sure. Mm-hmm.
Mélanie Masarin:
It's soft. And then we used to... If they were playing cards, we were allowed to make crepes, to have crepes as our dinner. And so we had the five-kilo jar of Nutella. I mean, Nutella was a big part in my childhood, and crepes in general. I make crepes all the time. So we're like, "That's the feeling." That's the feeling of you can do whatever you want. You can have crepes for dinner. It's like freedom. But we're like, "Nutella now is one of those things that I know too much." It's like Aperol. It's like I know too much. I cannot drink this even though I just want it so badly. And I thought, "Let's make a Nutella that's better."
So ours has half the sugar as Nutella. It's made with olive oil instead of palm oil. It has a little bit of salt. The ingredients are really, really good, and it's really delicious. So we did it for the holidays and it sold so well. When we went to Sunset, the product, in February, people were up in arms. Like, "Okay, I guess we'll keep it."
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, and how do you pronounce that? The hazelnut spread.
Mélanie Masarin:
Ghianduja. So it's inspired by gianduja, which is this chocolatey fudge that's an Italian product. Coincidentally started with gia, so it was easy. Ghianduja. And the tagline for that one is another delicious product no one can pronounce. It's written on the jars. We're just used to it.
Kerry Diamond:
Ghia could be a lifestyle brand. I mean, in some respects it already is.
Mélanie Masarin:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you plan to expand beyond beverage in a serious way?
Mélanie Masarin:
I don't think it's part of our core strategy. We listen to our customers, but a lot of the focus right now, especially in this macroeconomic environment, is bringing Ghia to new places. My vision for Ghia would be that I want Ghia to be served in the south of France at the beach that I grew up in with my grandma. So the little kiosk with the gelatos, I would like to have cans of Ghia there eventually.
I also want the brand to be as sustainable as possible. It's something that's really important to us. We were plastic-free from the very beginning. I would love to get our bottles refilled when we're big enough. It's not something that is done a lot in the US, but it's something that's very common in Europe. So the bottles are consigned. You see those plastic crates being refilled a lot at restaurants. And so that's something that is very much on the vision board for Ghia in the future.
And yeah, I would love to bring it to more countries. We're very intentional with rolling out new flavors, so we don't have so many. We have one bottle and its four canned derivatives. We'll probably launch the next bottle in six months or so because we need to raise money for the inventory. But I promise that it will be just as intentionally made and delicious as the first one. It's a completely different flavor profile.
And I think that the goal is not to have 20 different flavors. I think the goal is to create a forever brand. I would love for my grandchildren to drink Ghia on that beach.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, Mélanie, thank you for your time. I mean, you have created something that feels like it's timeless, that it feels like it's been with us for way longer than it has.
Mélanie Masarin:
Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. I'm the biggest Cherry Bombe fan.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. If you are a longtime listener or maybe a new one, I would love for you to subscribe to our show via Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is the studio engineer for Newsstand Studios. Our producer is Catherine Baker. Our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu and our editorial assistant is Londyn Crenshaw. Thanks for listening, everybody. You're the Bombe.