{"id":35999,"date":"2016-10-05T09:00:05","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T14:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=35999"},"modified":"2016-10-03T15:49:29","modified_gmt":"2016-10-03T20:49:29","slug":"mississippi-wine-spirits-co-alcohol-broker-bringing-small-batch-craft-spirits-to-mississippi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/mississippi-wine-spirits-co-alcohol-broker-bringing-small-batch-craft-spirits-to-mississippi\/","title":{"rendered":"Mississippi Wine & Spirits Co. Alcohol Broker Bringing Small Batch Craft Spirits to Mississippi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mississippi Wine & Spirits Co.<\/strong> is a distilled spirits brokerage company started by Kevin George<\/strong>. His operation officially launched on July 6, 2014 and has seen steady growth since.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI had heart troubles so I moved out here [to Mississippi],\u201d said George.<\/span><\/p>\n

A California<\/strong> native, he found himself in need of a triple heart bypass. Unfortunately, he had lost his insurance, but his doctors advised him that he could find capable and affordable surgeons. On blind faith he headed down south to find a solution to his medical issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was told to come out to Tupelo after I had lost my insurance. I\u2019ve got it back now, of course,\u201d said George. \u201cBut, the surgery was going to cost way less in Tupelo than anywhere in California.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While spending time in the area, George found himself settling in to Oxford<\/strong>\u2019s small town atmosphere, the antithesis of what he was used to on the west coast.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI fell in love with this place,\u201d said George.\u00a0 \u201cI love sports, not so much basketball but baseball and football so I thought I might as well stay here.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Coincidentally, Oxford had plenty of baseball and football to offer him.<\/span><\/p>\n

After spending some time in Oxford as a retiree, George wanted a way to fill his time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t golf or anything like that, so I started drinking and goofing around,\u201d said George. \u201cI had to quit drinking, had to quit smoking and, you know, I got bored. So I decided I needed to do something.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Brokering in-state sales for wines and spirit distilleries seemed like natural direction to go for him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI retired in 2004 after running four beer distributors for owners,\u201d said George.<\/span><\/p>\n

George comes from a family of alcohol industrials. His brother owns a vineyard in California<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe has a vineyard,\u201d said George. \u201cHe\u2019s got his own private label and\u2026runs out all the time. He does a lot of work with the national hockey league.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

George\u2019s father owned a company that distributed many of the biggest brands in California. George showed us an old, yellowed industry paper that featured his father\u2019s business.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis was our 40th<\/sup> anniversary back in the \u201870s,\u201d said George. \u201cWe had 318 employees.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0He pointed out phots of him and his brother in between describing all the different alcohols the family business moved throughout the golden state.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe had the number one beer, Olympia, at the time,\u201d said George. \u201cWe were huge. We had a liquor department, a wine department, and a beer department.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With a life of experience in the industry, Mississippi Wine & Spirits Co. was born. His goal was to focus on bringing small batch, \u201ccraft,\u201d distilleries into the state.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the \u201890s you had a handful of these craft beer distilleries like Sam Adams, and now they\u2019re huge,\u201d said George. \u201cWell, you\u2019re gonna see the same thing with distilled spirits. People are putting the time and the effort into the quality rather than the mass production of these brands. I\u2019ve been able, with the contacts I have, to bring them to the state.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

AmericanCraftSpirits<\/strong> reports that there are approximately 1,280 craft spirit producers, representing a 17% growth since 2005.<\/span><\/p>\n

Along with his industry contacts, the way Mississippi<\/strong> has structured the alcohol industry allowed George to get started with minimal investment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cUnlike in California, I don\u2019t have to have trucks, drivers, or a warehouse,\u201d said George. \u201cMississippi has their central warehouse in Madison where everything goes, and it is massive.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The states incentive for this, is that they place a tax of, \u201capproximately 27.5% on every case as well as a $5 per case delivery fee,\u201d George explained.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if they give that to schools or what, but it\u2019s a good way to get state funding,\u201d said George.<\/span><\/p>\n

With the lowered operating cost, George has been able to hire on Scott Warren Melton<\/strong> as a Sales-Finance-Social Media Representative and Ken Taylor<\/strong> as Sales and Internet Sales Representative.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got Scott that just graduated from Ole Miss running Oxford, I\u2019ve got Ken running Southaven, and we\u2019re hiring someone in Jackson real soon,\u201d said George. \u201cI\u2019m about to start working on the Starkville area and then we\u2019ll push into the gulf\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The reasoning for his specific targeting is the long list of dry counties in Mississippi.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSome of these counties have only one or two stores,\u201d said George. \u201cYou don\u2019t really need a lot of man power in those areas.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Along with avoiding dry counties, George is also focusing his efforts on the millennial market. These are the consumers adopting the newer craft spirits and the ones who made craft beer the industry it is today.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe young guys are drinking craft,\u201d said George. \u201cThat\u2019s what they\u2019re growing up on and that\u2019s what scares these big brands. Once a generation dies out, brands go along the wayside and new ones come up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mississippi Wine & Spirits Co. has made a commitment from the start, to only bring in the finest craft spirits that can be found. Their current flagship bottle, Humboldt Distillery Certified Organic Spiced Rum,<\/strong> is a gold medal winner as well as the same distillery\u2019s organic vodka. Humboldt Distillery will not get you high, but it does contain 0.3% thc.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Most Righteous Bourbon<\/strong> is the next brand they are planning to push into Mississippi. Made in Bethel<\/strong>, New York<\/strong>, the same area known for Woodstock<\/strong>, the bourbon has earned countless awards and named number 1 great bourbon you should be drinking by liquor.com.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOn the same list are brands like Bulleit,\u201d said George. \u201cAnd no one has heard of Most Righteous. It\u2019s actually made by this guy who worked with the Beam family for years. He worked on Gentleman Jack for Jack Daniels. He\u2019s like the guru of the bourbon industry.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so excited about what we\u2019ve got coming\u2026each month is bigger than the last.\u201d said George. \u201c2017 is going to be a big year for us.\u201d\u00a0\"The<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mississippi Wine & Spirits Co. is a distilled spirits brokerage company started by Kevin George. His operation officially<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"featured_media":36001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9354,88,89,4765,2024,40,9323,5,642,7067,4,9353,3816,187,1848],"class_list":["post-35999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-craft-spirits","tag-baseball","tag-basketball","tag-california","tag-company","tag-football","tag-kevin-george","tag-mississippi","tag-ms","tag-ole-miss","tag-oxford","tag-spirits","tag-sports","tag-tupelo","tag-wine"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/2016-09-29-Wine-and-Spirits.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}