“I noticed a transparent opening with mezcal,” Aaron Paul, co-founder of Dos Hombres Mezcal with fellow actor Bryan Cranston, says. “You ask anybody on the facet of the highway, ‘Identify your favourite mezcal,’ [and] they’re like, ‘Oh, mezcal is…’ However they’ll title a vodka, a tequila.”
Cranston and Paul, who performed Walter White and Jesse Pinkman on AMC’s award-winning crime drama collection Breaking Unhealthy, turned quick mates on set. So, when Paul instructed the duo begin a mezcal model of their very own a number of years after the present wrapped, Cranston was all in.
Picture Credit score: Paul Quitoriano for Dos Hombres Mezcal
Dos Hombres, which implies “two males” in Spanish, launched in 2019. The mezcal is crafted by third-generation maestro mezcalero Gregorio Velasco, who makes use of conventional manufacturing strategies to mix Espadin agave hand-picked from the hillsides of the small village of San Luis del Rio in Oaxaca, Mexico. It boasts notes of apples, mango, native “zapote” fruits, wooden and an “nearly imperceptible” smoke on the end.
Constellation Manufacturers introduced a minority stake in Dos Hombres in 2021 by its enterprise capital group, although the corporate stays independently owned and continues to handle, market and produce its mezcal.
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Final week, Paul and Cranston appeared at Applebee’s in Instances Sq. to advertise Dos Hombres’ latest partnership with the restaurant chain, a trio of cocktails priced at $9 every: the Breaking Rock Rita (made with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Teremana Blanco Tequila along with Dos Hombres), Ardour Fruit Mezcal Rita and Traditional Mezcal Rita.
Picture Credit score: Paul Quitoriano for Dos Hombres Mezcal
“I believe actors, particularly, we’re used to entering into one thing we do not know.”
Paul and Cranston’s enthusiasm for the model was evident all through the occasion; the pair even stepped behind the bar themselves at one level. They’re decided to make Dos Hombres the No. 1 mezcal, they are saying, and which means doing issues a bit otherwise than a few of the many different celeb spirits manufacturers.
“Celebrities have a chance,” Cranston says. “They’ve the door open. You wish to are available? It is as much as you. And plenty of celebrities will are available — after which go away. You need me to go and work…?“
“Wait, you are not simply going to jot down me…a verify?” Paul quips.
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Cranston notes that “there are way more celeb manufacturers which have failed than have succeeded.” However, like their on-screen characters, the pair is not afraid to get within the trenches and do what must be finished. Till about six months in the past, the co-founders “have been on emails consistently,” and Paul ran the corporate’s social media accounts.
“I believe actors, particularly, we’re used to entering into one thing we do not know,” Cranston says. “Each time we take a job, ‘I believe it might be this, however I am undecided.’ I am enjoying a podiatrist — ‘Oh, I gotta go study all concerning the toes.’ So we’re not daunted about entering into one thing we do not know. We’re like a dry sponge. So we go right down to Oaxaca every year and discuss to our folks.”
Picture Credit score: Paul Quitoriano for Dos Hombres Mezcal
“We break bread with them. We discuss to them, and we study.”
Dos Hombres has 50 staff in Mexico and 22 within the U.S., and Paul and Cranston have personally interviewed every one who was employed onto the workforce. They wish to guarantee that everybody understands the tradition they’ve constructed: “We work onerous right here, after which we go house,” Cranston says. “That is the best factor. Work onerous, go house.”
Paul and Cranston are “very proud” of the workforce members they’ve introduced collectively — and seize each alternative to study from them.
“We break bread with them,” Cranston says. “We discuss to them, and we study. Each time we’re down there, it is like, ‘Oh wait a minute, that is a brand new factor. Why are you doing this? Oh proper. What occurred there?’ After which [we] study concerning the mashing, the smoking, fermentation, the distillation, bottling.”
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Paul and Cranston’s hands-on management method to constructing their best firm, workforce and tradition is a simple however maybe underrated one today. And it carries over from their years on the set of Breaking Unhealthy. Paul, who was 28 when the present debuted, says that Cranston taught him that “whenever you’re No. 1 on the decision sheet, you set the tone.”
“[Cranston is] the toughest employee within the room but additionally essentially the most immature individual you have ever met,” Paul says. “And I say that with love and respect as a result of he does the job completely, however he has one of the best time doing it. He loves to drag pranks; [he] jokes.”
Cranston says there have been a few hundred folks on set that they felt chargeable for, and to assist set up the sort of close-knit tradition they envisioned, they began a bowling evening with not simply the crew however the crew’s household, too. “We would take over all the bowling alley and simply play,” he remembers.
Picture Credit score: Paul Quitoriano for Dos Hombres Mezcal
“Down in Mexico, they are saying, ‘You kiss the spirit.'”
The co-founders may not have anticipated going into enterprise collectively throughout their early days on set. Cranston admits he had no concept Paul had such a “enterprise thoughts,” although he was rapidly impressed by his co-star’s boundless “vitality” and powerful work ethic — and provides that “he is under no circumstances like Jesse Pinkman.”
For sure, the real-life mates have a extra useful enterprise partnership than Jesse and Walt ever did. Additionally they have plenty of enjoyable with it: Simply do not ask them to take any pictures of mezcal for those who run into them on the bar.
“We exit rather a lot to all of the bars and eating places, and a lot of the youthful children go, ‘Ah, let’s do pictures,'” Cranston explains.
“It is sacrilegious to do a shot of mezcal,” Paul says. “Down in Mexico, they are saying, ‘You kiss the spirit.'”
