As the Ketel One Vodka washes over my palette to glide down my throat, I pause, waiting for the acidic aftertaste. There is none. My colleague Marlon, and I exchange a glance of acknowledgment, nod and smile.

Bill Eldien, the CEO and President of Ketel One, has just administered a taste test preceded by a tour of their U.S. headquarters. The other leading Vodka brands in the test were far more aggressive on the palette. “See, Ketel One is clean, refreshing, simple.” We had to agree. Ketel One is an ultra-premium vodka.

Having the president of one of the finest vodka distillers in the world conduct a tour was almost as unique as the taste of Ketel One itself. We soon learned however, that for Ketel One, education and simplicity go hand in hand – and family is the adhesive that binds them.

The Nolet Distillery (producer of Ketel One Vodka) has existed in the Nolet family from Schiedam, Holland for over 300 years and has been passed down to Carl Nolet, Sr. – the current 10th generation patriarchal head of the family business. Ketel One derives its name from the original “Distilleerketel #1” in Holland. The unique taste of Ketel One is due in part to the copper pots used in the complex distilling process, and the discarding of the first and last 100 gallons (the “head” and “tail” considered either too weak or too strong) to ensure the collection of the premium heart of the vodka and to maintain the consistency of each batch. This process does not yield quantity, but quality – and the Nolet’s wouldn’t have it any other way.

Carl Nolet, Sr. believes that loyalty is instilled by quality, and quality is instilled by simplicity. Carl, Nolet, Jr. and Bill Eldien, have adopted this philosophy and help Carl, Sr. spread it throughout the Ketel One family... and the world.

Cazembe - What separates Ketel One from the rest of the other brands?

Carl Jr. – Family. Authenticity – like what your magazine stands for. My dad did research back in eighty-three on the vodka industry and other industries in terms of what’s going on in Holland and how they are being accepted by the consumer. His philosophy is very simple – K.I.S. (keep it simple). But, you have to do a lot of homework, you have to do a lot of studying, so for seven years he studied the U.S. and came here with discovery marketing.

Marlon – And, if I remember correctly, one of the tactics [of this discovery marketing] was to approach bartenders, at restaurants specifically, to simply endorse the product based on their own experience. Was that the strategy from the get-go?

Carl Jr. – Yes. When he did his homework he said, “You know, I can throw a lot of millions, guilders, dollars, on the wall like spaghetti, but the consumer has never heard of the brand Ketel One. We had to go to the bartenders. So he [my father] gave me the task when I came in nineteen-ninety, I lived in New York City, to pick out twenty-five restaurants - good ones, and I got thrown out of most of them…

Laughter…

Carl, Jr. - I thought twenty-five was easy, but they said, “We don’t need another vodka. We have Absolut, Stoli, Smirnoff… and that’s enough.” So, we had to come and prove ourselves with our vodka in the bottle and offer a taste test, and educate the bartenders. And, once I finally had the twenty-five [my father said] no more, that’s it. So, for about a year and a half, almost two years I worked in only those restaurants and bars. It was about repeat business.

Cazembe – What was your criteria for choosing these twenty-five restaurants or bars?

Carl, Jr. – In the beginning it had to be white tablecloth. The salesmen had to have an incredible relationship with the customers so that we were able to do education, so we were able to do the staff trainings. That was a big hurdle. They had to pay their staff to come in early to train. It sounds easy, but it took a lot longer.

Cazembe – But, it seems that your approach really established loyalty. And, also, you had to have confidence in your brand to do that.

Carl, Sr. – My fear was that you could spend an awful lot of money trying to convince consumers that your product is by far the best. So that’s why I convinced my son Carl, that I don’t care if we find thousands of consumers in a month’s time. I want five people, one hundred percent convinced that Ketel One is by far the best, and then spread the word to their friends and families and so forth. That takes a lot of patience.

Marlon – I think ultimately that perseverance proved itself.

Carl, Sr. – It was common sense to me; and I didn’t want to go back to Holland to show them another failure.

Marlon – Do you think [your success] was the quality of the product or everything around it?

Carl, Sr. – It started with the quality of the product. That’s what I worked very hard on until I was convinced that this vodka was the smoothest vodka, like silk. Then we had all the added value around it – my family, children, and grandchildren. Great professionals like Mr. Eldien, having that experience in the business for over thirty years. I used American experience together with Dutch common sense and our 316-year history of our family in Holland.

Cazembe – What is Ketel One’s mission and vision?

Carl, Jr. – To continue the loyalty of our customers and to build on that. To not make mistakes. The vision is to be here in the United States. Our family. You can have beautiful mission statements, but it has to have passion. When we wake up in the morning this is all we do.

Cazembe – The beauty of simplicity.

Carl, Jr. – That’s it - K.I.S. - keep it simple.

Cazembe – How have you been able to keep the company together as a family? For every successive generation is it expected that there will be an heir to the Ketel One legacy?

Carl, Sr. – My father picked me out of his three sons to be the leader of the company. It wasn’t that my other brothers weren’t good enough; my two brothers do a lot of things better than I do, but he had a certain confidence in me that I had a passion for the company and the business. And, as for my two sons, I did not choose them, they chose to come back and work for the company. One day they said, “Here we are!”

Carl, Jr. – I thought I would get a corner office, but much to my dismay at the time I had to start by sweeping floors and packing bottles. We had to learn everything from the basics. There isn’t a single thing that we haven’t done in this company, and it was the same thing that my grandfather had my father do. And for me - still no corner office!

Laughter…

Cazembe - What have been some of the challenges with identifying the Ketel One customer or have there been any challenges beyond what you’ve stated so far?

Carl, Jr. – The beauty of our customers is that they are twenty-five to seventy-nine - it’s all kinds, and they tend to be very loyal customers, but our awareness is still not fully out there. We have the “Dear Ketel One Drinker” campaign which is a more specific campaign targeted toward the loyal Ketel One customer, it is also gaining new customers, no doubt about it, but we don’t have the bottle in there to match the name with the bottle. We’re not doing that.

Cazembe – And why have you chosen to not put the bottle in the campaign?

Carl, Sr. – We’ve always believed in the mystique. The easy thing is to put the bottle on the page – it’s what other people do. When we started this campaign people would say – “You forgot the bottle”. We didn’t, but with this we stuck in their minds. After awhile we began to get awards for this.

Carl, Jr. – What’s most important is what’s inside of the bottle. It’s the quality. If we are doing our job well then the fifteenth generation will do well. It’s really not about us, the tenth generation, or else the eleventh generation may never survive.

Bill – What really makes this is the family’s direction for us, and the brand. This is not short term. Every decision that is made is for the long term and the interest of the brand. We are not about “pushing” our brand. Yet, we are one of the number one call brands in the United States, meaning that customers walk into a white tablecloth restaurant and ask for a Ketel One Martini.

Marlon – It’s quite unique that you’ve been able to come this far in such a short amount of time.

Carl, Jr. – Absolutely. Fifteen years is nothing.

Bill – Ketel One is sold more like a fine wine than a spirit. There is a lot of education that goes into selling this brand.

Carl, Jr. – Our philosophy can appear to be risky if you are not patient. I started 15 years ago with seven thousand cases as my goal, now we are up to 1.7 million.

Marlon – Have you had any issues with your refined and educational approach to alcohol and dealing with perceptions of liquor here in the US where alcohol can still be perceived as controversial? Has your approach ever been misunderstood, perhaps?

Bill – Great question. This is something that we look at everyday. We are very conscious of underage drinking. We all have children. We only advertise in areas that have over seventy percent of its readership above the age of twenty-one. We are very cautious of doing events involving children. We do 550 events a year, and of those, 500 are charity events.

Cazembe – What’s in the future for Ketel One? Are there any new areas that you’re going to branch into?

Carl, Jr. – We have done other things, but have decided to stay with Ketel One and Ketel One Citroen. Citroen was introduced in 2000. They are two genuine brands, and they are both growing in double digits. We see the rest as fillers of space.

Cazembe – As we wrap up, let me pose this last question to each of you: What are you most proud of from your involvement with the brand Ketel One?

Bill – Our people. There are three things that people must have before we hire them here: Passion - you must have passion for the brand; commitment to what we do here to stay on course; and integrity. We really believe that we have built a family within a family.

Carl, Jr. – Well, I have to ditto Mr. Eldien. Also, I’m proud of the fact that we were able to come to this beautiful country and raise a family. I’m the first one that has actually settled here in the US now. I arrived here in 1990. It’s a dream. I love it here.

Carl, Sr. – I’m proud of the fact that we are the oldest family-owned company in Holland, and have built this success in this beautiful country the United States of America. Having this great feeling when I look around at my home and think of my children, grandchildren and the family that we have in this company and the American families here working together with our Dutch family is fantastic.

We were impressed to find this level of integrity, sophistication, and pride in such a successful company. Ketel One embodies the mystique of simplicity with a masterful execution of “less is more”.

Ketel One is much more than a brand – it is a legacy.

by Cazembe Abena

Ketel One – Carl Nolet, Sr. (10th Generation Leader), William Eldien (President & CEO)
Carl Nolet, Jr. (Executive V.P. 11th Generation),

LA2DAY – Marlon Ray, Cazembe Abena