How does someone with an MBA and a busy corporate career balance being a leading voice on the tequila scene? Marissa Paragano, aka the brains behind Tequila Encyclopedia and Host of The TequiLadies Instagram Live show, spills the secret formula for how she turned her hobby into a thriving side business on The Spirit Guides.
MBA to Tequila Guru
Host Tequila Jay Baer sits down with Marissa to hear her unexpected journey from the corporate world to becoming a respected voice in the tequila community. Trips to Mexico and a family love for tequila ignited Marissa’s passion for the spirit, prompting her to start a separate Instagram account to find other tequila enthusiasts. While she may have started the account on a whim, Marissa’s content now reaches thousands of tequila lovers worldwide and her live show, TequiLadies, has reached almost 150 episodes and counting.
Marissa dives into the challenges of balancing a demanding corporate job with her growing tequila influencer career and what it’s like getting recognized in public. She talks about how sometimes it’s the unplanned content that goes viral, the ways she continually tops up her tequila knowledge, and how she maintains authenticity in her content. We also hear how her content has opened doors to work with other spirit guides and tequila distillers, helping her learn and grow within the community.
In This Episode:
- Marissa’s original plans for Tequila Encyclopedia and how her brand has evolved since
- What Marissa has learned through hosting almost 150 episodes of TequiLadies
- When Marissa realized her passion for tequila had become something more
- What Marissa learned about going viral and the culture of competitiveness on social media
- How she balances Tequila Encyclopedia with her day job
- Getting recognized in public and using your online persona in the wild
- How Marissa helps people pick their next bottle
Resources:
- Follow Marissa on Instagram via @tequilaencyclopedia
- Tune in to the @tequiladies Live Show Every Tuesday 9PM ET
This podcast is brought to you by LoveScotch.com and produced by our friends at Content10x.com
MBA to Tequila Guru: How Tequila Encyclopedia Began
- This Transcript has been Automatically Generated.
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[00:00:00] I kind of knew it was, it was special, but I wasn't, I didn't expect it to get like a million views or anything like that. Once that happened, it like pulled me into this like tunnel where I was checking all the time. I'd open my phone and it was like a thousand notifications and it was really cool. And I was like, Oh my God, I'm going to do this again.
And then I started making all these videos thinking like, Oh, they're all going to hit. And not a one of them hit again. Cause that's like how the algorithm works. And so I made peace with that. I was like, okay, you had one. That was fun.
Did the director of digital product management at the worldwide leader in sports, who also used to work at a huge investment banking company, end up as one of the most influential chroniclers of the booming tequila scene? Let's find out. On the spirit guides, Marissa Paragano is the tequila encyclopedia on Instagram and his co host of the tequila 80s, a weekly Instagram live show Marissa is definitely without question, the only [00:01:00] guest ever on the show.
Who has an MBA from NYU. So how does she combine her big time corporate job with all things Agave? What's next for her? And how has her life changed since she started on this journey as a Spirits content creator? We'll find out on this very episode of the Spirit Guides, the show about the entrepreneurial journeys of the Spirits.
of the World's Top Booze Influencers. I am your host, Tequila J. Baer. Now, fans of this show are known as the Sippers, and all of you Sippers out there know that every show can be found at thespiritguides. info and the videos are always at thespiritguides. video. The show is sponsored by our pals at Lovescotch.
com, the premier online shop for scotches, bourbons, tequilas, gins, and all the other stuff. They've got an extensive collection, curated from around the globe, and they bring you the world's finest spirits right to your front door, or your back door, whatever your deal is. Uh, and so whether you're a seasoned enthusiast, or you're just starting your journey into the world of spirits, Love Scotch has something for [00:02:00] everybody.
And, and my favorite part about the way they do this is, Is it doesn't matter how many bottles you get if it's one bottle, four bottles, 13 bottles shipping is always 19 and 95 cents. So obviously it makes sense to stock up that offer is not available in Alaska, Hawaii, Bulgaria or parts beyond. But if you're in the lower 48 visit lovescotch.
com that is lovescotch. com and the show is produced by content 10x content 10x. com. They can help you with editing, content production, all that stuff. And you know who can help you with tequila? This week's guest on the Spirit Guides, the Tequila Encyclopedia, Marissa. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me, Jay.
Very much looking forward to it. It is a blast to see you as always. When, when and how did your tequila interest begin? Like, what was the ignition switch for you? Yeah, so there's a few different versions of this story. I didn't really drink in high school at all, college really not much either. Um, [00:03:00] but in my 20s at some point, my mom was reading the book, The Patron Way.
Which is the book of how, like, Patron was founded. They say it's, it's um, supposed to be non fiction. There's a little bit of fiction now that I've gone back and read it. But anyway. And after she read that book, she got very into tequila. And all she would drink, when she drank, which wasn't much, was tequila.
So then I started drinking tequila. Uh, my family had been going to Mexico, uh, once or twice a year for like 20 years at that point. And always the same place or all over, always the same place. My parents like to find a place they like and you know, they just stick to it. Um, but at one point I ended up going, um, into town in, this was in Los Cabos, which actually is not a tequila region, but that's okay.
And I went to a tequila store and. Just walked in and knew nothing, uh, except that I really liked tequila and I tried a really, now would be something that I'd consider very sweet. It was, um, Cava d'Oro and I was obsessed with [00:04:00] it. And I brought two bottles back to the, to the, um, villa with me and my parents, uh, And I completed at least a full one, perhaps more when I got back to the U S it was right before the start of pandemic.
And I was having a hard time finding it. So when I got back from that trip, I created an Instagram with maybe 20 seconds of thought into the name. People in my family had started calling me Tequila Encyclopedia. So I just put that as the name. Didn't think a whole lot about it and went from there. Uh, but I will tell you, do not choose a word that long in your name.
And Jay, you, you're, you're full name, Jay Baer, seven letters, way shorter than encyclopedia. It's fantastic. Yep. Yep. If it was tequila, like Aloysius Johnson, it would not be as easy to remember for sure. Well, I've debated changing it, but now people are like, no, no, you gotta keep it. You gotta keep it. So.
Anyway, once I had that, that, um, that moniker online, it just sort of took off from there. I love it. And, and [00:05:00] so you didn't necessarily have a plan for the Instagram account when you created it. It was just like, well, I don't want to put this on my regular Instagram account. So let's just make a separate one.
And and what was the idea just to, like, take pictures of the bottles that you owned or what? What were you supposed to put on there? So if I take a step back a little bit, I glazed over a bit of it. Um, on my personal account, I joined this like agave group, this underground agave group that now you're a part of or both part of the agave squad.
And I was listening to some of the things that they would talk about. And I would just kind of observe. Then I started giving an opinion, then I started leading discussions, and I realized, like, I needed to separate church and state, because naturally, if you were talking to people online, they're going to want to follow you, et cetera, and I just didn't think people needed pictures of my parents and my dog, so, um, that was really the impetus, just to, like, meet people, and that's kind of how it started.
And the irony, of course, is when it started, I had no intention of putting my face on anything. [00:06:00] And I originally, initially was able to maintain that, but then eventually, as you know, um, over time, you do need to put your face in front of things if you want to do tastings and things like that. So it all started as pictures of bottles because I didn't have a plan.
And now it's my face, which I mean, in hindsight is kind of a big leap. Yeah, it's funny, but you're not the only one. Just the most recent episode of the show was served by Sammy. Same story, right? Like it was like, I just want to make cocktails and just show my hands and the cocktails and then realize like, yeah, that's not really going to get it done.
Like at some point, uh, you've got to, you got to put yourself in front of the camera. And now of course you're doing the most difficult thing that you can do in social media, which is a live show every Tuesday, 9 p. m. Eastern. Appointment viewing in the tequila community. It is the techie ladies show. Talk a little bit about that.
Uh, Genesis and and and how that came to be Yeah, so the techie [00:07:00] ladies is actually in a way the antithesis of why of what I intended when I started which was never put My face out there. Don't let anyone know what it looks like. Don't let them know i'm a girl Don't let them know i'm a green guy like none of it And instead, every single Tuesday at 9 p.
- Eastern, for the last 150 something Tuesdays, the day that we're recording this, will be our 142nd episode. Um, and in that span of time, we've probably only missed maybe a handful of episodes, but how it started is actually really funny. Um, as you mentioned, I have an MBA, which is irrelevant for most of this tequila journey, but in the one case where it's actually relevant is I was reading a Forbes article.
It was a Forbes article entitled the 12 women of tequila, or at least that's what Google translate said, because it was in Spanish. And basically it was all about the, the female master distillers. There's very few of them, as you know. And I read that article and I went to go find them all on Instagram.
And I found a few, not all. One of the women I found was Ileana Partida. [00:08:00] I followed her. And as you might remember, um, or as you might know, when you follow someone on Instagram and they follow you back, it prioritizes you like in their ribbon and their, in their shares and everything. You just become a priority for the short amount of time in that algo.
And so I went and found her. I followed her. For some reason, she followed Tequila Encyclopedia back. I guess my name was more Bark than Bite at that point. Um, and that night as luck would have it, um, a few girls and I decided, um, to do just like an Instagram live. A lot of people were doing these back then.
This is 2021. A lot of people were just kind of doing Instagram lives. Cause it was kind of in the middle of pandemic. You couldn't meet people in person. So you do Instagram lives. So we did one. And who should join the Huttians partway through but Ileana Partita? So I begged her, live, to jump on and talk with us and she's like, No, no, no, no, no.
Well, I was persistent and she joined. And in a split instant, I went from reading about this woman in Forbes to now being [00:09:00] face to face with her talking about, like, not only did she find out I existed, she now was talking to me. Um, so in that whole, like, I guess we wouldn't even call it an episode, but when that Instagram live ended, I called those women up and I was like, hey, listen, we're doing this every week.
And it's really powerful and we have something here who's in, um, and initially there were three, three women and myself, uh, three women, including myself. Um, and then as we started refining more of our focus, um, one of the, one of the original, uh, people fell off and it was mostly just, um, now it's just me and Heidi for mostly, I would say almost 80, 90 percent of it now, since it's been such a long time since that, that first, um, experience.
But yeah, like we've been doing this a lot, a lot of episodes, 142. Oh my God. And how was the premise of the show where sort of what you're trying to deliver during that live stream? How has that changed over time? Yeah. I mean, so it grows [00:10:00] with us. Um, obviously if you do anything for an hour every single week, not including all the other stuff I do with Tequila Encyclopedia and just stuff in general, events, if you do something consistently an hour a week for 142 weeks, you're going to learn a lot.
And. We in the beginning were asking more basic questions because those were questions we wanted to know and then somewhere along the lines we had a turning point where we were like, okay, do we keep going basic with just tons of different guests or do we really dig in and make this more of a niche kind of thing?
Um, I was kind of team like, keep it general so that more people can watch this and learn. But ultimately, our audience is what dictated it. We have some diehards that are on every single week watching every single week and with the format of, um, Instagram live, which is the main platform that we're using right now.
It's it really lends itself to a community conversation. So, if you have people in the community commenting, asking really detailed questions. It kind of doesn't do them or anyone else a service to [00:11:00] zoom out and ask like a really basic question, which initially, if you go back and watch the earlier episodes is what I would do.
I'd zoom out and I'd go. Okay. So what's a Tohono and sometimes people didn't realize I was doing that for the audience. And they thought I was just not very well read on tequila. Um, but now we go really in depth and, um, It's, it's an interesting thing because I've been told like, Oh, you should scale this.
You should scale this, but we can't scale it at the level of detail that we go. So we've made a very deliberate decision to make this a really like NBA level tequila show to keep using that NBA. But honestly, like. I use it to meet people now, like I'm going to Mexico in a few weeks when I go down there, I have a ton of people that I know I can talk to you last week's episode.
I mentioned I was going down there. I had a bunch of people like master distillers and stuff messaging me saying, Hey, come hang out. So for me, that's the show. That's what the show does for me. It's not about like, growing it to like a million viewers because I don't think a million people want to hear about the type of wood.
Maybe they do of the barrel [00:12:00] that a reposado is aging in. We'll see. Maybe. Well, there's a lot of great business content on there around the premise of a thousand true friends, right? If you get a thousand true fans that that will do whatever you ask them to do, you can build an entire business just based on that.
Uh, and you have a lot, a lot more than that. So I agree sometimes. People pray at the altar of of breath, but what the audience really wants is depth, and I think you guys have done an amazing job of putting that together, but live is hard, right? And in many cases, you have guests for whom English is not their first language.
That's got to be a little bit of a high wire act for some of those people. Yeah. And actually I would like to rephrase it as Spanish. Isn't my first language, because, you know, this is a Mexican spirit. Right. And at the end of the day, like it's their, it's their spirit. It's their culture. I I'm trying to be a part of it as best I can and being respectful of it.
Um, my cohost Heidi speaks Spanish. Um, so she's Mexican by, um, by heritage and she speaks Spanish. So that's helpful, but we did have an episode where, um, [00:13:00] she wasn't there cause every once in a while, like one of us can't make it, And it happened to be an episode where we had Sergio Cruz on who speaks fluent Spanish.
Um, and it was chaos. Uh, it was really funny because I was, you know, speaking broken Spanish and he was speaking a little bit of English, but, um, the amount of DMs we got after that episode, it's clearly one of everyone's favorites because they could feel like the authenticity, authenticity of me struggling to convey what I wanted to with like all my Italian American hand motions and everything.
We got the point across, um, and we did have some people on who could translate too. Um, but yeah, like the, the language barrier is a thing. And then live is also a really difficult thing for some people. Um, I mean, obviously you're very incredible at being in front of people. I like to think that I'm comfortable in front of people, but a lot of people, it intimidates them.
And even in the beginning, if you look at some of the earlier episodes, I'm stiff as a board. Like you sort of learn how to get [00:14:00] comfortable. But what we've noticed is whenever someone's too nervous to come on the show, we always say, do it anyway, come on. And usually within a few minutes, they start loosening up and afterward they'll tell us.
Oh, I forgot the camera was even there. Like, that was easy. That was great. Hey, Sippers. Hope you're loving this episode of The Spirit Guides. If you are, would you please follow the show on Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your podcasts, or subscribe to the show on YouTube? And the most important thing you can do for the show and for me is to leave a review.
It makes a big difference. Thanks so much. Back to the show now. Now you're involved in a lot of things working with brands and uh, you judged a cocktail competition recently. You're in Mexico all the time visiting distilleries and going on influencer trips. When, when, and how did you realize that this was going to be a thing, that this was no longer just a straight hobby?
That this was now something you need to like pay some real attention to. You know, it still hasn't hit [00:15:00] because I am just the type of person who really likes to just have conversations with people. Um, and those conversations tend to turn to things that interest me. So tequila interests me, business interests me, the business of tequila interests me.
And so, you know, getting invited on the additive free week, uh, back in September was probably in my opinion, one of the highlights of, um, this entire thing, and that's what sort of kicked off in my opinion. Something that felt more legitimate. So that additive free week was tequila matchmaker brought down a bunch of people respecting the industry.
Who were able to, um, go look at, go through a whole week of additive free learning. Like what makes it additive free? What does that mean to brands? What does that mean on the marketing side? And from there, like I'm surrounded by some of the Titans of the industry. And for me, that was, um, humbling, but it also was like the kick I needed to be like, no, no, you, you know what you, you belong here, you know what you're doing.
Um, and then like, that's on the more backend side, but then on the [00:16:00] front end side, uh, in May I had a video go viral. Um, that, um, was a blessing and a curse and then, and then again, a blessing. Um, and so in those experiences, um, I realized multiple things, right. In the experience where the, the Titans of this industry and like the really well respected people are respecting me.
That was important for me to hear, but then going viral was important for other people to see. Because not everyone knows that additive freebie happened. Not everyone knows what that even means. And that's okay. But if I have a stupid video about classes all that, you know, a million plus people see. Well, that unfortunately or fortunately is the other side of the coin.
So now you have the people over here who are just doing not talking, then you got the people over here that are talking and maybe you're maybe not doing. That's such a great point. I'm really glad you mentioned that. And we've, we've never really talked about that particular element of this on the show that you, you always have to achieve.
Two [00:17:00] different piles of legitimacy piles of legitimacy amongst your peers and those who shoulders that you're standing on in whatever spirit you represent and then legitimacy amongst the larger consumer audience as well because I think you probably feel the way that I do that many, if not most, if not nearly all of the people who really, really, really know spirits never have made a video and never will make a video, right?
So you almost feel. Lesser than because you're, you know, the goofball that's actually willing to turn on a camera. Uh, and so there's like this constant fake it till you make it. And, and even once you've made it, I think you still feel like you're faking it. 100%. And I think the other piece of it too, like to that point, is we always like to ask this question on, on our show.
Every, like every year or so we ask this question, which is, On a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is knowing everything and 1 is just getting started, like, where do you fall? Um, actually, I think we do it 1 to 5. So we go from 1 is you know everything, 1 is you're just getting started. [00:18:00] And every single time, every single time, I have said 2.
- And that is the first year I was like, I get, I'm a 2. 5. And then the next year, when I probably quadrupled my knowledge, I said I was a 2. 5 because the more, you know, the more, you know, you don't know. And so even sitting here, having been to, you know, at least go countless times, having been on countless industry trips, having hosted a hundred plus episodes, almost 150 episodes.
I still have to remember that there's stuff that I don't even know exists. And I think keeping that in mind helps because you don't ever want to seem like you're, you know, too big for what you actually are. And one of the things that I think, unfortunately, um, is a requirement in this industry is visibility.
If you want to have an impact, you have to say impactful things. Sometimes impactful things are not the most eloquent or are not the most, Like, well thought out. They just have to be easily, easily digestible and quick clips because you got under a [00:19:00] second really nowadays to catch people's attention. And so it's a constant balance because I don't want to be that person out here always saying, Oh, F this brand, F that brand, whatever.
I don't think that's productive. But it is productive if it gets somebody in the door having the deeper conversation. And I, like everyone else, has been guilty of, you know, using those, those cheap tricks to get people to, to watch what you're doing. But if you never graduated from there, then you're doing a disservice to those people that now have watched what you're doing.
One of the things that's always interesting about social media is there's a scoreboard underneath every video. You're a pretty competitive person. You played competitive softball at Babson in college, and, uh, you're just competitive in general. How does that culture of competitiveness that's so endemic in social media, is that, is that good for you?
Does that scratch an itch, or does it create some destructive behaviors as well? Yeah, so, um, I think the answer is it changes all the time. Uh, prior to that video going viral back in May, [00:20:00] I kind of was like, well, this is, you know, It's never going to be anything more than like a few thousand followers and that's okay.
And I've made my peace with that. And then out of nowhere I recorded that video, not even planning to, like that's a whole different conversation. It's it's the ones that you spend the least amount of time on that do the best apparently. And so I like did this video, like half even thinking about it, like there was no brand strategy.
There was no, like, I tried to wear a shirt all the time that has the same branding. I tried. None of that. I just recorded a video. In fact, I had somebody come up to me recently and said, oh, your hair looked like shit in that video. Why didn't you take it down? It was in a ponytail. And I was like, sir, you're bald.
You do not have the right to comment on my hair. But anyway, so I recorded that video quickly, not thinking much of it, and then posted it. I kind of knew it was, it was special, but I wasn't, I didn't expect it to get like a million views or anything like that. Once that happened. It like pulled me into this like tunnel where I was checking all the time.
I'd open my phone and it was like a thousand notifications and it was really cool. And I was like, Oh my God, I'm going to do this again. And then I started [00:21:00] making all these videos thinking like, Oh, they're all going to hit and not have one of them hit again. Cause that's like how the algorithm works. And so I made peace with that.
I was like, okay, you had one. That was fun. I could see how, when people do this and they get millions every time, like that's gotta be intoxicating. But for me, it was like, Oh, so this is what it would taste like. If you could do this all the time, you can't. So enjoy that moment in time and then settle back into where you are.
Um, so in terms of like keeping score, luckily for me, um, I don't put a whole lot of stock into that. Um, I I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't feel good when one does well, because then it means you just met. people, but I have some really incredible content that has like a hundred views on it and that's just life.
So. Absolutely. I mean, it's a lot of work creating the videos and then obviously a ton of work to prep for the the weekly live show Not to mention conduct the weekly live show and then create clips out of that I know heidi does some of that as well. But how do you balance your very [00:22:00] busy work job? Um, you know, you're not you're not working it at um You know, Carl's jr.
Like you've got like a serious gig and that requires a lot of you. How do you balance that with what you do as tequila encyclopedia? So work always comes first. Like that's just a thing and same with Heidi. Well, there's your first mistake right there. That's, that's the, that's the problem. Well, no, always from the beginning, like that's what pays the bills.
Right. So at the end of the day, like tequila stuff is fun, but you know, my, my job comes first. Um, so, you know, like in the cases where we've needed to cover for each other, that's the benefit of having a partner. It means you don't have a hundred percent creative direction, but it also means you do have some coverage.
So I'm fortunate that I have Heidi cause she and I are just, we have this unlikely duo that works. Um, and we feed off each other's energy and she's one of the sweetest people ever. She actually knows me better than I know me sometimes. Like we've been on lives and we'll end, we'll, we'll hang up and she'll call me and she'll say, are you sick?
And I'll say, I don't think so. And then sure enough, the next morning [00:23:00] I'll wake up not feeling well. And she'll go, I just noticed something in your eye. So that's the way you balance it. You have a partner that you can trust and you set those guidelines right then and there. Like for her family comes first, 100 percent and work and same like work and family.
And then tequila is like fun for us. Like we don't charge anyone to come on the show. Um, I don't know if we plan to change that at any point, but like, we don't charge people. They come on, we have a conversation. And so, you know, you can't take it too seriously. How often do you get sort of recognized on the street now or in Mexico?
And, and how does that feel? Like, I'd be more in Mexico. Um, but the first time it ever happened to me is kind of funny actually. So LA tequila fest back in God, it must've been 2021. So before techie ladies even was a thing. And, you know, I like to get a vest and this, this group of women was like, Hey, like, can we get a picture?
And I was like, sure, sure. And I went to grab their camera to take their picture. And they're like, no, like with you. Sure. I mean, that's weird. Um, and then it kept [00:24:00] happening and it kept happening and it kept happening. And I was like, huh. So like getting recognized is cool, but it also means you always have to have your like, on air personality turned on.
Um, as, as you may know, and as you clearly know, it's like when you turn on for a show, you, you got to amp it up a little bit. It's like your personality with an exclamation point. And so when I go to tequila events, I'm always recognized because it's the tequila community and you got to just be ready for that.
Like if you're having a bad day or if you're, I don't know, like sick or something, like you got to know, like someone's meeting for what could be the only time. And you've got to be nice. You've got to be respectful. And at the same time, like we're all just people, like no one's more important. Follower count means literally nothing.
And that's the thing that I think makes it still humbling is when you meet people and they actually want to meet you because a video or two took off, like it still kind of blows my mind. Are there questions that you get from, from the public [00:25:00] either on the show or on your regular content or, or in person that, that you tend to get over and over?
Yeah. Uh, the one question that I have like finally gotten a good answer to is what's your favorite tequila? Hmm. It's a tough one. Yeah. You get that too. Like people say, what's your favorite tequila? Um, and my answer is it's like picking a favorite song. It really depends what I'm in the mood for, right?
Like, I think that's a good one. But then I started thinking more like, well, why are they asking that? They're asking that because they want to know like what to buy. That's what they want. I started answering it more like, well, what are you looking for? Like, what do you drink? What are you drinking when you're not drinking tequila?
I have like a four question quiz that I ask people now. You talked about at the beginning that your mom was, was sort of the initial conduit for you into this. Now you've been doing it for a few years. What does your family think? Your parents and your siblings? Are they like, this is crazy or like, yeah, this all makes sense.
This adds up. Well, so I have two brothers, one older, one younger. And it's a, it's a [00:26:00] unique thing to have two brothers, especially one older, one younger. Um, when I started getting hate on that viral video, Like I was prepared because anything bad you could say about me. I've already been told that probably before 1997, like good luck.
And my brothers know me better so they can really dig it in. So, so that, that thing, like my family is unimpressed. My brothers, they don't care. They're unimpressed. Don't care. My parents are more interesting because they don't really get it. And like you mentioned that I I've worked in product strategy and things at some pretty, um, large organizations.
My dad for like a decade was telling people that I was a telephone marketer. Cause I told him that I do like a lot of things on a phone. And so he told me I'm a telemarketer. So with this, I needed something a little easier to like explain what I'm doing. And I just told my parents, like, I teach people about tequila.
That's it. Like, it's just nice and easy. But my mom turned that into a little cottage industry, um, where she would [00:27:00] just like tell her friends, like whenever her friends mentioned, Oh, I like tequila. Cause you know, tequila is now. One of the most, if not the most popular spirit, it's on pace. It had its best year in 2023.
It passed whiskey in 21. Like it's on pace to do some incredible things. My mom like would tell her friends, Oh yeah, here's my daughter's number. Just text her. Now, if you've ever had like 50 and 60 year old women texting you. The context is sometimes not there. It's just, Hey, Marissa, I want to know about this and I'll like be at work and I'll get a random text from a random phone number and I like, a few times I realized it was my mom's friends and I had to be nice because these are my mom's friends, right?
Gotta be nice. And I finally said to my mom, I was like, Mom, you got to give me a heads up because a few times it wasn't my mom's friends and I was just being nice to random strangers and like overly nice and giving them a lot of my time. And as a woman, that's not a safe thing to do. So that became a thing.
So I said to my mom, I was like, Mom, listen, I am very willing to teach people, happy to do it. I've even [00:28:00] hosted tastings for her friends, but you got to give me a heads up. Like, keep me, keep me, uh, in the loop on these things. So now my mom goes, Oh yeah, she makes videos about tequila and she has a tequila show.
And for me, my one liner, like at work and stuff is I host a weekly tequila show. It's just easier. You just got to have your mom's friends always, always named themselves in the first, uh, in the first text, right? What's, what's next for you? What's, uh, what's on the horizon? Yeah. So, um, I, like I said, I have a trip to Mexico in the next few weeks.
Um, I'm actually, uh, visiting a brand that I was very critical of. Yeah. And, um, on the show we had on Lou Bank from Sacred Agave, who is funded through 818's, uh, ventures and 818 gives them 1 percent of all their revenue, not in net income revenue. And so one of the things that I try to do is be balanced, right?
Just like in Game of Thrones, no, one's 100 percent good. No, one's 100 percent evil. When we [00:29:00] interviewed Lou on the show, like I said to him, I was like, listen, I'm critical of 8 1 8 when he took 8 1 8 out to drink it on the show. I went and got a, a bottle of syrup and was pouring it down my throat and I said, Hey, we're drinking the same thing, like that level of like sarcasm.
Um, that night I got an email from the CEO of like the company that owns 8 1 8 and he was like, Hey, uh, yep, come visit. I liked how you weren't so like super critical 'cause I was saying, Hey, there's good and bad. Like I don't like your product, but I liked that you're like funding sacred agave. Um, and I think that that's a really important differentiator and just like distinct distinction to make, right?
Like not everyone's good. Not everyone's evil. I might not like the way cost amigos taste, but someone else does. And that could be the thing that starts them down a journey of other tequila. So like every tequila has its place more or less. But when you say what's next, uh, I'm going to now visit 818, um, in a few weeks and they're close to the public.
So thanks to techie ladies, uh, we're getting to go behind the scenes, um, Heidi and me. And one of our other friends as well. One of actually our [00:30:00] first techie ladies guest, Hazel, uh, is joining us as well. Well, that's fascinating. I can't wait to see what comes of that and, uh, how you feel about the brand after a scene behind the curtain.
We'll see how many NDAs I have to sign. Probably won't be live streaming it is my guess. Um, last question for you, Marissa, if you could sip a cocktail with anybody in the world, who would it be and why? On a like theoretical sense, I think anyone who wants to learn. Um, who's really willing to ask really good questions.
Um, those are the types of people that I like to talk to. The person who has an open mind, who wants to learn about, uh, tequila is probably my favorite person to drink with because, you know, if they're asking good questions, it's so much fun to have a conversation and to watch them like discover it in real time.
Um, so that's like my cheap answer. Oh, amazing. Thank you so much for being here. It's fantastic. Yeah. Thank you, Jay. Appreciate it. Congrats on all the success. Sippers, Sippers, Sippers, Sippers. That was Marissa Paragano. She is the Tequila [00:31:00] Encyclopedia, as you have learned right now. You can find her on Instagram.
And then the Tequila Ladies show is Tuesday nights. 9:00 PM Eastern on Instagram. We'll link it up in the show notes too. Of course, go to spirit guides, dot info or the Spirit guides video for, uh, the video, the audio, the show notes. Obviously you can find the show on Spotify, apple, all the places that you get podcasts.
Big thanks to our friends@lovescotch.com for their support. They've got an extraordinary collection of all kinds of spirits that will go right to your house, 1995, flat rate shipping, regardless of how much you. Order show is produced by content, 10 X content, 10 X. com for all your content, editing and production needs.
I am tequila, Jay Baer, and you can make mine a double supers. We'll see you next time, right here on the spirit guides.
