The Entrepreneur Podcast · Eric Janssen and Eric Morse

78. Managing Assets to Agave with Eric Brass

·21 min·1 clip

Tequila creates 1.5 million tons of waste a year, and Brass turns that bagasse into straws.

1. The Entrepreneur Podcast episode focuses on Eric Brass and his move from asset management to Tequila Tromba and Sustainable Agave. 2. Host Eric Morris speaks with Eric Brass, a former capital asset management professional and CFA holder, about why his career matters to the tequila and sustainability businesses. 3. The episode asks how a Guadalajara exchange trip, a tequila friendship, and a finance career became a brand-building and waste-reuse story. 4. Brass says he went to Guadalajara, Mexico, instead of Hong Kong, France, Switzerland, or Sweden through Ivy exchange choices. 5. He says he did not speak Spanish, had no knowledge of Mexico, and still fell in love with premium tequila there. 6. Brass describes coming back to Canada, working in finance for about seven years, and not expecting tequila to become his next career. 7. He says the idea for Tromba came from repeated trips back and forth to Mexico and from bringing tequila to Canada for friends. 8. Brass says Marco Sudano, the original master distiller of Don Julio, became the tequila pedigree behind the brand. 9. Sudano reportedly agreed to join on two conditions: he would be a partner, and there would be "no gringos in the kitchen." 10. Brass says Tromba was built with a small amount of money, about $10,000 left, and a bar-by-bar rollout. 11. He says the team went grassroots, told the story bartender by bartender, and ignored the conventional launch-party model. 12. Brass says bartenders mattered because they influence bar managers and customers who ask for tequila recommendations. 13. He says Tromba is now the number one independent tequila brand in Canada and Australia and one of the fastest-growing craft tequilas in the US. 14. Brass mentions a new gallon jug of tequila in the US and says the size became legal there recently. 15. He says the jug lowers ounce cost for bars and saves 88 metric tons of glass a year. 16. The sustainability discussion centers on tequila waste, which Brass says totals 1.5 million tons every year. 17. Brass identifies the waste as bagasse and says it is often dumped in rural landfills or burned at distilleries. 18. He says Sustainable Agave uses that wood-pulp-like material to make compostable straws, cutlery, cups, clamshells, and bowls. 19. Brass says the episode is conversational and practical, with repeated back-and-forth about persistence, discomfort, and building products from scratch. 20. Listeners interested in tequila brands, grassroots sales, or circular materials will likely stay engaged, while people wanting only celebrity-marketing stories may skip it.

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