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Jack Rudy product collection
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Brooks Reitz
In 2010, former bartender Brooks Reitz created a concentrated tonic made from cane sugar syrup and a variety of botanicals. Within two years, the Jack Rudy Cocktail Co. was born.
Reitz, along with cousin Taylor Huber, launched the company with that singular product and working part-time from Lexington, where Huber is based, and Charleston, South Carolina, where Reitz lives.
“In the beginning, both Brooks and I had day jobs and ran Jack Rudy on the side,” Huber said. “We did the side hustles for a good four years and have been doing Jack Rudy full-time the past three years.”
While its Classic Tonic Syrup remains Jack Rudy’s flagship offering, the company’s product line has since expanded substantially. There’s grenadine, elderflower tonic, extra bitter tonic, aromatic bitters, bourbon cocktail cherries, brined olives and sweet tea syrup, as well as hard goods like glassware and related barware — even branded socks made by Lexington-based Southern Socks. In November, the company shipped its first run of ready-to-drink carbonated tonic water.
Jack Rudy sells its products directly to consumers through its website, but the bulk of its sales are through distributors and direct to wholesalers. Jack Rudy’s products are carried in about 2,000 retail outlets internationally. Those in Lexington include Barrel House Distilling, Hartfield Distillery, High Street Fly, Liquor Barn, LV Harkness, Wild Thyme and Wine + Market.
Although the company doesn’t produce or sell alcohol itself, the partners follow the traditional three-tiered sales model from producer to distributor to retailer. “We work almost entirely with liquor distributors,” Huber said. “We don’t have to adhere to it, but we just use it.”
The partners also value simplicity in their business model and prefer to run a lean operation.
When developing new offerings, Huber says they ask themselves two things: “Is this something that is missing in the marketplace or, at least, is this something that could be greatly improved over what is currently available?” and “Is this something we would buy and/or consume ourselves?”
A CPA by trade, Huber has degrees in economics and accounting from the University of Kentucky. He runs the business side of things with one employee at the corporate office in Lexington. Reitz, who is from his great-grandfather’s hometown of Henderson, Kentucky, earned a bachelor’s in English and drama at Transylvania University and now runs the Jack Rudy warehouse, with two employees, in Charleston. That’s where the bottling, packaging and shipping take place for the company’s cocktail mixers.
The design of the tonic bottles has been tweaked over the years but is a nod to the cousins’ great-grandfather and company namesake. Jack Rudy himself had been a pilot, an aircraft mechanic in World War II, a craftsman, an engineer, an inventor and a pill sorter for a pharmacy. “When we started out, the look we were going for was an apothecary-style medicine bottle,” Huber said.
Support from the local community, especially in Lexington, has also been a key to Jack Rudy’s success.
“It feels like everyone is invested in the success of our company,” Huber said. “I think the beauty of Lexington is that you get the small-town feel, but you also have the innovation, arts and entertainment that come with sharing a city with the state’s flagship university. It’s a best of both worlds situation for us.”