Today we’d like to introduce you to Robert Pallone.
Hi Robert, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
Well, I always wanted to be a pilot; that’s what I went to school for. I’ve worked hospitably since I was 16 years old and just progressed thru the industry throughout the years. I’ve worked as a busser, Bar back, Server, bartender, and manager. I then became a sales Consultant, where I sold wine, spirits, beer, and Sake for RNDC in Miami Beach.
I later got a job with Diageo as their Reserve Rum ambassador with a focus on Ron Zacapa, which they had just acquired. I then became the National Ambassador for Zacapa Rum. I then started my own consulting company, where I could still work on Zacapa and other projects with Diageo and other clients.
Chinola liqueur came about in 2013 when my good friend of 15 years was working on Coconut water in the DR. His plant manager at the time came from 10 generations of wine and spirits, which was also his passion. His great-great-grandfather was producing fruit liqueurs for the majesty of Austria back in 1740. He made fresh fruit liquors in his spare time and wanted to start a company.
My friend knew that I was in the industry and naturally connected us. At first, I wasn’t too thrilled about fruit liqueurs but once I tried them I saw the potential and took them to my good friends and old colleague from broken Shaker/Gabe and Elad. They also were very intrigued and love the taste and idea.
We decided to focus on one, Passion fruit. We loved the nice acidity and sweetness along with the beautiful tropical aromas.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has been anything but a smooth ride; the saying stands true nothing in life comes easy.
It took us almost eight years to get things going with production. We met a botanist and created our hybrid of passion fruit; We started juicing on our farm with two containers we fabricated together.
We definitely didn’t make things easy on ourselves by taking on growing our passion fruits and juicing, but we also didn’t want to cut corners and add natural flavors; we wanted to recreate the old-world style of how fruit liqueurs were made before natural flavors came about.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
So, in addition to working on the production.
I head up the creative and design; since we were recreating an old-world tradition, I wanted the packaging to reflect some of that old-world style.
I wanted something with a timeless feel that was vintage Caribbean chic. In addition, to the taste of Chinola, we’ve received a lot of compliments on the packaging, and I’m incredibly honored and humbled by the response.
What’s next?
We still have a lot of work to do with Chinola.
We recently launched more states and have also expanded to Europe. I have many ideas and innovations I would like to do, but We need to help support our markets and get them moving, so the plan is to help our markets grow.
Pricing:
- We just won Double Gold atSan Francisco World Spirits Competition.
- We also won Platinum at the LA spirit awards.
- We received a 95 rating from Chilled magazine
- Our average retail is $32.99
Contact Info:
- Website: www.Chinola.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chinola/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=chinola
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChinolaOfficial
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMm3JDQnmzecu2Hoh7k8Trg/featured
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/ChinolaOfficial/_created/
