Page 5 - BusinessWest June 17, 2024

“I’ll make this analogy ... instead of buying milk from the store, we now own the cow. We need
to keep the distillery busier, and we need to essentially double the business that we’re doing now.”
V-One now boasts 10 flavors,
and Paul Kozub hints that more additions to the lineup may be coming soon.
(Photo courtesy of Chris Marion)
But while looking back — and then ahead — Kozub chose to focus mostly on what hasn’t changed. The goal, then and now, has been to become a national and then international vodka label, and in some respects, that’s already been accomplished; he does sell some vodka in Poland, but not much, as V-One’s prices are higher than other brands because of how it’s made.
And while the original goal was to make a living selling vodka, something he could do when he was selling 1,000 cases a year, the overriding ambition has been to continually grow the label by taking it to more markets in more states and, eventually, more countries.
While that hasn’t changed either, this desire to grow has morphed into a critical need — because of that distillery and the importance of keeping it busy.
Kozub summed it all up directly, and poignantly.
“For me, V-One is at a crucial tipping point,” he explained. “We’re either going to stay small — a Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island business — or we’re going to get bigger, and a lot bigger, as a national brand or even an international brand.
“And the decision has kind of been made for me because of the distillery purchase — the capacity that facility has and the need to keep it busy on a daily basis, which it is not right now,” he went on, adding that, with this decision — and a subsequent capital raise involving local investors — Kozub is moving forward aggressively with plans to more than double his current sales force and move into more states, starting with Florida, then New York, then other states on the East Coast.
to INSPIRE
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