Community Highlights: Meet John King of The Original Pickle Shot

Today we’d like to introduce you to John King.

Hi John, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
So this is a story of 3 friends (2 are now married couples now with 4 kids) who all met in a small town called Ocean City Maryland around 2007. We all worked in the restaurant industry waiting tables. In 2010 the 3 of us decided to pick up and move to south FL together. After a couple of years of failing the two Justin and Brittney moved back to MD and ended up being sold a local bar called Pickles Pub in Ocean City.

For years and years, the Pub used to make a “Pickle Shot” which is a combination of vodka and pickle juice. The previous owners used to drive all around town to collect the leftover pickle juice from the restaurants around town. It became so popular in 2018 that they were doing over 100K+ shots a year behind the bar and decided to bottle it. That’s where I came in and we launched The Original Pickle Shot in September of 2018 in the state of MD only.

Much more to this story – no money, the liquor business is crazy hard, covid hits, etc. But we went from selling in 2 states in 2020 to 12 states in 2021 to now being sold in 24 states with more on the way.

Missouri is our leading state in terms of sales/volume and we just launched with our distributor Central States Beverage Co in Kansas City.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Here we go!

Not smooth – The liquor supplier business has a 99% failure rate and I can see why now. We use Skewball as inspiration and a success story we look to follow. That was a husband and wife business that started as a popular shot at their bar as well.

1. Navigating the liquor laws is very difficult – federal laws and then every state has different laws. It almost put us out of business a few times because we couldn’t get permits or we weren’t allowed to do this. It is definitely set up for big business and not the little guys.

2. It’s also a cutthroat business – we’ve had people working with us threatening to steal our product/recipe.

3. $$$ – we have bootstrapped this entire business up to this point with no investors to date. So cash flow is very difficult because you have to put out a lot of money and wait on terms to get paid.

4. Besides being a bartender I did not ever work in the liquor industry it’s a lot of not only what you know but who you know.

5. We have expanded very quickly.

6. I can keep going but you get the idea.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We are a liquor brand/supplier. So basically we make or in our case have a distillery make our product with our recipe and bottle it. Alcohol/Liquor is a 3-tier system by law so we as a supplier cannot directly sell to a consumer. We must sell to a distributor, who in turn sells to a business (bar or retail store) who then can sell to the consumer.

We specialize in Pickles! Specifically The Original Pickle Shot. So we don’t consider ourselves flavored vodka. We are our own thing – Pickle Shot Vodka and are a shot brand. So just like at the bar, this brand/product is meant as a perfect shot in between your favorite drink. We prioritize flavor (pickle) over everything which is why people enjoy it so much. The Pickle Flavor is booming in all sorts of products and we have been doing this and perfecting it for years. So we are happy to be able to bring it to so many people and eventually nationally.

I am most proud of this brand for surviving in this crazy competitive business as a small family & friend brand when a lot of people laughed at us in the beginning but are now taking us seriously.

I want our readers to know about our brand that:

1. We are a family brand, we are not some crazy expensive vodka. We do not have a celebrity to make us famous (yet lol). We are just a brand that has met some great people along the way to help us out and we continue grinding every day to bring this great product everywhere we can.

2. We offer 3 flavors – Original Dill, Spicy Dill, and Sweet Pinkle in two sizes 50ml and 750ml – These will be available in retail stores and bars across KC that carry it. We will update all locations on our locator page soon at www.theoriginalpickleshot.com.

What do you like and dislike about the city?
So I came for the first time a few weeks ago to meet with our distributor Central States Beverage Co who is the exclusive distributor for Anheuser-Busch products and other premium alcohol products. Although I didn’t get to spend a ton of time here, I look forward to coming back very soon. I loved the city and the outlying areas and it reminded me of Philadelphia where I am originally from and a great sports city we love Andy Reid too!

Need to come back and really experience KC

Pricing:

• $14.99-15.99 750ml
• $1.49-1.99 50ml

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theoriginalpickleshot.com/
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/theoriginalpickleshot
• Facebook: facebook.com/theoriginalpickleshot

Image Credits
@alexashmanphoto