Old Lahaina Rum, made by Paia, Maui-based Kolani Distillers LLC, will start appearing on isle Walmart shelves within a year.
Kolani, which does business as Maui Distillers, was the only Hawaii company to receive a deal at Walmart’s Open Call event for U.S. companies, staged as part of the gigantic retailer’s $250 billion commitment to local manufacturing.
“It was a no-brainer,” said Braxton Hurst, Walmart adult beverage, wine and spirits buyer.
“It’s something already available … in restaurants, and it made sense to put it on our shelves,” he said. Walmart tasters compared Old Lahaina Rum against others, “and it was good enough quality for us to feel even stronger about the proposition of bringing it into the Hawaii stores,” said Hurst.
Just as with the eat-local movement, customers “like to know, and have a sense of pride” in products that are made in their state, he said.
“This is huge for us,” said Kolani owner Paul Case. “There’s a lot of local liquor products, and they selected us. For us it’s a real honor.”
The Open Call event notwithstanding, Walmart regularly welcomes products from local companies into its stores.
“In Hawaii last year we spent over $290 million with Hawaiian suppliers, and that supported 8,959 supplier jobs,” said Scott Markley, of Walmart media relations. The Open Call program for 2016 is in the planning stages, but the Walmart Web portal has a page for vendors interested in doing business with the company that can be used at any time.
When the Case family “decided in 2000 that we could go into the alcohol business … there were something like 55 alcohol manufacturers in the U.S.”
Including their 5,000-square-foot distillery built on Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar land on Maui, there are now 1,000 U.S. alcohol manufacturers, Case said.
Because it is an obvious question, your columnist asked whether Case was related to the old-line, well-heeled kamaaina family that includes AOL co-founder Steve Case.
“I did extensive research to try and connect myself to Steve Case, and there’s no connection at all,” he said.
There’s also the Case IH tractor company.
“We are in no way related to anybody with 10 bucks,” he said, laughing.
Paia’s Case family is working on building its own successful lineage, however.
Old Lahaina Rum is available at Safeway and Costco, as well as in venues ranging “from biker bars to the Ritz-Carlton,” he said. “I think we have 500 accounts now,” via distribution through Southern Wine and Spirits of Hawaii. Kolani offers three types, dark, gold, and silver, the last of which recently won a gold medal in the MicroLiquor Spirit Awards competition.
“We’re the largest-selling local rum by volume,” Case said.
That volume will go up starting at the end of August when all 10 Hawaii Walmart stores will have the product stocked, though all stores might not offer all three types. It depends on shelf space in each store, Hurst said.
In addition to local consumers, the visitor industry contributes to Kolani’s bottom line through tourists who want a beverage made with premium local ingredients.
As someone who visited from the mainland starting in 1982 and fell in love with the islands to the point he decided to make Hawaii his home, Case understands that tourists have “wonderful emotional experience(s)” while here, “and generally there’s alcohol involved in that experience,” he chuckled.
“People come to Hawaii, they try our rum, they like it and they like the bottle,” he said. They go home and want to know where they can get it.
It costs $40 to ship just one bottle to the mainland from Hawaii. Through a store in Colorado, where Case also has business interests, mainlanders pining for Old Lahaina Rum need pay only $11 for shipping, plus, of course, the cost of the rum, whether silver, gold or dark. The rums, sold in 750-milliliter bottles, generally retail for around $18 or $19.
It is possible that regular distribution of Old Lahaina Rum to the mainland could happen in the future, through Walmart or other channels.
“I’m happy that we can produce more in our existing distillery, but if I had to build a new distillery to meet demand, I would be more than happy to do that,” Case said. As it is, “we’re very grateful to … have our product represent Hawaii and to be welcomed into the community.”
On the Net:
>> oldlahainarum.com
>> is.gd/WalmartSupplierInfo
>> is.gd/808ProductsInWalmart
Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com, or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
