Unicorn Distillery’s Butterfly Pea Vodka starts out as a bright blue color, but it changes to purple then pink as acid is added.
A color-changing cocktail led a sales executive out of the software industry and back into the alcohol business.
Rick Hewitt was on vacation with his now-wife Alaina in Victoria, Canada, and the bartenders welcomed them with a gin cocktail. βIt was a really cool experience, and I can viscerally remember telling myself that this has got to get into a vodka because nobody drinks gin,β Hewitt says.
That was in the fall of 2018, and when he returned home, he started researching butterfly pea tea, which is the ingredient in Empress Gin that changed the color of the cocktail.
Hewitt swiftly discerned that despite the legal sale of color-changing gins like Empress in the United States, the FDA did not permit the use of butterfly pea tea as an ingredient. Sensient Food Colors, a natural food coloring business based in St. Louis, was lobbying the FDA to authorize butterfly pea tea for use in food and beverages. “It’s been used for centuries, if not millennia, in the East, and was legal for use in the UK, Canada, and elsewhere, so I knew it was a matter of when, not if, it would be approved,” he states.
Hewitt continued his experimentation with vodka and the butterfly pea tea flower, resulting in the FDA’s approval of butterfly pea tea as an ingredient in September 2021. Hewitt then opened the Unicorn Distillery in March 2022.
“It really was a pandemic project,” Hewitt comments.
Although he was working in software sales when he established Unicorn Distillery, Hewitt had previously launched both Emerald City Beer, a craft beer brand, and Number 6 Cider, a craft cider brand.
“My passion has always been in beverages,” he says. “That’s why I was like ‘I’m going to be the guy to get this butterfly pea tea into other categories beyond gin.'”
Today, Unicorn Distillery makes vodka and tequila with butterfly pea tea giving it a bright blue color that changes to purple and then pink with the addition of acid. “All of these other brands (that use butterfly pea tea) use it as an extension of their gin or tequila,” he says.
“What makes Unicorn different is we are a butterfly pea tea brand so when you bring our brand in, you’re not bringing in a gin brand. You’re brining in the category of color-changing cocktails,” he adds.
Unicorn started with distribution in Washington, but today it is distributed in Idaho, California and Arizona. Hewitt is in talks to expand distribution to Texas, Georgia, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
Unicorn vodka and tequila are now being offered on Princess Cruises, expanding to vessels across the entire fleet. The visual colour change of these unique drinks is delightful to many. It serves as a fun method to light up the spirit of their passengers. Watch the Unicorn drinks being served here.
Before the drink was named, Alaina used to serve it from transparent bottles to her acquaintances. There was a time when her friend Mary spontaneously called it ‘unicorn vodka’. This was essentially her instinctive response, she was precisely our intended consumer.
The term ‘unicorn’ struck a chord with both of them since they had each been a part of growing start-up tech firms on the West Coast which eventually transformed into considerable brands. They each had their experience working with pre-IPO unicorns evolving into massive corporations. According to them, the Unicorn brand stands for individual uniqueness, encouraging everyone to pursue their passions, without the fear of making a change. If innovation can be brought into vodka and tequila, it can be achieved anywhere. They are imposing a significant push for innovation across the U.S.
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