Weber Ranch is crafted from blue weber agave, the same agave used to create tequila.

The folks who innovated the tequila space with Patrón are aiming to do the same with vodka.

Round Two Spirits just released a blue weber agave vodka called Weber Ranch this spring. “Most of the Weber Ranch team are former Patrón Tequila colleagues and good friends so we understandably have a deep appreciation, respect, and love for agave,” says Lee Applbaum, president and chief operating officer of Blue Weber and former chief marketing officer for Patrón. “It’s a noble plant that, when properly crafted, truly creates an extraordinary spirit.”

Applbaum says when he and his partners started thinking of a spirit that would be “something new and truly disruptive in the spirits space, it was a natural to consider what could be done with agave.” They then turned to vodka, which is the largest spirits category in the United States. “It was the intersection between our experience with crafting agave spirits, and the massive opportunity to disrupt vodka, that the idea came for Weber Ranch,” Applbaum says.

Though vodka is typically distilled from wheat, corn or potato, Applbaum and his team thought a better vodka could be created from a better base source. “Blue Weber agave is not only a higher-quality, it also imparts a subtle, natural sweetness, and creates a silky, smooth mouthfeel without any aftertaste or ‘bite’ traditionally associated with many vodkas,” he says. “Better ingredients often yield a better product, and that’s absolutely the case with Weber Ranch.”

Weber Ranch vodka, which retails for about $30, offers a subtle aroma of tropical fruits, with a faint hint of fresh agave and a light, fruity taste of green apple, pineapple, and hint of citrus. “It’s a very versatile taste profile which of course works great in all traditional vodka cocktails, and it’s delicious on the rocks or in a martini,” he says, adding that it works in tequila cocktails like Ranch Water and Palomas, though, in this case, they’d be Vodka Sodas and Greyhounds.

Antonio Rodriguez, formerly the production director at Patrón, is the master distiller who created Weber Ranch vodka. Rodriguez worked for a long time to create it. “This is something entirely new, and so there wasn’t a blueprint for how to create it,” Applbaum says. “While Antonio was hard at work iterating and crafting the vodka, we worked in parallel to design the Weber Ranch brand design language, bottle, and packaging system.”

The bottle is inspired by the Blue Weber Agave piña and flowering stalk that emerges as a sign of maturity. “We believe Weber Ranch packaging has all the elements necessary to make it iconic someday, just as we did at Patrón,” he says.

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Packaging, he adds, is “absolutely critical” when it comes to consumers picking a bottle off of the shelf in a store. Weber Ranch first launched this spring in New York, California, Florida, Texas, New Jersey and Georgia, with plans to unroll a national rollout as soon as it is logistically possible. It also is sold online on Reserve Bar.

Consumers and bartenders enjoy the taste, and they also appreciate that it is additive-free, he says. “It is very early days, but often that’s when you really get a gut sense of how a brand will be received, and thankfully we’re hearing tremendous, positive feedback,” Applbaum says.

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