Autour du vin

Even in a crowded and hyper-competitive premium vodka category, Tito’s Handmade vodka ($25 a 750-ml.) has stood out in recent years.Tito’s, which has been an Impact “Hot Brand” for the past three years, saw rapid acceleration in 2011, with depletions rising 59% to 580,000 cases. With that performance, Tito’s is now more than twice its size of just two years ago.

Tito’s founder and owner Tito Beveridge, who heads up Austin, Texas-based distiller Fifth Generation Inc., expects the growth surge to continue this year. “We have years of groundwork that are now coming to the surface, lots of personal contact, and that’s giving us momentum,” he tells Shanken News Daily. “My salespeople—who always sandbag their projections so they can outperform and get a bigger bonus at the end of the year—have agreed to 30% to 40% growth (for 2012). I usually double their sandbagging. So production-wise, I’m preparing for a lot more.”

One of the more remarkable things about the rise of Tito’s—apart from its success at a super-premium price point all through the economic downturn—is that it has managed to gain wide visibility without participating in the flavor craze. Beveridge says there are no plans to extend Tito’s into flavors.