The Menlo Park, California-based startup, which makes use of a proprietary know-how to quickly produce customized whiskey, introduced on Tuesday that it acquired $2.6 million in seed funding from semiconductor mogul T. J. Rodgers and baseball legend Derek Jeter.
“Bespoken Spirits brings a brand new period of alternative to the business, particularly because it has been hit onerous by COVID-19,” Stu Aaron, a co-founder of Bespoken, mentioned in an announcement.
The corporate says the know-how additionally allows customers to customise completely different taste profiles for his or her whiskeys, and keep away from a phenomenon referred to as “angel’s share,” through which as much as 10% of the spirit evaporates from the cask. Bespoken sells this know-how, in addition to a portfolio of customized spirits, to customers.
Bespoken’s new traders have expertise within the food and drinks business: Jeter is an investor and model ambassador for dietary meals product firm Efficiency Kitchen, and Rodgers is the proprietor and winemaker at Clos de La Tech vineyard in Santa Cruz, California.
“The corporate’s skill to ship each high quality and selection is what actually caught my consideration and made me need to make investments,” Rodgers mentioned in a press launch. “In a brief time period, they’ve already produced an unimaginable vary of top-notch spirits from whiskeys to rum, brandy and tequila.”
Aficionados appear to agree: Bespoken gained eight awards on the 2020 San Francisco World Spirits Competitors, and 10 awards on the American Distillery Institute’s 2020 Judging of Craft Spirits.
