Entrepreneur Ricky Miller Talks Breaking into the Vodka Segment of the Spirits Industry with Carbonadi Vodka

March 13, 2023

Hip-Hop, entertainment, and sports have long been related to the spirits industry. Many artists and athletes dive into brands, developing products that receive instant placement in stores nationwide. For one entrepreneur, Ricky Miller, his time on the football field was concluded by his own aspirations of wanting to dive into life and develop experiences while still young.

Before founding Carbonadi, a high-end vodka brand micro-oxygenated and filtered through 2,000 carats of black diamonds, Miller developed energy drinks and other nonalcoholic beverages. His venture into spirits, tackling vodka, is proving to be his most fruitful, placing him in Four Seasons across the world and creating a footprint of luxury and creativity in the market.

Speaking with The Source, Ricky Miller details penning a letter to the founder of Four Seasons, learning about the vodka segment, and more.

Before making the dive into liquor, what did you do?

I had humble beginnings leading to playing college football at Fresno State University. I played a couple of years of Arena League and had a cup of coffee in camp with the Buffalo Bills. I got cut and just realized I wanted to get life started. I had a lot of friends and acquaintances that I knew who chased that dream for a long time. When we’re done playing, you are in your early thirties and haven’t done anything. I have no work experience or life experience. I just wanted to jump in cause I knew that transition would be hard anyway. Being an entrepreneur, when I was done playing, I jumped into the beverage space. Non-alcoholic, though, and trying to figure out what my new passion was going to be. I started a couple of brands, and most crashed and burned. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was learning. As time went on, I got really into art and design. I wanted to apply that somehow to the beverage space and create a luxury spirit. It became my North Star. As I researched, I saw it wasn’t many of us [Black people], and it seemed like a good old boys club. I felt like I could penetrate that. And I felt like the vodka category had the most room for elevation in the biggest spirit category.

Your spirit’s story is a special one. You wrote a letter to Four Seasons to get your brand in the hotel. What led to that idea, and what did the letter specifically say?

Everybody I talked to in the industry in the vodka category told me entering it was a bad idea. They told me a lot of money was being spent through hundreds of million-dollar budgets. But my vision was really clear early. So I began to think about what advantages I had that they didn’t. I’m a people person, and I love connecting. So I believed that I could connect with executives and get things done that they couldn’t.

We were hyper-focused on high-end hotels and restaurants. So imagine a guy that looks like me walking in with a new vodka. They aren’t already excited about a new vodka in a world full of a million vodkas. Then add in that mine is expensive. Conversations were short, and to get me out of the room, people would often ask where I was already available. I needed something, and what was more powerful than being in a prominent hospitality brand like Four Seasons? So I wrote a letter to the founder and expressed that I felt I could connect with him. I thought the personal touch was becoming obsolete as technology took over, so I wrote him. This is who I am. These are my struggles; I would love to learn from you one day. I read your book, and it impacted me and my business approach, and I would love to have a moment of your time to connect. I sent him a copy of his book to sign. Also, one of his wife’s to send as well. I included a custom polo from his alma mater, which let people know I looked into who he was. The big dogs understand the struggle and vision and need a hand. Two weeks later, I got a response that I would stop by his house the next time I was in Toronto. I booked my ticket for that day.

Two weeks later, I had my stepfather do a painting of the picture of his family in that book. I headed out to his house, and it was weird; why would he invite me to his house? While rereading his book on the way, I came across a part about how he wrote a letter to a successful developer in Phoenix. That guy invited him and taught him everything he needed to know about hotel development. So I realized he was paying it forward. I got to his house; we talked for three hours, but nothing about business. These are just life lessons. He got the painting at the end of that three hours and was emotional about it. One of the kids had died when he was in high school from cancer. At that time, I was going through chemotherapy, and we also connected there. It meant something to him. He asked what he could do for me. I asked him to be a board member, put Carbonadi on the company jet, and place my vodka in all his hotels. He said no to the board because of his age and was leaving boards but gave me his phone number. LVMH paid for Dom Perignon to be on the jet, so that couldn’t happen. But the third, he had just hired new presidents for the properties, and both were moving to Toronto. He said as long as Carbonadi was good, I was good.

I stopped in New York on the way home and got the wheels to the ground, both presidents enjoyed the product, and I took that model and replicated it as much as possible with other hotel and restaurant groups. MGM Resorts, Dorchester Collection, and I had very similar experiences.

The process that goes into this product is insane—distilled and filtered through 2000 carats of black diamonds and micro-oxygenation. How did you learn to do this process?

When I got a consultant to help me, I asked what was new and not out there. At the time, I was hustling on the side because I had a lot of pro-athlete friends, and I teamed up with a jeweler to sell to athletes. I saw a need and how athletes were getting ripped off, so I filled it. That’s how I got into the world of stones, which made me wonder if there was a way I could utilize that world. For me, it was finding a unique process to enhance the spirit but also for marketing. It needed to enhance the product but also sound sexy. We did both at the highest level.

I think it’s great that you angled Carbonadi to an urban professional market, a group that wanted a higher quality. Did you see yourself in that market?

I remember being with a friend, a younger Jewish guy, who ordered a vodka on the rocks, and I thought it was such an old man’s drink. Through conversation, I was getting into what people thought about vodka and their options. There was vodka cranberry, vodka Red Bull, just very low-end drinks. I had the vision if you could make it more pleasant, we would hit it out of the park. It was treating this like a T-Shirt brand. Why would you pay $1,000 for an OFF-WHITE t-shirt? Because of brand association. Carbonadi is becoming a part of me, being able to express my creative interests and becoming more impactful than I could ever imagine.

I want this to be a special drink, and we are yet to be in nightclubs. They sell a bottle for a thousand dollars. I won’t buy a thousand-dollar bottle if I don’t know the brand or love it. I’ve focused on owning the vodka space in Michelin-star restaurants or very nice hotel brands.

You can tell me if I am wrong, but I’m not sure if a nightclub situation would fit best for you. I say that because when a bottle gets to your table, you get shots, it’s loud, and you’re forced to hurry through a bottle. It’s not like you have the experience of enjoying a bottle. Do you see that as a failed place to be?

It has not failed because, from a cultural perspective, it’s a beautiful place to be. It’s not where we would start due to the reasons you mention, but eventually, I would want that experience of the black Carbonadi bottle headed out to your table. Like when that Ace bottle comes out. It’s iconic. I want to get to the point where it’s an asset for the table. It’s more of “you see me ordering this. It’s the best vodka.”

If you had a wish list of where Carbonadi would be next, where would you place it?

The very first Four Seasons was ever built because it impacted everything bout the brand and the trajectory of where we are going. It would be a thank you. On a selfish end, I would say JAY-Z’s 40/40 Club because of what that means to me as a symbol, a peak of Black greatness.

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