Rick Zeiler has taken music, whiskey, and entertainment to a whole new level. Using his skills from his previous gig at Jagermeister, he and his wife Sarah created ColdCock Whiskey. With the help of friends with careers in music, tattooing, and extreme sports, it hasn’t taken long for the world to hear about this delicious and unique Whiskey.
ColdCock Whiskey is taking taste buds by storm, one patron at a time. With a smooth herbal slightly sweet taste, ColdCock can be dangerous. It goes down so easy and smooth that one shot could easily turn into nine. Another great thing about ColdCock is… it doesn’t give you a nasty hangover. That’s because it has half the sugar of competing shot brands.
ColdCock tastes so great that 100’s of bands, both big and small, have made it their beverage of choice. Living and working in the music scene, we’ve seen how much the brand has caught on over time. Metal bands who love ColdCock are in great company. The one and only Kerry King from Slayer has been part of the ColdCock brand for years.
Now to Mischevious Mel’s interview with the man, the myth, the legend…Rick Zeiler
Looking at what you did with ColdCock, from the viewpoint of what we at ROCKwell UnScene do, you are inspiring. How you’ve used on-the-ground marketing and event marketing with bands, there’s a lot to learn from you. Can you tell us about that?
We have a lot of loyal supporters and investors. Most of them are friends and come from my background at Jagermeister when I was sponsoring hundreds of bands for that company. It is nice that loyal friends transferred over to ColdCock when we created it. We are very blessed.
I drink liquor, so can appreciate that when you drink ColdCock, it goes down smooth.
Well we took a 3 year bourbon and infused a bunch of different herbs. I can’t call it good for you herbs but they are good for you. We infused green tea, white tea, eucalyptus… a whole bunch of different herbs into the bourbon to give it a distinctive tea like taste. So it is a little on the sweeter side but not syrupy like FireBall and Jager and a lot of other shot brands.
I read your backstory and I compare it to sort of a “Cinderella” story. Can you tell me how you started, Rick?
Sure. I started with Jagermeister in 1994. I worked my way up the chain of command there to Director of Marketing for Jager and Grey Goose Vodka. I left the company in 2012 after becoming disenchanted. I really wanted a challenge for myself. My wife and I and 2 other people went and created what we feel is a better tasting version of Jagermeister, which is ColdCock Whiskey. I would not necessarily call it a Cinderella story, yet. But it is one story that certainly has history and color. We basically took a model, which was to get a whole bunch of people involved in the brand, and help build it. If the brand succeeds and becomes super successful then everybody shares in the profit. Literally shares in the profit. We really wanted to share the wealth. In Jagermeister we got to see a few dozen people really make a lot of money and it would have been nice to have a few thousand people to make the money. In ColdCock Whiskey we have the opportunity to change that.
As a person on the ground at the festivals it is amazing to see that the brand is out there everywhere and see the bands pushing the brand. I think the bands are pushing it not only for the business reasons, but because it taste good and they like it.
You know what? Business plan aside, we can always rely on the great taste. It is unique and it does taste great.
Now getting to tattoos. You guys have teamed up with a tattoo artist. Can you tell us about the artist you chose, and why, and how you teamed up with him?
We actually have chosen 2 artists. Two of the most influential tattoo artists in the world. One being Paul Booth, or I call him Sir Paul Booth because he is a legend. As well as Mr. Steve Soto. Both of those guys are legends in what they do and they have gotten behind our brand to the point where they support us. I know that Steve has a branded ColdCock tatt machine in his shop. And Paul has done a ColdCock design that we have taken and used as a t-shirt for marketing. We feel lucky to be partnered with people…as my friend Dave Mulchier once said “Never work with dicks!” We only like to work with cool people and we are fortunate to work with great people like Paul and Steve. They are not only legends in what they do but they are also friends and they really go out of their way to help us out. We are fortunate.
Last year at MusInk we interviewed Paul Booth and he had poster of the ColdCock and he signed one for us. It was cool to hear him talk about ColdCock. So what are the future plans for ColdCock?
We are looking to do some branded tours of our own. We are in talks with Attilla and other bands. As far as festivals we will continue to do various Metal festivals that are popping up next summer. Like I said, we are focused on trying to brand our own tours and festivals as well. We are looking at trying to advance the current band roster we have. We sponsor a lot of local and regional acts and we really want to try and get those band involved in building the brand as well. In doing so we want to put together festivals and shows involving them. It is not just about the national acts.
Speaking of big bands. You guys work with Kerry King. How did that happen?
Kerry is like a brother to me. He has been a friend from my Jager days. I am a huge Slayer fan. “Slayer Fucking Slayer!”. Kerry and his wife have been good friends of ours for a long time and we sponsored many Slayer tours from the Jager days and we had a great friendship. Then it carried over into ColdCock. He invested in the brand and we are very lucky to have him and so many influential people on board.
Thank you Rick for your time. We appreciate it.
