Cheers to Doing Business

Who better to do business with than with a Saint?

Sainthood, after all, equates to being very good and “very good” is exactly how a pair of entrepreneurs from Seguin describe its latest blend of tequila that is quickly taking over as being San Antonio’s very own signature tequila.

Saint Maya Tequila is the latest spirit to hit store shelves in San Antonio and surrounding areas.

Developing each signature drop are Seguin natives Zacharee “Zach” Ramirez and Jay Torrez. The pair along with a third business partner Jordan Simmons may be remembered when the trio first made a public plea seeking monetary support for their Kickstarter campaign goal in pursuit of their own tequila product.

Fast forward almost two years later and the trio is now sharing a glass of Saint Maya with tequila lovers all over.

Ramirez, says after a handful of trips to Mexico, a delay in production due COVID-19 and months of preparing the product for sale, the men are finally thrilled to make a toast of their own.

Ramirez says since meeting its campaign goal in late 2019, many things have changed with the product including hitting a legal challenge or trademark issue in which the original name of the tequila had to be changed.

“It’s been like a two-year journey for everything. We first announced the whole vision to create I guess a San Antonio influence Tequila about a year and a half ago. That’s when we announced the whole Kickstarter thing. We had the name Vice Tequila originally, so the vision has always been to bring a San Antonio influence Tequila to market,” said Ramirez. “So, at that point, we decided to change our name to Saint Maya which actually we kind of like a lot better than Vice. It has more of a San Antonio influence, and we were able to create this character of Saint Maya and kind of a back story of her what she represented for us and for the city of San Antonio,” said Zach.

Forced to change the name to “a saint,” however, has proven to be a blessing for sure. That’s because Ramirez says Saint Maya became that perfect component to help tie in the bottle of spirits with the culture and celebrations of the city of San Antonio.

“To us, she represented kind of a symbol of unity because we feel what stuck out to us the most about San Antonio and the surrounding areas –it’s a huge metropolitan area but it still has a small town feel to it and the culture is very unique in that way and for us, there’s a lot of big events. You have rodeo, Fiesta and even Spurs games where a lot of people come together and help each other out and form that whole union bond in the city of San Antonio. That’s what we wanted to represent with our product and that’s kind of who she represents for us as a symbol of unity,” said Ramirez.

Ramirez says it was important for customers to know that their search for that perfect bottle was over when they spotted the woman wearing a floral corona in original fiesta fuchsia colors.

Along with creating the fictitious character appearing on the bottle, the trio took it a step further and even adopted her own “back story.”

“The back story behind her is when San Antonio was originally getting founded, we have about five different missions there and so the five missions were kind of having a disagreement about how to proceed with the city, so Saint Maya arrived and appears to them and kind of helps them all come together and created the city that we know today. So, to us, that’s why we wanted her to represent with our brand,” said Ramirez.

Ramirez says the back story for the trio and their own journey toward the signature tequila is also pretty unique. He says never did they imagine that a night out sipping on tequila as a group of friends would turn into a real world investment.

“This whole kind of thing started with myself and Jay one of the other partners in this venture and friend Jordan – Jordan is probably the one that put me on to kind of the different brands of tequila – just sipping, a fan of tequila. At that point, I was kind of familiar with the bigger brands like Don Julio, Patron, things like that and not familiar with more localized brands or different vials of tequila. So, it really actually started out really naturally as a fan of tequila and found out how versatile of a spirit it really is. From that point, we started realizing that there is a lot of Texas brands of Tequila out there — a brand out of Houston, a brand out of Austin, a brand out of Dallas and then seeing that there was an opportunity to have real San Antonio influence brand,” said Ramirez.

Tequila is made from the (blue) agave plant, the base ingredient for the distilled beverage. The liquor can only be produced in designated areas of Jalisco, Mexico and while it’s one of the most popular liquors in the world, it’s mostly consumed in Mexico and the US. Ramirez says with San Antonio’s Mexican influence being what it is, it was quite surprising that the two were not paired up more closely.

“It didn’t make a lot of sense (because of) the Hispanic demographic in San Antonio and also that it is a Mexican product but San Antonio has its own unique culture, we wanted to do something where we (can) kind of bridge the two together and Tequila is a kind of perfect product for that and so that’s where everything started out,” said Ramirez.

Torrez says Saint Maya is exactly what is needed in every margarita and shot glass. A good tequila is one that should be sipped and not “downed” all at once. Torrez says the big difference in the flavor and quality of tequila is where and how it’s made.

“Through our various trips to Mexico, we kind of had a profile in mind. We weren’t tequila experts, but we had drunk enough tequila to say ‘hey, we want a premium taste come to the market.’ This is sweeter tequila. The finish is soft, so I think this is ideal for entry level tequila drinkers or people who also like to sip it. They will enjoy this as well for margaritas because of the sweetness and it’s not a harsh finish at all,” said Torrez.

He says while it remains a sipping tequila, Saint Maya is still versatile to be thrown into your favorite cocktail.

“The sweetness is there, and I think that plays a big role. You are making your cocktails and because a lot of tequilas aren’t as premium quality and made with artificial sweeteners. I say the whole process is different. Going there, we kind of ensured that the distilling process was clean cut – no additives anything like that so the flavor profile is perfect for like margaritas, anything you want,” said Torrez.

Ramirez says the end result is that it brings that premium brand sipping tequila to market – opposite to Jose Cuervo.

“It’s also 100 percent for sure premium delivered agave. There’s no concern about the quality of that,” said Ramirez.

The success of their business, however, is not being overshadowed by the individual support that they have received from friends and family including many here in Seguin. He says from the initial Kickstarter campaign to this week’s shares and likes of the product on social media, Ramirez is grateful for the overwhelmingly level of support being shown for the product.

“It means everything for sure. This is not possible without everybody who donated $1 or who helped spread the word about it or who showed interest in our product. I hear that term self-made a lot but we are the farthest thing from that. I think we are more community made if anything so like everybody for sure helped us get to this point and I’m glad we were able to help represent the community,” said Ramirez.

Torrez says he thanks those who believed in them and in the risk that they were taking in creating the product. He says none of them had industry experience and each worked day in and day out to better understand what it took to get the wheel started in this industry. He says while the Mexico trips were fun, it quickly turned into the realization of how much effort it takes to make tequila.

“I had no expertise of tequila and stuff. I was drinking to enjoy. I was talking with Zach and Jordan every week for those two years, we just kind of hung our head down to focus on the vision and then we kind of got here, it seemed abruptly. It was just a lot of hard work, and it feels great to have the community support us like they do,” said Torrez.

The product which launched just over a month ago has already taken off faster than anyone could have ever imagined. Ramirez says the plan is to secure the bottle in every one of your favorite liquor stores.

“We launched in one store originally in San Antonio at an area called Liquor Max. They are off of Bandera and 1604 and Helotes area. That was our first store that we launched at. They ordered like I think 12 crates of bottles and those all sold out in one day. They’ve reordered about 60 more bottles. Then, we branched out to Alamo City Liquors which has five locations in San Antonio, and we also wanted to make sure we got here in our hometown of Seguin at Zella’s (Liquors). But we are super excited to have the hometown support  as well,” said Ramirez.

In addition to Zella’s, customers at the Power Plant Restaurant in Seguin are also getting to enjoy the product. They say the Power Plant is the latest restaurant and bar to include St. Maya on its drink menu.

Torrez says what first was just a product has evolved into something much much more.

“We are just three guys who loved tequila and who felt we needed to bring representation to the city” and to its surrounding communities like Seguin.

With more and more bottles now on the shelves, Torrez says the trio can now sip and savor on even more great things to come under their new found blessings of Saint Maya.