SPAIN’S largest and oldest brandy company in the Philippines, Fundador, recently launched a first-of-its-kind concept store at the Venice Grand Canal Mall in McKinley Hill, Taguig.
Featuring the brand’s flagship liquors, the 50-square meter café-cum-retail shop has its own cocktail bar, where patrons can enjoy food-and-beverage concoctions mixed with brandy and the signature Harveys Bristol Cream, a premium sherry wine produced in Jerez, Spain. “The whole concept [behind] this was that we had to find more unique ways to enjoy our product. The days of just buying a bottle [of liquor] and sitting down on a table and drinking it with your friends are long gone. What we wanted to do was to figure out how to do it differently. We heard a long time ago that people used Fundador for cooking sauces and chefs used our brandy for frozen ingredients, and that’s basically where the idea came from,” Emperador Executive Director Kendrick Tan said at the store’s official opening on March 15.
The store’s menu list features cupcake and gelato variations that contain Harveys Bristol Cream, which adds clean, fresh and fruity hints, with spicy overtones and a velvety smooth flavor.
The drinks, on the other hand, are each uniquely mixed with different Fundador liquors like Fundador Gold Reserve, the classic Solera, Exclusivo and Double Light—all of which are sold at the café, including the store-exclusive Harveys Bristol Cream.
“Sherry is nonexistent here right now. It’s a traditional fortified wine from Spain, specifically from the Jerez region. There’s a lot of heritage to it but nobody drinks it outside of Spain. It’s an unknown variety here in Asia and we’d love to be the one responsible to introduce this type of wine in the country. The red and white table wines that you have, it’s a completely different thing, and it’s a shame that not too many people know about it.” Tan said.
Tan added that using Fundador products, their team of bartenders came up with exclusive cocktails’ mixes. “When you give these creative guys a [platform and the right tools], they’ll come up with these amazing things.” The store is a balanced mix of classic and modern aesthetic, with a vibrant wooden finish embracing the entire space to underscore the Spanish influences. The beams and the ceiling are very reminiscent of the old bodegas and vineyards of Fundador’s maiden country. The centerpiece, meanwhile, showcases the original Fundador barrel, the signature icon shipped directly from Spain.
According to Tan, the company strategically located its concept retail store in Venice Grand Canal Mall, explaining: “It’s quite synergistic since Megaworld is our sister company. Our chairman Dr. Andrew Tan’s passions include real estate, of course, and liquor. As you can see, most of the Megaworld projects are always something that is related to our product.”
In 2015 Fundador was acquired by listed liquor company Emperador Distillers Inc., owned by tycoon Andrew L. Tan—a move that further solidified the latter’s position as the world’s largest brandy company. The Alliance Global Group mogul also holds business interests in real estate through Megaworld Corp. and fast food through Golden Arches Development Corp., which operates McDonald’s franchises in the country.
“We expand as quickly as our sister company puts up new developments. When it comes to selling our portfolio, this is not our first store. We have a Dahmer’s Store for the brand’s single-malt scotch whiskey in Uptown Mall, and now we’re also stocking not just brandy but also imported Fundador products in airports and Duty Free stores,” Tan said.
He concluded that the Philippines has been one of the biggest worldwide markets for Fundador. “Over the last few hundred years, we have been concentrated only on this market. But now, we’re expanding and this is just the first step.”