HAUTE PARTNERS : Double Cross Vodka

With the company’s third year of multi-million dollar sales and growth during the first half of this year 165 percent, the future is looking very bright indeed. In New York, Double Cross is the fastest growing ultra-premium spirits brand (shelf price over $35.00).

“This kind of growth and industry recognition makes a spirits brand like Double Cross a very valuable business proposition,” Lloyd said. “It also makes our dedicated investors raise a glass.” Lloyd adds that many of the company’s investors have turned into passionate brand ambassadors.

“This kind of growth and industry recognition makes a spirits brand like Double Cross a very valuable business proposition,” Lloyd said. “It also makes our dedicated investors raise a glass.” Lloyd adds that many of the company’s investors have turned into passionate brand ambassadors.

Says Corey Bronstein, SVP/General Manager of Allied Beverage Group, the largest distributor in New Jersey; “Malcolm picked up the challenging dynamics of our ever-changing business extremely rapidly and is doing an excellent job in his role. In my 25 years in the industry I’ve never seen a brand quite like Double Cross. It’s the fastest growing brand in our portfolio over the $30 wholesale price.”

Over the years Bronstein has become something of a mentor to Lloyd, or Doctor Vodka, as some in the spirits industry refer to him (more on Doctor Vodka later). Lloyd says he’s honored to have such influential mentors in this business. He enjoys learning from the industry’s finest and feels fortunate to have been given the attention. Developing relationships with spirits industry leaders has certainly paid off – it was through this that Jim Clerkin, CEO of Moet Hennessy USA, introduced Lloyd to Harvey and Wayne Chaplin, the owners of Southern Wines & Spirits (SWS), the largest distributor in the U.S. Those conversations resulted in a national contract with SWS and a crucial distributor partnership.

Lloyd wasn’t always roaming the hillsides in search of the perfect vodka, or making cocktails for celebrities at charity events in major cities. In the beginning, Lloyd was on a path to making his rounds.

After high school, Lloyd studied biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins and went on to get his Medical Doctorate from Dartmouth Medical School. While originally passionate about orthopedic surgery and eager to become a successful doctor, he realized soon after graduating that he was, at his core, an entrepreneur. And so he chose a slightly different path.

He first went on to work with the Boston-based venture capital firm MPM Capital, which invests globally in healthcare innovation. With $20 million of capital, Lloyd then spent four years founding and building Medaptus Inc., which focused on providing physicians with mobile IT solutions. In just a decade, it has morphed into a full-on electronic medical record company and over the years Lloyd has led the development of numerous medical device patents.

Soon after stepping away from Medaptus, Lloyd found himself in Princeton, New Jersey living with his godfather for a short time while he worked for one of the portfolio companies he’d worked with at MPM. The job was interesting enough, but not quite as interesting as his godfather’s.

“I became very curious about my godfather’s business,” he said of Gellner, who at the time was a broker selling vodka and had been in the liquor business most of his life. Gellner’s experience ranges from owning a liquor store to building his own distributorship, to running a division of the largest distributor in New Jersey for over 20 years.

Having admired Gellner’s involvement in all segments of the industry, Lloyd learned more and more about the vodka phenomenon in the U.S. He found himself thinking more and more about creating his own brand and was confident that his entrepreneurial skills and experience could be again successful in the spirits industry.

“In each decade there is a major change with respect to which brands are the top shelf products,” he explains. In the early ‘70s, it was all about Smirnoff. Then came Absolut in the 80s. The 90s saw the success of Ketel One, followed by Belvedere and Grey Goose, all still very popular amongst premium spirits.

“The goal with my godfather was to create one of the next-generation ultra-premium vodka brands,” Lloyd says. With the timing just right for a new vodka to reign supreme, the idea for Double Cross Vodka was born. Lloyd took cues from the successful vodka ventures before him.