Brand Video
​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4ORbEpmJqo

Founding Story

Key People

• Tyson Branz. Co-Founder and President
• ​Brendan Green. Co-Founder and Master Distiller
• Junalyn Alo, Co-Founder and VP Business Development
• Kalel Demetrio,  Creative Director

     Tyson Branz, President of Destileria Barako, began his career in the electrical, mining, and oil and gas industries, working on machinery in diverse locations, from the jungles of Papua New Guinea to the deserts of Oman. After suffering a leg injury that left him unable to walk for six months, Tyson sought new career opportunities and found his way into Australia's burgeoning craft distillery scene. Partnering with his friend Warren Brewer, Tyson co-founded Saleyards Distillery (now Capricorn Distillery) in Rockhampton in Central Queensland, Australia. Leveraging his technical skills and familiarity with working in a highly regulated industry, Tyson played a crucial role in selecting equipment and collaborating with contractors. The idea was to buy and renovate an old, famous pub on the main highway through town and turn it into a rum distillery. Saleyards Distillery’s goal was to attract tourists driving from Sydney and Melbourne to Queensland during winter, encouraging them to buy bottles of rum. Warren pitched this concept as a way to capitalize on the heavy tourist traffic.  While the distillery’s early success was marked by winning double gold in San Francisco for their Billy Goat Gin, Capricorn Spiced Rum was awarded “the world’s best-spiced rum” at the World Rum Awards. However, the location proved challenging, and the business transitioned into a white-labeling facility (also known as contract distilling). While lucrative, Tyson and Brendan exited, and Brewer eventually rebranded as Capricorn Distillery, relocating to the Gold Coast, where it continues operations in a showroom closer to potential customers.

Moving to the Philippines
     Tyson’s first trip to the Philippines was in 2009 as part of a construction project on a Mormon Temple on behalf of an American company. “At the time, the Philippines was very different. There were very limited products on the shelves, and a couple of major companies controlled the market. Imported brands were slowly creeping into the market, but only the real major stuff.” According to Tyson, “[that trip] was more of me banking that information and then later on it became a light bulb moment when we decided to sell the shares in the Australian distillery due to shifts in market opportunity.”
     The move to the Philippines was fueled by love and an eye for emerging markets. Tyson and his then-girlfriend—now wife—Junalyn, who is from the Philippines, traded their Australian life for a bold new venture in the Philippines. “It was a mixture of love and the opportunity that really drove the decision to pour our life savings into another country and go again,” Tyson said, noting the lack of craft distillery models at the time. Tyson also pitched the idea to fellow Capricorn investor Brendan Green, who quickly embraced the vision. “Once I told him that I thought it would [work], then he was all in,” Tyson recalled. In 2016, when the team established Destileria Barako Corp.
     Initially, the venture faced significant challenges due to the strict regulations in the Philippines, where the Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA) testing and product registration standards mirror those of the U.S. By contrast, Australia’s system is more lenient, only requiring brand registration with the Taxation Department.
     Since then, the company has grown from three people to nearly 55 employees in different countries. And, Tyson added, “Brendan remains in the Philippines, now a husband and father with no plans to return to Australia.”

The bottle design
Bottles in the Agimat at Ugat (Amulet and Root) Collection honor Filipino cultural roots and symbolize the journey from past to present by blending Filipino cultural history with the magic of an Agimat. In particular:

• The bottle’s shape is inspired by the chemical advancements of the Erlenmeyer flask, and highlights the pursuit of scientific perfection.
• The label features the brand’s traditional handwriting derived from the precolonial writing systems used by early Filipinos. The term “baybayin” comes from the Tagalog root word baybay, which means “to spell.”

Approach to Product

• Influence of the Philippines and Boracay
• Approach to Product Development

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Influence of the Philippines and Boracay
     Destileria Barako’s passion for craft spirits is deeply rooted in the Philippines’ vibrant culture, rich ingredients, culinary expertise, and passion. Their expert craft distillers are dedicated to quality, meticulously attending to every stage of the creative process. They delight discerning palates with new stories about Filipino botanicals and lore, celebrating the remarkable soul of this beautiful archipelago. Destileria Barako showcases Filipino flavors using the finest ingredients from select Philippine regions and implements a zero-waste manufacturing process.
     Drawn to Boracay’s white sand beaches, Destileria Barako fell in love with the unique culture and vibrant botanicals, immersing themselves in the local community, forging relationships with farmers, and foraging for botanicals to infuse their products with exceptional quality and the spirit of the Philippines.
     Tyson explained, “We chose the most beautiful spot, but also a strategic location for sending or getting a product to the market. We bring sugarcane ethanol from Bacolod to our processing plant. From here, we process gin and vodka, then backload trucks straight up to the market in Manila.”
     Demetrio elaborated, “me and my partners love to trek and see some possible produce in the local markets. This was always my style. Then I saw a lot of produce growing here and lots of flora in the mountain range. There’s blue pea, which is very abundant, and wild pomelo. We don’t have to go to Manila because everything is here, and we get to create our own vibe.”
     What began with a single distillery in the Aklan jungle is now expanding into three additional production sites, each serving a distinct purpose.

Malay, Aklan
Destileria Barako was initially launched in Malay, Aklan, to serve Boracay’s vibrant party scene. “I just thought: Why not put a craft distillery there? You can turn it into a tourist attraction with tours,” Tyson said, referencing his earlier visits in 2009 and 2011.  But by 2019, rising demand in Manila had shifted the focus dramatically, prompting a reassessment of the island-centric strategy just before the pandemic hit. This distillery is being explored for additional uses in Bacolod and Negros, well-known regions for sugarcane, and Tyson sees untapped potential in neighboring Passi City. “There’s a well-established sugar cane region there,” he said. “And at the moment, there's not one single rum brand being produced from that region (Passi City).”
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Cavite Facility
A second facility was established and equipped for global distribution. “There is an automated bottling line set up for global scale,” Tyson explained.  The opening of the facility coincided with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in Tyson and Junalyn staying. “We moved to Manila for 12 months, and fast forward to 2025, we’re still here, 12 months haven't ended,” Tyson said.

​Agimat at Ugat Foraging Bar and Kitchen
Destileria Barako’s R&D lab is located on the bottom floor of a craft cocktail bar in Makati (Metro Manila). Here, mixologist Kalel Demetrio leads the charge. Tyson noted, “that facility gave us the ability to bring ingredients in, play around with them, distill them, ferment them, turn them into different solutions, and just figure out the best way to extract them on a small scale. We can infuse some of those ingredients into the cocktail bar that we have there. We have Roto-Vaps (rotary evaporator), ferment, do fat washes, and stuff like that. We also created a botanical library of every single ingredient that we could find in the country. So we used that in the bar. [When ingredient pairings are successful], we try to turn them into a commercial spirit or a commercial brand.”

Approach to Product Development
While Destileria Barako has several products targeting the Philippine domestic market, both in name and in line with the local drinking culture, the company is determining which products to promote in the export market. Tyson explained, “There's already so much [global] competition for the caramel product, so we don't think it will penetrate the outside market. But [we have] a business goal to be really specific about our exports to Filipino populations. One of the best things about the brand and the opportunity we have is that Filipinos are some of the most transient people and work all over the world. They work in Dubai, Europe, and the USA. There's really easy growth for us and our brand just because we're very, very targeted towards a certain demographic and the numbers in that demographic are just simply huge.”

Export vs domestically available products
     While Destileria Barako has several products targeting the Philippine domestic market, both in name and in line with the local drinking culture, the company is determining which products to promote in the export market. Tyson explained, “There's already so much [global] competition for the caramel product, so we don't think it will penetrate the outside market. But [we have] a business goal to be really specific about our exports to Filipino populations. One of the best things about the brand and the opportunity we have is that Filipinos are some of the most transient people and work all over the world. They work in Dubai, Europe, and the USA. There's really easy growth for us and our brand just because we're very, very targeted towards a certain demographic and the numbers in that demographic are just simply huge.”

Agimat at Ugat (Amulet & Root) Collection
     The Agimat at Ugat Collection’s mythological theme and identity finds its roots at Agimat at Ugat Foraging Bar and Kitchen.  There, Filipino botanicals are magically transformed into enchanting libations that pay tribute to the vibrant essence of Filipino heritage and culture and embody nature's boundless power. Crafted with the utmost care, the Agimat at Ugat Collection encapsulates the belief in the profound gifts of the land. Each bottle is a testament to the convergence of heritage and innovation, showcasing a unique blend of flourishing and rare indigenous botanicals that capture the spirit of the Philippines and the traditions that began it all.

Ube Cream Liqueur

• Brand Myth
• Development of Ube Cream Liqueur

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Brand Myth
     On a humble piece of land lived a Filipina who tended a field of ube. She was a farmer by day and an alchemist by night.
     Often, passersby would stop and scoff, "Why don't you grow something more beautiful? Something that would sell for more money? Something imported?" And they sighed, "Ah, women!" The farmer was no stranger to outsiders thinking her a simple laborer growing nothing but a lowly root, nor was she a stranger to attempts to steal her land and cultivation process.
     But under the light of a full moon, she harvested her crops and laid them down on her hearth next to her tools - itak (bolo knife), palayok (traditional clay cooking pot), gata (coconut milk), panutsa (unrefined sugarcane disc). She looked up at Dayang and whispered incantations to honor the deities. Weaving the magic of apoy (fire), hangin (air), tubig (water), and lupa (earth) with the magic within her, she created the most delicious potion the world has ever known. Oooh, babae! Oooh, bae!
     Able to withstand pestilence and drought, ube is the lotus flower of vegetables and a symbol of the resilience of the Filipino people.
     This brand myth is a combination of the traditional Bohol origin story for ube and references the importance of the crop for sustenance.  While ube is grown in all regions of the Philippines, Bohol’s ube story was included because it is at the top of the list when it comes to the highest variety of ube available and has the most saturated color of ube.

     Ube Cream Liqueur brings the fiesta spirit of the Philippines to the world, one pour at a time. Made with the indigenous tuber of the Filipino people, Ube Crea red m Liqueur is crafted using local botanicals, spices, and ingredients, then produced through a combination of distillation techniques. The ube used in every batch is sourced directly from the Philippines to highlight the best produce of the Philippine islands.
     The development process was a pandemic project. “We, like most businesses, were wondering how to survive, and we needed to be creative. The goal for the R&D team during that period was to create five new [potential] SKUs. One of my business partners, Kalel Demetrio, a very famous mixologist here, presented a purple, creamy drink that was very, very tasty,” said Tyson. The team also couldn’t believe how obvious the concept was. “When we first created it, we were like ‘Can you believe nobody's done this before?” I'm not complaining about it, because it's changed our life and changed the fortunes of our business.”
     The challenge was to turn it into a commercial product because the Philippines has no commercial dairy industry, so everything is imported.  This required reaching out to global cream producers; however, they first had to overcome the pandemic’s global shipping issues and the challenges of being passed from one supplier to another across different countries. “In the end, we had to beg them to fly a drum of specialty cream product from Europe to Asia, [so we could] do a proof of concept. We created the batches, sent them to the SIP awards in the USA, and it won a Product Innovation Award, Double Gold Medal.  All of a sudden, all the [cream] suppliers who didn't want to work with us in the past were interested.”
     As the product has become commercially available, sales have grown exponentially. Sales have doubled every six months for the past two years, and total sales for 2023 reached 200,000 bottles. While the Philippines continues to manufacture products for the domestic market, Australia, Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia, a European white label partner recently conducted a production run of 30,000 bottles specifically for the European market, including the U.K.. In this process, Philippine-made ube extract was sent to Europe to be blended with cream and bottled there, rather than shipping the heavy (in physical weight) cream to the Philippines only to send it back to Europe.
     Driving this growth is what Tyson described as “the perfect storm,” where the product’s uniqueness and consumer-driven digital and in-person word-of-mouth created high demand to the extent that the main challenge has been overcoming market entry hurdles. Tyson elaborated.:

• “Purple is a really popular color right now.  It also happens to be the color of ube, and if you combine the colors of the Filipino flag, the red, white, and blue, it turns into purple.” "This works well with bartenders because everything's about Instagram now, and the better your cocktail looks on Instagram, the more likely you get and the more success you have.”
• “Ube is very hot in the in the world right now.”  Monin syrups and T. Hasegawa Flavor House have chosen Ube as their 2024 Flavor of the Year. "I feel like the time is now for Filipino products.  You're not gonna get a better opportunity, right? Filipino cuisine is very hot in America.  Ube is probably the chance to connect the liquor and the food.
• The pandemic’s end led to a surge in Filipinos returning home and discovering Destileria Barako’s Ube Cream Liqueur. “A lot of Filipinos would come back home to the Philippines and visit family and friends. And what was waiting for them back here when they came was a product called Ube Cream Liqueur that just won the world’s best cream liqueur.” This unique product quickly gained popularity as travelers took it back to the US and Europe, sharing it at parties and prompting others to ask the company via social media, “Why can’t I buy this in California? Why can’t I buy this in Europe?”
• The team believes that Ube Cream Liqueur can potentially become nostalgic by being associated with celebrations, collaborating with food influencers, and being incorporated into pastries. “Most Filipinos know ube as a dessert more than anything. So they already know it's gonna be sweet. And they already associate ube with a Fiesta or something like that, so it’s an easy crossover.  And when you can connect all of those things, it creates an emotional experience.”
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“All of these things were just complete accidents, but it's ironic how some of these things just kind of fall together like that,” Tyson added.

Ingredients

Every bottle of Ube Cream Liqueur is crafted with produce sourced directly from local farms to support the surrounding agricultural communities. Destileria Barako is committed to crafting products with “ingredients made in the Philippines to support the mastery of our people and the abundance of our land.”

• Base Spirit
• Ube Extract
• Specialty Cream

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Base Spirit
​Vodka made from sugarcane and filtered with coconut husk from Mindanao. While global demand has led to some outsourcing, Destileria Barako’s vodka is used to make the ube extract.

Ube extract produced by Destileria Barako.
Tyson explained, “Ube itself isn't the most fragrant product. To get super concentrated extracts from ube, you have to cook a whole heap of it, run it through extractors, and apply the same techniques used in roto-vaping and oil making. The challenge isn’t just flavor, though—it’s achieving a stable, natural purple hue. “We’ve been really, really trying our best to get a 100% natural colour. However, there's a massive difference between what's shelf stable for a day or two and what's shelf stable for two years (as required by retailers like Costco and Dan Murphy's),” Tyson says. As natural pigments fade over time, maintaining visual consistency has been the most costly and complex aspect of the development process.

Commercially stable cream liqueur requires complex food science techniques for special treatment, pasteurization, and transportation to make the product shelf-stable and remain emulsified. There are two production approaches.

• White-label companies worldwide, particularly in the United States and Europe, bring ideas to life.
• In-house production involves purchasing compounded creams and then blending them with ethanol. Tyson explained, “If the pH is not right, if there's not enough sugar or there's too much sugar or there's too much cream, not enough ethanol, the product really won't be commercially stable. To achieve that, you've got to rely on either a main manufacturing partner or you have to do a lot of independent testing and analysis and prove that the commercial stability is good for the two years. And that means speeding up the aging process.”

Ube Cream Liqueur Awards and Medals

• 2021 SIP: Innovation Award, Double Gold Medal
• 2022 World Liqueur: World’s Best Cream
• 2023 SIP: Innovation Award, Platinum Medal
• 2023 San Francisco: Gold Medal