Hebru Brantley and Peter Ibrahim came to the spirits game from very different directions. Brantley is an internationally recognized visual artist whose work has appeared in museums and galleries around the world. Ibrahim has spent nearly two decades learning the spirits business from the inside. One knows how to build an audience around an idea. The other understands what it takes to get a bottle from development into the hands of consumers. Together, they created The Old G, an independent gin brand that has quickly earned recognition nationwide.

Thus far, business has been great, and the future seems even more promising. The company has sold over 2,000 cases since 2024 and expanded to almost 750 locations throughout the United States. The Old G has also picked up major industry honors, including Best Gin in Show in Las Vegas and Double Gold in San Francisco. Those numbers are notable for any new spirits company, but especially for an independent brand entering a category where many consumers already have strong opinions about gin. 

Brantley and Ibrahim spent years working on the product before its launch. The black bottle gives The Old G an easy visual identity on shelves and behind bars. More importantly, the founders wanted the gin itself to appeal to drinkers who might normally order tequila or vodka instead. “To be recognized is great, but it also just shows one, that we’re on the right track and two, we still have a lot of work to do,” Brantley added.

The name comes from another idea familiar to both men: the OG who gives advice and helps someone coming behind them avoid the same mistakes. As The Old G grows, Brantley and Ibrahim hope the company can eventually provide similar opportunities for other people trying to build something of their own.

“We don’t control enough of our own narratives,” Brantley told ESSENCE about the importance of ownership. Ibrahim was equally candid about what it takes to build an independent company in the spirits industry. “You have to run things in a very scrappy way,” he said. “You are literally calling people, pulling favors, delivering stuff yourself, and even creating samples yourself.”

In an in-depth conversation, Brantley and Ibrahim discussed creating The Old G, what most people misunderstand about launching a spirits company and why experience matters for anyone hoping to enter the business.

ESSENCE: Peter, the spirits industry seems so niche. What is one’s entry point into the spirits industry? How do you get into that particular brand of work? 

Peter Ibrahim: It’s definitely niche. It’s definitely a small world. I always felt like when I was at these other big companies and stuff that I worked, there was a lot of nepotism. So it was always people knowing people to then get in. So I feel like you have to know someone or you have to just start at the bottom. And so it’s like being a delivery driver or assistant or something that you have to prove yourself to get into this game. So, it’s definitely something that’s more difficult and difficult to penetrate and get into. But then starting your own brand, it’s near impossible. I mean we’ve done it and we’re happy and we’re going, but the barriers of entry to get in this are mind-blowing.

Hebru, what made you want to enter the spirits business after building such a successful career as an artist?

Hebru Brantley: Honestly, it was something I wanted to do. It was always in the back of my mind, but I didn’t have access. I didn’t understand that world as much. And I just always used to think selfishly it would be cool as hell if I had my own spirits at my shows. And I like an adult beverage from time to time as a lot of us do. But I think meeting Peter and building this friendship with him, we would have conversations about what that could look like. And I mean, the man has had countless years of experience in the space and I think between his expertise in the space from a business standpoint, mine from a creative, it just felt like it made sense.

What gap in the gin market, other spirits market—you can answer both—did you believe The Old G could fill?

PI: So, it’s a two-pronged answer to your two-pronged question. But essentially spirits as a whole, my biggest thing working in the industry for nearly 17 years was representation at the highest level for an Egyptian and never had anything growing up that represented me as a brand, as a spirit, as a bottle, as a look, as a feel. And then having been working for all these big brands within beer and spirits, there was also that lack of representation. When you look at the highest level, the boards, the vice presidents, the presidents, they all look the same and it doesn’t look like anyone on this call. So that was my first thing where I started to say there’s no diversity. There’s a huge lack of diversity in the spirits industry. But then gin itself was even more. Gin is very European, heritage, old, archaic brands. And the brands that people know have been around for a hundred years or more. 

So gin was the one for us because A: it’s the only spirit that has a recipe, the only wider known spirit categories that has a recipe. Whiskeys, vodkas, tequilas, if they’re aged, they’re aged in a barrel. You can’t control what comes from the barrel into the liquid. Gin is the only one that you can actually make a recipe for. You can get botanicals, you can get lemon peel, you can get fruits, you can get vegetables, you can get herbs. It’s the only spirit that has an identity in that respect where you can actually add and remove ingredients like you would in food. So gin was massively missed. The biggest void in gin was that there was zero representation. It was all very, very similar brands. And the brands weren’t that cool. When you’re trying to attract people to it, they know the brand from the old school brands that they know, but we wanted to make something that looked cool, but also tasted a certain way that could attract people from vodka, from tequila, from cognac. That was our whole piece was making a gin that you could drink neat or on the rocks or in a two, three ingredient cocktail versus mashing a bunch of stuff onto the top of it to master flavor. 

Hebru, The Old G is a really, really young company, but it won “Best Gin in Show” in Vegas last year, and it also won Double Gold in San Francisco. What did those milestones mean to you, especially as an owner of such a young company?

HB: I mean, it’s great to be recognized obviously for anything you do and you put effort into it. And we’ve been working behind the scenes and building this thing for years before we actually launched it. So to be recognized is great, but it also just shows one, that we’re on the right track and two, we still have a lot of work to do. But I think if anything, it’s a pat on the back and attaboy of what we set out to do is working. And now it’s just about how do we continue to grow it and continue to spread the word that we are as good as we believe ourselves to be.

And what would define success for The Old G over the next five years?

HB: I think growth, being able to expand into all markets I think within the US and having a very strong foothold in the spirit space for gin within the US and slowly starting to stretch across the world. I think as we get more eyeballs, as we get more folks tasting the product, people obviously will gravitate towards it because of its uniqueness, because of, again, its smoothness and what it is and represents. I think that once those things happen, that’ll also allow for us to start to do more from the side of outside of just running a spirits brand, but being able to reinvest into art programs and expound upon the wish fulfillment that Peter and I both have when it comes towards having a big company or growing a big company and then that will allow us to create more opportunities for others to come up around us.

Peter, what were some of the biggest challenges that you two have faced during the process of developing this gin company?

PI:  There’s been many. How long have we got? How long’s the interview? (Laughs.) It’s literally at every step. The liquid was obviously the first thing. So the liquid had to taste good. The liquid had to be what we wanted the liquid to be. It couldn’t just be another gin. It couldn’t just be an overly junipery, very much burned by the things that people associate with gin, especially in the US. It couldn’t be that. So that first two, three years of developing that liquid and trying different things, trying different processes, different botanicals, different everything. We went through the whole gamut from start to finish of “we need it to taste like this,” which I had in my brain, and it’s very difficult to take it from your brain onto paper or describe to people what that tastes like. And so that was obviously the initial challenge of the whole thing. 

But then once you get that liquid and you have a concept and you have what you need, it’s endless walls that you have to break down as you go. So distributors, people don’t realize that we have to use distributors in every single state. So getting distributors that align with our mantra, what we want to do. We’re a very different company in the sense that you don’t see many gins that have founders or owners that look like us, first of all, spirit—full stop—definitely very few gins. So, that was the first thing. And then you have to go to a distributor and explain to their whole fleet of people who most do not look like you either. And you have to tell them about this brand that’s going to do all this stuff for the community. And all of our marketing is directed towards this community and people kind of get scared, honestly.

But that piece is when you stand up and you really believe in something, it’s about getting them to believe it too. But then also money is another piece and contacts and links and utilizing those. You have to run things in a very scrappy way. You’re not just going out there like a big conglomerate with a hundred million dollar marketing budget. You are literally scrapping, calling people, pulling favors, delivering stuff yourself, doing samples yourself. It’s a scrappy life in the startup business. And so there’s many, many challenges, but of the biggest ones would be those, getting into a distributor, convincing people. But then from a consumer standpoint, people are scared of gin too. So then you have that where you come up to someone and the first thing they say is, “I hate gin. I don’t drink gin.” There’s all these barriers that we have to break down throughout every single daily life. So that’s a long-winded answer, but it’s a long-winded amount of problems. 

Hebru—Peter and I were talking earlier about just the design of the bottle, man. How did the unique design of The Old G bottle come into play?

HB: That was a long process. It’s one of the questions we get asked the most. But I think it just was one of those things where with all design, where you start is never where you end. And I think the one thing that Peter and I both wanted was just something that was sort of minimal, but also something that could stand out on the shelf. And so that’s where the idea of the all black bottle came in from and then obviously refining it, the logo. And it’s funny because a lot of times I think people’s initial thought is that the more minimal, the easier it is to get there or arrive at the idea of what you’re trying to accomplish—buI think it’s the exact opposite. I think the more minimal the design, the harder it can be at times. And so it was just a lot of push and pull. But I think Peter and I both had a very succinct vision of what we wanted it to look and feel like. And since then we’ve been able to refine it slightly and listen from bartenders to other consumers, get their feedback on certain aspects of the design. And we’ve tweaked those. And now I really feel like we have the true bottle, the true design that we wanted from the beginning.

For someone, well, specifically a person of color, that’s interested in breaking into the spirits business—what advice would you give to them to get a foot in the door? 

PI: Getting a job in the industry is the first step; you have to have experience in the industry. You have to know what the industry is. You have to know the different steps, the different stages. You have to know all of that. And that’s why 92% of new brands fail is because a lot of people are sitting in their lounge with their boy and they’re like, “Why don’t we start a tequila? We’re cool. We know about tequila. We can drink tequila. We can go down to Mexico and find a distiller that will help us.” That’s why they fail is because the other side, making the liquid and the bottle and stuff, that’s one thing. But the industry itself where you get in with your product and you go down with your bag and you have to present it to people in states and distributors and retailers and consumers, that’s the whole thing there. I think you have to really get experience within the industry. So however you can get into the industry, whether it’s, as I said at the beginning, an assistant, a driver, marketing assistant, get something there to show what you can do and that you have skills and that you have intelligence and that you know what you’re talking about.

You have creative ideas or whatever that may be and the graph to do it. And if you do that, that’s what I would recommend everyone do. Don’t come into the liquor business saying, “I’m cool. I know I have 10,000 followers on Instagram. I can start a brand.” That’s not going to work for you. It doesn’t matter who you are, it’s about knowing the industry. It’s about having experience and it’s about having people that back you too, whether it’s creatively, whether it’s monetarily—you have to have those things. 

Hebru, what does ownership mean to you, especially in the industry where people that look like us are vastly underrepresented?

HB: It’s very important. I think that it’s that age-old story. We don’t control enough of our own narratives. And I think that for me coming from the fine arts world, but really only making a splash by being independent and taking the route of an independent music artist, damn near doing everything but selling out the trunk when it comes to my art or my merchandise. And so I think I understand ownership from that standpoint. I understand creating brands from that standpoint. And I just think that it’s always important to have as much control over your own narrative and the narratives of the products you create and less leaving that in the hands of some other people that care a lot less or that are less competent or capable.

I feel like I should have asked this earlier, but what was the inspiration for the name of the gin, The Old G? 

HB: I got this, Peter. We just some cool ass OGs. (Laughs.) No, just kidding.

PI: You keep going, man. You’re doing such a good job. No, Hebru and I actually joked about the name at the beginning because I wanted a brand or we wanted a brand that represented the people. We knew this brand, again, it’s not just everything for everyone. This brand is very specific for a specific community in the initial launch of how we’ve done this and continues to be that. And so we wanted something that was prevalent in everyone’s life, which is a mentor, an OG, someone who helps you, takes you under their wing. You can sit down and learn, listen to their stories, gain their experiences. They might’ve gone to the war and come back and now you’re listening to that experience, you gain knowledge. And that was our whole thing, but we kind of joked about it for a while. We should call it the “OG,” like letter O, letter G. 

But then what happens if the phrase “OG” goes out of people’s language? So we called it The Old G so it can task many different things. We named it that so it could span many different people, many different demographics, and it’s kind of like a timeless thing.