The hospitality sector was certainly one of the most hit by COVID. With their clubs closed for almost a year, two of the ‘Wet Pussy Shot’ founders George Grigoriadis and Danny Grant were forced to source other income. And this is where the story begins.
“The pandemic came so quick it was impossible for any of us to prepare for it,” George recalled, “within five days we went from being at full capacity to completely closed.”
Danny added, “I had to let go of twenty people on the Wednesday and was applying for jobs myself by the Thursday. I went from being a leader in our industry to our industry not even existing overnight… At one point I was working three jobs just to pay the rent for my venue that couldn’t open.“
With nightclubs closed and the need for alternate work screaming at them, Danny contacted some old peers and they both scored a job at a bottle shop on Chapel Street.
On this venture, Danny reflected, “for off-premise liquor… their industry was booming at an all-time high. We were lucky to get work in a field we actually understood. But the change in scenery got us thinking.”
George added, “Danny and I would chat while working late nights in the shop… one night we were spit-balling ideas on how to insulate ourselves when it was our turn to open [the clubs] again. One of our concepts was to create an alcohol to sell in our clubs, it made sense we had the ability and resource to do so through our own venues. That’s when Jess stepped into the picture.“
Armed with an idea, the entrepreneurs headed to Mornington to visit Jess Conti. Jess, a fellow club owner, had already acquired the importation of booze to his list of achievements, amongst other endeavours.
“The boys came to my restaurant with an idea to create a liquor brand we could sell through existing contacts. The nightclub industry is very small so creating a product to sell within our circle would be easy enough. But which product? That was the big question.“
“We talked about our highest selling products,” Danny said, “Corona, RTD’s [ready to drink], vodka, even soft drink… there was something missing. At my venue, we had sold more wet pussy shots than anything else. It was the ingredients, not the product, we were listing. That’s when we came up with the idea of creating a wet pussy recipe and bottling it. The concept was simple, but all the best concepts are,’ he continued, laughing and shaking his head, ‘countless nights I’d begun blurry nights powered by wet pussy shots, in clubs all across the world. The idea was literally sitting right in front of me every Saturday night and I didn’t pick it up sooner… I mean, I picked them up! Sometimes ten a night!'”
“When we checked the trademark was free, I was shocked,” added Jess, “waiting six months for its approval was nerve racking.”
In December 2020, Victoria re-opened nightclubs. Like all industries affected by the pandemic, the news came with little notice and short time to prepare. The boys launched with four pallets of stock in their own venues alone.
“Because our industry opened so rapidly, we had to put the idea on ice,” said George, “the trademark came through but we had gone from stacking bottles in someone else’s shop to running our businesses again in a matter of days. But in our own venues, the product’s reception was great! Not only was it as delicious, it was effective. It totally eliminated pre-mixing.”
Interest in their product exploded. But how did they go from stocking products in their own clubs to stocking in bottle shops nationwide in less than a month?
“We knew a few friends with bottle shops,” Jess explained, “we reached out to see if they would stock our product. We knew people would recognise the name of the shot from the clubs, so we were interested to see how it would go beyond clubs. We never expected the reception it received. We went from four pallets to twenty pallets and now we are figuring out how to double that next month. We haven’t even traded for a full quarter yet!”
With the help of social media, the boys have gone viral. Five posts from small bottle shops went viral in one week, accumulating 50,000 comments and two Tik Tok videos. Their phones were ringing, both figuratively and literally.
“Online sales exploded,’ George smiled, ‘we had bottle shops as far as isolated towns in Western Australia demanding our product and so many emails… it would be a full-time job just to read them. We’ve even been contacted from companies across the US, Asia and Europe.”
Danny opened up, reflecting on the journey, “when the pandemic first began… there were days I struggled to get out of bed. But if this didn’t happen, none of us would have had that meeting. The pandemic was the biggest challenge of my life but it pushed us into this enterprise. Now I’m pinching myself this has happened to us!”
As we sat with the founders, absorbing their story, we couldn’t stop smiling. With the momentum this product continues to gain, these entrepreneurs haven’t even come close to their peak yet. And in this digital era, wer’re we are often presented with heartbreaking stories, success stories like theirs can shine through. So, raise a Wet Pussy Shot, for all the good, bad and better times in front of us all.
