For centuries, wine has been used to celebrate religious -as well as secular- important events in Jewish traditions. Wine’s connection with Jewish culture reaches back 5,000 years and it has always held a place of significance in Jewish celebrations. So, what could be new?
Brother Andrew Breskin (UC San Diego, 2005) is looking to help shake up the kosher wine business by offering customers of his business — Liquid Kosher – high quality small production kosher wines. “My goal is to bring together the kosher world and the high quality wine world,” said Bother Breskin.
Arriving at UCSD in 2001, kosher wine wasn’t in the long-term career plans. After graduation, he attended law school at the University of San Diego and began his career as a lawyer. In 2002, he started exploring the world of wine and even became a Certified Sommelier before graduation.
The wine business became a side hustle and, after deciding to become kosher, he began to really explore merging his love of wine with his emerging focus on keeping kosher. “I started exploring kosher wines and, specifically, boutique kosher wines. I found out about a Bordeaux, produced in France, that was really good…comparable or as good as a non-kosher wine. I bought a case and had it flown over here on a cargo plane and I sold it to some people I knew. I bought 10 more cases and sold them. I realized that if it’s available, people will buy it.”
He started buying 30-50 cases of wine and selling it to people he knew who were interested. “I was a little unsure of myself but decided to try it and see how it goes. I realized that, for me, I was getting more satisfaction from this than as a lawyer.”
“About three years ago, I reset everything again. I decided I didn’t like my format and I wanted to connect more directly with consumers, the people who would be opening and drinking the wine.” Liquid kosher was born.
Liquid Kosher is a curated wine experience for those seeking quality kosher wines, that are vetted by wine experts. Brother Breskin and his team have travelled the world building relationships and sourcing wines from the kosher industry’s best. And, through a subscription service, sharing them with customers. Beyond a typical subscription service, the company sees itself as the door that opens customers to rare, limited-allocation wines, featuring some of the world’s best kosher wines, created by family producers that are committed to excellence.
With a couple of hundred clients in the quarterly membership program and a lot of other people who are taking on the allocated stuff, Liquid Kosher is suddenly taking off. “2020 was our biggest year ever. People love what we are doing. Everything I sell, I drink or recommend.”
“We have exclusive partners in France, Israel and one in California but most of our product comes from Europe and Israel. We didn’t have an Israeli winery until a couple of years ago, but they are doing a tremendous amount of great wine there now.”
“To this day, my best friends in the world are the guys that I pledged AEPi with. I remember that I was the chapter Sentinel and I had to go tell a room full of a couple hundred people at a party that they needed to keep the noise down…kind of funny looking back on it now.”
“My sincere attitude is that if I can’t do this my way and do it the way I like, I won’t do it. This way nobody forces me to buy anything. If i don’t believe in it, I don’t sell it.”
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