New Orleans-based Big Easy Whiskey has appointed Carlos Quinonez as National Brand Ambassador and Market Manager, a hire timed to the brand's planned entry into Tennessee before year-end. Quinonez, a native New Orleanian with more than 15 years in the hospitality and beverage industry, will serve as the brand's primary face to bartenders, restaurateurs, retailers, and distributors in both existing and incoming markets.
The Hire
Quinonez arrives from the Turkey and the Wolf Group, where he held the Beverage Director title. His earlier résumé spans some of New Orleans' most closely watched hospitality properties, including the Adolfo Garcia Restaurant Group, Coquette, the Columns Hotel, and Fives — venues credited with helping define the city's contemporary bar culture. He also helped develop Infhame, a New Orleans-inspired bar in Guadalajara, Mexico, extending his reach into international beverage programming.
In his new role, Quinonez will lead on-premise relationship-building and community engagement while representing the brand at trade and consumer events. "I've spent my career in New Orleans' hospitality and beverage industry, so joining a brand that is authentically rooted in the city is a really exciting opportunity," he said. "I'm looking forward to introducing more people at home and beyond to what we're doing and show them why flavored whiskey should really taste like whiskey."
Tennessee Expansion
The appointment directly precedes Big Easy Whiskey's Q4 distribution launches in Tennessee, where the brand has secured partnerships with DET Beverage in Nashville and Athens Distributing Company covering the Knoxville and Chattanooga markets. The move marks the brand's first significant push beyond Louisiana, where it is currently carried at hundreds of bars, restaurants, and retail accounts.
Kieran Walsh, COO and Blender of Big Easy Whiskey, positioned the hire as central to the expansion strategy. "As we take Big Easy Whiskey into new markets, having Carlos out there telling our story, building relationships and representing where we come from will be incredibly important to how we grow," Walsh said.
Why It Matters
The flavored whiskey segment remains one of the more contested corners of the American spirits market, with established players competing on sweetness profiles while newer entrants attempt to differentiate on craft positioning. Big Easy Whiskey's product — a 5-year-aged American whiskey built on a traditional bourbon mash and infused with herbs, spices, botanicals, and fruit — is positioned explicitly against the sweeter end of the category. The brand's ambassador strategy, leaning on a credentialed on-premise operator rather than a celebrity or influencer, reflects a trade-first growth model that prioritizes bartender advocacy and distributor relationships over consumer advertising.
For operators and distributors evaluating emerging spirits brands, the Tennessee entry will serve as an early signal of how transferable the brand's Louisiana momentum is beyond its home-market base. Brands with deep cultural ties to a single city often face consumer-education hurdles in new geographies; Quinonez's role is essentially to close that gap at the account level before retail velocity data can accumulate. Coverage of spirits brand expansion and on-premise strategy and flavored whiskey category dynamics will track how the Tennessee rollout develops through the balance of the year.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
