Meet The Disruptors: Troy Bolotnick of Filmland Spirits On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

“There is no such thing as perfection” — just about everyone I’ve ever worked with, had a relationship with, been friends with, ordered from at a restaurant ☺, etc. I’m a perfectionist. I consider it to be both my greatest strength and my greatest weakness. It has taken me many years, but I have finally accepted there is no such thing as perfection. But I still constantly strive for it. Remembering those words helps me stay in balance and avoid some rabbit holes I used to get stuck in.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Troy Bolotnick.

Troy Bolotnick thrives on disruption. Throughout a 30-year career, he has shaken things up regardless of the industry — entertainment, consumer technology or most recently, liquor. Following a move to Hollywood to pursue a career in screenwriting, Bolotnick led the team that created and produced the world’s first episodic internet show and built a groundbreaking new entertainment form. Later, he designed interactive entertainment models for web and TV to allow viewers to engage with characters and influence future content.

Now CEO of Filmland Spirits, Bolotnick is focused on the liquor industry. He and his team are combining their enthusiasm for whiskey, passion for movies and dedication to storytelling to create a portfolio of small-batch spirits. The Filmland team believes that every whiskey has a story and every story deserves a whiskey. The result is a wildly creative pairing of an original retro B-Movie concept — complete with monsters, robots and over-the-top plots — with a delicious whiskey — each of which has already won a Gold Medal. Even the custom bottles, which feature movie posters as labels, have a role in the story.

This is a serious spirits portfolio created by a team that don’t take themselves too seriously, but who are introducing whiskey to a new audience.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I moved to Los Angeles two days after graduating from college in NY with a BA in Creative Writing. My dream was to be a screenwriter. I ended up writing movies, shows and many other things and working just about every job in the entertainment industry. Eventually that led me into starting creatively-driven ventures which led me to becoming a serial entrepreneur. About 10 years or so ago my best friend and I started developing an interest in and passion for whiskey — particularly bourbon and rye. We began making annual pilgrimages to the ‘motherland’ (Kentucky) and started visiting distilleries as tourists. As of today, we have been to more than 70 all over the country. We decided on one of those visits that when the time was right, we would start our own brand. Flash forward a bunch of years, and I was sitting with another friend of mine in LA who was helping me get my whiskey brand off the ground. Among other things, he’s part owner in a film production company and a podcast host. As we were brainstorming concepts for our brand, he started asking what I was passionate about. I started talking about writing and the movies and the creative drive to tell stories that I have had since a very young age (at least Kindergarten). He stopped me and pointed out that the passion with which I was speaking about writing and the movies is the same passion with which I speak about whiskey. We decided the concept would have to bring the two together.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

I had noticed for many years that wine, tequila, vodka, craft beer, etc. all had very dynamic, colorful, bright eye-catching packaging (labels). Whiskey — particularly American varieties, such as bourbon and rye, seemed to primarily rely on the same type of packaging they’ve been using for nearly 200 years. Brown, black, beige. Pictures of dogs or birds or old men. While this tried-and-true branding obviously has worked (and I’m a fan and consumer of many of those brands), we believe that there is an entirely new audience of consumers out there — Millennials, Gen-Z and even some Gen-X — who love products that have a story and concepts they can ‘geek out’ about. We knew that there would be some resistance from the established bourbon/rye world, and a danger that the liquid inside our bottles would not be taken seriously because our packages would be so different than the norm. But our liquids have all won gold medals from prestigious competitions, been extremely well reviewed by highly respected journalists and judges, and given very high marks all around. Our packaging has won awards as well. We have been extremely well received in Kentucky — one of our first markets, where it turns out our instincts were right, and American whiskey fans are very thirsty for something new and unique and respond to the retro-cool style we’ve employed.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

In college I was part of a community theater company. I produced, directed, and acted in plays. One of the first plays I produced was Chicago. These were very low budget, by the seat of our pants kinds of productions. The stage was small. No room for an orchestra pit. So, we had the band at the back of the stage behind the actors who were singing, dancing, etc. Part of the band was an upright piano. But the back (that faced the audience) was exposed and just looked like cheap wood. So, I had the stupid idea of covering it with a piece of luan (thin plywood essentially) and painting it to look like it blended in with the set. Visually it worked great. But on such a tight production we didn’t get around to doing it until the afternoon of opening night. We were all excited, my fellow producers and I were wearing tuxes and standing in the back of the audience proud as can be. The curtain opens, the cast comes on stage and the music starts. We looked at each other. Something was wrong. Then we realized that the luan that we covered the back of the piano with was muffling and distorting the sound of the piano. So, two of us ran backstage and in our tuxedos had to find a moment when we could sneak on stage to cut the luan off the piano and somehow carry it off stage without being seen. We crawled on all fours in our tuxedos on to the stage and while we thought we pulled it off, the next day people were cracking up telling us they thought we were part of the show but didn’t quite understand what we had to do with the plot. The lessons were many. And not just in acoustics. But I think the biggest ones were to plan for things to go wrong, be ready and adaptable when they do, and that there’s always a solution even if it involves crawling on the floor in a tuxedo in front of a live audience.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

My friend Scott who was like an older brother to me when I was a teenager and in my 20’s is a writer/director. He is a major out-of-the-box thinker and conforming to ‘the way it’s always been done’ was not in his vocabulary. I was more of a rule follower, trying to fit in the system. We ended up co-creating the first ever episodic show on the web, back in 1995. That experience changed my life. We were inventing everything every day. There was no system, there was no technology, there was no way things had been done before because no one had ever done it before. That can be scary as hell. But it worked. And Scott’s risk taking rubbed off on me for sure and is always in my thoughts, reminding me that ‘the way it’s always done’ doesn’t have to be the way I do it. I often repeat that at Filmland in our meetings when I feel we are headed down a path for the sake of conformity.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

I think disrupting is positive when it advances an industry or a product in a way that respects the system it came from and enhances the offering. In a sense, what we are doing with Filmland. We have absolute respect for established brands, but we are broadening the world of bourbon and rye and as a result not only bringing new value to whiskey drinkers but expanding the audience of whiskey drinkers for us and everyone else.

There are times when disrupting an industry can be negative for that industry. The best example I can think of is digital photography. Digital photography has changed the world, the way people work, enhanced all our lives in so many ways. But it decimated many industries and companies that made their money from film, developing, film cameras, etc.

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

“The morning is always smarter than the night” — my father. I think he got it from either his father or my mother’s father both of whom were immigrants from Ukraine in the early 1900’s. I remember many times growing up struggling with an issue and the pressure to get it done as the clock was striking all hours. My dad would say, ‘the morning is always smarter than the night’ to me. Get some sleep, start fresh in the morning. Things have a way of looking different and becoming much more manageable. I repeat that in my head all of the time now and remind myself that sometimes the best way to solve a problem is not to obsess over it but to step back and create some space. I also find it gratifying that I have often seen my kids in the same type of struggle and have been able to pass this little nugget of wisdom down to yet another generation.

“The man with the right tools, gets the job done” — also my father. Ok, so let’s update it from the generation he grew up in to “the person with the right tools, gets the job done.” I used to help my dad fix things around the house which is how I ended up a hands-on kind of creative. I remember one day when I was about 7 or 8, we were changing out an electrical outlet. We stripped the screw because we didn’t go back down to the garage to get a screwdriver that would have fit better. Then we were trying with all kinds of tools to get the screw out and making a bigger mess. My dad stopped, reminded us that the person with the right tools gets the job done. We went to the hardware store; got we needed and came back to finish the job properly. I’m constantly employing that mentality in my daily life and my work whether it is physical tools, software, mental tools etc.

“Figure out the least expensive way to try out your idea before fully committing.” Several companies ago I had come up with an idea (some might say it would have been disruptive) to start a company called U-Build PC. Think of it as Color Me Mine (the do-it-yourself pottery store but for computers). This was early 2000’s before Apple’s renaissance and the biggest personal computer maker in the world was Dell. I loved technology. Computers were magical and another tool for creativity, and I always built my own. I was starting to notice that technology was becoming entrenched in kid’s lives (even 10 years before the iPad) but most didn’t have the same passion for it that I did. I thought that if kids could build their own computer, they would appreciate it more than if it just showed up in a box. I was ready to rent a storefront and create the business and pour about 100k into it when my friend Bruce (who was a partner of mine in another disruptive venture a couple of years before this) suggested to me that before I commit, I should find a way to prove out the idea without the expense. That inspired me to come up with the idea that instead of creating a storefront, I would start by teaching kids to build their own computer in their homes. I mentioned it to a few people and quickly got some customers. I did about 10 different sessions with kids and learned a couple of important lessons. First, was that while I loved building computers, I was bored by teaching other people how to do it and, even when the kid built their own computer it didn’t inspire the passion, I thought it would. At the same time some of the parents were fascinated by the process and when I offered to teach them, they said they just wanted me to build a computer for them and support it so they didn’t have to talk to tech support somewhere on the other side of the globe. Three months later, I was building 10 computers a day for families, doctor’s offices, etc. That eventually lead into my next business which I ran for 17 years and merged and sold several times along the way.

“Write what you know” — just about every creative writing teacher I’ve ever had. This one is straight forward. When I was first becoming a student of writing, I spent too much energy ‘trying to be a writer’ instead of just being a writer. I would write what I thought would entertain people even if I had no background, history or experience with the subject matter. When I focused on writing what I knew, it led to me creating what I feel is some of my best work. It doesn’t mean all writing has to be autobiographical. It doesn’t mean I have to have been an outer space pilot to write a story about outer space pilots. It is about the character and the emotion of situations and being true to those by pulling from personal experience.

“There is no such thing as perfection” — just about everyone I’ve ever worked with, had a relationship with, been friends with, ordered from at a restaurant ☺, etc. I’m a perfectionist. I consider it to be both my greatest strength and my greatest weakness. It has taken me many years, but I have finally accepted there is no such thing as perfection. But I still constantly strive for it. Remembering those words helps me stay in balance and avoid some rabbit holes I used to get stuck in.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

Well, I like to say that Filmland Spirits is going to be my last career. Not that I plan on going anywhere anytime soon. I really want to make this a long-term company and find myself sitting out on a bench at my distillery as an old man telling the young people who work for me that the morning is smarter than the night and the person with the right tools gets the job done. One day, we would like to build our own distillery either here in Hollywood or in Kentucky or maybe both. We have a lot of ideas about what that would look like, and it is very different than what distilleries look like today.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

The first movie I remember having seen in the theater was Logan’s Run when I was 6 years old. I’m sure I had seen others, but this is the one I remember. First off, I had no business seeing that movie at 6 years old. That aside… the movie terrified and delighted me all at the same time. The notion that you had to die at 30 even if you didn’t want to made my little brain spin and my heart thump. I remember after seeing that movie my imagination went wild. I started making up stories in my head and while I couldn’t articulate it then, that was what set me out on my journey to be a writer.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens was also impactful. I finished college at 22, moved to CA literally 2 days later and started working 7 days a week for the next 6 years. In 1998 I was still working with my friend Scott on our 4th venture together along with a couple of other friends/co-workers. It was a creative media company designed to shake up the way things were done (sensing a pattern yet?). But, after a while I realized it was time for me to step out of Scott’s shadow. It was an extremely difficult move to make given that Scott was like my brother, and we had been friends and partners for so long. It was emotionally charged, but the relationship had started to feel oppressive. Scott was hurt by my desire to break free, and I was afraid of losing his friendship. I decided to take a break for a month. I packed a few clothes in a backpack and went to Europe with a Lonely Planet guide (no cell phones, no tablets). I grabbed a copy of David Copperfield to have something to read. I procrastinated starting it because my mind was so full of the choices and consequences ahead of me. One day sitting on the steps of a museum in Vienna, I finally opened the book and read the very first (and quite famous) line which I had never heard before: “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” That’s all it took. At that moment I instantly felt heard. I knew that what I was experiencing was not a mistake and not something I would regret but it was the natural progression of becoming a true independent adult, finding my own creative voice and vision. I still think about that sentence in my head at least once very few weeks as I consider the risks I take and why I take them.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Being wrong about important things is exhausting” — from The Cider House Rules by John Irving. Ironically for many years after I first read this quote, it made making mistakes harder and bouncing back from those mistakes more difficult than it should have been. I had interpreted it the wrong way. I had taken it to mean, be more cautious with important things because when you mess up it is going to really hurt. It was only as I got older that I realized the lesson was not to worry about making mistakes, but to deemphasize the importance of the mistake so that it would not exhaust me and would be much easier to bounce back. Basically, to embrace my mistakes and use them to go on and make some more!

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I think the focus on grades as a measure of learning in school is wrong. I was always an excellent student because I was afraid to get bad grades as a kid. But that taught me to focus on the grade rather than the learning. Now that I have been a dad for many years, and my kids are either in college or finishing high school, I feel like nothing has changed. I love to learn but I didn’t learn that until about midway through college when I stopped caring about my grades and started caring about what I was learning (not so ironically my grades then improved). That turned me into a lifelong learner, not my SAT score. I don’t have the answer, although I’ve toyed with different ideas for many years, but there needs to be a better way to motivate kids to learn and to judge performance than a focus on grades. Grades motivate cramming, memorizing, and forgetting a few days or weeks later. Learning needs to be experiential and more catered toward personality and interest. While the pandemic was a tragedy and of course we all wish it didn’t happen, one benefit is that it finally caused many universities to remove standardized testing (ACT, SAT) from their admission requirements. While it does emphasize grades which is not ideal, it has put a greater emphasis on the individual student, their accomplishments, and interests outside of grades and opened up the idea that maybe grades are not the best way to evaluate learning.

How can our readers follow you online?

FilmandSpirits.com

@Filmandspirits on Instagram

Facebook.com/FilmlandSpirits

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!