Tequila’s got a real image problem.

Actually, maybe a few, but we’ll just stick with one today. For a liquor native to Mexico, the industry is awfully white.

“I thought to myself, ‘The liquor industry is filled with celebrity hotshots and you don’t see a lot of women, especially minority women taking on this industry by themselves’.”

So Rikki Kelly took her shot, and with it, the Fort Worth native became the first Black woman in Texas to own her own tequila brand, and only the third in the United States.

“When I created Ego Tequila, my goals were to make sure it was smooth in quality, approachable for newcomers and tequila loyalists, and out of the ordinary. I believe I understood the assignment,” she quips.

But the assignment wasn’t always easy. The liquor industry’s legal barriers alone are formidable, especially when you have NO funding or business experience. “I came into this industry with not a lot of knowledge and no guidance,” Rikki said. “From working with a distillery in Mexico to developing a consistent brand to securing accounts with wholesalers/retailers, everything was a learning process for me.” In fact, Rikki barely even had drinking experience when she launched Ego Tequila three years ago at just 24 years old. But she wouldn’t let any of that get in the way of her dream.

Rikki’s only startup capital was her weekly paychecks, so she stuck with a toxic, dysfunctional day job until she could make her dream come true. It’s a situation she’s not alone in. Even though Black women start more businesses in the United States than white women or white men, Black women are the most underfunded. Even when there’s verifiable data that they may have the cure for cancer, Black women can’t get funded, while others have gotten rich and famous as total frauds. According to an article in Forbes Magazine, “In the last 20 years, while women-owned businesses have increased by 114%, women of Color owned companies increased by 467%. Out of the 1800 Black-owned businesses that are created every day, only 20% make it above the poverty line. Why? Because of lack of equal access to capital.”

But that wasn’t Rikki’s only brush with inequities in business. “Being a Black woman in this industry, I feel sometimes it’s hard to be taken seriously. There are some people that see my brand and see me and they can’t put two and two together,” she says. “They think, ‘there’s no way you can develop a solid brand like this.’ When I’m talking about the brand, people assume I work for a distribution company or I’m just a brand representative. So the struggle has definitely been real, but I take it in stride and I don’t let it affect me because at the end of the day, this is my story and I’ve worked so hard to create this brand.”

Even though she stood out from the competition herself, Rikki’s Ego Tequila needed to do the same on shelves. Where most tequilas come in tall, slender bottles, RIkki chose one with more weight. Where most other tequilas have brightly colored or clear labels, Ego bears a rich blue and Aztec-inspired elements, because representing the culture where her product originated had just as much importance to Rikki as the product itself. “I knew it needed to stand out. And if we get some people hooked because of the beautiful bottle first, then we can retain them as fans of the juice,” she said.

After all, when it comes right down to it, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, whether you’re a human or a tequila. And Ego delivers the best of both worlds.

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