{"id":53107,"date":"2020-06-25T14:11:07","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T20:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/forbes-magazine-spotlights-billy-goat-saloon-for-bloody-mary-mix\/"},"modified":"2020-06-25T20:11:07","modified_gmt":"2020-06-25T20:11:07","slug":"forbes-magazine-spotlights-billy-goat-saloon-for-bloody-mary-mix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/forbes-magazine-spotlights-billy-goat-saloon-for-bloody-mary-mix\/","title":{"rendered":"Forbes Magazine spotlights Billy Goat Saloon for bloody mary mix"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Ashleigh
Ashleigh Tarkington, owner of the Billy Goat Saloon in Gem Village, holds a \u201cHair of the Goat\u201d bloody mary on Wednesday at the saloon. Her bloody mary mix was recently featured in Forbes Magazine.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Billy Goat Saloon in Gem Village near Bayfield has long been known for its live music, groups of touring motorcyclists and horned-goat logo.<\/p>\n

Owner Ashleigh Tarkington can now add her \u201cHair of the Goat\u201d bloody mary mix \u2013 recently featured in Forbes Magazine<\/em> \u2013 to the list.<\/p>\n

Forbes<\/em> contributor Rachel Klein contacted Tarkington for a piece<\/a> she was working on about the best bloody mary mixes to buy online. Tarkington\u2019s concoction joined 11 other mixes from Austin, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; New York City and more. Tarkington, also mayor of Bayfield, attributed the national attention to a mixture of luck and regional support.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was a joke. I was like, \u2018I\u2019m sorry, who are you and what\u2019s your name?\u2019\u201d Tarkington said of her initial reaction to the call from Forbes<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Ashleigh
Ashleigh Tarkington began distributing her &#x201c;Hair of the Goat&#x201d; bloody mary mix in October. It was gaining popularity before the coronavirus hit Colorado, but the pandemic brought new challenges for the fledgling product.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The &#x201c;Hair of the Goat&#x201d; bloody mary mix, recently featured in Forbes Magazine, has strong horseradish, Tabasco and pepperoncini flavors.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Tarkington perfected her bloody mary concoction \u2013 heavy on the horseradish and spiced with Tabasco and peperoncini peppers \u2013 over almost 20 years working at or owning the Billy Goat. How the New York crowd discovered her mix is still a mystery, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI honestly think it was really dumb luck,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of (online) traffic lately, and I think it was just high on the search.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mix was selling like \u201cgangbusters\u201d on Amazon in part because it already had a regional following, Tarkington said. People love the goat\u2019s head logo (which has made the big screen<\/a>). Regional liquor stores were also posting about the mix on social media, multiplying Tarkington\u2019s social media marketing efforts, she said.<\/p>\n

In October 2019, she began self-distributing the mix through a partnership with Durango Artisan Foods. That partnership helped Tarkington successfully bring the original mix to market, and her existing relationships with local liquor stores helped the product gain momentum.<\/p>\n

Within months, \u201cHair of the Goat\u201d was in 28 stores in three states.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exciting to get the recognition for the product and the recipe,\u201d said Mark Grubis, Durango Artisan Foods owner. \u201cIt\u2019s been a pretty big hit locally and regionally, and now it has some national exposure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ashleigh
Ashleigh Tarkington&#x2019;s bloody mary mix has brought in some revenue while the Billy Goat Saloon in Gem Village has been closed because of the coronavirus.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In February, the \u201cHair of the Goat\u201d team also had a successful marketing push during the National Fiery Foods & BBQ Show in February in Albuquerque. Then the coronavirus hit the Four Corners.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll that momentum going into it came to a screeching halt,\u201d Tarkington said.<\/p>\n

The Billy Goat Saloon closed temporarily because of the virus. The jar manufacturer closed its factory because of the virus. Tarkington is already racing to fill a spike in Amazon orders since the Forbes<\/em> article published and hoping that she will get a new shipment of jars before her current stock runs out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI needed something to be excited about. We\u2019ve been struggling as a bar. We haven\u2019t been able to open,\u201d Tarkington said. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to get some good news.\u201d<\/p>\n

smullane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Hair of the Goat\u2019 selling like \u2018gangbusters,\u2019 saloon owner says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-53107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53107"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=53107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}