Know Your Neighbor: Phoenix Kelly-Rappa, Pleasantville

Less than a decade ago, Phoenix Kelly-Rappa couldn’t have imagined she would be the co-owner of a spirits company.

But the Pleasantville resident parlayed knowledge gained through her father’s nightclub, her husband’s family’s background in the liquor industry, good business sense and fortuitous timing to help launch Cuca Fresca, which bottles Cachaca, a rum that is Brazil’s most popular distilled alcoholic beverage.

When Kelly-Rappa, 36, who owns half of the company, executed the idea with her two partners in 2006, many Americans had little exposure or knowledge of the 80 proof liquor. But Cuca Fresca was about to help fill a gaping void in the market.

“It just really started taking off in the United States about six years ago, right when we launched,” said Kelly-Rappa. “Now it’s the fastest growing (liquor) category here in the U.S.”

Actually, Cachaca, which is made from sugarcane juice rather than molasses like traditional Caribbean rums, is the third most consumed spirit in the world behind vodka and Soju, a Korean liquor, she said. Unlike the syrupy taste of most rums, Kelly-Rappa described Cachaca–which literally means to have a cool head–as having a cleaner taste where you can detect the sugar.

In the next few years more people will probably be exposed to Cachaca. Brazil hosts the 2014 World Cup and Rio de Janeiro will be the site of the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Co-owning a spirits company may not have been what Kelly-Rappa planned on for a career but her familiarity with Cachaca through her father’s business and having a Brazilian co-worker combined to send her on a different path. After graduating from Horace Greeley High School, Kelly-Rappa was an English literature major at Georgetown, then went on to Columbia to earn her graduate degree in clinical psychology.

She worked as a clinical psychologist for the Mental Health Association of New York City counseling Sept. 11 survivors. It was at that job where she befriended a Brazilian woman, a social worker whose husband had been involved in international business. He urged them that there was a demand for Cachaca in the United States. From there, the blueprint for the business took off.

It was a good thing, too, for Kelly-Rappa. Having gone to work for the Mental Health Association in 2001, most of what she did was working with those impacted by the terrorist attacks and it began to weigh on her.

“I feel like I helped a lot of people but it was a very emotionally taxing place to work,” said Kelly-Rappa, whose husband, David Sederbaum, is a media buyer for Pfizer. The couple has a four-year-old son and a soon-to-be two-year-old daughter.

Her partners, Thomas Slasinksi and Araci Ferriera, live in Brazil for half the year and are able to tend to the business in that country. The Cachaca is shipped in bulk to the United States where it is bottled at a plant in Philadelphia.

Since the company started, Kelly-Rappa has supplied Cachaca at parties for the Emmys and Oscars and may be at next year’s Sundance Film Festival. Ironically, she’s never been to Brazil, mainly because now with young children she doesn’t want to be away from home for long.

“I actually love it. It’s a very, very fun business,” Kelly-Rappa said. “We get to do lot of exciting things, meet all kinds of interesting people because every good party needs liquor.”

Cuca Fresca is now carried in 20 major markets throughout the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. They have sold about 5,000 cases annually for the past few years, very respectable for a relatively new company and a boutique brand, Kelly-Rappa said. The goal is for Cuca Fresca to eventually have sales reach 25,000 cases a year.

Kelly-Rappa said the company now has an agreement with Earls, one of the largest restaurant chains in Canada. They also plan to start distributing in Russia.

Thanks in great part to technology, Kelly-Rappa isn’t surprised by the steadily growing popularity of Cachaca around the globe. As the world shrinks and travel increases, people are exposed to different experiences.

“For us, it’s all about building relationships and building relationships with the mixologists, which is a fancy term for bartenders, around the country and getting them to have our product because they like it, not because they’re getting paid to use it,” she said.

Kelly-Rappa will be holding two tastings locally this week. On Thursday, Dec. 20, she will be at Chappaqua Wine & Spirit, located at 65 King St., from 5 to 8 p.m. and on Friday, Dec. 21 at Art of Wine, located at 1 Cooley St. in Pleasantville, from 4 to 7 p.m.