Golden State Warriors Senior Vice President for Corporate Partnerships Mike Kitts and Senior Manager for Partnership Development Todd Bynum recently visited the Cabuyao plant of Tanduay Distillers, Inc., one of their brand partners in the NBA.
The visit was part of GSW’s goal of “making greater connection with all their brand partners and their vision of creating a great basketball culture through diversity.”
Tanduay and GSW forged a partnership in 2017, which made the 165-year-old rum maker the first Filipino brand to sponsor an NBA team.
“It was an honor to have them fly all the way from San Francisco to get to know more about our history and operations, and meet the hardworking people behind Tanduay’s success,” said Tanduay Chief Marketing Officer Paul Lim.
The GSW officials first visited Tanduay’s bottling line where they saw how the company’s local products are bottled and packed into cartons. They were then given an introduction to handcrafting techniques involved in Tanduay’s premium rum products.
Tanduay Plant Manager Richard Teng then gave the GSW officials a tour of Tanduay’s Barrel Aging facility, which houses 50,000 9L Bourbon barrels of fine rums being aged to perfection until they are good to harvest. This was followed by a visit to Tanduay’s Research and Development department, where they tasted Tanduay’s local varieties such as the Tanduay 5 years, Tanduay Superior, and Tanduay 1854 as well as Tanduay’s premium brands such as the Tanduay Asian Rum and Tanduay Double Rum.
The tour ended with a visit to the plant’s view deck, where they learned more about Tanduay’s history, achievements, accolades, and entire product range.
“Truly, it was a nice experience going here in the Philippines to get to know more about Tanduay and the whole Philippine culture, because back in the Chase Center arena in San Francisco, we really see a lot of Filipino communities watching our game and how they take pride in their roots and heritage. And it is amazing experiencing it first hand in this country. The hospitality, the people, the culture. We’ll sure to be back and have a longer stay here,” Kitts said.
After their Cabuyao visit, Kitts and Bynum had dinner at TKB (The Kushi Bar) by Tanduay in Makati and saw how Tanduay can be infused with Japanese food as well as paired with Japanese dishes.