Steve Yeng, co-founder with his wife, Brittany, of Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey, was born in Cambodia in the wake of the Cambodian genocide, which left more than 1.7 million people dead at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. When Steve was one year old, he was diagnosed with polio. His right leg became permanently paralyzed, and his parents sought medical help across the border in Thailand.
“We entered into a refugee camp, essentially a prison where we couldn’t get out,” Steve tells Entrepreneur. “We stood in line for food and water. After six years, which is quite a long time for those types of camps, we got sponsored to [move to] California by a couple who wanted to do a random act of kindness.”
The family settled in San Diego. Steve’s parents got jobs at a local donut shop a block away from his elementary school, where he first met Brittany. The pair started dating in high school and stayed together even as they pursued different paths post-graduation. She received her master’s in chemistry and attended law school. He jumped into the restaurant business.
Image Credit: Walking Eagle Photography. Steve and Brittany Yeng.
Steve’s parents had gone on to buy the donut shop they’d worked at, and he followed in their entrepreneurial footsteps. He and his brother Scott opened OB Noodle House in 2008 and The Holding Company in 2016.
“We realized we had really built two separate worlds,” Brittany says, “where [Steve] was getting home at 4:30 in the morning, and I was leaving for work at 4:30 in the morning. And we were expecting our first daughter.”
“We used that underdog mentality [and said], ‘Let’s do it.'”
The couple had been toying with the idea of a new project that would allow for more time together: starting a peanut butter whiskey brand. Peanut butter, which Steve and his family often received in baskets of food during their early days in the U.S., was a favorite flavor. He’d been experimenting with adding it to all sorts of things: wings, noodles, fried rice — then Jameson.
The Yengs tinkered with the peanut butter whiskey recipe to make it shelf stable, which ultimately meant landing on one that wasn’t creamy, but mixable and good for cocktails. Despite the different lives they led at the time, “Peanut butter is the glue that really brought us together,” Steve says. The duo seized their “now or never moment” and started a business.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey
The Yengs’ peanut butter whiskey had a solid fan base in their small community of Ocean Beach, San Diego, but they faced more skepticism from investors and research and development companies. At one point, an industry consultant discouraged the venture altogether, saying they seemed like a nice family who shouldn’t spend all of their life savings on a non-viable business idea.
“They all laughed,” Steve recalls. “Everybody was a doubter. No one believed in us. They saw us as a novelty, not a phenomenon. [But the] skepticism fueled our drive. We’d been successful before; we used that underdog mentality [and said], ‘Let’s do it.'”
”It finally clicked with us that the product itself was an outsider,” Brittany adds. “It wasn’t just us who were outsiders. It’s this peanut butter whiskey. The first time people hear it, they’re like, ‘I don’t know.’ So that product and origin story combined to [perfectly] encapsulate the brand.”
“We wanted to own it and put the black sheep leading the group.”
Having already honed the brand’s recipe through trial and error, the Yengs leaned into their “underdog” status when it came to their branding, too. Skrewball’s label features a large black sheep surrounded by smaller white sheep. “We look at [being a black sheep] as our superpower,” Brittany explains. “We wanted to own it and put the black sheep leading the group.” The founders also note a double meaning in the “Skrewball” name: evoking the odd one out but also the hope of finding your “krew.”
Skrewball officially launched in San Diego in 2018 — and the bootstrapped business was a massive hit. The brand remained only in San Diego that year because it couldn’t yet keep pace with the production required to expand. Independent liquor stores like Keg N Bottle, Newport Farms and Crest Liquor were crucial to Skrewball’s early success, the founders say. So was the San Diego bar and restaurant community, which “immediately brought Skrewball in and treated it like their own brand.”
Image Credit: Courtesy of Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey
Still, some naysayers considered the significant victory a flash in the pan, the founders recall. But when the brand went on to launch in California at large, it replicated its sold-out success. Ultimately, Skrewball achieved national distribution across all 50 states in January 2020. “We were the fastest to a million cases for any brand over $20 in history,” Steve says. “Nobody expected it.”
“In 2020, the only brands that grew faster than us in dollar sales were Tito’s and Hennessy.”
Of course, like most growing businesses, Skrewball had to contend with some serious challenges along the way. In the midst of the brand’s expansion, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history ground the process of acquiring proper labels to a halt. Heading into 2020, the business faced major production and bottle shortages that almost bankrupted it. There were times the founders “came home to no electricity because we couldn’t pay the bill.”
However, the Yengs consider those very obstacles the catalyst for Skrewball’s eventual lasting success, explaining that they helped them prepare for the pandemic years. Skrewball built up a surplus of bottles and dry goods late in 2019, and that allowed the company to expand and keep up with demand when global shortages hit.
Hitting the road when many major suppliers stayed home was another key move that boosted the business. “I lived on the road — safely — and personally promoted Skrewball, supporting the bars and restaurants that were open,” Steve says. “It brought a lot of awareness to Skrewball at a time when few other brands were present. In 2020, the only brands that grew faster than us in dollar sales were Tito’s and Hennessy.”
The couple stresses it’s not luck that’s brought Skrewball this far, but their refusal to give up and commitment to listening to the brand’s customers.
“We still do tastings,” Brittany says. “We were just at a market. Keeping that feedback loop to make sure you’re still relevant to your customer, providing them value and responding to their needs [is important]. It’s easy to get behind a desk and forget about why you’re actually doing what you’re doing.”
Image Credit: Courtesy of Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey
“You have to be able to adapt. Adapt to changes and overcome those obstacles.”
Now, Skrewball is a multimillion-dollar, globally recognized spirits brand. By March 2023, it felt like the right time to find a strategic partner for the business. “My daughters were growing up, and I didn’t want to miss it,” Steve says. The founders decided to partner with Pernod Ricard, confident in values that mirrored their own. The wine and spirits company acquired a majority stake in Skrewball. The Yengs also enjoyed a bit of a full-circle moment: Their brand had started with peanut butter in shots of Jameson, one of Pernod Ricard’s spirits.
The Yengs look forward to the brand’s continued growth — and continuing to win over any doubters.
”[We’re still] proving those skeptics wrong,” Steve says. “[When people first hear about it, they’re like], ‘I don’t know.'” But then they try it, their face lights up, and they introduce it to another friend or family member, who typically has the same reaction — and it’s one that “never gets old.”
Both Steve and Skrewball beat the odds they’d ever arrive at this point. ”When I caught polio, there’s not much that’s expected of you, especially in Cambodia,” Steve says. “When I was in that refugee camp, I remember [wondering] Why? I was a healthy kid; all I needed was one shot, and none of this would have happened. [But what seems like] an obstacle, looking back, may be a blessing. You have to be able to adapt. Adapt to changes and overcome those obstacles.”
