“I saw a long time ago that there was a huge gap in the market,” says Alexandra Dorda. “There are the pirate rums. The captain rums, the sailor rums. It’s a category that’s very focused on these nautical tropes. None of these brands related to me, and none of them were speaking to me.”
Kasama is produced at her family’s distillery in Poland. Her father, Tad Dorda, cofounded and launched the premium vodka brands Belvedere and Chopin in the U.S. in the ’90s, and her family still owns and makes Chopin. “I really feel like [Kasama] has been in the making my whole life,” says Dorda, who’s 29.She went Stateside to Stanford for college, and after graduation worked at Chobani in New York for several years, which taught her about building a food and beverage business.
View Gallery Related Gallery Prabal Gurung And Other New York Designers Preview Their Fall 2021 CollectionsDorda comes from a long line of entrepreneurs on both sides of her family; her maternal grandmother ran bars and clubs in Manila in the ’40s and ’50s, and her mother was heavily involved in launching Belvedere and Chopin in the U.S.
Kasama is aged for seven years in old bourbon American oak barrels, which lends a mellow vanilla flavor and peppery finish. The bottles are clear glass with brightly colored decals evocative of a vacation postcard — the sort of cheery packaging that begs to be Instagrammed. The retail price is $30, making it a midmarket option.