Client Takes Cocktails To Next Level

From Crain’s Chicago Business newly released “40 Under 40″:
Nicole Ertas, senior brand manager, joined Jim Beam Brands Worldwide Inc. in May 2002 and launched tequila into the cocktail age. She renamed little-known El Tesoro Silver tequila as El Tesoro Platinum, marketed it as a mixable liquor and watched proudly as it appeared as a product placement in two episodes of HBO’s series “Sex and the City.” Now, El Tesoro Platinum martinis are on bar menus across the country.
Ms. Ertas “looked at spirits in a whole new way. She said, ‘What are we missing?’ We were missing the whole cocktail trend,” says Kathleen DiBenedetto, director of sales and marketing integration for Jim Beam Brands and Ms. Ertas’ boss during the El Tesoro transformation. “She’s a maverick in her thinking.”