Ingrid Woolfolk has transformed a personal health journey into a mission-driven tequila brand that honors her mother while creating spaces for women in an industry traditionally dominated by men. As founder of Geneba Tequila, Woolfolk has crafted a premium, additive-free spirit that not only tastes exceptional but serves as a platform for women’s empowerment and community building.
Can you tell the viewers a little bit more how your mother’s legacy has influenced the brand’s identity and mission?
My mom was – if you were to ask 7 of my girlfriends what was my mom’s favorite saying, they would tell you it’s “cocktail time.” My mother was the mother that all my friends loved, extremely graceful, very classy, very classic, very Diane Carroll-ish, and everybody loved her. We didn’t have a friendship, it was still a true mother-daughter relationship. But I just admired her strength so much, because she had me at a young age, and she raised me. It was just her and I for my entire life, and it was just a beautiful relationship.
All my friends loved her. They all called her Mama Geneva, or Miss Geneva, and she was just known for her style. And so the brand, everything from the packaging to the colors to the glamorous bottle with the beautiful glass top. It is a resemblance of who she stood for. It’s bold, it’s powerful, it’s strong, but it’s also delicate, and it has intricate details.
Her legacy is truly in the bottle and in the logo. If you play close enough attention to it, you see an agave plant, but inside of that agave plant is a picture that I took of her at a church picnic, and we embedded that picture inside of the agave. So I like to tell people that she’s the first black woman on a bottle of tequila out of Jalisco, Mexico.
The tequila industry is predominantly male. What challenges have you faced as a black woman entering this space and how have you navigated them?
Well, the first challenge is, men often say, “You know the population, the world population is 50% male. So how are you leaving us out of the conversation?” And my answer is, you already left us out. We are now entering into a discussion, and I’m creating that space for women to be comfortable with talking about their experience in the tequila industry. That’s first and foremost, so I don’t feel like I’m leaving a population out. I feel like I’m inviting a population in that was never a part of the discussion.
From a black woman perspective, there are a handful of black owned tequila spirits out there that are beautiful. A couple of them, I think one is 100% female black owned. But when you think about just 2,000 plus tequilas on the market, and I can probably name the minority owned tequilas, I see that as an opportunity.
Even as a part of our brand, as recent as a couple weeks ago I had someone reach out to me in my DMs and said, “I’ve always wanted to start my own tequila brand, and you’ve given me the courage to do that.” And my response was one, “welcome” and two, “How can I help you?” Because it’s not about me having a tequila and nobody else. It’s about me having the roadmap and the resources to keep the door open and invite others in, because I have my dream and my passion, and my tequila and my brand. But someone else could be very different.
What we have to realize is everybody’s unique, and even though it could be another tequila for women, it can be the tequila for women, because I do own that – I trademark that.
But I’m happy to share my journey, and I’m happy to share my resources and the tactical things that it took. And when you talk about challenges, the biggest challenge is going to Mexico – my husband and I going where we didn’t speak the language. We had to trust people that we didn’t know. We had to follow our faith and trust God and trust the people that were kind of driving things within the U.S. When we landed in Guadalajara, and had to take a 3-hour bus trip to a place where we were like, “Oh, my goodness! We don’t know where they’re taking us!” It was all about faith and courage and trust.
I’m blessed to have an amazing husband that got me, and I got him. And he said, “Babe, if this is something you want to do, let’s figure out how to do this.” I feel like we’ve also strengthened our marriage because it’s only us in this thing.
Of course, there are the financial challenges. We’re 100% owners. We don’t have any investors, but that also comes with discipline and diligence and other avenues that we’ve built. That’s a whole other class – how do you use your day job to start something else?
There are a number of minor challenges, and I call them minor, because none of those things should ever stop any of us from pursuing a dream that we have that can help other people.
Can you tell everybody where they can get your product and hashtags, and where they can find you?
Oh, my God! Everything! Geneba Tequila! So it’s genebatequila.com. It’s Geneba Tequila on Instagram, Facebook, or Tiktok. If you want products, we have it. And, by the way, please please sign up for our masterclass. I’m so excited to bring something passionate to the world of spirits. We are one of the 1st to to incorporate spirits and classes, and so our 1st class again, is in April. It’s called from “Dreams to Dollars.” And you can sign up right on our website genebatequila.com.
Geneba Tequila Team
