When journalist Bianca O’Neill tells you what’s worth paying attention to – whether that’s a band, a fashion trend, or a drink – you listen. So when she launched a tequila business, we paid attention. Miro isn’t a brand built on trend. It’s built on taste, trust, and years of hard work. A fashion and music journalist turned agave importer who spent her twenties behind some of London’s most storied cocktail bars, Bianca has done the painstaking, unglamorous work of bringing the good stuff home – and she’s only just getting started.
A career in journalism trains you to find what’s worth paying attention to – to source the story, the person, the place before the rest of the world catches up. Miro feels like that same instinct applied to a business venture. What drew you to tequila as the story worth sharing?
I think one of the key skills journalism trains you in is deep research – so, when you have an interest, it can very easily transition into a borderline-obsession! I spent so much of my 20s working in bars, including the iconic cocktail bar, Bungalow 8 in Chelsea, London. It was THE hotspot in the 2000s, and I was – at the time – the only girl on the cocktail bar. I used to get tips of entire leftover bottles of Moet or spirits leftover from tables, so an appreciation of fine spirits imbued itself in my broke-girl-in-London consciousness. Throughout my 30s working in music journalism, I started attending SXSW in Austin, and taking quick side trips to Mexico – where I discovered what tequila was *actually* meant to taste like. It was a revelation! We just didn’t have anything like this at home. For years I considered a tequila bar, but with two young kids post-Covid, I decided to pivot to importing some of my absolute favourite agave spirits – local favourites that you just would never get here. One of the distilleries I now import from was my Mexican driver’s favourite – and off the beaten track, so it absolutely pays to be a business owner who is willing to do the hard yards in discovery.
How are you navigating establishing credibility in an industry with very established gatekeepers – and what did the hard stretches actually look like when things weren’t moving the way you’d hoped? Do you feel like those challenges have shaped Miro in any unexpected ways?
As a journalist of 20 years, I’m used to being in rooms where I’m not taken seriously as a young woman – and in the hospitality industry, during the 2000s, it was definitely hostile to young women, for sure. Credibility isn’t something I’m interested in – I know that I know my product, and I don’t need someone else to ‘approve’ my entry into the industry. From all the dubious gatekeepers I’ve met so far, it’s clear from their reactions that the product really does speak for itself – and I know my taste for good spirits is spot on, having worked as a cocktail bartender for so many years.
The distilleries are another barrier to entry; many aren’t interested in working with new importers, and it can be really quite difficult to navigate that. You’re like, I’m trying to give you money! And they’re like, nah… But I think being from an Italian family, there’s a really similar cultural language in terms of how you do business, and how you respect the family dynamic of those heritage distilleries; I think that’s why I have really connected with the people I have back in Mexico. We have the same values in the way we do business.
But yeah, I think when it comes to working with people, if they don’t want to work with you that’s fine! Walk away. Everything is easier with people who understand what you’re trying to do.
Insolente Plata Rosa is your second launch for Miro – a beautiful choice, presented in a bottle that demands to be noticed. What drew you to this particular tequila, and what do you hope people understand about it beyond what they’d read on the label?
When I visited the distillery, there was such an energy about the whole place; it was vibrant and the tequilas were innovative. Plata Rosa is a pink tequila aged in red wine barrels, which lends this really vanilla smoothness and blush pink colour – it really is just a beautifully crafted tequila. And the bottles! As someone who loves to curate an aesthetic bar, I love a beautiful bottle – and we have two beautiful bottles on the books now.
When I met Jonathan – the fourth generation distiller heading up Insolente – he said he was so proud we had chosen Plata Rosa as our first tequila from Insolente. This unusual tequila was created and crafted by the grande dame of Insolente, Jonathan’s mother, and I can feel that care and love in the bottle. I call it the ‘converter’ tequila; people who tell me they hate tequila try this and are converted. It is just so smooth and with none of that strong aftertaste most people in Australia associate with tequila.
There’s something really lovely about the way you talk about Miro – less like a retail destination and more like a trusted friend who travels well and brings the good stuff home. How are you building that sense of trust with an audience you’re essentially asking to start from scratch with a category they may have already written off?
I talk about it like that because that’s essentially what it is! Haha. These discoveries have all been from my travels, and I want to share them – I’m really passionate about changing the perception of tequila in Australia. It’s such a great spirit that has a long history of craftsmanship – but there are some really cool experimental and innovative products emerging now too. Because of the hefty import taxes on spirits, the huge minimum order quantities, and the extensive difficulty in navigating the strict regulations and setting up a business in alcohol (it was 2 years before I even launched a single product!), tequila is expensive to sell in Australia. So, unfortunately, we get a lot of the lower end of the market here – I want people to understand that a $60 bottle of vodka made here is not the same as a $60 bottle of tequila made in Mexico, shipped thousands of kilometres to Australia, and subject to huge import taxes. You have to pay more – and it’s worth it, when you discover the best stuff out there.
I am confident that with time, myself and all the other passionate people in the tequila business here at home can position great tequila as a product worth savouring, worth collecting, worth spending real money on. I dream of seeing a tequila renaissance in Australia, in the same vein as whiskey connoisseurs.
I’ll be honest – I’ve always considered myself a tequila lover, but reading about Insolente has made me realise I’ve probably been doing it wrong. Scrap the shot glass, the lemon and the salt. How should we actually be drinking tequila?
So, no one in Mexico drinks shots. They don’t drink margaritas. They either sip it slowly, neat, or they drink La Bandera; alternating sips between a trio of limon juice (like a lemon-lime fruit we don’t get here), blanco tequila, and sangrita (a kind of spicy orange/tomato juice mix.)
I drink my tequila neat, or on ice. Sometimes I’ll add soda – and if you have a really lovely, good quality tequila you can do this! Because it tastes delicious! But if you have a cheaper tequila, it’s not going to be the right one for sipping and savouring in this way.
That being said, you do you girl. If you want to take a $150 bottle of tequila and make a spicy marg, it’s going to be the best spicy marg you’ve ever had. I’m not a snob like that. In fact, we just partnered with Bellboy on a spritz I developed for them for their brunch menu: strawberry coulis, Insolente Plata Rosa and soda, with lime. It’s bloody delicious, and if you’re in Melbourne I highly recommend popping in, because it’s genuinely addictive…
Discover your perfect bottle of Agave via Drink Miro. You can also follow Bianca and Miro on Instagram here. Bianca is pictured below with her husband and business partner, Cian.
Please enjoy alcohol responsibly and in moderation. This content is intended for readers of legal drinking age in their country of residence (18+ for Australian readers).
