About Brian, American entrepreneur in Barcelona
Brian, American entrepreneur in Barcelona, co-owns and operates Corpen Barcelona Destilería y Bebidas, a craft gin distillery located in the Poblenou neighborhood. He and his wife lived in New Orleans, California, Hawaii and Italy before moving to Barcelona. When he’s not making gin, he can be found in front of a barbecue, making gumbo or hiking in the mountains of Catalunya.
American expat moving to Barcelona
Before moving to Barcelona, what is your personal story that finally brought you here?
I’m from Virginia originally and grew up just outside of Washington D.C. I went to University in New Orleans where I double-majored in graphic design and Spanish. Because of my Spanish major, I did a year abroad, and studied in Mexico City for a semester and Valencia for a semester when I was 20-21. After having lived in Valencia I knew I wanted to live in Spain again at some point. When I graduated I went into the Navy, actually, I had a Navy scholarship that paid for my University and I had a four-year commitment. I ended up staying in the Navy for eight years.
So I lived all over the place. While I was in the Navy they moved me to San Diego, I was on a ship there, and then I was on another ship in Hawaii and spent a lot of time at sea. After my assignment in Hawaii I could have gotten out, but then they offered me a desk-job (meaning not going to sea), working in Naples, Italy. My wife had also studied and worked abroad so when I said “hey, do you want live in Italy for 3 years?” and she was like “yes, of course”.
So you moved together to Europe, a continent that you already knew.
Yea, we moved to Italy for three years. My wife is a writer but she had studied French and lived and worked in France. Coming back to Europe was both familiar and new for us, we both had been here separately, so experiencing Italy together was amazing and we absolutely loved it. Naples is a little rough, it kind of has a little bad reputation. There is no in between, you either love it or you hate it, there is no one in the middle. Fortunately, we loved it, we really enjoyed our time there.
And why did you decide to move from Naples to Barcelona?
When I was finishing my time in Naples, I was getting out of the Navy. I had studied graphic design but I hadn’t done much designing during my 8 years in the Navy, and I wanted to go to grad school to get back into the design world. We thought that it was the perfect reason to prolong our stay in Europe and we both wanted to live somewhere else. I looked at some schools here in Barcelona, Madrid, the UK, and the Netherlands. But we both love Spain, we both had been to Barcelona many times when we were students, a couple of times when we were living in Italy, so we came and visited the school in Barcelona and it was the right fit for what I wanted to study and where we wanted to be.
How was the transition from Naples to Barcelona, coming from the United States?
I think our situation is an interesting one. Because I know a lot of Americans who moved from the States to Barcelona and something that annoys them is: “why does it take so long to get this thing done?”. My perspective coming from Naples was quite the opposite, since we arrived here and the transition was easy compared to Southern Italy. And probably one of the reasons why we have stayed is because you can actually get stuff done.
So your initial plan was staying in Barcelona for one or two years?
The plan was to do my masters program and then move back to the United States. We only planned to be here for a year and a half, and then we were going to move back to New Orleans. But we arrived in Barcelona, and after being here for about a week, we both thought: “A year and a half it’s not going to be enough time…”. If we did want to stay in Barcelona, how should we do that? What was the right way to do it? When I finished my master’s program, I did an internship and during that period I really started to think hard about : “Do I find a job here?”, “How do we stay here legally?”
You thought about finding a job at some point to be able to stay in Barcelona?
Well it’s not easy to find a job as an American expat in Barcelona, the work visa implications are a little tricky. There is a certain level of business where they are willing to do that work and put in that money, that investment, but maybe they are not. I didn’t want my ability to stay here to be reliant on someone else. So I started investigating about starting my own business and what business would that be. And the business that I ended up building is a gin distillery.
From your experience, is it difficult to find a job as an American expat in Spain?
I am not sure, honestly, I didn’t try that hard, I think I had already decided that I wanted to do my own project. I had just spent 8 years working for the Navy, and then a year working for one of my professors where I did my internship. It was interesting work, but felt like I was building someone else’s dream and my heart wasn’t really in it. There are certainly jobs that I could have found, but there’s always the question “is this the job that I really want?”.
American starting his own business in Barcelona: Corpen Barcelona
This is why you decided to start your own business as an American entrepreneur in Barcelona: Corpen Barcelona gin distillery.
Yes, we just opened in January after years of hard work. I started this project with my business partner, who is a friend of mine, we were both in the same master’s program here in Barcelona. We have been working on this project for four years and we are literally just selling our first bottles of gin in January this year.
And how did Corpen Barcelona start?
The name Corpen comes from a signal flag that navies use, and it means “a change in direction”. We came up with the idea years ago because Pablo, my business partner, is from Colombia and I am from the States, we both moved here and met in our master’s program. For us this “changing direction” was personally relevant but also we wanted to do something different for gin as well. Barcelona is a city that loves gin and tonic, but no one was making a craft gin here, which we thought was surprising. We wanted to change the direction of gin for the city in that sense too.
How has the process been from that idea to finally set up the business?
It has been a long process. There were a lot of pieces to figure out and since there are no gin distilleries here in Barcelona, there wasn’t anyone who could kind of tell us how it should go. We signed the lease on our location two years ago. We moved into a place that we had to completely renovate, to build what we needed, to get the equipment, to install the electrical system that we needed, get the required licenses and permissions… it took some time…and then COVID slowed things down even more. Thankfully, we made it through, and are finally starting to make and sell gin like we planned, which is very exciting. We recently added tours and tasting at our distillery, and since we’re located right in front of the Bogatell metro stop, it’s easy for people to come visit.
Why did you choose Poblenou to set up Corpen Barcelona?
From a more practical level, distilleries are classified as an industrial activity so we needed to be in a location zoned for industrial use. If you still want to be in the city, Poblenou was one of the best options. We wanted to be in a place where people could come and visit, and do a tour and do a tasting. And to be able to do that you need to be close to where the people are.
So the fact that we found this place in Poblenou which met all the requirements, was amazing. I could not be more pleased with where we are located. There is cool stuff nearby: we have a coffee roaster literally next door, food trucks, we have a couple of really cool cafes nearby, there is a brewery right behind us we are friends with… It’s becoming the little ecosystem that we wanted for this project.
And the final product also reflects the philosophy of Corpen Barcelona.
It does. Our bottles are sustainably designed. The glass is recycled and bottles get their color from the mix of green glass and clear glass, and the cap is all made from natural stuff, there is no plastic. That’s what we are trying to do with the brand, I spent years of my life driving a warship around the ocean, and the amount of garbage that you see floating around is shocking. I didn’t want to be a part of that when starting a business. I wanted to be someone contributing to fix that.
After being in Barcelona for seven years now (business creation included), what do you like the most about the city?
I think it is not just one thing but a combination of things: the climate, the culture, the food. I love the ocean, being on or near the water is something I didn’t really know was so important to me until I look back to all the places that I have lived. Barcelona is a city that’s big enough that there’s always something to do, but not so huge you get lost or overwhelmed by it. Nothing is that far away, it’s a really walkable city and it’s easy to get around.
How has been your “food experience” here?
The quality of the food here is unbelievable. The tomatoes you get in the summertime are amazing. Cherries are only available a month and a half, but during that month and a half those cherries are out-of-this-world good. I don’t think we do food very well in the United States, we don’t have a traditional food culture, it is kind of industrial. If I had to choose only one thing, food culture here is what I love the most.
And what about the cultural and social scene around food here?
I love the quality of the food and the culture around the food, for example calçotades. I love those kinds of food gatherings. And how accessible they really are. For example, to explore the wine regions nearby you just take a train and you are in Sant Sadurní or take a bus and you are in Alella. And there is no city in the United States that is like that, where you can go to the beach, eat at an amazing restaurant, take a train and be in a wine region… It is unthinkable. And if it were possible, you would pay an outrageous amount of money for that. The fact that these experiences are not only amazing, but are also reasonable in price, means they can be enjoyed with just about everyone on any budget.
Is there something that you don’t like about living here?
I think the bureaucracy is a challenge. You have to accept that it will be difficult. I believe some of the systems are just set up to test if you really want it. I mean, no one designs that intentionally, but it is kind of a challenge: “You can do it if you agree to do these 15 things, and these 15 things are going to be annoying, they are going to take some time, and they are not going to go the way you planned them, you are going to show up to your appointment and they are going to ask you for the one paper that you don’t have, or two copies of that document instead of one…”.
That kind of stuff. So again, I don’t think anyone is sitting in a chair like in a James Bond villain coming up with complex ways to keep foreigners from staying, but the end result is the same.
So what advice would you give to an American moving to Barcelona?
The best advice I give to people is to consider that framework: this system is set up to test if you want to be here. If you really want to be here, then you can make it through the process. But if somewhere along the line you say “ok, this isn’t worth it, this is just too annoying”, then that is the whole point of this process.