Founded in 1940, Hokus Pokus Liquor in Louisiana counts four generations of family ownership and leadership. The chain’s eye-catching, pun-driven ghost sign — advertising the store as a “Spiritual Advisor” — has become a historical landmark, and was referenced in the film “Devine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood.
With so many years of operation, Hokus Pokus is grandfathered in as both a retailer and a wholesaler, a dual license no longer allowed in Louisiana. Retail locations include Alexandria, Prairieville and Lake Charles. The business is also a founding member of the Wine and Spirits Guild of America, with 75 years in this organization of leading independent retailers.
“We’re one of only three or four businesses in the Guild that’s going into generation four,” says Gus Olah, third-generation President and Owner. His daughters Elizabeth and Isabelle are now involved with the family business.
Like her father, and his stepfather Steve Sherman, Elizabeth Olah remembers, “We all grew up in the business. Some of my earliest memories were in our original locations: Steve working in the store, my father balancing the books.”
“From a young age, I saw the importance of hard work,” she adds. “Now, as I am older, I want to continue that legacy today.”
A History in Spirits
The idea for Hokus Pokus originated in the 1930s. While working for Schenley Co. Distillers, Simon “Si” Sherman had the personal ambitions of becoming a distillery president and owning a fine wine shop. During a company meeting in New Orleans, Si shared his goals with a company executive. The executive replied that he had similar aspirations, and wanted to name this theoretical store Hokus Pokus Liquors.
Si eventually became a partner in a liquor store in Alexandria, LA. But he wanted his own shop. In 1940, he opened Hokus Pokus Liquors, The House of Many Spirits, in the same central Louisianna city.
Years later, Si ran into the Schenley executive who had given him the idea for the name. Asked if he recalled the conversation, the executive replied that he did not.
Si’s son Steve grew up around the business. Foreshadowing Elizabeth’s seafaring travels decades ahead, Steve joined the U.S. Navy, and later graduated from New Orleans’ Tulane University with a bachelor’s degree in business in 1964. He went to work in the shoe business in Arkansas. But the alcohol bug remained firm. Following a winemaking stint at France’s Chateau Lascombes, Steve came home in 1976 and joined the family business. He took over when Si retired in 1982.
Steve’s stepson Gus was next in the family legacy. After a childhood spent around the business, including working at the stores during high school, Gus joined the company full time in 1994. Four years later, he graduated from Louisiana College in Pineville with a bachelor’s degree in accounting.
As his daughter would later do with social media, Gus led improvements and efficiencies through modern technology. Back in the mid-90s, Hokus Pokus still did inventory by hand.
“I worked through one inventory cycle on that old system,” Gus recalls, “and I said, ‘We need to computerize this’.”
Retail Evolution
Like many beverage alcohol retailers in the early 2000s, Gus oversaw significant transformation at Hokus Pokus, from an older setup to a modern design.
“I worked side by side with my stepfather for many years,” Gus recalls. “As I learned more and more, I developed my own vision for how I would change the business. That included a cleaner, brighter store profile, and a more women/consumer-friendly business.”
Hokus Pokus closed all locations for this ground-up remodel.
Gus maintained these modernized looks as Hokus Pokus moved into larger locations and new territories. In 2005, the original site in Alexandria relocated into a new, 4,800-square-foot spot. Three years later, the business closed the old Lake Charles site and launched a new store with 7,500 square feet. In July of 2013, the company expanded into southern Louisiana, opening a store in Prairieville.
Six years after that, Hokus Pokus changed addresses in Prairieville, buying a new space with 9,100 square feet.
The company experienced further change as the fourth generation entered the workforce.
Gus’ daughter Elizabeth graduated from Ball State with a degree in musical theater. With this background and a passion for performance, she worked the cruise ship circuit, traveling the world.
Further echoing Steve Sherman (who had entered the Navy after college), Elizabeth could not quite shake the family profession. “I didn’t feel fulfilled while performing,” she says.
She did feel better, however, when her cruise work brought her to wine country, or around cocktails. “I wanted to come back to the family business,” she says.
Helping with this, she took courses online from LSU, earning an MBA with a focus on family enterprise and entrepreneurship. Today she serves as Regional Manager of Hokus Pokus.
Elizabeth’s sister Isabella Olah is currently finishing her Marketing degree at Loyola University of New Orleans, and will become part of the fourth generation at Hokus Pokus Liquors.
Staff and Education
One aspect that has remained consistent at Hokus Pokus is maintaining and cultivating a knowledgeable staff. Elizabeth is certified through the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) and encourages employees to seek similar training.
“We’ve been doing something new, too, that’s used by a couple of Wine & Spirits Guild members: micro learning,” Elizabeth explains. “Obviously staff turnover is higher in a retail setting. You need to be able to train people as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Think about it: Two weeks in a micro-learning class versus eight weeks in WSET. It’s something we’re still incorporating.”
Elizabeth hosts regular wine tastings and invites staff to taste. She talks through what makes the wines and their regions unique, expanding the expertise of Hokus Pokus employees.
“The more you can taste these products with our people, the more knowledge they will have,” she says. “Knowledge is power. It makes employees feel more comfortable in providing customer service.”
Hokus Pokus also hosts regular tastings for the public. Each store has a dual license, on and off, with a tasting bar set up inside.
“We do wine, tequila, whiskey, all kinds of tastings weekly,” Gus says. “We put out the product and taste it and talk about it. It’s a big advantage for our stores.”
Elizabeth also teaches classes in the stores that customers can attend.
“Whiskey drinkers, tequila drinkers, people are hungry for connection and understanding of what’s going on in the industry,” she says. “It’s important that we share these things with customers, like what’s going on with the whiskey boom or the Napa fires, or why Washington wine has become so big, or why certain products are allocated.”
Handling Allocated Products
Booming consumer interest in American whiskey is great for sales, but does cause some headaches.
“The secondary market remains strong,” Elizabeth observes. “Lots of people overbought whiskey during Covid, and are now selling bottles, even half-filled bottles.”
Flippers remain vigilant, seeking allocated products like Buffalo Trace bottles by traveling across state lines.
“I’ll tell you what we’re not doing with these bottles: We’re not putting them out on the shelves,” Elizabeth says. “We want to make sure that those bottles are bought by people who are regularly supporting the store and are actually drinking the whiskey.”
Accordingly, Hokus Pokus runs a rewards program based on total dollars spent on whiskey. Participants eventually gain access to sought-after products, which remain safely out of site, not on the store floor. At the end of the year, Hokus Pokus places calls.
“The top ten spenders get X bottles from our whiskey cache,” Gus says. “Then eleven through twenty get X. The rest, up to about one hundred, will get access to a randomized bottle.”
“We want to reward our top customers, get these bottles into their hands,” he adds.
Considering options that other stores use for allocated items, Elizabeth dislikes raffles because they invite an influx of out-of-state shoppers, chasing trendy brands. As for the basket or bag — ubiquitous in 2023, pairing a popular bourbon with a slower-moving whiskey — she again sees drawbacks.
“I think they’re unethical,” Elizabeth says. “You’re flooding the market with more alcohol than the market wanted.”
As for the Hokus Pokus rewards system, “It’s something black and white that the staff members can easily understand, and can easily point to when people come in with questions,” she says.
Social Media Marketing
Like her father computerizing the stores, Elizabeth has helped continue technological evolution at Hokus Pokus with a focus on social media.
“Video is king,” she says. “Whether that’s on Instagram, Facebook or Tik Tok.”
Creating posts for a business with three locations spread across the state can be difficult.
“We have to shoot content that works across all three stores,” she says. “We focus on new items that all three stores have, and seasonal items.”
Hokus Pokus incorporates store staff, who introduce new items on camera.
Simple advice that Elizabeth has for other beverage alcohol retailers filming for social media: use subtitles. Not everybody watches with the sound on (in fact, a large percentage do not), and you want to post content that’s accessible for all types of people.
Also: “You want to try to keep a video under 15 seconds, because that’s the length of an Instagram story,” Elizabeth explains. “You want to get to the point.”
Make sure the music is friendly and upbeat, and related to the product. “You don’t want Spanish guitar in a video about Italian wine,” Elizabeth says.
Whenever making content or writing marketing emails, Elizabeth remembers, “You have to think that there’s another person on the other side of this, watching or reading it. It is a conversation between you and the other person, who is the customer. So keep in mind what you want to say in an honest, effective way.”
And remember: Social media for retailers is still meant to sell products.
“We’re pushing content to our websites, where people can click and buy,” says Gus. “We have products on-demand. Multi-channel marketing makes it easy to buy products.”
The Future
What’s next for a company that already boasts so many decades and generations in business? The same strategy that has always worked for Hokus Pokus: continued evolution and adaptation with changing times.
“We’re always looking five years ahead,” Gus says. “We’re seeing consumers shifting. They don’t just want to walk into a store anymore. They want an experience.”
For Hokus Pokus this means attention on what audio the shops play, plus interactions with customers via tastings or flights offered by the glass at the bar.
“What is that next level of experience, what does that look like in the next five years?” Gus wonders. “That’s the biggest challenge for us. Thinking about customers who walk into the store trying to find an experience. Whether that’s carefully curating your inventory, or hosting events and functions, or expanding the off-premise experience by possibly adding a patio for cigar bars.”
To that end, Hokus Pokus has found success in an area of the store that has fallen out of favor elsewhere in the industry.
“All of our locations have a walk-in humidor,” Gus says. “They’ve been some of the most successful parts of our business. Obviously they go hand in hand: whiskey and cigars, cognac or tequila. Some people in the Wine & Spirits Guild have been getting away from them, but we’ve had good luck with cigars.”
Looking ahead herself, Elizabeth sees the long-term impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on consumer behavior.
“Covid taught the consumer how to get creative with their bar at home,” she observes. “So we have to carry everything for them to be able to do that. That’s the future.”
Another permanent development from the age of lockdowns and sheltering in place is greater consumer use of ecommerce and social media.
“The future is also about fine-tuning the technological aspect of our online platform,” Elizabeth says. “For that, I like to look at other retailers in general. Not just in our industry, but what is Target doing with their app? How do they incorporate a digital wallet? Stores like that are successful because of the convenience and ease of their app and website.”
Altogether, this clear vision for the future and multidimensional focus in the present makes Hokus Pokus a formidable beverage alcohol retailer.
“One of our taglines,” Gus says, “is ‘Service, Selection, and Savings: That’s the magic of the ghost’.”
Kyle Swartz is editor of Beverage Dynamics. Reach him at kswartz@epgmediallc.com. Read his recent piece, 5 Key Alcohol Trends in 2023.
