Gillian Cal­iste

In just four and a half years Aaron Johnathan Ner­a­hoo has grown his cus­tomised co­conut cock­tails busi­ness, John­ny’s Young Co­conuts, to the point where for­eign clients come to T&T to seek him out. It’s be­cause he is a prob­lem solver and a hard work­er, Ner­a­hoo who is fond­ly called “John­ny”, in­sist­ed dur­ing a re­cent in­ter­view. Of course, the key in­gre­di­ents of his spe­cial­ty prod­uct, co­conuts, do play a star­ring role.

In 2017 af­ter he was re­trenched from his job as a ma­chine op­er­a­tor with an au­to­mo­tive bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­er, Ner­a­hoo filled two needs with one plan—he pro­vid­ed a valu­able prod­uct to con­sumers and found a way to earn a liveli­hood.

An ob­ser­va­tion he made while head­ing to Mara­cas beach the same week­end he lost his job set Ner­a­hoo’s life on an up­ward course. He saw a woman pick­ing up a two-litre bot­tle in a gro­cery store and com­plain­ing: “Every week I buy­ing this and it ain’t tast­ing noth­ing like co­conut wa­ter.” He came up with the idea of mak­ing co­conut wa­ter in its nat­ur­al form eas­i­ly avail­able to cus­tomers.

Ner­a­hoo ap­proached sev­er­al su­per­mar­kets with a pitch to sell them young co­conuts with shaved-down sides ex­pos­ing the husk, trimmed at the top and pack­aged in clear plas­tic with his name on the prod­uct. This was sim­i­lar to how they were sold in the Unit­ed States, but Ner­a­hoo left some of the at­trac­tive green or yel­low skin on the nut. His pitch was a hit and his prod­uct was soon in the bev­er­age chillers at large su­per­mar­ket chains, in­clud­ing Massy, Tru-Valu and JTA.

Ini­tial­ly, the young en­tre­pre­neur tried to source the ma­chine to shave down the sides of the co­conuts in Eng­land, but he end­ed up buy­ing a more ac­cu­rate one from Chi­na. By the sec­ond year of his busi­ness, he was mak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions to the Chi­nese man­u­fac­tur­ers about ad­just­ments to make the peel­ing process smoother.

“I used to trav­el a lot and I saw some­thing of its sort in Eng­land. It could peel the sides, but you still had to do plen­ty man­u­al work, so I reached out to peo­ple in Chi­na,” Ner­a­hoo ex­plained.

“They sent me the one they had. I tweaked it be­cause it still had plen­ty to be done. And the one that I’m us­ing now is what I help cre­ate.”

He now has patents to shave the co­conuts in dif­fer­ent ways.

Apart from sell­ing his prod­uct to su­per­mar­kets, Ner­a­hoo did pop-up stands at Mara­cas beach. Peo­ple start­ed con­tact­ing him to sup­ply his shaved-down, ready-to-drink co­conuts com­plete with fan­cy straws at their events.

“So I start­ed do­ing events, home by peo­ple do­ing lit­tle wed­dings and thing and they start­ed ask­ing for al­co­hol to mix in be­cause they want­ed to keep the co­conut longer in their hands,” he said.

In or­der to al­low al­co­hol to be slow­ly mixed in­to his pop­u­lar handy co­conuts, Ner­a­hoo ex­per­i­ment­ed with sy­ringes, then fun­nels. Not sat­is­fied with those time-con­sum­ing and cum­ber­some meth­ods, he de­cid­ed to try over­turn­ing mi­ni bot­tles of al­co­hol di­rect­ly in­to a cut hole at the top of the co­conuts. He al­so cus­tomised an open­er with the help of a lo­cal fab­ri­ca­tor to punch an open­ing off the top of the co­conut to match the size of cer­tain mi­ni al­co­hol bot­tle tops.

At his first ma­jor event at the Bras­so Seco Food Fes­ti­val in 2018, Ner­a­hoo sup­plied 14 dif­fer­ent brands of al­co­hol min­is along with his spe­cial­ly-shaved co­conuts. Fas­ci­nat­ed by the nov­el­ty prod­uct, peo­ple “rushed it”, he said. He sold out even be­fore the event of­fi­cial­ly start­ed.

He re­called: “And that’s when I knew this was go­ing to work.”

On the way back home from Bras­so Seco, Ner­a­hoo de­cid­ed that with Car­ni­val com­ing he could reach out to al­co­hol com­pa­nies know­ing they usu­al­ly spon­sored big fetes and events. He did ex­act­ly that, telling them he would brand the shaved co­conuts with their lo­gos.

Hen­nessy was the first to take up his of­fer. He launched en­graved cock­tail co­conuts at a Beach House En­ter­tain­ment fete.

“I have no words to de­scribe that . . . all kin­da 500-600 peo­ple in a line. I re­mem­ber the sec­ond Beach House I did, we had to stop the lines be­cause we couldn’t cater for every­body. I used to just walk down and tell peo­ple it didn’t have any more be­cause peo­ple didn’t used to want to leave nah boy,” Ner­a­hoo said.

On one such oc­ca­sion he asked a man who was drink­ing one of his cock­tail co­conuts how it tast­ed. The man replied, Great!’ adding that he had at­tend­ed the event just to try it out af­ter hear­ing about the ex­pe­ri­ence his cousins had the pre­vi­ous year and see­ing pic­tures.

“That’s how I knew I had these cock­tails how I want them,” Ner­a­hoo said

His spe­cial­ty co­conuts are en­joyed by peo­ple who like the nov­el­ty of hav­ing the lo­goed co­conut husk with co­conut wa­ter sup­plied in its nat­ur­al form, in­fused with ei­ther al­co­hol or non-al­co­holic drinks.

Ner­a­hoo has cre­at­ed more than 300 al­co­holic cock­tails and over 40 that are non-al­co­holic. His Feel Good cock­tail with cit­rus is a non-al­co­holic best sell­er, while his Tequi­la Rose and Hen­nessy is a num­ber one sell­er for al­co­hol drinkers. The Is­land Feel is avail­able in al­co­holic or non-al­co­holic ver­sions with wa­ter­mel­on, man­go, pomer­ac, pineap­ple or what­ev­er is in sea­son is al­so pop­u­lar. He al­so us­es peach­es and straw­ber­ries, but prefers to work with fresh fruits.

For per­son­alised events, Ner­a­hoo likes to give clients some­thing ex­ot­ic.

If they are lo­cal, he goes for a for­eign fruit com­bo and if they’re for­eign, vice ver­sa. His cock­tail um­brel­la skew­ers em­bell­ished with fruits al­so add an ex­ot­ic flair.

Af­ter work­ing with nu­mer­ous brands for cor­po­rate events, Car­ni­val bands, and events in Grena­da, An­tigua and Bar­ba­dos, Ner­a­hoo de­cid­ed to give his home­town a taste of John­ny’s Young Co­conuts and start­ed do­ing pop-ups on Man­zanil­la beach in ear­ly 2020.

In ad­di­tion to the wed­dings, birth­days and an­niver­saries for which the busi­ness caters, peo­ple cel­e­brat­ing mile­stones al­so find the prod­uct ap­peal­ing. See­ing their name and par­tic­u­lar mile­stone or event etched on the nov­el­ty co­conuts makes them hap­py, he be­lieves.

Some clients change their wed­ding des­ti­na­tion sim­ply be­cause they want his prod­uct as an at­trac­tion.

“So I have sto­ries where peo­ple plan in Ger­many, Cana­da, wher­ev­er, and come to Trinidad to keep their wed­ding just to have the co­conuts. We had peo­ple from Scot­land, Cana­da . . . the UK is a big one. I had one cou­ple from Aus­tralia,” he re­vealed.

The San­gre Grande res­i­dent wants to take co­conuts—some­thing he en­joyed see­ing on the Man­zanil­la Stretch as a child on his way to and from school in Ma­yaro—to the top 25 events in the world, start­ing with the SXSW Con­fer­ence and Fes­ti­val and Coachel­la Mu­sic and Arts Fest, both in the US.

In his ear­ly years, af­ter his par­ents sep­a­rat­ed, Ner­a­hoo di­vid­ed his time be­tween his moth­er’s and fa­ther’s homes. His fa­ther, Steve, had a paint­ing and straight­en­ing shop, while his moth­er, Deb­o­rah, sold del­i­ca­cies, in­clud­ing pholourie and sug­ar­cakes,. Most like­ly he in­her­it­ed his en­tre­pre­neur­ial spir­it from them.

“I used to nev­er sit still. I used to ask re­al ques­tions,” he said.

Ner­a­hoo al­so had a knack for solv­ing re­al prob­lems. As a stu­dent at Ma­yaro Com­pos­ite, he grav­i­tat­ed to­wards prac­ti­cal skills like met­al­work and tech­ni­cal draw­ing. He lat­er did paint­ing and con­struc­tion jobs, be­fore land­ing a po­si­tion as a ma­chine op­er­a­tor at a bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­ing plant. He was very good with ma­chines and was able to mas­ter all at his work­place.

He be­lieves his ma­chine skills are the rea­son for the longevi­ty of his busi­ness which he op­er­ates pri­mar­i­ly on his own. He calls on a team of up to six oth­er work­ers de­pend­ing on the type of event.

Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, Ner­a­hoo piv­ot­ed to do­ing five and 12-nut pack­ages with al­co­hol or non-al­co­holic mix­es de­liv­ered on ice in sty­ro­foam cool­ers for small gath­er­ings.

He said giv­ing back is im­por­tant to him and he does non-al­co­holic give­aways to schools and oth­ers. He al­so par­tic­i­pates in demos, ex­pos and does mo­ti­va­tion­al speech­es at trade shows, UWI and schools.

“We go and spread the love man. Show them you don’t just have to be a doc­tor or a lawyer, you could be some­thing else,” he said

Once an avid par­ty-go­er who would mix a par­tic­u­lar type of Vi­t­a­min C in­to co­conuts in-be­tween fetes for him­self and his friends to keep them go­ing, Ner­a­hoo feels his life has come full cir­cle.

He com­ment­ed: “When I start­ed work­ing as a youth, I used to re­al par­ty and lime. Now when you see me in an event, I get­ting paid.”

Q&A with John­ny Ner­a­hoo

What do you think peo­ple like about the prod­uct?

“Each co­conut is cus­tomised to the per­son in front of them. We work with every type of al­co­hol, so once you are at the stand, your co­conut is cus­tomised to you; what type of al­co­hol you drink­ing, if you want a fruity flavour, so you won’t go any­where else and get that kin­da drink.”

Where do you get your bar­tend­ing skills?

Since school days, I was a beer mak­er, play­ing with dif­fer­ent flavours. I was al­ways mix­ing punch­es for par­ties, so the cock­tail side for me wasn’t re­al­ly hard. That’s part of me.

To what do you at­tribute the big brands be­ing in­ter­est­ed in you...your abil­i­ty to mar­ket your prod­uct?

I think per­son­al­i­ty has a big part to do with it. I’m a peo­ple per­son. Every­thing around this is me. It’s some­thing that rep­re­sents me. The unique­ness of it grabbed the su­per­mar­kets one time. Some were ask­ing if it was a peeled grape­fruit, so no su­per­mar­ket shut it down. Every­body was will­ing with open arms.

What would be your al­ter­na­tive dream job?

Some­thing to do with trav­el­ling. When I was work­ing at the bat­tery plant, I want­ed to know how things worked, so I al­ways feel I have to see the world to know how things work. (Laugh­ter)

Do you want to say any­thing to peo­ple out there con­tem­plat­ing start­ing their own busi­ness who may be fear­ful?

Yes. The more prob­lems you solve, the fur­ther you go. Ob­sta­cles will come, you’ll face many tri­als, but with God first, you can over­come any­thing.