Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul poured their own money into their mezcal brand. Now, it's poised to dominate the celebrity liquor market.

Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul were trekking through the jungles of Oaxaca in search of fortune and glory.

They were having trouble finding either.

After a week in Mexico back in 2016, both Emmy-winning actors were questioning their recent life choices as they endured a bumpy three-hour drive. The previous days had been just like this, traveling from one village to the next but unable to find what they were looking for. Their guide, Alvin, wanted them to try one more place.

Oaxaca is the home of mezcal, an alcohol made from agave. Most of the mezcal consumed in the world comes from this Mexican state, and Alvin, a US expat living in Oaxaca City who fancies himself a mezcal whisperer, had been guiding Cranston and Paul through sweltering hikes and butt-numbing rides looking for a version of the liquor that could satisfy both actors' palates and put them into business.

Some stars wait for big brands to ask them to be the face of their liquor after all the hard work is complete. But this duo, known best for being scrappy meth cooks on the hit TV show "Breaking Bad," determined that if they were going to pursue this real, more-legitimate venture, they would be in on the ground floor.

"We just weren't finding it," Paul, now 44, told Business Insider alongside Cranston, 67, while tucked away in the cozy outdoor sitting area at The Bowery Hotel in New York City days before Thanksgiving.

He was recalling that rough three-hour drive seven years ago to the small village of San Luis del Rio. Though they had done everything right — smelling the mezcal before drinking it, saluting the maestro who crafted it — each time the mezcal (or "juice" as the locals call it) hit their lips, it wasn't for them. Cranston didn't want to bring back a mezcal that was aggressively smoky, while Paul didn't want one that tasted too weak.

So, after a week of visiting 100 operations, it felt as if they were on nothing more than a glorified mezcal tasting tour.

"We were a bit defeated," Paul acknowledged.

"I wasn't!" Cranston said with a laugh. "I had a great time."

But San Luis del Rio, which is three hours south of Oaxaca City, was different. On their last day of the trip, it was here where they finally found a juice that met their expectations after tasting a batch from a family in the village that had been making it for three generations.

The result? Dos Hombres.

Cranston will be the first to say he'd never thought he would start a business with Paul when they initially met on the set of "Breaking Bad" in 2007. This, however, isn't the response Paul was expecting.

"Really?" Paul asked, his eyebrows raised so high they almost disappeared into his winter cap.

"C'mon," Cranston shot back, delivering his response with the gruff voice that made him a TV icon.

Watching their colorful back-and-forth, I can't help comparing it to the beverage in our hands.

At first, I thought it tasted smooth and dignified, like Cranston. But give it a moment and the Paul in it shows up: a hint of smokiness that gives you a jolt as you sip (always a sip, never a shot, they warned me).

It's that yin-yang that made their "Breaking Bad" characters, Walter White and Jesse Pinkman, so memorable. But it's also present in their real-life interaction.

Whether it's at their photo shoot or chatting with me, Paul is obviously the hype man. He's the one who came up with the idea of getting into the liquor business in the first place and seems to have endless energy through every aspect of it. Cranston lays back and plays the elder statesman perfectly, knowing when the time is right to give his two cents or throw in a zinger once Paul gets too carried away.

Their back-and-forth carries into every part of our conversation, including when they discuss why they got into business together.

"Once I started working with him, I was just so amazed by the guy," Paul told me, accentuating the word "amazed" to really drive his point home.

"The talent, the beauty," Cranston cut in.

"The beauty not so much," Paul shot back.

The word passion comes up often in our talk. For two guys who grew up in blue-collar families with just enough money to get by, they credit their work ethic with making them who they are today.

Now they have taken that approach to making Dos Hombres a player in the spirits game.

Mezcal's popularity has surged in the four years since they've gone to market — IWSR labeled it the fastest-growing spirit in the US from 2020 to 2021. Surely aided by Cranston and Paul's name recognition, Dos Hombres cracked the top 10 in mezcal sales in its second year and the top five in its third (a Dos Hombres representative confirmed those numbers but declined to provide specific sales figures for this story). The brand has also won spirits competitions in New York, San Francisco, London, and Berlin, and Constellation Brands took a minority stake in Dos Hombres for an undisclosed amount in 2021 (Constellation Brands did not return a request for comment on its stake in Dos Hombres).

More than simply putting their name on it, Cranston and Paul have flown around the world promoting their mezcal, slinging it at events like the New York City Wine and Food Festival and the rapper Drake's birthday party.

Asked where they fit in the crowded celebrity-beverage category, they plead ignorance. They insist they haven't modeled themselves after the George Clooneys or Ryan Reynoldses who came before them because they don't pay attention to who else is out there on the market.

"Truthfully, we just put our heads down and go to work," Cranston said.

"But we had heard that there are establishments and bartenders who are dubious about celebrity-owned products," he continued. "I get that. And we don't want to appear in the slightest that this is some kind of cash grab. We have to earn our stripes."

That means gaining the respect not just of those in the liquor business, but also the people making Dos Hombres back in Mexico.

For generations, mezcal has been a drink produced and consumed by the poor in its home country. And though its global popularity has earned its distributors millions of dollars as they export it, the wealth often doesn't trickle down to the maker of the mezcal, the maestro mezcalero. Since the launch of Dos Hombres, Cranston and Paul said, they go back to San Luis del Rio at least once a year, bringing along the means to improve the lives of its 400 residents.

Money earned from Dos Hombres merchandise goes into a fund for the people of San Luis del Rio, according to the brand. So far, they've provided a water-filtration system and a medical facility and gotten a road paved.

But perhaps Cranston and Paul's greatest show of gratitude was when they decided to make their maestro mezcalero, Gregorio Velasco, a partner in the business.

Dos Hombres now has Velasco's picture prominently on the neck tags of the bottles.

"Hi, kiddos!" Paul said with a big grin at our two interview crashers: his kids, Story, 5, and Ryden, 1.

Cranston seemingly couldn't be happier.

"Is that monkey man?" Paul asked Ryden, who was looking over at Cranston, flashing a smile as big as his dad's.

There's a visible connection between Cranston and Ryden, who lights up as soon as one of the greatest actors in the world begins playing peekaboo with him.

Cranston told me that he and his wife, Robin, had invited the Pauls over for Thanksgiving at their Upper West Side apartment and he was especially excited for the kids to see the floats from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade go by their windows.

It seems after decades on the acting grind, Cranston is taking more time to enjoy what's around him.

Back in June, he made headlines while speaking with British GQ about his plans to temporarily retire from acting when he turns 70, and even selling his half of Dos Hombres. (Soon after he clarified his comments on Instagram, saying he would take "a year off" at 70 to "pause" his career, though he said he's "not even sure what 'pausing' means.")

"Everything is cyclical," Cranston told me when I brought up his future. "The seasons. Our lives. And you have to gauge how things go. Yeah, at some point I'll go on to other things."

But in the immediate future, he's having fun with his friend.

Yet the question had to be asked: Are they earning a check for their efforts?

Both just laughed at me.

"We've only put money into the company," Paul insisted, once again emphasizing the most important word in the sentence.

While Dos Hombres didn't provide details about its sales or profits, Paul and Cranston have brought the company a long way since those early days searching for juice in Oaxaca. Though still working toward fortune and glory in the alcohol industry, after spending a morning with them, the real reward seems to be the time they get not just together but with each other's families.

As we closed out the interview, Ryden still bouncing on his father's knee, Paul talked about how blessed he felt at this point in his life. After years of chasing from one project to the next, now he just takes the time to do what he wants.

Cranston agreed, pausing from making faces at Ryden.

"We didn't have to do this," he said. "The only reason to do it is if we were both passionate about it. And that's what we found."