Latest / Day Drinking With Dog / Brian from "Game Up" joins me!

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Brian from "Game Up" joins me! · Day Drinking With Dog

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Drinking, drinking, drinking. Welcome Back Day Drinking with Dog. I'm your
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host Jeremy Wells with a very awesome episode. Today. We're gonna be drinking
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all day after this long Memorial Day weekend. We just had hope everyone had
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a fun, safe time. Everyone. No one got in trouble hopefully.
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Uh. And the Celtics tore my heart out last night after they should have
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just lost in four. They should have just gotten swept and I would have
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been over it. But another season of question marks. But we'll get into
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that a little later. We'll do a little Bruin's talk. But today you
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don't I have my guest Brian. I shouldn't have your last name. I'm
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sorry, Brian Flado. You have created a game up yes, which is
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a hard Will you explain it? Yeah? So it's it's really the world's
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first hard sports drink. Um. It's not a hard seltzer. It tastes
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like a sports drink with a little bit of carbonation. It's got electrolytes like
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a sports drink, and it's four point nine percent alcohol. So we like
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to think of it as sports drink flavor, adult drink. Fun. Oh
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nice, nice, I like, Yeah, so I've had I've tried these.
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Joline was gracious enough to drop me off an eight pack. Joline's awesome
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had set to Joelane. Yeah, and I think I crushed all eight pretty
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quickly. Easy to do. Yeah, yeah, that's the that's the kids
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call it now. Crushable. Yes, it's very crushable, crushable drink,
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and we are kids. Yeah. Yeah, And a lot of that is,
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you know, the lower the carbonation. Like you know, I'll be
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honest with you. I drink White Claws a lot. Yeah, but I
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burp a lot and I try not to take them on the show because I
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literally like velgi into the microphone. Right. Well, that's the first thing
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I tell people is that, well, actually I take that back. First
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thing I tell people is this does not taste like a Seltzer at all,
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because it tastes like a sports drink with a little bit of carbonation. So
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it's about a third less carbonation than white were truly orn like a bud light.
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So yeah, it is super crushable because of that. And also people
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tell us they don't get as bloated because it's lighter carbonation, so you just
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you know, it's so you don't you don't have all those big bubbles,
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right, Well, we got four flavors. Yes, we got fruit punch,
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we got orange, we got a lemon, lime, and a grape.
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Now are these kind of modeled off of like Gatorade flavors? Yeah?
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So these are eat or whatever. Yeah. So orange, lemon, lime,
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and fruit punch are in the top five best selling Gatorade flavors, and
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then Gatorade's in the top ten. And Gateorade was the last one that we
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did and has become kind of a lucky strike extra. Like people who like
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grape love this grape. Yeah, and there's something that people tell us is
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sort of nostalgic for them about when they used to drink grape soda. But
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it does taste like a grape sports drink with a little bit of carbonation.
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Yeah, I told you before, Like that was definitely my favorite one.
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I wish I had more of them. Yeah. So I'm like, I'm
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a sports drink, a Gatorade traditionalist, so I always go lemonline orange first.
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Ye. I will tell you though, when we first made this,
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So we make it at a brewery up in Massachusetts called Watchusit Brewery. Shout
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out to the guys with wat chuse It. The very first time we tasted
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this, we brewed it. Of course, we had prototypes that we had
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made from what's called a flavor house. Very first time we're up at wat
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Chuse It, it's seven thirty in the morning. The fruit punch is the
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first one to come off off the line in a can. It's ice cold.
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We drink it and I'm like, Okay, this works. This is
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awesome, and yeah, I could drink this at seven thirty in the morning.
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You were you like nervous the first row incredibly incredibly Yes, I can
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imagine so like this hull had hard work. If it comes off and you
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don't want to be spitting it out, yeah, exactly. All right,
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Well that's that was the Let's try that one in. Okay, we're gonna
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end with a great because I already know is my favorite because I have tried
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all these. Okay, but we'll start with a fruit punch. First sip
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of the day, I swear, drum roll, I was drinking iced tea
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still ridge. It's true. I saw him. That is good, super
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refreshed, all right, yep, And just like you said, just the
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hint of carbonation, Yeah, makes it really easy to drink. So you
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get the electrolytes into the product, yeah, like you just basically infuse them
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as in the broom process. Yes, So, I mean there are there's
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several ingredients in the product itself. Right, It's it's sweetened with fruit juice
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and its sweetened with stevia, so there's zero sugar added to this, and
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then we add electrolytes and the salt and potassium actually add to the flavor that
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you're getting so that it tastes like a sports drink. But those are the
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electrolytes that go into it. We did go to a legit supplement company called
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the Right Group to create an electrolyte premix for this, so that is one
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of the ingredients that goes into it as well. Yeah, back to Gatorade.
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When you drink Gatorades, now do you drink the zeros or you drink
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the regular? Do you drink the I drink the regular, And we kind
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of modeled the taste after the regular. But when we first started this,
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we said, if your favorite sports drink, if you're if Gatorade zero and
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White Claw had a baby, it would be game up because really it's the
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same numbers as it's hitting the right numbers like Gatorade zero does. So it's
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only one hundred and ten calories, it's one grammar carbs, it's gluten free
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and zero sugar, right, and that's you know, that's almost the market
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you have to be in. Now. Yeah, people call this a better
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for you drink category, I mean, and that's that was part of the
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popularity of the hard Seltzers, right, is that they are low calorie,
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they're low sugar. The Seltzers, because of the way they're made, are
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gluten free. So yeah, that this is fits. It hits all those
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numbers that people are looking for and for us, even more specifically, we're
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targeting a fit life drinker, right, so people who who do work out
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on a Asian who do go for a run, who do yoga. Um.
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Now that's not the only people that this appeals to, because of course
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music, because I do none of those. Because well, but you also
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know that like people that walk around wearing Lulu Lemon and drinking Gatorade or under
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armor aren't always coming from the gym, but they have a fit life mindset,
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right, and you know it's sports adjacent. We don't encourage people to
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drink this while they were playing while they're playing sports, although except for those
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Sunday softball players and the golfers. Yeah, yes, yeah, it's perfect
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for that. Yeah. Um, you know we do say should you stretch
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before drinking it? Yeah, it couldn't hurt. Uh. Yeah, it's
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it's crazy, how you know. And we'll get to your background sure,
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in advertising and stuff. Just looking back over the years, like even not
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that long ago, twenty years ago, like no one seemed to give a
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fuck about what they were ingesting, right, you know, food to drink,
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And now the market is completely changed, which is great because I mean
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I feel that you know, whoever, like the FDA or whoever puts like
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remember remember the pyramid when we were kids, absolutely, you know anymore,
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it's been largely debunked, right, yeah, So like it's it's good that
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companies also are catching on too. Yeah, you know, I want to
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live longer. And if it's you know, if I'm not ingesting three hundred
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calories and fifty five grams of carbs in a in a brink when I'm having
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six of them, you know, that's probably better for me. Well,
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I think that I think in general, you're right, The trend is is
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that people pay more attention to what they're putting in their body and what's in
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the products that they eat and drink. Now, let's be clear, this
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has alcohol in it, so it's not good for you. Alcohol is poison.
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Yes, all right, this has alcohol. This is not good for
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you. Um. But if you're gonna drink people, the people are concerned
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about what the calorie count is, what the carbs are, um. People
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don't want added sugar, um. And this covers off on all of that,
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right, Like I I feel like something like I don't. It was
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never a beer drinker, like really like college days, but that was it.
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Always. I always switched over to you know, I drank whiskey for
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a while and then vodka and all this stuff. And I never thought about,
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really what you're putting into your body as you're drinking, you know,
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like calorie wise, right, you know, you know you're drinking to you
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know, have a good time, get drunk some nights whatever, hang out
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with your boys. But I become more conscious of, you know, what
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I'm drinking. Sure, you know, like I'm not drinking a margarita because
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that's forget it. Even though tequila is like a margaret is full of sugar.
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That's all sugar, you know, and I pretty much know I just
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drink you know, the the RTDs, you know, because I think it's
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important that the nutritional facts are on the can. Like you can't even google,
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like how many cowards in a shot of jamison. It's just like a
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mystery, Like I'm assuming hundred, but like like or how many you know
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is it gluten free or which is not? Or yeah, like it's it
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used to be impossible to know what you were actually with. I don't understand
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why that was legal back then, but yeah, well, I mean,
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like like you've been saying, I think the trend has definitely been that people
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are more conscious about what they're putting in their body. And that even is
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what led us to creating a product like this. My partner Michael and I
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had been experimenting just on our own with electrolytes supplements in our water because we
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wanted to drink more water and we wanted to get the electrolytes, so the
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flavor and the electrolytes. And as we were creating this product, we said,
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well, why can't we put electrolytes into this beverage and we found out
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we could, and we said, well, why can't we make it taste
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like a sports drink? And we found out we could and we did U
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So we were experimenting with the electrolytes way before we ever decided to introduce it
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into an alcoholic beverage. Right right, it's and like you said, and
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we were talking earlier, like there's nothing else out there. There really isn't
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as electrolytes in an alcoholic beverage. So and you know, that's what we
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really try to drive home with people. This plays in a league of its
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own. Explain of what electrolyte is, Like, yeah, you people hear
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it all the time, it's in your sports drinks. What does it do?
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So? Electrolytes are sodium, potassium, magnesium, and depending on the
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mix um, it allows your tissues to retain more fluid um. In our
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case, it also affects the taste of the beverage because it's it's salt potassium,
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right, So it makes it taste more like a sports drink. But
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that's what electrolytes do, is they help your body retain more fluid um.
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Now, I should say for the lawyers out there, alcohol is a diretic
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an alcohol makes you go to the bathroom more so you are losing more fluid
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as you're drinking alcohol. So we're not making we're not saying that this is
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going to hydrate you like a Gatorade would. But that's why we call it
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hard hydration. It's a fantastic category name that we made up UM to set
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ourselves apart from a hard Seltzer. Right, it's not hard Seltzer. It's
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hard hydration. Patent that yeah we actually did. Yeah, yeah, it's
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it is trademarked UM. So yes, we have the trademark on hard hydration.
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Do you have a patent on the blend? We do not know,
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noe. Is that something you could get or is that I don't believe that
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we could patent this? This flavor blend right right with the electrolyteser in right.
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Okay, got you? So I just finished the orange, I mean
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the fun move on to the orange now, okay, and I'll try right
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now now orange is a sneaky good flavor for Gatorade. Yeah, well and
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again lemon lineon orange or my two go go to um Gatorade flavors. Yep,
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you've got shaky hands like me long day. Yeah, uh yeah,
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that's very good as well. Like I said, I've tried tried these before,
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so I'm not trying to embellish on this, but they are very Yeah,
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they're good. So and um uh you know, you can imagine all
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of the drinking occasions. But for me, like if I'm doing yard work,
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I've got a refrigerator outside, and like after yard work, I'm going
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right to these and you know, they're easy to drink and like they're refreshing.
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They are. They totally are. So you have a background in advertising,
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Yeah, you were a marketing director for so I'm a creative director for
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an advertising agency. So my partner Michael and I both own an advertising agency
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called Makeable. Um. I've been doing this for thirty years. I worked
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for a for a small but creative hot shop in the nineties and two thousands.
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Um. We were best known for our work on brands like Jeff Blue,
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Zappos dot Com I mentioned earlier. We did the very first GoDaddy dot
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com super Bowl spot uh um that got canceled for the second time in the
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in the Super Bowl, and we got tons of awesome press out of that.
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Hum and closest to this category, UM, the micsart lemonade business UM
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for three or four years. UM, so we know a lot about the
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UM branding and marketing and advertising of beer, wine and spirits. I also
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used to do a lot of new product work for Diagio, just coming up
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with new products, like we want to make a mescal product, what should
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we do? So we would come up with, you know, a new
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name of positioning for it, and we do like twenty concepts and they take
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those to focus groups. Wo. Yeah, So that I was fun and
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interesting and very relevant to what we did with Game up right. UM.
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So we have the full force of our advertising experience and agency behind us.
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So we've done all the all the logo, branding, packaging in house in
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our agency and we continue to and you know, it is the witty,
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competitive tone of voice that we've created to like with all the lines that you
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hear me spitting out and you see on the packaging. Of course, yeah
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uh you we were when we first talked a few weeks back on the phone.
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Is kind of when the whole h, we won't go too far into
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it, but the budlight count right, Yeah, it's fascinating and you had
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told me a story when you were with Mike's Hard Lemonade when you were working
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for them. H about a commercial, because I asked you, have you
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ever put anything out that there that you were like, oh, maybe we
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shouldn't have done that, but you had a story about Mike. Yeah,
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I think this was about the commercial that we did. Um. The Yeah,
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it was a backyard barbecue and um. These two guys were communicating with
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their grill to their friends over the hill, right. And the way they
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did that was they were lifting the top of the grill on and off to
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do smoke signals, right, and the smoke signals would be like, hey,
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bring more ice, and with the smoke would come up in the shape
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of ice, right, and it would say bring more burgers, you know.
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And then it would be like bring more mics and the guy's like,
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no, I'm not coming over, right. But so it was the whole
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idea was the guys were communicating with their buddies on the other side of the
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hill using smoke signals. We really didn't think that was going to be offensive
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to anybody, um, but it was offensive to some to a Native American
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group that reached out to us to say that we were appropriating cultural um uh
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signals cultural uh. And this is years ago, this was the climate we
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live in now. Yeah, I mean this was probably two thousand and three,
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I'm guessing. Um. So yeah, there's there's always there, always
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has been uh people that will be upset that you're potentially offending, you know,
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offending them, and we were. And let me just make this clear,
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like I had never had any intention of offending anybody or culturally appropriating anything.
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I'll give you another example, planking cowboys and Indians, you know,
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just running around in the streets. We did a commercial for Jimmy Johns one
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time that was in a in a bank and the concept was there was a
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bank robbery and everybody's lying on the floor. The bank robbers are walking around,
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and the guy takes out his phone. You think he's trying to sneak
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to call the police, but he doesn't call the police. He calls Jimmy
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Johns, and the Jimmy Johns driver arrives and bank robber goes hey, who
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called Jimmy John's right. So I really didn't think we were going to offend
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anybody there, but a group of banks were offended and said that Hey,
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you know, this really happens. You know, this isn't a joke.
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Banks do get robbed. And I said, okay, uh and we yeah,
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we stopped running that in the rotation. Oh my lord. Yeah,
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so it's it's out there, it's not it's not a new thing, right,
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yeah, so we'll we'll do a quick bud light thing. Sure.
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And I just told you at lunch, how how I've kind of come full
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circle on it where I'm like, all right, you guys made your point.
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You know, Budweiser kind of looked stupid in trying to just like forget
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it, like kind of never happened, and started throwing Zach Brown commercials out
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there, you know, without even not that they need to apologize either.
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Um, but the world we live in now, like you said yourself when
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you worked with Mike's hart Lemonade, like you had advertisings that went towards the
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LBGTQ community. We didn't for Mike's, but we where we have for other
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for other brands. Right. And this is what I've tried to explain to
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people to having worked in the business, that the amount of that there are
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hundreds, maybe thousands of influencers that Budweiser is going to reach out to and
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create influencer programs geared towards a specific target. Most of the people that were
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offended by that, we're never really intended. We're actually not really we're never
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intended to see that influencer because that's not in their their wheelhouse, that's not
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part of their lives. So and that the majority of the bud Light advertising
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is going to a mass audience. So it's really a very small part of
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the budget that went to that influencer program and most people would never have seen
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it if it didn't get called out right now that said, I also said
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you at lunch, Hey, look, a brand is a promise, and
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for whatever reason, people who had accepted that promise from bud Light and Budweiser
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in general had felt like Budweiser had broken that promise. Right, So you
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have to take that into consideration too, like, how how can Budweiser do
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better to not break their promise to people? Right? And I was telling
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you I had a regular at work and been drinking bud Light for twenty three
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years as long as I've been there, probably longer, and ordered a Budweiser
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on Saturday or Sunday afternoon, whatever day it was. And you know,
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I kind of jokingly said, really, and I'm like, you know,
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that's Anheuser Bush Still sure you're taking the light off the bud and he's like
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yeah, He's like, I don't want to be seen with a bud light,
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right because people are making comments and it's just you know, and I've
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seen the sales drop. But again back to my original point, Okay,
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enough's enough, because the big guys aren't really taking a hit here. It's
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it's the family owned that the cellos and you know, the distribution people that
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employ a lot of local people and I know people that work for the Cello
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that are their pay cuts are in half right now, right And for everybody
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who doesn't know, the Cello is our local distributor here and our distributor yep,
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and uh, it's it's it's tough. I mean, you know,
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bud light sales if if you know, steadily declined in this region because of
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you know, products like yours. No, not blaming either, but obviously
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that's you know, the high noons and the white shots of the world,
20:25
and they've taken a market share of that. And but but just now,
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Budweiser has to buy back because they because like how long does your product last?
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Uh, you have a year and a half, right, so ninety
20:40
days bud Light is yeah, right, And I just feel like they can
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pigeonhole themselves. But they could have said, you know, six months,
20:45
ye, like we got we all know a skunk beer when we have one.
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But right now they got to start buying them back. And I don't
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know where we go from here, Like is it I don't sell much of
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it? Like so quick little anecdote that bar I showed you that I work
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at, right, Yeah, so we have a rolling tub, you know,
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like a beard tub behind the registers like this, so we keep this
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is what we used to keep. It's both flavored high noons, the white
21:15
claw, black Cherry. Bud Light had its own row and then Corona Cans.
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Over the last three weeks, bud Light now has a third of a
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row. And then now we have Coors Light, Mick Ultra, and Miller
21:30
Light in there. Right that we never had to we we had him.
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We had him out there, just not in the fast zone speed rail,
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right, And it's almost to the point where like we're not even put butt
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light in here anymore. Like you know, we're just trying to be efficient,
21:42
right, you know, in doing our jobs, and it's it's kind
21:45
of sad to see, you know. And again I think it'll come back.
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I know for sure that this will be one of those This will be
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a major case study in a decade that advertising students marketing to will study.
22:00
Um, and we'll have to see how Budweiser manages this crisis that they're having.
22:07
Um. But you know, whether it's I think she resigned yeah yeah,
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um, and I think you know, encouraged maybe, but right right,
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right right yeah, um. But look, Budweiser is a great American
22:26
brand. They they took some hits when they were bought by a non American
22:30
company, right, but nobody really paid attention to that. It's still a
22:33
great American brand. Which is the irony of this is how how it's being
22:38
called un American because of this influencer program. Right, Um, you know,
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all those years of building itself up as a great American brand now has
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people who really see it as anti American. I mean their ad campaigns growing
22:53
up Super Bowls like Iconic the Clydesdales, I mean, come on, frogs,
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right, you know the dudes on the foe Oh yeah, like just
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it's just ingrained in Americana, right and just like that. But that's also
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what I'm saying is that ninety nine percent, maybe the ninety nine point nine
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percent of their advertising marketing budget is still going towards mainstream America. And clearly
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Dylan mulvaney was outside of the mainstream, but they've got lots of influencer programs
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that that are outside of the mainstream. That doesn't mean that they are walking
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away from their their core values. But again, like I said, clearly
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they you know, people felt like they broke a promise to them, and
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that's something they're gonna have to take a look at it. Right. I
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feel like back to the I forget the woman's name, but the one that
23:45
came out with his ad campaign wasn't even adcampaign, I think, but it
23:48
was whatever they did with Dylan. Uh. I think her podcast after the
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things she said in there kind of were more damaging for her own job,
24:02
like you know, like saying like we don't want that. I didn't hear
24:03
it. I didn't hear it firsthand, and I only I only know what
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you told me. Yea. Um so yeah. Yeah, I mean a
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lot of times it's you know, the apology is worse than right, like
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it's ingenuous or sometimes you just need to be quiet, right just you know,
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yeah I did that, you know, and just sit down and you
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know, I don't know, it's just but again enough enough you drink bud
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Light. Drink bud Light. I I can't believe I've turned the corner.
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But when you when you start seeing it with your own eyes, like,
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and it's affecting people, You're right, it does affect people. Yeah,
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it's I don't know, Like again, they have so many products in bev
24:41
as a gazillion product right, you know, and and they're not every major
24:45
brand markets to the LGBTQ community, um, and have been for it,
24:52
have been for years and and legitimately legitimately so yeah, yeah, and um,
25:00
you know, the this trans influencer is a um you know, a
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subsection of that, and and that really triggered a lot of people. Yeah.
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Yeah, I think a lot of it too is I mean, I
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don't want to get like too like whatever over this, but it's I don't
25:22
think a lot of people care as far as your trans or you're gay or
25:26
you're straight or whatever. But this goes kind of folds into the Target scandal
25:33
and what they were doing, and it's it's really comes down to children,
25:37
and it's just a weird divide in this country that you know, some people
25:44
I think it's common sense to not do this to children, but a lot
25:48
of people think it's common sense to do it, you know, like like
25:52
the opposite, and like we're that far apart on issues like this that I
25:59
find one fascinating, but too. I just you know, we were talking
26:03
about when we were kids, and we were like, I didn't think of
26:06
anything like I, you know, I might add a crush on a girl
26:07
in first grade, but its first grade, you know, like I don't
26:11
know what the hell's going on in my life. I can't really speak to
26:15
the target issue and I can barely speak to the bud Light because I only
26:22
know what what you know that's in the media. Um. But you know,
26:27
there, I don't think that there was from what I see, there
26:30
was no grooming of children in the Dilannolvany bud Light Influencer program. It was
26:37
clearly that a section of the Budweiser fan base felt offended by the fact that
26:44
Budweiser was using that as a using that influencer group as someone to market to
26:52
UM, and I think it was. However, I think it was a
26:55
misplaced and animosity towards that person, because I don't think it was towards a
27:00
lot of the people that like they take kid rock out of it, you
27:03
know, like whatever, kids, don't do your thing, shoot your guns,
27:07
fucking whatever. Awesome. But I think what people started researching mulvaney,
27:12
they've seen stuff that could be considered grooming, not in that specific bud Light
27:18
commercial or whatever they did, but stuff in her past. I don't have
27:23
to take your word on that, so yeah, yeah, yeah, I
27:26
mean I think I think that's kind of because then I saw a couple videos
27:30
and what's her name, Drew Barrymore, and she was me, I don't
27:33
know, it's just like just stuff that's like cringeworthy, you know, and
27:40
that'll turn me off of something if I'm I feel it's cringeworthy. Yeah,
27:44
I mean, being totally objective to the whole thing. Again, it's people
27:48
felt like Budweiser broke a promise to them. Yeah, um, and that's
27:52
that's what they're gonna have to look at now. And you're in You're And
27:55
by the way, I don't think that Budweiser should stop pushing the envelope because
27:59
I think that you're always is going to piss somebody off. Of course,
28:00
right, just like in you know the examples that I was talking about,
28:04
like you're never gonna make everybody happy, and actually good marketing, good advertising
28:10
should be polarizing because if if you're making everybody happy, then it's probably not
28:15
pushing the needle. Yeah, when you make a you know, Super Bowl
28:18
commercial, Yeah, whatever, is it like a is there like a screening
28:23
like like like a movie almost like you you put a bunch of different demographics
28:27
in a room and they watch it and you see the reactions or so some
28:33
brands do do that, where like they'll focus group a commercial UM and I've
28:37
worked for some brands that do that, but for the most part in my
28:40
career, I've worked for more UM challenger startup brands like think of Jeff Blue
28:47
or ZAPPOSUM brands that that didn't have a lot of money to spend on analysis
28:53
paralysis that you're going to get from focus grouping everything UM so yes, and
29:00
I've worked for like a pharmaceutical brand that really did need to focus group the
29:04
storyboard and say, hey, what do you think about this? Did this
29:07
offend you? And they use it that way right, Um, but the
29:12
way the internet works is everything's happening so fast, like you know, my
29:18
sense is that the bud Light did not focus group the Dylan mulvaney influencer program
29:23
right there, like we're gonna and I read like ownership had no idea that
29:27
it was even happening. That doesn't mean they still wouldn't have done it,
29:32
yeah, you know, like they're just they're just trying to cover their own
29:34
asses, which I get right, And like the Target thing was like one
29:38
lady like went did a video and showed what they were selling and it just
29:42
went viral and like overnight, Like the headline in the post yesterday was,
29:47
you know, ten billion target loss. You know, like it's it's it's
29:52
crazy and I don't know, like it's I know, it's a touchy subject
29:56
and people liked they don't want to upset the apple cart, you know,
30:00
they're just like, but at some point these executives have like, is there
30:07
somebody on your staff perhaps not game up your your advertising side? Yep?
30:14
You know, do you have a position where like this is the person that
30:18
says, probably not a good idea, or is that more of a conglomerate
30:23
of everyone that's in the agency, it's there someone that really says, you
30:27
know, we might offend that question. So again, if you're talking about
30:32
larger marketers that are that are going to have an attorney, a lawyer whose
30:36
job it is to look at something and go that one. I don't think
30:41
that's a good idea just from um a cultural perspective, but you know that
30:48
that's really the job of the the agency and the client side people. But
30:52
there's a lawyer that's going to say there is a legal issue with doing this,
30:57
especially in UM pharmaceuticals or beer, wine and spirits. UM. Bigger
31:04
companies are going to have that person UM that we used to called doctor no
31:10
right, yeah, yeah, right no UM. And obviously nowadays it's a
31:15
lot different than it was. It was what you said probably twenty years ago
31:19
that you did the go Daddy commercial. Yeah, and you kind of have
31:22
a funny story. Now. I don't remember the commercial decisely, but I
31:27
remember like a chick with big tits and they were just like flash and go
31:36
Daddy, and like the point where I don't even know what go Daddy was.
31:38
Nobody knew what the commercial. I didn't know what it was. GoDaddy
31:41
was the number three domain name registrar. UM. People will probably remember names
31:48
like network Solutions, like yeah, right, go Daddy was the number three
31:52
UM domain name registrar, and pretty much overnight they went to the far and
31:56
away number one domain name registrar after that Super Bowl spot one ran and then
32:02
didn't run a second time. UM, And you're absolutely right, the big
32:07
tits were the brief m we had been working on creative on commercials for this
32:13
client UM. And I think I also mentioned too, like I've worked for
32:17
a lot of like really cult to personality type people like genius singular, mad
32:24
scientists. And I would call Bob Parsons that Go Daddy one of those guys
32:29
like he just had something and and he wasn't afraid to go for it,
32:35
right, UM. But Bob called me up and you know, hey,
32:38
Brian, Bob Parsons is on the phone. This is before cell phones,
32:42
by the way, when the office reception and sanswer the phone and put Bob
32:45
through UM and Bob says, hey, Brian, and Bob is a ex
32:52
military guy Vietnam purple heart like buzzcut Barry Hurrah. Um So, just to
32:59
paint picture. And he says, hey, Brian, I know what I
33:01
wanted from my Super Bowl spot. I said, okay, Bob, what's
33:06
that? He said, I want? No, let me fix the story.
33:09
He said, Brian, do you know why my wife got new tits?
33:14
And I paused. Wanted to be very careful, is how I answered
33:16
this for my client. Yeah, I said, no, Bob, why
33:22
did your wife get new tits? And he said, Brian, so people
33:24
would look at them, and that's where I want my name across a pair
33:29
of big tits. And I said, okay. I paused again, and
33:32
I said, well, let me take this back to the team and we'll
33:36
see what we can do with that. And my partner, my mentor at
33:40
the time, guy named Paul Capelli, who's unfortunately no longer with us,
33:44
had this fantastic idea. And Paul always said, well, he gave us
33:49
melons. We turned it into melanide right. So this is the year after
33:52
the Janet Jackson wardrobe incident malfunction. And by the way, that's true,
34:00
Yes, that's true. Um and um. So we wanted to make a
34:07
commentary on censorship. So we created a panel of judges, um uh,
34:15
sort of old octogenarians, men and women who were interviewing this woman, Nicky
34:22
Cappelli, who happened to have large breasts and be wearing a tank top with
34:28
the logo for Go Daddy across her breasts. And they said, so,
34:32
miss Capelli, we understand you'd like to be in a Super Bowl commercial.
34:37
And Miss Capelli stands up and does a little twirl and she says, yes,
34:39
I could do a dance like this as she's spinning around and her strap
34:44
pops off to the judges just dismay. You know. One guy actually has
34:50
to reach down and turn his oxygen tank up, and there's gaffs from the
34:55
from the panel, and so the irony of all this is that we were
35:01
poking fun at censorship and the year before and the year before, right,
35:09
So we got the commercial through the Fox censors. The Fox had to approve
35:15
the commercial for us to be able to run it during the Super Bowl.
35:19
It runs during the first quarter, and it's supposed to run at the two
35:23
in the morning, so the first half, a second half, second half
35:27
at the end of the game, and so we watched the whole game.
35:30
We get to the end of the game, no commercial. There's actually a
35:32
Simpsons promo that runs in the spot where the second airing of the spot's supposed
35:37
to be okay, and we're going, okay, what the hell happened?
35:40
What's going on? And the phones are going off, And so what we
35:45
found out later was that some of the other big sponsors, so for Anheuser
35:50
Busch, were in the booth with the Fox executives and they went, what
35:53
the hell was that? How'd they get away with that? Yeah, you
35:57
told us, keep it down, keep it safe, keep a g rated,
36:00
and you approve that, and you let that go through. If you
36:02
don't if that runs again, you know, forget it. We're pulling on
36:07
whatever they said. They made a big deal out of it, so it
36:09
didn't run a second time. Go Daddy. Actually then gets a ton of
36:14
press because every news album that wants to know why this didn't run a second
36:19
time? So it was probably ten x the media coverage that the um the
36:25
ad would And they got their money back and the full refund or his half
36:30
just half half, yeah, because they did get the one in right.
36:32
Wow, that's you know, And then and then that wasn't even Nika Patrick.
36:37
That was not Danna Patrick. That was pre Dannika Patrick. Yeah,
36:39
I think is h the owners still alive? He is still alive there though
36:45
he was Vietnam. Yeah, I don't believe he's not with the company anymore,
36:47
that he's gone on to do some passion stuff. He I think he's
36:51
a golf line. I think he makes some golf clubs. Yeah, he's
36:53
like I said, he is. Uh, he's a mad scientist Jenius.
36:59
This guy um made his money teaching himself how to write software. He wrote
37:05
a financial software program that he sold into it for a lot of money before
37:09
he created Go Daddy. And he and I had a love hate relationship,
37:15
like seriously like love and hate. Yeah. I think I told you earlier,
37:21
Like no one has yelled at me over the phone more than Bob Parsons
37:24
did while we were editing that commercial. But it ended up being a great
37:29
commercial. Yeah, and we were buddies afterwards, so it's all good.
37:31
Yeah, he's one paying you, right, Yeah exactly. Yeah, all
37:37
right, Well let's move on to the lemon lime category. Yeah. Cool,
37:39
so funny stories. One of my best friends, Like we used to
37:45
drink gatorade and vodka back in as I hear from a lot of people.
37:47
Yeah, and but he would never do the lemon lime one because that was
37:53
his recovery drink from home being home over, so he would never drink it
37:58
with vodka because he would feel like just was weird to him. So we
38:01
probably also didn't want to feel like he was tasting vodka, right right,
38:07
Uh So we never really mixed them. I never really did. I always
38:10
the one I did it. They don't make it anymore was the fierce lime
38:14
I used to like with vodka. I don't drink it anymore like that.
38:17
But yeah, and this way before there was Gatorade zeros, which I drank
38:22
now so yeah, but yeah, so we'll do a little lemon lime action.
38:31
Yeah, tastes like, taste like it. Yeah, Has Gatorade come
38:36
out of approach you guys? No? No, no, And and look
38:40
this this taste like the sports drink like we just use gatorade is reference but
38:45
right, um, but no, obviously you have none of their formulations.
38:47
We have none of their formulations exactly. You're just not infusing gatorades with We're
38:52
not taking gatorade and putting alcohol in it. Yeah, because like everyone,
38:55
I almost feel like, what where what did some you say they had the
39:00
other day? A mountain dew, hard mountain dew. Yeah, hard mountain
39:05
dew, and then fresca, I think. And do you know what I
39:07
saw the other day was lipped in iced tea. Lipped in hard iced tea.
39:12
Yeah. So, And I'm sure you've seen sunny d d I had
39:15
one. I tried one of those. I was never sunny d kid.
39:17
I didn't really like it. That was after my time, but yeah,
39:21
yeah, um, I never liked it. I tried one. It was
39:23
here, you know. It is fascinating. So again getting back to legal
39:27
stuff. When I worked on beer, wine and spirits back in the day,
39:31
we were very very careful to not associate ourselves with anything that kids would
39:37
drink. So it blows my mind that in this day and age, especially
39:43
with you know, everybody being so on top of everything that's done right right,
39:47
that you would be allowed to have a hard mountain dew which is clearly
39:52
marketed to kids, or a hard sunny d r um. But that is
39:57
certainly the trend. All of the soft drink many soft drink brands are now
40:02
in the business of a hard version of their brand. So I kind of
40:06
equated to the car industry where you know that when the SUV's came out,
40:12
it was you know, the four, the Chevy, and the Jeep pretty
40:15
much for the top three and all the you know, the higher end,
40:22
like audis like, We'll wait a second, why are we having an Audi
40:27
car driver purchasing a Chevy Trailblazer. Sure, we gotta make our own.
40:31
And then Lamborghini makes them, and Porsche makes them, and every car company
40:36
now has a crossover or an suv, even if it's like Lamborghini, like
40:39
really like they bought Lamborghini, buyers want an suv. Yeah, so they're
40:44
buying a Lamborghini suv. I feel now like that's what's going on in this
40:47
industry. It's like, well, why are we letting all these people,
40:51
you know, not you know, including yourself to replicate a product? But
40:55
at alcohol it's genius, yeah, you know. And then you just see
40:59
it like he's said, you see these weird ones just popping up all over
41:01
the place. Well, I think you know, in the example of the
41:06
ones we just mentioned, Yeah, they're saying, hey, look we have
41:08
a ton of brand equity in this brand and we have the same people who
41:15
like this soft drink and are fans of this brand. Right. Remember we're
41:20
talking about Budweiser and bud Light and the prompt that it being a promise.
41:22
Well, the people that are fans of that brand, Um, they're betting
41:28
on them being fans of it with alcohol in it, right, Um,
41:30
So that's that is the equity that they're trading on. Yeah, it's a
41:37
it's at what point is does that bubble burst? Like I thought like with
41:43
like I don't know, ten years ago, there might have been a seven
41:45
breweries in Connecticut. Yeah, now it's over, you know, fifty billies.
41:52
Yeah, yeah, right, massive amounts of this, I think,
41:55
like, you know, in the last ten before, in the last decade,
42:00
there were no distilleries and now there's I don't know, I'd heard somebody
42:02
say like as many as fifty. I may have that number wrong, but
42:07
it's up there though. Yeah, Like I feel like where you're going with
42:09
this product is almost the way you should go. Like, Okay, let
42:15
me try to make another knockoff of a White Claw or a high Noon,
42:17
right, Like this is its own category. It offers something that none of
42:22
the others can offer. Right. Um. And obviously they taste great.
42:25
So I mean that's that's It's like anything. Yeah, if you have a
42:29
restaurant and your food sucks, you're doomed for failure. So when we started
42:34
looking at the heart seltzer category, right, and you know, we said,
42:37
there's zero innovation happening in this category. Um. What um people think
42:44
is innovation is coming out with a new artisanal fruit flavor. It's the new
42:47
boyson Berry watermelon. Right. I had a coconut water blueberry fucking drink the
42:52
other day. I'm not I'm not gonna name the name of it because that's
42:55
not what my show was about. Yeah, but I spit it out.
42:58
Oh my god, that's how bad it was. Yeah. So we're looking
43:01
at that and we said, okay, well we don't want to do that.
43:04
And then and then we're trying all these seltzers like, well, we
43:07
don't want to make a seltzer, like, we want to make something different,
43:10
right, So we don't want to make a seltzer. We want to
43:13
make something different and um uh. You know it started also with the sports
43:19
inspired brand, right um. And this is a brand that we believe will
43:23
transcend the beverage like Game Up is a fit Life brand. Um. But
43:29
yeah, this is in a category all its own. Does not taste like
43:31
a seltzer. Um tastes like sports drink? It does? It certainly does.
43:36
I'm staring at the grape because that's because that's the one I've been waiting
43:38
for. I'm a grape guy. There is not much grape in the alcohol
43:45
beer category. Like three allus makes a grape vodka. Uh, I mean
43:50
who makes grape? Uh? So there's there's a white is there a white
43:53
grape Seltzer. There's a guy in Connecticut, UM who makes a really great
43:59
transfusion and that's and that's spirit based obviously. UM. And I think he's
44:02
got a couple other flavors, but started with the classic transfusion. UM.
44:07
This definitely has a different taste. The carbonation is a little bit different.
44:12
Um, that's taste like a transfusion. Yeah, this taste like a sports
44:16
drink. Yeah. I had a friend that worked for Heineken. He now
44:20
works for Remy Martin, but he was They owned Arizona yep, and Arizona
44:27
made their hard you know, the man one and whatever and it just never
44:31
took off for whatever reason. But they were about to release the Grape Aid
44:37
oh with alcohol, and I was all excited for it, and he's like,
44:39
yell, he did shut the whole thing down, like it just wasn't
44:43
selling, you know, because you know why, I think because if you
44:46
were to think of Arizona, right, what would you what would your go
44:50
to if it they made an alcohol any one of them, what would it
44:52
be? What would the flavor be? What would be icy Well or the
44:57
Arnold Palmer yeah, or Old Partment right? But Arnold Palmer had the rights
45:00
to the and there is a hard so Arizona couldn't make that. Oh really
45:07
yeah, so like that would be the iconic lunch point. Yeah yeah,
45:10
you know. So they weren't able to make that, so they made the
45:13
mango and what else they have They had a couple different flavors, but yeah,
45:17
and they were on the virgin of making the Grape Aid, and I
45:19
think they got shut down. I gotta tell you. I'm like, I
45:22
do a lot of tastings and when people get to the grape they're like,
45:28
big smile, like they love the other flavors. Yeah, yeah, it's
45:30
delicious there and it's unique, like you said, yeah, I mean it's
45:37
all unique. There's nothing else like any of these. But the grape is
45:39
a is a lucky strike extra I think that we can't came upon. Yeah,
45:45
so you are available pretty much all over the state now, uh so
45:49
really just um, we're working on distribution across the whole state. So right
45:53
now we're really just Fairfield County up past New Haven, the North Branford area.
45:59
But the best way folks can help us out is, Hey, if
46:01
you go into a liquor store, ask for us. Umd them every day.
46:07
Um yeah, so ask for us and uh yeah, the more people
46:10
that do, the more wind more. With one boy, Corey Shoop.
46:15
I don't know. I'd have to look, and I'm not sure it's on
46:17
the other side of town. Probably he's he's he's a big, big show
46:22
sponsor. He looked a couple of times and shout out to Corey. Yeah,
46:25
he's the one I send. Uh, you know, get a lot
46:28
of my liquor from great try to stay away from the big, the big
46:30
boys. If it's local. I'm sure Joelian has been in there. Yeah,
46:34
yeah, yeah, Jolian does a lot of a lot of work I
46:37
think over there, yep. Um, so it's variety pack right now only
46:42
yep, so um an eight pack so two of each flavor. Um,
46:46
yeah, that's the only way it's old currently yep and one hundred ten calories
46:51
four point nine and reading an upside down? What's that? What's that?
46:53
Another one is that? One is one grand Carbs cars, Yes, one
47:00
Grammar Carbs. Just come up with the name. Um name, Yeah,
47:06
naming is hardive me give me some other other ones, you know what I
47:10
UM, I like it? Yeah it works. You know. Game Time
47:15
was was really where we're like, I mean, I could show you pages
47:20
and naming is just hard in general, and I've done it for other brands.
47:22
Um, it's there's just a lot, it's already been taken right,
47:28
Um. So we had we had to go through pages and pages of names,
47:32
um to get to Game Up. We did originally start with Game Time
47:37
was like one of our favorites. UM, but I think Game Up is
47:40
more unique. It's, um it's action oriented, so I can tell you
47:45
to game up and get after it right right. But it's also it's a
47:49
good noun for for the product. It's game Up. Um, it's not
47:53
long convoluted and yeah, you know a lot of these and as you can
47:58
tell that our viewer our listeners can't see the logo here, but it's very
48:01
sports inspired, right It's like a check out on a Twitch. It's on
48:06
camera right now for the next two weeks. You can also I don't have
48:09
it, you know, I got expenses. You know, I don't really
48:13
make much money doing this podcast. I just do it for enjoyment being great
48:16
people like yourself. Thanks for having me. Yeah, you can check it
48:19
out at Drink Game up dot com um where we also have a map that
48:23
we're constantly updating UM where you can see locations that were available. But again,
48:29
like I said, please go into your local store that you buy your
48:32
beer and seltzer and liquor and ask for it because that's how that's what really
48:37
helps us out. I have a good listenership of softball players, so I
48:40
will definitely uh excellent. You know these guys, you'll have a quadruple aheader
48:45
and the whole, so we're we have a big softball following. I'm sponsoring
48:51
uh and I'm sorry, guys, I'm kind of up to my limit and
48:53
softball sponsorship everyone for that. But I've got three really awesome teams that uh
49:01
that I'm that we're sponsoring. Um, they are big supporters. Uh,
49:07
they're up at uh um, Connecticut Sports Blacks. Shout out to Connecticut Sports
49:12
Blacks with there's Connecticut sports. But I'll do a little ad for Connecticut Sports
49:15
Blacks. They have two concession stands up there. They're they're our biggest seller
49:20
by far. Um. The amount of game up that's being consumed to Connecticut
49:23
Sports Blacks during softball tournaments is very high. Um, you know, shout
49:29
out to my Game Up RDD softball team, the cookies crew, and the
49:32
Game Up girls. So we've got two men's teams and a women's team.
49:37
Um, all all really great teams, winning winning their tournaments already this this
49:43
year. Um. So yeah, we're we're deep into the softball world.
49:46
Yeah, I mean it's yeah, it's almost feel like they sho go hand
49:50
in hand. It's fantastic because they probably don't these guys, the guys I
49:54
know, they don't even drink at or rade at a softball game. They're
49:58
going right to the know, to the neoners and the clause and there's there's
50:01
quite a bit of drinking in softball tournaments that sound. Yeah, yeah,
50:05
it's early all day and uh yeah, I mean I see, I went
50:08
and watched one of my buddies games last year where I was waiting for him
50:10
to finish because we're heading up to the casino. Said I'll go watch a
50:14
couple of innings and like, these guys are just when they're they're running over,
50:17
they're like cross home plate, run straight past the bleachers the other side
50:22
of the park, a lot chunk of beer, do a shot of Polish
50:25
whiskey, and then head up and dude, like, I'm like, two
50:28
guys are insane, insane. But uh yeah, I was hanging out with
50:34
this this I was doing sampling at Connecticut Sportsplex and um, it's one player
50:39
who shall remain nameless. Although and he said, I you know, I
50:43
got here at a thirty um, and we got eliminated really early. So
50:47
I've just been drinking game up today and this was about six thirty. Uh.
50:54
They're they're a good crew to a market too, for yeah, yeah,
50:58
for sure. And just good guys, yeah, good guys and and
51:00
girls. So our women's team is super badass. All right, well we're
51:05
gonna let's take the night. We'll do like another fifteen minutes. I got
51:07
some other topics I want to bring all right because hit me. I try
51:09
to keep it fresh. Obviously, the Celtics last night. I know you're
51:14
not a big NBA guy, but they didn't show up. It was like
51:19
brutal. I literally fell asleep at half time. I was just like I
51:21
was at my buddy's couch. I'm like, that's how boring the game was.
51:23
I thought, just from a sports fan perspective, that it was going
51:27
to be the Celtics. I thought that they had figured it out. You
51:30
can't go back to Boston and lose. Wasn't gonna happen. So I'm sorry,
51:35
sorry for your loss, right, thank you. They lost three home
51:37
games to the Miami fucking Heat. That's just embarrassing. But in today's world
51:43
of sports, now, it's you know what a were gonna do. We're
51:45
gonna get rid of Jann Brown. We're gonna fire the coach. She's the
51:46
only his first year. We're gonna be in the third coach in three years.
51:49
Isn't it amazing? It's like immediately, yeah, it's like, you
51:52
know, they were one game away from making the finals again. And I
51:54
say this to my friends, I'm like, okay, if you Jaylen Brown's
52:00
twenty six, Tatum's twenty five. Jaylen Brown's up this year for a Supermax
52:05
extension and Tatum will be up for Supermax next year, which basically means they're
52:07
going to take up one hundred million dollars a year cap space, right for
52:12
two players. But that being said, does the current group obviously work as
52:17
far as winning a championship? Will know, they haven't proven it. But
52:21
if you have those two guys in the next ten years, you're in this
52:23
position every year where you're in the Eastern Conference finals or maybe you'll make the
52:28
finals and maybe two to three times in that ten year span you crack through
52:30
and you win a championship. Or do you want to trade Jayleen Brown away
52:35
for like a Damian Lillard who's thirty five and you know what, does he
52:39
really have left? He's hurt all the time, like these guys play.
52:43
Yeah, I don't know. I just feel like I think it's different in
52:45
basketball because it is about a smaller core group, right, right, But
52:51
if I can, if I can flip it over to hockey, right look
52:54
at look at Edmonton with McDavid and dry Sudle, Right, you know,
53:00
like, okay, you you will have to build a team around those two
53:04
guys. I mean, they are superstars. They're probably the two best,
53:07
you know, skilled players in the world. But you know, but they
53:10
haven't won anything yet, right, Well, I mean, and then back
53:13
to basketball. You know, you got guys like when Kobe Bryant was playing,
53:17
you know, he'd played all forty eight minutes right. In hockey,
53:22
you probably play eighteen to twenty two minutes, right, so you're playing one
53:24
third of the game. Yeah, so you can't influence a game like the
53:29
greats in basketball. That's my point about basketball. Yeah, yeah, so
53:31
yeah, it's a good way to look at it. It's like, and
53:35
then my Bruins, we already talked about them though, I did read to
53:38
the I read this morning. Actually, uh, they're looking to sign me
53:44
back, is that right? Yeah, but they've been saying that for years.
53:47
Yeah. I did see. You know, good for Luci he um.
53:52
He was part of the Canada team that that just won the World championship.
53:58
So oh yeah you us huh us finished fourth? Right Yeah? And
54:02
Latvia, big, big, big Latfa silver medaalist. That the the the
54:10
footage I saw from Latvia is just the whole country is on fire. I
54:15
mean in a good way. They didn't actually light anything on fire. Excited
54:17
about their their team finally finishing in the top three. So that's that's huge
54:22
for them, great and great for hockey. It can't always be the US
54:25
and Canada right right, which it seems to be. Yeah. Uh so
54:31
obviously, you know, the world we're kind of living in right now is
54:34
a little little wacky, little tenuous in some parts of the country. I
54:38
think we're for the most part around here. Okay. You know, I
54:42
don't read too much of the shit I see on the news. Yeah,
54:45
but there was a you know, you mentioned it earlier, Lulu Lemon.
54:49
You know, that's right up your alley as far as your marketing. So
54:52
Lulu Lemon was getting robbed daily some store like San Francisco or something, okay,
54:58
and two women call the police to two employees called the police to report
55:02
the robbery, and subsequently the two people that robbed the police got arrested.
55:09
But Lululemon has a policy that you are not allowed to basically call the police
55:16
on robbers. You're not allowed to get in the way of them, okay,
55:21
for insurance purposes. So somebody doesn't get hurt. I mean I worked
55:24
in retail too, like I got it. So these two women got fired,
55:29
Okay, for that's a little extreme. That does seem extreme, Yes,
55:34
Like at what point, like why why would I even want to fucking
55:37
work for somebody like that? Like I'm trying to like help you guys out.
55:42
Yeah, Like it wasn't like it was a one one off. It
55:44
was happening every day, Like the same people were robbing the store. Yeah,
55:46
and they're figuring out, well, no one's gonna do anything. Yeah.
55:51
I don't know anything about that story. My guess is if the if
55:55
the policy is about don't stop anyone, right because we don't want you to
56:00
get hurt, right, that makes sense, right, right? Like my
56:02
owner at stone Bridge, he says, if if you're working late night and
56:06
someone comes in with a gun and robs you give them everything you got.
56:09
Yeah, we'll take care of it later. It's not worth it. Yeah,
56:13
But I'm also it's not the fifth time in a row I got a
56:15
fucking gun point. Yeah, But I mean I think it is. It's
56:20
the right thing to do if you're if you're being robbed, you should call
56:22
the police and those people should be held accountable for stealing, right, Like,
56:28
what's the harmon calling the clerk that's what you're supposed to do. Yeah,
56:30
I don't know. That sounds odd. Yeah, but who knows.
56:32
I don't want to. I know you're trying to sell. And then this
56:37
is a crazy story I read this morning. Um there's video of it,
56:42
which is like just just not disturbing. But like, you ever been on
56:45
a cruise. I've never been on a cruise. I saw this as I
56:49
know exactly what you're gonna talk about yet. So there was I don't know
56:51
what cruise line it was, and there was a bunch of people partying on
56:54
the deck and I guess somebody or some people dared a kid that jump overboard.
57:00
Different story than I thought ahead. You're talking about the waves one yea,
57:05
So check this one out. So the kid does. He's fucking two
57:09
in the morning, okay, So he jumps overboard. Some dudes filming it
57:15
and he's just kind of waiting in the water. And I watched it real
57:19
quick and it was on Twitter, and then I clicked on the comments and
57:22
somebody slowed down the video like when they were focusing on him in the water,
57:29
and then they stopped it, and you just see this fucking massive shark.
57:34
Come on, not lying. I'll show you the video after, okay,
57:37
and they throw him a life, you know, a ring white life,
57:44
uh whatever you call those. So wait, can I stop you?
57:45
It's just saying big cruise ship. Yeah, okay, yeah, and you
57:51
kind of here, like the clip doesn't last very long. So I researched,
57:54
like what actually happened. Sure enough, kid was dared and he jumped
57:59
overboard. Well they never found him. Like trying to find a person in
58:04
the ocean in the middle of the night is like a needle in a haystacks
58:07
easier probably, sure, and he just got whisked away. But seeing that,
58:12
like he was like right next to this fucking shark and it was like
58:15
twice the size of him. Yeah, Like so like everyone's like, hell,
58:17
he must have got to eat by the shark. But they went down
58:20
that I think the boat turned around. They just couldn't find him. Wow,
58:23
that's a that is a crazy story. And I'm sure the shark was
58:25
like, hey throw another one. He's like, I don't get a little
58:30
drunk. Ea, I mean I don't know that. I mean, God
58:32
rest his soul. I'm sure he's not alive, even if it was a
58:36
shark or not. Yes, I'm sad. I'm sad to hear that he
58:38
probably either drowned or I actually hope he's drowned more than getting eaten by a
58:43
shark. That's got to be a bad way to go. I think that's
58:46
a bad way to go. They say drowning is actually not a bad way
58:49
to go. You know, I had this discussion. I was just on
58:52
a trip with a friend of mine who's a sailor. Yeah, and he
58:54
said that to me, and he goes, is there a good way to
58:57
go? Like he's like, yeah, they say drowning it's not a bad
59:00
way to go, But like how did they know? Who said that?
59:02
Yeah, like there's something that drowned, it came back, probably gonna go
59:07
out. That's the way I'm gonna go out. Yeah. Me, I
59:08
don't believe that because I I battled with like my own anxiety and I could
59:15
just like you almost know for like forty seconds you're not gonna I think it
59:19
would be super scary. Yeah, like the panic that must set in.
59:22
I think that by the time you inhale the water, it's like quick like
59:27
you're done, you're out, okay, but leading up to that point.
59:30
So I agree with you, and I confirm that because my friend said that
59:35
to me the other day. But I've also heard that freezing to death,
59:37
they say, is not a bad way to go because you basically just fall
59:39
asleep. Yeah, but again you're like theory, it's a while, a
59:44
while before that's going to happen, right, Yeah, I don't want to
59:47
find out either way. No, I mean a guy, I always say,
59:51
you know what, fucking the mill of night, I have a art
59:52
attack, I'm in the middle of a nice ram dream and just fucking go.
59:57
You're right, there's no easy way to go, and there's no easy
1:00:00
way going. And I don't believe anybody who says there's a better way to
1:00:04
go, because how do you know, right, Like, death is a
1:00:09
weird thing, you know, everyone does it. Everyone's gotta go, and
1:00:13
no one, nobody, nobody, no one knows what's on the other side.
1:00:15
None of us get out of here a lot. And who is it?
1:00:20
Who's the Neil Degrassi Tyson. Yeah, yeah, he was talking about
1:00:24
death one time and he thinks it's just lights out. Yeah, that's it.
1:00:30
Like there's no religious in him. There's no afterlife, there's no other
1:00:35
universe, there's none of that. And I'm like, well that sucks,
1:00:38
Like turn it right off, Like I don't want to hear that. Yeah,
1:00:42
gotta mean something or I liked my my like envisioning is like on the
1:00:47
other side, it's just like all your loved ones that you've lost over the
1:00:52
years. We're just like, dude, we've been laying Man, it's fucking
1:00:54
awesome over here. You know this, this has turned very deep from game
1:00:59
up what happens in the afterlife. But I do think that and if if
1:01:04
you plenty of game up in the afterlife, that's what that's what it is.
1:01:07
Yeah, that's what we got. Yes, in heaven, there's game
1:01:10
up. Yes, in God's creation up. Uh So what's your You got
1:01:16
a cruise story you read today? I just think I know you saw the
1:01:19
same thing. So there was I see the video though. I just saw,
1:01:22
Yeah, there were these people were on a cruise and there was a
1:01:25
huge storm and it seems they just turned into the storm and these people the
1:01:30
the the stories they were telling was were like the waves were battering this enormous
1:01:36
cruise ship like cannonballs hitting the side of the ship. It must have been
1:01:39
incredibly scary. Oh my god. They said they were like the some of
1:01:42
the rooms were getting flooded. Yeah. I've been on probably at least ten
1:01:46
cruises and only one time do we have. We were coming back from Bermuda
1:01:53
and it was straight shot back about you know, sixteen hours I think,
1:01:58
and we hit some nasty web just just you know, thunderstorm kind of shit.
1:02:01
You know. It was like in the end of April or early maybe
1:02:05
went and this fucking thing. Like, you know, you're on these ships,
1:02:08
you don't really you feel a little sway, like if you're if you
1:02:14
get motion sickness, you're you're still fine. Yeah, but when the storm
1:02:17
hit, I mean, it was just you couldn't walk down the hallway not
1:02:22
looking like you're bond. Yeah, like you're just wobbling around trying to get
1:02:25
your fucking bearing straight. And all these kids just started throwing up all over
1:02:30
the They're all getting motion sickness, and it was just, oh, it
1:02:34
was so gross. So I just said to my girlfriend at the time and
1:02:36
said, Yo, I'm going into the room. I'm just gonna sleep through
1:02:39
this ship. Well, the part of the story that I didn't tell you
1:02:42
is that. They were also saying that the crew started putting their life jackets
1:02:45
on, but they didn't tell any of the passengers. It's kind of one
1:02:51
of those things like if you're on a plane and you see the flight attendants
1:02:54
looking worried nervous, Yeah, that's the time to panic. Yeah. You
1:02:59
ever had a d like maybe this is it I back to the death ship?
1:03:05
Yeah, I know, this is very positive. Um. There was
1:03:08
a time I was coming back from Florida with when my kids were young,
1:03:12
and we had just taken off and there's there was smoke coming from the galley
1:03:16
and the back of the but we didn't know it was age. There was
1:03:20
smoke starting to fill up the cabin. Yeah, and like quickly they turned
1:03:23
a rim and then you could tell they were getting low to dump the fuel
1:03:27
over the ocean. Oh god, I was a little scared at that time.
1:03:30
Yeah, but it was all there was a fire in the galley and
1:03:36
it was all, you know, just for precautions to get rid of the
1:03:38
fuel to ignite obviously. Yeah. I was flying back from Florida and I
1:03:43
had a layover in Philly and it was me and my buddy and we were
1:03:47
coming into Philly and it was snowing and it was obviously cloudy out and couldn't
1:03:52
see much. The visibility had to be low, and you know how one
1:03:54
you're like it's like rainy and cloudy or snowy, and you're like, you're
1:03:57
just waiting to see the ground, yes, as you're going through the clouds,
1:04:00
and I just never saw the ground, never saw the ground, And
1:04:02
like we're on that angle, yeah, you know, I know, we're
1:04:05
almost there, and all of a sudden, we just fucking take off straight
1:04:11
into the air. I was like, what the fuck. So then we
1:04:14
circled around and it was jet Blue and the pilot jet blue plants are great.
1:04:17
Yeah, He's like, all right, not to be alarmed, but
1:04:20
we almost land on top of another plane. We're gonna try this again,
1:04:24
blah blah blah. And I'm like what And then like we land safely and
1:04:29
I'm like shaken. And the pilot comes out and as we're all leaving,
1:04:31
he's like, you know, sorry about that, guys, but you know,
1:04:33
just it's it's rough out there, but we we got it. We
1:04:36
made it safe. And I'm just like, holy shit, Yeah, that
1:04:40
was you know, a couple of little turbulence things, but nothing nuts.
1:04:44
That's life. Yeah. Yeah, you shoe gonna be the I mean with
1:04:46
all your connections, you know, yeah, you should be like the official.
1:04:49
Uh. I love the Jet Blue flights. I'd love I'd love to
1:04:54
be on Jeff blud Like, getting getting these on planes is a whole other
1:04:58
thing. I would love to do that. Um, I'd love to be
1:05:00
on Jeff Blue. It also loved to be on Breeze. So a lot
1:05:02
of my friends from Jet Blue have now gone to work for Breeze. So
1:05:08
David Neilman, who another you know, mad genius, uh started jet Blue
1:05:13
and now he's also started Breeze. Um. So I think that's a very
1:05:16
cool airline. You know, shout out to Breeze and all my friends over
1:05:20
there. They're out of Hartford, right, they're at of Hartford. They're
1:05:25
in Westchester. Um, I believe ice lip so um a lot of these
1:05:30
smaller secondary airports. Yeah yeah, like Tweet has the alo or whatever.
1:05:34
Yes, yeah, that's correct. Yeah, that's cool man getting your product
1:05:39
on the flights. I know, you know, like I know Tito's is
1:05:42
I think I think it's you know, hard hydration belongs on a flight.
1:05:45
Yeah, you gotta Steers got drunk on plane? Oh my god. I
1:05:50
know they wrote a song about it. But I would meet like random people.
1:05:55
I used to fly by myself a lot. Are you a talker?
1:05:57
Do you like to like talk to your seat mate? Yeah? But but
1:06:00
I get it right, right, I get like a sense, like I
1:06:04
have a really good sense, like if I start talking to somebody, I
1:06:08
know they they don't want me to talk to them, or they engage right
1:06:12
away. So if they engage right away, I'm buying the first drink.
1:06:15
It could be a guy, a girl, doesn't matter. I just want
1:06:17
to fucking discite to be over with, you know. And and I think
1:06:20
talking to strangers helps that. And I would just you know, I've had
1:06:25
I've met some kids that played UMass football and just we became lifelong like internet
1:06:30
friends, you know, like we're you know we now you just connect through
1:06:33
your phone. But yeah, I would always talk to And I've had some
1:06:36
people that were just like they're just they probably fly every day, and he's
1:06:41
like, I don't want to deal with this, ye know, right,
1:06:42
I get that. I'm not I'm not that annoying guy who's gonna you know
1:06:45
this is a good way for you to find new people for the pod too.
1:06:47
Yeah. Yeah, I haven't flown since COVID. No is that I
1:06:51
don't think I have. No I did. I flew to Nashville. That
1:06:54
was I flew one time since COVID. Okay, I fled during COVID,
1:06:57
though I wasn't like fuck that. I'm like, I don't need to go
1:07:00
anywhere right now. Yeah. Well, I think my first trip post COVID
1:07:05
shutdown on a plane was to go to Chicago to do the formulations for a
1:07:09
game up. Yeah yeah, yeah was it still all masks and all masks?
1:07:13
Yeah, and cards and yeah, show your papers and all that shit.
1:07:17
I think it was mostly just the masks. Yeah, but I will,
1:07:24
you know, just to bring it back to Game up too. We
1:07:26
did still at that point. So we went to this um uh, this
1:07:30
company that does the flavors um flavor house that does the formulations, and we
1:07:35
did sit outside and have them, you know, come out in their lab
1:07:39
coats to bring us samples and yeah. So yeah, well they weren't.
1:07:45
But you know, when you think back, it's like, yeah, okay,
1:07:47
well we had to sit outside as opposed to like being in whatever the
1:07:51
lab at that moment, because that was the thing at the time. Yeah,
1:07:55
it was weird weird times. It wasn't that long ago. It wasn't
1:07:58
that long ago. No, it feels like it, but it wasn't.
1:08:00
Um. Uh, Brian, thanks so much for coming on and thanks is
1:08:05
truly fantastic. I've had some stuff come across this table that I just would
1:08:09
like, like not rather try it again. Actually I have one in the
1:08:12
fridge. I want you to try it, okay, and I'll tell you
1:08:14
the story behind it after after this deal. Um, but great again we
1:08:19
gets game up. Uh. Like one of the best points you said,
1:08:24
if you want to try it and it's not in your local liquor store,
1:08:26
just as the owner because it's it's through the cello, and the cello is
1:08:29
right in Orange, Connecticut. And uh you know they can It's just as
1:08:31
simple as yep, ordering a couple of cases. Yeah. And so uh,
1:08:36
we're in Connecticut in that territory, which I said before, we're in
1:08:40
all of Massachusetts, a little bit along island, a little bit in the
1:08:43
city. Um, but we have a very big presence in Connecticut. I
1:08:46
live in Connecticut. Um, and uh, yeah, we're we have a
1:08:50
big push to thank this successful in Connecticut. Absolutely, are you in a
1:08:56
lot of bars mostly off premise, very few bars the bars are more sports
1:09:01
themed, right, So, um, we're in some hockey ranks I can
1:09:05
personally attest. I'm a horrible hockey player but a good drinker. Um.
1:09:10
And so if you go to Stanford Twin Ranks, for example, you can
1:09:14
go up to the bar afterwards and Billy will have a game up there for
1:09:17
you. So that's awesome. Yeah, same with and just not to leave
1:09:21
him out, um, Elliott at Sonom Rank at the bar down. Oh
1:09:28
yeah nice. Yeah, these are i mean perfect for that. Yeah.
1:09:31
And like you know, you said like bars are more A lot of bars
1:09:34
are sports centric. Yeah, but I think a sports bar is kind of
1:09:40
a dead breed. Yes, you know, uh, just I don't know,
1:09:44
Like if I go out, yeah I want a game on, but
1:09:45
I'm not going me personally, at this stage of my life, I'm not
1:09:48
going out to watch it. I mean I do sometimes, but yeah,
1:09:54
it's more of in the background. But so for on premise, yeah,
1:09:57
so's things that have where people would go to watch sports. But also,
1:10:00
um, we're finding a lot of beach bars want us because it's perfect on
1:10:04
the beach. Um. A lot of bars around Marinas. Um bars in
1:10:10
golf courses, right, so those are the kind of off premise places you
1:10:13
can find us. And yeah again if just like, please ask for us
1:10:18
in the store. If you play golf, please ask your local golf course
1:10:21
to carry us, because you'll thank me for it. These are awesome,
1:10:27
uh you know off the cart or after you're round. Um, a great
1:10:31
golf drink. Yeah, no, it's uh, they are delicious. I
1:10:35
have to say thank you cold. Yeah, just like anything else. Just
1:10:40
it's better that way obviously. Yeah, you know, I drink a lot
1:10:44
of white claw you know, warm on the golf course because you know,
1:10:47
I got to sneak them in so by only get ninth hold. They're pretty
1:10:50
much just you know, done very warm. Me and I got a couple
1:10:54
of ice and stuff. But I'm gonna definitely bring some of these. Uh.
1:10:58
You can do these over ice as well. Um, the same way
1:11:01
people fortify their white cloth. From time to time, we have heard of
1:11:04
people putting a little vodka and um uh we experience. I've also heard of
1:11:10
people putting a little shot at tequila and the lemon lime. It gets you
1:11:13
a little margarite kind of thing. Um, but but responsibly not needed.
1:11:18
Drink responsibly not needed. They're excellent as they are right out of the camp.
1:11:23
Yeah, absolutely all right, So game up? So, oh do
1:11:25
you have any before we go? Do you have any tastings coming up in
1:11:27
the area? Um? If you follow us on Instagram, drink game up.
1:11:31
Drink came up and we'll put every weekend we post our tastings. Perfect
1:11:35
and you might even see my beautiful girlfriend they're doing one. Yes, she
1:11:39
did one a couple of weeks ago for you guys. She said a bunch.
1:11:42
Oh yeah. Yeah. It's the kind of thing where when people try
1:11:45
it, they get it and they buy it because it is it's unlike anything
1:11:47
else that's out there. Um, and you do need to try it because
1:11:50
it doesn't taste like a seltzer. It doesn't taste like a beer. I
1:11:54
may get this wrong, but I think she told me that when she was
1:11:56
doing it, there was like one guy that was just like standing there for
1:12:00
like thirty minutes. He just kept like, you know, She's like,
1:12:01
I don't know why I'm supposed to give you this many samples. It's like
1:12:05
it's like, uh, Peter and Family guy when he was at Costco.
1:12:10
Yeah, put on a different like a different costume just to get the free
1:12:13
samples sleeves time. But Brian, good luck with the company, like so
1:12:16
much. I will you know when Nicole does. I'll put it on my
1:12:19
Instagram and awesome get it, especially if it's super local being better Yeah,
1:12:24
um, and we'll get the word out for you. Thanks for having me
1:12:27
Jo, I really appreciate it. My friend Dave Drank MDGs awesome. Take
1:12:30
care. Thanks