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From Bloody Marys in a Garage to 2,400 Stores: Brewt's Mixers on Building a Beverage Brand Without Outside Capital · Ready To Drink Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Courtney Clark.
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the VP of Sales at Bruots.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm Emily Griffin.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the co-founder and CEO of Bruots.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_03: Perfect.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_03: Well, whoever wants to kind of get started on that, give me a little cloud level flyover of what Bruots is and what it is you guys produce and kind of the mission of the business.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: I can start with that.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so full transparency, we are a mixer company at the moment.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: And very shortly we will be a uh RTD and mixer company.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we're debuting our RTDs June 18th.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so currently, right now, our primary focus is in mixers, right?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I started the business in 2016.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, kind of have a similar background of what you were talking about prior to this life.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was in martial arts.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I was a professional fighter for eight years, uh, primarily doing Muay Thai.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of stand-up kickboxing um was my entire previous life.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh got into this, like I said, in 2016, where we started doing um all natural cocktail mixers, the Bloody Mary to start.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and if you want kind of the full background of the business, or you want kind of just the gist of it?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_03: No, keep keep go all the way.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_03: This is about the story of the business and the people.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_03: So you go for it.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: So started this Bloody Mary in our apartment in LA in 2016, started bringing it to like pool parties and friends' house, and people were like, Oh, you should sell this.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: And we were like, that's insane.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I was kind of in the height of my fighting career, but also saw an end in sight, as most fighters do when their bodies start to kind of crumble.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: So um, long story short, a friend of mine from Grand Rapids was like, Oh, you should do this trade show.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a food and wine trade show in Grand Rapids and just kind of see how it goes because the mixers are so good.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: So flew back to Grand Rapids, Michigan from LA with a few friends and our co-founder, and we bottled uh a hundred cases of Bloody Mary mix in my parents' garage.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and self-labeled, did everything kind of on our own.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: I had a really dodgy Vista print banner printed.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a friend of ours in LA that does some like graphic stuff.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, I can make a logo.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we go to this trade show in Grand Rapids and we sell out a product in two days, and we, long story short, sign with a distributor 20 days after that.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: So um, outside of the Bloody Mary mix, then kind of fast forward in 2019, we finally added to the catalog.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: So we built the entire company off of a Bloody Mary, uh premium, all natural, organic-based Bloody Mary mix.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we just saw kind of a hole in the market that there wasn't anything premium in that section, especially the mixer section as a whole, to be honest, but primarily in Bloody Marys.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was like a lot of salt and sugar-driven uh mixers.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of where this all stemmed from.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: So started to add to the catalog in in 2019, where we added a Bloody Caesar, which was like the first to the market at um and mass retailer.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then um outside of that, at that same time, we built our own manufacturing facility from the ground up, my co-founder and I, and started producing everything in-house in Grand Rapids.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh 2022, we added margaritas to our catalog, and that's kind of where the business took off was from adding all natural, real lime juice-based margaritas.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and now, fast forward to today, this is kind of long story short, but now we're in 2,400 locations across the US, probably a little bit more now.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a thousand plus Walmart stores, 900 plus Kroger stores, eight uh DSDs nationwide.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh we're with Kahi on the West.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: So kind of all encompassing this mixer company.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then at the same time, like I said, in June, we're adding uh RTDs.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of the gist of brutes.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: Are you gonna do RTDs off of the Bloody Mary and the margarita, or are you gonna kind of add another layer in there?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, great question.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: So primarily, I do not want to be a margarita company until the end of time.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: I would like to add other SKUs.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like the margaritas really just took off, and that's kind of where a lot of our focus has been.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we will have just only margarita RTDs, not Bloody Marys, because I'm sure, as you know, being in the industry, it feels like a total mess to do something like that and like a feat that nobody's really been able to like accomplish and do well.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: So we're like maybe we just hands off that until we you know succeed in the margarita side of things.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: But primarily from a strategic standpoint, my end goal is um to have you know full cocktail lineup outside of margaritas.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: With a a former client, I'll I'll remain un uh unnamed in this, but uh years ago pre-COVID, we uh there were distillery and we we were ahead of the RTD space, but we weren't doing cans or anything like that.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: They were doing pouches for their for their products.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: And then we we tried to start RTD.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_03: We did RTDs in a few other areas in the pouches, but the bloody Mary just never worked because we couldn't filter everything through.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_03: It kept getting clogged, and then the presentation just we tried.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_03: I've been there in the in the lab and it just never worked.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we we had a at a one time, I mean, we've we've done so many insane things here, but Michigan State was like, Can we pop into your facility and like watch how you make these bloody Marys?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Yeah, absolutely.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's like a whole group of people watching from Michigan State.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, this is the most unglamorous, disgusting thing.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like on the you know what I mean?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like we're siphoning through black peppercorn, it's getting stuck in the lines.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like, what are we doing with our lives?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it brought us to where we are, but it's uh it's a very tedious process.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, even so much so that our co-packer now, so we outgrew our co-packing space once we got Walmart and we added uh two co-mans, so one out of Waco that primarily does our margaritas.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then I actually found a second co-man in in Buffalo, New York, because he's the only person that would really be hands-on with the bloody.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: He was like our other co-man in Waco was like, it's just too much.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a whole separate business in itself, as you know, which is it has like a special spot in my heart because it's where everything started.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not really willing to let it go.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it it's a tremendous amount of work.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: No, I'm with you.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_03: I believe I believe it's a staple that needs to be there, but I've seen so many brands attempt it, and it's like it just doesn't stick for a million reasons.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_03: That has nothing to do with the operator or the manufacturer or anything like that.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's just it is a really challenging recipe to get to the way that we need, you know, RTDs to be presented.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, we could even say that I feel like that as a whole with the mixer section.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like just like what it's such a challenging section.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: And Courtney can attest to this coming into a mixer section.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'll let her talk after I'm rambling here.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: But um, it's just such a weird niche spot, you know what I mean, in in the grocery section.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just it's so hard to adapt to.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, we can get into all that, but yeah, I hear you.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: Courtney, give me uh give me your kind of what what year did you intersect with Emily?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_03: And then kind of how did that give me the whole we like to get a little, we like to get really uh into the moment.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_03: So kind of paint paint the what's going on in your life at the moment you meet Emily, and then when did that all kick off?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was love at first sight.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: She has to say that.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: Don't worry, I'll make that the clip and we'll go have that go around.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's good.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, so I met uh Emily and the other co-founder, Luke, last year, and it really all stemmed from a LinkedIn post where Emily, I don't even know how it got onto my feed because regionally, I mean, I live in Oregon, Emily's in Michigan, um, a lot of the business is out east, but came up on my LinkedIn and Emily posted, turns out I can't do this all alone, hiring my first VP of sales.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: So um I was at a point, I was actually at Spindrift um previous to this, and I was on the mix, the um not the mixer, the spendrift spiked side of the business, which I'm not sure if you've been following Spindrift whatsoever, but they were acquired um the early last year, and um our whole category or our whole department got let go from um the Spindrift business.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: So we uh a lot of us, amazing talent from that team were kind of like looking for new jobs.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I had a feeling that was coming, just knowing like how that like the vibes I could just feel like coming um when the acquisition was happening.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: So um had reached out to Emily after that LinkedIn post and our very first call, like hearing her story, and how can you not like just think that's the coolest thing ever?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like I when I heard she was a fighter and like just the whole story is exactly like where I wanted to be because I saw a lot of people um who were kind of the first employees at Spindrift and saw their journey.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I got in pretty late compared to all of them.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: I I got in probably year 10 at Spindrift, they sold at 12, and um I really like wanted to build something with the founders.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: So um when I saw that opportunity, I was really excited about it and just like to go with Emily and Louis right away.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I came on with them in um fall of last year and just like hit the ground running.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: So um I knew in our first interviews that they were looking to launch that RTD business, which is really like my expertise coming from alcohol.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um honestly, like the non-al Kahy mixer business um was very new to me.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like I all my experience, I was at White Claw prior to Spindrift, so had worked in alcohol with DSD distributors.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's really all I knew.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't even know there were other options in route to market.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: So it was like a pretty big learning curve for me.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: I I saw it a bit at Spindrift, um, but was mostly hands-on with like the DSD business.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: So um it's been a really fun journey and just like really eye-opening to everything that um can happen like within the beverage category, both non-alk and alcohol.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_03: It's uh so I don't know.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_03: We have some paths across.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_03: So in my in my prior world, I was in in the early days, was uh in the distributor world.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_03: So I was brand manager, vice president of sales, and all that stuff.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: And um, and and when White Claw came out, I was one of the few that was like, this is the future.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_03: And it wasn't because I like like the product, it was that I saw I've always been one that sees the delta and the demand and and the numbers.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_03: And when first uh what was the other uh there was another brand that was like out of Connecticut or Rhode Island or something like that, too.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_03: Truly or was it truly and then there was another one, it was like two names or whatever, and it was like a small one that kind of came through and then not really that one when I saw that brand of the size that it was doing the data that it was doing, I was like, there's something in this category.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, this isn't necessarily the right brand to be the one.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_03: They didn't financially obviously have it to kind of build the brand.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_03: And then when White Call truly and those came through, that's obviously with the finance and things like that.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_03: So I represented those brands and still do today.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_03: I work with Boston Beer on the RT side of the business.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Great company.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, this podcast is uh is kind of something I do for the industry, but it's our day stuff is strategy market development, and uh we cold open accounts.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_03: So we'll bring in Pennsylvania specifically, we bring brands that are not in Pennsylvania and then cold open the market for them, set them up with distribution, help them with their monthly business planning for a lot of startups that don't understand necessarily the difference in DTC relationships and market strategy versus actual wholesale retail strategies.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's amazing.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: How long have you been doing that?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_03: Uh 18 years this summer, yeah.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's very cool.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Is that where you're based in Pennsylvania?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_03: That's where I'm based in, yeah, yeah.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: So that's where the main territory is.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_03: But I've done in COVID, I I branched out obviously and remotely did work in Nevada, in uh New Mexico, uh Chicago, a bunch of other states remotely, uh doing kind of consulting work and stuff like that.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_03: But I can tell you that it's nothing in this industry you can make headway and you can do that.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_03: But really, as you guys know, it's it's walking in the door, it's it's touching you know those retailers and stuff like that.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_03: And my my specialty is in the independent mom and pops.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um so it's that's where I kind of really go, you know, door to door, up to up to five, 10 locations, things like that.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_03: I do work with the chains and everything like that.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_03: We just did a conference actually last week with the Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_03: So all the gas convenience stores and uh all the ownership and families uh came in the room and we did a panel uh presenting about beverages and functional beverages, because in Pennsylvania, that's a whole new thing that's illegal right now in the in the alcohol space.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: So it's legal to sell them, uh but you cannot sell them, manufacture, or distribute within the same facility.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_03: So we sell them in coffee shops, and now we're opening up yoga studios and CrossFit gyms and things like that.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_03: So um, yeah, so we're going with a whole against the grain uh strategy while also supporting the traditional where we can with our RTD portfolio.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's amazing.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you you've been in every aspect of it.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's uh it's tried and true, and uh, and I can say that uh I've done trial and error so many times that uh I might not I I can I can tell you, yeah.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's and you being in the fighting world, it's uh my history is wrestling and and football.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I I have another podcast with uh with a UFC Bellator fighter.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_03: So it's uh we we definitely uh connect on that as far as uh what it takes, and every door might not open, but if you bang it hard enough, somebody will answer.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, when you said Bellator, I was like, holy shit, I haven't heard that in a minute.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like I haven't heard that question in a hot second.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_03: So that was actually Emily.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna have you on, I'm gonna have you on that show as well because we have not had a previous fighter with Clifford on it.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: So I want I want him, I want to see him interact.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we I bring he's bringing my world into it, and I have it, he hasn't brought anybody over, so I want to surprise him with an episode.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: We do the same thing, cold, cold uh meetings and stuff like that.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_03: So perfect.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_03: Well, talk about yeah, yeah, but talk about you guys, your strategy.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you went you went from from 10, you're about 10 years into this now and 2400 locations.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_03: What year was it that things really accelerated with the Walmarts and the multi, you know, multi-location?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_03: And then how did you manage that?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_03: Because it seems like there was a gap from there to Courtney where that would be a lot of stressful times as an operator.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_03: So kind of be you know, as vulnerable and teaching as possible to the audience as far as what that growth was like, um, and then how you got about going there without any don't give any secret sauce to your competitors or anything like that.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't know if they have the secret sauce to be honest.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_03: It was just grid and resilience.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what it is.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Some days I'm like, I got this figured out.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Next day I'm like, what happened?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um Welcome to the beverage space.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: And like nobody prepared me for the beverage space, and uh like I had no experience, right?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was just like a very gritty fighter.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: So like getting into this space or like CPG as a whole has been 10 years of learning experience.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, I like have not mastered or figured out everything, even remotely close yet.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yes, strong point to the to the fact that we had a huge gap between what we were doing.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, I was bootstrapped for uh uh eight years.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: We built this facility that I'm sitting in right now off of profit from Bloody Mary's.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: I just did everything that I kind of thought was the right way to do it.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I started the company and getting into distribution.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: I was only with one distributor for six, six years almost.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: And he they were just servicing the Bloody Mary, and I was doing exactly what you were saying.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was literally showing up at every store you could even imagine.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was popping up at disgusting dodgy liquor stores, doing demos on a Friday.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was doing easy, I'm still doing that, all right?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Easy.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: No, believe me, so am I.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: I just spent the entire weekend at Sam's Club last weekend.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, um another one on Thursday.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_03: You're good.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: No, I a hundred percent agree with you, and I'm still doing the same thing too.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I was talking to our founder, our co-founder, who was also my significant up there over the weekend, and we were talking about the strategy of going into RTDs, and not to ramble, but I was like, I'm showing up.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm showing up at stores, like I'm knocking down the doors and I'm showing.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, Really, after 10 years and you being the CEO, I'm like, yeah, that's just like that's inherently in my blood, is just to show up and like make sure that people know who we are, who Courtney and I are, who Luke is, like what we're doing as a team, I feel like is what got me here and making sure that I like stay really true to who I am and what I believe in.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so when we decided in 2022, honestly, all through COVID, I just drank margaritas.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: My my significant other has two dads that live in Palm Springs, and we spent a significant amount of time doing absolutely nothing at their home in Palm Springs over drinking margaritas.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, you know, this is the only thing I drink.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why are we just focusing this entire and to your point?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: I saw a shift in the consumer with bloodies.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like when we first started, it was really cool.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was premium.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: We were like finding this kind of younger generation.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: And during COVID, it really all like took a hit, to be honest.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I did this, uh, I'll never forget.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: I did this event, it was a virtual event, and it was like an event or uh an awards ceremony, and it was just about bloodies.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: And 2,000 people virtually signed into this thing just to meet founders that owned Bloody Mary companies.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And like we talked, and then we sampled, and like people, it was interactive.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: And all the founders were on this panel right in the heart of COVID.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then I remember it the thing stops and it opens up.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's like, let's open up to everybody that's involved.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: And all these little squares start to pop up on the screen, and they're all consumers.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh man, this consumer has changed.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like it didn't look the same that it did six years prior.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I just thought, I just saw it like this is gonna continue to be a really low volume, low velocity, low budget item in the grocery store until the end of time because that's how the consumer has been, you know, trained and transitioned over the years to be that value-driven consumer.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I went straight home from the office after and I said to Luke, like, we absolutely cannot be a Bloody Mary company forever.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: We need to be, we need to do these margaritas.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we just kind of started there.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like we had our own manufacturing facility, which was the joy of everything.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: I would just, we'd pop in here at one o'clock in the morning and we'd be like, let's try this and see like if this works.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we'd bottle five bottles and we'd be like, okay, let's let it sit for two weeks and let's watch it and let's taste it every day and let's like test pH levels and let's see if we can get real lime juice.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like we just engulfed our whole life into like we can try this because we have the space to do it and see if it works.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: And if it does, we'll try to bring it to market.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we've just done everything really slow and organically that way because we just felt like, well, we did it once with the Bloody Marys.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: So the other way that the Bloody Marys really took off was events, pop-ups, and farmers markets.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I colled, hired 18 people off of Indeed, and I was like, here's 18 farmers markets across the state of Michigan.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Every single Saturday at 4 p.m., I want a full report.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: What did every consumer say?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: How many samples did you get out?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: What did they like?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: What did they not like?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what was the reaction?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: What's the buying pattern?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: What was the age?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: What's the demographic?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: The whole, the whole gamut.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: And they would do that.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: I had this team that literally came back with three-page reports at the end of every Saturday.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: And we built this team to do that in order to bring anything that we did to market.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was just based off of what the customer said they wanted.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then also watching them transition to store level.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: So taking that strategy and story and then walking into a store and saying, you know, I know your demographic here.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the same demographic that I sold to at this farmer's market for the last three years, and I know that it'll work.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it just did.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it just worked really organically.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: And the the turning point for us was when the margaritas truly started to get into like big stores, like especially a Walmart, right?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: So Walmart came kind of knocking through a connection I had.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and then Luke and I fulfilled the entire Walmart order.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh our team of 10 filled this Walmart order.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we were asking employees to be here until like three o'clock in the morning.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: We had no idea what it was going to take to fill this Walmart order, what the boxes need to look like, the stickering, the freight, the logistics, everything.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: And we had it all outside, I'll never forget.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just, it was like palette after palette, our whole warehouse filled with it.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: And like Luke and I looked at each other and we're just like, we we can't.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: We can't do it.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: We can't do everything on our own.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew that I couldn't do everything on my own for a while and like insert Courtney because I was like, I knew I wanted a VP of sales.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: I knew I wanted somebody smarter than me that was better at it, had been in the industry.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, if I could hand this over to somebody and then we could spend a lot of our time saying, where's a new co-manufacturing facility who can help us?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: And at the same time, you know, every single person I met at every networking event or every everything I did, they were like, Why don't you just raise money?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Well, that's insane.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: I own 100% of the business.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm fine.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, Well, you're never gonna make it unless you have some sort of capital.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what started that whole thing.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: So Luke and I spent the entire summer in the last 18 months, you know, raising capital, hiring Courtney.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: We hired a full-time social person who has like really escalated that side of things.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: So to answer your question, very long-winded, the margaritas kind of changed our uh our whole life.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_03: They changed your life, but you you did it the right way.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_03: And nothing the way what the strategy you just described is the strategy that I try to teach every founder that signs on with me because everybody wants to raise the money and then hire the people and then blame the people if they don't work.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna rephrase and not say everybody for anybody else to take that out of context.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: But I think there's a there's a detached reality of what it takes.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: And everything you just described sounds overwhelming to a Of people, but it's important for them to hear because they know your story and they know your points of distribution, your POV count, and they don't know the story behind it.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_03: And that's why I I want to thank you for what you shared as well, because that's why I started the show years ago.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: And and and out of the hundreds of people that have been on here, not many have been honest about that.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of people want to say, I made one phone call, but they all we all know that that one it wasn't one phone call.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_03: And whether they're being too humble or not, it's not a place of victimhood to say this is fucking hard work.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, like, and that's that's the thing that people really and that and honestly, that detachment of reality is what burns people out, and then they have a short-lived life in this in this business.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_03: Because if you go into this business knowing this is cutthroat, and it's not cutthroat like, ooh, it's hard.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_03: No, it really doesn't stop.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_03: And in the beginning, you can even, I can, I'm sure you can recall like when you were opening up those accounts and you didn't have a Courtney, you know, when something was wrong, they had your cell phone.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: And they never hesitate to call.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_03: Whether they bought$20 worth of product from you or$20,000, it was the same problem, same phone call, same temperature when they when you answer the phone.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's a stress that a lot of people don't realize either because they build those buffers.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_03: Because they come from corporate and then they they know how corporate works, and they're like, oh, well, I gotta build this business with buffers.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's like and it it's that's actually the detachment of the reality because just like you just said, I don't, I I I I'm going Thursday to stand in the middle of a beer distributor to pour out RTDs of a vodka orange crowd.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: And I do it proudly because that two hours that I'm gonna spend there gives me invaluable information about how the next month, in the next two months, I'm gonna carry myself and I'm gonna sell that brand in.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_03: And whether it's 90% of them are like, no way I don't want any, whether it's because they're driving home or whatever else, it's the 10% that is the value in the data.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's invaluable that um like I worked at Sam's Club last weekend for five days straight doing a roadshow.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought to myself, this is insane.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Why am why am I doing this before I did it?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was telling our team on on the weekly call, I was like, I never would have had any of that.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: I never like I've been disconnected from doing these liquor store pop-ups for so long.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: And like now I'm like, wow, I understand the customer again.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like they spoke to me, and like it's super meaningful.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is impactful in my life.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I can now like make plans for the next thing because I had been so kind of taken away, like disconnected from that for a bit, and it was so good for me, and it was so great to have those honest, honest conversations again with people.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I loved it.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's it's the the biggest thing is uh it's um it's a string, is what I tell people.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a big fan of the string theory, and it's like if you if it's been if it's been four feet, you know, since you've can you've directly talked to a consumer in front of you four feet away, yeah it's time to it's time to c book an event.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_03: And it's it's it's really that's the important part because at the end of the day, that's who drives everything.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_03: Like distributors don't drive anything.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_03: You know, brand uh retailers, they can kind of drive stuff, but not really.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_03: At the end of the day, the consumer it's a show, not sell is what we sell, what we do.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_03: We don't actually sell anything.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_03: Like sell things to people, but it's still sitting on a shelf.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's not talking to the customer when they walk by.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Completely.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, like again, I'm just rambling, but for me, it's like it gets uh, and and you both can understand this.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: It gets so stressful to me when I when I go to a buyer meeting and like everybody sitting at the table is like, God, I love this.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody I send a sample to is like, God, I love this.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's like so good.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then every customer I meet at Sam's Club is like, this is so good, and they're all buying.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm like, oh, and then you get into this like one retailer and you're like, why isn't it selling?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: What what what's happening?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Do I have to demo every hour of every day here?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like that's this that's the most stressful part to be super candid and transparent about this industry as a whole.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think because if everybody continually tells you it's the best, it really diminishes like your who you are when you're like, but then why isn't it moving?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why am I not moving like it did at Sam's Club?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_03: So Oh yeah, it's uh big part of uh Courtney, I'll go I'll come to you in one second.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: I want to tell this little story here is like 2010 to 2017, I was in the craftier world exclusively.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_03: So I ran that crafter revolution and I had 32 different brands that I had in my portfolio, and we did extremely well with brands that should have never like should have never had the success that they had in our market because of their own organizational structures, or the product was kind of average, but it wasn't really stellar in the premium sense.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_03: Why it did so well was because we had 52 tasting reps that did had full-time jobs and careers, but they were on our time from 4 p.m.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_03: to 9 p.m.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_03: and did 2,000 tastings a year.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my God.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_03: That's the story that not a lot, and actually, this is the first time I'm telling that story about it.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_03: And so and I'm saying it to compliment those people because it wasn't me doing 2,000 events, it was me doing some of them every week, and I was with them every week doing my own events, but we had a team, and because it was always liquid to lips was the old school thing you had to say.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: And people like, oh yeah, that's what I heard.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, it's the only way.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: You can get a hit, and just like you're doing, you're gonna have these big hits and these chain things, but the sustainable way to stay on the shelf, you know that you can't set it and forget it on the shelf at at Sam's Club or at Walmart or anything like that.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_03: And too many times we rest on our loyals as uh in the startup world when they're like, all right, I got in there, and then it's the focus of the PO and it's a focus of the replenishment of the bank account, and it's not the thought, it's the thought of the first PO and not the eight.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_03: So, Courtney, with that said, I'm transitioning strategically here.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm gonna remind everybody there's no questions here at all.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_03: We are reminding everybody that this is how you connect with strangers, and in 2026, this world is pretty crazy.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_03: So we want everybody to take some notes about how to actually interact with strangers and connect.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_03: So, Courtney, as you're out here, what is when you went into the transition, you came from a larger scale operation with systems and protocols.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: Was that something?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: Are you are you guys like meshing things together as far as systematically, or how how is that?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_03: How are you guys kind of merging to a new strategy moving forward together?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I definitely there were systems in place um at Spindrift and definitely at White Claw that like we didn't have here.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: Luckily, I mean, I I think about it a lot.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: If I would have gone straight from Mark Anthony Brands to here, it would have been a huge gap for me.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't even think I would have known how to like create that process over here.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Spindrift was like that great middle ground, Spendrift Spikes specifically, where we kind of operated like as our own company within a larger company.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: So like we had the great resources, but we were still having to build it ourselves.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so from there I learned how to actually come over here and like, okay, we're we're gonna use NIQ and visor, we're gonna use VIP, we're going to use like audit companies, like we're going to use things that like quite frankly, I don't think Emily ever had to use before because it was like the farmers market business plan was awesome and like it it created what they have, but it's not going to work moving forward.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like, how do we like maintain all that great insights and like this business that we've built as like this farmers market brand into now like a thousand Walmart store brand and a 10, 12 Kroger region brand?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and honestly, like without a huge field sales team either, like the answer does lie in like having your systems and software in place.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, the first like four months, and I feel like I'm still trying to get stuff ironed out.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it was a lot of just like a lot of phone calls, a lot of submitting paperwork, a lot of like trying to also like getting Emily and Luke to like understand the investment because it's not cheap to do those things.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: And like I'm so grateful that Emily and Luke have seen the value and like these ideas that I've brought to them, and we have been able to put everything in place that we need.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: And and like I feel like we're just now seeing the benefit of that, which has been hard because like, of course, I wanted to come in here day one and like make all this stuff happen.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I realistically knew it was gonna take like at least six or seven months to start seeing things like turn in the right direction, which I feel like we we really are right now, which is exciting.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and then we knew we needed that, and that Courtney has been instrumental for that.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like Luke and I made it this long without like all any of those systems in place.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like we just didn't know about them.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like we had like Luke comes from the entertainment industry, so he was in the music industry for 20 years.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like we just did what you don't know, you don't know.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that straight up is like the most valuable saying to me.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we just didn't have it.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we weren't uh it's not that we weren't asking the right questions, we were just getting by and we were just trying to grow.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, like what she's done is taken these, like not only not necessarily corporate structures, but like uh just higher level business structures and implemented them here.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: And we are, she's completely right, we are on the other side of like seeing all of this come to life, and it's been really exciting.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_03: It's something that like when you work in the farmers markets or the independent channel in the beginning, and then you go to this, you have to have a replicable system.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_03: Even to even to like what like you said, Courtney, those new product forms.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_03: Like I remember I had a full head of hair when I started filling out new product forms.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like it, you know, most of them, those Excel files are something.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: The worst, the worst.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_03: And then as the agency on the outside, it's like some of the stuff you can't answer.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_03: So then you're just relaying phone calls left and right, being like, What's this answer?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_03: What's this stuff?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I don't want to share that with you.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I gotta give it to them.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_03: You feel like you're giving away your firstborn after a while.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm sure Courtney, I will make this joke.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_03: It's like at the beginning, you know, you got somebody that's a former fighter in there.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_03: You don't want to get thrown in the octagon right off the bat, too.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_03: So you gotta, I'm sure you danced around which which ideas you were pitching, you know?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, take my fights wisely now.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's perfectly so that okay, so that you just gave me a little hint there.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_03: So Luke in the entertainment world, you and you in the fighting world.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_03: Now I see this because the music world's just as gritty and it's just as resilient, and it's just as much as you can sit in a room and have the American Idol syndrome where things are gonna be a hit, you put it out into the world and it's not and so that's that's also like Luke's personality to a T is like um just grind everything out, just like work until you just can't work anymore, until you absolutely have to force yourself to sleep.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like a it's a disservice to him because he's just so so crazy like that.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: But he thought we've had this conversation a million times, he was like leaving the entertainment industry, he was like, I feel like I could do anything.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: If you can tap into uh musicians and engineering and work with records like record labels like Sony, which he did for 10 years, he's like, I can do anything, I can definitely figure this out.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: So being in this industry every single day, he's like, I couldn't, I can't figure it out.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: I can't figure it out, I can't like it's maybe it's gonna take 10 more years.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, but it's like such a weird industry, but it's so similar to what he was doing, and it's just the grind.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, it's just grinding it out all the time.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_03: I hope I started this business as a uh as a band booking agency, which is why I have the understanding of the music industry.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_03: So I had about 25 bands around the Mid Atlantic region that was booking on the side while I was working for a distributor, you know, like and it was one of those things where eventually the world started colliding.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_03: And uh it was 2010 to 2012, maybe 2011, when the whole industry really changed, and like as far as live music and on-premise and small venues, and they did away with the flat fees, and then everybody was working for the door.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_03: And for me, as the booking agent manager, all that stuff, like I was produce, I was making the posters, I was the one doing the street team, I was canvassing everything, you know, stuff like that.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_03: It got to be where it wasn't cost effective for me to operate anymore, and I had to decide if I was gonna do it as a hobby where I would lose money or if I was gonna run a business.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_03: So I eventually got the entertainment piece of the business and I just focused on my beverages and stuff like that.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, 18 years ago, that's how this started, and I had aspirations of being the next Rick Rubin.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: And yep, I know that grind all too well.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: My God, yeah.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Luke did that and and managed uh like a small group of up and coming, he was in the electronic world forever in the in the house world.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so he was managing Paul Oakenfold, you know, legendary DJ from that time.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it was just like every day was like, how do we get him booked?
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: Where is he gonna be booked?
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: What's he doing?
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: How's he showing up?
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: How's it different than this guy?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it was it, but but honestly, it's the same shit here.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how are we showing up?
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: How are we gonna be different?
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: How do we look on the shelf?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: How do we get booked for this?
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's the same thing, same game.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_03: It's the uh, so I'll tell uh you you can share this with Luke and he'll love this.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_03: So when I was booking clients for the entertainment side, I went to every open mic that I could.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_03: And I just sat in the back, grabbed a beer, and I just took notes the whole time.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_03: People like they'd be like, What are you doing?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, I'm just writing poetry, you guys are inspiring me.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_03: But really, I was following, I was like, okay, this person has it, this person doesn't, this person has a little bit, it could be tweaked over here, things like that.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_03: And then I would start the relationship with them based on the different open mic types.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_03: And now it's no different because I walk the shelves of a retail and I do the old dust check.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and where like I look at a product and I say, okay, this product looks fantastic.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna take it home and it tastes really great, but it's got dust on it, so it's not pulling off the shelf.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_03: And then I call the brand.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and then I say, and then I give some suggestions, and then maybe we do something together, maybe we don't, but it's the same, it's exactly the same concept, and it's exactly the same type of people.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_03: Because at the end of the day, while we are running businesses, beverage is still very creative business.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_03: And that creativity brings emotion.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_03: And it's also a lot of it is bootstrapped, and especially in the the we have every adult category or adult beverage category in our port in the portfolio, but the one that feels it the most right now is like the Hemp Space, for example, because they can't go get bank loans.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_03: And so these guys are so bootstrapped.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_03: Everything, every emotion, every decision comes from an emotional place because it has to, because everything they do is do or die.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, things like that, like uh like Walmart and things like that, I think a lot of people also don't realize, not just Walmart.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to pick on that because it's uh it's one of these things that it's not just them, it's every chain, is uh people look at the PODs and they want to strive for that, but I think they don't realize the that what you touched on earlier is the money that it takes, the capital that it takes to drive those places, because you don't just sell 300 or 200 stores into Walmart and then just like wait for the POs.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's something that people underestimate.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_03: So I appreciate you guys bringing that up and touching based on how you know you still have to work the brand.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_03: You still have to, you're gonna feel like sometimes that you are an extra an extension of the staff inside that grocery store or inside a convenience store or box store or anything like that.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_03: Totally.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_03: And that humility is the most important piece because nothing, no task is below you in this in this.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, when you're willing to like literally do anything is like when you know, maybe when things start to work the best.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's and that's another reason Courtney's been great coming in because um we only ever kind of built this brand off of like trial and and taste.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and Courtney was like, Oh yeah, we need to run like inMAR deals and like VESCOM tags.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Luke and I are like, we don't even know what the hell a Vestcom tag speeding Greek tea at that point.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: The things that she has told us, Luke was like, we get off a call, he's like, I didn't know what that acronym was.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, either that worth it up, you know what I mean?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it it's that's another instrumental part about bringing on people like Courtney and even like our social team is like we need to learn these things.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we we just haven't.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: We haven't been in it like we haven't been engulfed in it like Courtney has.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's super important.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: And also keeping ourselves humble in the fact of knowing like it's just not always going to be awesome everywhere, right?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's okay to look at these stores and say, here's our top performing stores in Walmart and they're in Florida, and they're not in Ohio.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: And like that has to be okay with us, and we have to be able to strategize and tell a story as to why that is and capitalize on that and do everything we can.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: And as a founder, it's hard for me sometimes, as everybody can relate, it's like we sit around and be like, why doesn't it work in Ohio?
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: If it does, you know what I mean?
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then you come up with 10,000 reasons why that is, and probably none of them are true.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: But now you've convinced yourself like I'm changing every single thing about this business and I'm you know buying all this stuff or whatever.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so Courtney has kept us in check to be like, okay, we're buying, you know, these display pieces, these racks, this point of sale, we're doing bestcom tags here.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, here's where we need to see.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I just think for us, it's like so instrumental and so important for us to keep building business with uh like-minded people like uh Courtney, like our head of social Brennan, like Luke and I.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's we're a very small lean team, but I envision us building like based on this little team.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't see, I don't want any of us leaving or whatever that you know what I mean.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's like we're super like-minded.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: So it it's been it's been a humble experience for me taking on Courtney, but very good.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: Really.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: Good, good, you're good.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna just add it up by saying, like, I feel like something like a theme that I've noticed, and like I have so much, like just I understand and have like so much patience for it with Emily and Luke because it's like when you go from like a very small brand where you like have this handful of stores that you first started with, and like every time you would add a new store, it's like that's like family almost.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like you are so connected to those stores.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then all of a sudden you're in like hundreds of stores and you see, you know, a handful or even like a region of them not performing, it kind of like makes you spiral because it's like you do have that like founder mindset of like loving each and every store that you have, and you're so grateful for all of it.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I think like the bigger picture and something that I try to like keep us all like on track for is um like it's not gonna work everywhere.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: And that doesn't mean that like the world is ending.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like, okay, we have plenty of other things like focus on, like let's move that direction.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's hard.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's really hard not to spiral when an independent that for every reason on paper should work perfectly and it doesn't, but it's like, okay, we have so many other things to do.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like, that's all right, let's move on.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like, there's so many other things we we can still win in right now, still totally.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_03: No, it's it's um we even in Pennsylvania, we have uh, you know, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_03: And when you go to market in Philadelphia, you go to market differently than you own Pittsburgh.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_03: And it's one of those things where it doesn't even have to be states away.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_03: And it's about the culture and it's about localizing.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_03: And that's one of the things, like when we did the the whole craft beer revolution in the early 2010 and all the way through, it was taking brands like my job was to fly around the country and find brands that and then bring them to Pennsylvania and localize them.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_03: So I brought Deschutes into Pennsylvania, Wagonitas, New Belgium, all these brands.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_03: But these brands were a challenge to to connect to the local communities because they were all so geographically, everything about them was tied to their geography.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_03: So like if you didn't know what a butte was, you're like, ah, what's you know, I'd be how many tastings I've been at selling the chutes, and people are like, Yeah, give me one of those black butts.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_03: And you're like, what the heck?
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what do you think?
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like people didn't know what a butte was because they do a mound and a hill and a mountain, like East Coast terms, the west coast terms.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_03: So it was the the fun part about the creative part was and the science of it was finding the ways and the parallels of connection points to then amplify the connection points so people could connect to it.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_03: And maybe if they weren't a kayaker and a fly fisherman because they were in you know Pittsburgh or whatever, then they weren't bent, Oregon, they could still make it make sense of it.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_03: And same with Lagonitas.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_03: If you Lagonitas was very heavy into the cannabis culture back then, and if and people sometimes would be like, Well, I don't want to touch that, you know what I mean?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like, no, you got to find a new way to localize this product.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_03: You can't change the label.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_03: That was the key.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_03: You can't change the label, but you can change how the consumer perceives the label.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_03: And so that was always the challenge in orchestrating that.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_03: And it's something that I think is not a dead art.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but also you guys talk about the trial.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_03: I think trial is the best part because everything we're doing is an art and a science.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_03: And nothing we're doing, every single brand also has to attack the market differently.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_03: If you were to sit down, Emily, and jot down everything you did in the last 10 years and handed it to somebody that's aspiring to start a beverage brand when you go to the bar and you just laid it on the table and say, hey guys, here's a free business right playing right here.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_03: They're not gonna do it.
• 42:27
  unknown: Yeah.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_03: Like number one, they're probably not gonna do it, period, uh, because 90% of people don't have what it takes to do this.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_03: And the other part is they're not gonna have the same style of product, they're not gonna have the same mentality of it, they're not gonna just have the same place for it.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_03: And so everybody that takes sometimes I hear people on here talk about trial as a bad thing, but I want to kind of read back to that.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_03: The trial is the only way forward with this.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like if you've if you've had smooth sailing, God, I hope you try something different and challenge yourself because not just you, but anybody listening and watching, if you have not had any challenges yet with your brand, I encourage you to branch off into another market or something like that to start trial and error with it.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_03: Because not only like that that adversity is what's going to help you a couple of years from now.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_03: And you guys having the foundation of adversity and the resilience of it, I'm really excited to see you guys like five to ten years from now because of that.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_03: Because like sometimes I get on here and people are like, oh, you know, this worked, this worked, this worked.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, all right, I'll bring you back in a year or two.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_03: And so, yeah.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like I firmly believe, like, and I meet so many founders that are like, oh, it's you know, we just did this and it like went off.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, bullshit, no, you didn't.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's a lie, you know what I mean?
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, it's not a lie, like something's coming for you because it just can't be that easy, you know what I mean?
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it's never ever been that easy for us, and that's why we always like have been bootstrapped and we've always just kind of done things like a real gritty way.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: But it has brought me to your point to be able to say to anybody that I meet, here's what the customer is saying at store lock.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: level.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's a story that has to be told.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what they said about the taste.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: And they said it 10 times 10 out of 10 times.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: That says something.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like now it's like now you just got to have the capital to do 2,000 demos across the nation.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because if we did have that capital in flux and we did 2000 demos across the nation, I feel like this brand would probably just blow up just because of what we've done in demos to this point.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like I have the stats behind that.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the hardest part of beverage is like in everybody in here knows that, but you're like, I see it.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: I see what it needs.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: I see what it what it takes.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: And now I have to like convince somebody to to give us money to set up shop at 2,000 stores across the US is is the hard part, you know?
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of times too like when we think about fundraising like we want to put millions of dollars towards something that's like super innovative and like groundbreaking and and honestly the answer really is just trial and it's demos and it's like it's okay to raise a million dollars just for demos.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like it doesn't need to be anything recreating the wheel.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah it's been it's been tough to like accept that honestly.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah yes and I think it's tough to accept it because you meet people that are like this well we sell you know$100 million a year and I'm like well I never saw you do a demo what the heck you know that's that's the challenge but it but that's what it takes to get there.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_03: I think it does and it's a this the science part of it is like if you have if you have if you're a family and you haven't sat down with a hypothesis yet and and really done that and just been like all right we're doing what's working nothing in CPG is linear and and that's the thing and and it's not just beverage.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_03: We are literally selling to the end consumer.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_03: We're not selling to distributors we're not selling to retailers we're selling to the end consumer and the worst part is we're not selling with our mouths we're not selling with PowerPoints that consumer is taking a 12 ounce slim can or a 12 ounce can or a 16 ounce can that's in a sea of similarities and we have to build our brand off the shelf just so much that they know who we are on the shelf because the experimentation it will last for a little while and I think a lot of people and I I will speak of the craft beer guys today like they all thought that was going to be forever.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_03: You know they think I did.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_03: I had a couple of years where I thought it was too towards the tail end I saw it differently instead of bringing instead of expanding outside of craft beer around 2017 2018.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_03: But there's a lot of guys and girls that thought it was going to be forever and and now where it is is it's interesting because they got a good run there of product was just you put anything in there and put a good back we called it a t-shirt and a dream if you had a good t-shirt and a good sticker and a good product you were going.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_03: And now the consumer the consumer is more discerning that was a that was a blip in the unicorn radar that happened and it's like you can't do that anymore.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_03: You can't get away with it.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_03: And honestly when you do you you just burn bridges and you and you you deteriorate relationships with your distributors and your retailers assuming that your can's going to do its job for you.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_03: And the amount of brands even too that sometimes don't have a website today or they don't have social media because they're like oh it sells itself like anybody that tells me it sells itself I don't ever like that's it.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like my conversation ends right there.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like I'm like okay today it does.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_03: Next Tuesday it's not and if it's not next Tuesday it's coming.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_03: It's going to be a wake up call because if you have that mindset now it's going to be jarring.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah's ugly is not a good conversation the the joy of that is really like kind of the only joy of this section but to your point us being in the mixer section that is so damn humbling I cannot even tell you this archaic section that has not seen new life in so long and everybody that keeps talking to me they're like you know the section is what the section is and I was like well they didn't say that to Poppy and they didn't say that to Soda.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm just sitting around waiting for like one person to be like mixers are cool right us to be like us just like ride the coattails of that honestly like our section has been so archaic and so stale and so dusty for so long that we are we've we've never even met people in the industry that are like oh it just sells itself.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody in the mixer section is like this shit sucks.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: This is really really really hard and we can't figure out who the consumer is and they are different than they were last Monday or three hours ago.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so luckily we're in a section that continually humbles us to the point that we love it.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: I honestly I'm like what section in beverage right now is dusty like what subcategory is dusty and I love like I listened to a podcast with Athletic Brewing and for a while non-alf beer was dusty and then one brand revived it and like that's really all it takes like sometimes you don't need to again like reinvent the wheel to uncover billion dollar category like it's there.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_02: And um that's like I remember like leaving Spindriff and why people are like you're gonna go sell mixers and I was like yeah like you guys would have rolled your eyes if I said I was going to sell non beer three years ago but like look at those people.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_02: So I think a revival is coming especially with like how cocktails are trending right now.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like why are R T D cocktails a six billion dollar category but like a non-RTD like I get like it'll always be bigger for sure but like we like we could at least be twice the size that we are in this mixer category.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's like totally fine for disruption and I'm excited about it.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_03: Completely agree with you.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_03: I did uh we had some brands right before COVID uh in the non-alcoholic beer space and then also in the mixer space but I made the mistake of thinking like doing so well in craft beer I was like oh I gotta stay in the premium and the and the artisan space and I'm not trying to throw shade on the category but it doesn't really exist as much it was shrub it was shrubs.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah and and it was so challenging because it had such a hot moment and then I was like all right let me sign two of these on we signed them on I couldn't give it away and it was one of those things where it was and it was because I realized that I skipped education.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_03: And it was the it was going from the the uh the the mixer place that people were used to and the the macro mixers that existed to then the shrub and it was like there was no education in the market between so it was like everybody's like I'm you're just selling me vinegar water you know what am I doing or whatever.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like you're right because I haven't I haven't educated you of what it is and I haven't in that but then that became the problem and in a similar category see this is the education is expensive.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah and and like craft beer while craft beer was cool and fun and whatever else we have to be really honest it was Blue Moon and it was shop top and it was those brands that carved the education path that then allowed that early adopted adoption to come in and scale as it did.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_03: So to back to our beginning point of you know sell it sells itself and things like that and people building their business and self-made man and all that bullshit like it's not because at the end of the day there's somebody bigger that most likely chipped away at that and allowed that that pathway for you and machete the the weeds away for you to walk through it.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I think if we all appreciate that and I do agree with what you said Courtney I think that mixers are going to have a big comeback.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that COVID stunted what was happening there for a little while and the mixer became honestly like our culture very much at home was like what's the easiest and fastest way to to detach from what reality right now.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that was what what home home cocktail started to become where like it was like give me the strongest thing possible because I just I need to relax.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah yeah and like just being honest like I was myself there I'm three and a half years sober now but I had a good stint during COVID with that and uh yeah two fingers became three fingers became just throw some ice in there and we'll call it what else is there to do today there's absolutely nothing else to do and I think honestly to to your point I think the education oddly enough has been a hindrance for our section as well because if you look at archaically what every alcohol every spirit every RTD that they have some sort of sense of like here's who we are and this is what we're doing and it's an immediate delivery to you.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: The mixer section is strange because the consumer is like do I do I deserve something better than budget one and then two they're like I just am overwhelmed with what to do with this.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so simple and it like was eye-opening to me all over again at Sam's Club of people being like so I just take this and put this in a like what what are you saying?
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes of course go walk into a bar and order but they don't let you say like they're in a bar asking for like the most craft cocktail and at Sam's club are like this doesn't make sense and I'm like what you put ashab in your cocktail at the bar what in the hell are you saying?
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: So that piece of it is also mixed is missing in our section and the education part of not only like how much do I pour not even just generically that but like what is this section used for and how is it adaptable to everybody like not just like older generation how can this translate across generations and actually be impactful and like have meaning to your everyday life that is the key piece that's missing in mixers.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: I've been saying it for 10 years.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: If somebody just came in like Courtney said and disrupted it by saying like here's the point of this and you do this really well and here's why you got to get to this section everything would change and we of course as a team of four are trying to do that every day right uh but it's hard.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_03: I want to we got to close out here in a couple minutes but I want to also say like you just said team of four and I want to give you uh I want to give you public uh acknowledgement wow um I need you as much as we talked about the the hurdles and the trials and the tribulations well like seriously 2500 stores and four human beings and and and most of that team is in the past couple years.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yes here's the thing is you you Emily you and Luke you met headwinds that you probably never expected before you probably had many moments together now that you said you you guys are are life partners there was a lot of pillow talk that probably involves some tears every once in a while both from Luke and yourself and uh and and it's one of those things where I have to publicly commend people like you because it's not I don't think most people understand what that is.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_03: Being myself as the 18 year talent as well it's it doesn't end.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like I'm 18 years in and I still have those moments where I'm like what the fuck am I really doing totally I want to I want to say to Courtney as well like Courtney to you going from that that structure going from that consistency going from there despite the fact that it was a jolting departure that's that's happens.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_03: I've been through two layoffs in in in my career in the in the alcohol space as well it doesn't end and and it doesn't I'm not gonna say it's happening here.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_03: That's not what I'm trying to say what I'm trying to say is you bounced back from that and then you accepted a challenge because a lot of people would want to go match the same way and you said I want to meet a challenge and not a challenge where you're in charge of everything a challenge where you can control your own destiny and be an entrepreneur.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's really something that I think you need to is if you don't already every morning please take compliments to that and look in them in the eyes because most people would take the cakewalk job after a layoff.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_03: And because layoffs are challenging and they're jarring and they're emotional and you took the challenge and I'm really excited to see where you guys have gone over the next few years because this is this looks like a power duo with a with a trio down the leak on the other side.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_03: So guys I want to I want to close out and I want to just thank you both for coming on and want to remind everybody in the audience that this is there's no script there's no agenda there's no prep we've never met each other we've never shared a drink together or went to a bar together or coffee shop.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_03: And I want everybody to remember that this is as easy as it is to to meet friends and make some friends and connect with human beings.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_03: And while it might sound jarring and it's it's it's nerve wracking to meet strangers guess what we have a lot of things in common and I don't I don't know anything about you guys when we started this.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_03: I only know your you book I see your name on the calendar and that's it.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_03: So even seeing you Emily on here was a surprise because I thought it was just me and Courtney and it's not because I don't pay attention it's because there's a certain color code in these episodes that I don't click on it and I don't go on the website because I want to learn about you just like the consumer does and it's a compliment to you that you were able to explain yourself to where I completely understand not only the culture of your business, the mission of your business but also your products and I knew nothing about them prior.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing that's so nice.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for the kind words that was so sweet.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_03: I yeah it's not it's not said enough this is the cutthroat business and we don't throw out enough positive stuff enough.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_03: So if I can do that once a week on on the air it's all I I care about doing so um I will close out for everybody else to please remember that while this is about social connections it is a ready to drink and we want everybody to understand that in this world it is beautifully destructive as well as we are all in this together as much as we are alone in our homes every once in a while.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_03: When you're walking out on the street put your phone in your pocket look at the stranger in the street while you're walking by when you're at the gas station filling up your cup of coffee look to the person next to you filling their cup ask them how they're doing and shut your mouth and actually listen and give them five minutes.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_03: My challenge to everybody started two a week or two ago five minutes a week dedicated to a stranger.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_03: We talk about ROIs in here a lot that five minutes could change somebody's day change somebody's week and if they're in a really bad spot it could change their month or their life and then talk about an ROI if you spent 20 minutes a month get dedicating time to be positive with strangers and and it lasted in a positive memory for somebody for months that's pretty good ROI.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_03: So I want to encourage everybody out there reach out to an old friend reach out to make a new friend and uh Emily and Courtney thank you both so much for your time today and I'm looking forward to having you guys back on again.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_03: And then Emily I'm gonna have you on over there to Duke It Out with Clifford and Big Cat over there on the other show as well.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: Love it all for it.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: Can't wait thank you.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you guys you guys have a good rest of your day thank you so much.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_03: Bye