Latest / Ready To Drink Podcast / Hemp, Recovery and the Fitness Channel Nobody Is Talking About | Jay Ashton, Last Rep

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Hemp, Recovery and the Fitness Channel Nobody Is Talking About | Jay Ashton, Last Rep · Ready To Drink Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Jay Ashton.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a CEO and co-founder of LastRep.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's jump in.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: We'll jump into an overview of LastRep and then we'll kind of jump into your story and kind of the business as a whole and how it fits into the industry.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: So what is the product and what do you guys do?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And when did you start?
• 0:16
  unknown: Yeah.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we started LastRep.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we we started the conversation back in June of 2025.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it was really born out of the idea that uh my partner and I, it was actually my partner's idea who brought it to me.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Hey, you know, I've been drinking less these days.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I've I've kind of stopped drinking alcohol altogether, um, for the only reason that it was, you know, really putting that tax on him the next day.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: He was going through an exit of his business.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and obviously, when you're exiting a business, it's incredibly stressful.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I don't want to say all business people, but a lot of us are hardwired to at the end of the day, you relax with uh, you know, something that makes you feel good.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and during his his transition from alcohol, he he turned to THC drinks and discovered kind of two categories, if you will.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one was the ones that taste really good were sugar bombs.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: So while it was an alternative to alcohol, it wasn't really doing anything beneficial to your health.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it tasted good, it got your head and body where you wanted to go potentially.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then the other side of that was more of the, you know, let's just call it get high in a can marketing.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, zero calories, zero this, zero that.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, zero taste too.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so he he he quickly found out that, you know, hey, there's there's an opportunity in this market to make a product that was better.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: And when we got to discussing it, we really, you know, took a look at ourselves first, and not that we're Olympic athletes by any stretch of the imagination, but we're, you know, guys in our you know, late for you know, mid-40s or early 50s that are still very active, work out, you know, treat our bodies right as much as we can and and like to put good things in our body.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: And we're very conscious of of that.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we were very conscious, you know, and I think the best way to say it is if I'm gonna have six beers, I I I know what six beers is, right?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not I'm not kidding myself.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I never was like, well, it's it's it's just a McUltra, so it's okay, right?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's like who wants to drink that?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Give me an IPA, let's let's go hard.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: So where where we came out was if we're gonna do this, let's let's create a product that is designed for athletes, special athletes, everyday athletes, people who are looking for that alternative to alcohol, but still want to go out and be social.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: So if you if you're using, like if you look at our marketing, we talk about when you when you go to the gym, you want to crush your workout.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: You want to, you know, you want to keep your gains.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: And there's just something inherently off when it's like, okay, I just burned 600 calories.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go meet Nate and everybody at the bar.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Six beers later, you wake up in the morning, you're like, I don't know why I'm not losing weight.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know why my wedding ring's a little tight, you know, that type of thing, right?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, like the captain, obvious moments that you have.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't want people to stop being social.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: We want people to put something that's beneficial to their body.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, last rep was literally designed from the standpoint of how do we make people feel good?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: How do we help people recover?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: And let's be very specific.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Recovery isn't just putting supplements in your body, it's not working out and putting your feet up and elevation and things along those lines.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: The social element is what makes us human.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: It really is more about, you know, recover the body, recover the mind, and recover the spirit.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that spirit is being out with your friends, your family, enjoying a social cocktail.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: And if you look at last rep, we we market it as an uh athletic recovery cocktail.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the inception point in June.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: We hired a PhD because Nate, as you know, building this in your bathtub is probably not the right move, especially with all the legislation these days.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's a reason all those gin guys are out of business now.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: So we we did the right thing.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: We hired a PhD and we told them exactly what type of functional ingredients we wanted.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And we, you know, we were really stressing and adamant that we wanted no sugar, no sugar substitute.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we didn't want anything artificial in the product whatsoever.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, credit to him.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: He nailed it the first shot.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: So um we went from June to samples in July to incorporating in August to finding a co-packer and learning, you know, very quickly, this isn't something we could do again in our home.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we can't just get some Amazon equipment and make a THC drink.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then we found out, you know, all the fun stuff behind the scenes, you know, with your department of, you know, your state level department of agriculture and putting cans together, like our original can designs, you know, talking to people like, oh man, that looks awesome, but that looks like you're marketing to children.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a it's just a duck in a with sunglasses.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um that type of stuff.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we had some fun along the way.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so again, just to wrap it up, we we had a soft lunch in November, but our coming out party was here in St.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Petersburg, Florida, where we did the High and Dry Fest um put on by Urban Flow, which was a killer event.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it was really fun for us because, you know, about 600 people in attendance, but they were all there for, you know, THC, Kava style drinks, the alternative beverage world.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: And man, they we we hit hard the first day.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: It like the it was just so rewarding to see people try the drink, love the drink first and foremost, um, but turn the can around and recognize that hey, you guys put a lot of good ingredients in here.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: You put a lot of functional ingredients in here.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, your drink tastes great.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then people coming back uh, you know, 20, 30 minutes later, hey, I feel fantastic.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm super relaxed.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um, again, it just it was kind of validating that, you know, I think we picked the right lane.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: And before we left that show, we I believe we had seven events we already committed to, specifically in fitness um style um environments, you know, so run clubs, things along those lines.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it was really validating that you know we chose properly.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And where you guys are uh are you distributed now on the shelves, or are you guys still in the the beginning stages of kind of DTC and then the events and brand awareness stage?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: We're all we're all the above.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: We don't we don't have any time to segregate, right?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: So we're so we're we're self-distributing here in the in the greater Tampa area.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I live in Tampa, my partner lives in Tierra Verde, which is a sub subset of uh St.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Petersburg, and we're actually in uh 13 um shell or 13 locations right now, which is great.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: And we are doing the D2C thing, and our activity or event calendar, if you will, is literally slammed.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we you know, we've got five events this weekend.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, the weekend's only three days, right?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: We've got five events.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then we've got a big one here in Tampa next week where the title sponsor is something called Fit Fest at Raymond James Stadium.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: So really looking forward to it.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's been fun.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we've been you know, be officially in business going on 90 days.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and just again, the reaction of people really resonating with the way the drink tastes, but how it makes them feel.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I'll tell you from a personal level, and for everybody to understand, like there's a lot of podcasts out there, and now we're gonna talk.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about the product just because um just for a second, I you know, I met you down in or met you guys down in Florida, and I wanted to talk to you guys about this because it was a really good product, but I also enjoy your avenue of which you're going with it.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like last month, uh, because of that trip in Florida, I was uh I was featured in Muscle and Fitness magazine, talks about exactly this, and that's where you know, jokingly, like I played rugby, wrestle, and football, but in my when I was 40 years old, I never expected to be in muscle and fitness.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: That was 20 years ago, but hey, just don't call it a callback or a comeback, right?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think you were on that article with me there.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of a fun thing for muscle and fitness, and thanks to uh uh Jen and Jenny and everything like that for putting that together because that's what the precipice of this episode is.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And let's talk about a lot of times we talk about regular liquor stores and all these other things.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: I want to I do want to steer this conversation towards the health and wellness and towards the fitness aspect because I firmly have been preaching from on an island that the gyms and the yoga studios and all these places are missing the opportunity right now to not have these products in there.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think they're nervous because of the age-gated and the access.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I think with proper, you know, display placement, proper merchandising, proper education with the staff and the customers, this is a whole different channel that that really could get a lot more early adopters, I think, uh, because it resonates and aligns better than here's 75 different THC products on the shelf, choose what you want based on the logo.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: This one is like, let's get real direct, let's get real customized and align with your beliefs and your lifestyle directly.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and that's what we were aiming for.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it's starting to um, you know, bear fruit, if you will.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: We we specifically made the can.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it it probably profiles more like an energy drink and a fitness drink.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, let's just use you know, the elephant in a room, like it skews more to a Celsius than it does to a Cheech and Chong um drink, you know, like you know what I mean, just from a look and feel standpoint, right?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, which is obviously by design.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I couldn't agree with you more with, you know, whether it's whether it's an old school gym, a wellness center, you know, whether and that could be defined, you know, infrared sauna, sauna, cold plunge, cryo, those types of environments, um, even down to the Pilates level studio, those are becoming the new hangout spots.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the new social get-togethers.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, dare I say, that's where happy hours are taking place now, right?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: So there's definitely been a shift in in that culture for sure.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I I know I agree with you 100%.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: You got to slow the conversation down, and it's education.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the age gating is a hundred percent on point.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: People are fearful, but there are a lot of gyms out there that they don't even realize that sometimes you you skew 25 and up.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: You're you know, forget about 18, you're 25 and up.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then there's the education standpoint because it takes one glance at a Yahoo news cycle or a a quick scroll on CNN that says, you know, hemp is banned in Florida.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: And you're just in, and so I'm I can't tell you how many people I've talked to and are like, well, this is illegal.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: I assure you it's not.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't be here if it was, you know.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Those types of conversations where you try to make light of it.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be bothered to register working alongside you as a customer group.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right, exactly, exactly.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, and it's like you got to be careful too, because you don't want to, you know, eventually you want to you you want to work with that person, you want to get in their in their gym, so you don't want to be like, hey man, let me tell you why you're wrong.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's just like actually I take the opposite.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna play some beverage right now.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so used to it working in regulated beverages.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: I just did it four times last week where they're like, get out, you it's banned.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, fuck that.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: I said I said, give me two minutes, and they're like, No, no, it's banned.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: I said two minutes, and then literally you hold up the two, they know what to do.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: You sit down, and then all of a sudden they're buying, they're keeping the samples.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: I am very aggressive now, and it started two weeks ago.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, um, where it is, I am not entertaining that word ban.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not entertaining, and I just spent two days in DC and I'm getting ready to spend more time.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was just literally last night got back from DC with the congressman, and I did the same thing to them.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: I met with we met with 10 different congressmen.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: The second they used the word ban, I said, guys, it's not a ban.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: I said, if it was a ban that worried about child safety, it would have been done effective midnight when it was passed in November.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about that, it's about delay for regulation and normalization.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I want everybody to understand that every retailer, every customer, that everybody needs to understand that if it was really what they're what everybody's spinning it as, it would have ended a week, months ago.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing is for people to realize is anybody in the industry that still feels that way and is scared, I want everybody to be comfortable.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: When you look through the media, this is an advice to everybody that's listening and watching.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Look at what the moves that are being made.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: You just saw a couple days ago breakthrough, working with Cheech and John, going into Minneapolis, things like this.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm 20 years in regulated beverages and alcohol, no great breakthrough very well, and I have a thing like that.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's not a decision of bringing in a brand in their distribution network that doesn't go through a myriad of questions and hypotheticals and context and laws and the lawyers are involved.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's one of those things where they've made that decision because they see, like I see after being in DC, there isn't there is a light at the end of the tunnel when we're on our way there.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's just gonna be complicated and there's gonna be some hurdles, but we're getting there and we're in the right process of getting there.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to compliment you guys for continuing to say that stuff and compliment you guys to keep telling people it's not a ban.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and we and make it make it as silly as possible because sometimes that's the jarring thing that snaps them out of it.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta have some humor, you really do.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I I think you said it perfectly when just give me two minutes, right?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, and that's why I always say slow the conversation down.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Can I get two minutes of your time?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll I'll adopt your mantra and I'll just go hard in the paint of people.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um take well, we were told we were told by uh by con uh Tim uh representative Tim Kane, Tim Kane's office was that we need to be louder.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: And in order for movement to happen on a federal level, we heard that multiple times in the past 48 hours was we need to be louder and we need to be more tactful.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: So let's be louder and more tactical.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: That was the green light they gave for us is the what the support they needed.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: So well, and let me ask you a question then, because when you're obviously I'm not dealing with the legislation, right?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not I'm not talking to the Congress people like you are.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's it's one thing to talk to a gym owner or a bar owner or something along those lines and give the the rationale of why it is legal and not banned, right?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: But are are you still hearing it is the number one battle cry against is it still can someone please think of the children and protect the children?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, or or have they stopped that facade?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's not what this is about.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: It never came up once uh in the entire two days that are there.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And what it is is it it's it is on our format, it's not something we're ignoring, but it's now gotten to the place where it's such a bullshit statement that it's not even entertained from an energy standpoint.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's on all of our stuff, it's a it's a guaranteed baseline of everything we're asking for.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that part now, because we've normalized that and been like, that's the expectation, that's not the ask.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when that and that's kind of the difference is when you separate those two, and it was not talked about at all.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And all of it is about mechanics, logistics, and honestly, at the end of the day, it's who gets their money and who gets their cuts for value.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: That you know, the large people that I have have supported my entire life and and still do support have a misalignment and a and an understanding.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the large big big uh beer companies, uh, you know, they're in the uh those doors a couple days prior.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And they're in those doors a couple days prior going against this.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And when it was called out as to why they're against it, they're not against it because it's a threat and a competition.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: They're against it two ways.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: They want to try to kill it, and if they can't successfully kill it, they want to choke it so much that when they go to acquire brands like yourselves and others, you're cheaper than you are today.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what it comes down to.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I've said it to their to the directly to them, and uh, it's on the record, and this will be on the episode.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's not something I'm ashamed to say, and it's something that we've seen in the alcohol industry time and time and time and time again in the past 20 years.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we saw with craft deer.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Crafty ear came out, it started blowing up.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: What did the big three do?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: They started choking it, choking it, and choking it.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then after they choked it and devalued it enough, what did they do?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Acquire, acquire.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's an old textbook, and when I said exactly that, I said same book, different year, everybody smiled.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And nobody wanted to verbally say anything to confirm, but everybody viscerally smiled.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: So this is where we are, and as more as more as we know this, that's the powerful part is let's accept it and be like, hey, guess what it is, guys?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a threat, it's a compliment.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: It is, and it's and a lot of it's the preconceived notions or the stereotypes, or you know, or the the bad experience.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then, like, let's not kid ourselves either.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's an age factor too.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: This is a younger person skew, right?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: It it definitely skews a little bit younger.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, if my mother ever listens to this, you know, former hippie, maybe she still is a hippie.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, there's that generation too, that's just like, you know, yeah, everything's okay, right?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I just get a little tired of hearing, as I'm sure you do too, like when you're talking to somebody, yeah, we really can't carry it at the bar, you know, they're really worried about what happens if it gets in the hands of somebody under 21.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, kind of like that bear or bottle of the box.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's that's different.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, oh, is it?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, uh a quick aside story, you know, when I was going through my co-packer is actually a brewer, and we were talking about um they have a product that they sell at the bar.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, When you give this to somebody for the first time, how many times do people ask, can I drive after one of these?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, Oh, it's so funny.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Every single time, right?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, After they drink three IPAs, how many people ask if they can drive?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, Not a one, not a one, you know.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: So again, it just goes back to that education, yeah.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the big thing.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: But but back to the point of like, you know, the gyms and the wellness centers and and where our drink is resonating, right?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you look at our ingredient profile, um, I I I like to say, you know, this is our spin on a THC drink.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because at the end of the day, you know, we've got to worry about indexing for, you know, are we a fitness drink?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Are we a recovery drink?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Are we just a THC drink?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: And you got to play the, you know, the marketing game and the algorithm game and all that fun stuff.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's a THC drink at the end of the day, right?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we use CBG, which a lot of people who aren't familiar with the cannabinoid profiles, right?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's cannabiger all and it's the mother of all cannabinoids.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's a ton of um profiles in there that are beneficial.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: But what we point to as far as the recovery goes is you're getting that heavy anti-inflammation, you're getting the pain relief.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: It does have muscle um rejuvenation benefits to it.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: But the big one is the anti-anxiety.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that is what really is making our drink resonate with people.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: As I like to tell them, think of it, you're you're gonna get that little bit of euphoria, you know, on a five, and with a 10, you'll get depending on your tolerance, like anything else, you know, it might get you a little bit looser.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: But the reality is that CBG is gonna push it down, it's gonna take that anxiety off, right?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna I tell people, like just from a visual, if you're looking at me, my shoulders are up, I'm stressed, I just had a long day.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: You all of a sudden just hey, oh, look at that.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm feeling better, right?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, and you've probably heard this too.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, I had a bad experience with THC, or I took a gummy.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, that's your first mistake.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: You took a gummy, didn't know what was in it, right?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas when when you're dealing with these drinks and the nano emulsification, you're you're getting that even consistency.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: You're every can is gonna be the same.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: We go through the rigorous testing.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, again, back to the legislation.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, hey man, we're third-party testing.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Are they doing that with the tequila?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: That part, that type of thing.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: But when you when you round out our ingredient profile, we've got more Gatorade than, I'm sorry, more Gatorade, more electrolytes than Gatorade, right?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we're we're hydrating you as you're drinking it, as you're getting loose.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: We've got L-phenine, so you're getting that focus um without the drowsiness, and you're that's helping you relax.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then you like the ashawan ashawanda kicks in, right?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: And again, you're getting that calm, relaxing feeling, sneaky muscle recovery benefits in Ashawanda, um, ginger extract.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, again, back to some more anti-inflammatory, right?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: So you put that all together, we've got zero sugar and six calories, man.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a healthy drink.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: It fits in the bar, it fits in the gym, it fits on the shelf at the liquor store because anybody who wants to put something healthy in their body, we've got it.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: And more importantly, the benefits, each person's gonna have their own, right?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously, it starts with taste.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: We think our drink tastes great.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, most people are validating that.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Most people want to feel relaxed and have a smile on their face.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're hearing our drink is doing that for people, right?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I've, you know, sleep scores.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: We have people send us their aura ring.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: I got a 95 last night.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: I have never had over an 80.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's fantastic.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's fantastic, right?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Is our drink designed to put you to sleep?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely not.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: But again, go back through the ingredient profile and your body's relaxing, right?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Had a gentleman yesterday for just met with him.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he's gonna be an affiliate uh for us.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we're we're talking, game, you know, he bought a bought a four-pack to take home, and he was limping when he came into the meeting.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: He's got gout.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Text me at 9:30 at night.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, Hey man, I feel amazing.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: Drink knocked out my gout.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like 60% better.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, we can make no medical claims or statements at this time, you know what I mean?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's it, that's it.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, so so again, I mean, everybody's getting a different benefit to it.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, right, it's it's it's like we're we're trying to give people permission to go have a good time after that long workout, to get home and spend time with your kids instead of grabbing a beer or the or the glass of wine.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Not that there's anything wrong with it, but if you're thinking about it, there are alternatives.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that there's the education comment again.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: People are not aware still that you know these things even exist.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And when I go check on my accounts in the liquor store, I see people in the aisle, and it's like half wonderment and half like, what am I looking at?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and and they're looking and they don't they're they don't know what they're reading, they don't understand ingredient profiles, they don't know what a cannabinoid is.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they're just kind of giggling like T H C hee.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's much more than that, as you know.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then and then we go through, and then you get the alcohol mentality where if it's if you're in if you want to just get you know drunk or anything like that, then they're looking at what's the highest number, and that's what I'm gonna start with.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then that's where people have the bad experiences.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, it's like you can't just like jump in a cold plunge with a triple IPA after drinking middle of light your whole life.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, right.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're we're in you know 15 years ago when I was representing craft breweries and you know during that crap beer revolution, the amount of old timers that would switch from PAPS to tropes perpetual and then be like this is disgusting.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, no, it's revered as one of the best IPAs in the country, but yeah, I get it.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you've just been drinking pilsners and warm paps all your life, and no digs on pilsners and warms paps, not at all.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a it's a recipe and profile jump.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Time and a place for everything, right?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up on Bush, I'm a redneck, you know.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I hear you.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: I hear you.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: But when I found Sierra Nevada, it's like I, you know, I found Urbana.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, this is amazing.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if you if you've ever been to the brewery in in Asheville, it's just like you know, you you you go up through the gates, it's like ah it's a deal like it's like Disney World.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: We just did an episode a couple months ago at uh maybe maybe a year ago now, shit, at uh South County Brewery in York, Pennsylvania, and they did a uh similar replica and not cheesy, they did it, they spent a lot of money of that archway when you drive up, and then the way they come up.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And as soon as I drove up there, I was like, You went to Asheville, didn't he?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I may have solved it.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: It took me right that that little bridge at Asheville's.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we were on a tour there for um what the hell was it?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh oh, because we sub we were suppliers of it, so they brought all the distributors down.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was like a million or a million and a half dollars.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: That little bridge that when you go over that has all the hop leaves and the barley, like that's a real like sculptor made that like it was a nuts kind of uh construction there, as far as their detail goes.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's amazing.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's one of my favorite breweries, if not my favorite brewery I've ever been to.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's phenomenal.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: That that them them and a couple other ones are are are top for sure.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, talk to me a little bit about like um you and your partner go prior to the business and kind of lead me up in the kind of where was the light bulb moment prior to the formulation and and setting everything up, and kind of what were you what are your guys' lives and how did they intertwine prior to leading up to this business together?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's a big jump to entrepreneurship.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Were you guys entrepreneurs before?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Is this your first jump into entrepreneurship?
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: No, we we've all we we've been involved in a in a variety of different businesses and um backgrounds, but both of us um in our most recent lives uh coming out of technology.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um my partner, Steve Sampson, um you know 25 years in cybersecurity, um, you know, former military, um, just an amazing talent and just an amazing businessman at the same time.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but he had an idea years ago for a remote monitoring uh medical device and like woke up one day and he's he's got those those chops where it's just like, I'm just gonna build this today, you know, where you and I are like, um, cool, get me an erector set, you know.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so he he he took an idea and and built a prototype and turned it into a company.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, he rang the bell about two years ago and successfully exited.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what got him thinking about, you know, the the THC world, because again, he was winding down the drinking as a result of that exit.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Steve and I had actually met probably 10, 12 years ago through a friend, great friend, who actually manages both of our money.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I was just coming out of um 16 years of being a CEO at a GPS technology company, building software platforms, GPS-related technology and products.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: My company, you know, our big claim to fame at the time was we were monitoring 65,000 FedEx trailers, right?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Build the technology on utilization, things along those lines.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: We sold one of our business divisions, and then we were kind of you know pivoting.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I was, you know, 16 years, it's like it's time for something new on all sides.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, Carl said, you're looking to do something, Steve's looking to do something.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think you guys should talk.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we got together for lunch, and you know, we're you know, we're kind of speaking the same language when it came to technology, and and and you know, the the components of a GPS device are not much different than the components in a medical remote monitoring device.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta you gotta understand the telecom world and modules and the connectivity and things along those lines.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we started talking about some things, and it was kind of one of those you put down a couple ideas of what you want to do, I'll put down a couple ideas and we'll see what syncs up.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: And we were doing that, and that's you know, again, Steve just like out of the blue, he's like, Hey, THC drinks, what do you think?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I don't.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: What do you got something?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: So um, it was really that candid and that quick.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just like when we started talking about it, he he was like pulling the energy out of me.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was just like, Okay, yeah, bodybuilders.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: We got bigger fish to fry.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we we need to go broad.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: We need, you know, we've got sober curious, we've got um California's sober, we got all these buzzwords.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what who who's living in those spaces?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of how we landed on it.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we were talking about, okay, we need a name.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, last rep, it's the last rep of the day.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is how you finish your day, right?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, kind of like the the 12 ounce curl bear reference, you know what I mean?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, we're we're we're talking in real time, and Steve's like, yeah, we got the domain name.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: It was like boom, that quick.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we we approached this, and I'll I'll say this carefully because I don't want anybody to go, hey man, you're you're not that good.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we we did we we knew we didn't know anything about beverages, right?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: I I you know I'd be foolish to sit here and be like, you know, we've been thinking of this for 20 years and studying it, and you know, we're following the Sam Cook playbook or whatever, you know, whatever the case may be.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: It was really more of we understand business operations and marketing, right?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: So at a core, okay, we we've we've started businesses before, we've both been in those entrepreneurial roles, we've both grown those businesses to house, you know, 50 to hundreds of employees and dealing with remote workers and partnerships and things along those lines.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we understand how to scale as well.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we went and found the people who could, you know, bring that together for us.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Again, back to you know, hiring a PhD and finding and making sure they were credentialed properly.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then finding a co-packer that not only was just, you know, had empty tank space and could, you know, throw the water in and mix it up for us, but actually had experience with THC drinks in addition to 20 years of brewing beer and the canning process and things along those lines.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think we were smart in selecting our partners as well as saying we know what we know and we'll learn and catch up in the areas we don't.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: And let's make sure we're surrounding ourselves with the right people.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, just a quick note that alt beverage um we were at, the alt beverage expo we were at in uh West Palm, it was refreshing because I'm used to going to trade shows in a very specific niche marketplace where it's killer be killed, um, very cutthroat and you know, for lack of a better word, very fake, right?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: It'd be like, hey, Nate, man, good to see you again.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know I'm gonna see you every year.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just like, you know, how we're a kid, yeah, you're doing good, man.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, awesome.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we got to catch a bear lady.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay, absolutely.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: You turn around, you look at your buddy, you're like, it's fucking God.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: You're muttering, you know, I hope they're I hope their company goes out of business.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that down there, it was just so refreshing to talk to people, you know, coming over and like, hey man, I had your drink last night.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's awesome.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: I want to talk to you about it.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, hey, I love your marketing.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: What do you guys been doing?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: What are you seeing?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and you know, what was it, 30 different, 35 different drink companies there?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: I talked to everybody, and there wasn't a single person that like looked you up and down and kind of gave you the side eye, and it's just like you're a competitor, don't talk to me type thing, because we're all we're all in the same fight because it isn't fight right now, and we're all trying to do the same thing.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: We think we have good products and we think people like our products and we want to put it out there for the world.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: And just because I drank yours today doesn't mean I can't drink theirs tomorrow, and that's how the consumer journey is, right?
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: And we're just using the bear in the bar.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you go in one day to your local pub and you you you grab a Sierra Nevada, and the next day maybe you're on a stout, right?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: Is it doesn't mean you're a turncoat and you turned your back on Sierra Nevada, right?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I I was just really blown away by the openness of the of the industry and specifically this alternative beverage THC drink space.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and they the the protectionists they exist, you know, I mean the territory people, they exist in this industry.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to like sugarcoat it at all.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've experienced them on a weekly basis, uh, but they're not the majority, yeah, um, by any means.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the coolest part about this industry.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: I I do I correlate it a lot to uh not correlate, but kind of connected a lot to um the craft beer stuff in the sense of how big craft beer was in collaborating, you know, in the spirits world, and I always pick on the spirits industry because they aren't very collaborative.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody in the spirits world works in their silos, everybody in the wine world works in their silos, but the craft breweries, you know, I mean, they really did a lot of collaboration.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when things got tight like they are right now, there's a little less collaboration as they're more in survival mode, and that's understandable.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's a human psychology of it.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: But in the time when it was thriving and emerging and growing, uh, there were so many collaborations and everything like that.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: And now the collaborations are more consolidation of resources and and finances, which is also a necessary thing as far as that goes.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I I feel the same way about Florida.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: If um, I was just in Kentucky for the Keystone Cannon, or not Keystone, uh Key Kentucky Cannabis Conference with normal uh last weekend as well.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh very light event as well as far as attendance, but very quality conversations with the same scenario where it was like people, uh us speakers, we were going to each other's speeches, complimenting each other, kind of following up with each other effectively.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the stuff that helps accelerate this.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of the day, from the back end as a service provider, I have to look at everything uh and every aspect of the industry to find out what are my opportunities and where can I bring the most value to the industry.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I look at things as a category in an industry, not necessarily as a brand.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the biggest concern for me every time because we do multiple categories.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're in alcohol, we're in non-alcoholic, we're in functional, and we're in hemp.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: So before we over-index into a category, we have to make sure that the category is legit.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean legit as far as like having the full the money because it doesn't have that.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that's not that's not a legitimacy concern of mine.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's the passion and the purpose.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the way it's the same thing with me with craft gear 15 years ago.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: These guys, I'm I'm quoted on another person's podcast with a clip that went up for a while ago that was like, the truth is when I sat in these boardrooms at the at the distributorship, these craft brews are coming all day long with growlers and all kinds of stuff.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it would be like, it doesn't matter whether it taste good or not, it matters if you have a fire behind you and you actually believe in what you're doing.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because as much as everybody wants to build a brand to exit and brew a brand to sell and do this and do that, there's nothing guaranteed in any part of this life.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to make sure that when you make your first million, you're still the same human being as you are when you lose your first million.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's you know, I think I think it was Bezos that that said he only looked for one thing when he was interviewing somebody or sorry, sorry, gonna invest in somebody.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it's that look in your eye, and it's this person's going to do this with me or without me.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing that's gonna stop this person.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly it.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and that's just so you know, like that's why I feel so principled about I have a lot of people that want me to adapt this format that want to come on, they want me to give questions in advance, and I refuse to because of that exact reason.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is this the best format and the best platform for everybody to really see the authentic person in every aspect of every way because there's no media prep, there's no questions, this is a raw conversation.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to know somebody's principles and somebody's passion behind their business, it's watching these episodes and listening to stories like yours where people can't you can't fucking make up stuff.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm you never know.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: I might be like, hey, where were you when you're 19 years old?
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you gotta be ready to be like, I was in a shit place, I lived in a cardboard box, and I was on heroin.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's the truth, you're gonna say it because I'm gonna jar you and you're gonna say it, you know.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know where you got my bio from.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was just looking at my own.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was projecting on Hey, nothing there's anything wrong with a cardboard box.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I told this story, and I use that as an example because I I was.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was strung out on stuff.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: I woke up one time in an alley, uh strung out on pills and alcohol and had to clean this the snow off myself.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: And what did I do?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: I walked down the street to the next bar and I started all over again.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I that was many years ago, but at the same time, I'm not embarrassed of that story, and it's one of those things that everybody needs to understand too, because the main key part of that is people change.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: And no, not everybody changes, not everybody changes, but the ones that want to.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, back in the back, what I was about to say is you have a host that is foundational and in principle and purpose, and I attract guests that want to be principled and purpose, and I don't adapt to anything other than that.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and I and I love this format, and I was actually refreshed and relieved that you didn't send over questions ahead of time because it's just like you, you know, you overthink it.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: And why would you ask that?
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's a weird question.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, you know, can I swear?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I will, I will.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can swear as much as you want.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Let me let me ask you a question if you don't mind, because it you said something a few minutes ago, uh, kind of back to the alcohol and and yeah, silos and everything.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think the if I'm follow following the journey here, and let's just go back two or three years of some of the early adopters of the THC drinks and the messaging and the social media, and you know, because it's obviously tricky what you can and can't say, uh, as we know, and the and the meta gates and the Google gates and things like that, um, which we could probably do a whole hour episode on my feelings.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but do you think a lot of the alcohol um pushback is the fact that even though they're siloed, right?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: Miller light is not crushing Coors Light on a daily basis, and Budweiser's not trying to step on Modello's neck on a daily basis.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yet the THC people are going alcohol poison.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: Alcohol bad.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Drink this instead.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that just pissed people off?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: And there's huge resentment.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, it's it's childish and it's immature.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I just actually said the same thing in front of Congress this past week.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's absolutely asinine that number one, Anheuser Bush, and I'm not gonna play the victim card.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: They should be doing what they're doing because that's part of capitalism.
• 35:52
  unknown: Yep.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: Do I agree with it or morally or ethically?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the fact is when you have an infiltration into your territory, you want to crush that infiltration or acquire it and absorb it.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's just the fact of what we're trained and skilled in business and what we've been doing.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: I started this business in 2008.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I didn't, I didn't, I'm not still in business 17 years later because I'm a teddy bear.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm a teddy bear to everybody that's good, but when you when it's a there's a grizzly bear behind this that stayed in business for almost 20 years now by as a solopreneur with 100% ownership by business all the way through to this day.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's that's the skill, but that also with that is is the alcohol piece is no, it should never be one is better than the other because as soon as you put your boot on somebody's neck, uh if you think that your your boot is always gonna be on their neck, you're an idiot.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: And because the day comes when you're gonna trip on that pothole and you're gonna slip on the puddle and their boots going on your neck.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: But if you actually pick them up off the ground and don't put your boot on the neck and realize you're gonna you're chasing the same consumer, that piece of pizza, that slice of pizza, that pie that we're talking about, the cupcake, the whatever you want to say, cake pie, it's not getting bigger.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: And until you realize your role in this, and the thing is that the alcohol does need to understand, and we've we're getting there.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: We just had uh wine and spirits uh wholesalers on Monday advocate for hemp beverage uh uh regulation.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh Beer Institute advocated against it, but the Brewers Association advocated for it recently, so it's like one of those things where even within their industry, it's it depends on what it comes down to is who is a corporation and who is a human being.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you look at who cares and who doesn't, the people that care and want to support growth in industry and expanded categories for adult beverages, they're human beings, right?
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not trying to dehumanize anybody that works at the corporations.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: You are a human.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to say that, but your mindset and your mission is driven by the corporation, not by the human beings with the moral and ethical value in what's going on.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: That is the difference in the dividing line between the two.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think anything should be kumbaya anymore at all.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's the exact opposite is that we should be going out, not saying alcohol is bad.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: We need to go out with a five milligram and then a pilsner, put them on the same ad, put a dividing line in the middle, and that's how we normalize it.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the thing is before you start bashing alcohol, that same consumer, and you're gonna get y'all me on a soapbox, so brace yourself, buckle up.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's the same consumer.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to go out and you want to say and you want a soccer mom who's who's 45 years old to go in and buy your stuff at the store and on your shelf, if you bash the prosecco that she was just drinking for the past 15 years, you better be fucking out of your mind if you think she's gonna go, oh, I'm gonna support these guys.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: No, because when you bashed prosecco, you just made her feel like an idiot, right?
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: You just made her feel like she was doing something wrong in her life, and then you think she's gonna come over.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: In actuality, it's not about who's right and who's wrong, it's about offending your consumer before they even purchase your product, right?
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then it the education piece, yet again, right?
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: That person who likes the prosecco needs to understand that some of these THC drinks are gonna have the same bubble profile, they're gonna have the same taste profile, and you're gonna get a very euphoric feeling um and relaxation.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: Not that you don't get that from Prosecco, but it's a different type of relaxation or it's a different mission.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I liked your um pointing out if you drew a line and you had a Pilsner and a THC drink, five milligrams specifically, I can't tell you because again, Nate, we're just doing these events left and right, and people will walk up and they're like, whoa, THC drink, and they'll point to the can and be like, is that gonna get me high?
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like if I pointed to a pilsner and said, Is that gonna get you drunk?
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: You would have said give me six.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right, exactly.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's not a one-to-one comparison.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, when we when we do the you know, we do the you know, one ounce samplings, the the hesitancy people have, it's just like, well, uh, is this gonna get me high?
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: No, man.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's I just want to see if you like the way it tastes.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly it.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's the normalization.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: We have to normalize it.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the other reason why I'll pick on another group is um we're doing in Pennsylvania.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: We have the lobbyists, we have the campaign, we have all these things we're doing, PA.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: We got the bill just went public on Friday.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we have a bill now, it's live.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: We got eight or nine sponsors on it, or co-sponsors and a sponsor.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: Immediately, when I go to look at the lobbying groups and all this other stuff, who's fighting me?
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I I'm in, and then I'm in DC with the same thing federally.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: Who's fighting us federally?
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh everybody within the marijuana industry.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: And why is it?
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: And here's another misconception: everybody in the marijuana industry is the multi-state multiple MSOs that have all the dispensaries and they want these products in there because they're popular and they drive demand and they'll drive foot traffic in their mind.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: But when you look historically, each state that they've ever done that for where dispensaries are the only ones that sell beverages, every time that the skew dies and gets discontinued.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because a five milligram can is the equivalent of 30 cans to equal one joint.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is not the same consumer, and not to mention what we're just talking about.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: Your persecco person that's going to buy the prosecco or the Pinot Grigio.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, Total Wine just gave me that stat.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was Pinot Grigio, I think.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas the number one skew next to it is Pinot Grigio.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: I keep saying for 70, 70 percent in soccer bounce.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say that's what it is.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let's take that target demographic.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: You think she's gonna go in that dispensary, give her ID, get buzzed in with her stroller and her and her other daughter or baby on her backside and the stroller in the front side?
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: No, let's be really reasonable.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: We have to, it is the I called it the couple weeks ago, the Trojan horse.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then I don't mean Trojan horse in the sense of a war, but Trojan horse in the sense of access and exposure to a market.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: It is the Trojan horse because if it can sit at a liquor store, somebody can drive a five milligram, two milligram, one milligram, ten milligram, and all of a sudden they might have been nervous, like you and I are talking about.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: We deal with these all the time at these events.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody, not 70% of the people are timid to even grab the one ounce sample.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I make a joke where I'm like, gosh, two ounces of your life, you'll get it back.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it makes them laugh and then they drink it, and it's no big deal.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: But the fact is, I'm not standing next to a shelf, and you're not standing next to a shelf 24-7, make the deck making that same joke.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: So the amount of people that are walking by and are scared, we have to normalize this.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: And on the same side for the dispensaries, they're too short-sighted because we love this in society.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: Short-term gain for long-term gain, the most bullshit thing in the world.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is where it is.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at the long-term gain, if hemp beverages sit in every liquor store and every regulated age-gated thing, not in the dispensary, all of the exposure that will happen to the cannabis industry as a whole, because it will begin to normalize the consumption of cannabis.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're not even at a place where we can be at an event that's made for cannabis and made for adult beverages where 70% of people aren't nervous to drink a product.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's an alarming problem from an education and brand standpoint that we all have to acknowledge.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something that is interesting, but it's also concerning because craft beer didn't have that.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: Beer was not, it was the confusion, wasn't what should I drink beer and and will it get me high?
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was is it bitter or is it thick or is it it was it was we already had overpassed the beer as a normal thing, and then craft beer became the accelerator.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: We have the problem where we're still dealing with the cannabis stigma and the normalization of cannabis before we even get there.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: The easiest consumption is a correlation of the can.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and if you if you're using the craft bear example, and I I don't want to get dates confused, and I certainly don't want to try to to nail this the statistics, but just theoretically, did anybody know what ABV really was before Kraft Bear came out or before IPAs hit mainstream?
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: No one ever talked about you know extra hops, right?
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, as far as I knew, as the no, remember hops are a bad thing, right?
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: No, as far as I knew, like you needed beachwood to to make beer, right?
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because early 90s, the bitter beer phase commercial, right, right, right.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it's you know, again, craft beer didn't cripple Budweiser, it inspired them to make new products and put new labeling together that sold more products, you know.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: And when you when you go to the dispensary, and again, I I I certainly don't want to offend anybody, but there are some dispensaries that are you know nice to go into and they're warming and welcoming and you know they got nice meetings.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm a weekly customer of dispensaries and I'm using Joke all the time.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, shout out to Rise.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a customer, I'm not digging you, but it's just not logic.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: I I've been I've been in some though where it's just like, Where am I?
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't feel comfortable, and I'm not a nervous person.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you're walking me back to this back room, and I picked something up and you yelled at me to put it down, don't touch.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, but it has a label and I want to read it.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: We'll tell you what's on the label.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, what?
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and you know.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you got to put 17 labels and QR code and scan them and everything.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, gee, I just missed the days when I had my buddy's beeper number and he met me in a parking lot.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like where are those days gone?
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I know we had to watch a shitty movie for an hour and a half while we gave it to him.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: But but but back to your point, you know, if it's if you want it normalized, then yeah, it makes more sense to be in total wine or a big box retail, and you know, that's why Target's doing what they're doing.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when you're gonna get the, you know, and I hope we're not offending soccer moms, but like that profile is gonna go, oh, I can do this without whatever comes with it, whatever the spotlight is, etc.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's a lot of them that if you offer them a gummy at a party, they're the first person to take it.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they if you if they if they ask you where'd you get them, and you say, you know, Cure Leaf, they're like, Oh, they're not going to Cure Leaf because they don't want the you know, the Mercedes SUV and you know Sarah to drive by and go, Jenny's at Jenny's at the dispensary, right?
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have to, you're right, and we have to remember that like it's like when we let's let's be all frank here.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: When we we're all buying marijuana back in the day when we were kids before this all happened.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: We it's the equivalent of who's the friend that takes the orders from all the friends and goes through the process of sitting on the couch and watching super troopers with the guy while he tells you the boring stories for an hour.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: And who's the person that puts their order in and stays on their couch?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're looking for the person on the couch because that's the volume we need as an industry.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: We got to figure out how to bridge that gap faster so that they want to come out to the store and shop.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the biggest thing with our drink in particular, to bring it back, Nate, to last to last rep.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: This our messaging is not get high in a can.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I use what you just said as a as an antidote all the time.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you drink a five milligram specifically, or even a 10 milligram, it's not gonna take that bad movie and make it hysterical, right?
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not trying to get somebody to stop smoking that likes to smoke, right?
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: But I will use a very specific example.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: I work with a lot of guys now in jujitsu, and these guys will tell you they smoke a joint before they go and roll because they want to be relaxed and it focuses them.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's also counterintuitive to cardio, right?
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: When you're smoking.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I set up at a at a jiu-jitsu gym, and these guys were grabbing 10, I'm like, you know, sample and like, I'll take a 10 milligram can.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: I thought you were going to work out.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: And they go and work out 45 minutes into the workout, they're going, you know, going to the bathroom, coming by my table and just being like, hey man, the drink's amazing.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm locked in.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: I feel great.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: Can't wait to have one when I'm done.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you go, maniac, right?
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: But they're they're into it, right?
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the difference between smoking and consuming.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think these these drinks where legislation needs to catch up, where consumerism needs to catch up, where the purveyors need to catch up, whether you're a gym, a bar, et cetera.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: This is a different type of social relaxation.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it is much more in line with have a good time, smile, relax, recover your body fully.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: Spirit, mind, body.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: I know it sounds cheesy.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: I went to Springfield Conics, uh, Springfield College.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: We are a humanics school.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that is our logo.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's literally what the drink is all about.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: You feel relaxed, you feel open, you feel welcome, and you're not worried about what's going to come the next day.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: And if you want a second one, you grab a second one.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I I just I haven't talked to a ton of people like, hey man, I crushed six of your drinks last night, right?
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's no reason to.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: But even if you do, right, we're back to the bear analogy.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_01: If I have three IPAs, just mathematically, I'm putting somewhere in the range of 600 to possibly 900 calories in my body.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: That if I'm training for anything, that's gonna have an impact on me the next day.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm just casually trying to lose two pounds before a wedding or something along those lines, that is not helping.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas our drink's gonna give you six calories.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: You want to go nuts and have a second one, you put in 12 calories, right?
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: We sponsor a UFC fighter right now.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about it.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: When he cuts weight, you've got to be extremely careful what you put in your body.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: He can drink this drink now without any fear of repercussions of the scale.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: He's getting his electrolytes, he's getting his locked-in focus, he's getting his pain relief and anti-inflammation, and he's only putting in six calories a pop.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: He can afford to do that on a restricted diet, you know.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: I um you're exactly right.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: I actually um I'm gonna have you, I want to do an episode.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: I want to get you on uh our other show, which is called the Leaders Arena, that I do with uh former UFC and Bellator fighter uh Clifford Starks.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: He's my co-host, yeah.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, nice.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: So he's he's in the uh USA MMA Hall of Fame.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I want I want to get you guys together and uh we'll get on an episode.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to get I want to nerd out with this stuff as far as that goes in in even deeper.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that would be badass.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: That'd be uh yeah, I'll reach out to I'll text them later today and see what out what's the schedule like.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, so real quick as we close out, um, I want to thank you, Jay Jay, for this, man.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: I really, you know, this was a really fast-flowing conversation, and that's exactly what I love.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: I thrive in that kind of environment.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for bringing the energy to the table on this.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: And also thank you for what you're doing.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're just you're doing something and you're also doing it your way.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, you didn't just follow the wave, you you found your peak in the wave, and then you're finding your cut through.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really important as things are going through and the passion you have behind what you're doing and the knowledge, dude.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: You you you really you got me excited and get, I mean, I'm I'm the I'm a fat dude now, but I would you got me wanting to go to the gym, buddy, on this episode.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I that's awesome.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, there was there was some muscle uh buried in there 10 years ago, but I hear you.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're good now.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: But hey, what what um what I want you to do is give everybody uh kind of remind everybody as we're closing out, websites, social medias, where to find you guys, and then we'll kind of close out the episode.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: And again, thank you so much, man.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: No, thank you.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: So if if you want to find it online and you're in a state where we can legally ship to, um, it's www.lastrepark arc.com.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, arc stands for athletic recovery cocktail.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: If anybody's wondering why did you stick that on your URL?
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: So again, last rep arc.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then follow us on all the socials at at lastrep arc.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we kind of keep it consistent, keep it easy there.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're in the greater Tampa area, um, you know, like I said, we're in uh 13 locations right now.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: We have a store locator on our website.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: So if you go there and you don't want to buy online, hit the store locator and you can check out places like Lucan's Gas Bars, um, poorhouse, um, urban flow.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: So again, if you're listening in the local area, those names should resonate with you and many, many more.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, like we we just started getting into a few CrossFit gyms.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, some jiu-jitsu gyms are starting to sell the product as well.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's you know, quick, quick aside, Nate.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: Our lane right now, we have a little bit of an edge with those alternative places because the other cans have too much sugar, too much X, Y, and Z in it.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: So our product really aligns.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: So we're we're really thankful that the gyms are starting to recognize it and actually carrying it.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so hopefully, hopefully the state allows that to continue.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then as soon as you as soon as you guys expand to other states, you're gonna you're gonna meet a whole bunch of other gym owners, and I think it's gonna be really fun as well for you guys.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you I want to just tell you compliments on that and just keep going down that path because I I've been thinking about it for months and a year now.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like even all joking aside about me not going to the gym, I still, you know, I have athletes as kids, all that stuff, and it's a vital part of my my life growing up and everything like that.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's one of those things where these there is a lot of times where because a guy that goes to a gym every day, or a girl that goes to a gym every day has a very high, high uh high eye drive.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes to be I'm a sober guy of the past three years from alcohol.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay sometimes the guys I know and girls that go to the gym, sometimes that is just to balance out what they're doing in their personal life.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's detrimental in their personal life, and to them they bring balance.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: And for this to be able to throw a little bit of a jarring gear into it and balance things out a little easier for them, I think it's meta beneficial to everybody, you know what I mean?
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: No, I agree, and to double down on that, that's the social component, man.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, and Steve talks about it a lot too.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: When you start turning down those happy hour meetings and the get the drinks, the text messages stop coming, and that's that has its own negative repercussion to it.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: I went through it a couple years ago, yeah.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_01: And and and listen, I get listen, and and I you know, that's one thing to be you know sober serious, right?
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not making light of it, but even when you're like, okay, I'm not gonna drink for 30 days, the last thing you want to do is go to the bar and be in that environment.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like, man, dude, back up, right?
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_01: And having having that alternative, whether it's the the facility in the gym or the drink itself, it does wonderful.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_00: Close out with we do sometimes.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: It seems like to anybody from the outside we're bashing alcohol, but please remember not at all.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: I represent alcohol all day long.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: I work in breweries all day long and distilleries, despite being sober.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's one of those things where I love it and the industry needs to exist.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: I've built my career off of it.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but moderation is key, and access to diverse opportunities and products is the American dream, and it's the American life that we have.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is that when something new comes out, we everybody should have access to it.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I appreciate your stance on that.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: I I've made more than one all-American drinking team in the past, I can assure you of that.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: Paralympics all day long.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, sounds good.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I will close out uh and let everybody know that it is 2026.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the world is a beautifully disruptive place, and we need everybody to understand that we are not alone, we are in this together.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, aside from all the drinks we talked about today, as you're walking down the street, don't be a piece of shit.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the stranger in the eyes, put your phone down while you're walking, hold a door for a stranger, ask somebody how they're doing, and actually pause and listen to what they want to say.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we don't know what's going on in everybody's life, and there's a lot of heavy, heavy shit out there.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, we just need to be out there looking out for each other.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, Jay, thank you for having faith and trust in me to tell your story, to give you a platform for your story, and then share your story out there.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, thank you so much for that.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm looking forward to talking to you more often and in the fall, go ahead and back down to uh Florida for the next Alt Ev.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm looking forward to getting down there and and having some more products with you.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing experience.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great conversation, Nate.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to come back anytime you want to have me, whether it's your partner, anybody.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then obviously in in travels, if we're going to be connecting in shows and whatnot, I'd love to get together.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, man.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be in touch too about the leaders' arena, introduce you to Clifford and everything.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: That'll be great.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_00: Take care, man.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_00: Have a good day, buddy.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Nate.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_00: Appreciate it.