Latest / Brewsers / Brewsers #404- JT Robertson with Bearded Viking Mead

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Brewsers #404- JT Robertson with Bearded Viking Mead · Brewsers

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Bruisers, a podcast about beer, coffee, booze, and Bruisers.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I am your host, Rody John, and today we talk
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: to J.T. Robertson with Bearded Viking Mead. We talk about
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: how he got into mead, the alcohol industry, and so
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: much more.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: J.T.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Is doing absolutely amazing things with Bearded Viking, and you
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: don't want to hear from me, you want to hear
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: from him. So without further ado, here is J.T. Robertson
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: with Bearded Viking Mead. I would like to welcome to
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: the show JT Robertson with Bearded Viking Mead. How are
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: you doing today?
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Doing all right, man. How are you doing today?
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I'm doing well. So if those listening kind of paint
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: us a word picture, where are you at and what's
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: going on around you?
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm actually the founder and CEO of the
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Bearded Viking Mead company. We started 28 months ago. We
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: opened our doors. We're currently the fastest growing alcohol company
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: in Montana and one of the fastest growing in the country. And, um,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: we're a combat or a veteran owned and operated. I'm
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: a combat vet. Um, and also my, uh, fellow founders, um,
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: are all, uh, veterans and or combat vets. It's not
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: all the same, but yeah. So, uh, got into meat and, um,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: we have what we call a new take on an
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: old drink. Um, and I can explain that throughout the podcast, man.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you for your service off the top of the, uh, Uh, what, uh,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: so I had read that you, well, I want to
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: get into that for a second. Cause I had read
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: that you are, well, what do you, which one are
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: you sipping on real fast?
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: I'm taking the blueberry lemon. It's my favorite. It's called Valkyrie. Okay.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: So it's blueberry on the front of your tongue, all
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: spices in the middle and a lemon zest in the
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: back end. It's like drinking a blueberry pie.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, fantastic. Well, so I had read that you signed
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: up for the, uh, armed forces in, you know, uh,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: September 12th, 2001. And, As we're about to hit, you know,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: as we're recording this, it's September 10th. So 25 years ago,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: what did you think was going to happen? Obviously, the
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: way your life went from there. So the reason why
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: I didn't ever I didn't actually join to be patriotic.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: The reason why I joined is I was a senior
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: in high school and I had a nine month old
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: baby and totally started out life the hardest possible way,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: which is actually I think trickles down to everything that
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: I do. There's the wrong way, the right way and
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: the bearded Viking way, which is the hardest fucking way
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: to do something. But hey, we do it. So so
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: I saw that the planes hit and I believed that
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: they could do that there. They could do that in
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Salt Lake where I'm originally from. And I'd never been
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: in a fight before. I played football, ran track, did
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: all these sports and athletic things, but I'd never been
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: in a fight. So I'd never been punched in the face.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: I'd never had any of those problems because, you know,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: I'm a generally nice human.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Um, and I wanted to protect my daughter. And so, um,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: I went to, I went down, my ex-wife was like, Hey,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: you need to talk to the air force recruiter and
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: then the Navy recruiters first. Cause I, you know, I'm
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: worried about you. And so I went and talked to
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: the air force. Um, my conversation with the air force
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: was very, very brief. I said, Hey, I want to
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: fight in this war that's coming up. Um, you know,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: how soon could I be in a fight? And they're like, well,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: unless you have a four-year degree, you're probably never going
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: to fight. And I was like, okay, well, that's fair.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Appreciate that. You guys do more logistical support and maintenance
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: of aircraft and bombs and stuff. Then I had my
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: cup of tea. So then I went to the Navy.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: I was like, hey, you know, the same conversation. And
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: they were like, hey, do you want to be a
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Navy SEAL? And I was like, no, not at all.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: And they're like, come on, man, you could totally be
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: a Navy SEAL. And I was just like, uh, dude, I'm,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: I'm 18 and I've never worked that hard before in
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: my life. So I don't think that I have what
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: it takes to be a SEAL. So then it went
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: over half of that. Um, cause I was determined to
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: figure out how to get into the service. And so
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: I went to the army and the army told me
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: I could be an infantryman and I could, uh, I'd
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: have to wait about 18 months before my training and
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: everything was done. And they were going to guarantee me
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: a ranger contract and all this other stuff. And I,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm just not the kind of guy who, uh,
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: just jumps into like some sort of super secret squirrel
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: stuff because, um, I just, I'm a hard worker, but
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: I just don't know if I have that ability now, now,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: and now I do now I know that I did,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: I do, but like then I was just like, nah,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: and I wanted to be in the fight. So I
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: was walking out and I didn't even think about the Marines.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Cause back in the day we had the Marine Corps
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: best recruiting video, which was, uh, the recruit who turns
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: into a Marine who fights the lava monster. Yeah. If
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: you remember that, So, like, I didn't even think anything
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: of it. And then I was walking out, and there's
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: a Marine recruiter, and he's like, hey, man, what, are
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: you too good for the fucking Marine Corps? And I
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: was like, I don't know anything about the Marine Corps, man. Like,
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: I just don't.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: You fight lava, right?
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: Like, you guys are lava monster fighters. And he joked
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: around with me or whatever, and then ended up enlisting
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: because he said I could get to combat within nine months.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: I could be fully trained within nine months. It was
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: the best option that I had. Again, not because I'm
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: a patriot. But because I'm a dad, which I think
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: holds more value in life anyways, because patriots swing depending
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: on who's in office and being a dad is being
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: a dad. So I did all of that and went
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: to boot camp on January 14th of 2002. The Afghanistan
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: war had just barely kicked off and there was no
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: end in sight. So I was thinking that I was
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: going to go fight in Afghanistan. Got done with my training,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: nine months, got to my unit. And then we were
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: on the threshold of being deployed to Afghanistan. We were
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: just in line in a queue to go to Afghanistan.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: And then next thing you know, the war in Iraq
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: kicks off. And they're like, hey, we're going to Iraq.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: And I was like, dude, I didn't enlist to go
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: to Iraq, but okay. And so anyway... Long story long,
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: I spent eight years in the Corps as a Marine infantryman,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: and then I did six years in the Army as
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: a combat engineer after that. Damn. Yeah, so 14 years.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Did you retire? No. Okay.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: No, I didn't retire. I ended up getting out after
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: I got blown up in Afghanistan. I came home. They
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: put me on what they call a permanent line of duty.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: I have degenerative disc disease in my entire back. It's
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: pretty bad. Ugh. Yeah, it's dumb. I'm not really a
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: big fan of it.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: I imagine not.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I got out and I ended up being
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: a recruiter for like a headhunter. So I was recruiting
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: physical therapists, occupational therapists. That job changed into being a
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: technical recruiter, managing and recruiting technology folks like developers, things
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: like that. And from there, that turned into my bachelor's
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: degree and a project management career path in cybersecurity. Wow.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Which was great. I was able to work remote and
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: stay at home. And that's one of the reasons why
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: I'm able to live in Montana. It was all remote.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: And then from there, COVID hit and I don't wear
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: a mask worth of shit. And I started making my
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: own alcohol, the honey. And I can tell you that
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: story later. Whatever. That's how it is. So I built
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: the mead company from the ground up. I've touched every
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: screw in the building, literally built it from the ground up.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: And when we launched, our grand opening was May 3rd, 2024.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: And we had 1,000 people there in a county that
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: has 3,800 total.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: And it wasn't just the county. We had people that
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: drove from Vermont, Florida, Texas, Ohio. Yeah, it was crazy.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: It was crazy. I mean, it's awesome. I love the
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: veteran community. They just take care of everyone.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: They really do. I mean, they do. I mean, nobody else,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: you know. Nobody else seems to want to. No, yeah. So, okay.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: So you're in Iraq. So I only asked this question
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: because I had a friend that was stationed over there. So...
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Where there's the telecom area where I think they like,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: don't they kind of like ward off this one area?
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Because like, if you enter it, you will be immediately
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: like vaporized or something like that.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: I don't know about that. I was on the front lines.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: So I didn't really like I, I, when I was there,
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: we showered. If you want to, I didn't shower for
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: three months because there was like the invasion.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: So, so there was no like, Forward operating bases, there
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: was not... The closest to a forward operating base was
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: in Kuwait, a place called Camp Commando. It was a
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: tent city that ended up burning down, which is funny
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: to me. Because when we were there, they were installing
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: big giant fans inside the tents. And I was just like...
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: It was the shoddiest electrical work that I've ever seen.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: And I was just like, okay... So no, I don't
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: know any of that stuff. So there's definitely things that
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: you don't touch on comms. uh at all because because
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: they're super super electric so for.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Sure well then tell us about camel spiders.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Uh they're just uh they're basically a spider that has
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: it's a scorpion really with no tail And so they
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: don't really follow you. They don't like humans. They go
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: from place to place in your shadow, so it feels
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: like they're following you. The biggest one I ever saw
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: was like this big. It's not as big as everybody thinks.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: It's about the same size as a tarantula. They hang
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: out a lot around the camels, obviously, because what they
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: do is they secrete a venom that numbs the flesh,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: and then they just eat the flesh. So it's really weird.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: They're super creepy. They look like facehuggers from Aliens.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: In real life, they're just spiders. I don't know. It's
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: no big deal for me. I'm just like, whatever, man.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fair.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: Everybody makes comments about how they're terrifying, and I was
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: just like, they ain't that bad. And they ain't that big.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Most of them are the same size as the spiders
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: in America.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I have seen the Australian spiders, and
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: those things are fucking massive.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. That bird spider, the bird tarantula thing is huge.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: It's the biggest spider in the world.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that thing's like prehistoric shit.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like 12 or 13 inches across. That's crazy.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: That's nuts. No thanks.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: I'm good.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: You're good. Well, so you said during COVID you started
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: making your own mead. So I had heard that you
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: already had the bees there and you had 100 pounds
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: of honey and you gave 50 away. And then the
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: other 50, nobody wanted somehow.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: No, we just like, it's honey. So people don't typically
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: like going and they, they just don't, they don't get
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: stock stock up on it. Right. So it's like this,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: it's a whole, this whole thing. So basically the way
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: it worked for me is I was given these beehives
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: and they had honey in them. And so we, I
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: was waiting for my bees to come because it was,
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: you know, May, I think when the pandemic, I don't
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: even remember that that was the before times. I feel
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: like middle of March. Yeah. So, So the pandemic hits,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: I run out of alcohol. So I run out of
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: my bourbon. So my scotch, my whiskey, started drinking gin,
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: which is not too bad, I guess, these days. And
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: then I got into vodka. And then I was rocking
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: it back to when I was like high school or
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: rolling around in a 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse and drinking some
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Fireball and Jaeger and shit. And just like it was bad.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: You know, cybersecurity is pretty stressful. So my girlfriend was
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: at work. She was a dental assistant. And so I
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: was like, fuck this day. It was just one of
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: those days, you know, like the fire is on fire.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: And again, like you're just pouring gasoline on everything. You're
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: just like, I just need to check out. So I
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: went to the grocery store. I donned my mask. My
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: beard wasn't even as big as it is now. So
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: I donned my mask, go to the grocery store. If
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: you want to call it a mask, it was a
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: t-shirt with little hoops for ears, whatever. Go to the
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: grocery store.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a lot of different masks back then.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: It was fun.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was whatever. So I walk in. and uh
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: my mask creeps up over my eyes and i can't
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: see and i'm like what the fuck dude uh how
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: do i do this so i pull my mask down
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: and when i'm pulling my mask down this gal from
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: across the grocery store and by the way i just
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: want i'm just going to get corporate of course banquets
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: i'm just gonna get some banquets so yellow bellies it's
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: all i wanted so i'm i'm like i pull my
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: mask down and when i pull pulled the mask down
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: uh this gal from across the grocery store over charges
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: at me and i'm like what am i doing what
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: is going on like what is happening yeah like there's
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: arrows on the on the ground that i don't really
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: care about they're like walk this direction don't do that
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: i'm like whatever i don't give a shit um anyway
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: she'll see charges at me and she pulls her mask
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: down and starts yelling at me for touching my mask
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: with her mask in hand of course and as she's
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: touching her mask yeah and i'm like okay cool so
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: i just set the course banquets on the ground and
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: i left i was like fuck this i'm out this
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: is fucking stupid so i go to the bar So
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: I go to the bar, I go to the bar
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: and I'm like my local bar at the time. Everybody
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: knows me. I'm like Norm, you know, from Cheers. I
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: walk in and they're like, hey, oh, you got to
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: wait outside. I was like, oh, okay, whatever. Why? Well,
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: we're a mass capacity. There's like 12 people in this
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: giant bar. What do you mean max capacity? They're like, well,
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: we're at mass capacity. We don't want to get in
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: trouble from the feds. All right, cool. So I wait outside,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: get inside around 845. um and i go inside sit
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: down and i'm like all right cool i'll have a
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: course banquet and they're like well do you want to
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: only order one like last calls at nine i'm like
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: why the fuck is what last call at nine they're
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: like well government restrictions say that covid comes out after
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: 10 we have to have the bar completely shut down at.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: 10 and i was like get fucked dude i just
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: want to enjoy a few beers without all this bullshit
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: and everything else so So I have a few beers
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: and I'm just like still irritated because I'm like, what
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: the fuck?
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: So I call my weed dealer because you tell others
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: weed's not legal, right?
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: I'm in Texas, yeah. Yeah. So I cruise over. I'm
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: cruising home, call the weed dealer. The dealer's like, no, man,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: I can't deliver your weed to you. I'm like, just
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: sit on the porch, man.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: What's venal?
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: You like normal. I'm like, I don't care. And he's like, no,
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: you might die. I'm like, bro, you deal drugs. Right.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Now you worry about that?
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah like you you're worried about killing me like you
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: i've seen you deal hard hard drugs man like come
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: on so um i put two beer cart or two
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: beer making kits from amazon in my in my cart
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: right waiting go to sleep overnight girlfriend kind of mellows
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: me out it's nice we have a nice dinner whatever
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: we talk about the dumb shit of the day she
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: laughs at me and this whole thing right yeah um
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: And then I woke up in the morning. I was
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: running a call for the Bank of Ireland overseas. They
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: were reclined at the time. It was 4 o'clock in
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: the morning. And so I always had a movie on
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: in the background while I'm running these cybersecurity calls because
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: they're pretty monotonous sometimes, right? And so just like any meeting, actually.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: A lot of them are.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Like, if I could have just gotten an email, it
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: would have been fine.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been great. So I'm running and watching the
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: 13th warrior. So I don't know if you've ever seen
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: the 13th warrior, but it's got Antonio Banderas is the
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: main character. He he's playing a Muslim. He's a Muslim
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: poet warrior, I guess, if you will, who, who gets
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: exiled for a kiss in the one of the sheik's
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: wives or whatever.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Um, I mean, he's Antonio Banderas, of course.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Like whatever. Right. So anyway, so he gets, he
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: gets kicked out and he goes out and he finds
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: these 12 Viking warriors in this camp and they're, they're
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: just exploring. Um, and, uh, they're called to go do
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: some work. Um, and they require 13 words and one
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: of them can't be, um, a Norseman. So that's Antonio Banderas.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: So the story goes on, on and on. They go
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: to fight this old ancient bow. It's a really great movie.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: It's based off of the book eaters of the dead
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: by Michael Crichton. Hmm. Um, anyway, so, uh, he, he
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: goes and he does his, he, he goes with them
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: and pretty much almost all of them die. And they're
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: facing like a 2000 warrior issue. Like these 2000 warriors
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: are coming at them and they're just like, okay, well,
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: we're going to die here. We're all going to die. Yeah.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: And so, um, one of the Vikings hands him a
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: horn and says, drink up a little brother. You look
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: like you need to drink basically. Right.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: And he's like, I can't drink anything for moot from
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: fermented fruit of the vine or hops and barley. And
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: the warrior's like, it's honey, little brother. Cause they called
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: him little brother the entire time. It's honey. And so
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: he just pounds it back. And like, I hit pause
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: at that moment. And I was like, just looked over
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: at the bay window that I had. It was full of,
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: of mason jars full of honey. Right. And I was
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: just like, bro, I can make honey into hooch. I
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: don't have to wear a mask. So, I canceled all
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: my meetings for the week because it was the before times.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Like it was the COVID times. Like the rules are
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: made up and nobody actually follows them. So whatever. And
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: so I just went and I went to the internet
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: and I typed in how to turn honey into hooch.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: And it took me to YouTube. So I started my
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: mead making career via YouTube University.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Love that.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: My first batch of mead was 21% alcohol. Nice. Yeah.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: It tasted like TV static got in a fight with
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: lightning near a beehive. But it got me drunk, so
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: it was fine.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: And you powered all the way through it, I bet.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, my face went numb pretty quick.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: How many batches in did it take for you to
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: actually kind of get more of a, not just comfortable,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: but stuff that other people were like, oh, okay, well,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: I will actually drink this as opposed to just being
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: nice to you.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: The actually second batch i made was a viking's blood
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: so it was just cherries um and honey okay uh
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: and i just i used to use the same yeast
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: i was using like this um really really high end
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: like high volume yeast it like can ferment up to
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: 25 i didn't understand the the nuances of the like
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: the hotter it is the less flavor it is like
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing um and the second batch though
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: that uh cherries were really good they worked it out
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: like it was mellowed a lot of it um some
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: people really really loved it and other people were like
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: that tastes like cough syrup and i was just like
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: well i don't know what to tell you it's not
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: cough syrup but yeah so then the third batch that
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: i fermented um molded the fourth batch that i fermented
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: um i thought i got into step feeding and and
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: making like progressive improvements you know and try to understand
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: that Well, I grabbed the wrong things. I grabbed a
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Camden tablet, which basically stops you from fermenting.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Oh no.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: And so I tried to convince myself that it was fermenting,
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: even though that like after two weeks, like I was like,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: it's still fermenting. It's fine. It's fine. I was just
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: drinking like apple honey water. It was horrible. And then
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: we moved up here to Montana and, after like six
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: or seven batches in Utah, we moved up here to
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Montana and the first winter up here, it was pretty brutal. Uh,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: there's a lot more snow and pretty, pretty much the
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: same cold, but a lot more snow than, than we
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: were at in Utah. And, um, I started fermenting here
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: and then I was just like, I'm going to figure
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: this out. So probably 20 batches in, I started to
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: figure it out, got some conical shaped fermenters so I
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: could get it, get the meat off of the yeast
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: and everything else. And I could, I went through the
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: thing and I, basically created one of those red spider
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: webs where you've got the red strings going.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Started, started reading from all these like great meat makers,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: you know, and, and all these different thoughts created a spreadsheet,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: started documenting different things that everybody's doing. So what you
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: have is like, you have these traditional meat company, meat
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: people and like the worst. Um, and I say that
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: in the most loving way, but they are like, wine
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: stops got nothing on a tradition, traditionalist meat person, nothing.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: And sorry if there's traditionalist media people who listen to
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: your cast, but it's true. You can look yourself in
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: the mirror and you tell yourself the truth or lie.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: I don't care.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: You're talking about it no matter what. Like, yeah, it's dumb.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just dumb. Anyway, so so but they had
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: a lot of great data. And then you had this
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: kind of pseudo neuro kind of meat makers now. And
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: there's like this change, right? And so the newer people
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: are using a lot more spices and a lot more
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: like fruits. And so the two kind of lock horns
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: and battle a little bit, but they all have stuff
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: that the other is missing. Yeah. And so I kind
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: of drew this conclusion together. And so what I'm able
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: to do now, because I create my own processes, I'm
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: able to go to market with, an absolutely wonderful alcohol
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: that can be served on ice, can be drink warm
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: or made into a mule or turned into a mixer. Um,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: all of them are 15%, but I can go to
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: market in six weeks.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So we, that's what we do. Uh, I have
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: eight flavors of our main stays. Um, we have a
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: total of 16. We've been business, like I said, for
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: like 26 or 28 months. I don't know. May 24
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: to now was like, 28 months, something like 26 months,
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: 28 months, something.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I don't even know.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so, but we're able to go to market. Um,
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: and we've been, we've won 19 awards.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: Like we go to beer competitions and it's, it's, so
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: this is the saddest thing. Uh, so you have like
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: these brew festivals where there's all these beers and like,
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: I love beer. I do. Absolutely. Not as much as
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: I love my meat, but I love a good course banquet.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: I love, Anything that's not an IPA. I can't do IPAs.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: There's some good clean ones out there. You might like them.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: There's some pretty decent mellow ones that are good, but
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: the double IPAs and all that other stuff.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if it gets too hoppy, I can understand that.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I could just go chew on one of my
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: pine trees. It's totally fine.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: But yeah, we've won 19 awards.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: We'll go into these events and we'll win People's Choice Award. Wow.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Without a problem, like 500 or 600 votes. Jeez. Last year,
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: we were in an event called Ales for Trails here
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: in Billings, and we took first place in the pale
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: ale competition, which I was pretty sad about that. I
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: was like, we're not a pale ale, but all right.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: And then we went down to– I was down in
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: West Palm Beach three weeks ago. We competed against 50 wines,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: and we took first place out of 50 wines.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's a whole thing.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: How does that make you feel?
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: It's all a surreal thing, dude. None of this makes
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: sense to me. I'm just a guy. I've got people
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: who have tattooed my face on them. The Viking logo, basically.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: It's a whole thing.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Tell everybody how the name came about. It's an amazing
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: name and the logo is even better if anybody hadn't
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: seen it.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Bearded Viking logo is actually my face. Yeah.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: Just so you know. Hold on a sec. I'll do
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: this so people can see the dreadlocks. There you go.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: There we go.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: That's the logo. Anyway, so the Bearded Viking actually became
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: a thing because when I was over in Afghanistan, I
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: stopped following all the mainstream belief systems because I watched
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: what humans can do to each other. And I just
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: got to the point of like, dude, if there's a
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: singular God, man, he's looking away. Right.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, why are you allowing this? But then this
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: stuff's not okay.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Like just say he's just, he's not present, man. Um,
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: so I was just like, yeah, I got to figure
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: something out. Right. So, cause I'm a spiritual person. So
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: I started talking to people and then I started watching some,
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: some TV shows and I started doing some research on
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: my own and I kind of followed, fell into the, um,
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: the Norse belief system of following like Odin and Thor. And,
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: you know, those are the mainstream people who the gods
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: and people know, but, um, So I started following the
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: pagan belief system, and then I came home, and I
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: had an Instagram handle, and I called myself the Utah
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Bearded Viking because I looked like a bearded Viking. And
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: it was funny. And then my friends were like, dude,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: you're not really a Viking. And then I did my lineage,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: and I'm like 48% Danish and like 25% Icelandic and
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: a whole bunch of German. Somewhere in there, there's a
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: little bit of Mexican and Native American. So whatever. Yeah. Yeah.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: You know, so I was just like, no, I'm like,
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: here we go. And that's, that's where the name bearded
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: Viking came from. The logo is completely different. I saw
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: the shirt. It said till Valhalla. And there's a sideways
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: profile view of a Viking who had dreadlocks like me
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: and a beard. And, but it was just a skull. Right.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: I was like, I can't copy that logo. That's weird.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: So I, I called up my buddy and I'm like,
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Hey man, Um, you're an art director. I'll pay you.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: I need to make a logo for some bathtub boots
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: that I'm making. By the way, we refer to this
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: as a bathtub. Um, it's even on the label. Um,
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: so I, I, I called him up and I was like,
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Hey man, so what I want is I want a
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Viking with, um, half, half a regular face and half
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: a skull. And he said, all right, cool. So send
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: me a picture of your face. Do a good smolder though.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: So I just sent him a picture of my face
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: and he hand drew the logo and he Now it's everywhere. Yeah.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: It's weird. It's crazy weird.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: And on some people forever.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That's also a whole conversation. That's a great conversation,
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: but it's a whole conversation. Yeah.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: What does that make you feel? Because obviously you did
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: this for, in a sense, it's kind of a selfish
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: way because you wanted to make hooch on your own
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: at the house that you didn't have to go outside
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: during COVID. Didn't have to worry about anybody else in,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: you know, time differences or, being in a box or
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: having to wear a mask or not in a mask
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: or COVID only comes out at night, you know? So,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: but now you're winning awards. You are the biggest selling
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: and growing alcohol company in Montana, which is itself growing
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: like more than it ever had before. And now you
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: are also getting people getting tattoos of you. Like how does,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: where does that even, how does that even, it's gotta
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: make you feel something.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Uh but just just bewildered man i'm just i'm just
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: a dude you know like i like um people here
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: are like hey man you're famous or i'll walk into
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: a store and they'll be like oh dude you're the
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: bearded viking and i'm like yeah man he's like then
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: they'll be like i love your shit dude i'm like
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: cool dude thank you you know like that is it's
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: crazy to me the the tattoo thing is a bit
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: much right that Like that's like comparing me to somebody
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: like Joe Rogan, who's ultra famous. And I don't, and
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: I don't care if I'm famous. I don't, I don't want,
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: I just typically don't want that. I moved to Montana
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: on purpose. Um, and now like, um, you know, obviously
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: I have the bearded Viking logo on my truck and stuff.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Cause right. You know, we're advertising all the time and stuff,
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: but like, I'd rather just go to the store. My
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: favorite thing is when I go to the store and
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: people don't recognize me. That's why I wear a lot
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: of hats.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Um, what?
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Like, They'll buy, I'll just watch them buy mead
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: and just like stand there. I'll just walk kind of
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: like down the aisle. I always check to see where
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: we're at in stores. And just having somebody be like,
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: oh man, this is the best mead I've ever had.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: One of the greatest drinks ever. I didn't like mead
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: until I had this. And I'm just overhearing that. Like
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: that to me is the coolest feeling. You have just
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: strangers drinking a drink and they talk about it. Like
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: it's the greatest thing ever.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's going to be better than any award.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, that's really what it is. It comes
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: down to like, my goal was never to be like
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: blow up this crazy at first. It was just like, Hey,
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: like I'm just trying to find a means to the
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: end for a bit. And now my goal is to
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: be the Alexander, the great of me. Um, and, and
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: the reason why I say that is because, um, meat
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: has been lost, but right now it's like the fastest
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: growing non-distilled alcohol in the country it's it's blowing up
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: because people are drinking honey drinking more um holistic drinks
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: they don't want like they don't want to get smashed
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: off of a 24 pack of beer they want to
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: get to a buzz and one of these little 12
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: ounce bottles will get you there and they're plastic even
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: if you don't drink it all the way you could
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: just reseal it and put it in the fridge and
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: so like Creating the innovation and then having other meteries
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: kind of copy it, which has been happening, which is
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: totally cool with me. I don't care. And driving innovation.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: And that stuff is really, really cool. It's hard, though,
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: at the same time, because you work in the distribution industry.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: And we just had the second largest or third largest,
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: depending on the month. a distributor go out of business
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: and completely screw over so many people, including us, dirty pool.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: And the people that took over for them are also
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: being kind of dirty and shady. So, which is terrible.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: So then you've got to go find distributors. And when
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: you have a conversation like, Hey man, so I represent
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: the bearded Viking made company. I'm actually the founder. And
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: like me, me doesn't sell and hang up the phone.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: And you're like, no. And I'm like, no dude. It does.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Check your numbers.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Let me show you the data. Your mead doesn't sell
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: because you're buying Chaucer's. You're selling Chaucer's and no offense
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: to them, but it's white wine that's back sweetened with honey.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: It's not freaking mead. And it's not done right. Or
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: you have meaderies that have tainted people a little bit
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: where it's super thick and viscous. And that's usually what
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: people think of. Or the other side is it's so dry,
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: it's terrible. Right.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: So you're giving them the better option of like what
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: mead could be.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Like that's the thing is like, and, and we
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: use a wildflower honey. We don't do cloves and we don't,
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: or like clover honey. We don't use like anything that
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: is a heavier flavor. Cause you, if you're, if you,
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: if you're drinking our raspberry lemon, it should taste like
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: raspberries and lemon. I shouldn't have to describe that. If
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: you buy the apple pie mead, well, it's America. I
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: shouldn't have to describe to you that it tastes like
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: apple pie. But if you've got to have somebody walk
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: you through that this peach meat tastes like peaches, and
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: then you can't get those peach flavors, then are you
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: even trying?
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Right? The issue that I have with a lot of
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: the meat companies, because there's... There was like 500 at
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: one point, but that's what's listed. I think it's like
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: up to seven now, but they're not all open. The
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: problem that you run into is you have these people
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: who believe that their mead is the best mead, only
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: the flavors that they have. Like I was given some mead,
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: and I always try other people's mead because I want
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: to see what my competition is. Well, this gentleman handed
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: me this sour apple mead that was washed in lactose. What?
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: And I was like, yeah. like a bourbon washed lactose.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: And I was like, what? So it had the weirdest mouthfeel.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: The flavor on the front of the tongue was awesome.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: But the back end was like sour milk. And I'm like, bro, why?
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: He's like, dude, this is my number one seller. I'm like, yeah. Well,
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: I'm like, people ask me like, where did you come
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: up with the flavors? You know, there's, I'm like, well,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: I came up with huckleberry because huckleberries in Montana are amazing.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Um, so I keep apple, uh, blueberry lemon.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: Well, blueberry lemon cheesecake, right? Yeah. Jalapeno raspberry, jalapeno raspberry
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: wing sauce. Like those things all work. It's just lost
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: on a lot of people. Like nobody wants a pomegranate
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: jalapeno meat or nobody wants a habanero like chocolate meat.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: I've seen all sorts of shit. I'm just like, this
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: is fucking gross, dude.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: But again, like you said, some people are still buying them.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Some people are saying, this is their base of what
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: good meat is.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's crazy to me. I'm fucking, I don't understand it.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: I was like, this is terrible. Yeah. Um, and, and
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: the thing, I reason why I say that is because
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of really good meteries out there. Yeah. There's, there's, um,
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: a metery in, uh, in Atlanta called the Viking, uh,
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: Viking Alchemist. And Tamara, who's one of the founders, she's
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: a Marine Corps vet as well. And they make great
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: meat and they have all sorts of things. They have,
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: They've got two locations in Georgia. They're pretty awesome. Super
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: cool people. Helped me out when I was first starting.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: I told them about the first mead volcano that I made,
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: or mead geyser, and she just laughed. She's like, that's
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: the Rite of Passage, dude. You know, it's cool. So
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: then there's one called the Big Gloss down in Gillette, Wyoming.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: It's really good. They've got this hibiscus– is it hibiscus– hops,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: hibiscus and hops mead. And they run there as the 18%,
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: but it's really, really good. So, you know, and that
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: one's called the crazy lady. And like, so I really
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: want to promote mead in general. And the reason why
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: I say that is because I'm so tired of saying, man,
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: have you ever had mead? And they're like, yeah, man,
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: I like brisket. No, I said mead, not mead. So
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: it's a whole thing. So, but yeah, we, that's kind
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: of like the industry now it's, it's a crazy switch,
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: but the Alexander the great, you know, like we'll be
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: in 6,000 stores by January 1st now.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: That's nationwide.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And we were finalizing our first overseas distribution
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: agreements for Poland and Norway. That's huge. Yeah. I mean,
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: they're going to order containers at a time, which is
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: wild to me. The PSN order container is 24 pallets
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: of mead. Yeah. That's a lot of, It's a lot
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: of alcohol. Um, but yeah, I mean, that's just the
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: trajectory of the company. And, um, I couldn't do it
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: without the team that I have, but at the same time,
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: I'm like always just so grateful for the people that
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: are part of it. Um, you know, so yeah. Yeah.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: So, I mean, you mentioned that you can't do it
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: with all the people, without all the people that are
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: with you. And I heard that there's 85% of bearded
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Viking is veterans. So how did all this come together?
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: Well, okay, so not anymore. When we first started, it
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: was 85%. We have a sales team. Just our sales
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: team is 61 people. We've got 10 in Texas, nine
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: that are just hanging out in Florida now while we
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: find a new distributor. So if you know anybody, let
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: me know. And then we've got four in Montana, one
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: in Wyoming, five in Michigan, in massachusetts which is expanding
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: uh six in idaho three in oregon where the hell
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: else am i at i don't even remember everywhere else
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: but like there's a bunch of places um anyway so
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: um uh when we first started it was it was
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: actually 90 percent of the company i think there's only
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: one person of the the founding folks that wasn't I'm
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: a veteran. So it's probably even more than 90%. But anyway,
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: the point is, is that we started off. So my COO,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: we served together in Iraq. He was a corpsman. I
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: was just a grunt. Then the president of the company,
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: his name is Ernesto. He's an Air Force vet. I
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: met him through my former COO. Um, who we went
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: to college together. He was a Marine. I'm a Marine.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: I was actually in the recruiting office when he was recruited. Um,
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: and then we had trying to think of everybody. Oh,
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: my VP of, of sales. He, uh, he was a
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: retired army ranger and like associate director for us marshals. Um,
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: and then my director of logistics, um, he and I
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: served in Afghanistan together and the army. And then we
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: had a gentleman that was brought in that was just
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: a family member for my former COO. And then the
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: art director was related to my former COO as well.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: So we started off, I think it was like 10,
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: I think it was like, I don't know, maybe it
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: was nine or whatever. And two of us weren't, I
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: don't remember all the, I don't remember the exact numbers,
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: but I remember who founded the company and who started it.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: It was great. And now we unfortunately can't just hire
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: veterans because veterans typically don't live in Stillwater County, Montana.
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: But we do look for veterans preference, which is great.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: We do like to support the veteran community, but we
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: also like to support the small time folks as well.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Well, so where, how did you end up in Montana?
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: When I was 12, I promised myself that I'd own
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: a ranch because I watched a river runs through it. Um, and, uh,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: I figured if Brad Pitt could catch giant brown trout,
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: I could, which is not true. Cause I suck at
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: fly fishing. I catch trees. So catch a shit out
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: of some trees.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Hey, there you go.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: Um, and so my girlfriend and I, um, went up
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: to Northern Montana, um, Northwestern Montana for father's day in 2020. Uh, no,
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: it was, it was a father's day. I think it
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: was father's day, whatever. Um, we got, we went up there,
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: went to Glacier national park, um, and we went up
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: and we saw this property that was up there and
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: we just fell in love with like the serenity of
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: the area. And so um we found out that that
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: property we're gonna buy was actually laden with um asbestos
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: uh because of the mines it's good it was a
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: super fun site and so then uh we went back
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: down to salt lake and i just was looking online
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: and i found a hundred acre 160 acres for a
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars in eastern montana um so we drove
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: up for labor day weekend all the way up. There was, uh,
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: 12 and a half hours stopped in Billings. Um, but
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: we drove up there, uh, went and looked at it
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: and it was a border in the reservation. We're white reservation.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: Folk don't like white people at all. Like literally they
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: have bordered the res. And so we were just like, eh,
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: I'm probably not a good fit for this. Um, and
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: all the respect to the, to the native Americans, but they,
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: it's just a, it's just a, a thing. Um, And
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: I was traveling a lot for work at the time.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: So I didn't want to leave my, my girlfriend alone
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: in a house that was on the res border. Right.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: So we drove back down and then she found, um,
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: on the way we stayed in buildings again, um, we're
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: driving home and she found a listing or a home
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: that we didn't end up buying. Um, that was down
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: the way. So we were driving down and I missed
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: the turn and she never, ever really swears, um, at me. She,
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: she literally just was, um, She looks at me. She's like,
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: we missed a turn. And I was like, well, we'll
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: come back up and you'll see it. It'll give us
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: a good reason to come back up here. She's like, no,
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: the fuck we won't. Turn the fuck around right now.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: So we got off of it. And so when she
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: puts her foot down, it's what happens, right? So we
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: got off of the next exit, came back, went up,
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: looked at the house. And it was like 5,200 square
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: feet on 40 acres for $ 890, 000. Man, yeah. And, um,
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: I was just like, I don't want to be house poor.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: Like I could totally do this, but it means we're
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: not doing anything else. Right. So we were talking about it.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: We're walking off the edge and then the road, it's like,
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: there's only seven people that live up on the mountain top. Um,
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: so the, the gentleman who we bought the house from
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: was driving down the road and he saw my Marine
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Corps plates and he was like, Hey man, you know,
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: my name's last summer retired army chaplain. And I just
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: want to make sure you're okay. Cause nobody ever comes
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: up here. You guys good. And I was like, yeah,
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: well we are. Thanks for stopping. We're just, you know,
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: these guys, he's selling his house and we're looking at
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: it and he's like, oh, well I actually found out
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: news today that I have to sell my home. I'll
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: sell you my home for half of what he's selling
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: his for. What? I was like, really? So cool. Sounds great.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: So we did a handshake agreement on the side of
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: the road. He paid closing costs, paid for new, new
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: appliances and new floors and, and locked in my home
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: into two and a three quarter percent interest rate on
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: 30 year fixed. Wow. That's where it started. That's how
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: we got here. Um, a hundred percent, uh, uh, my
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: girlfriend and I, her name is Mona. We have this,
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: this thing where we're, we're always better together when we're
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: doing things. Um, and like, if it wasn't for me
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: missing the turn and her telling us to turn it around, um,
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: we wouldn't have ran into him at the right time. Right.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: It would have just been a missed opportunity because that
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: extra 10 minutes to turn around made the difference. Yeah.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of wild. Yeah.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Like you wouldn't, you wouldn't have missed him completely.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Like we would have, we would have been gone
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: and off and gone because we were like in the truck,
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: just started the truck up. Yeah. So it's kind of wild. Cool.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: Divine intervention stuff.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: Meant to be.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. So, Um, so that's how that happens. How,
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: what's what brought us up here. So, um, now we have, um, well,
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: they call it, they don't call us a ranch. They
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: call it ranch yet. It's 20 acres. Um, but, um,
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: we live on top of a mountain. We've got, um,
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: three dogs, a cat, six chickens, three horses. And, and, um,
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: I have a peregrine Falcon.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: So that's pretty cool.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, um, the goal is to hunt with the
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: Falcon this year. Cause I, Things are a little bit
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: more normalized than they were in the past four years
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: of building the company.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: I imagine, yeah.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Well, how did you take it from, obviously, like you said,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: wanting to do something for yourself and then making it
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: into an actual business? What was the deciding factor on
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: that end?
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Oh, I bootlegged the shit out of it. Yeah.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: So you had good feedback obviously um are you there
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: yeah okay cool perfect.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: Maybe there you're back okay.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Okay sorry well so you had.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: I can't get into the details because i don't know
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: yeah can you hear me okay yeah i got you
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: now can you hear me yeah it's weird Okay, cool.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: So I can't really get into all the details because
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know how much the feds are going to
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: want any information about taxes if they listen to your podcast.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: But I would show up with a certain number of
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: bottles in Utah. Yeah, I'd show up with a certain
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: number of bottles in Utah and they would sell it
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: in my five minutes. And then people would tell their
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: friends about it. Just tell their friends and tell their
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: friends and tell their friends. And then next thing you know,
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: I have the Chamber of Commerce from Laurel next city over. Um,
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: and they're like, Hey, we want you to come do
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: a brew fest. And I'm like, okay, cool. So I,
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: you know, contact my, my, my lawyer. He's like, as
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: long as you don't sell it, you're fine. You can
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: go to a brew competition. I was like, cool. Sounds great.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: It's not true. So if you guys are listening, don't
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: do that.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Oh no.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: Cause you, you can get it. Yeah. We got in trouble. Oh,
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: we were ratted out by, uh, one of our competitive competitor,
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: me and companies.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: Um, anyway, my, so, um, we, uh, ended up, I
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: started doing all the things that I got to want.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: My big thing was going to the brew fest. Um,
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: that's when I really knew that I wanted to do it.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Well, so you already had the name.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: It was because.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: No, go ahead.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, so we, I, I had a, I had
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: a lawyer cause I was like starting like, um, they'll
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: drink course banquets, bush, bush lattes. Um, some IPAs, and bourbon.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: That's kind of like the rancher lineup, right? It just
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: is what it is. Well, we were in this brew
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: competition and we ended up taking second place. It was
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: the first award we ever received. And there were 50
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: breweries there. And I remember looking around and seeing the
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: line that went crazy long. And all these old school
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: ranchers were sitting there just hanging out their wives and
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: drinking our vanilla bean coffee mead or peach mead or
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: about the jalapeno raspberry mead. They just loved it. Just
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: drink it up. And at that, that point I was
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: just like, okay, this, this could be real. Like if,
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: if we can make, if we can put liquid to lips,
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: this could be real. Yeah.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Plus if you got these old school dudes drinking it,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: then you're on a good path.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's, that's really all it takes is just,
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: giving somebody a little pour of the bathtub, which then
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: it's on like Donkey Kong.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: That's the thing I always think, tell people about whenever
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: they are getting into this industry is like, get it
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: in as many hands and as many lips as possible,
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: because you never know who's going to love it and
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: who you're, you know, you think, you know, your demographic
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: is going to be until you actually start doing it.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: And you're like, Oh, nevermind. I didn't know anything.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Like you, you know, you think of something like
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: me and then everybody's like, Oh yeah, you're going to
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: do great at Renaissance fairs. And I was like, dude,
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: I don't ever get invited to Renaissance fairs. I wear
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: shit kickers in a cowboy hat. Like people want me
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: to dress up to go to a Ren fair. And I,
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: I just, one, I don't, they're all in the summertime
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: and I'm not wearing a cloak and all the other
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: shit that goes with being a Viking. And then number two, um, uh,
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: I'm just not making this to my cup of tea.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: I don't want to knock on anybody who does it
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: because I think what they do is awesome. Like, they
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: chain mail and shit. It's crazy cool. But, like, I'm
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: also like, this is not me. Like, I made an
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: alcohol for the everyday drinker. And these things are great, man,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: on the river. They're so good on the river. Have you...
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: I guess I wasn't even on... No, you were good. Shoot.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Have you thought about getting in with the Highland Games?
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: I have thought about that as well. That'd be really cool.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: My last name is Robertson. I'm Scottish. As well as
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: all those other things that I said. I would love
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: to do that. I think the Highland Games are crazy fun.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: Watching them and watching those big, huge humans just toss logs.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: I'm like, this is nothing. It's crazy cool.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: I had a Highland Games athlete on board.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: In Texas, I was told that I needed to go
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: the Austin to the Ren Faire. It's like a five-day event.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: I guess it's five days up there. Yeah, there's one
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: here in the Metroplex that I think it's in Waxahachie normally. But,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's multiple Ren Faires, I think, throughout the
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: state of Texas. I mean, Texas is so big anyway. Yeah.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: Texas is a giant app. One is huge, too, but
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: not like Texas big, right? So it was Alaska, Texas, California, Montana.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: I think that's the order it goes. Yeah.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in California only because it's so.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: Long.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Tell us about the meetups you guys do.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: So the meetups. We have a tasting room. at the meadery.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: It's an outdoor tasting room. We call it a drinking corral.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: It's pretty fun. And in that drinking corral, we have
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: a we have two continuous tables. That's it. And they
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: go all around the fire pits in the middle.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's awesome.
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: And so the idea behind that is there's no technology.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: We don't offer a Wi-Fi password for anybody.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Good.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: It's pretty, pretty sure shitty cell service. The ideas of
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: the meetup is to bring people together, bring a community together.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: It's not at a bar. We don't care about the bars.
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: I love going to a good bar, but typically when
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: you're at a bar, people are doing one. Are to
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: pick up, you know, get, you know, chase the opposite
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: sex or whatever. They're trying to get laid or get drunk, right?
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: Get housed at the bearded Viking meat company. We have fires.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: and mead and um typically country music i don't really
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: care um just playing in the background we'll sometimes we
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: have some live performers but not but we just turn
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: the radio nice and quiet and let people talk um
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: and what it does is it stops people from huffing
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: themselves it's really cool to see uh we had um
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: some very very uh conservative ranch folk they were sitting
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: at a table right next to some folk that had
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: a lot of piercings and throat tattoos and you know,
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: different colors hair, sitting next to each other, enjoying a
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: cup of mead and just talking about life. And it's
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: one of the coolest things to see because, you know,
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: there's so much divisiveness in the world right now. It's
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: nice to have a place where none of that matters
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: and people can sit down and have a good cup
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: of conversation. And there's been lots of political conversations that
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: have happened at the mead company. I don't condone it
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: because I think that political conversations and Thanksgiving are the
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: only time that that works. even then it's a dicey
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: situation yeah right now that's the point though right like
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: you go to the thanksgiving i'm done with this grandma's
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: going off about whatever and i believe this flip the
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: table thanks very much grab your chicken or your turkey
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: leg and walk out whatever that looks like i don't
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: know um i'll fuck it around the side uh no
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: it's great uh the the meat company the meetups are
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: awesome when we go to a new city we have
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: a giant meetup love that yeah so People talk about
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: launch parties. So if you're not in the industry, a
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: launch party is when a distributor and a supplier, so
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: distributors like Southern Glacier, you know, there's a big name, Rez, whatever,
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: or a supplier like a Burger Viking company, meat company
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: or whatever, they come together for an agreement and we
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: go launch that into the market. That's the launch party
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: for anybody that doesn't know that. But we do it right.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: So what we'll do when we go is we'll have
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: an initial launch party where I do a tasting for
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: all the distributors. Like all the account executives. And then
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: we host a dinner and then we go to, we
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: go to get drinks afterwards and we take free samples
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: and we just give them out. Like I'm, I am
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: the Red Bull dude for meat. I will, I will
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: hand out bottles and bottles because I learned from the
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: federal government that if you just introduce crack for free
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: to the country and everybody gets addicted. Yep. Um, So
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: I will give out samples and that's how we start.
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: And when we are having that conversation, we tell a
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: story and we create meat heads and meat maidens for life.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: And that's our goal is once you drink the meat
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: and if you like it and you want to be
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: part of it, you're part of the culture. The culture
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: is to take care of each other and be kinder
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: than today than you were yesterday. Um, and obviously they
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: don't drink and drive and all that other stuff, but
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: it's just to take care of your fellow man and woman. Yeah. Yeah.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: And I think we definitely, obviously, you know, no matter
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: what time of history we're in, but you know, in
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: this one for sure, we need way more people looking
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: out for each other and actually wanting to be there
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: for each other. And, you know, as you hear it
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: so many times when it comes, I mean, I imagine
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: you've heard far more than others, but you know, people
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: who have served, they, a lot of them do have
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: issues that they don't like talking about. And unfortunately a
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: lot of them will end up crawling in the bottom
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: of a bottle, but fun fact, the bottom of the
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: bottle is still dry. So you gotta, you know, They
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: need to talk. A lot of times they don't want
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: to talk. You know, a lot of us were grown
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: up or brought up with, you know, you know, rub
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: some dirt on it or you'll be fine or, you know,
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: just tough it out, things like that. It's like, yeah,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: but now luckily we're in a time where people are
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: starting to actually care more about their mental health and
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: wanting to be in a better space. Because if your
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: brain's not taken care of, which is more or less
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of the times the engine that runs your
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: whole system, then it's not going to the rest. Everything
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: else is not going to be in good situation. You're
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: going to be all out of whack.
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Um, and, and that's the, the big thing for me,
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: I've been in, I've been in a lot of therapy
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: for my explosions and being shot at and all the
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: other fun stuff that, you know, I don't really care.
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: People like ask me or tell some, some people are, are,
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: are a little bit ridiculous and be like, you know,
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: therapies for pussies or whatever. And I'm like, bro, you
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: don't even know. Yeah. Like it's saved my life, you know?
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: And so like, I encourage people to do things. I
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: used to run a men's mental health podcast. I don't
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: do it anymore. The reason why I don't do it
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: anymore is because I do a lot of public speaking.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: A lot of the times when I go to events,
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: people will be like, oh man, it's FICO, the bearded Viking.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: Then they'll be like, you have a message for us.
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: I take that moment instead of promoting my brand, which
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: a lot of people think is crazy, but I promote
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: not men's mental health, but just mental health in general.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: Uh, focusing on, on yourself and then also holding space
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: for others is really, really important. Um, and it's really
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: changed my life quite a bit for the better. Uh,
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: and that's just what, what I try to focus on. Yeah.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: As you should, because again, we, we all need help sometimes.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: A lot of times it's, it's hard to ask for
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: no matter what it is, no matter how big or small.
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yep. I mean, it's, it's the, it's reality of
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: the situation. So, I would encourage and admonish anybody who's
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: listening to this podcast. If you guys are struggling, don't
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: crawl on the bottom of a bottle. Instead, grab a,
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: grab a, grab, you know, a beer or something lighter
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: and then pull a coffee buddy and have a beer
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: and talk about it. Yeah. That's what I encourage. Yeah. So,
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: cause liquid courage is a real thing and it is very,
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: very hard to tell your friends that you are hurting. Yeah.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: Cause then you have to hear yourself say it. Yeah.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: And that's the other thing is once you get it
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: out of your mouth, Cause it's been living in your
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: head for so long, but once you actually get it out,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: it's going to sound a whole bunch of different.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yep. Yep. So, uh, that's, I mean, that's, that's the,
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: that's the art of a meetup, man. So the art of,
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: that's what it is. It's a, it's how we get together.
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: It's what we do.
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: Um, and it's, it's probably a lot different than most
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: alcohol companies because a lot of alcohol companies promote the
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: party style lifestyle, which is totally cool. Like I enjoy
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: that too. However, I just promote slow drinking some good
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: alcohol around a campfire or on the river or on
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: the beach or in a backcountry or fly fishing or
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: whatever it is that you do on a boat. That
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: is all time that is well spent enjoying the company
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: of people you love and care about. And you don't
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: need to do blitz to do it. But definitely, if
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: you're doing it, grab some bathtub hooch. Yeah.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: And you definitely don't need to be on your phone
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: to do it either.
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: Nope, definitely not, man. That's one of the biggest things.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: This damn thing, being a business owner, it's the devil.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: Do you only have one?
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: No, I have two. Technically, I have three. I've got
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: a business line on this one, and then I've got
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: my personal line, and on the other one, I still
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: do some cybersecurity stuff while we're growing. Because you can't
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: always take... You can't always take paychecks when you're the
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: ceo you got to make sure everyone else is taken
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: care of so.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: Of course yeah and yeah who's gonna who's gonna say
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: no to making more money in other places come on.
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: Right right yeah yeah so that's that's kind of that
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: so um i didn't even get a chance to ask
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: you about you like oh by the way yeah man
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: so uh first off you know quite a bit about
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: me i'm the research wild well i did there's only
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: one interview.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: Or a couple interviews one you went too deep there
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: was one interview that it was a podcast with you
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: and like two other dudes but it was like it
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: looked like it was somebody's in somebody's garage it was
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: like two tails and they they kept the guy came
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: they had like a fun jacket on or something i
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: don't know kept fucking up it's funny.
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: I don't even remember that oh oh uh tall tales
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: and whiskey yes yeah yes oh yeah martin antonio yeah
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: he's a good dude he's down in dallas he's a
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: great dude um yeah like uh Yeah, he's down in Dallas. Oh, shit.
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to have to check this guy out.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And, yeah, so, like, the other question is, I mean, like,
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: you've been working for distribution for a while, right?
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 16 years this year, I think.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. How do you... My question for you, this
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: is more along the lines of things like, how do
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: you see the current world shaking out after the... The
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: big giant, this is too big to fail. That's the
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: question I have. I have asked that to all the distributors.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: Too big to fail. So I was with said big
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: company that has now no longer exists. They get to
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: now add to the other list of companies that I've
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: worked for in the past that no longer exist, like
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: Eckerd or Blockbuster or Steak and Ale or shit like that.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: So that's fun. I get to look at republic national
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: with that but they had that literally like that too
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: big to fail and i saw the way that they
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: ran the business and i was just in texas and
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: i was like you guys are fucking idiots like how
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: do you like and also like the the whole culture
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: was it was like a eat a bowl of shit
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: and ask for another i was like why would i
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: eat the first bowl and then ask for another one.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: Like just have a job here. Like none of that
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: makes any sense to me, but I'm not, I, I
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: think I have a, an aversion to people in power
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: as it is. So if you're not, it's also one
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: of those things where you're, once you're in like that
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: corporate world, it's even though, yes, it is alcohol and yes,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: it should be way more fun than it actually is.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: It's more sales driven. It's more, we want to make
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: sure that we're making these suppliers happy, which obviously you
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: need to do. But at the same time, a lot
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: of these suppliers aren't, making their jobs for everybody else easier.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: And they, their goals are like so lofty that it's
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: like absolutely nuts. And then I feel bad for guys
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: like you who are actually making a great product, but
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: then you get lost in the shuffle of all this
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: other shit that like, we all have to sail because
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: you know, you're not unfortunately on the top priority because
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: you're not a Sutter.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: You're not a Jack Daniels. You're not a Sutter home.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: You're not a, whatever the biggest fucking thing, Franzia. Like,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: and it's like, well, good. We need people on the
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: other side of that that is coming up because Jack
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: Daniels wasn't always Jack Daniels. Sutter Home wasn't always Sutter Home.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: You need somebody coming up as well that you need
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: to be paying attention to because five years ago, who
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: was drinking High Noon? Not that many people. Now High
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: Noon is fucking huge. And then you're seeing all these
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: other brands and you're also now seeing... Oh God. I mean,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: obviously THC is happening so fast that they don't know
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: what to do with it. Same thing with CBD. I'd
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: but especially here in Texas, they don't like, we're going
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: to ban it, but then we're not going to ban it.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: And then we're going to extend it. Like we don't,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: what the hell are we doing? And of course, a
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: lot of these liquor companies are now being lumped in with,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: you know, big pharma and the private prison system of
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: wanting to stop weed being legal, as opposed to like
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: leaning into it, or maybe a magic word that we
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: all started learning during COVID called pivot. And you also
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: sell weed. Like if you're already like getting the wheat
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: and everything for everything else, fucking make fucking make weed
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: it's not.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: A hard process it's a plant yeah no i mean
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: it's crazy to me uh you know it's great to
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: hear that from like a person who works for the
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: big big right like southern.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: Well yeah now i work for the biggest again and
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: i'm starting to see the same things we're like oh
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: we're too big to fail it's.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: Like ah shit not again yeah right well i mean
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: that's a that's a that's a whole processing conversation you
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: know like um And so like, if you ever go
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: on LinkedIn and look at my posts, they're mostly about
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: the middle guys taking care of each other.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: The middle guys taking care of each other. Because like,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: here's the thing, like, there's nothing wrong with Southern Glacier
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: being the biggest monster, right? And there's nothing wrong with... Yeah,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: somebody's got to be the big dog on block, but
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: you've got to work your... Like, from a supplier perspective
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: of growing... first off you've got to you've got to
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: put the work in yeah you can't just hand your
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: alcohol to a distributor no and hope they do because
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: they ain't gonna they've got they've got sales goals for
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: some shit that's way more expensive than what you're selling
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: it doesn't matter what you have and that that's what
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: drives them like you're never gonna as as a bearded
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: viking meat company i'm never gonna compete with a tito's
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: vodka right like no matter how like I'm not. It's just,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: it's just a crazy, it's just like Tito's is Tito's, right?
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: Jack Daniels is Jack Daniels. It's terrible, but it's still
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: Jack Daniels. Right.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: People still love it.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But like, yeah, that's where everybody starts 21. Oh,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: I want some JD. Right. Like, and then you grow
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: up and you don't really realize how terrible it is.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: But like, you're never going to compete with those. So,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: so a lot of the things that I talk about
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: with people is, is just like, you know, we applied
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: to be part of Southern and I don't think we
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: have the volume for Southern to look at us. Like
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: we will soon. 6,000 stores is nothing to like.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: No, that's huge.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: Right. But like at the same time too, you know,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: like we sent over our thing. We're like, well, we
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: sell 20,000 cases a year. And their, you know, their
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: response is like, you're not big enough yet. Just totally fine.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. To their stance.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That's like, they're like, Hey man. And it was cool.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: Cause the person I was working with was just like, Hey, like,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: I'll be honest with you. You're just going to get
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: lost on a shelf here. I'm okay with that. Honestly,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: he's the greatest thing in the whole world. Like, it
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: really is. Like, that's totally fine with me. Went and
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: found a great distributor called Wildfire Distribution. That's awesome. I
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: met with the buyers for Specs and H-E-B, and they're
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: bringing our products into Specs and H-E-B throughout Texas.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's massive.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Pretty stoked about that. They're also in Nevada, too,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: which I thought was crazy. They own discount linkers over there.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: And then we landed all the Albertsons and Safeways in
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: the country.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: Also all those Smith's Kroger's and, um, at an airport, uh,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: Delta lounge and met, uh, the husband for the buyer
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: for whole foods nationwide. And they're, um, they're bringing in
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: our product there. And then, uh, we'll be in the Venetian, um,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: we'll be, uh, all the Venetian casinos. Um, the fully
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: group is a regal was real cinemas is now serving alcohol.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: So we'll be in real cinema cinemas throughout the country, uh,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: And then to kind of like bookend all of that,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: we're currently in conversations with Bucky's. Like I don't.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: Wow. And they kicked Republic out.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, dude. Well, dude, they are, they are way cool. Oh,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: also Total Wine too, by the way, but.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Total Wine's huge too. Jeez.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So we're, we're working on all of that stuff.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: The majority of what we run into is like, Hey,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: do you have a distributor?
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, you know, it's cool. So like, it's pretty cool, man. Like, uh,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: so I, you know, from the small size growing up, um,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: you know, there's always the problems of, of scaling and
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: scaling is, is a giant pain in my ass.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: Cause it's just sucks. Cause it's, it's like constant cashflow outlay.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: But I look at like people like you, um, who
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: have worked in the industry for 16 years. And I,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: I feel like you guys have so much to offer
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: to this small time supplier as far as like, hey,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: by the way, if we bring you in, you need
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: a sales force to go and do sales. And I
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: learned that the hard way. I was spoiled. The first
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: distributor I had up here in Montana, they're a Molson
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: Courts house. And the dude who I work with all
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: the time, his name is Mark. He's a stud. He
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: calls me. He's like, hey, man, I need this, this,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: and you need to be here to help me out
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: with this. Cool.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: Sounds great.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: Then our second distributor we landed is over in Billings,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: and they are an order taker. That's what they do.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: They go in and they're like, hey, here we go.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: So unless you present them with something that they have
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: a reason to sell it, then they don't sell it.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: And what I found is that the majority of the
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: shift is more towards that. And distribution has become more of...
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: I said that three-tier system is a crazy system, but
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: the distribution... Yeah, distribution is less about sales and more
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: about logistical means at this point.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's what I see it as. I don't know.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: I'd love your feedback on that. But I mean, that's
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: really more what it is. It's going in to established
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: accounts and making sure that everything's faced and delivered and
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: on time and the product's good. Right.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there is obviously that, and that is,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: but then you also, you know, sometimes some of us
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: will go look at the incentive deck and it's like, oh,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: is there incentive for selling this one over this one
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: or selling this amount or selling, they call them pods
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: where it's, you know, it's a new point of distribution.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: And so they're like, oh, okay, well, three bottles of
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: this or a case of this, cool, we'll do this.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: And that gets me whatever. So a lot of times
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: there is a lot of that, especially on the liquor side. But,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: you know, there are times where, They're like, oh, no,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: we got to be focused on, say, Josh Sellers or
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: Barefoot Cat or Barefoot anything, whatever it is. And it's like, OK,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: but we're not like in my mind, I'm like, OK,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: but that we're still not helping out any of these
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: like smaller companies like this is still bonkers to me.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: And so that's why I love doing this podcast, because
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: I get to talk to these people that are, quote unquote,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: too small for like the biggest distributor. However, you're still
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: making a huge impact. in the world of alcohol when
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: they're not even giving you a chance which is even better.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: I i love i like i said there's the wrong
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: way the right way in the very viking way i
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: love i love the opportunity to work harder than anybody
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: else um you know there's uh there's this i don't
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: know if you're a sports person or not but kobe
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: brandt made this this statement um And he was being interviewed,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: and he was asked, you know, why do you work
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: so hard? And he said, because I'm not the most
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: talented person on the court, which is weird because it's
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: Kobe Bryant. Right. And he said, he was in the interview,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: he was like, look at fucking Shaq. If Shaq was
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: in the gym half the amount of time I was,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: he would have been the greatest player in history at basketball.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: And he would have actually made some free throws.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: And that's my point, though. It's like, so you have
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: these these people who are gifted stuff. Like my, my
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: pet peeve is when people inherit a winery and they
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: want to talk to me as a up and comer
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: about how great their company is. And like, dude, your
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: parents or your grandparents did all the work and you're just,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: you learned and you're still working, but you're not working
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: harder than anybody else. You're still producing the same damn
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: thing that you produce. There's no innovation. Yeah. That's crazy
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: to me. Yeah.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: I think we need more innovation, obviously.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: Because that just shows that you're trying new shit and
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: we all need to be trying. If we're having a
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: different Oreo flavor on a regular basis, or if we're
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: having like Lay's potato chips, it tastes like biscuits and gravy. Then,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm not saying we need alcohol. It tastes
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: like biscuits and gravy, but innovation, something different. I mean, Again,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: not that I'm saying buzz ball is the greatest thing,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: but there's a lot of weird innovations and flavors that
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: people were like, oh, I'm interested.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. Or Beatbox. If you ever
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: want to listen to a great podcast, listen to the
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: Drinking Bros 1408. They interviewed the founder of Beatbox.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, nice.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: He actually, it's funny because he started off, we started
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: off in glass bottles. He started off in glass bottles.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: He was classified as wine. We're classified as wine. Whatever. Whatever.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: He moved to his Terrapaks or whatever they're called. Yeah, Terrapaks. Yeah,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: we moved to the PET bottles, the bathtub hooch bottles
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: that look like they're shampoo bottles. But if you squint
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: hard enough, they look like horse banquets. We moved to
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: that too. And then I listened to his podcast. It
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: was really interesting to hear what he was saying. What
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: the alcohol industry really doesn't need is it doesn't need
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: another bourbon company.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: It doesn't. Bourbon tastes like bourbon. I don't care who
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: you are. Like there's really, really good bourbons, but they
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: all have the same similar notes. It's like caramel and smoky. Great.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: Like sometimes people will be like, oh, I can taste
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: some cherry. And I'm like, you're high. There's no way.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: It's a bourbon. I drink a shit ton of bourbon.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: Nobody needs another red, straight up red wine. So, you know,
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: nobody needs a new red wine.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: Right. Like it's the same bread. It's the same grapes
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: from the same vines for the last whoever. And it
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: doesn't matter where they're from. Like the vineyards, you know,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: they're the same grapes, the same grape strand. Yeah. Maybe
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: there's a different flavor from California to New York or wherever.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: But like still same thing. There's innovation, which is one
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: of the things I love about the RTD space. This
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: is technically considered a wine cocktail. It's interesting.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: It is because it's it's not, though, because it's mead.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: But it's interesting that that's a wine cocktail, I guess,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: because of the way it's made. And so that's why
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: it goes into the wine category.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just the I guess it's the yeast strand. OK, yeah. Right.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: So we ferment like like wine does, I guess. We
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: don't boil anything or whatever.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know what they do. I don't know. I
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: have my own way to do things. But but it's
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: interesting because you look at like the different places that
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: things are growing. You know, wine is taking a huge hit.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: Beer is taking a huge hit. Hard alcohol, like outside
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: of the tequila space and sort of vodka, hard alcohol
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: is taking a huge, huge hit, right? But what's not?
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: You have the RTDs because people want to have a
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: 12-ounce drink that gets them buzzed that's only 15 bucks. Right.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: Like they want something like that. They don't want to
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: get drunk all the time. They want to have a
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: nice drink to mellow out at the end of the night.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: with their spouse or whomever their friends and then if
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: they want to tie one on they can tie one
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: on they can mix and match but like you're seeing
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: this huge thing and in the rtd space they're ready
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: to drink pre-mixed cocktails people aren't going to bars as
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: much anymore they're they're doing exactly what i'm talking about
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: like going to out to the fire the woods they
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: don't want to be around all around the businesses all
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: day long every day they don't want to go to
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: the bars they don't want to go and get drunk
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: there or they do and they'll just pre-game at home
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: with an rtd And it's crazy. So RTD for everybody's
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: ready to drink. Exactly.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: But it's crazy to me. And the innovation needs to
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: be there for wine. Like wine in a can should
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: be more popular. Yeah.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: So it tried. When did it try?
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: Pre-COVID.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: But then it was just something that people were like,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: I am, no, I'm a traditionalist. I drink it from bottles,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: even if it's from small bottles. And then you have
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: some people that love the Tetras as well, which is
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: like three glasses of Tetra, which is three-fourths of a bottle,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: which is insane. So definitely don't drink one of those
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: if you got something to do later. But, you know,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: the wine in a can did not work for quite
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: a while, but I think it's now starting to pick
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: up a little bit because like you said, with the
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: RTDs becoming more popular and all those are in cans,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: And then obviously the White Claws and, you know, now
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: we're actually having people like I had somebody on here
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: from Birdie and they're fantastic. It's a 3% wine, but they,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: you know, put some juniper and some other things, not juniper,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: but something else in there. And it's absolutely beautiful. It's fantastic.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: And so it's, you're adding to the wine section as
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: opposed to being like, okay, here's a Sauvblanc, here's a Chardonnay,
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: here's a whatever it is, but in a can. Yeah.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: Dude, every part of that is like what we're missing
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: in the alcohol industry. It's crazy to me. I just
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: don't understand. It's like people are afraid to try something new. Right.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: To make something new.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: Well, because there's little numbers to back it up. You're like, oh,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: this is going to work. It's like, well, you don't know.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: You have to try it. Otherwise, again, how many other
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: things do y'all try that didn't work over the years,
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: but then this one you're going to be a little
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: gun shy on? Like, this makes no sense.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, dude. It's like... It's, it's, it's, it's almost like
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 2: it's before it's time. Do you remember a crystal clear Pepsi?
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Pepsi's response to a, to Sprite. Yeah.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: It's like, um, something different, but okay.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Like, like the ideas are there. It's just so
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: people are so afraid of trying it. And you know,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: I'd admonish anybody who's actually out there in an established
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: industry leader to, to try something new. Like I really
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: totally would. You know, I'm in, I'm in conversations with,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know, like 15 or 20 different distributors. And the,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: the thing that I've run into is like, if I,
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: if I make a phone call and the person on
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: the other end is like 60, 60 ish years old,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: there's no chance in hell to me. It's going to
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: do anything because they have that, what they think in
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: their mind, even though I can be like, Hey man,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: I've created a vacuum. Here's a list of stores that
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: are just waiting for you. They gave me your number. Like,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: It's crazy. Just order one pallet and see how it does.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: That's not that hard to do. You spend money on
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: other stupid shit all the time.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: They probably lose so much on other shit too. Really
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: couldn't have tried on this one thing?
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: Right. I'm giving you stores. Here's 150 stores in your ecosystem.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: These all want the alcohol. They want a case apiece.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: That's two pallets, bro. Like, it's not that big of
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: a deal.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: It's all pre-sold for you. Could you just say yes? Well,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: we got to go to committee.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, that is the other problem is there's a
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: board that they all have to run a pass. And again,
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: getting most people to agree on one thing, let alone
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: trying something that they've never heard of or drink wise
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: and putting so much money behind it, then you're going
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: to get even more no's.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the problem, right? So that's why I focus
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: on medium to small time distributors because I can just
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: be like, hey, taste this shit. It's fine. And that
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: is great. So, but yeah, man, it's like, that's, uh, it's,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: it's innovation is a huge piece in the, it's missing
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: in the alcohol realm. Like you can, you can tell
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: me all day long that your bourbon is going to
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: be better than whatever other bourbon. Sure. Sounds great. But
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: is it? Yeah. Like, where did you get your recipe from?
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: Probably from somebody who works for somebody else, right? Yeah.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: And your taste buds are different from my taste buds.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: And then, you know, yeah, I liked it when I
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: tasted it, but am I going to go buy it?
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: Like that kind of thing.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. My biggest thing that I know, the reason
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: why I know this is different than anything else that's
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: out there that I make is, um, when we do
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: a tasting, we put liquid to lips where, you know,
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: we're pouring little tiny glasses. Like, of course. Yeah. And, uh, those,
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: the people who are tasting that they walk directly from
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: the tasting station and, over to the shelf and pull
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: it off the shelf and walk out with two or
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: three at a time.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: We do it. We'll, we'll, we'll drop off like five cases.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: One of each of our main flavors in Texas and
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: our distributor down there or our sales team will, we'll
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: go and do a tasting and they'll sell 40 to
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: 60 bottles in a three hour period. Yeah. Okay. That's
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: what you got to do. That's what, that's what's missing
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: right now. Yeah. Big time gap. Yeah.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: That's the other thing is trying to, especially like these
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: huge stores, like, Walmart hardly ever unless it's the holidays.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: Target hardly ever anywhere. They never have tastings. Like these
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: Kroger doesn't do them as much either. And like, why
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: are we not tasting these people on this wine or
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: this bourbon or this whatever it is? Because again, if
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: they don't know what it tastes like, they aren't going
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: to buy it. They like the alcohol section is the
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: most user unfriendly section of any store unless you actually
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: have somebody that works that only that apartment. Not something
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: that they like do that one and they also do
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: the candy or they do that one only when they're
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: not busy in produce or whatever it is. No, like
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: that's their job. And I think that's why, like, I'm
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: so glad you're getting an HEB because HEB here for
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: those who are not in Texas, HEB is the biggest
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: grocery chain in Texas and Walmart and Kroger don't know
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: how to compete with them and they're getting their asses
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: handed to them. Like they ran all of South Texas
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: and now they're taking over North Texas and it's absolutely
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: beautiful to see. I think, I love it.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: Dude, H-E-B is a whole ass trip to go into.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: If you've never been to Texas, you need to go
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: to H-E-B when you go to Texas. I don't care
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: what you're doing. Right. Make an experience. It's the weirdest
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: thing for me. I feel like I'm so old now.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: But I'm like, bro, that grocery store was done right.
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: Uh-huh. And they try different shit on a regular basis,
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: whether it be their chips or meats or cheeses or
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: whatever the hell it is. Every section that they have
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: there's different things or different flavors or whatever inside that
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: section that you probably wouldn't have never thought about, but
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: you definitely want to try.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: And their actual team that runs the whole alcohol is
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: top notch. They know exactly what they're talking about. There
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: are some years. I think one of them is actually
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: from France. And then they, they are actual fans of alcohol.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: So it's not just, Oh yeah. Is it selling? Well, cool.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: We want that. No, it's like, no, this, Oh, you're
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: doing me in this area. well, we want to try
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: to lean more toward this, especially doing this in this
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: store or whatever it is. And again, I think the
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: problem with, they might find with you is like, where
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: are they putting you on the shelf? That's, that's what
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: I'm always curious about because whether it be a mead,
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: which is not something that is, there's not a whole
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: mead section. There's not, the RTD section is, you know,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: becoming bigger, but at the same time, like, do they
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: put you in the cold box or they put you
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: on the shelf where it's not cold? And so then
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: people have to go keep it cold or whatever it is.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: So like, Wherever they put you on the shelf is
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: always very interesting to me as well.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, we go better than that. We provide racks. Perfect.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 2: We actually make our own racks, man. They're made out
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: of cedar. They're sturdy. There's five shelves. They hold five
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: cases of mead.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: That's lovely.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: They have the Bearded Viking logo with the freaking QR
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: code so you can see the story. I've already played
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 2: the game. A lot of people... the dumbest thing that
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: I see people do is they put like a high
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: end alcohol. So we were selling our bottles for $ 30
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: a bottle. That was what the retail was. Right. And we,
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: I went into this gas station that they were selling
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: our meat at. And I was like, why the fuck
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: is our bottle on the bottom shelf? And there's like
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: $ 11 soda home on the top shelf. Like that math
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: doesn't math. Like, The higher up you look, the more
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: expensive the cost is. That's what I call it. I
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: used to be like, no, we're Top Shelf Bath & Pooch.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: Now we're award-winning Bath & Pooch. That Sutter Home shit
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: hasn't won fuck all. Move that down the way, whatever.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: In every single store we're in, if we're on the shelf,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: we're on the Top Shelf now. That's a requirement. I
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: just tell them this is a requirement. I don't. You
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: want my assistance? If you go to beardedviking.com, You go
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: to the website, and you can actually see there's a
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: tab called the Hooch Finder tab.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: So you can literally pick up your phone and click
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: on it, and it will tell you exactly where the
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: closest bathtub hooch is to your location.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm looking at it right now, and I am
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: going to– hold on. Let's see, enter location. See, I'm
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: going to do it live as we're talking. Put in
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: my zip code here.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: Too many numbers.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: Already messing up. Yeah. Literally pull it right up.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Pretty straightforward. So, you know, luckily, you know, that's
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: the thing. That's another thing is innovation, right? Like you
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: own an alcohol company. It's stressful as it is anyways,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: but find ways to take, go to market. Um, relying
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: on your distributors, not the right thing. Uh, distribution and
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: distributors and wholesalers or suppliers need to work in tandem
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: to make the retailers buy more. You've got to have
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: sell through. Um, I used to celebrate the first purchase
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: because it was a big purchase. Right. But I don't
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: care about, I don't care about that anymore. I care
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: about like how often are you going to reorder and
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: how can we get to the point where you're reordering
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: a lot? That's what I care about. So you, you,
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: you have like things like this that are different from us,
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: you know, and that's the innovation piece of the lot. Like,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: you know, a wine, wine, like a winery's website. They
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: talk to you about how this, grape tastes less like
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: that grape. Cool. You go to IPA website. Hey man,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: this one is less pine needle flavored. And this one
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: is more whatever.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: Flavor citrus citrusy.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, Hmm. I mean, I just did the
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 2: launch party in Idaho. And when I was in Idaho,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: I went and then had this conversation with everybody else.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: I granted, I had driven for nine hours straight for
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: a 15 minute presentation. So I was kind of done. Um,
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: Got my dates mixed up all on me, whatever. I
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: walk in and I'm like, Hey guys, how's it going? Uh,
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: isn't everybody, does everybody tried my bathtub yet? Cool. The
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: peach tastes like peach, right? I don't have to convince
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: you that it tastes like peach. Like you, uh, IPA
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: fans out there trying to convince me it tastes like
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: a citrus. Right. Cool. Got it. It doesn't taste like
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: a skunk shit in my mouth. Right. Cool. Uh, that
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 2: huckleberry you guys like huckleberries. Cool. Great. So that's the,
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: that's the consistency of what we're doing. Um, we sell this,
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: We put it on the website. We have a sell-through incentive.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: If you need help, call me. We'll make it happen.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: We'll come out and teach you. Simple. And they were like,
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: holy crap. We've never had a person come in here
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: and talk so much shit on every other alcohol. I'm like, well,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: I'm not talking shit on RTDs. I'm not. I'm not
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: talking shit on old school beer that's been there forever
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: that has its own place. I'm talking shit on all
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: the things that are failing. So anyway, that's that, man. Sorry.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: I just, I get, I'm rambling, man.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: That was great. No, I mean the, the, you're right.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: The alcohol industry is on its, it's on his back
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: heels and it's trying to figure out what to do
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: to move forward. And again, there's so many of the
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: old man thought processes that they need to, I'm not
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: saying they need to, get rid of anybody but i
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: think they need to open their minds and open their
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: um judgment groups to younger minds or people that aren't
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: afraid to say hey no this isn't gonna work or
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: maybe we need to try this like again it's the
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: people aren't loud enough i think and there's you know
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: tons of people like oh this is never gonna work
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: it's like oh yeah why oh because of this did
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: you say it no well then shut the hell up
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: and let's say it like don't say anything The.
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: Alcohol industry is a whole trip, man. It's a learning
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 2: curve of a hockey stick, man. It's a street check mark, man.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: And there's so many weird laws and every state's different
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: and every, in the three tier situation. And like, there's
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: still somehow dry counties out there and there are certain
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: counties that you can do there. They call them damp,
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: but they're not fully wet. And it's like, what the,
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: like we all consume alcohol the same way other than
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: you guys trying to make money in different ways.
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: Make it all the same law. Like, what are we doing?
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, dude. I mean, I grew up in Utah, right? Yeah.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: By the way, anybody who talks shit about Utah has
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: never been to Mississippi or even New Jersey. Their alcohol
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 2: laws are fucking whack.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 2: I'm now on an alcohol law officiant. I look, actually,
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 2: I treat every state as if it's in its own country.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: It's actually easier, by the way, just so you know.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 2: It's easier to export to a different country and have
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: them buy your alcohol than it is to sell in
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: the states. That's how backwards it is. It's fucked up, dude.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: We met with a Polish distributor. It took five minutes.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: He sells guns, ammo, tobacco, and alcohol.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: All things you can't do at the same time here
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: in America.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: My friend's like, hey man, I got a distributor. He's
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: ready to talk to you. I'm like, cool, sounds great.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: We finalized everything. They prepay for all your stuff and
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: they order containers at a time. And guess what I
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 2: have to pay? Nothing.
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: As you should.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: They're like, there's no thing. They prepay for you to
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: manufacture and give you a 16-week lead time.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: That's crazy.
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: Great. Can you imagine if y'all were doing that?
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: Like, what? Crazy. It's crazy shit. I could ship a
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 2: container to Norway. Complete. Customs and everything for 24 grand.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: And make almost $ 500, 000 on it.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: It's crazy.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 2: Fucking nuts.
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: But here in America, you got to make sure the
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: label's right, make sure the number's on there, make sure
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: you're doing this the right way, the container's this way.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm going to rant for a minute about Cola
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 2: and fucking labels. Yeah. They are absolutely the most asinine
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 2: organization outside the ATF and IRS there is. Mm-hmm. the
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 2: reason why i said that right so they on the
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: bottles every bottle has to have surgeon general's warning every
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: bottle so like we're made in montana but because we're
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: considered a wine we can't do an appellation so it's
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: made in montana even though we're fucking made in montana
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 2: yeah so we have to put product to the United
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: States of America. Whatever. We, on the side, it says
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: bathtub hooch. It's actually right here. Yeah. It says bathtub
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 2: hooch in that area right there. Okay. So we submitted labels.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: They approved four labels with bathtub hooch on it. Couldn't
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: say mead anywhere on the blueberry lemon because it's not
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: just honey. So you can say blueberry lemon mead because
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: it's not a blueberry lemon mead. It's blueberry lemon honey wine. Okay.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: That's stupid. And then we have allspice in it. So
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 2: then we have to add with natural flavor because it
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 2: has a spice in it. This is the stupidest shit ever, right? Yeah.
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 2: So the bathtub hooch thing, I submitted the next set
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 2: of labels. And they were like, you can't say hooch.
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, you already approved.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: There are thousands of them in the wild. If you
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 2: want to recall them, you're more than welcome to recall
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 2: all of them. The price figure is $ 15 per bottle.
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 2: Is the federal government going to cut that check? Nope. Nope.
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 2: Looks like bathtub hooch is approved at the TTB.
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: Hey.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 2: Suck it, Trebek.
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: That needs to be a shirt. Bathtub Hooch is approved
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: by the TVC.
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: I think so. Yeah. We definitely need to say that. So,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: but yeah. Any other questions for me, man?
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, actually, I have a segment. I call it the
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: five counts. It's five random questions.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: Let's go.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: Number one, what are the last three things you Googled?
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: Last three things I Googled. Okay. I will look at
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: that right now. Hold on. Let me just look at that.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: That's hilarious. So the last three things that I Googled is...
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: What does this one say? Oh, so one's a horse medication.
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 2: The second one is how do I pull porcupine quills
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 2: out of my horse's nose? Those two coincide.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: I imagine.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 2: And, and, uh, the last one or the third one is,
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: hold on. Um, what does that say? Oh, it's about, um,
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: master's degree transcripts. Okay. I don't know why I Googled that.
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: Cause I've had my master's for two years now, so
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 2: I don't know. And I don't need them. All right. Cool.
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: Well, there you go. Uh, Number two, if you were
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: a pro wrestler, MMA fighter, what would your name be?
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: I think it's, it's kind of in the name.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's going to be the bearded Viking.
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That's a pretty simple one.
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh, number three, who was your first concert?
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 2: My first concert. Um, who was my first concert? It
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 2: wasn't until I was in the Marine Corps.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: The recruiter. Oh, it was, uh, Poison. And I can't
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 2: remember who opened for him because I didn't care. But
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 2: we challenged, or Brett Michaels challenged me to pull-ups. If
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 2: he could do more pull-ups, then he could get a shirt.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 2: And if I did more pull-ups, we could go on
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 2: stage with him and sing Unskinny Bop. I won.
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: Hell yeah.
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 2: So I was on stage with Brett Michaels and we
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 2: sang Unskinny Bop in Salt Lake. In our dress blues.
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: What did you, what was the number?
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 2: Mine was 28.
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: What did he get to?
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, okay. Marine Corps standard, he got to six,
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 2: but because he kips, so he swings himself up.
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: Oh, so he does like the crossfit.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like the fake pull-up. But he got to 19.
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 2: And then he was really proud. I mean, first off,
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: I want to let you know, Brad Michaels is a badass.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: He's in incredible shape, yeah.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like, damn, dude, for being 287 years old,
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 2: you're fucking rocking it.
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: I love that. Number four, who or what inspires you?
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: My girlfriend inspires me. I love that. Uh, she's been
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: with me for five years out of six. Um, and
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: she's just kind of like a guide for me. Um,
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 2: I'm not always good at what I do. I'm not always, um,
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 2: I don't know, articulate. I have a lot of people
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 2: that pull me in a million directions all the time. And, um,
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 2: you know, she held space for me and, um, whenever
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 2: we're together, it's great. So she inspires me and my dad, um,
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 2: he inspires me. I think a lot of people always
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: say dad or mom, but, uh, my dad inspires me. Um,
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 2: he was a firefighter and worked five jobs to raise
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: me and my little brother. And then my mom also inspiration.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 2: She chose to be our mom. Um, he's my real dad. My,
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: she was, she adopted us. Um, she was my stepmom
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 2: and she chose us and she gave up having her
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: own kids and for us. So that's pretty inspirational.
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: That's huge. I love that. I love hearing stories like that.
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: And number five, what would you tell your 17 year
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: old self?
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: Um, I tell her so much, man. Uh, probably would
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 2: say to my 17 year old self, um, you're going
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 2: to go through some hard, hard shit and it's best to,
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 2: If you realize sooner than later that the people you
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: surround yourself with make your environment better or worse.
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: God, that's so true.
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I wouldn't change anything.
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: Right. Just let them know ahead of time.
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: Well, if anybody wanted to find out more about you,
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: follow you online, obviously buy Bearded Viking Mead, support you
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: guys in any way, how can they do so?
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 2: So first off, beardedviking.com, great place to start. All of
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 2: our socials are beardedvikingmead or meadco, one of the two.
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 2: You can go to all of those places. There's Instagram.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 2: I think we have an X. I don't know. I
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 2: don't know. X or Twitter or whatever. We definitely do
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 2: have a TikTok. We have Facebook. Those socials are kind
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 2: of standard. Follow us on LinkedIn if you actually want
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 2: to hear me talk about like articulately about um the
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 2: meat company and and how we're different and um yeah
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 2: like uh you can we have some stuff on podcasts
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 2: everywhere every now and again um so the socials are
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 2: the socials and the website um if you're in montana
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: just come to columbus montana and we're open monday through
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: friday from nine to five nice yeah buy some.
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: Bathtub hooch yes buy some bathtub hooch Show it to
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: your friends. It's about to be holiday time. You need
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: to be that cool person that brings a cool drink
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: to the parties. Thanks.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: Well, JT, thank you so much. I've loved this so much.
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go get myself some this weekend now
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: that I threw it in the Hooch Founder. And it's
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: not too far from my house. So I will definitely
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: be getting some for the weekend. And I can't wait
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: to see where you guys end up. And then next
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: time when you're in Texas, let me know because we
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: need to enjoy some Hooch together.
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 2: Hell yeah, dude. That sounds great, man. I love it.
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 2: I always have a sign-off. Are you cool if I
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: do my sign-off?
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: Go for it.
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 2: All right. Well, I'm Vico. It's been an awesome time
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: talking to John. Cheers, motherfuckers.
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much to JT for being on the show.
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: Definitely go out of your way to find yourself some
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: bearded Viking. I found it here in Texas. I bet
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: it's going to be anywhere near you. Very soon, if
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: it's not, obviously go on to his website, find out
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: where it's at, get yourself some. It's delicious. I just
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: finished myself off some right now. So while you're doing
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: all that, make sure to go follow us on social media.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: It is BruisersPod, that is B-R-E-W-S-E-R-S-P-O-D, on the Instagram, the threads,
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: and the Twitter. If you want to send us an email,
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: it is BruisersPod at gmail.com. If you want to follow
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: me directly, it is Rodijon, that is R-O-D-I-E-J-O-N. Rodijon is
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: the name on the Twitter and on untapped. In case
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: you want to find out what I'm drinking, maybe we
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: can have a beer together. If you haven't followed me
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: on the threads or the Instagram, it is officialrodyjohn. So
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: until next time, make sure to enjoy life, drink local,
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: and cheers.