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Torch Drinks' Lucas Dyer on Scaling Hemp Beverages the Right Way in North Carolina | RegulateDontRuinNC.com · Ready To Drink Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Lucas Tyer, uh North Carolina sales and brand development, and uh Torch Drinks is the business.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Torch was actually founded about 10 years ago um in the California market, in the legal market, um, with vapes.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: They evolutionized, you know, vapes and went through California and then said, hey, you know, there's a great market in alternative products as well as you know the hemp side, not limiting us just to California.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: So expanded, stayed in California, but launched gummies, launched flour, um, and then launched vapes as well on the hemp side.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Stayed in California for a while and moved to Florida about two years ago.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: End of 2024 said, hey, we got all these other products, but drinks are doing really well, and we see this as a long-term um you know product that's gonna go general bev and distributor and you know, mainstream.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: So launch the drinks at the end of 24, really the start of 25.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, drinks launched, and we, you know, initially launched a couple states, and you know, now we're in 16 states um in the nation.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: So definitely evolutionize internally as a company from you know, smoke and vape side to now general bed side, right?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And understanding the difference between the two and how to logistically work between the two, right?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Which we're seeing in a lot of states now.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: When you uh when how long ago did you start with Torch?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I have been with Torch for almost two years now.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, my background, I was in Virginia, went to school, worked for a little bit in sales and marketing in Virginia, and then bounced to California to chase a dream.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Worked at a dispensary out there, and then moved my way up to a vertically integrated distribution company that did everything under one roof, right?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Grow, trim, sell, distribute, um, the whole nine.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then stepped away from there, wanted to get back to the East Coast.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: One of my coworkers, who's now COO of Torch, brought me over and said, Hey, we got this brand we're gonna be expanding into your territory, so why don't you come over and help out with the drink side?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And when I got to Torch, there were four of us there, um, right?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Very filled the plane as as we're flying, right?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Which I think a lot of people have done in this market.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thankful that Torch has done it the right way, which you know, you and I will get into the specifics of that, but it's also nice that they have the funding to do it the right way.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, Torch launched, I launched North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee as we grew.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then we hired, you know, BDRs and reps for all those states.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm in the home base here in North Carolina.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now, do you manage those other states or do that does the regional you guys already broken up organizationally so for that, yeah.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we've broken up organizationally where you know we have a southeast guy, we have a Midwest guy, and then you know, we have a specific just a Florida guy, right?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Florida GenBed market is insane in itself.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we have one guy that just takes care of all the reps in Florida.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, Florida and Texas are probably two of the biggest markets in the US right now.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, North Carolina has been a great market as well.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let's let's talk a little bit about that.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Where so you're uh are you originally from Virginia, you said?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, so Richmond, Virginia.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, nice, very cool.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: My uh one of my best friends uh went to med school there uh for his residency over at the VA over there, so I was down there quite a bit visiting him.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: So that's I love that area down there.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Richmond's great.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm in Raleigh.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I always tell people Raleigh and Richmond are very similar.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: I've said the same thing before.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Style, size, um, you know, a great mid-size southern town.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: What um when you kind of came up there, what what have you seen and what kind of feedback do you hear from retailers with uh a couple times in these episodes where we talk about is uh my history in the alcohol industry.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we know where the decline is in alcohol.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: We know where these bar owners and and restaurants and things like that have been seeing the decline, and then coupling that with the lack of traction post-COVID for on-premise sales.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: How is the hemp and industry, the beverage specifically, really propped that up?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then what's the feedback of these retailers with these pending you know, bans and and and different law reversals and what's the what's everything out there?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a mixed bag, right?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you have some old school people that are still against it, right, and view it as you know, schedule one drug, so on and so forth.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: You have a group of people that love it for the industry to give an alternative to people, and you have owners and distributors that are saying, my sales are down over here.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is replacing, and not only is it replacing, but my margin is you know 2x or 3x what I'm making on a pint of beer.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: So why would I not jump in, right?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think more and more people of that old school are starting to turn over a leaf and and see the potential.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the federal ban is not helping those people because they're saying, oh, well, you know, it's all going to come to a screeching halt, right?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And all of us in the industry are, you know, the the ship has already failed, right?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: The train has left the station.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: We got Target, we got, you know, major retailers that have come on board.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that's helping is the demographic, right?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you and I know better than anybody out there.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Our demographic is 21 to 81, 91, right?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the majority of that older generation is you know, the soccer mom and the dad who wants something to unwind on a weeknight or not feel as guilty pouring up a glass of red wine on a weekend, right?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it's helping those people a lot because they can go into that total wine or they can go into you know their local grocery store rather than going into a dispensary, giving an ID, right?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Walking through a metal detector and going and being in this experience that they're not used to.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: So the feedback has been mixed.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, I see all sides of it, and I'm I'm thankful to see all sides because I love the guy who's old school and I love talking to him and kind of educating him on the potential here, right?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: The consumers that he'll gain on premise is huge too, right?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: But on-premise has been challenging nationwide because people don't know how to handle it, right?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Am I gonna give somebody a 10 milligram drink and then give them, you know, a shot of vodka or a beer and where's the line there?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so that has been a nice change in the last 12 months because a year ago everybody just wanted to purchase and go home, right?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because they didn't know what's five milligrams gonna do to me, what's 20, and now a year later, people are saying, okay, I can have 10 milligrams, 20 milligrams, and I'm good.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And now they're more comfortable going to a bar on a Sunday and catching a football game and having you know two 10 milligram drinks over a couple hours and comfortable.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, mixed bag for sure.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting, like when you when you what you just brought up there, and I didn't think about this, but it flashed back a memory of like the beginning of Kraft Beer when it was in cans.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: And when we were out selling, like and trying to sell into bars and restaurants and things like that, the old timers of that old timer part was, you know, oh, that's that's gotta be PAPS, that's gotta be, you know, premium or sub-premium beer because it's in a can.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then the next part was exactly what you're talking about as well.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I want also, I want the light bulbs to hit with our audience that are owning a bar, and you might be on the fence and you're still curious.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: We went through this because we also went through training because I I personally did it in Pennsylvania at dozens and dozens of different retailers where you can't pour a 9% IPA the same as you poured a 4.2% Miller Light.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: So to pretend that we've never made this adjustment in the on-premise and hospitality industry is a is ignoring what happened 15 years ago.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: And the amount of education, the amount of funding and the amount of resources that were devoted to that education to bring the safety is what I want to bring into this because safety was important.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Did we all that were selling, you know, 9% IPAs, would it have been cool to sell millions of cases?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but we didn't want to sell millions of cases because we wanted people to understand what a 9% meant to your body and what it meant to your ability and your your inhibition.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's, you know, or the intoxicant of it.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a big thing that I wish and I hope that everybody listens to this that is on the fence about it realizes that there's no difference.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of things that are cyclically repeating itself.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: But the one thing that's undeniable is the consumer demand for this product and to resist that as an excuse of like not being able to adjust is is where for me, and I'm very vocal about this as well, I get confused in my own industry and hospitality as to when people push back sometimes.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I respect everybody's opinion, but when you start, when you start bringing the history into it, you're like, oh yeah, that's right.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: We did think that was crazy, and we still did, and here we are now, you know?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it speaks to the most important part, you know, not only in in states that have legal dispensaries and in states that have hemp beverages is education, right?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we push as a brand for a tasting anywhere possible, right?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because you walk into a store, and if I'm a first-time buyer of a hemp beverage and I'm looking at two and a half milligrams up to 60, 80, 100 milligrams, if I don't have the right education from staff, then I'm gonna have a terrible experience and be turned away from the product forever, right?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Rather than if I can get a little blurb of information of where to start, you know, how long it's gonna take and know which direction to go, it helps out everybody, right?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Not only the store owner, but the consumer as well as the brand, right?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because somebody says, oh, this brand's terrible and they should have never had that milligram, right?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: The part about the drinks that is great and that we strive for, and I think every brand strives for this, is time to, you know, hit effectiveness, right?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you crack open a torch and you're halfway through the can and you're starting to feel it, right?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the plastic gummy story that we've all heard a million times, right?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it's all about education for us.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's one of those things too, where you know, sometimes I'll get pushback from bartenders and bar owners that are like, well, I don't I may want to carry it, I may don't, because like you said, I don't know how to serve it.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Do I do I do it?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Do I saddle back or piggyback it with a shot, or do I decline somebody the shot right afterwards within 15 minutes?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I I trend I tend to go back to those bartenders again with the same tips training because when any consumer walks into your restaurant, you have to, it's your obligation morally, ethically, as well as the license, to assess if they drank in the parking lot, if they had a power hour before they walked in, you have to go by smell, you have to go by heavy, you have to go by speech.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: And there's all of these things that I think once we get to a place where staff and and management and ownership can see that it's a it's the same optimal, you know, you're you're looking at the same triggers, just a different molecule.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then once we can train everybody, that's where we go.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where, especially in North Carolina, with everything coming up and federally with what's coming up, these systems are already in place.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the more that we let everybody understand that we're trying to put a square peg into a square hole right now, it's not a it's not a circular peg trying to go into a square hole.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we're not in this conversation talking about gummies and flour.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: I need everybody to be clear about this.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is ready to drink podcast.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not against any of those things.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: If anybody, you know, the infighting that goes on and things like that, that's not what I'm speaking about.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: But just speak specifically, uh, talking about a bartender versus a bud tender scenario.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so what you said about the dispensary, I want to point out one more thing that's that came up in a recent uh episode that I didn't really think about was, you know, in this part, it's also the displayable opportunity of beverage.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: So in a liquor store, in a restaurant, in a bottle shop in North Carolina, you can reach up, you can grab that can, you can read the story, you can see the nutrition facts, you can see the COA, you can scan the COA.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: In a dispensary, that's for most states, and I don't want to speak to everything, it's not against the law, but it's not a displayable merchandise facility, and they don't exactly let you spend some time with the can to understand the product and educate yourself.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's actually in a dispensary network, it's the opposite of education and exploration for the consumer journey.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, absolutely, right?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the dispensary is get in, get out, what's your budget, right?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the specials, bogos, and two for ones.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: When I worked at a dispensary, that was the conversation is what are you looking for?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: What's your budget?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's it's turnover, right?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're trying to see how many customers you can get in and out.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And on this side, you're really trying to educate the customer with as much information as possible, right?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're talking about COA, you're talking about nutritional facts.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And when this came into the market, people weren't really locked into those things, right?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're just so thankful that this is something that I can buy legally.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And now, you know, a couple of years into this, as it's blown up, people are diving into nutritional facts, people are looking at COAs.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and and part of this whole conversation and and the regulate is sports, we want to see proper COA.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: We want to see proper um nutritional facts.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: We want 21 plus, right?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because you and I know better than anybody else, a million brands have come to the market in the last year, right?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's challenging for the brands that want to do it the right way and want to do it the proper way with testing um uh COAs, nutrition, um, in the right channels, in the right stores, um, to have all these other brands that you're kind of like, all right, these guys are in it for a quick buck, and you know, you're with a company that that wants it long term, right?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and the the in it for a quick buck versus I mean the true market development.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, let's go organizationally, you touched on it briefly, but you know, having a per a rep for each state, that you know, to some brands, to those newer brands, they're gonna be like, that seems crazy.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no, that's not.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's the right way to do this, and I am gonna speak very confidently about this and and aggressively.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's the way you do this because spray and pray and tell selling and then shipping out of a uh uh you know a middle Midwest uh 3PL company to your retail, number one, it's not servicing your retailer.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Number two, it's not serving your consumer.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: You've not you you can't actively, and I'm not saying everybody every day has to, I mean, we do it.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I myself and two account managers, we go out in the market every day, and we're out there pulling doors.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And what what you learn from being in the market isn't even about the sales part that brings the value to the business.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you're on the street, you know that there might be days where you didn't sell something in that place, you didn't expand upon that place, but that conversation, that new thing you saw because you walked inside the place gave you an insight to that you were able to help your brand the next time or the second time coming through.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: So talk a little bit about, especially right now.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Let's be like like we're not we're not talking about two years from now.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say like a brand comes in and and I get these emails all the time, I'm not gonna lie.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody comes in, they want to open up the state, but you know, they they want to pay you at the back end after the stuff's done and all this other bullshit.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean it that way.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not that it's that that's not how you build brands.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's how you make a quick buck and you never make the third reorder and the fifth reorder and things like that.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: So talk about how you guys go to market the right way with the proper resources, and don't go into markets that you shouldn't be in because you don't have the resources to support those retailers and consumers.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it starts with a good product and a good brand, right?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the second step, as we're learning in all these states, is having the right distribution company, right?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we got Trion in North Carolina, and they've been amazing for us.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: That is such a key component, and you know that from you know the beer and alcohol side that your distributor is is massive for you, right?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: So you have a good brand and a good product, you have a good distributor, um, and then you have you know educated booths on the ground, right?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And as you just spoke about, it's not about going out and making a sale or closing an account every day.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's going out and and understanding the market that you're in, understanding the trends of different markets, right?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: North Carolina, for example, we have the outer banks.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: June, July, August, the Outer Banks is skyrocketing, right?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then it goes into the off season.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: So knowing where to go and when to go there and focus your time is important.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also important just keeping your brand at the top of people's minds, right?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: In the space right now, there's a lot of companies that are pulling out, right?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: And kind of lowering their workforce with the potential of what's coming.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And Torch is is diving in headfirst, um, which is awesome to see because we're committed as a brand and as a company.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And internally, there's conversations going on every single day, right?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Which helps with the boots on the ground and the success that somebody might be having in Tennessee that they share with me in North Carolina, or somebody had a big win in Texas, and this is what they did.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the success is not only as important to have a good distributor, but to have, you know, the right people in the right positions and understanding the market.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: You made up a good point too.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: I I like the fact that you talked about the communication of best practices between states because as much as the retail environment is different state by state culturally, society, you know, all that stuff, there is still a hive mind in how the consumer is going to move.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, because there is still an overarching you know influence that goes on.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that allows you the ability to be a large brand, but also pivot.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: You're not the Titanic at that point.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're able to pivot quickly, you're able to come up with some new practices.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: What are, and you know, for you coming into the beverage space, you know, in the past two years, what do you think are some of the biggest lessons you kind of took back or situations where you pivoted and changed something and it worked, you know, it was a failure, but then turned into success or anything like that, like experiences.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, the biggest step for me was kind of stepping from that dispensary smoke and vape side into general beb side, right?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we as a brand have not come across this, but as we're talking about other brands that are making a quick buck, right?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you're working with a major distributor and they place an order and you're out of stock, you know, that relationship has failed, right?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Coming over to this side is truly the biggest hurdle for me or stepping stone, I would say, was learning the general bev industry and you know the three-tier system, right?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a process here, and that process has been around for a long time, and you have to understand the process.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Not that you have to understand how to play the game, but you have to understand what game you are playing, right?
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna go from you know, our warehouse to a distributor out to retail stores and understanding who to talk to, how to talk to them, right?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody wants to be best friends with the rep, but you can't just hit up a rep and say, hey, I'm Lucas from Torch, right?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta go spend some time with those reps, right?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: And go grab lunch or go play golf or just have a normal conversation.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think we live in a world where it's just I want to talk about me, I want to talk about my brand, and we're all, you know, human beings, right?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, that have a everyday life and you know, a family or a girlfriend or a boyfriend or somebody that they go home to.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's truly making that relationship that that grows the success of a company.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I want to kind of I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about with what's going on, and and I want to reference um Tony uh over at A B Bottleco in uh Atlantic Beach made a comment that has just been resonating with me was you know, about what volume hemp beverages were to his bar.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's 35% of his revenue is hemp beverages at the bar.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: That was something where I started to see.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: I then did a a couple months ago, I was doing in New Jersey, I was doing retailer surveys to do the same assessment, and I did a hundred uh surveys, it was 25 to 30 percent there as well for off-premise liquor stores.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's all I did was off-premise independent liquor.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I want I want to reiterate that on every uh one of these episodes about regulate don't ruin and anything about hemp, because I want people to really understand that that's their local bottle shop or that's their local thing.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: And whether or not Tony can survive if the ban were to come through, or if a not even the ban, let me rephrase, if a hiccup comes in November of you know, three, four, six months or a year, because that's the thing where, you know, for you guys, it's it's a pivot, an adjustment, a shrink, a figure it out.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: You survive through that.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: But I think there's some people that don't survive through that.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I want the audience to realize that is that there is an opportunity for businesses to close that aren't even directly, as in their perspective, a primarily hemp beverage place.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is a bar, a beach bar that, you know, he's been in business a long time, owned a owned a brewery out in Arizona prior to North Carolina, and he's a 10 or 15 year, you know, industry veteran.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the reality of what's here.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the more people realize that.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: This is an opportunity of recreation.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's an opportunity of medicinal support.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: We have also uh we just released today uh some quotes, testimonials from consumers who have been submitting on the regulate don't ruin.com website.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, one was a a Navy veteran who who basically said he's out.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like if it doesn't work out in North Carolina, he's moving to a state that allows it because he's not going back to pills.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and the pills are prescribed by the VA.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's so many caveats of, like you said in the very beginning, our demographic is sometimes people get a little carried away and they're like, oh, it's it's it's soccer moms in the suburban area.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's not, it's everyone.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is one of the greatest products because unlike tequila, unlike bourbon, unlike cigarettes, you know, this is like every demographic has the potential of enjoying this.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now, not in a majority sense, but it is that it's it's there's gens, you know, 25-year-olds that are that are running around with this stuff.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: There's 35-year-old dads with this.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: There are 40-year-old, you know, moms and and wives and stuff like that, but there's also senior citizens in in hospital, in not hospice, but in assisted living facilities that are consuming this stuff and golf courses like, and that to me is like amazing because in craft beer 10, 15 years ago, we didn't see that.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was all millennials, millennials, millennials, you know.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: The beautiful part, right, is that you can have a product that covers so many different demographics, right?
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: From two and a half to five milligrams all the way up to you know 50 or 60 milligrams, and who's taking each side and the barley you reference, like that's beautiful, right?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: That there's a product out there that all these people in the United States and in the world want, and the data shows it, right?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: The nice part about that is we went through COVID, right?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we saw how many businesses closed in COVID because you can't adapt and you can't have people.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And now we have businesses that could have potentially closed a year or two, three years ago, picked up a product, and now they're surviving or doing better, right?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: So just like the world we live in, we gotta evolve and you have to move with the times, and and bar owners know that better than anybody else.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: Talk a little bit about um one thing that I think went under the radar over the past few months, but I've been telling preaching to everybody that wants to listen is the VFW deal that you guys had.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: Is that still active?
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: And and and kind of let's talk about that because I think that press release went out, a certain amount of people in the industry caught it, but I don't think it gained really the attention that it needed to understand the scale in which that deal was done.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the VFW was a massive deal for us, right?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we worked on that deal for a long time.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it's to the exact point that you just brought up is the amount of veterans in the country that we live in that are not getting, you know, what they deserve and the treatment that you know should be offered to them, right?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: As a country, we offer, you know, alcohol and pills, right?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And there's an alternative, right?
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a medicinal alternative that can help so many veterans out there rather than sitting at a bar and and grabbing a beer every single day, right?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: And grabbing an alternative beverage.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the VFW has been huge.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: They've been a great help.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: We've done a lot of um state meetings in every state that that they have places in and that hemp is legal.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we've launched in all those places, right?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we're in the majority of all the VFW halls in their cantina with a fridge and torch options and torch tastings.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really nice to see you know, those people, it brightens their day, right?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because they have lived in a world so long where it's been pills and alcohol, and pills and alcohol, and these are your two options after going and fighting for our country.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And now there's an alternative at the end of that road.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they're saying, I never thought that something like this, you know, would happen.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it it's it's honestly really, really great to see for them.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Lucas, thank you so much for coming on.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate you taking the time today to talk about regulate don't ruin nc.com.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody needs to understand what's going on.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: The next few days are so pro uh so important for what's going on and coming up here in November.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: We got votes coming, we got everything like that.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: We want everybody as we're closing out here to get out, call your law, call your local lawmaker, call your federal lawmaker, call your state lawmakers, check out regulate don't ruin nc.com.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Educate yourself about the bill, educate yourself federally as well as the state.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Lucas, thank you so much from from Torch and everything like that.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, sales and operations is my bread and butter.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I love talking to another sales and operations guy.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: And uh thank you for what you guys are doing, uh, for what you're doing, what you're investing in as well from an advocacy standpoint.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a lot of times where a lot of brands are sitting on the sidelines.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I will for for us as athletes, I'll I'll make the comment.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's there's uh there's those on the on the mound and those in the dugout and those holding the water.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's there's a lot more people that are on the dugout in the dugout than I really want right now.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: So if anybody else is listening and you have not, you know, you own a business or you are a fan of the business, or your neighbor, you know, lives off of these products, you know, on a on a daily or weekly or monthly basis for their social anxiety, you know, or someone, you know, quit drinking alcohol and uses these products, but you don't.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: You have an obligation as part of your community to go and call your lawmaker and support your neighbor.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we're talking to people that are consumers of these products, but we're also talking about the person to the left and right of them as well.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: We need the volume of phone calls and emails to the lawmakers to let them know that you want hemp beverages to be regulated and legal.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what needs to be happening over the next week, days, and everything like that leading up to November.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, Lucas, thanks again for for for uh coming on and uh anything else you want to say in closing?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: So uh on Instagram, it's Torch Drinks, uh, and as well uh online, torchedrinks.com.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, thanks again, Nate, for your time.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Really appreciate it.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, everybody, this is a Ready to Drink podcast.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: This is all about ROIs and beverages and all the fun stuff.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, beverages are the social bridge of human connection.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: So while you're walking down the street, put your phone in your pocket, look at the strangers while you're walking down the street, say ask somebody how they're doing today.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: Don't be creepy, don't be weird, read the behavior.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: If you're allowed to ask any more questions, that's great.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: When you're at the gas station, filling up that cup of coffee, look to the person next to you, ask them how their day's going, and actually shut your mouth and listen to what they say.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Five minutes of kindness to a stranger is what I'm challenging everybody.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of every episode, every week, five minutes of channel of kindness to a stranger, 20 minutes a month.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: There are a lot of people who do not have a life as blessed as yours, as lush as yours, whatever terminology you want to use.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: There are people on this earth that it is very hard.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: And human connection is really important.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I tell you, if you spent five minutes holding the door for somebody and talking about their day and listening to them, you could change their life even for a week, a month, or maybe looking forward for that human connection.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: So, Lucas, thank you for taking the the chance of coming on with no questions and no prep as well.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: I need to give you publicly credit for that.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people don't want to come on because they want to do a little prep meeting and things like that.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm all about the if you know your shit, you come on and talk it.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: And you did, man.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much, man.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.