Increasing Availability, Convenience & Awareness of Alcohol Alternatives — The Lively Charleston Podcast

So we've supported a lot of customers and really giving up alcohol. And because we have the convenience of the products, they credit us with supporting them in their sobriety.

Hey everyone, you're listening to the Lively Charleston Podcast. Our goal with this show is to interact and tell the stories of the amazing people, places, and businesses that make Charleston the best city in the world. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube, and check us out on Instagram and Facebook where we post content regularly throughout the week. Hey everybody, it is that time again. I am Scott I'm Matt Kafka, and this is the Lively Charleston Podcast. And this is where we interact and engage with people, places, and businesses in the Charleston area that make our city the best city in the world. I have here a young woman from, I call her, I guess she's from the South, right? And she born in Tallahassee, Florida, spent her formative years in Virginia. And then after graduating, she would have ended up going out west, getting into the fashion world, and ended up in some tech and everything like that. But y'all, she has brought a lot of her experiences in life and just love of bringing things, something new to everybody. And this is Emily Heintz with Sashay. How are you doing today?

Great, thanks for having me. Excellent pronunciation.

Did I do it right?

You did it right. I said pronunciation wrong, but yeah, Sasha Heintz. Those are the things that trip people up.

Did I get the last name right?

Absolutely.

God, I meant to like ask you before. Yeah, that is like what I'm totally supposed to do.

Oh, you missed one big part.

What's that?

I went to UGA.

You did?

Go Dawgs!

Go Dawgs! Okay, do you hang out at home team on the weekends to watch football?

I would Love to try it. I am wary of crowds in the youth, so I tend to watch it at home in the comfort of my—

So are you a big fan?

Big fan.

Okay, so yeah, that's— yeah, if you're a big fan, you like to have your own space and hear the sound and all that.

Sound is critical. Yeah, having space for sure.

Cool. So how did you end up here in Charleston?

So that's a great story. I spent 20 years in LA and New York and then wanted to come back to my roots, as my mother would say. And I looked at Nashville, okay, I looked at Austin, and then I landed on Charleston. So I left the big city in Brooklyn in 2018 and spent 6 weeks here at an Airbnb and then bought a house around the corner from the Airbnb. And I've had that house since 2019.

No way, congratulations! Yeah, that's awesome. Tell me about some of your time out in LA, you kind of gave me a little bit of an insight of like who you worked for. Give everybody kind of like a little background of that for a moment.

Yeah, well, I went to journalism school at Georgia and did a trip to LA my senior year with my class and loved it. And I'd always read InStyle magazine and in the early 2000s, that was the height of fashion and apparel. So I faxed my resume to—

faxed it, people—

faxed it. Yeah, so when you say young woman, yes, I mean, I'm dating myself, but yes, faxed my resume, packed in my car, got a job, and I stayed there for 10 years.

Okay.

I did everything there. I was a store manager, I worked on, um, you know, like wardrobe stylist on photo shoots, did the whole LA thing. I valeted cars. For Valley of the Dolls and a miniskirt, like all the things.

Really?

You do in LA, you side hustle. I did not go out there to be an actress.

That's what I do. Right, totally different field, but it was—

It was really fun. Lived at the beach, had a great life there.

That's awesome. And we don't have to name names or anything like that, but y'all, she said she worked for like the West Coast version of the Devil Wears Prada woman. So I can only imagine how that was.

It was great. Wonderful experience to work for a really strong woman. It taught me a lot about how to interact in the business world, how to stand strong and firm. Dove Charney from American Apparel would call her monthly. And it was just an interesting formative experience in being a woman in the business world.

That's awesome. Well, cool. Well, tell me a little bit more about Sachet and the new lounge that you have downtown on King Street.

Yeah, so I founded Sachet in 2021 after emerging from a pandemic where I think we were all over-imbibing and self-medicating with alcohol, which, you know, that's how we made it through. It's all good. And I recognized the need for alternatives and I started to discover a bunch of different brands that were sophisticated, taste great, made me feel like I was socializing and celebrating. So the concept for Sachet was born right out of the pandemic. Sachet is a nod to the French word for dry. So I landed on this idea. I was living here. It's a great place to start a business, Charleston. And I figured if I was feeling this way, other people were. So I launched a website with some of my favorite products and I drove my car around town dropping off orders that people had placed on the website.

Yeah.

And from there we opened a pop-up that went over really well. Then we had another location on King for 6 months and then finally we were able to open a permanent location on Upper King next to The Ordinary, 540 King.

That is so cool. So, um, you first, you started online.

Yes.

Tell me about how did you, how did you, did your time with in tech kind of help you out with that?

Yes. So I have been in retail or apparel or fashion, some sort of peripheral for my entire career. I love retail. I loved surprising and delighting customers. And when I launched the e-commerce platform, they have these tools to make it really easy to launch. We use Shopify, it's pretty standard for small businesses. And I just put up the site, took some pictures, integrated everything, and the demand was there. So I used what I knew, Shopify, the platform, e-commerce, and just my connections for questions on how do I do this? But yeah, like definitely leaned a lot on my retail background.

Cool. What would the 16-year-old going back in time, what would she say about what you're doing now?

Yeah, well, 16-year-old Emily wanted to have her own business. I don't think I knew what business that was or would be, but I think I'd be proud. I think I'd be excited, but I don't think I would understand truly how hard it is. And, you know, when you start a business, you're really leaning on a ton of experience, relationships, network, and just your strength. So I think a lot of times when you're older, you appreciate things more. When I was younger, I don't think I would have appreciated the success that we're, we're building today.

Yeah, yeah. We, you know, when we were younger, we're just kind of clueless to, to to what goes on. We just— you just see what you walk in when you walk in the storefront, you know. You don't know all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, the accounting and the taxes and all that stuff. It makes me, yeah, cringe thinking about all that stuff, right?

A lot of really not fun things. Yes, involving spreadsheets, numbers, QuickBooks, right?

Right. Well, y'all, let's get on to the fun stuff. Let's talk— let's not talk about that. I have been to your shop. And it is aesthetically very pleasing. I popped in there one evening and it was really cool. The gal behind the counter was super friendly and the way it was laid out. Tell me more about that. I would love to know about how you laid that out and had the thoughts about that.

Yeah, we want it to be very welcoming regardless of your relationship with alcohol. It's a place for discovery. For education and just general awareness that there are options for you to drink that don't include traditional alcohol. So we're focused on knowledge and the brands give us a lot of the information about what's in the products, how do you use them. So the space itself is laid out by category. So there's ready to drink at the front, which are essentially cocktails in a can. There's wine on an entire shelf. Like rosé, white, sparkling champagne, all the things. Spirits, which we have today to try. And then a functional category, which is a little bit harder to understand from a broader perspective because it's very ingredient-heavy. There are things in there like 5-HTP and melatonin and things that maybe—

Adaptogens.

Adaptogens, nootropics, plant-based botanics, things that are put into a beverage to replicate the feeling alcohol might give you. Or maybe it's to sleep, maybe it's to relax, maybe it's to give you a buzz. So we do spend a lot of time in the functional section where it's not about pretending to be a wine. It's like, okay, let me think about the feelings that the nootropics and adaptogens would give me.

Right. Okay. No, that's neat. I've had, I've tried a couple of your things, of the products. And it was so interesting. I was like, what are they trying to do? Are they trying to taste exactly like a tequila, or is it supposed to just— because to me it tastes very close but just a little bit different, but in a very pleasurable way. Like, you could taste— you know how some people when they're tasting wine and bourbons, they can say, oh, I I can taste the volcanic part of it and the acidity. I mean, this was like, it was very evident. You could taste the lemongrass. You could taste— tell me more about that and what you know about that.

Yeah. So distilled spirits are typically going to use botanics. And so on the bottle, it'll tell you like, oh, there's schisandra berry or lemongrass or bay leaf. And so The way that we help guide customers when you come into our store, through the store to land on, okay, maybe you want a gin alternative or maybe you want like a tequila that's got a little bit of kick, right? We ask you like, what do you typically like to drink? So I'm curious.

Yeah, I'm a tequila guy.

You're tequila. Okay, so you tried, we've brought 5 or 6 different ones, but just like a traditional tequila, you're going to find your favorites. So the tasting bar and the store is designed for us to help you guide. Through that journey. Sometimes people want to replicate the mouthfeel of tequila. Sometimes people just want to make an excellent skinny margarita, which we can do. Sometimes people want spicy. So yeah, so we've got some great options.

I had like a mango Bloody Mary mix.

Okay.

Also, that was, I think it was a Bloody Mary mix, but anyway, it tasted like in between like a Bloody Mary and a margarita.

We have 150 products. Actually, we have thousands of products, but 150 brands.

So apologize. It was, it was in a really cool bottle with a yellow label.

Well, one of the reasons that I was attracted to this category is the aesthetic. It looks beautiful on your bar cart. You feel great about serving it to a guest who might be in your home who doesn't drink. And you know what? There's something besides coffee and water that you can offer them. So we get a lot of those customers. And then it's same with wine, you know, people will taste wine and even without the alcohol, you know, you want to take them through the profiles of the types of wine they're looking for.

Yeah, definitely. So is the tasting lounge, is that open every day? When is, and do you have a bartender there mixing, a mixologist? Tell me about that.

Yeah, the bigger vision, the longer-term vision for Sachet is to have a tasting lounge where we have an area, a built-out bar where you can come in and have cocktails, take cocktail classes, have a bartender on staff. Right now, we're still operating in pop-up mode, which means the tasting bar is only open on the weekend, but a lot of the brands will give us product. So, you can come in on the weekends and taste product. You can also buy a flight. There are ways that we can engage you in the product when you walk in. More to come in the next few years. But yeah, the idea would be eventually to have an alcohol flexible bar where we carry both things. We carry traditional wine and beer and we carry alternatives.

Yes. That alcohol flexibility was like something that jumped out at me when on your questionnaire that you answered for me. And I was like, that is such a cool term. Alcohol flexibility. Because I mean, I know people who are in AA and they just choose not to even mimic anything. They're just like, I just got to stay away. I'll have something else completely different. But then some of them are like, no, I kind of miss and I want to get something close to what I miss.

Yeah. Naturally, our customers will share their relationship with alcohol with us in the course of the conversation. But the misconception about Sashay most frequently is that we are a place for sobriety, right? In fact, our customers, 80% of them drink traditional spirits. We exist to help those with a relationship with alcohol find alternatives on the nights that they have an event or a party and they just don't want to drink alcohol. We know alcohol is terrible for us. It is ingrained in our culture. It is ingrained in the way that we socialize. So I came up with sachet to show you that you can go to a party, you don't have to stay home. You can host others in your house and offer a wide variety of things that if they don't drink for whatever reason, or they don't feel like drinking, you have something sophisticated that tastes great and makes them feel like part of the celebration.

Yeah. Well, cool. Well, we have some samples right here. Can we dive in and, —and taste, do a little tasting? Absolutely.

Blind Tiger and Ritual Zero Proof are featured in the Seche King Street store this month. Blind Tiger has a wonderful Lavender French 75. This is our signature cocktail. This is a mixer. Okay. It's bright, bubbly, has notes of lavender, lemon, and juniper. It actually can be drank on its own as a ready-to-drink cocktail. You can also choose to add traditional gin. A French 75 is, I call it a sachet 75. It's our signature cocktail because it was created in the early 1900s in Paris in a bar called Harry's, which I've actually been to. So we can try this on its own.

I'm definitely going to have to drink this with my pinky up.

Yeah, for sure. It should be in a coupe glass or martini glass. We love these lively Charles. There we go. So I'm going to pour this for you to try on its own. Okay. It's lightly carbonated. It's a spirit-free cocktail. But again, back to alcohol flexibility, you could stock these and then let your guests choose or yourself choose whether you want to drink it on its own. We're going to add the Ritual zero-proof gin alternative. Okay. But try it first.

Cheers. Cheers. That is delicious.

It is lovely on its own.

Y'all, it's very like a little bit of like a little bit of fruit, a lot of floral to it. Yeah, that's very refreshing.

It does have calories, right? So we have other options that don't, but you know, we're celebrating. We are. I think that expectation is that there's going to be some sort of calories and sugar in your drink. We're going to add a little bit of the, the gin. I don't know if you tried any of the spirits besides the tequila.

I tried, um, um, something that was supposed to be like bourbon.

Oh yes. Okay.

That's a whole deep dive. That was for sure. I can imagine. Yeah.

This one has coriander, sweet basil, English cucumber, juniper berries, peppermint leaf, like the notes, as I was telling you earlier, to bring out in a distilled spirit, you can replicate. This is gin. Now, is it going to make a material difference in the way you feel like alcohol? No, but it makes you feel like you're celebrating.

Exactly. So cheers. I feel like it already. Pinkies up. Wow, that really changes it in a really nice way.

So it feels like you're drinking a real French 75. This would be an alternative.

I gotta tell you, I know a gin drinker who would love this.

I am a gin drinker, so Ritual Zero Proof is on my bar cart when I don't feel like drinking. I am alcohol flexible. That's how I identify. So it's nice to be able to relate to customers who do drink. Because I can talk about wine or alcohol-free wine or gin or alternative gin very easily.

Sure. I like that. I love the term alcohol flexible. I got— because I would say that's how I identify as well. I went through some times where I went without alcohol. I did the whole— it started with 75 Hard. And then I found out how good I actually felt on that program. And then it kind of just spilled in and just kept going. And then it was interesting. I just, I have a certain personality where sometimes it builds and I kind of lose control again and I mess something up and then I'm just like, I can't do this anymore. But I have figured out that I can have a few drinks here and there and be fine.

Yeah, alcohol is incredibly addictive. So it is very hard to moderate, but I think if you can manage it, great. I think the life on the other side of alcohol too is really attractive. So we've supported a lot of customers and completely giving up alcohol. And because we have the convenience of the products, they credit us with supporting them in their sobriety. But you sleep better. Which I'm sure you saw, right? You have more energy. Think clearly. You think clearly, lower anxiety, lower depression. So there certainly are benefits, but I want everyone to decide that for themselves in their own journey, what works for them. Of course, we have customers that are choosing to live a sober life, whether they're pregnant or interacts with medication. So there are other reasons. Besides just the way it makes you feel that people choose. So it feels great for us as a company and to hear the stories. I always tell people, listen, like if I've had a bad day, I go into the store and I talk to our customers and the enthusiasm and excitement and the joy that we're bringing to their lives help me get through what is very challenging sometimes as a solo female founder.

Yeah, no, I can imagine. Um, yeah, because I mean, you, you come in with a mission, right? And then sometimes the mission gets clouded with all the outside noise, and then it's so nice to have somebody just— or, or feel it. You only have to say it, you can see it in their face. Um, you know what, and, and you've provided them with that. So that is, that is something really, really cool, I can imagine.

Yeah, it's a, it's a great business to again. And I'm excited to also support a lot of the other small businesses that are on our shelves. Sure. Like, this is new. Yeah.

What are some of your favorite products? Or I'm sure you have a ton of them. But yeah, I mean, could you— I mean, obviously we have these here now. Are there any ones that you—

I do share what my favorite products are. Cool. I like everything in the store. Most of the items in our store have been tested recommended by customers outside of just what I like. I don't buy from my taste preferences. I love an alternative Aperol Spritz. So Wilfred's is one of my favorites. It's the number one Aperol alternative. At my house as well, I carry Ghia in the can. The Ghia Ginger is a carbonated bitter aperitif. It's based on Mediterranean culture where you socialize with something more bitter after dinner. Okay, it's also a fantastic hangover recovery. It's got the ginger, the carbonation, a little bit of sugar. Uh, so we do have some, you know, over-imbibers that wander in on a Saturday that we recommend that to. Yes. Um, we have a hangover preventative in our functional section called Rasasvata Black Ginger, um, that has plant-based botanics that actually cleanse your liver the night before. Um, so if I've over-imbibed, I will drink that. He'll be here in October doing tastings in our store all month.

Okay, okay. Can people like purchase this and like take it to Vegas with them?

Well, the good news is that these products are becoming more widely available. Okay. Most of the brands we carry do have their own direct-to-consumer sites, but we like to offer the element of discovery and also the fact that you can get so many things from one destination. I will also make a plug for, we carry Delta-8 and Delta-9. So some people who are in a journey with THC products that are legal here in South Carolina. That's becoming so popular. Yes. Yes. So we can help guide you there. We have both ready-to-drinks and spirits. Okay.

I, my father, he's 81 and he has trouble sleeping. And like, and he's of age to where they're— they don't want to give him something too heavy of a sedative to where he sleepwalks, falls, breaks hip, something like that. So he's, he's really having a hard time. And so what could you recommend of the Delta-8, Delta-9 stuff? Some— something maybe that could like lull him to sleep?

Any ideas? Well, we do have We do have like a 6 milligram called Nowadays. That's a spirit. It tastes great on its own. You could put it on the rocks for him. That might help. We also have a 3-spirit nightcap, which is made with lemon balm, valerian root, which people put in their tea. So he could also have a quote unquote nightcap without the THC products that would help him. And then we have like a whole, we have a whole section on like things that help you sleep. And I take those as well. Do you? Yeah, Kenneuforix Lightwave. It's a spritz in a can. They also have glass bottles. Like that's how I got started in this whole category. And then I also have had customers who come in and say, my mother is in a nursing home or my mother is in assisted living and she's not supposed to drink alcohol. So I'm going to buy her a bottle of wine to trick her, which, you know. Into thinking she's drinking. But yeah, we get it all.

And just, yeah. Oh, I'm sure. All right. Do you have anything on the horizon that you can talk about in the future? I know you have big plans. I can tell by you, you've got big things about to happen. But tell us, can you give us just a little insight, skirt around the issues, whatever you can do?

Yes. We, or I, spent the past 2 years building this business and it is not just to be, although I love King Street, a store on King Street. We had a 6-month pop-up in New York. And because of that, we are bringing our shop within shop concept nationally. I will be able to share it soon, but we will be more widely available starting in December in a partnership with a national retailer. And then also as part of that, we are launching Sachet branded portfolio of products. Products that are some of our bestsellers, and they are branded Sachet. So we're hoping to get some of those on the shelf. Obviously, we'll have them here in Charleston, but on the bar would be a better way to describe it at some of our local establishments. So we'll be doing tastings. It's a wine. There's a Pinot Noir, there's a still rosé, and a sparkling champagne. So you'll be able to find those in late October, in our store on King Street and, um, in December nationally.

Okay, so store in store, that means like that you have that retailer and they've agreed to have you come in and do your pop-ups in there? Yes, on a long-term basis. Yes, that's so cool.

Yeah, so we're hoping— what a great idea. Thank you. Yeah, and that's, you know, that's the best way for us to reach the most people without the time money and energy it takes to open up more physical stores.

Right. Or just throw in a magazine and run ads and things like that, right?

Yeah, and we have, you know, sashay.com and you can view the breadth of products, but it's not the same experience as it is like touching and feeling the products on the shelf.

Yeah. Okay. So what is like the perfect experience somebody could have? I'm, I'm coming in off of King Street. I'm in town for, for business and I've got to present in the end of the evening, but gosh, I just want to wind down a little bit beforehand. What would my experience in Sashay be like?

Yeah, if you're in town just for a few days, you don't want to carry big bottles back, you can come in and do a mixed 6-pack of our ready-to-drinks and you can try some of the alcohol-free beer. You can pick out a couple of the canned products that replicate alcohol, see what your favorites are. You can even have things shipped back to your home. We have that a lot. We also do local delivery. So if you didn't want to carry anything, you could have it shipped or dropped off at your hotel. That happens a lot. So yeah, our knowledgeable staff will guide you through what you should try based on what you'd like to drink. And we take it from there.

Do you want, say, corporate events and things like that to know? I mean, I'm sure you just want as much exposure as possible, but I mean, my brain is starting to go, out.

I'm like, oh, we would love to curate more menus. I call them cocktail menus. I really don't love the word mocktail. There's nothing funny about a drink without alcohol. I believe a cocktail should be a cocktail whether it has alcohol in it or not. Yeah. So we would love to do more of the— that curation. We love to curate at weddings. You should have an alcohol-free option for the toast, right? We've got some amazing sparkling Prosecco and champagnes literally come from Italy and France that you could serve. So yes, corporate events as well. I don't know why we always have alcohol at business functions, right?

And they're all afraid insurance-wise. They're all afraid somebody's going to leave and go get a DUI or, you know, God forbid, you know, have a wreck or whatever. Yeah. So I mean, it would be the smart thing to do.

When we were in New York, we were hosting the Spotify happy hours and they actually stopped serving alcohol. So we were doing that there. We're in early talks with larger tech companies to support their happy hours and corporate events. So yeah, that's definitely in the future. It's growing.

It is. I can see it. You're like, you're like in your ride and like, anyway, I can go on.

I was going to get into the surfing. We're early adapters, but I've heard enough people say to me, that's really a business. How are you gonna run a business with that idea? Everybody wants to drink. Why would you buy something?

Yeah, here we go, in their face. Love it.

Prove them wrong.

Yeah, well, that's what you're supposed to do, you know. And obviously you have a passion for it, and, you know, otherwise you would take— you know, you would hear those people, those naysayers, and you'd— you know, that's what a lot of people do. They, they fold on their dreams sometimes like that. And look at you.

Yeah, it's, it's about persistence. And I love the word grit, right? Like, do not let it get you down. Yep, just keep going one day at a time.

Well, awesome. Where can everybody find you and more about Sashay? What is the best avenues for everyone?

Yeah, follow us on Instagram, Sashay. It's S-E-C-H-E-Y. The store on King Street is 540 King. It's at Cannon and King. You can also email us at hello@sashay if you'd like to make an appointment to come in for a tasting. And then yeah, sashay.com has the majority of what we carry in the store, and you'll see us at your local store soon.

I love it. That's fantastic. Well, Emily, thank you so much for being here. Y'all, you've got to go in. If you're a local Charlestonian, go into the store. It is super welcoming. It's right there on King Street. Great spot and great staff as well. And hopefully we'll be able to catch you there every now and then too. But thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Thanks so much, everybody. Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.