From Rock Stages to Sold Out: Jeff Cerise and the Eight Year Overnight Success

Good morning, everyone. Riverside's popping up, telling me we're connected to stuff, so we should be live on things soon. Welcome and happy Saturday. Today's guest with myself and my co-host is always Sam Anderson, is Jeff Cerise of Hobby Farm. We're welcome, Jeff.

Hey, thank you. Of course, man.

Good to see you. We'll do we'll do sponsors on a little. I haven't had enough coffee. We'll do sponsors. Sam, where's our obligatory free bird can?

I did. I forgot to bring it. I'm blocked in here, so but don't call out Jay Bird.

Slacking.

Jay Williams and Freebird, as always, the sponsor of Drink Up. Myself and Alias Advising, Ryan Halliman and On the Rocks Advisors. We've had all the stories in the last few days, all of them good, but just, it's, it's been fucking wild over there with Ryan. And then Sam and Alicia with Bev Assets. So good morning everybody, and thank you to our sponsors. Jeff, we'll get right into it. You were telling us a little bit about all the use cases for Switchel, and I actually want to take it back to once upon a time you were a musician and Switchel was what you used To kind of quell the fire in your throat after a night of, uh, you know, changing the world through song, right?

Correct. Yeah. Been making it since '76.

Okay.

I was a budding young rock singer at the time and, uh, I would come home and I could, I couldn't even talk. I, you know, from rehearsing gigs, you know, reaching for notes that I probably shouldn't be reaching for, you know, when you're doing cover music back then.

Sure.

And so my mom, you know, was kind of a hippie housewife at the time in the mid-'70s, you know, doing yoga, making switchel, eating honeycomb and granola and all that kind of fun stuff. Taught me how to make switchel and I would make it in hotel rooms from Winnipeg to Houston, Texas, to wherever we would travel. And I'd bring it down on stage with me and I was drinking it clear my throat. And I didn't even know at that time, you know, in my late teens and my 20s that it was a liver and a kidney cleanse, but that's probably pretty instrumental in why it kept me alive in a rock band for 15 years.

Sure.

Yeah. And it was just fantastic, you know? And so everybody, all the other singers in the band were drinking it too. Hey, make me up some of that Switch. And so we were, we were just taking it with us and, and doing it in hot pots and stuff in our hotel rooms. And That's how I started drinking it. And when I got outta music in 1989, I just, you know, would make Switchel when I wanted a nice pick-me-up in the summertime, or maybe I had a sore throat and needed something to give it comfort.

Sure.

But it, I wasn't drinking it as much, you know, until we kind of started examining all these 100-year-old family recipes and, you know, maybe doing a little side hustle a little bit.

Sure.

And that's when it kind of got launched.

Sure. And then, and I know you've done, you got pickles and you've got hot cocoa mix these days, and we'll get to those things. But so just cause I know a little more of the backstory than others, started off in glass and you were in glass for a while and then the transition to cans. So maybe walk us through why glass and then why the move to cans?

Well, we went to BevSource. To scale up my recipe. And they were instrumental in kind of helping us find our first co-packer. And our choices, you know, for, for, uh, co-packing were this little place down in Southern Minnesota, down in Marshall that had a bottling line, or we could go down to Alabama, or I think the other one was in Washington State.

Okay.

And so it was kind of a no-brainer at that point. We just, we wanted to keep it local and Sure. I just, you know, chose Brow Brothers Brewing and we went down and met Dustin and those guys and they were a good fit. They were, you know, experienced bottlers and brewers and, uh, making Switchel was no problem for them. So we went to the place that was the best fit for a lot of different reasons. And it happened to be amber glass bottles that they used. It was an older bottling line. And we probably bottled with them 2017, you know, to get ready for our grand opening at Keg and Case in 2018. And then I think up until about 2022, and we started losing some accounts because they didn't want glass bottles. And we started e-commerce, you know, when COVID hit and we ended up having to resend orders because the bottles were breaking and people weren't handling them properly. And, you know, a case weighed 40 pounds. It was heavy.

Yeah.

And so I just, Kept asking them, when are you gonna put in a canning line? You know, we wanna go with these sleek cans. And, uh, they weren't ready. So we ended up going over to Aster Beverage in New Richmond.

Sure.

And, uh, we met those guys through Five Watt Coffee. They kind of, some of those guys started the Aster Beverage group. So they had a canning line that was state of the art and we, we tried it and we loved it. The new cans were a hit. All of a sudden we can go into places. The glass bottles couldn't go. And we did 3 or 4 production runs there. And then we started, we started to get nudged out a little bit by, you know, Tattersall and, and some of the other bigger players were doing all their seltzers there. And so my production times, my windows were closing in and if my ingredients didn't arrive on time, we were in trouble. Yeah. Raw Brothers called back, said, hey Jeff, we put in a canning line. Really? So back down to Marshall we went and we've been canning with them since, since we switched over.

Very cool, man. I, uh, I asked that story because I, I knew what you were gonna say, but I wanted, I wanted people to hear your version of, you know, okay, so you started in bottles kind of because that's just what was available, right?

Yeah.

Not entirely, but kind of. Right. So taking opportunities where they existed and then you switched to cans because bottles were creating headaches.

Right.

So you made, which I'm sure was not an easy decision. 'Cause there's artwork and approvals and minimums and all sorts of shit that goes involved. And then what do you do with all the glass you bought? All sorts of stuff. And then you switch co-packers because the cans necessitated that change. And then you switch back because having a co-packer that, and no knocks to the Aster team, but like the brand and the co-packer have to be a fit for one another. Right?

Right, right. And we were a good fit at Aster as well. And I would, if we had, I feel like we've got a capacity a plan in place now where if we needed both canning lines, we could, we've got experience with both now and we could pump out hundreds of thousands of cans in a good short timeframe need be.

So, and I'm checking, if you see me looking around here, I'm checking to make sure LinkedIn's connecting. It's taken a minute on my end.

Is it, is it connecting?

It's trying to, it hasn't done it yet. And so one of the other things I want to ask you, Jeff, and, and You can tell me as much or as little about this as you want, but obviously you and I connected in, I think January was the last, January or February was the last long-form conversation we had. And you were trying to work on, you know, not only maybe finding some better fit distribution partners, but also just looking at things outside of traditional retail, bars, restaurants, things like that. Right?

Right.

And I think I'm correct in saying that the last few months have been pretty fruitful for you there. So if you don't mind walking us through Kind of the latest and greatest for you guys? I would love to hear that.

Well, yeah, I mean, we ended up getting Rau Brothers as a distributor this year. We also, I'm trying to think if you asked me, Saratoga was about a year ago and they cover 23 counties in northern Wisconsin. And which is where I'm sitting now in Red Cliff, Wisconsin, you know, and coming up here a lot, I decided that, you know, it didn't make sense not to be selling everywhere I go. That's just what I do. It's kind of live and breathe Switchel or whatever I'm doing. So I started calling on a bunch of places up here as we drove up and I'd stop in all the little fishing villages like Port Wing and Herbster and Cornucopia and Red Cliff and Bayfield and Washburn. And before long I had, you know, 15, 16 new accounts up here.

Sure.

And that kind of helped me Land this distributor relationship because I was able to hand off some pretty sweet accounts that are on their route already. I still maintain a few of my own where people say, "Hey, you know, we don't either work with them or I'd rather work with you direct." And and our distributors are great that way. They're like, "Whatever works works for us." So Sarah and Saratoga has been really good about adding some new accounts for us that. You know, we've expressed interest in like Tom's Burn Down Cafe on Madeline Island and we're now there and we're at the St. James Social in Bayfield, a boutique hotel and Wild Rice Retreat up the shoreline towards Washburn, a yoga retreat. Yeah. We're starting to nail different things like that. And in Minneapolis, you know, Minneapolis Yoga, Move Hot Yoga, they've added it. Samuel, we were talking earlier about, you know, athletics and recovery and You know, yoga's another activity where people really need electrolytes after, especially with hot yoga, after they've done a workout. And it's just a great replenishing drink to have after you've done a workout. So those places are latching on.

Plus you can do your workout and then you can go out at night and add your vodka to it and enjoy it like the farmers did back in the day, right?

Exactly. Exactly. So that's how we're kind of getting into a lot of bars and restaurants too, because it is a sophisticated mocktail right out of the can. I mean, we basically got all of our new licensing done this year for festivals, festivals and events that now allow me to be a mixologist and add things to our mocktails that we couldn't do originally without the new licensing.

Sure.

So we're doing mocktails. At all these festivals. And I'm adding just a little citrus, you know, dehydrated orange, lemon, or lime, blueberries, elderberry, mint, rosemary, maybe some cedar. And it's, it's turned into just a fantastic— oh, and some lingonberry syrup or grenadine on top. And these mocktails, people are walking away and they're just like, wow, this is just like a craft cocktail because it's got a ginger bite. And our cayenne has even more of a bite. And so it's, uh, it's, it's become kind of a little cottage industry of it in and of itself. And it's peaking at the right time because bars, if they're not serving a sophisticated mocktail, they're leaving a lot of money on the table. W.A. Frost added our Switchel as a mocktail and a cocktail. Uh, we've been at Awamni since they started and we're now at Indígena, the new restaurant at the Guthrie. The Guthrie caught wind of our product on their menu and they added it to their gift shop. So they're selling cups of our, of our Switchel at the Guthrie Theater.

Fuck yeah, dude.

So these are just really kind of odd, you know, places that are coming about that we didn't really think that was a target of, but a lot of gifts.

You said something before we got on and I wanna call it out here. You, you said from back in your ad days, you know, after being a rock star and before being a, a beverage owner in your advertising days, you said persistence beats resistance.

Yes.

And, um, I'm taking your quote, but I wanted to make sure it got said because I think, again, like we were talking about before we get on, I think a lot of times, especially in CPG, people assume that if you're going to start something, whatever you start, like you have to pick the brand or the product or the functionality or whatever that hits whatever's peaking at the moment. And what the reality is, is you have to pick what resonates with you and that you can tell a story about and that has a culture and an identity to it. And then be able to ride the wave until it peaks. Right.

Right.

And those are 2 very different scenarios, but that's the story you just fucking told. And I love, I, you're one of the coolest motherfuckers I know. And I love hearing that you're getting into places because you've had this coming for so long.

Can I ask a question? It's kind of off-kilter, but I just have to know. I'm sorry. I can't get the rockstar feeling out of my head. And you got that rockstar vibe right now. I can't wait to party with you, by the way, at some point. But we've had like Paul Cullen on here, which was, he was with Bad Company. By the way, he has his own wines. I don't know if you know who Paul is, but he was a bass guitarist for, uh, for Bad Company.

Bad Company.

Yeah.

One of my, one of my favorite bands growing up and Paul Rodgers was one of my vocal influences for sure.

Oh, wow.

So where did you do your rocking at? Like, where were you?

Um, we, we started out like in high school in the mid-'70s.

Okay.

And we were writing our own music by the time we got into college at Morehead State, uh, in 1979. We met our guitar player, our bass player at orientation. And we, those guys who understood music theory, and we started writing music in 1979 and got a little band house in Little Italy, just outside of Moorhead in this little railroad community called Dilworth, Minnesota. And we started writing our first album there and it took off from there. And we got an agent in Minneapolis and soon moved down to Minneapolis late in '79. And we got our first opening slot at Uncle Sam's for Robert Gordon and Link Wray. And we were playing the Longhorn at the time and, and Uncle Sam's and, and then Duffy's kind of latched onto us a little bit in 1980. And we were playing the Caboos and all these places. And Duffy's actually offered us 10 grand to go across the street at Sound 80 and record our first album. If we would play their club exclusively for a year and pay it back. $1,000 every weekend we played would go back to pay off the loan.

So that's a pretty good money back then, right? That's pretty damn good money.

So, I mean, record— recorded our first album at Sound 80 where Dylan did Blood on the Tracks and Leo Kotke recorded a bunch of hits there. It was great studio. And we, uh, we kind of took the finished masters and shopped them around and Twin Tone Records signed us, uh, one of the hottest Midwest labels. around at the time. And so we did our first and second albums on Twin Tone. Our second album, Blind Impulse, got rave reviews from Robert Palmer, a writer at the New York Times. And we started opening up for bands like R.E.M. and Psychedelic Furs, Iggy Pop, the Fleshtones, Bauhaus, Joan Jett. You know, we just—

Amazing.

Romantics. We were on tour.

Jeff, the—

All the time.

I can't believe I've never done this before, but I'm doing it now. The name of the band was the Phones, correct?

We were The Phones and then in '87 we changed our name.

Phones, like pick up the phone?

Yeah. Like The Phones.

Man, you're like speaking my language. I'm about pick up the phone guy. So I'm going to be, I'm going to be playing The Phones today on my walk.

Yeah. We're on Spotify. We're on Apple Music and you can find our stuff on YouTube and old videos of us jumping around as 20-year-olds. It's pretty funny. I was up at the Winnipeg Folk Festival last weekend and it was kind of a hoot because We were playing up in Winnipeg, um, '78, '79 at the Curtis Gordon Hotel and some clubs downtown. So after the festival on Sunday, we drove through Winnipeg and sure enough, the Curtis Gordon was still there. Stopped and took, took a few pictures of a hilarious little trip back in time.

I was gonna say, amazing story.

People don't know this, but I've got YouTube pulled up. One of your songs was Back in Time, was it not?

Yeah.

Back in Time was one of our big hit songs.

And did you make like, were you like on the, like the top 50 or number 1 hit in the world or what was going on?

No, no, no, no. We were just like a regional, regional band that we never got signed to a major label, but yet, you know, we were together for 10 years. So again, I think that relates to the switchel business too. It's like a lot of people think, you know, you're only a success if you get bunch of investors in and you get millions of dollars and you make it big for about a year or 2, and then you're gone. I think success is more defined the way I like to do business as being sustainable over time and keeping your nose to the grindstone. And like I said earlier, persistence breaks resistance. Those are the fun things that make working every day for me a challenge and rewarding at the same time. And so I think, you know, the fact that we are sustainable makes us as successful as the people that have kind of launched to the top and for a couple of years, maybe flamed out a little before their time. You know, we've talked about a lot of people that got it. They just would have stuck it out a little longer. The trends were coming around to what they were doing. We're kind of hoping that's going to happen with us. I mean, Switchel's a beverage that's been around for 200 years, but not a lot of people make it.

Yeah.

And there's not a lot of companies out there doing it.

That's just amazing what you just shared. So you answered our most critical question we ask everybody. What is the difference between success and failure? And you just answered it, which was, uh, brilliant. And then to take you through the 10 years that you spent with your band, right? You guys stuck together and you built a great, uh, probably, um, lifestyle for yourself and your, and your bandmates. And, uh, you, and you didn't have to go like national to do it. Right. And then How it ties to your brand, Switzel. I absolutely, I mean, you're like, you know, persistence, you know, is definitely gonna, um, win out if you just stick it out and keep on going and tell your story because it's a product that is needed. And it sounds like you're creating that velocity and demand. What, uh, what are you just in Minnesota? Remind me, you might've said it earlier, but I wasn't paying attention.

Are you just— No, we're in, we're available in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and probably still available in Nebraska until they run out of their stock.

Okay. And then you're doing DTC, so you're ultimately available worldwide.

Right, right. I mean, just this last week we shipped to New York, LA, Texas, a couple of places in the metro area. I mean, people still get on our, our web store and they'll order it in Brooklyn Park and they, you know, they could drive 15 minutes and go get it, but they'll pay $15 to ship it there.

On your website, do you have where to find it? Like if I'm here, if I would, I put it on the website.

Yeah, we have a Find Us tab. So every city, every state is listed. And, uh, we do an occasional newsletter off of the website and, uh, tell people when we land new accounts in case somebody's in that area, tell 'em where to find it.

So, so again, remind me, how long have you been doing this?

How many years? 2018 is when we launched the brand.

Okay. And then how many accounts are you in currently?

Uh, I think between all of the distributors and our own account list, we're probably 200 to 225.

Fantastic. And are those all reordering accounts? Are those like the—

Yeah, most of them are reordering. Uh, some of them are brand new and maybe, you know, maybe a dozen are new ones over the last month or two. It's my goal to add at least 5 new accounts every month. And we've been pretty good at that. Again, that's that funnel mentality. Throw enough samples out there at the top of the funnel and you're, you're bound to get an order trickling out of the bottom of the funnel every week, every month. And so I just try to stay busy doing that. Yeah, it's just, I mean, last night up here in Red Cliff, we were at Big Top Chautauqua, and this is kind of a nice little tie-in with the music and the Switchel too. I know a couple of, of, of the guys in the Jayhawks, buddies of mine from the '80s when we were in the music indie industry. And so I brought 'em a, a nice ice cold bucket of Switchel backstage before, yeah, during their sound check. And, uh, we've been trying to get in Big Top for 2 years, the beverage. And, uh, I got in and the, the stage manager and people were a little hesitant. You know, you go, what, what do you got? What do you, you wanna bring it backstage? I'm like, yeah, I know. Mark and Gary, you know, I've talked to them and we're coming tonight and I just wanted to give them a little gift. And so then we got backstage and the guitar tech and the sound man were there. And immediately the guitar tech piped up and said, oh, Split Chill, I love it. We get it all over Minneapolis. This is one of my favorite drinks. And you got the hot one? And I'm like, yeah, cayenne's in there. And the stage manager took notice of that. And then I got to say all the other places around here that are carrying it, you know, like Howl Adventures, Tom's Burnt Down Bar and, you know, the St. James Social and grocery stores, all these places. And then the soundman, we'd started talking music and he's like, oh yeah, Jeff from the phones. I ran sound for you guys at the Uptown Bar. So then, you know, it was just both the music and the Switchel thing came together in that one conversation and we left it behind. And then we got up to will call and got our tickets and The person was like, are you guys the ones that brought the beverages backstage? We're like, yeah, thank you.

That's awesome.

They loved it. So it was kind of a neat moment, you know, felt like a rock star all over again.

What's the best way to consume your product? You shared kind of earlier, if I'm a farmer, I'm out during the day keeping hydrated, but at night I'm going to party with it. But from like, what's the best way to enjoy your product?

I tell you what, it's so versatile. This is something you can pull a can out of the back seat on a day when it's 90 degrees out and it's not, it's just sitting on the seat, non-refrigerated, and you can drink a can of Switchel and it's still going to be refreshing and thirst-quenching. I enjoy it warm occasionally like that. I also like it on the rocks and I like it ice cold out of, you know, just an ice cold can. When I'm feeling a little under the weather, I will actually warm it up like the cinnamon and make a hot toddy. That's better than NyQuil. So much—

I'm going to replace my— I drink kombucha. I'm going to be replacing my kombucha with switchel now.

Well, drink them both because kombucha is a probiotic.

Okay.

So that's really, that's adding millions of new bacteria to your gut biome. Switchel is a prebiotic. So that feeds the good bacteria that already exists in your gut biome. You really kind of need a little bit of both for good gut health to add bacteria and to maintain what's already there. And so switchel is a cousin of pooch, and I think it's You know, you can consider a cousin of shrubs too, because it actually, shrub has apple cider vinegar, but they lean more towards fruit extracts. Switchel is a little, has always basically been ginger, honey, and apple cider vinegar, and not necessarily always honey. You know, whatever the sweetener was in that region of the United States was what people put in it. In the South, it was blackstrap molasses, sorghum. Up in Eastern Seaboard, maple syrup. And I always made it with honey cuz I grew up in the Midwest, up in Moorhead. But we do a maple syrup version of it as well. And so it's not only gluten-free, that one's vegan as well. So we're probably gonna can that one pretty soon. It's becoming really popular.

How many flavors do you have? 4 flavors?

4 right now. Original, cinnamon, turmeric, and cayenne. And so these are spices that are, each one has individual health benefits over and above the base ingredients of our Switchel. And they're unique beverage flavors that you didn't see a lot of people back in 2017 when I was developing these extra flavors. It was like, you know, cinnamon beverage. Are you kidding me? Turmeric, you know, nobody was even doing the shots of cayenne and scent and turmeric, but since then they're everywhere. And so I'm hoping, yeah, that the trends kind of catch up to what we've been doing a for a long time and recognize, you know, that we're kind of an early player in this stuff. And maybe we get a little—

Well, you just got an order online, by the way, my business partner, she says, so Jeff, I just bought a case off your website.

Hopefully you're right.

Hopefully your variety packs have the turmeric. So she said, if they don't now, no worries.

The turmeric sold out.

But it's— so I have to, at least you'll have to get you some. She's coming up to Minnesota, Adam and Jeff, in August. We have a business meetup here, so maybe we can get together, have a cup of coffee and we can get the turmeric.

Yeah, absolutely. Where are you based?

I'm in Minneapolis myself. I'm in, I'm in Prior Lake.

Got it. Okay.

Yeah.

So yeah, I know.

Well, the turmeric sold out the day I got back from Winnipeg on Monday. I found out that our distributor took the last 21 cases when I was gone. So, and now we're running low on original. This is the first time this has ever happened. in the 8 years I've been producing it where we completely sold out. I mean, it's still out in stores, but I can't ship any till we get more in the warehouse, which is going to be—

I think, I think you're onto something big here. Like, like Adam said, I mean, I, people are going to discover you and all of a sudden you're like, not in just the Midwest, all of a sudden people, you know, big grocers want you, the whole bit. So you got to figure out how to scale this thing. I think you're at the point where, you know, we look at brands in 5 ways, uh, you know, uh, Foundation, which is kind of new to market, you know, build, grow, sorry about the thing with thing, grow, scale, and sustain, right? You're at the grow, you're like at this, like, it's like you could probably scale this. You have a proven model.

Yeah, we feel the same way. Like we're, we've proved ourselves and we've, we've laid out a pretty good foundation. We didn't want to spread ourselves so thin, like we were a butter knife and just had no roots anywhere. We wanted to set deep roots here. Locally, regionally, before we started going out to bigger retailers like Target and Hy-Vee and Coburn's. And now's the time for us to get into Lunds and Byerlys and Kowalskis. We've been making pitches for these grocery stores to add it for quite a few years, but for some reason, you know, some of the other switchel makers in town weren't selling well at those stores. And so they're hesitant to take on ours, even though it's Completely different brand. So we're trying to work past those objections. At the same time, we're building up good velocity at, you know, all the Lakelands food co-ops. Minnetonka, Chanhassen, Richfield, both Mississippi markets, a lot of mom-and-pop natural grocery stores love it. Tim and Tom's Speedy Market over in the Como area, Longfellow Market, South Minneapolis, Fresh Thyme Market in South Minneapolis carries it as well. Up here in Red Cliff, you know, Peterson's Foods has it. Johnson's Market, you know, just these cool places where people stop and see our Switchel. It's kind of fun.

Is this, as you probably said earlier, what's the Switchel a product of? Is it not a, it's not a product of pickle juice, is it?

No, no, it has no relation to that at all. The only reason we did it was because when we were starting out, the pickles were hand-packed and we could only do a limited amount and they would sell out. Leaving us with literally nothing to sell January through the next July when we started pickling.

Well, the reason I asked that is because my daughters, one of the things they would do is they drink pickle juice.

Yeah. That's great for electrolytes too. I know some pro hockey players keep it on the bench and they're drinking it for leg cramps and stuff like that. Yeah. We've thought about, we've got great recipes from our days of pickling and we've thought about maybe just marketing brine as a At-home, at-home kits where people can add their own vegetables, cucumbers, carrots, onions, whatever they want to our brine and make it themselves. And then, you know, because people were drinking our brine when they'd get done, or they'd take Milwaukee pickles and throw them in our jar and then recharge them with that. And about 2 weeks, they feel like they've got a Hobby Farmer pickle again.

Amazing.

Kind of funny.

So yeah, you could do like a Switzel pickle juice kind of combo, maybe.

Yeah, actually what we're trying to do this year is, well, we're doing it since my partners at, after the Kagan case went, went and sold and we closed the store, my partners divested in the company and my wife Gio is now 50% owner and she is Ojibwe. So we're now 50% women and indigenous owned company. And we've dabbled with some indigenous teas, mixing it with our switchel. And that was something we've done as fundraisers and they sold it through Awamni. And we also sold it through the Indigenous Peoples Task Force in Minneapolis, where she works part-time and raised money for the Nibi Walkers, which are the women, the elders that walk and they're water protectors. 2 years ago, they walked around Lake Superior and this year they're walking from New Orleans up the Mississippi River to Minneapolis.

Holy shit.

So we're probably going to produce a tea called Mushkiki Wabu, and it's an indigenous tea that we mix with our Switchel, and it's just a fantastic flavor and beverage. And that's hopefully going to be our next canned beverage is some indigenous.

So I gotta, it's been said on this show a couple of times now, and I've been telling it to brand owners a lot lately, cause they'll ask me, like, they'll ask me, you know, should I go with, you know, a flavor that's more straightforward and common and approachable? Or should I go with a, you know, a flavor for my beverage that's maybe a little bit more culturally unique or that stems from other parts of the world or what have you. Right.

Yeah.

And my comment for at least the last 2 years has been make it unique because this whole trend that the world is seeing of people being really interested in, you know, unique flavors or culturally relevant flavors or whatever. Right. Again, one of the reasons I love you and what you've been doing is you've been on this like naturopath indigenous flavor profile for 10 years, right?

Yeah.

But the world is finally coming around to it. And so when you say, you know, say things like, well, hey, we're going to do, you know, this partnership with this indigenous group, that's also a unique and globally relevant and cultural flavor. It just happens to physically regionally be here already. Right.

And, and we really want to do stuff with sustainable ingredients that are from where we live.

Yeah.

And the medicines that we are going to put into our new indigenous beverages are, you know, centuries old. This is stuff that, that culture has been using for centuries.

Sure.

And it is going to be very unique. We just, there's enough watermelon kiwi, you know, So we just wanted to be unique and different. And I agree with what you said. That's kind of always been the trail we blaze with the cinnamon and the cayenne and the turmeric back in 2017, when we first started throwing that in our beverages.

Yeah.

It's now everybody's doing it.

So I have to, I have to share something with you because we brought up pickles. So as you know, and I don't know if Sam, if I've told him this, So for those of you who live in Northeast Minneapolis who go to Pedreg's Brewing, formerly 612 Brewing, different owners, same physical location. Yeah. Jeff and his Switchels are available in the non-out cooler there. And the reason I bring it up is every time I work, there's a coworker. We all do it, but specifically there's one coworker, her name's Emily, who loves to do a pickle beer. And so what we'll do is we'll take the Pedreg's Patty's Lager. We'll fill a glass about 2/3 of the way full. And then we'll finish it off with a dill pickle spear and then pickle juice. And it is delicious.

Right? Fantastic.

So you make a pickle switchel and we will absolutely make a Patty's pickle switchel combo.

Well, that's one of the new accounts that I should have mentioned. Padraig's has just been a great retail partner with us. And it's, it's, we're getting added to a lot more taprooms now. You know, they want, A little non-alcoholic something for the people that are either the designated driver or people to take a break from the, the really high octane beers that are being made. And Pat Dregg's has just been great. We sold a ton of, of, of our Switchel there. I've done a couple of tastings there to introduce people and, and, you know, Jason and Pat are just great there too. We love those guys.

Very glad to hear that. Yeah, no, it's, man, truly. It caught me off guard because I knew they had started carrying you. And then I went to work one night because I'm only there every couple of weeks and somebody came up with one. Yeah. Somebody came up with one and I was like, yeah. And then there's a family shout out to Mark and his family. I'll leave his last name out for now, but there's a gentleman named Mark. He brings fuck 9 people every Thursday to play him, his wife, their kids, their boyfriends and girlfriends. Like they take up 2 tables and they play trivia and they're wonderful people, but only like 3 of them drink. Everybody else, it's kombuchas and Switchels and Diet Cokes and water. Whatever we have in the non-alcohol cooler, and they love it. It's great.

And there you go. I mean, that's proof positive of having those options available in a taproom and how that you know brings people in instead of makes people go one and done here. You know, they don't have really something for me.

What what is it like if I buy a Switzer? What am I usually paying at a like an on-premise account?

Like if I get a can?

Good question. We've been pretty lucky where most of our retailers are following our MSRP, which is about $14.99 for a four-pack, and the cans if they're in deli. Or single sales are going anywhere from $3.49 to $3.99. And then when you're at a bar or a restaurant, it's typical to pay $5 or $6 for a can, depending on if they put it on the rocks or put a little, you know, make, if it's a mocktail, like in the case of WA Frost, I think they're getting $11 for a mocktail. And, but they're adding gin-ish, which is a non-alcoholic spirit.

Mm-hmm.

Um, you've probably heard of these things and those are expensive. Those are like $40 a bottle. So they get $11 for a mocktail and I think they're getting about $13 when they add a Tanqueray or another gin actually to the Cayenne, make it a full-blown cocktail.

Sure.

Amazing.

And I should mention too that because of our relationship with Awamni, when Sean Sherman won, you know, he won the James Beard Award in 2022. In 2023, he was awarded the Julia Child Award. And we got a call from the Julia Child Foundation in New York and they said, hey, could you guys come up with a, maybe a signature cocktail or mocktail for the award gala? We're going to do it in Minneapolis this year for the first time ever. It's usually in Washington, DC, but they wanted Chef Lee and, and Sean Sherman to make the food for everyone. In their backyard. So they did it at the depot. And yeah, I was able to create a couple of different versions of cocktails and they chose what we call a Mezcal Moon. And I mixed a smoky mezcal with a Grand Marnier and cayenne switchel and used a little mint, sea salt, and a thin slice of jalapeño in the drink. And it was a hit. It was just a great I don't even drink a margarita anymore. I always just use cayenne Switchel as my mixer. And all right.

So I'm in Prior Lake. Where do I find— I guess I'll go to your website. I'm going to be going buying my Switchel really quick. My wife's bringing me a burrito, so I need to have my burrito and my Switchel with me.

Definitely. Definitely. It pairs excellent with Mexican food. The cayenne is so good with that. In that area, we're experiencing a little bit of a void, I think. Prior Lake. Are you close to Chanhassen? Lakewinds in Chanhassen has it. Spiral Co-op in Hastings has it. I need to get into the southern metro more and get into like—

You got me, you got me, man. I'm coming on board as your sales guy. So just, I'll go sell it. Just gimme the, gimme the 411 and then I'll go out there and go get it in distribution for you. So we'll go get you into like the municipalities. We'll go over to you know, happy to stop over at Lon's, but at least you should go to the, you should definitely hit the municipalities around, you know, the liquor municipalities, go hit those places.

We're in one muni in Robbinsdale. So we're in the, you know, right next to Hy-Vee. They got the Hy-Vee liquor store, which is Mule Run. They carry it. Yeah. That's, that's kind of why we hooked up with Brau. Uh, they have a real stronghold in southern Minnesota and southern metro in particular. And so, You know, bam! We're trying to get them to get it into some places where we've been.

That's the that's the thing about going live on LinkedIn.

I know.

You want to go find a battery? Definitely do that before you before we leave you. You can do that for sure. I got a few more questions on what Adam posted.

Yeah, so give you an easy one.

I'm going to move to a table to the quickest outlet.

Yeah, you go, you go do that. We'll just, uh, we'll keep on chatting. How did you, how'd you guys meet? How'd you meet Jeff, Adam? You were doing work with him at BevSource?

We met during my lab days. So, so yeah, to Jeff's point, he had worked with the BevSource crew. Um, shout out to, gosh, I don't know who's still there that would have been on it at the time, but shout out to the BevSource team for those of you that still are there, obviously still dear friends. But, uh, BevSource had worked on it for a while. And so I knew of Jeff and of Hobby Farmer tangentially that this was also a back in the day when like Superior Switchel, and I forget the, I want to say her name was Megan. And then I think there was another Switchel. So there was 2 or 3 that BevSource had at one time. And in 20—

St. Paul Switchel was another one.

Thank you. Yes. And then in, was it 2021, Jeff? You came to the lab to do the Heart Switchel.

Yep. Yep. 2021.

Yeah.

You guys helped us formulate and develop that in small batches and You know, the lab was great. It was just a beta tester and we got great reviews and people were drinking it and loving it. And again, that was the first hard switchel that I've ever seen in the nation. 5% ABV. We still kept it gluten-free because we took, uh, what did, what were we fermenting? Uh, dextrose as the beginning. Yeah.

It was sugar brew.

Yeah. Yeah. And so it was, it was great. We won a Good Food Award in San Francisco for it. We, we had our catchphrase designed as not a beer, not a seltzer, not a cider, hard switchel. But then we got launched. We were in all the stores and the TTB came in and pulled it all off the shelf because it said not a beer on the actual bottle label. And they said, we're taxing you guys as a beer.

Mm-hmm.

So you can't say that on the bottle. You can say it on the 4-pack holder.

Yeah.

So we had to pull everything, relabel it, and the next production run had new labels, but it really took the wind out of our sails when we were getting, you know, the award, Star Tribune reviews, all these good reviews are coming in and then nobody could find it anywhere. That just killed it. And then I got frustrated with all the licensing that I needed to get it into Nebraska. I needed licensing to warehouse it. I needed to license our drivers, our fans. It was just like, do I really want to get into the alcohol business? Our, our Switchel mixes great with alcohol. It's versatile. We just decided to discontinue it after, I think, the second or third production run. So I'm not going to fight that uphill battle.

Which, I mean, not that my opinion matters, but I think was a smart move in hindsight. But I still to this day tell people when you, when your stuff gets brought up, like, man, that Hard Switchel was the drink of summer for 2021, man. I used to take, I used to take entire coolers full of crowlers of that to the lake. And I just, it was such easy drinking. It was so good. It was so refreshing. Yeah, it was good shit.

To your point though, something off of my old table for a second.

Oh, you're good.

You're good. Talk about it.

But so that's where Jeff and I met, Sam, is, is doing the pilot for him at the lab and kind of going through that whole process for Hard Switchel. And then We just stayed in touch because Jeff's good shit and, you know, I like what he's doing. But, you know, one of the things, Jeff, that I give you credit for is— try to say this concisely— one of the big things I give you credit for is, A, you know, seeing the— because it was 2021, right? Like seltzers were still super hot. People still wanted a new and different flavored seltzer. And so I applaud you for taking the risk and trying to catch the trend, right? We lost Jeff. Damn. Bro.

Ruh-roh.

The other, if he comes back on, I'll, uh, uh, he'll probably end up texting me here in a second. If he comes back on, I'll say it again, but I applaud him for trying to catch the trend. I also applaud him for knowing that it wasn't working and being willing to walk away and not continue to throw good money after bad. Right?

Yeah.

It's been one of the things I've always—

Yeah, what's really cool about his story— can you hear me?

Yeah, I can hear you. I gotcha.

Can you hear me?

Yeah, I'm having some computer problems over here too. Uh, what's cool about his, uh, story is that he's not trying to go big, fast. He's being very persistent and very clear about his path and what he's built, you know, and to be into 200 accounts. And he's, they're very clear about how they make it. I mean, they can definitely be a lot larger than they are, but they're being very strategic about how they're, they're doing it for sure. But, you know, hey, when we go live, Adam, this is what happens here, man.

Right?

This is The reality. I don't even know if we streamed on LinkedIn. I think LinkedIn keeps on crashing on me every week. So maybe you can stay with me for a few minutes afterwards so we can just do a test. I would love to do that, by the way. Jeff, you're back.

I think my battery was so low that it couldn't keep up to the draw even when it was plugged in. Let's hope it doesn't happen again. Sorry about that.

Dude, you're good. Sam said it. This is what going live is all about. Shit happens.

Yeah. Nah, that's, that's what makes it so authentic, man. It's just like, you know, you could be like Milli Vanilli and you could, uh, you know, fake your words or you could be singing 'em, right?

So, well, that's fucking good.

I think we appreciate that being a musician, right?

I was gonna say, that's a reference like 40% of our audience will get.

Yeah, it happens.

That's funny.

Right? So, you know, we're just playing the song here. We were, we, we kind of pulled it together. We were, We're testing some things. So this has been really good. I was trying to look at some of the, like, so as a founder in this business, 2018 to now, what would you tell your, what would your, what would you tell your future self in 2018 or what, you know, now what would you tell yourself back in 2018? Things that you've learned along the way. Like what, what are the 3 things that you must, you should have known before you started this?

Boy, good question. You know, I'm, I'm still thinking that, yeah, I would probably tell myself, just keep doing what you're doing. Eventually good things will happen if you keep that fire burning. And I think the other thing is, you know, don't get it. It just, my, my history in sales, in advertising for 35 years, Just taught me to have a thick skin. You know, we don't get added to a certain retailer. It's not going to be the end of the world. Find somebody else that'll think it's a great fit and just keep replenishing and getting velocity in different ways and replenishing your good feelings about what you're doing by finding other avenues.

Right.

That's probably the biggest thing. And just, you know, don't give up. You know, it's, it's so easy to To give up, but this turn, this was a side hustle for me for the first 6 years. And I mean, it just kept growing and growing and growing. And we kind of always considered it to be, you know, something we did on the side that maybe then when I retired, I could continue going, have a retail store, you know, instead of, you know, buying real estate or VRBO or something. I just, I wanted something in retirement that would kind of continually fund and I could hand it off to my kids. Maybe my advertising business was all relationships. It was something that you couldn't hand off to the next generation. It's not like, you know, you've got an insurance agency or something where all these people are set up and they're going to continually— and you can, hey, my oldest son wants to take over my insurance business. My business was not set up that way. And I really kind of felt like I wanted to pass along something tangible.

Right.

And this is the first time I've ever sold anything tangible. When I was in advertising, I was selling creative services. I'm selling a videographer or photographer to shoot an ad campaign or in-store signage. So I had to sell ideas and things that they had shot for other people and get them to visualize what my creative roster could do for them. But actually having something like they can drink and go, I like it and I'm going to go back and buy it.

Yeah.

It's so much different for me and it's so much more enjoyable because, you know, you can just nail something and know that people can go get it time after time after time. That's, it just filled in those blanks for me. It's like, I want something to pass along if I can. And if it, when it's time for me to say, I'm going on easy street, I'm going to retire. And it, when we can't pass along anything, I'm fine with that too. But at least I tried.

Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, if you don't get outta bed and take a swing, nothing'll happen. Right.

Right.

At the end of the day. So, man, I love this. It's funny.

Love it. You know, my kids have helped us out. They've, they were some of my best salespeople when we had our retail store. But I understand, you know, they're in their late 20s, early 30s, and they want to get going on their careers too. And, and so they're doing their own thing and helping me on the side, kind of as a side hustle as Well, when I need it.

I love that. I mean, I think the same way in terms of giving back. Okay. So let's talk about a couple, one more question or a couple more, I guess. So you have this brand, you're in the Midwest. What's next?

Well, what's next is I think we need to make that jump into the bigger retailers now and take that current velocity that we've got regionally and see if we can sustain that nationally.

Okay.

So, uh, yeah, we're trying to gear up towards having enough inventory and our capacity plan in place where we could get into a Target or a Hy-Vee or Coburn's. These are all places that are on my target list of who I'm gonna call on this year.

Okay.

So including Lunds and Byerlys and Kowalskis, I think that's kind of like the medium jump right there that we need to make first. And then maybe consider Target or a nationwide retailer like, you know, Albertsons, Target, some of these bigger places.

So a little bit of inside trading for you. Maybe, you know, this calling them now, if you're looking to get on to like, you might be looking at 2028 with some of these retailers, just to let you know, because of timing. So, but calling them now, you could probably still get into some of the, like even Kroger, our guy, we have, we have 2 VPs of national accounts. He's hitting Kroger right now with some of our brands that use our services. So just, uh, you don't have to wait. And then there's some strong regional players like that. I like the, the play, like Catchwise, Coburn's.

Oh yeah.

You know, Munn's Barleys, Kowalski's. Those are great places to go to right now. And you don't necessarily have to wait, or you can do, you know, get in those sets early. So if you're not doing that, go do that. Your brand belongs there.

Yeah, for sure.

You know, go even hit Cub Foods.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think our packaging is strong. It really stands out on the shelf amongst all of the competitors. Easy to recognize. Our plus sign is, is just easy to pick out. And that leads me to our next thing that, that I think we wanted to do is we've always wanted to dabble in and extend our Switchel into the THC business and make that plus sign green for that version. Yeah.

Let's see what happens. I would say wait till November and see what happens before you dive into that. I would suggest.

I'm glad we were going to do it last year. We were re— I was touring all these places, uh, the suppliers and places. And I'm glad we didn't do it because of what happened. And you know, that along with the alcohol one, you gotta be careful. And especially with small players like us, if we were to invest in that last year and had inventory. that was in jeopardy now that could have killed us, you know? So I really have to be careful with our next steps and not get over the tips of my skis with these crazy ideas. You know, it just, it's gotta be a methodical decision that we know we can support and we can sustain. So that's—

That was the biggest learning for me is I was a corporate guy for, you know, geez, I've been doing this for 39 years. So for 34 of my years, I was a corporate guy, like worked for Coca- Cola, Diageo, Kellogg's, Breakthrough, big budgets and stuff. And then my first gig, I was working with Jackie Berkley. Now I don't know if you know Jackie at Finnegan's.

Yes, we're very well. We were in Finnegan's for a while. Yeah.

Yeah. So she's a dear friend and, and the whole bit. And, uh, but she taught me a lot. That was kind of my first foray into being in like, you know, working for a small business. And she's like, one thing you need to learn is this isn't a corporation. 2 is cash Burn is real. And 3 is we need to generate revenue. So I don't know if that resonates with you. So it resonates with what you just said. You gotta be very careful because one wrong move can infect your entire bottom line.

Right. And it's even more crucial now when I retired from my advertising gig last summer, you know, then I started pulling my salary out of Hobby Farmer.

Yeah.

And that really put a big pinch on our cash flow more than I thought it would. And it was, it was like, okay, now we got to get a few more accounts here to make this work. And, uh, you know, and everyone that we lose has to be replaced with 2 or 3 others until they get up to speed. So it's really important that we are maintaining that.

Have you ever seen the episode? Uh, you ever watched Seinfeld?

Yeah.

You ever see the episode Even Steven?

Which one?

Even Steven.

I can't remember that one.

Google. But he's walking down the road and he loses a $20, keeps on going, goes, ah, there's another $20. It's about like top of the funnel. It's like, just keep on jamming in because there's like, is this the, it just keep, they keep on leaking out, but you just gotta keep on packing 'em in and they keep on going out. So keep on packing 'em in. They keep on going out. Which is what you're describing the whole bit. This has been great. With the last few minutes, I'd love to just go around the circle and ask you first. One is, did we miss anything that you wanted to convey to our audience today that we can convey? And, or anything else that you want to share that we didn't share?

Well, I would just like to remind your audience how important it is to support local Support small businesses. Doing that, you're, you're supporting not only the small business you're buying from, but all of our suppliers, which is a small brewery in Southern Minnesota. It's Sweet Harvest Honey in Cannon Falls. It's our can maker. It's the label maker. It's the designers. It's like, it supports the state of Minnesota and the city of Minneapolis and St. Paul and everybody that we work with. I mean, it's just such a nice little ecosystem and I think people You know, really are more mindful now and they're reading labels, they're reading where things are from. And I think it's super important to keep those small guys alive because the big guys got a lot of money and they can, they can go through the ebb and flow of these fluctuations in our economy and people not buying stuff and tariffs and this and that so much more easily than these The small producers can. And so I just want to remind people how important that is, that you spend your dollars wisely and you keep some of these small players alive. Otherwise, you're going to go back to that gentrification of having Coke, Mountain Dew, Pepsi, and water and coffee. That's it. Because that's the only people that can afford to make stuff are the big companies.

Wow.

Like I have some— well, go ahead, Adam. I have a thought on what you just shared, but Adam, go ahead. What's your thoughts?

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, Jeff, when you dropped out, I said something to Sam and I'll repeat it here because it bears repeating. And that is your, your story or your experience on trying to start Hard Switchel, hitting some unforeseen roadblocks and, you know, realizing, hey, it's not worth putting the rest of my business at jeopardy. Like, I think to your, to the point you just made, right? A lot of brand owners want to try things, but they also don't have that, whether you want to call it wisdom or just sharpness of decision-making to understand, is this working? Is it not? And do I need to stop or do I need to continue? Right? Like a lot of people try new things, you know, they add new flavors or they open a new market and they have no clear line for themselves on, I will make a decision at this point on if I'm going to keep going. And so then it just kind of wanders, you know, their cash flow or their cash burn wanders, their sales just kind of are or aren't right. There's no decision. And I think one of the things I've always really admired you for, the THC thing's another great example is like, Yes, you're willing to try stuff and be innovative and be unique, but you're also going to be very diligent about the core of your business and what it is. And I, I just think that's something more brand owners could take a lesson from.

That is, um, that is amazing. Um, the last thing you said about small businesses supporting small business, um, really resonates with me on so many levels. If I'm a founder and I'm walking into a bar or an account, I'm like, I'm a business right here in Minnesota. You're a business in Minnesota. Why wouldn't you wanna support me?

Yeah.

Because I support you. I eat here. So, um, you can certainly have Coke, Pepsi, Diet Coke, and they all belong here. But remember, the whole community, the whole world, the whole United States is driven by small businesses supporting small businesses. And that really resonates with me. Matter of fact, I'm gonna actually take this episode and drop it in our newsletter today and move you up the line. I'm about I'm about 3, we're about what, 4 months behind Adam, but I'm gonna move you up because of that. And then just, just your brand, Switzel, is so cool, man.

Thank you.

And you definitely, I think, you know, we were, you were thinking Tito's went big in 5 years. They didn't. It took 'em 20. But you've been at this 2018. You deserve to be in Kowalski's, Cub Foods. You deserve to be in Walmart. Uh, your brand definitely is a need. You know exactly your, your pre, your pre, your post, post, your prebiotic. And so it goes well with kombucha. So you deserve to be on the shelf. You deserve to be in liquor stores to, um, what do you call it? Uh, yoga studios.

Yeah.

Which is amazing to me. This has been an amazing conversation. I'd ask both of you to stay on the line because we got to make sure that the upload happens. I want to thank everybody for joining us today. You'll see this stream live on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Substack. We've been having some LinkedIn problems just to be transparent. So if you missed us on LinkedIn today, we'll get the newsletter out so you can, you'll see us soon. Thanks everybody.

Thanks, Sam and Adam. Appreciate the time. Of course.

Thanks for joining us.