Welcome to our live show!

There you go. What's going on today, Adam?

I'm trying— I mean, right now I'm trying to figure out technical difficulties, so hopefully you guys can all hear me okay. But I'm good. I was telling you, I'm closing browsers and stuff. I just got back from Indy. Uh, doing a run there. Shout out to the folks at Circle Beverage, they did a great job. I was there Monday through Wednesday. Also shout out to, uh, Carly Traub, if you folks know her. She now does property management. She's got a few properties that she Airbnbs through, uh, Lazy Sunday Rentals. And, uh, she used to work at Circle, that's how we met, and now she does property management. So we stayed at one of her properties. So, you know, support your friends' small businesses is what I'm getting at.

Oh, that's, uh, a great, great shout out, Adam. So you've been in Indy quite a bit. So you were there for, uh, with the craft beer conference as well, right?

Yeah, yeah. So, and we talked about that a little bit last week, but yeah, I mean, CBC was fun. Um, it was a good time. I mean, I would say there wasn't quite the— I don't know, it's tough. I haven't been to a CBC in several years, and so, um, it's hard to judge the turnout because I was also— the last trade show I was at before that was, uh, Expo West.

Yeah.

And those are clearly— Yeah, I mean, CBC was fun.

Um, double talking. Yeah, sorry about that.

No, you're fine. I was like, is that me? Um, so the last— I mean, the last show I was at before that was Expo West, which is obviously also fun but massive. And so it's kind of a hard, uh, comparison. But no, CBC was cool. Um, had a lot of really good conversations. Again, some shoutouts to give. Um, Omar and the, the Sun King folks were good enough to have me and Ryan Halliman down. Um, so we got to take a tour and see what they're doing, and they're offering some, some co-packing services. And then, gosh, who else do we see? Met up with the DXL folks both times. So if you're looking for a 3PL in the Indianapolis area, uh, DXL— Clint and Bryson and Dustin and Dave and Lady and all the folks over there are fantastic. I know they just had a Another 3PL in that area shut down, um, for reasons I'm not familiar with. I just know that they, they unfortunately had to close. Um, so if you're looking for another 3PL partner, uh, happy to make introductions to, uh, to the DXL folks. But Indy's— I don't know, for me and CPG, Indy's one of those sleeper towns. I literally ran into, uh, if you guys know who Startup CPG is, um, the Slack channel. I was sitting at production this last week in like the conference room with the brand owner I work with. We're tasting product, we're, you know, planning, sending emails, just working. And I look up because the front door to Circle you can see from the conference room, and Daniel Scharf and his partnerships manager are walking in the door. And so I haven't seen Daniel in person in like 2 years. So, you know, I hop up and I'm like, hey buddy. And of course, I mean, I didn't look like this 2 years ago. Right. I was, I was a little more kept. Uh, and so, uh, it took them a minute to recognize me, but they were in town for Sweets and Snacks, the trade show, and they were doing stuff with Circle. And so, um, they invited us down to a happy hour. We met a woman that works at TikTok so I could pick her brain. Like, it was great. Indy's a good spot for CPG.

Oh, wow. Where are you traveling to next?

So, uh, it's funny you ask. Um, Professionally, the next trip will be July and it will be IFT. Um, so again, you— what?

What is IFT?

Oh, you're not familiar? Yeah, yeah. So, um, so IFT stands for like the International Federation or International Society of Food Technologists. I forget what the acronym is, but it's something food technologists. Um, so it's supposed to be, and it's, you know, like most trade shows, it's ebbed and flowed over time and I've heard different feedback. I also haven't been to this show in a few years, but It's supposed to be focused around the flavorists, the chemists. Like, it's a, it's a show for, you know, the true nerds of the CPG world, right, that really do the technical work that none of the rest of us are prepared for. So it's at McCormick Place right there in downtown Chicago. Again, it's a pretty big show. I was going to do the same thing, same thing I did for Expo. And just, I have friends in town, they're doing a baby shower, we were gonna go see them, and then I was gonna let folks know I was in town, maybe grab dinner or whatever. And the Right Group, so Matt Oka and the good folks over there at the Right Group were like, well, hey man, like, we've worked together in the past, you know, if you're cool with the badge having our name on it instead of like Alias, you know, or Apex or anything, like, we might have an extra ticket for you. And I was like, well, okay. You know, I don't want to push, but if you did, that'd be amazing. And sure enough, Matt emailed me about a week ago and said, yeah, here you go, let us, you know, give us this info, we'll fill out your registration for you. So I got another free ticket to a trade show this summer.

Yeah, I'm trying to get on media passes, so I'm gonna have to ride your coattails next year for Expo West. Well, we wanted to talk a little bit this morning about just Drink Up in general and kind of our journey and where we've been. So we didn't, we didn't promote it purposely. Uh, this week, and, uh, we try to show up here every Saturday at 9:30 and with an occasional happy hour, right?

Right.

That we'll weave in for folks. And it's certainly taken a life of its own the last couple of years.

Well, so I wanted to ask you, is this the— I assume the answer is yes, but I want to, I want to hear you say it and tell the story because I think that's cool. I assume this is the first time in the 3 years or so you've been doing this that you're booked out like 3 months in advance.

Yeah, it's, uh, it's really crazy. We want to bring people on the site, and this— obviously we're not being braggarts here when we talk about, about that, but we certainly have, uh, we're through September in terms of people coming on the podcast, and we'll certainly bring in like a Wednesday or Thursday, um, happy hour, you know, to get folks on here, because everybody that's come on, we really appreciate because you've brought a lot of value.

Totally.

to our community, and that's why we're doing it, uh, for sure. So somehow, uh, all of you out there that do follow us, either through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, you know, uh, LinkedIn, or wherever it may be, we want to thank you, and we hope that we are bringing you value. Uh, but the journey's been, you know, kind of, kind of wild, uh, quite frankly, for me. The story is, you know, I started with like a 6-minute You know, um, audio, you know, with, uh, Drink Up. Actually, I think the kind of the, the introduction to Drink Up, we need to change that and update it with you and I on it.

That's fair.

Where it was, you know, approaching on 3 years, believe it or not, and where it is today is totally different.

Sure.

We are getting ready to go into— I know you and I are exploring maybe getting a professional producer Uh, with us as we go forward, and we're exploring that as an opportunity. But from your standpoint, Adam, you obviously— you started on early on with me, then you exited for a while, and then you came back. And I'm so glad to have you back, you know, as a co-host and partner on this. But what's your— what's your take on kind of where we're sitting today and maybe where you think we should take this thing? We want to hear from everybody out there, by the way. Where do you think What do you want to hear from us?

Oh gosh, that's A, thank you, that's very kind of you. Uh, B, thank you for, for, you know, coming and finding me again, right? Um, so for those of you who don't know, uh, Sam and I first met, uh, which by the way, good morning, uh, Hunzala, I hope I said that right, Peter, Ryan, uh, on LinkedIn. Howdy ho, neighbors. Um, uh, yeah, for those of you who don't know, uh, You know, way back when, about 3 years ago when I was still at the lab, uh, Sam was kind enough to reach out on LinkedIn and introduce himself. We didn't know each other at the time, and, you know, just told me what he was doing, and it sounded super fun. And, and so I started doing it. And then of course, you know, life happened and I changed roles and I was getting busy and I was traveling more, and I just said, hey man, you know, I don't want to half-ass this with you. I want to be able to give you, you know, as much focus as it deserves. And so He was kind enough to let me, uh, sort of have a false start there. And then fast forward, I don't know, a year and a half, 2 years, and, uh, the, the co-host he had, uh, needed some time back. And so Sam reached out again and invited me back, and it's been, it's been fantastic and fun, right? It's been cool to meet people and, and just all the good things. So, um, that's a little backstory for those of you who don't know. As far as Yeah, man, as far as where it's at and where it's going, I mean, I think it's cool to be just— I mean, you just said it, right? Like, to be— to have a guest through September, like, people that want to be on the show. I know people have reached out to you about like, hey, can I come on? Um, people reached out to me, which is a whole list that we need to get into. I mean, the entire Apex team, local folks here in Minnesota, the everybody I just mentioned on the shoutouts, you know, if, if and when they're willing, the The Circle team and the DXL team and the, you know, uh, October Duffy, who's a longtime friend of the industry who works in rigid packaging, and, you know, folks we met at the trade show. I mean, the list just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

Well, you know, you're in control. Book them, man. Like, get them on, Adam.

I know, it's— I need— well, so that's what, that's what I need to look at my calendar and actually figure out what our first available date is. Right. Um, because for the longest time it was the first available date was next week, right? And now the first available date is— Right. You know, now the first available date's the fall. Um, which is amazing. But no, man, I, uh, I think for you and me, one of the things that I think you've done a really good job of, and, and I have been fortunate enough to get involved with and help carry forward with you, is not putting up any, uh, guardrails or like rules on who you're going to talk to. It's truly just, you know, hey, if you've got, you know, cool shit to say or a cool story to share, like, come on, you know.

It's funny you said that. I talked to Dr. Ebro. Okay, so she's coming on. I think we picked the 19th of July. We had a spot there. I remember that then. But anyway, she has really nothing to do with our industry, but she does. Meaning that she's an immunologist by trade. She has skincare products. She's like, well, why would I ever have her on Drink Up? And I explained to her that we love to bring founders on this show and have founders, you know, tell their story. And we always ask the same question. So everybody comes on, we're gonna ask you this question: what is the difference between success and failure?

Right?

And I asked her that question, and I said, people need to hear that. I need to hear that. I'm an entrepreneur for 2 years. Adam's New to this. And hello, Alicia. Alicia says, by the way, authenticity breeds your popularity. Well, thank you, you're so kind. We all walk away with tangible insights. It's what attracts, uh, your following. Morning, guys. Hello, Alicia. I'm calling you out. Hey, I sent over that scope of work to you, by the way, so please take a look at that this morning, uh, making sure to just check the email and let me know, uh, what you think. That's how we roll here in the world. So, but yeah, it's just interesting. We just show up here, right? There's no, there's no agenda, right? There's no—

Yeah, I mean, there's no— it's funny, even the Dr. Ebru piece, I think, is a good example of like— so I was talking to a teacher friend yesterday, and I'll use this as a correlation because I think, I think For, for good reason, and, and I mean this in the most positive and complimentary way, but you've done something similar, Sam. So I was talking to this teacher friend and, uh, she reached out and, uh, and she said, hey, you know, I've got some students who, um, we do like a marketing, um, class. We do like a 3-week marketing class in, in chunks throughout the year, and I'm trying to teach them various things about, you know, marketing and so on in the world. And I was like, okay, where's this going? And she goes, uh, you know, once we did— one time we did like fragrances because the kids were walking into class with fragrances. And, and then I started noticing, you know, they're walking in with Prime and energy drinks and stuff like that. And so I thought, well, we'll do a marketing unit around beverage. And I'm like, okay, now I'm putting two and two together, right? And, uh, so she asked, she's like, well, would you be willing to just let me pick your brain on kind of how the beverage industry works? And I know you're not a marketer, but you might know some, and maybe you can make an introduction. I was like, oh my God, absolutely, that sounds so fucking fun, for sure, right? Because these are all like 17, 18-year-old kids. But we're talking to her, and I said, well, so what are your other classes? Like, you do marketing, but what are the other ones? And she was like, well, I do one on finance, and I do one on just like business and stuff. And I said, okay. And I said, where do you come up with— you told me how you come up with the, the marketing topic. You know, you just look at what the kids are into and you try and build something around that. I said, how do you do it for the other ones? She goes, well, for the financial one, she's like, I'm separated from, from my last partner, and, you know, we had a couple kids, and so now we have to figure out who's going to cover their insurance and how we're financially going to split the baby on covering the costs of our children's insurance. She's like, we co-parent, we have a good relationship, but just doing the math on all that is very Fuzzy, right? And I'm going, okay, how's this tying into the students? And she's like, personally, I needed to learn more about like healthcare and the way it works and the bills and the premiums and all that. I go, okay. She goes, so I just had the kids do a unit with me on healthcare. I'm like, you, you literally wrote a lesson plan so that you could learn shit too? And she goes, uh-huh.

Oh, I know where you're going with this because every week we come on Drink Up, we learn something, right?

Yes.

Literally, and Adam's the thinker here, right? And, uh, so you're thinking, oh my gosh, I didn't think I could use this for this application to do that. And we're hoping that all of you— and we want to hear from you again. The reason we're doing this this morning is we really want real-world feedback from everybody. Like, what would you want to see from us as we go forward? What type of questions should we ask, um, you know, our guests on this show? What type of guests should we go Uh, pursue on the show. Um, you want to read some of the comments? Uh, Adam, I'll let you do it. Peter seems to be active out there this morning. Oh, sure.

No, Peter and Alicia are, uh, are on it this morning. It's all— it's very complimentary, which thank you all, first of all. Uh, Peter has said that we are prompt and on time and polite, which again, uh, thank you. But I find hilarious because my family tells my wife and I that we live on Smith time because we just kind of show up when we show up. So that's very nice. Um, also said that we engage and bring people on who are not directly connected. I find the most interesting discussions happen between people who meet organically, uh, from vastly different professions and backgrounds. Couldn't agree more. Um, Dinner for Five on HBO, uh, it's a show we'll have to check out. But yeah, I mean, that's the— so I mean, maybe that's the ask to the group this morning, right? Whether it's right now, if you want to hop on, if you want to comment, if you want to shoot us an email.

Most of you have our contact info, but like Yeah, some, some of them can hop on. Hey, Peter, you're out there active this morning. Just come on in and chat with us. We always love it. We love the Peter Poppins, by the way. You know, so that rhymes, Peter.

You're gonna love it.

I'm enticing right now. The Peter Poppins. Are you gonna pop in, Peter, or not? I interrupted you.

Oh no, that's amazing. Um, yeah, I mean, I think about like, um, uh, gosh, I'm blanking on his name. Um, Pat, um, I can't remember his last name. There's a, there's a gentleman I met, um, there's a gentleman I met through a local friend here, and he's, uh, he's a mechanical engineer, right?

Yeah.

And he and I'll meet up once a month virtually. We've met for beers, coffee, whatever before. Um, but he and I have a fascinating— I mean, here, I'll put the link in the, uh, in the LinkedIn chat, Pete. Uh, he and I will have fascinating conversations purely because like he works in, um, almost like injection molding for medical devices, right?

Yeah.

But we have a shitload of fun just bouncing ideas off one another of like, well, okay, here's how we'd approach that in beverage. Or like the other day he made a post on LinkedIn about like, hey, you know, always make sure you do a prototype of your product when you're in the engineering field. And I was like, oh, well, we call it piloting, but it's the same shit. Yeah, man, absolutely. Right.

Yeah.

So, so yeah, I mean, I think the question of the group is like, who are we? Who do we not know? Because they maybe don't sit in CPG or don't sit close enough to CPG, but are doing cool shit. Right.

Well, yeah, it's like Roger Lee, right? I would never have thought to talk to an M&A attorney out of Los Angeles, right? Or Marshall, an asset-based manager Or even, you know, Andy Poe, who's, uh, Tastemakers. There we go, Peter, pop in! Yes, I love it.

I keep showing up, I'm sorry. And you're like, it's like inviting in a vampire, won't go away.

So Peter, you're here, and, uh, I don't mean to bombard you right away, but you mentioned there's an Axl Rose story.

Oh yeah, all right, for anybody, uh, faint of heart or You know, uh, you know, I don't know. Yes, there is an Axl Rose story. You want to hear it? I'm assuming you do.

I do.

Okay, so there's a lot of stories. A lot of times people are like, dude, you're full of shit. And I'm like, I'm actually not. Um, when I'm full of shit, you won't know it, but I will let you know. Brian May never showed up my house and asked for, you know, A tablespoon of nutritional yeast. Several people that that has happened. No, the Axl Rose story is true. So when I lived in LA because I was going to make it in sort of a pseudo pre-grunge rock and roll, not quite glammy metal band, we were just children and we had no business there. Anyways, we were out at at a place called, I think it was the Seventh Veil. It was a gentleman's club, if you will, as boys at that point did. This was probably 1990. Anyway, I headed on, I shuffled off after multiple beers into the bathroom, and who do I run into? I run into Axl Rose, who's shockingly shorter than one would imagine.

Wow.

And this is like, you know, 1990.

He's at the height of his powers.

Yeah, all of his magical power.

Yes.

Uh, he said to me, and I won't do an impression because I can't, but he did say, um, what'd he say? He said, you, you got like a— you got a pipe or anything? And I was like, yeah. So when I squeeze into the, the stall together, like, I'm This close, right? And I, I'm like, I never react to people no matter who they are that way.

Sure.

But I'm like, yeah, whatever. I'm not even gonna say anything. I'm gonna let it happen, let it be. And yeah, he and I fire up this bowl. He's got the pot and, uh, we fire up a bowl and we're smoking weed in the men's room. And all of a sudden the door blows open, stall door blows open, huge guy comes in and is like, you two, He goes, oh, Axl, sorry, you start. Grabs me, physically grabs me, and drags me out the bathroom, out the door, and tosses me into the lot. And, uh, he's like, don't come back. And I'm like, motherfucker, I didn't even do anything.

Well, the, the moral of the story is it's kind of like, drink up, you can meet the future Axl Roses here. And you've learned a valuable lesson, is make sure if you're gonna, you know, share something with someone, make sure they don't kick you out. But, uh, yeah, well, uh, I mean, yeah, that, that's what happened.

I was mentioning before, I love when you guys— and, and I, I'm a big fan of this, I haven't done enough of it recently— is, you know, bringing on people together that don't, don't, uh, necessarily obviously have a connection to one another.

Yeah, yeah.

because it's really— so there was this show back on HBO, and I think it was like the late '90s, early 2000s. It was called Dinner for Five. It was directed and created and hosted by Jon Favreau, the actor, director, Marvel, Swingers, all that stuff.

Sure.

And he used to get together in the back room of an LA restaurant, private room, and he would have like 5 celebrities come to dinner and they'd film it from, you know, multiple cameras, multiple angles. But it would be like a mix. And this is what I loved. It was like you'd have like Sophia Loren, Derek Jeter, Marilyn Manson, and like, you know, Danny Glover and him all sitting at a table.

Sure.

Having dinner.

And drinks and just talking. And he would drop like a topic, like, let's talk about this, what do you think? And they'd be like, well, and they'd start. And these people would talk across the table and the whole thing would go while dinner and wine and drinks are served, cigars are smoked, dessert is had, and the show was over. It was fabulous.

Right.

Yeah, I mean, it makes me crave that sitting down with people from different places.

So perhaps we should, uh, you know, I love it when you pop in, by the way, and you're always welcome to come, and please, we really appreciate it. Um, but maybe perhaps, like, you know, Alicia is saying, mention some of our partners, uh, Tucker Mauch, Art Danner. Both would be, um, what she's saying there, both would be, uh, would bring heart and soul, uh, to this. It'd be interesting to have, like, almost like, you know, 5 people here occasionally from totally different industries or whatever, and then just get the perspective, right, Peter? Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, but I mean, even at the point where you would— you could even be talking about, um, you know, things that are, are either loosely related, yeah, to the industry, but also just talking about Things that, that have nothing to do with it. I, I think I find, at least I know on our show, when we do talk business, we talk this, we talk journey, we talk experience, and then we just talk about human things, weird human shit.

Right.

And, um, it's a fun way to get to know people and to have other people crosstalk and ask each other questions where, you know, I think my favorite is when I get to sit back and just listen to the others.

Yeah, well, Jeff doesn't let you get a word in, so I'm picking on him because he doesn't say a word.

The constant steamroll battle to see who can disrupt, interrupt.

And yeah, it's like, uh, at least it says like brands and happy hours, uh, tastings, community interacting, uh, bring on the fun. So maybe perhaps we can go out in the wild, Adam. I mean, we're here in Minnesota. Yeah, maybe we We show up at Earl Giles. Actually, Anne's in town this weekend. I'm going up there at noon today. You want to meet us for lunch?

If I didn't already have something going on, but yes. I'll come.

What time?

Noon in Minneapolis.

Uh, so I got about an hour to get there.

Yeah, just get on a flight and come on.

Right.

Yeah. One of our partners that Adam and I work with, uh, And Jody will be in town. There's a big art fair, I guess, up there.

Art of World.

Yeah. So according to Alicia, maybe we go out in the wild and we do things like that, you know, maybe do some more interacting with folks. What do you think, Peter, on that piece?

I think that's great, man. I think you should do that. We have a group of friends. I'm actually wearing their hat, 36 Creative. They're another agency in our area and they're fabulous. They're wonderful people. They're so damn—

I'm still waiting for my BrandArctica hat, by the way.

I know. It's a limited supply. Somebody else asked for one the other day, and I jokingly said, oh, it's like we sell them for $7,000. We just have to sell a couple.

I interrupted you. Sorry.

I was like, you know what, they're sweet hats, we ought to make them. But these guys have an agency-side event here locally where once a month usually, um, everybody that's part of this group comes to a different agency, uh, or a locale venue near the agencies, and we all gather together and just talk. And frankly, there's very little agency talk. It's just getting to know people in your industry, but talking about life and kids and, you know, challenges. And, you know, sometimes we get into finance, sometimes we get into contract discussions, which is really interesting because we're not competing. We're all friends and we're—

Right.

Plenty of it. there for us. And in fact, we've gotten jobs recently from other agencies who go, that's not really our wheelhouse, or, you know, they don't— we can't do the project they need for the budget they have, maybe you guys can.

Right.

And, you know, we do the same thing. We say— I do it all the time— I say, we can't do that project for this budget, or that project is way beyond our resource capability. Let's send it over to these guys because I know they'll treat you Right. And they're capable and they're great.

Yeah, I think that's happening here in a lot of ways. We'll talk to someone and then Adam will go away, or myself, and we'll do something with them as a conversation. I mean, I don't even know what happened with the Bottle Keepers guy. How did that work out, Adam, with Adam Kalanine?

Oh, I'm still talking to him. Yeah, I had to think about who the name behind that brand was, but yeah, I still talk to Adam. I'm I actually signed up for, um, Pentane. I haven't had a chance. I was digging into it real good for like 3, 4 days, and then I had to travel, and, uh, so I've been out of it. But, um, yeah, that's a, that's a tool I intend to play around with a little bit more. Um, do you, um— I also want to shout out to, um, a mutual friend of ours named Tiffany Putland.

Yes.

Who emailed and said, you know, we should all get together for a coffee. So Maybe that's how we eventually get our media pass to these trade shows is we do Drink Up Live once a year at some, you know, trade show until people want to, you know, pay to come see us, right?

Yeah, 100%. That'd be a really good idea. I guess we lost Peter. Hopefully Peter comes back, but, uh, absolutely met Tiffany the other day. That's a great example is we talked about her getting on the show. We talked about what her services are. She's like, well, I play primarily with, uh, Are you leaving, Peter?

Yeah, I gotta go. Um, I gotta— my daughter is asking me if, uh, she can go over a friend's house or if the friend—

all right, listen, it's good to see you. Thank you so much.

Get yourself a beverage founder, get yourself a person who runs the printing press for labels, not necessarily theirs, get a delivery truck driver, and get a store owner all together to talk about your category. And I would be fascinated to hear what each one of them is faced with on a daily and how they handle it.

Okay.

And I would guess that even a designer thrown into that mix, that there's parts along the journey of getting something produced and out to market that each one of those people could share that's relevant. And I bet you most of those people wouldn't even realize that the other person has this challenge.

That's interesting, getting, getting every bucket in the supply chain together at a table. That's an interesting idea.

Like, not like part of each other's bubble. Yeah, yeah, yeah, different bubbles. Yeah, you know, and go, how does this work for you? I mean, I think it would be, yeah, very interesting and an endless infinite supply of folks.

Sure.

Can we bring you on as a marketer?

Sure, sure, I'll do that.

Okay, you know, all right, so you're in.

I'll just jam my way into the room. All right, I'm gonna go, guys. I gotta take care of this, uh, scheduling sitch over here. I just said situation with shortness of breathing sitch. I'll talk to you guys later.

You're good, brother. Later.

Oh yeah, so we got some things coming across while we're talking too. So Alicia, I will watch it. I'm assuming the show, and then I saw the Tucker comment, and she says Ryan says great idea. So I don't know. I think they're a little bit behind in terms of we're kind of live, and it's kind of delayed. But I believe Ryan, you're agreeing with with maybe bringing some folks on and having that discussion. And Adam, in your world, we probably between you and I, we can. fine at that and meet that challenge, I believe.

Yeah, I mean, you know, my brain, you know, you've heard me tell this story, Sam, I know you have, as has Ryan and some of the folks in the thread. But like, a common— what am I trying to say— uh, thought exercise, I guess, I'll give brand owners when they'll be, you know, lamenting to me about, uh, Oh, well, the co-packer should do this, or the co— the 3PL should do that, or, you know, they just— which is fine. I mean, they're the brand owner, they have their own perspective, and they should.

Yeah.

Um, but when those comments start getting made, I go, I go, look, here's the deal. You as the brand owner have to be thinking about how to make life easy for the person whose job it is to take your delivery, whether that's raw materials or finished goods or whatever, off the truck and put it in storage and move it around. And they're like, what do you mean? Like, that's easy, that's simple. I'm like, this person works 8 to 10 hours a day, they're lifting heavy shit all day, right? Sometimes it's not properly labeled, sometimes it's not properly packaged. Like, you make that person's life easy, Mm-hmm. and the person who owns that company, who sets their schedule, who sets the pricing based on their labor, will make your life easy, right? And they— and it comes from— I mean, I grew up working in a grocery warehouse in southern Iowa. Shout out to Hy-Vee. Uh, but like, that's, that's the, the thought process I try to encourage brand owners to think about, because nobody considers like, oh, my formula uses 600 pounds of this. Well, okay, that's, you know, 12 50-pound bags that somebody's gotta huck around, right?

Yeah.

Do what you can to make that easy for them, and your life as the brand owner will be infinitely better. So, you know, to Peter's point of like Can we get, you know, I'd be really curious to know if we could get like one of our co-packer or 3PL buddies to let one of their floor workers take an hour on a Saturday, you know, paid, right, to come on and talk to us and tell us about their day-to-day experience in, in a room with other people from the sales and marketing world, you and me, the formulator side, you know what I mean?

Well, I know you're talking to Earl Giles down there, maybe, or Giles. We could certainly talk to those folks to see if there's any interest to get one of their workers in and maybe even them to join us from their perspective. And then we certainly can find— I can think of several brand owners. Alicia could probably give some ideas there too in terms of who we could bring on.

Do you think Earl Giles would let us use that room upstairs as our roundtable room for recording?

100%. Yeah. And then Anne would produce it. I mean, honestly, Anne and Jody would be our producers because they are our producers. So it would be great. I guess I shouldn't say that. I'll have to ask her today. Sorry, Anne, if you're watching this, I didn't commit you. We'll get a contract out and everything else. But, uh, but, uh, certainly, uh, we're not in the Screen Actors Guild, so we're pretty inexpensive.

Oh, fantastic. No, I mean, that could be even here in the cities, right? Like I mean, we've already mentioned a few of them, but Alicia, Tiffany, Ryan Bachman, got the FoodOps guys, Johnny and Asa, the AURI team, Jason Robinson. I mean, there's so many people that, yeah, I think it could be—

Ryan just sent me a note. We probably need to grab lunch with him again. I got some like note about, hey, I want to stay in touch with my network kind of note. I don't know if it came from him or—

Bachman?

Yeah, yeah, he just reached out. We should definitely grab some time with him, but he would be great to have. And we just take, uh, if there's people in town here, because we certainly— you and I both work with people in town— even bring a couple people, uh, from the supplier standpoint to the table, literally to the table, and then just somehow figure out how we, uh, set that up and film it. Because we use Riverside TM today and it's really easy, right? So we can be anywhere in the world and it downloads in 4K. So we just have to figure out the mechanics of that.

Totally.

What that, what that would look like. Or we just do a virtual table At this point, um, Ryan says something like, or 90 hours a week. I'm not sure what he meant.

I'm assuming he means, uh, like for those warehouse workers, because Ryan's also been that guy himself or been around them. Like, okay, when you're, when you're, you know, I mean, speaking from the lab, it wasn't 90. It wasn't usually 90. I won't say there wasn't a couple here and there, but you know, when you're the, the boots on the ground at a facility, whether, whether it's a 100-person team or a 2-person team, I mean 60, 70, 80, 90 hours a week is not uncommon. And like, that's the person I want to talk to, like from an ops perspective especially. Like, yeah, that's the person, like, I want to think through how do I make their day easier based on how I'm formulating, which is a weird like gap to try and bridge. But I think if you think about it that way, you get some really creative answers. Um, another, uh, another person, and I know, I think he said he's in town on the 28th. Oh, Peter, you're good, man. It was good to have you on. Marius, we should have Marius back on because he'll be in town.

You know, with that, we need to pick a date actually and let people know about that. Is Anne and Jody going to be in town or is he just meeting with Nick? Is it Nick and Kevin or?

I know he's for sure meeting with Nick and Kevin. I don't know if Anne and Jody are going to be in town. I haven't heard. I haven't heard from them as much in the email threads. But so for those of you who are listening, Marius at— I'm gonna butcher the name— Verdecours. It's French, so, you know, my English accent.

Distiller Verdecours.

There we go. He is a guest that we had on a while ago who has a really cool spirit brand. I've got the bottle here still. Hang on.

Did you drink it all? You probably did.

No, no, no, I'm not that rude. I want you to try some still. So he's got this 108 product, uh, it's got this beautiful pea flower purple color to it. Um, we had him on and we're talking to him about, you know, just his brand and how he wants to grow it and stuff. And then, um, through some mutual connections of, of Sam and I's, um, mostly Sam's but starting to be mine as well, uh, we were able to get him connected to a local distillery here and he's flying over to meet with them, which is super exciting. As you know, Tattersall left and Dash Fire is looking at expanding into other states. And so, yeah, just the whole distillery, co-packing, craft spirits market. I mean, it's fascinating the world over, but here in Minnesota, there's some really interesting shit going on.

Yeah, that product's really interesting too. Uh, I mean, we won't talk about it, but what he's going to do with that's really interesting.

Yeah.

Um, and, uh, exactly, we should definitely have kind of documented his journey. But we'd love— again, we'll probably drop a Vidlo. We had the Vidlo— you weren't on it, but I had the Vidlo founder on. Vidlo, uh, China, um, uh, Morgan. Uh, China, hello to you. But she actually founded an app, and within the app, I put it out there, no one's taking the bait, but 2 people. So Russ and, uh, Greg, uh, Russ Abenstein and, uh, uh, uh, Greg, uh, Needham actually did a nice video. But we, we're gonna, we're gonna do, uh, a VidLo question.

Yeah.

Everybody, and we're gonna ask the question. And if you're watching this, I'm probably gonna try to screen it or put it on the screen. I'm gonna have to figure out how, but just click in and do a video back to us. What do you want to hear from us at Drink Up? If you have someone you want to like nominate or you want to come on yourself, You know, we really want to. We want to talk to you, and we just want to share it with our community. Doesn't cost you anything else either, by the way. Someone asked me this. He goes, "He goes, 'Can we get the particulars out of the way?

What do you charge?' I'm like, 'I don't charge anything. It's free.' Yeah.

It's like, like we should be paying you to come on for your knowledge. Right, right. Quite frankly, then another person—it was actually yesterday—Dr. Ebro. She's like, "Well." some of these podcasts have a scientific way of doing things. There's, there's no science to what we do. It's just we show up live, raw, and real and authentic. That's why we're doing it. There's— look, you know, everybody uses AI. Heck, I have AI and ChatGPT and all that. But the reason we're doing what we're doing— Adam, chime in— but we just want to show up as us and bring people as you to talk to us. So we're going to pose a question through Vidlo. So my ask is, Is please answer the question. Don't be shy.

Yeah, I, uh, it's funny you, you call that out again. I was talking to my wife the other day, and I'll make this quick, but years and years ago when I was, uh, when I was a freshman in college, I'd started off as a computer science major, and I realized that that was very quickly not going to be my career because I couldn't think in, in Java code or, you know, what Python these days and all that kind of stuff. So I was talking to some friends one day and they said, well, what do you like doing? And I'll never forget, I said, I'm pretty good at numbers and I just like telling stories. And she, you know, I like hearing stories, I like telling stories, I like sitting around talking shit. And she goes, you should be a public relations major. And I went, okay. And then I got a degree in PR. haven't used it a day in my life. Well, you're using it right now. Precisely, right? That's about as much use as it's gotten. It's in my mom's basement somewhere. Um, but I was, I was talking to, to my wife the other day, and, and I had to laugh because I was like, it took a minute, but I got here. I crunch numbers and tell stories all day. Like, that's my job. It's super fun.

Yeah, we had to do— we had to bring a couple— we do— we got to do a technical, uh, Drink Up, uh, broadcast Would everybody like to hear— no, all seriousness.

Yeah.

Another question. Would everybody like to hear, you know, Adam go through the technical aspects of— and I'm going to butcher this again— but formulation? Like, what is the process? Like, like, I'm part of a brand called Viventus. Hey, Wayne and the Wendy team, if you happen to capture this, uh, episode. But we talk about like the efficacy— efficacy, is that the right word?

Efficacy.

Yeah. And then also we talk about a lot of the products out there has pixie dust in They just basically put a drop in and we're trying—

Oh, a little label dressing. Yeah.

Label dressing. So we're trying to develop a product, right, that actually is actually good for you. That's actually— there's some actual benefits. Now there's a lot of— you have to be careful, I guess, because of the FDA and all the other stuff. But, uh, literally we have Bob Murray from the Gatorade Institute. He founded the Gatorade Institute on the team.

Cool.

Or Greg Via. And I need to introduce you to all these guys, but Greg Via ran the Gillette Worldwide Sports Group. Sure. And Wayne opened up 67 countries. I probably digress, but we probably should have the entire Wendy team on here and say, okay, what are you guys doing? Like, what does this stand for, the whole bit? But from a tech standpoint, I think we got to do something. What do you think, Adam? You want to do like an episode around that?

I'd love to, man. I mean, again, going back to the teacher I spoke to yesterday, I was, you know, because I asked, I was like, I don't want to overwhelm the kids, but if you want me to go down the ops rabbit hole, I know it's a marketing class, but, you know, cost of goods and cash schedule and production planning and a little bit of formulations. You know, I, I speak formula. I don't do it so much, but I can speak it fairly well. Um, but yeah, I mean, I love that shit. That's, that's the, that's the actual work of my day as opposed to just running my mouth.

Uh, it was called the lab back in the day because I went and I first met you up at the lab and you were giving me the lab tour and stuff and it was beyond my capabilities. But I was, you know, as I was trying to follow, you were even talking about like, you know, if you put certain things in a can, it could actually strip the inside of the can. I think you were talking about that. And there's a whole science behind all of this. Speaking of, you know, being at the table, the table of 5, you're one of those 5 people at the table to talk about, you know, all the things you got to think about when you're coming out with a brand, right?

Sure.

You, everybody out there, you want to hear something like that?

From us.

I would be, I would be honored. Yeah, no, super fun. Um, I mean, I think that's the, the— as we talk about, you know, brainstorming live opportunities, right? Like, yeah, you know, and I'll flip it back. Well, so I'll use me as an example and then I'll flip it back to you, Sam. So like, you know, obviously I'm still close with the folks at the lab, so if there was ever a day and we could figure out a good way to capture the video that was smooth and, and, you know, Yeah. Was a good watch, right? Um, it'd be super fun to go tour the lab and show folks around and give some insights. But then I also think about, like, from your perspective, like, when you go— like, when you put your, your sales and distribution hat on, 2 things. When you go walk a store, right? So, you know, it'd be fun to do one of these one morning where you and I go get a coffee and we go walk a store and you go, oh, they're doing this here and this is how that works. And you kind of point it out and you show the little, you know, kind of Inside baseball of how everything's breaking down, both at the store level or if you go, you know, walk like a distributor's warehouse, right? Like, selfishly, for me, that'd be super fucking fun, right?

Oh, I love, I love that idea. Uh, it's fine. I just did a post yesterday about the back end of the business. I don't know if you called it, um, but really just talking about the back. And we always talk about the front end, but you know, what's happening in the back end of the business Can the distributor actually, actually deliver a product on time, deliver the right product at the right price, get it in the right store? Sure. Back into the business. That could be a whole episode we could do here on Drink Up, and I think it would offer a lot of value. What do y'all out there think?

Oh, you know, I mean, now I'm, now I'm, uh, now I'm wondering if we don't just do— I mean, kind of like what Peter was saying with the, the table of, of You know, the cast and crew from all these various buckets. I think we should do that, and I think it'd be super fun. I think doing it like Earl Jowls would be great, but we can almost do like a, like a day in the life ride-along and make it like a mini-series. So like each week, you know, we start with like Ryan, um, Ryan Bachman here in town. His— the bottom floor of his house is a lab, right? So we could start there.

Hello, Ryan, we're calling you out. We're coming over.

Right, we're coming over, man. Uh, but we could start there with the first week, do an hour there, show people what that looks like, and then, okay, well, what's next? Well, next is packaging. And so we could go to a local, you know, packaging— I mean, there's a million packaging groups here in town, or we could go to the lab or wherever, like, and just do, you know, almost a mini-series on like the journey, if you will, right? Like, it could be super fun. Yeah.

Yeah, I think we'll probably have to do some, uh, you know, a couple more additions to maybe afternoons or happy hour or hook up But I, I believe that's where we need to evolve to. Yeah, interesting enough, I've been kind of joking about this, but I am going to ask Anne about it, you know, uh, today.

Oh, anecdotally?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna say, hey, we're thinking about going to the next evolution of our, um, what Drink Up is and what we do, and we want to hear from you again, you know, in the comments, or, you know, we post it again, or do a VidLo, please. We're going to put the VidLo thing Like, what would you like to see? This is Adam and I, you know, brainstorming this morning. Um, you know, Ryan, if you're out there still, love to hear from you, or, or, um, uh, uh, the pool, and, or, um, Alicia. But at the end of the day, uh, we just want to bring value to you and on this medium. And then they— but I love the idea of being out in the wild, and hopefully Ryan will accept us. We're just going to show up, and, uh, we'll show up at Earl Giles too, and we're just gonna Giles, and we're just gonna sit at the table and like, what are you guys doing? Well, you know, we own the place.

Maybe that's our— maybe that's our niche, is we just find people that we know well enough that they're not going to kick us out when we just show up unannounced. And we did— that's how we just— we just burst in, hey, we're filming.

Well, at the end of the day, it's funny, Alicia and I always talk about this. So we have a national Feet on the Street program, as you know, Adam. Yeah, we can put people, uh, to work is one of our whys, and is to do right by brands. But the reality is we look for people that can go out in the wild and just do that, show up and talk to a customer, because it's a people business. Too long we've been sitting behind our computers in this virtual space, and you got to go out to where the people are. So I think that would be a great evolution. We just got to figure out from a technological standpoint how we pull that off. Right?

Right.

I'm assuming there's probably some mobile stuff we can take along with us. Which I'm willing to make the investment in for us to do that for sure. We tried to do it. I did it live with my friend Jesse Osh. Yes, Thursday Thursdays. Hello, Jesse. If you catch this, maybe you won't hold— watch everything from A to Z. But anyway, we did a live thing with a restaurant down in a bar down in Texas.

Mm-hmm.

And it was— we had a lot of technical difficulties. One is we drank too much tequila. That was the first major technical difficulty. After about 3 shots, it started going south. But, uh, we were— she had all the cameras set up and she was ready to go. And she, you know, she lives between Dallas and Orlando, and it was very hard to execute. So I just want to think through the mechanics together and what that could be.

Sure. No, I mean, I, I'd be really curious to, uh— and it's, it's Fortuitous that you're, uh, that you're meeting with Anne today. But yeah, I mean, I'd be curious to know, because same thing, right? Like, if there's a— this is gonna make me sound so out of touch— but if there's a, you know, like shoulder camera type situation that needs to happen, I don't know what, you know, where technology has come in terms of being able to film effectively on something that's, you know, this big.

Uh, we did it on— we did it on our iPhones. And, um, so you can do it on your iPhones in terms of the filming, and then you just— you can have external mics, but there has to be a technology. And maybe we're giving someone an idea here. If there's a founder out there that has this technology, come on and tell us about it. Right. You want to read what Ryan had to say here from the Apex Group 360?

Yeah, yeah, I know. So Ryan said, uh, the connection is awesome, bring together people that cross over a segment. I've done it before, and some of the best conversations conversations occur when they don't normally work together. Couldn't agree more. Yeah, I mean, yeah, the, uh, I mean, Ryan and I met, which, you know, he's been on the show, but, but, you know, he and I have what, one project that, that, you know, contracted that we're working on together now. We've got, fuck, 15 irons in the fire. I'm making up a number, but it's several.

Wonderful.

Uh, yeah, I mean, it's great, but I mean, we met 5 months ago, 6 months ago through a mutual friend, Ian Goldsmith. Like, and I hadn't talked to Ian. He and I both got new jobs. I mean, don't get me wrong, we see each other, we're friendly, I love the guy, but I haven't probably talked to Ian in a few months. And I get laid off and, and, uh, I think he just reached out and was like, hey, I got somebody I should introduce you to. I think you guys would hit it off. Okay. And here we are, right? Um, so yeah, it's a— Ryan, at least.

Yeah, that's the Apex 360 group and what we do at Bev Assets. But Apex 360 is he has a system of different people within his, his group that he can connect different people to. And we love being part of it at Bev Assets. So Bev Assets is like the sales and distribution part of that group, right? So when you bring a brand in, he can actually— and we're, you know, Alicia and I have no ego or anything. We can just be a line item in your agreement. You know, at the end of the day. But vice versa, we can plug into Ryan and you for our stuff, and that's how the world works, right? So we possibly could talk about, you know, community, true community. This is, this is not— we're not charging anything for us to become a community and network together.

Right.

At the end of the day, you know, we're, we're becoming good fast friends. We're also learning how to help, you know, those brands and help those people, because what you and Ryan do and what he does is he he puts people to work and he does right by brands at the end of the day. So I like what he said is this bringing people together, you know, in a conversation because I like this morning, you know, we kind of started like, what do we want to talk about? Full transparency. But just having this conversation is a great ideation of kind of where, you know, where we need to go.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I mean, there's so many examples. We could sit here and do this all day, but But yeah, I mean, you've heard me say it, Sam, as has Ryan, but I mean, for years I've told people I'm pretty good at what I do, but I'm better at knowing who to call. Um, and that's— it's paid my bills, right? It's kept me in work. And it's, it's, it sounds goofy when you think, you know, like, oh well, so you don't do everything? Fucking no, right? Like, I wouldn't sleep if I tried to do everything, and I do a real shit job of it, right? But I've been open, and I've been fortunate enough to get invited to conversations like this, and To your point, that's the whole reason most of my day, a good chunk of my day, I won't say it's the majority but it's a solid piece of it, is just sending introduction emails to people of like, hey, I don't know if there's something here but there might be. Go talk to this guy. It seems to work.

Yeah, you're a connector too. I think I did a quote this morning. I'm going to butcher it. Ziglar, and basically I'm just going to sum it up, but basically when you give, um, the world's going to give back.

Sure.

And today I'll find the quote and send it to you, Adam. But, you know, the last few minutes, um, you know, uh, first of all, thanks everybody for listening to us ideate this morning. We did this purposely. We didn't promote this. We'll probably post it, so, but we are going to post it with a vidlo. Or something. Just come back and tell us what you want to see from us, those that are truly interested in what we do. But with the last few minutes, what would you like to kind of leave everybody with, Adam? And obviously I'll wrap up after that, but what are you thinking?

Oh God, I mean, I think simply, you know, for anybody that hears it, sees it, you know, regularly watches it, like, if there's just somebody you know who's doing something cool Regardless of what industry or whether it's personal or professional or whatever, I mean, ask them if they'd be interested in talking to us, right? I think that's what I'll leave you with. There's a, um, trying to think of who's, who's been kind of top of my list lately, but, um, you know, like, I'll use Ryan as an example because I ask him about this every time we talk. Like, his daughter's in 8th grade, somewhere in there. Yeah. and is playing varsity softball right now. I'm not expecting an 8th grader to get up early on a Saturday morning to talk to us, but like, the point is I'm throwing shit at the wall. Like, even something like that, of like, that's cool. Like, she's— that's fucking awesome, right?

So like, we do have a young man coming on, by the way. Um, you captured it. He actually has a lemonade. I'll remain nameless.

Yes. Yeah, that's awesome.

He's 16.

That's— yes.

And, uh, my friend Josh Wan— hello, Josh— if you ever capture our podcast, I don't know if you would ever slow down, uh, to do it, but Josh is the founder of Forest Brands and Piñata and does several other things. But basically, um, this young man went to summer camp with Josh's son, and Josh ran into him, and he was over at the Beverage Forum. Sure, just recently. And, uh, they were just like lifting over the world, but he's been kind enough to come on the show. Sure, probably do need to talk to your dad just to make sure we have a release, right? By the way, we have him scheduled in and he has a lemonade in a can.

That's great. But I mean, that's it. That's the type of stuff I'm talking about, right? Or like the teacher I spoke to yesterday, one of her students kind of came around the corner. Like I said, these kids are 17, 18, so a little bit older, but even just in the like 90 seconds that, uh, that this young lady was on the screen, she was like, yeah, you know, I, uh, I make my own clothes. Like, I'll do my own kind of design work and I'll make my own clothes from stuff I find at thrift stores. I'm like, sweet, that sounds like a really cool story. Like, that's awesome. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I think people like that. So we should, uh, search us out. We'll actually— I've created a couple things on Calendly, Adam, like an intake form. I need to somehow add you to that. But anyway, there's Intake form that we can post, uh, on the— when we will post this this afternoon with our VidLo, um, question, also how to, um, find us. And look, this is not an advertisement. We're trying to be a service to everybody at the end of the day. Like, honestly, both Adam and I could think of better things to do, but we love being here on Saturday and even on a weekday to do a happy hour or lunch and learn, whatever it may be. Just to give back to the community. So, but we want to just ask the community today, what would you like to see from them, from us? And that's really what I wanted to share, um, this morning is we just want to hear from you and get your feedback because we're sitting here bringing content to you and bringing folks to you that don't resonate with you. Then tell us, tell us what you do want to, um, see from us because there's a lot of people that want to come on the show. uh, to communicate what they're doing. And it did. I mean, some of this, some of the folks, I just have to go, but we have to go back and do like a season recap and bring some people back, you know.

Um, as I say, we gotta, we gotta do the, uh, we gotta do the Where Are They Now of Drink Up.

Exactly. Just follow up with them, right? Like, what's going on? What's happened since the last time we talked, right? Would be a really good— that's a great idea for a show. Like You know, what's Roger Lee been doing? Or Marshall? Marshall's really active out there. He's the networker of all networkers. You know, did Andy Poe walk away? Or Adam Kalanine? You know, Alicia Vargo was on the show. What's happening? What's latest with you, Alicia, in the marketplace? But anyway, that's all I got to say. Adam, any closing thoughts? And we'll just wrap up.

I think enjoy your Saturday, folks. We're getting into busy season, especially for beverage. So if you can take a minute to hang out with the family do it because, you know, summer's rapidly approaching if it's not here already.

Yeah, beer. Memorial Day to Labor Day in Minnesota, man, it's, uh, don't you— that's, that's the holidays for, uh, for beer and beverage, uh, for sure. So, but, uh, wishing everybody a happy Saturday. Thanks, Adam.

Okay, folks. Yep.