Carney Saves the World
Welcome to “Carney Saves the World”. I’m your host, Scott Carney. I’m a former stand-up comedian & actor, with a degree in Political Science. Oh, and I’m an almost 50yr old only-child/ man-child. So, you can probably see where I’m going with all of this.
Each episode, I’ll pick the brains of some of the best & brightest entrepreneurs, artists, and creative minds that I know. We’ll dive into what got them started down their chosen paths, how they actually got their start and what their motivation is to keep going in their massively competitive industries.
The name for the podcast comes from a dig my wife hits me with all the time when I think I’m right about all subjects. “Oh, Carney’s going to save the world again!”
Well, maybe it’s time we did just that. Come on, let's go save the world.
Carney Saves the World
EP6 High Tide Bevs: Reinventing Social Drinking with Cannabis-Infused Mocktails
Have you ever wished you could enjoy the social aspects of sipping a cocktail, without the after-effects of alcohol? Join me as I sit down with Shea Coakley and Josh Grab, the geniuses behind High Tide cannabis-infused mocktails, to discuss their innovative approach to enjoying beverages socially, while also embracing all the benefits of cannabis. Their mission to break down stigmas and create an atmosphere of genuine connection takes center stage as they reveal the technological advancements and creative processes that have fueled their vision.
Imagine a world where the craft beer industry mingles with the cannabis market, and apprehension is replaced with curiosity and acceptance. In this episode, we journey into this realm, touching on the evolution of cannabis regulations and the revolutionary technology of nano-emulsification. Hear how the high tide team made the conscious choice of making a margarita their flagship product, a decision rooted in its familiarity and widespread appeal. We also discuss the evolving dispensary market, and how it's echoing the transformation already witnessed in the beer, wine, and spirits sectors.
So, sit back, pour yourself a High Tide!
www.gethightide.com
Follow them on @hightidebevs on all social media platforms
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Shay Coakley and Josh Graber, the co-founders of high tide cannabis infused mocktails. Shay has spent the last 14 years as an entrepreneur, creating companies that help people with their physical and mental well-being. For the majority of his career, shay was the CEO and co-founder of Leanbox, a tech-enabled food service company that invented a smart refrigerator for corporate breakrooms, hospitals and multi-tenant buildings. Along the way, shay started a coffee grocery, a convention business and sat on several boards for quickly growing startups. Josh has spent over 20 years in all aspects of the beverage business, including sales, marketing and field and trade. He cut his teeth early in his career at Coca-Cola and Sam Adams. He went on to lead growth teams at some of the fastest growing CPG and alcohol brands in the country, including Zing Zang, crook Maker, fiji and Harpoon Brewery, just to name a few.
Speaker 1:Shay Coakley and Josh Graber welcome to Carney Saves the World. What's up, man? Thanks for having us. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. This product is kind of new to me because I'm in North Carolina and we don't have kind of open laws that a lot of other states have, which is ridiculous, because I think North Carolina at one point was like one of the first states to actually have marijuana lands dedicated Right. So for you guys, why cannabis?
Speaker 2:Well, hopefully it can help save the world, which seems to be part of your mission. So what, we're going to help Scott, save the world. Excellent, I'll take the first run. So I think you know, like a lot of companies, this was started out of a personal passion of mine and Josh's. So, just by way of background, josh and I are like best buddies. We worked in a professional context about six, seven years ago. I was releasing a cold brew coffee company and Josh was helping run a go-to-market marketing firm that we had hired to release this cold brew coffee company.
Speaker 2:So another beverage venture that we worked on together. That was our first time meeting and it was all the way back about six, seven years ago where we started to at least sort of plant the seeds for what eventually became high tide. Many years later we had both discussed how we were sort of ridding ourselves of alcohol and cannabis was a good social consumption, method of choice or social outlet of choice, and even the idea of being able to supplement from time to time was appealing. And you know, we just sort of looked around at the market and we said you know, drinks are how people socialize, right, we've been trained to do this for millennia. So the idea of smoking or ingesting a gummy just isn't really all that appealing. So it was about six, seven years ago that at least the very beginning seeds of this idea started to come to fruition, out of truly just a personal passion of ours. Something we wanted to see in the market which I think is often where a lot of the best companies actually come from is creating a product for something that you'd actually want yourself. But it wasn't until years later where this became like a real possibility, both for us professionally and from a market standpoint. I'm sure we're going to dig in in great detail as to the market conditions, but I will say like even right now, it's still very, very, very early days for cannabis beverage.
Speaker 2:Six years ago it basically wasn't even a thing. You know all the things which I'm sure we'll talk about manufacturing, distribution, sales and marketing these things were all just getting going at that time, but at the end of the day, we had a passion for what the end product could be. We love the idea of people sitting around socially consuming cannabis in a way that has far less stigma than it has in the last 20, 30, 40 years, and being able to do so in a way in which you know, is similar to alcohol or caffeine or all these other beverages that we ingest for a certain effect. Our passion for high tide is really, at the end of the day, not just what's in the can, which we have a lot of passion for, but really, at the end of the day, what happens when people are consuming that can. So the ability for people to sit around and meaningfully connect, sort of the antidote to a lot of things that have been going on in the world.
Speaker 2:Covid separate us. Technology often separates us. We look at, high tide is not only a very unique beverage and one that tastes very good, but something that can provide these avenues of entertainment and socialization that otherwise might not exist or we can at least aid. That was sort of how we got into this, obviously a lot more detail, but that was sort of the passion for jumping into this project and now being on the shelf about eight, nine weeks at this point.
Speaker 1:Oh awesome. It's interesting Once you have that concept, once you get the idea and you both start kind of noodling on it. Where does the chemistry side commit? It's not just you're making fruit punch and let's go rock. Now there's a whole industry that is being created and you have to hop on board.
Speaker 3:It's a great question, scott. I think if you think back to like our days at Boston beer, we had this huge innovation pipeline that was always kind of cranking out formulas and recipes and like we would say, oh, we need this new beer and all of a sudden they'd be one there. Looking on the sales and marketing side, all that other stuff about like creating the formula, how to do it, was all new. So coming into this venture, like I knew all the sales and marketing which I had that experience and I thought I kind of knew how the other stuff was made. But it's all different. So, like when you ask the question like how does the chemistry come in? Where does it come to? It all comes down to really the same way as making any product.
Speaker 3:It's like a formula and we search far and wide. We did an extensive search with formula people from the beer industry, people that made recipes, from food scientists to talking about international flavor houses, and we worked with them all and tried to find a really good person that would help bring our vision to life, not just give us what's off the shelf. We ended up finding this amazing team out in California called Pilot R&D and we worked with them hand in hand, just like we would do at Boston beer. We started with the lime juice and then, from the lime juice, we said, okay, we like this sweetness, not that sweetness, and then just built upon it step by step until we got a beverage that we think is an amazing beverage on itself, but it also has cannabis and makes you very happy.
Speaker 2:Some other things to dive into on that formulation process which, by the way, was like just incredibly fun process for us to go through. Amazing, like. One of the things Josh and I have really loved about this is like we're having a good time along the way. Like business is hard, entrepreneurship is hard, but we're having a good time along the way. It's a fun project, it's a fun thing to tackle. I would say the process of formulation and creating a great tasting cannabis beverage was like an amazingly fulfilling process, down to every little. Like how much salt, what kind of salt, what kind of lime, what kind of heat level. Like all of this process was very culinary and very fun.
Speaker 2:A couple of things I'll say to this, just in addition, are that cannabis beverage it has to taste good. Which cannabis? It sounds obvious, right, but cannabis in and of itself can be an interesting flavor. Yes, right, it has its own flavor notes. So you have to do one of two different things you either have to work with the flavor or you have to mask the flavor. So it's not a very simple like oh, I'm just going to put some cannabis in a beverage and it's probably going to taste good.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of art and science to this process that we certainly had some serious help along the way. The other thing I would say from a creation standpoint I'm sure this is something we'll talk about and a lot of your audience might know, but might not the interesting thing about this sector at this point is that you have to produce state by state. So in every state that we open up and go live, just like any other cannabis beverage, you actually have to have a new production facility in each one of those states. So a lot of the background legwork. Yeah, it's interesting and this will change over time. The laws are literally every year the laws alter and change, so it's a constantly moving chessboard.
Speaker 2:But a lot of the legwork that goes into this business is not only the challenge that everybody knows from creating a CPG product beverage. There's an added layer I'll call it annoyance or challenge that goes into this, but it's something like we're really well versed at doing. It's creating partnerships, it's striking deals, advantageous two-way streets of partnership that we're doing again and again rinse, repeat. So it's kind of like even though we formulated in California, we source, like right now we're live in Massachusetts, we're sourcing our cannabis from Massachusetts, producing here and have our plans set out to when we produce in New York or Arizona or California. Those things are all lined up as we go. So interesting challenges, but it makes for a fun environment. I mean, some people would really moan and groan about the challenges we find it. You know, it's the reason we get up in the morning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's really interesting. I had no idea and you know I'm in North Carolina. We have somewhat backwards laws and I had actually moved to North Carolina a little over six years ago and they had just passed the cannabis law in Massachusetts and then I was gone, so I missed all the good stuff. But you know, down here they'll do the Delta A and the Delta 9s and all that In some of those I have heard I have not partaken in any of those in a long time. You will get a resin. You know that marijuana residiveness in some of those gummies. So I know what you mean when you're saying. You know either mask it or go with it and it seems like that industry just goes with it.
Speaker 2:You know we're big believers in the entire market, right? So, like, one thing I'll say before I potentially say something negative, not about anyone specific, but the one thing Josh and I said from go is like we are, we're going to be, you know, we're going to be competitive, but we're going to be really collaborative, right? So in order for this market to do well, all ships truly have to rise with the tide. It's about adoption of cannabis beverages in a widespread fashion. So, despite the fact that we want to win, and we want to win big, we're actually kind of sitting on the sidelines cheering for other brands which might not be as common. You know, maybe similar to the early days of craft, where it's like there's a community involved there and everybody wants the community to do well. I will say that, like without pointing out names.
Speaker 2:I mean, there are some beverages that are the early beverages on the market and you can tell they didn't put a lot of thought and care into the beverage and they did not work with that resin taste very effectively.
Speaker 2:You know, it's not good because someone's going to try cannabis beverage for the first time and we don't love the idea of them saying like, well, okay, I just don't like cannabis beverages because I don't like that taste.
Speaker 2:The truth is there are not just ours.
Speaker 2:There are great tasting cannabis beverages out there that can either work with the flavor, mask the flavor and make a really delicious beverage. But you know, it's just an added challenge and I think one of the opportunities that Josh and I see as we look for next year, the year after and five years out and so on, is working more and more with the plant itself and actually utilizing those flavors as opposed to just masking them. I mean the way our beverage is set up right now, everybody's familiar with a margarita flavor and it has a strong flavor. You know, the lime, the agave. It's a pungent flavor and as such it kind of just, to be honest, just masks cannabis, like if you take a sip of high tide, you're not tasting any cannabis really. So that's fine. But I think one of the things that we can do as we move into the future is think about how we can take certain specific strains of plants and make that flavor profile come through to the beverage, which is it's an interesting culinary challenge, I guess.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you know, scott, you know all. It's very it's funny, like you just had Jim on and we're coming behind it. A lot of the, a lot of the theories and stuff that we're using and we're thinking about are the same things we thought about at Sam Adams very early on. We worried about beer freshness because we wanted to have the consumers to have the best tasting beer possible. When we worried but all the long tail that was just sitting on the shelf that when the consumers tried it they said ooh, I don't like craft beer, and they never come back to craft beer.
Speaker 3:That's a fear we have with cannabis beverage, you know. Or it's the same thing. Like one of the things we always hear is oh, gummies, I can't take that. My cousin made a batch of brownies and I was on the couch for three days. Yeah, of course that's going to happen. Your cousin is an idiot and you know, like why won't you? You'll eat something from him in the back of a car, but something out of a dispenser you're afraid of. It's just you know there's a lot of fear. So I mean, if you think about that.
Speaker 2:It is funny. Like the early days of, let's say, before cannabis was legal, right, and to Josh's point, when someone's cousin or brother in law, whatever made those brownies. Like think about that equivalent. Like it's the equivalent of going up to a bar and ordering a Manhattan and that might give you a subtle buzz or you might be blackout for the next five hours. Like I can see why that would be terrified. Like that is a that's a terrifying prospect.
Speaker 2:The reality is, like the cannabis market the legal cannabis market has come such a long way. The regulations are so rigid. The production facilities I'd almost equate them to, you know, medical supplies or pharma Like it is very, very regimented on how it's. Every product is tested. And like when you go get a high tied can on a shelf, like you know what that effect is going to be. Now it might be in a variable band depending on how you personally interact with cannabis, but you're never going to get a can and have that experience where you're just like floored for six hours. Like that is just never going to happen. Wake up and puddle of your own drool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just, it's not. It's not going to be the case anymore. The other thing that's interesting to point out when we talk about formulation and effect and creation, when we think about like, why cannabis beverage is like what, why now and why not 10 years ago, or you know, there's some of these variables are simply just market legalization, right, so that's simple. It's new States opening up. But the other one that's really interesting, that became a big thing for Josh and I, even six years ago, when we first started looking at this market. It was four years ago. I got a correct. That was four years ago. I'm so bad with timelines. Four years ago it was a month ago. We launched your cold brew coffee.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, four years to the date we launched our high tide, basically.
Speaker 2:Oh good, oh, okay, yeah, okay, four years ago. We've been friends for half a month. Okay, so four years ago. So actually that's even more interesting because it wasn't as long ago.
Speaker 2:When we were looking at this four years ago, when you looked at the market and what was available in terms of technology for cannabis beverages, there was a very interesting differentiation between what was then and what is now, and it could be the critical piece, and I'll lay it out.
Speaker 2:Essentially, when you had a cannabis beverage, let's say, five, 10 years ago which there weren't many, but they existed you took that and it was similar to taking a traditional edible product, meaning you consumed it somewhere around an hour later you felt effect.
Speaker 2:That effect would stay with you for like three hours, and one of the education pieces that we're on a sort of tie rate on now is that there has been new technology that we utilize that has been created over the past three, four, five years or brought to market over the last three years. That is called nano emulsification, which basically all that means is micro, micro. Sorry, you're not supposed to say nano, micro. The way that that works is that hits you in terms of effect within five minutes five, 10 minutes and it's pretty much out of your system consistently within an hour, hour and a half. So that takes the beverage format from being what we would think to be actually relatively useless to completely useful. No one wants to go out and socialize with a beverage that they have to, and then it all hits them an hour and a half later.
Speaker 2:It doesn't make a lot of sense, so yeah, so just an interesting update and, just like it's, just an illustration of how quickly this market is moving, how quickly it changes, and that's just one example of many that are going on right now, and I apologize if we're both look like we're sweating.
Speaker 3:The air condition in our office is broken, startup lifestyle, so we're sweating it out in the heat here in July, but yeah, it's not the hot seat you're putting us on, you know send help.
Speaker 1:I've got the good questions. They're freaking out, look at this. How did you decide to go with the margaritas?
Speaker 2:Okay, we hired a big research firm out of Palo Alto, I believe we. It was like a $6 million contract. They did an extent. Wait, no, no, just Google. Most popular cocktails in the United States.
Speaker 3:Like, yes, so honestly. So that was the deciding factor, Like we wanted to have something. The goal of this in high tide is to make, as she said, make cannabis more sociable, allow people to socialize with cannabis. Well, to get somebody to their backyard drinking something that was once illegal from never using it, there's a lot of steps in there. Okay, we really looked at every step of the process to get the cannabis to somebody's backyard. So we want to imagine your house. How are we going to do it there?
Speaker 3:Going into the shop is difficult. It's in a different store. Usually it's in a different part of the market. When you walk into that store, it is overwhelming. Now, when you come back up here and to Boston, we'll go tour a couple stores and you'll be like hold, yeah, you mind what people want, Absolutely yeah. So you know, okay. So we thought of the shopper and we said, okay, you go in, you're overwhelmed. What are they going to know? So we wanted to make a product that was very recognizable, very easy to identify, very familiar, and then we looked at what was out there. And then we looked at what was in the alcohol market doing really well, and if you've been following the alcohol market. It's RTDs, it's seltzers, it's you know, all these new flavor forward beverages. We said, okay, let's go after the cocktail run.
Speaker 2:And specifically on the margarita. Like one of the things we always say it's often because it is so true about the margarita not only it's the most popular cocktail in the United States, but there's a weird thing about margarita and that it's like so ubiquitous and so at home in any area. And what I mean by that specifically is is you could find a high end margarita at the Soho house in New York City, at like some fancy party. You could also find a margarita at home at like a chain restaurant in some flyover state somewhere for on sale for $3.99 or $2.99. Like the margarita has this weird appeal across age ranges, across socio economic climates. Like it's just this universally loved beverage that stands for something, and for us it stands for. Like this is a time to put our shoulders down. It's a time to relax and socialize and connect meaningfully.
Speaker 2:So to Josh's point like we wanted to take this familiar thing that everybody knows they know what they're getting into when they think of the flavor profile of a margarita and we wanted to use that to introduce something that may be new to them. You don't want to take something that's totally new and add a whole new avenue on top of that and just make it a really confusing process for them. We want to say hey, this is familiar, you know what a margarita is like to drink, and the intention is that the amount of cannabis in that is roughly equivalent to, say, the effect of having one margarita at a restaurant. I think the margarita becomes a quint, essential cocktail to win in this space because it is so universally loved already. And in looking around and saying no one's doing a margarita yet in the space, it's totally green space, no pun intended. Why don't we focus on that?
Speaker 3:No, it really come. It really came down to like something that is approachable, people understand. In our portfolio is very simple. It's a classic margarita, a watermelon margarita, and then, for the little more adventurous, a spicy diablo, and it all comes back to. We just wanted to make it simple.
Speaker 3:We wanted to get cannabis into people's lives, we wanted to get them socializing, and one thing we always say is we bring cannabis to life, and it's not the idea of like just bringing cannabis to where life is, to the backyard barbecues, to the poolside, to the beach, but it's also like allowing people in the long run to understand like this is a plant that has multiple different flavors and multiple different styles. You know we've worked with live resin to understand like okay, if we put actual live resin into the product, can it stay stable, can the flavor profile work well with the other things? And you know we're getting there. It's just if there's a lot of R&D between the amazing drink we have now and you know how we can grow this so consumers can really understand all different varieties of this product.
Speaker 2:It's very rare to. I would say like, broadly speaking, it's very rare that you tell someone about a margarita and they're like offended by that flavor profile. You know, it's like margarita is just, it's just the it's so popular because it's just freaking good. Yeah, like, at the end of the day, it's just a great effort, right.
Speaker 3:It's universally loved. I think the stat is 92% of Americans love margaritas and 8%.
Speaker 2:That's crazy. Like what other beverage could you say that? I mean it's not. You know it's. We're not putting in Clamato juice yet.
Speaker 1:I would stick with Clamato, all right, so I have a nonactive version, correct? This is what you you sent me. Yeah, I will crack it open. And what's one of you trying? I have a classic margarita, okay.
Speaker 2:That's a good first one to go with the classic as you're tasting that. So so, like when we looked at creating this beverage, like as we talked about, we wanted to make this like a culinary flavor journey. So it's not, you know, it's not just like a one hit wonder. So when you're tasting that, and for anyone in the audience who gets access to it at some point, you're going to get a nice key lime up front. You're going to get some rosemary salt, you're going to get a little bit of a gavel. So in each one of the SKUs, you're going to go on like a little bit of a flavor journey, as cheesy as that sounds, but it is meant to be like a really, a really culinary craft cocktail.
Speaker 1:There's definitely levels to it, like in layers, definitely layers that you were talking about. The rosemary salt is really interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the rosemary salt paired with a little. We use some tequila flavoring to actually mimic the flavoring of tequila. We use spices to get to that it really really pairs well with it. We have friends that are using like salt rimmers and that it really comes out really well. But right out of the can, that classic margarita is a perfect margarita and it's supposed to really mimic a fresh margarita you get at home. Not too sweet, very easy, very balanced palate.
Speaker 2:That is like a big difference too, though. You know, like even just stopping on that point Like within margarita, despite being so universally loved, like there are definitely different levels of margarita.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Right. So like, yeah, sometimes you can go get that margarita and it really just tastes like sweet lime juice, Like it's overwhelming on the sweetness and it just doesn't taste high quality, and then you can go to like a craft cocktail bar where they're making like a fresh lime. Like we wanted it to be more in that direction and I think it came out well and we put a lot of care into the ingredients.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know it's definitely. There's definitely a nice level, is almost like it's a good onion. I thought it was also interesting that you guys did resealable tops. Why did you decide to go that way?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So those are industry regulated. You need to have a child safe calf on it. Okay, we use those. It's a company out of Germany, it's called XO. They developed this great cap. It's actually resealable, and what a lot of consumers say is they like it for its resealable One. Our product is not carbonated, it's a that's something that a lot of people think. Oh, why isn't carbonated comes out of a can. It's not carbonated because, margaritas, that when you make them they're not carbonated. So the nice thing about ours if you're a new user, you can pour half the can into a glass, drink two and a half milligrams and be on your way Right. So there's you know.
Speaker 2:The resealable cap lends a lot of versatility to the product and that, again, that's one of those things you know for the audience and for yourself, like, as you know, we're in the cannabis business, so we kind of understand this, but it might not be known to a broader audience is the fact that, like this is again one of those sort of state to state things. So there are actually some states like New York's coming on, live, you don't need a child safe cap on those products In Massachusetts you do of which there are a number of different options. We decided to go with this particular cap, to Josh's point, because it just happens to have that added benefit of being a resealable, which for our beverage, for other beverages maybe if it had a seltzer component to it it'd be a little bit useless, like you're probably not going to drink a flat seltzer like later on, but someone could very definitely take, you know, half a, can put it in the fridge, have the next half tomorrow night, and it's going to be totally fine and resealable, which is nice.
Speaker 1:How are they sold? Are they sold like four packs or singles, or so they're?
Speaker 3:sold as you can buy them as singles. A lot of the dispensaries are offering multi-pack deals, so, for example, four packs and six packs. We just ran our first ever 12 pack. I believe we were one of the first cannabis 12 pack promotions out there. We ran that at a couple stores and it went well over the whole thing.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, that's the interesting thing. I mean I'm dying to get home and check out the whole like dispensary business. I mean we were not there when it happened and it's got to be so interesting. You would love it. Yeah, so for those folks that are listening that aren't familiar with it and Josh, one of your well, actually it was both of you but I checked out one of your Instagram stories where you went into one of the dispensaries. What is that process like? Anybody can walk in and just do their thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean anybody who's in Massachusetts, anyone who's 21 and older, with a legal ID, I believe, from any state in the country, can just walk in. These stores are set up for the shopper. They're not like liquor stores where you have to go in and know what you're looking for. Maybe you'll talk to somebody. These stores in the dispensaries spend a lot of time the good ones in really welcoming the consumers, having somebody up there that is just to answer questions. Sometimes they can look around the stores and they do a lot with visual merchandising. It's very similar to almost like the beauty industry, where it's very curated, imagery on the stores, very appealing, and they also have the they call it bud tenders the bud tenders actually in front of the counter, like talking to the people. So it's a very, very good experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and here's the so. Yes, in Massachusetts let's talk Massachusetts specifically there is a medical market which you get a card for, sort of the benefit of that. Nowadays you can get higher dosages. You don't pay the taxes on it, so there are some benefits still. So some people still have a medical card. In addition to that, you have the traditional recreational market which, as long as you're 21, you can go in there For the amount.
Speaker 2:We talk about the consumer and the overwhelming experience that it can be. The reality is like these shops are really set up to make it very pleasant. So if you're someone who does not know a single thing about cannabis, you can very easily go into the store and have a comfortable experience. The bud tenders like their training, is specifically for being able to sit down and say what are you utilizing this for? Is it for sleep, is it for socialization? Is it for, maybe, back in knee pain, like I mean, you can get real specific and they will be trained to tell you what product makes sense, what dose makes sense, like all that kind of stuff. They make the experience very comfortable.
Speaker 2:But the other thing I'd say about the that's interesting about the market now is it's going through what we would consider to be a major evolution, and that evolution is a change from like early days to more formalized business, and that's coming out in a very, very specific way. The way that that's coming out is back in the day, in let's just take Massachusetts, but you could say this in Colorado, california, any of the markets Back in the day if you got a license and you opened up, you were going to get revenue. That was it. All you had to do was be operating, because it's a challenge even to get up in that space.
Speaker 2:In the early days, it was just like if you could find a legal dispensary, that was a win. Maybe there was only 10, 20, 30 in the state and they're going to get the revenue. The interesting thing that's happening in this space as it formalizes and more dispensaries are coming online, it's coming down to traditional business. Are you a good dispensary? Do you have great stock? Are your bud tenders very good with dealing with people? How do you take care of your loyal customers? Traditional business we are just now seeing that transition from like hey, you get a license, you're going to sell product, to now, within municipalities and towns, there's competition.
Speaker 3:Three stores and one in town, right near us.
Speaker 2:So this was a place that had one store and if you wanted cannabis in that area, that's where you went. Now there's three options, so then it transitions to what store has the best experience, the best price, the best stock, and that we're just seeing that transition occur. It's already happened in Colorado, already happened in California, we're just now seeing this happen in Massachusetts, where it's becoming it's table stakes to be a good business operator.
Speaker 1:So can you sell directly to the dispensary.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's very similar to like the independent market in beer, wine and spirits. We go in. There are some stores that the buyer is in the back room and is the manager buyer as well. Sometimes you deal with the owner and sometimes you deal with a more sophisticated buying group, like Cure Leaf. They have one buyer for the area that we deal with, so it's and they have very mandated stuff where you can't really go in. There's all types of merchandising very similar in the wine industry, like what you're dealing with. We can go in, we check stock, we make sure the inventory looks good, make sure the POS is up. So it's very similar ground.
Speaker 3:And pound CPG business, like the gone of the days of just any product with cannabis, will sell. You have to have a good product with a good brand or consumers just move on. It's like I can get another cheap gummy somewhere else For that. It's a very fun industry because you could be creative, you can have fun with it. It's also we're selling. We're selling weed too, right, like it's. At the end of the day, it's a super fun industry. I haven't found anyone that said your product makes me sad, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember I was with my mom and dad and they had some friends that they were with and someone asked, like they knew I'd been an entrepreneur and they were like what are you working on these days? And my mom just proudly says my son's a drug dealer now, which is so funny. It's like wild times we live in. Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting because that's another progression of the industry as it specifically relates to beverage, like if you looked in I keep on talking about Massachusetts just because this is where our home state launches but if you looked at Massachusetts three years ago, at best there might have been one beverage on the shelf at best, and oftentimes you'd go into a dispenser they wouldn't have beverage. Now you're starting to see like a more formal beverage program. There's refrigerators that are displaying these things. They have multiple different styles of beverage. So it's amazing how early days it is, but it's just now starting to break through where, like, the retailers really have like a portfolio of beverages, not just like one option for you. It's super exciting.
Speaker 3:Do you hear the wine companies and the beer companies, the spear companies, talking about the legal cannabis market affecting their numbers? Or are you guys talking about it on your side of the world?
Speaker 1:From the supplier side. They are going in and buying up and investing and that sort of thing. Every year in North Carolina it's supposed to show up on a ballot and it misses by inches and I think that's just the old school South. It's ironic how laws are, for everything are so super tough, except for like guns, not getting political. But it's very easy to get a gun in North Carolina but it is not easy to get. You know, I guess the way around it is Delta 8. So the down here the Delta 8 and the Delta 9, the CBDs, those are sold everywhere, convenient stores, no specific store that sells. But they'll have high end stores that'll sell some of the higher end products. But I think the fear down here is little C stores, little bodegas that are selling some of these iffy products. You're like God forbid, there's something in here that I take and I get sick. Or from a drug testing perspective, you know, I pop for something.
Speaker 2:On one hand, I look at, we look at some of the regulations and the way that these states are rolling out, and you just say, like God, if you just put five smart people in a room, couldn't they have figured this out in a better way? On the other hand, I have a lot of sympathy for the regulators, because it is a complex thing. Right, it's nuanced. You have varying opinions on it. You have to roll it out in a fair way, so it's not the easiest problem in the world to solve. The one thing I will say, though, is, like you know, speak for myself on this. I think Josh feels the same way. I know for myself. When we first started getting into the cannabis space to be totally transparent, this was a business opportunity. I thought I'd be in the cannabis space, do a venture, bounce somewhere else. When you get into the cannabis space, it starts to develop a passion for what the product is, for some very specific reasons, and they are. The reasons are how you see it can affect certain people and what good it can do for them, and what I just thought about when you were talking about North Carolina. I have a friend that's down in North Carolina, but she happens to be dealing with some fairly serious postpartum issues. She has a mother that is dealing with a cancer diagnosis and cancer treatment. When you see something like this, it becomes really frustrating and sad that someone like that can't have access to this medicine. Truly, it's medicine, right For some people, you know. I know that some people in instances like that, one of the only things that might be able to help them break out of that funk or just relieve the pain and sleep for a little while would be something like cannabis. So when you start to dive further and further into this space, it starts to become, I would say, on one hand, passion, on the other hand frustration that you know there are people that don't have access to this that could really use it and this stuff will all come in due time. But it does develop a certain level of passion that, like I didn't know I was going to have.
Speaker 2:Getting into this space, I've become such an advocate for the plants and what it can do to people and realizing that like it is crazy that we have outlawed this plant yet allowed other things to thrive.
Speaker 2:I mean you talk about the prescription drug epidemics that are going on in the United States. I'm not against prescription drugs but when you look at like the opioid crisis and things that are going on, it just seems pretty crazy to me that this plant that has essentially, at this point, been proven not to really have a lot of downside. I'm not a scientist, I'm just going to go with the data that exists out there, but certainly one could make a pretty solid argument that it's much less harmful than some of the other alternatives, and the fact that that is an accessible nationwide is fairly tragic to me. So you know, I think one of the things that we've realized in getting into this space is like it started as a business venture and something we were personally passionate about, but it's interacting with other people and seeing the experiences they have with cannabis and how it can help their life that really starts to develop a strong rooted passion for this industry.
Speaker 3:It's really cool. The feedback you get is always very personal. People will share with you one what's going on in their life and how high tide made their life better, or like just experiencing or using cannabis and like it opened their eyes. My aunt was always a one or two glass of wine drinker. No, no issue, no, nothing to. This summer she's just switched to high tide and she was talking about it like she was trying to sell my wife on it. Who my wife is kind of like new to cannabis, try it a little bit. It's funny, it's not really her thing and like. Her aunt was just like you have to try it, it's so much better.
Speaker 3:It's just make like and to hear that and to hear people talk about it's very fulfilling. You know, it's very nice to know that the product that we're making is actually helping people and it tastes good. You know it's a really fun industry and a free wild ride to think I'm actually owning something. You know I always said you know, one day, if people like, what do you want to do? One day I want to own my own brand. And about a month ago I was sitting with one of our vendors and we were just talking and he's like, and I asked him what he wants to do and he asked me the same question back and I was like shit, what do I get? I need a new thing now. I need a new like goal. It's been a lifelong goal and it's been. It's, it's, it's amazing, it's so much fun doing it.
Speaker 1:It's awesome. I'm really sick for you guys. This is a I mean again, I'm only trying the nonactive version, but you know I can't wait to get back home and try the good stuff when I don't get drug tested and all that kind of fun stuff.
Speaker 3:Scott, one thing I was just thinking about when you're saying when you moved down to North Carolina you had no friends. I enjoyed watching your social media with you and your daughter. Like it seemed like you just like dug in and like, like became like daddy and like it was awesome watching you do that. Man, when I see dads do that, it makes me so happy and I think I think a lot more fathers need to realize like that's a hard ass job and anybody that does it I mean dude, like dude it was. I loved watching you do and I got a couple friends that are doing that and it's like dude, good for you. Man. You'll never get that time back to do that with your daughter. Absolutely Must have been. It was, yeah, I mean we're in North Carolina.
Speaker 2:Wow, well beautiful, I love it. Yeah, gorgeous.
Speaker 1:It's just like the temperature is the exact same every single day. That's beautiful. I didn't work for five months while I was down here, and it was, I mean, from a male perspective. You're the breadwinner, you're supposed to be the breadwinner, you know, and we moved down here because my wife got a job and it took me a while, but my daughter was five months old when we moved here and I got to spend months, six through ten, with her and by myself. As you know, took me like six to seven months to get a job, but I got to be Mr Mom for that time and it was amazing. But on the other side, like you were saying, that was just. I'm never going to get that time back. It's just amazing to have it. How old is?
Speaker 3:your daughter. Now, it's been what. How old is she? Six and a half. Six and a half, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, what do you got for kids?
Speaker 2:Seven and five Two girls All right.
Speaker 3:Eleven, eight and five.
Speaker 1:Five, Five. Yeah, it's, this is six six. Six is brutal, yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, Do you follow those guys online? They do those press conferences after like a long weekend. They'll be like so what happened at school?
Speaker 2:So we had a tough first day of school. It was a little bit rough getting off the bus, yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's so good. You had an issue with the teacher. You want to talk?
Speaker 2:about Breakdown Breakdown, so good, so, good so good, do you ever do stand up anymore?
Speaker 1:No, and that was kind of why I did this. I need some sort of creative outlet. Yeah, you know, that's where the whole like Karni saves the world thing comes from. She was just like oh, you're so smart, you're going to save the world, aren't you smart ass? There we go, here it comes again.
Speaker 3:That's great.
Speaker 1:I'd like a good.
Speaker 3:I don't think you could spite naming of the podcast, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm not that bad.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's definitely spiked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't want to brag guys, but I have six downloads just happened this weekend from Zambia. All right, I believe that's in Africa.
Speaker 2:It's an up and coming market. We're actually looking to see if Zambia actually is a big market opportunity.
Speaker 3:Are you moving? If any of you listeners know business in Zambia, please reach out no-transcript. I will put it the show notes for them to reach out to you. Okay, thank you. Yes, please.
Speaker 2:Well, we have on the back of you, see our cans on the non active ones, yes, we have a QR code on the back of them and if you scan that QR code, it actually takes you to our question game and the question is how do you get the QR code?
Speaker 3:I'm going to go to the back of the box and see if it's on the back of the box. I'm going to go to the back of the box. Okay, I'm going to go to the back of the box. Okay, I'm going to go back to the box. Okay, I'm going to go to the back of the box, okay. And then we'll go to our question game. And the question game is not a marketing scheme. It's not something to get your information. All it is is, if you're sitting around with your buddies or your wife or anybody, and you don't know what to talk about, you want to get the conversation started. Scan the code and we'll give you a fun question to ask and hopefully you'll have some fun. We did it all weekend with my family.
Speaker 2:It was one of the things we realized when we were building this brand Like. Again, this goes back to what we were talking about with the idea of like. What's the purpose of this? It's not just the liquid that's in the can, it's what people do when they're consuming the liquid. One of the things we thought about is, like one of our favorite things to do is to sit around a campfire, around a couch or whatever, and just ask ridiculous, outlandish, hypothetical questions, and you know it sparks interesting conversations, and so we wanted to make that a part of the can, a part of the brand. So our hope is that people can sit around and socialize and get to know each other more. I played the question game with like my wife and my closest friends and I've like learned stuff about them that I never knew.
Speaker 3:It just happened this week. I was, we were playing it and my wife. One of the questions was like what would be the most embarrassing part of your Google search? And she went into this whole story about what she likes to do and she feels very it's kind of like our guilty pleasure thing. But if she is following an influencer and the influencer talks about like something that happened or like a tragic event or something she's like, well, now I got to know exactly everything about it, deep rabbit hole.
Speaker 3:She just goes down the road and I was sitting there and I was like you never talked to me about that. I'll help start these things out with you, yeah.
Speaker 1:A couple more questions about the can too. Sure, is it an industry standard? You mentioned that it's a law for the tops. Yeah, but is it an industry standard, or did you choose the specific eight ounce slim? Can you know a lot of?
Speaker 3:it was because of cannabis. You need a very specific can. There's something called scaling or leaching which. What can happen when the cannabis sticks to a unlined can? So if you're not using the proper can, things can happen to the product as it sits in suspension.
Speaker 2:So, to be clear, even in that scenario, the worst that could happen is it doesn't have enough effect. It's never going to have the scenario where it has to be much of an effect. You can't grow cannabis in a can, right? Yeah, yeah, what you'd be interested in yeah, bottle aged yeah.
Speaker 3:So that was one of the reasons we went with this specific can, one style one. You know just it's kind of industry standard for this product. We did have a lot of conversations about whether to go with the stubby can or the traditional can and you know we're still learning. It's also this is what's readily available when we think about the production side. So a lot of those kind of decisions went into it. But again, you know, this is our first market. This is really the test to prove out the brand and everything. So a lot of this is still learning. Like you know, we could go to another state and try a different can, or definitely not a bottle. We won't do a bottle, I can tell you that 24 ounce bomber yeah 24 ounce would be cool.
Speaker 3:I've seen 100 ounce cans that they call them. The party can now Cheese Ready to drink brand has one of those big cans going, so like can.
Speaker 1:No in liquor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:How many other competitors do you have right now? I mean, is it 10, 15, 20?
Speaker 3:There's probably 20 other. There's 20 other brands probably out there. We are seeing some consolidation of brands, meaning like there's one big brand house out there that has multiple brands underneath them and they're taking that all off. Then there are some that are just independent. So there's a lot of different ways.
Speaker 2:There's a very, very small list of people that have broken through to a national scale. You could name them on one hand right, so it's tiny and even of those, the interesting thing about it is like if you were to poll most even cannabis consumers and say, like tell me three cannabis beverage brands, like right now they couldn't even tell you what they are. So there's a number of different reasons for that. First off, it's brand new, so people are just starting to scale up. The other thing is like not everybody is tackling it the way Josh and I are.
Speaker 2:So like from the first brick we laid down on this foundation, our plan was to become a nationally recognized brand. Not everybody's doing the same thing. So sometimes you have like a brand that has gummies and vapes and they're adding a beverage, or maybe it's a dispensary that has four outlets and makes some of their own products. So if you add those in the brands pile up a little bit more. But actual people vying for like a national footprint it's a really small number right now and that again like that's going to be one of those things like it's really the next two, three, four years that you're going to start to see it pop off in a very significant fashion.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So the dose that's in it is that. How is that agreed upon? Is that a legal dose or is that Legal? That's legal.
Speaker 3:Okay, that's legal, so each state has their different regs.
Speaker 2:Hold on? Let's run that question back again. I know I have a different answer Go ahead, okay, all right, go. So the milligram dosage question is always going to be a moving target. It's interesting because cannabis all right, all right, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on the the milligram dosage is going to be an interesting topic that I think is going to be an evolving topic over the coming years.
Speaker 2:You can get much like alcohol when you think about, you know, milligrams it's always done in beverage milligrams per dose, right? Milligrams per can. So ours is five milligrams and you know how that affects people is within a similar band as something like a beer, a glass of wine or a cocktail. It's within a band. You know, one or two cocktails might affect someone very differently than another person, but it is within a band. Five milligrams is a great dose for a starting dose for most people, right? So you know back to our conversation earlier about people being like, fearful of what effect that's going to have, five milligrams is still considered a micro dose, meaning if you have a whole can, it doesn't matter. If you're very sensitive to cannabis and this is the first time that you've ever used it, you're never going to hit that peak. That just makes you incredibly uncomfortable. So you know, if you started to get into 10, 15, 20 milligrams, that could be an uncomfortable experience for a first time user. Five milligrams is never going to be that. So the reason we landed on five milligrams is because we always want to be a beverage that is sessionable and available to new users in a safe manner. So you know, when someone takes five milligrams, if they're an avid user of cannabis, they could have more than one can, just like they're having a few coronas. If you're someone that's brand new, you could have half that can and even that whole can and safely know that you're not going to like freak out from too much cannabis.
Speaker 2:I do think this is going to change over time. I think it's going to be just like any other CPG product or ALC or any other product. Really, we're going to start to hone in on like maybe there's a subset of customers that want a two milligram beverage, a five milligram, a 15. The one thing I will say that's probably, you know, at least as we see things right now, we're always going to want to be in the sessionable space. So there are 100 milligram beverages out there and that has its target. Yeah, so not in Massachusetts, not legal in Massachusetts. But in California, colorado, you could get 100 milligram beverage and that's great for a certain target market that is very, very used to cannabis. That being said, we always want to be in like sort of the social sessionable you know, design your own experience kind of thing where someone can have one, two, three cans, figure out what experience they want and sort of hone in and the five milligrams is a good dose to do that with.
Speaker 1:So obviously there's no max dosage.
Speaker 3:Well, every state has their own max dose, Every state has their own In Massachusetts currently, right now, in the recreational market it is five milligrams, new York is 10, and it's just all varies. And then in the medical side there are products that can be at higher dosage per serving, but it all comes down to state by state regulations. You know when, even when we go into those states that are 100 milligram, there's still a need for a what they call low dose or, you know, a low dose sessionable beverage. It's just not everybody's looking to get couchwalk.
Speaker 2:And it's different right, it's different than alcohol, but like our goal is to make it as equivalent as possible, because it goes back to what Josh was saying earlier. It's like you want to make this unknown process as known as possible and as familiar as possible. You know, we want it to be a scenario by which someone knows that, like as much as we can get it to be, so we want one can to be sort of the equivalent of one RTD cocktail in alcohol. So, yeah, it's like if you have four or five RTD cocktails, like you're going to be in a different headspace and it's the same with our beverage for most people. But if you have one of them or two of them, you know that's going to be a nice subtle social effect. So we'll always try and stay within that. But it is going to be a moving target on milligrams per dose.
Speaker 1:How many states currently have legal cannabis? 37, I believe.
Speaker 3:Don't quote me on that. We can, but I believe it's 37.
Speaker 2:Well, it's funny because it's moving so fast that, like one of these might have changed within the last two months. So like it is really really going fast. You're still some states that I thought would have been the last to hop on board that are now coming online. You know, I do think that answers 37 right now, but like, if we were to have this podcast in a year, that's going to be a different answer. Oh yeah, absolutely, but like the wave is starting to crash over right.
Speaker 2:It's like now you have the majority of states have it, and even the states that are not legal. The majority of the people within that state, if it was a popular vote, would vote for legalization of cannabis. So the majority of the United States, I believe at this point, is in favor of legalizing cannabis.
Speaker 1:How's the non-alcoholic community embracing the cannabis-infused beverages?
Speaker 2:Such an interesting question. It's a great question, so all right. So I think like one of the things we should set the tone on is there is like definitely a big non-alcohol movement going on right now. That's like huge is for sure. It is a thing that seemed like it was like a blip on a market trend that is now here to stay right. So you see a lot of things coming out with, like the alkalized wine you have zero proof cocktails and at this point now, like any bar you go to like I remember like back in the day, was like oh, duals would be the thing that would be there, but now you see like an entire line of mocktail, so that there is this sort of trend going on where I think like it's not people necessarily like completely giving up alcohol, or there is some of that going on. You also have people that are like infusing different things for different times, like maybe they want to on one night out, just say I'm gonna stick with non-alcohol. So this is a trend.
Speaker 2:The interesting thing for us is like I think we fit in this like sort of interesting category right, one of the things that, like we were on a talk at one point. It was like a similar podcast format. You know the person that said well, like I had mentioned that I had stopped drinking, right on this, this podcast, drinking alcohol and some of this is like, and someone is like saying like, oh, do you feel like? This was like you hated being at a party without something in your hand and like.
Speaker 2:One of the things I want to make clear on is, like, if someone's looking to abstain from substances, like there should be no follow-up question about. Like, if you have a diet coke in your hand or if you have a water in your hand, like, good on you, like, just like, go with that. Right, there shouldn't be follow-up questions. But I do think there's this interesting thing going on where, like, it's a number of different things. You have the younger generation and josh and I've talked about this ad nauseam the younger generation, a lot of them look at I'll call it partying very different than we do. Oh, yes, right, so like they're, they're more mindful they're, you know I we have yeah health conscious.
Speaker 2:We had a, we had someone that works with us in in our general sphere and we were down in Miami for a business meeting and josh and I were like hey, look like we're kind of the old guys, now we're gonna go back, like go out and do your thing, and he's like now I got a big day tomorrow.
Speaker 2:We're like you're in Miami, dude, like go have fun right, and this was so foreign to me and josh, at 23 years old, like I couldn't even wrap my head around. I'm like dude, like I would be out till three in the morning. Yeah, we look at it differently and I think this is a trend that's going to stick around. What I would say on this in particular is like there are, there are some set of people that want to abstain from substances completely, and we we respect that to the utmost right, and there are also people that find that there's another category of people that find that alcohol is not serving them but maybe cannabis could in a different way. That happens to be my story, right, I don't.
Speaker 2:I'm not affected by cannabis the way I was affected by alcohol, and I happen to like that a little bit better than I. I like alcohol. There also and I think this is to be honest, I think this is where the biggest chunk comes in are people that like they're not going to stop drinking wine or beer or their cocktail. It's just like a thing to add into the mix. So one of the things someone said to us and I remember this really resonated with me. They were talking about the thanksgiving to new year run right and when you think about thanksgiving to new year, run brutal. That can be a nonstop barrage of events in which alcohol is like flowing free, hence dry jane.
Speaker 3:What is it dry jane, where it pops out.
Speaker 2:So one of the things so much anyway. Second right, I hadn't even thought about this, but someone said like, yeah, like, if I have to go to all these parties and socialize, like, there are sometimes where I could just say I'm just going to have water and that's fine. But there are sometimes where people want a social buzz but they're kind of done with the alcohol for just like that time period. So, like, we encourage that to. So I think we're going to hit the angle from a lot of different sides. Some people are just gonna say, hey, I'm exclusively going to use cannabis now, that just serves me better. But there's also people that are gonna say, like I would like to put this into the repertoire, I'm not gonna recommend this.
Speaker 2:However, I did hear something interesting from a consumer where they were talking about how sometimes, when they go out at night or they're having people over for a barbeque, they would have their one or two beverages and then, like it would start to like the rails came off. Then they weren't counting anymore. Right it's, it's happened to the best of us. And then the next morning, oh yes, you got run over by a train. This particular person was saying that their m? O now is they have one cocktail. The beginning of the night they pour one cocktail. They have that, they switch to cannabis, whether it be gummies or a beverage, and now a high tide, and so in the total evening they might have three beverages, one of them alcohol to cannabis. They wake up and they feel like a million bucks. So like I could see that being a thing, it's so I did.
Speaker 1:I started a dry january this year because I had done the. My birthday is early november, so I go november. Well, yep. And then my daughter's birthday is the end of october. So now we're doing end of october through through new years. So I did, I did dry january and I was like I feel great, my blood pressure was down, I would you drive february and I went all the way to st patty's day. I'm not bragging because that's not, that's not that big, it's so great to go for me at that time. Yeah, so, um, but you know I would. I would grab a non-alcoholic beer and try. And there is a kid. It's a weird stigma. It's like that's it. You're forced to drink this in public, like, but you need something in your hand as opposed to just you know and that's you know it.
Speaker 3:There's like this pavlovian thing that is is driven into our society that you can't be having fun unless there's something in your hand. Right, it's not a good time unless there's cocktails or or well things flowing and that's okay. The question is like what is that's in your hand and what are you drinking is gonna make you feel good? I am so thankful that brands like athletic came along that really did a great job destigmatizing this idea of not drinking. You know, they were the first people to be like it's cool not to drink and they worked very hard and their beer is really good. It's amazing product. And now you see brands like sam jim has a great tasting. Um, what is it? Just just the haze?
Speaker 3:amazing hi mckinbrook, when they're all out there with them. Um, and I think this whole idea of moving away from alcohol, whatever it is, if it's kombucha, if it's, you know, just a seltzer, whatever it is, there's just this movement of better drinks and better enjoyment, like this we had this.
Speaker 2:We were with josh and I were talking about this earlier. We were talking about how there was someone that we know in our network that it was their first time like they had consumed maybe a little bit of cannabis in high school and college, but it had been a while and and they went out for a night and they decided like I'm going to consume high tide instead, I'm just going to exclusively consume that. And they went out and I think they had like two or three cans or something like that. They had this like social buzz. They felt calm, relaxed, they're like laughing.
Speaker 3:You know all the effects will call the medicinal effects the recreational effect kicked in that we can't guarantee what happened to you at any sort of way.
Speaker 2:These disclosure is a non um but let's just say for this particular person it worked.
Speaker 2:And then they told us they woke up and at 6 30 they they had set an alarm.
Speaker 2:At 6 30 they went for a run, a lot, and then they came back and they cook breakfast for their kid and it was like this interesting thing where that like what they were essentially saying to us is like I feel like I just found a cheat code and like I know I understand that experience, like it's interesting to you always have this like way in balance of things where you say like alright, if I eat that entire pizza, I'm gonna love eating that pizza, but I'm gonna hate myself later, you know, or like if I'm at a wedding and I consume too many beverages, like I know I'm borrowing my fun from tomorrow a little bit and that's like an agreement I have and it's fine, like totally okay, with people doing that. It's kind of interesting if you can have it's like the holy grail, if you can have a social effect that you're not then giving something up the next day for, and it can really be like a magical elixir in that way.
Speaker 1:Again I have the non active, but I'm very much looking forward to that. Um, you know, check that out because it does sound like. Yeah, because, especially the older you get, I mean it's just, you know, down here. I mean I'm sure it is up there still, but there's just craft breweries on every street corner here in Wilmington they use two or three beers. Yeah, hey, I don't know I'm pushing 50 and I don't have it anymore.
Speaker 3:I don't know.
Speaker 1:The big game we had at Sam Adams.
Speaker 3:It's funny like we um parenting too, like we talked to a lot of parents that say, like I wake up the next morning I'm hung over and I'm an awful mother and I don't want to deal with my kids and this, and that you know, when we first set out, we had the. We had us in mind. Right, we want to go out, we want to be social, but we don't want to pay for it and feel awful the next day and be terrible people the next day. Right, like that's the. The alcohol just wasn't working for us, so we switched the cannabis. I never thought about women having maybe I just don't think about women like that but having that same issue of like if I have two glasses of wine, I'm hung over the next time. You don't really hear about like moms complaining about being hung over, like dads do, like you go to a social, moms are just typically much more responsible, right you?
Speaker 3:show up at your daughter's soccer game at six and eight in the morning. The joke is like oh, I had a rough night.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, I mean the other thing about that too, which is you're absolutely right. Like the other thing, I know from my experience, as I mentioned, I don't drink alcohol anymore. That being said, like did for years and I know for my wife that third glass of wine could make her incredibly hung over the next day. I, back in the day, I could have three glasses of wine and not even thought about it. But like it can also affect like, and it's not just male to female, typically across the board. You know that kind of consumption rate could affect women more. So, yeah, it totally, totally makes sense. I mean, one of the things that we're trying to show is, like there can be a called there's a wine mom culture, right, there's. You can buy all sorts of trinkets Like it's it's mommy wine time and like why not?
Speaker 2:Just add wine, why not?
Speaker 1:Closets, full of closets, full of.
Speaker 2:There's that whole thing and like I get it. Like you know, life is stressful. Being like a working mom is stressful. Like I'm a parent, I get it. It's stressful and sometimes like you need a way to relax and we have zero judgment against anyone having a glass of wine at the end of their tough day. It can be a great, great outlet for for a lot of people. I think what we really want to do is show that there is like another option as well, like there's something else you can add to the mix that can give you what you're looking for, but maybe not the downside, you know.
Speaker 1:Also, as we get older, our choices in alcoholic beverages they mature as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I was 23, I was drinking tiny little beers. Now we're drinking big borderline double IPAs on a regular basis. You know, women are drinking some wine and some cocktails, and those are higher in alcohol too.
Speaker 2:So I don't know if you guys went through this, but I remember there was this time where I would just think to myself man, I just cannot handle beer the way I used to. But then it dawned on me like out of nowhere that I was essentially drinking like soda water in college, like like real. I won't like say the labels, but like we all know them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we all know them right, and like, yeah, when you're 19 years old you can suck down like a lot of natural lights before it becomes like really, you know, debilitating to you. Do you think Nettie Light's going to come after us? Yeah, maybe, but like, I mean, they know the game there and right, it's a light, sessionable beer that you can have a lot of them, but at the time, when I was in my late 20s, I'm having these like craft IPAs. You ain't down in seven of them. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:It's tough.
Speaker 2:It's tougher, and not only just on the alcohol content, but just they're heavier and like. But I just remember being like man. I used to be able to like suck them back a lot easier. And then I'm like, well, yeah, these things have three times the amount of alcohol that the Bud Light I was having back in the day. Had you know?
Speaker 3:I hear the statement a lot from people that they say one day we'll look back at drinking as we do cigarettes. And when I look at like cigarettes, cigarettes were a huge change in America's culture, like when when that stopped. If you look at it like the generation now that are a lot more healthy, that are a lot more health conscious, that all started like 20 years since they allowed smoking. Like it took a while, but it did have a profound change on the American population. I would mean they allowed smoking. Well, they all like smoking in bars.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, all right, smoking in bars.
Speaker 2:You can still smoke, sorry, sorry.
Speaker 3:They allowed smoking in bars and restaurants and like really clamp down on, like you can barely smoke.
Speaker 2:When I was down in North Carolina you could still smoke in bars. So when I was at college in North Carolina you could light up a cigarette in the bar, I guess so what I'm saying is like that had a change and now everybody looks at smoking.
Speaker 3:Adam Kroll has this great bit Like. If somebody said like my dad went out for cigarettes and never came back, the biggest issue would be your dad's smoking.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Like, like. Oh, my God, talk about that.
Speaker 1:You have to live with that Right.
Speaker 3:So, like my point is, a lot of people have a belief in whether it's just pandering to the masses or giving their personal beliefs that we're going to look back on alcohol as bad as we do cigarette. I don't know. I mean that seems like a far jump, but there's a lot of research out there that people are saying it's really bad for you. Again, everything in moderation. Nothing is really bad if it's just once in a while. But I think we could be sitting here in 20 years and the perception could change, I think no, you're very hopeful.
Speaker 1:I hope for my children.
Speaker 3:It does, you know? I hope definitely possible. I hope that they go through the 20 years of experimenting to lead them to believe that this is just not the thing for them.
Speaker 1:Guys. Thank you so much, Shay and Josh. This has been amazing, so informative. Your desire to get this word out is infectious. I'm really rooting for you guys. This is really a cool thing and it's one more reason to get back. I thought it was just go to Fenway was the only reason to go back home, but now I've got another reason.
Speaker 2:And thank you. By the way, I mean the I think the format. Sometimes, like you know, in a lot of different formats you get three sentences or a 30 second bit to talk about your passion and what you did. I love the format that you're working with. Sometimes you can really learn more about a brand or an entrepreneur or how people tick in longer form and love and respect what you're doing. So thank you for having us on.
Speaker 3:We really appreciate it. Thank you for allowing us to tell the story. Thank you, it's helpful for us too to get our word out and hopefully people listen in.
Speaker 2:If people want to, uh, to learn more about us, wwwgethightidecom get high tidecom. You can also follow us on social. We do a lot of great work. You'll see me and Josh's ugly mugs on Instagram and tick talk and all the above at. I love it, I think that is a great.
Speaker 2:We're having a lot of fun with it. We like to make it a page that is very followable and people won't regret regret clicking the follow line. Um, so we're at at high tide bebs on all social channels so you can find us there and you know, hopefully, for anyone who's listening, we'll be in a state near you pretty soon. Awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, I wish you guys the best luck. Thank you so much for being on uh. Continue success and please come back when you start breaking into other states Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Scott.
Speaker 1:Very much appreciated, scott. All right, thanks guys, take care. Can we swear in?
Speaker 3:this podcast, absolutely Okay. Yeah, fuck, fuck, shit, fuck.
Speaker 1:Fuck shit.
