EXPERIENCE 263 | The Spirit of Adventure and Community with Joel Gustafson, Founder & CEO

I had Joel Gustafson and Jess Grease into the studio last fall to talk about seed and spirit distilling, and specifically the recent news of their expansion into what was the funk works portion of the building on Lincoln Avenue in Fort Collins. We tasted lots of samples and the guys shared a lot of stories, but with the two of them there wasn't really time to do justice to the journey of either partner. In the meantime, we were honored to have seed and spirit partner with the Locke of Experience Podcast as our spirit sponsor, and with the opening of their new space coming up in Q2, it seemed like a perfect time to get to know Joel and his passion for community and adventure and dreams for the future a little better. We enjoyed some Foco Locos with seed and spirit's delicious rum, coconut water and lime. We shared a lot of laughs, touched on the source of Joel's drive to create meaningful community, and I know you're going to love my conversation with Joel Gustafson, so please join me and enjoy. Welcome to the Locke of Experience Podcast. On this show you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around Northern Colorado and beyond. Our guests share their stories, and through it all you'll be inspired and entertained. These conversations are real and raw, and no topics are off limits, so pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest. Welcome back to the Locke of Experience Podcast. My guest today is Joel Gustafson, the founder, CEO, and head distiller at Seed and Spirit distilling. Welcome back, Joel. Hey, it's great to be back. Joel and his partner, Jess, were here, what, maybe in October or September or two months ago? Yeah. Maybe it was, yeah. It was closer to December. Was it really? Okay. It seems like a long time ago. Time flies. I've drank a lot of your products. It's been a fit to be in this process. Thanks. I've mentioned it a few times, but thanks to Seed and Spirit distilling for providing our spirit needs here at the Locke of Experience Podcast. Our pleasure. And congratulations to you on the near future expansion of your vertically integrated enterprise. Thank you. With the tasting room coming. So can we start with what's new, what are you working on? Yeah. Well, we took over funcorks brewing in January and been busting, busting butt over there to get our operational and get ready for the spring and patio season and, I guess, nice weather season, but it's been nice weather all winter long. Yeah, we're moving forward with kind of an oyster forward cocktail lounge vibe, but also we have a lot of different elements. My background is in culinary arts. I went to a culinary school at a high school and so I wanted to bring in a bunch of different elements. So we have a plethora of options when we're creating menus in the future. We have a wood-fired pizza oven to do a bunch of wood-fired dishes, pizzas, as well as like wood-fired wings, and then elevate it up a little bit and like bone marrows and Rockefellers and things of that nature. Obviously, I'm a huge fan of oysters, so, you know, my passion has always been like, I want an oyster bar and I think this town, you know, deserves a nice second option for oysters. Yeah. So why would I choose you over Jax? Well, we make our own spirits and we're going to have a much different vibe over there. Yeah. We'll have a lounge in the main area, it'll be like a lounge vibe going on, so we're a speakeasy. Yeah, yeah. Ace Gillette meets a good oysters. Yeah, just kind of like a chill area to come and bring in date on, patio, we're expanding into their patio a little bit more and creating a stage out there, a little kid zone, more family-friendly environment out there. We also have a membership room that we're creating, which is a speakeasy vibe, so it'll be a 10-person capacity membership, you'll essentially be able to sign up with us, we'll do a drawing every month and your name's John, you can choose to take that date, bring nine of your friends out, and we'll do a banquet style where you'll pre-select your menu items, we'll have them in 10 servings worth, and then also in there there'll be a poker table, so you'll be able to play cards with your friends, a little game table for chess and backgammon, darts, as well as your private bar, and we have a liquor locker that we're putting in there, so you can go. It's probably like a private event kind of venue, or if you're a member, can you just cruise in there if there's nothing going on? Well, like I said, we'll do a drawing, so if it's your night, then you have dibs on it for the entire day of the night, it will be open in the public to begin with until we fill out our membership, sloths, but we also have a liquor locker game over there and we'll have liquor locker rentals, so bottle service, so you'll be able to order our bottles, or if you want to buy a bottle from you at retail price, we'll do like a bottle charge service charge. Don't want me to retail price, but I won't be retail price, but it won't be as much as that. But you'll be able to drink out of your, exactly, exactly, so you'll be able to make your own cocktails, send it to the bar, have them make margaritas with your, you know, Don 42 or whatever. Oh, so you're going to serve not just you want to try on 42, sorry. You'll serve other fancy spirits and stuff like that too in your lounge. We will have a full distillery pub license, so we'll have beer, wine, gotcha, whiskeys, our spirits. I kind of thought you were kind of focused on your spirits, but it's not just a tasting room for you. So we actually just did a collaboration brew with New Belgium Brewing folks, and so we're doing a party time logger, we're calling it, which is a Whiskow and Blue Paddle-esque beer. I actually earned the nickname party time. Oh, did you? Uh, do you tell? In Vegas, with Russ and Anisa for their wedding, apparently I'm party time too. There's somebody else out there that was party time one, but I got wasted to the point of like falling during the best man's toast. Oh, no. And then rallied and then rocked hard and like was hanging from the subway rooftop thing or the train. That's hilarious. Only in Vegas, baby. Only in Vegas. Well, I was upside down in the Mini Pool or in the Lazy River the whole weekend kind of looking at people and talking to people upside down, so I wanted to experience it one more time. And then I just about was gone and then I rallied again and went to breakfast at like two o'clock in the morning. Played through. A played through. Played through party time. Played through the whole time. Stayed right at that, you know, point two, but I'll call content range. I get about like two or three good playthrough, you know, nights every year. I'm like one every five years. Oh, I got you. So anyway, party time is a- I reserved mine for jam crews. We could nickname, I earned at one point in time, I wish it was- You have to come and enjoy some party time while I wrote it. Definitely. It's an American logger. It's a, they brewed it with a similar recipe to blue paddle because we want them to be kind of like a oyster or summertime-y, fresh, shanty-ish, almost kind of- Yeah. And got a little more citrus. They use different hops in it to give it a little more citrus robust flavor to it, but then they ran it through our whiz cow barrels- Okay. kind of in part some of that smokiness. Like a quick soak basically. Or I guess a logger is what, like a four week age or something? They age it cold, and that takes about 12 weeks. Oh wow. But when they brewed it, they did a hotlicker run through, and so when they were actually brewing and they're going through their warp system and mashing it in- Yeah. Then it would run through our barrels, pull some flavor out. Has a hot substance even, so it pulls it out pretty fast. Yeah. It's subtle, but you're not going to get a ton of flavors when you're just pushing it exactly. It's a beer and not a whiz cow. Well, that's awesome, and that's- so that's going to be a brand for them for like- Yep, so they're- Or at least until they quit making it, or at least a co-lab with you guys- It's a collab project, so they're- If it takes off then yes. The brewery direct services, which is their distributor, as well as our distributor in Lamer County, they are going to be selling it around town. We also came up with a whiz cow beer cocktail. So that beer's whiz cow? That beer whiz cow, some ingredients, and you get yourself a really good cocktail. Dig it. So that'll all be hit in Fort Collins sometime in April. Okay. Early April? The beer. And the lounge will be sometime soon before- after that, is that what I- Yeah, we're- right now we're targeting the first week in a May. We do have some- some build-out issues that we're- we're always addressing- We should talk about fire safety systems- fire safety systems if you want to. But so we'll- we'll at least launch the- the front room, the back room, where the- Funquersies have their barrel room. Sure. That'll continue to be our barrel room, but because of the- the hazardous classification that we are in, because- We've got a bunch of bomb material in there recently. We have a bunch of hundreds and some proof- booze hanging out. Right. We have to- it'll take a little bit longer for us to finish that area. That'll be our, like, kind of a sports lounge vibe. Okay. Well, couches and TVs, shuffleboard, air hockey, no pool table. That's not big enough for that, man. But we will have shuffleboard and- You do do an outdoor ping pong table. Haven't thought about that. Yeah, that would be good. We'll add that to the room. To get them out the front, maybe. It's a little windy out there sometimes. So it's a bit windy, but, you know, only on windy days. Well, you know what I mean? I was a- I was a pretty good ping pong. And we're drinking now something that's relatively new for you guys to- Yeah, so we actually just tapped- tapped into our three-year-age- rum. Yeah, to get it ready for the tasting room. And this is a- our take on a cocoa loco. We like to call it the Foco Loco. So it's just straight up coconut water- Coconut water, lime, coconut water, lime in our rum. It's delicious. I love it. I could drink- like, honestly, drinking this makes me feel like I should be like at a beach bar. I'm just getting ready for the trip coming up, so, you know, I gotta get in the right mindset. Yeah, you're taking off tonight. As soon as this podcast is over, we're pretty much driving to the airport and jumping on a plane overnight into the Costa Rica for one of our partners. Justin Brothers, one of the other co-founders. So Justin. So, Jaybro. Jaybro. His- him and Griselda are getting married this- this coming weekend, and we're all heading down there and super excited, and Jess is- he's gonna officiate the- the wedding, and can't wait. A lot of old friends associated with Jaybro, and really grateful for his friendship and obviously, his business relationship that we've had for- Very cool. Over 10 years now, so- Okay. Um, and is Costa Rica special to Justin and his fiancee, or- Yeah, we- we actually met in the music industry that we'll get into later, but we met at a rise music festival, and he was one of the co-founders, though- I could truck that that. There you go. He was one of the co-founders of Envision, which is a festival that goes on down there. And, um, so him and I worked on that for multiple years. Got you, got you. He'd been down there for, oh, probably seven years before I joined that festival. So- Okay. He'd been down there a bunch, and for- you know, Abby and I, we have a little hotel down in Monizuma. Sure. Uh, Luce and El Cielo. And, um, so it's Costa Rica's just a special place in general, but for me, it's always at a- a very special place in my heart. So a week down there, or something like that? Yep. And back to work. Worst timing, but the- but you know, worst timing for workload, but also the best timing for vacation. Yeah, I appreciate it. And hang out with your friends and joy. What's your- what's your schedule been like the last couple of months? Um, as long as there's daylight in the sky, and- and we don't need to do things with the kids, then I've been at the distillery just cranking away. We're- we're really close, you know, it feels really good. We feel really confident about everything, and- and everything's looking amazing. It's looking amazing. Yeah. It's a regular day picking up my- my booze delivery, uh, I thought it was a lot of progress made. Yeah, it's- it's a massive, I mean, in two months, it's crazy the transformation thus far. And we've honestly been, like, kind of held back for about four weeks, three to four weeks with our permit pods. And I'm sure. You can keep producing in the meantime and stuff like that, like building your- It doesn't affect our- our business operations. It just affects- basically it affects, you know, us being able to put drywall in. Right. That's literally the- the- the pods, drywall can't go up until sprinkler systems are inspected. So it goes. So it goes. So where is this stop on- on your vision for seed and spirit? And maybe- let's talk about beyond the oyster lounge and the- the new facility, the production facility stuff. Talk to me about seed and spirit. We didn't- we got into it some kind of the formation of it and stuff that a lot of folks won't have listened to that probably the episode, but you guys have multiple brands. Yeah. And kind of multiple products and- and seed and spirit is kind of the- the holding company almost for these brands, is that the way it is? Well, high on the hill holdings is our- is the holding company that- that I formed. Okay. The seed and spirit distilling is one of- is the first company within that- holdings company. Okay. Um, the- the short of it is, uh, you know, we're- we're looking to create something new in Colorado, uh, a virtually integrated company, a seed and spirit based company, and also a- in a state distillery. So a location that you can come out to, it's, um, tours can come, friends, family. Yeah. Uh, you know, places to rent, uh, for wedding venues or- I'm imagining one of those amazing vineyards that you find kind of things- Similar, more similar to- take a vineyard and mesh it with the Kentucky big distillery model, and that's kind of what- what we're hoping to- to accomplish, you know, rickyards, um, where you age barrels, our big malt house, massive distillery, wedding venues, all- Yeah. Uh, um, uh, wedding venue that has also like catering in a restaurant associated with it, Sure. Sure. All that type of stuff. Destination restaurant kind of thing. Out in the foothills. Somewhere tucked in the- like right under the bill of you dome or something like that. Yeah, exactly. One of those properties covered down big of hill would be okay. We conceptualized it, I ran about five months of R&D on it, came up with the recipe, the formula, how we're going to do it, how we're smoking, what wood we're smoking with, um, what grain bill we're going to use on the whiskey side of it all. And then it was produced, produced, produced, and then- we did it in some small barrels- After five years in order to taste like it, we had an idea of what it would be like, small barrels aged quicker. Okay, sure. In reality, it was like, we don't know what- what the scale up is going to be like when you go from, you know, a five-gown still to a 600-gown still, there's a massive jump. And, um, I remember we poured our first barrel on it, I was like, gold. Perfect. You know, it was exactly what we were hoping for. Uh, we're really excited about Whiskey. I love it. Uh, well, I've been like, not to- because I'm- I've been up to Keela and a whiskey guy for a long time, but when I first tasted Whiskey, I was like, ooh, I like this, but not that many people are going to. But I've- I've at least had like four out of five guests that tried it at least since we started this sponsorship. I've been like, I really like that. It's- it's a nice blend over, honestly. Yeah. We were- same thing. When we did our first, you know, two, three whiskey tasting events, and we were like, all right, this is really where the rubber hits the road here. Right, right. Let's see what- what people have to say about it, and each event, I mean, even to this day, we go to an event, we're always the talk of the event. People are coming up, oh my god, I was told I have to come try this product. Um, we have, you know, the lingers just hanging around because they love it so much, and, um, but, you know, Whiskeyle is- it- it always is in the 90% approval rating. Nice. Um, so we're really excited about that, and, um, and the female demographic, it- it's great. Like- Is that right? I wondered- I had a- when I was food trucker. Excuse me. Back in the day, uh, gosh, I guess- I was probably- was I still food trucker when I met Abby? Probably not quite. Uh, I was already out of it by then, but, uh, I had a coleslaw, a cilantro lime coleslaw recipe that, uh, that, uh, used a sour cream base instead of mayonnaise and- and pepper- bell peppers and hot peppers instead of, you know, cabbage or- in- in addition to- Sure. And I called it, I don't like coleslaw. Hahaha. It's kind of like the- it is like- It is like- It is like- It is like- it is like- it is like- it is your mezcal. If you don't like Whiskey, and you like mezcal, this is your whiskey. Kind of, yeah. It's kind of a crossover. Exactly. If you like one of those, but not the other, you might like this anyhow. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Dig it. Yeah, and then we- so in the future, we will come out with, uh, Queen's Cask, uh, Whiskey, which will be our, um, Cask finished brand, um, so that'll be- it'll go into a secondary cast, so a sherry, cognac, rum, so on and so forth. Okay. That's kind of the- the Queen's part is kind of that, uh, the soft edge on there that some of that- A little bit of a Colorado royalty, we're calling it. Yeah. I dig it. I dig it. And then, uh, expedition, uh, Whiskey, the uncharted journey, uh, that'll be our- our premier Whiskey. That'll be a single barrel pole. Okay. Similar to, like, a plantains. Gotcha. Gotcha. So, one barrel, X number of bottles, that's all- that's all that Ron is. Oh, when you talked about this in our first podcast, you could do some kind of a, not a horse, but something interesting on top of that. Exactly, yeah. Um, so we'll feature different expeditions throughout, um, history. The first one we're doing is the 1820 release, um, which is, uh, major Thomas Long's journey, scientific journey across the country where essentially Long's Peak was named after him. Yeah. And, um, so that'll be our first release. I'm excited that I didn't know really even that much history, either it was a scientific, kind of mapping thing. Yeah. We're looking for cancel culture-free expeditions, um, and that was, obviously, an obvious one for us. Like, it was- Because R.O. was conquering on the Incas. Is that- No, there might be some- We're trying to stay away from Cortez and stuff. Right. Um, so, uh, so we got the expedition series. It'll be your top shelf. Queen's cask is kind of- It will also be top shelf. Also top shelf. Yeah. But, uh, but that Sherry and different cask age kind of stuff. Yep. And then forges are- Mid shelf kind of product. Yep. And then we'll have a- We don't have the name yet for the second mid shelf that we'll have. Okay. We're working on trademarking right now, but we don't really- I don't want to talk about what we're thinking about. Okay. Um, and then- Not quite premium shelf, right? It's a- I don't know what is it, a $45, $50 bottle. Yeah, right. Between 40 and 45. Yeah. So- Approachable. Approachable. Right. For me, it's top shelf. It's an expensive product to produce. Yeah. Just in general. For sure. Importing the agave, uh, smoking it, um, distilling it. I'm- Sure. No, I'm not criticizing. And it's good. You know, and that's the way it works. How about the- The rum? Would that- It's on place, or it'll just be a seed and spirit thing, right? Only about- Like things like that, uh, rum, our tequila, our vodka, our gin. Can you call it tequila? Uh, we actually have to- Okay. We're importing tequila to- To actually call it a tequila. I've found that our- You know, distilling agave has a different, um, the way that enzymes work and the way that, um, the flavor profiles transition from an actual pinya, like, uh, the agave plant. Yep. They harvest it, they- They cook it, and then they distill it. It all happens within, you know, 48 hours. Okay. To whereas, um, when you get agave nectar, then- Juicet plant, then it just- Well, they juice it, and then they boil it down. They turn into a nectar, and then it, you know, it's- It's- It's year, probably, or, you know, multiple months, at least, for it gets to us. Right. And it's already gone through a healing and cooling process. So just the flavor profiles are different, and you don't really get that- That, you know, the loveliness of a tequila. Yeah. From an agave spirit, in my humble opinion. So where would that tequila fit in your brand lineup thing? It'll just be at the distillery. At the tasting room, you'll be able to get a bottle of our tequila. Right now we have about, um, 260 gallon barrels, uh, rosé wine barrels that are aging, so it's a rosé tequila. Oh, interesting. It's a really nice- Okay. So you're just imported tequila. Yep. And then we aged it in different barrels, so the different flavor profiles within that base tequila. Gotcha. So you get some, I guess, value add and kind of brand clarifier, but- Yeah. And lineup filler outer. Exactly. The filler outer. It's important. Yeah. And like I said, that won't be available in the market. We're not looking to take it to tequila. Not a revenue stream for you of significance. At this point, it doesn't- It's not a path that we're looking to pursue. Yeah, fair enough. We are actually pursuing the RTD for WizCow already to drink cocktail. Oh. A can cocktail. Yeah. So we're working- We're actually working with New Belgium's, um, with their- Their folks over there at their R&D department. Oh, okay. To help us formulate the rest of these, we want to use like natural organic ingredients, real juices, WizCow. Um, we're going to come up with two margaritas, our peanut balloma, and, um, Our take on a dark and stormy with WizCow, which we're calling nothing but blue skies. Oh, interesting. So, uh, we're hoping to be able to get that launched in the market mid-summer. Okay. Wow. That's coming right along. Yep. That's, uh, I was just thinking to myself that- So my- When my dad drank drunk up, which wasn't very often, but he would drink like a whiskey sour. You know, and that's kind of that, uh, lemon juice kind of flavor. Yeah. Then with, uh, with, uh, mezcal or tequila, a lot of times it's straight lime. So, hi. This is Clint Jasperson, managing partner at Purpose Driven Wealth. We believe financial clarity leads to a life of contentment and purpose. Our mission is to guide clients through the complexities of wealth management, retirement planning, and legacy using a values driven, stewardship based approach focused on provision, contentment, and enjoyment. With more than a century of expertise through thriving, we offer tailored strategies to help individuals and families achieve their goals and embrace generosity. Whether you're navigating a life or business transition or planning for the future, we're here to partner with you every step of the way. To learn more about Purpose Driven Wealth, call 970-330-741. We love it. It's super cool, and I, you know, I come from that background as well, and I'm a good old boy. I grew up in small rural Pennsylvania, and, um, you know, we're all cut from the same cloth. So for me, it's like- Yeah, yeah. I get along with them way better than, you know, cities like your types. That's my money tree. You don't want to run away. See, I'm just shaking your money. We're making rain. Joe, make a rain. So anyways, yeah, relationships are super important to us. And when I form a relationship, I really want to- This is for the longevity. You know, I'm not looking to undercut somebody or beat somebody up on a price just to get a deal done. I want to make sure that we're forming relationships, and they feel they're a part of this project. As much as I feel I'm a part of their- You know, they're farming. Yeah. So I appreciate that. Um, well, and let's- You're- We met through your fiance, Abby. I'm a fiance. We a fiance. And Abby's- Has the Edward's house as well as your- Her Costa Rica property there that you mentioned earlier. Is this, uh, I guess is this a shared vision? This is state event venue and thing like that. Or is she- is she pursuing her own kind of- She- She's her- She's her- When we met, she was her- She's as much of an entrepreneur as I am, which is, you know, why I fell in love with her so fast and so hard. Um, she's an amazing woman who's super talented and- And, um, is in her groove right now. And down the road, who knows what the future holds for, you know, anything. Um, But, you know, a dream of mine would be to have her involved this project, of course. Fair, you know. It seems like her skill set plus your- Exactly. You know, there's certain elements of what this- She's been running a boutique in- Yeah. The big hiture- The big hiture- The big hiture- The big hiture- The big hiture- The big hiture- The big hiture- The big hiture- The big hiture- The big hiture- The big hiture- The big hiture- The big hiture- So, you know, the dream would be, yes, is to have her involved in this and- Well, in your country, authentic though, which is why she loves you, at least in part of me, sure. Yeah. A hard working guy. It was a mountain man, that's why she- She followed me, I think. And I'm also an entrepreneur and we- You know, when you're with somebody that understands what it means to start a business. Yeah. Especially like a- A business of the scale that we're doing. It- It takes all your dedication and your commitment and your belief and- And you're not getting paid for the first multiple years, you know. Yeah. Like multiple years, especially in her industry, where we have to wait four years for a barrel to age before we can start performing. So, it's like, you know, there's a big trust fall that happens. And being with somebody that understands that is super important. I should give a commercial to myself in this moment. I think episode number 12 was my interview with Abby. She sent it to me when we first started dating. Oh, is that right? She was like, if you want to know more about me here, listen to this. Exactly. And I listened to the whole episode, dude. That's probably why you- It felt like you knew me better than I knew you when we first met because you just listened to me talk with your girlfriend for two hours. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's- She introduced me to like what her world looks like and where she came from- Love it. Rather than sitting down like having, you know, conversation about it. I never thought about using the local experience appearance as a- The dating tool. The dating profile who will, yeah, attach it to your match. Yeah. That's cool. So, yeah, so the listeners out there are tuning in for this one. Episode 12. Is it was it episode 12? I don't know. It's right around there. Abby Stout. Check it out. Yeah. So that vision is pretty, pretty alluring for sure. And it would be such a great community building space. It would be great. And what are the like the event venue, like the wedding event venues, especially around here, or they're fine, but that would be like a premiere. Sure. Kind of thing. It would be, I mean, it's like next level, right? Like we're talking, and in my mind, this is all, you know- Sure. Hypothetical. We're getting deep into hypothetical- We're getting deep into hypothetical- We're getting deep into hypothetical, we're getting deep into hypothetical. We're getting deep into hypothetical- We're getting deep into hypothetical- Right. No, I mean, you're thinking it'd be like a whole campus, so 150 plus acres. Right. Sprulling, open, you know, big views, but also. Yeah, you're like, you're on the farm, you know, you're picking from the gardens, the floral gardens, you're pulling and arrangements from our flower, things like that. Just like next level where it's never been done before. So really allewers me to the pursuit of it because no one's ever done anything like that in multiple facets, you know, as well as bringing this whole distillery idea into it and becoming a nationwide distributed company. So yeah, we're hell-bent on giving it all I got to see it to fruition and, you know, I'm about to turn 44 and this is the time to strike while the iron's hot. You've got 10 more good years in you. My back, my back's maybe got seven. Your brain's got more than that though, so hopefully you don't need your back anymore. I can be a CEO, no problem. My back was all right. So one of the reasons we wanted to have you back on was because sharing the time with Jess, we didn't really get to know like little Joel and stuff. Little Joel. Little Joel in Pennsylvania. Bo-Tunk, Pennsylvania. Do you want to take us back there? Sure, yeah. So I grew up in a really small family. It was just me and my brother and then very small, you know, two cousins in my immediate family. Oh, wow. Very small family tree in a small town. North Western P.A. and McKean County called Mountain Jewel. No, Western. So like up off of Lake Erie kind of there, is that? We're about half hour south of the New York line, just south of Bradford, Pennsylvania, where they make zippo lighters in case now. Fancy, if you know. I've heard of case. In about an hour east of the Ohio line. So it gives you a target. Yep, yep. Right on a route six. So I could jump on to route six and take it all the way home if I wanted to. Very small town like 700 people. Like highway six, down in Denver there. Yep. It takes you all the way across the country. Is that right? Langian Mountain Jewel, Pennsylvania. Oh, crazy. But very small town. You know, most of my childhood was spent in the woods. Camping, we had camp old school, which was our like, you know, as little kids, we built this campground, campsite thing. And you know, that was where we'd always go every weekend, we got there with, you know, our we had surf boards screwed into trees that had fallen down and we'd shake the trees so we could surf on, you know, just do stupid little kids stuff out in the middle of the woods. Like parents would just be like, guys, kids are in the woods tonight. Sure, free, free, free range, free range kids. This is back when, you know, cell phones didn't exist back then. Sure. Yeah. No, you were, I mean, in the summertime, especially you released at 8 a.m. and and be home by dinner and sick. See you later. Or we, you know, we set up, we built like TPs back there and we'd literally spend like three days and just camping out. Really? And I mean, it was like in hindsight, it was only like a half hour or a half mile from my grandpa's house. Sure. He would pop in and check on us and my parents would walk back and sit in the woods and listen to us and have like sandwiches and stuff or something. We used to do, like all kinds of stuff. There was a stream there. So we'd go fishing or we'd bring like foil meals. Like my mom would make these like foil packs and we'd throw them on the fire and open it up and you'd be chicken and whatever veggies and stuff. Yeah, yeah. Straight up like hillbilly style, you know. And that's how I grew up and, you know, working with my grandpa and my dad. I'm going fishing ice fishing. Like construction stuff and stuff like that? Just like, you know, cutting trees and firewood. Got you. Just doing what? Ghibli stuff. Doing what we needed to do that day. There was no, no was not an option when it came to like working, you know. I'm very grateful for that. Like they taught me work ethic and that's what I pride myself on the most. And I think 10 out of 10 people when when you talk to them, they'll tell you I'm the hardest working guy they ever met. Okay. And that goes from, you know, in my music industry days till now. Like I put it in there. Every day I put in effort time. I'm not afraid of anything that has to be done. Like it has to be done. Let's do it. Yeah. Moving on. Eat the frog. Yep. Exactly. Like the frog and see later. So that was kind of like my childhood was a lot like hunting fishing. You go to school. Good grades. Sometimes you went to school. I did. I was actually my mom went to my dad was a truck driver. Okay. And so he's on a road. He's a long hauler. So he was on a road a lot. And there was kind of my mom at home. And my brother had some developmental issues. And he was older than me. Okay. And he created some challenges for the family. Sure. And kind of forced me to grow up a little bit quicker than what I normally would have. But it also taught me maturity. You're your brother's keeper a little bit almost or just seeing, you know, or just dealing with the consequences of his when you're when you have a sibling or a person in your life that has developed developmental issues like mental developmental issues. Yeah. It just that young of an age, you see how they react to things and it caused me to really step back and I think look at you know my maturity and grow up quicker and become more you know even keel. Yeah. Yeah. And you know him big emotions. I didn't want to have big emotions. I didn't want to and my mom had enough to deal with. Yeah. If I was doing that too, you never would have made it through. Yeah. So, you know, and God bless him. He was, you know, he was a great, kind, wonderful human being and he's no longer with us. But yeah. So kind of grew up in our family and that really caused me to, you know, just approach life in a different manner, I think. And from when I was 18, I left home, went to culinary school down in Pittsburgh. Okay. I went to Pennsylvania, colonized to do. What drew you to that? Had you been a cook? I was washing dishes at the time at the West line in. And by the way, should we have a taste of this? Yeah. Yeah. I got a thing in my focus. Well, I can pour it in these little shoes. So I was a dishwasher at the time and then I took here. I'll take that one. I know you got to go on vacation. Half time. I am third instead. There you go. Not that the guy that makes it is so afraid of that. I know you're heading to Costa Rica like three hours or so. But I got to sleep on the plane. Yeah. He's going to drive you there. Oh, yeah. Okay. Keep going. So yeah, you're why on the culinary? Yeah. So I took like Votex classes in high school and I also took home at classes in high school and representative of Pennsylvania culinary artists too. It came up and and presented to our class. And and I talked to my chef that I was working with and he had nothing but great things to say about the industry. I didn't know what I wanted to do in life. Yeah. And I didn't want we don't come from a family of means. Like, you know, there was no. Don't college fun. Go. No, there was there was, you know, food stamps and stuff like that. Like, you know, we grew up knowing what it means to be humble. Yeah. And and that's also a blessing in my life when I look back on it. Same. So yeah, I was like, well, screw it. At least I'll always be able to eat well. Help me out on first dates and I can travel and move anywhere and find a job pretty easily. So I went to culinary school, moved down to Pittsburgh, did that whole thing and my time in Pittsburgh was wild and fun. I was gonna say you were like completely free range by that time. So at this point, young guy, I go I go from a big city compared to the little village. I go from camping in the back woods to literally our, if you know Pittsburgh, it was like fifth and four street. It's like where point state park is like literally the very tip of the three rivers where they could have it. Yeah, just across the street and like the center. That's where our dorms were. So like literally I'm like skyscrapers. It was complete shock, amazement, hung out there downtown for a little bit and then I ended up moving out the dorms and finding a house with this girl estate at the time and over on pit campus side of town. So then I was with all the other college students. And that just elevated the whole experience for me. Met some of my life long friends. Yeah, a group of friends that we end up actually moving out to college. Start spurring you into the party scene, right? I was already well into that. It kind of solidified that path at least for a season. Yeah, we had a good time in Pittsburgh. Let's for sure. Pittsburgh is a fun town. Go visit it. If you haven't been, there's a lot going on. A lot of great people. But anyways, and then when I was 19, my buddy Nick, Nick and I took a road trip across the country. We did a three month road trip to find out where. Like after culinary school, kind of. Yep, culinary school is done. He's now a doctor, but he was, he dropped out of school. Okay. He was like, I'm not into college. And he was like, I just want to, you know, whatever. So we were like, let's go on a road trip. And so we drove across the country. Spent three months did a big teardrop. Tell me about this. Like, you know, Volkswagen van in a, a camera called the cat. Camry called the cat. And so did you like stay in hotels and stuff or tents or, we, we, we did a lot of, yeah, whatever it took, depending on where we were at. We did camp a lot for sure, especially when we got, I mean, from Pittsburgh to Denver, we basically just, yeah, overnight. Like 28 hours straight. We're in Colorado. We landed up in Netherlands. We had a friend living up there. So we stayed up there for a couple nights. And then we left going up to A basin. And then from there, we shot out to LA area and then did the whole highway one all the way up past Portland and dropped back down and came back to Colorado. And then ultimately we decided, like, Colorado is where we want to live. Like, of all the places out west, we visited. And this was, we wanted to move here. Dig it. And this is a circuit me win. What year was this? This was 2002. Okay. So, yeah, yeah, just a few years. I moved to Colorado in 99. So it was kind of prime time. Prime time. So much fun. Yeah. So we ended up moving out. And I was supposed to move up to A basin with my friend. It was working at the bottom of the ski resort. There's a little a frame above the ski or the, no, the ski patrol. There's an apartment up there. And he's like, I got an extra apartment. I'm a manager of the ski ski lifts. I'll give you a job bump in chairs. I'm like, all right, sweet. I got a job. I'm on my way. I'm moving. And I bought a Toyota loyal or a Subaru loyal and it broke down on me. And from when it broke down till I got it fixed, he and I'm getting fired. So I lost my job opportunity. And I'm now I'm back in my parents. And I'm like, oh crap. What am I going to do? My loyal is broken still. My loyal is told, I ended up, dude, I went through two engines. It was like a drive rod that was broken. It's like a kept just blowing engine. So eventually I traded it and got a RAV4 runner or something or a RAV4 runner. And anyways, so I so Google searched places to live in Colorado and Fort Collins came up. And I was like, never visited this place. Never heard of it. And it was like, oh, Colorado State's here. I found heritage park down on prospect and shields. I was like, okay, 99 dollar move in rate. And I was like, okay, in my budget, I'm moving to Fort Collins. Oh shit. So I packed up a bag, moved Fort Collins and my buddy that I was supposed to move in, moved in with me. He's like, dude, I still have a photo job. He didn't have a job and he's the place to live. So he ends up moving in with me. And anyways, and what did you do? I was working in I was working in in the culinary industry at that time. So I shift around for a while. Any particular favorite stops? My favorite, my favorite all-time location that I worked at was the Canyon Shophouse. Oh yeah. With Matt. I walked in one day when he was building it out and I was a second employee hired. And I worked there until life took a change on me and then I won't get into that. That's a little painful. It's not worth it. It's not what I want to talk about. But anyways, I'm moving on from that and then worked up at Mishawaka. Which kind of brings into the next phase. Pre-Danny days, I guess. Yeah, I was when Robyn still owned it. 2004, this is. Oh wow. Yeah. So this is the heyday of the man. Is what you could still buy cocaine in the back room? I don't do cocaine, but if you wanted to. I'm sure you could. Not that I ever did either. But it was a wild, wild place. It was crazy. It was crazy back then. It was the heyday. So that was the year that the Mish just went off. And if you were around back then and you went to the Mishawaka, like Soundtrack was playing, MMW, Jurassic 5. I mean, the lineup was absolutely ridiculous. And it ended up shutting the place down because it was just such a... They overbooked it. It was just crazy. My first weekend. People were camping on the island over there. Yeah, it was, it never stopped. My first weekend. I remember on a regular basis. That's how they paid. Yonder Mountain was 390. 490 Yonder Mountain was the first kickoff for me working at the Mishawaka. I love it. So anyways, that formed my bond with that place. Like, I love the Mishawaka. Still to this day, Danny Grants, one of my dear friends. And the music industry too, right? And the music industry. So... Well, by the way, while we've got this bourbon here. Cheers. Cheers. And it's really good. Can we deviate for a minute to talk about the... It's going off on a tangent there. This is a three year? This is a four and a half year. So this is a collaboration project. So this one isn't 100% our juice yet. We're working with Bardstown, Distilling, and Green River. We source two different variations of other bourbon. Bring it in, do a blend on it, and then bottle it. And we're all kind of in in unison with supporting the Semper Fine America's fun with this particular brand. Oh, I understand. And then they know that eventually you'll just have your own juice and whatever because bourbon has to be a certain age or whatever. Yeah, we're coming up close on that. We're about a year and a half from hitting that four year bottle and bond mark. Yeah. And that's kind of what we're holding out on. We can release a three year... We can do whatever we want. If we want to do a two year, we can do it. Sure. But for me, four years is kind of like that benchmark where you want to... It oxidizes enough, it has enough flavor profiles that have had a chance to just kind of, you know, really combine. Sure. Yeah, the maturation process is there. We're not aging in a kind of like an open area or a high temperature fluctuation rechouse. So ours is kind of a flat line because it's inside of our building. Whereas most rechouses will, when it's hot, it's super hot and air, when it's cold, it's super cold in there. Oh, does that change the... Yeah. It like accelerates the aging? They call it volatile aging. Oh, I don't know. So it's kind of rough on it. So when alcohol heats up, it expands and when it cools, it contracts. So in the barrel, when it eats, it pushes it into all those tracks. In the wood, and when it cools, it sucks it back out. So it changes the timeline for sure. It changes the flavor profile. And you can see, even like in our rechouse, if it's closer to, you know, a heat source, it'll have a variation in that flavor profile within that barrel. Yeah. So as we get into, you know, our second project will have multiple rechouses designed for various aging techniques. Yeah. Well, and I've been reading about that, like people put whiskey on boats and stuff like that and age it. So I don't know what... Jefferson Ocean Age is what you're referring to. Maybe. I mean, the Japanese have been doing it for a long time. Oh, is that right? Yeah. It originated in Japan. We actually have a similar thing. We obviously don't have oceans here in Colorado yet. But we're doing... We're calling it a wagon wheel age. And it's going to be partnered with our expedition whiskey. Okay. So essentially what it is is a moving system. Hydraulic movers. And they move full racks of whiskey or constantly in motion. So it sloshes. Yeah. And what that does is essentially if, you know, you think it was 53 gallons... Well, the core, the center of the liquid volume gets moved to the outside. And it just gets circulated around. So whereas if it's just sitting stagnant for four years, that center doesn't have a chance to really touch the outside. So a lot of the outside layers are absorbing that flavor. And it blends in more with the inside. Yeah, yeah. Bigger distilleries, they'll go through a rick-house system where they move their barrels down the line as they're pulling barrels. So they get a little bit of that... Yeah, they get disturbed at least. And so that inside stuff might drift out to the outside more. So we're working on... We have it set up, but we don't have it allowed to do it yet. But there'll be a hydraulic movers system that has these four racks and they move all at once. Yeah. Could have a nice little wagon wheel on there that's like... Yeah. And it's kind of like a... So back in the day, it actually comes from a part of history. It's a part of a wagon. It would age faster, right? Exactly. Like it comes from a part... Like when they would load up to head out west, they would fill up barrels of whiskey so that they had spirits for the journey or for when they ended. And as, you know, it took four or five, six months to travel by wagging across the country. It tasted different when they got there. And when they got there, it was more flavorful and it was different than when they were drinking back in the back east of New York. So we jumped off on the bourbon from the Mishwaka? Yeah, so Mishwaka, I love it. We're super grateful to be a part of it. Since the beginning, we've been sponsor. We're on their menu up there. Yeah, yeah. Whiskow, the Pina Paloma. If you're up at the Mish this summer, check it out. Delicious cocktail. So I worked there for... And your chef in cooking... Just flipping burgers, basically. Right, right, not my chef. Flying cooking. I didn't want to do the chef thing. I was, you know, the head grill chef at the chop-house, stressful, and I just wanted to just relax and... Flip burgers. Do a job, go see a concert. Yeah, yeah. And I was living in a yurt up in risk canyon at the time, so I went in, like, a little bit more of my hippie days back then. So, come... My brother passed away. And we... And I'm been asked to me, the Mishwaka would donate the site, the venue for fundraisers. And I happened to be at the bar when my manager, Louis, at the time, this woman came in and she was asking about her date, making sure that their date was good. And I was like, what was that all about? And he told me, and I was like, could I do a benefit concert for my brother? And he was like, absolutely. I see a lot of like burial expenses and stuff. No, we did 100% proceeds donated. So everything that we ever did in early symbiotic days was 100% fundraisers, and we donated 100% of the money. Oh, but just in his name, kind of. Just in his name. I just want to celebrate his life. And I wanted to like, you know, just celebrate. You know, like death is a hard thing, especially when you're only sibling passes. It really brings a two-way street, right? You can approach death in two ways, in my opinion. One, you can look at it in a positive manner and, you know, honor them and do something good in their name. And in my experience, it worked out where it led me in this path that now I'm here. And I would never have been here if it didn't. Yeah, for sure. If that night, this is one of your big folks in the road. If that day never happened, then I never would be here. Yeah. And I'll explain it here in a minute. Yeah, please. Or you can go in, you know, in a darker hole and, you know, and have whatever, whatever feelings you go through or, you know, remorse and depression and stuff like that. I chose to look at my brother's passing as, okay, this is something that happened. I can't change it. I'm going to honor him. I'm going to remember him in the way that I can do. And we did, what was he called? The Canyon Funk Fest. So we closed down the Mishawaka three years in a row, the last show of the season. Okay. And that was my first introduction to throwing a concert, throwing an event. Yeah. And the last one did really well, actually. There's a multiple bands kind of thing. Yeah, all funk bands, like three P's in WMAB, like all the old school bands. My neighbor was Amanda from Colony Funk when I first met her. She lived right down the block from us, being Jill when we first moved in the whole town. Colony Funk, that Joe Fro, he was part of the three P's. Okay. And he's still a dear friend of mine. Fun place. We just hung out on Jam Cruise together and parted. I'm not gonna do it. So you did this benefit. We did spend it together. And it went well. And then that was the same year that Katrina happened. And I was like, oh, I want to do something big. I want to do something like, I've got this itch. And I got this little fire that sparked. Yeah. And so I decided I want to throw this benefit concert for Katrina. It was called The Big Easy Blowout. Three nights, three different cities. And we started putting together, our started putting together like an all-star lineup. And we had like big chief, Monk Bujo, one of the oldest chieftains of Mardi Gras fly up. Okay. Frenchy, the New Orleans painter flew in. I got his, you know, painting on my wall. Dang. Russell Batisse, Poppim Molly. And you're like recruiting all these people. I'm just sending out emails to people. I was like, hey, I'm throwing this concert. I think it was pretty cool. Do you want to, I like your music. Hey, Russell Batisse. I really like to, you know, in the funky meter. Do you want to come play? I got Russell Batisse, Poppim Molly, Reed Mathes. Garrett Sayers sat in one night. Just don't know. You focused, opened up. And we were trying to figure out this key player. Like, who's going to play keys? And we were talking with Kyle Hollinsworth and Joey Porter. And I was like, fuck it. I'm going to, I'm going to email Fish. You can see what Paige is doing. And we decided to donate all of our money to the Tipitinas Foundation and New Orleans Musician's clinic. Okay. And I'm going to ask to me, New Orleans Musician's clinic was Paige's father's organization. Oh, no shit. And so he got this, he got this, his manager passed on his email. He was interested. So I got his email back from Fish. And so I'm like, oh, shit. So I, um, Doug, I'm really regretting. I did go to this. It was so much fun. And so string cheese used to throw this concert called Winter Carnival. I met this guy named Jeff Swagger. Randomly at a hotel, um, balcony. He was out in Washington state. And he wanted to move to Colorado. He was trying to do this production, music production thing. And he was like, if you ever, I was telling about the big easy and like, I'm talking to Paige. He's like, if you've landed and you need help, let me know. So I get this email and I'm like, yo, Jeff, you want to help me out of this? He's like, I'm in. So, you know, we literally LLC'd, you know, made a quick website. So it becomes like a business partner? Came a business partner. And one of my best friends to the day, you know, we want to best men in my wedding. I'll be Jeff. So anyways, I was like, let's do this. And so we formed a symbiotic event or music production at the time. But no, it's event services. Symbiotic. Symbiotic. Tell me about that. So symbiotic is, is the brainchild of Jeff and I. And he started with the idea that we could throw conscious events, raise money for newer non-profit organizations, and donate it away. And it was a very successful way to launch. However, it's not a very sustainable model. Right. You've got to actually be the money as it turns out. Well, yeah, if you don't have a nest egg and you're just putting up your own money, eventually if an event's kind of fail. Right. You're not going to take the scale. And that's what happened to us with Fire Mountain Music Festival. So at that point, we shifted gears and reform. So was that soon after, or I guess? Yeah, so Big EZ went well. We raised like $25,000. Had an amazing night. Page came out. Ended up playing for free for us. Like, he never charged us. And he just wanted to do something great. And he had such a good time. We did Servantes, Boulder Theater and the old Hodes. No, well. And it was such a fun time, such a great introduction, such a learning curve. I'm sure. Holy shit. Right. You hadn't been in the industry for years or anything. I'm like, Google it and what stage plot is. You were like living in a yard. Like not long before, or working that flip of your... You started writing you haven't been in it there. So yeah, then Simiata kind of started to take form. And that led us kind of down this, you know, trajectory of, you know, we began to work with, you know, like the sonic blooms, excuse me, the sonic blooms, it arrives. So they hired you to be there like... So we would organize ourselves? Yeah, we were a turnkey company. And we are. They are. Yeah, you're no longer part of it. I'm no longer part of it, but still love and support them. Right. And we would... I was the operations director, so I was in charge of, you know, anything from fencing layouts, port of parties, water, power grids, where the stage is when... So like a festival like arise, like... I would walk into an empty field... Like a rockabond folks festival, or something, could just hire you to... To organize and run the event. Right. And we had a, you know, production division, we had an administration division, and legal divisions. Jess was our legal... Permitting guy. Yep, yep. So we did that for... Shipmen, it was... 12 years. Was that a full-time job for you during this whole time? Or were you still cooking and doing stuff? No, no, I... Like a festival season's only a few months of year, right? Once we made this... Once we decided to do symbiotic, I gave up... Everything. Culinary, and that was my goal. And... And so you just like make connections in the off-season and different things and whatever? For a while, yeah. And then there was a nonprofit organization called Positive Legacy, which is housed under cloud nine events. And cloud nine adventures, actually. And... We'd go and work for this nonprofit in the winter. Okay. On, like, jam cruise or panicking of apply or avid at the beach, so and so forth, a bunch of international destination festivals. How's it like we're getting ahead, though? Because I want to hear about the massive failure of Fire Mountain. Well, it was a great success in many regards. However, like many things in my life, I bite off point when I can choose sometimes. Okay. And I was trying to, you know, throw this in a field up on North 287. And I didn't realize just how much money it took. Permitting all that stuff. Like, everything was just kind of, I was like, Oh, what do you mean? Permitting is going to cost 10 grand. I have 120 for this whole thing. Right. Right. Right. You need to add more zeros to that. Right. So we kind of just shifted gears and moved it up to the Mishawaka and did a two-night thing up at the Mish. And we brought in lettuce. Some of you know lettuce. Yeah, yeah. So lettuce dumps the funk and soul live, which are like some of the hottest, biggest funk bands out there right now. We introduced them to Colorado. It was the first time ever playing in Colorado. Oh, cool. And also, you know, unbeknownst to me, it's terrible to have your headliner be a first play ever in a state, you know. So just take a sales or low. It did pull what it should have, instead. Yeah, take a sales or low. And it just, you know, we didn't lose a ton of money. Right. But it was just enough for us to be like, Oh, shit, this is a bad business model. Like, you know, losing 20 grand when it's your actual money. Right. Like, wow, we have 150 grand of, you know, potential profits. We give some of that away. Yeah. Yeah. So we just changed our model a little bit to be like, well, we're going to keep 40% and donate 60%. Yeah. Well, that's just the wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that. And we all needed to get paid eventually someday. Anyway, we're just young. I mean, I do listen. That's okay. Yeah, I was 20. Shit man, I was, I was young. I was 26 years old. We said, right. So I was just like, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, you know, shooting from the hips. So I got to do it. Like, anyway, is that, that kind of, you know, that, that work. And we did a great number of festivals, man. We, I'm really proud of my days with symbiotic. Tell me about this nonprofit work in the off season. Because yeah, like you started going into a jam cruise and different things with that. Like, this is a nonprofit, but that does. Yeah, so, so the, what they do is they, they raised money at these international music events. Primarily back then. Now they're a little bit more broad. They host multiple events. They have different bands. They do, you know, they do a much more various types of fundraising now. Back then, it was like housed and formed under this. It was all music all the time. And yeah, cloud nine, cloud nine adventures was like there. The entity that they formed under. Kind of like the otter cares part of Otterbox or something. Kind of, yeah. And so we would go and we'd, we'd hang out, raise money, and then donate money to grants in those countries. And eventually, after about three years or so of working, just as kind of like an event lead or whatever, an auction lead or whatever it was, I elevated up to the grant manager role. So in the off seasons, I would also go and oversee these, you know, $150,000 grants to Dominican Republic, you know, water projects. Water projects, yeah, whatever it is. Interesting. And so I, and kind of, that's what I did for the winner. It was, you know, go see music in Mexico or Dominican or, you know, on cruise ships. And then decide who could have the money. And raise money with, you know, amazing people that wanted to give. And you're doing amazing stuff with it. And we're super proud of it. And Jess is still the president of it. Oh, is that right? Yep. And so many dear friends sit on the board. Oh, wow. You know, when we forms seed and spirit, I kind of just step back from everything. Because this is, you know, this is where, I need my focus here. This is where it's going to be. And, and, you know, two weeks on nonprofit paid. So it doesn't equal out to being worth it. Fair enough. I love it. I love those guys. If you get a chance, go check out leaving a positive legacy. Donate if you have a chance to or if you wish to. They're an amazing organization. They do great work. Very transparent. And obviously my business partner is a president. So yeah, fully trusted in that organization. I love it. I'm going to call a short break. And we're going to come back and talk a little bit about why this give back is woven through everything you've done in this journey so far. Yeah, nonprofit. And giving back to the community is super important to me. I look forward to that part of the conversation. This episode is sponsored by Loco Think Tank. Loco Think Tank provides peer collaboration for business owners. We build smart, safe places to help business leaders navigate every stage with a business journey. And we love what we do and who we do it with. Our model features give back minded business veterans and the role of Loco facilitators. And we're always looking for abundance minded individuals to add to our membership, facilitator team, local community, or to feature on this podcast. Listeners of this podcast who go on to become members of Loco Think Tank get their sixth month of membership for free. Just mention the Loco Experience Podcast on your application. To learn more, visit our website at localthinktank.com. That's l-o-o-c-o-thinktank.com. And we're back. I'll bring that just a tiny bit closer. There you go. How's that? So good. That's so good. Do you look sweet. Voice that's coming back. That's a little cracky. Recovering from... It's just sort of been two days ago. We have to cancel. Really? Oh my gosh. You're a cracker in pop. I couldn't even like, talk to anybody. It was ridiculous. Well, thanks for the ease, by the way. These are the Foco... The Foco Locos. Foco Locos. Your rum is nice. It reminds me of... Gosh, I can't remember the... Great. No. What are some of the big rum brands that are nice? Like Craccan is a... Well, that's the dark stuff. Yeah, fairly good one. Something gay. Cana. Gay. Mount Gay. Mount Munt Gay. Munt Gay. Munt Gay. That Jill and I toured that distillery. That's when she realized after her fourth shot of rum that she really liked rum. Yeah. Rums... Rums great. The issue with rum... We live in Colorado, and we're not around a bunch of sugarcane. Yeah. So it's not easy to import quality molasses and in... This particular one I went a little... Tell me how you make that. So I really... Like is that how you make it? You import molasses. Yeah, like totes and molasses. Okay. So we use molasses, coconut sugar, brown sugar, for this one. And then actually when I was launching this and really just brainstorming and creating like okay before we even had a building but when I just decided I'm going to do this. I was deep into just educating myself on all different sciences behind all the different spirits. And we're going to go back to that that season of your life actually. Sure. Yeah, it was crazy. You equip yourself to become a head distiller. Yeah. If not yet, master. It seemed to be. So there's a thing called dunder in the rum industry. And basically in poor countries where they make rum they don't ever want to throw it away. So they put in this big pit and it's called a dunder pit. And it's where they will pull from because there's still a little bit alcohol in there. They don't want anything to go to waste. Okay. And but what really happens is all these different bacteria and critters. Not critters but like you know, funguses and things like that bacteria grow and it causes just flavor changes. So in a dunder you'll get a layer of like white like in the bottom of a barrel or something. Is that what you're talking about or what? So what I did is I took a 55 gallon drum. I made a batch of rum. I then distilled it and then took the dunder or took the stillage and then put it in this barrel and put a screen in a coffee filter and Oh like a capture that last little bit. Just to leave to create a dunder. So you wanted to inoculate with wild yeast and all these bacteria and stuff and it essentially it'll grow a like an inch to two inch whatever thick mold on top and you peel that off and then you pour that into your mash so when you're warding in you then boil that with it and it imparts all these like cloves and bananas and things you can't get without adding you know those types of ingredients are artificial ingredients and flavors and stuff like that. But naturally it comes. So that's what I did with this one. And in the early beginning phases of the distillery I was like I want to have a good aged rum. Right. And I was imagining four or five years down the road we'd be launching a tasting room but here we are two and a half years later. So we made about six barrels worth of rum and so this is uh you know we used coconut chips that we dried coconut. Well there's a lot of some expensive ingredients too. Yeah. So this is a pretty good. Cacao rock or cacao nibs there's a bunch of cacao nibs in there to give it just like chocolate on their tone and then when I distilled it I distilled it through our gin basket and which is a botanical basket so it's a you add ingredients to it the vapor passes through it it pulls those flavors out and that's how they make a gin a lot of places make a gin. So you've made it kind of taste all of the that it is because of I made it more complex more complex yeah so rather than just taking molasses and water and yeast and creating it I was like how many layers can I add to this how deep can we get into flavors where you can pick up on different notes of clove and cacao and bananas and it does have a more. Oh thanks so it's very complex it's very delicious I love it I wish it was more affordable to be able to create more of it um it's just the profit margins are just well and it has to be like you can buy a bottle of rum for thirty pounds or whatever right 25 bucks gets you a cheap bottle of rum and that's the other thing too as you you're not going to be able to sell a call about a premium round that you know thirty forty dollars a bottle and have your profit margins be where you need them to be so what's this going to price that um I mean we'll do it by the cocktail so oh so this is only available to house this is only available to my friendly neighborhood liquor store nope there's a season spirit that'll never be enter liquor store so you can really only make any money on that one selling it through the cocktail correct machine we just wanted to have a a really good yeah in-house run well thanks for sharing this I feel even more special I do yeah I just tapped the barrel like literally I was like when you were well you were talking about last time I picked up yeah two weeks or whatever it was ago you're like you know maybe the rum and I was like you know drill to hold in the barrel and I taste it and I was like that's actually really right there where it needs to be I love it uh it took me a little while to actually pull the bong and do the process cheers cheers yeah this is it right here just a little all right a little taste not not enough to get in trouble with Abby never never get in trouble with Abby but you could I could but you take a lot she isn't pretty she's a pretty cool person agreed agreed yeah so um where did we jump off oh we jumped off kind of non-profit we're discovering your purpose and really the the amount of non-profit and the less fortunate kind of have been a focus of of your pursuits yeah and so I wanted to drift that into our purpose driven segment thanks to purpose driven wealth Clint Jasperson and his crew for sponsoring the local experience podcast and we have a set of purpose driven questions awesome so I have a bunch to choose from here but I like this one I love that I love that you this is great uh what's this source of your internal compass when it comes to ethical decision making that's a that's a really complex great question um when it comes to my my ethos in in my moral compass is usually driven around how it affects other people okay and um in my proud of it at the end of the day could I stand in front of somebody and talk about it with pride and have a true gut or you can defend feeling but that I am doing this because it is going to better somebody or it you know it's not about me it puts other people forward yeah and um this isn't it all comes from my grandparents my grandpa and my grandmother okay truly or like they set my moral compass at a very young age okay and and how like how did they go about that my grandmother with kindness and love and just she was she was the most giving wonderful jolly human being that I've ever met in my life okay and you know even even on her deathbed she was she was just most kind um amazing human being and was worried about us and how are we going to be able to get like how are how are we going to respond to her passing away because she was like you know I'm more worried about you guys than me yeah yeah my grandpa uh you know are you setting a good example for somebody are you working harder than the other person are you telling somebody to work or are you doing to work in showing somebody how to do it yeah and are you willing to be an example for somebody as to why they're doing something yeah like are you know from his time in Korea and being the you know the pillar of this family and really just guiding the family through a lot of hard times you know my brother passing my cousin uh passing at she was very young she was 13 I think when she when she died and my other cousin had his sibling pass so just like being the pillar of the family and like being that stable bedrock foundation of like um yeah it's all gonna be okay you know if you you know the one one of the best things he told me and he lived through his 96 and um and I mean probably he was like 93 I was like grab a you set the benchmark coming out live you and he was like as long as you're willing to watch all everyone around you die and you're the last one standing then you make that commitment and you know I took it as like are you willing to carry the legacies for other and are you willing to carry burden of grief and in a positive manner and you know through my brother's passing you know he really guided me in that direction yeah like hey it's all gonna be okay you know you're you're gonna get through this we're all gonna get through this what are you gonna do to remember to remember him back yeah sorry you got to probably get another question too I do and it's not even on my list here but you were you started that with if I could stand in front of somebody and kind of defend or say what good this was be proud of what I'm doing yeah but that that isn't like a god or a religious figure for you or a pope or a pastor or anything or I'm not religious not baptized yeah um I don't I don't carry religious affiliation um hey we've been to church and stuff if people talk to love I've been to a church okay church one time no no I I support everybody in their pursuit of what they need in this lifetime and whatever that means to you I personally believe more in spirituality okay um I live you know I live with my god quote-unquote up in risk canyon sure on the edge of a cliff daily like I would walk outside and in my deepest troubled times of grief or times of exuberance be in with nature and that was for me the way that I was able to to connect with the next life or the next what is greater than I you say that kind of that spirituality is part of your connection to other people even kind of universal connection of sorts kind of that drives that ethos or I mean I think that spirituality is is is is derived from just connection with every creature and just being in this world not just people but yeah just being in this world like being appreciative to water clean water you know clean air clean dirt being on the grow your own vegetables um you know things like that are just extremely important to me and religion I find a lot of qualms with it I'm grateful my parents decided that I would be it allowed to decide which denomination I would choose because they were religious but different or something or not at all they weren't really that religious okay like I didn't grow up in a religious family yeah yeah um but they they wanted from what I understand do your own research do your own research forget what you want to be yeah and then go be it um they didn't fall into the category of like well if we don't baptize my baby it's going to die and go to hell yeah yeah um type of thing well there's camps within the like the church I was baptized into uh like it was like if we baptize you then you're good if somebody else does then you're probably screwed or something you know they were like a club team and it was lame and whatever it wasn't and again I I you know there's a lot of people in my life that are deeply religious and I support them and I find my connection with the aff... a lot of a lot of that from from in my perspective in my life has been I want to see my mom or my you know my brother or whatever so therefore I have to go to heaven to do that and their conception of like their afterlife is derived from you know being reconnected with their whatever their siblings and for me it's it it came more of a um in my honoring that person and in my in my in my remembering that person in the right manner so that they're always with me and when I need something I do speak to my brother like truly like if I'm like in like a dark spot I'm like you know Josh is so mad at me right now she's gonna kick me in the butt um you know that I find more I fall back on my quote unquote god being my grandmother my grandfather my brother my you know so and so forth I think I got one more of these toughies for you okay um for for a lot of people uh once they go from like an employee to entrepreneur um there's like at least one small season where they're like uh should I just stop this and get a job and did you ever face that conversation and and did you think about kind of giving up or long the way and taking like a real job or you know you know I you got free just free I started my first company when I was my first LLC was when I was 21 years old and um so you could and you've had some jobs in the meantime too so I had jobs because I needed to have jobs right and um you've been a much prerender forever I mean when you're coming out of high school it's like it's scary to even consider that I don't even consider that I don't even I didn't even explore the option of that however um I think growing up um without means and from humble uh upbringing's uh financially speaking um I was motivated from a young age like you know I come from nothing what do I have to lose yeah like I'm gonna go back to nothing okay great I've already been there like I know I know what that feeling is I know I know what it's like I could live a year if I want to yeah I can go hunt a deer um uh I was never scared of failure I think that's the biggest qualm with young folks trying to get into and their own businesses they're afraid to fail you're gonna fail every day and if you're willing to accept my failures my failures come with learnings looking at it as successes because I'm not gonna do that should be good um then then that's really just not cut out for you and being an entrepreneur like starting out business is not for the faint of heart it's terrifying you know most times it's you know exciting but it's also terrifying because you have your name on it you're like your your people rely on you um it carries a lot of weight and unless you're willing to carry that burden and that you know heavy as the crown as they say um you're carrying weight when you're doing this yeah yeah and unless you're willing to do it and you're you know you're fortified in your belief in it and you're like sure that this is going to succeed because of me and you and the vision all of us working together toward the vision and they're like and so I you know I started young being an quote unquote entrepreneur and my goal is always to I'm gonna set I'm gonna create family wealth I'm a generational wealth within my family and if it ain't gonna be me then I'm gonna die try it yeah and do you don't have any kids no kids will this your be your first marriage have you been that never been married I've been bachelor uh my whole life yeah 40 40 I'll be 44 married for the first time well reason helping helping Abby raise her kids yeah yeah so yeah extremely grateful and honored for for the opportunity and and I love seeking the Renzo they're amazing little kids and they have their moments but down the down the road I can see how they're gonna be and they're gonna be some pretty cool kids yeah for sure yeah I'm gonna be cool kids let's uh can we talk about that you you talked about kind of the spark of your relationship and Abby giving you the local experience podcast is her calling card yeah uh when was this this was what like 2022 or something like that uh we just celebrated our three three uh third year three year anniversary 2023 then virtually yeah uh February 17th 2020 okay yeah so you were basically one year in last year uh 2024 for Locos 10 year anniversary party where two years ago two years ago oh yeah this is 2026 holy shit yeah man yeah math sharp but so you were one year in when we get to know each other a little better because yeah you drove me and Jill home from my university party we we her and I were just kind of getting our footing going yeah yeah it's kind of like you were pretty serious by that point already well again our funny like we were living together that phone kind of from a recent split up with her kids dad and stuff yeah um I mean she was a couple years out but yeah yeah so not to get into me personal things with with our relationship but um we met um and who our first date was it to michael walka perfect and she almost stood me up but um she didn't she was only three hours late happy uh luckily I knew all the bartenders and the servers there from working and living with them back in the day so I was just hanging out I was like they were like she's not gonna come anyways this beautiful woman comes walking in the door and it's like all right don't mess this up and at that point I was going out with you oh at that point I was like three three hours in so just hanging out with myself taking this I was definitely I had more drinks in me than she did which was zero so I was like don't mess this up Jill yeah we ended up having a beautiful date and um just you know deeply connected right off the bat I think on the third date or something like that I was like I'm gonna marry you someday yeah yeah I told her mom that the first time I met her mom but yeah it's it's been a great great journey and when you know you know yeah you know it's super easy and um you know we started living together right off the bat and she's got kids so you know all your boys know uh nine and 12 oh wow so if any of you guys out there if you're gonna date a woman with a kid you'd be better be sure that it's it's it's there and you know and does it extra like for me I always I avoided women with children dating wise sure prior to her she's the first woman I ever dated with children because I was afraid of like having to break up with yeah her and you know I wasn't sure I'd meet a girl and she's like I have kids and I was like I don't feel it or whatever I wasn't willing to like pursue something knowing that I wasn't 100% sure yeah yeah anyways um that's funny like this is probably too personal uh but whatever I'm opposed to the podcast but the first girl I kind of seriously dated in college had a kid and she was like two years older than me I was like 20 and uh like her kid thought I was so cool and like in part she broke up with me because like her kid liked you more like me quite a bit yeah her kid liked me more than she did clearly that we shouldn't have been a problem if she was actually serious about me well 20 years old you can't be serious about anything no for sure although I was like I was the dorkiest dork out of the county of dorkopolis I could I could see that yeah I kind of hit my stride at 24 you know soon before I met Jill my wife she sat you straight well you know I was I was coming into my own but I was definitely now I've always been a late bloomer like I was just smothered mature someone argue that I was still not very mature for a middle age upper middle age man I think you're doing great um so anyway so tell me about the kids it's a great yeah share like uh your perspective on her boys yeah of course and I love I love them both dearly like my own um individually though um yeah the ranzo the ranzo see youngest he's the younger he's the youngest uh he's super he loves seals uh we're actually we're actually um one of one of our friends uh out in california was uh uh academy award winning director and okay I was like let's make a movie about seals for for uh mark and so we're writing this little movie about seals uh Stella in the odd pod is what we're calling it uh he's super crafty you know he loves music he's like a natural imagination piano player like he picked like he just picked up the piano he's like this is a G chord and I'm like I play guitar for 12 year like 15 years and I still don't know anything on you know um anyways uh amazing little artist loves hockey football Steelers um but um yeah he's he's he's just uh you know he's also he's just nine so he's got his yeah he's got some changes to do he's got his uh he's still figuring out how to mature sure yeah Ziki is uh he's our 12 12 year old and um anything sports okay he's a hundred percent sports kid um athlete all the way um sweet heart of a kid very just the kind gentle little boy and uh you guys are getting married next winter no this is still I so I 25th okay big big party weekend where's the uh where's the festivities uh we just bought a farm on nor shields the old hope farm probably that's now called uh ripple and water farms and ripple and water farm and that's not your it's not going to be your estate place though or anything it's just a small no no this is just a farm well we're we're actually doing them rough cut flower co is Abby's flower company yep she spawned off two years ago and uh so we're really kicking that into high gear this year as well as um I used to have an old uh farming co-op uh food co-op um called Rocky Mountain Roots Co-operative and I'm gonna revive okay um so like you're gonna grow vegetables and stuff out there too bunch of vegetables no shit bunch of flowers bunch of veggies um you got labor for that or you guys flatten those vegetables or what uh we got two kids figured out I got two kids man nine man when I was there age I was out brown or fields I love it I love it I'm my oxen whippin it dude you're I mean I'm transmitting that even though both you and Abby have you know you've built some pretty cool businesses and machines you've you've built some wealth even though a lot of it doesn't materialize for you at least right now in uh near-term income because it's all in whiskey barrels yeah I mean we have a lot of uh a lot of vision but having those kids have that kind of similar work as I think they're growing up scrappy and well they're work I think it's trash if you don't even give me several summers of planting the farm and it might be a little strong I was like a three years in I'd be like uh these kids should be able to like run a chain stop by now no just to close on the on the farm thing it's really we're really excited about that yeah um we're in the process right now with the county to um if you're familiar with the property it's it's on norseo it's got the nice beautiful red barn and um just before willix on the left hand side on the west side of the road um so we just bought that and uh in that red barn we're going to turn the bottom half into a farm stand and so you'll be able to come out and get fresh cut flowers vegetables as well as some sustainable home good products um oh do you buy that from an architect no no okay now across the street there's by the river there there's an architect stand anyway I digress I'm on the wrong property I don't know where you're at it's okay but that's where we're gonna get married uh there's a big event barn out there oh awesome and uh yeah we're gonna throw a weekend we can hang with the fam and friends and it's it's gonna be a big wedding and Abby's not excited about how big the wedding is I can park my Abbulance camper out there on premises do podcasts well I don't know if you do that but it's a camper mostly you should probably podcast Abby the morning of and see how stressed out how's it going I need to have her on again something do you do yeah um what else do you want to share I guess it feels like we should do a shot of whizz kale before we get into the local experience is that appropriate yeah I mean I don't think we really touch based on the the launch of the company oh yeah um let's talk more about that how much time we got after the after the event industry after COVID hit really yeah you know the the event industry kind of took a dip hard dip solid freeze like a zero zero hard zero dip and I really had a chance to get back up to my farm in in risk canyon and um all my old ops guys oh you're on like sabbatical I'm done like we're on ppp and the company shut down and we're still kind of tittering around with um uh drive-in shows we're trying to figure that out but this is like early in COVID this is like when COVID shut down right right everything was just like nobody talked to anybody because you're gonna die right and um I'm up on my I don't really do that I was like well hell I got a mini ex and you know 48 acres I'm gonna start digging some road and and and I'm like posting the stuff on Facebook name is like nine friends of mine beach out they were like hey old old they used to work for me or work with me they're like we're in Denver riots are happening and all that you know some of it during the whole riot riots and COVID and everything and they're like we just come up on the farm and hang out like right and we end up having nine people open my property so like we built a log cabin I have a sawmill where like you know I just reconnected I just reconnected with like what it why why I moved to the mountains why I lived in the mountains my homestead property I spent you know over a decade building this farm up on it as Roland and you had a yurt way back no I bought so that was a different property okay but I bought a it was an a frame and it was it but then I ended up developing this entire farm farm farm a homestead property yeah yeah um it's amazing out there I love it it's rock climbing cliffs and just it's a it's an adult playground anyways like we're all up there and I'm like do I really want to go back to events right at that point my my career out you know it's 10 years in and operations is is like the nuts and bolts it's hard work like we're the first first to come last pull out as we call it what's up pirate wrap it up we're we know we're we're a we're a brass stack of presents isn't necessary we we we were a hard-nosed bunch of guys and you know I'd roll in with my crew we're about seven strong and we'd throw a whole festival with seven guys we build everything and like you know and we're we're a hard-ass working guys you're not logistics you're that plus logistics and yeah everything and then we'd have to plan anyways it was just a lot at that point in my life and I kind of lost the I became a little jaded with the industry as a whole just in you know like if an event did well we didn't get bonuses but if an event was not selling well they were trying to cut our pay you know it was like slash slash slash oh I just made money I'm you know I just made you know I made money not I'm going to share the wealth with everyone that actually worked to tirelessly yeah you know like I'd sleep four hours a night for two weeks in a row my dad has like no leases mostly with his landlords but when he has a really good year farming he gives him like as much as a 50% bonus yeah you know I don't want to have this high of that never happened necessarily price and I just realized that we're going to 10% I spent I spent my career fighting for dollars that I felt I was or like I'd earned like I'm literally there every day anyways not the digress but um so coming out of COVID or you know come into COVID uh Jess is still to compound Jess was always like when you want to start just a still I wrote the business plan like 15 years ago oh yeah so like it was always my exit strategy and at that point I was like okay I think I'm this is this is the moment this is if there's no sign in the world more clear than this um so Jess was like if you're into it man like I'm in let's do it I'm also kind of looking for what I'm going to do in my next surgery and we started looking around town industry focus attorney events are slow for him to what he's kind of he's getting older and he wants to just kind of yeah you know hang it out and owning a distillery and doing distillery stuff sounds cool as long as we can make it work financially for everybody right um so we yeah we started looking around and that's when we we found the spot we're at right now the back of the funk works that I didn't need at the time and in the whole time like up in pine acres I was always like you know I had a hop farm little hop section of my farm up there so I was always home brewing um I always home uh my grandfather made wine so it was officially home to still but you know and inefficiently home to still but you might have I may have distilled water at some point right um that's actually how I got into it my neighbor Kyle uh also one of my best men uh one of my best friends and he he um we'd go to his house and we'd you know drink coolers original and take nips a whiskey and um moon shiners was on and it was an episode where the still blew up and yeah I was like this is bullshit and he's like I bet you wouldn't I bet you couldn't do that without blowing yourself up and we bet a bottle and then I had like a week or something like that I forget what it is now but the to make it still and so I made my first still and I actually distilled like nasty spring water and then I had to drink it and and then I won like a bottle of basil hidden herb plant and stuff like that I dig it and then I was like well shit I got to spill and then nothing happened afterwards what happens if you put beer in it yeah I just put it away sure of course yeah so this was I didn't realize this idea was that deep long time like uh this whole idea my original business plan was written yeah I think it was 13 13 or 14 years ago and was that like headed toward that estate kind of model everything everything everything we're pretty much falling apart but there's a lot of steps along the way it was the model of like it was when I realized that a lot of the stories are white labeling yeah and um buying fake news you know MS our um uh okay whatever fake juice yes just juice bulk made right it happens everywhere you know but label on it whatever slap label on it and it wasn't actually there's stories like what if we're able to do this and then I learned you know more about the industry what if I could malt what if we could farm what if we could you know bring all this together and then at the time there was probably like five or six uh estate distilleries in the entire USA yeah it's a big thing over in in you know like Scotland Scotland and you know those areas France where you know big rolling estates and they make utavis and cognacs and stuff like that it's more like the estate model and for example yeah because they're growing wine are growing grapes ton of grape country they make cognacs and but I was like what if we brought that to Colorado and then in the meantime of Colorado it's just becoming this more and more epicenter of uh still spirits we're winning more awards the the distilleries are out there just doing great stuff and we're really excited to start getting our juice out there and like I love it I love it it's so different and I think it's it's it hits that chord that it's not like anything else and it's you know it has that backbone that you want from a bourbon but it has the nuances that you don't know what it is and that's exciting for me I don't disagree and I just port myself a little more whizz call to uh jump into your second loco experience story okay yeah yeah the craziest experience I can think of yeah crazy just comes to mind right now okay uh wait no I can't do that one just one let me do it okay is there any abby wouldn't like it do no she's she's pretty cool um so give me give me like a give me a prompt yeah give me something that like a category of craziness because yeah something crazy in the music or something crazy in and let's talk about a specific um can I have a lot of crazy stories let's talk about a jam cruise experience uh because you just came back from jam cruise yeah crazy experience or just like amazing experience amazing I mean whatever I mean crazy can be amazing too it doesn't have to be okay nutty ball I'm gonna give a plug give a plug for jam for example you were you were trying to sell my nine well this is my ninth year in a row you're coming up on 10 years very pretty good advertisement for jam cruise yeah I mean I mean there's people there this is the 22nd cruising cruise they've done okay and there's people that have been 22 you know it is the best party I've ever been to in my life it is a professional or professional party here's party so like there's no way sloppy like it's like everyone is like together they're tuned in from sun up to sundown or sometimes sun up and sundown uh most of my playthrough events happen at jam cruise um you know we have an amazing crew from california that we linked up with three or four years ago now and we roll like room to room to room together shout out to the party boat people um but we so okay so next year at jam cruise by the way you need to have some kegs of party time now we're not gonna do that that's too so serving I mean well I'd love to see it look fit nice it's no too many logistics I know but we're not gonna double-cakes so we'll just smuggle something to our room yeah sir just bring them along in your baggage okay so if you haven't been in jam cruise try it it's amazing it's not necessarily about the music even though the music's non-stop the best bands that I've ever seen are bands that I've never heard of yeah like this year disco blew my mind they were like they their sets were amazing like it was like is this jam like fish kind of style it's everything like this year it was like a jazz mandolin project oh uh mmw was on the boat so it kind of it's called jam cruise because it's like tell your eye blue grass isn't just blue grass either exactly and there's there's a heavy funk uh new Orleans funk okay underlining all the time this might sell chill I'm telling me there's a nice little bluegrass j-time backline that happens and then you know there's obviously jam and like electronic sure but so um craziest not the craziest most beautiful most amazing most amazing jam cruise moment well first is when I met when I married Abby uh last year on the boat was obligated to say that like actually uh well we like it was like a jam cruise man it was like hey we're on jam cruise it was a band marinas but we all dressed and I ran to the best and she was dressed and it was amazing but it's our jam cruise marriage okay we celebrate it every year on the second to last night but because you guys are gonna go jam cruise in every year and tell that yeah she's hooked my biggest thing with her I was like if if we're gonna be together you need to know either I'm gonna go or we're gonna go right we better if we live yeah and she was skeptical at first now she's told um this was about four years ago uh it was a playthrough unexpected playthrough night and um we were you know we're hanging out there's the incident at this disco thing and and there's like this disco like an electronic lounge and then we go we leave there and there's like this group people come walking by and I'm walking and they're like kickball on the deck I'm like hell yeah sunrise kickball on the deck let's do it so we go up and we're playing kickball and you know after like two hours it suns up and I'm like okay we dock it um uh it's ms ms sees um private island called ocean cake okay and or no actually we were in not ocean we weren't we were in uh grand Turks actually we took some kickos area there yeah the grand the other Turks other than Turks and Kiko the grand Turk um we we docked there and I'm like okay I'm done with this kickball game this is debauchery go I'm going to bed suns up so I start walking back and all of a sudden like these people are like oh my god there's a whale and I'm like oh what a little cat and there's this this mom and her calf and I'm like okay this is cool after like 15 minutes like I'm gonna go back to my room so I go back to my room and I'm literally like you know probably nine stories up and this mom and her calf and then this father whale was like circling out and like splashing way out in the ocean to like keep a safety perimeter I guess and her mom the mom was teaching the calf how to breach and splash oh wow and this was going on for like three hours and like directly underneath me that coming next to the boat and then go out and like I'd never experienced anything like it and like the the dad was like 40 feet long or something 50 feet long and then he's even the perimeter and he's just chilling around and then eventually they they swim off and they're done and I'm like wow that was amazing it's like new at this point and I'm like okay I'm gonna go to bed and then all of a sudden these sea turtles pop up from next to the boat and like there's this group of I don't know what you call pod of sea turtles but this group of turtles there's like three or four turtles and they're just like swimming around like pecking at the side of the boat eating like plankton or whatever or more and I'm like oh my god this is like the most amazing day and at that point I was like well music started and then the night the night started and here we go so you had like a 40 hour date it was just you know it was just you know it was a solid two-dayer but it doesn't matter back in jampers doesn't matter like you're you're the way that Abby and I described it's like it's like a cosmic journey out into the ocean okay what's your story local experience oh dude I don't know I don't have what's your most beautiful what's your most beautiful chocolate moment that beautiful tropic moment and that's not very beautiful but I caught a marlin oh in november last year did you eat it no we had to give it back the charter we were on was like you get a catch a release you catch a release or you paid up have it mounted from our sponsor the taxidermy shop next door um but it was kind of cool because we we caught our exchange students Sarah caught a mahi mahi early in the morning cool we booked a half day on just kind of a general charter yeah and then on the way back it was and then it got slow nothing happened for like three hours by the way yes are deep deep sea well we were sure fishing kind of uh-huh and on the way back I was like hey Carlos what's going on out there because there's like 50 boats like two miles out to sea and he was like they're they're catching marlins are they're fishing for marlins I was like well let's go fish for a marlin so there's nothing worse than fishing and not catching fish exactly exactly and we hadn't even had a bite hardly since that first small mahi mahi yeah Sarah brought in and Josh so we were there my wife Jill and then her best girlfriend Andrea and Andrea's uh boyfriend soon to be fiance I suspect Josh so he no pressure and Josh he was next up but you'd be right to put a ring on it if you get a chance anyway so Josh hooks into this marlin and he's reeling and whatnot and then like four minutes later there's another marlin uh and we're fishing you guys caught two marlins at the same time wow same time and his um they had to like wear all the boats catching marlins yeah actually we witnessed like 10 uh jumping fish before we hooked and then all of a sudden we're hooked on two sides and Josh's line got tangled with another fish that they got it off somehow and so both of us and I don't have a seat I don't have a fish chair I'm just going wherever I've got literally hooked in no no I've got a ping pong ball the back of a frickin small week has fishing rod and I ended up uh it took me a little longer um but mine was 10 feet long and his was nine feet long no big deal no big deal and then I bring it up and we got some cool videos his jumped like nine times I've got a cool Instagram and then we let him go you know and I'm happy about that yeah but I've eaten marlin before and so next time I book a charter in Cabo to go fishing it's going to be one let's me bring my marlin home because I've never deep-seed where we weren't able to eat the fish yeah it's weird I mean it's kind of it's kind of funny it's a weird economic model down there but it's also I think they want to protect the industry it is responsible especially with the Colorado River no longer like dumping nutrients into the bait out there and stuff and supporting the ecosystem it's is there still a river in Colorado no I mean not really not this year but what what it seems like is a corruption of the economic model where the taxidermy industry has lobbied the local fishermen only to let people keep the fish if they mount them because that way they get way more mounts and so they mount a fish though don't you just skin it yeah and then they keep to me told well that but you get to keep that that meat theoretically but now you pay $3,000 for your oh so the taxidermy company is correct but the taxidermy company is basically subsidized the the fishing places stay to say you can only keep this if you taxidermy and and so they get way more they get probably 10 times as many mountings as they would otherwise for sure or five at least or something because you want to eat that Marlin you better pay the taxidermy exactly exactly because it was $400 or I don't know it was a hundred hundred fifty pound fish easy that's crazy so maybe a hundred pounds to me oh good job oh 45 minutes oh my arm was so wasted for so long yeah I mean like catching a bass it's like oh yeah no it was a chore and and mine I got that we cast rod with a fricking ping pong ball basically jammed it into your hips he ran down like a hundred yards like right when he got hooked it was he didn't come up to the surface like Josh is dead he just like so anyway I don't know it's not the same as watching whales or sea turtles but it was in the end a very beautiful interaction with those fish well come on jambrues yeah and we can watch sea turtles and whales together I hope so and then let's go to Mexico and let's and let's catch some fish and bring them home yeah we'll have a chef for sure so VJ well VJ thanks well thanks for having your thanks for sponsoring the podcast yeah we love it we love it we love we support you guys and and we really want to be a part of your journey and in your success and we're grateful to be to be the seed and spirit the spirit sponsor we call the seed and spirit sponsor hey thanks a lot for having me on again it's been super fun really grateful to be a sponsor of this amazing organization and podcast I can't wait to watch somebody get married at your estate distillery in six years party time party time logger logger