Ready To Drink Podcast

By The FreeMind Group

The Ready To Drink Podcast is built for founders, operators and leaders navigating the next era of beverage. These are honest conversations with the people doing the work, building bra

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How many episodes does Ready To Drink Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 54 episodes available.

Ready To Drink Podcast episodes:

June 25, 2026 The Real Hemp Story from DC | Dwayne Carson, Founder & Principal of Carson Consulting
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Dwayne Carson is the Founder & Principal at Carson Consulting and one of the few people working the hemp beverage issue from inside Washington every single day. He sits three blocks from the Capitol. He spent more than a decade on Capitol Hill, moved through healthcare, then spent years at the wholesale level of wine and spirits before turning his full attention to the federal fight over hemp beverages.
This conversation gets into the part of the story most brands never see. Congress passed language to close what they called the loophole, then attached no money to enforce it. Dwayne explains why that single fact pushes compliant operators out of the market and hands the gray market more room to grow. We get into the perception gap on the Hill, the alcohol industry sitting on the sidelines of its own best opportunity, the three tier distribution question, and why a single mother at a town hall is the outcome every member of Congress is trying to avoid.
Nate and Dwayne had never met before this recording. No script, no agenda, no questions on the page. Just two people who have spent their careers in beverage talking straight about where the category goes from here.
Connect with Dwayne: carson-consult.com
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Presented by The FreeMind Group - FMGStrategy.com
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53min
June 24, 2026 Hemp THC Beverages & Saving Asheville, North Carolina | Regulate Don't Ruin NC
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Three craft beer veterans explain why hemp derived THC beverages are the most important shift hospitality has seen since the craft beer boom, and why a federal ban could gut the industry by the end of the year.

In this episode of the Ready To Drink Podcast, Nate Fochtman sits down with Chris Frosaker, founder of Hi-Wire Brewing and owner of Joyful Noise Listening Lounge, and Andrew Ross, co-owner of The Whale Craft Beer Collective. All three came up in craft beer, and all three are now building around hemp THC beverages.

The conversation covers why craft breweries are positioned to lead the hemp beverage category, how lab tested and accurately dosed drinks make THC beverages the most transparent option on the shelf, and why a pharmacist sees regulation as a harm reduction win. It also gets personal. Both Nate and Andrew share how hemp beverages helped them step away from alcohol, get healthier, and stay socially connected.

This is part of the Regulate Don't Ruin NC series. North Carolina is deciding right now whether emerging hemp beverages get a real regulated framework or get pushed back to the gray market. The choice affects retailers, manufacturers, and consumers across the state.

Educate yourself, then sign the petition at RegulateDontRuinNC.com

This series is proudly sponsored by Tryon Distributing, Crescent 9, and Torch Drinks.

Subscribe for new Ready To Drink Podcast episodes on the brands, operators, and policy shaping the future of adult beverage.

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44min
June 23, 2026 Crescent 9 Built Something From Nothing, Now The Government Wants To Take It Away
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Nate Fochtman sits down with Joe Garrity, Co-Founder and CEO, and Joshua Katzenstein, Chief Revenue Officer of Crescent Canna and Crescent 9 THC Seltzer - one of the fastest-growing hemp beverage brands in the country, now sold in 20 states.

What started as a scrappy CBD startup in New Orleans in 2019 became a brewery, a 40-person operation, and the number one brand in Nielsen data across multiple markets. Now, like every operator in this category, they are staring down a federal ban that nobody voted on, nobody debated in committee, and nobody can get a straight answer about.

Joe and Josh pull no punches. They talk about what it felt like to build something from nothing, nearly lose it in Louisiana to a politically connected opposition, and win anyway - because constituents picked up the phone. They talk about what this ban is actually costing real people, why the grassroots pressure worked once before and has to work again, and why hemp beverages deserve a seat at the table that flour and gummies have made harder to pull up.

This episode is part of the Regulate Don't Ruin NC campaign, sponsored by Tryon Distributing, Crescent 9 & Torch Drinks - a call to action for North Carolina residents, retailers, distributors, and consumers to make their voices heard before it is too late.

If you live in North Carolina, sign the petition and get involved at RegulateDontRuinNC.com.

Topics covered: Crescent 9 origin story, building a hemp beverage brewery from scratch, pricing strategy against craft beer, the federal hemp ban, the Louisiana grassroots fight, Mitch McConnell and the Farm Bill, hemp beverage safety data, the child safety argument examined, why beverages must lead the legislative path forward, and what operators need consumers to do right now.

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49min
June 22, 2026 How Hemp Beverage Emulsions Work and Why Regulation Is the Real Product | Alexander Choi, Perfectly Dosed
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Alexander Choi, Co-Founder and CEO of Perfectly Dosed, joins Nate Fochtman on the Ready To Drink Podcast to break down the ingredient infrastructure powering the hemp beverage industry. From a class project at the University of Chicago to supplying emulsions for hundreds of breweries across the US, Choi walks through the full origin story of Perfectly Dosed, the science of cannabinoid emulsification, and why getting regulation right matters more than any single product launch.
Topics covered in this episode include how emulsions work and why they determine onset, peak and offset of effects, the founding story behind Perfectly Dosed and its pivot from edibles to beverage ingredients, the role craft breweries are playing in scaling the hemp beverage category, why co-founder Glenn spent years testifying across 28 states to shape legislation, the federal regulatory landscape and how operators should think about the current uncertainty, and what authentic brand building actually looks like in an emerging category.
Perfectly Dosed has supported production of over half a billion hemp products and continues to work across the supply chain with breweries, distributors and retailers.
If you are a founder, operator or investor watching the hemp beverage space, this episode covers the full stack from molecule to market.
Find Alexander Choi in Linkedin | Check out PefectlyDosed.com
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Ready To Drink Podcast is hosted by Nate Fochtman, founder of The FreeMind Group, a strategic advisory firm serving beverage brands since 2008.
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Presented by The FreeMind Group - FMGStrategy.com
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25min
June 11, 2026 The Beverage Lawyer Who Won't Sugarcoat It | Shauna Barnes of Barnes Beverage Group
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Shauna Barnes is the founding partner of Barnes Beverage Group, a full-service national law firm built exclusively for the beverage industry. She started in craft beer, built the legal department at Dogfish Head during its fastest growth years, and now runs a 15-person firm alongside her husband Brandon helping brands navigate formation, distribution agreements, labeling, trademarks, and the current hemp regulatory storm.
In this episode, Shauna and Nate get into what it actually costs to go national, regional or statewide (more than you think), why landing a distributor is the beginning not the end, what brands need to do right now to survive the federal hemp ban, and the lessons Dogfish Head taught them both about building something with soul.
They also talk about the craft beer shakeout happening in across the country, the vultures in the beverage space, why beverage ain't it if you want a cushy paycheck, and what it means to be a lawyer who tells you the truth even when it costs her the billable hour.
Shauna's firm: DrinksLaw.com
Find her on LinkedIn: Shauna Barnes
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Ready To Drink Podcast is hosted by Nate Fochtman, founder of The FreeMind Group, a strategic advisory firm serving beverage brands since 2008.
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Presented by The FreeMind Group - FMGStrategy.com
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50min
June 09, 2026 Building Disco Fizz for the LGBTQ+ & Beyond with Ben Zumsteg
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Ben Zumsteg is the founder and CEO of Disco Fizz, a sparkling functional non-alcoholic beverage built for the dance floor. A first-time CPG founder with 15 years of brand strategy experience behind him - working with clients like L'Oreal, Ralph Lauren and Four Seasons - Ben stopped drinking on New Year's Day 2023 and spotted a gap nobody was filling: the LGBTQ+ community had nowhere to turn in its own spaces when it came to non-alc options worth actually ordering.
In this episode, Ben walks through how he commissioned original quantitative research on LGBTQ+ drinking habits (the only study of its kind), how that data pointed him toward moderate-caffeine functional energy rather than a mocktail and why he named the brand Disco Fizz on purpose - "inherently queer, never exclusively".
Nate and Ben also dig into brand distinctiveness, the "slap a rainbow on it and leave after Pride" problem, tiered caffeine formulation strategy, the premium packaging decision to go matte black with bare aluminum and why being for someone means you have to be okay with repelling someone else.
Ben is pitching at BevNet Live and recently landed a spot in Paris Hilton's Pride Shopping Guide. Disco Fizz is currently rolling out on premise in New York City with DTC and retail to follow later in 2026.
Find Disco Fizz: discofizz.com | Instagram: @drinkdiscofizz
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Presented by The FreeMind Group - FMGStrategy.com
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55min
June 08, 2026 Cannabis Disinformation, Hemp Advertising Suppression and the Fight to Normalize the Plant | Madicyn Marinaro, CCAT
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Nate Fochtman sits down with Madicyn Marinaro, Executive Director and Principal Researcher of the Cannabis Council for Advertising Transparency (CCAT), for a raw and unscripted conversation on one of the most underreported forces shaping the cannabis and hemp beverage industry: structural disinformation.
Madicyn breaks down how Reefer Madness-era propaganda built the algorithmic and institutional bias that still governs platform policies, banking decisions, and financial risk models today. She quantifies what she calls the Disinformation Tax, documenting that cannabis companies pay nearly five times more in advertising costs than mainstream businesses, and explains how narrative control through advertising scarcity concentrates power in the hands of large operators and MSOs while freezing out legacy growers, independent brands, and single-person operators.
The conversation covers the cannabis lobby vs. hemp lobby battle and why that conflict makes zero market sense unless you follow the money, the parallels between craft beer's battle against the big three in 2008 to 2012 and what hemp beverage entrepreneurs are facing today, why hemp and cannabis ultimately compete with oil and textiles rather than just alcohol and tobacco, how banks are creating the very risk they claim justifies refusing to serve compliant cannabis businesses, why 75 percent of cannabis research funding targets risks rather than benefits and what that does to the public information environment, and the independent retailer data gap hiding the true size and health of the hemp beverage category.
Nate also shares the Pennsylvania primary research survey project currently underway, a 500 to 1,000 response statewide calling operation targeting independent retailers to capture real ground-level data on hemp beverage adoption and barriers.
Both guests share personal stories of opioid addiction and how cannabis and hemp beverages played a direct role in their recovery.
Ready To Drink Podcast covers the emerging adult beverage categories, hemp-derived THC, functional RTDs, and the entrepreneurs, operators, and advocates building the next great American beverage category.
Subscribe and follow for new episodes weekly.
Follow Madicyn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/madicynmarinaro/
Ready To Drink Podcast is hosted by Nate Fochtman, founder of The FreeMind Group, a strategic advisory firm serving adult beverage brands since 2008.
Follow Ready To Drink Podcast: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | ReadyToDrinkPodcast.com
#1 on Spotify for RTD Market Growth & Beverage Founders
#1 on Apple Podcasts for Hemp Infusion
#4 on YouTube for Functional Drinks
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Presented by The FreeMind Group - FMGStrategy.com
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55min
June 01, 2026 Quick Sips: Cannabis Research Is Rigged - 75% of $1 Billion Studies Risk, Not Benefits
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Madicyn Marinaro, Executive Director and Principal Researcher at the Cannabis Council for Advertising Transparency (CCAT), breaks down one of the most overlooked structural problems in cannabis policy: the research funding gap.
Nearly 75% of $1 billion in cannabis research funding goes toward studying harm, not benefit and when benefit research is attempted, federal law restricts it to isolated cannabinoids - not whole plant cannabis. The result is a biased information environment where patient stories, positive outcomes and counter-narratives cannot scale.
This is not an accident. This is structural disinformation.
Full episode with Madicyn Marinaro drops soon on Ready To Drink Podcast!
Subscribe so you do not miss it.
Ready To Drink Podcast is hosted by Nate Fochtman, founder of The FreeMind Group, a strategic advisory firm serving adult beverage brands since 2008.
Follow Ready To Drink Podcast: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | ReadyToDrinkPodcast.com
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Presented by The FreeMind Group - FMGStrategy.com
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1min
May 28, 2026 Hemp, Recovery and the Fitness Channel Nobody Is Talking About | Jay Ashton, Last Rep
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Jay Ashton is the CEO and co-founder of Last Rep, an athletic recovery cocktail (ARC) built for the gym crowd, the run club, the jiu-jitsu mat and everywhere else people are moving their bodies and trying to do it right. Last Rep is not a get-high-in-a-can product. It is six calories, zero sugar, CBG, ashwagandha, L-theanine, electrolytes and a clean ingredient profile designed to let people recover the body, the mind and the social spirit all at once.

Jay and I met at the AltBev Expo in Florida this year and I knew immediately this was a conversation the Ready To Drink Podcast needed to have. What we get into here goes way beyond the product.

We talk about how Jay and his co-founder Steve Samson went from GPS technology and cybersecurity exits to building a THC beverage brand in under a year. We talk about why the fitness and wellness channel is the most underserved distribution lane in the alternative beverage space right now. We get into the real reason big beer opposes hemp regulation and why it has nothing to do with child safety. We talk about the dispensary model versus the liquor store model, who the actual consumer is and why the hemp beverage industry needs to stop bashing alcohol if it wants to win over the soccer mom with the Prosecco.

I also go on record about what I told Congress in DC, what the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America just did and why the craft beer playbook is being run again right now on this industry word for word.

Topics covered: functional drinks marketing, athletic recovery beverages, drink entrepreneurship, THC beverage brand building, functional drink brands, growth strategies for beverage startups, sales strategies in the fitness and wellness channel, mindful drinking, hemp industry regulation and the alternative beverage category.

Check out LastRepARC.com
Connect with Jay on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-ashton-/
Instagram - @LastRepARC
Facebook - Last Rep
TikTok - @LastRepARC

Host: Nate Fochtman, Founder of The FreeMind Group

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Presented by The FreeMind Group - FMGStrategy.com
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55min
May 20, 2026Cannabis Beverage Certification, Sober Founders and the Hemp Beverage Revolution | Leigh Gall
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Leigh Gall is the co-founder of Cannabis Beverage Certification and host of The Enlightened Buzz on YouTube, the leading education channel for THC beverages. She came up at Boston Beer, spent years in national accounts and distributor training, got sober, and then helped build the first professional certification program for hemp infusion in the beverage industry. This is her story.
In this episode, Leigh and Nate break down why education is the single biggest gap in the hemp beverage category right now, what happens when an untrained retail rep sends a consumer home with the wrong product, and why the cannabis beverage certification model mirrors what Cicerone and Sommelier programs did for craft beer and wine. They also get into the honest conversation most people in this industry avoid: what it means to be a sober founder in the adult beverage world, why both of them left alcohol behind after careers built inside it, and what that actually looks like on the sales floor, at conferences and in distributor meetings.
Leigh shares the story behind distributor partners Tryon, Badger Wholesalers and Opici Wine Group certifying entire sales forces, why Climbing Kites built education into their onboarding from day one and what the "Dylan on Aisle 7" framework means for the long-term trajectory of the functional drinks market.
They also cover the three-tier distribution argument for HB2309 in Pennsylvania, why the same system that governs beer can and should govern hemp beverages and what drink entrepreneurship looks like when you are building a category that did not exist three years ago.
Topics covered:
Cannabis beverage certification and the Cicerone comparison
Hemp infusion education for distributors and retailers
Why alcohol sales are declining across beer, wine and spirits
GLP-1 drugs, the Bud Light effect and portfolio diversification
Sober founders in the adult beverage pairing space
Building a two-hour course that pays for itself in the first week
Tryon Distributing, Badger Wholesalers and Opici Wine Group as case studies
Visionary entrepreneurship and being comfortable being misunderstood
HB2309, the three-tier system and the regulation argument for hemp
Functional drinks trends and the consumer education gap
Connect with Leigh
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/leighgall
Cannabis Beverage Certification: cannabevcertification.com
The Enlightened Buzz on YouTube: youtube.com/@enlightenedbuzz
Host: Nate Fochtman | The FreeMind Group
Ready To Drink Podcast drops new episodes weekly. Subscribe, leave a review and share this with a distributor rep or retailer that needs to hear it.
Pennsylvania breweries, distributors and retailers: get behind House Bill 2309. Learn more at iwantmythc.com

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59min

FAQs about Ready To Drink Podcast:

How many episodes does Ready To Drink Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 54 episodes available.