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There Are No Stupid Questions When Building a Beverage Brand | SailWell Founders

SailWell co-founders Justine Charmley and Taylor Ondrejca started their women's functional beverage brand with no industry background. Their biggest lesson is to keep asking questions, even when you're surrounded by experts. Experience doesn't mean someone knows everything or has your best interests at heart. Founders have to dig deep into every partner they bring on.

Watch the full episode of the Ready To Drink Podcast: A Women's Functional Beverage Brand Made By Women.

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Jimmy Plunkett is an Army combat engineer, a construction tradesman and a co-founder of Pressure Goat, a hemp dispensary in Charlotte, North Carolina. On this episode of the Ready To Drink Podcast, Jimmy shares how a knee injury and a crash with a drunk driver ended his military career and sent him searching for pain relief that didn't come in a pill bottle.

Jimmy explains how CBG helps him manage chronic back pain and the brain fog from his concussions without intoxication. He talks about why hemp beverages give sober and California sober friends a way to socialize, and why Pressure Goat goes out of its way to stock North Carolina made brands with full lab results.

We also dig into the fight over North Carolina hemp legislation. Jimmy lays out what's at stake for veteran owned, women owned and minority owned small businesses if lawmakers over tax or over regulate the industry. He argues that prohibition pushes consumers back to the black market, and he makes the case for 21+ sales, ID checks, child resistant packaging and real testing standards instead.

Jimmy also clears up a common fear among veterans about whether cannabis use puts their VA benefits at risk. He encourages every vet to keep talking to the VA and to lean on the organizations built to help them.

Check Out Pressure Goat: PressureGoat.com

New episodes drop weekdays covering the alcohol, hemp derived and functional non-alc categories from the operator's seat, not the press release.

ReadyToDrinkPodcast.com | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

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

Learn more and share your own story at RegulateDontRuinNC.com

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

The FreeMind Group
Owner-operator market development and PR, built on the street for the last 18 years.

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"It's not churn and burn. It's understanding your customer because you're there talking to them." Jared Langston of Good Liar NA Beer on why weekly in-store tastings are his best market research.

Good Liar NA Beer: GoodLiar.com

This is the Ready To Drink Podcast. New episodes drop weekdays covering the alcohol, hemp derived and functional non-alc categories from the operator's seat, not the press release.

ReadyToDrinkPodcast.com | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

The FreeMind Group
Owner-operator market development and PR, built on the street for the last 18 years.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

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Justine Charmley and Taylor Ondrejca are the co-founders of SailWell, a functional wellness ready-to-drink brand made by women, for women. College roommates turned lifelong friends, they built SailWell around what they and their friends were already doing every day. Swapping supplements, comparing what actually works, and never leaving the house without three drinks in hand.

We get into how that everyday habit turned into four SKUs. Balance for grounding, Glow for skin support, Boost for clean energy and Calm for an end of day reset. Every flavor and formulation decision traces back to market research on what women in their demographic are actually looking for, not a guess at what the category should look like.

We talk about building a women's wellness brand in a category that does not have a shelf set yet, why that female founder perspective shaped the product from day one, and where SailWell is headed next across retail, hotels, spas and wellness resorts in California, Florida, Texas, Colorado, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

If you care about functional beverages built specifically around what women want and need, this conversation is for you.

Learn more about SailWell:
Website: SailWellBrand.com
Socials: @SailWellBrand

This is the Ready To Drink Podcast. New episodes drop weekdays covering the alcohol, hemp derived and functional non-alc categories from the operator's seat, not the press release.

ReadyToDrinkPodcast.com | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

The FreeMind Group
Owner-operator market development and PR, built on the street for the last 18 years.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

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Josh Grigaitis is founder of Mighty Kind Co, a functional beverage brand and manufacturer out of St Louis, MO built around one idea. He was born without a sweet tooth and could not find non-alcoholic or hemp beverages that were not covered in sugar to mask bitter ingredients. So he built his own emulsions, does his own canning and filling, and now runs close to 30 active SKUs across unsweetened sparkling waters, CBD, CBG, THC and the brand's newest release, a lion's mane sparkling water with no sweeteners at all.

Josh has been a dive bar owner for 27 years and was one of the first people in the world to put hemp derived THC into a can back in 2019, using one of the most accessible marijuana licenses in the country out of Oklahoma. He landed on the cover of USA Today twice, once for non-alcoholic beverages and again in 2022 for THC drinks, and both times the phone did not stop ringing.

We get into how he manages right product, right account across dozens of SKUs when most beverage operators are told to stay narrow, why over 25 percent of sales at his own dive bar are now non-alcohol, and why Mighty Kind is not a THC company that lives or dies on federal hemp regulation since non-THC products still make up more than 30 percent of the brand's sales. Josh also breaks down why he thinks the space rewards people who thrive in chaos over people looking for guaranteed outcomes.

Check out Mighty Kind Co: BeMightyKind.com

This is the Ready To Drink Podcast. New episodes drop weekdays covering the alcohol, hemp derived and functional non-alc categories from the operator's seat, not the press release.

ReadyToDrinkPodcast.com | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

The FreeMind Group
Owner-operator market development and PR, built on the street for the last 18 years.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

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Paulo Sobral is General Manager of Chuck It! Beverages, the LLC behind hemp THC beverage brands Nine Loco and Mamitas, currently in market across Florida, South Carolina, Illinois and Texas. Paulo spent almost six years at PepsiCo before joining the medical cannabis industry in California in 2016 and has invested the last ten years of his career into the cannabis and hemp beverage category.

In this episode we get into why Chuck It! chose a licensing strategy over building brands from scratch, how the hemp beverage buyer differs from the traditional malt beverage buyer, and why distributors sitting on hemp inventory right now are exposed if federal regulation shuts the category down. Paulo breaks down his ten years bridging cannabis and CPG, from his time at Vertosa supplying liquid emulsions to brands like CANN, to why he thinks dispensary channel resistance to hemp beverages is the same short sighted protectionism the alcohol industry fought during the craft beer boom.

We also cover why big alcohol companies are staying quiet on hemp while waiting for federal clarity, the parallel to Napster and the record industry fighting a shift consumers had already made, and how licensing established lifestyle brands lets a new hemp beverage company skip the work of building brand identity from zero.

Topics covered: hemp beverage regulation, THC drink licensing deals, Chuck It Beverages, Nine Loco, Mamitas, medical cannabis industry history, Vertosa, CANN cannabis beverages, hemp versus alcohol distribution, functional beverage entrepreneurship, non-alc consumer trends, federal hemp clarity, craft beer protectionism parallels, cannabis CPG strategy, solopreneur mental health in the beverage industry

Check out Nine Loko: DrinkNineLoko.com

This is the Ready To Drink Podcast. New episodes drop weekdays covering the alcohol, hemp derived and functional non-alc categories from the operator's seat, not the press release.

ReadyToDrinkPodcast.com | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

The FreeMind Group
Owner-operator market development and PR, built on the street for the last 18 years.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

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Joanna Manzo-Davis is CEO and co-founder of Top Dog Spirits, the company behind Top Dog Cocktails. She went to market in 2022 with full strength, twelve and a half percent ABV canned cocktails across vodka, whiskey, and tequila, right as the category was trading up from malt based RTDs to liquor based. Top Dog is now in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Florida.

Joanna walks through the sales strategy her team runs on, straight from her time in wholesale. Right product, right account. A high ABV canned cocktail loses to a bar's own well pour, so Top Dog goes deep in beer gardens, concert venues, and stadiums instead of trying to be everywhere. She also gets into the brand building side of that decision, including why she staffed the company with industry veterans instead of stretching a small budget across a bigger headcount, and why capital, talent, and structure are three completely different problems that all have to work at once.

Nate and Joanna also cover Pennsylvania's 2024 change that finally let RTD spirits out of the state store system and into grocery and beer distribution channels, why that shift was the biggest distribution unlock the category has seen, and the difference between what a solopreneur can realistically build versus what a funded, staffed brand can build.

Chapters
 10:13 Reconnecting after a decade in the Pennsylvania beverage industry
 17:44 What Top Dog Cocktails makes and why they went 12.5% ABV
 30:24 Pennsylvania's 2024 RTD spirits law and getting out of the state store system
 33:11 The sales strategy: right product, right account
 35:08 Building a team of industry veterans instead of stretching thin
 37:41 Capital, structure, and the gap between a solopreneur and a funded brand
 59:23 Why farmers markets teach you more than retail tastings
 1:00:08 New Jersey versus Pennsylvania on breweries and RTD access
 1:01:23 The debate over kids in breweries
 1:03:29 Where to find Top Dog Cocktails

Top Dog Cocktails: TopDogCocktails.com

This is the Ready To Drink Podcast. New episodes drop weekdays covering the alcohol, hemp derived and functional non-alc categories from the operator's seat, not the press release.

ReadyToDrinkPodcast.com | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

The FreeMind Group
Owner-operator market development and PR, built on the street for the last 18 years.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

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Dean Yaukey is the founder, brewer, accountant, and janitor of Whiskers Brewing in Newville, Pennsylvania. Ten days before his planned opening, a fire gutted the building. The beer survived because it was locked behind a walk-in cooler door, and Dean ran lines out to the courtyard to keep serving that same weekend. Other breweries he'd never met reached out to offer beer, cups, and glasses, and that's how a lot of his relationships in the Pennsylvania craft beer community started.

Dean also runs Phantom Entertainment, a large scale party rental company he's operated for 47 years, and he talks about what customer service in that business taught him about running a tap room. He built Whiskers as a dog friendly brand from the ground up, with his daughter's hand painted pet portraits covering the walls and a turf patio for dogs and he made a deliberate choice that most brewery growth strategies ignore: he built a space with zero room for expansion, on purpose, because he believes overexpansion is what kills most breweries.

This episode covers surviving a fire ten days before opening, the difference between camaraderie in Pennsylvania craft beer and the competitive spirits world, building a beer menu for a small town palate instead of a hop head crowd, and why starting small beats starting big.

Chapters
 0:00 Dean introduces Whiskers Brewing
 0:16 Founding Whiskers and the fire ten days before opening
 1:34 How the beer survived the fire
 5:18 What Phantom Entertainment taught him about customer service
 6:07 Brewery camaraderie versus the competitive spirits world
 8:00 Building a diverse beer menu for a small town palate
 11:08 A Christmas beer kit and starting a brewery during COVID
 14:43 Keeping Phantom's staff employed by flipping houses during COVID
 16:50 Choosing Newville over a saturated Carlisle brewery scene
 19:19 Building Whiskers as a dog friendly, hometown brand
 21:11 Why staying small is the real growth strategy
 23:40 Local partners for spirits, cider and food
 24:48 Pennsylvania's hemp beverage bill, House Bill 2309
 25:44 Dean's advice for anyone starting a brewery

Whiskers Brewing is located in Newville, Pennsylvania, about a mile off Route 81 - WhiskersBrewing.com

This is the Ready To Drink Podcast. New episodes drop weekdays covering the alcohol, hemp derived and functional non-alc categories from the operator's seat, not the press release.

ReadyToDrinkPodcast.com | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

The FreeMind Group
Owner-operator market development and PR, built on the street for the last 18 years.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

Presented by The FreeMind Group - FMGStrategy.com

Send us Fan Mail

Adam Borson is the CMO for Highlandia, a premium hemp beverage built by Lift & Made, a company that's been in the hemp industry for over a decade. Highlandia went top 5 in Wisconsin within months of launch and expanding into Texas, Florida, and Illinois, but Adam is clear that none of it came from outspending bigger THC beverage competitors - it came from relationships.

Adam rides along with distributor reps himself. He trains liquor stores that have never carried a hemp infusion product before, one conversation at a time. He shows up at Pride Fest in Milwaukee and at Christian Yelich's charity concert, standing at the table meeting people who don't know a thing about hemp beverages yet. Some of them try Highlandia and love it. Some tell him straight to his face they didn't like the flavor, and he says that's the point. You can't build a real community around a brand if you only listen to the people who already agree with you.

Nate and Adam also get into why Highlandia invests in hemp industry advocacy groups like the Hemp Beverage Alliance, why the company treats distributors as partners instead of accounts, and why cannabis functions as an exit drug for a lot of people rather than the gateway drug it got branded as. This is a conversation about what it actually takes to build community and trust in a beverage category still figuring out its own rules.

Chapters
 0:00 Adam Borson introduces Highlandia
 1:37 Ten years building Lift & Made before the beverage launch
 2:46 From edibles and vapes to a premium THC beverage
 4:39 Navigating state by state hemp regulation
 5:34 Why Highlandia invests in hemp industry advocacy
 9:42 Company culture and the team behind Highlandia
 10:38 Cannabis as the exit drug, not the gateway drug
 26:32 Growth from Wisconsin into Texas, Florida and Illinois
 27:43 Building real partnerships with beverage distributors
 29:56 Why the CMO still goes on distributor ride-alongs
 31:05 Arming distro reps instead of managing accounts
 33:46 Standing in front of the consumer, no excuses
 36:48 Pride Fest, Christian Yelich's charity concert, and meeting people where they are
 40:42 Where to find Highlandia

Highlandia: Highlandia.com

This is the Ready To Drink Podcast. New episodes drop weekdays covering the alcohol, hemp derived and functional non-alc categories from the operator's seat, not the press release.

ReadyToDrinkPodcast.com | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

The FreeMind Group
Owner-operator market development and PR, built on the street for the last 18 years.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

Presented by The FreeMind Group - FMGStrategy.com

Send us Fan Mail

Carly Osman Holme founded Sprowt, a brand building firm for founders moving from niche to mainstream and legacy brands trying to find their way back to the customer. She's also building Frankie, a tool designed to give beverage founders and other early stage operators a strategic marketing brain instead of a pile of tactics.

Nate and Carly get into why the founder story gets treated like a requirement when it's actually just one tool in the kit. Carly walks through the growth strategies behind an isotonic sports drink she built to 18 percent growth in Australia, with zero founder narrative involved. Nate and Carly also talk openly about sobriety in the drinks business, and how that distance changed the way they read the mindful drinking consumer.

This episode covers the founder narrative obsession, the bootstrapping reality of drink entrepreneurship, cold pitching as the real test of scale, and the UK trends of zebra drinking and yellow hour.

Chapters
 0:00 Carly introduces Sprowt and Frankie
 1:49 What Frankie does for beverage founders drowning in advice
 3:14 Human connection as the real brand differentiator
 4:13 The Maximus case study: 18 percent market share, zero founder story
 6:19 When the founder story matters and when it doesn't
 9:12 The bootstrapping reality of drink entrepreneurship
 11:48 Why nothing is ever below you, even 18 years in
 13:11 Breaking the wall between founders and customers
 14:20 Cold pitching as the real scale test
 38:30 The "give a fuck factor"
 39:14 Two sober founders on studying alcohol from the outside
 41:03 Yellow hour and zebra drinking in the UK
 44:09 Sober bars and the blended non-alc future
 46:01 Closing thoughts on human connection

Carly Osman Holme: Sprowt.uk

This is the Ready To Drink Podcast. New episodes drop weekdays covering the alcohol, hemp derived and functional non-alc categories from the operator's seat, not the press release.

Ready To Drink Podcast: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | ReadyToDrinkPodcast.com

The FreeMind Group
Owner-operator market development and PR, built on the street for the last 18 years.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

Presented by The FreeMind Group - FMGStrategy.com