Ready To Drink Podcast

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Matt Compton spent years building out cannabis retail and dispensary merchandising strategy, most recently as Commercial Operations Director at Jushi (Beyond Hello), before a June 2026 corporate realignment laid him off. In this episode of Ready To Drink, Matt breaks down how dispensary merchandising differs from liquor retail, why data tools like Headset and BDSA drive MSO buying decisions, and how brand partnerships fill category gaps like drinks. He also opens up about his path from a traumatic brain injury and disability to a cannabis buying career, his use of hemp beverages to move away from alcohol, and what job seekers in cannabis and hemp beverage should do right now to stay resilient.

This conversation covers dispensary retail strategy, MSO buying and promotional planning, cannabis career transitions, functional hemp beverage use, and the mental health side of layoffs that the industry rarely talks about.

If you or someone in your network is hiring for buying, merchandising, or commercial operations roles in cannabis or hemp beverage, share this episode with them for Matt Compton.

Ready To Drink covers beverage alcohol, hemp-derived THC, and functional non-alc business strategy, five days a week.

New episodes drop weekdays covering beverage alcohol, hemp THC, functional non-alc brands, distribution strategy and the real stories behind the category.

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.

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Jason Ufema, owner of Shy Bear Brewing and co-owner of Rich Coast Coffee in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, joins Ready To Drink Podcast to talk about running two beverage businesses on the same family property his father built in the 1960s. Rich Coast started as a coffee service company in 1978, growing through 13 acquisitions before Jason intentionally contracted the footprint to a controllable service radius. Shy Bear Brewing, now nine years old, sits directly across the campus.

Jason breaks down why he has never chased national distribution and instead protects a 100-mile radius built on personal relationships and same-day service reliability. He talks through the COVID years and record profitability from outdoor dining, why he avoids brewing trend chasing like hazy IPAs and pastry stouts, the Untappd debate and why ratings are not the same as objective quality, and the case for ordering flights instead of the same beer every Friday to actually understand your own palate.

We also get into Pennsylvania House Bill 2309, the hemp beverage bill, and what it would mean for Shy Bear and Rich Coast if Pennsylvania allowed a hemp beverage license similar to the RTD spirits permit structure, plus real numbers from bars and liquor stores in North Carolina and New Jersey on what percentage of revenue hemp THC beverages now represent.

Find Jason and his brands: Shy Bear Brewing - ShyBearBrewing.com & Rich Coast Coffee: RichCoast.com

New episodes drop weekdays covering beverage alcohol, hemp THC, functional non-alc brands, distribution strategy and the real stories behind the category.

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.

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Christopher Wolstenholme, founder of MATE! Vodka Protein Water, joins Ready To Drink to break down how a failed liquor store idea turned into America's first vodka protein water. MATE! combines 8 grams of pea protein with vodka, no bubbles, gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan and only two grams of sugar, across four flavors: peach, pineapple, watermelon and lime mint.

Chris walks through the real founder story: an SBA-funded liquor store that got shut down four weeks before opening, a taco pizza dinner conversation that became the idea for MATE! and 13 months of R&D navigating the TTB and FDA to bring a category that didn't exist to market.

We get into distributor education, why Chris tells every founder to run three tastings a week for 12 months, the "get 10 accounts and work them hard" strategy over chasing 200 stores, why he studied the Carbliss regional playbook instead of chasing national distribution and the Kylie Jenner Sprinter RTD collapse as a lesson in why funding and followers do not replace product-market fit.

This episode covers early-stage beverage distribution, founder resilience, sampling strategy, sticker and merch ROI at festivals and why founders need to stop trying to win over retailers who say no and go all in on the ones who say yes.

Find MATE Beverage at DrinkMateBeverage.com - Available in Georgia, North Carolina (special order) and Iowa, plus DTC through Reserve Bar

New episodes drop weekdays covering beverage alcohol, hemp THC, functional non-alc brands, distribution strategy and the real stories behind the category.

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.

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Tony Piccini has run AB Bottle Co in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina for six years. THC beverages now make up 35 percent of his sales. That is not a side hustle. That is a pillar of his business.

This industry is worth billions of dollars, it employs hundreds of thousands of people and the response from lawmakers has been to kill it, suppress it, and confuse it for a year before deciding what happens next.

That is not regulation. That is the opposite of how we are supposed to treat entrepreneurship in this country.

If you build something legal, if you create jobs, if you grow a category from nothing into a real business, you should get a framework to keep building on - not a countdown clock.

Tony's story is one of hundreds I am hearing from operators across the country who are watching this play out in real time.

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 Co, Crescent Canna and Torch Drinks.

Follow 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.

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Wine is bifurcating. Massive scale on one end, tiny profitable producers on the other. The middle is getting pressed out. Jim Silver, author of The Post Pandemic Wine Market and former Chief Sales Officer at Wine Direct Fulfillment, breaks down why this is happening and what it means for the next five to ten years of the industry.

Jim spent over 30 years selling wine, running wineries and building the DTC fulfillment side of the business before writing the book the trade needed. In this conversation he covers the coming wave of succession crises as founders retire without a plan, why business school beats sommelier knowledge in 2026, why wine club growth has become zero sum, and why the hemp beverage industry's transparency on labeling is about to reset consumer expectations across every beverage category including wine.

We also get into how AI shaped the writing of his book, why the wine business is structurally the strangest business on earth (three and a half years from bud to bottle), and the real story behind turning down a shot at an early Sam Adams role back in the 90s.

Guest: Jim Silver, Author of The Post Pandemic Wine Market, former CSO at Wine Direct Fulfillment, former Managing Director North America at Balgaroni Family Vineyards, COO of NapaSource Consulting

Topics covered:

• The bifurcation of the wine business and why the middle gets squeezed
• Succession planning crisis facing family wineries in the next 5 to 10 years
• Why DTC fulfillment is an extension of the winery brand, not just shipping
• Zero sum growth in wine clubs since 2018
• How hemp beverage transparency and labeling is influencing consumer expectations across alcohol
• Writing a business book with AI as a structuring tool, not a ghostwriter
• Right sizing growth expectations in a shrinking category

Find Jim Silver's book, The Post Pandemic Wine Market, on Amazon or through Board and Bench Publishing.

This is the Ready To Drink Podcast with Nate Fochtman, founder of The FreeMind Group. New episodes weekdays covering the people building beverage alcohol, hemp THC and functional non-alc brands.

Follow 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.

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"I wake up every day and I don't know what to say."

That's Joe Gerrity, Founder & CEO of Crescent Canna - talking about a hemp beverage industry that could legally cease to exist by November 12, without a single vote in Congress.

Not a hearing. Not a debate. Not a vote.

A definition change buried in unrelated legislation and an entire category with jobs, small businesses, retail shelves, tax revenue - gone.

Joe put it plainly: "It's a travesty that they're just going to destroy all of this for no reason whatsoever other than the greed of people with deep pockets."

I've watched beverage categories rise and fall on consumer taste, on execution, on competition. I have never watched one get erased by a definition nobody debated.

If you sell hemp beverages, know someone who does, or just believe regulation should come from elected officials - this is the moment to say so.

North Carolina make your voice heard at RegulateDon'tRuinNC.com.  The Regulate Don't Ruin NC campaign is sponsored by Tryon Distributing Co, Crescent Canna & Torch Drinks.

Learn more about Crescent Canna: CrescentCanna.com

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

Follow 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.

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Komal Devjani, Co-Founder at Revya AI, joins the show to break down the back office problem most CPG and beverage founders never look at until it costs them real money: deductions.

Revya builds automated deduction recovery and trade spend planning tools for CPG brands, from emerging labels to companies doing over $100 million a year. In this episode Komal explains what a deduction actually is, why DSD distribution in beverage creates more complexity than almost any other category, and why founders who never open their remittances are quietly losing margin they could put back into their next production run.

This conversation is drink entrepreneurship at its core. Komal walks through the early pilot brands that took a bet on Revya, why conferences still beat cold outreach for founder led sales, and why she believes there is almost no excuse left to raise venture money without product market fit.

The back half of the episode turns personal. Komal and Nate talk about honesty, sobriety, growth through suffering, and why raising money without doing the internal work first can turn a founder into someone they do not recognize.

What we cover:
- What a deduction is and why it happens
- Why beverage and DSD distribution are uniquely complex
- The cost of not opening your remittances
- Trade spend planning and true ROI on promotions
- Founder led sales and why conferences still win
- Raising a seed round without losing product market fit
- Sobriety, honesty and building a business grounded in reality

Connect with Komal Devjani on Linkedin 

Learn more about Revya AI: Revya.ai

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

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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

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Emily Griffen, Co-Founder and CEO of Brewt's, on how the brand actually started: Bloody Mary mix made at pool parties in LA, a hundred cases bottled in her parents' garage in Grand Rapids, a self-made label, a Vistaprint banner, and a sold-out trade show that led to a distributor deal twenty days later.

Full episode with Emily Griffen and Courtney Clark on the Ready To Drink Podcast: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | ReadyToDrinkPodcast.com

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

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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Jason Neri is the founder of Northern Courage and Accord Stone Irish Whiskey. He spent two decades moving through wine, beer and spirits before launching his own blended Irish whiskey, a brand built on transparency, slow proofing and a refusal to add caramel coloring.

In this episode Jason breaks down why he built Accord Stone to pull bourbon and scotch drinkers into the Irish whiskey category, how he sourced liquid from the Cooley and Great Northern distilleries in County Louth, and what he learned from Nancy Fraley's slow proofing method that most distillers have never even tried. He also gets into the real economics of launching a spirits brand: distributor consolidation, the cost of self distribution, why DTC shipping math kills cheap bottles, and why founders have to be their own best salesperson long after the brand grows up.

We also talk about the unglamorous side most people never see. Cold calling at a fake investment bank making three hundred calls a day. Pitching retailers while plumbing problems unfold in real time. Running a family of six kids while bootstrapping a spirits brand with no salary for three years. Jason lays out a clear framework for anyone thinking about getting into beverage alcohol: build organically, know your risk tolerance, find your home base market first, and never let the glamour fool you into thinking this business is anything but hard work.

This conversation covers the Irish whiskey category's decline and rebirth, the difference between brands that scale on cash versus brands that scale on relationships, and why follow through is the single biggest differentiator between a sales rep and a true consultative partner.

Topics covered:
 00:00 Northern Courage and the Accord Stone origin story
 01:12 Running a brand and a family of six at the same time
 02:45 From college hospitality jobs to twenty years in beverage alcohol
 09:15 How professionalism in beverage alcohol has changed over fifteen years
 12:00 Advice for young people entering hospitality and beverage alcohol
 15:34 Hand to hand sales and the real cost of opening a new market
 19:16 Cold calling, boiler rooms and the reality of telesales
 23:40 Why Wisconsin first growth strategies beat cash heavy expansion
 30:38 Empathy, follow through and becoming a key account for a retailer
 35:40 The stones of accord, the brand story and Irish whiskey transparency
 44:47 Why transparency is the future every beverage category needs

Northern Courage is a beverage alcohol consulting firm working across spirits, wine, beer, non-alc and functional categories. Accord Stone Irish Whiskey is a transparent, slow proofed blended Irish whiskey built for bourbon and scotch drinkers, sourced from the Cooley and Great Northern distilleries in County Louth, Ireland.

Follow Jason on Linkedin

Check out Accord Stone Irish Whiskey - AccordStone.com & Northern Courage - NorthernCourage.com

Subscribe to The RTD Podcast for weekly conversations with the founders, operators and dealmakers building the beverage alcohol industry from the ground up.

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

Emily Griffen, Co-Founder and CEO of Brewt's, and Courtney Clark, VP of Sales at Brewt's, join Nate Fochtman on the Ready To Drink Podcast for a conversation that covers what it actually takes to build a premium mixer brand from scratch inside one of the most overlooked and misunderstood sections in grocery retail.

Emily started Brewt's in 2016 out of an apartment in Los Angeles, bottled her first hundred cases of Bloody Mary mix in her parents' garage in Grand Rapids, Michigan, sold out of a food and wine trade show in two days, and signed a distributor twenty days later. Ten years of bootstrapped growth later, Brewt's is in over 2,400 locations including 1,000-plus Walmart stores, 900-plus Kroger stores, eight DSDs nationwide, and Kehe on the West Coast. In June 2026, the brand launched its first RTD line built around the margarita SKU that changed everything for the company.

Courtney came on as VP of Sales after a layoff from Spindrift Spiked following an acquisition, having previously worked at White Claw. Her background building systems at both a large-scale RTD brand and a startup-within-a-company gave her the tools to bring institutional infrastructure to a founder-led business that had scaled to a thousand Walmart doors on farmers market instincts and grit alone.

In this episode:

Why the mixer category is one of the most humbling and underestimated sections in grocery retail, and why Courtney believes it is prime for the same kind of disruption that transformed non-alcoholic beer. 

How Emily ran 18 farmers markets simultaneously across Michigan, generating three-page consumer reports every Saturday, to build the data backbone that convinced major chains to take a shot on Brewt's. 

What filling a surprise Walmart order with a team of ten taught Emily and her co-founder Luke about the ceiling of doing everything yourself. 

Why demos and trial, not innovation for its own sake, remain the most undervalued capital deployment in early-stage CPG. 

The real cost of chain retail that founders consistently underestimate, and how Courtney helped Emily and Luke transition from a founders-touch-every-account model to a data-driven, systems-first operation. 

The parallel between the music industry grind and the beverage business, and why that same fighter and entertainment-world mentality that built Brewt's is the same one keeping it alive.

This episode is unscripted, unsponsored, and unrehearsed. No prep calls. No shared talking points. Just an honest conversation about what building a real beverage brand looks like from the inside.

Follow Emily & Courtney on Linkedin

Check out Brewt's | BrewtsMix.com

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

Follow 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