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#14 Jeff Bradford Is Paid To Learn About Craft Spirits
557 Plays4 years ago
Jeff Bradford is the host and creator of Beer, Wine and Spirits A channel dedicated to travelling the world and learning about the world of beer wine and spirits.
Jeff has a long history with the military. When he retired Jeff found a passion for craft beverages and how they are made. So he sold all his stuff and set out to learn everything he could about them. Soon he realised that other people were interested and wanted to learn along with him giving rise to his youtube channel!
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Transcript
Sponsorship and Support
00:00:00
Speaker
How's it going chasers? I hope you're having a kick-ass week. Today's podcast is brought to you by Adventures in Home Brewing, an awesome home brewing store that supplies beer, wine and spirit supplies for home distillers, home winemakers and home beer makers. Shipping's free on most orders over $50 for those in the lower 48 and they even have international shipping which is pretty freaking awesome.
00:00:24
Speaker
You can find them at homebrewing.org slash ctc. That's homebrewing.org slash ctc. Using that link is not going to cost you a cent. It's going to take you straight to the specials page and it's going to give Chase the Craft a little kickback to keep us going as well.
00:00:41
Speaker
This podcast is also brought to you by the Patreons. Thank you so much Patreons. You make all of this possible. I know it, you know it. Everyone else knows it as well. So you deserve the thanks. If you're not sure what Patreon is, it's a platform that allows people to sign up and pledge a small monthly amount in return for a little bit of behind the scenes action, a little extra content and a few rewards every now and again.
00:01:03
Speaker
So if you're finding value in this podcast, all the chase the craft videos, and you'd like to help give back, you can go to chase the craft.com slash support to find out all the ways that you can help out one of those. If it's right for you, there's Patreon.
Meet Jeff Bradford
00:01:19
Speaker
My guest today is a super interesting one guys. He's not strictly in the industry as such. Instead he gets paid to travel and learn about spirits, about beer and about wine. This guy was in the military for a long long time. He had a long military career including five years of deployment. When he retired and got home he sold all of his stuff.
00:01:40
Speaker
So he could fund traveling around the world and learning about beer wine and spirits It wasn't long before he realized that other people were interested in this stuff as well And he started shooting videos about it He's been to over 12 countries so far, met a bunch of cool people and created I think upwards of 60 videos now Including a video on tequila that's got more than a million views How cool is that guys? And he's not gonna be stopping anytime soon
00:02:06
Speaker
Right now he's going to school in San Diego learning about brewing beer. Next year he's going to be off to Scotland to study distilling. And as his name grows in the industry he's getting more and more access to really cool people, really cool companies and really cool locations to make kick-ass content for you. It was an absolute pleasure to be able to talk to another YouTube creator and be able to talk shop, give you guys a little peek behind the curtain and see what it's really like to try and run a channel in 2020.
00:02:33
Speaker
While you're listening to this podcast or watching this podcast, I want you to think of it from two different directions. One is just to sort of get an idea of what it's like so you can appreciate content a little bit more. And two, I want you to realize that it is entirely possible to create a career that focuses on craft beverages without actually being in the industry of making craft beverages. So if you have a passion for this stuff, you really want to make your life's work about it. But you don't think actually producing this stuff is for you.
00:03:02
Speaker
Take some inspiration from Jeff and realize that you can do something tangential to craft spirits and still be able to provide for yourself and your family. So without further delay, Jeff Bradford from Be A London Spirits.
Collaboration and Cross-Promotion
00:03:23
Speaker
Alright, we're live with Jeff from Beer, Wine and Spirits. How the hell are you, dude? This is cool, man. Good to have you. Dude, I'm doing great, my man. How are you doing? I am excellent, man. So this is fun for me because you're...
00:03:40
Speaker
audience and my audience and our channels have, we've been talking behind the scenes quite a bit for some time now, which is awesome. It's great to be able to meet you. But I guess this is the first time that we're really going to sort of like introduce people from one to the other, which is pretty cool, man, because I don't think there's a huge overlap in our audiences yet.
00:04:01
Speaker
No, I don't. It's funny because I think I got a message from one guy. He's like, hey, check out this show. Still a message on YouTube channel. I'm like, OK, cool. You know, like I'm busy doing my thing. And so I put it on my list. Right. And it kept going down the priority list.
00:04:19
Speaker
And then all of a sudden, two, three, four, five, six other people just sort of, dude, you've got to check out this guy, Jesse, man, over in New Zealand. He's doing some cool things. You guys need to link up. And then, so after I started thinking about it, I'm like, man, you know, seven, eight people. The universe is telling me something, man. So that's when I connected. And I looked at your show, and I'm like, dude, this guy is doing some cool stuff, man. So I'm really thinking what you're doing. And it's awesome, man. Yeah, we even got to the point where we were talking about you getting over here.
00:04:49
Speaker
And then, wow, COVID. We'll look at that some other time. Man, we've got an episode lined up, man, because I think you and I are on the same sheet of music in terms of like, when you first told me, like, again, this is how ignorant I am to what's going on, like over there. And this is what's really cool.
00:05:09
Speaker
about technology, right? As soon as I started learning about, you know, you reached out to me and you said, hey, this is what's going on in New Zealand. And you're like, distilling is legal here. And the first thing I did was like, what? Are you freaking serious? So and then all these ideas started happening. And then I'm bouncing, you know, and then you and I talk and we're bouncing ideas back and forth. And we're like, let's do an episode, man. And I'm excited when everything gets back to normal.
00:05:35
Speaker
to get over there and really highlight that, you know, and why other countries need to start thinking about this and what we can learn from New Zealand actually legalizing it, right? And just spreading that to the world.
00:05:48
Speaker
Yeah, dude, 100%. I am super keen to do it. I had exactly the same experience as you, man. I had a couple of people mention you to me just like in my comments section. Didn't think much of it. So it's hard to keep up with everything else.
00:06:08
Speaker
everything coming at you with emails and messages and comments and blah blah blah blah but um yeah and then the same thing happened two or three later i was like okay yeah cool i've got a spare 20 minutes i better click on this guy and see what the hell he's up to and straight away man i think i don't know tell me if this is about right but i'm guessing when i first looked at your channel you would have been at about 15 000 subs
00:06:32
Speaker
Yeah, I was probably, man, dude, it was a rocky start, man. Which I know you. It was a rocky start. And yeah, I probably had less than that, to be honest. It was probably just my mom and brother following me when you looked at it. I mean, literally, brother, I was like, it was rocky, man. It was a tough start, sledding for like a good year. I don't know how you felt about, you know, when you started the channel. Oh, kind of the same, man. Yeah.
00:06:58
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, I watched that. I can't I can't actually remember what the first video I watched was. Oh, I don't know. It was the it was never on here, which is because since then you've now put me in touch with him and I recorded the podcast with him and he's an awesome guy. But I
Content Philosophy
00:07:19
Speaker
clicked on that video. It started up and I just watched your like your intro.
00:07:23
Speaker
and went, holy shit, how does this guy not have 100,000 subscribers? At least. And I hadn't even watched any of the content. So for any of you, if you guys are listening to this, jump on YouTube, literally right now, jump on YouTube, track Jeff down, bear one in spirits, and subscribe and start watching, because it's really cool. It's really cool content.
00:07:46
Speaker
Okay, like maybe let's back up just a little bit, dude. I'm kind of a little loathe to do these long intro. Who are you and how did you get to where you are? But I think it's actually kind of interesting for you, man, because essentially you just get to cruise wherever the hell you want now and talk to interesting people. So that's pretty, I don't know, that's dope, dude.
00:08:09
Speaker
Yeah, some people say I have the coolest job. I like to say I have the coolest job in the world. But it didn't come without some type of obviously struggle. And the long story short, I mean, I was 20 years in the United States Army. 20 years in, five years of that was in combat, so in Afghanistan and Iraq. And thankfully, I came back with all hands
00:08:38
Speaker
and my arms and legs and had to really think about what my next move was. And one of my passions, I wrote down a list of my passions. When I decided to retire, one of my passions was I was always curious when I looked at a beer, wine, spirit label, right? You're having a drink of Jack Daniels or, you know,
00:09:01
Speaker
rocky from from croatia and you're like man who makes this how it's made and that's really where it stemmed from man it was just the curiosity of that i traveled a lot with the military and you know for me it was uh you know it was something that i really enjoyed and wanted to know more about so when i retired i said you know i saved one i saved a ton of money obviously you know because i didn't know what i was going to do when i got out of the military um and uh i sold everything that i owned
00:09:30
Speaker
And I went and set out and reached out to brewers, winemakers, distillers, and said, hey, can I come learn from you guys? And at the beginning, it was hilarious, Jesse. I mean, literally, for one, yes, I got probably 50 no's, right? Like, who the hell are you? Like, what do you want to do? And at the beginning, I was just blogging. So I was just trying to, and by the way,
00:09:55
Speaker
I mean, I'm an army guy, right? I shoot guns, jump out of airplanes. Can you imagine me trying to write down notes while these guys are telling me all the technical information about learning? My head was exploding every single day, but I loved it. And that was the thing where I knew I was like, wait a minute. There's something about this that I really enjoy. And the funny thing is the first, I was living in Belgium. I was over working with NATO Special Operations headquarters there.
00:10:23
Speaker
And when I retired the first the brewery that said yes was actually delirium out of all breweries right delirium which are their famous obviously famous brewery there in Belgium the pink elephant and went over there and learned and and that that was it man I caught the bug and
00:10:41
Speaker
You know, I would, it was funny, I'd come back and I would tell friends, I'd be like, dude, I just brewed beer with delirium. And they're like, you freaking did what? Did you capture that anything on video or anything? And I'm like, no, because I was too busy freaking writing everything down in a notebook. So that's when I kind of switched to filming the episodes and started getting the idea of filming it. But
00:11:04
Speaker
Initially, I was scared, man. I'm not going to lie to you, man. I was in the army. I was shying away from cameras. I mean, what the hell do I want to be in front of a camera for? And so it took me some time to build up enough courage, I guess, if you will, to actually say, you know what? I'm going to go forward. I'm going to film an episode.
00:11:24
Speaker
and do it. So yeah, fast forward almost two years and we've got a little over 60 episodes. I've been to, you know, over 12, 13 countries now and met some of the, some amazing personalities, some amazing brewers, winemakers, distillers, and I'm just getting started, man. Life is, life is pretty good right now. Yeah, that's freaking cool. Sorry everyone.
00:11:48
Speaker
I use this room in the house because it's the quietest room in the house and the neighbor right next to us has just decided to make their lawn stuff. The audio is horrible. I apologize. It'll go away soon. Part of the reason I wanted to talk to you is that I see a lot of people that find a passion in alcoholic beverage category like beer, wine, spirits, RTD, whatever it happens to be.
00:12:14
Speaker
And they're stuck in a day job that they just hate and they want out. And there's a passion there and a desire to do something that's fulfilling, which I can completely understand. Life's too short. It just is.
00:12:33
Speaker
And a lot of people seem to think that the only way to get into the industry, the only way to be around those things, the only way to be involved in what they love is to make it. Become a distiller. Work for someone else. Be an apprentice. Maybe work in a bar as a stretch. At least I get to talk about this stuff all day long and share it with people that love it as well. You've decided that
00:13:03
Speaker
Your job is literally to learn about it, which is freaking awesome. And you get to share that with other people, which is that that was pretty much my game plan, too. So in case people have come along recently and don't know that the game plan for both myself and Jeff was literally, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Let me figure this out. And as I figure out, I'll share it with other people, because I'm sure someone else is wondering the same thing that I'm wondering. And it's pretty cool, man. It is a very fulfilling thing to be able to share your
00:13:33
Speaker
accomplishments and also your screw ups with other people, I think. Yeah, I think that's what it is. I mean, my channel just like yours is an evolution of learning, right? And not just about beer, wine and spirits. I mean, we're looking, we're wearing multiple hats, right? I mean, it's not like I have tons of money to be able to get this whole like,
00:13:51
Speaker
You know, if you ever watch the end of a movie or a TV show, I mean, look at all the names that come up, right? And unfortunately, it's just me and a videographer on my episodes. And so you're wearing so many different hats. So I think the cool thing about, you know, when I look at my channel and I hope everybody else does is they go back to early 2018 when we first started, you know,
00:14:14
Speaker
And then they see the episodes now and they say, holy crap, yeah, I do see a difference, right? This guy is getting better every day. He is learning every single day. And that's my thesis, man, is I want to learn every day. I want to bring people on this journey with me to learn. I'm asking the same questions about the same things.
00:14:36
Speaker
about beer, wine and spirits. And I just hope to bring that to life to people, you know, and share it with everybody. So it's super cool, man, like you said. Oh, dude, a hundred percent. And so I look back, it's like my first probably, I don't know, my first 50 videos, maybe my first 50.
00:14:56
Speaker
It was like, holy crap, why did anyone take me seriously? Why did anyone watch this? It is so bad. Dude, my audio is horrible. I'm thinking to myself, I'm watching back to it, and I'm thinking this is the best thing since sliced bread back then. I'm like, dude, this is amazing. I should get a billion views. No. It was pretty bad. But yeah, I hope everybody, when they look at it, they see it and they're like, OK, well,
00:15:23
Speaker
you know, he put some effort into it, but they see the evolution from now. And so then, and I hope even two years from now, right, we even look back at right now, which I think in everything is amazing, but they say, wow, look at the jump from what he's done from even now to even, you know, two years from now. So I 100% agree, dude. And I think that is a direct parallel for the
00:15:45
Speaker
How do I put it? The only people that are really going to succeed are the people that are their own worst critics, right? And this is, we're not just talking about YouTube. The obvious one is people that are making craft spirits or craft beer or craft wine. If you cannot look at your product, whatever the hell your product is, and pull it apart and figure out everything that's wrong with it and try and improve on it every single time you make something,
00:16:11
Speaker
You're going to get left behind eventually. Even if you are a sub-mom, even if you're the best at what you do, you're not going to be for long. It's just the way it is, right? I couldn't say that any better, man. And that's my thing. Every episode, every story is, how can we tweak things? How can we make it better? How can we make it interesting? And you're right, man.
00:16:32
Speaker
When you start an endeavor like this, you know, especially getting into it from scratch, like you and I have done, you know, we are, I mean, that those, I don't know about you, man, I'm battling those voices in my head even now, even today, right? I'm just like, am I good enough? You know, why haven't I achieved this or like this?
00:16:50
Speaker
you know, it just it's a constant battle every day in and day out to as well, you know, so it's definitely been a roller coaster ride, man. But at the same time, when you're passionate, and this is your purpose, like, you just you keep going, man, I wake up every day with the same enthusiasm, no matter how much I'm in my head. You know, I just quiet it down with I shut that little, you know, bitch voice up, if you will, sorry, my language, but that's why I tell myself, I literally tell myself like, shut up, dude, like, you're better than this. Look at what you have achieved.
00:17:20
Speaker
uh keep going because like you said you're your own worst critic man especially on a being on a creative aspect like you know like what we're doing yeah totally man i i mean i wasn't necessarily thinking about talking about this but we're here now so
00:17:36
Speaker
There's going to be people out there that are thinking about starting something, a podcast, a blog, a YouTube channel, or whatever. Or on the flip side, there's going to be people that own a distillery or work at a distillery. And everyone keeps telling them they should be doing social media marketing. You've got to be creating content to be relevant to this, blah, blah, blah, blah. Should we talk about starting something like this for a little bit? You know what I like, Jesse? I like the sigh before you said that.
00:18:07
Speaker
Because I, I too, let's dive into it, my man, but you know how it is. I mean, I think the side tells it all, dude. It's, you know, straight up, if I can do this, like if I was, if I was transported back five years and said, would you do this again? Knowing everything you know now.
00:18:30
Speaker
I don't know, man, like even if I had the skills and the experience that I've got now, I don't know if I would start that channel again just because like you said, it's a grind for so long. And I feel like if I did it 10 times, if I did exactly what I'd done, like everything, you know, if I got put in a time machine, back to where I was and I did everything exactly the same,
00:18:55
Speaker
I feel like only one time in 10 I would make it through to where I am now because it's kind of like a one of the best piece of advice I ever got when I started the channel was that the only thing you can do is do everything right. You can show up and kick ass and your entire goal is to kick ass long enough until you get lucky enough to be able to capitalize on the fact that you're doing good.
00:19:21
Speaker
And it's, do you know what I mean? Like you can be doing everything works and the algorithm just doesn't give a shit that won't pick you up. It won't show you to anyone. You will get no views. And then one day someone will mention you somewhere. Oh, I saw this, this crazy YouTuber that has, that has like 200 YouTube, like 200 followers. And he's so much better than that. Like go watch him and maybe you get a hundred subs out of it. You know, double your subs from a hundred to 200. And then, you know, like, but if you're not showing up every day,
00:19:47
Speaker
and grinding regardless of the results. You don't get that opportunity, you know? I agree. Jesse, I'm with you, man. Like, dude, when I thought about this, I was already like, dude, I want to create something. You know, look, I spent a lot of time thinking about the niche in Beer One and Spirits. Like, how do I want to navigate this, right? You know, everybody's swirling the glass. Everybody's, you know, doing that in that aspect.
00:20:14
Speaker
But nobody's showing behind the scenes, right? Exactly what you and I are doing. And then I said, OK, I want to make the best content possible for that. That was it. Like when I first started, I mean, if you call business plan that, I mean, that was it. Like all of a sudden, next thing I know, it was like.
00:20:31
Speaker
You know, I just create videos, put it on YouTube, like, okay, you know, you look up and research, you know, all these, okay, titles, thumbnails, and all this stuff. But nobody told me like, wait a minute, you need this social media like marketing plan. Like, you know, I always tell people like, when you first start an endeavor, you're like on this tiny little island out in the middle of nowhere.
00:20:52
Speaker
You've got all the tools on this island, right? And all this stuff to put it together. You make a boat, an airplane, you can make whatever, right? Whatever you do make, you know, if you make an airplane, you can get off there a little bit faster, you know, if you understand it. So the tools are what? It's Instagram. It's all these different platforms. You also have to have a budget behind there, right? To be able to get off this island. And that's how I look at it, man. And I didn't know about it. So, you know, for the first year, you know, like,
00:21:20
Speaker
I'm trying to play catch up and I'm trying to figure it out because I didn't
Social Media Strategy
00:21:24
Speaker
you know, I wasn't I was in the army. I didn't know
00:21:27
Speaker
how to do Instagram ads or Instagram posts or Facebook and this, that and the other. So, you know, along with learning how to edit and produce and be in front of a camera, along with a lot of the other things, right? You know, learning about beer wine and, you know, you're also learning about social media marketing. And again, you're wearing all these different hats and I'm with you, man. Like I, it, it's tough. A lot of people, you know, people can, uh,
00:21:52
Speaker
You know, I always, I always laugh that, you know, people can always comment on what you're doing and give you some, some very negative feedback, right? And stuff like that. But until you're in the arena, man, you know, you don't know. And that's the thing I always keep in mind. Like, man, I, I hear the, I hear the haters out there, man. You know, I could do this better. My audio is this and stuff like that. But, uh,
00:22:14
Speaker
And rightfully so. I'm creating content, I'm putting on it, and I should get that feedback. But I also say that, man, being in the stands is one thing, and then being in that arena is another, man. It's a tricky thing, dude. And I feel like we're going to talk through a few things here. So guys, this is us talking shop. But the reason I want to talk shop for a little while, and we'll get onto other things later on, is that if you are entertaining the idea of throwing your hat in the ring,
00:22:41
Speaker
with this stuff. These are the things that are going to come up on a daily basis. If you're not cool with that, if you're not sure, if you're not going to just go balls deep on it, find another way to do something. Down to the little things like having a video on a schedule. What's your schedule? Is it weekly? Is it two videos a week? Is it once a month? Whatever. Then you see people like, man, I was real busy this month.
00:23:11
Speaker
It's like, really, dude? You're too busy to show up to work? You're punching a time clock. It's for you. And just because you show up doesn't mean you get paid. But you need to think of it like a full-time job. And that's tricky for some people. And it literally is. To tell the truth, man, I spend
00:23:33
Speaker
probably two to four hours a day on just social media. I don't have, that's why companies outsource that, scale that to marketing teams, right? I mean, it does so much time to, and I'm talking about putting my stuff out there on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, not to mention YouTube, right? All these different platforms.
00:23:54
Speaker
And then coming up with the strategy, it's like, OK, who am I targeting? Who am I trying to target? Who needs to see? Because that's the way to do it nowadays. Organic reach. Everybody thinks when they get it. Like for me, I thought, oh, let me upload a video on Instagram. Oh, it'll go to everybody. And oh, yeah, I have X amount of followers. All those followers and all those people that hit subscribe are going to see it. And it's just not the case. You know what I mean? So again, that's just the
00:24:21
Speaker
It's just doing your homework and understanding it and learning as you go. But it's going to take a lot more of your time than what you think. I know, like I said, for you and I, we thought of it coming into a little bit differently. And we found out really quick we had to adapt.
00:24:39
Speaker
Yeah dude, I mean I had never touched video in my life. I was a commercial photographer beforehand, which in some ways was a huge leg up and in some ways was a huge hindrance in that I was doing things that didn't matter, like I was spending too much time on things that didn't matter.
00:25:01
Speaker
I was working with basically no budget. We went about things very differently. So for me, it was literally some dude in this shed that was working a shitty job, a dead end, just bought a house, had a new kid, had no money to spend on everything. So I was like scrounging up parts from secondhand shops and stuff to buy my first still and to build my first still and everything. Whereas you were like, yeah, fuck it. I'm just going to start traveling.
00:25:25
Speaker
you know like so I guess my point is you don't need a budget to start with you need a camera and here's the deal guys video quality is great but it doesn't matter nearly as much as audio so yeah get good at get good audio and get good video but good enough is good enough and I think I think that's something else that that I had to learn pretty
00:25:46
Speaker
pretty early on and this is where the commercial photography did help me is that good is you know like how do I put it um finished is better than perfect you know like you've got a deadline you need to get your shit out yes you know and yeah you just need to get something down something out every week if you are the sort of person that's a perfectionist and you're trying to mess with every single cut and
00:26:14
Speaker
It's not going to happen, man. You're not going to get it done. And back to your point on the comments, it's so funny, man, because I'm a huge advocate for free speech. I hate it when things get censored or blocked out. I'm a believer of the best cure for a bad idea or bad conversation is a good idea or good conversation. And that spreads through to social media. So when I put something up on YouTube,
00:26:43
Speaker
I 100% support the right of every single person that watches that video to basically write whatever the hell they want on it. The thing is that they don't have the right for anyone else to give a shit. So basically it's hard, man, because you will always like whatever you do and whatever you put out there, there will be a portion of people that will hate on your stuff.
00:27:09
Speaker
And you've got to have a strategy, like literally a strategy, not just like, Oh, I've got thick skin and that doesn't bother me. You need a strategy on how to deal with those people.
00:27:20
Speaker
Actually, I'm really interested. I have never asked you this question. How do you deal with people that are assholes on your channel? And there's two types of assholes, right? There's the asshole that has a point, it's like you said, that being an absolute ass, but you have to admit, yeah, okay, dude, you're right. My audio was bad, but you're going about it the wrong way. And then there's the second person who just wants to get a raise out of you. They just want to piss you off. So how do you deal with them? I agree with you. And I'll give you a perfect example of
00:27:48
Speaker
of somebody comment. Okay, so one of my beginning episodes, you know, again, I'm not used to being in front of the camera. I'm nervous. I'm very nervous in front of the camera. And so I had my sunglasses on.
00:28:01
Speaker
And one of the comments was, dude, you're such a douchebag for leaving your classes on during your interview with this guy. And that's what he wrote. He's like, you're a douchebag. So I was like, OK, but he doesn't. OK, I looked at it and I said, well, I can see where he's coming from, right? I can see where he's coming from. So I just wrote him back. And this is what I wrote.
00:28:21
Speaker
I wrote back, I said, hey, man, look, I'm not going to lie to you, man. I'm nervous in front of the camera. So I told him exactly what I was. That was it. I was nervous. And I'm still getting used to it. And I'm wearing my glasses because of that. And his comment right back completely changed the tone, right? And was like, oh, dude, I'm sorry. He's like, OK. But then just to keep his, I don't know, his ego, I don't know what it was. But it was just like, yeah, he goes like this. He writes back and says, but.
00:28:50
Speaker
maybe you should try to find some Ray-Bans or cooler glasses or something like that. I was like,
00:28:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, because I travel so much. And anytime I buy a pair of Ray-Bans, they always break on me. So yes, I do buy those cheap $10 actually. But so to get back to your point, Jesse, is I handle exactly the way I have to look at it. Look, I'm honored that even somebody's commenting. Even it's good, bad, or indifferent, right? And they check out my content. I'm grateful for that. And I have to look at it through the lens of the viewer. And like you said, there's some guys that like I've had guys that says, you're promoting alcoholism.
00:29:27
Speaker
you know, and you're promoting and you're killing people. And that's the stuff like, I'm like, wait, you know, and I don't, here's the thing, why am I gonna spend the time and energy on that when I know, look, you know, we all have to look in the mirror, we all have to make the choice, we all understand the second and third order effects of things, right? So that I don't waste my time with at all. And there's quite a bit of, you know, I say quite a bit, but you know, I probably get a couple comments every month about that, like I'm promoting alcoholism and stuff like that.
00:29:55
Speaker
You know, and which, hey, I understand, you know, but at the same time, you know, there's, you know, we can look at bars, we can look at the, you know what I mean? Like, so I don't, you know, I, it's a tricky one, man, because it really is because there are people out there that legitimately lost their childhoods because daddy was a drunk and daddy was not a kind drunk.
00:30:19
Speaker
And I get that if you never had support through that, and I get that if you went through that, that you literally saw the worst in someone that should have been there to care for you and love for you because of the bottom of a bottle.
00:30:33
Speaker
Dude, I get it. But it turns out that there are literally millions of us that can enjoy that same stuff that was the end of peace and love in your household. We can enjoy it, and it brings us nothing but peace and love. And I'm not saying that as an, oh, I get drunk and I feel better. I mean, because of this stuff and this glass and my love for it, I get to meet people like you, dude. And that is a beautiful freaking thing.
00:31:00
Speaker
Yeah, so I can understand where it comes from like I can understand the thinking But at the same time it's like totally misplaced in my mind. But yeah Yeah, I mean and that's so so those are the things I deal with you know what I mean? And you know, like I said, I know like you said, I know for a fact I'm not gonna please everybody so that's right there in my mindset and the second thing going back to what I said a little bit You know a little bit ago was I'm in the arena man you're not you know until you can do the same thing, you know and I
00:31:29
Speaker
You know, and then, you know, I get what I love is I get the real technical guys, right? The guys have been in the industry for 10 years watching this and they're like, you know, and then they'll, you know, quit, you know, they'll quiz me on stuff or they'll tell me and stuff. So I respect all that, you know what I mean? And I welcome it.
00:31:45
Speaker
And, uh, but again, going back to what I said at the beginning, I'm grateful. I'm grateful for anybody that's watching my content chiming in. Um, it gives me perspective and again, looking at a lens, you know, looking at it through their eyes and then kind of looking at my content and saying, okay, wait a minute. Does he have a point? Where does it, you know, I can maybe change and make bet and get better at, right? Yeah, totally. I,
00:32:08
Speaker
I've had a strategy and I've just literally realized up like probably in the last three weeks that it no longer works for me.
Handling Feedback and Challenges
00:32:17
Speaker
And my strategy was number one, as soon as you feel your blood rising, put your phone down, walk the fuck away, but remember it and come back to it tomorrow. Like literally in 24 hours when you're just completely, you don't care anymore.
00:32:29
Speaker
And then look at it and go, yeah, try and figure out, like you say, does the person have a point? And if they do have a point, admit it to them publicly. And exactly like you did, right? Yeah, you're right, man. I'm sorry. I said the wrong word. It was a slip of the tongue. For anyone else that's reading this, the guy's 100% right.
00:32:47
Speaker
You can do that stuff pretty easily. Number two was to look at the person that's commenting and try and decide whether or not that person would ever be an asset to your business, to your channel or whatever. If the guy's just being a prick and no matter what you say to him, he's always going to be a prick, cut your losses. Like you said, it's just not worth it to you.
00:33:08
Speaker
But you do often see people that it's just a, it's a misunderstanding or, man, the other, the people on the other side of the keyboard are human too, right? Like, maybe they just came home from a really shitty day at work. Maybe they just had a fight with their wife. And I've, like, I've literally had that multiple times. You're right back and you're like, Yeah, sorry, man. Like, you've kind of got a point. I'll try and sort it out next time.
00:33:31
Speaker
But and you don't even have to call them on their bullshit. Sometimes I'd say something like, you know what, but it's kind of hard to take people seriously when they're so abrasive or you know, normally I wouldn't. And then and then quite often, like you say, two or three days later, you'll get a message back being like, dude, I'm sorry, I was having the worst day ever or, you know,
00:33:50
Speaker
Oh, I get it. It's just a pet peeve of mine when people do. And then for the flip side, when I had just straight up trolls, here's the thing, guys. YouTube doesn't care what the content of a comment is. They only count the comment as a comment.
00:34:07
Speaker
So when the channel was growing, I actually love playing the game of trying to get the troll to comment as many times as I possibly could on a thread. I'm just racking up comments from this one person who hates me and wants my channel to die. I'm like, yeah, you're building my channel.
00:34:26
Speaker
if you gotta do that guys the trick is that you need to you need to disconnect yourself from it and you need to make sure when some random person that never has you know that's never watched your content and doesn't know you from a bar of soap if they look at that comment thread they need to like go oh this person's a crazy person and the
00:34:43
Speaker
the content creators like just having fun with them if yeah if you can't do that you don't do it but my point is i just i can't anymore dude like i don't i just don't have the time you know so it's kind of like if it's someone i know and it's someone that's been on the channel before um and they're sort of like calling bs on me that's cool like i've got time for them um or if it's you know if it's someone that i've never seen before but yeah okay i admit
00:35:10
Speaker
You're right. I did rush my research on this point or whatever. That's something different. Jesse, did you ever have a time, because both of our channels are a little over two years, between two and three years. Was there ever a time where you were just like, man, I'm done? Maybe this is not. You know what I mean? I know we talked about the negative thoughts and being our own critic.
00:35:40
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, dude. Yeah, that all the time, man. Imposter syndrome is a real problem. The problem with them, if you don't know, basically imposter syndrome is that you get really good at something. You start succeeding and then you have these weird like your body or your mind tricks you into thinking that you're shit at it and that it was all luck and that you're tricking everyone. And one day everyone's going to wake up and realize that your abs like why, you know, like all of that sort of stuff.
00:36:07
Speaker
The problem with imposter syndrome is when you're in the middle of it, you can't tell the difference between. Are these all made up things in my head or is this real? So that comes up regularly, but there was two times, man, two times when I was like literally ready to just walk away from it. The first was when our twins were born and I. I just I couldn't in my head reconcile how going from one kid to three kids
00:36:37
Speaker
having a job and trying to look after a house and Sinking another you know, like 30 35 hours a week into this thing on the side was just ever gonna add up So I was I literally just After the craziness died down and I'd sort of took a bit of time off the channel and stuff to get through You know that wife at the hospital and all that sort of stuff I've as you said to my wife look man
00:37:02
Speaker
I don't know exactly how I'm going to do it yet, but I need to just quit, still it. I'm just going to take it down. Jesus looked at me like I was crazy. I was like, what the hell are you talking about? No, you don't. Yeah, she's been amazing, man. She's been absolutely amazing. Um, in terms of support through everything. And the second time was, was recently when, um, when COVID hit and, um, the day job had to let me go. And, and I wasn't nearly as far down there. I think I should quit path, but it was definitely there, man. It was kind of like,
00:37:32
Speaker
Okay, things are pretty rough. We don't know when things are gonna change. Don't know what the government's gonna do in terms of looking after us and that 30, 35 hours a week could be used pretty well somewhere else like looking for a job to get us sorted. Same thing, wife was the one that got me through it. What about you, man? How close have you got to pulling the plug? No, man, so one time and it was right around the 10 month mark
00:38:03
Speaker
And Beer One Spirit, I mean, I had some great episodes. I had the Springbank Whiskey episode.
00:38:12
Speaker
I put my heart and soul into that. I put my heart and soul in making wine at the oldest winery in South Africa. I'm pretty proud of this because I'm like, who am I to be able to get into there? And then I put this creative twist that nobody else is really doing right with the whole travel and behind the scenes of how stuff is made. And I'm just not getting the views. And I'm putting a lot of money. I'm seeking a lot of, obviously, again, time and energy into it.
00:38:39
Speaker
I think a lot of your expenses too dude, like just for me and your ingredients sucked but like you're actually flying around and you've got like plane tickets for two of you and it's brutal man. It's brutal and you know I'm thinking to myself and that was the exact talk is like hey Jeff like you could be you could be just sitting on a beach drinking a boat drink somewhere and you know maybe you get a part you know part time here blah blah blah
00:39:02
Speaker
And literally, again, because I was not seeing the views for them out. The time and energy wasn't equating to what I thought I should be getting. And I literally, I remember, I was in Croatia, and I was sitting there, and I thought to myself, man, should you keep going or what? And again, part of me was like, do it. You don't need it. You don't need to be spending this type of money. You could be using it something else, just kind of like what you were talking about.
00:39:32
Speaker
And then the other conversation I had with myself was like, dude, you just spent five years and more, 20 years of military. You never gave up on anything you did. And when I first started this journey, I gave myself three years. Just do it for three years. Don't never give up.
00:39:51
Speaker
you know, and already at the 10 month mark, right? I'm saying this to myself or you know what I mean? So I tell people like, you know, going back to, you know, some, if there's some people watching, you know, on the channel that are looking to do something like that, maybe they are, they're distiller or, you know, whatever they want to do, you know, to get their, their message out or, you know, share content is one, never give up, but you know, two, you're going to suffer, man. I call it suffering, but struggling and whatever you want to call it.
00:40:18
Speaker
because you're not, it is, the barrier to entry into a platform like this is super tough. And like you said, you know, like first year I didn't see anything. It was right around, you know, just after a year where, you know, like you said, you get that one magic moment, right? That luck, that spark, that video that somehow just takes off. You don't know why. Because it's been sitting there for pretty much all of a sudden, right? It's just all of a sudden, bam, and everybody's seeing your content. And next thing you know, you go from,
00:40:47
Speaker
you know, mom and brothers subscribe to, you know, to tens of thousands. And so and that that's what it reminds me is is that if I would have given up
00:40:58
Speaker
I would have never met you. I would have never met the amazing people, right? The stories that I did after the fact, the growth, all the people that are that are contacted me based off of seeing the episodes that have blossomed on YouTube and stuff like that. So that's just a constant reminder for me even looking back at that and the lesson. So if anybody's out there that's thinking about that or when they start, have that in your mindset, you will, and with anything you do, right? I mean, starting a business, you're gonna struggle. You're gonna suffer, man.
00:41:29
Speaker
100% dude. It's interesting that you said the only thing that got me through the first initial start of it was exactly what you just said. Pick a timeline and pick what you have to do in that timeline. So for me it's one year and for one year I am going to put a video out every Friday morning. Rain, hail,
00:41:51
Speaker
sickness whatever Friday video one year and I had a set of goals that I wrote down and I said this is the number if I get to this many views and this many subs in one year I'm allowed to entertain the thought
00:42:10
Speaker
of continuing. If I get this many views, then I have to find a reason to stop, you know, like a valid reason to stop. And if I get this many views, I'm not allowed to stop. I got to go for another year, you know? And then if I go for another year, these are the numbers that I get to. And that for me, I'm an interesting person in terms of, you know how some people work really well with a
00:42:36
Speaker
they get handed a schedule and you have to do what you have to do. Some people are really good at managing their own time. And then some people work really good under pressure. And what I mean by that is we procrastinate until the last minute, but then we freak out because the deadline means a lot. That's kind of what I fit under. Like I can set deadlines for myself pretty well. I suck at managing time up until those deadlines, but then I'm pretty good at sticking to them, you know?
00:43:05
Speaker
So putting that stuff in stone for me meant that it didn't, how do I put it? The results didn't matter. That doesn't matter if you put a video up and you get 10 views.
00:43:18
Speaker
Yep, I'm not going to say that's pretty, but it doesn't matter. That's not my goal. My goal is to get another video out next week. And I think you have to do that. The circles back to what I was saying at the beginning is your job is to do everything right so you have the opportunity to take advantage of stuff.
00:43:38
Speaker
When luck comes your way, you know so that that's what got me through dude and and I think I think that reaches out to Or it applies to It doesn't matter what you're doing. Right? Like so if you're starting a distillery same thing. It's not about sales in the first year. It's about Whatever it happens to be that you you know, like I want to get a certain product to market Or you know set goals that aren't
00:44:04
Speaker
necessarily results based I think is important. And definitely, definitely if you're looking at this because you are thinking of doing social media marketing for anyone or for a spirits company, if you're going to be creating content and the content is not the end goal, the content is a lead generation tool or
00:44:26
Speaker
You know, that's what you're using to get your company known to people, whatever it happens to be. You have to look at it the same way. Because funnily enough, dude, YouTube in my mind is one of the only platforms left where you can create content and organic growth can get you somewhere.
00:44:45
Speaker
yeah you know like yes yeah like if you if you use advertising and other paid means to um to jump start that initial curve cool like yeah yeah nice work uh but facebook for example dude like that's just pretty much dead now like it's it's pay to play when you come to business stuff
00:45:03
Speaker
Yeah, it is. And it's so true. I look I call it social currency, you know, because as I see and I'm with you, my thing is, is it's not the viewers, it's not the subs, it's nothing like that. It's to get a better episode.
00:45:19
Speaker
out, you know, whatever the crowd, for me right now, especially during the, because it takes a little bit longer for me to produce the episodes, I was doing two a month now, it's obviously during the situation, we're down to one, until I can get back
Social Currency and Marketing
00:45:33
Speaker
out there and start traveling again, but it's putting out the best episode possible, making it better than the last time.
00:45:42
Speaker
So, and not worrying about the subs, the views and all that good jazz. But yeah, I look at it, but at the same token, you know, that's when opportunity starts knocking, you know, just in the last few months because of, you know, the few videos that
00:46:00
Speaker
Like I said, magically, I don't like the word. The videos, you know, if I was jumping off a cliff down in a bottle of booze, that would have went probably viral. But unfortunately, I was just showing people how to make it. So it wasn't as cool as something like that. So but it's still I mean, those few videos pop and all of a sudden.
00:46:20
Speaker
My social currency went up like 300% and all of a sudden now I'm getting I'm getting emails I'm getting messages. I'm getting you know sponsors and stuff like that and it's it's just so crazy for me to Because those videos have been sitting there for so long, you know again, it goes back to the whole island there You know, it's like nobody knows what you're doing, you know at all until You got to get your content out there somehow and again, you know that that's the other thing when you first started it's
00:46:46
Speaker
I don't have a budget to be throwing out to get millions and millions of people to see my content. So I have to be really strategic and try to make my dollar go stretch a long way. That's my job.
00:47:07
Speaker
The other aspect of it behind the scenes that nobody sees is figuring out how I can do that creatively. And fortunately for me, it's been really good because I am in beer, I am in wine, I am in spirits. Luckily, a lot of people enjoy that globally and I'm able to market accordingly. But it definitely does take time.
00:47:29
Speaker
Yeah, man, I mean, for me, it's funny that more and more I'm realizing the thing that is most important to me is the connection. It's being able to talk to people just like you, like Murphy from Cedar Ridge, which if you didn't know, guys, it was Jeff that sent the introduction
00:47:48
Speaker
email for me, which was pretty freaking cool. And it's stunning to me. And every now and again, now I'll contact someone and be like, oh, hey, this is who I am. This is what I do. Would you be interested in talking to me? And I'll get an email back saying, oh, yeah, dude, we know your podcast. We love it. Like, wait, what? So bizarre to me. But, you know, it's it's it starts to happen and it opens doors. It's crazy, man.
00:48:14
Speaker
It does, man. I always tell people, if I could sum up one word of what I do for Beer Wanted Spirits, it's connecting. It's connecting you to the person, that label you might have saw.
00:48:27
Speaker
how many people have drank Lindemans but have never met the brewer or you know what I mean? And I'm able to connect you to that, you know what I mean? And on the flip side, what I've learned is that the distilling community, the brewing community, like it's such a small world, you know, when you think about it in somehow, some way, somebody knows somebody, you know what I mean? And like you said, you know, that's the coolest part is,
00:48:54
Speaker
because they're so just everybody's so willing and to help help you out you know and and teach you you know like you know and i'm starting to realize that if you know and you connected me to the uh the texas the whiskey association and uh here i am
00:49:11
Speaker
Yeah here I am in a few weeks gonna go tell the story about Texas whiskey man and highlight the uh try to try to give uh you know people uh a better understanding of Texas whiskey that's only been around just uh just over a decade and uh we're hitting the northern trail first up in the Dallas sport worth area so and you made that connection again I and here's the cool thing is you're in New Zealand
00:49:35
Speaker
You know, I've been talking around and freaking all over Europe and I just came back to the United States, but I knew nothing, literally, I didn't know nothing about Texas whiskey other than I think I heard about Balcones and a couple words and then obviously Iron Root, you know, winning that single malt or I think it was from one of the whiskey publications, but you were like, dude,
00:49:57
Speaker
Check this out. And for me, that's what's super cool about all of this. Oh, it's so cool, man. And yeah, I'm really looking forward to seeing what you do with them. Because everything I've done in Texas has been very much geekery focused. And I know that you are going to go in there with that sort of storytelling mindset. And you're going to go and visit it as a whole entity, which is really cool.
00:50:22
Speaker
Oh no, you're going to go see the guys at the Brothers Licorice at Iron Route. That's going to be amazing, man. I'll give you one tip, dude. Get a hotel as close to Iron Route as you possibly can. Yes. Yeah, they will not let you walk out of there, I guarantee it.
00:50:45
Speaker
and every little whim that you have. Have you ever heard of people using this weird, oh yeah, we've got that, it's in a barrel, you want to taste it? I've been warned and I've taken notes and I have created a strategy based off of what you just said.
00:51:11
Speaker
Ah, cool, man. I'll make sure to say hey to everyone over there for me as they are. Yeah, they're just a different kind of people, dude. I never realized how living down here in New Zealand, we see and hear of America what Hollywood and social media gives us, right? So I had a pretty straight up and down idea of what Texas was going to be like.
00:51:37
Speaker
And I only went there to hang with the whiskey tribe guys. And I could not have been more wrong, man. I love that place. I feel so at home there. Dude, they have sheep all over the place. That feels just like New Zealand.
00:51:55
Speaker
Yeah you're gonna have a blast man. Okay so we've hinted at this video of yours or a couple of videos of yours that have been doing really well and last time I checked man you just got over a million views. One million views on your tequila episode. Congratulations man that is freaking awesome.
00:52:15
Speaker
Thanks, man. Yeah, it was such a cool, you know, such a cool, uh, episode. I went in there not knowing a thing about tequila. Obviously I did my research and stuff, but I think, I think what was so great about it is everybody thinks of tequila as, Hey, salt, you know, lemon or lime, depending on where you're at in the world. And you know, the lick drink suck thing, right? And it's just like, boom. Yeah. And it's like get drunk, wake up with this freaking crazy hangover and
00:52:44
Speaker
What I found was that it's just like what real tequila actually is, is absolutely amazing. It's a phenomenal product. Casa San Mateus opened up their arms with Carmen. She's one of the few female owners of Casa San Mateus that's making a cortisone tequila.
00:53:05
Speaker
And they sat there and showed me the process of how tequila is made. And we told her story and showed people behind the scenes. And this is how it is. This is what it looks like. And made an ass on myself going out in the agave fields, chopping that agave up. And it's a lot of work. It's tough work. And I think that's where I really enjoy not only about that episode, but all these episodes is to highlight the behind the scenes.
00:53:34
Speaker
to make it on the shelf you know that the product make it on the shelves in stores around the world there's a lot of it's a lot of tough work and I and I want to show you know people all over that are interested in it you know how much work actually goes into it and it's it's quite a bit in tequilas
00:53:51
Speaker
Listen, it's the most regulated spirit in the world. A lot of people don't realize that. In Texas, in Kentucky, in Scotland, we can open up barrels and take out samples whenever you want. And their government regulatory program, the CRT, they have labels over each tequila barrel. And if you want to sample something, you got to call them. They got to come out. They got to watch you do it. They monitor the agaves.
00:54:20
Speaker
from and when it's time to harvest and you bring them to the distillery, they know what lots, what it is. I mean, so and it was eye opening for me to see all that, you know, and see the hard work that goes into and the craftsmanship that goes into it, you know, and and when I got to try, you know, I know, you know, before going there, I knew gold.
00:54:46
Speaker
and silver, right? And all of a sudden I'm hearing words like repizado, you know.
00:54:52
Speaker
and these terms I never heard. And then they were put in front of me in these nice glasses and these stemware glasses and swirling it and tasting it. I was just in awe. And I'm like, wait a minute, this is not what I learned. And this is not what my friends know. This is not what a lot of the people know. And I think that's why the response was so well to the episode is people were just actually like, wait a minute.
00:55:19
Speaker
This is what tequila is. And so it was very cool. And that's exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing. You know what I mean? Not only connecting people, showing you who the people are behind the label, but also showing you the process of how it's made. Totally, man. I thought exactly the same thing of tequila. And my brother-in-law, shout out to Ryan, if by some miracle you ever hear this.
00:55:46
Speaker
He sat me down, he was like, dude, have you ever had good tequila? I was like, good tequila? Those two words actually coexist together? I thought, yeah, it was just an alcohol delivery device for me, man. Especially being stuck down here. Like, I don't know if I can buy good tequila. Actually, good tequila if I wanted to. I'm sure there's some specialty stores. But yeah, we went down to the, did we go to the, yeah, I think we went to the bottle store and he had a few things on his shelf at home.
00:56:13
Speaker
And it was nothing super fancy. It was all, you know, like in, in, I guess probably 30 to $60 range bottles. But he went through the whole thing with me and he was like, yeah, this is an Ajo, Reposado. I can't remember the, I guess it's Blanco. Yeah.
00:56:33
Speaker
Yeah. Like went through it all with me and I was like, holy crap. There's actually, there's like a rainbow of flavor within this one category, you know? And then hanging out with, uh, if you get a chance, dude, um, uh, Josh and Gretchen in Texas, they are reps for Ironroot. Awesome people. Um, they were the people that first introduced me to Texas spirits. Uh, so shout out for you guys. Uh, love your work. Love what you're doing. Can't wait to see you guys again. Uh, but the,
00:57:04
Speaker
I was staying in the hotel that will forever be called the murder hotel going forward. The place was booked out for, I guess it was Mardi Gras or something. So I just booked like the closest, cheapest thing I could to like all the places I needed to go to. Yeah. The first night I showed up there and the, the, the night man was like telling me about how someone got shot in the parking lot the night before. And I woke up the next day and the guy was out there like picking casings up off the ground. Oh man.
00:57:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Josh and Josh and Gretchen rolled up. We never met in person before and they rolled up and came and hung out in the hotel and we recorded for like three hours.
00:57:50
Speaker
I don't know. I guess, like, I was kind of just laughing at the state of the hotel. I thought it was funny. I found out later they were a bit shocked. But anyway, long story short, I tried a few things. I pinched a few things out of Josh's glass over the time and just, yeah, like the smoky tequila. Oh.
00:58:08
Speaker
OK, I didn't know that was a thing. Yeah, it's pretty cool, man. And for those of you listening at home and you haven't watched Jeff's channel and you didn't listen to me when I said stop, pause, go to YouTube, subscribe, ring the notification bell so you can watch his shit. I don't know if you're going to take this as an insult or not, but you're kind of like the micro of booze.
00:58:32
Speaker
Like, I mean, no, I'm pretty sure Mike Rowe heard that. He'd be like, what the hell are you talking about, man? You like rock up and you get stuck in. Like it's not, it's not you like hanging around and having interviews. It's like you're chilling and.
00:58:49
Speaker
like shoveling Pete or hacking up agave plants or whatever. Yeah, it's freaking cool, man. It's dope. So yeah, watch this shit, guys. Check it out. It's funny because a lot of people, when I show, first of all, when I show up to these distilleries, wineries, breweries, right? The first thing they do is I, you know, I show up and I'm a trucker hat, t-shirt, rock and roll t-shirt, you know, and, you know, Chuck Taylors or whatever.
00:59:17
Speaker
and then I have a videographer with me and we show up we knock on the door or whatever they're like oh where's where's the rest of the crew so one so first of all like we kind of laugh and we're like okay yeah well our content's pretty good then you know them thinking that and so and then I always get like with the Martin some of some of the marketing team from the distilleries will come up to me and like
00:59:40
Speaker
and they'll see us filming and it's totally unorthodox, right? I'm like, yo, yo, yo, this shot right here. Come here, come here, hurry, hurry. And you know, it's just, it's not what they're used to seeing and we're just so unorthodox and just, we have our style and a way of doing things. And I get the marketing team from some of these distilleries, you know, like, are you sure you can make it as good as that tequila episode that I saw? And I'm like, yeah, please promise, I'll promise you what we did for that.
01:00:06
Speaker
Yeah, I promise you we'll make it as good because they're looking at us like there is no way they're making this look like this. So it's a couple of arts and board shorts. Yeah, exactly. Right. And they're like, I can't take this guy seriously that he doesn't know what the hell he's doing. So the thing is, dude, like,
01:00:26
Speaker
The market for this stuff has changed so much. Yes, good production value is rewarded. Yes, 100%. Making shitty stuff for the sake of shitty stuff doesn't work. Every now and again, maybe you can get away with shaky cam type stuff to tell a story.
01:00:43
Speaker
But once you get past that and you just admit that there's like what we said at the beginning, right? Like good enough. You just need good enough and yours is really good, dude. Like your production is real high. It's straight up. It's straight up like when I'm trying to describe your stuff to people, it feels like a, um, uh, geez, what do you call it? Like when a network does a, um, like a test.
01:01:04
Speaker
thing like it feels like something off the Discovery Channel like the the the pilot it feels like a pilot from the description yeah but that's literally like it looks good guys like it is you can tell it's not a whole crew if you're you're like you're used to working with video cameras and stuff you can tell that it's like one maybe two guys with a camera yeah but you make it look good man yeah my point is once you get to that that level
01:01:30
Speaker
sinking more money and making it better in my opinion doesn't help the thing that helps from there on in is authenticity like people actually being them and like showing up and actually recording what happens and telling the story of what happens not rolling in and manufacturing drama and turning it into a reality tv show and like
01:01:54
Speaker
moving people around and it's so funny like as a photographer you see it all the time or like when you're watching random stuff like stuff that you're into right oh dude perfect example
01:02:05
Speaker
you watching military shit on TV and you're just like, okay, it looks dope. Like aesthetically, it looks dope. But why are you standing there? Like why the fuck are you not dead? For me, it's diving, like scuba diving. It's like, what the fuck did you just do? Like you're dead now. You're 100% dead. Or if you're not dead, you're bent. Like you're fucked, you know?
01:02:32
Speaker
So I guess I guess my point is like it's really nice to see you rolling in and Doing what you need to do on the production side, you know, like taking taking taking the steps you need to do to make it look good but then letting that stuff get out of the way and just let it be about the people and about what they do and then you're there as a
01:02:56
Speaker
I'm a guide. I mean, that's exactly it. You connect people and you interpret. So like when you hear something and you don't understand it, you ask questions because you figured it out. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Jesse, I tell people all the time, you know, like I'm not the star of the show. Like, you know what I mean? Like it says beer, wine and spirits for a reason. You know, it doesn't say Jeff Bradford's journey of, you know, like.
01:03:18
Speaker
And the reason is, is I'm wholeheartedly like, I'm learning, right? So people are coming on this journey with me to learn, but I'm not the star, like the people that are making the product are the stars, you know? Those are the people that are the stars of the show, you know? The sense of place, you know? And that's what I'm trying to capture. I'm trying to just bring you into their world, show you how it's made.
01:03:39
Speaker
And the other thing I always tell people is they always see me cut, you know, a shoveling mall for, you know, whatever, five minutes. I mean, I was there for a week straight with those guys. Again, a lot of people don't realize this is again, I'm learning. I'm on this journey to learn. And the only way to do it for me, like we're talking, you know, before we started this, started the podcast was I can't open up a book.
01:04:04
Speaker
and just start reading and like shiny things, squirrels, I'm lost. Jesse, I'm being real. But if I'm hands on, I'm more of a visual conceptual. So I'm hands on, I'm learning. And now when I pick up a whiskey book, I'm reading right now, I'm getting ready for the Texas, so trying to get schooled. But when I read this book, it puts it all in the perspective for me because I've
01:04:30
Speaker
done a lot of the things that they're describing and talking about and asked those stupid questions already and had a distiller from a major company tell me the answer and stuff like that. But that's it, man. I'm not trying to be in front and flashy and give you all that. I'm the guide. I'm just a guide in all of this. And I'm going to continue to go that route. And that might hurt me, maybe.
01:04:56
Speaker
But but my creative is that is connecting people. I want I want the people that I you know, the place and the people at that place where I'm at, they're the stars. And I'm just being able to connect people to that. And that's my that's my thesis. And that's why I started beer wine spirits.
01:05:14
Speaker
I mean, I hear what you're saying. You could do flashy stuff. You could do sensationalist stuff. And it is a, it's the easy road, man. Like, yeah, a hundred percent doing goofy shit on camera. It gets clicks, it gets views, but it's empty. It's people that will like, yeah, like you'll get one video. So like maybe your tequila video instead of having a million views, maybe it's got 24 million views, but then those 24 million people are never coming back.
01:05:41
Speaker
They don't give a damn about you. They didn't learn anything from you. They didn't fall in love with a product or a category of spirits. What you did didn't lead them to something. So what does it matter? What does it do? Yeah, nice. You got some AdSense revenue out of it. And that's it. Oh, and by the way, guys, OK, Jesus, we didn't talk about this in the beginning. You know where I'm going with this, don't you? First it was the sky, and then I heard AdSense.
01:06:11
Speaker
Oh, shit. Here we go. You know what? I might, before you get into AdSense, I might need to fill up. Go for it. I'll fill up, too. I can start rent before you get back. Brad, dude, you're back. What are you drinking? I got some starwood in my glass. What have you got? So I am, like we were talking about before, I am, there's a heart. I'm still trying to love
01:06:39
Speaker
Peeted whiskey, you know, so in the glass right now is Balvini week of Pete.
01:06:45
Speaker
and it's absolutely, I'm a big Balvini fan and it's always, I can always find it anywhere I'm traveling. Somehow, someway, Balvini's doing it right on the distribution side of things. But for me, that's always one of those go-tos. I could find it anywhere and one of my friends sent this to me because I needed to start drinking a little bit more peat and getting it, you know. I'm not the one that's gonna buy peated whiskey off the shelf.
01:07:13
Speaker
It's not in my palette right now. So I got a few friends of mine that are pushing me in that direction. So thanks to them.
01:07:22
Speaker
Oh, there's definitely room for, this is what I like to drink. And this is what I'll have on my shelf for when I just want to sit down and enjoy something without thinking about it. But then there's the stuff that you drink to learn about it, right? Like the more I get to know you, dude, you are 100% a skills collector. Like you just like learning shit. So cheers. Thank you, man. And that's it. You know, that's again, part of the, part of the military background and
01:07:51
Speaker
I think one of the things, you know, and you know, not to get off base is too much, but you know, going back like the work, the term alcohol just has that bad condensation. Like you say it when I say I'm in beer, wine and spirits, or I say I drink, you know, I might have a drink. There's a difference between drinking and tasting in my opinion, you know, and, uh, and so, you know, but, but, oh man, I get so much flack. Like I'm an alcoholic for,
01:08:17
Speaker
Tasting, you know, every week, this week, tasting a different peated style whiskey, you know, and tasting it, you know, and so I don't know about you and how much flack you get over that, but yeah, I get the first question I get is, you know, how much do you drink?
01:08:34
Speaker
I have a drink every day. Oh, you're an alcoholic. No, I'm not. Wait a minute. Stop. Yeah. You don't understand the drink and it lasts me like 45 minutes. You know, that's exactly it. Like I have a beer and yeah, and it will take me some time. It's not like it's poop and I'm like, oh, it's gone, you know, and chugging or anything like that. But anyway, uh, man, but yeah, that's fine, man. That's what we're here for. The worst for me is, is, is,
01:09:04
Speaker
When you have kids, you end up hanging out with people that you wouldn't have hung out with normally, right? You kids are friends. Yeah. And like my wife will organize play dates and someone will come over to our house for the first time and little Timmy runs in, you know, to play with our daughter.
01:09:20
Speaker
whoever the hell it is. And they come in and they walk in the door and I'm never here. Well, I wasn't, you know, this is like when I was working. It hasn't happened since COVID obviously, but so I'm gonna walk in for the first time and my wife says that they'll just like stop and their eyes will be like wide open. And she looks around, she's like, oh yeah, there's actually like 30 bottles of spirits sitting out on every surface of our, you know,
01:09:47
Speaker
On the table, on the kitchen bench, on the sideboard, on my computer desk. There's a decorative bottle out front. The stuff that ties the room together. There's probably like half-drunk glasses sitting around. And people walk in there like, holy shit, what have I walked into? And then there's always this moment where you've got about a minute. And if you can nail the explanation in a minute, they'll probably go,
01:10:14
Speaker
Oh, okay. I kind of get it. But if you, if you miss that, dude, like first impression, it's gone. And it's kind of like, no, no, no, no. If I was an alcoholic, none of this stuff would exist. I would have drunk it all. Cause see that bottle, that's like got this much out of the drunk out of the top of it. I opened that like two years ago and you know, every now and again, I go back and have a, you know, like people just don't get it, man. It's you're so right. And the same thing, we're like, especially spirits, right? You're like, I just poured a drink and they're like, Oh, but that's spirits.
01:10:43
Speaker
Like, yeah, dude, but it's the same amount of alcohol as a beer. Oh, but it's very strong. Like, the same as a beer. On that maddening note. Yeah, you know, AdSense. Okay, here's the deal, guys. No one is getting rich off AdSense. It doesn't happen. If someone is getting rich off AdSense, like,
01:11:13
Speaker
How do I put it? If 10% of your income as a content creator is AdSense, then you're doing pretty well on AdSense. Unless you have millions and millions and millions of views, it is not something that is going to pay the bills. Don't get me wrong, it's like a nice addition, like it's a nice additional revenue stream. I mean, that's how I feel about it anyway, dude. What about you?
01:11:42
Speaker
No, it's exactly it, right? I mean, you're, you know, I think both of our channels, I mean, you're, you're, you know, you're pushing closer to the 100,000 mark, you know, here, you know, and I'm hitting the mid 50s. And I think you said it exactly right. Like, I mean, you need to be up in the million
01:12:01
Speaker
you know, subs and, you know, and 10% are watching that, that, you know, everything's coming to watch, you know, minutes. If you have good content, and you're keeping, keeping on longer, you know, that's, that's where I don't, I don't necessarily, again, I don't get the algorithm, I don't get how it works. But if your content is good, you keep people on your
01:12:20
Speaker
your video longer, like my drop-off rate, which is a term you hear on the analytics side on the back, behind the scenes side of your YouTube analytics, and mine's at 60 to 70%. So people are watching 70% through, and I have to say that YouTube or the algorithm has to look at that and say, wow, that's pretty good, because attention spans nowadays. You have to catch people like that.
Evergreen Content and Passion
01:12:47
Speaker
If not,
01:12:48
Speaker
they're clicking to something else to grab their attention and watch. So again, it goes back to what you were saying is content is king. And the other great thing about it is, are you creating content that's evergreen? My videos are evergreen. So that means my tequila episode and how it's made.
01:13:05
Speaker
is going to be there three years later and it's still going to make revenue because there's still going to be people three years from now wanting to understand that and learn that. So I think that's what's great about it too in the long term of this whole, the long game of this whole thing is if you're talking about COVID right now and in two years from now, after thought, nobody's going to click on it.
01:13:29
Speaker
But everybody's going to click on or have, you know, there's going to be distillers every year, year in and year out, getting into it or hobbyists or something that are going to be searching for something like that and go to your and see your stuff. So I think that's important to realize. But like you said, if you're trying to get rich on it, man, and think you're going to get on it, it's a nice supplemental income. It's lovely to have you get and I'll give it to
01:13:56
Speaker
to Google and the platform there, that's, you know, they deliver it, it goes right in, they for tax purposes, they send you those nice little, you know, you could do taxes on so it works out really well. But yeah, I'm with you, man. The only thing I'm
01:14:12
Speaker
I'm banking on is creating great content that's going to be, it's evergreen and it's going to be there for years to come. Yeah. And this goes back to the grind too, right guys? Like when you first start, it's so funny, like I've had people, you know, like, Oh, you're only doing this for the money.
01:14:27
Speaker
yeah dude should we talk like we can talk because i'm making about 50 cents an hour by my reckoning so far you know and now that that's going up significantly don't get me wrong like i'm in this to support my family that's that's what i want to do but it's my choice to do um something that i love and i'm passionate about and i feel like i am actually helping other people when i do it
01:14:52
Speaker
And I'll take a pay cut to do this as opposed to sling dog food, which was what I was doing before. I don't care as shit. Like I love dogs. Sure. But like, am I making the world a better place by selling dog food? No, I'm not.
01:15:06
Speaker
So it's hilarious, dude. They're like, oh, this video is only eight minutes long. How long did it take you to make like an hour? Like, oh, dude, you've never touched a camera. You've never edited a video. You've never done anything on YouTube. You've never done anything on social media. I know that because any one of those things takes about, you know.
01:15:25
Speaker
It's so funny like the idea of think think of something so like How do I put it guys? Okay, think of your favorite meal that you like to cook you like to cook that meal, right? Maybe that takes you an hour to cook. Okay, cool If you're gonna video it now, it's gonna take you five hours And if you're shooting it by yourself and you don't have a cameraman, it's probably gonna take you eight hours
01:15:48
Speaker
to shoot at and get good content. I'll give you an example. In the editing world, it's one hour of footage or one minute you see takes an hour of editing time. So if you're eight minutes, you've got an eight-minute video, you're looking at eight hours. That's with somebody that's a professional.
01:16:13
Speaker
So that's pretty interesting when you think about that. And it does take a lot of time. And you think about in the creative aspect of things, it's, you know, for me, you know, like I just launched the Lambic episode and how, you know, the brewing process of Lambic, you know, and my thing was when I was looking at it was the balance of
01:16:35
Speaker
story to to information and yes really really because you can lose people so much by being really too technical coming to my channel because again you get you get more of the story with bits and pieces of the information and and I find a good balance in that but that's something that's always difficult for me is is you know when it's too technical for me now I've done it enough times where I can watch it and say yep it's too technical I already you know what I mean I already know but at the beginning I remember
01:17:05
Speaker
I mean I was putting out a freaking technical manual on this thing in video format you know like how to brew beer and now it's just it bored me and I think we got to keep that in mind and the other thing too is you got to keep in mind the demographic of people that are coming there there's all different types of demographics or there's experts there's
01:17:24
Speaker
novices, right? There's people that have done it a few times. And so, you know, I think, again, it's, you know, going back to the whole, if you're looking at starting this thing, you know, you got to always, you got to keep that in the back of your head when you're, when you're creating content like this. It's not as easy as people think. Oh, dude, it is so not. It's so not. That eight hours, that eight hours for
01:17:47
Speaker
That tracks for me like when I'm when I'm doing b-rolly like one minute. Yeah Yeah, it takes forever man. Like one of the last videos did I spent an hour on one? Transition like and that's literally I've got this piece of footage and I've got another piece of footage and I've put you together And how do I how do I artistically switch from one to the other? It was an hour just on that you know, and then you look at a
01:18:12
Speaker
like a 40 second piece of b-roll and there might be 25 cuts. That's crazy. The talking stuff I've got much better at and the reason I've gotten better at it is like you say, right? Like you start to self-censor isn't the right word because it's not that I'm not saying things that I want to say, but I won't.
01:18:35
Speaker
I guess I self-script. I can be kind of like talking and processing what I'm saying, and like, oh, shit, you said the wrong thing, and stop halfway through a sentence. And I can do video editing as I'm talking, if that makes sense. No, no, definitely. So that's better. But our content is very different, man, because like you said, you're telling a story, and you're taking people to a place, and you're sharing a place in a product, in a process, in a love.
01:19:04
Speaker
with people. And oh, by the way, if you happen to learn a little bit about how it's made, then that's cool. But the how it's made is there to reinforce the interest and the love of what it is that they're doing, right? Yeah, exactly. Whereas for me, I'm, I'm doing the opposite. I'm like trying to teach people how to make something. But, but
01:19:24
Speaker
crowbar enough interest and story into it that it's not completely dry and yes it's a hard juggling act finding that balance and you can't make everyone happy no no exactly right and you said it perfectly like you would come to my content and you would say okay yeah i i understand how
01:19:41
Speaker
like whiskey's made like the basics right it's 101 but if I want to know okay in one of the steps you know that that Jeff talked about in his episode you know they would go to your channel to to find that step you know what I mean and get a really in-depth conversation about that you know like I could talk about the mash bill okay the mash bill is you know uh 51% corn and 23% rye and other that you know and they could go to one one of your episodes and figure out why that
01:20:06
Speaker
why that's the case. And that's what the respect about the whole thing. And for me, it is. I think, again, going back to starting, it's like why you have to be clear on the direction you want to, what you want to do. I always said, what you want, who you want to be. And who your demographic is. Yeah, that's exactly it.
01:20:32
Speaker
So dude, I just found out something that you're doing coming up. We're talking about this. I think we're messaging a few days ago and I found out. As soon as you see that, I started looking at my calendar. I'm trying to figure out.
01:20:50
Speaker
if I can come visit you while
Future Plans and Expertise Development
01:20:52
Speaker
you're doing it. But you're off to Scotland, man. Do you want to tell us why you're doing that? And I haven't heard a whole lot about what you're doing. So I'm legitimately interested to find out myself right now, too. Yeah, well, like I said, a lot of people just see me in front of the camera connecting people. We've already beaten that horse up, man. So I'm talking about the story and stuff like that. But literally, this is my journey of beer-wanted spirits. I spent a career in the military.
01:21:20
Speaker
you know close that chapter and now my purpose is to educate people about beer wine and spirits globally what what you know what's tequila what is spirits over on the far side of the world you've never even heard of that's what i'm exploring that's what i'm doing but at the same time
01:21:36
Speaker
you know, as I learn about proficiency is the key. And for me, like you were talking about, like, I love learning, I love skills, and I love that. That's part of the mastery of this whole thing that I'm on. And I'm moving to Scotland next year, August 2021, one to get over there and drink the scotch.
01:21:57
Speaker
You know what I mean? But more importantly, it's to learn the distilling side of things. So right now, for those that don't know, I'm actually going through the brewing program in San Diego. Behind the scenes, I'm actively learning through education. I'm going through an online program.
01:22:20
Speaker
for winemaking at UC Davis. I'm enrolled in classes right now in San Diego, running from some of the top brewers there in San Diego. Because again, I wanna be that subject matter expert in beer, wine and spirits. Like you said, the Mike Rowe, I want people to ask me, what should I be drinking? How should I do this? And if I don't know it, I wanna be,
01:22:45
Speaker
you know be able to direct them to people like yourself because I've met that you know people in the industry like that you know to answer those questions um but yeah and that's why I'm moving to Scotland is that I'm going to school there for a year going through their brewing distilling program um and the bigger the you know the thing out of that too is as well I'm there you know is to again connect to all the distilleries there in Scotland I want to
01:23:10
Speaker
You know, I want to bring to life a new, you know, I look at all, you know, YouTube like videos that are on scotch and they're six, seven, eight years. And I just feel like they're targeting demographic for the older gentlemen, you know, that sit around, you know, and I don't know, maybe, you know, maybe it's just me, but I want to bring a fresh perspective on it. You know, I want to talk.
01:23:31
Speaker
I want to bring in a new fresh perspective on it and talk about the lowlands, the highland, space side and all the different areas in Scotland.
01:23:47
Speaker
Really again the sense of get a good sense of place of the now of 2021 22 and so on while I'm there While learning how to distill that way, you know when I continue these episodes in these videos and the evolution of what I'm doing I'm just I could talk smart about it and answer, you know, I look at it right now It's it is, you know again people are on this journey with me to learn and this is the first couple years are the 101 It's the basics. It's okay
01:24:14
Speaker
How is wine process and made? How is spirits made? And it's just the basics. Here it is. This is low. This is the hearts, heads, tails. Just the basics, right? But three or four years down the road, people that have been with me are learning with me. They're growing with me. And yeah, and I can add that education to them with the stuff that I'm getting through schools and education and the best in the world, Scotland.
01:24:40
Speaker
to learn how to distill, I thought, why not? Again, beer, where else would I go then to San Diego, beer mecca in the United States to learn and to be taught by some of the best brewers in San Diego. So for me, it's absolutely amazing. Again, it's just a reinforcement on what I'm learning hands-on in the videos that I'm creating right now.
01:25:05
Speaker
Totally man and I mean I'm getting more and more I'm realizing that I always thought networking was bullshit and I still think networking is bullshit in terms of oh I'm going to a network event and I'm going to give my card out to people don't give a fuck dude but if you show up at their place of business and show genuine interest and like hang out and buy their products or
01:25:30
Speaker
if they're running a course and you go and pay to be at the course and actually give a shit and ask them intelligent questions and somewhere along the line, they figure out what it is that you do and why you care about the industry and why you're learning. That is important. It's creating those connections once again. In that sense for you, I guess it's more of a business thing. It's not that you're creating a connection between the viewer and the person, but it
01:25:59
Speaker
you never know who you're going to talk to that is going to open a door for you, right? Like, some dude dropped a comment on my channel and a couple of comments on your channel and somehow we found each other and then snap next thing I know I'm talking to Murphy from Cedar Ridge and you're going to Texas. It's amazing, isn't it? Yeah and that stuff doesn't happen if you don't
01:26:24
Speaker
put yourself out there. So I think it doesn't matter whether you're creating content or creating spirits or just wanting to learn, right? If you're not putting yourself out there and actually being just like an awesome human being, I guess, like be the best person you can be and go and like introduce yourself to people and you don't have to be an asshole. You don't have to be like over the top, but
01:26:44
Speaker
Sitting in your basement and Googling things is awesome. The fact that we can do that in this day and age and learn so much information from it is amazing, but it is no substitute. It's never a substitute for being out there and just meeting people and getting your hands dirty, man. One of the things I always think about is how many masters of wine are there
01:27:08
Speaker
you know, out there, teach, you know, they're supposed to teach and spread the gospel of wine to, to people. And then, you know, I'm, and I just look at it, and I look at their reach and look at what they're doing. And it's, I think it could be so much bigger and better. And to use technology and because they have the knowledge
01:27:29
Speaker
You know, it's like I was looking at, you know, some of these masters of wines and I'm like, man, you should be reaching a so many more people, you know, and so my thing is, you know, that's my legacy is I want to be.
01:27:43
Speaker
again, you know, this may sound crazy, but I want to be the face, which is not a pretty face, but the face of beer, wine and spirits when it comes to that, because I want people to come to me all from all over the world, India, China, Japan, Australia, and say, Jeff, I have a legitimate question. And if I don't know it, at least I know people in the industry that can answer that question, you know, and do that. And literally, that's
01:28:09
Speaker
That's my goal. And you know, you talked about Mike Rowe and you know, it was funny when I started, you know, I was thinking of like, uh, you know, Anthony Bourdain, you know, like his show and kind of what Gordon Ramsey is doing right now and how he's kind of doing what his thing is. It's really super cool on that geo, you know, and that's, that's what I'm trying to do for the alcohol industry. You know, I'm not, I'm not swirling a glass. I'm showing you the process of how it's made and showing you the hard work.
01:28:35
Speaker
and the stories of all these people around the world. And we'll see what happens, man. Yeah, so I mean, I got to say it, dude. There are people that listen to this podcast. There's more and more that I ever knew, actually. It's starting to surprise me that are in the game, that have distilleries, that are starved for content. There's just, there's, like you said, dude, there are so many people out there doing
01:29:03
Speaker
Review type stuff. Yeah influencer type stuff Yeah, and whether that be you know Just thousands and thousands of pictures of whatever bottle they have at that point in time or it's a ninety nine point nine percent boobs with beer next to it or It's just dude. It doesn't cut it anymore people want to know
01:29:27
Speaker
the story of what they're drinking. They want to know more about what they're drinking. They want the essence, the soul, the love, the care, the heartache, the pain. They want to understand how it was made so that when they're tasting it, they can... It's like watching a cooking show.
01:29:44
Speaker
So you can enjoy eating that stuff more, right? It's not like maybe you're never going to actually cook that recipe, but now you understand what happens when you put A and B together under the presence of X. You know, you can enjoy consuming it more and it
01:30:01
Speaker
It's really, really interesting to me, man, that there is, I don't know, I feel like there's a resurgence of this. There's been a resurgence, especially in America, in terms of people moving from whiskey was granddad's drink and whatever. Like, why would I drink that? Oh, this is actually really interesting. I think that's kind of important. But anyway, so that's a long-winded way for me to say if you are in the industry,
01:30:26
Speaker
and you're listening to this podcast and you've got through an hour and a half of us drinking booze together and shooting this shit. Reach out, man. Get in touch with us. Find our websites. Get in touch with us.
01:30:41
Speaker
Don't be, don't be insulted if we don't get back to you straight away, because the amount of time it takes to get through all the messages is real. But if you have an interesting story, like get in touch with us, man, we'll get back to you. And maybe it'll take six months or a year before Jeff's in your part of the world, but you know. Yeah, 100%. You know, my goal, and this is, this is so crazy to, you know, so crazy to say, but I want to tell every brewery, winery, distillery story in the world.
01:31:08
Speaker
According to my calculation, I got to live to about 180. And hopefully science will figure everything out to be able to reach that age. But that's the key. And I do. And that's my goal. But here's one thing that I'm interested in comments from your viewers is we're talking about an episode there in New Zealand.
01:31:37
Speaker
Um, I want to know what it's like. We have ideas, you know, I know you and I have thrown a couple ideas back and forth.
01:31:45
Speaker
you know, I really want to bring the New Zealand government into this on why they voted this into, you know, what was their thought process from higher, right? Higher's perspective at a government level on why they approved this. And then obviously talking to the distillers around New Zealand, you know, about this. But I look at this, and the reason why I'm excited about this episode is
01:32:09
Speaker
And I know you are too, is because it reminds me of back in the late 70s when brewing in the United States was legalized. And then all of a sudden, bam, the floodgates opened up.
01:32:23
Speaker
brewing, messing up, left and right. All of these people are sharing what they're doing right, doing wrong. They're putting everything together, and they're making better beer for everybody else to consume. And obviously, we've seen a surge in breweries since then, obviously, and phenomenal, just amazing beer across the board that is also sparking interests. IPAs weren't a thing in South Africa, as I'm traveling, or Europe.
01:32:52
Speaker
You know, IPA is bitterness. They're like, whoa. And all of a sudden, it's a thing now. And so I look at it in the same aspect of distilling. If more countries were able to open this up and allow people to test and make mistakes, and I know there's a little bit more inherent danger or what we think to be dangerous, but I'd like to hear comments from your viewers on what they would like to see in the episode, what they would like us to
01:33:22
Speaker
you know to talk about I know like I said right off the bat you know you know what I just said with with government talking to why they legalized it but but yeah I would like to hear more of you know comments of what people would like to see for that episode because I think you and I are going to spend a
01:33:37
Speaker
few weeks going around, distilling some cool stuff. Yeah, we're going to do some. Yeah, we're going to spend some time together for sure. And we've got we've got all the time in the world to plan it too. So guys, if you're coming at this from my side of things, Jesse at chase the craft dot com, flick me an email if you've got some ideas on what we think we could do.
Audience Engagement and Industry Changes
01:33:57
Speaker
What's the easiest way to get in touch with you, dude? Like where do you just drop a message into Instagram at beer underscore wine underscore underscore spirits.
01:34:06
Speaker
And definitely get back, yeah. Because this episode, I think you and I agree. We want something to come out of it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I want people to start thinking about this and kind of talking to government officials about it. And because I only see good coming out of it and better quality spirits globally for consumers.
01:34:33
Speaker
and more variety more creativity yes yes to all of the above 100% agreement yeah we need to um actually talking with you now has given me a few you know things i want to talk to you about so when we're done with this let's go back backstage and we'll hammer out some more ideas patreons if you're listening to this guys um when jeff and i start nailing down a closer date
01:34:57
Speaker
and we start getting a date range put in. I'll throw some stuff up on Patreon and you guys can be a little more involved to and what you'd like to see.
01:35:06
Speaker
Um, all right, man, we were over an hour and a half. I think, uh, I think we're about done. I think we're all talked out. Time to go backstage and have another drink. I hear you, man. I definitely will. Justin, Justin, man, I got to tell you, dude, I, I, I absolutely love what you do, man. And you know, getting gearing up for this, this Texas whiskey episode that you've connected with, um, uh, me with, you know, and, uh, I'm truly grateful for that. But more importantly, like, you know, I'm learning still right now, you know, and, uh, I'm like,
01:35:36
Speaker
how the hell are Mashbills created? And it's so cool, right? It's because I can go.
01:35:42
Speaker
and go to your channel and check that out. So I have a huge amount. A lot of people talk about competition or this and that and the other. And it's not none of that whatsoever. For me, it's how I can support you. And by the way, your content is absolutely amazing. I go to you to learn about all stuff distilling, man. So I appreciate what you do. And more importantly, I appreciate you. I know I'm not a distiller. I know you have to. Either of mine.
01:36:11
Speaker
But I appreciate you bringing me on your channel and allowing me to tell my story. I appreciate that. I 100% agree with you in terms of the... Well, first of all, thanks for the kind words, Boo, man. I appreciate that. And I really respect what you're doing too. And yeah, I'm saying it right now. You're gonna
01:36:38
Speaker
definitely be ahead of me by the time in terms of subscribers which let's be honest guys, subscribers means jack. That's not the metric that means but it's the easiest one to track. Yeah you'll be overtaking me well before we get to 100k I would imagine. You're doing awesome stuff dude and I love it.
01:36:55
Speaker
But let's I was about to say goodbye, but you bring up a really good point. If anyone is going to get into this space, the idea of competition is not a thing anymore. It is no longer the idea of. What's a good analogy?
01:37:11
Speaker
Joe Rogan's spiel on comedy. I don't know if you guys ever listened to him, but if you've ever listened to a podcast, chances are he talks about this in every damn thing he does. And essentially what his idea is that it used to be every single comedian wanted a sitcom. That was the deal. And the way to get there was to get on the Tonight Show, strut your shit, get on the Tonight Show a couple more times, get picked up for a sitcom. There was only ever
01:37:35
Speaker
you know whatever a handful of sitcoms that were worth being on at any point in time there was only ever a handful of tonight shows on at any given time so everyone was a ruthless cunt and just chopping each other off at the knees to get past that person you know that that was the state of the industry the internet comes along youtube comes along and suddenly it doesn't matter man
01:37:56
Speaker
like it's not like any one person is going to watch my channel or your channel and if watching and they they they used to be mutually exclusive they're not anymore so i love it when people come and watch my channel and then i can tell them to go and watch your channel yeah
01:38:12
Speaker
because it costs me nothing. It costs me literally nothing. It doesn't hurt me at all. It costs me the breath to say the words. But it gives me so much more because now there's people from my channel going over to your channel and hanging out and having discussions about, they'll be, oh, by the way, Jesse said this in one of his videos and that a rising tide lifts all boats, man, we're all in this together and collaboration is where it's at for content creation.
01:38:41
Speaker
So I'm really glad you brought that up, dude. Yeah. Anyone that's listening, go out of your way to help other people that are doing similar stuff. And I think this is true of the distilling world too, right? Like more and more I'm seeing distilleries in terms of as a brand collaborating with other distilleries. And that's creating opportunity for people that was never there before. Anyway, rant over.
01:39:10
Speaker
No, it's interesting, man. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, we can go on. I'm telling you, Justin, like you and I could chat here for hours. All of a sudden, people are like listening to a 24-hour freaking podcast. And next thing you know, we'll be slurring words after about the two-hour mark. But hey. Yeah, we can probably make that happen sometime. Yeah. All right, man. Thanks a bunch, dude. We're out.
01:39:36
Speaker
So huge, huge, huge thank you to Jeff Bradford from Bear One In Spirits for making this happen. It's an absolute pleasure to talk to him. I hope you guys enjoyed it as well. And for real team, his content is excellent. The production is great and the places and people he gets to talk to is absolutely stunning. It's an inspiration and I really hope I can start working towards that kind of content now that I'm full time and started to build a little bit more budget for this platform.
01:40:03
Speaker
So if you haven't subscribed to his channel yet, do it. Do it now. Go drop a comment. Let him know where you came from. Let him know that you heard this podcast. Let him know that you believe in what he's doing and you'd like to see more of his content. Anyway guys, remember this podcast was brought to you by Adventures in Home Brewing and by the Patreons. Keep on chasing the craft guys. I'll see you next time. See ya.