Day 300 – Bottling day!

I love days at the distillery!

I wish it was not a two hour drive though. Thus morning Cort and I loaded up the car and picked up Peter a friend from church and headed east to Cashmere. We got there later than I had planned and Colin and Carol were already working bottling Apple Pie!

We also had a surprise helper. A customer who came into the distillery yesterday on a Groupon was somehow wrangled into a day of  stuffing cinnamon sticks in bottles and capping. Colin was on the fill station, Carol was the eagle eye on the measuring station and Cort was a rockstar on the label machine which is normally a pain in the arse but, Cort had the magic touch for almost 1100 bottles.

We stll hand bottle and the hold up is usually on the heat wrapping station. Each bottle gets a shrink wrap seal and has to be done with a heat gun. Today because we had Peter were able to keep two guns going at all times which was amazing. Even with the second degree burn on my hand (yes, blister and all) we cranked out a total 88 cases today in just over 4 hours.

We had to bottle 64  cases for orders that were placed and we bottle another 24 just for on hand inventory and today’s little bottling event was a great success.

We have product in the warehouse, Orders coming in and shipping out and every batch has been bigger than the rest. I would say that is pretty good for a company that is just coming up on it’s 1 year anniversary.

Day 296 – The struggle is real.

Most boot strapping start ups are done while an entrepreneur is still working a normal job.

I have had the privilege of focusing on my projects pretty much full time for the last two years. It is a very difficult task. The added stress of just daily life and making ends meet can catch up with you very fast and it begins to really take a toll after a period of time.

Since leaving the Gulf of Mexico this has been a very exciting time. I have been able to go on a national TV show and grow a brand to the point of negotiating to sell it to our manufacturer. I have been able to create and launch a liquor product that is doing very well and growing to expand into a whole line of spirits.

The company is growing but, at this time it is not profitable enough for me to take a salary. I am at a point where we have no more savings and the one salary we have coming in is just not enough to pay the bills.

I am looking at having to take a job to make everything work.

This provides a bit of a challenge by itself. A lot of employers may not want to hire someone who already has another plan or business in the works. It will be pretty obvious that my priority will be to the success of my own company. I will need to take a position that pays decent but has not a lot of responsibility. Many of these types of positions I am over qualified for and another strike against me when it comes to an employer looking at me as an employee. Basically what I need is a position that is pretty mindless that I can just clock in and out of. I need to find a position that is flexible enough to provide me to still do things necessary to advance my business. I will have to find something that is a graveyard shift or an early morning shift that will allow me time during the day to still run the business.

The other struggle is one of a personal nature. It is hard for me to “get a job”. I do not want to look at this as a failure to succeed on my own by any means. I am simply having to make the right decision to survive and provide the necessities. Tough decisions are just a part of running your own business and most decisions are based on necessity.

Time to get a job and relieve a little stress.

Day 267 – Saving costs where we can! **REDACTED**

*** This post has been reacted by Eve to protect her recipe and process. ***

I am such a cheapskate!

So we made our largest batch of Apple Pie on Wednesday and we did it a little different that normal. Usually we xxx xxx xxxxxx xxxx x xxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxx while we are mixing the cider. We also have another xxx xx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxx as well. Xxx xxx xxxxxx extracts xxxxx xxxx into the xxxxx as we add xxx xxxxxx xxxxxxx xxx xxxxxx. This time we decided to xxx xxxx xxxxxx xxxx xxxx. It is a xxxxxxx xxxxxx xxx xxx xxx xxxxxx xxxxxxx. We just xxxxxxxxx xxxxx   xxxx xxxxxxx xxxx xxx xxx xxxx x xxx xxxxx. This got us x xxxx xxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxx in less time. After we xxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxx we were left with xx xxxxx xxxxx xxx xxx xxxxxx. Normally no big deal as the waste would just get xxxxxxx xxx xxx xxxxxxx xx.

Our Apple Pie bottles each have a cinnamon stick in the bottom for added flavor and we simply xxx xxx xxxxxxx xxxxxx xxx xx x xxxx xxxxxxx. When we were cleaning it all out Colin asked me xx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xx xxxx xx put in the bottle xxxxxxx xxx xxxx xxx xxxxx xxxx xxx xxxxx xxxxxxx.

That is a hundred bucks xx xxxxxxxxx and I did not want to wasted it increasing our cost. An extra $0.04 per bottle. So I xxxx xxx xxxxx home and today I spent about 3 hours xxxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxx to be put into the bottles. I was a pain in the but and I think we will re-institute xxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xx xxx xxx!

We will be mixing on Monday then sending off a batch sample for proofing. Once we have the results and they are acceptable we have to get that information off to the printer and have the labels made for this batch. Only then can we bottle. It is a step that we hope to eliminate in the future but the equipment we need to assure alcohol percentages comes with a $52,000 price tag. For now we keep this small craft batch size but we will soon be out growing this process and have to upgrade. That will also be followed by a new bottling set up as well. This kind of growth cost money but we will go about it smartly and only when the demand requires it. I would be nice to be able to do it and remain debt free but it looks like we may be growing faster than that will allow. Not a bad problem but, still one we will enter with caution and only when it makes sense.

Day 262 – Hello Cat, come out of the bag!

Today was a Sunday and usually they are uneventful days.

I started the day off by completing some website things that I needed to get done. We will be launching the new website this week.

I woke up to a message and a voice mail from Colin and Carol the distillery owners. It seems that they ended up over here on this side of the mountains and we were able to meet for a while.

Over the last few weeks we have been working on a plan to spin off Eve’s from Its 5 and be it’s own thing.

Originally we started Eve’s as just an Apple Pie Moonshine. It has done so well is such a short amount of time that we have decided to form a brand and entire line around Eve’s.

We are soon to be releasing the White Lighting which is a 100% unaged corn whiskey and a peach flavor.

The vision has grown even more to include a bar line including a Gin, Vodka, and Bourbon, as well as a line of real fruit infused vodkas.

Based on what we are planning, we will have 10 products under the Eve’s Label in the next 12 months. In order to do that we have decided to actually make Eve’s it’s own thing. We are applying to create Eve’s Moonshine Co and have multiple locations.

We plan on having a production facility in Cashmere and we are looking at bottling and tasting rooms in downtown Leavenworth and Snohomish!

We have been talking to the owners of an old dairy farm in Snohomish. Dairyland is such an exciting venue and I am bursting to be able to share the entire vision for this property.

We will be growing apples and corn on this property that will go right into our spirits! Were are so excited to partner with this venue to become a part of Snohomish. We have plans for events to draw people out to the venue weekly and we will need all of your support to make this this huge.

There is an 8000 square foot hay barn on the property that we will be taking over and remodeling to be able to call Snohomish home. What better place for a Moonshine Company that an old hay barn in the heart of Snohomish County.

We hope to have Eve’s Moonshine Co up and running independently by the first quarter of 2015. This is such huge news and I have been just bursting wanting to tell you all. Eve’s is going from a great product to a great brand! There are other cool things in the works and I cant wait to share!

Be sure to keep an eye out for Eve’s Moonshine Co in Leavenworth and Snohomish very very soon! This Is HUGE news!

 

Day 233 – Writing on the road

On the road!

I am writing this while riding shotgun on the way home from a tasting event we had tonight.  I am sitting here in the passenger seat under a million stars in the clear Eastern Washington sky. Amy has the hammer down so I am sure we will be home in a jiffy as long as the man is not looking for the white BMW bullet going over the mountain pass tonight. Tasting events like this are a great way for us to promote our brand and have a few hundred people tasted Eve’s Apple Pie. Tonight was a fun even as most of them are and especially because Its 5 was the only distillery there.

This was the North Central Washington Wine Awards Show. It was a bit odd to have us there but we are a local distillery and they said we could attend for free and sell booze! Those are hard things to turn down. Let me see, we are the only Distillery at the event, you are not going to charge us for the space, and we get to sell at the show? Can I have two places please?!

Normally at tasting events like this they only want us to bring a couple products. In tonight’s case they only wanted us to bring two from the distillery. We told them we were bringing 3 and then snuck a fourth in. We seriously have so many good products I do not know how they only expect us to choose two!

Eve’s Apple Pie was the big seller tonight and that is great. I cannot tell you how cool it is to stand in front of someone tasting Apple Pie for the first time. I could not be more proud as I see the look of pure pleasure come across their face and then they tell their friends. That is also a common occurrence at these things for us. Someone will walk over and tell us, “My friend said I was supposed to come over here and tasted the apple pie.”

If you are reading this blog and you have not had our Apple Pie, shame on you! I posted a link the other night to have it shipped to moist places. Taking my work for how good it is no substitute for trying it yourself. I will give you my unconditional guarantee right here. If you are a reader order a bottle. If it is not delicious I will refund every single penny. It is really that good.

I have gone to enough of these events to have the confidence to make an offer like that. Almost everyone loves Apple Pie and most of those think ours is great. Even the old guy tonight that told me how he gets his straight from the bootlegger in the hills of Skagit County, asked for a second sample.

We have another event in Cle elum next week then the wine walk in Leavenworth and the Holiday Trade Show in Spokane in September.

This is our big push for the year. Apple Pie is definitely a fall drink. Please help us spread the word to help get this small local business actually paying the creators a salary! You can go to our Facebook page and just share the page on your wall or buy a bottle online and share some Apple Pie with some friends.

Share our story the same way you would share about that great new Thai restaurant down the street or that great deal at Costco. Support local and us!

Cheers!

Day 230 – The hum of the home office.

Even after a really late night last night and a late start today, I feel like today was pretty cool.

At about 2 o’clock today Jesse cam over and Amy and him were working on our new website. I am super excited about it and it will be classy and have a great feel to it. I am confident it is lining up with the branding.

Sitting across from Amy and having Jesse our new intern at the end of the desk was cool. I was able to get several things done and Amy and Jesse were working on the details that I am so bad at. There is still lots to do but it is all moving in the right direction.

I have been working on finding strategic distribution partners around the country and it is a lot of work. Any new company with no track record is a risk for any distributor but there are companies out there that like small emerging brands like ours. We are woking on strengthening the brand by expanding the offerings.

Today the recipe was approved for the peach cobbler flavor and the label was submitted for approval. So now we are waiting on label approval for both the Peach Cobbler and the White Lightning. I have almost finished the formulations on four new flavors; Raspberry, Strawberry, Pomegranate, and Blackberry. We hope to get the formulations submitted next week.

Saturday I will be at a tasting event in Wenatchee and hopefully doing some bottling too. We may be discussing a tasting room somewhere on this side of the state so stay tuned for that!

I have to admit that I am getting tired but this is no time to take it easy. I must push through because I can feel how close this is to opening up!

Day 99 – Today’s hat: Scientist

I have talked many times about how the buck stops with me.

As a bootstrapping entrepreneur I wear many hats. Some hats are more enjoyable than others but they are all mine until I can afford to bring on help to take a few hats. Even when that does happen , ultimately it is still my responsibility.

Take for instance the blunder we had on Apple Pie’s inaugural label. I had 1000 labels for batch one printed and placed on bottles with a major error. In the main graphic it says: Washington “Moonshune” instead of Moonshine. This mistake made it past countless eyes. The Graphic Artist, the account rep at the printing company, his designer, production staff, Amy, the distiller and even me. How did this happen? Well we were all looking somewhere else. Pouring over the fine print on the label and the Government warning, we missed the main graphic. Yes I paid the graphic artist and the printer but, it was my signature on the final proof. It was my responsibility and I can only blame myself.

Today the hat I was struggling with is my scientist hat. Yeah, I have one of those, pretty cool huh? Well not today. This weekend we nailed the recipe for Peach Cobbler Moonshine. When we experiment in the home kitchen we use ingredients that are readily available at the store. Transitioning that recipe into a commercial application is a bit tricky. If I was to use the same ingredients just on a larger scale it would be way too expensive. So I have to make calculations based on previous experience and science.

So for the new recipe we used white grape juice as our base. I sourced white grape concentrate from a local Washington fruit predecessor and have to figure out the right mix for a 284 gallon batch. We are using the same process for this recipe as we have for the Apple Pie. We use the same spices and steeping process. When we add apple concentrate we have to add a certain amount of sugar to the mix. Well the grape concentrate is way higher in sugar. So today I have learned (or tried to learn) about the Brix scale (°Bx). Our apple concentrate only has a °Bx of 15 while our grape has a °Bx of 68. 4.5 times the sugar. °Bx is 1 gram of sucrose in 100 grams of solution. I have to figure out how that relates to an actual measurement like a cup into 2 quarts. Theoretically I may not have to add any sugar to the recipe at all but there is math and science and then there is my palate. Pretty cool stuff but it is time consuming to understand theories and conversions. The recipe has to be precise when submitting to the TTB.

Hopefully we can have all of this dialed and get the recipe submitted by the end of this week. Once we get recipe approval then its on to label approval. I HOPE we can get this out sometime in August.

Wishful thinking when dealing with a bureaucracy but I am hopeful. Glad I get to take of science hat now and put on my creative hat. Off to a meeting about a video project for Eve’s!

Stay tuned!

Day 85 – You’d better be handy!

One of the things you can count on is business and life. for that matter, is that stuff is going to break. Maybe your packaging machine isn’t sealing. Maybe you clothes dryer doesn’t get hot or maybe your car started making a bad noise. We have all had things like this happen. I have had these specific things happen among many others in my years as an entrepreneur.

I have worked hard at becoming mechanically inclined, mostly out of necessity. I remember my brother in law showing me how to change the brake pads on my first car when I was just 19. I remember my brother meticulously explaining every detail of what does what rebuilding a motor. From these base experiences I have developed the ability to understand how things work and I am not afraid to tackle a project. In fact I get super excited if I get to buy a new tool!

I was not always this way and I am telling you it is something you can learn. If you are flush with cash and investors well then you get the luxury of operating a tool I do not get to use often and  it actually grinds me when I have to. People with the cash get to use their checkbook. It is a very powerful and efficient tool no doubt. Bootstappers like me do not have this tool in our toolboxes.

We instead rely on ourselves to make things happen and get things fixed. If you are not handy you better get handy or you will be using cash for emergencies instead of expanding or buying product or even a new piece of equipment.

Seriously when I look at a repair, even if I have the ability to take care of it myself I think about what I could have done positively with that money. I just spent $200 fixing the exhaust on my car today. Even though I saved another $215 doing it myself I can’t help but think about POS or promotional material I could have bought.

Now there is another tool an entrepreneur can use if they are not super handy and are bootstapping it as well. This is one of my favorite methods because it seem to be a forgotten yet valuable tool. The tool we all have in our toolbox is the barter! I will give you a great example. Last year a friend on Facebook posted about an unforeseen car repair that was going to cost them over $700. I know this family is in no position to spend this kind of money and I had a pretty good suspicion that they were not very car savvy.  I was actually able to help them out using parts from a junkyard and did the repair for $100 in parts. Now, the wife was a photographer and I just so happened to need a photo shoot and editing done for the Eve’s Apple Pie label. Do you think she was happy to exchange services? You bet, and we both won!

Bootstrapping entrepreneurs have to be creative, handy, frugal and many other things out of necessity. Being mechanically inclined is a very valuable tool and you should know that it can be learned. The next time you are going to throw something out, grab a screwdriver and tear it open to see how it works. When something breaks, spend some time online, in forums and on youtube. We live in an amazing time where information is at your fingertips for FREE and a lot of the times you can even find videos on how to do something step by step.

I have found videos on replacing a magnetron in a microwave, replacing a heater element in a dryer, and replacing an internal gear in a 4 wheel drive actuator in a BMW SUV just to name a few and I have saved over $2000 on just those 3 things. $2,000 is a lot of money to me. How about you?

Do yourself a favor and Get Handy!

Day 84 – So you want to go on Shark Tank?

In the last couple days I have been contacted by people wanting information on Shark Tank. This happens every once in a while and the questions are usually of a curious nature. People, usually fans of the show want to hear all about it. How were the sharks? Did I get to meet them afterwards? What was it like?

Sometimes I get a call or an inquiry from someone who wants to go on Shark Tank. It is these people that I deal with just a bit differently. I turn it around and ask them why they want to go on the show.

I usually have to preface this with explaining that while my episode did not paint me or Wired Waffles in the most positive light, I had a great time and I am thankful for the experience. I have to tell them this because they usually have some grand view of Shark Tank and will take my questions and comments negatively chalking it up to me having an ax to grind. I had a fantastic time on the show and I would not trade the experience for anything.

I ask them why they want to go on the show to see what their motivation is. Shark Tank is a great place to get some national attention and drive some sales or jump start a national campaign. It is NOT a great , good or even fair place to raise capital.

Anyone who goes on the show with the mindset of raising capital will most likely be very disappointed. There are much better places to raise capital and angel investors to be found in every city across the USA. If you have tried these places and had no success you will not find any on Shark Tank. You may have to look at your idea and you may find the fault lies with the idea.

I am in a very close private networking group with other entrepreneurs who have been on the show. What I have found behind the curtain of television is the same that they found before me. Shark Tank is in fact a television show. The producers are paid to put together a show that will draw ratings and advertisers and they do an extremely good job at it.

In the 3 months that I was dealing with Shark Tank before my taping I can tell you it consumed 90% of my time. time I could have been doing other more productive things. I put virtually all of my eggs in Mark Burnett’s basket and they never hatched.

No this is where you and those that I talk to think I am just bitter. I will give you a statistic that is actual fact but ABC will never publish it because the veil would fall. Less than 30% of the deals that are shaken on actually get funded. There is one entrepreneur that I know pretty well that even received a check on national TV for her deal and still has that check to this day. No deal no cash and her story is heard over and over again. Yes there are successes that come from Shark Tank but they are the exception rather than the rule and if you ask any of them they will tell you that the biggest sales deals they got were because of things they already had in the works and NOT because of the shark involved.

These sharks have become entertainers and most of them are out only to promote themselves and the brand they have become. Only a couple of them really care about helping the small guy turn into something amazing. Still others are only there for themselves. There are way better resources locally and you will most likely have a better experience and results finding an angel investor that is more familiar with your project and has community ties.

 

Day 80 – Hat of the day . . .? The carpenter’s hat!

I spent most of my day being handy. I have had the design for this new retail display floating around in my head. The rustic, reclaimed wood look. I spent time researching lumber and stains. taking dimensions off of lumber from apple boxes. After about four hours of engineering, staining, and assembly here is my finished product! It holds one full case and has room for signage. In the future we will be getting a 8″ x 12″ brand that we can burn into the back display board. We will also be putting pegs on for recipe cards and specials. The other flavors will all be in the same bottles so it will be universal for our product only. That is good so retailers cannot put other things on our display rack.

It felt good to take over the garage and kick out the car. I set up my sawhorses and air compressor. I got out the nail gun, level and even my angle finder! Sometimes it feels good to set up shop and actually create. Working with my hands is relaxing and almost like therapy. I love going to the hardware store and just looking around or going from isle to isle trying to figure out the best way to build something.

Now that I have the first one build my beancounter side can take over. How can I do it faster, more efficiently and less expensive? I will build several more on days that I need to relax and be handy. Until eventually I can no longer handle it and then sadly I will have to outsource it.

I will no doubt have some other project by then but for now I am basking in my triumph today. It was not only a triumph in productivity in getting something major accomplished but, a therapeutic one as well.