Ready To Drink Podcast

Send us Fan Mail "Holy Hell." That was the reaction when Jack Peat, founder of Abstrax Tech dropped the numbers on our latest clip. Imagine turning 500 lbs of hop pellets into 2,500 lbs of aroma equivalent while simultaneously increasing your beer yield by 30%. Less biomass means less beer soaked up in the tank + much more shelf stability. Catch the full episode of the Ready To Drink Pod...

Send us Fan Mail Co-founder Josh Crozier shares the story behind the naming of Appalachian Girls Cannabis Co, how it represents the spirit of Southeastern Ohio and the female cannabis plant. It is about more than just a label, it is about representing a region historically exploited for its natural and human resources, while honoring the female cannabis plant that produces the intoxicating buds. B...

Send us Fan Mail PR has a PR problem. It is something we are all trying to figure out right now: what is the right angle and what can we actually do to stand out? But the truth is, consumers are questioning transparency and authority more than ever. They see right through the kitschy skits and superficial campaigns. Those of us who have been in this career have a real opportunity to get the storie...

Send us Fan Mail Over 32 million Americans walk into a grocery store every single day. Half of the U.S. population conducts a transaction at a convenience store on a daily basis. If we want to build a sustainable, normalized hemp and cannabis industry, this is exactly where these products need to live. Fifteen years ago, I was running craft beer development for a wholesaler, the industry loved to...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Ready To Drink Podcast, Nate Fochtman sits down with Adam Peabody, co-founder of Reddi Beverage and Flora. Like always, there was no script, no prep and no agenda - just two humans with deep roots in the hospitality and adult beverage industries having a completely organic conversation about the reality of the hemp THC beverage space. Adam went from wrestlin...

Send us Fan Mail The hemp-derived THC market is moving fast, but who is actually building the infrastructure to sustain it? In this episode of the Ready To Drink Podcast, Nate sits down with Thomas Winstanley, EVP & General Manager of Edibles.com. Thomas shares his journey from the regulated cannabis market into the hemp space, explaining why hemp is the ultimate "Trojan horse" for m...

Send us Fan Mail The hemp-derived THC market is moving fast, but who is actually building the infrastructure to sustain it? In this episode of the Ready To Drink Podcast, Nate sits down with Thomas Winstanley, EVP & General Manager of Edibles.com. Thomas shares his journey from the regulated cannabis market into the hemp space, explaining why hemp is the ultimate "Trojan horse" for m...

Send us Fan Mail I failed at getting sober. A lot. We always tell people, "Don't be afraid to fail," but we rarely talk about what failure actually looks like in practice. On a recent episode of The Leaders' Arena Podcast, I sat down with someone who has seen my failures and successes firsthand: Coach Rick Hendrickson. I’ve known Coach since I was seven years old in Berkeley Sp...

Send us Fan Mail Is the Bourbon industry actually afraid of hemp drinks? Chris Fontes, founder of DrinkHighSpirits.com, joins Nate Fochtman on the Ready To Drink Podcast to dismantle the myth that "fizzy hemp water" is stealing bourbon’s lunch. The truth? Bourbon drinkers are loyalists. They aren’t swapping a $400 bottle of whiskey for sparkling hemp water. According to Chris, the declin...

Send us Fan Mail "I don't know what the hell I'm doing... but I made the drink I wanted to drink." Shannon Urban-Denise, co-founder of ROAM, explains why her family-owned hemp beverage company is ditching chemicals and artificial sugars for real Italian purees and craft-brewed quality. With under 90 calories, ROAM is proving that "Clean Label" and "High Potency&q...

Send us Fan Mail Why cannabis beverage founders are BEGGING to be regulated Are hemp and cannabis beverage companies just a bunch of 'Wild West' bad actors? Gordon Whelpley, co-founder of Float House CAN-NA-BREWS, sits down with Nate Fochtman on the Ready To Drink Podcast to clear the air. The truth? The barrier to entry for physical beverages is astronomically high, which naturally weed...

Send us Fan Mail Are you looking for a better way to unwind at 5 PM without the hangover? Join us as Anna shares her journey from climbing the corporate ladder to taking a leap into the rapidly growing hemp beverage space.  We dive deep into the philosophy behind Hightail: a premium, low-dose (1.5mg THC / 3mg CBG) adult beverage designed for the "sandwich generation" who want to remain p...

Send us Fan Mail Are you looking for a better way to unwind at 5 PM without the hangover? In this unscripted episode of the Ready To Drink Podcast, host Nate Fochtman sits down with Anna Baskin, the CEO and Founder of hightail. After experiencing severe corporate burnout working 69-hour weeks in private equity and retail consulting, Anna realized that traditional alcohol was no longer serving her...

Send us Fan Mail Jared Langston, Founder of Good Liar NA Beer, explains why moving fast and breaking things is always better than waiting for perfection. If you wait six months to figure out how to perfectly open a door, you are already behind. In the early stages of building a brand, no one knows who you are, which makes it the absolute best time to fail quick, iterate your product, and find your...

Send us Fan Mail Steve Groff, founder of Cedar Meadow Farm and pioneer of regenerative agriculture, discusses the inevitable shift in global farming practices. In this clip from the Ready To Drink Podcast, Groff compares the transition away from synthetic chemicals in soil to the worlds transition away from fossil fuels. He argues that while change takes time, farmers who refuse to adapt to regene...

Send us Fan Mail What does it look like to build a real cannabis beverage company while the rules keep changing? In this episode, Nate Fochtman sits down with the Appalachian Girls Cannabis co-founders (Joey Ellwood, Amy Garland & Josh Crosier) for a founder-to-founder conversation about what it takes to scale a THC drink brand in Ohio from the ground up. We talk about the early days selling s...

Send us Fan Mail What if the future of health starts in the soil? In this episode of Ready To Drink, Nate Fochtman sits down with Steve Groff, CEO of Cedar Meadow Farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a third-generation farmer who started no-till in 1982 and never looked back. Steve breaks down regenerative agriculture in plain language, why “mimic nature” is more than a buzzword and how practic...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Ready To Drink Podcast, Nate Fochtman sits down with Shannon Urban-Denise, Founder & CEO of ROAM THC Beverages, for a raw, unfiltered conversation about sobriety, anxiety, entrepreneurship, and the future of hemp-derived beverages. Shannon shares her journey from corporate healthcare and “mom wine” culture to rehab, five years of sobriety and eventually...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Ready To Drink Podcast, Nate Fochtman sits down with Brandon and Dylan, co-founders of Goodmellow, to break down what it actually takes to build a hemp-derived THC beverage company in today’s fragmented regulatory and distribution environment. This is not a conversation about chasing trends. It is a grounded discussion on operational reality, disciplined gro...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Ready To Drink Podcast, Nate Fochtman sits down with Chris Fontes, Founder & CEO of High Spirits, for an unfiltered conversation about what it really takes to build a hemp-derived THC beverage company in today’s uncertain regulatory landscape. Chris shares how High Spirits bootstrapped its way to profitability, why staying lean beats chasing venture capi...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Ready To Drink Podcast , Nate Fochtman sits down with Jared Langston , founder of Good Liar Non-Alcoholic Beer and parent company DRY Dept , for a no-script, no-agenda conversation about what it really takes to build a brand in the modern beverage market. Jared breaks down how Good Liar went from concept to real traction - launching in January 2024, proving viab...

Send us Fan Mail No script. No prompts. Just a real conversation with Josh Furbish, President and Founder of Ground Game Inc. , about what actually moves product in retail and why most brands confuse distribution with success. Josh rebuilt his network after an eight-year digital detox, turned years of bottle shop notes into a playbook , and launched Ground Game in 2025. We get into the unglamorous...

Send us Fan Mail Most supplements don’t work the way people think they do. In this episode of the Ready To Drink Podcast, I sit down with Dan Margenau, founder of Lix Brands, to unpack one of the most overlooked problems in health, wellness, and functional beverages: bioavailability. Dan built Lix to solve a simple but massive issue - our bodies can’t absorb most of what traditional supplements de...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Ready To Drink Podcast , Nate Fochtman sits down with Gordon Whelpley , Co-Founder of Float House CAN-NA-BREWS , to break down what it actually takes to build a compliant, scalable THC-infused beverage that doesn’t fit neatly into existing categories. CAN-NA-BREWS was designed to drink like beer without being classified as a malt beverage , creating a new la...

Send us Fan Mail Opening a craft brewery in 2025 takes more than good beer - it takes clarity, discipline, and real strategy. In this episode of the Ready To Drink Podcast, Nate Fochtman sits down with Kyle Underkoffler, co-founder of Berg Brewing Company in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, to break down what it actually takes to build a brewery from scratch in today’s crowded beer market. This convers...