Women and the Drinks Biz

Send us Fan Mail Each alcohol category in the US has its own association, or if anything, an organization that helps spread education and advocacy about the craft. For cider, we have an amazing woman at the helm who has helped build the American Cider Association into a vocal champion for us cidermakers, cidery owners, and cider enthusiasts. I sit down with Michelle this episode to hear all about...

Send us Fan Mail For this episode in my cidermaker series I am joined by another member of the Blindwood Cider team over in San Leandro, California. Erin helped her brother Drew create the business and has kept the company running while he has kept the cider flowing. We talk all about building a cider company, building a brand, and building your village. Special Mentions: Cider Summit @cidersummit...

Send us Fan Mail The Delta, just east of San Francisco Bay is home to one of the more unique alcohol producers in the area, Hemly Cider. And for this episode I dive back into our cider community and catch up with Sarah Hemly. She joins me to share her cider journey and all about how to get a business off the ground, what it takes to keep it going, how awesome pears really are in case you didn’t al...

Send us Fan Mail The downfall of cider in this country is a multi-pronged sword with reasons ranging from temperance evangelists to federal legislation to immigration to harvest timing. It’s not just one chop of the axe. We have seen a rise, a fall, and new rise of cider in the US and for this episode I finish out the story.  Please subscribe, rate, and review to help out this podcast! 5 stars goe...

Send us Fan Mail Cider has a Looooooooong history in this country, basically as old as the Mayflower itself. You may have heard it was North America’s number one drink at the start of our colonial colonies and on into the 1800s. And you would have heard right. Here is part one of a special history segment showcasing how cider has helped keep people healthy and sane and won elections well up until...

Send us Fan Mail It’s been 9 months since I’ve talked about the pandemic. But this past weekend, COVID  finally came to the cidery. So here’s the small business take on how this pandemic is hitting us from our team testing positive, hiring, to prices and supply, to general morale. It’s unavoidable. It’s everywhere we turn. So here’s an update now that we’re two years into this thing. Is COVID impa...

Send us Fan Mail It is not often that you meet someone who has served the beer, ordered the beer, distributed the beer, and also sold the beer. And today we have one of those power house ladies from the Bay Area. Lola has a vast experience from almost every angle of the craft beer world and today I sat down with her to hear her journey, share lessons from her experiences, and give a behind the sce...

Send us Fan Mail Being behind the bar and keeping a restaurant or bar fully stocked with inventory and organized with a menu is hard work. And super time consuming. A lot goes into that tap list that you see when you sit down at the bar. And for the women in this world, they deal with a lot of other crap as well. So I interrupt this buyer series to do a quick reflection on the women who I am talki...

Send us Fan Mail I’ve talked with producers, I’ve talked with distributors, now I’m shifting gears to showcase the buyers. These are the women behind the bar who are making the decisions and keeping the cider and beer flowing. For this episode I sit down with Isabel who has a great story to tell as she’s moved from bar, to taproom, to brewery, building her own wealth of knowledge and sharing that...

Send us Fan Mail Big beer has a lot of resources to help boost their sales and keep the little guys down.  But we have some tricks of our own and some aspects of being small that work in our favor. I cover some of those sales strategies that have helped us over the years. They might be pretty common sense but hey, they work! And that’s what matters.  Any particular strategies work in your favor? A...

Send us Fan Mail UPDATE! Have added a PERFECT example for this episode which happened a week after it launched, while I was doing deliveries in SF. To just listen to that experience, skip ahead to 17min: 16sec. Enjoy! In the alcohol beverage industry, you have big beer. Macro labels that are brands we all know, all got excited about drinking once we hit college. They were small brands once and hav...

Send us Fan Mail I’ve talked to suppliers and distributors, and now we’re circling back to talk to another awesome cider entrepreneur in the Bay Area - Jolie Devoto of Golden State Cider. She has been the heart and soul of a couple cider brands in Northern California and is joining me to talk about her journey, the evolution of those brands, and her passion for flavors and the local farm. Golden S...

Send us Fan Mail Putting together a logo for your company is both exciting and super stressful. But it is OH SO important to how you will communicate your brand and your product to the world. It also might be the only thing they remember about your product besides the fact that they liked it. We always had a company name that we loved but the branding was much more of an adventure. I’ve mentioned...

Send us Fan Mail One important thing that you need when selling cider is a container to put it in. We can all of our ciders as I’ve mentioned many many times. But we also put it in kegs! And one lady has helped us build our fleet and helped us adapt it to fit our needs as we’ve grown. But how do you even get into such a packaging position? Jill from Keg Logistics shares her personal journey and wh...

Send us Fan Mail She’s here! We did it! Little one has finally joined the family and we are of course over the moon. And now that we have all survived six weeks, I thought I’d check in, in case you’re wondering how it’s going. I think the statement - when it rains, it pours is the perfect one for how I feel life is going right now... And that’s a wrap! Anyone else survive maternity leave and feel...

Send us Fan Mail Wholesale distribution is how many of us in the alcohol industry get our products out on shelves and onto menus at bars. But how does one get into that business? What could that journey look like? Lauren joins me to share her story, talking about the distributor relationship from the other side, and how that sector of the industry has been for the women who work in it.  Thank you...

Send us Fan Mail I know lately I’ve been talking a lot about cider and babies. So for this episode I want to switch gears to get back to talking about beer. Beer and awesome women making beer. To help me with that I have a very special guest - Erica of Tumbled Rock Brewery Company - who has brought her awesome ideas and California-raised brewery production experience to this great new brewery in W...

Send us Fan Mail Let’s face it, being pregnant is a uniquely female experience. As much as they say it’s a journey for both in the relationship, there’s only one who is lugging around the extra pounds and the little bundle of joy for 40 weeks, trying to keep her body from completely breaking down on her. For this episode I will talk less about the pregnancy pains, and more about the process of pre...

Send us Fan Mail In the small business world you have to grow to survive. It’s the grow or die mentality. And it’s rough. Usually you go through the usual networks of sales and distribution, playing every angle to see what works. Sometimes you try new things to bring in additional dollars. And sometimes you have to look at the larger picture, think outside the box, and make big decisions for your...

Send us Fan Mail Besides South City Ciderworks there is but one other cider company in San Mateo County and that is Redwood Coast Cider. They specialize in super dry ciders and experiment with interesting yeast strains and varied fermentation processes. Same county, two very different cider models. I catch up with one of their owners to hear more about their cider vision and how they have survived...

Send us Fan Mail So here we are, not a month later, not 6 months later, but a whole year later from when the Bay Area went into shelter in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are still standing, still slinging cider, and looking forward to some big things to come in the next few months. Here’s a look at what things are like a year later. How are you fairing during COVID? Still surviving...

Send us Fan Mail We’ve been talking about South City Ciderworks a lot lately so it’s high time we switch gears and bring in some new voices! Joining me today are the lovely ladies of Santa Cruz Cider Company, Natalie and Nicole. I have so many questions so we will talk about as many things as we can squeeze into an episode - production, taproom, their coastal community, their diverse industry expe...

Send us Fan Mail Hello!! Welcome to Courage and Other C Words! I’m your host, Jenn Root Martell and I have Alex with me again to finish out this second part of the cidery build out conversation!  However, getting a space is only half the battle in getting up and running as a business as you can imagine. Though it does feel like a lot of money goes out the door up front, sometimes spending wisely a...

Send us Fan Mail Having a hell of a time finding the perfect home for your business?? You are not alone! It took us almost a year and so many visits just to find a space for the cidery that was acceptable. Not quite the journey we expected but that’s how it rolled out. For this episode I’ll go into more detail of what we were looking for and what we came up with in the end. I’ll even bring Alex in...

Send us Fan Mail I am joined once again by my production manager, Alisha Blue. The two of us are both going through a unique experience as we are both expecting little ones this year. Join us as we walk through the three trimesters of pregnancy and how we have kept things going doing production and running a company. This process has forced us to change and adapt and look at the world a little dif...