EPISODE S.4, E.13

Toby (00:09):
Well, hello.

Heather (00:10):
Hi.

Toby (00:11):
Heather.

Heather (00:12):
I’m here.

Toby (00:13):
It sounds really-

Heather (00:13):
Hi.

Toby (00:14):
… am I yelling? It sounds like I’m yelling.

Heather (00:15):
You’re a little loud. You sound very excited.

Toby (00:18):
I’m super excited, and I think I had my headphones turned up too loud because I haven’t done this in so long.

Heather (00:23):
It’s been a hot minute.

Toby (00:25):
I miss you.

Heather (00:26):
I miss you so much.

Toby (00:27):
I mean, I don’t know what I was thinking over, well, I kind of know what I was doing, but it’s been like two months since I’ve actually been on this show-

Heather (00:35):
I think it’s been-

Toby (00:36):
… and you know what’s cool?

Heather (00:37):
… more than two months, just to let you know. I feel like it’s been most of the year. I mean…

Toby (00:46):
Kick a man when he’s down-

Heather (00:48):
Sorry-

Toby (00:48):
… Heather.

Heather (00:48):
… sorry. I just would like to be factual about things. I don’t want to lie to our audience.

Toby (00:53):
Well, Heather, that being said-

Heather (00:56):
Mm-hmm.

Toby (00:56):
… you may be, and the rest of our team minus me, responsible because I wasn’t here for this awesome award we won recently.

Heather (01:07):
We are an award-winning podcast now. I wish I could take full credit for any of that, but I definitely can’t. That is a huge team effort, but yeah, we won a Crushie.

Toby (01:16):
The Gold Crushie.

Heather (01:19):
Yeah.

Toby (01:20):
It’s like, yeah, it’s a hand holding a crushed can os some sort of product. It’s pretty sweet-

Heather (01:27):
And it’s really cool.

Toby (01:28):
… so it’s basically, yeah, like the best beer podcast from the Craft Beer Marketing Awards.

Heather (01:35):
Mm-hmm.

Toby (01:36):
Yeah, and they gave that away to us at CBC.

Heather (01:39):
It was really cool.

Toby (01:39):
Pretty sweet.

Heather (01:40):
That’s pretty [inaudible 00:01:41].

Toby (01:41):
Congratulations to you.

Heather (01:42):
Well, congratulations to you, too. and the rest of the team that’s not quite here right now, but-

Toby (01:47):
Yeah.

Heather (01:48):
… and to Hailey, who, I don’t… she might cut this out, but to Hailey who makes us sound good all the time, so-

Toby (01:55):
Cheers to Hailey, and-

Heather (01:56):
… cheers to Hailey.

Toby (01:58):
… thanks for the listeners.

Heather (01:59):
Yes.

Toby (01:59):
… who without y’all, we wouldn’t be doing this. I mean, maybe if we had a couple listeners we’d still do it because it’s fun-

Heather (02:05):
Mm-hmm.

Toby (02:05):
… but yeah, a lot of the content and recommendations we get from our listeners is what we end up rolling with when-

Heather (02:12):
Yes.

Toby (02:12):
… we record these things, so-

Heather (02:13):
It’s why they let us keep doing this, so thank you all-

Toby (02:15):
Yeah.

Heather (02:15):
… very much.

Toby (02:17):
Yeah, so are you over CBC?

Heather (02:20):
I mean, I think I’m almost fully recovered. It was a very long week or like three days.

Toby (02:28):
It was.

Heather (02:28):
Was it like three days?

Toby (02:28):
Yeah, we had a lot going on.

Heather (02:31):
Mm-hmm.

Toby (02:31):
I mean, the booth was awesome. I think it’s our… I want to say our second or, well, we missed a year or two, but-

Heather (02:39):
Mm-hmm.

Toby (02:39):
… the new booth was really great.

Heather (02:41):
We loved it.

Toby (02:42):
Our team was in full force and, honestly, I thought going in there we would have some frowns on faces or people just like, “You know, the industry, I’m flat,” but I don’t know about you, but a lot of the brewers and people I talked to out there were really optimistic about this year and the-

Heather (03:01):
Yes.

Toby (03:01):
… industry and where they’re at. It was my… What’s the thing? My cup is full?

Heather (03:08):
Your cup is full.

Toby (03:09):
Yes.

Heather (03:09):
My cup runneth over.

Toby (03:10):
Runneth, that’s…

Heather (03:11):
Is that what we’re going for?

Toby (03:14):
I think so.

Heather (03:15):
Honestly, the vibe was definitely a positive one. The booth was full at all times. There were always people there. We had, what, 12 beers on tap?

Toby (03:25):
Yeah, at least.

Heather (03:25):
Pouring 12 different beers of collabs that we had done and they were delicious. Not going to say I drank all 12 beers, well, at the booth, but-

Toby (03:35):
At the same time, yeah.

Heather (03:36):
At the same time.

Toby (03:36):
Right.

Heather (03:36):
Yeah. Good talent, good talent.

Toby (03:40):
Like a keg stand, but with beers.

Heather (03:43):
Yep. Pretty much. I’m Canadian. What do you want from me?

Toby (03:48):
Yeah. You know, I was… I don’t know. I was pouring… I don’t know how this happens. I end up pouring beer for a majority of the time. Probably because I just like talking to people, but it’d be interesting. I’d pour someone a beer, and then not 30 seconds later they’re back in line again. Then, they did like five rotations of that, and I don’ blame them because we had great beer on tap and we had so many of them, but it was pretty interesting.

Heather (04:08):
That’s good beer.

Toby (04:08):
I just pretended like I’d never seen them before. Introduced myself for the fifth time, so-

Heather (04:13):
Tell them all about the 12 beer that we have for them to try.

Toby (04:16):
Yeah.

Heather (04:16):
Why not? If anybody’s interested in learning a bit more about the beer that we did, go back and listen to our Live From CBC podcasts that we did. We had three mini episodes and we talked to some of the brewers that we worked with to make the beers. We also talked to Chris Lovett, who arranged all the collabs, so it was pretty cool.

Toby (04:39):
Yeah, cheers to Chris. There was a lot of work that went to him trying to organize that stuff, so yeah, he did a great job. Yeah, listen to those episodes. I had a chance to listen to him, oh, that night. I think we released them that evening and they were great, and they’re short, so quick hits and there for a recap if you weren’t there, or if you were there, take a listen. The other cool thing is the World Beer Cup Awards were out there as well-

Heather (05:02):
Yes, they were.

Toby (05:04):
… and we got to remind people of these Filson vests that we’re doing.

Heather (05:08):
Oh, I love the Filson vest.

Toby (05:10):
I had heard you had one as of recently, but you had to… They drug it out of your arms.

Heather (05:18):
I had to give up the Filson vest. I was the only CMG employee that had a Filson vest for an extended period of time. That was just a display vest and I did have to give it up so that it can be on display for the Canadian Brewing Awards, which are coming up in I think a week, so it’s making its way to Halifax right now, but I might get my hands back on it again eventually.

Toby (05:41):
Is the mannequin in or out with it? I imagine at your house you had like-

Heather (05:45):
It’s [inaudible 00:05:46]-

Toby (05:46):
… the headless mannequin with that vest.

Heather (05:48):
In my living room.

Toby (05:54):
Okay, there it is. Yeah.

Heather (05:54):
Terrifying.

Toby (05:54):
Ooh.

Heather (05:54):
Yeah, and it’s naked without it. It’s terrible.

Toby (05:54):
Yeah.

Heather (05:55):
If you want your own Great Western Malting or CMC malting vest and you won gold at the World Beer Cup, make sure to get in touch with your territory manager. They will get you the link to fill out the form and get one of your vests for yourself. They are so, so nice.

Toby (06:14):
Yeah, it’s pretty simple. It’s just basically using one of either Great Western Malting or Canada malting base malts, right?

Heather (06:21):
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Toby (06:22):
They’re cool. Yeah, so again, if you’re lucky enough to win those coveted Golds, reach out to us and we’d love to get one of these branded Filson vests in your hands.

Heather (06:31):
Mm-hmm, and it’s going to come down for the Canadian Brewing Awards as well, so when those are again next week. Once those come out, we’ll have a whole list of other people to hand them out to, so I’m very excited.

Toby (06:43):
Yeah, and we’re doing distilling as well now-

Heather (06:45):
Oh, the-

Toby (06:46):
… so-

Heather (06:46):
… San Francisco-

Toby (06:47):
… that’s right.

Heather (06:48):
… World Spirits Competition. Yes-

Toby (06:49):
Yeah.

Heather (06:50):
… if you win Double Gold in that as well, so make sure you reach out to your sales rep. Get the form because I think that one’s closing up pretty soon.

Toby (07:00):
Absolutely.

Heather (07:01):
Actually, one of our guests today, Bryce Parsons, Head Distiller for Last Best Brewing & Distilling won Double Gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Comp, so-

Toby (07:12):
Nice.

Heather (07:12):
… yeah.

Toby (07:14):
Congrats.

Heather (07:14):
He’s got it.

Toby (07:15):
Yeah, we’ll be hearing from him a little bit later. I’m excited about it.

Heather (07:17):
Mm-hmm.

Toby (07:19):
Oh, we’ll also hearing from Matt Howell, the VP of Production, Head Distiller and Cidermaker at Collective Arts, right?

Heather (07:26):
Yes, yes. Well, we should probably say we’re talking about RTDs today, ready-to-drink cocktails.

Toby (07:31):
That’s right. We’re getting ahead of ourselves-

Heather (07:33):
I love that.

Toby (07:33):
… introducing the guests, but yeah, we’re talking ready-to-drink cocktails-

Heather (07:37):
Yeah.

Toby (07:38):
… known as the RTD for short, right?

Heather (07:41):
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Toby (07:42):
That’s funny. I was asked… I was getting ready for this show last night and asked my son what RTD stands for.

Heather (07:48):
RT-D2? Is that what he went for?

Toby (07:49):
No, he’s… no, but you know what? RT… Yeah, the one.

Heather (07:55):
RT, thank you.

Toby (07:58):
Maybe we name the show RT-D2, but no, he didn’t say it. He’s not really into Star Wars that much. Like any other guess is pretty funny. My… Put it to you, my son’s 10. Anyways, I asked him what RTD stands for and he said, “Really thick diaper,” and then he said, “Which is what you should be wearing, Dad.”

Heather (08:18):
Ooh.

Toby (08:18):
Like come on, man.

Heather (08:19):
Burn-

Toby (08:20):
AAh.

Heather (08:21):
… because are you like 80 years old in his eyes?

Toby (08:24):
I guess so.

Heather (08:24):
Yeah.

Toby (08:26):
Oh, I thought it was funny. Anyways, I was thinking about RTDs and kind of the onset of when these things started getting popular.

Heather (08:34):
Mm-hmm.

Toby (08:35):
I think it was right really when we were all on lockdown for COVID.

Heather (08:39):
I think that the scale of them just went up during that time period. I feel like I see them everywhere and there’s so many different kinds out there now.

Toby (08:50):
Yeah, I’m pretty sure because of the restaurant and bar closures where people would just frequently… You know, they’d go in and get a nice mixed cocktail of choice. I mean, that got completely shut down everywhere, so those type of consumers were still looking for similar products where they could either buy at retail and in a packaged format and bring it home and enjoy something similar. Prior to that, I don’t remember the popularity of ready-to-drink cocktails outside of malt-based products at the Texas Rangers game or malt-based products that they call a margarita at an NFL game.

Heather (09:33):
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Toby (09:35):
There has been a tremendous amount of growth in the category that we kind of generically are calling ready-to-drink cocktails. Could be a lot of different things, and then, not to mention, just a bunch of innovation that’s come along with it in the last couple of years. We wanted to spend some time talking about it, and there was something about over $1.6 billion in sales in this category last year-

Heather (10:05):
[inaudible 00:10:05].

Toby (10:05):
… alone.

Heather (10:06):
Yeah, I think it was in 2021, like it increased like 42%-

Toby (10:09):
Gosh.

Heather (10:12):
… in sales. That’s insane. It’s huge.

Toby (10:14):
Yeah, and we can’t overlook it even though our segment, if you will, is primarily craft beer, craft distilling, et cetera, but you and I talk to customers, and the rest of our podcast team are talking to customers of all type of adult beverages every day. We see the popularity of that market and brewers and distillers really branching out to capture some of this market because it’s growing so fast.

Heather (10:46):
Yeah. You really have to-

Toby (10:48):
One of the-

Heather (10:48):
… get onboard.

Toby (10:49):
… one of the… yeah.

Heather (10:49):
Yeah.

Toby (10:51):
I mean, like one of the… I think the most popular out there when I say ready-to-drink or when we say ready-to-drink cocktails are malt-based, but others can be wine-based, spirit-based, and even ciders. The fastest growing one outside of your standard malt base. Any guess on that?

Heather (11:11):
I would say it’s the spirit-based.

Toby (11:14):
Yeah.

Heather (11:14):
Yeah.

Toby (11:15):
For sure, and then, what would you say as far as type of spirit?

Heather (11:21):
Okay, so I think this is I feel like it’s going to be vodka, but I feel like in my mind it should be gin.

Toby (11:31):
If I remember, it’s vodka and then followed by Tequila Mezcal being number two, right?

Heather (11:38):
Yeah.

Toby (11:39):
Well, at least down here in the U.S., it really depends on what state you’re in whether consumers can purchase these at grocery stores or gas stations or whatever. I think last I checked, there were 47 states that allowed malt-based RTDs in grocery stores, but 16 of those prohibited spirit-based RTDs, but that’s… It’s growing tremendously because, obviously, the consumer wants it. They want it more readily available-

Heather (12:13):
Yeah.

Toby (12:14):
… access accessible, et cetera, but what about Canada?

Heather (12:19):
Oh yeah. You can’t do any of that at gas stations anywhere. It’s not a thing.

Toby (12:23):
You have to go and like brown bag it?

Heather (12:24):
You can’t buy beer at a gas station here. You can’t buy anything at a gas station here. It’s different-

Toby (12:30):
Except for gas.

Heather (12:31):
… except for gas and Red Bulls because you see what I get myself at a gas station. No, we do out in like where I live in British Columbia, they do allow wine sales at grocery stores here, and I think they recently started allowing beer sales as well, which was not something that they did before. I don’t know how that’s going to affect malt base RTDs, if they’ll be able to do malt base RTDs in the grocery store as well. That is a wait-to-be-seen-type scenario, but typically you can only purchase alcohol at a liquor store here.

Toby (13:08):
Oh, okay. That is weird. I mean, I get confused in my travels of what the laws are, what they aren’t, but we got like North Carolina, Alabama, Pennsylvania, I think they’re all state-run stores where you have to go into a liquor store to buy these ready-to-drink cocktails-

Heather (13:27):
Yeah.

Toby (13:30):
… you know? Well, how do we get on the… I know we’ve been talking about trying to do an episode around ready-to-drink cocktails, but I think you were hosting a show that we called I Can Brew Myself Flowers.

Heather (13:44):
Yes, one of our International Women’s Day episodes with Cheyenne and myself. Yeah, we did, I Can Brew Myself Flowers, where we got to talk to some of the women out there that are creating products for with Pink Boots Blend and for International Women’s Day. We got to talk to MadTree Brewing in Cincinnati, the amazing Brittany. They had done their Dolly Parton-inspired cocktail called Dolly and it was a peach-blueberry vodka soda RTD and we got to try it because Brittany brought us some to CBC to try. That really inspired us to learn a little bit more about RTDs and just see how much there is this room for discussion in the industry about them-

Toby (14:32):
Yeah-

Heather (14:32):
… and it was-

Toby (14:32):
… [inaudible 00:14:33]-

Heather (14:33):
… it was delicious. I’m sorry we didn’t share with you, Toby.

Toby (14:35):
I was going to say, where the hell was I?

Heather (14:35):
I-

Toby (14:38):
I think y’all purposely just-

Heather (14:39):
We might have waited until you-

Toby (14:40):
… go off in a corner, right?

Heather (14:43):
… left. Oh, to be perfectly honest, it was at the pool, by the pool at the hotel-

Toby (14:46):
Oh.

Heather (14:46):
… after I believe the last day, so I’m sorry that you didn’t get to try any Dolly, and great big thank you to Brittany and the team at MadTree for trekking those along through that conference room floor to bring to us because that’s a lot of space to cover carrying a whole bunch of cans of cocktail, so-

Toby (15:03):
Oh yeah, absolutely.

Heather (15:04):
… they were delicious.

Toby (15:06):
I know I’ve mentioned a couple times and we’ve had some awesome conversations, you and I and the rest of the podcast crew, and it’s interesting when we talk food, we talk beer styles, we talk all… What’s cool is our diversity of where each of us reside and live, right? Like-

Heather (15:26):
Yeah.

Toby (15:26):
… what do y’all… I know we talked a little bit about it, but what do y’all have as far as ready-to-drink cocktails that I may not have any idea what you’re talking about? Is there anything that’s popular in your neck of the woods?

Heather (15:39):
Well, definitely and a lot of the breweries that I work with up here are doing our RTDs, so there’s a lot of them out on the market that are like craft RTDs. One of my go-to, and there’s definitely some in my fridge right now, and it’s really funny because when I asked Bryce about what one of his favorite is beyond the stuff that he’s making, he also mentioned this is it’s Strait & Narrow, which they’re based out of Victoria, so Vancouver Island. Yeah, there they do a gin line and they do a vodka line and they are my absolute go-to RTD out here.

Toby (16:12):
Strait & Narrow.

Heather (16:13):
Yeah.

Toby (16:15):
Do you know… What does that consist of? You said… Okay, you said gin, you said vodka as well?

Heather (16:19):
Yeah, so it’s I think the one I have is like a hibiscus or peach. Honeysuckle is the one that I have in my fridge right now.

Toby (16:25):
Geez.

Heather (16:25):
Peach Honeysuckle Gin Soda Cocktail-

Toby (16:28):
Nice.

Heather (16:29):
… and they’re using all natural flavors. They’re absolutely delicious, so shout it to Strait & Narrow [inaudible 00:16:35].

Toby (16:35):
There you go. There you go.

Heather (16:35):
Send it to me.

Toby (16:39):
I think one… I think one of the ones that became very popular and was probably on the forefront is what we call Ranch Water, and so it is packaged and there’s a branded Ranch Water, but we usually go and order Ranch Water at a bar. I think it’s essentially the same thing or Ranch Water is usually Tequila, Topo Chico, and a squeeze of lime.

Heather (17:08):
Yeah. Yes.

Toby (17:09):
You can make it with other stuff, too, but it’s a very popular cocktail across the board now and there’s a lot of offshoots of it that people are making down here. It’s quite refreshing, especially down here in the heat. It’s not real sweet. It’s just a great little drink and it’s super popular.

Heather (17:27):
Yeah. It’s funny because I have never heard of a Ranch Water before talking to you.

Toby (17:32):
Ranch, did I say Ranch Water?

Heather (17:33):
Ranch Water.

Toby (17:34):
Have you ever heard of Ranch Water?

Heather (17:36):
That’s how I’m going to order one.

Toby (17:38):
Give me a ranch water.

Heather (17:38):
Ranch Water. I should have had one. Would they have it? They probably… I could have probably could have ordered it-

Toby (17:43):
In Nashville?

Heather (17:49):
… when we were in Nashville.

Toby (17:49):
Oh yeah, they know what that is for sure.

Heather (17:49):
Missed opportunity.

Toby (17:49):
Next time.

Heather (17:49):
Yeah.

Toby (17:49):
I bet they know what it is in Vegas next year.

Heather (17:51):
Next… They probably know what it is in Vegas. I feel like they have to know what every cocktail is in Vegas.

Toby (17:57):
That’s right.

Heather (17:58):
It’s like the law-

Toby (17:58):
That’s right.

Heather (17:58):
… of Las Vegas.

Toby (17:58):
Oh yeah.

Heather (17:58):
Oh man.

Toby (18:00):
Well, I don’t know about you. I’m super excited to talk to both Matt and Bryce and learn. I mean, you and I are learning a lot on the subject and looking forward to hear what they have to say and hopefully the listeners can learn a thing or two about the RTD market and some insights, if it’s something that y’all are wanting to get into at the brewery or distillery and hang with us and we’ll get right into the guest.

Heather (18:25):
We are joined now by Bryce Parsons, Director of Distilling for Last Best Brewing & Distilling in Calgary, Alberta. Welcome, Bryce.

Bryce (18:33):
Thanks for having me.

Heather (18:35):
Thanks for coming back on because this is definitely not… you’re not quite a stranger to the podcast, that’s for sure.

Bryce (18:40):
No, love doing it every time.

Heather (18:42):
Well, before we fully dive in and I get you to kind of introduce yourself, I do want to say congratulations on the Double Gold that was won at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition this year for Afterglow.

Bryce (18:57):
[inaudible 00:18:57] yeah, thanks very much. That was a… That’s our second time doing it actually. We did it last year as well, so I think if we win it next year again, we get the very hard-to-get Platinum I believe award. You have to win three times in a row with a Double Gold, but massive achievement, not only personally, but also for the program and also for Alberta-made gin.

Heather (19:22):
Mm-hmm. That’s definitely one of my favorite gins to drink. I usually buy a bottle every time I come back to Calgary, so not that I drink that much gin. I definitely drink that much gin. Awesome. Well, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, excuse me, how you get into distilling, and a little bit about Last Best and their distilling program?

Bryce (19:43):
Yeah, so I guess where to start, how I got into this, I guess the big one is, so this is a second career for me. Growing up in Western Canada especially, there isn’t really a great or a very clear path on how to get into distilling. My early career was in healthcare, which I really enjoyed. However, there was always this interest that I had and it was in spirits particularly. Just growing up, everything, I loved all the artwork and the different bottles that you could see and the thought and the work that went into that and the packaging and then obviously the product. Working through school and university, I moonlit as a bartender, really diving into cocktails, and then it was just that seeking of more and more education and focusing on one specific thing is what kind of led me to wanting to get into the production side of it.

(21:01)
Really, the only way to do that at the time was to go to school, and the only school available, there was a couple of program sin the U.S., and this goes back to roughly just over 10 years ago. Then, the biggest one, the one to kind of go to was Heriot-Watt in Scotland. Yeah, I decided… I applied. Kind of did a bit of a Hail Mary on it and just to see if I’d get in and went there and, of course, loved it. Met wonderful people that are in this industry, which just fostered my appreciation for everything that’s done in this industry and how fun it is.

(21:46)
With a couple of things to… One of the just sole reasons to come back to Alberta or Western Canada, I didn’t know if I was coming back to Alberta or B.C. at the time, and start really developing their distilling industry, especially the craft side of it, so with whiskey, especially, but then of course, you dive into gin a bit, too, which is what I did my thesis on at school. It was a natural fit of just working, getting into distilling and then starting to create wonderful gins.

(22:26)
Got in there, and then I worked in the brewing industry for a bit. Loved that as well, but then I teamed up with the founders of the Bearhill Group, which is kind of a regional player here in Alberta, but it’s a brew pub company where the work we do is we focus… we build brew pubs or build restaurants. We call them experience centers that we develop brands out of. Last Best is our Calgary location, so therefore our Calgary brand, and we put a still in there right kind of in the early days when Alberta essentially changed some rules that allowed small-scale distilling and we went on from there.

(23:15)
That was developing the gin program. Last Best has always been somewhat flamboyant, not only in their beer program, but we want to kind of carry that over as well in their gin. Rather than kind of focusing on regional botanicals, we loved using quality botanicals from the best sources possible and arranging them here in Alberta and using our ingenuity and our skill set to put wonderful products together to share to our community. In this case is Calgary and is actually growing beyond into the rest of the province.

Heather (23:59):
That’s awesome. Yeah, and if anybody’s listening and goes to Calgary, I highly, highly recommend popping by Last Best. You can see the still right from the dining room as well, so…

Bryce (24:11):
Yeah, I think it’s the only… it’s the most central distillery in Calgary. I think due to recent fire approaches, I think it’s going to be probably the only distillery in Central Calgary for a fairly long time right now, so definitely worth a visit.

Cheyenne (24:31):
Well, you were already kind of touching on this a little bit when you introduced yourself, but can you tell us a little bit more about the gin that you’re making and what fermentables you’re using?

Bryce (24:39):
Yeah, definitely. The gin that we make, the gin program has kind of like changed or it’s always evolving. We do have core brands that are out there with Afterglow, Fortunella, and First Love, that use actually a base of wheat in it. Then, we flavor that with the botanicals, but we have done everything. We do special releases as well that use any type of grain, especially malt barley, different wheats, combinations of those different mash bills where we try to start expressing the base spirit through the gin to create its unique character.

Cheyenne (25:30):
That’s very cool. It’s super interesting, and we’re here talking about RTDs today, so can you tell us a little bit about the production methods that you use to make RTDs?

Bryce (25:41):
Yeah, so making an RTD or a refreshment beverage, you know, and that category is really growing and exploding, and I think that it’s you’re starting to see multiple categories within the category as well. I think that’s one thing for people to realize is that we do what we call our canned cocktails. We use our award-winning gins in the recipe, real juices, and they’re just made… We’re making a cocktail essentially just on a massive batch, so we make them at about either 2,000 or 3,000-liter batches, but that’s not necessary to get confused with what you see in a White Claw. That would be what we would call a seltzer now, where it’s just some neutral alcohol, a bunch of water and flavoring, and then highly carbonated.

(26:45)
For us, we focus on the… We like to sit in the canned cocktail realm, and especially cocktails that help highlight and highlight our gins, too. With that, it’s that we have two right now that we focus on the market. We have a Tom Collins Classic Gin Cocktail. It’s kind of like a gin lemonade really. Then, we also do what’s called a Gin-arita, which probably you could suspect is very similar to a margarita, which it is, except we swap out the tequila for gin, and it creates a bit of a lighter tone to the cocktail, but with the botanicals and the gin it creates a lovely twist that still remains very refreshing. As far as the concept goes, it’s fairly easily grasped by the consumer.

Heather (27:42):
That’s great. Is it… Your cocktails are, again, you’re using more of a classic cocktail style, so you’re not making this RTD that’s done with a lot of fruit and stuff like that. Is that ever something that you’ve experimented with? Or are you’re just kind of sticking to kind of that more classic style?

Bryce (28:00):
No, we’re kind of open to do anything. Right now, we initially some products we’ve made….. We’ve played around in the hard iced tea realm there. We’ve played around in kind of that seltzer realm where we use natural flavorings and gin, so it’s kind of like a gin soda flavored with cucumber, lemon, and mint. We just find for brand to stay true to our brand and what we do in Last Best as an experience, we pride ourselves on our cocktail program. It’s just natural to provide that package in a convenient way for our audience or for our customers to take home and enjoy at home.

(28:59)
If we focus on other things, then it’s kind of not true of tying it right back to the experience, which is a very unique proposition to our company’s structure because we build these places, these pubs and these places you could experience the product. Well, a lot of places are just a production facility and rely just on their branding and their names and so on and so forth. We actually have a home for these that people could actually sit in and enjoy. We always have to remember we have to tie it back to what is. If you sit at the bar at Last Best, you could order a Gin-arita. What does that look like? It should be the same as what you can get into a camp.

Heather (29:48):
Mm-hmm. Do… Are all these other canned cocktails also available at all the other group hubs?

Bryce (29:51):
They are, yeah.

Heather (29:52):
Yeah, yeah.

Bryce (29:53):
Yeah, any of our products are. We’ve definitely opened that strategy up where despite we like to focus on what each brew pub’s core brand is, but we do highlight what their sibling brew pubs do and especially with Last Best. It’s the only distillery, right?

Heather (30:19):
Yeah.

Bryce (30:21):
That’s easy. It’s kind of the distillery for the company really, and then we could kind of share what’s happening there with that.

Heather (30:29):
Mm-hmm. Definitely have brew pubs in some of the most beautiful places in the world. I’m a bit partial, but I think that we can say Banff and Jasper are some of the most beautiful places in the world.

Bryce (30:39):
Oh absolutely.

Heather (30:42):
Mm-hmm. We talked a little bit before we started recording about trends in the RTD market. Have you seen a huge increase in sales in these over the past couple of years?

Bryce (30:55):
Yeah, definitely. Like it… Yeah, I think we touched on that, that the category has been,,, the category has increased exponentially. I think we’re hitting maybe a bit of a plateau. I still see more growth, but we do hit a bit of a plateau right now as people are kind of… It seems like everyone’s getting into this, so there’s only so much that a consumer explores, but it’s feeding this nice pipeline of the end consumer is still very curious of what’s out there, so they’re trying different things. There’s just plenty of brands and suppliers that are willing to enter that market, so you’ve seen and you see in a… I’ll speak more on the retail side. You see it in a retail store. There’s just more and more shelf space being allocated to the refreshment beverage market, and whatever that looks like, whether it’s kind of the premium canned cocktails that we play in, or is it the seltzers that… the Nudes, the Neutrals, the White Claws are in?

(32:08)
Whichever, it just seems to be growing, and whether it’s kind of the same brands just doing iterations, different flavors, or now Alberta, it’s lovely because it’s with it being an open province, we can see a lot of things that come in, too, that aren’t available in the rest of the country. We see everything from… You know, there’s bartender collaborations that you see. There’s every major spirit brand now has some sort of refreshment beverage in the market, some sort of convenience product in the market. I think consumers coming into it, I think a new person that is turning, well, in this province, 18 compared to when I was 18, there was only a couple of choices you did.

(33:04)
First off, it was spirits, beer, or wine, and to me it was beer initially. Really, there’s only a handful of places from the macro guys or handful of products from the macro guys that you would get into. Typically, most of those were the same type of beer. Follow that up with the craft beer movement lately. There’s plenty of beer out there of different types. That is good or bad for the current beer market. Now, you’re seeing this wave of refreshment beverages that is not only adding to selection, it’s more and more selection, right? That-

Heather (33:47):
Mm-hmm.

Bryce (33:47):
… 18-year old now has in the soft beverage market or lower alcohol beverage market versus had liquor, the options, I don’t know, it would be overwhelming to be honest with you what to get in.

Heather (34:02):
That’s actually… I’ve never thought about it that way like what I was drinking when I came of age because I did not drink underage, 19 years of age in Saskatchewan drinking pilsner or Kokanee and maybe getting some vodka and that was about it. That’s all. Those were our choices.

Bryce (34:23):
Well, that’s it, yeah. You either got like a mickey of vodka and then you found cranberry juice or orange juice and you got that and you mix it yourself or… but now everything you can just get into a can. If you want vodka sodas, then there you go. If you want canned cocktails, there you go. Anything you really want and any flavor that seems appealing to you, you could like tropical flavors, there’s products for you. I think that’s adding to it as well. It’s obviously the taking away from other categories-

Heather (34:58):
Mm-hmm.

Bryce (34:58):
… but it’s a growing category where I think as a spirit brand, it’s a category you probably have to be in despite it is quite competitive.

Heather (35:08):
Mm-hmm. This might be asking you to pick your favorite child, but do you have a personal favorite RTD that you’ve put out or even just a spirit that you’ve put out? I guess you can say Afterglow if you want to.

Bryce (35:24):
I… Afterglow is great. I actually…. I tend to reach for Fortunella actually more, and out of the three gins that have been winning awards recently, Fortunella is my grab most of the time. Even though it’s still winning just as many awards, they’re just not as… it’s not-

Heather (35:43):
Prominent-

Bryce (35:43):
… Double Gold. They’re not-

Heather (35:44):
… yeah.

Bryce (35:45):
… Gold, which I guess is fortunate enough that we’re winning awards necessary with these products. I go… I grab Fortunella quite a bit simply because I really like the versatility of it and the simplicity of it. It’s the basis of the concept of that gin is a very familiar type gin.

Heather (36:09):
Mm-hmm.

Bryce (36:09):
You know, think the main brands out there, but then just with a whole bunch of fresh orange in there where we use actual fresh oranges, both the peel and the flesh that go in and it just brings this vibrancy to that product that’s quite nice. We’re in development actually of a canned cocktail using that gin because right now we have one for Afterglow and one for First Love, but of the canned cocktails, I’d probably grab the Gin-arita the most, but do flip-flop quite a bit.

Heather (36:48):
Is that one-

Bryce (36:48):
[inaudible 00:36:49].

Heather (36:48):
… relatively new? I feel like [inaudible 00:36:49].

Bryce (36:49):
The Gin-arita is new. Yeah, that’s the newest one.

Heather (36:50):
Yeah, I feel like I just saw it on social media not that long ago.

Bryce (36:54):
Yeah, we’ve been playing around with that for a bit. We released it kind of… we released it last summer. It was in a different can actually, and then we decided to focus on a little bit more, and then we’ve done complete rebranding of all our gin program and our canned cocktail program. We just released it again with a little bit more focus and push behind it.

Heather (37:20):
Yeah, the new bottles and the new branding look fantastic on the gin.

Bryce (37:25):
Yeah, we’re really happy with it and it really shows the importance of what you need for branding, and if you have an excellent… If you put excellent product in a bottle, you need to dress it up excellent as well.

Heather (37:38):
Mm-hmm.

Cheyenne (37:41):
Are there any other brands out there that you’re particularly fond of right now?

Bryce (37:46):
I think the whole unique beverage, whether it’s alcohol or non-alcohol space is exploding. It’s like I find the whole snack industry exploding right now, and I see this, too, with beverages. There’s people I know that they just seek out and buy a new beverage-

Heather (38:12):
Mm-hmm.

Bryce (38:13):
… just to try something new. There’s massive… There’s so much curiosity out there right now in canned format that’s not beer, which I find great, so yeah, but I haven’t really dove in. Really love what Strait & Narrow is doing out of B.C.

Heather (38:36):
Yeah, that’s one of my favorites. Definitely one of my favorites.

Bryce (38:37):
Yeah, I think… I know some of the team there, too, and wonderful people, and I think it’s always when I go back to B.C. it’s something I typically go and grab-

Heather (38:50):
Mm-hmm.

Bryce (38:51):
… but yeah.

Heather (38:53):
Awesome. Do you see any new trends kind of coming into the market? Something that we should look out for? What do you think is going to be the new hot RTD?

Bryce (39:06):
The hot one? Well, I think just the development of flavors and better flavors are always going to come out. I think that’s one, and more on the seltzer side of it, I think that’s one hit against the seltzers is that despite there’s a lot of work done on putting these flavors together to try to get it as either natural or as true to the flavor as possible-

Heather (39:37):
Mm-hmm.

Bryce (39:38):
… I think a tough thing is when you’re trying to balance a lot of flavor or true flavor, but also have very low levels of sugar-

Heather (39:50):
Yeah.

Bryce (39:51):
… taking the sugar component out really changes the flavor of anything. I take a look at Black Cherry White Claw, for example. That does not taste like cherries at all-

Heather (40:02):
No.

Bryce (40:03):
… and that’s why people say it always tastes like cough syrup, but it doesn’t taste like cherries, even though you can get… You know, people get used to a flavor. Look at Red Bull. Red Bull tastes awful.

Heather (40:14):
It tastes like hairspray.

Bryce (40:16):
People get used to it. It becomes appealing. I could only imagine the focus group for Red Bull of like, “Taste this. This is going to be a multi-billion-dollar company.” I’m sure people were like, “This tastes tastes awful,” but so think the development of flavors is going to continue. I really… I think as far as you’re just going to… I think the canned cocktail and the premiumization is going to become more and more and more developed. I think you’re going to see more brands, so outside of just vodka brands, gin brands, I think you’re going to see the development of Amaros out of Italy.

Heather (40:56):
Ooh.

Bryce (40:56):
You know, that’s a category that has really done well in the cocktail world. It’s the modifier, right? It’s-

Heather (41:05):
Mm-hmm.

Bryce (41:05):
… the modifier in the cocktail, so you’ll have your primary alcohol, say a gin, and then you’ll have this modifier, which could be an Amaro, but I see Amaros coming to the forefront in the canned format and do that. You take Chartreuse, for example, the Chartreusian monks have decided to not increase their production, so I don’t see them coming in a canned format anytime soon. I don’t know what that drink would necessarily be, but it’s showing that these Amaro or herbal liqueur makers are kind of reaching kind of maximum and there’s still a market out there for growth.

(41:50)
In the whiskey space, I see a lot of, especially for North America, I see a lot of opportunity in the whiskey space. Unfortunately, I think it’s the only people that can do it are the big guys simply because of the volume of whiskey that they make. Anyone small, typically they run into situations, especially if they’re successful at overcoming that initial barrier to entry into market, they typically always have too little whiskey. To sit there and put yourself at risk of depleting your inventory to go into a canned whiskey cocktail space would be fairly difficult, but I do see promise in it, unless they sourced, unless they sourced the whiskey. I get you could do it that way, but the whiskey highball is extremely refreshing and you see it in Japan. It’s been there for years and done, and especially in the Canadian market, Canadian-style whiskey, that lighter style of whiskey is very great for a whiskey highball-

Heather (43:04):
Mm-hmm.

Bryce (43:06):
… that people could get into, so I see a great development there.

Heather (43:11):
Awesome. We appreciate your expertise on the topic. Thank you so much. Anything coming down the pipe with Last Best Brewing & Distilling that you want to fill us in on?

Bryce (43:23):
Well, yes, for Last Best specifically, we just launched a new gin part of our Sweetheart series. This is kind of… Our Sweetheart program, we started it last year, but really it’s gin inspired by beer, beer inspired by gin. Those are the two focus products out of Last Best, and it’s where the production team gets together and they do… Usually a theme is made. Last year it was country music couples. This year it’s Samurai and Spaghetti Western films, how they’ve influenced each other. Don’t ask me how we came to that. That goes… If you’re into Last Best, all the brewing and everything is done… much of the work is done downstairs, so that came from the basement of Last Best.

Heather (44:13):
Oh, I’ve met that production team, so I could… this makes sense to me.

Bryce (44:18):
Yeah, there’s just a large communal table so you can see after a couple beers that these ideas percolated, but anyway, the new Sweetheart series is just released with our first product, Shino. This is… it’s a more of a Japanese-inspired gin and I’m very proud that it’s my assistant down there, Dylan, it’s his first gin that he’s created, so we’re really celebrating that. It’s also great for me to be a mentor for him going through that, too, but we’re going to be releasing two more that’s part of that series as well that kind of follows that theme.

Heather (44:59):
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Bryce. We always appreciate you taking the time to come on and chat with us and share all your expertise in the distilling industry. We hope to see you again soon. Thank you.

Bryce (45:10):
Thank you.

Heather (45:11):
We are very lucky now to be joined by Matt Howell, VP of Operations, Head Distiller and Cidermaker at Collective Arts Brewing in Ontario. Welcome. Matt.

Matt (45:23):
Hello. Hi. Great to be here.

Heather (45:25):
Thank you so much for joining us today. Before we jump into all the RTD questions that we have, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got to collective arts?

Matt (45:36):
Yeah, for sure. I’ve been in the brewing industry for about 17 years now. Started off at Siemens Brewery here in Ontario and kind of moved around from there. My background is I went to Heriot-Watt, did a Master’s degree in Brewing/Distilling prior to that and have primarily worked in the beer industry here in Ontario for most of that time. I got involved with Collective Arts about 10 years ago. At that point I was working at Nickel Brook Brewery in Burlington, and when they first started out they were contract brewing out of Nickel Brook, so I was brewing beer from some of their first batches of beer for them and helping out package it.

(46:21)
Then, they opened this facility that I’m in right now, which is their home brewery in Hamilton, Ontario, about seven years ago. When that happened, I moved over here with them to originally oversee quality and packaging, and then I have slowly kind of moved my way through the company and now oversee all operations and the cider and spirits programs. It’s been great. It’s a great company to work for. It’s a lot of fun. There’s never a dull moment considering all the different products we make, but it’s been really good, really good.

Heather (47:00):
Yeah, Collective Arts is just such a well-known brand across Canada for sure, and I know Cheyenne was kind of looking into it a little bit more and Toby was looking into it a little bit more. Can you tell… We obviously have listeners from all over North America, so can you tell them a little bit about the Collective Arts and the Collective Arts brand? I think it’s just so prominent for me and I found it weird that people don’t know what it is, so…

Matt (47:24):
Yeah, of course. Yeah. Collective was founded, like I said, 10 years ago by two gentlemen, Matt Johnson and Bob Russell, on the premise of kind of combining artists and originally just beer together. We have a major focus on artists, not like visual artists as well as musical artists and things like that, and try to promote them as much as possible. If you look at all of our cans have, they have… We feature four different pieces of artwork on all of our cans at any one time, so for each of our core brands, they have four different pieces of artwork. It differs between brands and we rotate that artwork three times a year. You’re constantly seeing new pieces of art out in the shelf and it’s really cool and makes us really stand out. We have a great team here that kind of leads the curation process. We get external people in to kind of curate that art and they’ve done a really good job.

(48:27)
When the brewery… Like I said, we started out primarily as a brewery, but over the years we have grown into a number of different categories. We do spirits, canned cocktails, cider. The past couple if tears we’ve made a big push into the non-alc sector, so we do sparkling water, non-alc cocktails, non-alc beer. We were also in the cannabis sector as well, and so we do a lot of different things and try to be… Our big mantra to kind of tie in with the artists is to be as creative and innovative as possible. We try to stay at that kind of cutting edge of innovation.

(49:07)
Now, over the years, the growth here has been amazing. We are across Canada here as well as in most of the Northeast of the United States as well as a number of other states, Florida, and Puerto Rico. We’re starting a big distribution push down at Texas right now as well as being international. Right now, I think we’re in about seven or eight countries full-time internationally. We’re actually really the mothership. One of our double IPAs for the past couple of years has been the number one selling beer over 6.5%, which always just blows my mind. It’s all made out of Hamilton here, and we ship it all over to Sweden and they can’t get enough of it, so it’s amazing. We keep growing. We do what we can. I think we made a great product, so…

Toby (49:57):
Yeah. That’s awesome. You mentioned Texas, it is big down here and there’s a lot of drinkers-

Matt (50:02):
Yeah.

Toby (50:02):
… so we welcome it. Yeah.

Matt (50:04):
That’s great to know.

Toby (50:04):
You know how that goes.

Matt (50:05):
That’s true.

Toby (50:06):
Yeah, I was going to say Toby, you can get your hands on something now.

(50:08)
Believe me, I’ll be out there immediately checking it out-

Matt (50:11):
Oh, that’s awesome.

Toby (50:11):
… so-

Heather (50:11):
You can’t miss it.

Matt (50:12):
No.

Heather (50:12):
You obviously can’t miss it on the shelves, which is great.

Toby (50:15):
Well I thought you were saying you can’t miss Texas on the map.

Heather (50:17):
Well, you can’t miss Texas-

Toby (50:17):
Right.

Heather (50:18):
… on the map.

Toby (50:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Heather (50:21):
You can’t miss Collective Arts on the shelf and you can’t miss Texas-

Toby (50:23):
That’s-

Heather (50:24):
… on the map.

Toby (50:25):
… there you go.

Heather (50:25):
You can use that. I’ll let you [inaudible 00:50:27]-

Toby (50:27):
Your next commercial. Yeah, so Matt, yeah, it’s awesome. When you talk about your background, it makes me think I need to go back to school and study a little harder, but yeah-

Matt (50:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Toby (50:39):
… you’ve… It’s awesome to have you on and talk to you a little bit. I’m curious, and a lot of our listeners obviously are on the brewing side. There’s a lot of like… I don’t want to call the brewers out there stubborn, but there’s a lot of folks that are like, “I’m not doing anything other than beer. Beer, beer, beer. I’m not doing anything innovative.” It’s pretty cool that y’all are going outside the box, if you will.

(51:06)
You mentioned innovation, and it kind of ties into the whole Collective Arts thing, but was there also some thought behind that as like, “Hey, we need to branch out as the consumers are looking for different products other than beer?” Right? It seems like-

Matt (51:24):
Yeah.

Toby (51:25):
… Heather and I talked about it earlier. It seems like people are branching off, always looking for something new and innovative, whether it be on craft beer, craft spirits, or read-to-drink cocktails, you name it. As a business, was that in the back of your mind? “Well, we need to capture some of what other people are looking for other than beer?”

Matt (51:44):
Oh, for sure. We’re… You know, beer’s a great sector. It’s the big one. It’s still the big driver of the company, but obviously we’re a business. We’re looking to grow and we have a great team here at Collective and a lot of just kind of experience in general across all the boards. I know some, like a lot of brewers I talk to here, some of them can be a little stubborn like that and be like, “The beer is all I want to do.” Some are… A lot of it, too, is just nerves. You’re used to making beer. There’s a lot of other considerations you need to kind of take in as you venture out into the other sectors of beverages. The ability to blend products is maybe not something or blend a bunch of different flavors and concentrates maybe it’s something that a lot of breweries don’t have capabilities to do.

(52:35)
As you get into the non-alc sector, you got to be… There’s a much bigger concern on food safety because there’s a whole other plethora of microorganisms that can be harmful that are not necessarily as much of a concern on the beer side. That’s usually the kind of… the feedback I get from guys that I talk to about this. We’re just lucky that we have a… Like I said, we have a great team here. We want to grow the business and it can continue to kind of explore other sectors. You know, full transparency, some categories we’ve gone into haven’t worked and we’ve tried our best and it just hasn’t worked. Some we’ve gone into and it’s just we’ve knocked it out of the park and it’s great. Because we’re willing to take those risks, I think it’s a great advantage for us. I think in the end it’s paid off. It’s great. It does make it crazy sometimes. I will admit that, but it makes it very exciting, so…

Toby (53:43):
Well, can you or are you willing to share some of those sectors that y’all tried to dive into that just didn’t take off, didn’t work?

Matt (53:51):
Sure. We tried bitters for a bit. We do have a line of bitters and it’s not a very big growth category. We never expected it to be huge and it’s just not a very big growth category, and so it’s kind of slowly petered out, but it is what it is. We’ve tried teas as well and it didn’t seem to… Although they’re still hanging around, it just didn’t kind of pan out exactly how we were hoping it to-

Toby (54:25):
You talking about hard teas?

Matt (54:26):
… [inaudible 00:54:26] yeah, like hard teas, and so they’re great products and people still ask for it, but it just didn’t kind of end up being as big as we were expecting it to. Our non-alc, there’s other things, like our whole non-alc line is just… It’s amazing how quickly it’s grown, like a lot. It’s outpaced us a lot more than we thought. It’s like- even with our RTDs, depending on the flavor can be hit or miss, but overall it’s done really well, so…

Toby (54:56):
Right. Well, then, the non-alcoholic sector is growing tremendously here in the-

Matt (55:00):
Exactly.

Toby (55:01):
… U.S. as well, not just beer, and it is one of the fastest growing categories for sure.

Matt (55:07):
Yeah, yeah.

Toby (55:10):
I’m always throwing people off-topic here, so I apologize. When we were talking about things that didn’t work, and we’ll get into the meat of the RTDs in a second, but is there any thing or any one particular fruit or additive or some bright idea that y’all thought y’all had, whether it’s on the cedar or cider side or beer or non-alc or spirit set, you’re like, “This sounds good on paper,” but at the end of the day you put your lips to it and you’re like, “This is terrible and we’re not taking this to market?”

Matt (55:44):
Yeah, like there’s always kind of ideas like that that we’ve tried and just haven’t panned out. Because we do so much innovation, we have a pretty robust innovation team and program here. Myself and our Brewmaster Ryan Morrow do basically all the innovation for the entire company. Because we’ve had to do so many different products over the years, we’ve got a pretty strong handle on what works and what doesn’t and what rations you’re supposed to use stuff in. In terms of a specific product or flavor that just hasn’t worked, there’s nothing really that stands out. Some things work and in certain situations and better than others, and so it’s really just hit or miss, but it’s really just trialing stuff.

(56:38)
There’s stuff I’ve tried in the first iteration around them. Like, “This is brutal, it’s just not going to work,” but you kind of keep pushing at it and tweaking things and eventually you come up with a product that everybody really likes and it does really well. It’s really just about trialing and error and having the time to do that and having the team that has the experience and really the resources to do it, so-

Heather (57:04):
You are the Head Distiller obviously and you are distilling on-site. What spirits are you concentrating on at this moment in time?

Matt (57:12):
Well, we’re actually… We contract distill-

Heather (57:16):
Okay.

Matt (57:16):
… so we don’t have a still on-site. We send our… We have a local distiller here that does most of our distilling. Our portfolio is primarily made up of our gins. We have three core gins that we distill and produce. It’s our Artisanal Dry, which is kind of a combination of like a five-spice blend and citrus. There’s Rhubarb & Hibiscus, which is a pink gin that’s really big and fruity and floral, and [inaudible 00:57:48].

Heather (57:48):
That went into an RTD, did it not at one point in time?

Matt (57:48):
Yeah, yeah-

Heather (57:48):
Yeah.

Matt (57:48):
… I know. Well, all of our gin cocktails use our gins, so like we have our Citrus Gin Collins right now. That’s big. That uses are Artisanal Dry Gin as the base alcohol. Then, in the past, we’ve done Rhubarb & Hibiscus, not Rhubarb & Hibiscus. We’ve done a Raspberry and Bitter Orange Cocktail that’s used the Rhubarb & Hibiscus Gin in it.

Heather (58:08):
I’ve definitely had that one before.

Matt (58:10):
Yeah, so we try to be as authentic in that sense. The third gin is our sort of Lavender and Juniper. It’s kind of more traditional juniper forward. It’s colored with pea flower, so it’s blue. Really nice and slightly floral and kind of elegant, but our base spirit, we purchase corn GNS from a local producer here just because we want that base spirit to be as clean as possible so we can let those botanicals shine through. Then, we have our botanical blend, which we’ve designed. It has a very high usage rate of botanicals, much higher than most other distillers are using, but it’s because we want really big, bold flavors, and it gets distilled at this contract distillery in a combination of maceration and vapor infusion. We package it out, color it, and, well, we distill it out, color it, and package it, but that’s really our core spirit.

(59:16)
We do also produce some brown spirits. We have produced a maple syrup barrel-aged rum and released that. It’s usually a seasonal release around Christmas the past couple of years, which is really quite nice, and we have plans to continue to expand in that category over the coming years. Once again, in those situations, we are buying a pre-aged rum and then we are actually producing our own bourbon barrel-aged maple syrup, and then we’re using those barrels to produce the rum.

Heather (59:54):
That sounds delicious.

Matt (59:58):
Honestly, it’s one of my favorites. It’s like just the hint of maple, not overly sweet, and it’s just it’s really well-balanced, I think, so…

Heather (01:00:06):
Nicely Canadian as well.

Matt (01:00:08):
Exactly.

Toby (01:00:09):
It sounds like primarily, and correct me if I’m wrong, Matt, but a lot of it is kind of blending in trial inside your facility.

Matt (01:00:22):
Yeah. No, a hundred percent.

Toby (01:00:24):
Yeah, yeah, so it sounds great. I would be a kid in a candy shop there, like, “Great,” but the-

Matt (01:00:29):
But-

Toby (01:00:31):
… the output would be terrible, I guarantee you that, like throwing stuff together and-

Matt (01:00:34):
Well, during COVID-

Toby (01:00:34):
… yeah.

Matt (01:00:36):
… I had to do it al at home and I have three little kids and I’d be working at the island, maybe doing school, and I’d be blending up a bunch of stuff and it was a very fun balance. It was kind of a little weird, but it was really fun.

Heather (01:00:46):
I was going to say, are you hiring? I must say, that sounds like a dream job.

Toby (01:00:48):
No.

Heather (01:00:48):
I’m here forever.

Matt (01:00:48):
Oh man.

Heather (01:00:57):
Do you have a personal favorite? I mean, you mentioned some of the gin stuff, but is there something in the lineup that you just absolutely love or is it seasonal depending on the weather? Or who you’re with? Or-

Matt (01:01:06):
Like our… In terms of our cocktail line, I really love our Citrus Gin Collins. It was actually one of the first RTDs, like alcohol-based… Well, actually I know this. No, it was one of the first alcohol-based RTDs I ever designed, and I think it’s great. It’s a nice… You know, it’s nice and light. There’s a nice citrus note to it as well as the herbaceous note that there. The botanical blend that makes up that cocktail is thyme, cardamom, and lavender. Just that kind of… It’s very subtle, but it adds really nice body to the gin, or sorry, to the canned cocktail. The Artisanal Dry Gin that’s used as the alcohol base for it as… Its spice and citrus components compliments that botanical blend so well.

(01:02:01)
Then, we add a bit more citrus oils to it to kind of boost those citrus flavors. It’s really my… It’s kind of my go-to canned cocktail if I’m going to have any of those. For the spirit side, it’s really… If I’m drinking hard liquor, I’m really seasonal. Come summertime, I’m going to have gin and tonics all summer kind of thing, and my go-to is really our Lavender & Juniper Gin, and then if you can get the Fever-Tree Elderflower Tonic and just combining those two with just a bit of lime is outstanding is really my favorite. Kind of come winter, I’m all about our rum. It’s great. It is like in Christmastime, a little bit of that rum and some eggnog with like a touch of egg on it is to die for. It’s really good. It’s a great combination, and even drinking it needs like there are many kind of cooler nights where I’ll just pour a glass of the rum and kind of just sit back and relax and enjoy it. That’s kind of my… those are my kind of on the spirit for sure and the canned cocktail side, those are my go-tos.

Toby (01:03:16):
See, this is exactly why I took a leave of absence on the show for a while because I-

Heather (01:03:21):
Are you thirsty?

Toby (01:03:23):
… I like… yes, and it puts me in a bad situation, well, good. It depends on how you look at it. Like we talked, Matt, that sounds wonderful and I’m-

Matt (01:03:29):
Yeah.

Toby (01:03:29):
… so thirsty right now. I’ll probably… zero work done the rest of the day-

Matt (01:03:34):
Yeah, right.

Toby (01:03:34):
… I’ll be, yeah, trying to concoct something in the bar area.

Matt (01:03:39):
Yeah.

Heather (01:03:40):
Your current like RTD lineup, you’ve got a rum RTD, a whiskey RTD, a gin RTD, and a vodka RTD.

Matt (01:03:44):
Yeah.

Heather (01:03:48):
Which ones do you find ae the most popular out on the market?

Matt (01:03:54):
That’s a really good question because our RTD portfolio up until this past year has primarily been in the gin category as well as the vodka. That vodka we kind of got more into last year and then the rum and the whiskey are new to the portfolio this year. Historically, obviously the gin has been the big seller and the big go-to here because it’s just what we’ve sold more. Now, when I look at the portfolio now and what people want, I would probably say the rum or the whiskey cocktails are really the ones that people are crazy excited about and they seem to really be drawn to. We’re hoping to grow that even more than it is now. We still do more of the gin and the vodka-based ones and they’re great. Our vodka-based one is a simple lemonade and using real ingredients and it’s outstanding for sure. It’s kind of my backup to the Citrus Gin Collins, like it’s just it’s light and refreshing and on a hot summer day you can’t beat it.

(01:05:03)
The other cocktails are really quite good. They’re basically proper pre-mixed cocktails you would get at any cocktail bar, and people are very excited about it. My hope is I could grow them quickly and they’ll do as well and be on par with where our gin and vodka RTD sales are, but yeah, like I said, they’re new, but they’re really exciting and everybody seems to… As quickly as they can produce it it’s being sold, so it’s a good problem to have.

Heather (01:05:40):
Yeah, it’s really cool because I don’t feel like I’ve seen a lot of whiskey-based RTDs on the market, so like I was saying, I’m really excited and I saw yours. I’m just waiting it to make its way west so I can-

Matt (01:05:51):
Oh, that’s awesome.

Heather (01:05:52):
… get my hands on it. It looks-

Matt (01:05:54):
Yeah.

Heather (01:05:54):
… fantastic.

Matt (01:05:54):
Whiskey ones are… whiskey cocktails are always a weird one to make because whiskey has such a unique flavor. It’s just a little more tricky to make a fun cocktail with wide appeal with the whiskey base just because it’s got that kind of spicy… It’s much more prominent kind of spicy oak-y flavors that are a little harder to combine to make it more of a wide-appealing cocktail, which is probably why you don’t see it as much. When you think of whiskey cocktails, a lot of people go to like Old Fashioneds or Manhattans or things like that, which maybe don’t have as large of a wide appeal, but I think we figured out the cherry and tried to do the whiskey sour and it was a good combination. I think it hit the nail on the head and done really well, so hopefully everybody else loves it as much as we do, so…

Heather (01:06:48):
Mm-hmm.

Toby (01:06:48):
Yeah, and it’s folks like you, Matt, and Collective Arts that honestly there’s much more quality RTDs out there and premixed cocktails than I can get typically at a bar unless I go to some high-end bar out here where you have a very knowledgeable staff that is fantastic at what they do. It’s just they’re making some quality products that you can get off the shelf, so-

Matt (01:07:17):
Yeah.

Toby (01:07:18):
… it’s awesome.

Matt (01:07:19):
Yeah, that’s great.

Toby (01:07:20):
What would you say for the listeners out there that are thinking about getting into RTDs or branching away from their typical craft beer and packages, what would you say, number one, some of your biggest challenges have been at Collective Arts? Then, two, any words of wisdom or advice for people thinking about getting into that segment?

Matt (01:07:51):
Yeah, I guess the challenges we’ve had, probably a few of the bigger ones, sourcing, having your alcohol base available and having a good supply is always a challenge. You know, you can obviously produce depending on the product you’re making. If it is a brown spirit product like whiskey or an aged rum or something like that, there’s two avenues to go. You can produce it yourself, which is great, but it also means that you’re producing it and you’re not getting any return for your product many years down the road. There are also brokers that you can buy the product through, which are also really good and really helpful and it’s kind of the way we go for a lot of the aged stuff, but there can be challenges with supply because they may not have the same product all the time. There with barrel-aged products, it’s there’s a lot of variation between barrels and different suppliers.

(01:08:58)
Finding a base spirit that you like can that you can somewhat generally ensure that you have a consistent supply is always key when starting out, especially if you’re procuring the pre-aged stuff. That’s really a big challenge. The other one is that I always like to flag to people is shelf stability. With beer, usually you’re pretty lucky because your ferment yeast, you’re having yeast fermented at all the fermentable, so it’s when you go to package it, as long as you’re following sanitary practice, it’s usually shelf-stable. You don’t have anything to worry about, but with most RTDs and canned cocktails, you’re adding sugars to the product, and so there’s a lot of fermentable things there that can be a problem.

(01:09:50)
If you’re doing this in a brewery, there’s yeast everywhere. It’s as clean as you’re going to keep it, the likelihood of yeast getting into your can and potentially causing refermentation can be high. Ensuring that you are either using preservatives or if you don’t want to use preservatives, have a robust pasteurization process or sterile filtration packaging process is key, and then having the lab in the backend to ensure that the things that you did are effective in ensuring shelf stability. Those are probably the two big challenges, and then obviously, just having the ability to blend.

(01:10:35)
You know, some breweries don’t have that and it’s a little tricky to figure out if you’re dealing with drums of concentrate like, “Well, how are you going to get that out to the tank and then… Or out of the drum and into the tank? How are you going to mix that in the tank?” Then, if there’s solids in there, how do you avoid settling? There’s a lot of little things that as you go along, you’re like, “Oh shoot, I should have-

Toby (01:11:00):
It’s not like you-

Matt (01:11:01):
… “thought of that beforehand.”

Toby (01:11:02):
… it’s not like you just have somebody standing there with a ladle like-

Matt (01:11:03):
Exactly.

Toby (01:11:04):
… one little soup ladle over and over.

Matt (01:11:06):
A big copper pot kind of thing and it wouldn’t stick to mix it-

Toby (01:11:11):
Yeah, yeah.

Matt (01:11:11):
… but there’s a lot of little things like that. The advantage of it is that RTD’s turnaround time is a lot quicker, so instead of sitting in a beer tank for three weeks, it’s it can be done in the day, an in-and-out kind of thing. It allows you maximize the production capacity of your facility, and so there’s great opportunity there. It gets you into another category. That’s where the big growth is in the alcohol sector is in those kind of canned RTDs and things like that, and so it just allows you to expand that portfolio so that let’s say your beer isn’t doing as well as you were hoping it to. Well, you know, you can potentially make up some volume in some canned cocktails.

Toby (01:11:57):
Yeah, I think so. I think it’s obviously even if for the craft brewer that’s not distributing and you could come up with one canned cocktail or RTD that they can have available over the bar for those that come in that don’t want to feel like a beer, they don’t want a beer that day, so-

Matt (01:12:16):
Exactly.

Toby (01:12:18):
… obviously it’s takes some planning and obviously have to have some packaging ability or whatnot, but there’s certainly something to consider for those folks out there.

Matt (01:12:27):
No, for sure, for sure. No, it’s a great opportunity from our side. From our end, I feel for sure it’s our biggest growth opportunities, all that blended side of things.

Toby (01:12:36):
Well, I’ve got a question and a request for you.

Matt (01:12:40):
Okay.

Heather (01:12:41):
Uh-oh.

Toby (01:12:43):
Yes [inaudible 01:12:44] here we go, here we go, but I guess it’s a question and a request all at the same time. Ranch Water, big down here in the South. Do you know what a Ranch Water is?

Matt (01:12:55):
I do, I do.

Toby (01:12:56):
Any thoughts about-

Matt (01:12:58):
Isn’t it like lime, tequila, and everything?

Toby (01:13:00):
Yes, and so I think you should roll with a Ranch Water up in your neck-

Matt (01:13:08):
It’s-

Toby (01:13:08):
… of the woods.

Matt (01:13:08):
… it’s been proposed-

Heather (01:13:09):
Ooh.

Matt (01:13:09):
… I will admit that as a concept and it’s something we’re looking at for sure, so don’t be surprised if at-

Toby (01:13:17):
There you go.

Matt (01:13:18):
… some point it comes out, but no, for sure. It’s tequila’s a great sector. It’s same thing, the big growth category and up here in Ontario every, everybody’s doing a tequila-based RTD and so it’s obviously something we’re looking at. I wouldn’t be surprised if we have something coming out eventually that kind of fits in that category, so…

Heather (01:13:42):
Is there something that you are not currently making, but that somebody out in your market is making that you’re a big fan of in the RTD sector?

Matt (01:13:49):
We’ve tried a bunch of stuff over the years of what’s out in market and there’s some great… there’s some really good product out there. I also think there’s some not-so-good product out there. Of course, I’m not going to name any names, but-

Heather (01:14:05):
We won’t throw anybody under the bus.

Matt (01:14:06):
… yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Heather (01:14:08):
We’ll talk when we get off the call.

Matt (01:14:09):
Yeah, of course. No, but honestly, I think when you look at it overall, the quality of products that are out there, people are bringing up their game every year, right?

Toby (01:14:20):
Mm-hmm.

Matt (01:14:20):
It’s just getting better and better and that’s what you want to see. As one producer really ups their game and does a really good job at producing something, well, it’s going to force everybody else to improve their game. That’s kind of what I’m hoping our products are doing, too, is we have a great product out there. It’s got great distribution. I’m hoping it’s kind of forcing everybody else to kind of pull up their socks or roll up their sleeves, I guess, and do a better job, so-

Heather (01:14:46):
Yeah, for sure.

Toby (01:14:49):
Well, I appreciate you coming on. Yeah, I appreciate you coming on giving us some insight into the RTD market and-

Matt (01:14:55):
Amazing. Thanks for having me, guys.

Heather (01:14:57):
Thank you.

Toby (01:14:58):
Well, thanks to our guests today, Matt Howell over at Collective Arts and Bryce Parsons for… I think it’s the second time he’s been on.

Heather (01:15:07):
Yes.

Toby (01:15:07):
The Head Distiller at Last Best Brewing & Distillery. Appreciate you fellows for coming on.

Heather (01:15:12):
We’ll be back in a couple weeks with our Pride episode, so make sure you subscribe to the BrewDeck Podcast so you don’t miss any of those episodes.

Toby (01:15:21):
You know what, until next time, keep crushing it. Bye, everybody. See you next time.

Heather (01:15:25):
Bye.