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The guys sit down with Fiona Hepher of Sansorium to dive into the world of alcohol-free beverages. Fiona shares her path to an alcohol-free lifestyle and what led her to start Sansorium. We also sample a delicious lineup of alcohol-free beers from UK’s Nirvana Brewery and chat about drinking culture, the stigmas around NA beverages, wine moms, and more.
UPDATE: Since this episode was released, Sansorium now ship to Canada and USA.
Aaron: Episode 14 of The Dregs. We are back again and we have another guest, guys. We are doing the book tour circuits now for everybody, we're just getting guest requests coming in left and right. We're growing, we're growing as a podcast big time. Chris: What a novel idea. Luke: What, guests? Chris: I was trying to make a book pun didn't land (inaudible) boys and girls. Aaron: Well, we should just get into that. So the guy there with the terrible joke, that's Chris from Fan Pores. And the other voice you heard is Luke. Chris: That was Luke. Aaron: And the- Luke: Hello. Aaron: Now the bad joke was Chris, come on. You got to own that buddy. And then myself, Aaron for the Cascading Beer podcast and our guest today is Fiona Hepher. Hello? Fiona: Hello. Aaron: So we've known each other a while and I was actually thinking about this the other day and we'll kind of get into the reasons why for this more, but you and I have never actually had a drink together because when I first met you were pregnant. And then now you run a company which doesn't have alcohol. And so, yeah, we've just never had a drink together the entire time we've known each other. Fiona: That's if you define a drink as only an alcoholic one. Luke: Well, we will get into that. Aaron: Ooh. Yeah. Luke: Although there was that one time we went to that cocktail lounge with one of your coworkers and we had drinks and you just looked envious at us because... Fiona: Because they didn't have any good alcoholic cocktails back then. Luke: Yeah. Back then. Fiona: The times are changing. Luke: Yes. Fiona: That's why I exist. Aaron: So your company's called Sansorium. When did you start? Fiona: So we launched last September. The idea of it kind of came up January of 2021 though, by my mom. Aaron: Right. What was the reason behind your mom wanting to start this company? Fiona: So two years ago, right before the pandemic started, my mom decided to stop drinking alcohol. She decided to live an alcohol free life, which came from a bunch of personal discovery around what makes her body feel good and what makes her brain feel good. But really it was William Porter's book that kind of dove into the effects on the brain and sleep in particular. And she did not have, she just didn't realize before that there was any correlation between how much alcohol she was drinking and the neuro effects and the sleep effects that she was experiencing, that she didn't realize there was a correlation. So, once she learned that she said she could never go back to drinking alcohol. She literally stopped overnight. And she comes from a long lineage of drinking alcohol. She's Scottish. (inaudible) her family or they don't drink. Aaron: (inaudible) when you have an entire whiskey named after your country, it's just like, yeah, that's deep rooted, right? Fiona: It's deep rooted. Yeah. And she grew up in a culture where drinking alcohol was... And a lot of it, too, as much as you wanted, there was no limits. It was normal, super normal to have a glass, two, three, four after work every day of wine. You could finish a bottle by yourself. No problem. It didn't really have a big effect on her, from what she could notice. It was really later that she discovered all of these physical effects that she thought maybe were to do with other things. And that it was actually the alcohol. So once she cut it, she realized that her metabolism was actually way better and she could control her weight a lot easier. She was sleeping amazing. She was feeling clearheaded. And then there's been this kind of cascade of really beautiful relational effects in our family and in our lives that have just strengthened her desire to stay alcohol free. Aaron: Right. And when you say like relationships and that, would you have considered your mom a wine mom? Fiona: Yeah. We've talked a lot about that. And I grew up in wine mom culture that kind of started being more publicized through social media. I was kind of like the mom who was really proud of her wine intake to get away from the needs of the family or the needs of the day to day responsibility of work and raising kids. And it was very, it was like meme- ified wine mom culture. We're coming out of that now, I would say, as a global community, but certainly in the west of what it means to still imbibe on wine and have a family and raise a family and have children in the background. But my mom was like, we've had a big conversation about that recently of what it means, what it meant to me to have a wine mom. Luke: Sorry. Can we clear... I don't think I've ever heard that term wine mom. Fiona: Yeah. It's such a big conversation and I want to do it justice. But generally it's the celebration of moms drinking wine to reward themselves for their end of the day. Like getting the kids to bed, having a tough day with lots of tantrums, or diffusing an argument in the back of the car or something on a road trip. It's like drinking wine to celebrate being a mom. But the reason why it's being challenged now or seen as problematic is it's looking like a form of escaping your responsibilities as a mother, and potentially over drinking because of it. So you'll see these big, huge glasses that would encourage you to pour bottles of wine into them. And they kind of, I say it's meme- ified, because they make jokes about how much they're drinking. There's whole brands of wine created for wine mom culture. Luke: Yeah. I think now that you explain it, I've definitely witnessed this in social media and- Fiona: Yeah, on social. . Luke: In our culture. Absolutely. Fiona: Or like there's tons of t- shirts and lots of merchandise around being a wine mom- Luke: Definitely a hashtag. Fiona: Yeah. There's a hashtag. There's full accounts with like hundreds of thousands of followers. Luke: I guess the socks with, if you can see this or something, bring me a glass of wine or some (inaudible) - Aaron: But they're on the bottom, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Chris: Speaking from a guy who owns a pair there? I borrowed a pair of socks from Luke on the weekend. We won't dive into why, but he didn't hand over the pour me a glass of wine socks. I'm a little disappointed. Fiona: I want to say though, I don't think all wine drinking, if you're a mother, is problematic. I would say there's just been a normalization of maybe over consumption of wine and in the presence of children. So my experience personally is witnessing my mom drink at the end of the day and it kind of felt like she wanted to kind of strip away from the day. And maybe even me a little bit. I'm not saying that's true, but I see lots of videos on Instagram of moms holding up the glass of wine, where their young kids are just watching TV in the background. And they're like, if you know. Or like I needed this, I need this. It's like 4: 00 PM. Like can't get through the rest of the day without this. So actually joking about is alcoholism and we're not calling it what it is. So that's where I say there's a bit of a fine line, but I don't label all wine drinking, if you're a mother, to be problematic. Aaron: No it's moderation with everything. Right? Chris: But it's kind of coming from a place of kind of coping versus drinking to cope versus drinking for celebration. Fiona: Absolutely. Yeah. It's blurred the lines between those two places actually, and it's not inviting an awareness of the relationship you have with alcohol and how it affects the rest of your family potentially. And the relationships beyond that. It's inviting a whole normalization of over consumption with actual potential alcoholism. Chris: I feel like that's something that I feel like we see though a lot on social media. And I mean, I'm sure I've been guilty of it in the past, too, where often we see following so many different beer accounts and stuff celebrating bringing home massive beer hauls and all exaggerated amounts of alcohol. And it's celebrated like, hey, I brought home like 57 beers this week from the brewery. And it's kind of like a lot of it I think comes from FOMO and collecting and wanting to try everything. But at some point too, I think it does blur that line of how much is too much. And not saying people that are doing this are drinking all 57 beers in a sitting because that's not what's most likely happening. But I think sometimes what, in the craft beer industry, what people can kind of get away with hiding behind is well I'm supporting micro breweries, local businesses. And the same goes for probably local wines, local distilleries. But then what is not being talked about is that over consumption, which is definitely happening at breweries and people that are drinking craft beer. And I can put up my hand and say I'm guilty of having too many craft beers in an evening. But I think what I've seen and people are starting to see with local beer is now maybe things are turning the page a little bit. Breweries are coming out with lower alcohol versions because people want to have a couple beers without feeling like they've overdone it. And even with personal preference, I've started to shift to enjoying more loggers and things like that, where I may not be paying for it as much the next day. So I don't know, is that like, that's probably something that you've come across. And was that kind of what led you into wanting to start... I mean, you mentioned your mom's story, but just looking at market trends, was this something you saw as a huge opportunity when you started your business? Fiona: Yeah, certainly. So after she decided to go alcohol free and we took a year to drink non- alcoholic products, everything from sparkling wine, distilled, to beer and spirits. We got kind of bored with the lack of selection and Vancouver specifically, and the inconvenience of it. Having to go to four different stores to get your haul, let's call it, for Christmas or your haul for Thanksgiving or the birthday party. And things being sold out or things not being available or things just kind of being half quality, like just not great. After a year of that, we just thought, oh, this is ridiculous. Let's just do it, do it ourselves. And we all happen to be, my mom, my sister and I, we all happened to be at career sort of crossroads in January. So we decided to go into business together. And we have not looked back since. Aaron: That's awesome. So before we jump in, should we open a beverage then? What do you suggest we open first? Fiona: Oh yeah. Okay. So I did bring you, I did bring you all some beer. Non- alcoholic beer. We're going to be opening some Nirvana. And we have finally completed our collection of Nirvana beer. This is a east London brewery that's dedicated to brewing only alcohol free beer, which is one of the only ones in the UK actually. There's always breweries that have both alcohol and non- alcoholic options, but this one's only dedicated to alcohol free side. We finally have all six of their sort of classic core collection and it just arrived off the boat a couple weeks ago. So I thought, I brought you guys the last two, which is the organic pale and the stout, which is also gluten free. It looks like you're opening the lager, which I do love. The Bavarian Halls lager is a classic sort of German iconic beer. And it took home a hat trick of awards in 2020 for great taste in the beer category. This is one of my favorite beers, really, really beautiful blend. So I wanted to ask you what you've selected. Because obviously you don't have to drink all six, but... Luke: I've got the IPA going right now. Fiona: Nice. My second favorite. Luke: And yeah, it's quite delicious if I say so. Chris: I had a question about that year you mentioned of exploring non- alcoholic beverages. Was something like this, Nirvana, was that even available to find in Vancouver or how far did you go? Did this year of exploring include, I mean, it probably didn't include international travel because this was all during COVID, but I assume you were kind of looking outside the borders of Vancouver and BC, once you noticed our meek selection. Fiona: Mild selection. We started to look out towards the end of the year. I would say the beginning, we just accepted there was other things going on. So we were just probably drinking more water, probably just taking it easy. I- Aaron: That soda stream was a good investment. Fiona: It was a great investment. We had some other priorities, but certainly around celebration. We tried to maintain family celebration as much as possible. And we had enough options to satisfy us, but it was towards the end of the year that we felt like there was just like, how could there only be this? This doesn't, there can't be. And then we kind of just looked out and looked abroad and the UK is doing amazing. They're coming out with 40 brands every quarter or something. The US is catching up to that. Australia is booming. It's a huge non- alcoholic industry over there. Aaron: One of the few papers I saw was I think it's 33% market share for non- alcoholic products in Europe. And it's only 2% in North America. Fiona: Yeah. Spain's doing really well. Germany. It's everywhere. But here we didn't immediately think of a business out of that. It was more like that sucks that we're so behind. But Canada's always behind. Aren't we just so slow with music and fashion and more glorious things. Chris: Mission impossible Three just came out in theaters last week. Aaron: I just got rid of my rotary phone yesterday, everybody. Chris: Yeah. It's interesting though, because those numbers, Aaron, that you just mentioned, those are way off. Like where's that coming from? You would think that because drinking in the states and Canada and in the UK and Australia, like I would imagine they're kind of at that similar levels. But this industry has kind of skyrocketed everywhere but North America. Aaron: Yeah. Which is really fascinating. Chris: I'd be curious like where is that coming from? Aaron: It seems almost as insane as, well there's just no red cars in North America. We just don't sell red cars. Fiona: Yeah, totally. I think one of the things my mom noticed because in the beginning of 2020, before she made this decision, she went back to Scotland to visit some family. And one of the family members was in hospital. And when she went to the hospital, they had a full unit, a whole ward size dedicated to, it's called the liver unit. It's dedicated to folks whose livers have failed or in cirrhosis and need replacements or on dialysis or whatever. And she was kind of shocked at how big it was. So potentially they've invested more or have seen more detriment faster and have tried to make innovative changes to curb that detriment. We all know how big of a drinking culture the UK and other similar cultures is. Maybe it hit its peak. Maybe it just got so bad that they decided to make a change. And maybe here we haven't got as bad or we're just almost at that threshold. And we're maybe all reaching it now because of the pandemic. I mean, that's what I hear. Aaron: Yeah. I mean, we definitely talked about that with Jordan in the last episode of just how much beer was leaving his place. Chris: Yeah. I mean, if there's ever a time for the market to shift a little bit and drinking consumption habits to shift a little bit, it is probably coming out of a time when a lot of us were spending a lot of time at home. Yeah. I would say sometimes drinking to cope with the fact that we're dealing with a pandemic and the stresses of that and not being around friends and family physically. Aaron: And I could tell from my own personal experience, that's what it was for me too. Oh, it's five o'clock and I'm done for work. I'm bored. I can go outside. Well, got a fridge full of beer. Chris: A hundred percent. Fiona: And that five o'clock started to creep up. I think, from what I've understood. Other people brought it up to four and three and two and one, and then there was 11: 00 AM happy hours. And I think folks were getting a little alarmed. Chris: The 11 AM happy hour. If you're on vacation, maybe, you know if you're in Mexico, that can pass. But on a Tuesday, that's a tough call. Fiona: Zoom call. Chris: Zoom call 11:00 AM happy. If someone sends you that invite at work, like you definitely take a bit of a double take. Aaron: Well, just a quick side tangent guys, like how crazy is it looking back that we all thought that Zoom happy hour was a good idea? Chris: It was never a good idea. It was never a good idea. From my experience, it starts off with the best intentions and it's like after everyone has one beer, it just turns into people trying not to talk over each other, but at the same time talking over everyone. And then it's just yelling for like 15 minutes and laughing and people typing in the chat. Like what was that again? Oh, I missed that. Luke: Or also if you have like nine people on the call, it's just seven people listening to two people talk. Chris: Exactly. And then someone says something like way too personal and you're like, then there's the person after that who follows up with, oh geez, 4: 31 already. All right, got to go guys. Great happy hour. And then all of a sudden, two minutes later, the whole happy hour ends. And you're like, what- Aaron: There's always that one domino that's been holding the whole happy hour together. Chris: 100%. Aaron: Jim's out of here. All right, parties over, man. Fiona: Let's just say Zoom is a sad place. Aaron: It's a very sad place. Chris: Oh man. Fiona: Wow. Chris: Too true. I'm glad real happy hours, whether it's with non- alcoholic beverages or alcoholic beverages is coming back. Aaron: Well, and then also full disclosure too. It's kind of funny of us saying that because we're recording remotely at the moment and we're drinking our beverages here all on Zoom like technology. Chris: This is true. But at this time of the evening, I don't think, that's past happy hour. Is it not? Aaron: Yeah. Fiona: Yeah. Well, I want to say that part of my personal work is to destigmatize what drinking and happy hour looks like. And I hope that we can move away from it just being assumed that all beverage intake is about alcohol. I'm actually pretty proud that I can go for a beer at 8:00 AM because I drink a non alcoholic beer and it actually kicks in a nice sort of health benefit of the day. Luke: Well, you know what? I had this thought because I now have, well now five in the fridge since I just drank one. But I've never had like a beer at work at 10. And that's like, I think I might try that tomorrow. It's just going to be like a totally different experience. Right? I've had coffee, I've had tea, I've had juice and pop and all the beverages. But I've never had that like sitting at my computer, doing whatever work I'm going to be doing that day. And then just enjoying the flavor of a good beer. Fiona: Exactly. I think you're touching on the most important part about drinking anything is, does it make you feel good? Do you enjoy it? Is it pleasurable? Right? That's the whole point. Luke: Yeah. Going to save one of those for sure for tomorrow and have a little- Fiona: Yeah, and there is- Chris: Post morning Zoom meeting. Fiona: A post. Aaron: Just do it on the Zoom man, and throw everybody for a loop. Fiona: A driving beer. Chris: That's the thing though. Do you have to call it, like if it's an non- alcoholic beer, do you have to qualify if you're drinking this or pre- qualify like, hey, this is non- alcoholic beer. Some people will think you're just getting sauce at your 10: 00 AM call. Like this guy's off the handle right now. Aaron: No, but Luke has an excuse, because he's about to go on vacation and he is like, man, he's already checked out on vacation mode, isn't he? Luke: Yeah. But we have a pretty like strict no drinking at work policy at work. So yeah, it might need some disclosures and some pre- explanations if it's going to show up on a Zoom call. Chris: You probably got to sign a waiver. There's probably an online waiver for that. Aaron: Well, I'm enjoying the Bavarian lager here. The Hellis lager even. And this is like the closest I can say it is to an actual traditional full alcohol Bavarian lager. So yeah, because Hellis is one of my favorite styles there, so yeah, really enjoying this. Fiona: Awesome. Aaron: Chris, what are you drinking? And what's your review here? Chris: I am trying the traditional pale ale. And yeah, it's pretty solid. It's got some nice kind of roasty malt flavors to it. I mean, like I think most non- alcoholic beers I find they're definitely kind of lighter in the body, but a few that I've tried, like they're kind of lighter in the body and then really lacking flavor as well. That's why I've found it the few that I've tried pretty hard to get into. But this one's pretty solid. Like it's actually got a good flavor to it and is definitely like closer to the English kind of ales that I've had, either at Main Street or- Aaron: The big thing that I forgot to say about this lager is the carbonation is correct on it. Because there's been some other non- alcoholic beers that I had where it's like big thick, soda stream bubbles in there. Chris: Yeah. That's just not going to do it. Fiona: No. I was going to say just about your traditional paleo, Chris, the non- alcoholic limit is 0. 5% alcohol by volume ABV, that traditional is only, that is actually a 0. 0. And that is for folks that aren't comfortable with any ABV present in the beer. So with Nirvana, they don't do a lot of dealkalizing. They actually do most of their work in the ferment up to 0. 5% or just keeping it around that 0. 3. So that's actually pretty hard to do, to get... It's like a... They won't tell me exactly how they do it. It's pretty proprietary, but to be able to achieve the flavor that they've reached without doing any full ferment and then dealkalizing, I'd say they've put in their 10,000 hours to figure out how to make that happen. Luke: Yeah. It seems like a pretty complex process to try to achieve or kind of mimic that flavor in alcoholic beer while keeping it like under that limit. Like you mentioned. Chris: So if I'm hearing correctly, there's kind of, and I don't really know much about brewing beer, but what I'm hearing is to make non- alcoholic beer, there's kind of two approaches. You can do all your sort of flavor building before there's any sort of presence of alcohol before any of that fermentation begins or you can let it go a little higher and then take that alcohol out in one way or another. Sort of a dealkalized versus a brew up to zero. Fiona: Yeah. That's correct. And dealkalizing has been used regardless outside the non alcoholic industry as well. Sometimes we, and you would probably know this more than I do, but sometimes we ferment much higher than can be sold as a normal sessionable drinking beer. And we have to bring it back down to a five to 7%. So this happens in the wine industry as well. Some really, really deep wines will go way past 20% and that's just not conducive to anyone drinking a bottle of wine. So they will bring it back down using (inaudible) methods, vacuum distillation is usually the sort of common method, but in more recent advanced wine making methods specifically, they use spinning cone column, which we can get into later- Chris: Centrifuging. Fiona: Yeah, we can talk about that with wine, but yeah, for beer, they do a lot of dealkalizing. Luke: I had no idea that was a thing I thought with regular alcohol levels, they just, this is where it is. This is what we're going to call it, sell it. Fiona: We're going to call it a day right here. No, it's a lot of playing around. I mean, it would be kind of wild to drink a 25% ABV wine. A glass of that- Aaron: I'm just trying to remember, like what's a Fatt Doug like seven and a half. Like here comes a 13% Fatt Doug, like whoa. Night over. Fiona: Yeah, yeah. Luke: So, I'm curious with Nirvana, was this a lot of trial and error to like get that flavor and then also be able to keep it at that level? Like I imagine it took a while to try to perfect that, and then also like for the ones that are 0%, then also do the dealkalizing. Like I imagine it is probably hard to get that right the first time. Fiona: It is. Yeah. I think that's why so many good beers are made by full proof alcoholic brewers because they know what they're looking for. And they deeply understand the process. Becky and her brother over at Nirvana were beer lovers before they started brewing. It took a lot for them to, and they have sort of a beer expert on their team that they brought on as a partner early on to start to learn the process and come up with what their craft would look like. But they didn't come from, they don't have a line of full strength beer themselves to kind of compare it to. So this is all made from a lot of testing and a lot of work with a unique set of hops. But it's available in the UK, but also that lager is fully made in Germany and they bring it over once it's complete. And so they've done a lot of work to craft this up. Aaron: Right. Luke looks like you grabbed a new one there. What are you opening? Luke: I'm pretty stoked to try this stout. So that's the next one I grabbed here. Fiona: Cool. That's one of our new ones. Luke: Yeah. I see. This is a 0. 0. Fiona: This is also 0. 0. This is also gluten free. We get a lot of requests for gluten free beer. So I'm happy to have something to offer people now. So these are one of the, this is one of the first brands that we reached out to when we decided to launch the company and launch the import side of the business. So we have two kind of arms of the business. One is our import and one's our marketplace for consumers called sansorium. com. They just continually to do well in this space and we wanted to bring it to Canada. So here it is. Luke: Is your team the only distributor for them in Canada or is it like, are you distributing across Canada? Fiona: Yeah, so we were the first to bring them into Canada. We've just signed them onto a distributor in Ontario now. And they have a US distributor as well. So we represent now Manitoba and west for distribution and they now have their eastern rep. So it's great. They're growing. Aaron: But like if somebody was to go to sansoriumm. com, because we have a lot of listeners in Cornell, they could order and you ship to them. But then also if they're throughout Canada, you'll ship to them as well. Right? Fiona: That's right. We do ship across Canada. Online, there's no borders. So yeah, we have a flat rate shipping in VC for 10 bucks, no matter what size your order. Aaron: Man, (inaudible) buy it up. Luke: I'm going to have to text this all to my mom and dad. So like even if they are listening, like... Fiona: And then again, across Canada flat rate. Anybody else, 20 bucks. Aaron: So, how's that stout? Luke: It's really nice. Yeah. As I poured, it had some really nice head as well, but it's great. It's smooth. And like you said, the carbonation on... What were you drinking? The lager? Aaron: The lager, yeah. Luke: You noted the carbonation. I think this one is great too for a stout. Nice. Like chocolatey, definitely chocolatey notes. I see it's got notes of vanilla in there. That's labeled in the tasting notes on the bottle, but definitely kind of cocoa- y forward, which is definitely nice. Fiona: Glad you like it. Luke: Yeah. That's delicious. For non- alcoholic beverages in Canada. Like what are some of the other kind of big players out there? Fiona: Beer is popular. I would say everyone kind of knows that non acholic beer exists at least. And at the very least have tried one or two. We were attracted to Nirvana because it's craft in a glass bottle, which is pretty unique right now. So there's not another craft beer in Canada from what I can think of- Aaron: Alcohol free. Fiona: Alcohol free in a glass bottle. Because for us as a business, it's really great for restaurants and upper end wholesale. So we took them on for that reason. It's a great product, but also it's really good for distribution. Luke: Nice. Does Nirvana, do they do any sort of like draft business maybe in the UK? Fiona: I think it's starting. Yeah. I think it's starting. We've asked. There's just a ton of logistics involved in getting that developed out here and probably the next phase would actually be brewing in Canada for us to be able to do that. Luke: I mean, it still sounds like relatively speaking. It's a pretty untapped, pun intended, market in Canada. Fiona: Yes. It's why, totally is, which is why at the, on the weekend we were all at this big expo for health foods, Canada, basically with hundreds and hundreds of different vendors. And when I came back and I saw maybe there was probably less than 10 vendors in the non alcoholic space. I just told my community, if you're building an alt brand, keep going, because there is so much opportunity. There is so much space and there's so much demand. And the big distributors are trying to find a new non brand that they can represent. So everyone should be doing it, if you ask me. Luke: And some of the pros too is like, like you mentioned some of these brands being in like a Whole Foods. These are on the shelves in grocery stores. Whereas at least in BC, I'm not sure about the rest of Canada, but you can't buy alcohol in most grocery stores. I know there's some select cases where you can, I know like Superstore- Aaron: That's been wine too, for some things like you can't buy beer in a grocery store. Yeah. Luke: Like I was going to say Superstore in Richmond. Like they have a wine insider aisle, but I guess that's like the exception, like you mentioned. But I mean that's yeah, if you're just strolling picking up groceries and you're feeling thirsty or you want something to pair with the meal that you're about to prepare. Well, if there's a plethora of non- alcoholic beers kind of right there for you, then it's an easy selection to make, right? Chris: Yeah. That's a huge stage. And like that's essentially empty space in the shelves where you could potentially be set up for success if you do things right. Fiona: This is also back to our conversation about the difference in the UK and Australia and at west here, they've all had alcohol in their grocery stores since the beginning. Yeah. I actually can't speak for the US. I think that there are some that maybe haven't integrated- Aaron: A Washington state. Yeah. Definitely you can, it's one of the first things I used to do, it's when I'm down in the city (inaudible) excitement is go to Fred Meyers there and there's the two rows of beer fridges there. Fiona: Yeah. So that's like- Chris: You go to Walmart. Fiona: Yeah. Walmart, CVS. I think they all have it. So let's not speak for them, but certainly in Canada, Save- On foods, they've only launched in the last few years, six locations that have a fully integrated wine category, alcoholic wine category for BC wine, specifically. Some insight, I don't think it's doing too well, maybe because we've never shopped for wine inside of grocery stores and maybe people are feeling a little bit of hesitation around that. Just, I don't know, quality. Aaron: This might be a selection thing too. Fiona: Selection. Yeah. If they don't like BC wine. Aaron: Or only a certain size of a vineyard can be in there. Fiona: Yeah. We don't work with the liquor board. Non- alcoholic product goes through the food license, food and beverage license side of things. So we have a CFI license. We do not need to work the liquor board. So we can work with any retailer that wants to sell it, which is nice and easy. Aaron: And you can ship a direct to their house. Fiona: Yeah. Chris: That's awesome. Luke: I kind of want to try another one here. Aaron: All right. Luke: Trying this hoppy pale ale. It's actually, it's really good. Fiona: Certainly hoppy. Luke: Yeah. This is kind of trippy. Yeah. Aaron: The crazy thing, man is you'll go to bed and you'll be like, hey, I'm fine. And then you'll wake up in the morning. You're like, yeah, let's go. Luke: Even after drinking, I never wake up in the morning like yeah, let's go. A big time not a morning person at all. As hard as I try to be. Aaron: But no, but I'm talking about just the sluggishness of like, oh yeah, I got to go. Fiona: Yeah. There's actually so much about drinking non- alcoholic product. Like making the switch from the alcoholic version to the non- alcoholic version and the placebo effect that it has on your body, your brain and everything included. Like it's pretty wild. That's why not only are the hops giving me a little relaxation in the non alk session that we just had, or IPA. But I associate, and this is where most people I would agree actually would associate drinking a beer with relaxing. So as long as you have the association of the taste to the effect of the alcohol, your body knows what to do. It will go into a state of relaxation on the first sip, because it's got a queue. The old factory system has a queue by smelling it, your taste buds and the saliva and the secretion and everything into your gut knows how to like lower its need for digestion. It's all working together. Your cortisol goes down everything. So you can actually feel super relaxed on alcoholic beer without the ethanol. Chris: Yeah. Because it's like a learned process of the body. Fiona: And I'll even have a glass of like red wine and I'll start to feel a little flush and it's IPO. It's impossible. There's no way there's 0. 5%. My body's metabolizing that alcohol faster than I could feel any kind of effect ever. But that was what I did before. If I drank a glass of red wine that's I felt hot. I felt the sensation and a lot of people do too. And I can even manifest it too. If I wanted to, I can even make it happen now. Aaron: As you're talking about it, I get a little bit of my cheek. I was like, oh man, am I drunk? Fiona: Like behind the knees? Like if you've practiced something so many times, if your body has practiced something so many times it can do it again, just from muscle memory. Aaron: Now I don't really want to put any particular company on blast, but I do find this funny because I was in Whistler over the weekend and- Luke: You're preempting that. But like assuming this is followed by putting said company on blast. Aaron: No, no, no, no. Fiona: No names. Okay. Aaron: No names. Okay. Trying to be friendly here. But there was a great non- alcoholic beer selection up in Whistler over the weekend and something caught my eye. So keep in mind, this is a non- alcoholic beer. And it's called a session IPA. They've called it a session IPA. And I'm like, well I know you sell a regular IPA. So what's different about this session IPA. They both don't have alcohol in it. Luke: How much more sessionable can it get in? Aaron: Yeah. Luke: And did you try it? Aaron: It's fantastic. But it's just like guys, I mean, this name doesn't make sense. So because session IPA is, for anybody that isn't aware, is because generally IPAs are above 5% alcohol and then the session IPAs are below 5%. So the thing is this company makes both a quote, regular IPA and a quote IPA. And it's like, well what's the difference? They're both alcohol free. Luke: Have you tried both of those? Aaron: I have. Yeah. They're both great. Luke: You've obsessed. Aaron: There's different hops in both of them. Fiona: Different hops. Yeah. Dial a friend. Luke: I mean this, this non- alcoholic brewery is not solely to blame here when it comes to just random names and making up styles for beer. Like I feel like- Aaron: They should have just called it a unicorn beer or something. Luke: ... that is flagging the craft beer industry everywhere, like just random names and making up styles for beer. Like this is kind of, we could probably find like a very heated Reddit forum on this. If you have, if you want to go into like a black hole for seven days, I'm sure you could find enough content to do it. There's somebody angry, just smashing their keyboard now about why a milkshake IPA you should be banned from all- Aaron: I think a milkshake idea should be banned for many reasons. So anyway, we've talked a lot about beer, but you had a major event recently in Vancouver's first alcohol free wine tasting night. How did that go? And what was the event for? Fiona: Yes, that was our first wine tasting night. It went really, really well. We had 70 tickets sell out in a few days, which we underestimated- Aaron: And more on a wait list. Fiona: And we wait listed people. Yeah. So obviously there was some interest and we barely put the word. I thought I'd have to do a lot more marketing than that, but thankfully didn't, everybody showed up, which was great. We have- Aaron: Sorry to interrupt, but I will say big difference that I noticed, because I was at the event is alcohol free, everybody was on time. They were punctual. Like the event was ready to go like 20 minutes before it was, everybody was there like 20 minutes beforehand. And you had to text your virtual guest to be like, yo, okay. We started early. Fiona: I know I gave everybody an hour to show up and they showed up all before seven. I had like two stragglers at 7: 45. Sorry six. Yeah. 6: 45. It was a bit much. Aaron: Yeah, everybody was like in their seats ready to go at 6: 30 and it's like, whoa. Okay. Fiona: So keen. Yeah. We had to text- Luke: Let's ease into this. Fiona: Let's ease in. No, our guest was in Australia and in at the vineyard sort of out in the fields and I had to like draw him back in somehow from over text to get online. Anyway, it went really well. To my best knowledge and we kind of did a little bit of research, there hasn't been an alcohol free wine tasting night like that in Canada maybe, or they haven't published it. But essentially we had 25, 30 different wines that you could taste that night. So every bottle was opened. We talked about one collection in particular because it was the launch in Canada for Edenvale Australia's most decorated alcohol free wine. And then we opened up all of the other bottles that we normally carry on Sansorium. So folks could come and try everything and buy it at the same time. And we would give you sort of tasting notes and profiles on each of the wines. We'd answer questions about how dealkalized wine is made a real opportunity. There's been definitely some unfortunate alcohol free wine made in the past and has left some people with a little bit of apprehension about purchasing or trying new alcohol free wine. Our hope from that event was to bust some myths and really get people onto finding a new one that they really enjoyed. But yeah, the goal was to launch, primarily was to launch Edenvale, and success. We did it. It's in the world now it's in Canada. They've been around for a long time. So it's really great to have them in Canada now. Luke: Yeah. I'd be, now as you described this, I'd be super curious to try some of the wines that you and your team carry, because I must admit, I do have a bad association with non alcohol with alcohol free wine. Just because I'm sure the ones that I've had many years back were just not the good ones. They definitely were not the good ones. Fiona: Yeah. I don't blame you. That's actually what kind of catalyzed us into getting into the business in the first place was our love for wine. I don't have a huge relationship with alcohol. So wine isn't at the top of my priorities, but I actually started enjoying alcohol free wine much more than I did the alcoholic version because I felt free to have life around it. I'm fairly allergic to alcohol and to its effects. So drinking alcohol free wine means I can drive where I want to go. I can feel myself. I can act myself. I can get up the next day, go for a run. Look after my daughter, blah, blah, blah. Everything. Life is just kind of, for me, a little bit easier. And the pleasure of the beverage is actually more at the forefront for me in terms of profile, tasting notes, just overall experience. I'm not kind of negotiating and battling with the ethanol and the beverage to get the honest expression of what's trying to come through in that varietal. I'm just tasting it as it is. So that's where wine kind of came up for us as the priority. You will have had some bad experiences because the technology wasn't that great to bring alcoholic wine down to alcohol free, they were really great at bringing some of the alcohol out with the technology that they had, but certainly not taking it down to zero. And what happens when you take out ethanol, which is a very powerful molecule at holding flavor and body and profile and notes and everything we're looking for and depth, it goes with the ethanol. So you're left with this watery version of a grape. Luke: Right. And I imagine too, the the market and the demand for these products is changing now. But years back when I might have tried these wines, those were probably sitting on the shelf for quite a while, too, a the grocery store. So all, everything you've just described, plus give it four or five months sitting on the top of a shelf in a store that's fluctuating by 10 degrees every night when the everybody goes home. Fiona: You're right. Luke: Probably not a good product in the end. Aaron: Because just thinking about this, like how you said, how there's like a non fermenting process with some of the beers that you have for us, you can't just do that with wine either because it's just grape juice. So does all wine have to go through that fermentation process and then have the alcohol removed? Fiona: Yeah. Yeah. So the way you make alcohol free wine starts at the same way you make alcoholic wine. So you'll have very unique varietal vineyards, you'll have different harvesting schedules. You'll have different years that the grapes were picked, different regions so we can kind of go through the same terwar conversation about wine that we for alcoholic wine, as we would for alcohol free wine. After it's been harvest, after it's been fermented there's one step at the end, kind of a complicated, long step, but there is another step that dealkalizes the wine. The tricky thing though, is that those brands probably didn't realize where they were losing the profile, where they were losing body, where they were losing notes and where they were losing that length and where they were losing... If they wanted a dry red, they weren't sure where they were losing it. Edenvale have done a ton of research and discovered where in the process they were losing all of that, all that, all those characteristics and figured out how to put it back into the wine. So not only are they dealkalizing, they're deconstructing the wine, figuring that out, bringing back some of the varietal, grape must back into it. And then kind of re- crafting the wine at the end before you taste it. So it's quite laborious. It's not, it's not cheap. They've invested almost $ 4 million in their technology to be able to do this. And they've been working on it since 2006. So this isn't for anyone to just start and think they will nail it the first time it does take a lot of work. Chris: I mean, when you describe this, I kind of feel like when you describe when you call a product something free, like it almost sounds at the surface it's losing something or it's a negative. Like that's the connotation I kind of previously had towards it. But then you describe all of the work that goes into removing the alcohol from one of these products. And it's just as craft as an alcoholic wine or in the case of the beer we've been drinking the same thing. So I feel like they've kind of had to like alcoholic free products have been at this disadvantage, I think just from like a branding, right? Do you think that calling something alcoholic free does more harm than good in some cases, whereas like would you ever, at some point call it, not even call it beer or call it wine, call it something completely unique. For example, I mean, we tried a kind of elixir on one of our previous podcasts, which one of the things we talked about when we were drinking, drinking it, is you go into it with zero expectations because you're not comparing it to a previous experience or a previous beer or a previous wine. And you come out of it being like, just simply this is a good product. And if I tried say one of these, if they weren't even called alcohol free beers, but I just tried one of these and enjoyed it and said, oh, this tastes delicious. Like maybe I would be less inclined to have a negative connotation towards it being alcohol free/ Aaron: As you say that, Chris, like, it kind reminds me of when the first gluten free products were hitting the market too. I kind of feel like there was a stigma and they were just assumed to be bad. Because they're missing something. But like now there's great gluten free products. It just takes a while for people to figure it out. Fiona: Well, what this actually arises is our cultural value placed on alcohol, not so much the beverage. So we perceive alcohol by ways of exceptional marketing to believe that drinking alcohol is the superior experience over not drinking alcohol. That's why we have them. Aaron: You can't just have a soda, it's a rum and soda or anything. Fiona: Yeah. Or that's why down the stream, just drinking a juice or a carbonated beverage when you go out for drinks is not as cool as drinking an alcoholic beverage and why people kind of poke fun at the person who's not drinking that night. They are still drinking something. You just perceive them to be drinking something of less value. Aaron: The good time drink. Fiona: Right. Yeah. So alcohol companies have done wonders for creating a vision for alcohol. That's partially true and a lot untrue. I mean, if you look at actually what the scene is that you see when you look at an (inaudible) ad, you'll see the beautifully dressed people, you'll see the wonderful sunshine or the greatly dressed up table. Aaron: I've yet to have a yacht arrive outside my place when I've been drinking. Fiona: We're all in bikinis, right? We all- Chris: Maybe you're just drinking the wrong thing. Fiona: We're all cheersing, but there's never, ever in the history of alcohol, been a scene shown of the person hung over in bed or puking after drinking too much of that whiskey or whatever that rum or getting into a fight with their spouse. I mean, we've pushed that into comedy. We've pushed that into film and TV, but those brands are not owning that scene. But that's partially true, if not more true than the yacht with the bikini and the blah, blah, blah. Right? Chris: Yeah. Fiona: So they've done a great job at selling it to us. Chris: That's interesting how you say all of those obvious negatives of it have not been seen as negatives by society. They have been seen as essentially comedic effect, right? Like so many people have had nights out where they've gone almost blackout drunk, if not blackout drunk, thrown up, done something stupid, and then you get made fun of, and it's like- Aaron: We all laugh at that guy the next day. Chris: Yeah. It's so much more like, it kind of has like a slapstick comedic feel before it has any sort of serious feel to it. And it makes it so much easier to just go back and do that again, because there is that support and acceptance from society of those actions and that scene that happened. But yeah, I was going to say like the contrast between ads and then just like, I mean, I haven't been down there for quite a while, but what a Saturday night on Grounds street looks like at two in the morning, just madness. Luke: But that goes back to kind of what you've mentioned has been ingrained in our culture. And in advertising and in film and in TV like, if you're not having it, you're missing out on the good time. Or you're not creating those stories that you can tell the next day to your friends and have a laugh about. Like it is odd that is what gets celebrated and often encourages people to keep doing it. Fiona: And not to go down into the underbelly of it, but to touch on it. If you are using alcohol to cope with social anxiety or depression or lack a lackluster life, and someone else is not joining you in that coping mechanism, you desperately want them to, because it makes you feel better. It makes you feel more normalized in your choice to use alcohol to do that. So we're grasping at the comradery of drinking to cope while not recognizing our own relationship with alcohol, that's actually problematic. Then we, then we use comedy to make fun of people, which is wildly accepted for me, at least it was experience of being guilted into drinking for a long time, even though I didn't want to. And I would fake it at bars all the time with water shots and beautiful looking, not I'll call it cocktails by bartenders that knew the secret, but would my friend just to avoid the mockery from people and, or just the pressure, even if they weren't mocking me just the pressure to drink. And I didn't want to. Luke: Because that's not fun for, for anybody. Right? Fiona: Right. No. Luke: Yeah. And hopefully- Fiona: It's so un- inclusive. Chris: Absolutely. Aaron: Nine times out of 10, you never have fun when you're pressured into something. Fiona: Totally. Chris: Yeah. Fiona: Yeah. I'd love to see a world where we go out and it's not assumed that you are drinking alcohol and it's an inclusive environment that invites everyone to have choice. And that includes folks that are known to regularly drink alcohol, to take a night off and not feel the pressure to uphold their old image and to create a new image for themselves because there's ample opportunity to find joy in not drinking. There's ample opportunity to find your innate expression of joy in not drinking alcohol. Aaron: It's completely fine to do so. And it's not like we have to kill a puppy if you don't have a drink when you go out. So yeah. Fiona: Yeah. Luke: Yeah. I mean, I think it to nudge people in that direction and feeling okay to not have an alcoholic drink, and it starts with having to have other options. Because if you're going out with people and you're saying, you're telling yourself, I'm not going to have a beverage tonight. And then you get to the place where everyone's going to have drinks and they've got zero non- alcoholic options and it's pretty much I'm having soda or I'm having water. Well, then it becomes a pretty tough decision for, I think said individual, but if you're actually- Aaron: Because we got water at home. Luke: Exactly. But if you have solid non- alcoholic beer options or, I mean, one thing I've seen a lot more at restaurants now is a lot of effort actually put into like a curated mocktail list. And you know, I, myself don't even really notice that much because I definitely lean towards having an alcoholic drink if I'm going out. But my wife, Sabrina, she doesn't drink a ton and we have friends that also don't drink a ton. So like they are looking at those lists and then I'll take a sip of her drink. I'll be like, wow, that's actually, that's good. Like that's a really good cocktail without the alcohol. So there are places that are doing it, but I feel like it's still pretty early, like in that kind of world of this becoming mainstream. Aaron: I've been noticing a lot more places that have non- alcoholic beer and done been more non- alcoholic options other than kombucha. Fiona: We sell a ton of spirits. It's a big part of our business. The non- alcoholic kind, both wholesale to restaurants and bars and cafes and the customers. Luke: Fiona, what's your opinion on like, Vancouver's, non- alcoholic like cocktail scene and like where are there any places you would recommend that are doing a really good job. Fiona: Yeah. Luke: Do you think there's enough options out there for, kind of at this stage in the, I don't know if we want be weird to call it like a Renaissance of non- alcoholic product? Fiona: Yeah. I like that a lot, for sure. Luke: Do you think we're at a good stage in Vancouver and it's kind of growing in a direction and a pace that's satisfying or to see? Or do you kind of see some pretty big holes in gaps that you wish were filled? Fiona: Yeah. I mean, if you, if you went around and did a survey of the number of restaurants that have an integrated non- alcoholic cocktail menu with their cocktail menu, it's very low for a long time. People have had mocktails that are maybe like a lime and soda bitters kind of option, or like a fruit mixer and some some bubbly they've kind of just lightly departed from the Shirley Temple and called it something else. Which is super sad, because that's the '90s, folks, let's get on board. But I'm kind of in the bubbles. So I don't go to places anymore that don't really have great options. So I could list off a bunch of places for you. And we have them on our website where you can find products or restaurants that carry our products. So Nemesis cafe, if you go to their dinner series, you can get wine and beer from us. If you go to Night Shade and restaurant, they're a new plant based upscale restaurant. They do an exceptional cocktail menu. There's a new sushi bar that just opened up in Grandville Island that carries a lot of our stuff. Surac on Main street carries our stuff from wine and liquor. And they have an amazing cocktail bar too. it's interesting, I talk to a lot of... I'm a previous restaurant owner as well, and I love talking to bartenders and people that kind of come up with bar menus and the interview process for a new bartender is to ask them to make a good non- alcoholic cocktail. That's how if they're a good bartender, because it's very hard. It's very easy to put a splash of any spirit and a bit of mixer in a class and call it a cocktail. It's not when you're working with a product that needs craftmanship. So that's the test. Aaron: Alcohol does conceal a lot in drink. Luke: I'm kind of curious. Do you think like what is it going to take to, I guess, move the needle and see more bars and restaurants start to offer more diverse non- alcoholic cocktail, beer, wine kind of line? Do you see that needing to come from the restaurants and bars themselves? Or do you think it's also part on consumers asking for it and talking to the bartender, talking to servers and saying why don't you have this? This is something that I'm interested in. I would pay for. Or is it kind of a mix of both? And then even, I mean, yourself on the like distributor side talking to restaurants and obviously trying to get your products into these restaurants and bars, is it kind of the trifecta of every everyone having to have that discussion to get to a better place? Fiona: Yeah. It certainly makes my job easier if someone and a bunch of people have been chirping at a bar for a while and I finally come along and say, " Hey, do you feel like you want a..." and they're like, yes, finally someone's arrived. I can answer all my customer's needs because I knew that if I did none of the customer education and I came up to a bar and they said, no, no one's ever asked, then they're not going to want to pull the product in. No one wants to pay for it. No one wants to make a new menu. No one wants to have storage of a product. That's not moving. Restaurant space is very expensive and very valuable. So why would they take up a product that's not being asked for? So certainly makes my job easier to first reach consumers and then make them go do the asking. And I'll just show up at the end and with the magic list of product that they could buy. Having conversations like this. This is the way that you are asking questions and the way that you're, I can see little light bulbs going off about certain things that we've never maybe looked at before together. I have a feeling that after this conversation, you'll probably go on to the next one and drop a couple notes that we talked about today and that will change that person's opinion potentially. And then it kind of unfolds from there. That's my belief. But I sit in, I truly believe, in education and this goes back to where me and Aaron first met is these long form media conversations are really deeply and powerful. Aaron: I don't think I actually mentioned that. Yeah. We've worked on a podcast. That's something we first originally met. Yeah. Fiona: That's how we first met actually was on a podcast producing together. I think those conversations, these make a difference. So I tend to have a lot of these and see a lot of people impacted by them. Aaron: And it's just awareness too, because I've had to ask the staff because like you said, like printing, printing, new menus. Like I look and there's like no options, but then I ask somebody and they're like, oh yeah, we got this in the back and pull it out. I was in a bar downtown and it had this big U shaped bar. And they brought me the non- alcoholic beer poured in glass and I kept the can there. And I just noticed everybody was looking at me and they're just like, oh, what's that? And they started asking the bartender and then within a half hour, there's at least 30 seats around this U and I'd say 10 people had the non- alcoholic beer that I was having. So I think it's just awareness and exposure. And some of them actually ordered a few more rounds of the non alcoholic beer. Fiona: Nice. Luke: So Aaron, you're just a taste maker. Chris: Like you just got accepted buddy. Fiona: You're an influencer. Luke: You got that clothing. Aaron: Yeah. Chris: Oh, it's that guy. He knows the good stuff. Fiona: Well, that's a really, if they were drinking foolproof before- Aaron: Yeah. They were. Yeah. Fiona: Well it's so nice to be able to have one foolproof, one zero. One full, one zero and come out only having two rounds of alcohol, but you had four delicious beers. That's a great evening. If you ask me. Luke: That's a great point too, because we feel like we've kind of chatted about either drinking or not drinking and it doesn't have to be like that. Like exactly. You could- Aaron: It's not all one of all the other, yeah. Luke: I've definitely had nights where I've had four beers and the last one I was like, I don't think I've really... I just wanted something to drink because everybody's standing around with something and you don't- Aaron: But you don't want to be standing there with nothing in your hand at the same time. Luke: Yeah. Chris: Luke, are you maybe speaking to go big or go home episode? Luke: Yeah, absolutely. Aaron: Go back in the archives and listen to that. That was a lot of fun. Well, I mean, it was fun at the time. It was a- Luke: Oh it was really fun at the time. But mixing in- Chris: A couple non alcoholic in between- Luke: May have helped us out a little bit there. Fiona: Well, ultimately we all just want to wake up and feel good, right? Chris: Yes, exactly. Fiona: We don't want one night to ruin the next day. That's the goal. Chris: Yeah. Luke: Maybe there doesn't have to be teams, right? It's not- Chris: We're drinking, you're not sort of thing. Fiona: No, I know. Chris: Like we're all in this together and we're all, I mean, I think it's important to like what we touched on. Like if you're drinking to cope with certain things, you're looking for others to support you in that by doing the same thing. But maybe that support needs to happen in a different fashion. And that needs to include open conversations and the acceptance of either doing half, half or all one, one night or all the other, whatever, but just kind of that support and awareness of what you're doing. And like you touched on, Fiona, your relationships with alcohol and then also with the people in your life with alcohol included in those. And how is that shaping your life and is that shaping it into to what you want it to be? Aaron: And yeah, at the end of it, we're not saying don't have fun. Don't enjoy yourself. But there are options for you to be healthy and still enjoy yourself as well. Fiona: I really hope, I think people will see how fun they actually can be without the alcohol. That to me is like true next level empowerment. Aaron: Yeah. That uncle at the wedding will actually be a good dancer instead of thinking he's a good dancer. Luke: And it's fun too. Like from somebody that like, I drink alcohol, but last year, geez, I guess almost a year and a half ago now when my wife was pregnant with our now nine month old daughter. We have a nice little mid- century tea bar cabinet in our living room. And we kind of pride ourselves on these little Christmas cocktail parties that we used to do a few years back. I have a good friend that's really into cocktail making and we would kind of get together and put a little menu together. So we have kind of a little cocktail culture in our sort of family and circle. But when she was pregnant, we started making some non- alcoholic options for cocktails. And we bought some Lumette and some seed lip and started kind of going into those options for her sake. But her sake turned into my sake too. And we both enjoyed those. And I kind of made variations on cocktails where I just kind of subbed out the gin for the Lumette at the time. And like that stuff is good and it's not, and I think we chatted about this couple podcasts ago, and Chris you touched on it now, too, but like you don't necessarily have to, and it's easier with spirits, I think, but you don't have to compare it to gin. You don't have to compare it to vodka. It can just be what it is too. And if maybe if you take that expectation off of it, there's some potential to maybe look at it in a different light and increase that enjoyment with it as well. And I must say like, we made some pretty tasty cocktails and she definitely enjoyed them. And I definitely had a few as well and enjoyed them likewise. Fiona: Go you. Look at you, you already know more than I do. Aaron: Well, I mean, that was a lot of wisdom. You did jump on us, but I think it is time for the actual segment of Luke's moments of wisdom. So Luke, this week, what is your moment of wisdom? Luke: My Wednesday word of wisdom, I guess today would be, pardon the alliteration, watch out for the weight of water probably. I had a friend over last weekend and my wife had just gone to value village and she bought a bag of like little building blocks, like the plastic ones, like the big, essentially big Lego. And they came in a bag and it was probably like a reusable shopping bag's worth. And she was like, oh, I'm just going to give these a quick rinse before we give them to our daughter. So she pulled out like a laundry basket, but one that doesn't have holes in the sides. It's just like a solid laundry basket. And it's got two little handles on it and she filled it with water and dumped those blocks in there. It was quite a nice day out, I think. And she was going to go kind of rinse them off on the patio. So she asked said friend to bring him over to the patio. And as he lifted it, the handles ripped off and we ended up with about 30 or 40 liters of water, just kind of racing through our hallway, in our apartment, through the hardwood floor. So we were all scrambling and panicking. Chris: Doesn't sound like it doesn't sound like it was the friend's fault though. Not like I'm speaking from experience, but doesn't sound like. It sounds like he was just trying to like lend a hand. Luke: I think (inaudible) , yeah, I think the friend should have known to lift from the bottom. I think the friend should have been (inaudible) the handles. Chris: I think if the friend had had a few non- alcoholic beers prior, he may have thought through the lifting technique a little more thoroughly. Fiona: So the metaphor here is... Chris: Don't drink before cleaning your mega blocks is kind of like the big takeaway today. Luke: Water's heavy. Chris: I will say watching Luke and Brooke react to this water, kind of just flowing throughout the entire apartment was quite the experience. Because I kind of just stood there, like did this actually just break and like, oh God, this is bad. And within like two seconds, I had an entire closet worth of towels thrown in my direction. Like the response time. I don't know if you guys are, if Luke and Brooke are practicing their earthquake response or earthquake drills or what, but they just went into like, they knew what do immediately. And within like two minutes, I think Luke had unscrewed all of the baseboards in the house. He had the washing machine ripped out from underneath. They were looking for any minor beak. I now know all the details about the concrete that were under the flooring and how it will be fine. It was quite the- Fiona: You were apocalypse ready. Chris: They were totally ready. I felt so unprepared in life. After watching that, I'm like, if I spill this amount, I'm just moving. Just leave. I'm walking out, handing the key to my building manager and just saying, you know what? It's just not working out anymore. Fiona: No, I'm out. Aaron: Had a good run. I'm going to start a new life in a new apartment. Chris: Yeah. I've got like the stick with like a little pillow case with a couple pairs of (inaudible) . Fiona: No underwear, just left with the essentials. Chris: Yeah. Yep. Yep. Fiona: Oh my goodness. That was a funny story. Well done, Chris, now that we know it was you. Luke: Needless to say those were not cleaned on the patio, those were brought to, I think the bathtub, for we realize afterwards that we have a bathtub we can do this in. Fiona: Yeah. Luke: Instead of the- Aaron: (inaudible) did Chris also lift the bathtub? Luke: Sorry? Chris: I said, I was also asked to leave. Aaron: No, I was asking, was Chris asked to lift the bathtub? Luke: No, we knew what he was capable of after that. Yeah. All jokes aside, Chris, I think we set you up for failure with that handle. I inspected it after, I'm like, oh my God, these things. They were already cracked. Because we have another one of those laundry baskets and it's just hanging on by a thread as well. And that one's only had like socks and dirty underwear in it. Aaron: How heavy are these blocks- Luke: 400 pounds of water. Fiona: Just wear and tear- Luke: Plastic just disintegrates. Aaron: Thank you, Fiona, for being our guest today and providing the beverages. I will say I've gotten into this stout here and this stout is- Luke: It's nice. Aaron: ... pretty bloody fantastic. Fiona: I'm glad you like that. Luke: Yeah. Thank you very much. I'm looking forward to my morning beer tomorrow. Fiona: You can take it in the car with you if you'd like. Luke: Yeah. Chris: Luke, even with a non- alcoholic beer, I feel like that's a weird hump to get over. Just like cracking it and like plugging in, firing off your morning podcast for the commute and just cracking a non- alcoholic stout. Like that's a mental barrier I feel like you'd still have to get over. Luke: Well, I'm working from home tomorrow, so it doesn't have to happen on the sky train or anything. Chris: We might have to start morning happy hour though, Luke. Little 8: 00 AM. Luke: Should we do it on Zoom? Chris: If it's just us two, I feel like it might go okay. Not like 30 other people. Fiona: You can just ping pong back and forth with each other's vulnerable stories. Chris: Exactly. Aaron: All right. Fiona, where can the people go to get the beverages that we talked about and wine and spirits and all that? Fiona: Yeah. They can go to sansorium.com, S-A-N-S-O-R- I- U- M dot com. And find us on Instagram at Sansorium. And you will be able to follow along when we launch new products or events, which are always really fun. Aaron: Get on the events early because- Fiona: They sell out quickly. Aaron: Yeah. Fiona: And I tend to dabble on Twitter and TikTok sometimes if you frequent those spaces. And that is it. Aaron: All right. Chris: Thanks so much for, for the beers and crash course in the industry. I feel like I learned a lot today. Luke: Yeah. It was a great conversation. Aaron: It's nice when we bring people on who know things. I mean, we need to redo that coffee episode. Luke: Oh my God. Yeah. Chris: Imagine if we tried to do this episode just ourselves. Aaron: Oh yeah. Chris: So I mean, you lost me at what was the something tunnel centrifusion. Like if we started talking about centrifusion here, we would've lost some people, even the (inaudible) listeners would have tuned out by then. Aaron: And then they get the alcohol out? They just go bipity, bopity, boo and it's gone. Fiona: Thanks for having me. It was really a pleasure talking to you. Chris: Cheers. Likewise.
