If Life is a Game, How will YOU Win - Rocco (Tama Tea Co.)

Excited to share a new episode of the Whiskey & Wisdom podcast featuring special guest Rocco Quaranto, co-owner of Tama Tea Co.! 🎙️ In this episode, Rocco shares insights on entrepreneurship and finding your path in life. Tune in for some great conversation and a special tasting of the new Tama Tea flavors! 🥃 #WhiskeyandWisdomPodcast #Entrepreneurship #TamaTea #NewEpisode

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Transcript

Tyler: 0:31

Welcome back to the Whiskey Muslim Podcast, everyone. Today you have myself. I am Tyler, y'all, with my co-host Chris Kellum, and our special guest for this evening is

Rocco: 0:42

My name's Rocco Carto,

Tyler: 0:45

and Rocco is one of the co-owners

Rocco: 0:47

of Tamati. That's right. That's right.

Chris: 0:50

So being the

Rocco: 0:52

co-owner? Yeah. Co-founder. Co-owner. Okay. However you wanna say

Chris: 0:56

it. I mean, I just think you're pretty awesome. You did bring us a few things. He brought us some of the new Tamma tea flavors. Yeah. And we are gonna try something a little bit later. Yeah.

Tyler: 1:08

Try something brand new, never done

Rocco: 1:10

before. Yeah. So you guys have be like in the top 15 of human beings to ever even try the, the ginger mate, which we just launched this week. Oh nice. Pretty stoked about. That's exciting.

Tyler: 1:22

Yeah. I love anything with ginger in it, so I'm just super excited about that in

Rocco: 1:25

general right now. Yeah. My wife thinks I'm a psychopath cuz like I'll just cut up ginger root and just like chew on it. I mean, that will wake you up. I hear

Chris: 1:32

that. It's like what you should do instead of like

Rocco: 1:34

just, it is aggressive, but I mean, it'll keep you awake so cheap. Like a little thing of ginger root, you know, just get it from the grocery store. It was like a couple bucks. Oh. And you only need like a little sliver of it. Just chew on that. Wake you up full of good stuff. I never even thought about

Tyler: 1:50

that before. Yeah. I guess that's, that's the original way of doing it. Right?

Rocco: 1:53

I'm glad I could be here guys. That was fun. Yeah.

Tyler: 1:56

I got all the one that we need for the

Rocco: 1:57

day.

Chris: 1:59

We grew ginger in our backyard. Like we, our family friend gave us a plant and we put it in a big old pot and it grew, I want to say like 12 stalks last summer. Wow. And then I haven't watered it enough this year. So I'm afraid it might

Rocco: 2:16

not survive and it's such a weird looking plant root, you know? Yeah. We just took photos of it just posted on Instagram, so yeah. Thomas tco a little shout out, but like, taking picture of ginger root just looks like weird, decrepit old man fingers. Yeah. Like, it just, it's not a cute ingredient to take photos of.

Chris: 2:34

No. I'm like, I don't know what would

Rocco: 2:37

make it look pretty. No, we tried, but I mean, that's why we had, if you see our latest Instagram posts, you add space shuttles, that's what we chose. That was the route we chose. That's the obvious. That one in space. I was gonna say, why not? That's the obvious route.

Tyler: 2:51

There was no other option.

Rocco: 2:54

Okay. I didn't see one.

Tyler: 2:55

Right. See, tell us a little bit more about yourself too and kind of how you went down the road of this is kind of, I. For everyone in Wilmington that already knows kind of an entrepreneur in Wilmington. But kind of tell us the road that you went down to start the business that you started before and how you got into Tom and t.

Rocco: 3:11

Sure. Yeah. Graduated from U N C W graduated in 2008. So we were, I was one of the first classes of the entrepreneurship and business development program, so Nice. Also known as the E B D program. Yes. At Cameron School of Business. And and a lot of folks from our class are doing some really cool stuff. So my two business partners at the Fuzzy Peach, which we started mm-hmm. Was Jason and Wells. So Jason nta and Wells Dral. And the three of us were kind of sick. We graduated in oh eight in a recession, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm selling copiers, you know, like, Hey, Mr. Small business owner, I know how we can save you some money and. One sent per copy on this new copier. It's gonna save you some cash. You need to buy this$4,000 copier. Right? Yeah. It was tough. Long story short Yeah. Selling copiers in a recession, but, and so we were texting, emailing, calling each other daily looking for ideas. Mm-hmm. And we must have gone through hundreds of ideas. Stuff that's stupid. Yeah. To stuff that I was like, oh, we should have done that. And everything from car wash to one of the really crazy ones was we were gonna make frozen bananas. So basically like a frozen dessert company Oh, wow. And all online, so like, shipping with dry ice and stuff of like chocolate covered bananas with nuts and different things like that. It was a whole thing. Sounds so good right now. Yeah. It sounds great, huh? Right. And so then, Frozen here came up. We had saw it starting to open up on the west coast. Yeah. And there was nothing like it on the East coast at all at the time. The self-serve frozen here. That is, yeah. And so we're like, well, cuz at the time we're right outta college. It's not like we have a ton of cash in our pocket either, you know? No. You know, you're in finance. Banks gotta lend money to a bunch of college kids with a stupid idea. So we're like, what can we do with a little bit of coin scratched together? And so we came up with Frozen Eric Shop and so we opened up our first one named it the Fuzzy Peach on, on Racing Drive right outside of uw. Mm-hmm. So we're right out of school a year or so out of school, we know. How, how college we, like, we know the mind of a college student. Mm-hmm. We had recent graduates, and so it was perfect. You know, we, we knew exactly who our customer was, how to talk to them, what was trendy, you know, at the, we were doing like flash mob videos. Oh, yeah.

Tyler: 5:38

You know, like, I forgot

Rocco: 5:39

to Yeah. It was about that time. Yeah. We were doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Like the, if you walked into the, the store at the time it was like a party. Yeah. If, if, if, if that store was open, it was blasting techno music, probably. Oh, yeah. You know? Yeah. Just full blast. You know, we blessed, we, we busted through some speakers, so it was fun time, you know? Mm-hmm. And, and yeah. And it was successful, which made it even more fun. Right. So we opened up a second store, third store. Fourth, fifth in Wilmington. Right. And we saw that it was, you know, it had some legs, it was working. Yeah. You know? Sure. All five stores were, were exciting and so, The idea was, well we could franchise this, this idea. And we went back and forth because the franchise, like lawyers and, and folks that kind of at the time put it, you know, that we saw to put it together. I mean it was in the ballpark of like 80 to a hundred thousand dollars to like do it. Wow. To like make it a package that's a sellable franchise entity, you know, legally. Yeah. And creatively. And so the way we looked at it is divide that by three, there's three of us. It's basically like$30,000 for us to get like a MBA in business that we wouldn't be able to pay for. Yeah. And so we were like, well, worst case scenario, we just got a lot of experience. Mm-hmm. And so we rolled the dice, went for it, had nothing to lose anyways. Mm-hmm. This was before any of us had kids or you know, wives or anything. And so actually scratch that. Wells was married, Wells married Wells married right outta school. And I had a serious girlfriend that's now my wife and I have three kids. Right. Congrats. That's awesome. Yeah. And and same with Jason. He met his, his girlfriend, now wife with multiple kids as well, so yeah. That's good. But yeah, so it was, it was a crazy time and, and luckily it worked out. We opened up about 20 locations across the country. Wow. And we had another 20 in development. And then what we, we saw the. The, the inevitable where a lot of folks that just saw an interesting investment opportunity mm-hmm. Were just like, well, I got some cash, this thing's kind of working. And they'd go to other frozen yogurt shops and you'd have frozen yogurt shops like opening up next door to another one. Oh, wow. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. It's, there's just not enough to go around. And so supply kept going up and going up and going up. Demand was still there, but you know, if demand dipped, the bottom's gonna fall off. Right. Which it did. Right. It wasn't as cool or trendy. And it dipped. But we had seen the writing on the wall. And so there was a, there was a na a publicly traded company. You swirl excuse me, you swirl is owned by Rocky Mountain. Rocky Mountain. Chocolate factory. Oh, okay. Yeah. That's the public trade company. Yeah. And so Yu Swrl is a fresh, generic company, and, and they were buying concepts that are about their, our size. And they had reached out to us a year or two earlier and we're like you know, thanks, you know, I appreciate the, you know, you guys reaching out. There was no official offer, but they had reached out. Right. And then we followed back up and we're like, Hey, you know, you know what's going on? And so they ended up pur purchasing us. Wow. With 20 locations open and another 20 in development. And, and from there, you know, it's kind of sad that they didn't open up the other 20 and, and make it more successful. They kind of just, I don't know. I feel like it could have been more. Right. You know, but

Tyler: 9:15

Yeah. That's interesting. So after that, your that entrepreneur bug was still kind of grabbing at you guys and started the next one. Is that kinda how that worked? Or how'd that, how'd that

Rocco: 9:24

play out? Yeah, I mean, at, that's, it's, it's not like, you know, We made millions of dollars and then, you know, buy our figure eight house and set sale. You know, we, that wasn't the case. You know, we made a little bit of coin. That was nice. But, you know, immediately back to work, you know, we didn't have a quote unquote victory lap or anything. Right. And so after that actually was, I did a handful of things actually. Oh, okay. Was involved in a, in a baby bottle company, even before I had any kids. And then there was a, a medical device company that, that they asked me to be president of for a little bit because it was kind of a startup. Yeah. Oh, okay. So not exactly on the medical device expertise, but the startup expertise. And so, you know, that was fun. That was unique. Lot, lot of learning on my end there. That was a great little business. And yeah, that was a, that was a fun one. And then, Wells and I were, were, were still kind of, you know, looking at different things to do and had a, had a look like consulting company. We had started, we actually called it Raw Growth. Oh, okay. That makes sense. Acronym stands for Rocco and Wells. Yeah. Still have that little company. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Then we do a little bit of consulting on the side. Is that for

Tyler: 10:41

like franchising and stuff? More

Rocco: 10:42

than anything? Some companies that are interested in franchises we've done some consulting with and stuff on the side. It's nothing like, it's nothing that we advertise or have a website or anything. It's kind of just something that, you know, if, if, if we're presented opportunities to talk to people that are cool and with our worth our time. Right. That, that we would like talking to. Yeah. And we think that they would get value from us, you know? Right. We're not actively like, in sales mode trying to get clients type of thing. Sure. But we've had some cool people to talk to along

Tyler: 11:10

the way. Yeah. It's interesting too, when I go to different like networking events mm-hmm. The anyone that's thinking about franchising at all, there's always someone in the crowd that's like, have you reached out to Rocco and Wells yet?

Rocco: 11:23

Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. I mean, we know how to franchise a company now. We've, we've done a handful of these little gigs. We did Pinot Grill, it was Oh, that's right. Bob Ganus. Yeah. Day. Yeah. And we grew that to eight locations, pandemic hits. Mm-hmm. You know, pandemic hit when we were, you know, to kind of fast forward the story, we had three Tam teas open and eight Pino Mediterranean grills. And that was like our main two things we're hustling and working on, and. Man, that hit possibly the worst time for us. Yeah. You know, like really invested in food service. Yeah.

Chris: 11:59

Yeah. But yeah, cuz I remember, cuz I'm, I'm obviously from Wilmington and live near Mayfair, so I'd see your stuff every time I'd be driving to work, I'm like, oh, this is so delicious for lunch. Or like, it was always popping up in my head. And then Covid hit and it was like every good food spot. Well, I mean, there's still plenty of spots open, but there's those spots that were like, that niche, Hey, I wanna hop in here real quick. Right. All kind of

Rocco: 12:27

shuttered, dude, it was a weird time.

Tyler: 12:31

Yeah. Wet. That's when I really started to get to know you. I meet you as having the, the cafe down there. Just stop by all the time and grab

Rocco: 12:39

some tea and food. Yeah. I mean, honestly, I saw all the recipe books. Of course. I'm like, man, I need to make myself a Southwest Burrito. Or you know, we had some stuff that I, I mean, I eat there every day, right? Yeah. You know, like. I loved it, you know? Mm-hmm. The idea was, and I guess if we rewind for Tom Cafe is, and then introduce a new character to the story, right. Is Wells' wife okay. Kelly. And so, Kelly had the idea of a TFO cafe. And so with that idea, the three of us started working on it. And, and the i, the idea kind of morphed and evolved into Tam Cafe. Mm-hmm. And so inside the cafe we had 30 different types of tea from around, from around the world mm-hmm. That we would brew for you. Right there on the spot. Hot, cold. And then we realized, well, you know, part of the idea was like, it's basically the opposite of a Starbucks. Mm-hmm. Whereas a Starbucks is mainly coffee. Mm-hmm. And we were gonna be mainly tea was the idea. So basically a tea version of your local friendly coffee shop. Yeah. And so with that, we put a huge opening in the bar. You, you know, you remember, whereas I told I would, we did massive amount of training with the employees on customer service. Mm-hmm. I was like, we can't compete with Starbucks on a million different levels, but one thing we can do is customer service. Yeah, for sure. I was like, the bar basically is like a barrier, right? Mm-hmm. A literal and figurative barrier. Whereas if you go around the bar and you're talking to a customer face to face and, and walking them through the different jars of loose leaf tea and opening'em up and letting'em smell, it's a completely different experience than, yeah. Our tea's right over there. Let me know which one you want. Right. And so like we encouraged our customer or employee to go over on the other side of the bar and talk to the customer. And, you know, my, my joke when I was training employees was kind of like, Like seeing and I was like, have you ever seen a Starbucks employee on the other side of the bar? It's like a unicorn walking on its back legs. Right. If you see one, you should like, maybe take a picture, like tag it, do research. Yeah. Cuz that doesn't, doesn't happen. No. Right. They don't make money when the, when the employees on the other side of the bar. Mm. Its probably why you see the trashcans always overflowing and everything like that. Cause like the real money is getting that cup to that customer and getting that next one and getting that next one. Right. And that's what they're driving and you know, kudos to them, you know, they have a million locations. But from my side, that's where I could compete. Right. Yeah. And so that's where I saw as like competing on the customer level. Yeah. You guys did it, in my opinion. Yeah, we did. And then that, did you guys hear about that pandemic? Yeah.

Tyler: 15:27

Pesky thing. That was crazy. And so you guys had started canning your own seeds prior to that though, right? That's right. So is that kinda like the saving grace for you guys? You were like, Hey, at least we have this product. Yeah.

Rocco: 15:38

That was kind of the, the decision is, so we had, so, so Jed Watkins over at, at Rice Beach Brewery, great guy, you know, great beer. Mm-hmm. And then him, and at the time his head brewer, Kevin, the two of them actually are really big tea fans. Oh, okay. And so we had got to known them and I took over some matcha one time and I was like, dude, let's try a matcha beer. Yeah. You know, it, it, and matcha has a ton of caffeine and matcha if you don't know, is like a pulverized powder based green tea. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's, and that type of, it's not any green tea. That tea was specifically grown to become matcha. Oh, that's interesting. Okay. And so there's different grades of matcha too. And we only use the highest grade ceremonial grade. Right. Matcha. And and so, and the real, the, to the layman, like the real difference between like matcha or not the real difference, but the obvious difference between a ceremonial grade and the lower grade is the brightness. Like a ceremonial grade matcha, like it's neon green. Mm. Yeah. And so it makes a beautiful product. Yeah. And so we brewed a beer and it was great. I mean, it had a ton of caffeine in it. We didn't measure the caffeine, you know, but like, you could feel it. You drank one of those beers, you're like, hyped up. Oh yeah, let's go. And so it was great. And then, In the, so that was kind of the beginning of, of mm-hmm. The relationship. Right. And then in our cafes, we were starting, you know, cause we would brew tea in house and then for the like signature drinks, we would brew that ahead of time in the morning and then we would have it in jugs below the bar. Right? Yeah. And so we would pull those jugs out and, and pour into the, into the drink whatever it was. A white tea, a green tea or black tea. Right. And so then you would add your other ingredients and, and have the signature drink rate to roll. And so we saw that as something that was slowing us down that we, and opportunity to save time, whereas we could brew that and put in a keg. Mm-hmm. And then have a keg system instead of reaching under the bar, finding the right one. Oh, nope, that's not one. Oh, white tea. There it is. And then our employees brewing that and, and cleaning it, you know, the jugs and everything else. And. And so our idea was like, we'll brew it just a little bit bigger batch and put it in a keg. Mm-hmm. And then we'll have a keg system. And so then the employee just from the keg system can just go, you know, you know, this is how much tea I want. Boom. And then we had like multiple heads on there. Okay. And so then when we put it in there, we're drinking sparkling water. I love sparkling water still. And like, I wonder if it's in a keg. Like I wonder if we carbonated. Yeah. And so we carbonated, I, I won't forget it was Jasmine Pearls and we carbonated at our Chapel Hill location. Mm. And we're like, oh, this is pretty good. Like literally just carbonated tea. Oh wow. It was a tea that we already had, so we just brew the tea and, and carbonate it and it was. Amazing. Delicious. We're like, huh? All right. Well, I mean, tea's been around since before Jesus Christ, right? Yeah. So I'm sure someone else has done this, right? And so we looked around to just find another can of bottle of sparkling tea to just put in our deli case. Mm-hmm. Like somebody else has done it. I'm sure our distributor can find one. And we couldn't find anything. So we were like, that's crazy. And so then we start, well, we should try it and then do it ourselves. And yeah, go to Rice Beach Brewery made our first bat in yada, yada, yada. And now here we are. We, we brew at a beta brewery in New Orleans, actually. Cause we just need a larger brewery. That's funny. And so in the industry, they, they call it your, you know, I said, you know, I said that because, I'm trying to think of what it's called, but co-man manufactured. Yeah. That word slipped me so, another company will take and brew your, your product. You send'em a, a recipe and they will kind of figure it out with a food scientist and, and then boom, give it to you. The problem is, the way they do that is they'll take concentrate. So imagine like you come into the cafe, like back in the day, right? Mm-hmm. And you're like, Hey man, I wanted to get some of that, that peach pair of green tea. Mm-hmm. And, you know, we have jars of tea and, and I'd say great. But then I reach into the bar and I, and I grab like a jar of like thick green tea concentrate, and I pour it into the bottom, and that looks weird. And then I add in some, so a vial of natural flavors into the cup, right? Mm-hmm. And then it's gonna need some preservatives. Yeah. So I pour in some preservatives and then fill it up the rest of the way with water and, and stir it up real good. And then hand it over to you. You'd be like, what? What did you put in my tea in that hell kind of cafe is this right? Well, we found out that's literally how every other beverage on the shelf like go to Whole Foods and on the back it's gonna say extracts, it's gonna say natural flavors, it's gonna say concentrates. I guarantee, I, I go to all the, the health food shows and conventions. Like I grab every can or bottle of our competitors out there. Yeah. And that's just not how it's done. And so we're like, well, we just need a bigger brewery, you know, and we could just brew it ourselves. So we go to a beta brewery ourselves like Wells just went the last time which was just a couple weeks ago, to brew our new ginger mate. And those guys are awesome. They, you know, it's, it's still a family owned brewery and we go there with pallets of tea, fruit and herbs and pour it in the top and, and, and brew. And we rock and roll. I mean, there's a lot more to it than that. And we figured out tricks and tips. Yeah. And, you know, it's, it's a pain in the butt. And it's more expensive. Right. Those are the two reasons that they use extracts, concentrates, and natural flavors, cuz it's extremely hard to do with real ingredients. Mm-hmm. And it's way more like way more expensive. Mm-hmm. So, but at the end of the day, I know that what's in this can is like super good for you. Yeah. And it's real, like in this can is the same recipe that I would make for myself in the cafe back in the day. This is our, our mint mate. And so there's three ingredients, right? The ingredients on the back, there's three of'em. There's, there's mint, there's lemon, and there's Y Mate and all three of'em organic. That's really neat. The,

Tyler: 21:48

the two things I wanna point out real quick too is if it, no one has gone to the Tamati Instagram, please do that and watch the video that you created about natural flavors. That's my favorite thing with the Beaver. The

Rocco: 22:00

Beaver video? Yeah. Or its on, it's on YouTube. Just, oh, is it Tamati Beaver? Yeah, that's awesome. I tried to explain what I just did, but like in a funny, like YouTubey way.

Tyler: 22:10

Yeah. Right. Yeah. I shared that thing more than like any other video cuz so my son has an allergy to literally everything. Okay. And if we can't read what's on the back of a label, we just don't give it to him. Cuz odds are he's gonna flare up from it, right? So like, your product is one of the only products our son can drink. So we appreciate that. And also too, anytime we see natural flavors, he may or may not flare up from it because Yeah, you have no idea, you have no clue what it is. It could be one of like 3 million different ingredients inside of that

Rocco: 22:38

thing. I mean, true story. So in the early, early days when we were trying to figure it out and like talking to these co-manufacturers, you know, in the industry they call it Comans, right? So we, we, and they have flavor and there's flavor houses involved as well. Mm-hmm. So, and, and we'd, they're like, well, you, you know, and so we'd call these, these natural flavor companies up. And be like, okay, we're using this command and that, and they, and so what's I got this mango, they send samples and it's just a jar of like a clear liquid. Mm-hmm. It's just like super sketchy. And you put like a drop of it, you know, and boom, your drink just tastes like mango. Oh, wow. Now the, and so we'd call them and we did call them. We'd be like, all right, great. So I got this mango natural flavor. So like, what, what is it though? Like, what is, what is it? Mm-hmm. They'd be like, oh, it's, it's a natural flavor. Like, I understand that, but like, what, what is in it? Like, what is there? And they would not answer. They won't. Wow. Yeah. And what's, what's crazier is ironically, I'm sitting on a pod podcast talking about this years later. So kind of in between now and when we created it, I heard a podcast of the founder of Spin Drift, and he had the exact same experience. Mm-hmm. And so to this day, the only sparkling water that my wife and I drink and Wells and Kelly that they enjoy is spin Drift. Same, you know? Yeah. Because it's real and great. It's kind of like we're the spin drift of natural energy and teas. Right, right. Because they use real fruit. And that's why it costs twice as much as a LaCroix. But on the back of LaCroix it says natural flavor. So like Yeah. I mean, what is it? I know enough. You have no idea. And I know you have no idea because me as a manufacturer, they wouldn't tell me. So if I don't know, then you, the customer sure as hell. Yeah, certainly don't.

Chris: 24:30

Then we start Googling it and you're like, natural flavor. What is a natural flavor? A natural flavor,

Tyler: 24:35

yes. Right. Yeah. It's one of those like, please don't answer the or please

Rocco: 24:39

don't define the word with the, can I get the origin of the word? Yes. Natural flavor. Okay. Yeah. So, you know what mint is, you know what, you know. So that's kind of like the, the the way we see it is like just read the ingredients on the back, you know, you know what raspberry is, right? And so that's where that raspberry hook that brings us back to the beaver video. Yeah. Is like, we found that raspberry. So sometimes, you know, I'll be careful with my words cause I'm being recorded, but sometimes raspberry, vanilla and a couple other ingredients, the natural flavor of that comes from Storium, which is a. Beaver excretion. Mm-hmm.

Chris: 25:25

It's like anchovies

Rocco: 25:26

in great values. Yeah. And so I told him, and so what happened is basically I told a few, like, buddies, friends, you know, and I'm a parent, I remember I was sitting at like a football practice mm-hmm. And I was telling a, a friend and and they're, they're like, shut the, I don't know if we're led to cuss. Yeah, absolutely. My wife keeps telling me to stop cursing in public, so I won't. So they were like, shut the F up. Right. I was like, no. I mean, that's, it's a true story. And they're like, it's, you know, but our raspberry, it says raspberry. It doesn't say raspberry natural flavors. And they're like, they're like googling in front of me. Like, where does raspberry natural flavor come from? Mm-hmm. And if you're listening to this, I. Encourage you to do some research on Storium. Clip it. Yeah. So it is yeah. And so obviously that's an extreme example. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. But the example outlines or highlights the fact that when it says natural flavors, which is like everything, right? Like my wife and I were going at a we had a friend over for dinner and we were going down that rabbit hole. And, and again, it was one of those like, mind blown they were like, what? Yeah. And that's why we made the YouTube video is that their mind was blown. We're like, people keep freaking out when I say this. We should make like a video about this beaver thing. Yeah. Oh, you should. Yes, but like, we're, we just like rummage the pantry real quick. We're like nella wafers natural flavors. We're like Ritz crackers do like Ritz crackers or are like so bad for you. We Oh yeah. We're like, so we now get the like, natural writ, you know, the, yeah. The. Natural ones. The healthy ones. Yeah. Yeah. And they taste that actually tastes better. I, I think they taste better too.

Tyler: 27:08

Yeah. Got those. Yeah. We almost anything that we have to get as close to the root as the actual product as possible, or like, my son just literally can't eat it. Right. And so we've over the last three years almost of like paired down stuff to the almost basics scenario. So, so you're,

Rocco: 27:24

you're probably even more of an expert in it than I am. Then you got, I mean, you live it, like you have to, like, I, I'm doing it because like, I mean, for one I'm putting my name on like, like if, if, alright, so if I just put natural flavors, extracts and concentrates in here, like they, you know, all the experts told us to do in the beginning. Mm-hmm. Like what, what's the difference between me and the next guy then? Right. You know, like I can feel very confident when I'm talking to a customer or consumer or a retailer, what have you. Like, there is nothing like this on the market, especially these Ys, this y mate has more caffeine than a Red Bull. Geez. And it's literally good for you. Right. You know,

Chris: 28:02

I'm like, that's what I need to send my friend. Like, we grew up and all she drank was energy drinks. Yeah. And it was Red Bull. Red Bull. Red Bull. Switched to Monster for a minute. Red Bull. Red Bull. Ghost Energy. Yeah. I mean, they're all taste delicious,

Rocco: 28:15

but Yeah. They taste, some of them taste for you. I mean, eh, some of'em, yeah. Some of'em kind of. Yeah. And then you, you know, you live this life like, you know mm-hmm. Comparable to me. Like I can't, I can taste a fake sugar like immediately. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Like aol, aspartame, all these like, fake, when it says like, no sugar on the front is now you're f your red flag. Yep. You know, if you're looking at a product when it says no sugar, Because they're adding sweetener. Ah, yeah. When it says no sweetener, that's when you're, you're quote unquote good. Mm-hmm. Me honestly, I'd rather have sugar than erythritol. Exactly. Yeah. Or stevia or like these other fake sugars. My wife and

Tyler: 28:53

I just did 75 hearts, so we cut out a lot of stuff in our diets and stuff and ate like, like my son heats, like as hold food as we could. And so she failed out because she got kind of sick for a while, but for the first time she had a a lemonade from islands and it's just the regular, typical mm-hmm. Yeah. Lemonade that you would get anywhere. Yeah. And she tasted the first time after two months of never having like aspartame or anything like that. Right. And she was like, why does this taste like chemicals? Yeah. Like it always has and you just never noticed it. Yeah. Right. Until now that you've actually cut it out for so long.

Rocco: 29:27

Yeah. I can taste it in a second and sometimes like I can taste, it's sometimes, cuz I'm always tasting different beverages. Right. And like sometimes I'll be like, I mean, this is a good-ish. I can still taste it though. Like I, I, it's just not for me. Right. But I can see where, and so the other industry secret is like, like a a what you can fit sugar wise on like the tip of your finger from like a Stevia. Mm-hmm. It's like a, ah, man, I'm gonna mess it up. I think it's like 300 times smaller, the amount to get the same sweetener amount to sugar. Mm-hmm. Right. Oh yeah. So you would need like this much sugar to like this much stevia in your beverage to make it, yeah. To make it that amount of sweetness. That is crazy. Yeah.

Tyler: 30:11

I forgot that the one time they only had Stevia. And I usually put like a full packet of sugar in my like small coffee. And I put the whole entire thing in there. I was like, oh, I need a new coffee in your head. Exploited. Yeah. I was

Rocco: 30:22

like, all right,

Chris: 30:23

redo. So you've been talking about these

Rocco: 30:25

natural flavors. Yeah. You guys wanna drink some? Yeah. Let's we it long enough. I apologize. Ooh, where do we start? I'll start with the Mint. Okay. Yeah. Is that kind of like your og? The, the, actually the rose mate is the og. Oh, okay. So we have that in a bottle, like, that's right. Sexy. Seen the bottle pictures sexy. It's clear. You can see, cuz this one's like at a pink hue to it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then like a lot of things that are sexy, it was a pain in the ass. Glass breaks and it's heavy. It, it, there was a lot of things that made us decide to go to a can. Yeah. And then, but once we did that, we were like, oh man, this is it.

Chris: 31:05

So what is in this? The rose, a version

Rocco: 31:08

four ingredients. It has raspberry, rose, hips hibiscus and y. Hm. After

Tyler: 31:16

I asked if this was the og, I realized that I, I'd had this a million times already. Just in a bottle. Usually. Yeah. That's why

Rocco: 31:22

I, so we still have some bottles, so. Oh, really? Yeah. We'll get you hooked up. This is one of the things, it's still around town too,

Chris: 31:27

but mm-hmm. Like I don't think people realize how delicious tea is. That's right. Because it we're all used to drinking coffee all the time. Or

Rocco: 31:35

sweet tea and unsweet tea. Yes. Right. Like when you go to, so I say that a lot in, in like if I'm in a booth or a demo setting, you know, someone's like, oh no thank you. You know, I'm not a tea person, you know, and I'm like, I have a pretty good track writer. Or of converting not tea people, you know? Cause you're used to lipins. Yeah. Black. It's a black tea. Yeah. Which is a sweeter unsweet tea. Yeah. And there's like 80 different types of tea past that. And flavor is just infinite. Right. Which made the cafe really fun. Right. Like coffee is always gonna be, there's bookends to coffee. Right. And I love coffee. I'm not a coffee hater. But there's bookends to it. It's always going to, you know, you can add different flavor and stuff like, but it's coffee. Yeah. Tea is like infinite. So like, we had tea drinks that were wildly down the spectrum, you know? Yeah. And you, you've tasted a bunch of'em. Yeah. Yeah. Tyler

Chris: 32:24

drink, I've, I grew up drinking water and Kool-Aid or Sprite,

Rocco: 32:33

depending on like, a lot of Kool-Aid in my house as well. That was gonna say,

Tyler: 32:36

yeah.

Chris: 32:36

Available. But I went to like my friend's house, we were doing a thing when the last Harry Potter movie came out and they had tea. It was like, Hey, we're steeping tea. And yeah. We try that. And I fell in love with like Lady Gray, and everyone's like, what is this? I'm like, it's just a very, it's sweet naturally, but it has like a more citrusy mm-hmm. Forward tasting to it. And I'm like, This is what you need. You gotta find the, the tea that's gonna prevent

Tyler: 33:03

you. My love for tea actually came from the, from the cafe, just cause I didn't know there was so many of'em. And I was like, I'm gonna try'em all.

Rocco: 33:09

Yeah, that's right. And it was so cool. All right. That is Tyler's personality. Let's keep it rolling. You guys wanna do the, the mint mate? Yes. Let's see. So again, I only brought the MAs. We have green teas as well, but the and the green teas have about 45 milligrams of caffeine directly from the green tea. Yeah. Yeah, I would make this for myself in the cafe every day. I mean, I didn't carbonate it, but like I would just prove mint lemon. Right. And your mate in the cafe. So all, if there's any employees out there listening, they know so they know how to do it. It was, I called a Yuba clock. Yeah. It was y time, every early afternoon. And the nice thing is you can

Chris: 33:46

good smell the actual flavor. It's like, oh hey, this tastes like tea. You can smell the mint and that lemon in there. Versus when I open up. Like traditional sodas, you're like, what does this smell like? It smells like this drink, but I don't know exactly what it is.

Rocco: 34:04

Yeah. So there, there's a definite pivot point in our strategy right there. So from to, from green teas to there, we would use dry ingredients. And the, in the green teas, we actually use dried peach dried fruit. Oh, dried, okay. Nuts, dried peaches, pears and mangoes. Because that didn't yield the extra like natural sugars. Mm. Our idea is like the customer wants, you know, zero sweetener, zero sugar. But what we realize is like the customer doesn't mind if there's a little bit, right. It wasn't a sticking point for everybody, you know? So these have natural sugar. So like the rose mate is one gram of natural sugar. Like you don't care. I came from Asberry, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so the same with this one, right? So let's try the brand new. I'm excited about this. Ginger. Love ginger. Yeah. So the pivot point is, like I said, we were using dry ingredients and so in the ginger mate, it's a ginger juice. So it's like, how did you do that way? It's a, it's like a frozen ginger. I, the story is actually funnier than, so the ginger juice, we, we shipped the samples to ourselves. Mm-hmm. And we liked it. And then they shipped us the frozen five gallon buckets of it. And so we had it in our big standup freezer at our warehouse. Mm-hmm. And then you need to get that frozen organic ginger juice to a beta brewery in New Orleans. So, so Wells made this elaborate cooler in the back of a rental van and drove it to New Orleans. Oh, no way. A month ago. So that's the ginger mate. This is really good.

Tyler: 35:38

It's very approachable too. Cause a lot of people, like my wife, usually thinks like ginger, like super harsh, like of a taste. This is actually a very approachable tea

Rocco: 35:45

that anyone could kind of drink. Yeah. I love it. I mean, I, I've. It's my favorite by far. Really? So we mentioned it's

Chris: 35:53

really good. This would be great for a quote unquote healthy Kentucky Mule.

Rocco: 35:58

Yes. That's for,

Chris: 36:00

So if you ever Kentucky Mule is literally just a Moscow mule, but instead of iku use bourbon.

Rocco: 36:06

Yeah. And so it does have like a ginger beer kind of vibe to it with that. Yeah, definitely. With that, with that you know, very gingery taste to it. So let's do it, man. I, I've literally never made a mix. We keep saying like, this is make a great mixer. Great Moscow Mule. Yeah. And I never have. So have a little bit more. Yeah, let's do it. And I got a couple more of

Chris: 36:25

these. So quite literally this just got announced. Yeah. And so we're trying something new that No does.

Tyler: 36:31

Right. We're like, let's leapfrog

Rocco: 36:32

this thing. Yeah. Let's get this party started. Do you wanna use the

Tyler: 36:37

jigger thing, Chris?

Rocco: 36:38

Oh,

Chris: 36:39

we're actually fancy. Oh, y'all fans. We acquired a jigger off one of our bottles, so Right.

Rocco: 36:46

If you need a little more, these aren't as cold. No, that's okay. So you guys

Tyler: 36:51

here, here first, we're gonna do the

Rocco: 36:53

first.

Tyler: 36:55

Yeah. I don't know, ginger mate and

Rocco: 36:59

bourbon. I don't know if anybody's made a mixer outta it yet. Like I said, you guys are definitely in the top 20 of human beings to try it, so this is very exciting. We appreciate you coming

Tyler: 37:13

on and letting us

Rocco: 37:13

try it for the first time. Yeah. Stoked. We're

Chris: 37:19

learning new things. If it tastes bad, I'm not gonna tell you.

Rocco: 37:23

I'd like to know. Oh, I, I would totally tells you. Cheers. All right. Cheers boys. It actually is pretty good. Yeah. It's actually pretty good. Yeah, I

Chris: 37:31

was surprised. So we use the benchmark top floor mm-hmm. That we had tried a couple weeks ago, just cuz like I mentioned, it would taste good as a, a mixing

Tyler: 37:41

whiskey. Yeah. And I did mention probably

Rocco: 37:43

Ginger, so this, and it worked well and then, and though, and the, the kicker is the caffeine. Yes. Right? Yeah. Definitely helps. And like I get a lot, like I used to drink a lot of mixed drinks and I don't anymore. And I, and it's really like the sugar, like in soda. Yeah. It kills me. Oh, Manter. Or like, you ever woke up from like a night of binge drinking like college days mm-hmm. Of like, just like, way too many Jack and Cokes and your tongue is like dry. Oh yeah. So yeah. Yeah. You're like, what just happened to me? Exactly. Yeah.

Chris: 38:15

That was me on my birthday. Oh yeah. We went out and I was like, okay, cool. Like I always drink old fashions. Okay. In the bar. We went to Starling and had a few drinks and they closed early, so we went downtown. I was like, oh, you know, I'll just do a whiskey coke. And it also reminded me that I hadn't had like coke in so long. Yeah. The soda. Coca-Cola. Sorry.

Rocco: 38:40

This is going crazy. Oh boy.

Chris: 38:42

Like within an hour I was

Rocco: 38:43

like, what? The podcast

Chris: 38:44

is right. We do not do anything illegal. Right. But yeah, the next morning I woke up and I was like, one, I'm so hungover from drinking so much, but two, I just had that like dry mouth, icky feeling from Yeah. Something that's not natural, cuz Starling makes a bunch of their syrups and like, she'll definitely bring

Tyler: 39:04

these around to some of the bars

Rocco: 39:06

to fun facts use for ginger fun. The one of the owners of, of the Sterling is Matt Ray. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Who was our photographer that took that photo. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. He's a good guy. He was an early customer of the cafe. Oh, okay. He probably bumped into him a lot, probably just never knew who he was at. He didn't have that much hair. He's a g he's a great guy. Yeah, Wilmington's. So, you know, I'm coming up with a weird word in my head, but incestuous. Oh, yes. You know what I mean? Like, like, like everybody is overlapping, everybody has a side hustle. Yeah. You know, Wilmington's really cool like that. I actually was just talking to my, my My CPA the other day, and he was like, Hey, funny question. Your, your wife is her brother such? I was like, yeah. I was like, he was like, oh yeah, I'm, I'm boys with him. You know? It was like, cool. Right. Oh, that's hilarious. Small. It's a small town. Yeah, and especially I've been here, I was looking at the, the old calendar recently. Mm-hmm. I was like, oh, dang, man. I've been here for almost 20 years. Oh four. Oh four, wow. Yeah. Gosh. I came here in oh four for school. Where are you from originally then? Charlotte. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah. You just wanted to get to the beach. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty straight. I, I was a runner. That's actually how the three of us met me. Well, I was supposed to ask Kelly. Yeah. Or not Kelly, but me Wells and, and Jason. Jason, yeah. The three of us were in were suitemates at U s W. Jason and I were distance runners and wells was a pole vaulter. Oh, nice. Oh, okay. Yeah. And so, yeah, they put all the track guys kind of together. Or people cuz the, the girls track team were on the first floor, Graham, or a lot of'em. Oh yeah. A handful of us were on the fourth floor, and then some of the suites they, they kind of pack'em together a little bit in pockets. And so it was fun and, and yeah, we just stayed friends. You know, we were pretty much in and out of being roommates for the rest of our college career. And Jason's actually at Clean Eats now. Yeah. You know, he got in over there early and helped them franchise mm-hmm. And do a lot of things and, and yeah. They're Clean Eats is a rocket ship themselves, man. Love Clean Eats. Yeah. Yeah. I actually

Tyler: 41:04

saw you over the other, other day that

Rocco: 41:07

Yeah, we work on a lot of their drinks actually. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah. They're, they're clean teas. We, we formulate all of those with, with VO the founder over there. Mm-hmm. They're just great people and they truly care about what's in the food and, and you know, the whole mission. Mm-hmm. They got like, they got a great thing going.

Chris: 41:24

Yeah. She's the one that we've talked about multiple times on the podcast. Yeah. When you get her on and I've just been slacking on sending her an invite, like, Hey, cuz they're always, they're traveling and Oh, they're so busy. Yeah. Everyone's like, oh, clean Eats is just like a fad. I'm like, no. It's a lifestyle similar to like CrossFit and stuff that there's a ton of them around and they're always opening because people

Rocco: 41:44

realize, yeah, what's the fad with eating healthy? Yeah. Right. Exactly. You eat healthy, it's better for you. You're gonna last longer. You literally eat every day. Yeah. And their food's really good. Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. You know, that's what I like, like that Arnold over there. Honestly, I I, I joke with with them over there. I'm like, yeah, I'm getting another Arnold. I'm sure the rest of your food is great, but like, I can't get past it. Like, it's so good. Yeah. Those are

Tyler: 42:06

the, so the Arnold and then they have a a flatbread that they have over there too,

Rocco: 42:11

that I'm, I'm telling you, I rarely get past Arnold. It's just,

Tyler: 42:15

but those are the only two that I eat too. Yeah. I'm

Rocco: 42:17

like, there's a whole menu. I feel's good. I feel like admitting that, you know, cause I'm sure their, their menu is, is it's, it's a lot. They do a lot of great things in there. I just, yeah. Not Arnold's so good. That's like me and chicken tenders.

Chris: 42:29

Like if I go someplace and I'm like, I can't understand any of this stuff on a menu. I'm like chicken tenders.

Rocco: 42:35

Dude. One of my boys is a five year old at heart. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll go as like couples, you know, we'll, we'll all go out to like a nice dinner and like, and he'll just be like, And we just joke, you're like, just get the kids menu for him and he'll eat chicken tenders and he eats fruit loops and we're like, bro. Exactly. He doesn't care. He's like, I'm, I'm gonna eat what I'm gonna eat. So

Chris: 42:58

y'all get over it. I mean, I'm gotten better cuz I'll actually try stuff on a menu. But that's been the running joke in my family. It's like we go out to eat and we're just give him chicken tenders, just give him tenders. You got nuggets

Rocco: 43:09

even better. And, and if you're my kids, are they in the shape of dinosaurs? Right. Because that's key. Exactly. They taste different frozen chicken nuggets, like a kid's chicken nuggets. Mm-hmm. That's where the dad bog comes from. Cause like, dude, last night, I swear my wife and I are watching TV and she's drinking a glass of, of red wine. Mm-hmm. And I get out a juice box outta the fridge. Mm-hmm. That's amazing. Guilty. And she was like, she's like, are you drinking a juice box? I was like, I mean, they're really good. She's like, I mean, I get it. They're. Delicious. They're delicious. Right.

Chris: 43:45

That's the problem. My wife doesn't like to send me to Costco by myself because I'll end up being like, Ooh, Capri Suns throw in my bag. Uncrustables,

Rocco: 43:54

throw it in the bag. So good. You're like, how? And you then need check out and you're like,$500. What we, what did we get?

Chris: 44:03

I was like, I sent you Costco is my target. Yeah. Like if we send Jennifer to Target, she's gonna spend like half Tyler's paycheck. Yeah. She

Tyler: 44:14

has been banned from Target because she overspends every single,

Rocco: 44:17

it's aggressive. And then how old are your kids? Or you just have one? I

Tyler: 44:21

have two. Yeah. So I have one that's about to turn three and the other one is just

Rocco: 44:25

turned one. Oh no. You got some time when they can walk and they can read crap. You're like, You're like checking out. You're like, where did this come from? Because there's three of'em too. Even if the, my wife and I are both there. We can't keep an eye on, you know, these little rug rats? Yeah. That, that's six hands. So, dude, so the, the, the Walmart pickup is pretty clutch, you know? Yeah. They started that like right before the pandemic and then like that pandemic, it was clutch. I have little kids, you know, I kid like a sleep kid minute and out. I have a, I'll have a kid asleep in the car and go do pickup. Oh yeah. We

Tyler: 44:57

just didn't Harris Teeter pick up the other day too.

Rocco: 45:00

Yeah. It's so much nicer. Go in and, and Walmart. It's surprising man. Cuz I go all these trade shows and you meet the Walmart buyers and stuff. Oh yeah. And and I mean, they're really focused on getting more like healthy and like trendy and like Good. We've noticed that too. Yeah. Good food products in their, in their stores. Mm-hmm. And so like you can get a lot more like organic stuff and like good stuff that you would see at, you know, whole Foods a year or so ago. Right. And then they pick it up, you know, they wanna see some success with it because they're a monster. Mm-hmm. You know, like honestly, you know, no matter whole food, we're way too small for, you know, for a Walmart. Right. Yeah. You know? Right now, for now. Yeah. I mean, you know, maybe a year or so from now, but like, you know, they're a beast. But what's cool is like they keep on picking up more and more like health. And that's why I always told my wife is like, yeah, things are ex are expensive until there's an economies of scale. Right. Like, think about how expensive organic chicken was like five years ago. True. Such a drastic difference. You know, like of course the price of it now, but like with inflation or whatever, but like in comparison to regular chicken mm-hmm. It was like ridiculous. And now it's like adds slightly more. Right. You know? But, but yeah. So the more people that, that consume a certain thing because More economical. Yeah,

Chris: 46:21

exactly. I love thinking

Rocco: 46:22

about

Tyler: 46:23

that. Yeah, we got surprised too with Walmart kind of picking up their organic and more like natural type of stuff too. Just because there's, there's a apple juice I believe that my son can actually drink that we can only find at Walmart. We're like, go figure.

Rocco: 46:36

Is it the one, like the, it's a green on top. It's like, yeah, that's one of'em. Yeah, that's one I had last night. Yeah. So good. I don't remember the brand, but it's so good.

Chris: 46:45

Yeah. I don't wanna

Rocco: 46:46

stop and find it. Oh, so good. I didn't bring samples of the apple juice. Right. But yeah, packaging has a lot to do with it, you know? Mm-hmm. Like I, ironically, where we sit about a hundred meters that way is creature theory, local design company. That's right. Yeah. And that's who designed our cans. Oh. Like I feel like I have a PhD now. An honorable PhD and like product packaging cuz like what we thought was like fun to be on there. And then we realized like, Literally the most important thing for a CPG brand CPG is consumer packaged goods. Yeah. Yeah. Is like the label. Mm-hmm. So, and the reason is pretty straightforward if you think about it, is like, of course you want a regular user mm-hmm. To eat or drink your product regularly. Right. But you don't earn that Right. Until they pick it up. True. Yeah. And so they need to pick it up once that's literally the first step. Right. And so that first step has to be strong cuz like, how many beverage brands am I competing with? Mm-hmm. Thousands. So once they hold it, I've, I've then so what's on the front, you know, is the primary. Then on the side we have like more so like I'm assuming that whoever's looking at the side has picked it up. Yeah. Right. Because what you see on the front is what you see on the shelf. Right. And so what's on the front needs to be beautiful, needs to get like the point across in almost a fraction of a second. Mm-hmm. It's insane. Mm-hmm. And then you earn the right for them to read the side in the back. Right. And then hopefully they purchase it. Right. And then from there, the product has to be amazing for them to repurchase. Yeah. But you don't get that right for them to repurchase until they pick it up. That's true. And, and that's whether it's online or, or in the store. You know, it has to look like it's going to be amazing. Has

Tyler: 48:44

there been psychology done about when someone picks up a can? How they turn it in their hand?

Rocco: 48:49

That's a good question. I assume, I don't know. A, I think, good question.

Chris: 48:52

It's mostly everything rotates to the right because most people in the world are right-handed. But I've always, like, I never thought about it, but I did in the back of my head because I'm always, when I pick up something, I'm looking for some sort of information and it's never the direction I expect it to go. Like I've had randomly, like I'll pick up a, a container for like hair product or something, and I rotate it. I was like, why didn't I just go to the left? Because I always know it's on the left, but I always spin it to the right. So,

Rocco: 49:23

yeah. And so ironically, our information, it's on, on the right. Of course it's a cylinder, so you keep going around, you'll eventually get back. But the other thing we did is make the, so our, we had version one. Mm-hmm. Version two. So version one, ironically here we are. I paid a buddy that's an amazing graphic designer in his own right. We, he refused payment and so I paid him with a bottle of bourbon. Oh, that's awesome. On the first three designs. Great guy, a friend of mine locally, and then the second design we learned a little bit more. Mm-hmm. And, you know, and then we designed the, the, the v2, we call it label. Mm-hmm. And then that's when we hired Creature Theory to do what was then Ebbing design. They changed their name recently, but yeah, they're in the cargo district as well. Yeah. They've done some

Tyler: 50:11

amazing work just in general around here as well

Rocco: 50:14

too. Dude, they crush it. Yeah. They really crush it. And so they did our rose mate bottle. And so then when we got the bottle and we saw our V2 cans, because, you know, no offense to any of our other designers and everything, but like, they work on, like, they're very focused on, they do a lot of beers and cans and beverages. Yeah. And, and kombuchas and, yeah. And so like, they were very focused on like what the end goal was. And that really like was a, a difference maker where we saw our bottle and our B2 cans. We were like, we were almost like, shit. Yeah. Dang it. We just did v2 and so we made the decision to, to change all of our green tea cans and then into that style. Okay. Yeah. And so the Rose Mate bottle looked akin to this. And so then we made our V3 cans. Okay. And then when we were coming out with the Mint, we knew we needed some tweaks. And so these are called our v called our V3 0.2. Cuz it's not like this real, right? It's not a

Chris: 51:19

real big change, but it's a

Rocco: 51:21

little, so like, one of the big things is like what we were like super proud of, and you've heard like a million times already and me talk about is like the ingredients. And so like, obviously like the V one, we had the ingredients listed sideways on the can, so the customer had to literally turn the can sideways to read it. And so like the things that we don't care to highlight, you know, distributed by Thomas t Wilmington nc, that's great, but like put that on the, on the side, right. Made the ingredients as big as we possibly could. Yeah. Yeah. And did some other things like that. So, because you could, cuz there's only three or four of'em. Yeah,

Chris: 51:51

that's right. I'm like, he's not kidding. Typically when you read like, the ingredients list on like a canned drink, it's all small print. It's a, it's smaller than the size of like the nutritional facts because there's so much stuff in here. It's hard. I can read the ingredients from across the table. Yeah, yeah. Like, that's right. Quite literally sparkling spring water organic yorba mate, organic ginger. Like, dude, that's the craziness.

Rocco: 52:17

This drink, I mean, I'm kind of biased but I'm a, I'm a whiskey and bourbon fan. Yeah. I'm gonna start making this, I say

Tyler: 52:24

I'm extremely

Rocco: 52:25

impressed. Yeah, this is good. I mean, and I mean it needs a couple rocks in it, you know? Right. Yeah. It feels a little colder. That's my fault. Cuz I, I was like, oh crap cold. And so I brought like two that were cold and then the rest were room temp, assuming like, ah, it's good enough. And I'm like, oh crap. But here we are.

Chris: 52:40

No, like this, this is, like I said, this is really good for like a healthy version. I'm, my flavor palette has shifted which I'm proud of in my life. Cuz we did seven, five hard last year. Yeah. And I cut out sweet tea. Cuz I used to drink that all the time. And when I went back it's like now I can only drink it like once in a blue moon. Yeah. And my wife has shifted me and we're drinking like the sparkling waters and so I'm getting better at like these non like, overly

Rocco: 53:07

sweetened, get the spin dress from Costco. I've

Chris: 53:10

never, I get'em all the time. Like I've heard the, I've heard the name, I never bought'em. It's a game changer. It does. I'm gonna have to, I don't go to Costco again until like next month. I minimum you don't have two kids. True. That's right. I have to minimize those trips though.

Rocco: 53:27

Yeah. And then you see like, Ooh, I might need a new frying pan. You're like, you don't need a new frying pan. Right. What are you talking about?

Tyler: 53:34

I do have a random question about the, since there is no preservatives in it, is there a shelf life or since it's. Two years basic, so

Rocco: 53:40

Oh wow. Okay. Nature made a preservative of lemon, you know, so lemon actually makes a pretty good preservative. And then carbonating it also helps shelf life as well. Oh, no way. Okay. Yeah. And so yeah, we've learned along the way. We actually have, so we put a two year shelf life on it that's agreed upon by all the consultants and everybody else. Mm-hmm. But we, we save a minimum of a six pack from every batch we've ever done, which is excessive. Yeah. And so, and we'll randomly crack one that's three, four years old and it tastes fine. Fine. Yeah. Yeah. It's good to know. Interesting.

Chris: 54:18

So with growth of your family and growth of the businesses I got a question for you. Let's do it. What would be your definition of success as an entrepreneur? I know you got a couple ideas in your head.

Rocco: 54:31

Yeah, that's a good question. So, I think it depends on the person. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. And so, you know, success to, to, I feel like young me would be like, how much money you have, you know, if you have the boat, if you have the house and everything like that. Mm-hmm. But then adult me is how happy you are. You know, I, I feel like happiness is, is is the measure. Yeah. Okay. Of, of success. Cuz you might be a monk or you might be a billionaire and you might have the same level of happiness in your life. Yeah. You know, like we all, you, you, you hear of these stories of celebrities and millionaires and billionaires that are having divorces and, you know, suicide mm-hmm. Or, or what, you know, drug problems. Yeah. That like, like money doesn't always define that success For sure. I'm, I'm a Christian, I'm Catholic. Yeah. And so, you know, faith has a lot to do with it in my life. And, and, you know, I'm a father and so my kids, you know, being happy and, and, and things like that. Like there's a, there's success gets thrown into business and work more than it should. Mm-hmm. I feel like success should just be on how happy you are. Yeah. Yeah. Right. You know, and, and I, I, yeah. I think, I think that's, that's kind of the thing. And so I actually did a talk recently at, it was a keynote speech at U N C W for, for high school age. Entrepreneurial minded kids. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And they had like, it was basically like a business plan competition. And it was awesome, man. These kids came up with some brilliant ideas and so they, they asked me to be, the keynote was at u w Oh, that's cool. Keenan Auditorium. And so a big room. And it was my first time speaking as a keynote in like a big room like that. Like that was kind of intimidating. But I did, I thought about it cuz it gave me a lot of time. They gave me like a four to six month, like heads up on it. Oh wow. Yeah. And so I had enough time to like really chew on it. They gave me no parameters, no time limit, and no requirement of what to talk about. Oh wow. So that was like a gift and a curse type of thing. Yeah. And so it ended up being about seven or eight minutes. Okay. No, no, no. It was a little bit longer than that. I don't know, but. I, I titled it game time and I came up with the title kind of after I was writing it. And so the idea was like, life is a game. Mm-hmm. You know, to your question of success and it's like, if you think about life as a game, then what's the goal? Cuz the goal of a game is to win and, and beat the competition. So if that's soccer, it's scoring more goals. And so to, to score more goals, you need to have a good defense. You need to have good offense, you need to have good passing, you need to practice. Mm-hmm. You need to do drills, you need to have teammates. And so if life is a game, then like, imagine if, if a high school student put as much time into thinking about how they want their life to develop as they do in swimming or ballet Yeah. Or, you know, whatever their interest is. Football, soccer, you know, I'm thinking of sports related analogies because of the game time analogy, but you know, it might be whatever they're interested in. Mm-hmm. Right. And so, And the way I I I, I kind of framed it was if you go down that path, then, then keep playing that through. Right? You're going to lose mm-hmm. At some point if you do anything, you know, in life. And so, you know that life is gonna suck at some point, but that's part of life. Like Right. I told them Sure. I was like, raise your hand in this room if you've never been, if you've never had any failure or any trauma or, or, or lost or suffering at all. And nobody raises their hand, right? Mm-hmm. So everybody has, and so it's like, all right, well if everyone has, then don't be surprised when it happens to you, cuz life is gonna suck at some point. Yeah. Right. There is suck in life, you know? Right. Embrace the suck. You know? And just realize that this is it. This sucks right now. Whatever it is, you know, there's really bad. You know, and then there's some things that feel really bad but will pass and you power through that because that's part of life, you know? Yeah. It's, it's a part of life for every single person. And, and suffering is one of those things that you can't avoid. So don't pretend like you can avoid it. You know? The, the, the Instagram lifestyle is, is, was part of the idea for that talk. Right? Right. And the Instagram lifestyle is, life is awesome for everybody except for me. And I think a lot of that is what is hurting younger folks right now is cuz they see everyone like crushing it, everyone succeeding and, and it's not true. It's just what they're showing on Instagram. You know, thousand percent. Yeah. And so if that's the case, then when your boyfriend breaks up with you or you fail at a in a, in a class at college, or you wreck your car or a parent dies or like really sucky things happen in life. Mm-hmm. Like they do, there's nothing you can do about it sometimes. Right. And so if that's the case, power through, right? Mm-hmm. You know, figure out, and that's what happens in sport, right? Right. You lose sometimes, but you figure out what happened that was, that was wrong, that you can learn from and then you move forward. And then another thing that, that I think was a, a key part of that, that talk is if life is a sport, then you have teammates, right? And I was like, you are the average of the top five people that you spend the most time with. Mm-hmm. Like, that's just a statistical fact. Mm-hmm. And so I was like, imagine if we went to a a prison right now and we asked, you know, who were, you know, who are some of the five top people that you hung out with back in the day? I bet all five, if not most of those people that they hung out with are probably in that same jail or worse. Yeah. Right. Right. Now think about successful folks. Who's the top five people that Steve, I just read Steve Jobs book before that talk. Oh yeah. And so it made me think about it. And so like all of Steve Jobs friends, I guarantee you are millionaires or billionaires right now, this day from, you know, and the tech, you know, space because they were, they surrounded themselves with like-minded people that had goals and aspirations. Mm-hmm. You know, and so if you surround yourself with people that have morals, goals, and aspirations, no matter where you live or what you do, there's people around you that care. Mm-hmm. So surround your, pe yourself with the people that care and don't surround yourself with the people that are out there just. Goofing off, right? Yeah. Same with sports. You know, I have a sports mentality, you know, we, we ran track at, and I still, you know, am quasi competitive, right. Quasi not really, you know, with kids. I, I still get out there and, and try to suffer a little bit on the track. Yeah. But but, but yeah, I mean, you, you, you surround yourself with fast runners. You get faster. Yeah. If I surround myself with people that I'm faster, then I'm not gonna get any better. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it's the same way with anything, right. You surround yourself with good business minded people like you guys do, like, you know, you actively try to find interesting people to talk to. Yeah. And so you're gonna learn vicariously through different folks. You're, you surround yourself with good moral and, and positive and smart folks. And it goes a long way. But, but no one's telling these kids that man, Mm. Yeah, you're right. Because

Tyler: 1:02:22

the only thing that they're really listening to is exactly what you said is that Instagram lifestyle, the only person they see on there is the one that's pretending that their life is perfect. Ye yeah.

Rocco: 1:02:34

You're keeping up with the Times. Good job.

Tyler: 1:02:36

Think Y's a little old. Nah, actually. Oh,

Rocco: 1:02:38

I don't know. I mean,

Chris: 1:02:39

technically I feel like BET is getting old too. Bet is getting a

Rocco: 1:02:43

little old. I'm, I'm ready for, I had a, I had a co, I had a college age intern last year and I was like, dude, if you say BET one more time, he's like, bet I was kidding. No

Chris: 1:02:58

man. My little brother and sister say it all the time. I'm like, it took me a minute to figure out what BET stood for. Mm-hmm. I was like, you were using that way too

Rocco: 1:03:08

much. And they were like,

Tyler: 1:03:10

I forget. There was a word that we had up in PA too that we used all the time. Like, what did it even mean? And I was like, I don't know. It's kind of a catchall.

Rocco: 1:03:16

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like there's little pockets, like in, in like my high school, there was a couple like phrases that our friends would say and like, it made no sense, but, you know. Right. And then there's stuff that like gravitates and catches on. Exactly. Worldwide.

Tyler: 1:03:29

Since we are getting up on our hour here, I have one last question for you. All right. You kind of touched on it a little bit, but if you were to tell your younger self one thing, what would it be?

Rocco: 1:03:38

Ooh, that's a heavy question. Think a lot of what I just said. Yeah. You know, cuz younger me didn't understand that, you know, it's one of those things where only life can give you those experiences, but like, I kind of didn't take life that seriously. Mm-hmm. You know, and I don't think a lot of folk, I think there's a lot of, actually, I take that back there, there are a lot of folks that, you know, in high school are like super driven, and you see that, right? And you're like, bro, you're thinking about this. And like in like 10th grade, you're like, well, wow. So I think there's a lot of kids that, that have their head on straight. But I, I did not, you know, to be, to be frank, you know, I did pretty much the bare minimum to get through high school and college. Yep. And then I was really focused on, on my running and, you know, partying honestly. Yeah. And, you know, and, and friends and things like that. Whereas, you know, you take a little bit of ounce of like, okay, to be successful in life, I might want these types of things, so I might want to get. You know, experiences and read books in this direction because it's gonna be valuable later. Mm-hmm. Right. You know, it's like, you know what they say? Like, when's the best time to plant a tree? Yesterday. Yeah. 10 years ago. That's right. 20 years ago, right. You guys were both ahead of the curve there, but and the second, next time, best time is right now. Mm-hmm. And so there's all these people like, oh man, I should have invested in this back then, or I should have done that. Whereas like, just do it right now, but like, and, but, but hindsight is maybe we can pass that information down. Right. And so like, hindsight, like what's interesting is I. He, I have like, I don't, not diagnosable, but like I cannot focus on a book, like I can't mm-hmm. Like, it was always really, really hard for me. Mm-hmm. Like, I would read a page and I'd get to the next page, like, I don't remember what that page said. Yep. And so then I would try to go back and so eventually, like as a kid I was like f this cuz like, I guess I was like kind of smart enough to like be in the classroom and absorb some of it to pass the class and go on the next thing and like never do my homework. Yeah. So basically just like, kept faking it kept faking it, kept faking it to the point where like, well now this is like comfortable mm-hmm. Where I, I could feel like I can fake it all the way through. And it, I, after I graduated college, ironically, I had a book from one of my professors that was, that was part of my reading for the class that I did not read. And I read it after I graduated and I was like, why did I just freaking read this book during the class when it made it so much easier? Right. You know? And I realized just, just like taking that little bit of, taking things a little bit more seriously. Mm-hmm. And, and focused. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, where, you know, I was just trying to party and have fun in college. Yeah. And I made it through and I didn't get in a lot of trouble, but, you know, I feel like I could have been a little bit more, more, more focused on what the end goal is. Yeah. And again, it, I'm being a little ambiguous because the end goal's different for everybody. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Right. Some people don't want to go to college and that's great. You know, like Right, right now, like if you're in high school and you're like, do I wanna go to college or not? I don't really feel like it. My parent like, dude, I guarantee you, you can make six figures in Wilmington being a plumber. Oh, just showing up on time. Show up on time, dude, wear a polo and have a clipboard. And then like, do exactly what the customer said that they want to do to do and show up on time. And do that. Yeah. And, and take a six month class at C C, you know, ccc. Ccc, yeah. See all those Cs. Yeah. C fcc and, and, and, and crush it, you know, like, and everyone's, everyone's direction is different, but like, there's more options out there, I feel like. It's just like taking a, taking a beat and like looking around, figuring out what you really want, taking a deep breath and, and, and then figuring out what that path forward is. And I never really did that. I kind of just like, by the, you know, by the seat of my pants, letting the wind take me wherever. And that was a long answer to your question. No, I appreciate that. It was all great stuff. I appreciate that.

Chris: 1:07:57

Yeah, it made plenty of sense to me. Yeah. And when I listened to it again in a couple weeks on the podcast, I'm like, that just resonates. Yeah, it's a good one. So I got cuz now we're wrapping up at the end. Cool. Where can people follow you guys on social media?

Rocco: 1:08:15

We're pretty easy to find, man. Tamma t Co, so that's T A M A T E A. Co on Instagram. Okay. Easy. And we put all of our shenanigans on there. I don't have time for TikTok and YouTube. Yeah. I'm sorry man. There's only three of us and we got some interns. So yeah, we try to put some of our goofiness in our stories and on the, on the platform there. Cause we're always doing something ridiculous. Yeah. But I love

Tyler: 1:08:41

it. That's our platform of Taurus as well. And we do follow you. So we do always get like to watch the antics. So it's, it's fun. There's a lot of antics.

Rocco: 1:08:48

It's one of those

Chris: 1:08:50

like, I follow beverages and brands and random stuff, but it's nice to know that you guys are local and you're real people. Not just like, oh hey, it's a marketing machine throwing out

Rocco: 1:09:00

stuff. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's right. Yeah. Instagram is like 75 to 90% like me just posing stuff. Yeah.

Chris: 1:09:08

Yeah. Or Matt taking photos.

Rocco: 1:09:10

Yeah, that's right. Matt taking the photos of me posting'em. Yeah. He does a great job.

Chris: 1:09:15

I love his stuff. He always makes food look so delicious.

Rocco: 1:09:17

It's amazing. Mm-hmm.

Chris: 1:09:19

Yeah. It's

Tyler: 1:09:21

ridiculous talking about marketing and making social media look good and everything. We do have to shout out one of our sponsors here, which is Sway Creations. They actually do all of our social media. Nice. Yes. Because that was not a forte of mine. And so I was like, you know, we need to outsource this. Bring someone on to help us out there. Right on. And so they create all the content for us. And similar to like Matt, she makes all the content for us. We put it out there for the world to

Rocco: 1:09:46

see. And I'm not saying I'm good at it, I'm good at posting. Right. Yeah. I can post it, it happens. I don't know if I'm good at it,

Tyler: 1:09:56

it gets my attention, so I

Rocco: 1:09:57

mean, at least someone's watching it. Good. Right on. Yeah.

Chris: 1:10:01

I just wanna say well mess up. Thank you for

Rocco: 1:10:03

hopping on here. Yeah, man, it's been fun.

Tyler: 1:10:05

Yeah, thank you so much. And now I have a new ginger mixer for my

Rocco: 1:10:08

whiskey. I can be persuaded with whiskey to show up. So yeah, perfect. I can

Chris: 1:10:12

totally do that. Yep. Well, yeah, thank you guys for all listening. Follow us on all our social medias, mainly Instagram, like, comment, share, subscribe, leave us a nice five star review. And if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at

Tyler: 1:10:25

all unless it's on YouTube. Cause I'll take all of the engagement I can get.

Rocco: 1:10:30

Yee yee. Cheers.