This week we are joined by Rob Wing of From Barrel to Bottle. Face out a Calgary from Barrel to Bottle have become a full in-house creative agency with a global portfolio of commercial projects for spirit-based brands. Rob gave us a lowdown on how all of this came together back in 2017 and progressed to the stage they're at today. Make sure you check them out on Instagram at From Barrel to Bottle and on the web at From Barrel to Bottle dot com.
Enjoy the show. Okay, we're back with another episode of the industry podcast. My name is Kip. This is Dan.
How are you? Doing great. Thanks. Doing pretty good.
I'll shout out to the Allura Mill for hosting us for Industry Night earlier tonight. We had a later recording today. So we had to go to a great meal at the Allura Mill sponsored by Michael Anderson, who will be on the show in a couple of weeks. And it's a bunch of people that on the show before.
Yeah, that was pretty cool. Yeah, it was fun time. So thanks to the Allura Mill. Good to see you again too.
Yeah, very much. Bernicelli was a bit careless. Yep. As always, what else should we talk about?
Oh, let's talk about the bars. If you're in Kitchener and Waterloo, you should be visiting Sugar Run and Downtown Kitchener. That's my speak easy downtown. And Uptown Babylon Sisters, Uptown Waterloo, the Wine and Spirits Lounge.
So check that out. Lots of exciting stuff coming to both spots. So just stay tuned to our Instagram pages, at Instagram bar, at Babylon Sisters Bar. Stay tuned for the reopening of the Argyle Arms in Cambridge, Ontario, if the AGCO ever gets off my nutsack.
Well, we'll see if that ever happens. Joining us in just a minute, we have Rob Wig from Barrel to Bottle. That's what we did. I want to say from Barrel to Bottle, but that's not good.
That's not good to say. But before we get to him, we should mention the artwork on the Instagram page. That's zakhana at zakhana.co. Z-A-K.
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What else we got? Anything else to say? Or should we just get talking? Let's get talking.
OK, Rob Wig. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me.
Thanks for coming. Thanks for coming. So you're in Calgary. I'm in Calgary with from from barrel to bottle, as you say.
Yeah. Yeah, from from barrel to bottle. So let's just tell our listeners from the start of how from barrel to bottle started. And what it's all about.
Yeah, it's a bit of a mouthful. But we didn't think about that when we first started. I think if we had a note on that, we would have changed the name. Yeah, thanks for nothing.
Just kidding. But yeah, go ahead. Tell us what it's all about. Yeah, absolutely.
So in about 2017, we got contracted by actually using the call to do some photos. We had no idea what what the spirit industry really was all about. But our creative director, Eric, he had been working as a photographer. So took the job and we kind of realized that there was a big white space for beverage marketing.
And so nobody was really taking photos of these on Instagram. There was no spirits present in social media. So we kind of said, well, let's see if there's other brands that are interested in this. So we started just going out to the mountains.
You know, we live in Calgary. So we would go out to Banff and Lake Louise, all these beautiful places, take beautiful whiskey bottles and just take pictures and then into the brands and see if they were interested. And a lot of them ended up having a lot of interest in what we were doing. So we were really just kind of start building relationships with all these different brands and growing them into whatever direction they wanted to go.
But that's how we end up getting started. So what were you guys doing before that? Before you got into the whiskey photography, though, what was the business previous to that? Yeah, well, we didn't even have a business to be honest, Eric.
You check it out, Instagram, Eric MCR. He was a landscape photographer, primarily. And so we would just literally throw a bottle into these beautiful landscapes. Our early photos were a lot different than they are now.
They're really landscape focused. They weren't really product photos. They were just a good landscape of the bottle placed in there. They had to learn how to become product photographers.
And how many photographers on staff were? There's four of us. There's four. And so I guess what I'm trying to get at is before you started reaching out, what did you say was Glen Lippitt at the first reach out to?
McCallen, yeah. McCallen, sorry. Very close. So you said McCallen, but before you reached out to McCallen, what were you guys that you were taking photos of landscapes, but you were a team of four photographers then as well?
Oh, no, we were just friends at that point. Yeah, you know, we had no real photography business experience. So it was just kind of one of those things where we saw an opportunity and thought, you do this. And to be honest, when we first started, we didn't even really think of it as a business.
We just thought, this is a great opportunity to learn more about whiskey, have a great excuse to try a lot of whiskey. And to learn product photography, we just thought it'd be kind of a fun little past time. You know, on the weekends, we'd go out and wake up and first sunrise, go up to the mountains, hang out with you, photos. So we just kind of thought it was a different way to do that.
But then, yeah, once Brent started reaching out, just saying, okay, this might have potential. So do all of you have like regular day jobs or did you have that before this took off for you or what was your regular day job just being a photographer? Yeah, two guys are regular photographers, they job and then two of us, we just have day jobs as well. What's your day job?
Working in the beverage industry as well. No, okay, that makes sense. Yeah. Okay, so why do you think that, like, we had you guys discussed before, like, why did Eric settle on Let's Take pictures of whiskey?
Yeah, it was, so the brand had reached out to him and said, you know, we love your landscape stuff. We think whiskey would be great with it. So they came to us, we came to him, paid him to shoot a bottle and then we thought, there's got to be other other brands I want this stuff. So, yeah.
So how, like, when you're trying to build it, so like you said, so McCallen comes to you first and then after that, you're just like, okay, let's see where this goes. What, describe me the process of reaching out to like these whiskey brands? Like do you just take a bunch of photos and like, like, like, get right into it. Like, who were you reaching out to?
Like, do you just like send it to a random info at McCallen, you know, like, how do you do it? Yeah. So, I mean, we're all really passionate about whatever we get into. We're kind of, you know, whenever we find a new hobby or something, we just go deep as we can into it.
So when we started learning about whiskey and all that, we were just going to the store and living in Alberta, we have access to so many good bottles, right? So, and this was kind of a four whiskey started really getting crazy, like, 2017. So we go to the store and just, we have just stare at the wall, find a bottle that we thought would look really cool. Go out, take pictures of it.
Yeah. And then you're going to post it on Instagram and try and find people who were related to the brand, tag them in it so we can give it a believe that way. He's ready. He just sent an email to generic contact on the website.
You're probably not going to get through to the right people, but if that's where social media is really powerful, right? He's being able to connect with the right people. So we would tag them on Instagram, post that way. And then yeah, we would just send an email to somebody we could find at the brand and just say, hey, here's some photos, feel free to use them.
Look to look to chat. So how does that turn into monetization? Because if you're essentially just offering them free photos, I'm sure they're going to take them. But first of all, this is a good time to pause and tell our listeners exactly what the Instagram account is so that they can check all these photos out.
From barrel to bottle, again, we should make it so long. It's beautiful. Everyone should check out the page. It's actually stunning photography.
Yeah. And I'll put some links in the show notes in the show to that. Right. So yeah, of course, you send them these photos like them for they love them.
But how do you then turn that into monetizing it for you guys? That's a good question. That was a really tough part. And to be honest, it was just having that open conversation with the brand, providing them with stuff and then they would provide bottles.
And then they started having asks for us. They would say, oh, can we get this shot done? Can we get this bottle shot in this location? And then we're like, OK, well, you're contracting us now at this point.
So yeah, if you want to do that, absolutely. But here's our going rate. And to be honest, like the brand is always super receptive. There was never pushback really.
But it could have been a lot worse for us. The transition really went pretty smooth. Yeah, that's cool. Did you have specific favorite locations that you like to shoot before they started requesting specific locales or converse?
And converse, like, was there one that accompanies the desert to you that you weren't really expecting you to turn out as well as it did? Yeah, you know what? We would always go to the classic places, like Maureen Lake, like Louise, like the picturesque places. And then brands would kind of request those places.
But then we realized that the photos were kind of more focused on the environment than the actual bottle rates. And then we realized that finding more unique places was better for actually doing commercial. Interesting. So like you mentioned that part of the beauty of this review has been to learn about new brands of whiskey.
What are some of the favorites that you discovered since you started doing it? Oh, man. Personal favorites. Obviously, big fans of Spring Bank, movie, it's all about Spring Bank, Brookladdy, Art Bank, or just because of the personal.
But I think every whiskey has something to really enjoy. You know, like our journey started with Balvian, Eagle, and Fiddick, McCallen, kind of those ones. And you learn to appreciate all the whiskeys for different aspects of what they have and you know, finds throughout the year, even like my whiskey palette changes, right? Like the winter ones on the real P.D.
Smokey and then Summer ones on the little lighter. Sorry, God. Oh, but not just going to go into Scotland and seeing that it's there, you know, then you always have a really strong connection to that one too, right? Whenever you've been to one, you're like, well, I remember being there.
Remember the smells and the bottles. And how did you, were you traveling to these places in Scotland before you started doing this? Or has this been because you started from barrel to bottle concept? Like you got invited or?
Yeah, absolutely. We've been to Scotland a couple of times and it's always been for us taking us over for projects. It's been incredible. Yeah.
Yeah. I swear to God, if I was better at coming up with ideas and had any town at all, I would have still on this idea. There's still room. Yeah, but I can't take the photos.
I can just try drawing some shit. Yeah. See if they go with that. Now, I guess you guys work more with like Scottish whiskey, or is it kind of like North American as well now or is it expanding?
Is it all over the place? Great question. Yeah, it started mostly with with squash, but we expanded, you know, being from Alberta to a lot of great distilleries around here too and Canadian distilleries. So do some work there and then some Irish whiskey as well too.
Oh, shit. Nice. Do you find it more brand or reaching out to you or is it still the best move for you guys to take the photos and then reach out to them? Yeah, good question.
A lot of it is still brands coming to us. You know, and there's a lot of like a lot of brands that we have relationships with, you know, will come to us, you know, quarterly or whatever for content needs. But it's up to us, you know, like any business to be able to grow it to that next step. You have to be able to prove, you know, what you can do, what's next.
So there's an aspect of brands coming to us with continual work, but we want to be creating new stuff and creating bigger projects. So that's what we'll reach out to a brand and say, hey, you know, we've got this great video pitch, you know, this big video, big special project and we'll go to a brand and say, hey, let's work on that. Right. So this obviously started with posting a lot of beautiful photos and now you're getting into video, right?
So then talk to us about that transition, how it started happening and where you see it going. Yeah, you know, social media, especially on Instagram, five years ago was pretty much all pictures, right? There really was no video. It wasn't or like, yeah, I didn't get to do them in the landscape at the time.
You couldn't even do a regular video. So that was all brands especially we're looking for. And as the industry kind of evolved in social media, all great reels and TikTok became so prominent in video is the preferred method on the algorithm for all social media. So we realized real quick that we needed to start doing some video and plus it allows you to do a lot more, it allows you to be a lot more creative, right?
You can push yourself a lot of different ways than just sort of static image. So yeah, a couple of the guys started learning video. We don't all do video to the guys do video. So we, yeah, they started learning that and became really strong with it.
And it's opened up a lot of doors for us, you know, even doing different event types of doing different types of videos that people are always looking for video now. It seems to be the need. So like, do you see this going to a point where maybe everybody's done this where like brands are inviting you to like parties are throwing and you take videos of that or like maybe even commercial shoots, like where do you see the future in this? Yeah, absolutely.
So we've done a bit of both event photography. We've done videography. We do quite a bit of that's really fun. We were actually just in Vancouver in the fall and so we launched the new R52 from BOMOR.
And that's in Martin. So we went to Vancouver to see they brought in some massive Martin's. And that was a really fun event to cover. Yeah, it was beautiful.
So that's been a lot. And then, yeah, some commercial projects we've been working on too. So helping brands do, you know, a full rebrand or like we do other website content or advertising videos, that kind of stuff we don't usually share too much about. It's just background stuff.
Those are some of the commercial projects we end up working on as well. It's kind of cool. And I guess this is probably like I'm not a creative person. So like for me to talk to someone like you is interesting because like the avenues are just endless for doing what you're kind of doing, right?
Like you can go in any direction as long as you're open to the concept. Absolutely. Yeah, there's so much of it is you can just it's almost overwhelming. There's so many different ideas, right?
Like you can come up with as many ideas as you want and you almost get overwhelmed with how many you can do. So you got to pick one and just kind of go with it. Yeah, that's crazy. Is there something you can tell us that you're working on coming up in the future that might be super interesting or unusual based on what you've already been putting out?
Something unusual. We just did a project with Spring Bank. I think it went live last week. So we helped them launch their 200th anniversary bottles.
So that was a really fun project. It was a limited run of. So this is the first year that we're going to be doing it five bottles. This is the first one who's a 27 year old.
It's through ballot only from the distillery. I think there's only 500 of them. So that was a really fun project to work on. So we'll be doing some more stuff with them coming up.
I'll be exciting. Would you get a chance to try any of it out? Yes. We did.
Yeah, we haven't tried it yet, but we do have a sample of it waiting for to get all the work. We did it together and try that. That's the best bonus of your whole thing is getting to try all this amazing whiskey. But I don't want to go to hands on.
Absolutely. It's been a real big purpose and just getting to try so many things that you would never ever get to try. Even especially being in Scotland and getting to try stuff from the warehouses right away. I mean, that stuff is just an incredible experience.
This is a hell of a dream job. I don't know how I landed it. So I'm talking a little bit about some of the Canadian whiskey that you've been working with or stuff that you would like to promote because we are at our roots of Canadian show. Even though we interviewed people all over the world.
Yeah. I think ShelterPoint put out some really, really good Canadian whiskey. Love their stuff and as well as bare face too. The two Canadian whiskey that I personally really like.
Those are two whiskeys that the LCBO will not let us try. Really? Yeah. I'm going to have to...
The one thing we get, but it's good to know because most of us now, especially as private consumers, we're not supposed to do it through the bars. But as private consumers, we can go online and get a store from Calgary to ship it. It's in Brando stores. Yeah.
They'll ship. Yeah. But that's the only access to it. It's ridiculous.
We literally live under a monopoly in the LCBO and they get to tell us what we're allowed to drink. It's absolutely ridiculous. Over the last couple years, they've really maximized the main brands. They've maximized profits.
So you see a lot less of the fringe stuff we used to see in those stores. It's too bad. Yeah, we used to have a thing. Sorry, go ahead.
Yeah. I was going to say that sometimes I was out there in the fall and I went into the store just expecting them to find something. At least I was just like the most generic and eight seasons you've ever seen. They even used to have two things like intense, right?
Because they've shifted their philosophy because they used to have like whiskey month. And then for one month, like to like boost sales, they would have like a wall of different kinds of whiskey that they would only bring in for that month. They don't even do that anymore. So now you can't like it's brutal.
Oh, but lots of bad light and course light at the start. Have you ever thought of it putting a Bud Light in a scenic view? They probably have big budgets. So, you know, maybe that's your next move.
You got to do some shit on the side to make the money sometimes. We really appreciate you coming on Rob. This was super interesting to have this conversation. And again, tell our listeners where to look at all your lovely work.
Yes. On Instagram, we're at from Bear with the Bottle and it websites from Bear with the Bottle.com. Awesome. Well, keep doing what you're doing.
It looks amazing. My wife's a photographer and she's also been trying to get into some doing more products. She does all the Instagram for Babylon sisters. You can check that out.
But it's a, but yeah, like it. And she's been trying to break into this thing of like doing more product photography. So she'll be super interested to listen to this one. And thanks for giving us your time.
Absolutely. Thank you. And thanks, Tom.