E159 Natalie Bovis

This week's guest is Natalie Brovis. Natalie got her start in the industry while scaling high school and worked every front to house position in her career. Eventually, Natalie parlayed this experience into becoming a restaurant publicist, culinary event producer and cocktail book author. In 2015, Natalie created New Mexico's first annual mixology festival and is also a culinary producer for the James Beard Foundation's Taste America National Dinner series.

Natalie's latest book, Drinking With My Dog, the K9 lovers cocktail book, came out earlier this year and her next book, Cocktails With My Cat, Tasty Tipples for Feline Fanatics, comes out next spring. Enjoy the show. Okay, we are back with another episode of the industry podcast. My name is Kip.

This is Dan. What is going on? Just hanging out with you in Austin is always beautiful day. So just hanging out with the sun.

Recording on Canada Day weekend up here. Happy Canada Day to you. Right, man. That's right.

Happy Canada Day to you as well. I feel like I had a lot to do with it. Yeah, I was great. Yeah.

Enjoy the weekend though. Yeah, it was great. Yeah, it was great. Yeah.

We took a day the same. Yeah. I was business at the bars over the long weekend. Good weekend at the bars.

Speaking of which, if you are in the Kitchener Waterloo Cambridge region, the Tri-Cities as we like to call them, you can come visit my spots. Sugar Run is the speak easy in downtown Kitchener at Sugar Run bar on Instagram if you want to check out what's going on there at Babylon Sisters Bar, uptown Waterloo, the Wine and Spirit Square. You want to check that out. Always lots of interesting stuff.

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So you're going to be very helpful today. Yes. Great. Great.

Alright, Natalie Bobos is joining us right now from New Mexico. How are you Natalie? Hey, I'm doing great guys. Well, warm down here.

So how warm is it? Where are you? It's pretty hot this weekend. Yeah, it's around for us like the low 30s and the Celsius that's around probably high 80s, I think for...

Yeah, yeah. Super humid too. Yeah. Yeah.

Very humid this time of year. Yeah. So it's western Ontario. You guys get the dry heat though.

Yes. Yes, which is great. And Santa Fe is at 7,000 feet high. Oh.

So we're way up in the mountains. So it's hot. It's not disgusting. It's not Phoenix.

People think New Mexico is like Arizona and it's actually very different. Oh, yeah. I think I also think that all the time. Yeah.

I think it's just from breaking bad. It looks very much like Phoenix. I mean, Southern New Mexico looks more like Arizona, but Northern New Mexico looks more like Colorado. Oh, that's nice.

Yeah. I hear Colorado's nice. I've been there. You guys should come down.

I'll show you around. Okay, let's do it. Well, what we should do is come down to this conference that we just discussed right before you, this trade show right before we started recording here. So Elena answers a frequent guest on the show was just at your show that you own in, and that's in Santa Fe, correct?

Yeah. Well, so New Mexico cocktails and culture is the Mexology Festival that I started here in New Mexico back in 2015. And it was the States first, it's still is the States first and only truly cocktail in this all of these spirits, festival. And then of course, you know, it's a bit endemic came along as it's an annual festival, then I kind of, you know, went offline basically for a couple of years.

And then this year I brought it back and kind of rebranded it as New Mexico cocktail week. Oh, nice. Sounds like a lot more work. Yeah, right.

Now it encompasses the whole state. And so the week part I actually collaborate with a friend of mine who owns edible New Mexico magazine. Oh, and so they, you know, I've been doing my festival for years. I've been coming to my festival for years.

They have the culinary focused magazine and they, you know, do events sometimes as well. So we decided this post pandemic version is New Mexico cocktail week that we collaborate on. And it kicks off with my festival, which is the first weekend, which is in Santa Fe. And then throughout the West of the week, there are, you know, all sorts of different bars and restaurants that participate.

But if you train the ones in the truck cocktail, we had a Spanish restaurant do a sherry class, another really kind of fun bar did like a beach party in their big back area. So it was fun because different parts of the state, you know, just kind of did their own thing. And so I'm curious about this. Like, how do you get to the point where you're like, I want to start a trade show or festival or whatever you want to call it.

Like, first of all, you obviously see a need in the area for something like that. But like, I'm sort of interested in the behind the scenes, but how you even go about developing the idea, starting it out and then executing it. Yeah. Well, you know, so in my long career in hospitality, which I started when I was 15 was my first restaurant job as a busser, you know, and then like followed on throughout the years doing every kind of house position imaginable from, you know, cocktail server to performer to manager to, you know, bartender, I've been at all.

And so like at one point, when was it in the mid 2000s? Well, I should back up in the 1990s when I moved out to LA to be an actor and a writer and follow my big dream. I worked in obviously restaurants and bars. And at that time, though, I got a job in the publicity department at Mira Next Films.

And so I worked as an assistant, but I got to work on all of these film premieres and, you know, parties that we were always putting together. And so I got some experience and events there. And then about 10 years later, I moved to Washington, DC and I was a restaurant publicist there. And during that time, I was doing restaurant openings, bar launches, pitching the media about, you know, the cool things happening with our accounts, you know, et cetera.

And I loved doing the events. That was really fun for me. Also back in LA when I was inspiring actor, I was also a kid or waiter. So I worked on tons and tons of parties.

So all of that experience led to, you know, when I moved back to Santa Fe in 2011, I saw an opportunity, you know, I'd been teaching upon details of the content and teaching with quality readers. And I, you know, taught the cocktail of Totten in Europe. I've taught, you know, around the US, I taught Arizona cocktail week and cocktail week. And so I thought, gosh, you know, it would be really cool if we had something like that here.

I know how to do events. I'm going to do that. So I guess then that's a bolt of how you start something like that for anyone who's listening, is like, I don't have anything like that in my community. I want, you know, whatever cocktail weeks or whatever thing you want to start with.

I'll begin with the funding. So I started off, you know, over the years, I started the liquid needs in 20 in the 2006. And so since 2006, I built a lot of very strong relationships with liquor companies over the years and working with them in all different capacities. And so I started there, you know, I reached out and I have very strong event experience.

You know, people knew I wasn't just going to screw around. So I reached out to a lot of plants I'd worked with in the past. And I said, you know, hey, this is what I want to do. These are the events I'm going to put together over this weekend.

This is how much a sponsor fee would cost. Are you interested in being part of it? And you know, you have to kind of know your market because I lived in Los Angeles for 17 years. What I could charge for a sponsor fee in Los Angeles is very, very different than what they can charge for a sponsor fee in Santa Fe, which is a much smaller community.

So you have to kind of, you know, figure out, you have to have some savvy in the sense of kind of really knowing your market, knowing what other festivals charge for sponsor fees, and then sort of basing accordingly. And then you have to make sure you work your butt off to organize it properly, to market it properly, to make sure it sells out, to, you know, make it something so that when these liquor companies, you know, show up in your community, sometimes flying in from New York or LA or whatever, and fly into your community that they're spending a shit ton of money, you got to make a work their while. And so that's where the event shops comes in. So, you know, I think that I don't do things unless I'm not going to go into an event thinking like, oh gosh, I hope I make enough money to cover my costs.

Like that's stupid. That's just bad business. So I always start with funding it first. So that even if I don't make a mint, you know, I know I'm not going to lose money or I'm not putting my own money out there, you know, just kind of hoping people are going to buy tickets and show up.

So I would say like for people who are thinking about, you know, creating something like that, you really need to create a business plan. I mean, it's not just like, oh, this would be fun. Right. You need a proper proper plan with marketing plans as a plan.

And that's how you can go and effect a sponsor or multiple. Multiple sponsors. Yeah. If you don't mind me asking, if you don't feel comfortable answering this, that's totally fine as well.

Like what is like an average sponsor fee that we get, like for LA and then for New Mexico? Well, I mean, it's very so wildly, you know, depending on what an event is. So, you know, for example, you know, Arizona cocktail week, which is in Phoenix, happens earlier in the year and they probably charge about three, four times as much money as I do for my Santa Fe event. Right.

So in my weekend festival, which kicks off cocktail week, my big opening party is Taco Wars. Taco Wars is an event that I created. It's a taco competition. It's also cocktails.

I also raise money for animal rescue through my event. And so for a brand just to have a table at Taco Wars, it's, you know, between $12 and $1300, which is not a lot of money, really, you know, but because I'm, you know, I'm what I am delivering to them is all of the marketing leading up to it. I'm delivering the cut to consumers because my events are very consumer focused. Obviously, I hope trade comes to you and trade does come.

But I have always been really trying to, my, my niche is really being consumers into the world of mixology. And so that's also very appealing to, you know, to look at brands because you have sales, the cocktail, which is all bartender focused or those kinds of events. My events are very much consumer focused. That's what I do.

That's what I do well. And that's my, that's my, because like you said, almost all of the other trade shows or festivals that you go to are very focused on industry, like, like, attracting people from the industry, right? Whereas like, we already know the brands. We don't really need to be marketed to us, right?

Like, what's the body doing it? If you're doing it to the consumer, now you're bringing in a whole new group of people who are maybe not as familiar with some of the specialty liquor brands that we, we, we people in the industry, we really know about. Well, yeah, the thing is everyone has their specialty and their niche, you know, there's definitely a need for events that are catering to the industry, to bartenders, to that, to that crowd, you know, you have to know your own strengths. And I have been talking to consumers since 2006.

That's where I began to liquid news at the cocktail blog. You know, my, that's where my books came from. That's where all the liquor brands I've worked with, you know, as clients over the years, that's why they've hired me, because I'm a girl, you know, that was early on. It was so funny.

And then 2006, I was one of the few females actually blogging about mythology back then. Like they're really, with hardly, first of all, there weren't that many blogs in 2006. There also mythology was kind of a new thing, or, you know, talked about in that way. And there were very few females in that space.

And it was just kind of like, I was interested in it. I started writing about it and kind of writing for other people that, oh, hey, I learned this. And now I'm going to share this with you and, you know, my blog. And that's where I began.

And the people who were following my blog were really just like, every day people who were really just interested in living about cocktail. And so I know that's what I'm good at. I don't personally, I've done some bartender trainings. Like I said, I've taught it some of the, you know, the tales in Portland and those kind of events.

But really what I'm best at is talking to consumers. And my events are very consumer, you know, friendly consumer driven consumer focused. That's what I do well. You know, so there might be other people out there who do that well and want to get into that space, you know, and other people who are like, I'm a bartender, I know how to talk to bartenders, I know what bartenders like.

And they should focus on that, you know, but there's a space for everybody. And so it's someone who's sort of done both sides of that now, like doing all the teaching you've done at festivals and at cocktail competitions, whatever, and then doing your own festival, which is more consumer focused, what is, how would you say I'm trying to figure out the right way to ask this, but like, what's the difference in how to market your teaching slash festival, whatever to the different crowds? Like, how is your approach, how is your approach different between marketing strictly doing an industry crowd or to a consumer crowd? You have to know your audience.

So for example, the kind of seminars that would be interesting to a bartender are different than the kind of seminars that are interesting to a consumer, right? So like, so even when I have people like Dale de Gros flying in, you know, it was a friend of mine and came since the very first year, not this year. But you know, when he's flying in, most consumers have no clue who he is, you know, even the bartender on the planet is like, oh Dale. Do you know who the other graph was before we started this?

No, right. So that's exactly it. And of course I did, right? Because I'm from the industry, Dan has worked in the industry a little bit, but definitely not his main focus.

Yeah. Exactly. And so you know, to answer your question, like the way you market Dale de Gros to a bartender is very different than how you market him to a consumer. Because what you're doing when you're talking to consumers is you're bringing, again, what I love to do and what I have always done at the liquid news is bring people into that world.

So you're marketing it as, oh, there's this person, he's an actor, you have to kind of explain a little bit so people know what they're in for. You know, as a bartender, hey, Dale de Gros coming like, oh my God, I can't wait. I'm going to come to that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's good though, because then you're appealing to both crowds at the same time. And I think that that's how you're like, obviously if you can mark, if you can find a festival that markets itself to industry types, but also consumer types, that's when you really landed on something.

It's hard to do both. I'll be honest. Because again, like, so like even when we have when I have the brand ambassadors flying in, you know, from anywhere, you know, around the country, US country, they, sometimes the seminars that they want to do, I know we're going to be over the heads of my audience. So, you know, that they're going to get into something that's way too technical or way too specific or way too scientific.

The average consumer is like, this is boring, you know, or I don't care about this. I don't understand this. I don't need to know this. What they want to know is how do you make the best freaking margarita or whatever, you know, like it's something that's very applicable to them.

So again, it's sort of like my job as someone who has, you know, my own festival issue, you know, guides my speakers and brand ambassadors coming to town, give them a sense of, you know, this is these are the kind of people we're going to show up. So you need to get it towards, you know, it's not dumbing it down. It's just talking in a different way. You know, and it's, you know, just sort of like giving people what interests them.

Right. What's the average ticket price for your festival? They're very reasonable to be honest because a lot of the brain ambassadors who are teaching like, so the, the, the seminars are a little bit more advanced in the same level of seminar that they would teach a tale and you'd pay like $85 to go to or something. And I charge for my centers, I just charge 35 because I want people to come.

And honestly, if somebody's a bartender, I let them come for free. I don't care. Like I want, I want the industry people to get educated. I want them to get inspired.

You know, it makes me happy to see bartenders. I know in the audience. So I'm not worried about trying to get 35 bucks from the bartenders. I want them just to show up.

And then for the, for the consumers, the kind of consumers that come to my event, typically, you know, I produce things beard dinners. I produce, you know, fancy, you know, blind dinners and, you know, kind of hiring events. So those consumers, I know that they have the money to pay 35 bucks for them. They're like, sure, of course, you know, for me, that's like no big deal.

So, so it's fine, you know. Yeah. Sorry. I'm very interested in the nuts and bolts of this whole operation.

So I'm going to focus on this a little bit more. Like, okay, so now you've got it. You've decided, you've got your funding. You decided kind of what you want to do.

So you've got to do a lot of different nights that you want to have the different seminars that you want to host. Then you've got to deal with the city and find a location and all that stuff, right? So talk to us a little bit about that process. You start with that.

You start with, yeah. Yeah. Like, so basically, like my festival, I work on for a good six, seven, eight months before it happens. You don't just pull back together in a few weeks.

So I start with a venue because that's a cost, you know, that's going to have to be covered. Or if you have something of value that the venue wants. So for example, you know, sometimes you can trade, you know, something like whatever it is that they might want if you don't have the money to pay the venue. So yeah, so when you're starting a festival, you first of all need to, if you're brand new, I would say keep it small and keep it simple when you're starting out.

Don't try to go out with a whole week of programming. That's stupid and insane. You start off with, you know, a couple of few events. Like when I started mine, I had, I put talk over Zen later, but I started off with the chef and shaker challenge where I got some chefs involved.

So I went around now, you have to have some relationships in your community, you know, kind of float the idea around. See if people are interested in this idea. So then you want to get pricing for your venue. You do have to talk to your city in the US liquor laws are ridiculous and they vary from state to state.

New Mexico has a lot of complicated bullshit that you have to go through to even put on an alcohol event, not to mention the amount of insane liability that comes with serving alcohol. And the US is just crazy. And so many ways and of course, no one under 21 can be there, which makes them also hiring a shit ton of security. Every single person that comes into my event, whether they are, you know, 21 or 91 must have their ID on their person.

And if they do not, I will turn them away because I'm following all the laws. The first year of my festival, I went to the department, the government like building that handles care, it's lumped alcohols and together with tobacco and firearms. So I went to that department, you know, I don't know about the name of Canada, but I went to that department. You know, criminalized alcohol in Canada?

Well, they do their best in Ontario to be honest with you. Yeah. I mean, this is, you know, landed a free, you know, anyway, so I went down to that governmental building and I met with the head of that department and I sat at the time. It was a woman running that and I sat across from her and I said, this is what I want to do.

Tell me every way I can get in trouble legally so that I can avoid it. I want to know all the rules and regulations. And there was a lot more to it than I expected. You have to get insurance, events insurance, you know, if you look into that kind of nuts and bolts and then you have staffing.

So, you know, some events run on volunteers only. I personally don't love that because, you know, I do have some volunteers and then I have some paid back of house staff and the paid back of house staff. I pay them well. They're professional bartenders because I need people who know how to batch.

I need people who know, you know, what it drinks should look like. I need professionals to really, really run back of house. I get volunteers for things like check in table, you know, because like, you don't have to have a lot of technical experience or something like that. I think some people make a mistake and try to get like, oh, I'm going to go, oh, my buddies are coming to do this for free.

You know, I think you have to be a little bit careful with that because number one, I think professionals deserve to be paid. Secondly, people aren't going to take it seriously. Like, oh, man, sorry, I'm not going to be able to make it. You know, it's also hard to like give someone shit if they're working for free, right?

Like this is not to the level that I expect whether like, well, fucking I'm doing it for free. Totally totally totally totally. Yeah. So I mean, so the kind of things that you need to be thinking about is venue, if you think about security, if you think about insurance, you have all the non glamorous stuff, right?

You have to be thinking about staffing and then you have to then, you know, when you're working with the brands, because you know, like the sponsors that I have in my event is like Beams and Tori, McCarthy, well, in Branson, you know, big, big companies who are flying in and spending a lot of money to come here. So then I also have to be very, I mean, I communicate with them as shit, son, leading up to the event because I want to make sure that, you know, they're sending in POS, they want to decorate their table, they're going to be sending in whatever. So you're coordinating, like, not only just all the Branson and the Bachelors are going to give a talk, you're also kind of helping them, you know, they're relying on you to make sure that you are going to provide, you know, what they need to provide the experience they want to provide. So there's that too, you know, that is crazy.

I can't like when you say like six to eight months work that I mean, that seems, I was almost expecting that might even be longer than that because of how much like I just know even trying to open a bar, how fucking long that tastes, right? Like to get all your ducks and roll, get everything in order, get all the sign offs that you need. So so basically you get this, you pull this thing off and then you take a couple of months break and then just start working on it again. Yeah, I would like to say break, that'd be cool.

I mean, break just from the festival. I do, I take like three days where I take at least two days, minutes over and I don't talk to anyone because like, you have all of this like months and months of stress because of course, just like opening a bar or anything. You think you have all your ducks in a row and then they freaking throw something at you. Usually something completely out of your control.

Right? Yes. So this year, so and you're also first dealing with distributors and like, you know, getting the product where it needs to go because you know, here it's illegal for someone from like being centaurated to be like, hi, I'm going to teach my seminar. Here's my case of liquor.

That's completely illegal. It's like through the distributor and then has to come deliver to the venue and the venue has to have a certain kind of liquor license. And so in the past, it was a little simpler because I could say that let's just say James and Dorego as an example, hey guys, you know, Bobby G's flying into teacher seminar. Really excited.

So in addition to paying your sponsor fee for this particular event, you also have to provide the alcohol. So in the past, they would do the chain of command. They would tell their distributor, okay, take, you know, a case of whatever makers mark down to X place and they would deliver it with a zero invoice, which means that they're just like, you know, I'm not paying for this. It's just coming there.

Everybody's had to do examples, right? So everyone's happy. Blah, blah, blah. This year, things have changed.

I, even though I personally, it was really screwy and this is probably not even legal, but I don't know, they're on your podcast just to share like the nightmare of the bullshit I had to put up with. So this year I had to, so I have, I have nine events going over four days, right? And they're all like, each one is like a lot of work. And so I had some happening at the convention center.

I talk about what's happening there. Then I had seminars happening in a different location. Each of those places have to have a certain kind of liquor license and then you have to be delivered there. I have to settle all that shit up.

And then this year, they're both selling Glaser-Wanted Spirits and R&D Save, which are two big distributors in the US. They're in most states. Oh, guess what? You're going to have to pay for the liquor upfront.

And I'm like, they what now? And so I, but I can't really do that. The venue has to do it. So then I have to go to my venues and be like, so guys, you're going to have to pay for this, you know, $10,000 worth of liquor upfront.

And then I'm going to pay you and they're going to pay me. Yeah. Yeah. And then I'm going to pay you and then I have to ask them to reimburse me.

And this was a level of bullshit that nobody liked. How do you go to the venue like, hey, can you guys call up 10 grand? Just go front that and I'll pay you back after. They're like, what?

You know, it was a nightmare. And I'm still, I'm still waiting to get paid back from some of the companies because, you know, getting reimbursed after the fact takes a while sometimes. So I was out a bunch of money, you know, it was crazy. And like, you know, but it's not a money, but, you know, but it's not a lot.

Yeah. And it's not which is stressful. No matter what, right? Like obviously we've all been, especially opening bars like that.

There's lots of money I have to front all the time and just in hopes that I get it back. You're pretty confident you're probably going to get it back, but still, that isn't stress. Well, I know it's unexpected. You know, so I'm like, okay, you know, so that was crazy.

Then there's things like generators, you know, because different venues, of course, have different, you know, situations. And at the convention center, they're like, Oh, okay, you have 13 chefs coming to make tacos. Yeah. That's going to blow all of our fuses.

You have to prevent generators. So then it's like, screwing on funny, they're right. But they will only take this kind of generator and not that kind of generator. And you know, all of that, all of that, all the madness.

I was thinking about like, kind of what you do and sort of what I do as well is like, you end up learning a lot of shit you never wanted to learn about. The non fun stuff. Yeah, like I didn't, I never give a fuck about a few before. Exactly.

Exactly. So when you do when the festival finally winds down, you get a couple days to maybe decompress or whatever, and then you're back to your like real life work, which is traveling around and teaching at all these cocktails, competition festivals, whatever, right? Like, so I'm doing a bit less of that stuff. So I do a few things that the liquor news now.

So I do event production, which obviously my festival, I also work as a culinary producer for the James Beard Foundation. And I oversee dinners around the country for the Taste America Dinner series, which is really cool. There's like a really fun client. I don't always travel to all the dinners, but I'm kind of like this on zoom, guiding the producer in each city and you know, helping them set up the dinners with their chefs.

And just our listeners, what is Taste America? What is that about? So the James Beard Foundation? Do you guys know the James Beard Foundation?

I know James Beard Foundation, but I'm not familiar with the Taste America thing. Okay. So James Beard Foundation, they have a lot of different ways that they raise money. And so one of them is the Taste America Dinner series, where every year they choose 20 cities where they're going to do the special fundraising dinner.

And I did one in Santa Fe a couple of years ago, which is how I kind of like started working with them. And I'm doing one in Santa Fe again this year on November 8th, which will be really fun. But they so this year we have 20 cities, cities like some small ones like Santa Fe, Kansas City and then Big Ones like Miami Boston, New York. So we have all these different kind of things.

Each one has the host chef who is posting the dinner in his or her restaurant. And then each one has a traveling guest chef. And so everyone who hosts will also get to go be a guest chef somewhere. Yeah, that's awesome.

It's so cool. And really, it's creates such a great community. Everyone just flew to New York last week for the kickoff party. And I was supposed to go, but the weather was so crap and flights were canceled left and right now like, I'm just going for two days.

I don't really have to be there. So I decided not to go. It wasn't necessary because I talked to all the people on Zoom all the time anyway. But it was cool for the chefs because they all were there, you know, they were doing media all day long.

And then they had a party that night. They all got to meet in person the chef that they're going to either travel to or have traveled to them. So it's this wonderful, like, warm and fuzzy kind of community building in the chef world, which I think is just fucking cool. Yeah, it is.

Like, how did you? So is this just because of like your long career in organizing events and all the teaching you did and the publicity work you did, you just keep making connections. And now all of a sudden you're like the go-to person for people to come to for this step? Well, it's funny.

I mean, people come to me, you know, like that opportunity. They the woman who owns the marketing company who like does the dinner part for this whole James Beard thing and they also produce the James Beard Awards. You know, she reached out to me a couple of years ago and she was like, Hey, you know, here that you're the person to produce our, you know, taste America dinner and Santa Fe. Are you interested?

I'm like, I'm like, fuck you, I'm interested. And by the way, I'm going to make the best day and proposal you've ever seen because I really want to do this. And so she hired me for that. And so that dinner went flawlessly.

And that's not just me. I did it at a restaurant where I know the service is impeccable, where I know the team is the right team. I knew the chef was the right chef. Like, you know, I really chose well.

And that made it between them being wonderful. And then, you know, the event, you know, background that I have, like together, we had a flawless event and they were, we exceeded their expectations, I think. So then I just got really lucky because the James Beard, because at every dinner someone from the foundation goes and attends the dinner. And so the lady who came to our dinner went back and raved about it.

And so that's why they were looking to like add someone to their team. And so maybe it's not to me like, Hey, I want to help us with some other ones. And I'm like, what? Yes, we.

So that's. Well, like the main thing you do is that you do everything really well and you put everything into it, obviously. So that's why you keep getting the work. But I kind of feel like you're like such a testament to like working this industry because you've done so many different things that are all industry related is, would you say part of this just like kind of not saying no to anything?

Yeah. Yeah, I think I'm learning to say no to things now because I'm just sort of like, Oh, something new. I get bored really easily. So like, Oh, I have this new opportunity.

Can I do it? Sure. Someone else can do it. I can figure it out.

Like I'll make it work. And then I just make sure I make it awesome. I'm not saying everything I do is awesome. I'm sure I've fucked up on lots of stuff, but I.

But I think learn too, right? Like, so yeah, I work really, really, really hard. And the thing I'm also not afraid to ask, you know, people, you know, like, Hey, you know, collaborate with people that are really good or learn from other people or share knowledge back and forth. That's how we all get better.

Yeah. And someone comes to you with an idea used to because I have the same, I don't know what the problem or solution will we can discuss that with their therapist. But like I have that same thing where it's like, if somebody comes to me with an eye, like I don't turn down meetings because they might some of them a lot of them end up being a waste of your time. But you know, like three out of 10 ended up leading to something really cool that you do.

And I have a real hard time saying like, if somebody comes to me with a cool idea that I don't have time to do it. Yeah. Totally, totally, totally totally. I've also been trying to do this thing.

So a friend of mine who lives here in Santa Fe, she's a writer and she went to this book called You Are a Bad Ex. My name is Jensen Cheryl and she is a super bad ass. And her book's really successful and she, you know, whatever. And so one of the things in her book, and I didn't know who she was actually until I met her and I'm like, oh, she's cool.

I'm gonna read her book. And I'm like, oh my God, this book's amazing. And then I realized, oh wow, she's really famous. I had no idea.

But she has this mantra in the book where it's like, you know, money comes to me easily and freely. Money comes to me easily and freely. And I love this man. It's so weird.

It's because it actually worked. It's so weird. Like whenever I have a low, which is rare, because I'm always busy, but whenever I have a low and I'm like, I have a bit of a low, well, because ultimately I'm freelancer, right? You don't have like a quote unquote job.

I mean, yeah, but I don't have anyone else giving me a salary. I got to figure it out. And so, so this last weekend, I'm like, okay, I mean, I'm about to start working on a new book, but you know, but that's a little ways off. And so I was like, okay, money comes to me easily and freely.

And like within two days, I got offered to write two different magazine articles about alcohol, obviously. And so, but I turned them both down because, because at first I was excited, but then I was like, wait, these are both paying super shitty money, like big debate and internless money. And I don't think I'm not like, oh, I'm insulted. It's just that it's not right for me.

You know, like I need to, I was like, wow, I thought I was going to have a little free time in July. If I do think like one was writing an article about Mascale, well, if I'm going to do that, I'm going to make sure I'm like, I mean, I know a lot about Mascale, but I'm not going to write an article without further research. Let me know. I'm going to make sure it's really good because that's my name out there.

And I don't want people to be like, she's talking about it. So I will make sure it's good that will acquire a whole lot of work, it's going to be $150. I'm like, honey, honey, like, no, so I didn't say like that. Thank you so much.

Honestly, the day is not compelling enough for me to make the time to do that. And so then I worked on the mantra and I'm sorry, because I think it's as helpful for everyone in the world. So then I got like, I'm going to be very specific about my mantra. I was just saying money comes to me freely and easily.

What I want to say is thousands of dollars comes to me easily and I did it. I sit, you're not. I did that. And it was, it was a very next day as well, just this past week, I got an email from a client I had in the past and they were like, I do recipe development for liquor brands as well.

And so she wrote to me and she's like, I have two new liquor brands. they each need six recipes and I told her with my rate, it's a few thousand dollars. No, wow, that's crazy. I'm not kidding you.

It's so crazy, but I think that this, and honestly, it'll take me probably the same amount of time to do those recipes that would have taken that article in the scale article for 150 bucks. Part of that too is like valuing yourself properly, right? Because you say, you're not trying to be a snot about 150 bucks, but you need to value yourself at a certain rate, otherwise you're gonna be devalued. I think that's all part in parcel in this whole notion of positive thinking I've gotten my head way more around lately too, because if your constantly just worry and stress about everything, then things tend to go badly.

I totally agree. And I think that there's a way to say, I guess back to what I was trying to say with that whole example, was like I'm trying to say no to more things now and just be like, you know, because I'm like, sure, I'll do that, sure, I'll do that, I'll do that. And then I'm like, okay, who am I? Like I'm having an identity crisis.

Like what is the people standing, well, what is the liquid news? And I'm like, well, it's a big one-word thing, you know? And I'm like, no, I'm an event producer, I'm a writer, I'm a teacher and I co-founded an organic chocolate liquor, oh, I'm talking about the liquor. And so I'm like, that's enough.

Like I don't need to be doing everything else, you know? So I'm really trying to focus more on the things that get me super excited. My friends will get to me excited, talk of words. I'm in a legal battle, because it's jerking Louisiana, it's trying to still talk of words.

And he won't, I have a federal trademark, and he just ignores it, so whatever. But talk of words is something I'm very passionate about. It's really fun, I raise money for animal shelters with it. I like writing my books, I love, but I'm actually my next book is not a cocktail book, which I'm also really excited about.

I need to like explore new arenas. I've written five cocktail books. I don't really want to write another one, I'll be honest. On that topic though, just because you've given us a lot of time, we really appreciate it before I let you go.

I do have a dog and a cat, so I need to know what I need to be drinking with these animals. Give me one suggestion from each book, and then we can tell our listeners how to buy these books. And explain it not to buy them. Thank you for letting me talk about the book.

Like I said, I was kind of done with writing a cocktail book, I have nothing else to say here, but I'm a huge animal advocate. I have three foster puppies right now. And so I'm like, okay, this drinking with my dog, I had in my mind for awhile that came in and I never talked to a book. Whenever I do a book signing event, that book came out in January and I've done events now in like LA, Phoenix, Austin, I'm doing one in Santa Fe.

I'm gonna keep traveling, it just came out in England, so I'm gonna go do one in London, hopefully later this winter. And every time I do a book signing event, I'm raising money for a rescue in that city. And so drinking with my dog was inspired by my dog during the pandemic, who I was drinking with. And so her name is Lula, as you came from the shelter that I'm fostering for right now, I've been a little shelter teeny little shelter in the New Mexico in the middle of nowhere.

So the drink I made for her, my favorite cocktail is in Manhattan. That's how I judge every bartender and every bar I ever go to. Me too. Billy.

Yeah. So you know, one day when we meet, we have to make each other in Manhattan. That's right. Well, I sort of switched to the Black Manhattan as my actual favorite, but for my tester, for bartenders, if I go to a cocktail bar and like these guys make cocktails, whatever I always say in Manhattan.

Like so that's right. I'm like if they're shaking it. Yeah. Whatever.

Anyway, so then of course I have my chocolate liqueur. So I like to, I actually, my twist of my Manhattan, this one's called the brown-eyed girl in honor of my dog. And so I use, so normally I would use rye because I'm kind of a traditionalist that way. But for this one, I'm like, you could use rye or bourbon.

And then I use a little bit of my chocolate liqueur. And then instead of sweet vermouth, I use a little bit of port and chocolate bitters. Oh, it's not really cool. And it is so good.

And then you garnish the chocolate cover cherry. So that's the one from drinking with my dog that I hope people might enjoy. And then my hatbook cocktails with my cat, tasty tuples for feline frenatics. That comes out in the spring.

And I am a cat lady. I have five. I have a doctor and kept keeping them. And then I'm like, you're not supposed to keep them when you foster them.

It's hard though. Good stuff, fostering for a while. But anyway, so that one, I don't remember. I think probably the most interesting thing, well, in everyday consumer, my book is very much written for consumers.

That's the end of each book. I have a section there like, okay, your first chapter is how to set up your own home bar. These are the kinds of spirits you should buy. These are the kind of glossary you should look for.

This is, I think garnishes and all that bar jewels, all that fun stuff to set up your own home bar. Then they go through all the chapters and stories. And then at the very end, it's like, well, now you've learned all this stuff. It's time for you to create a signature cocktail in honor of your dog or cat.

So I think that that that's the most fun part. And I just kind of give them all the guidelines. Go with the content cocktail that you really like and then swap out for like, I do a girl. I swap out for food for me.

It's how all cocktails ever got created. Of course. Well, Natalie, this has been super fascinating to talk to you. Like we can talk to you for hours, honestly, because you do so much.

So it's crazy. I found the time to do this with us, but we really appreciate it. And before you go, tell our listeners where they can follow you, where they can find the liquid news and where they can follow what you're doing, because I'm sure it's gonna be something new tomorrow. Yeah, I can't be too convinced that your bar is, by the way.

Oh, great. Yeah, I would really, really like that. It's on my list to see more of Canada. I've only been to Montreal, which is ridiculous, because I travel a lot.

And that's the best part. So you picked the right way. Well, I can't wait to come visit your bar someday. The people want to check in with me.

Go to theliquidmuse.com and Instagram at theliquidmuse. Yeah, that's about it. Well, thanks so much, Natalie. We really appreciate all your time.

Thank you. You're a fucking powerhouse and try and find some time to rest, but keep doing what you're doing. Well, thank you. Thank you so nice to meet you guys.

I appreciate you having me on. It's really lovely to chat with you. Yeah, you as well. Thanks.

Thanks for the time.