E191 Lindsey Johnson

This week's guest is Lindsey Johnson, who joins us from Louisville, Kentucky. Lindsey is the founder and creative director at Lush Life Productions, the first dedicated bartender advocacy agency. In addition to her work with Lush Life, Lindsey is also the founder and manager of Camp Runamuck, a bartender summer camp host on a Kentucky bourbon trail, and Portland Cocktail Week, a hospitality worker-focused program dedicated to helping people take the next steps in their careers. On top of all this, Lindsey is also the co-owner, along with her partner, Nick LeBoris, of the Cocktail Bar Expo in downtown Louisville.

We talk with Lindsey about a range of topics, including their origins of Camp Runamuck, how it initially got started, what goes into the selection process, and even a few tips as to what might help your application. We had a great time talking to Lindsey. Enjoy the show. Welcome back to another episode of the industry podcast.

We're getting a rapidly approaching episode 200, in fact, I believe. That's right. This is episode 191. That silky voice you hear is from my partner Dan Soretta.

This is Kip Saunders, your host of the show. We're happy to have you with us again this week. Yeah, thanks very much for coming on the show and joining us and listening. How do things go with you, man?

Same old same old, same old, just plugging along and checking the bank accounts every Monday. Hope I'm going to get you can still open the doors the next week. Nice, wonderful. Life of the bar ownership.

Yeah. Hey, how was the weekend? That was okay. Yeah.

A couple private parties at Babylon and Sugar Rondid okay this weekend. So yeah, no complaints. Nice. We got to give a shout out to Willabald Burian Distillery out in the air on Saturday with our fire hydrant.

It was pretty good. Yeah, big shout out to Brian McCourt, who put up some food for us. He's been a previous guest on the show and an old friend to the food at Willabald is fantastic. That was terrific.

Yeah. And the cocktails as well, this is bad because I can't remember the gentleman who was making the drinks, but he was phenomenal. Yeah. So anyway, sorry, apologies to the bartender at Willabald.

You're awesome. But everybody should be checking at Willabald if you're in the area. I highly recommend it. In fact, where you bought some of their seltzer.

So we're drinking right now. Yeah, also tasty. Yeah, they are very good. This purple seltzer tastes a lot of great Fanta and it's going down like that's the problem.

I got down pretty quick. Yeah. Great time at Willabald on the weekend. And I highly recommend it if you're in the area.

Also, if you're in the area, you should check out my bars. That's why I got to plug my own shit while we're on here. So Sugar Rondid Downtown Kitchener at Sugar Rond Bar on Instagram to find out what's going on at that spot. And then if you're in up to Waterloo, it's Babylon's sisters at Babylon's sisters bar on Instagram to find out all the cool stuff we're doing there.

If you would like to be a guest on the show, you can email us info at theindustrypodcast.club or you can DM us at the industry podcast on Instagram. And that's where you're going to find the amazing artwork from Zacana at zacana.co. He's doing incredible stuff. Yeah, he sure is.

He sure is. He sure is. I'm thanks for chiming in. I'm a lot of our bike too, since also, yeah, if you like what we're doing here on the show, you should subscribe, rate review that helps a great deal, follow on whatever podcast platform you're currently listening.

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Let's start talking to our guest who we are super thrilled to have on with us this week. Lindsey Johnson coming to us from Louisville, Kentucky. How are you, Lindsey? Hi, I'm well, guys.

Nice to see you. Yeah, I see you as well. Thanks very much. You were just telling us before we started recording that you got in pretty late last night.

So thanks for thanks for still agreeing to come on today. Oh, it's the worst. I'm just coming back from Bartender's weekend, which is an event that we help run with our friend, Chris Petino. And gosh, that event's been going for 14 years, I want to say about 2000 bartenders mostly Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, but it's such a fun event.

And it's so nice to see everybody in the sunshine, especially after long, long winter, you know? I know I got to go into more of these bartender conferences just to get into the nice, they're all they all seem to be held in nice weather. They're in like Arizona, California, or New Orleans, or like, you know, right? Yeah.

I think there's a reason they don't have any in Edmonton, Alberta. True. Well, we have kind of like one. So bartenders weekend is like the most ideal weather, right?

April, San Diego could not be better. But then the other one, our like last one of the year is Portland cocktail week, which happens in Portland, Oregon in October, which is a real role of the dice. It's either very cold and snowy, Wendy rainy, or it is 80 and sunny. And we never know Portland's pretty cool.

Though I hear so, yeah, Portland's such a great set. I Portland and San Diego are two of the best cities in the US for cocktails, I think, especially for their size, they're incredible cities. So very long. It's been time to both.

Yeah. So I never know that like I know that they're both those cities have excellent reputation as places to go and visit for what San Diego obviously supposed to have the most perfect weather in the world. So but Portland just everybody knows Portland's cool by now. I don't think we need to plug it anymore.

But I wasn't aware that it was the both those cities were good for cocktails as well. exceptionally good for cocktails, like punching way above their weight classes, you know, their neither city is enormous. You know, they're both pretty big cities, but they can hold their own with with any of the great US cocktails cities. It's always like, San Diego has some of the most like creative concepts overall, like some of the most beautiful buildouts.

A lot of that is because of a couple of restaurants in San Diego done just such a good job building these beautiful spaces. And Portland is just so good at fresh local culinary culinary driven cocktails and has had such great leadership for so long that the drinks like you can't miss a joke I always make is the worst coffee in Portland is better than the best coffee in New York City, which is where I'm from. And I stand by that. And the cocktails are just right there in line for coffee.

Everything is just so good up there. Just saying. Well, that's good to know. I never get my answer.

So when I got there. So you're doing. Yeah, okay. So you're doing all this traveling around, obviously, because you are the founder, great director of Lush Life Productions.

So tell us a little bit about what you do there with Lush Life. And yeah, and like, yeah, we'll just tell us about Lush Life. Sure. So I started Lush Life 18 years ago in August, which is a wild thing to say.

My entire adult life, this has really been my job. And we are the very first bar, dedicated bartender advocacy agency. So my job is to make sure that there are programs, trips, experiences, events, things available to bartenders at low or no cost, usually no cost. I say low cost because bartenders, we do have a donation to another round of another rally for the most part, no cost.

And so we designed programs to make sure that bartenders have access to materials, whether that be education, we do a whole lot of education. Just today, we had a sustainability class as part of our distance learning program over on Portland Cocktail Week. Obviously we have camp brought about coming up so, so, so soon, which brings 220 bartenders twice a year down here to Kentucky to travel the Bourbon Trail. And you get to make bourbon with like the entire Russell family, you get to make wild turkey with the entire Russell family, you get to go to Makersmark and pick up the staves.

Like, it's wild with it. The tours that the brands give us when we come down here for camp. And you know, education kind of comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes it is something like a trip like Camp Run Amuck, where we have this really great program where you go down and live and work in Wahaka for a week.

You teach the bartenders down there what you know, you learn all about Mezcal. It's a really great little program. So they kind of come in all shapes and sizes, our programs, and gosh, I couldn't pick the one I love the most because they're also different. But every day I get to develop something cool, special, and hopefully useful to bartenders.

Yeah, that's crazy. So like, I'm super curious, is that 18 years you've been doing this now? Yeah, so you're not an old woman. So that's mostly your life, like you said.

So what sparks a young woman to start an enterprise like that? Did you come up in the service industry? And what point did you see that this was, say, sort of a whole in the industry that needed to be filled? And how do you start developing a program like this?

Well, so I was a bartender at Arthur College and a little bit after college. But my best friend growing up owns this amazing bar in Las Vegas, if you ever there go to Jamie Lam's D. Allen. But I was watching Allen working, he was living, working in New York City at the time I was working at an ad agency.

And he was working for free for multinational corporations. So he was showing up, he was taking a Friday night off at Thursday night off to go work for multinational corporation for free to serve a cocktail he developed for free, and then served all evening again for free. And I was like, wow, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. This is one of the biggest companies in the world.

Why are they not paying you? And his short answer is, well, they said, they're going to put me on this magazine, I'm going to get this and get that. And at the time, in 2009, 2006, that felt like a good deal to a lot of people. But I didn't really mesh with my core ethos or his really either.

And we got to talking about it, we realized that there really wasn't anybody who was advocating for bartender standing up for them saying, hey, maybe we should be paying these folks. So I started helping him very soon after most of the cocktail bartenders in New York City were asking for similar assistance. And it got to the point where I couldn't do that job and my job over at the ad agency. And I decided to go all in on this work.

I had the added benefit, you know, I came from broadcaster and wasn't an advertisement. So I knew how to make videos. And I started making a whole bunch of videos for spirits brands to kind of keep the dollars coming in while I was doing this other work. And gosh, I would say about a year and a half in a really huge brand Tancre took a chance on me and we started developing bigger and bigger programs until we got to where we are now.

Another eight of us here at Lush Life and we're growing every day. And we get to throw these incredible parties and create these incredible programs. And I could not be more grateful for it. That's crazy.

It's a crazy story. Really. I want to talk a little bit more about some of the programs that you are involved in with Lush Life. But I also am interested in the name.

Are you a jazz fan? Because I know that we're music people for sure. I come more from like Riot Girl of Punk Spaces, but it seemed appropriate. And Alan actually is the one who named us.

We were put all together. And Alan was the one who said Lush Life was the name. And here we are 18 years later still going by that It's a good one. I'm a jazz fan.

So I have many, many, many records, many versions of Lush Life. But I'll save us what is hung in our den upstairs. Oh, nice. Yeah.

I'm a super big fan of the Coltrane Lush Life record. That one's unbelievable. Yeah. That's a like quintessential version.

I just can't get a first pressing about when I can't afford it one day. I had one, but I had to sell it. So it's out there somewhere. I don't know.

I sold it to a place in Toronto. So hopefully, 10 times what I sold it to them for. Another excuse to come to Toronto. Yeah, there you go.

So you end up in Louisville. Now, was that because of the Camp Run-A-Muck program? Yeah. Well, I was down here all the time for camp.

I spent about without living here. I was spending about, I would say, six, eight weeks, seven of a year here just to get camp done. And the very wonderful woman who was a volunteer who ran Camp Run-A-Muck for 52 years was in her late 80s before she was retired now. She's retired love her life as she should.

But you know, she was in her 80s. And every weekend I was finding that she needed a little help with this or that or whatever. And I was flying down here all the time to help with whatever needed to get done at camp when we were here. So in the campsite itself is so beautiful.

It's out about 25 minutes from Louisville, Kentucky. And it's just out in the middle of the woods, it's gorgeous, big rolling hills. But you know, there's always maintenance. The site was built in the late 50s.

So you know, there's definitely everything you've got to paint and a little bit of love. But it was, I was just not even myself down here more and more. And I was spending as much time here as I was in New York. And boy, is it much more affordable to live in Louisville than it is to live in New York.

So I decided to move down here. And I love it. It's such a cool city. It's definitely, you know, it's not that it's challenges.

No city is, but it's, it's such, it's growing so fast and changing so quickly. But it still has this really, really great little heart. And you know, obviously, bourbon is the driver, the connector here in Louisville, which is nice. Yeah.

So when you were developing the program for Camp Run and Mike, we have had, I don't know, countless people on the show who have been your former campers, do you call them campers? Of course. Okay. I can't press it.

Run and Mike. And all of them, like to a person, rave about the experience. So, so credit to you for that. And also, I'm just sort of interested, like, when you, how did you get the idea and like then putting that idea into practice?

It seems like an enormous amount of work. So talk to me. Certainly was. I'm down here visiting a friend, one of my, my sweet, your friends, Jared.

It's just such a lovely person. And he was lamenting that very few of his friends, and if you go back and look, like, I know this is the statement I'm going to make right now is going to sound wild in 2024. But in 2012, cocktail bars were not serving bourbon. Like you could really very seldom find bourbon in a lot of cocktail bars that are fried.

There's brandy, there's gin because that's, it was in all the classic cocktail books. But bourbon didn't really appear in this value. You guys know, there's not a lot of bourbon in those books. So when we were being very literal, and we were taking those recipes straight from those classic books, there wasn't much need for bourbon, either the bottle, maybe two.

So he was lamenting that nobody came down and visited these distilleries. He'd see his friends go over to Sweden to absolute, or he'd see people go down to Mexico to learn about tequila. But very few people were coming here to Louisville. And the idea was born out of that, you know, that little experience, right?

It's sitting there and hearing my friends say, I wish more people would come and visit us. We have some of the biggest greatest distilleries in the world around the corner. They live in New York. They live in Miami.

Why is nobody coming to see me? And camp was sort of a natural extension of that idea, right? Because when you're talking about Kentucky, you know, it would be inauthentic to bring people to, you know, to bring people somewhere that didn't connect to the nature that really kind of tells the story of bourbon. Right?

You want to see that limestone water. You want to understand being out in the woods with all of that American Oak that's going to turn into those barrels, right? So we wanted to be out in nature. We wanted to connect those dots.

And to do that, you kind of have to be camping. And as I mentioned, I'm from New York City. So camping for me, I think is very different than camping for a lot of people. And camp brought about as rustic as I can get.

So that was where we landed. And just like visiting campsites around the state trying to find the right place. We were very lucky to find the Lions Club Camp Crescendo, which is where we've hosted this event every single year. It's the perfect place.

It's the perfect space for us. And the camp exists almost entirely to host camps for children who are blind, who are hard of hearing about HIV and AIDS, or who can't afford to go to regular summer camp. And we showed up on their doorstep the same week that they found out the state of Kentucky was no longer going to subsidize their programs. So it was a really kind of like perfect kids situation.

They needed funding. We needed a place to hold our camp. And we've been partnered up now for 13 years, 14 years. Oh, wow.

Wow. That's great. That's super fortunate. Like what a confluence of events to happen all at once.

It's meant to be, obviously. We feel the same way. We know it's meant to be. Yeah.

It's our spot for sure. Well, like going back to what I was saying, but as somebody gets, we've had on date, like the big thing people always say is like the amount of amazing people you meet at these events and like just be lifelong friendships with bartenders from around the world. Like that alone must make you feel great to bring these people together. It's so special.

And I always tell people if you've applied once and you didn't get in or you've applied five times and you didn't get in, it just needs at the right time. We get somewhere in the range of 2000 to 5000 applications every year. We can only take 300 people every year. So it is super competitive to get in.

But it's not always the best applications. We go through the curation process on our end is wild. We really go through and try to find people who we think are going to be like, mind it, we're going to fit together. And then once we get the like group of 150 that we think are going to fit with our leadership group that we've already preselected, then we go back and we put them all into cabins.

And that's how we kind of sort them into where we think they're a little niche into the camperon of the world. And you're stuck in a cabin with somebody for six days, seven days. You know, it's six people. Sometimes as many as eight people in one room that you're sharing, they're all strangers when they walk through the door and they're people from all walks of life who are from all different parts of the world.

You know, we have people who come in from Europe, from Canada, from the United States, Mexico, you know, we people from all over who come and join us. So, you know, it's just people who we think have similar hearts and we get really lucky in most of the time that they're the person that they say here on our application. Right. So the application process, I assume there's some, like I've never seen the application.

So like, is it there's a certain amount where it's like sort of a free for flowing essay talking about yourself? So that's how you sort of try and match it. Yeah. So it is a five page application process.

I mean, it's definitely not like applying to an IV, but it's not like applying to a state school, you know, but we get a lot of demographic information just to make sure that we're keeping things even keeping things fair. And then we want to learn about you. So there are a couple of essay questions we asked your social media, the people of misconception, not adding your social media means that it's going to be harder for you to get in. I think people think I'm going to check their social media and be like, you know, they were that the other day.

The more information we have, maybe they were like, like, thanks or something. But sure, sure, like, you do something offensive and that probably won't help your case. But if you're, if you're just being you, it's only going to help us figure out whether or not you're going to be the right fit for camp. So for that session.

So we based it a lot on the information that you give us. So very often, sometimes I've applied three, four times, I haven't gotten in and go back and look at their application. And it'll often be like a resume. They'll like have copied and pasted their resume.

I do not care at all if you placed at row class. I cheer for you. I'm happy for you. I'm going to replace it on social media and cheer for you because that's awesome.

But that doesn't help me get to know you. So the people who just kind of copy and paste their resume say, I'm the general manager of this and I want this competition and that competition that usually gets a zero for my team who's ready to get. But the person who says, you know, I'm really excited to learn about this that the other and the thing about my community I like the most is this. Those are the people who usually get the usually get the best and have the best shot again.

Whether they go to a good tip, any of our listeners who might be thinking about hitting up camper on my girlfriend for it. You were talking earlier about the cocktails and how those lack of bourbon in the classics and let me to think about our friends at Civil Horse who are making pre-made cocktails for bars and restaurants. They're doing fantastic work. The product is unbelievable.

I can attest to that. They have an old-fashioned espresso martini, a margarita, a wisti sour. These come in bottles, 750 mils or in 20 liter keg format. I believe we had a couple of espresso martinis on Friday.

We did. Was I not right about how good they taste? They were terrific. They're perfect.

And the foam on the top, it all takes us a small shake and you get the exact foam that you normally expect from an espresso martini. They're unbelievable. Did you know that each of those kegs eliminates 17 to 25 liquor bottles from going to recycling or landfill? That sounds like a weekly recycling pickup at Bihosians.

Maybe you should just start ordering kegs from Civil Horse. That's one of the big things they're doing. They're also coming in with the Cosmopolitan. That's going to drop at any point.

They're super excited about that one coming up. But again, these are cocktails that are crafted by award-winning bartenders from Civil Liberties, the Bar in Toronto, in 750 mil bottles or in 20 liter kegs. And boy, is it time-saving. If you're in a high-volume cocktail bar like Minor, the amount of time it saves you, you just pour it out of the bottle or from the keg.

Give it a quick shake or stir depending on the cocktail. And they taste amazing. But as good as you can do yourself. Sounds good.

Did you give me a little bit more information on the sustainability? For instance, are they diverting a lot of waste? Where they live in the name? They are.

So they reuse avocado pits in some of the cocktails. In the old-fashioned alone, the amount that you're saving on zested oranges, you know about the bartending process with the making an old-fashioned. You're zesting the orange. And then often you just end up throwing out the rest of the orange.

But with the Civil Pores, that eliminates the zesting. So you're saving so much in sustainability in that area. Nice. What about the production itself?

100% electric facility and it's locally sourced bulk-based spirits, infinitely reusable stainless steel package. Well, that's good to hear. I like the sounds of this. Yeah, everything about this product is amazing.

Like I said, it's really saves time if you're in a high-volume bar or restaurant. It's also helping the environment through these sustainability practices. And at the end of the day, they just fucking taste great. Yeah.

And if someone wants more information, how they go to vote getting that? That is sales at civilpores.com. Hit them up sales at civilpores.com. I would even recommend just getting it for your house.

Save yourself some time in that fashion. A lot of people, you think you know what you're doing at your house parties, you don't. These people do know what they're doing. So just grab a bottle of an espresso martini or a whiskey sour and old-fashioned right out of that into your shaker or the bottle into that shaker or stirring glass and give your guests something that tastes proper.

Yeah, something a good idea for the upcoming barbecue season when you're hosting parties throughout the summer. Your place got a case of one of these. I guess in the last couple of months, if you don't, well, if it's at my house, it's going to be done on the weekend. But you get that jalapeno margarita with barbecue season, you are loaded.

So once again, that is sales at civilpores.com. They're doing great work, sustainability practices, and unbelievable cocktails, remade by expert bartenders, sales at civilpores.com. Okay, Lindsey, back to talking about Lush Life. Talk to us a little bit more about some of the other events that you are hosting or involved in.

Sure. Oh my goodness. Well, we have Portland Coffee Week is the next big application that's going to be coming out. And for that, when we take more than we do for camp, just to put that in everybody's brain, about 500 people get into Portland Coffee Week and Portland Coffee Week exists entirely because I was so frustrated that they all of the big conferences charged bartenders to walk through the door.

And when you sit down and look around to tourism classrooms, it was other marketing professionals like myself. And people who work for brands, but very seldom bartenders could access a lot of those classes. So we took it upon ourselves to start a completely free conference for bar professionals. And we host, gosh, I think this year we're on track to do something like 80 classes over the five days.

And some of those are workshops where you go out and you learn hands on stuff. Some of them are just to sit down, listen, some of them are more sit down, like a little table, a little round table discussion. They're all different formats for different kinds of learners. As a person who's neurodiver, I cannot tell you how important it is to have different kinds of education for different kinds of people so that everyone can get involved.

Everyone feels like they walk away with something. So that one's coming up pretty soon. And of course, I feel like it's important to mention there are a lot parties. Certainly have a lot of classes, but there are just as many parties.

So you can come and hang out. You don't want to be a student and go to class all day. You can just get a bartender pass, also completely free. And then you can kind of pop into class if you want.

Go to the events if you'd really committed to anything. You can kind of go where you like. And we've got a thousand of those tickets. So pretty much anybody can come on that front.

We try to keep that open for the people. And then with Portland Cotto Week, we also do digital learning. So right now we are hosting two kinds of classes. One is very focused on sustainability programming for the month of April, of course.

And today I believe we had a class with our friends at Bombay Sapphire. I believe when this episode drops, we're going to have a class with Kapali Rum and 17 people are going to get to go to Belize who watch this class. So you are into rum. You want to go to Belize and see how rum is made, sign up, come hang out and watch us talk about sustainability on Monday the 29th.

But that will be up kind of in perpetuating. We're also running classes on our digital learning channels right now with Tequila Altos. All of those classes are focused on sustainability, but in kind of a different way. We're really focused on sustainable entrepreneurship, so helping people start their own sustainable businesses.

So we have our public classes every week, but we also have a cohort of 50 people who've signed up become a part of the program. And they're getting one on one time with some incredible, incredible people. Like the last thing that we're doing is a pitch trap session with the producer on Shark Tank Mexico who like preps all of the brands before they pitch on Shark Tank Mexico. He's coming in and teaching all of our people how to pitch properly.

And that's kind of a caliber of the programming that we have there. So we're always doing something new. We're always doing something different, but there's usually something to learn that's usually about. Right.

Yeah. And so that's kind of the common framework for all of these events is that it is educational. He must have an enormous amount of energy. I don't know how you deal with all this stuff, but I have a very good team.

When you're partnering with brands, how much thought do you put into the brands that you're partnering with, like when you say like Altos or Ten Carrey or whoever? I mean, in the case of Altos, they came to us and said, we have this incredible project called The Tohuna Society. And it is gangbusters all over the world that we're not really connecting with American bartenders like we'd want to. Can you take a look at what we're doing and develop a plan to get the word out about this incredible program?

And the Tohuna Society is something that happens every two years. Basically, you can win a $50,000 grant and education through this incredible business model with folks who've been all trained through the Harvard Business School. And it's all like, it's all inclusive, all free and you get to go to Mexico. And nobody was buying here in the States.

So we just want to get the word out and we figured the best way to do that would be to do what we do best, which is provide thoughtful education that was really going to connect with our community. So we worked very closely in tandem with brands in cases like that. Sometimes we're like April Sustainability Month who wants to get in and brands put their hands up and say, you know, we're really proud of our sustainability messaging. We would love to get involved.

And that's how folks like Bombay Sapphire get involved. So there are really quite a few ways you can either come to us, we can come to you. I guarantee Brittany Leach on my team is coming to every brand on the regular once a week with some wacky scheme. She and I cook up a wacky scheme and then she goes and tells everybody about it.

I can't say enough about how good she does her job. But yeah, that's usually how it works. But hypothetically, if there was like a brand that you didn't feel good about, you would turn down a sponsorship of course or a partnership. We do regularly.

I would say that for every brand we work with, we probably turn down four. Well, if fortunately, unfortunately, fortunately for us, we're in a position where we can do that unfortunately. They're just some folks that don't make sense for. And sometimes it's not that the brand is bad.

It's just not the right fit for the kind of programming that we're doing. It just doesn't, it feels like I'm throwing their money away. You know, and I really don't believe in taking somebody's money if it's not going to benefit them. I feel very strongly that we're all part of one big ecosystem, we're all one community.

And we all have to work together and sustain each other. Otherwise, all of this is going to go away. I know that for a lot of us, you know, it's hard to remember a time when brands completely didn't speak to bartenders. But for me, that's really where I started.

You know, when I started, I still, to this day, by the way, I have to convince brands that they need to invest in bartenders every single day of my life. But like, I cannot stress enough to you. I still have to push that every single day. But you know, the beginning, nobody listens.

No, most of them listen. But in the beginning, gosh, there's no programming for bartenders. There were no programs like this. You know, even sales was mostly a consumer endeavor at that point.

So, you know, it's been a long journey to get to a place where a lot of these brands are willing to listen. But I still feel like because we are one big community, we're one big ecosystem, if I'm not benefiting them, they're not going to come back that money's going to dry up and go back into billboards or golf trips for their sales team or something that doesn't serve the bar community. So, I got to keep fighting for those dollars. Well, and it does make sense that obviously partnering with bartenders, like it just, to me, that's just common sense.

And it's weird that it took so long to convince these brands that that's the case and you're still doing it, which is insane. But like, we have, we have data, right? Like, these are multinational, not all, but many multinational corporations that I sit in, where I looked at like a crazy person when I say to them that bartenders are the key to success. Even though they have all the data we, Nielsen, CGA have every single year since my company's existed, they do a survey and they figure out how consumers make the choice of the alcohol that they're buying.

The lowest number ever has been 80% of consumers, whether they're on premise or off premise. 80% of them make their choice based off of a bartender recommendation. So, even when they're at the liquor store, 80% of the time, the reason they pick whatever they pick is because of a bartender they know. So, it's wild that I have to keep making this argument because we have the data, we have the proof, we can see the brands that have succeeded at the one.

I have built a little graph internally that I probably should share externally, but the brands I can show you the brands that spend the most money with us are the ones that are growing at the fastest rate. It's a one-to-one every single time. And I'm not saying it's because we're doing anything magical or special. I'm just saying the party America invested bartenders every single day of the week and the party America is growing the fastest.

Correlation is not causation, but it sure does seem like there's something going on. Right. And when you think about that, it totally makes sense. It's another example of how this industry has not looked at in the same way as any other industry.

Because if you were going to buy a car, for instance, you would maybe do your research online, but you're basically going to listen to someone who is an expert on researching cars. Well, the bartenders are the experts on researching spirits. Exactly. Yeah.

The bartenders are the ones crafting them in the cocktails, bartenders are the ones who have tasted them all and can tell you the quality for the price, the quality versus value. Why do you think it's so hard to get people to look at the service industry and the bartending profession in the same way as they would look at as a regular growth business? Well, I weren't you before we started talking. Here I go.

It's because our entire industry is rooted in slavery. Right. So at the end of the day, service and service staff, whether it's slavery and dentures over to whatever, it's a class issue. Right.

People who work in our industry are still seen as the same classes in a denture serving or as a slave would have been. That's why tipping still exists. You know, like this is a multitude of problems, right? And I think for a lot of people who have MBAs and who have fake and see jobs and big and see apartments, it's very hard for them to understand that the people who work behind these bars are one super influential, two brilliant and three way more charming than they're ever going to be.

Not a waste, but you know, a lot of the time, the job requires it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It requires it. So, you know, I think that that that's a lot of where the disconnect comes from. I think that we still as a society, especially Western White Society, still has these preconceived notions of the service class and how the service class should be treated. And I've been doing my best to undo it for almost 18 years and I'm, you know, we see small changes in criminal changes, but nothing on the scale that we should be seeing at this point.

We're in 2024. This is not how anything should work. And I feel like the service industry is really kind of like we're the last ones. And I'm really hopeful that we can kind of change people's minds.

And so many of you have done such incredible work and change people's minds every day when they come into your bar or come into a restaurant. But there's still some people at the top that we have to convince. Yeah, it's crazy, because like what you're saying is that the average customer who comes in do look at us as the experts, but the big name brands do not do not see it the same way, which is like. And some of them do, right?

I definitely know as a lot of them do what nobody loves bartenders more than our friends at Compari America, bless them. I love them. You know, there are a lot of a lot of big brands that really believe in you all and they should. But you know, every once in a while, I'll run into somebody who swears up and down in 2024 that there's such a sketch cocktail and that I, you know, I'm a crazy person for suggesting that that could be a thing, you know, which I'm not even going to get into that.

But you know, this is a person who has not the only bar they've been to in the last 15 years is their country club in Connecticut. And they're not, they're not willing to come with me and see they're not willing to even read a report that I put together of. Well, here are the top 50 bars in the United States and every single one of them has at least one sketch cocktail except for this one that's a Japanese restaurant, you know, like, it's wild to me. It's truly like wild to me that I still have to be making these arguments at this point in history.

But here we are. So is it a problem? It's a disconnect. Yeah.

And like maybe at some point we age these people out of these jobs. Like maybe that's what we need to do. It's I mean, part of its age, I definitely don't think it's all age. I think it really is the class thing where there's anything else.

And I think that, you know, a lot of these companies only hire folks really, you can't work at most of the multinationals unless you have an MBA. And most of my friends couldn't afford to, you know, can barely afford to pay their student loans on a bachelor's degree, never mind an MBA. And what the fuck do those people know about Booth? Some of them, for sure.

And some of them like go out, I cannot tell you how impressed I've been with people who have zero background, they've never bartended a day in their life, who have that MBA to go out and learn it and get passionate about it and love it. I have a few clients of mine that just live it, love it, are part of as much a part of this ecosystem and as much a part of this community as you and I are, right? And you know, for every one of those, you know, there are a few who maybe are not as aligned. But you know, there are enough of us who are infiltrating.

And I think once one person in the company catches the bug, it's really easy for other people to just get excited about people who work in bars and bars and restaurants as a launching point for their brand or their work. And that's usually what gets them. Once they see, once they see how much you can do, they, and once they meet, it's really hard to think of bar folks as less than once you meet any person who works behind a bar. That's my opinion.

Yeah, I like that. And organizations like yours are really that are really focused on education. I think it kind of brings it full circle because the great bar tenders and servers are part of their job is educating the guests on spirits, wine, beer, whatever it is, right cocktails. And so I kind of like the symbiosis of like how it all comes full circle with organizations like you helping to educate the people in the service industry.

They pass that forward to the guest and it's like a beautiful circle. That's the idea. And you know, a lot of our friends can dedicate their lives through every book ever written on run. But you know, the day taking three days off from work, flying down to Belize and putting themselves up to put their hands on sugar cane is not a thing that a lot of folks have the money or the time to do.

So if we can kind of shortcut that and make it so that they have opportunities to do these really incredible things and learn it firsthand, it makes such a difference. And you know, it takes that book and it brings it to life in a really special way. So we really are grateful that we are able to provide those experiences because you know, their experiences I certainly wouldn't have had without being in this industry and ones that I'm really grateful for. So yeah, basically we just need more organizations like Lush Life out there globally, right?

Like I'm being completely serious. Like I'm not trying to pump your tires. I just like, I don't know of enough of or I mean, maybe I'm just my own ignorance. But I think that there aren't enough of there are enough Lush Life's out there.

Well, there are we're very lucky in the states, right? We're the largest market for alcohol sales. And in being that there are budgets for this sort of thing, they take liquor companies are more able to take those kind of risks. And it's unfortunate that so many of the other global, you know, the other places around the globe don't have access to those sorts of budgets or that sort of thing.

I am starting to see it more. We're starting to work on more in Europe and Asia as an organization as a company. You know, unfortunately, there are some silly, legal things in some countries versus others that make it more challenging. But ultimately, it just comes down to budgets because I think more organizations like mine would exist if there was there was room in budgets.

Right. Okay. Well, we're gonna let you go soon because you're giving us so much time. We really appreciate it.

But I'd be remiss to not mention the fact that you also own a bar in Louisville. So tell our listeners about the budget bar. Well, it's called Expo. It is a lovely cocktail bar in downtown Louisville, right across the street from our friends at Old Warster, the original bourbon, by the way, the very first bourbon that was sold as a brand.

And it's so good. If you're in Louisville and somebody's pouring you a shot, it's almost, I'm not going to say certain, but pretty sure it's going to be Old Warster. And we're right across the street to be totally honest with you. I am just the biggest year leader of the bar.

My partner, Nickle, is the brains, the hands, the person who does all of the work along with her incredible staff. I am just a cheerleader. I'm just really proud of them. They're amazing.

Okay. Well, anyone in visiting Louisville? No, you know where to go. Especially right across the street from Old Warster.

That's like double whammy there. Okay. So we will let you go now. Lindsey, thanks so much for coming on the show.

It's been super pleasure talking to you, as part of me, you're talking to us. But tell us our listeners where they can follow everything that's going on at Lesh Life. So if you're a bartender, server, someone in the industry and you want to be involved in these programs, or maybe you're just a listener and want to check out some of these events. The fastest way to learn about what we're doing is to go to Lesh Life Productions.com or Lesh Life Productions.com slash newsletters.

If you don't want to click the little newsletter link, that's going to get us in your inbox at least once a week with all of the different stuff we have coming up. I promise you, it's all different. I promise you, it is all stuff that you're going to want to read. And if you want, you can come follow me over on Instagram at the Lesh Life.

I usually repost everything there too. So those are usually the fastest ways to get to the info. Amazing. Well, thanks again, Lindsey.

It's been amazing talking to you. It's super big fan of everything you're doing. And we do a good success going forward because it helps us all. Thanks guys.

It was so great talking with you.