This week's guest is Reese Sin. She joins us from Calgary, Alberta. Reese is an award-winning bartender and top-performing sales manager, and she founded SIP Spirits Consulting Inc to deliver sensory marketing solutions for beverage brands. In addition to this, Reese also founded Flavr Camp, a program that teaches consumers and bartenders a universal language for tasting and comparing spirits and develops their sensory skills.
In our talk with Reese, we cover her journey in the industry from working as a manager at McDonald's to transitioning to a role as a busser at a restaurant where Reese discovered the potential for higher earning through tips. We talk about the time Reese worked in corporate marketing and then moved to start her own marketing agency and how this led to her taking a weekend bartender job. Reese talks about how this in turn led to her developing an interest in whiskey and pursuing an education in the spirits industry and how this eventually led to full-time work in the service industry. We talk about Flavr Camp and how this platform was designed for people to learn about spirits in an unbiased and less pretentious way, and as always we cover a number of other topics in our interview with Reese.
Make sure you check out Reese's platforms on Instagram at Flavr Camp and at SIP Spirits.ca or check the show notes for all the web and Instagram links. We had a great time talking with Reese. Enjoy the show. Okay, we're back with another episode of the industry podcast.
Kip is with you, producer extraordinaire Dan. Hey, that's me. What's happening? I'm not just hanging out with another star of the week.
It's always a good work. Yeah, work. Yeah, exactly. It's not for me.
It's not for me. It's not for me. It's not for me. It's not for me.
It's not for me. It's not for me. It's for me. It's for me.
It's for me. It's for me. It's for me. It's for me.
It's for me. It's for me. Before we get to Reese, we should mention that if you're in the area here in Kitchener Warloo, you should come check out one of my bars, Sugar Run. It's the Stik EZ Downtown Kitchener.
Add Sugar Run bar on Instagram to find out what's going on there. And for all your wine and spirits and needs, you should email me at hipappabbleinsisters.ca. K-Y-P-P at BabylonSisters.ca for Allorid Stilling. That's Allorid Stilling Company, Malivoir Winery and Terra War Wine importance.
And you know, the terrace came down again today, so let's start buying Canadian. Get the American booze off your shelves. Allorid Stilling is a full service distillery. We've got everything and Malvar Winery wanted to top wineries in the country.
So email me to bring those into your bar restaurant or just into your home. And speaking of bartending in your home, you should check out our friend Alchemist Alley at alchemist.alley. Is that right? Alchemist.alley?
I always fuck it up. Yeah, that's right. You always check the show notes for the ladies. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's the best way to do it. But check out Alchemist Alley. She is a bar consultant, a in-home bartender for your parties. She develops cocktails.
What doesn't she do, Dan? No, sir. And she has a chance, Dan. She knows everything else you might want to need.
So if you need some help with the bar program or you're hosting a wedding anniversary birthday party, need a bartender or someone just teaches cocktail classes perhaps on a Friday night, see you as your girl. Yeah, check her out. Alchemist Alley at alchemist.alley. And maybe you just want to try to develop your own bartending skills or you're already a bartender and you're stuck behind the bar one night and someone comes up and asks for a pink lady and you can't fucking remember how to make that at the last second.
Check out our amazing friends at Inbiblia. Inbiblia is the app for all of your bartending needs, whether you're an at-home bartender or a professional bartender. This is an invaluable resource. You're just interested in getting to the role of cocktails.
This is a great tool to help you figure that stuff out full of a mountain of recipes and a great flavor profile wheel that helps you tune your drinks the way you want them. And a big thank you to Jean-Marc Dykes, the brains behind him, Biblia, the driving force and the man behind our website, the podcast.club. So we're going to thank you for a big thanks. Yes, that's right.
Yeah, my bartender was, Babylon Sisters was using this resource just this weekend in Biblia. Spread the word. And speaking of our website, info.industrypodcast.club is the email attached to that website. If you wish to be a guest on the show, you can also DM us directly at the industry podcast on Instagram or if you wish to provide support for the show.
We target a great audience of people in the service industry. So if you are looking to get the word out of a product that relates to this industry, it's info.industrypodcast.club or at the industry podcast on Instagram. Finally, that is where you will find the great artwork from our good friends, Zacana at Zacana.co for all of your graphic arts needs. And while you're there, while you're listening, feel free to subscribe, follow, rate, review the show that helps us tremendously.
And it's very little effort on your end, which is what we're all looking for. Or just tell another friend that's the easiest thing to do. It takes about 30 seconds to spread the word of the show. That's right.
And I love it. You're already listening to it. So spread it around. And part of the reason you love it is because of the great guests that we have.
It's not just the sound of my amazing voice. It's the guests. And we have one right now. Resems is joining us from Calgary, Alberta.
How are you? So good. How are you guys? We're doing all right.
We're doing all right. You want a lottery ticket thing. Yeah. Well, it's all of our escape plan.
I never heard that red necrotirement. That's hilarious. So I can get this out if you prefer we didn't say it, but we also appreciate your playing hurt today, joining us after a root canal. So thanks so much for that.
My pleasure. Yeah. Okay. So we wanted to obviously we're super thrilled to have you on the show.
We were talking earlier about how you're doing judging a cocktail competition with our good friend Josh Lindley, who was just a recent guest on the show for the second time. And that's coming up in Vancouver, which is sort of where you grew up, correct? So I actually grew up in Victoria. Oh, Victoria.
Sorry. Yeah. Well, that's okay. And moved over in my early 20s to Vancouver and have just been in Calgary now for the last few months.
But yeah, for the most part in like, essentially my bartending career was in Vancouver, formerly. So I got to ask you, since you grew up in Victoria, now you're in Vancouver. I would be remiss if we didn't ask you who invented the shaft. This is for you.
I know as a current Calvaryon and former Victorian, I want to believe it was Victoria, but I haven't listened to Josh's full series yet. It's really good. But yeah, I was thinking about it because I was listening to that podcast earlier today. And I was like, man, I remember when I was like 19 going to bars ordering shafts.
I thought it was the coolest thing exactly what he was saying, how you get this kind of like juice cup with icing in and mix the straw and you suck it back. It's like a monster, although. Yeah. I just like finally remembered doing shafts, drinking shafts throughout my like late teens and early twenties over in the Vancouver.
And then it just really a thing in Vancouver. But since being in Calgary, it's also huge here. So I'm very confused. Yeah, it's really weird.
It's so unusual. And like again, a shadow to Josh and his podcast usually listen to that. The shaft podcast is super interesting. But like the fact that it somehow skipped over a Vancouver and but some are but it's the sandwich by a Calgary and Victoria.
So weird to me. I don't know. I can't think of another drink that that is the that's the origin story of. Yeah.
I don't know. There's some interesting food and beverage lore in Canada. I feel like like in Calgary, I think the Caesar was invented here, right? But then there's weird things like the California role in sushi and that was invented in Vancouver though, apparently originally.
So I don't know. So like the Vancouver cocktail, like there's been a lot of misinformation. I think again, you guys talked about this in your podcast previously about how interpretations of recipes have developed over time or changed everything. And there is like controversy around the classic Vancouver, not actually being the proper specs, the last, I don't know, hundred years that it's become popular again or I don't know.
Yeah. It's interesting. I can go down and wrap it all with that. It's super interesting, right?
Oh, but let's talk about you. Let's talk about how you got started in the service industry. Was that in Victoria or after you moved to Vancouver? So depending on what you define as the service industry, it definitely started in Victoria about one of my first jobs, like in middle school, it was working at McDonald's.
And I think that was really my first taste of like the service industry, so to speak. And totally counts. Yeah. Great.
It's so hard there. I think I started when I was like 15 and just loved that there was so much structure, but you were just working and hanging out with your friends and there was, I don't know, upward trajectory if you worked hard and I don't know, got to get promoted. So that was really cool. And then interestingly, like I was a swing manager when I was 18 and in first university and one of my girlfriends at the time, I was telling you how she was a hostess at this small Montpau Mexican restaurant and making tips and she was like, yeah, I made like 30 to 50 bucks a shift in tips.
Like it's amazing. And I was like, whoa, how do I do that? And she's like, well, we're looking for a busser and I could refer you. And so I guess, like ego wise, I was like, oh, that's a big step back to go from a swing manager manager, manager, busser, but I was making like 927 an hour of being a manager and then went to like eight dollars an hour as a busser and got tips and was like, this is the best thing ever.
I have no responsibility. I'm making like cash money every weekend. And I felt like I'm really rich at the time. It was like amazing, like a huge for me.
Well, it's funny too. It's like it's like it's a step down in sort of responsibility and like a title. Yeah. Obviously, but like, yeah, way better money, but it's kind of like why we all ended up in this industry in the first place.
So like I could be the assistant VP of product development at Staples, right? Or I could be making $300 a night bartending wherever. Yeah. Yeah.
I think it's true. Just thinking. So I went to UVic back in the day and originally wanted to go into political science and shift it over to business because I thought a Bachelor of Commerce was more practical than a Bachelor of Arts. And you're speaking as two people who graduated with political science degrees, you're accurate.
I don't know. International relations. But I look now and most of my friends in the police department, they got a job in government like right out of school. I'm in my life.
It's like obviously Victoria is such a government town, right? Yeah. Yeah. And like now I'm in my mid to late thirties.
And they've been in government for twenty five years building up the sick pension and they get like a ton of time off and their senior level director is making like mid six figures and I'm like, did I do this all wrong? I'm certainly starting to think that we did it wrong. We have those degrees. Yeah.
So at the point you obviously fell in love with the service industry at like what point do you feel like it was okay, you'll see started the busing job. I don't mean to skip ahead too quickly, but like there must have been some point where you were like, Oh shit, I think that this is what I do now. Yeah, I think it took a minute. I've kind of gone in a circular fashion with my career choices, but I, yeah.
So I was busing and then when I turned 19, I got to be like a daytime server at a small Mexican restaurant that I think it definitely has some prestige again, another name drop from your past episodes, but Sean Swool took over small, heavy Mexico or it still is. And he took over to relaunch it. They had a fire and burned down like quite a few years ago now and then rebuilt and he really modernized like their cocktail program and a lot of the way in which they were working. Whereas when I worked there, when I was like 19 to early twenties, we had like a slurping machine with like lime mix and then this like gun that automatically had the exact proportion of like queer vote, bold and pro or not even point where like no brand, no name brand like orange yourself.
So I thought I was like a bartender and I just like pressed the button and then like pour the circuit machine. I remember those fucking things like do you think do they still make those guns that like spew out liquor though? Maybe somewhere in the US they probably still have them, right? They're sanitary is the issue.
Yeah, like that because I remember those like I remember the first time I saw when I was like, holy shit, that's kind of ingenious because remember, do you remember the donuts that they used to put on the bottles that like you could pour out and you would pour exact outs? Yeah, yeah. All these things to prevent like free pouring essentially and so to monitor the liquor, but yeah, I remember those like liquor on the gun. It's like when you think, oh, so gross.
Again, this is different times like this was 18 years ago. And for one, like we didn't have access to the same amount of products that we do these days. So we had like one jina, the bar because I was like a Mexican bar and like one vodka. And nowadays even like a Mexican restaurant, we probably have like put a few options.
So like having it on the gun made sense. And for people such as myself that didn't really know how to bartend and made me feel like a cool bartender in the daytime, see margaritas for people on Saturday afternoons. But yeah, so anyways, I did that, but went into corporate office life for a while and then kind of went full circle after I knew to Vancouver. So so you were did corporate business stuff in Victoria.
And then you were like, what you got tired of it, like the office life, like a lot of us do who are the services industry. We all have this one story. It's like, yeah, I tried, I tried the office life for a year or two. It's not for me.
Yeah. And so when you went prompted decision to be Vancouver. Yeah. So I think part of it was, again, I had graduated from university, got a job right after.
So I was working in marketing and communications, but it was pretty exciting at the time. Like it was just when things like Twitter and Instagram were starting and Facebook had been launched for a few years. And so being kind of young and scrappy and figuring out these tools was like really valuable for new organizations. So in Victoria, there's like this main shopping center downtown called the Bay Center that I worked at.
And I think for me, it was weird. I just had this like itch that I wanted there. There had to be more in life. Like I was like, Oh, I went to university in my hometown.
I have my long-term partner. Like, do I just get married and then work here for the rest of my life for this like $35, $35,000 a year salary and then retire here when I'm 60. Like I feel like I should at least try a different city or try something different just to see. And if I hate it, I can always move back.
And so yeah, so I started applying for marketing jobs in Vancouver. And there was kind of like a catch 22 where they would be like, Oh, you don't have connections or you're not located in Vancouver. So we're going to hire this person that actually lives here over. And I just was like, I need to take a leap of faith and found a place like all my dad, I think to cosign for me on the lease of like a one-bedroom apartment in Vancouver.
And I was like, I'm just going to move and I'll figure it out. Like I have, I don't know, a couple of grand in the bank and again, worst case, I'll move back or break my lease or whatever. And so moved over and very, I guess, serendipitously the day before I moved, I got two job offers to work one with an agency and then one on the marketing side within an architecture firm. So yeah, so I ended up taking a job working in architecture and did that for like five years in Vancouver.
But again, just hated office life. I would like roll in, work seven to seven every day. And I was like, is this what life is? Is it you just sit on your butt in an office like for a third of your day and then make money and then?
But that's like happy day too, really. Yeah. Yeah. It was a long time.
And like what I love doing is going out for drinks and the big city of Vancouver and thought it was so cool. And so anyways, I, the real story is kind of silly, but I think when I was like 25, I went to this motivational talk. Like it was like Tony Robbins, but this other person in LA for a weekend. And he was essentially like, you can do anything if you put your mind to it.
And I was like, I want to be an entrepreneur and I'm just going to like start this bad ass marketing agency and screw this company that I work for. And I like came back and put in my notice within a month. And was like, I'm just going to start up my own marketing firm and be amazing at it. And I know everything now that I've had like, I don't know, five years of work experience.
Can I interrupt you for one second? Yeah. Like, so what, how did you find this motivational speaker with somebody you found online? And you were like, this is like, they were speaking to you.
So you're like, I'm going to go to one of these conferences in California or like, like, how did that develop? Like, so it was several through a friend, like a high school friend. And she knew him in real life. And then similarly, he had like, I don't know, like a social media presence and like a podcast and stuff at the time.
And I was like, oh, this sounds cool. And you can just fly direct to LA in two and a half hours. And it makes sense to go to this with my girlfriend at the time. And then yeah, so I like went to this.
It's like, yeah, I'm going to rule the world. And then I think as you can probably appreciate it as a business owner, when you kind of transition from doing the business to being the business, it's really hard to do the like, administrative and business and client acquisition side of things. And you don't actually know shit. So when you're like 25, a lot of times.
And so yeah, I found it really challenging. It was like, oh man, I need to make money. I've like burned through all my financial resources in Vancouver. And so I picked up a bartending job and an Irish pub on weekends to just make a few bucks as I was trying to like get clients and do stuff, I guess, in marketing.
And kind of like snowball from there. Like I just had never actually done proper bartending before and fell in love with it. And I was like, damn, this industry is so cool. The people are cool.
I'm in my like mid 20s. It's super fun. It's like fun to make really good tips in Vancouver at the time. And it was very social.
So and most importantly, they had like quite a large whiskey selection at this Irish pub I was working at. And it really rejected me into wanting to learn more about whiskey and just kind of specialize in that as like my expertise as a bartender. Again, going back to marketing, just knowing that I needed to have a leg up or have something that people would remember me by. So I really focused in on like becoming a specialist in whiskey, if that makes sense.
And so this was all at like this basically this weekend pub you like this weekend job at a pub that you started working at. And then so you do a deep dive into whiskey. Do you take courses or are you just doing it on your own? A little bit of everything.
So just to kind of I guess continue to storyline. So when I was working at Coldle Blarny Stone, it's in Gastowny, Vancouver, it's still going strong. So when I worked there, there was this one guy that would come in like every other weekend and come to my bar and order like 50 shots of Jack Daniels and just give them out to people and be like, yeah, hey, bud, like here you go. And I was like, finally, like who are you to this man?
So he was like, oh, I'm the Jack Daniels brand ambassador for Vancouver. And I'm like, what is a brand ambassador? And so obviously coming from a marketing background, I was like, what? You can get paid to just like talk about alcohol and buy people like and come to my bar every weekend and just do education and advocacy.
Like how do I get this job? This sounds amazing. And he essentially, his thing's Jerry Jobes that he owns like Simps Syrups now. Anyways, so he hadn't said that I needed to get more experience.
So getting kind of cocktail and bartending experience, just like every other industry networking is really important. The more education you have, the better, just like any other industry. So going back to your question, I started doing my like WZT and wine and spirits because they didn't have like the spirit separated at that time and went up to level three with that. And then just, I'm like a very like purpose-driven purpose with vacations and travel.
I have a hard time just like chilling out and doing nothing. So this was perfect. I was like, oh, I'm going to travel to these like cool whiskey producing countries and go to distilleries and take courses. And that would be a good reason for me to like travel to these places.
So did like a bourbon stewardship certification in Kentucky, did like an Irish Distending Academy course in Ireland, have been to Scotland like quite a few times and like throughout a number of different cities in the US that have large kind of pockets of distilleries. And so yeah, it all kind of grew from there. And I guess there's way more to the story. But I really started at the Irish pub and just seeing a brand ambassador in action.
Yeah, that's crazy that you can like, you can sort of, or origin point the story to like, just like, oh, I just needed to make a couple extra bucks. And I was working at an Irish pub on the weekend and this has blossomed into like what you're doing now with your life. Yeah, it's crazy. Like I truly do not think I would be doing what I'm doing now, but also kind of do like again, going back to university and doing a business degree.
There was an entrepreneurship track and I always thought that owning your own business and having more control over your time and income sounded really appealing. And so I guess part one of that was trying to do that in my early 20s. And now in my mid 30s, having a lot more experience and maybe perhaps apathy has allowed me to do take two of that, but actually sustain it for the last few years, which is cool. Right.
Okay. So then so at some point, obviously, you decide to get sort of back into the service injury full time. And like, what was that transition like? It was like a slow fade.
So I got a couple clients doing social media where I'm in kind of fashion, beauty stuff while I was bartending. And then it was just like, I don't know, I feel like this industry is all about just being nice people finding common things that you're interested in and having good connections. But similar thing, like I was just out with somebody in the industry met somebody else who was looking for like a cocktail bartender at their restaurant or fine dining restaurant. And he's like, I would love to have a female bartender on my team.
Like, would you be interested? And I was like, yeah, at the time, by the way, he like just broken up with his girlfriend at the time and was like blackout drum and essentially like offered me this job. And then I like followed up the next day and was like, I don't care that you were drunk. You offered me a job.
I'm taking it. Yeah. And so I was like, I don't really have like cocktail bartending experience, but I'm really eager to learn. And so I was still doing the weekends at the pub because again, like you're doing a ton of volume of just like high balls and shots and stuff and getting money.
And then the fine dining was more about like, again, continuing my WST training, learning more about wine and cocktails. And my bar manager, shout out to Chris Mosie, who again, ironically, he's actually one of the other judges with Josh and I at this competition, which is crazy. Like, again, coming full circle, this is like almost 10 years ago now that he hired me, like without knowing anything about me or my experience. And he's like the first person that taught me how to talk to our attention.
Oh, that's crazy. Yeah. That's weird that I think about it now. You must be really looking forward to this.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it would be too. That's crazy.
Like what are the odds? Yeah. That's not good that I'm thinking about it now. But yeah, Chris, I'm sorry.
Not that I've ever had you met Josh before or no? Yeah. We've met like kind of in passing through the industry, but I haven't spent a ton of time with him. So I feel like I'm gonna be weird to talk to me with him and be like, let's talk about business and the industry.
Well, he's a very giving person in that scenario. And literally he's built this entire thing he does on helping other people in the industry. Right? So you're gonna love him.
Yeah. So we're big fans of Josh. Me too. Like I think too, like I don't have a big presence in Ontario, but essentially I don't want to compare bartender outlets to what I'm doing now.
But just getting back to the community is like a big part of just engaging with bartenders to give them opportunities now because I was like so hungry when I was bartending to take like every opportunity to have possibly good, just work and grow as fast as I possibly could. Yeah. And it's so cool when you like run into these people in your career who are totally willing to give back to you without like any bitterness or looking for anything in return from it. Like the industry that we work in can be very much that way, but it can also be very much the other way full of like jealousy and pettiness and like people trying to get ahead on your back.
Right? So when you run into these people in this situation who are actually like eagerly looking to help you develop your own career, it's so like you'll never you don't you never forget those people. Yeah, for sure. I totally completely agree with everything you're saying.
And I have what to say about the pettiness and people jumping on your back trying. But I don't know if I if we should talk about that. This is the spot we can always cut it out later. Yeah.
But I would just say I found like I'm always I don't know like if you work in the service industry, you want to be of service to people, right? And I think I'm not necessarily like looking for 100% reciprocation when I give to other people, but at least saying thank you or having some sort of level of appreciation is definitely motivates me. And I feel like even if you can just like a lot of it is just giving people a chance to make their own career. Like here's like I will always offer try to offer people my knowledge if they want it.
I'm not going to push it on them, but I'm also very much about giving them the opportunity to develop their own career with with my help or and with access to my knowledge or not. But the worst thing you can do is like have this situation we're talking about earlier, like just now where like there are people who will try and hold you back. So let's talk a little bit about flavor camp. Like I was like, what's the what's the idea behind it?
What is it tell our listeners? Yeah, for sure. So flavor camp is essentially an education platform mostly for Canadians at this point. And the whole idea was that again, when I was a bartender learning about different spirits, I would go to lots of tastings and a lot of times it would be one brand ambassador with one distillery or portfolio that they worked for directly.
And so obviously they're biased. They're paid to talk about how amazing that product is. And there wasn't really access to like a universal resource that talked about spirits in a way that was unbiased. And so I created flavor camp because for one, I'm like a very visual learner.
I've always been somebody who like highlights my notes, color codes, things, doodles. And so it's very like visually centric. I do a lot of like infographic visual learning, I guess, that makes sense. But also I just wanted to have like an unbiased less pretentious way.
Originally to teach about whiskey and now it's kind of expanded to all categories of spirits. And so today what it looks like in 2025 is every month like online for our online resources, I focus on a different spirit category. So for example, in March right now, we just started with Irish whiskey. And there's a bunch of different challenges throughout the month that people can choose to participate in.
They're super low stakes. It's everything from like kind of digital cocktail competition type thing to providing opinions to food pairing stuff to other little challenges, but they're all kind of tricking people into learning, experiencing and just thinking about spirits in a new way. And so yeah, so it's like been growing over the last three years and I run in-person tasting classes as well. That's mostly been in BC so far, but I'm hopefully doing a bunch of them in the US that's here.
We're going to see what happens with that as well as in Alberta as well. But it's just really focused on like, unpretentious, unbiased education, teaching people how to taste and really focusing on flavor first versus what the price point is, what the age is, how good people perceive it as. So just to expand on that, like with our tastings, they're all done blind. So people get to form their opinions based on the flavor itself, not necessarily again, the price point or what product it is.
And then we do a reveal and talk about all the features and benefits of each of the products that we feature in the in-persons. And then yeah, online like a lot of it is kind of turned into a lot of content on Instagram in the past year just because that's seemingly where the engagement has been happening. Especially in our industry, Instagram is the camera for sure. Like more than any of the other social media platforms.
Yeah, for sure. I think the whole thing has been very evolving and changing. Like I'm to be honest, I'm throwing a lot of ideas at the wall seeing what sticks are seeing what is getting engagement and then refining. And I think just like anything you have to continue to just like be agile as a small business because that's your greatest asset versus having tons of people, human resources or capital to just make things happen.
And so I'm just trying to figure out what people like and want and then continuing to give that to them with education as a focus. I like the idea too. It's like trying to find like sort of a fun way to almost trick people into like discovering flavor profiles, which is like, yeah, that's a really cool concept. And it's like, I think there's not enough of this in our industry because a lot, I mean, we've both taken the W-side courses like there, there's nothing fun about that.
It's like very informative. But like it's a lot of work and studying and like and it's like going back to like I started taking them years after I graduated from university. I remember when I graduated from university, I'm like, that's it. I'm done taking courses for the rest of my life.
I'm done studying. I'm done educating myself and I got into that and started taking those courses. And I'm glad that I did it. But it was like going right back to fucking school and like trying to retrain your brain of how I remember I had to retrain myself how I used to study because you know, everyone has a different way of studying, right?
Like whether it's visual or whether it's through like it being yeah, yeah, yeah, or however your method was. I couldn't even remember what mine was because it had been so long. Right? So then I had to redo that.
But so I love the idea that you're doing it in sort of like a fun way where it almost like tricks people into learning something, which is great. Yeah, like I think at the end of the day, it's again, our motto is kind of flavor first. And so with it, I have like I've developed like a flavor camp tasting system. I call it and it's similar to the systematic approach to tasting in that there's like, essentially for whiskey, for example, there's like 13 different categories of flavor camps.
Hence the flavor camp name and people can use them. So in my in-person tastings, I will tell people what whiskeys are tasting or spirit, what flavor camps they fall into, but they won't know the order. And so they'll have to think about looking for those flavor camps or tasting or smelling for those flavor camps in order to decipher and try and discover and be able to train their palettes while kind of having this like low stakes competition of being a pitch. Yeah.
And so it makes it fun, even though people are learning, I think people of all levels can participate and I've kind of continued to adapt to find ways to do like, if you're a beginner, you can use like these resources in our classes. If you're more intermediate or advanced, you don't have to use like this thing. You can just go raw dog it if you wanted like, blind taste without any resources. So I'm constantly trying to like adjust and like you said, just accommodate all learning styles.
Like again, I'm visual, but I think tactile and auditory is equally as important. So I try to incorporate all of those into like anything that I'm teaching, but people like games and like competition, like low stakes. And so that really helps people, I think, to like get invested in the process and learn. And then they're like drinking at the same time, which is fun, but they're actually learning to be more intentional and be able to identify flavor profiles more effectively, right?
I think it's amazing. I think it's like, I wish that that's cool. It's just when I was trying to learn this shit, because for me, it was just like hard work and studying. And this sounds like just fun, but still getting the same information, right?
Before I let you go, because you've given this so much your time, we appreciate it. The sense you have been teaching blind tastings and the whole point of the blind tasting being like, oh, it doesn't have to be a certain price point to be good. What in your opinion is the most overrated and underrated whiskey based on price point? Oh man, that's a really hard question.
I would say I wait on the spots. I know I hate trying brands under the bus for like overrated, just because I feel like if the brand is doing well, then they're servicing a market and I'm just not that market. But I would say, I guess probably like the McCallons, I think their price points have gotten very insane for being non-aged statement again, not that age. I think that's totally fair assessment.
And also it's like saying, you're not necessarily throwing them under the bus because we're saying, I would say that burgundy Reds are now overrated only because they're not because they're not fucking delicious because they're just too expensive. You know what I mean? Okay, so in that area, what would be your underrated one? So underrated, I think there's a lot of really good Canadian whiskeys out there that are just these absolute gems that in general, I think, and I've seen even in the programming I've done, like I actually, I used to run Canadian whiskey in-person classes and this is the first year I'm not because, which sucks because of what's going on right now in the world.
But it's just that I wasn't able to like fill the room up to run these classes because all my ticketing price points are the same regardless of what the unit was. So it could be like single malts or Canadian whiskey or whatever. And I just didn't have as much interest in Canadian whiskey versus other. It's a big problem.
We're not researching. We're not invested enough in our own, the products that we make here. It's almost like there's so much Canadian nationalism and pride, but not enough in what we fucking create here because I have the same issue with not enough people enjoying Canadian wine. Well, so sorry before, did you have a specific brand that you were going to mention?
Oh, for the underrated whiskey or just Canadian whiskey in general? I would say some of the like higher rye Canadian whiskeys are fantastic. They're typically 50 bucks or less and they're into the spice. It's great.
So things like I love like lot 40 is like 50 bucks a bottle or something. The quality is unreal. Even something like Canadian's up there like 100% rye, it's like 25 bucks a bottle or Alberta. So good.
So underrated. So amazing cocktails. Alberta premium. That's a good one that most people think is shit because of its price point.
That's a great recommendation right there. Like two liter jugs for like 40 bucks a cup. Yeah. I guess the name of the kind of does sound like a gas station.
Yeah. Well, they're packaging is not great. That works against them as well. Like it's a little price point too at the time.
Yeah, sure. But like the labeling they could get they could hire a marketer to do the labeling a little bit better. But I feel like drive up the price point and then that wouldn't be a fair maybe. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Before we let you go, we should let everybody know where they can follow you, reach you, collaborate with you. Give us all the details.
Yeah, for sure. So my personal Instagram is at resims like my name. And then if you want to get involved in flavor camp, like we have a club with over 5,000 members that have signed up is totally free. Essentially, it's just an email list.
So I'm sending our resources every week to you on it. And you can join that over at flavor camp.org slash join. And same thing at flavor camp, but it's spelled without a you so bad, I know because I'm working in bed. I'm telling you, our CMP over on Instagram.
And that's a really great resource with like lots of infographics for people to just turn through, save bookmark. I try to make education and learning about the legal requirements of spirits and tasting profiles, simple and fun over there. Well, I think it's amazing what you're doing. I think it's a super valuable resource.
And I'm like, I wasn't kidding. Like I think it's amazing that someone's actually doing something like this and kind of making it like fun and competitive or like my brain is wired that way. So like I love it. So keep doing what you're doing.
Thanks so much for coming on the show. I think what you're doing is awesome. Good luck with the cocktail competition coming up. Say hi to Josh for us.
And yeah, yeah, judging. So yeah, and thanks for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks guys.