E239 Reece Sims

This week's guest is Reese Sims, who returns to join us for a second interview. Reese is an entrepreneur, educator, and writer with expertise in drink trends, flavor pairings, and beverage market insights. As a former award-winning bartender and top-performing sales manager, she founded SIP Spirits Consulting Incorporated to deliver sensory marketing solutions for beverage brands. In addition, she founded Flavor Camp, a program that teaches consumers and bartenders a universal language for tasting and comparing spirits and developing their sensory skills.

In our second interview with Reese, we talk about her journey into international spirit competition judging and her consulting business, emphasizing the importance of networking and sensory insights in the industry. Reese discusses her educational approach to spirits tasting and the business model, including online content and in-person classes, while highlighting challenges and filling classes for certain whiskey types and differences in tasting preferences between consumers and bartenders. Reese also shared insights about judging spirits competitions, industry trends, tracking, and her experience building a consulting business, emphasizing the importance of finding a niche, adding value to clients, and being diligent in the face of challenges. You can find Reese on Instagram at Reese Sims and that is spelled R E E C E S I M S and at Flavor Camp, which is spelled F L A V O R C A M P or check the show notes as always for all the links.

We want to thank Reese again for joining us for another terrific recording and enjoy the show. Okay, we're back with another episode of the industry podcast. My name is Kip. This is Dan.

How's it going? And that's me, you know, the usual nonstop, Star of a Work Week, but at least it's a pretty hot weatherman. Yeah, it's hot now. Yeah, that is Jim when we're recording.

That's my time this comes down. This will be July. So yeah, I went to one weather. Had some day drinks on the weekend.

And as I do every single year, it doesn't matter how old I get, I still don't put sunscreen on, wear sunglasses and then get the massive sunburn with a sun glass mark. I like to do it every year. Nice. Let's get an adult.

Good for me. Good thing you've learned well. Yeah, it's been learning all the time. Perfect.

Yeah. So we should mention, if you are in Kitchener and you like to have drinks, not during the daytime because we won't be open, but you should come by my place, should run at Sugar Run Bar on Instagram. If you want to check out everything that's going on there, if you're into what we're doing here on the show, the best way to help us is to subscribe, rate, review or follow us, tell people that helps. All the stuff helps boost our algorithm.

What else? 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. That's where you're going to find the great artwork from zakana at zakana.co for all your of your graphic arts needs. What else should we talk about?

Oh, yeah. If you are in the market for wine or spirits, it's kipsonders at gmail.com for wine from Malaguar, terroir wine imports and spirits from allure distillery. Man, as always, I'll have links to everything we talk about in the show notes. And for those of you that made a head Kips old email address, there's been an update to his new email addresses you have heard.

So make sure you contact him at kipsonders at gmail.com. Yeah, thanks for that. If you want to contact somebody else who can help you in the spirits world, and it's our good friend, alchemist alle, alchemist.alle on Instagram. Gee, does it all consulting private parties, talk to classes.

If you're having a party, it's the season for a party time. It's barbecue season outdoor party season. So if you're having a just a get together family event, wedding anniversary, shower of some sort, call up alle Caesar girls. She'll give you a hand.

If you want to revamp your bar program perhaps or give it a little update, she can help you out as well. Alchemist.alle. And finally, in the area and you should check out our friend James Franco's. He's been a multiple time guest on the show.

Harper's Valley is back in action at their new location on Davenport Road in Waterloo. Yeah, for those of you who are local, that's right beside the F-45 in the same plaza as Lee Valley. Over by the Home Depot. So there's a bunch of references for you.

I'm treating you to find it. Yeah, you'll find Harper's Valley. Great. Great sandwiches.

So check him out. And then finally, the presenting sponsor of the industry podcast is of course our friends at Abidley up. Yes, and Abidley is a cocktail app for bartenders, restaurant, drink nerds, and cocktail lovers alike. built by a bartender with more than a decade of experience behind the bar.

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So make sure you check it out. It's a free version that's available to all and also the subscription model as well if you're interested. Okay, yeah, I'm bibbly at checking out. It's a great tool.

We use it all the time at my bar and you know, just that we're doing some home bartending. Check it out in biblioth. And so that's about all of the housekeeping we need to get out of the way. Let's get to our guests rejoining us for her triumphant return to the industry podcast.

It's Reese Sims. How are you, Reese? So good. Thanks for having me back.

Yeah, I feel like what happened was we talked, we had a great talk last time you were on and then we just kind of felt like there was more. So we don't usually do the repeat guests, but we're thrilled that you were able to come back on because I just feel like there was more to talk about. So yeah, thank you so much. I feel like the last one was sort of a origin story, but we can talk about more tangible or helpful things.

Everyone's origin story could be helpful to somebody else. But for anyone who doesn't remember, first of all, if you haven't listened to Reese's first episode, stop right now, go back and listen to that and then come back and listen to this. Yeah, that's episode 227. Yeah, go check that out and, you know, all the other ones in the archive, but specifically stop, listen to Reese's first episode, come back and you'll get like a couple hours straight of Reese Sims, unbelievable.

Oh God, I need a lot of drinks, maybe bottle. So now that for just a reminder for anyone who has listened to it a while ago, Reese is joining us from Calgary and she has a number of different, why don't you just give us a brief rundown of all the things you do real quick for our listeners and I remember for sure. So I started my own company called SIP Spirits Consulting and that's sort of, I guess the umbrella for all the things that I do, SIP, obviously for SIPing Spirits, but it's also an acronym for sensory insights and perceptions. So a big part of what I do is focused on just helping consumers and industry figure out what they like, how to articulate it and then how to connect them to the right brands.

And so under that I have a flavor cap, which is sort of the main program I run in Canada and slowly seeping into the US and other countries. And that's really focused on spirits education with a large focus on whiskey. And then on the side, just for fun Zs, I get to write for a number of magazines, judge a number of international sphere competitions and just sort of do more industry specialist type things that are pretty amazing, honestly. Yeah, since we talked to you last year, actually, you judge a couple of these competitions.

First of all, how do you get linked up with that as a judge? Do you need specific certifications? All right, obviously you have your own educational platform, so I'm assuming you have that already. But like, how do you get approached to be a judge for these competitions?

Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know. I can speak for me. I'm not sure for everyone else, because I would say I'm relatively not young in age, but young in experience in the industry.

Like I have been in the spirits industry for a decade, but a lot of the judges have been in for multiple decades. So I think like any other industry, it's all about networking. My first kind of foray into doing international sphere competitions was with the American Distilling Institute. They run a large international spirits comp.

It's not just American spirits, but obviously it's run by the American Distilling Institute. So distilleries can submit from anywhere in the world. But I went to their conference three years ago now and just kind of had a plan going into the conference, realized that they had a spirit competition, followed up with the organizers and was like, hey, what do you need to do? What qualifications do you need in order to be able to judge?

I've judged a number of cocktail competitions. I have my background in XYZ and just kind of pitched myself and was very annoying with following up a lot and being a keener about it. And there's any opportunity in the future. This is something I would be really interested in and kind of give them my resume quote unquote.

And six or eight months later, they're like, oh, we actually do have a position where that's opened up. And if you're interested in available on these dates, this is what's happening. I was like done. I'm going to drop everything to make this happen.

And so it started out with just that. And then I think if you are not horrible and know what you're doing, then people will refer you to other competitions. And again, just like anything, like it's really hard to get your foot in the door, I think. And then once you do being able to show that you have that skill set, it just showcases that you have the experience and trust.

So other people are more willing to take a chance to have you judge the competition. But I honestly feel like that's applicable for anything. Like, same thing happened with my first busser job. Like I just was like following up a ton and my first bartender job like just following up being like, I really want to do this.

What do I need to do to get this and was okay with getting rejected, ultimately? Yeah, it's true. It's probably the same thing in almost any walk of life. Like you just you spend a lot of time getting your foot in the door.

And then if you prove that you're capable, then then all of a sudden you're in that it's just getting into that inner circle to start as part. And as long as you don't fuck it up when you get there. I think one of the challenges is that or maybe from the external, not just with me, but a lot of people are like, Oh, you're so lucky. Or of course, because your experience, but you really do have to pitch yourself.

And I would say I get rejected like 90% of the time for things. And I'm just doing it behind the scenes. And then that 10% of the time, I don't. And then things actually happen, which is cool.

Yeah, you remember sort of a time in your career, specifically where you were just like, Oh, like I've been pitching myself and all these different things. Obviously you started your own company, but like where you've been pitching yourself for a number of different things. And also you're like, Oh shit, things are now starting to happen. Was there like a light switch moment or was it more gradual?

Yeah, I think the light switch moment was when I first started my consulting stuff, I was still working full time for another company. And so I was just doing it on the side and with the intention of wanting to maybe make it full time. And it got to the point where there was was a month where I think I build out like double what my salary was. And I was just like, Okay, I think I've like kind of figured something out here and then continued over three months to continue to like have grand say yes and work with me on the different programs that I was running.

And I was just like, Okay, I think I can make this a full time thing if I figure out sort of a business plan and what I want to do. But I was still working full time. And so I was like, this is not sustainable to be able to do both. I'm just completely crash and burn.

And I actually did and was went to the hospital for like personal illness. And then I was like, Okay, from this point on, I need to make a decision in the next month or two on if I want to continue to pursue this or not. But it was just like, I don't know the signs were there. And I'm like, worst case, I don't have a mortgage and don't have kids.

So if I just crash and burn with my business, then I can always find a job again. But I think for me, like I always am pretty calculated with risk taking. And so it's like, in any business, you want to have like a minimum viable product that you want to test and then refine and figure out what's working for whatever market you're trying to target. And then from there, once you start to see traction, then you can kind of make those bigger decisions.

So that was for me in like 2022, I guess. So it's been about three years since I started my business. And I would say there's like not that many, especially in Canada independent consultant type people in our industry that aren't like bar owners or working for an agency or own like a PR company or something like that. So yeah, just tracking along here.

Yeah. And so when you first obviously you started slowly and you started to get some traction and you like you said, you had to make a decision. Obviously, that probably was despite the fact that you seem like very prepared, you were all it's got to be still scary. I'm going to do this full time.

What were you originally hoping to accomplish? And do you feel like you've accomplished most of that? Hmm, I would say no, I'm like in progress right now. But as a typical millennial, I'm very impatient.

I'm like, why aren't I, I don't know, like a multi millionaire and everybody in the world knows who I am because I really believe in what I'm doing. But it's just honestly not the case. Like I think slower progression and growth leads to more long term consistency and stability instead of trying to just pop off really quickly and snowball everything. So I don't know if that happens.

I don't feel like I've like made it or anything. Right. Like you must feel like you're on track with what you originally said. Yeah, like this is the first year where I feel like I'm things are actually coming to me for once versus me constantly putting myself out there and like getting rejected a lot like I said, that's huge.

Like when flips like that, when people start asking you, then that's really when you know you know, you know, in however you want to judge success, that's when you've made it. It's like, you've set up to do something and without you having to pester people to hire you to do it now, people are coming to you. That's, I could think that would be anyone's definition of success. Maybe I think for me, like success means different things to so many different people, right?

And so like, especially starting your own business, I don't know if you can relate to this, but going from having a salary position where I'm like, okay, I know I make this much per year to starting a corporation and like paying myself out of it is a very different thing and actually having expenses and all this stuff. So being like, oh, top line, I have this much money, but net, it's actually like way, way less even though it sounds maybe impressive to some people. It's just like, oh yeah, we're doing different experiences. The growth numbers always sound great.

If I tell people how much money might borrow made in a year, it sounds very impressive. Now how much of that money did I make? Not as impressive. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So I think success, like it's really hard to define what that is. And as somebody who's always hungry or thirsty, so to speak, it's just like, I feel like it's never enough like personally. So yeah, but I mean, that's probably why it's worth it. That's that's the drive behind us why it's working, right?

So let's talk about a little bit more about flavor camp specifically. I know we've mentioned it, but I feel like we didn't flex it out very much in the first episode. So talk about how that relates to your consulting company overall and what you're hoping to accomplish specifically with flavor camp. Yeah, for sure.

So I think I have such a hard time describing like the behind the scenes of it on the surface. It's pretty simple. Like I have some social accounts mainly driven by Instagram. It's really grown over the last couple of years.

And the whole focus is providing education that really tops into multiple learning styles. And so educational and spirit specifically. And so for me, like when I was growing up, I would always like color code highlight my notes, put little tabs in them. It was very visually centric.

And I was like very much so a visual learner. And I find it can be intimidating for people to learn how to taste spirits when you just go to a tasting and it's seemingly everybody already knows what they're doing. And so I just find ways that are more visually appealing, orally appealing, and like connecting that to the taste itself, if that makes sense. So that's kind of done through the online world.

And I have like a mailing list and stuff like that. And then I run in person tasting classes as well. So since the last episode that we filmed or recorded, I've actually done like 11 different flavor camp classes in the last couple of months. And so those are a great way to just like connect with people in real life, have them learn how to blind taste for people that are more advanced, they can try and guess which product is which, for newbies, they can just focus on trying to identify the different flavor camps or profiles.

And so it's all about like really cultivating community. And for me, like flavor is a way in which that we can connect across kind of cultures and different learning styles and different levels of experience. But oftentimes historically, I found that it can be kind of pretentious. So I'm like trying to take that away.

And then so on the back end, I think having feedback is really important. And a way in which I can work with brands and actually have them like sponsor or paid to participate in a lot of the programs that I run is providing feedback from both bartenders and consumers. And so I think that's like a big thing that's missing from a lot of what the brands currently do to program. Like, you'll go to a whiskey show and try like 100 whiskeys or whatever.

And they'll check the box and be like, yeah, we sample 300 people. But like, they don't know if those people liked them, they're not taking down the demographics, who was tasting it, what do they think about it, what they buy that bottle, like, well, they remember it after the show. And so I do a lot more like intimate tastings and experiences where I can get people to provide feedback on the spot and then give that back to them anonymously and say like, this is what people thought of your product, this is what they thought in comparison to your direct competitors in that category and just kind of do things like that. So I run a lot of like tasting class stuff and then also you utilize other things like cocktail competitions or just other ways to kind of like gamify learning for people.

Again, I like to like have low stakes competitive things incorporated into the way I teach because it helps people learn if they feel like there's some sort of like steak in it, if that makes sense. And like how big are these classes in general when you give one like what's the average size? It's like they're pretty small. They're like 30 to 40 people.

So that's a lot. That's like, that's, I mean, that's a good size class. Yeah, like I, I'll be honest, like I just ran my first ones in Calgary, I guess like two weeks ago now and I did two gym classes and two international whiskey classes. The gin ones were a little bit smaller than that.

And the international whiskey, I had about 25 to 30, I think for those just because it was my first year and I know like four people in Calgary currently. So I was like pretty happy with the turnout on it, but I find like again, even I feel like I've tested everything. So even like in the classes, I hate doing it in an actual classroom style set up. I'll usually set it up.

So there's like four to six people at table. They're all facing each other. Like you have to talk in it. I'm not just talking at you the entire time.

You actually have time to taste and like go through all of the stuff by yourselves and I'll go and check on people. And so I want it to be an opportunity for people to like make friends and new connections. And I've definitely seen that both online and in person, like people have actually become friends and had this whole like relationship with people that they've met through my tastings over the years and stuff, which I think is super cool. And I don't know, it's just like hard to meet people as an adult and friends.

So that's kind of a bonus of being able to do the in-person stuff for me. When you, I was, I'm glad you brought up because I was going to ask as well, do you find that there are certain spirits that are more likely to attract a larger class size? Like everybody seems to be interested in whiskey. I would assume that would be like, you get a larger turnout for something like that.

And Jim, that when you brought up those two examples, that makes sense to me. But Tequila's hot right now. I'm sure that's a thing. But why don't you tell us?

Yeah, for sure. So I'll just preface it by online. Like the way that I run my programming is on a month to month basis. So every month I focus on a different spirit category.

And 50% of the months, or like six out of 12 months a year are like whiskey related. So one month is like Canadian whiskey, one month is Scotch, one month is Irish whiskey. And then the other six months are like varied spirits. So it could be vodka, gin, tequila, brandy, whatever.

And so my in-persons, I've like tested out different flights and themes. And I found that people like Gin is just, I have a deeper connection because whiskey's kind of been my bread and butter in terms of what I've built my friendships in the industry around and what I've kind of like talked about over the last 10 years. And so I just know a lot more people that are into whiskey to invite to these tastings. So those are definitely like the busiest.

But even within that, like I used to run in-person Canadian whiskey classes. And I just found that sadly, it was really hard to get like to fill up the classes for Canadian whiskey, whereas it's a lot easier if it's like Japanese or single-month scotches or like an international whiskey mix. And so it's challenging because I'm constantly just testing because it is a business at the end of the day. And I have to choose things that are going to make my life slightly easier because I'm doing everything myself.

And so if I can get people to come more readily to a specific theme, like I'm going to focus on that, even though I think like it's really, I do think it's important to be celebrating the whiskey that's made here in Canada. So yeah. To the part that's just because like Canadians are like, well, I already know Canadian whiskey, we get all the time, but we're much rather learned about something from a different country. Is it that?

I'll be completely honest. I think that there's just a huge misconception that Canadian whiskey is inferior to like small-malt scotch or Japanese whiskey. And it's not necessarily the case. Like when I pick the lineups for the tastings, I'm trying to pick products that I genuinely like and want to work with.

And I'm excited about so I can communicate that to people. And there is a lot of amusing Canadian whiskey out there. So especially from being from British Columbia, like we have some of the best single malt producers probably on the West Coast between the Yukon and BC in Canada. But you guys can speak to the American or sorry, I mean the Ontario distilleries that produce single malt too.

But I always try and incorporate some of those into my tastings. The other thing too is I just charge the same price for tickets across every theme. And so I think people feel like they're getting better value when they get to try like a single malt scotch versus eight Canadian whiskeys. But the tickets are only like $39.

And your demographic for people who have visited a lot of bartenders, is it people who don't work in industry? Is it a mix? So I actually separated it. So I run and this is part of the feedback part of it.

So I do consumer only about sometimes I'll invite like distillery staff to come to those. And then I do bartender only classes. And I use the exact same lineups. And I think it's really interesting actually to see what people's favorites were versus consumers versus bartenders.

But in terms of my consumer attendees, it's typically people I would say like 80% of the attendees are like in the 30 to 50 year old range. And so it's like relatively younger but not super young, whereas industry is a little bit younger, like it's like probably 25 to 35 is like the majority of people that attend it. And with it, like one thing I obviously I'm a woman in the industry and do a lot of whiskey stuff, but I never really tried to exclusively run like women's only events. And so one thing I've really noticed is that being a woman at the front of the classroom and teaching it, I think subconsciously has other women feel more comfortable wanting to come to these tastings and learn and explore and make mistakes and just like participate.

And so most of my classes are 50, 50 men and women. And I don't find there's that many other whiskey classes or tastings that I go to that have the same level of women unless it's like a women's only event. So I'm very proud of that for sure. I'll definitely going back to what you're talking about about the bartender classes versus the consumer classes.

Has there been anything specifically that you noticed in the difference or something anything that surprised you or trend that in any of the classes that like the feedback was different for bartenders and consumers? Hmm, that's a good question. Just sort of the thing off the top of my head of some like really crazy outcomes. I would say so I've run a couple to keep like classes and interestingly, both bartenders and consumers were pretty aligned with what they bought their favorite swear when they were blind tasting.

However, I find whiskey stuff that maybe is a little bit more weird and unique like bartenders tend to score higher and veer to wear versus consumers maybe are more precious about it and like kind of those tried and true or more standard flavor profiles if that makes sense. So just to give you like an example, are you guys familiar with bare face whiskey? So they have their like elemental series that they come out with every year for the last few years. And I used their middle-notch expression that came out last year I believe.

And the interesting thing about it is they proof it down with like smoked sea salt water and use like a chardonnay cask as part of that like finishing process and stuff. So it has this like really unique funky kind of slightly smoky like salinity to it. And quite a few of the consumers were like, man, this is like not my jam. And like all of the bartenders were like, holy shit, this is, oh, am I less is sorry?

Sorry. Okay, they're like, holy crap, this is like amazing and like scored as so high and we're loving it. So I find in that realm and like peated swatches as well anytime I try and like incorporate them into tastings, they definitely score higher overall with bartenders versus consumers because it's not like I'm doing like exclusively peated whiskies in a lineup. And so it's not just like the Pete heads that are attending.

It's people that are like, maybe never had something to smoke before. And they're just like, what is this? base is getting burnt off. So I wonder if that's probably because like with consumers, your budget's a lot more limited for your home.

Like everybody maybe one or two bottles to shoot your friends, right? Well, they wouldn't their pound would have expanded quite as much because they haven't tried as much shit because like I said, you're buying for your home and maybe if you go to a bar, you're not so brave. If you don't want much about it, right? Whereas bartenders, we get to try everything.

And it also maybe opens the door for us to be a little more experimental. It's like, oh, every bartender has tried all the basic whiskies a million times at this point. Or like, not, I don't mean that's not the right word, but like the more popular or prevalent whiskies, right? Yeah.

Yeah. So maybe that is something to do with it as well. And it's interesting, though, that's it must be fun for you. Even like, I know you're providing feedback for the sometimes for companies, but sometimes that that's just got to be interesting for you.

Yeah, I love it. And I think it ties into two like, because I get to write for a number of magazines, like I'm really trying to pitch more stuff to focus on like trends and things that are happening in the industry, because I don't think there's anything wrong with somebody that's like a specialist or has expertise to talk about trend forecasting, but to actually have like data backed feedback for Canada on what's trending, I think is valuable for both consumers and shows for those like maybe smaller brands or more niche products. Like it somehow shows trust in it, if I'm able to communicate that and have more people like try and buy it, right? Yeah, I love it.

I got a technical question since you mentioned the data part, is there anything like you specifically like use any databases to track all this stuff or is more like notes and then just kind of compile all the information yourself or like is the combination of everything pretty much? Yeah. So currently my system is semi basic. What I found is like, I have infinite ideas around how to capture stuff, but I use like a physical workbook that people fill out in the class and then return back at the end of the class.

And this has changed like year over year and I've actually made it more and more and more simple because I was like nerding out writing these reports for the brands and they were like 150 pages and then they just like, I would spend like months like putting these things together. And I was like, okay, what's like actually the most important information that they would want to know because again, a lot of these are bigger brands. They can't necessarily just like suddenly pivot like Glen Morinji is not going to all of a sudden like stop formulating their original the way that they currently do just because a few people in Canada said that they did or didn't like it, right? So I got to get down to like have simplified it a lot more and I just find like I wanted to potentially have people fill stuff out on their phone or just use media because it would be a lot more efficient.

But there I think there's studies with like our ability to taste and do sensory work and writing stuff down like it's somehow there's like a deeper connection than just like clicking buttons on your phone, right? So I actually have people write it down and then I used to go through every single workbook and between BC and Alberta, it's like a hundred in each province. So it was like a lot of work to put that into an excel sheet. But now I have my amazing assistant person that does that for me because it's extremely time consuming.

And so she gets together in an excel spreadsheet and then I'll go through that sheet and like look for things that are trending in terms of like information capture. It's anonymous but I'm capturing like age ranges, gender, like all that stuff. So I can factually say like my classes are 50-50 men and women are like, this is the age range or this is if they have kids or they don't or like this is who's attending and then put together a report from there. And again, like I know that this can all be automated but I just haven't thought there yet because it's fairly small scale.

I just had to have an assistant that would be an incredible tedious work for trying to do everything else you're trying to do at the same time. So yeah, like I like doing it and she's helping me with the reports too because being a visual person like they're really beautifully presented too. It's not just like screen shotting since red sheets, we're actually like designing it out and analyzing the information and pulling out different like analytical components to it. But I again, I was just like, I don't I can't do this all myself and everything else and have been trying to figure out what to give up to other people to help me with.

But yeah, it's hard. That started the beginning of any business though. I always go with that and all the places that I opened was like, there has to be a point where you start to like go a little bit and it's not easy. It's not that's it's like, but once you do it, it's so relieving.

Yeah, but it's just it's not an easy decision to be like, okay, I'm gonna let you handle this. Yeah, I think like, I don't necessarily have a problem with handing over work per se. Maybe I do, I don't know, but it's just more because again, being like an independent consultant your income's variable month to month. And so I was just kind of stressing about paying somebody else to do stuff for me.

And I'm like, I'd rather just kill myself working like 16 to 20 hours a day and like passively watching Netflix and putting data into a spreadsheet for now because I just don't know what I'm doing. I'm just gonna have to do it at the beginning though, right? The beginning of anything you got to do it yourself. And then you know, you've reached a certain level of success if you can hire someone to help you.

That's that's that's one of the 10 polls of success. Like, oh, now I can afford to hire someone to help me out with this. That's always a good step. And maybe it cuts into your net profits at the end of the day.

But then there's that trade off while it's actually worth it for the time that I now that has now opened up to me to do other things, right? Yeah. And I think the other thing too, like again, I'm sure you guys can relate even with just running a podcast because you have full-time plus jobs and families and all this other stuff going on your lives. But being able to say like, Oh, I do have the time to do it.

It's not about just giving up like work time. You also have to consider the value of just personal time and downtime too. And I have a really time with that of just like, Oh, but I could just be working at night instead of like actually hanging out with my significant other or going on a walk outside or like something like that. And I think it's really important to actually have downtime and do at least something for yourself for like 30 minutes plus a day.

Yeah, for sure. But it can be really hard when you are a business owner, for sure. Okay, let's talk a little bit. Let's go back and talk a little bit about these spare competitions you judged recently because I'm super interested in that.

Which were the two that you judged and tell me about how they were different and what the experiences were like. Yeah, so I guess since we last chatted, I was in San Francisco or more specifically Tiberon to do the American Distilling Institute's International Spear Competition, which they do at kind of like the end of March, early April. And then was just last last week, no, the week before last week in Kentucky doing the IWSC for North America, for whiskey and RTDs. And so I would say the formats are very similar, I've done a couple other spear competitions as well.

But the way in which they actually do scoring and feedback can be different. But for people unfamiliar with sort of how it works, because I had no idea before I started doing it, I always thought that there was like hundreds of judges like evaluating these spirits. And really, there's only small panels of like four to six people that are blind tasting each of the products and assigning some sort of middle or no metal and feedback and all that stuff. And so what happens is that we'll typically get given flights of anywhere from like four to 10 spirits that are within the same category each time, independently, each person on the panel will evaluate the spirit, like smell tastes bit, you have to spit, obviously, because you're trying like 100 whiskies a day or whatever you're tasting.

And you write notes, specify to however they want you to do it and design a score. And then whenever everybody's done that flight, we'll say like, oh, we're done and whoever the head judges for the panel will have access to all of the scores from the people on the panel. And if there's anything that's just like outlandishly like way off in terms of meddling, they'll we'll discuss it as a group and just each person will talk about like what they liked or any constructive feedback that that product needs, why they sport it the way that they sport it. And then you'll kind of come to a consensus on what score that you want to give each product overall.

And so we repeat this, typically, there'll be like one to two sessions a day and you're doing like 40 to 60 products per session. And you'll have like a luncheon between. So for ADI, it's a lot to you, we do like three days of judging and two sessions per day, except for on the last day, it's sort of a best of the best. And so everybody tries the top scoring products from varying categories and then determines what like the best product is within that category.

For IWC this year, we only did one session per day, but we're still doing like 60 to 70 products in that one session. So there was just like a longer session, but one. And then we actually got to tour distilleries in the kind of later afternoon evenings, which was really cool. So so some technical questions about this going through something.

So you are chosen to be a judge in San Francisco. Now you have to get yourself to San Francisco, stay there. Do they take care of that for you? Or do you have to pay for yourself?

I think it depends on the judging the organization, but for a lot of them, well, for some of them, you have to kind of fly yourself out there, but they'll give you some sort of honorarium to kind of cover basic costs with the idea that it will help to cover any kind of like travel costs, flights, that sort of thing. And then typically for judging, they will put you up in a hotel and then that way, like everybody's staying in the same hotel together and you're like centralized and then you kind of run the tastings in one of the private rooms and that if that makes sense. And so at least that's been my experience with things. But no, you're not like significantly compensated or anything.

It's truly just like nerdy people that want to be able to give back and share their expertise to help distilleries or showcase really great products from great distilleries. So it's but that being said, like obviously you're going to need to meet with tons of other people from around the world that are also judging. And so it's like incredible networking, if I'm being honest, getting to connect with those people. So it's almost like doing like a family reunion if you get to continue to judge every year and just get to see and catch up on the evenings with like what people are doing and I don't learn more about what their jam is.

So yeah. And you're staying in the same hotel and stuff. I'm sure there's like lots of discussion after the round of judging or whatever. Like do you find yourself talking about the spirits that you tried?

Are you talking about more industry related stuff or a lot of everything? For me, it's been less about the spirits themselves. But one thing I think that's really cool about the American Distillian Institute Awards is that on the last day, they only run that one session in the morning and then they kind of do like a closing event for all of the judges in the evening where they open up the back room and you actually get to like see every single thing that was submitted, what got awards and you can like go and retaste everything or anything that you didn't get to necessarily judge. And obviously you can't disclose anything until the awards are announced.

But I just think it's really cool. Like you can write the little codes of each of the samples that you thought really interesting or unique and then actually see what they were after the fact because everything is done blind. So you don't know what you're tasting. Whereas I think they kind of keep the information under lock and key until it's actually released or the press release comes out for a lot of other awards.

So with IWSC, we didn't get to like go into the back room necessarily and check out what we were tasting and what we gave the gold or double golds to. And so I think there's merit to both things. But it's definitely fun when you get to be shocked and odd by like different products that you were like, oh, I had no idea that I thought that this was as good. So that's cool.

And so have the awards already been announced? Are you allowed to tell us what the like in your categories that you judge to where what the award winners were? I believe that IWSC has released theirs. But I can't to be honest, recall off the top of my head because I was doing I was doing gin for that one.

And then IWSC, I think actually comes up today. I'll have to take a look and see with ADI at least this past year, because you're sampling like hundreds of products, I off the top of my head like can't speak to a specific one, especially with gin. But for IWSC, this year, at least on the two panels I was on, I think we only gave one gold outstanding award. Dream the entire week.

So I think that's really meaningful. If you are able to receive a gold, like a double gold award, then that means something like there was very, very, very few given out from our panel at least. So here's an interesting question for you. There are so many of these awards that are given out now for experience and wine and everything else.

What would be your advice to someone who doesn't know anything about these competitions? Which ones, because almost anybody can slap something on their product now and say, oh, I won a medal at this at X competition. Which one should we be paying the most attention to? That's a good question.

I would say like for whiskey, probably like IWSC for sure, I promise I'm not being biased with that. The IWSC stands for International Wine and Spares Competition. But they're definitely one of the biggest probably like San Francisco spirits competition and like World Whiskey Awards are the three biggest internationally. And then the American Distilling Institute, even though they maybe don't have the same cache or reputation as the other three, they on the back end are so rigorous with the feedback.

And so I think it's just valuable inherently for brands to submit their products because they're getting really solid feedback. We spend a lot of time writing about what we'd like to buy the products and then every single one, you have to write constructive feedback unless it gets like, I don't know, like 95 out of 100 or more, we can say like, this is flawless or it's a bunch more product. But yeah, but we're like providing quite significant feedback to the brands on like why they were scored that way. Whereas other Spares competitions, they may ask for like a line of feedback, but it's not as intensive.

And so it just kind of depends what your goals are as a producer. But I think so one of the things I do with SIP spirit is I run a lot of like surveying across Canada. And it's relatively small, like typically the sample size is like 500 people. But one thing I did find this year when I surveyed it is that it really depends on the category, how significant or important getting the word is for a consumer to be inclined to like use that as a reason to purchase products.

So what I did find in the past year is that for whiskey, if they do have like an award on the bottle, like people are more inclined to take the risk and try it. And it can be just because like the average price point tends to be higher. But for things like gin and vodka, at least from the survey that I ran, people don't take that into account as much. So when deciding if they want to try a new product that's on the shelf.

So wine and whiskey really important. But other types of spirits like Ram vodka gin, it's less important of a decision factor for them. And so I don't think that necessarily means that vodka and gin distillaries shouldn't be submitting for awards. I think especially for like really small craft producers, like they do have to pay to submit for these award things.

But it is like a great way to market themselves and have like something that's substantiated by experts for that craft distillery to be able to communicate the quality of their product to consumers if they can't necessarily afford to have like a full time agency or like marketing team or something. I do think it's like a really effective way to communicate quality of product for like any kind of spirit in general. Yeah, it's interesting because it's like it reminds me very much of the like if you go to a vintage section of your liquor store or whatever and you see the ratings, the point ratings for wine or something like that. And it's like I always tell people it's like, hey, like that's just one person's opinion or judging panel's opinion.

But if you don't know anything about wine, then it's not it's a good starting point. Yeah, somebody liked it. Yeah, somebody who has some information thinks it's good. Right.

Yeah, exactly. Like I would say I drink a lot of wine personally. And I hate to admit it, but if it does have a like a sort of award on the label or points, it's like 90 plus. I'm like, I'll try this.

It's like 20 bucks a bottle. What's the worst thing happen? Right. And I'm not trying to pick that one out than another random $20 bottle that doesn't have that sticker on it.

So Were you that way before you started judging yourself or did? Yeah. So yeah, but like I'm sure that the fact that now you've been a judge even just reinforces that idea. Yeah, for sure.

I think I didn't understand the magnitude specifically for gold and platinum and like double gold or gold outstanding types of awards. Like in my personal experience, we give away so few of them that actually has become more meaningful to me if I see that in a brand's communication. And so it makes me more impressed with the product. But I think bronze and silver are a lot more common.

So again, it still indicates that it's like a quality drinkable product that might be interesting and mean something, but definitely for the gold or higher level things. I just have like a new found appreciation for sure as being a judge. I don't mean to put you on spot here, but if you remember, just I'm curious. Like I think our listeners will be interested in this.

Do you remember or have knowledge of any spirits that have gotten gold or double gold in previous years that you could recommend to people or is that I might put it too much on the spot here? I think like it means awards that I specifically judged or like in like not the use specifically judge, but like say you went and judged this one this year, they must have did they announce what won medals or awards last year? They have however, I hate to say this, but a lot of the products aren't available in Canada. Oh right.

Yeah. I'm just looking at the press release which came out today and apparently only 4% of the entries received a gold outstanding medal in for IWSC in North America, 11% gold, 54% silver, 31% bronze and then there were like a number that got no medals as well. And with IWSC particularly, they have kind of a higher skew with the way that they do the scoring. And so for a lot of other competitions, if you get a score between 70 and 79, that would be a bronze 80 to 89 of silver 90 plus is gold.

And then if all people on the panel assigned it a gold, it would get like a double gold or gold outstanding or platinum. And so for this, the one that I remember again, we had, there was a multiple panels. And so the ones I was on only assigned one gold outstanding medal. And I think it was a product, they don't specify the exact one, but it was a product from Bullet, which was really surprising.

They only have like the bullet, rye, bullet, bourbon. I think it was like the cast-string bourbon that got gold outstanding. And you never think because like when people submit, we don't know the price points or anything other than the category itself, maybe ABV, and maybe what state or country it came from. And so this product is not super expensive or inaccessible.

Well, I always like it from all the courses I've taken and all the classes I've either taken or taught, I always tell people too that like price point is has there's so many factors that go into price point. And one of the the lowest factors that goes into the price point is actually quality. Like there's so many other factors that go into why something's priced in a certain way. And so there's so many bargains out there, like excellent products that at incredibly reasonable price points, you just know what you're looking for.

And that goes for Spirit's wine, whatever. Yeah, I completely agree. Like I just had this conversation actually. Last week I interviewed Adele Shaw.

So she's kind of the premium or the buyer for products that go into the BCLDB. And so she was talking about every year they do like a BC premium spirit release in November. And we were talking about like what defines premium these days and is not necessarily about price. It's more about quality and craftsmanship.

So premium could be like a $40 bottle of whiskey, if it's really well made. It doesn't necessarily it's not necessarily an indicator of it being thousands of dollars or like 80 years old, right? And so I think I think a lot about this. And the way that I run my in-person classes is I actually ask people to rate all of the products.

So they rate everything blind based on the taste itself first. And then we go through a review and actually reveal all the products. And then I have them fill out what they think the value for price point is because that's something that I don't feel like is ever surveyed or talked about very frequently in terms of like scoring an evaluation of things. And if it is phenomenal and you think it tastes great and is $40, it's like a no brainer, eight out of eight great value for price.

But if you're like, oh, this is the most phenomenal thing I've ever drank and it's like $20,000 a bottle, that's not necessarily accessible for a regular consumer. So I think the value for price or value for YAM or whatever you want to call it is something that's important that should be communicated more in my opinion. Well, I agree. And like often, when we're talking about alcohol, spirits, why I'm going to be able to talk about the difference between something that's like, in your mind, like a nine out of 10 and nine out of 10 and a 10 out of 10 is a very, it's a very, like it's a very minute difference in quality.

But conceivably, they could have a massive difference in price point. So it's like, when I rather pay $40 for a whiskey that I think is a nine and a half or $400 for one that I think is a 10, that for most people who aren't like loaded, that's like a pretty easy choice, right? Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Okay, we're going to let you go because you've given us as much time again. I feel like we could just talk to you every week. But before we thought you go for this time, maybe we'll have you back again, maybe we can convince you to be more of a regular. But what advice would you give to our listeners to who might be looking to do what you did and sort of jump into starting their own business out of this service?

There's a lot of people are looking that way these days. What kind of advice would you give them and how to get started? And any like, well, let's just leave with that, like how to get started and how to jump into it. Just that small tiny question.

Yeah. Okay, so I would say my advice is, and it doesn't necessarily need to be for in spirits, but I kind of have a criteria like with the industry that I wanted to get into and why I kind of got into whiskey and spirits in general is that the industry itself is evergreen. There's constantly new things happening in it. There is a lot of ubiquity in that people across all demographics, ages, countries are interested in different products.

There's constantly new things happening in it. And the biggest thing for me was just trying to figure out like what piece of the puzzle brands and consumers are currently missing out on. So how can you find a niche and capitalize on that? And so I think for me, like, again, I was working a full-time job while I started my business and did both for like, I was consulting casually on the side, but kind of when all in on having this idea of like making it a full-time thing for like six months.

And when I quit, I also had money set aside to be able to cover my basic costs for my rent at the time and just living expenses for another six months before I completely blew up my life, so to speak. And so I like kind of had a plan and was like, I need to reach this level of making this much consistently for this amount of time. And I went down money and savings. So I'm not just like blowing up my long-term savings or RSPs in order to do something now.

And so those are big components to it. And then I think like in terms of starting a business, a good formula you can kind of follow is that if you try and focus on like three services total and only selling those, it's really helpful because it gives people options. So you want to have something like low priced, medium and high priced. And it gives people options to choose and fit the budget of the brand or the person that works for them.

And I think a lot of times people have endless ideas, but if you're trying to do too many at once, it just makes it confusing and people want to know you for something. And so just focusing on three things first is like probably the best plan for running a consulting business. So it could be like, again, my flavor camp classes, it's like $40 to come to them. So that's option one.

The cocktail competitions that I run online, I have brand sponsored at. So that's another product that I do. And then I run like these educational programs with brands. It's a little bit smaller.

So those are essentially the three things that I do is like in person-tasting cocktail competitions, product education. And those are the only three things that I'm essentially focused on right now. And again, that allows me to just like keep pitching. And then if you find that they really doesn't work, then you can pivot, but like give yourself a chance and continue to pitch and then show the brands that or show the people that you can add value for them.

It's not about you. It's like what you can do for them. And I think that's ultimately key. So just to recap, like find an each at value and actually like do what you say you're going to do is also huge.

I think that's really good advice because it's the same as like if you go into a bar and they just have like too much going on, right? A giant wine list, a giant cocktail list, a giant beer is on tablets. You need to focus on what you are. Offer some options.

And also like it's just human nature. You can only do so well at so many things. If you're focused on split on so many different areas, then by definition they're going to be a little thinned out or watered down. And I think you can have lots of options, but you need to have a lot of resources and money to do that.

And if you're just starting out on your own, doing less is more at the beginning. And it's something that I didn't necessarily do. And I was just throwing like a million ideas at the wall. But in retrospect, I'm like, if I just came up with three things that would like at three different price points and three different services and just focused on those for like at least six months to a year, then you can kind of see what is effective, what isn't.

If people are happy with the services or not, and just I don't know, if you make mistakes, like that's life and you can just move on, like you can nothing's going to be perfect. You're probably going to make mistakes. You're probably going to mess up some relationships. And it's okay, like you can just continue to be diligent and work at it and get better and failing as a big part of the process of having your own business ultimately.

Well, that's great advice. Thanks again for coming on the show one more time. And we really appreciate it. And you've always been super generous with your time.

So that's luck with everything going forward. Sounds like you are you know what the hell you're doing. So I don't really need to wish you luck. But it seems like the right thing to say.

Anyway, before you go to drop your social media, that's one more time. I just want to know where to find you. Yeah. So I am mostly on Instagram.

You can find me at resims are EECS, S.I.M.S. personally, or over on Flavor Camp. Flavor Camp is spelled the American way, but FLA, V O, R, C, A, M, P. And yeah, if anybody ever has questions about like starting their own business or anything like that consulting in this industry, like honestly feel free to reach out and I'm happy to share my failures and experience with you.

Amazing. Thanks for being here. Have a great evening. Thanks guys.

Thanks, Todd.