OPENING AND INTRODUCTION[0:02] Show me yours. Where failure speaks volumes. Jason and getting real drop. Brutal business truths. No sugar. Only raw lessons. Welcome to Show Me Yours. We are here with a wonderful exciting new guest to us. But before we get started, I am Reanna Werner. I am your co-host and I've got Jason here. Hey everyone, and we have a wonderful enchanting surprise for you today. we are here with Mike Girard of 300 Days of Shine. So, I can't call Mike a personal friend just yet, but he will be. I promise. And he should be. I have actually been a patron of your establishment many, many, many times, dating back to when you first opened. I don't even know when that is because quite frankly I've consumed too much of your product. [laughter] 2014. 14. Has it really been that long? Wow. One of my favorite things was to take my car to the shop JJ Tracks back then. Drop my car off and then I go and[1:14] sip a little tasty beverage at your your fine establishment and then I go pick up my car and eat some Tic Tacs and [laughter] drive home. We get a lot of those. I'm sure you do. You should actually keep Tic Tacs there just ready to hand out [laughter] or just take a shot of the cinnamon or pickle rind or whatever [laughter] thing is. Yeah. Does pickle rind really work? Like is that really Some people come in and they swear by it. Do they really? Yeah. I don't I don't know. I If it works once, it's a superstition after that, right? I just I do the gum thing. So, or just keep it very limited on my sampling during the day and taste testing. Well, there's that, too. [laughter] Okay, you guys, I have to read something to you. So, I was out there, you know, doing this, you know, the techie[2:02] superstalker stuff, and I came across, which was not hard to find at all, your your website and your story. And this is just I was going to try and summarize, but I'm like, no, this is just too badass. I have to read this verbatim to our audience here. So listenTHE ORIGIN STORY: A STILL MADE FROM AN IED[2:20] to this. Mike distilled his first batch of moonshine while serving on deployment in Afghanistan. The first and original still was a 3gallon pressure cooker IED. You freaking made your first batch in a bomb. Yeah, [laughter] that's awesome. He and his EOD unit were responsible for disarming. With the explosives removed, the vessel was converted into a still using a hot plate and copper tubing. So, not only are you a badass, you're a Macgyver badass, I guess. Sort of. [laughter] As for the mash, A&W root beer and distiller yeast. Okay. What did that taste like? It didn't taste good. [laughter] I don't know if I can use the word that we I normally use on my tours, but it wasn't that pressure cooker that we took out of the ground actually had homemade explosive in it, which was ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder. Okay. Now, the military, the army has an acronym for everything. So, ammonium nitrate, a aluminum powder, AL, is anal.[3:31] That's what we refer to. That's pretty much what it tasted like. It tastes [laughter] like ass. Yeah, pretty much. but it was it was it was an experiment to see if it would work. So at the time I was a little bit higher in rank in in my career field and I was the first sergeant. So I was in charge. I was a the head NCO, the senior NCO in the company on that deployment. and soldiers for years deploying once they instilled general warn which says you can't drink alcohol they would bring beer kits and things like that so that they could try and make beer make wine while they're deployed well they have a bootleg then in lististering bottles from family members sending care packages and things like that and being an EOD guy our units are small and we're we do what's called fobbing our guys out so when we[4:22] go into an area of operation your headquarters is in one area and then you have seven, eight teams that are fobbed out to different areas of that area that area of operation. Okay, most of those are a helicopter ride away. They're not close. So, you expect your guys to do the right thing, abide by the rules, and if you do break the rules, don't get caught. So, I knew my guys were going to do stuff like that. It was just, you know, you have to keep an eye on them. And I overheard someone talking about making moonshine. And this was the process they were talking about doing, making a still using Coke or Sprite that has high sugar content to ferment, then distill it into an alcohol. I thought they were full of crap. never distilled anything other than in a chemistry lab. So, I kind of took what they were talking about to see if[5:08] it was feasible and something they could actually do. And it actually worked. And then it was just one of those things like, "Okay, now I know this this works. It's one more thing. I got to keep an eye on my guys, make sure they don't get in trouble, anything stupid." Really, that's basically how it started. but it also led me down this rabbit hole of just researching history and the love of the process and the craft of when I got home from that deployment. I built a new still and started doing this in my garage like people make beer and wine became another hobby. My wife was ecstatic about that [laughter] odd smells of fermenting grains and sugars in the basement that were permeating up through the up to the main floor. Oh, that couldn't smell good. Yeah. Started adding flavors to it and that's when it got pretty popular with some folks and I was getting ready to retire and that's when I sent it to a[5:57] buddy of mine who worked at the R&D and his boss loved it. They took it to a tailgate party at Bronco game and it ended up in the hands of my future investors really and they invested in the whole thing as I retired from the army and 300 days of shine was born. Wow. Go Broncos. Yeah. Heck yeah.FROM ARMY LIFE TO SMALL BUSINESS OWNERSHIP[6:18] She's a Bronco fan. So I kind of worked out. [laughter] So before we curious that journey of like from obviously transitioning out of army and right into like beginning to sell a product and having a business. What was that like? it was open mouth turn on fire hose. you know I grew up in northeast Montana small farm town. Never ran a a business like this. My my old man was a mechanic. He owned his own shop. So, we were small business owners when I was a kid, but I didn't do anything with that other than learn how to rebuild small engines and things like that. So, you know, after 23 years in the army, being told what to do every time you do something. Now, opening a business was something completely new. They got courses in the military for transitioning out where you can do small business course classes prior to[7:10] transitioning. I went to that, learned a little bit, but nothing to what I was getting myself into really. Luckily, my investors were small business owners up in Denver. they knew a lot about business. They had liquor lawyers to do all the process of getting the licensing and everything like that. but then the day-to-day operations, you know, when we first started out, it was just me and my wife working there. I did all the distilling, production, bottling, and then we had a tasting room that I would run at night. We were open 5 days a week. And then we were self-distributing as well. So, everything that we were distributing into liquor stores was me going out and getting that into stores, getting our our product on the shelves. a lot of lot of hours, a lot of grind. but it was fun. It was small. And just working with my wife was was great because I spent 20 plus years in the military away from my family and now I was working with them. So it was a great transition on that side.[8:10] That's beautiful.MAKING MOONSHINE MARKETABLE IN COLORADO[8:12] Okay. So, you know, like bourbon's all the rage and then you've got the vodka drinkers and the gin drinkers. You don't hear much about moonshine. What was it like? What was that adventure? Or, you know, maybe it's the savviness of introducing a beverage, a liquor beverage that probably is not so predominantly thought of. And when it is thought of, it has probably kind of an association to, you know, backwoods, backyard booze that might be a little bit dangerous, right? How was so yeah, I mean just the mason jar itself has a negative connotation and trying to you know work around that. Um at the time there was a couple nationwide brands that were out on the shelves. So I did market research by just buying a lot of that stuff, see what it tastes like compared to mine. Mhm. especially the different flavors because that's what's most popular. It's not the straight out distill proof or 120 proof. It's what flavors can you[9:15] make from it and make it drinkable. you know, increases drinkability. Yeah. so I did a lot of research with that. A lot of the flavors that I was making were just basically family recipes that I remember growing up. Um, our apple pie was my grandma's famous for her pies during Thanksgiving. My and when I was in Scouts, we would make peach cobbler in a Dutch oven on the coals when we were camping. So that's where our peach cobbler came from. You know, things like that. They pretty much all of our flavors almost have a story behind them. but that was you know the most popular spirit in Colorado is whiskey. Yeah. Second to tequila. So moonshine not being as popular. My goal was to try and make it as popular as possible by using Colorado's history in their stories. Not making it military themed like a lot of vets do that get out and they go all military all in on the GI marketing.[10:12] Mine was I love Colorado. My my dad's whole side of the family is from Denver. My brother was born here. One of my folks divorced. We moved up to Montana where my mom's side of the family is from. So, I have a lot of history with Colorado in my family. my grandma was she owned SNR printing in Denver. She had a print shop for years, printed a lot of Denver Bronco stuff. Was a huge Bronco fan. So, Bronco was in my blood, you know. And that being said, when we moved here, we I quickly found how much people love this state. And the Colorado Sea on the flag was at the time the second or third most recognized state flag next to Texas and the California beggar. Get out. Really? No. Okay. I had no clue. Our own state. And when you go into stores and things like that, people really pride themselves on Colorado proud. Colorado made products, things like that. So what I wanted to do was focus on Colorado[11:09] tradition. When I started researching the history of prohibition in Colorado, it was fascinating how much I read and found out about that nobody knew. Even Colorado neighbors, I talked to my family about did you know who the Carino brothers? Oh, I knew who the small domes and some of those organized crime families were, but they didn't know about the Carinos. They didn't know about Chad Porter, who was the largest moonshiner at a monument. west of the Mississippi really. I found out all these fascinating things about Colorado and what was going on during prohibition. The fact that Colorado actually went dry in 1916, four years prior to prohibition. They instituted statewide prohibition. So they had a four-year head start before the 18th amendment went into effect. So and then the type of moonshine they were making, the type of shine they were making was from beet sugar, not corn, because Colorado's cash crop at the time[11:59] was sugar beets. So Western Sugar was a co-op that included multiple states and provided almost the entire western United States as granulated sugar. Most of your sugar came from cane or not from cane but from sugar beets. Sugar beets. so I found that fascinating. I started using beet sugar to make my shine to see what it would taste like if it was any different everything like that. And found that we could make a really good clean spirit based on the information that I was able to research that was relatively close to what I think moons were doing here 100 years ago. That's really what I wanted to focus on. Wow. Fascinating. You know, pride myself on being a Colorado native. [laughter] and Jason moved here when you were six. I was six. Native. [laughter] Been here a long time. so you know, us being longtime. I've never heard that story. Have you?[12:53] No, not to not to that degree. Yeah, New Carter Springs had like there was a lot of prohibition early on like General Palmer who founded the city wanted it to he was a tea totler. He wanted the city to be focused on like health and wellness and the whole sunshine thing of tuberculosis and that was a big factor but Pinrose was a drinker and so there were like these stories of them going back and forth and the city's always kind of had an interesting edge between prohibition or not drinking and people that wanted to have it. So, yeah, I mean, Colorado Springs was dry early on. and then they pushed that into old Colorado City. Old Colorado City used to be nothing but bars all the way up the main street. Mhm. And when they banned alcohol, basically all the store, all the bars and saloons owners picked up all[13:39] their stuff and they were seen moving that product basically a half a mile down the street where that city line ended and opened up right there. I heard that there were tunnels underneath Colorado Boulevard connecting bars and brothel along the way so people wouldn't see them conversing back and forth. Yeah. interesting fact. So, I was the first HR manager ever in its history at the Colorado Fine or Colorado Springs Fine Art Center. And one day when I was working there, one of the curators, she's like, "You want to come with me to the Broadmore and check out something pretty cool?" And I'm like, "Duh. Yeah." so we go and she takes me down into a hallway. We go down some stairs and we walk through this hallway and we go into this room and it was really dark room, no windows, no nothing. And she looks at[14:30] me, she's like, "You know where we are?" No. She says, "We're in the prohibition room underneath the Broadmore Lake." And what she had taken, apparently she had taken me underneath there and they had a whole bunch of old prohibition artifacts that she was picking up for the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. And I had no clue that there was a prohibition room underneath that lake, but there is. Yeah. Pretty interesting stuff. Yeah. So I'm curious like you strike gold in the sense that every small business owner wants everything. You have a good story. just the compelling nature of really loving something and then beginning to build a business around that and turn it into something. So I love that. so often so many people are trying to figure that thing out and it was very it still was just very natural for you to step into that. How do you feel like that really supported you in the overall growth of the company and and where you see things at today? IFOUNDER STORY, VETERAN IDENTITY, AND COMMUNITY[15:22] it was I mean it was instrumental big time just having the history and knowing that especially when you're when we tell those stories to people and when people take tours and I make sure all my staff knows who the players were and you know we've got all this memorabilia and history on our walls so that when people ask they can tell the stories as well. originally when I first opened this business, I never I never mentioned that I was a veteran. I didn't put it on the bottles. I didn't have it on anything marketing wise. I wanted people to love the product for its taste and the history of what we were trying to do. And, I had a buddy of mine who is a vet as well. He's like, "You need to tell people you're a vet." And I was like, "Well, people find out." and he's like, "No,[16:13] you need to tell them that you're a vet and that and he really pushed me to be more open about my my veteran status." And which I think actually did help to the point of a marketing standpoint because we have such a large number of retirees and veteran a veteran. We have a massive veteran community here in Colorado, especially Monument. Yeah, it's huge. And so that kind of started that thing. If you've been in our tasting room where you've seen the wall that has all the military paraphernalia on it, it's very small portion of it is mine. Actually, most of that is veterans who come in and leave their mark. They leave patches, bolo badges, airborne wings. it's just littered with coins, belt buckles, P MIA bracelets um are on there. And then the sheer number of military coins that have been dropped off there just to leave their[17:09] mark as well. I think that is is huge in it. But you having a a story the story behind how I made my first batch is you know it's pretty unique. Having a unique story like that does absolutely help. you know, stumbling into something that I was doing just as a I guess a science project. Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Science project turned into hobby turned into business. Like that's quite the trajectory. Yeah. So, all of us have our founder story, right? And we could say it backwards 30 times over and over and over again. And I just love your founder story, but what's one story that you don't get to tell enough about how 300 Days of Shine came to be? tory that doesn't get told enough. Yeah. Oh, man. Over the years, almost all of them been told. [laughter] I can't really think of any that are not being told now. Yeah.[18:14] yeah, it's it's it's interesting when I do events and we do a lot of festivals and events like that. That's the best marketing you can do for something like this is getting your flavor into somebody's hands and and them trying it for the first time. But having strangers that I've never met before come up and start telling my story to people at the table, that's pretty awesome because somebody I've never met before will tell my story almost verbatim to everybody sitting around the table. I'll just stand there. I'll just sit back and I'll listen. I'm like, this is [laughter] actually pretty cool that people know my story and they're willing to to boast about it. Wow. Yeah. Now, that's an accomplishment right there. Yeah. Absolutely. Wow. That means people are talking and saying the right thing and they're listening. Congratulations on that. Thank you. Wow. Absolutely. Should we introduce the third host?THE BUCKET: WORST CLIENT EXPERIENCE[19:10] I think let's let's dive into the bucket. We've been talking about a lot of the wins and I'm sure there are some challenges that you've experienced along this way. So, it's been a challenging time. I'm I'm excited to kind of dig into that side of things. So, yeah, feel free. All you have to do is dive in and pick your poison here out of the bucket. You get to pick. Yeah. And then, read the question and we'll all kind of jump in and explore it together. All right. I didn't bring my glasses. So, you want to borrow mine? We all have that client. Tell us about your worst client experience and the boundaries you put in place afterward. Oh boy. Worst client. Wow. I guess it's when we first and it bites me in the rear end every time me and my wife start talking about comments being[20:01] made. I mean social media is it can be great and it can be terrible for you. we I mean we probably only open about a year. I was still doing the bar the tending up front, making drinks and things like that and serving customers, but also I was responsible for production in the back. So, a lot of times I would try and split that time. So, if it was a slower day, like a Wednesday or a Thursday, I would be I would have operations going in the back and I come up front and I would serve people and I stay up there for the most part, talk to them and everything like that. But, every once in a while, I got to run to the back. We had a we had a few bikers roll in to the t room. they're wandering around looking at[20:38] everything. I served them got them their drinks and everything like that and then I took a blistering review on on Facebook. they this this big you mean probably 6'2 giant guy on a big old Harley with his wife and a couple of his friends did not like that I didn't spend enough time talking to them apparently. Oh my gosh. he he went he went he went pretty nuts on me and then subsequently like you know even two years later somebody would make a comment on there and he would chime in with how bad his experience was and I'd never go back to that place again the owner said no couple choice words are you kidding me no no kidding literally the only like really negative comment I ever took but every once in a while I would pop he would pop back in and and and hammering me again for digging not, you know, taking him by the[21:40] hand and carting him around the distillery and showing him everything we do and touring him and and all this kind of stuff. so that was that was a learning experience. that I don't take any customers for granted. Um, whenever I'm there, and I'm not there during our open hours as much anymore, but when I am there, I try to engage with all the customers with everybody at least go by and do a table touch with them while they're having a drink and see how they're doing, introduce myself, get to know them a little bit, that kind of thing. So, that's that's probably the one thing I can think of. Wow. So, nothing about the product? No, nothing about it was just me. It was just just me. Oh my god. And I never had anybody else come by and tell me I'm such an [expletive] Other than when I was in the military, which I was kind of your job.[22:30] It's kind of my job. I was unapproachable. I was I've had soldiers come in years later and see me now and they're like, "You are such a dick." [laughter] But and I was like, "Well, did I ever say anything that I didn't that that I didn't mean or say anything behind your back?" And they're like, "No, you were always upfront and everything that was on your mind, you made sure everybody knew it." like well that's what leaders do. Absolutely.LEARNING TO LEAD CIVILIANS AFTER MILITARY SERVICE[22:55] But yeah no it's a learning experience and that was early on too because I just transitioned out. So I was still at that point I was still learning how to not just run a business but also vets who spend 20 plus years in the military and half of that in combat have a hard time associating with civilians when they get out. I can see that. I it was that was a learning curve and then you know having to deal with employees who are not subordinate soldiers can't light into them and rip them up and down and take them out back for some you know one-on-one counseling with push-ups and flutter kicks and and and suicides until their elbows explode. [laughter] Yeah, you can't do that in Spanish. I was I was volunteering last week with an organization called the Honor Foundation that helps vets specifically in special forces make the transition into civilian life[23:52] and into business. And so we were doing mock interviews. And it was such an interesting experience like having all these vets tell me like their their kind of business experience but as it related to being in service. And so you know, hey tell me about a difficult time where you and your team were working through a situation and like a war story, right? and like full on, yeah, my guy took a hit in Afghanistan and I had, you know, it's just like that relatability, you really do feel kind of that gap and and the shift in civilian life and and how challenging that can be. So, first of all, kudos to you to like take that feedback and then actually take it to heart instead of getting mad and be like, well, all right, now I make sure I do this thing and and whatot.[24:29] I had the I had the I had the message just ready to say I was going to fire back with both barrels and my wife was like, stop. [laughter] She take a breath. She is she's my she's my quality check. I tell you what. [laughter] there's been a few times that I just want to let loose on people, but you know, she she grounds me. and it is difficult when you retire. When you retire, you spend a certain I mean, you don't even have to spend 23 years like I did in the military. M guys who come out of high school and their first experience in real life is four years in the military and back during the GWOT days, global war on terrorism, there's a deployment in there somewhere most likely. Yeah. being able to relate outside of that is extremely difficult. I've had I've I've counseledled guys who've come into my place that I've served with and that are just transitioning out and you know they're just looking for advice.[25:24] Yeah. And my biggest advice is that is learn how to talk to people. Learn how to associate with them that is not related. Your your military services is great. Yeah. if you were injured, if you were, you know, a casualty or something like that or if you you're a Purple Heart recipient, that isn't your identity. It doesn't have to be. That shouldn't, you know, that doesn't need to be the first thing that comes out is, well, I'm I when I was in Afghanistan, I got blown up. That's that shouldn't be the starting point of the conversation. Okay. get to know people, talk to them. my hardest part was was that part, getting to know people, being interested in who they are, not being the I'm a vet and I'm better than you kind of attitude that a lot of vets get out and they look down on people because you didn't serve. No, everybody has their own stories. Everybody has their own hardships.[26:14] Everybody has things that they're going through. And in a community like this, the best thing is to do is to shut up and listen to what they have to say. And then if you can relate and if the your service comes into that conversation, that's how I kind of navigate that. It's interesting. You know, like you, Jason, I've I've never been a vet. I've never gone through the transition, but I've taught a couple transition classes. I've done plenty of volunteering and helping vets make that transition. And it's it's interesting because you know from one side of the table you know civilization you know the civilian world not civilization the civilian world expects vets to conform into society just so seamlessly and it's not like that. I remember talking with one vet and it was a female. she looked at me, she was recently out by maybe just a couple weeks and she looked at me, she says, "I don't even know what to wear." And just simply going to the store and shopping[27:18] for professional clothing to wear to work was such a difficulty for her. And I think that's stuff that civilians take for granted. Yeah. Because it's it's And then she goes on, I don't know how to do my hair. I don't know how to do my makeup, much less talk to my my leader and not use acronyms and just just all of the stuff that was such a difficult part, but even just starting her day and figuring out what to wear. Yeah. So hard. Absolutely. and and the hair thing isn't just, you know, the females getting out. Oh, I bet for you guys, too. Yeah. I thought hair was a nuisance for 15 years of my career. So, I [laughter] shaved my head bald. Really? I didn't have hair. So, when I got out and I started growing hair, I had no idea what to do with my hair. And there was days I'd [laughter] get out of[28:07] I get out of bed or get ready for work and my wife was like, "You're not going to go looking like that, are you?" [laughter] I don't know what to do with it. She's like, "Well, you got a comb over and you don't need a comb over. [laughter] You're not bald yet." That is so funny. Yeah. you know, kind of circling back around to the problem client thing and it's seeing this gentleman come into your establishment and expect you to drop everything and walk him around and give him, you know, this this wonderful experience, which probably would have been great had it happened and it sounds like you learned from it. but I often times think about some unreasonable expectations that clients put on us too. I know at least for our firm that happens quite frequently. There's a But I think it's because we focus on hospitality first.[29:09] We create a place where community feels comfortable here and wanted and heard and seen. And if you just take that slightest step away from it because maybe you have to look at something over here, it's just Yeah. It's very noticed. Yeah. And he he wasn't a little guy with a small ego, too. He was huge ego, big burly dude, bear of a man. But one of the other comments was something about how I don't like bikers and he must be afraid of people in leathers. Okay. I have two Harleys. Mhm. I have all the leathers. Uhhuh. So, no [laughter] one because I'm not dressed like that while I'm working. Right. So, just probably wave to you as you're writing. [laughter] But yeah, I guess what I was getting at is kudos to you for creating an environment of probably pure hospitality. Like I said, I've been to your your place. It's freaking phenomenal. And I've always[30:12] felt welcome. but he probably expected the amazing experience you do expect, but there was just this inch that wasn't met. And but good for you. Good for you. Let's move on to the next one. All right. Yes. Okay.TRENDS, FLAVORS, AND STAYING AGILE[30:38] what's a trend you completely missed or dismissed early on early on that ended being huge? What did you teach or what did that teach you about staying agile? Oh, trend trend in the liquor community. I try to I try to grasp trends. as much as people are drinking, I try and stay as tuned in to what is popular. I think I think it was our watermelon moonshine. when after the song that was the thing Wilson came out with the song Watermelon Moonshine, my wife said, "Do it." I put it off for a year. Did you? And it didn't it didn't hit like we thought it would. Oh, no. We see other watermelon moonshines, you know, that really took off. So, I think that was one. we still have it on the menu now, but yeah, it's it that was that was one that I missed on.[31:40] I think Brandy Brandy and I were talking about your favorite our favorite moonshines of yours earlier today, and I think she said your watermelon moonshine was her favorite. Good. I think that's the one she said. Tastes like a watermelon Jolly Rancher. Yeah. I mean, you can't you can't mess with it. It's Yeah. Yum. How And so, I'm so curious about this to kind of deepen because I feel like in the last span of the 15 years, 10 years that you've been in business, the distilling world has really grown in some ways. This kind of craft distilling is a thing. How what are those trends that you feel like you've been seeing? And not say ones that you've missed, but like what trends have you feel like you've hit as well that has really allowed the company to grow? I think our the ones that we've hit is[32:23] like our barrel finish line since we make a specialty spirit it's not considered a whiskey. So we have a barrel finish line that tastes like a whiskey. I adjust the grains in that in the mash bill. So when we age it in barrels it comes out tasting more like a whiskey than it would a rum with all that sugar in it. that was I think you know I think we missed on the naming of it. Originally we called it Centennial. We only aged it in glass car boys with oak chips for about two months and um when it hit the market people didn't really know what it was. It didn't say whiskey and didn't have any wording in it that said it's a whiskey. So we rebranded it to what it is now which is our barrel finish. Barrel finish gives you the idea that it's a whiskey because it's barrelaged.[33:10] It looks like a whiskey. but it just legally cannot have the word whiskey on it because we use beet sugar in our in our in our mash bill. Really? but by all aspects of it, it tastes like a whiskey. Makes some of the best old fashions in Colorado. Self-proclaimed, of course. Yeah. [laughter] There's a couple other distilleries that have caught on to saying the best old fashions, but I started that, you know, like five years ago and haven't had anybody tell me different. So, I don't know if I've ever thought about having an oldfashioned with with your product. You sell a ton of those things. That's the most popular cocktail annotasting room. Have you ever thought about or navigating away from moonshine and and playing with other spirits? I've I mean, I've I've toyed around with it. done some different things, but to stay true to Colorado[34:04] and really try and push the history and the tradition that was here in Colorado and bring that history back. If I deviate from that, I'm going away from what our our core root is, which is focusing on that Colorado history. Colorado Moonshiners didn't make corn liquor. They just didn't they didn't have a lot of corn here. They used beet sugar. so that being said, and there's, you know, there's there's nearly a hundred distilleries in Colorado right now, and just about every one of them focuses on whiskey, rum, and agave spirits. It's true. I let them do their thing. They're they're good at it, and there's a lot of them that I buy a lot of their product from. I just want to focus on seeing how many different flavors and what we can do with this this type of spirit. Yeah. we've got 22 flavors right now that do really well. So, eventually I'll have some more coming out, which will[35:00] drive my wife nuts because then she's got to build the marketing behind those. [laughter] A lucky lady. Yeah. I just in my mind see like this mad scientist in the in the back just coming up with flavors. [laughter] Pulling up grandma's recipe and being like, green bean casserole. Probably not. Probably not. [laughter] But I bet I mean probably not a green bean casserole. Probably. Yeah. With the What is the weirdest you've gotten with a with a flavor? Like experiencing wise? The weirdest? It's actually I don't know if it's really weird, but I grew up in Northeast Montana, so huckleberries are a huge thing. You can't go into a roadside souvenir shop without finding huckleberry jam, huckleberry syrup, huckleberry the huckle the huckle nuggets. Yeah, the the moose nuggets. That's huckleberries coated in chocolate. it's it's huckleberry everything. And huckleberries don't grow it's not like they're farmed in Montana. They basically grow wild and that's how they're harvested and then[36:04] they make whatever products are going to sell and when they're out they're out. it took me a long time to find an actual huckleberry flavoring that tasted like huckleberry and not just a blend of blueberry and blackberry. so when I put that together, it didn't have a lot of aroma to it. It tasted like huckleberry, but I didn't have a lot of notes. And when you're smell when you're when you're drinking spirits, especially something unique, everybody smells it first. That's the first thing you do. I found a company called Ferum that makes a really good sweet habiscus note and it doesn't add to the flavor, but it adds to the aroma. So, I added that to it and it has the most inviting aroma ever. Like, as soon as you smell it, you're like, I you just want to drink it really. But then the flavor hits you and it's all huckleberry.[36:53] Completely different. [laughter] So, it's our huckleberry hibiscus. it it's actually one of my one of my favorite in in the lineup. but that one's probably most unique. The weirdest stuff is what my wife does. So she does a monthly infusion for the taste room every month. So every month has got a different flavor she infuses our sugar moon with to make these different things. and she wanted to come up with a she wanted so for April Fool's Day she came up with different flavors that are just out of out of the norm and it was up to the bartender which so in the four shot sampler you would get two of the off flavors and two of the good flavors and we left it to our customers to decide which ones they like. Kind of like that jelly belly game where they've got the[37:47] good flavors and the bad flavors. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? The booger one. Booger. Like grass clippings and [laughter] rotten egg. She brilliant. Yeah. She did one that had horseradish in it. And we didn't know how I buy horseradish paste and sauce for sandwiches and stuff like that, but I've never actually cooked or stripped a horseradish in the house. the root. Yeah. So, I bought the horse ranch for Jen to do this. She was going to infuse it into our moonshine and add a couple other things to it. And [laughter] I was at work and she called me and she's gagging. I'm like, "What's wrong?" She's like, "It's the horseradish. It's burning my eyes. The whole [laughter] house is rancid." She had to open up all the windows and it was from one horseradish. I got home and it hit me in the face like a train. I was like, she's like, "Yeah, it's not bad now." And I was like, "This is bad." She's like, "It was[38:46] 10 times worse about two hours ago." Oh my god. But that flavor into our shine, we had people get we were getting some really, really crazy responses from it. We actually had people who liked it and like, "You got to bottle it." I'm like, "I'm not [laughter] really." Yeah. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a good horseradish slash like, you know, with my prime rib. Yeah. I think she did like a pickle a pickle habanero which would make your eyes water as soon as you open the jar. Oh yeah, that's a lot of flavor. Yeah, it was it was a fun. She she comes up with a lot of different crazy fun events to try and get people to come into the taste room and that was just one of them that was pretty fun and unique. That was clever. Yeah. I don't know if I would have come to that one though. I haven't had the courage, but I could see like young 20s like,[39:41] "Okay, let's do this. I'm in." But I'm too old for those. All right. One more. One more. Let's grab this one right here.INDUSTRY PRESSURE, LIQUOR LAWS, AND THE PIVOT[39:53] Okay. Share a moment when you realized your business was heading in the wrong direction and tough decisions you made and the tough decision you made to pivot. well that's just recently actually. it's actually not so much my business going in the different in the wrong direction. I mean we were going in the right direction. but we had a lot of liquor laws in Colorado change which I never expected. That's one of the things you don't really think of when you start a business is how legislation can change so much in your industry. Mhm. you know with the elimination of 3 point 32 beer and full strength beer going into grocery stores. I mean that happened in 2018. Yeah. 2018 that really put a it put a wrench in our independent liquor stores businesses. we started bouncing back from that and then Prop 125 which put wine into grocery stores.[40:53] So now in Colorado you can get wine in big box stores. No. what a lot of folks didn't realize when they were voting for that, that was 60 to 70% of our independent liquor stores business. So, in the course of the first year of 125 going in to effect, we lost roughly 100 liquor stores went out of business. Oh my god. they're actually projected now 2026 that we could lose up to 400 more in the state of Colorado because people in they I mean they conveniently and it was all done out of convenience and if that's what people wanted that's what they voted for but small businesses being crushed as well as the craft industry is being really strained right now because of that. Wow. I lost 160 placements in the first year. Wow. In distribution. So we distribute throughout the entire state of Colorado.[41:44] when that happened, you know, you lose 160 placements. Our distribution went from roughly 200 cases a month to right now we are below 60 a month in distribution. Wow. It's because people don't have eyes on your product anymore because they conveniently buy their beer and their wine at the grocery store when they buy their groceries. It's just easier instead of going next door to the grocery store there. No. even even if they did pass the law where we could put spirits into grocery stores, the large distributors in the country will come in, flood those flood those stores, fill those shelves up, and they wouldn't carry our product anyway. We actually fought in legislation last year to kill a bill that was going to pass that. We were able we were able to get that killed because that would have that would have crushed the industry. we would have lost 100% of our distribution versus 75 right now.[42:40] you know that coupled with you know the labor cost going up. then you add in inflation over the last 40 years where the cost of all of our raw materials have almost doubled. Mhm. that's been that's been the hardest part of of this of this industry. Uh being in the liquor industry in Colorado is those changes happen so fast and trying to catch up to it. and then pivoting on okay where are we going to make up those losses. that's where the Keystone license we started using our secondary license in Keystone to open up a secondary tasting room. I think it's pivotal is if you're going to do that, make sure that you have a high foot traffic. If you don't have a lot of foot traffic, it's probably not going to work. Well, how do you make it work in Monument? You have zero foot traffic hidden behind a mechanic shop.[43:34] I had I had five, six years of building a customer base. Wow. Where word of mouth really travels. That didn't help our independent liquor stores. But I mean, you know, couple coupled the loss of those independent liquor stores. We've lost um 140 breweries have gone out of business in the last couple years. Yeah. distilleries. the presence of distillers in Colorado is down 30%. From four years ago. with the breweries, they're, you know, you've had 140 close, but they are basically 3% under in new breweries coming to replace those. So, they're slowly just disappearing. and that's that's statewide. And it's it's been it's been rough for everybody. Everybody in the industry that I talked to is in the same boat. It's just like our sales are are nothing. Especially here in Colorado, if you can't get a large distributor to carry your product out of state, start selling out of state as well. you you're basically depending on all your revenue being[44:44] generated from your tasting rooms and that's about it really. That's about it. And and there's also a trend. you know what? That stopped recording. Awesome. Did Okay, so I'm not losing my mind. Okay, I did that. We'll come right back. I have So that's interesting because we've got a couple clients who are either distillers or craft brewers and luckily none of our clients have been hit. But it seems like there have been so many craft brewers, especially from what we've noticed. Plus we're really close with the former owners of 1350. Loved them pretty much. Aren't they fantastic? But that was probably one of the hardest closures we've we've seen. Prior to them opening, he was spending days and days and days at my place, picking my brain about opening up, you know, his spot. Really, we tried supporting them as much as possible. And then when we got that word, I was like, that was that was crushing. Golden Moon went out of business. You know, Steven Gold is a[45:51] he's a Marine who opened that up. They were in business for 10 years. Went out of business. Le Spirits just down the street from us. They went out of business. Yeah. But it's just it's been they didn't last long. It's been a cascade been a water flow a waterfall of distilleries going out of business. But breweries too. I mean breweries that were using our barrels we collaborated on and different things are are just gone. They just couldn't make it happen. It's devastating. Do you think it's primarily because of these large big box stores opening up their their shelves to liquor? I think that's I honestly that's when we start when I started seeing the trajectory we're on right now is when that started when big box shores got wine wine is huge in Colorado. I mean, it's a huge market. Lot a lot of people drink wine really.[46:41] And when you take that out of independent liquor stores, put in grocery stores. First thing they did was distributors were selling large quantities of those of that wine at discount price. You buy bulk, you get a better price. You can undercut the guys sitting next to you in the liquor store. Okay. So, like, you know, when we first opened, every grocery store you went into, there was a liquor store right next door. Yeah. So, as far as convenience, it's it's inconvenient to walk next door. Okay. but what they did is what we've seen is a lot of these stores are going out of business because you can not only is it convenient, but I can get a bottle of wine for $2, $3 cheaper at Safeway than I can at JNK Liquors or right next door, you know? and and people will tell me that all day long when they're sitting to me in the taste room. You know, they'll say, "Well, yeah, but I can get it cheaper here." I was like,[47:34] right now when that liquor store goes out of business, do you think the price is going to be the same? Yep. It's going to go up. Absolutely. And then you come and you just put a small business out of a small business owner out of out of work. seems like, you know, you've got the pressure of, you know, the big box stores and then you've got the cost of labor and then you've got the cost of actually creating your product and supplies and and then we're in this whole weird stragflation thing with our economic environment and it's just like, okay, can it [expletive] stop now? [laughter] And that's why we have tried to keep our prices the same across the board. We had a couple dollar raise in our in our lower proofs on liquor store shelves. That was about four years ago. But we've we've not raised any of our prices since then. Yeah.[48:24] Trying to maintain that. Not only that, I have to I have to compete with the international brands. You know, like Old Smoky. Oh, Old Smoky's on the shelf right right next to mine. And if mine is more expensive than theirs, more times than not, people are going to buy the less expensive. So, I have to keep my prices within range of Old Smokies. Even though I'm local, I'm craft better known, that don't matter. Wow. What matters is how much it's going to cost. Yeah. People live on a pretty limited income nowadays and they're voting with their do dollars wisely as they can. So, yeah. Wow. Which makes it tough. So, does the majority of your revenue come from your tasting rooms?BUILDING FOOT TRAFFIC AND COMMUNITY IN MONUMENT[49:05] It does. Really? How do you get people into your monument location? I'm dying to know. it's a tough location to work with. Well, I mean, when we first opened up, it was it was difficult because we're behind there and then marketing. Our marketing was two signs on in the driveway in the [laughter] I remember trying to find you for the first time. It was hard. Have you been there, Jason? Have you? Okay. So, we started building a pretty good following in Monument Locals. most of our marketing was word of mouth, honestly, because it's such a small community. You got it's small town environment in between two large cities. Well, three if you want to count Castle Rock, but so most of our most of our our customer base was just word of mouth. couple things that we did, we brought in that on the hook fish truck which has a massive following.[49:58] Yeah. the first time we had that truck at our place, we had a line of people a mile long going all the way down the street and that brought a lot of eyes on our product on our place that we didn't have before. you know, on a day on a Thursday where we would do maybe $500, $600 in sales total on average that food truck there, we would do like three 4,000. Get out. Just because I mean the parking lot would turn into a tailgate. People would be sitting in their tailgates. They would bring lawn chairs because they we have a small tasting room. So people are in, you know, they're they're sitting in lawn chairs and and they bring their own stuff just to sit out there, eat fish, and then they come in and get a drink and or they would buy bottles and take them home with them. So I mean that was that was big.[50:46] believe it or not, CO didn't crush us. we transitioned to sanitizer on a few of our runs to make hand sanitizer. And then every every bottle or every bottle we sold, we donated the equivalency to law enforcement first responders. And we were just selling little small bottles of it. Wow. And just putting those two words on social media. within the next day we would have a line of 10 15 people wanting wanting hand sanitizer and then they would buy bottles and they became regulars really. They finally opened again. we were able to do business again and actually have customers coming into the tasting room versus sitting outside in what we call drinking pods where we put up makeshift green houses attached to the wall so you could socially distance and sit in one of these with your own little oil heater. Uhhuh. I thought of one of those before.[51:50] Yeah. [laughter] So, that actually built, a bit of a a following just from doing that, being able to provide, you know, those services to people. and then, you know, about 2022 is when we started seeing things change quite a bit, you know, with laws and the industry. And then you also have to look at Gen Z, this generation coming up, they don't drink. They don't drink. They don't socialize. they complain that they're you know unsocial or they're social misfits or whatever you want to call it, but they don't go out and socialize and that's what these watering holes are. Taste rooms, bars, saloons to that's a social interaction. Get a little bit of this in you. It's a social lubricant. You can start talking to people. Everybody's your best friend. Yeah. Start talking to people. Learn how to talk and converse with other people.[52:43] That's where the saloon was actually that's what it came from was the salons where people went to learn news of the day. That's what that's what a saloon was when it wasn't a church in on Sunday. [laughter] Yeah. Jason, you were about to jump in with a question. Do you remember what it was? Nope. No, I know. This has been great.WHERE TO FIND 300 DAYS OF SHINE[53:06] Yeah. I was also watching the time thinking we're probably ready. I was my I think my question was what are where can people go find this and start coming to to hang out and drink with you guys? Yeah. So you can if you follow us on on Facebook, Instagram, we're on 300 days of shine, 300 Days of Distilling. we do I do a lot of videos. So just be ready. We switched to mostly reels. So you're going to see me talking about nonsense and also the science of making moonshine. We do a lot of videos. We're on YouTube, but also our website is the number three, the word hundred, days dot com. So if you're looking on Instagram and in social media, it's not 300. We're not the Spartans. We're three and then the word 100 days. [laughter] so that's that's where you can find us. as far as finding our product, we do distribute to just about all the[53:54] major liquor stores. some of the smaller ones are struggling, so you don't find it as much, but you know, you can go to, you know, Applejacks, you Cheers, Liquor Mart, all the bigger the liquor warehouses, liquor outlets, they carry all of our product. and then our location is, 279 Beacon Light Road in Monument. And you've got a new location. And we have a new location up in Keystone. Yeah. It's right in the village. Can't miss it. That's 300 days of shine. Right on the wall, right next to Groovy's Mac and Cheese. so yeah, when you're going up to Keystone to do some mountain biking, going to do some hiking, stop in, have a sample, have a drink, and buy a couple bottles. Best way to the end the day.CLOSING[54:35] Yeah. Yeah. Well, Mike, thank you so much for joining us today. And as I promised you guys at the beginning of the podcast, he may not have been classified as a friend at the beginning of the podcast, but you're definitely a friend now. So, appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I mean, can't get a better friend than this who [laughter] brings these type of gifts. That's right. But thank you everybody for joining us on Show Me Yours today. please go and support Mike. His his his product is truly phenomenal. When you drink his apple pie moonshine, it is like drinking grandma's apple pie. It really is. It takes you back to your childhood, at least for me. but go taste, enjoy, and drink responsibly. I am Reanna and this is Jason. Show me yours.
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