Ken and Ian from Calexo

00:00Sharp Yeas Bakery is a locally owned and family operated wholesale bakery providing bread to Nashville's best eateries. They've been operating in Nashville since 1986, providing high quality fresh bread daily for restaurants, catering companies, hospitals, and universities. Their bread is free from preservatives and artificial additives. Learn more at sharpyeas.com that's c-h-a-r-p-i-e-r-s dot com or you can give Erin Mosso a call directly her number is 615-319-6453 that's Sharp Yeas Bakery Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio the tastiest hour of talk in Music City now here's your host Brandon Styll Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio my name is Brandon Styll and I am your host we are powered by Gordon Food Service and I am excited to bring this episode to you today we're speaking with the CEO and COO of Calexo this is a THC beverage brand and they are one of the first ones to market them putting this concept together I think since 2019 and they are distributed by Lippman Brothers and today we're gonna learn all about all the details if you have curiosities and you there's something you potentially would like to carry in your restaurant hopefully we answer all of the questions today and you can see you can make that decision for yourself and so I'm a big fan of what they do their flavors are amazing and Collier Lippman Brothers wrap and get a sample of it because they're they're they're delicious I do want to tell you guys real quick again that Tennessee Flavors

02:02is on March the 11th it's at the Nashville State Community College campus the old Hundred Oaks Mall no no I'm sorry it's in the Hickory Hollow area the Hickory Hollow Mall I think they still need a couple restaurants to sign up so if you would like to be a part of Tennessee Flavors and help support them we're gonna have a chef on next week and we're gonna be talking more about that you can contact Paul Brennan at 412-973-4057 that is gonna be on March the 11th and I will be there and I will have the studio set up there so if you wanted to be on Nashville Restaurant Radio this is your chance you just stop by and say hey Brandon I want to be on the show and then we will sit down and I will learn more about you so it's a fun thing that we're doing I'm doing this three times where I'm gonna be recording live at food demonstration type things the other one is going to be at the Music City Food and Wine Festival it's April 24th through the 27th it's at Centennial Park and we're gonna be talking at the end of the week with Olivia and she is gonna be telling us all about it I'm really excited about that and then the other really big one is gonna be on March the 16th and it is in Atlanta Georgia Team Heidi this is the big event every year for the Giving Kitchen and it is gonna be at Truist Park where the Braves play and it is a massive massive event I will be there also recording interviewing people for Atlanta Restaurant Radio and Nashville Restaurant Radio so this is gonna be a lot of fun a lot of fun things coming up been having a lot of conversations around the Nashville area restaurant alliance still haven't done the full episode on it yet still trying to nail all of that down I may just record it and just let you guys know all about it but what I'm doing is is we're bringing locally owned and operated restaurants together and we have a bunch of vendors signed up who have exclusive negotiated prices for you so if you want to save money if you're a locally owned and operated restaurant out there and you need some help even if you don't need

04:04help the thing I'm finding I met with a director of operations the other day and I was talking to him about broadline food services and who they use and he explained to him what I do and he went wow okay I didn't know that was a thing and so while you may think you have it locked down it might behoove you to give me a call I'm happy to sit down and talk with any restaurant to see where I can help you save some money and I've got a bunch of vendors like CNB Lennon is one of the vendors that I get asked about the most there's so many linen companies out there and I don't know many people who love their linen company because there's so many tricky things that linen companies do in order to get their price so you may pay 8 cents a linen but you're paying all these other fees which really jack your price up to 14 15 cents a linen if you break it down and you look at your replacement costs and clean green services and service fees CNB Lennon doesn't do any of that right they don't do any other fees they have one flat rate for your product and you can even order the product like you would food which is pretty fantastic so I have a pre-negotiated rate for NARA members that I think will blow anybody out of the water and they're doing amazing amazing things it's transparency in your linen company I know it seems crazy but I'm telling everybody about it and I would love for you to get involved with them or with NARA we're taking applications for you to join and this is gonna be something hopefully that is really big and I'll explain it here coming up very soon in an episode I'm just trying to get all of my bearings together so that I can give you accurate information which I can easily do one-on-one so find me on Instagram at Brandon still ST YLL and send me a message or go to Nashville underscore restaurant underscore radio and send me a message there because I am happy to respond to either of those and I will come out and meet you and we will go over all up and down your P&L and see

06:06where I can help you and I'm averaging you know I think I'm averaging right now adding 3% to the bottom line on your broad line services and then I'm saving money all over the place and it costs you nothing so out of your pocket it costs you nothing this is something I'm really excited about my goal is to help see local restaurants succeed I'm tired of seeing restaurants close and I would like to help you get the deals that these big chains get and we get enough restaurants together I can continue to get this thing down and so lots of good things coming with the Nashville area restaurant Alliance alright we are gonna go right now we're talking with the CEO and COO of Calexo super excited today to bring on some friends of mine the COO and COO of Calexo at drink Calexo we have Ian Cologne he is the CEO of Calexo how you doing Ian? Doing great thanks for having us today Brandon. So excited and then Ken Peltier he's the COO of Calexo welcome to Nashville restaurant radio hello thank you so much for having us first of all happy Valentine's Day this will not come out on Valentine's Day but we'll let everybody know that we're all the love is in the air today this is the thing that we love the most so we're in the app today to connect with you well you know it's apropos because Calexo if I'm tell me if I'm wrong is Cali XO right there's a couple of different ways that we came to the name but absolutely it's a company that was founded in California and we wanted to share some of our love for California and all the amazing flavors that come out of the Golden State with our friends all across the world and so we wanted to share some of that love so we kind of matched together

08:10California and a little hug and a kiss so that's one of the ways we came to Calexo Cali XO. I love that how long has Calexo been a brand? Calexo has been a brand since 2019 I think Ken should tell some of the founding story of how we came to be Yeah my other co-founder Brandon and I who were acquaintances yeah Brandon and Andrew acquaintances through neighbors through family through just like long relationships in our in our neighborhood here in LA we were doing some fun art projects and trying to participate in some stoner activities instead of some drinking alcohol activities at a family gathering where my mother-in-law was not interested in kind of smelling smelling the weed so we were experimenting with putting a little tincture into cocktails in the kitchen and found ourselves really rediscovering the life of the party that way and rediscovering sort of that inclusion of the sort of the weed feeling into the alcohol setting that everybody's already participating in at your party and that's when we we said hey let's go try and buy these and then found ourselves well we can do something like this and we want to make something like this. Was there anything on the market in 2019? There were a couple things you know you know this was early days in the dispensary market of like recreational legal weed if you remember California and Oregon some of these states starting first you know so the dispensaries that they had out here had these sort of bottles almost of like like tall energy drinks or something like this and it was sort of more like Kool-Aid than anything else and had you know could could have things kind of like floating on the top it wasn't sort of engineered quite quite

10:13right it was first-market mover stuff it was like a thousand milligrams That's what I was gonna say. They could be so high-dosed you know they they were really kind of imagining the products for the the really hardcore smokers of cannabis and the people who are really medicinally seeking you know its benefits at first that was the only kind of customer that they could imagine so we kind of come along looking for a low-dose thing and say I think that there's other people looking for the same thing and it sort of snowballed from there. So versus it being a hey look there's a hundred brands out there people are starting to buy this let's jump on that train and just formulate something and put it together you guys in 2019 organically kind of came to this idea then went to look to see what was on the market there wasn't anything what is the process like to develop something like this so from that that Genesis state of hey we've found something we want to do is it easy to put weed into a drink and then sell it nationally? Well there's the technical side and then there's also sort of a design and sort of market understanding side Ian can probably cover the latter but from a from a production side you know like we had to find an emulsion a way to keep the cannabis stable and homogeneous from sip to sip so that each little sip that you take is a proportional amount of the stated dosage on each can. So it didn't just like fall to the bottom and you drink juice in the last sip you were just like getting a big chunk of skunk?

11:58We don't want that you don't want to eat the sangria fruit. But yeah the homogeneity was was also like a really important component of getting in this this oily substance that the plant produces that gets that gets us the effects we want to sit in a can and be shelf stable and still every time you crack it open be a delicious ready-to-drink product so so getting over that technical hurdle involved a lot of partners who are making incredible B2B products like emulsions that we were putting as components of the drink and really finding these flavors working them together on that side but then as we were developing that we were also thinking about the design and and the kind of the market that we were headed to. Yeah go for it Ian. I was just you know I would say no it was not straightforward to get this idea into a can because Ken and Brandon and I we all went to art school.

13:01We're all artists we're trained at you know Ken's one of the best motion graphics designers in the country. I have a background in documentary filmmaking you know Brandon is an artist who shows in galleries and works with fashion magazines as a producer and things like that so we had a great idea but learning the ins and outs of you know like kind of like emulsion stability or juices that you're ordering by the 55 gallon drum or insurance requirements and things like that these are all things that we had a pretty steep learning curve on so I would say it was about a year from hey we have a great idea to finding the right production partner who wasn't selling vaporware and could actually you know safely put a liquid in a can and get that can tested and stored and brought to market so it was a pretty steep learning curve and I think that we are never done learning you know we see some of the giants in the industry how frictionless it seems that to release something like a new product or you know a seasonal product or something like that and we're kind of in awe because we see you know we have new ideas every single day and there's stuff that we are still you know we've talked about in 2021 that has just come to fruition today and we're still talking about things you know today that we're like wow it'd be great in summer 2027 to release X Y & Z so I think that the loop is it's it's getting easier for us but some of the things that are kind of muscle memory to Ken and I are related to design and marketing you know we can come up with fantastic new images and branding and campaigns and things like that but in terms of getting new product innovation or getting shelf space in the store those are the things that have taken us longer to learn yeah that's that's one of the most difficult parts ever my story in this whole thing is Ken's wife

15:04grew up across the street from me oh no way yeah so we I met her I think when she was like seven or eight you know when her family moved across the street from me and she has two sisters and I remember going over that as adults after they're married like going over to his in-laws house just because I love his in-laws there's some my favorite people on the planet and I'm just kind of go over there and hang out with them because they're really fun to hang out with and I remember your wife I don't say everybody's name I remember your wife telling me oh yeah my husband's working on a cannabis beverage and I was like that's really interesting like that's and you weren't there but she was kind of telling me about it and then it was a couple Christmases ago yeah you guys came over for Christmas I mean so there is a Nashville connection here and you you brought a can over and since I don't drink alcohol it's like well I'll give it a shot and I had tried a couple others that just weren't good or they're weighed like 40 grams of sugar in the thing and I'm like this that this can't be and they're okay but this wasn't good and when I tasted the semi-tropic for the first time I was like holy cow like this is this is the best tasting thing I've ever had I mean it was so good and then the cucumber citron and the citrus rose these three flavors I never tasted anything that tasted like these and I was smitten I was like oh my gosh I got to get these in my restaurants alas you did not distribute in Tennessee so we can't I couldn't do that but it really opened up my eyes to the idea of selling these things on-premise because at that time when we had that conversation around Christmas I think it was you were the first episode that I did in 2023 or maybe 2024 I mean I just was fascinated by what you were doing yeah you you wanted a quick download and and a lot of this was even fresh for us because we had just come off of being in these sort of adult use market stores and dispensaries and and and there was a

17:05little bit of a mismatch it's still that that kind of you know customer that's looking for for like a smoking or an edible experience and our customers are looking more for like something that's aligned with an out beverage alcohol experience and the stores are just different so so we were on that journey all the way back then at working towards getting distribution and now in Nashville we're working with Lippman Brothers which is an amazing distribution company that's got a really amazing history and story with Prohibition and Jack Daniels and kind of going all the way back in the day right now being kind of part of this new new wave of prohibition lifting with these drinks and yeah it's it has been like a really interesting journey growing and sort of expanding figuring out where we can have access where we can put these in front of customers you know and where they're getting you know accepted in has changed massively over the year that we've been wow yeah well that was the big thing we talked about was the stigma like that this if somebody's in a restaurant drinking at THC then people oh that's illegal or I shouldn't be drinking that or it's THC it's doing weed in public and it's like I think a lot of that's going away now I talked to since I sell it in all my restaurants I have conversations with parents with their college kids going have you had the THC brand and talking about it like it's just a beer like this is just something that you can drink that's an alternate alternative to alcohol and I had a woman in last night I'm not kidding her name was Hilda and it was with her family and I talked to him and I said so how was thing she goes I love these THC drinks and we come here because Hilda likes the THC drinks and she was 79 years old but that was her favorite thing that's the thing that's the reason why she loves to come to the restaurant because we have

19:05the THC drinks yeah I think every and we've we've learned so much on our journey about just how different every body is you know every body reacts differently to different things in the same way that you know I don't have a peanut allergy but I have a friend who can kill them you know yeah change up your menu and you're gonna offer something for two different types of folks you know and so the introduction of alcohol alternatives has opened up an entire new world and we're really excited because we started out as you pointed out Brandon about you know we had a need for ourselves we said hey we wanted these products we created them and then we started putting them out in the community and we found out that there's plenty of people who are either using THC in small doses or leaving alcohol to the side for their own reasons and so we started out and we created the California only THC product that was available only in dispensaries it was a big honker it looked like this it was a 22 ounce glass bottle that we designed to share with people and then we found out about hemp regulations and created a 12 ounce can version of our products like this that could be sold across state lines outside of California a bunch of them over there in the corner see that right there right behind me there's all your brand why my wife doesn't drink doesn't want any THC and doesn't really drink too much alcohol and so we came out with our latest versions is we have a hemp THC version that has five milligrams THC five milligrams CBD and a completely hemp free just mocktail because we're seeing it's not just the THC it's not just the relaxing and euphoric effects that people are looking for it's this emerging better for you category of going out enjoying your night on the town socializing with friends and not feeling garbage the next day it's a real thing going in control you know I

21:05don't want to you don't want to roll the dice in any way so it's been a big journey to be able to find how do we who is our customer you know and our customer kind of evolved from someone who was going to a dispensary looking for a low dose THC product to someone who's goes out to bars restaurants goes out to their local liquor shop and maybe is looking for some alternatives or is you know hosting a party and wants to have something for everybody to celebrate without the stigma you know the stigma was a huge part of why we said hey what we're making here isn't trying to normalize cannabis for everybody as it is giving people a range of options because there are people it's normal for already you know there's plenty of people who are out there who are experiencing cannabis in ways that may not be the the best vehicle for them or they know people in their lives that they say hey you know Brandon would love this let me bring this to my friend Brandon and it's it's not gonna be something where you know it needs to look elegant it needs to look like it can fit on the bar at any restaurant and that's the way that you're gonna have the Hilda's of the world say huh I thought this was all you know jazz cabbage or something that I need to go into a back alley about something it's not like that anymore you know and I think that we're seeing we're trying to bring kind of an refined branding aspect to what is tried and true thousands of years old medicine of you know in many cultures for the THC but also just saying hey if you're not drinking alcohol or you're taking a break in between drinks you shouldn't that shouldn't be a stigma in and of itself you know there's one sigma around THC and then there's a whole other sigma around I'm not drinking and if we can just kind of collapse both those into saying hey everybody is gonna make a choice about what's best for their own body and we have a range of products to offer you for that everybody wins you know what I love about it is that if you are a smoker you like to partake in THC

23:06and you're in a state like this where you have to get a hemp derived THC but if you do manage to procure a different style if you smoke it if you smoke it right you don't really know you know that you're going to get high and I love the fact that it's dosed at five milligrams the fact that for me I enjoy like half of one before I go to bed right it helps me relax it actually turns my brain off I go to bed it's perfect but I know I like about two and a half minutes I don't want to get high right and I'm sure if I drank a whole one I wouldn't get like high but nevertheless I like the fact that I don't have to like find some buddy illegally to find it if I want to take a little bit of THC and it's dosed right you don't know what what you're getting when you buy any you get a bag from somebody or whatever you don't know if it's indica it's sativa if it's a 29% you don't know how big yeah I mean like you could take one hit off something and be on the floor for a day and you're like I didn't expect that people like no it doesn't respond well with me it's like well if you try this you could even drink six ounces and see how that makes you feel drink seven ounces see how it makes you feel but then you can know exactly what you're going to feel every single time and there's no surprises and I love that that's like the edibles like if you want a five milligram edible or CBN CBG whatever it is it's perfectly dosed every single time so there's no surprise like oh I got way too high last night isn't really a thing unless you want to get way too high and drink a six-pack you know you want 30 milligrams drink a six-pack but if you want just a little bit you can do that and you can and you know we go above and beyond it's there's a lot of these regulations that that we follow as sort of as a muscle memory from being in the in the regulated

25:06dispensary market we had we were required to have QR codes and we continue that like to this day so you can flip over yeah there you go and scan that QR code it'll take you to a testing page where you can link the batch codes printed on the can to the batch test of that of that entire run and batch by batch look exactly at the liquids that you're drinking and know how strong the cannabinoids are in in the can which you know we keep them to attend within 10% of what's on the label and then you know you know beyond that you know are there any sort of contaminants are there any sort of pesticides things like that all all things that are usually tests that we would do for you know other forms of cannabis we apply to this as well just to be extra double quadruple sure that look this is a really really really clean product that we're presenting you and you can really believe it and get behind it and that's important for us to put on the can so that our consumers can have that that access to that depth of knowledge if they want it you know if they're very curious about these things just like if they're curious about the calorie count the sugar count we want you to we want you to be able to understand what you're having well we'll give a shameless plug right now if you want to try any of these you can go to the Green Hills Grill or we we sell the semi-tropic and the cucumber citron as well as Chagos Belmont Cantina where we have both the cucumber citron and the semi-tropic they do have a citrus citrus rose right is that what it's called yeah yeah and it's delicious as well but I'd only had enough skews to pick up two of them and I did a taste test and everyone's like these are the ones but I love all three I've had all three and they're they're delicious but if you're out there listening you're like I'd like to try these things come to the Green Hills Grill come to Chagos to try it also if you like to purchase any of their flavors my sister has a shop right here in Nashville called Killjoy and she does

27:11specials all the time she has tastings we can go in and taste the Calexos for free just follow them on Instagram and they'll they'll they'll post this stuff all the time and she sells a ton of it we've been able to do we just were one of the sponsors for their anniversary party and congrats to Killjoy for their new location looks awesome it is that I didn't get to go out to the party but the photos that she sent they looked packed and looked like everyone was having an awesome time on the dance floor and that's really what we want you know the thing that Calexo was creating for to be honest it wasn't just to give us a better drink that's what we ended up with but we're a group of artists who wanted to get together to create really awesome opportunities for people to have a good time together you know and a lot of the time early in our life when we would go out to go dancing or go see a music show it was alcohol fueled to say the least say now and I'm in my I'm on the back half of my 30s now and I'll tell you that hangovers come earlier and last longer than I would like and so I've had to reevaluate you know what am I doing when I'm going out with my friends tonight and you know more often than not the if I'm gonna go out if I'm gonna go out to a movie or to a nightclub or to a concert or something like that I want to enjoy it you know I want to enjoy it and I want to remember it and tell my friends about it the next day and so having a brand that we've created that is really centering creativity we want to use our brand as a platform to create more of these concerts more of the opportunities for people to express themselves and share what makes them happy and for us you know that's dancing you know eating delicious food shit you know considering some really fun art at the top in the world that's what our brand is created for us so they can promote these type of events and to be present in these type of events where alcohol was kind of the default and there's not there's not an issue with

29:12that you know it's just that we want people to say there's no one default it's a different thing for everybody and we want to be promoting everybody having you know a good time feeling what's right for their body well in inclusion too I mean I quit drinking five and a half years ago and there was nothing I mean there was it was it was still I mean the the non-alcoholic beer world is blown up and it's been really big but you know I was just in Colorado last week and every restaurant we went to I said what non-alcoholic options do you have and it was we have one non-alcoholic beer and it's like do you have a non-alcoholic wine do you have a THC brand in Colorado it's fully legal and everything but like it's still like a there's just not a lot of options but when somebody says well we have Calexo we have this it's like oh man it's inclusive for people like me because usually it's like if you go to an event you go to these big food and wine festivals it's like there's the drink tents and then there's like a kids table to the side with sodas it's like oh you don't drink well then you can go over there there's a water tent if you here's a little cup and you can go it's like it allows people like me to be at an event like that and still have a drink and and enjoy without having to have alcohol because in as people out there are reevaluating their relationship with alcohol my sister will tell you thousands and thousands of people are reevaluating their relationship with alcohol as more information is coming available and more people who are in that demographic of on the backside of 40 and you kind of go hey this isn't really where I have kids I don't like them seeing me in the morning hungover I don't like this having more options that are are good like this especially at restaurants I'm just more restaurants need more non-alcoholic options versus we have Heineken 0.0 like okay what else right and it's and it's it's an interesting distinction like there's a couple of places that we're participating you know at this in like

31:15like you said here at Nashville with you guys but you know in other cities as well and we typically get put right next to the non-alcoholic options like there's a there's NA beers there's you know a fever tree kind of tonic maybe something and then liquid death topo Chico cases and in some cases the bars are making like a non-alcoholic cocktail like like with you know bar back you know kind of as if they were making any other specialty cocktail on the menu but sans alcohol with with maybe even as an alcohol substitute or like a seed lip or something like that so this this the RTDs that that we have with the THC and the non-alcoholic are are sort of this middle ground in between your high noon and your I'm gonna spend you know you know 30 to 45 seconds making a drink and there's an efficiency component to it there's an acceptance component to it and what you're talking about in Colorado this is where the tectonic shift has happened with this you know the plates are just sort of going like this so you have California and Colorado being restrictive to the point where they don't allow have drinks except in like really odd circumstances like hey you can only have CBD drinks you know and these are they doing that there's this there's I think a little bit of a protectionism around the marijuana industry and trying to salvage and save these locations as as the hey we were putting all of this over here you can't come on this side of the we're really trying to keep it at the dispensary you need to go to the dispensary to get THC but when you get to Texas when you get to Louisiana Florida Tennessee Georgia all the way up to Maine like it's it's it's

33:19normalizing at like at a rate that's that's far exceeding these states that have very deep cannabis legality you know in the state it's a really weird access thing and the access that's never really been available to legal weed in the south has become the access that people are getting through the hemp industry and whether it be the smoke shops that are taking in it getting into it this way so you can see convenience stores and gas stations getting into it with the drinks the liquor stores getting into it with the drinks and now the restaurants in the on-premise going this is interesting we we've got people leaving our spaces drinking less alcohol alcohol being a huge component of our of our bottom lines in a lot of cases and then seeing this lifeline of non-alcoholic where you're still giving somebody an option including them and then THC comes along it's this sort of like perfect center of a lot of Venn diagrams of access and also like timing is just incredible yeah I just want to jump in there and just like you know say I don't think that when I was growing up the phrase wellness existed you know like the better for you category didn't exist and as Brandon just pointed out you know like the the one non-alcoholic beer that may be on the menu guess what guys athletic Brewing Company was the number one selling beer in the United States last year so there has been a huge shift of this idea of you know getting together with friends you know cutting loose a little bit what does that mean it's not about losing control you know I don't know if it's because everybody's constantly on getting films by everybody now and you don't want to look so messy or if it's because the wellness culture

35:22has permeated everything you know in a different you know it is it is just like saturated the firmament in a way that it's fantastic to be honest you know and I just think that giving people more options lets people make better decisions for them and that's really what we want to do is just provide people with different options I'm not here to say alcohol is evil I'm not here to say THC is the best thing in the world I'm here to say hey I found something that works for me and my friends and we're having a great time with it and we'd like to invite you to the party yeah I love that and I think and I think the circle back to the rest to the to you know the restaurant radio component of this is is the business business component and and I think a lot of times so this is an interesting an example of this that's coming up we're gonna be at South by Southwest in a couple weeks at at two music venues throughout the week and we're gonna be you know sponsoring ourselves into the well we're gonna be you know on menu for these events is gonna be you know thousands of people that will be coming through these events watching I think one one venue I was hearing today like 150 bands coming through it in this long period it's insanity it's a high high high foot traffic and and you know and this sort of recognition that that this is an option that people want then talking to these venues and say hey let's make sure that we have more five milligram and lower options and we don't want to have ten milligram options as as sort of the conversation that we're having is just really astounding that that we've kind of grown through this place and we're just going to continue to grow and continue to educate ourselves and what what something that collects a really tries to do and pays attention to is we try and you know take these early

37:25experiences that we're having with with restaurants that are partnering with us on menu to to get some best practices together and to figure out you know what works but also what doesn't work because we want to know ahead of time how how these issues can arise and how to address them you know whether it's like an insurance issue whether or not it's a local ordinance issue things like that we just want to you know kind of be aware how new it is and how fast is changing but also be a really good partner in business together with people well you know it's really neat because you see athletic you brought up athletic and I like athletic brand their their beers are delicious and just had their Belgian white the other day and a Belgian wit and it was fantastic but that that's their North Star they're not you know you can see Blue Moon now makes a non-alcoholic your North Star is everything that you're saying it I just there's so many brands popping up because they want to take advantage of this market segment and you guys care you guys care about the experience this is who you are what you're doing it was incredibly organic you've been doing it for a long time and I wanted I really wanted to make that distinction that it's not just some conglomerate who threw some THC in a can and is now marketing it because they have the dollars to do that this is this is your baby this is something you developed organically you've been working on it for a really long time and now it's here and it is delicious and it is what I I honestly feel like it is the best one I've had because when we met last time I called every one of my distributors I said send me every THC drink you had and I think they dropped off like 50 different cans to me oh my god and I did not try one that was as good as Calexo and all of them I was like this one kind of tastes like La Croix this one kind of this one kind of tastes bad this one is

39:26really sweet this one kind of I found a really good margarita one that had like this chili in it I sell that at Chagos too but there was like two or three that I was like these are okay but then you go back to Calexo I'm like there's something about this that is delicious and I'm really glad that you guys came on today to kind of tell this story what I'm curious about is what's next like where are you guys seeing in the next six months what are you guys gonna be doing is there anything on the horizon or what have you learned I mean I don't know let's just I wanted to I wanted to get that point across and now move forward if you are looking for a super premium tequila black sheep tequila is for you it's a Mexican-born fifth generation agave farmer and his friend from Tennessee reunited and around us Mexico shared stories and laughter led to a discovery that birthed black sheep tequila driven by passion for the land and desire to think outside the box they set out to create the purest agave tequila thus black sheep tequila was born their vision was to grow a single estate of the highest quality Weber Highland blue agave and create a handcrafted old-world style ultra smooth pure tequila with three ingredients water custom yeast and agave that's what happened and that is how black sheep tequila was formed and you today can order this tequila through Ajax Turner yes it is a blend of an estate grown and bottled tequila from Mexico with a passionate man from Tennessee this is a Tennessee based spirit and it was voted best tequila in the world order yours today I know there's all kinds of commercials out there for all kinds of insurance companies and you can choose any one you want you can go online pick your best one but let me tell you when you need insurance what you need is a good agent no matter what happens in your restaurant and one of my favorite things about this industry is you wake up every day and you have no idea what is going to happen that day

41:30and that is why you need a really good insurance company with a really good agent who's right here in Nashville Tennessee and yes I'm talking about Robin's insurance Matthew Clements is your he's a partner at Robin's insurance but he's also the on-the-ground man that will help you in any situation that you get into and I'm not kidding any situation and I've called him for a number of reasons and it's so great when you can call your insurance agent and he picks up on the first call that is vital there's no 800 number there's no waiting on a phone there's nothing it is one person who understands your business who has a team behind him who can help you in a crisis Matthew Clements you need to call him 863-409-9372 so I'm going to take a moment go get a pen write this down 863-409-9372 that's Matthew Clements with Robin's insurance give him a call today and get a quote you'll thank me later y'all today we are talking as always about SuperSource and you know one cool thing about SuperSource is did you know that they develop most of their cleaning products and chemicals in their in-house facility they're environmentally conscious and only use dyes that are safe for the employees and the environment they carry a number of products for keeping your dishes flatware services floors restrooms laundry basically your entire facility clean bright and smelling and feeling new this is just one of the many reasons SuperSource is taking over this city for dish machine and chemicals you need to call Jason Ellis his number 770-337-1143 and he would love it if you give him a call and let him come down and just check out your operation meet him say hi see if there's any way he can help he is here to help you succeed that's Jason Ellis with SuperSource 770-337-1143

43:32Too kind thank you so much Brandon that's so nice to hear and we really did develop the brand to be unique you know and I think there's plenty of other THC or non-alpha brands that you pointed to that are really perhaps mimicking things that have been proven to work for the last phase of what recreational drinking was which is maybe RTD cocktails or beers like you're talking about a whipped beer that is tastes like a great with beer but just doesn't add alcohol what we wanted to do is create not something that's like something else it's completely own thing all of our flavors don't taste like anything else they taste all like Calexo so what's next for Calexo is really getting ourselves out into the world and Ken myself and our two other teammates are we're going to be out and about in America this summer our next plans are we have two different kind of music and social activation phases of the year lined up because what we want to do is just like the unique flavors of our drinks what we want to do is kind of express that physically in the world through activating our brand so we're going to be sponsoring some concerts and dance parties featuring local DJs as you can see behind Ken right now we're we are video jockeys the both of us we create live video using video synthesizers and you know cameras and stuff like that to kind of really just paint the walls with color you know we have a lot of really fun ways to activate the brand but that's what it's about for us is kind of bringing that party that i've been talking about bringing that celebration of feeling good making new friends not trying to rush to the finish line of being obliterated or you know kind of having you know feeling good in your body no it's a it's you know be present here at a place that's fun and so the next couple of months you'll see Calexo showing up in the world in a way that is exciting and fun and really centered on the arts and

45:38creativity and so we're going to be traveling to some of our biggest markets in Texas Tennessee Florida and through the south Bonnaroo Bonnaroo dot dot dot we'll have to come back and tell you guys but yeah the the idea is to you know be present at these places where folks are having a great time and make sure that they're aligning that vision with Calexo you know from things as simple as showing up and having attended a music festival to as left field as sponsoring a dog costume contest or something like that where you say i didn't think about that but that sounds like a really wacky good time that's what your brand is all about okay i'm up for that and so you know we're going to continue to use our creativity and our energy to bring Calexo to as many different people where they are and provide an unexpectedly good time yeah i love it i want to show this because i've got this right here if you want to try this and you don't want to come to one of my restaurants you're listening to this in a different state and you're like i don't have that in my state this is a variety pack Calexo you can get all three of the flavors on the back it tells you it's really cool i like on the back see this how it says uh this is something i want to ask you about it says that it it says feel it in about 15 minutes lasts about 60 minutes the little asterisks for most people was there some science in there to make you feel it in 15 minutes because the most most edibles you hear the joke well when the edible kicks in you know like the george bush meme like you know it's that whole thing how did you get it to be i did i did not inhale yeah you do not inhale calexo that's the well and on the back and it also it's five milligrams of thc five milligrams cbd and then you have the little thing that says one one equals

47:40one drink like it it's roughly you drink one of these it kind of feels like having one drink 15 minutes for 60 minutes it's it's great i love that that's on the top of the back of the box and you can order this right here i can go to your website calexo.com.co is it calexo.co .co and i can order this to be delivered to my house yes sir from calexo.co pay with apple pay i mean it's it's way it seems wild like when you put it all together in in the one podcast but but yeah like the this is this is the the craziest face ripping off against like version of of all this stuff that's possible it's the access is incredible um compared to where we started you don't have to go in a back alley to get your weed you can go online no not anymore it's a shopify website come on let's go um you know ups brings it to your door and they know they know what's what it is it's um that a lot has changed since that farm bill and you know uh and that has legalized hemp and that five milligram that's in there and the speed that you feel it for most people uh is is really you know kind of based on a lot of really great information we use a company called fritosa that makes the uh puts the thc into an emulsion and that's what makes it the the sort of the product that uh that that it is and uh and you feel it in that 15 minutes or so because it's not really getting uh into your system the same way that smoking or edibles do through your lungs or through your liver uh you know it's getting through your system through the blood barriers and the kind of the the you know the passages in your mouth that that lead into your system and the particles are very small and the emulsion is is sometimes called a nano emulsion and what that just means is that the the oil has been shrunk down uh brandon had a really our other our co-founder brandon had a really great way to think about it it's like imagine that your body

49:43has like this chain link fence that that will allow you know the oil to to just slip down to your stomach in its natural form because it's like a beach the the oil the thc oil is like a beach ball that bounces off of that chain link fence because it's so such a large blob you know together so the emulsions that we put uh in the drink uh take that blob and and turn into the tiny tiny little little rocks little golf balls and if you put those through that same chain link fence they'll pass right through and so that's what's happening uh especially in in in your mouth and in your throat on the way to the stomach so that within 15 minutes or so it's it's absorbed into the receptors that that experience and give that euphoric feeling when the thc attaches to those receptors in your body and and it sort of completes the circle um uh in this very quick way and because it's it's uh you're getting it quick it also sort of dissipates uh relatively quicker and that's why we say about 60 minutes for most people and you know ian was saying earlier it depends person to person how they uh experience these things but with the with the options that we had we chose to have it onset this fast and offset this fast and have all these parameters because it was the easiest most analogous uh way that people are used to consuming adult beverages you know to have those sensations and things so the timing and all this is really based off the experience of alcohol to mimic it but just without a lot of the side effects and the and the etc the the hangovers and the bloated feeling etc if i can just tack on one thing to that go for it that i think that so many people have had what i describe as like the horrible

51:47brownie experience where you know someone will describe oh i tried cannabis once and my friend gave me a brownie and i took a bite and i didn't feel anything and made another bite and then all of a sudden i got hit by a mac truck and i was you know laying on the couch for two days or something like that and the reason that that happens getting back to the science that ken was pointing out is that if you're not using a nano emulsified um you know thc source you're overloading your system with thc when you eat it in that brownie form you're it's sitting in your gut and it has to be broken down has to go from that beach ball to the golf ball because of the acids in your stomach and it's gonna uh there's going to be more that's just sitting in your gi tract and is going to be perceived through your endocannabinoid system which is the kind of receptor that the thc will connect with so you're having you're like overloading yourself you know in hopes that you're going to get something into that receptor and that's when you have these kind of dankovers is what i call them when you have it's your body's still processing it hours and hours and hours after you consume this product and it just it feels horrible you know it's hard to sip you can't sip a brownie well and i was going to say you know people that haven't ever had cannabis and i've certainly had my share of cannabis in my days if you smoke it that's like the high versus stoned and i love the way you said the euphoric sensation you smoke a joint you smoke a bowl whatever it is you get high pretty quick like and that's that going from completely sober to i have some of my system your body is adapting that's like this oh my gosh what is happening i'm really high and then your body gets used to way that feels and i think that's what people call it being stoned like when you're like okay i'm used to this feeling now i'm just stoned that's where you kind of get the i'm just tired i kind of whatever this at five milligrams you can sip it and drink it and you never really get that high feeling

53:52it just slowly rolls into euphoria and it's not like oh my gosh i'm so high it's like hey i feel something i feel a little different right now but it's kind of a nice like a nice slow burn into it it's never like hit you on the back of the head you know what i mean it's it's much less of a like a you're high now it's it's it's it's a soft shoulder like hand on your shoulder yeah that's you're good we got you that's what it's so it's like it's not like this fear like if i have a sip of this at the bar am i going to be like seeing things like no no it's it's going to be like things like a shoulder massage as you sit there like yeah oh that was nice oh hey wait a minute i kind of like this this is good common side effects include um finding everything a little bit funnier tending to have a bit more patience with people we find and and i don't know and you could probably back us up on some of the pos data here but you know how many people have have a cannabis drink and then and then order a dessert what is what is the what is like the time frame at a restaurant for these things if you're having this experience and feeling it within 15 minutes and you know maybe it's a very long dinner and and people have gone through their entire drink and are now kind of a little might have the munchies these are things that are happening and we're getting like anecdotal reports back now that that that some of our our places that have these on the menu are experiencing these different sort of uh moments and benefits there's a lot of a lot of uh a lot of learning that's just happening constantly about the best ways to do this and no shade to other brands who've tried different approaches but one of the things that we see is that you know hemp does have a very distinct flavor and so we crafted our drink to work with the flavor of hemp not to mask the active ingredient and then just try to mask it um because one of the ways that people try to mask it and i think you pointed this out earlier Brandon

55:54is that you just overload it with sugar and this is when you start seeing you know okay i'm trying to maybe slow down on drinking so much alcohol but if i'm giving you know if i'm eating five spoonfuls of sugar am i doing anything that's quote unquote better for me no and so you know all of our drinks are low sugar low calorie from the start because we think if you're trying to treat your body differently then it should be a holistic approach you know and so we're using organic fruit juice and uh you know we're using apple juices citrus juices lemons grapefruits things like that to work with and uh complement the the fruit flavors that we want to bring out the the cocktail flavor that we're bringing out uh is working with this herbaceous quality the same way that you'll see bartenders sometimes muddling some herbs to start out a cocktail that's how we wanted to start out our cocktails and so we we really kind of built it from the ground up so that we didn't have to overload it with sugar we didn't have to make it something that's you know adult soda or anything like that it's not like it's a standalone mature drink yeah well i know and we definitely we definitely had like mouth party is whatever are like uh ideas for for early company names it's definitely the flavors have that fun well i know when we first initially spoke i had some fears you know are people going to come in just like start chugging these things and get just really high and start acting like i have people throwing up in the bathroom is am i gonna have you who've never had thc before get sick i mean i had all these fears in my head as to on premise what's gonna happen not one of any of those things have come close to happening in any of the restaurants we've done a really great job of educating bartenders nobody orders three and four of them and tries to try really honestly everybody that comes in at enjoys the ability to have that option and even if they have two or three like no if you

57:57have two or three you're a regular user and that's not going to affect you i mean a lot of people do 10 20 30 milligrams at a time in a lot of different ways when they consume cannabis those people they want to have a couple more but for most people that are experimenting so to speak just trying it they'll drink half a can they'll wait 20 minutes you're sitting in a bar for an hour and a half i can drink half a can and see what it does okay that's not bad it's not like that brownie situation like you said but i have had zero instances where anybody has over served or not know what they're doing not felt well fell asleep at the bar i've had nothing close to that but i have had people come in and really enjoy that that is an option that they like you said ian i want to be able to make that decision for what i'd like to have for my body and my own choice this having that option has proven to me in the restaurants to be an option that people really enjoy when it's available and they go oh my gosh you have that that's great thank you and they come back on a regular basis because not a lot of them do and they know that they can get it consistently and they love the product so thank you guys so much for that what am i missing we're we gotta wrap this thing up where we're you probably have dates tonight and stuff right you've got valentine stuff to do for sure i told them before i said i don't normally wear like a tie on interviews i'm feeling very fancy and a little choked right now because i will be at um my fancy restaurant tonight and i'm heading there in about 12 minutes so uh the last thing the last thing to leave you with is i think you know i just want to double down on that point that you made which is about education it's uh it's you know from your side i think you're representing industry when we're talking to you right now brandon you know the proprietors the people who are serving these products you know having knowledge about what these products are how do they affect you and why are they different from any of the other traditional type of products you may have out there that's going to be a bridge that you're going to be able to educate your customers who may never have encountered non-alcoholic drinks hemp drinks anything like this but to

01:00:02give them an understanding of okay i'm used to having um a rum and coke at the end of the day is this like a rum and coke is this two miller highlights what is this thing um and being able to say hey there's a lot of science behind this there's a lot of uh you know this is an entire new industry basically that it's not the thing we grew up in the dare program needing to vilify you know i'm not going to do any of these drugs this is a whole new world now this is a very small dose of a relaxing and slightly euphoric substance inside of a low sugar low calorie delicious mocktail that's going to make you feel great uh give it a shot um so i think that for restaurant tours and uh businesses that may be considering bringing this on i really appreciate brandon's point that no one has overused this no one has abused these type of products because the people who are coming looking for alcohol alternatives or are curious about hemp based drinks they're going to be treating themselves gently and they need to understand that this is not something that is to be afraid of this is something to be embraced as a a new revenue stream and a new a new way to talk to your audience but if you want to find out more we have a lot of information on our website which again is www.colexo.co or check us out on all of our socials is at drink colexo yeah i was just showing you the box all of your beverages range from 40 to 50 calories i mean it's not it's less than a light beer it's great there's i think six to seven seven to eight to ten grams of sugar so i mean it's a third the the um sugar that's in a in a coke or i mean some dr peppers cokes with 55 grams of sugar this is less than 10 grams 10 grams and under so it's a um my parents bring a case of this my parents bring a case of this

01:02:04to their pickleball game every week and it just flies you know and so i think it's one of these things that also like you know here we all are i want to be one of those people when i'm i want to be that older person i want to be that parent who shows up to the pickleball game i got the colexo what's up and yeah we've got some people who are like oh i can't i can't take grapefruit juice with my medication i gotta i gotta drink the semi-tropic instead of the the citrus rose yeah i will tell you guys that the flavors here um citrus rose is a sparkling blend of grapefruit apple and a hint of rose cucumber citrone is lemon ginger and cucumber and the semi-tropic is pineapple mango with a pop of lemon so you have them in both the thc version and the non-thc version yeah and they're yeah and available on the website and they'll ship right to your house uh from most places sorry california and if you want to um bring it into your restaurant which i highly recommend um you can if you want to be on the show and come try i have samples here in the studio i'm happy to share with you all of the guests on nash restaurant radio if you're in studio you'll get to go home with uh one of each of the colexos as a as a sample and um lip and brothers try it and you know i need more restaurants out there i can go eat at so yeah your your local lip and rep will know exactly how to help you guys get it on board and uh and feel free to reach out to to the brand directly we'd be happy to help anybody with with their integration and if you bring this product on make a social media post and tag me in it tag them in it i'd love to know because if you tag i will come by wherever you are and i will come drink a can if you tag nashville restaurant you bring this on from lip and brothers and you tag nash restaurant radio you will see me in your building and i will come in and order one and i will bring friends so there it is that is your that is your if you want me to come in and see it

01:04:06and i will take a picture and i will share it because uh i'm look i would love to have more places have one of my favorite beverages and maybe this is a thank you for your hospitality yeah thank you so much friend guys it's been a pleasure having you hope you have a wonderful valentine's day the rest of the night hopefully everything works out well for you and um we will be talking to you guys soon thanks again cheers later gators cheers all right there we go we have got ken and ian from colexo thank you for listening all this talk about valentine's day and what day it was there is giving me ptsds from what actually happened on my valentine's day at uh at our restaurant so if you want to hear the full story and then breaking it down with my business coach i guess what you'll call her her name is deborah sunderland and she and i host a podcast called shut up and thrive and it is available on spotify and in our latest episode which should be out in a couple days if not out now um i know it's not out now it will be out in a couple days but if you listen to it you will get to hear her break down everything that happened to us on valentine's day and what i can do better and i you know i kind of know what what happened and what was going on there but there's so many emotions around it and feelings that i didn't do enough or i could have done more or this could have happened or that could have happened and we as leaders tend to feel so much emotion around that and and shame that we could have done something different and how come this person didn't do that and yada yada all of it's okay all that stuff is fine as long as you go back and you think about it you make some changes and you do the right thing and she tells me it's not it's not do the right thing it's this is a really interesting episode if you want to

01:06:08hear more of us talking about with other business leaders it's called shut up and thrive and little did you know i don't know if you know this either i also host another podcast called the brentwood up podcast now this is something that is kind of fun that mary bowl is right there in the middle of brentwood the brentwood chamber is there and i said hey you guys should do a podcast and he said we love to do a podcast why don't you host it and so i host it with a woman named kathy devoreau and we interview brentwood businesses and we have got one coming up with sean lions he is the managing partner for and one of the owners managing partners for the german town cafe carrington row as well as park cafe and you can hear his story next week on nashville restaurant radio as well we did a two for that day so we have two different conversations with sean lions that is coming up the next episode you are going to hear on nashville restaurant radio is with claire crowell she is the president of a marshal hospitality formerly last time she was on the show about a year ago she was the ceo of haddie jane's creamery she still is the ceo of haddie jane's creamery but now she's the president of a marshal hospitality a marshal of course andy marshal hospitality which is puckett's deacon's americana tap house i believe one of theirs but she wasn't the president then and andy marshal is her father so it's an interesting episode i want to learn with her why she came back to that and then she also hosts a really cool uh collective called out of the weeds which you can find on linkedin where she just posts all kinds of really cool restaurant help and stuff and she is uh she's fantastic and so we've got a couple big episodes coming out with sean lions and claire crowell and if you want to hear more of me which i can't imagine you do go listen to shut up and thrive and the brintwood up podcast both available on spotify thank you guys for listening today and i've got these episodes

01:08:12gonna start coming fast and furious we got a bunch of them and all these events coming up we love you i hope you're being safe out there love you guys bye