Todd Bellomy Farthest Star Sake

I’m speaking with Todd Bellomy Founder & Brewer at Farthest Star Sake based in Medfield, MA located in the Boston area.

Todd has spent a great deal of time in Japan where his love for sake began. He was a sword-making apprentice turned intern at Asahi Shuzo Sake Brewing Company before working for Boston Beer Company for 8 years.

He then jumped over to sake again in 2014 and has never looked back. He now owns a warehouse where he brews two types of sake and serves them at the taproom.

In A Strange Land their flagship Junmai sake is made with Yamada Nishki rice grown by Isbell Farms in Arkansas. It has fruit flavors and a peppery, medium-dry finish.

Mountains On The Moon their flagship nigori or unfiltered sake is made from the same rice and is fruity and sweet with clean acidity.

I love learning about SAKE and the new world of sake brewers outside of Japan and Todd, well, he knows many of them. I’ll be leaning in on sake next year and look forward to building my relationship with Todd and beyond.
 
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Chapters

• 1:40 Welcome
• 3:03 Where Todd is calling in from
• 4:10 First Job
• 5:12 Going to Japan
• 12:57 First Japanese Sake Brewery
• 14:27 East Coast levels up
• 23:53 Switching to Sake
• 26:02 Sake Beer Hybrid
• 30:32 Transition to Brew own Sake
• 33:13 Farthest Star
• 35:49 Tasting
• 39:59 Process of Making Sake
• 47:47 Second Tasting
• 53:01 QR Code
• 53:25 Serving size
• 57:09 Mentors
• 1:00:26 Sake Movement
• 1:01:15 Key Learning tools
• 1:01:51 Passions Outside of Sake
• 1:05:08 Pain Points
• 1:11:02 Outlook 2024
• 1:12:51 Passions Outside of Sake
• 1:23:54 Next Thursday

Transcript

00:00:06:15 - 00:00:33:01
Jessie
Welcome to Thursday, Thursdays at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. My name is Jessie, the host of this podcast, which is all about beverage innovation. I talk with innovation and pioneers from agriculture to glass. This week I'm speaking with Todd Bellamy, founder and Brewer at Father Starbuck, based in Medfield, Massachusetts, located in the Boston area. Todd has spent a great deal of time in Japan, where his love for soccer began.

00:00:33:03 - 00:00:58:07
Jessie
He was a sword making apprentice and turned intern at Asahi Shoesource, a brewery company before working for Boston Beer Company in the U.S. for eight years. He then jumped over to soccer again in 2014 and has never looked back. He now owns a warehouse where he brews two types of soccer and serves them at his taproom. In a Strange Land is their flagship.

00:00:58:07 - 00:01:22:05
Jessie
John my sock and is made with Yamada Nishi Rice, grown by Isabel Farms in Arkansas. It has fruit flavors and a peppery medium dry finish. Mountains on the moon. Their flagship, vinegary or unfiltered sucker is made from the same rice and is fruity and sweet with clean acidity. I love learning about saké and the new world of saké brewers outside of Japan.

00:01:22:07 - 00:01:45:16
Jessie
And Todd, well, is so well connected. He knows all of them. I'll be leaning in on Saké next year, and I look forward to building my relationship with Todd and beyond. I'm I thank you for listening and be sure to subscribe to be notified of all new episodes. Welcome everybody to Thursday Thursdays at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

00:01:45:16 - 00:01:53:02
Jessie
My name is Jessica and I have Todd Bellamy here from Farthest Star Saki. Hello, Todd. How are you doing today?

00:01:53:04 - 00:01:53:16
Todd
Good. Jesse.

00:01:53:16 - 00:02:09:17
Jessie
How are you? I'm doing great. You are my first Saki brewer, so I'm super pumped. And what's even cooler is we get to taste a couple, so that's really exciting. I haven't had any sucker from brewed in the U.S., so I'm very excited.

00:02:10:00 - 00:02:11:20
Todd
that's exciting. Yeah, yeah.

00:02:11:22 - 00:02:12:06
Jessie
Yeah.

00:02:12:06 - 00:02:14:04
Todd
So, yeah, First time.

00:02:14:04 - 00:02:17:08
Jessie
First time. Lots of firsts this time. Yes.

00:02:17:10 - 00:02:19:22
Todd
Awesome. Now, that's really great.

00:02:20:00 - 00:02:23:12
Jessie
So where are you calling from?

00:02:23:14 - 00:02:48:22
Todd
I'm calling from Medfield, Massachusetts. We're the only SOC brewery in New England. And more specifically, because my assistant brewer is cleaning the brewery. We are in the Koji room, so we just emptied out your room. We just emptied it out because we finished brewing a batch today. And so it's a nice, quiet place in the brewery for me to have a cool chat room.

00:02:49:00 - 00:02:49:08
Todd
Yeah.

00:02:49:08 - 00:02:54:05
Jessie
And a real key ingredient into the flavor profile, right? It's varies by.

00:02:54:05 - 00:02:59:21
Todd
Brewery. It's the most expensive. The most expensive. It's the most important thing in such a brewery.

00:03:00:00 - 00:03:06:15
Jessie
Yeah, by far. I can't wait to get into that. So where are you originally from?

00:03:06:17 - 00:03:19:23
Todd
I grew up in Maine. Really? Rural Maine, on a dirt road. And when you came to Massachusetts to go to college. And so that's kind of how I ended up in Massachusetts.

00:03:20:04 - 00:03:21:18
Jessie
Okay, nice. And where is that?

00:03:21:18 - 00:03:26:09
Todd
Near where I'm from in Maine? No.

00:03:26:11 - 00:03:29:14
Jessie
No, sorry. In Massachusetts.

00:03:30:03 - 00:03:47:19
Todd
yeah. Medfield is about 45 minutes south west of Boston. Okay. It's in that sort of Boston suburb. Okay. We needed a fairly large space for a brewery. So we have 6000 square feet. The full taproom was kind of prohibitively expensive anywhere near Boston.

00:03:48:03 - 00:03:57:05
Jessie
I get it. Yeah. I mean, Boston is crazy. I haven't been in a while, but I. It's one of my favorite U.S. cities. I really love it. They're so beautiful.

00:03:57:07 - 00:04:07:14
Todd
I love it so much. And there's we have a lot of great accounts and stuff in Boston, but the real estate is just astronomical to put a brewery of this size. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

00:04:07:16 - 00:04:18:01
Jessie
Yeah, yeah, 100%. So tell us a little bit about, you know, post college. You, you. Did you get into the industry right away?

00:04:18:03 - 00:04:50:02
Todd
Actually, no. I majored in Japanese and linguistics at UMass, and I really wanted to spend some time in Japan. So I dropped out of UMass and went to Japan for four years. Don't worry. I came back and finished my college degree, but yeah, but I dropped out and just moved to Japan and lived there for a long time and had a lot of great friends there who are still there and then eventually came back here and finished my degree.

00:04:50:04 - 00:05:11:18
Todd
It was during that time that I started homebrewing again, so I had played around with homebrewing a little bit, but when I got back from Japan, I started homebrewing more and more on the beer side. And then once I finished my degree, I really wanted to work in the beer industry. So that's when I got into the to the brewery.

00:05:11:20 - 00:05:27:16
Jessie
Interesting. So did you leave college to go to Japan because you wanted to be immersed in the culture and you could learn a link like you felt you could learn a language a little bit quicker or a little bit better. Like being around, Yeah, Japanese people all the time. Yeah.

00:05:27:18 - 00:05:28:23
Todd
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:05:28:23 - 00:05:51:13
Jessie
I took French in high school for years and then a semester in college and I still there, still wasn't very good. And then you go and I went. When I went to France I got to spend a year there so got much better. But I still spoke a lot of English because of the, the school I went to was in the the level was all in English so didn't speak all the time.

00:05:51:13 - 00:05:56:15
Jessie
But you really get immersed quickly.

00:05:56:17 - 00:06:24:09
Todd
Yeah. If I had to do it all over again, I would have major in something business or marketing or whatever. Anything history, something easier than Japanese language. And then I would have maybe minored in Japanese and then just got to Japan as quick as I could because once I was there, no one around me spoke English. So in the first in the first year, I probably learned more Japanese than I did the entire time.

00:06:24:10 - 00:06:31:10
Jessie
Yeah, You didn't have Google translate. I don't know how we would have got we had we wouldn't have gotten very far without it.

00:06:31:11 - 00:07:00:17
Todd
It was the early days of the Internet. So there was really nothing what I did. But yeah, well, the best thing about studying Japanese in college was that it gives you the tools to do your own research. So I had a small group of reference books like dictionaries and things like that, and I knew how to look up things in Japanese so I could look up things that I didn't understand pretty readily.

00:07:00:22 - 00:07:11:17
Todd
And then this is early days. So really no cell phone yet, but I had a little electronic dictionary and you could look up whatever you wanted to on the fly.

00:07:12:01 - 00:07:15:19
Jessie
well, that's kind of the same thing. That's cool. Yeah, except for you have to talk.

00:07:16:02 - 00:07:23:17
Todd
that's all of them. So, yeah, I was like three times the size of an iPhone, but that's all I did was like, look up stuff. Yeah, it's just a dictionary. Yeah.

00:07:23:19 - 00:07:44:21
Jessie
Yeah. I mean, we had. We went to the local bar, like where we were staying in Osaka by our Airbnb, and just to talk to the bartender, we were Google translating back and forth. It was really funny. It was really fun though. So you're in Japan. What, where did you what did you where did you go first?

00:07:44:23 - 00:08:11:09
Todd
Ah, so I spent my first year as a sword making apprentice, so I managed to make myself up. Yeah, I managed to hook myself up with a sword making apprenticeship for a year, where to kind of test it out and see where it is. Incitement, which is the prefect shirt just above Tokyo. Okay, so I was in the however, I was in like as far north inside time as you can get.

00:08:11:11 - 00:08:37:09
Todd
And so I was not anywhere near Tokyo, but I was just in the prefecture, right about Tokyo, in the mountains, like in the far north. Aside time for about a year in a very small village, maybe 100, 150 people. And after I left there, I moved to Shizuoka, which is below Tokyo, like near down near Mount Fuji. And I lived there for a while and that was beautiful.

00:08:37:14 - 00:09:01:17
Todd
And it was a slightly bigger town. It was like 30,000 people. And we were closer to some other larger population centers so I could go and get more exposure to stuff. And then I moved to Tokyo in my last year or so because my best friend lives in Tokyo still and I wanted to live near him for like the last year I was in Japan.

00:09:01:19 - 00:09:15:17
Jessie
So you're in the north prefecture of Tokyo. So we took a two hour train ride and went to pseudo honk. Did you ever go visit them or check them out?

00:09:15:19 - 00:09:38:04
Todd
No, I have some breweries that I'm kind of friendly with, and so I go to those places. Okay, it's I get a lot more out of it because I've been there multiple times. Yeah. If you go to a I mean, I'm not opposed to visiting Saké breweries when I'm in Japan, but there's a couple of like if I want to get work done and work in a brewery, there's a couple of breweries that will take me in.

00:09:38:06 - 00:09:44:20
Todd
But yeah, I've never been to studio hockey. There's like 1400 and well, the reason I.

00:09:44:20 - 00:10:02:10
Jessie
Ask the specific one is because it's technically they say it's the first brewery in Japan and it's from a samurai warrior family and it's the 55th generation that's still running it. So I just we all get to pick a thing where we went to Japan and that was mine and it was so much fun.

00:10:02:10 - 00:10:03:10
Todd
Cool.

00:10:03:12 - 00:10:13:07
Jessie
Riding the train and experiencing, you know, the American loudness in a in a Japanese train.

00:10:13:09 - 00:10:16:20
Todd
But yeah, Japanese people are very quiet.

00:10:16:20 - 00:10:31:06
Jessie
You can hear a pin drop and that now in our car. On her car. But anyway, that was a real kind of amazing experience and yeah. Anyway, just thought I'd ask.

00:10:31:08 - 00:10:45:16
Todd
That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. I've been to a number of areas all over Japan. Yeah, but there's so many of them compared to here. Yeah. That, you know, I can just go to breweries all day long and still knock out the same ones I know for sure.

00:10:45:21 - 00:11:10:17
Jessie
So, you know, I had a call with Jetro yesterday. They have a campaign hashtag support soccer. And she told me that the breweries are I don't remember if it's the breweries and consumption or both, but they're down 50% and that the Japanese government will not allow any new breweries to get a license.

00:11:10:18 - 00:11:35:07
Todd
So I don't know if they'll allow it, but there is definitely some opposition and it's very difficult to get licenses because of that. You're starting to see some very non-Japanese sort of moves, like there's been some really small stock breweries that want to open and sometimes they'll leave Japan. Yeah, and just go open. You know, there's one in Paris.

00:11:35:07 - 00:11:41:13
Todd
I know. What? Crazy. Open the brewery in Paris. Cool. It was probably much easier for them to do that.

00:11:41:15 - 00:11:45:00
Jessie
But dealing with the French is easier,

00:11:45:02 - 00:12:06:14
Todd
Yeah. There's also something also. There's also a brewery that opened in Washington State. It's like a brother and sister. Their brewery was destroyed in 2011 during the tsunami and earthquake, and so they rebuilt it in Washington state. So. cool. You're starting to see some moves like that.

00:12:06:14 - 00:12:13:13
Jessie
Yeah, I saw in a saw he just opened their brewery there in New York with the CIA, the north of the Ukraine.

00:12:13:18 - 00:12:17:12
Todd
Yeah. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been there. Yeah. cool.

00:12:17:12 - 00:12:19:19
Jessie
I was wondering if, you know, I bet. I bet is.

00:12:19:20 - 00:12:31:20
Todd
Yeah. It's real beer in real modern, perfect. You know, top of the line equipment across the board. Yeah definitely not how we're they're at but but yeah it's it's impressive to see. Yeah.

00:12:31:20 - 00:12:34:18
Jessie
So do you know those guys. You know who's a do.

00:12:34:18 - 00:12:57:02
Todd
Yeah I have actually. I spent a little bit of time at their brewery in Yamaguchi where the original brewery. 000. Thousandnine yeah that's where I learned how to make Koji was at their brewery in 2009 and yeah it's the brewery's gone through I think to expansion since I was there and now they were in New York so yeah.

00:12:57:08 - 00:13:07:10
Jessie
Is is that the first Japanese you know I mean decent sized Japanese company to open up here in the U.S..

00:13:07:12 - 00:13:10:12
Todd
No it's the first Japanese fucking brewery on.

00:13:10:12 - 00:13:12:09
Jessie
The East Coast. East Coast?

00:13:12:09 - 00:13:24:14
Todd
Yeah. There are three large Japanese breweries in California, Garcon, Ozaki and Takeda. I kind of jokingly referred to them like Bud Miller, cause.

00:13:24:14 - 00:13:27:19
Jessie
Yeah, okay, that's fair. That's volume drivers.

00:13:27:20 - 00:13:50:11
Todd
Yeah, they're the volume drivers. They're making a lot on Giant Bag and the boxes they can serve as warm chips. Okay. And restaurants. Yeah. And so that's going on in California. And there used to be I think of old brewery in Hawaii that closed decades ago. But yeah, generally those three are the first Japanese with.

00:13:50:13 - 00:14:26:14
Jessie
So speaking about east West, you know, I've been leaning in on saké and talking to different people and educators and the one of the couple of the people that I talked to have been in California doing this or Oregon on the West Coast for 20, 30 years. And they've kind of told me about this East Coast West Coast thing where they have worked West Coast so hard, you know, and diligently for the, you know, decades upon decades that it's it's it's more common, right, to have suck in different different types of psyches and menus and whatnot.

00:14:26:14 - 00:14:36:06
Jessie
So do you what do you think that what is what is it going to take for the East Coast to kind of get up to that level?

00:14:36:08 - 00:15:00:16
Todd
Yeah, I mean, we both have the two largest stock markets in the country, right? So L.A., as I understand it, is the largest stock market in the country. But New York is number two. Okay. So we already have the second largest. Yeah, we have the second largest market in the country. The biggest challenge for the East Coast is getting up and down the coast.

00:15:00:16 - 00:15:01:18
Todd
Yeah.

00:15:01:20 - 00:15:03:02
Jessie
It's kind of fragmentations like.

00:15:03:05 - 00:15:21:16
Todd
Yeah, yeah, it's it's very fragmented. You're looking at a bunch of different approaches and attitudes and, you know, if you go up and down the West Coast, California is very long and then you've got things like Portland and it's all on the Pacific Rim, so it has a lot more Asian influence. Yeah, that kind of gets you started.

00:15:21:21 - 00:15:41:10
Todd
It's not going to sustainable in the long term. You know, if, if all you do is sell your stock into a sushi restaurant, then basically at some point you get saturation and you're just hanging out waiting for a new sushi restaurant open. So, you know, I think in the long term, we've got to go all kinds of little restaurants.

00:15:41:12 - 00:16:04:19
Todd
And so the West Coast is good for that. You know, it's got the Asian connection. It's kind of a tighter market. And then the East Coast is really complicated. So it's starting to happen slowly. I mean, we're in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, but certainly pretty soon we'll be in Maine and, you know, places like that that probably haven't seen a stock improve in a long time.

00:16:04:19 - 00:16:15:06
Todd
So I think it'll just take a little longer to kind of get people on the East Coast acclimated to the fact that you can have soccer and a burger or soccer pizza.

00:16:15:08 - 00:16:16:21
Jessie
That's exactly.

00:16:16:23 - 00:16:17:04
Todd
Right.

00:16:17:06 - 00:16:46:05
Jessie
That's exactly it. And, you know, I'm at level three in wine, but we don't know anything about soccer. I mean, it's like, you know, like we don't know anything about beer per se or whatever, unless you do your own, you know, your own research. But, you know, to to be in the industry this long and not get myself, you know, into this like a understanding of, you know, a deeper understanding of the actual process and whatnot was kind of a is kind of a bummer looking back.

00:16:46:05 - 00:17:14:18
Jessie
But now I'm all in and it's fascinating. I've I've learned so much and so quickly. But to your point, the the translation of how do we how do we not only pair different foods, non-Japanese foods with it, but then get them to even understand the various categories? I think it's a it's a it's going to be a, you know, a big push on the education side.

00:17:15:03 - 00:17:44:10
Todd
yeah. And every like, every like mine that you talk to, you know, education is in the forefront of what we do. I mean, we have a taproom here where we have people come in and eat all kinds of different foods here and drinks. Okay? So that's pretty easy for us. But no, I agree. There's a lot of I think over time you're going to see a lot of non wine people get into soccer, which I think will help on the education side because at the end of the day, soccer is not wine.

00:17:44:12 - 00:18:06:12
Todd
And so no, you have wine, you have wine distributors selling it. But it's you know, from at least what I've seen in New England, I can't speak for other markets. Yeah. But from what I've seen in New England, you know, our customer is more like a craft beer customer than a wine customer. Okay? We don't get a lot of wine people in here at all.

00:18:06:14 - 00:18:32:19
Todd
So, you know, not a ton, but some. I mean, you know, wine is very different. It's slightly lower alcohol than saké. It's got ten times the acid and very different acids. Right. So you get a lot of, you know, harsher acid. That's kind of I guess to shock is lactic acid, specific acid. It's all these like general gentle like richer acids.

00:18:33:01 - 00:18:55:09
Todd
And so it's a completely different beverage. So from what at least what I've seen in my neck of the woods, craft beer consumers are more likely to come here and drinker shocking than wine customers. And then you get those people who are just beverage carriers, you know, drink everything across the board. They drink wine and beer. Those people also come here.

00:18:55:09 - 00:19:17:12
Todd
But yeah, we don't we don't see a ton of wine industry stuff. Also, you know, we're over 150 accounts in two states and we don't have a ton of like really specialty wine accounts. We have a few that do really well, like Enos and Providence or something like that. And they're like a very wine focused store and they do really well with it.

00:19:17:12 - 00:19:34:12
Todd
But at least in my neck of the woods, the Boston area, a lot of the wine specialty shops have not really sort of sold as much stock over time as just kind of a regular really well-curated liquor store. Yeah, yeah.

00:19:34:14 - 00:19:51:03
Jessie
Yeah. It's interesting. We'll get into the retail a little bit later because I think it's completely different, you know, aspect. Like, you know, when you go to total wine, it's, it's just a sad little section and it doesn't make sense and it's all over the place and, you know, but I get it. I mean, that's just the way it is.

00:19:51:03 - 00:20:00:02
Jessie
So you mentioned beverage curious. So I think I might steal that and.

00:20:00:11 - 00:20:24:16
Todd
please. I actually thought that I even saw. Okay. Curious all the time. Yeah. So there are people who just come in here who might be or people might be whoever, and they're just sucking and curious. And now that there's a brewery in New England, they have a place to come. Yeah, right. And so, you know, we're also lucky that Boston has a soccer bar called the Coaching Club.

00:20:24:18 - 00:20:50:04
Todd
And so if they don't want to come all the way out here, they can certainly go to the Koji Club and that's this. All right. So and it's very education focused. So the more of those kind of places pop up like, the more people will be able to find answers. But that's the funny thing. I've always been intensely curious as a person my whole life, whether it's about food or alcohol or Japanese language or history or whatever.

00:20:50:04 - 00:21:10:11
Todd
But I, I find these people where they try to escape one time and they love it, and then they become like huge soccer fans. And I just, you know, it's great. And I'm glad I want to be that person for them. But also I'm like, Yeah, you could have just gone and bought a bottle of stockades at any point in time.

00:21:10:13 - 00:21:14:21
Todd
It's almost like they need an excuse to kind of discover it, if that makes sense.

00:21:14:22 - 00:21:22:17
Jessie
Yeah. Or stumble upon it at some point because when we went to Total, we're looking for some soccer.

00:21:22:19 - 00:21:22:23
Todd
This.

00:21:22:23 - 00:21:41:05
Jessie
Summer because we had gone to Japan and just we just loved we love the selection of Saki's over there. And, you know, we're checking out and the cashier is like, I've never tried soccer. So, you know, it's maybe things like that. Well, maybe, maybe she's beverage curious enough to go try it, you know?

00:21:41:10 - 00:22:04:06
Todd
Yeah. I mean that's I mean, we have accounts like that too, where one person, you know, the, you know, the bar manager loves it and then all of a sudden they just tell people all of this local soccer and you just sometimes you need one or two people in an account like that to drive it. So here in Massachusetts, we don't have a lot of total wines or corporate liquor stores.

00:22:04:06 - 00:22:27:21
Todd
I mean, there are they exist but in much fewer numbers than where you are. So we're dealing with a lot of just local family owned liquor stores on that store. On the off premise side, we will approach total wine at some point. I don't know how big we have to make from the start. So I came before our stuff is fridge only.

00:22:27:23 - 00:22:32:11
Todd
So if you got to total wine, you'll notice there's no socket in the fridge. No.

00:22:32:11 - 00:22:36:07
Jessie
So another educational component.

00:22:36:09 - 00:22:44:10
Todd
Yeah. I tell everybody is like, listen, if you buy it at the store and it's not in the fridge, just bring home my credit.

00:22:44:13 - 00:22:47:19
Jessie
So is it on pasteurized then.

00:22:47:21 - 00:23:13:05
Todd
No, our, our stock is pasteurized once we use flash pasteurization so we pasteurize the liquid. It's not in the bottle and then we sterile bottle the stock. So you know, the difference between that and like batch pasteurization is that once the stock is in the bottle and you close it, you then can pasteurize the whole bottle with the liquid inside.

00:23:13:07 - 00:23:36:07
Todd
But we don't have that kind of space or funding to buy a batch batch from there. So we flash pasteurized everything once and so it gives it great stability in the fridge. So it changes a lot less than a true unpasteurized. Now it would change, but it still needs to be in the fridge.

00:23:36:09 - 00:23:37:22
Jessie
Okay, interesting.

00:23:38:00 - 00:23:46:16
Todd
And we've done the testing so we've done side by side, you know, left it out versus fridge. They match that kind of thing.

00:23:46:18 - 00:23:59:17
Jessie
Okay. Interesting. Yeah. So let's go. Could we circle back to your you were brewing beer and then you switch to soccer. So what what was your next move?

00:23:59:19 - 00:24:19:18
Todd
So I was home brewing beer and then I started missing really fresh soccer. And I think I probably complained about it too many times. And my wife, my wife, my wife, Amy was like, you know, we're brewing you're brewing beer here. We're drinking your beer. Why don't you just make sure if you miss Fresh, get someone. I love that.

00:24:19:20 - 00:24:49:09
Todd
And so good advice. That's pretty great. And yeah, and now we have a six square foot family run brewery I love. Yeah. So? So, yeah, I was brewing beer at home and then I started brewing soccer at home. And at the time there wasn't really any online information about how to home brew soccer. So because I could read Japanese, I got Japanese brewing books from Japan from the Brewing Association.

00:24:49:11 - 00:25:14:18
Todd
Wow. And yeah, that's impressive. I got those and started going through it. Took me a while, but I already understood the science of brewing, so I think that made a little easier for me. Also, some stuff is just straight up math. It has nothing to do with Japanese. But yeah, I read through it and kind of understood a lot of stuff and then started making soccer at home.

00:25:14:20 - 00:25:38:09
Todd
And then shortly thereafter I got a job at the Boston Beer Company in Massachusetts and moved up here to work for that and work there for eight years. Okay, I it was a non brewing job and I really wanted to brew but a company of that size, I had no you know, I didn't have a Ph.D. in microbiology or anything like that, you know.

00:25:38:09 - 00:26:07:13
Todd
And so a company of that size, I'm just not really qualified in their mind to brew anything. So I just started brewing at home more and more and more working in that sort of non brewing side during the day. And then at night I went through stuff at home and then I started, you know, all my friends were brewers after a while and then eventually I made like a saké beer hybrid at a friend's brew thread.

00:26:07:16 - 00:26:36:00
Todd
Wait, what? Yeah, Yeah, yeah. So I mean, it's like a beer hybrid at a friend's brew from Cambridge Brewing Company here in Cambridge, Mass. I became really good friends with Wil Myers, who's still the head brewer, and we came up with this cool idea to hybridize both brewing processes and make a beer hybrid. So we did that and that was the first time that I made anything larger than like, you know, a bucket of soccer.

00:26:36:02 - 00:27:01:06
Todd
So we made 500 liters of soccer. And I was like, I could just have a roomful of these, you know? And so that's when I started to hatched a plan of I want to brew, you know, my day job doesn't want me to brew there. So why don't I just keep brewing soccer and all that? And during college.

00:27:01:06 - 00:27:29:22
Todd
So I worked there for eight years. So a lot of stuff happened during eight years. But, you know, I made a a beer hybrid with Will and the Brewing company. That was a big move. Then I took a couple of trips to Japan and worked in some brewers, so I would basically take all of my vacation time at one time, leave the Boston Beer Company to go to Japan to get brewing experience in soccer specifically, and then come back from my vacation and go back to work.

00:27:29:22 - 00:27:43:16
Todd
Exhausted. Yeah, but yeah, no, it was yeah, I went to Japan a couple of times working for a while. It was really that's really opened my eyes to how to do it on a professional level. Yeah.

00:27:43:18 - 00:27:51:08
Jessie
Can we circle back to this hybrid again? Can you? Yeah. What is that like? How does that work? What's the flavor profile?

00:27:51:08 - 00:28:32:13
Todd
Yeah, So we basically we basically made a small batch of stock and then use that stock to inoculate a tank of beer work that was pretty high sugar. So the interesting part is because you have Koji in the sacking that can break down sugar starches in the shares. What happened was if we had just fermented the beer wort as beer, it would have been incredibly sweet, right, that the beer process would not have broken down all of the available sugar, but we inoculated it with a tank of saké.

00:28:32:13 - 00:29:03:03
Todd
So what you ended up with after a pretty long fermentation period was long meaning really six weeks. Okay. So really complex. Almost like a barley wine style beer. So high alcohol for sure, but really a lot of complexity and drier than you would think because the KOJI was able to eat away at a lot of those big fat sugar molecules and turn them into simpler sugars for the yeast.

00:29:03:03 - 00:29:34:02
Todd
So yeah, kind of a dry ish 15% ABV sucking hybrid thing. So definitely had some such a character because we used a sucking yeast. So no beer yeast at all in the whole beer. So you get a lot of sucking character from the yeast, but also some pretty unique flavor profiles because you had broken down things like Maltose, which is the main sugar in beer, right?

00:29:34:03 - 00:29:42:21
Todd
So you had broken down maltose and ferment in it, which is a thing you don't ever do in soccer. So it was pretty interesting.

00:29:42:21 - 00:29:57:13
Jessie
That is really cool. Wow, that was fun. Yeah. Okay, so you're you're at Boston Beer. You've done a few different or managed different business units there, I guess.

00:29:57:15 - 00:30:18:20
Todd
I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of background. I had my main job. My main job was talking to consumers about like high level sugar problems, so broken bottles, beer doesn't taste right, you know, all that kind of stuff. cool. And so, yeah, yeah, they need someone like me. Between the brewery and the general public.

00:30:18:22 - 00:30:20:01
Jessie
Yeah, that makes sense.

00:30:20:01 - 00:30:30:07
Todd
You know, you don't want. You don't want some brewer, you know, who hasn't seen the light of day? I mean, two weeks to talk to somebody on the phone about a broken bar, whether it's Outback's. So. Yeah. Yeah.

00:30:30:09 - 00:30:32:09
Jessie
What was the.

00:30:32:10 - 00:30:33:01
Todd
Heart.

00:30:33:03 - 00:30:38:08
Jessie
There? You know, the transition of. Okay, I'm going to start my own sake library.

00:30:38:23 - 00:31:06:11
Todd
so interestingly enough, I had we had done a couple of events. We had done the soccer hybrid a couple of times. We did an event and I met a guy named Dan. We wanted this who kind of was starting to our socket brewery in Massachusetts. He had no brewing experience or anything like that, but he had a tiny little space and he really wanted to do something in that space.

00:31:06:11 - 00:31:41:07
Todd
So, you know, he was like, Hey, you should come work with me. And so I was actually the only employee in Massachusetts first SOC Brewery, which does not exist anymore. But I thought, okay, so I brewed all the stock a bottle there, delivered it, sold it, you know, whatever, anything that was required to run the business. So, you know, he kind of started it and then it was very small, like the holder was maybe half the size of our taproom here in Medfield.

00:31:41:07 - 00:32:00:22
Todd
So. So yeah, I just, you know, I brewed it. It was a great experience to come up with a brand and, you know, make the actual liquid and sell it and all that. And so, you know, it was quickly apparent that I could make really good sockets. And so after a while, so we got some you know, we got a cool following from that.

00:32:00:22 - 00:32:35:08
Todd
But unfortunately the brewery was so small and without any additional employees, you can only get so big. Yeah. And then after a while the owner closed it and I just, yeah, I just kind of I was like, All right, well, you know, I can obviously do that and that's what I want to do. So I took a couple of years off and worked as a consultant in the beer and sock industry and then raised money and wrote a business plan.

00:32:35:11 - 00:33:09:05
Todd
It was a little bit hamstrung by COVID. Yeah, so we were starting to get money in from investors before COVID hit. And then once COVID hit, we just kind of hit the pause button and didn't touch any money and just worked on a business plan and trying to find a location and kind of just slowly did stuff. And then once COVID started to subside a little bit, we signed a lease here and Benfield and started aggregating all of our investor money and going for it.

00:33:09:07 - 00:33:11:10
Jessie
Yeah, exciting times.

00:33:11:12 - 00:33:11:23
Todd
Pretty cool.

00:33:12:05 - 00:33:17:00
Jessie
So let's talk about the name for the star sake.

00:33:17:02 - 00:33:17:16
Todd
Right?

00:33:17:18 - 00:33:19:18
Jessie
Where did that come from?

00:33:20:23 - 00:33:46:08
Todd
as I was writing my business plan and actively developing the brand, I, you know, you go to a lot of different areas and you kind of try stuff on and you're like, no. And so after a while I tried all these different brands out on, you know, sort of flush it out on paper. And I was like, and then nothing really resonated with me.

00:33:46:08 - 00:34:10:06
Todd
And then I just I'm a huge sci fi nerd. Okay. Which is your favorite? I started I don't know if I could pick a favorite, but I that that's a little too harsh. But I think in your favorite beer beverage. Yeah. Like, I don't I could never do that. But, you know certainly I'm a huge fan fan across the board, books, movies, TV.

00:34:10:06 - 00:34:37:11
Todd
And so I don't know, I started just thinking like, this is my own project, right? It's not someone else who owns it, who wants a certain kind of brand. It's my brand. So I just was like, Well, I'm a huge, like the sci fi, just, you know. And then as I started watching a lot of sci fi and thinking about different things, I realized that there's quite a few parallels between science and good science fiction and soccer.

00:34:37:13 - 00:35:06:04
Todd
And so in America. So anyway, so yeah, you know, soccer in America is this like ancient beverage, but it feels like it's like the next new thing, right? And a lot of science fiction that I love is kind of like that, right? It's like old but futuristic. Yeah. And so I started to see some things like that. Also, soccer is a very beverage in America, as we were talking about before, so.

00:35:06:04 - 00:35:26:14
Todd
Right. A lot of people who come here and discover our soccer for the first time, they want to be the ones who take that and introduce it to their friends. So it's a super discoverable beverage. And, you know, there's a lot of that in science fiction where there's, you know, some protagonist out in the middle of nowhere and they get like this call to adventure, you know?

00:35:26:16 - 00:35:44:09
Todd
Yeah. And I thought, like, the spirit of that could be pretty cool. So we need to I thought we said, fathers start talking because it's like an aspirational, you know, you're kind of dreaming about getting up there, you know, the farthest point you can see. And once you're up there, you realize there's like a universe of stuff beyond.

00:35:44:15 - 00:35:49:08
Todd
So we thought it made a lot of sense, you know, especially given where we are.

00:35:49:10 - 00:35:51:22
Jessie
Well, sorry, do a tasting.

00:35:51:23 - 00:35:54:02
Todd
Yeah, sure. It was practiced at first.

00:35:54:02 - 00:35:56:16
Jessie
Okay. This guy first.

00:35:56:18 - 00:36:08:18
Todd
Yeah. So this is in a strange land. It is our flagship filtered soccer. Okay, They are twister clear frames.

00:36:08:20 - 00:36:11:07
Jessie
I'm not going to put.

00:36:11:09 - 00:36:26:04
Todd
My hand shoes wrestling. I like to tell people their truth of because you have to be careful. If you use a bottle opener, sometimes you can. It gets caught on the threads and you can like, rip the top of the bottle.

00:36:26:06 - 00:36:27:08
Jessie
Okay, that's nice.

00:36:27:10 - 00:36:31:10
Todd
Yeah, twist off. Twist off is easy. And then. Okay.

00:36:31:17 - 00:36:34:07
Jessie
wow. That color.

00:36:34:09 - 00:37:13:23
Todd
Player. Yeah. So we use the best rice in the world for making socket. It's called the mother Your mother mission. Okay, so both of our sockets that we're chasing today is our Yamada 97. So 30% has been milled away, and it's kind of the bottom of premium socket in Japan. So this one I wanted it to be a very approachable, complex, all purpose socket and so hard water.

00:37:14:01 - 00:37:48:03
Todd
So you get some minerality for sure in the flavor and then finish and to strains. So one of the strains is kind of fruity and the other one is a little spicy, so you get kind of fruity mid palate and upfront and then dry kind of peppery finish. Yeah, nice and makes it uber food for yummy. Yeah. And so thanks.

00:37:48:08 - 00:38:15:12
Todd
Yeah. 16% or 16% kind of Yeah it's of medium dry in Japan it's plus five which is like a medium dry medium dry Some of the people listening might not know about saké. So the Honshu though, is like sometimes called the saké meter value. SMB is a scale that in the middle is zero, and then it goes plus numbers on one side and negative numbers on the have.

00:38:15:14 - 00:38:29:10
Todd
So plus one, two, three, four, five gets dryer. Okay. And minus one minus two minus three gets sweeter and sweeter and sweeter. Yeah. So and so zero is technically water.

00:38:29:12 - 00:38:36:08
Jessie
And in Japan, which one sells more sweet or dry, do you know?

00:38:36:09 - 00:38:55:05
Todd
You know what's interesting is right now, or at least the last time I was in Japan, which is admittedly a little bit ago, but last time I was in Japan, it seemed like instead of zero being the middle of the road, I feel like kind of plus two is the middle of the road. I feel like they trend a little dry.

00:38:55:05 - 00:38:58:04
Todd
Little drier. Yeah, it'll will be.

00:38:58:07 - 00:39:07:22
Jessie
Interesting to see what happens in the U.S.. I don't know how many I don't know what the breweries are making, if it's drier, sweeter, or what styles or on.

00:39:08:00 - 00:39:35:21
Todd
It depends on the brewery. But I think certainly the American market could sell some sweeter stock and get away for it. So I'm pretty sure that America drinks more unfiltered socket than Japan does, really? I think so. I heard that years ago. It's probably still true. So it's not always true. But unfiltered suckers tend to be sweeter than trends.

00:39:35:21 - 00:39:59:04
Todd
In fact, you don't really want a dry, unfiltered stock because you have rice particles in the liquid. So if it's dry, there's not a lot of glucose to sort of suspend those particles. So then it just tastes like a chocolate socket, right? It doesn't have any roundness to it, which is why ours is pretty sweet.

00:39:59:06 - 00:40:15:07
Jessie
So can you talk a little bit about the the process of making saké and the ingredients that are pretty main ingredients for, you know, just in general for a brew saké.

00:40:15:08 - 00:40:54:17
Todd
Sure, Yeah. I mean, saké simply is made from rice and water and two microorganisms. So are Koji, which is one of the microorganisms is responsible for breaking the starches in rice down into sugar. Okay. And then yeast, which every alcohol producer on the planet uses, is responsible for eating some of those sugars and turning them into alcohol and carbon dioxide and a lot of chemicals that you and I perceive as flavors in around.

00:40:54:19 - 00:41:21:18
Todd
Right. And so that's basically how you make saké. So you use Koji to break down the rice and use the use to eat the sugars and make flavors and aromas and alcohol. And both of those processes happen at the same time. So it's the balance of those two that makes really good stocking. If you're out of balance let's say you're Koji is really healthy and your yeast isn't so healthy.

00:41:21:20 - 00:41:52:05
Todd
What happens is the koji makes a lot of sugar and the yeast can't keep up. And then you have a giant tank of food where any microorganism could land and create sort of off flavors. And then on the flipside, your yeast is really healthy and your koji is not so healthy, then the koji can't keep up with the demand of the yeast and you get what's called autologous, which is where yeast cells die and cannibalize each other.

00:41:52:05 - 00:42:21:01
Todd
And then that creates a lot of kind of savory flavors in your stocking. And so that happens as well. So you need to really keep the chain processes in balance and then not quite correct. I was going to say the unique part of Saki or I guess one of the unique parts is that when you're finished, you have to press out all the physical stuff because all that rice and all that stuff is still in it.

00:42:21:03 - 00:42:26:18
Todd
And so when you're finished and has finished stocking, you have to press everything out to clarify the stock.

00:42:26:20 - 00:42:32:16
Jessie
So how long does it make, does it take to make Koji.

00:42:32:18 - 00:43:00:23
Todd
Codes are proteins like 48 to 52 hours. So on the second day we sleep here to monitor it all the time. But yeah, it takes 48 to 52 hours. Our Koji room, which I'm sitting in right, it can grow about 200 kilos of Koji at a time and so that's enough to do a full batch of. Okay. And a smaller batch in our R&D setup at the same time.

00:43:00:23 - 00:43:42:00
Todd
So we tend to do that almost every day. And so Sakai as a whole takes like 6 to 8 weeks grade a glass. So you make Koji, it takes, let's say, three days and then you can start brewing. And brewing takes four days to complete a brew and then it's a pretty long cold fermentation. So our fermentations here are a little longer than like commercial sockets, but we're about 42 to 45 days of fermentation, okay, a cheaper table socket or some larger breweries will shorten that some.

00:43:42:00 - 00:44:00:11
Todd
The socket is like 20 meters, but you don't get as much complexity. And so at least now while we're not a huge, humongous company, we're going to sort of luxuriate in that ability to just lower the tank temp and take a longer time to make more complicated.

00:44:00:16 - 00:44:09:02
Jessie
So when you're spending the night, what are you looking at? What are you what are you trying to make sure is happening?

00:44:09:04 - 00:44:55:09
Todd
The genetic material that produce all the enzymes that you need in the koji are actually in the root structure of the koji. They're not in the outside growth. And so as we're growing the koji and the heat is going up and up and up, we're trying to manage because it'll actually make enough heat to kill itself. Okay. But we're also trying to slop off moisture because as you're growing the koji, you want to dry the koji out so that the koji fungus traces the moisture to the inside of every grain and you get a lot of root structure which increases your enzyme load and makes a better fermentation.

00:44:55:11 - 00:45:21:13
Jessie
So that kind of leads into the next question. You mentioned a type of rice and you I read that you use Isabel Farms, which is like a hugh. I was listening to Soca Revolution and I heard the granddaughter talking kind of explain the the background of it, which is phenomenal and so interesting. I had no idea that Arkansas was I think it's the number one state for rice production period.

00:45:21:15 - 00:45:22:22
Jessie
And then soca, of.

00:45:22:22 - 00:45:28:11
Todd
Course, I think it's they grow more they export Arkansas grows more rice than everyone in the.

00:45:28:11 - 00:45:30:05
Jessie
U.S. There you go. That's it.

00:45:30:07 - 00:45:34:16
Todd
So I'm pretty sure that's them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They grow a lot around.

00:45:34:16 - 00:45:50:00
Jessie
Yeah, it's pretty impressive. And one of the things that I've learned about the process is the milling and the grinding of the outer shell. Do you want to talk a little bit about why that's so important?

00:45:50:02 - 00:46:19:23
Todd
Sure. Yeah. So the reason that we use Yam more than in some other soc in a brewing crisis instead of using just eating rice, is that the Japanese cultivars of very rice? There's over 140 strains in Japan. Right. Of sockeye brewers. They've over the centuries they have cultivated rice that has all of the starch or most of the starch is concentrated in the middle of the rice.

00:46:20:01 - 00:46:48:12
Todd
And so as you mill away in the outside, your milling away, mostly proteins and fats which don't really ferment. Okay. Right. So your interest in impure starch. So as you mill away in the outside, you're mirroring away more and more proteins and fats. And now your pile of rice is a much higher percentage of pure starch, which is going to result in a cleaner, kind of more ethereal, shocking.

00:46:48:13 - 00:47:12:15
Todd
The Japanese consider this a higher grade of sockeye. So all of the grading in sockeye happens with mill rate. I think it's for me, since we're not in Japan or much farther. Well, I kind of feel like it's I kind of feel like it's for me, it's just like another expression of soccer. I don't think it's better or worse.

00:47:12:17 - 00:47:41:07
Todd
It certainly is higher priced because as you know, the rice down, you're taking a lot more time and the rice costs me a lot more money. So and is a little tougher to brew. It's a little more delicate to brew and it requires more labor to burn. So those sockeye need to be more expensive. But, you know, I've had great stocking that's, you know, 75% milk, which is, you know, not even on the spectrum for most like soccer grading gods and stuff.

00:47:41:11 - 00:47:42:22
Todd
So, yeah.

00:47:43:00 - 00:47:47:15
Jessie
Yeah, that's really, really cool. Well, should we try the the next one?

00:47:47:17 - 00:47:53:06
Todd
Yeah, absolutely. The next one is called Mountains on the Moons.

00:47:53:06 - 00:47:54:03
Jessie
On the Moon.

00:47:54:04 - 00:48:33:11
Todd
And is are unfiltered soccer. So you should shake it. Don't worry. It's not carbonated. You can like Really. Actually, yeah. I get some people they go and I you got to. Yeah. So one of the problems with negative soccer is it settles very quickly. Okay. And so we actually have a little bit of a problem in TAPPER We're trying to come up with a new solution, maybe a special tank that like pumps it around because we're having a real problem keeping it suspended within an eight hour.

00:48:33:11 - 00:48:34:01
Todd
TAPPER object.

00:48:34:09 - 00:48:36:02
Jessie
it makes sense.

00:48:36:04 - 00:48:37:15
Todd
Yeah.

00:48:37:17 - 00:48:40:04
Jessie
Okay. So let's let's check it out.

00:48:40:05 - 00:49:03:15
Todd
Yeah, that was a little so that was on the moon is same, right? Yeah. But honestly, 70. By the way, all of our bottles have our tech specs on the side, so. I'm sorry. As a tech specs. Yeah, that's cool. So it'll always have the middle ring. It'll always have what kind of rice? That kind of thing. And so mountains on the moon is already gaudy.

00:49:03:17 - 00:49:36:05
Todd
I never really was a big negaunee guy for a long time, but when I was developing an unfiltered sidekick, I thought to myself, like, what do I want to drink? So our unfiltered talking has a few differences between a traditional Japanese one. So it is definitely unfiltered, but it is not very heavy. Okay, so it's not like goopy some Japanese because our kids are very heavy with rice particles, so ours are.

00:49:36:07 - 00:49:46:08
Todd
Ours is a little lighter. It is a style you can find in Japan. It's called vinegary, which means in the morning. So you'll notice it's not you know, it's not like milk.

00:49:46:12 - 00:49:50:04
Jessie
Yeah, it's not retained like bananas and protein.

00:49:50:04 - 00:50:22:03
Todd
Shake it this morning. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen some Japanese kids that are crazy, but Yeah. And so we're crazy, I guess would be the best word. Thanks. And so in opposition to the first one, you're looking at very soft water instead of hard water. So no minerality and another year strain. So there's two new strains in the first one, there is a third separate new strain and and it is a very fruity new strain.

00:50:22:03 - 00:50:28:01
Todd
So you're looking for just layers of fruit on top of fruit. On top of fruit, it's also clean.

00:50:28:04 - 00:50:34:18
Jessie
I mean, it's not clean. It's so but it smells so smooth. And yeah.

00:50:34:20 - 00:51:01:03
Todd
It's like the perfect migori yeast in my mind. So very. And then the reason we use really soft water is that I when I use soft water, I get an overall slightly higher acid than I do in the finished stock with using hard water. That makes sense. A lot of the water minerals you use or alkaline, so it might offset that.

00:51:01:03 - 00:51:21:22
Todd
So I end up with a slightly higher acid. So my negative saucony is a little higher acid than a Japanese negroni and that helps balance the increased sweetness. Okay, So that was my whole goal was to make it a little more balanced, a little more food track. Yeah.

00:51:22:05 - 00:51:24:19
Jessie
that's yummy.

00:51:24:21 - 00:51:26:01
Todd
Thanks. Yeah. Yeah.

00:51:26:01 - 00:51:49:14
Jessie
It's almost got this. So, like, I don't want to say tart, but just slightly, like. Like, it's hitting my senses back in the back of my mouth, going like, it's just so it's like it's got other layers going on inside of it that is. Yes, This is, you know, a smooth saké. And then it's got this kind of cool, like surprise.

00:51:49:14 - 00:51:53:08
Jessie
It's not a tartness. I don't I don't know how to describe it, but it's awesome.

00:51:53:13 - 00:51:57:04
Todd
Yeah. It kind of comes in at the sides of the mouth, kind of like cheddar cheese.

00:51:57:04 - 00:51:57:22
Jessie
But I guess at the end.

00:51:57:22 - 00:52:23:06
Todd
Yeah, it's a yeah, it's the acid that comes in. Yeah. So slightly higher acid and it just makes it much more food friendly and cleans it out. So it's not just heavy writing, you know, whatever. Yeah, that was my kind of goal when developing unfiltered saké for my market. You know, the coolest thing about the stock market is it's all discoverable to everybody.

00:52:23:06 - 00:52:45:14
Todd
So I'm still in that kind of early, almost like the early days of craft brewing in the eighties. I can just make whatever I want and just make what I want as an expression of me as an artist and just make whatever I want and tell people, Hey, try this. Try This is not you know, we have people are familiar enough with me to demand a style or like, you know, that kind of.

00:52:45:16 - 00:52:58:22
Todd
Yeah, like I feel beer brewers have kind of painted themselves into a corner. You know everybody demands hazy fruit ideas and that's it, right? So they have to brew that, you know.

00:52:58:22 - 00:53:06:23
Jessie
So can we talk about I don't know if you can see this so little. Is it a QR code and then it's got.

00:53:07:05 - 00:53:10:03
Todd
It's a QR code. Yeah, it's a.

00:53:10:03 - 00:53:14:21
Jessie
Flavor profile. Yeah. And then you highlight which one it is. So that's really cool.

00:53:14:23 - 00:53:25:03
Todd
Thanks. Yeah. We tried to fit a ton of information on to this tiny little label. I would like also to say we didn't discuss it, but we only make single serve.

00:53:25:09 - 00:53:28:10
Jessie
Yeah, let's talk about that to the size because this is very unique.

00:53:28:11 - 00:53:58:20
Todd
So again, like we talked about how soccer is in the discoverable, Right? Right. So one of the things that you want to do in a market that has everyone discovering soccer for the first time is lower. The cost of entry right? So we mean so single serve soccer is not a new thing. There are Japanese cups and Japanese cans that have existed for a long time.

00:53:58:22 - 00:54:30:19
Todd
So most of the cups in Japan are 180 milliliters, which is a unit of measurement. In Japan, it's called one go is 180 million. And that's kind of a serving of soccer. And so in 1972, Kiko, three brewing cans came for the first time and they made the cans 200 millimeters because if you understand that one girl was a serving of soccer, now you're like, it's one girl plus 20 milliliters.

00:54:30:19 - 00:55:00:03
Todd
So we're giving more than a Yeah, yeah, it's more than an official survey, right? So that's why they use the 200 mil thing. So we found in the United States actually Virginia Owens-Illinois, which is a huge glass we factor makes this bottle in Virginia and it's 207 males. So it's just a tiny bit bigger than the Japanese single serve, which I think is appropriate for the American market.

00:55:00:05 - 00:55:05:05
Todd
And it's a cool bottle geometry. Yeah, But yeah.

00:55:05:08 - 00:55:05:18
Jessie
So we.

00:55:05:23 - 00:55:12:01
Todd
You know, it's got it. Yeah. So we do this and the draft, so we do draft, Correct.

00:55:12:03 - 00:55:13:01
Jessie
Okay. I was going to say.

00:55:13:07 - 00:55:14:10
Todd
But yeah, we tried to.

00:55:14:12 - 00:55:17:10
Jessie
I was going to ask about that now.

00:55:17:11 - 00:55:37:23
Todd
Yeah. So we tried to cram as much information on this kind of rule labels we could. It's not a very big label. Obviously our logo has to go on and there's some stuff like alcohol and volume that's required by law and then I suck. It is like you have to streamline everything because people just have to go out and throw it in there.

00:55:38:01 - 00:55:59:18
Todd
So every style that we make has three words, just like three descriptors, and we'll just do that going forward. And then textbooks for those people who are nerdy and then a little, yeah, a little QR code that goes through our website with a page about this particular. Okay. And then there is a little metric around here for people with younger eyes, but it just says dry balance.

00:55:59:18 - 00:56:03:13
Todd
Sweet and then clear glasses. Yeah. So how are these like you just.

00:56:03:13 - 00:56:05:19
Jessie
Four pack or six pack or.

00:56:05:21 - 00:56:18:16
Todd
No single. I mean, we sell them to distributors and accounts as 24 is a case of Okay, so they come in a case of 24, but the store or the restaurant sells them a single serve.

00:56:18:18 - 00:56:19:18
Jessie
And a retailer.

00:56:19:20 - 00:56:20:19
Todd
And we price them.

00:56:20:22 - 00:56:21:21
Jessie
Well, I guess you said.

00:56:22:02 - 00:56:24:00
Todd
Yeah, the retailer singles are because.

00:56:24:02 - 00:56:24:18
Jessie
It's in the cooler.

00:56:24:22 - 00:56:33:18
Todd
We price them. So hopefully in a store under ten and in or on a restaurant menu under 12. Okay.

00:56:33:20 - 00:56:34:23
Jessie
That makes sense.

00:56:35:01 - 00:56:56:19
Todd
Yeah. Yeah. And it's I mean, listen, we're using us grown young, but initially we're not using eating rice or sushi rice or anything. So it's, you know, it's premium saké that's handmade that only gets processed as much as it needs to be and then, you know, arrives very fresh to the retailer. Okay.

00:56:56:22 - 00:57:07:08
Jessie
So I, I realize that we've been talking almost an hour and we haven't even got to have two questions. Do you have time to kind of blow through these?

00:57:07:10 - 00:57:07:23
Todd
Of course.

00:57:07:23 - 00:57:16:04
Jessie
Do it. Yeah. Okay. Do you have any key people or mentors that have helped you throughout your career?

00:57:17:07 - 00:57:38:23
Todd
yeah, I've got more than I can possibly count. I mean, there's a large number of people I worked with in the beer industry from all aspects of brewing. You know, my my friend Will Meyers, who's the head brewer at Cambridge Brewing, you know, Grant Wood. He's a guy I worked with in Boston. Beer. I mean, all these people, I've got a ton of those kind of mentors.

00:57:39:01 - 00:57:57:08
Todd
And then in Japan, you know, I've made some really great relationships with people persevering and we got that. You know, they make that little funny greeting in gold. Can really impressive work that they do on the single Serve a Side. Yeah, you can buy one of the.

00:57:57:08 - 00:57:59:15
Jessie
Guys in a vending machine.

00:57:59:17 - 00:58:00:10
Todd
Yeah.

00:58:00:12 - 00:58:06:05
Jessie
Go up, can get a highball beer like RTD can be.

00:58:06:07 - 00:58:31:02
Todd
And so. Yeah, you can buy it. Yeah. So they've done a lot of work since. I mean, 1972, the year I was born, they put vodka in the can for the first time. So, you know, that's pretty impressive. And I have you know, I've certainly also always gleaned a lot of information from, you know, John Gardner, who's the granddaddy of, you know, soccer education in the English.

00:58:31:04 - 00:58:53:19
Todd
And so he's done a lot of work, you know, writing about soccer. And yeah, I mean, there's a lot of people to learn from, I think, you know, even people making soccer in North America. I mean, I'm super friendly with, you know, Blake at Moultrie and Minneapolis. He's, you know, I think the first guy that ever opened a soccer group ever.

00:58:53:21 - 00:59:13:20
Todd
You know, I think they like to say the first soccer group outside Japan, but it's like a group of us don't really exist. Like, occasionally you'll find a brewery that has, like, some food in it kind of thing, but it's not the same thing, right? A brewpub is a brewery that only makes saké for the restaurant, right? They don't make soccer anywhere else.

00:59:13:22 - 00:59:32:22
Todd
And so I think he's the first guy to open a second group ever. And he's amazing. And, you know, all these people, you know, great brewers across the United States and Canada. Recently I've been drinking some NAMI soccer from Mexico City, which is really amazing. Yeah, I.

00:59:33:00 - 00:59:33:18
Jessie
Learned about that.

00:59:33:18 - 00:59:52:21
Todd
It's pretty cool. Yeah. The cool thing about the soccer industry for me is we're pretty tight knit group. Well, you're small, so there's nobody. Yeah, I mean, I haven't made a count recently, but I would say there's between 40 and 50 countries outside Japan to Wow.

00:59:52:23 - 00:59:58:02
Jessie
And so and we know two of them, one in France and one's in Mexico.

00:59:58:04 - 01:00:23:16
Todd
We've got that certainly, yeah, there's three in Canada. And then one in Mexico City. And then, you know, 24 or so in the U.S.. Gotcha. I guess if you wanted to include those big Japanese guys in California, you could do that. And then you still know you're in the infancy of our industry where there's like one guy in Italy and one guy in London.

01:00:23:16 - 01:00:26:14
Todd
And you you mean it's like that on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:00:26:16 - 01:00:30:18
Jessie
So there's a strong movement worldwide, is what you're saying.

01:00:31:05 - 01:01:07:21
Todd
it is very slow and small but is definitely going and profits or you know, revenue is definitely going this way, It's definitely going up and people are starting to discover soccer for sure. It's, you know, I don't think it's going to explode like, you know, like seltzers or whatever. You know, it's not going to do that. But but that's good because all of those beverages that exploded overnight and had this, like big, you know, crazy thing, they all kind of leveled off and then went back.

01:01:07:21 - 01:01:13:02
Todd
Yeah, right. Yeah. So I would rather be slow growth but setting.

01:01:13:03 - 01:01:35:15
Jessie
100%, I'm with you. So what about any key learning tools? I mean, you've mentioned your dictionaries. They took over to Japan and obviously some, you know, books that you use. But is are there any, you know, podcast or even just on a personal level, you know, you know how to be an entrepreneur or, you know.

01:01:35:17 - 01:01:36:08
Todd
Yeah, how.

01:01:36:08 - 01:01:46:09
Jessie
To stay healthy because you want to, you know, you end up working so, so much. Like is there any, any kind of guidance or help that you'd like to offer?

01:01:46:18 - 01:02:16:03
Todd
absolutely. I one of the things I tell every psychic brewer here in the United States is to join the Brewing Association. I know it's very beer focused, but you get the American Brewer Journal, which is amazing resource and then you actually get access to all of the talks from the craft Brewers conference going back. Wow. So yeah, it's only 250 bucks a year or something like that.

01:02:16:05 - 01:02:48:08
Todd
And you get access to thousands of talks and their PowerPoints are of people from the Craft Brewing Conference. That is huge or probably one of the biggest resources I use on running. But specifically, if you wanted to know about soccer, John Gardner is talking WorldCom. He is the most prolific language kind of writer and educator on sucking in the world.

01:02:48:10 - 01:03:21:16
Todd
And you'll learn if you're starting fresh, you've got a lot of stuff to go through over the last 30 years. And so there's that. Certainly, I love all of the podcasts, I love how I built this guy. RAZ, which is an entrepreneur podcast where he just talks to it's NPR, but he talks to, you know, people who own companies and have started brands across a wide spectrum of interesting industries.

01:03:21:18 - 01:03:48:08
Todd
Yeah, I've actually gotten a lot out of specific episodes that had nothing to do with what I like, which is pretty interesting. And also Jason Fifer, who's the editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine, he does a number of podcasts. I've kind of lost count. I think Jason is a dick, but everyone is addicted to prosperity. So yeah, he's like, Let's just make another.

01:03:48:08 - 01:04:30:13
Todd
But I guess so. But yeah, he has a number of podcasts. Entrepreneur Magazine Yeah, some of it you've got to take it with grain of salt, you know, brewing. If anyone out there is looking to start a stock, accurate brewing is not a make money quick get out it you know industry so you're building a legacy industry with a ton of stainless steel equipment and so it is not like building and I know right And so some of those things some of those entrepreneur things, you can get kind of tricked into like, she just came up with this cool idea that it blew up and then they ordered more from China, you know, which

01:04:30:13 - 01:04:58:12
Todd
is my answer to everybody who thinks I should go on Shark Tank. It's like tons of people don't like, you should go shopping because shark tank's not really looking for artisanal products. They want you're looking for something. They were invited So as you they're not looking to build a legacy right they want to go we saw Wal-Mart with the right inside the thing with Walmart we can just pick up the phone and order 40,000 more.

01:04:58:12 - 01:05:05:06
Todd
You suck. It doesn't work that way. Neither does beer or wine, which is why you don't really see those people.

01:05:05:10 - 01:05:06:23
Jessie
Yeah, that makes sense.

01:05:07:01 - 01:05:08:08
Todd
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:05:08:10 - 01:05:14:12
Jessie
What about pain points that you've experienced in in the industry?

01:05:17:09 - 01:05:43:05
Todd
yeah, I mean, there's been a few. You know, one thing, especially as, you know, time is the only cure for this is that equipment manufacturers and a lot of sort of like stuff that normally is brewing resources they have no idea about socket. So for example, you know all my tanks are wrapped in glycol, which is like a food grade antifreeze.

01:05:44:17 - 01:06:12:19
Todd
so I have a glycol chiller outside and it circulates cold glycol, and then the tanks come on and off to maintain the temperature. Right? It's a very common technology in the brewing industry ever. Dory has a glycol chiller. And so when you call them and you're looking for a glycol chiller, they really don't have any idea how to size a chair where for a socket, right?

01:06:13:01 - 01:06:37:15
Todd
Because it doesn't work the same way that a beer does. Same with like a filter press or things like that. And they have no idea how to size any of that equipment for a socket. So some of it you kind of have to wait, which sometimes results in you like over engineering. So by something because no one has any idea.

01:06:37:16 - 01:07:03:12
Todd
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's been a pretty big pain point. And then, you know, obviously on the distribution side, we were lucky to sign on with like a pretty good distributor who has some user experience. But you know, every day it's, Hey, yeah, every day, you know, we every day with sales people in the market and stuff, you're like, I know you want to go to this noodle place and sushi place and all that.

01:07:03:12 - 01:07:27:19
Todd
Do they do that brand but also go to the also go to machine shop and the taco place and the whatever. Yeah. We actually as a sidewalk do really well and cheese shops so we're in a number of really high end gross for Machine Kitchen in Boston and even Murrays and Concord cheese shop like they just do really well with it.

01:07:27:21 - 01:07:43:19
Jessie
Yeah well I think that's one of the things that was a big takeaway for me experiencing, you know so many sucky experiences in Japan was I mean, there are two things that, you know, that I really learned well, probably three.

01:07:43:21 - 01:07:44:14
Todd
Yeah.

01:07:44:16 - 01:08:12:13
Jessie
Is the versatility of saké with all the multiple types of foods you're eating in one setting. You know, wine can it's it's open. But you, you just certain certain wines go better with certain foods and saké is more even keel and open too. So so many types of flavors. In one setting, you can have meat, you can have fish, you can have sushi, you can have, you know, whatever.

01:08:12:15 - 01:08:20:23
Jessie
And that to me was like a light bulb. wow. That's really, really cool. Yeah. You know, and the second.

01:08:21:00 - 01:08:41:12
Todd
Half of that is the acid. Yeah. You know, there's so much acid in wine, it's just, like, so high compared to saké or beer. And so those are my experiences, right? I come from the beer industry into saké, so I'm used to kind of a lower acid. That blisteringly high acid level on wine is challenging.

01:08:41:14 - 01:08:59:21
Jessie
You know, 100%. And the other component that was kind of surprising, we met up my my wife's cousin lives there and he married a Japanese woman. And so we met up with their friends while we were in Osaka. And we're like, Yeah, let's go to a saké tasting. So they took us to a place where it's literally a place for saké tasting.

01:08:59:21 - 01:09:15:16
Jessie
And you sit at like picnic tables and have a refrigerator over here of all these 11.5 bottles, and they probably just put ten of them on the table. And everybody took a little sip and tried it. And then just it around. And then that was that was the end of it. I'm like, That's the end of it. Yeah.

01:09:15:20 - 01:09:27:07
Jessie
But I'm I was, you know, surprised to see all these different styles of saké in the refrigerator open. And I've since learned that it doesn't go bad like, like in the case.

01:09:27:07 - 01:09:46:23
Todd
Of no, it's not like wine where you open it and you got like a wink. Yeah, I have. I mean, saké bottles between me and my wife don't really last that long in the house, but I've had saké opening for six months before. Wow. Just opened the bottle in the bar, got pushed to the back of the beer fridge or whatever, and you go to drink it.

01:09:47:00 - 01:09:48:04
Jessie
It's insane.

01:09:48:04 - 01:09:54:18
Todd
To me. I mean, it's it's different because you've introduced oxygen, but it's not bad.

01:09:54:21 - 01:09:57:05
Jessie
Yeah, that is so.

01:09:57:05 - 01:10:01:11
Todd
Yeah. Fucking with age gets kind of earthier and nutty. Yeah.

01:10:01:13 - 01:10:14:08
Jessie
So from a restaurant perspective, that's a very interesting thing to have a tasting appearing because you can keep the bottles in the fridge and you don't have to sell. You know, you can get the one five save costs, you know, and.

01:10:14:09 - 01:10:17:05
Todd
It's actually I'm sorry to interrupt. It's 1.801.

01:10:17:06 - 01:10:18:13
Jessie
Point eight liter. Sorry.

01:10:18:15 - 01:10:45:22
Todd
Okay. remember how I talked about single is 180 milliliters. That's one goal. Everything in the cycling world is built off. Okay, So 180 milliliters is one third. Okay? And then 1.8 is like the typical kind of bottle in a restaurant, right? And then they have these glass things they use to move saké around breweries in Japan. that's 18 liters.

01:10:46:00 - 01:10:55:17
Todd
And then they report taxation and production numbers in what's called one coconut, which is 180. Okay. So yeah.

01:10:55:17 - 01:10:56:03
Jessie
That makes sense.

01:10:56:03 - 01:10:58:07
Todd
Everything's built off that single, single.

01:10:58:07 - 01:11:07:05
Jessie
Serving that well, that makes sense. That's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. What is your outlook for sucking in 2024?

01:11:08:00 - 01:11:35:21
Todd
I'm pretty excited about 24. We are starting to expand to a number of different markets and we're having some interesting conversations with some distributors in different markets. You know, as New England is always very obviously, I want to be everywhere in New England, but I think there's like so much upside, you know, there are some people who are ahead of me for sure.

01:11:35:23 - 01:12:10:05
Todd
Society is open there. I don't know how many tens of millions of dollars of brewery, but you know huge, gigantic modern brewery in upstate New York, Brooklyn and Brooklyn sign a cool deal with. So they have a partnership and they're starting to look at increased distribution. So what I'm excited about is craft stock getting a broader piece of the pie across the country and across the world because it's just so different.

01:12:10:05 - 01:12:21:22
Todd
Yeah, it's the same thing with craft beer in our stocking, you know? So I deliver it to account. Sometimes it's gone ten miles. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's two weeks old. It is.

01:12:22:00 - 01:12:31:05
Jessie
Our consumers are trained to love craft and they've they've been trained to love higher quality beverages. So it just makes total sense.

01:12:31:07 - 01:12:50:22
Todd
Yeah, that's what we need. We need more craft soccer in the United States. And so there's a good number of breweries We just got to educate people about where they are and how to get them and see some sort of increased distribution. Yeah, so that people can try it. Yeah. Yeah.

01:12:51:00 - 01:12:59:10
Jessie
So, Todd, what are your passions outside of, you know, spending the night in the brewery and.

01:12:59:12 - 01:13:03:04
Todd
That's a passion necessity for sure. But yeah.

01:13:03:06 - 01:13:05:09
Jessie
What's your passions outside of work?

01:13:05:11 - 01:13:09:20
Todd
Outside of work? There's not a lot of when you own the brewery.

01:13:09:20 - 01:13:10:23
Jessie
And there's.

01:13:10:23 - 01:13:22:02
Todd
Not a lot of ads. Ah, no, I spend as much time as I can with my family. I have a wife and two awesome kids and she is 13 going on 20 and.

01:13:22:06 - 01:13:23:00
Jessie
Yeah, that's about right.

01:13:23:00 - 01:13:44:17
Todd
I try to spend as much time with yeah, just as much time with my family as possible. Shoot archery quite often in my backyard so I shoot a lot of archery helps kind of calm down the elevated levels of cortisol that produce at work. And then I love to bake and cook. So I actually bake a lot of bread for my family.

01:13:44:17 - 01:13:45:21
Jessie
That's hard. So you're.

01:13:45:21 - 01:13:46:19
Todd
Good?

01:13:46:20 - 01:13:49:05
Jessie
Well, brew your bread.

01:13:49:05 - 01:13:51:02
Todd
Is not our bread is not.

01:13:51:02 - 01:13:58:00
Jessie
Baking bread. It's so hard. It's not well, throwing the gluten free element that is hard.

01:13:58:18 - 01:14:04:11
Todd
yeah. Gluten free bread is hard. It's basically you're trying to make like, a delicious sandcastle.

01:14:04:14 - 01:14:06:03
Jessie
Sandcastle. There's no.

01:14:06:08 - 01:14:19:15
Todd
Nelson. There's nothing to really. Yeah. And so it's very difficult. My sister in law is celiac, and so I've tried my hands at gluten free baking, and it's very.

01:14:19:15 - 01:14:20:06
Jessie
It's an art.

01:14:20:06 - 01:14:38:22
Todd
Anyone who does it I off Yeah but yeah I do that I watch sci fi movies and TV shows and kind of chill out. I don't really have a lot. I would like to have a lot of hobbies, but yeah, someday you'll get back. I convinced my wife. I convinced my wife to build a giant brewery. So that's it.

01:14:39:00 - 01:14:41:10
Todd
I saw her locked out of hobby, you know.

01:14:41:12 - 01:14:53:07
Jessie
Yeah, I have. I have one remaining question, and it's the most important. No, just kidding. Are you are Since you're sci fi fan, does that include Star Wars?

01:14:53:09 - 01:14:54:03
Todd
Of course.

01:14:54:05 - 01:14:55:10
Jessie
I didn't know.

01:14:55:12 - 01:15:20:23
Todd
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. I love Star Wars. You know, listen, I. You know, the Star Wars, George Lucas, the original stuff is based a lot on the writings of, you know, a lot of stuff that I've it's based a lot on, you know, a lot of writings that a lot of people follow to make stories. And so there's the whole hero's journey and the know call to adventure and stuff.

01:15:20:23 - 01:15:42:14
Todd
And so yeah, that's he really tapped into to some of the basic components behind a lot of really successful sci fi and yeah, well put a lot of Star Wars. I love Star Trek. I can't choose between. Yeah that's usually the question everyone with Star Wars or Star Trek. I mean that's a tough one. I don't think I could choose.

01:15:42:14 - 01:15:47:23
Jessie
But yeah, we grew up watching Star Wars over and over and over and over.

01:15:48:01 - 01:16:10:18
Todd
That was great. However, on the flip side, there is way more Star Trek content. Yeah, right. So I mean, just now they're starting to make these amazing Star Wars shows like Brand New Memorial or Thanks to Disney. So I was just on. Yeah, it was really great. But, you know, Star Trek has been making shows, you know, for decades.

01:16:10:18 - 01:16:34:03
Todd
And so there's a lot more Star Trek content. I feel but yeah, Star Trek has also been less successful in the movies. Some of the original series movies were pretty clunky. You know, if you talk to any sci fi fan, it usually is even an odds. So Star Wars, Star Trek one and three and five are pretty bad.

01:16:34:03 - 01:16:38:18
Todd
And two, four and six Army. Okay, so in the movies. But yeah.

01:16:38:22 - 01:16:39:20
Jessie
I think there's a little bit of.

01:16:39:20 - 01:17:04:19
Todd
That because a lot of yeah, there's a lot of yeah. There's actually a really cool thing called the machete order. I don't know if you've ever heard of that, but it's a, it's a smarter way to watch Star Wars. And so if you look at the first six movies, sorry, Machete method order sorry, machete order was made before the later movies.

01:17:04:19 - 01:17:27:06
Todd
Right. With Ray and Fang and all that. So if you look the six movies that George Lucas made, the smartest way to watch them is to watch one and two. So Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back then, watched two and three and then six. Okay. Is that was I I'm sorry, four or five, two, three, six if you want to think about that.

01:17:27:07 - 01:17:51:14
Todd
So four is the new Hulk, which is the original Star Wars that came out in 1977. You watch that. You watch Empire. Hopefully everyone is watching this podcast has seen Star Wars. I won't spoil anything. So at the end of Empire, obviously, you find out, you know, Darth Vader's father, you have all this like downturn and then you go back and watch two and three, which is the rise of Aniket.

01:17:51:15 - 01:18:05:17
Todd
I saw the fall of Skywalker into Darth Vader and then you watched six, which is of the Jedi, which is all about the redemption of Vader and the rise of Skywalker. So it's from a story arc perspective, it's a much smarter way to write.

01:18:05:17 - 01:18:08:10
Jessie
I had not thought of that at all. Interesting.

01:18:08:12 - 01:18:26:14
Todd
You know, I never thought about it either. But there was this guy, I don't know his name. I apologize. But the machete, it was something called the Machete blog. And he came up with this, looking at it from a story arc perspective. And so it's called the machete order. I guess now would be really easy to tack on.

01:18:26:19 - 01:18:33:01
Todd
You Should watch Rogue one, four or five, two, three, six and then all the other ones. Yeah.

01:18:33:03 - 01:18:40:11
Jessie
Well, hopefully they keep continuing to release more and more movies. I mean, The Mandalorian was.

01:18:40:13 - 01:19:07:03
Todd
Probably as long as they released. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But there's some awesome, you know, I mean, there's some really great sci fi stuff that doesn't reach that epic cultural level of, you know, of impacts like The Expanse. I don't know if you've ever seen that, but it really amazing TV show. Yes, it's amazing. The Expanse, all the Disney Star Wars stuff.

01:19:07:03 - 01:19:17:02
Todd
Obviously, a lot of their Star Wars shows are Star Trek, right? All the Star Trek shows going forward have been pretty great. And strange new worlds. We'll see. Yeah.

01:19:17:04 - 01:19:18:21
Jessie
Awesome. Well, Todd, this is.

01:19:19:02 - 01:19:28:12
Todd
Maybe it's like, go ahead. Go ahead. I just going to say, maybe if we keep brewing sci fi inspired nerdy Sokka, some of those people will come back.

01:19:28:17 - 01:19:32:21
Jessie
Yeah, well, there's certainly a market for that, for sure.

01:19:32:21 - 01:19:34:18
Todd
Yeah. What's going to happen is always open.

01:19:34:18 - 01:19:38:06
Jessie
So a lot of die hards. Yeah, it's a great niche.

01:19:38:07 - 01:19:50:07
Todd
Yeah. Thanks. Yeah, we do. We also have a small 1988 Panasonic TV that sits on top of the bar and we play nothing but sci fi.

01:19:50:08 - 01:19:52:10
Jessie
So a nice.

01:19:52:12 - 01:20:00:01
Todd
Yeah. No, no sound. Just yeah, just have my eyes nice. And then a lot of Friday nights here we have sci fi movie night.

01:20:00:07 - 01:20:01:10
Jessie
fun.

01:20:01:11 - 01:20:07:22
Todd
We'll play. Yeah. Play some kind of classic sci fi movie at 8:00. Shut out all the lights.

01:20:08:05 - 01:20:37:08
Jessie
that's fun. Awesome. All this has been so much fun. I feel like we get through a lot of content and psychoeducation within a very, very short period of time. We covered a lot and you know, congratulations on your career and all your success. And you know, there's only if you only go up from here, right? And it's a it's the great time to be where you're at because, you know, I'm all in on Sokka and I feel like it's a category that's going to grow.

01:20:37:08 - 01:20:42:01
Jessie
Obviously, it's a small base, but I feel like it's going to grow and, you know, yeah.

01:20:42:04 - 01:21:09:14
Todd
I think it's going in the right direction for sure. Yeah. And, you know, every account that we get is like a small victory is a sort of really great step in that direction. I mean, we have draft stock obviously in Japanese inspired, you know, sushi inspired restaurants, but we also have draft stock in a Jewish deli in a New England seafood place and things like that, perfect.

01:21:09:19 - 01:21:13:14
Todd
The more we can kind of grow. That's absolutely.

01:21:13:16 - 01:21:19:06
Jessie
Right. So how do we get in touch with you? You have a website you want to mention.

01:21:19:07 - 01:21:44:15
Todd
Sure. Absolutely. I mean, far this star socket. Yep. Dot down is probably the best place right here on Mercury. That's right. We start talking about Cosmos. Great. Obviously at the star socket on Instagram, we're also on Facebook or Twitter. That's easy to find. I Always recommend people. So I don't know if you've ever used Lincoln Mobile, but on Instagram, go to AFR, the star socket.

01:21:44:17 - 01:22:08:12
Todd
There's an amazing link in our bio section that just goes to like a mini website. So that's got everything about what socket is on draft and taproom, what events we're having in the happening recent PR, we were just on TV a couple of times here in the Boston area. Yeah. So this is the fifth podcast I've done since June.

01:22:08:15 - 01:22:23:09
Todd
wow. That's that'll be up there as well. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. So yeah, the link advisory Instagram is usually where I try to push everybody for just the sheer economy of yeah, you can't.

01:22:23:09 - 01:22:26:00
Jessie
It's hard to manage at all as this.

01:22:26:01 - 01:22:47:04
Todd
Yeah very. Yeah. Luckily my wife Amy has she has a regular sort of danger but she has kind of taken some of the website, social media away from me just because I'm Bruins hockey. I'm running the taproom, I'm selling out on the market and stuff. And so I just, you know, got to give up something at some point.

01:22:47:04 - 01:22:47:14
Todd
Yeah.

01:22:47:16 - 01:22:49:00
Jessie
Yep. 100%. Yeah.

01:22:49:05 - 01:22:53:21
Todd
Well, again, she's great. sorry I said she's great.

01:22:54:03 - 01:22:54:21
Jessie
that's our.

01:22:54:21 - 01:23:00:00
Todd
Instagram is better. Our Instagram is better. All of our websites that is better because she's.

01:23:00:02 - 01:23:04:14
Jessie
She's got an eye for design and patient enough to learn it all.

01:23:04:16 - 01:23:08:05
Todd
She yeah, it's not a career but she certainly has a match for that.

01:23:08:06 - 01:23:31:11
Jessie
That's really cool. Awesome. Well, I'm so glad that your wife is so supportive and you have this venture together. It's really, really cool and unique situation. So, you know, all the all the best and anything I can do to help, just reach out. And I'm sure with me leaning in on the stock industry, we'll be in touch coming here the next quarter quite a bit.

01:23:31:11 - 01:23:36:21
Jessie
So I'm really looking forward to that to be to be announced next year. But it's pretty exciting stuff.

01:23:36:22 - 01:23:37:11
Todd
I can't wait.

01:23:37:11 - 01:23:38:13
Jessie
Yeah, it's going to be good.

01:23:38:15 - 01:23:39:07
Todd
Yeah.

01:23:39:09 - 01:23:47:14
Jessie
But anyway, you know, happy holidays to you and your family and cheers.

01:23:47:16 - 01:23:53:03
Todd
Cheers. Bye bye. By YouTube.

01:23:53:05 - 01:24:18:01
Jessie
By YouTube. Next Thursday, I'm speaking with Mary Carlino and Brice. Why a track at vinyl? You want this dynamic duo is creating one of the coolest businesses in the industry. I'm hooked. Mary, financier turned wine lover and Bryce, a wine writer, met in grad school and decided to take the entrepreneurial road with their love of wines from all corners of the world.

01:24:18:03 - 01:24:49:19
Jessie
They meet the most interesting people at these wineries through existing contacts or actually travel there themselves, which is absolutely amazing. They find exceptional value wines that we do not normally have access to and for all great prices. The most expensive wine is $35. We tasted three wines on the podcast that knocked it out of the park, both in the flavor profile, but also the stories behind them, which makes each one of them special.

01:24:49:21 - 01:25:16:05
Jessie
Please visit the now u wine v i in a like a w i indeed.com and check out these amazing deals that you cannot get anywhere else in our industry. If you are looking for a wine club to blow your mind, look no further. Mary and Bryce have done it like no other. Tune in next Thursday and have a great week.

01:25:16:07 - 01:25:20:15
Jessie
This week's episode was produced by Fedora J Productions.