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Bill Gamelli CEO Mocktail Beverage

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📢I talk🎙️with Bill Gamelli the Founder and CEO of Mocktails. He and two other families wanted an alternative to drinking over 10 years ago well before the trend has taken place over the last couple of years. 👏🍷 🎇 🎉 ✨ 👏 🥂  😁

Now on YouTube! 📽️🎞️  https://youtu.be/twbmiWcVEuQ

Bill’s inspiration for creating Mocktails was a result of the struggle his wife endured while not only trying to get pregnant but also staying the course on becoming partner at her law firm.

Bill quickly realized this was also a problem his closest friends were trying to solve which resulted in Mocktails.

Their latest iteration of Mocktails included Tales of the Cocktails winner Ezra Star. They used Ezra’s expertise and sought to source the exact botanicals that make their flavors unique and well-balanced.

These uniquely named cocktails are low in sugar and calories, vegan friendly and 99% recyclable packaging. They are the highest-rated mocktails with Master, Double Gold, Golds and Silver in both The Spirits Business’ “The Low & No Masters” competition and the San Francisco World Spirits Competition in 2021 and 2022.

Bill is a very inspiring individual. Not only has he co-founded companies in his career he also co-founded the Adult Non-Alcoholic Beverage Association to increase awareness for this growing industry.

Thank you for listening and be sure to subscribe to be notified of all new episodes!

NOW ON YOUTUBE!!! Thank you for Listening! Join us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter!

Host Jessie Ott's Profile on LinkedIn





00:01:12:20 - 00:01:23:12
Jessie Ott
Hello, everybody. This is Thursday, Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. My name is Jesse Art, and I have Bill Gormley here from Mocktails. Welcome, Bill. I'm super excited to have you here with us.

00:01:23:13 - 00:01:27:13
Bill Gamelli
Thank you, Jesse. We're privileged to be here. Thanks for the time.

00:01:27:15 - 00:01:29:20
Jessie Ott
So where are you calling in from today?

00:01:29:22 - 00:01:51:12
Bill Gamelli
So today from Vermont. We live in the outside of Boston, but we come up to Vermont for skiing. So actually, I have twin 11 year old kids on the mountain today in their ski race team. So it's awfully fun to be here in Vermont. And interestingly enough, I've done a number of my podcasts and interviews from this very spot.

00:01:51:12 - 00:01:57:02
Jessie Ott
Oh, that's awesome. I love that. So your kids are 11. You have twins.

00:01:57:04 - 00:02:07:05
Bill Gamelli
You're 11 and then older, a son who is just turned six, they just turned 11 and an older boy who just turned 16. So we have three. We're we're blessed to have three.

00:02:07:07 - 00:02:15:16
Jessie Ott
Yeah, That's amazing. I love that. And they're both. And it was the older one into skiing too then or see just come in and watch them.

00:02:15:18 - 00:02:26:11
Bill Gamelli
Oh gosh, no. So we have between the three kids, we have a very serious baseball player soccer players, swimmers and all three ski race as well.

00:02:26:13 - 00:02:30:02
Jessie Ott
Oh wow. That's awesome. How do I. I don't know how you find the time.

00:02:30:02 - 00:02:32:16
Bill Gamelli
I don't either.

00:02:32:16 - 00:02:40:04
Jessie Ott
So if it's competitive skiing and you're in Vermont and that is it a traveling kind of thing or do you go all over.

00:02:40:06 - 00:03:03:23
Bill Gamelli
Well, no, it's mid Vermont. We're in the mid Vermont ski race circuit. So we're at a small mountain, but we do race at Killington and Paco and oh, chemo and Woodstock and Middlebury. That's our that's our circuit. But we are not on one of the more competitive teams. We do it so that the kids are become great skiers.

00:03:04:01 - 00:03:07:10
Bill Gamelli
Our kids probably won't become Olympians.

00:03:07:12 - 00:03:09:08
Jessie Ott
But that's okay.

00:03:09:10 - 00:03:30:14
Bill Gamelli
But it's an awesome time. And but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the kids we race against from some of the bigger mountains do become Olympians. And in fact, this morning we had Julia Ford, who is an Olympic U.S. Olympic ski team, member of the U.S. Olympic ski team. In the past, she was giving the talk to the kids this morning to get them psyched up for their race training today.

00:03:30:14 - 00:03:33:23
Bill Gamelli
So it's just awesome community to be a part of.

00:03:34:01 - 00:03:44:19
Jessie Ott
Oh, I love that. I'm from Iowa, so there wasn't a whole lot of skiing there. But we did go to Wisconsin and Minnesota from time to time. It's been years since I've lived.

00:03:44:22 - 00:03:57:16
Bill Gamelli
Lindsey Vonn grew up on a hill called Buck Hill, which is right near where my wife grew up. And it's one of the smallest mountains you ever seen. And she became the world's best skier. So, you know, it doesn't matter where you start, it's where you end up through it.

00:03:57:18 - 00:04:09:03
Jessie Ott
It's all right. It's all the work you put into it. Whether it's a big hill or small hill. That's funny. So tell us a little bit about yourself, Bill. Where where are you from? Where did you grow up?

00:04:09:05 - 00:04:30:16
Bill Gamelli
Well, I grew up in Massachusetts, so I went to Boston University, where I was lucky enough to meet my wife at school at B.U. and we lived and worked in Boston for many years. She became an attorney, which is all part of our story when we met, how we met and and then she went on to become an attorney and a partner in a law firm.

00:04:30:16 - 00:05:09:11
Bill Gamelli
And I went on to be on Wall Street for 15 years. And when I say that, it's a lot less glamorous than it sounds, I was I was I was always in Boston, but had clients all over the world. And I specialized in some exit transactions that I was doing for others. But that's all part of the story is how we met our careers and I feel like I've been I've been in training for, you know, basically launching this this company and launching these products and learning how to become, you know, a leader of of through mentors and other folks that I've worked with over the years to lead a company and not just build

00:05:09:11 - 00:05:35:10
Bill Gamelli
a product, but build a solution, not just build a company, but build a culture and literally be one of the founding members of the entire industry because we were early in the journey but become a founding member of the industry. So literally building an industry on top of everything else. So it's been it's been quite a journey, but it literally started when I met my wife in college in Boston at B.U. all those years ago.

00:05:35:12 - 00:05:45:09
Jessie Ott
Wow. That's that's that's awesome. So you were in Wall Street. So what what kind of what kind of career did you have there?

00:05:45:11 - 00:06:10:06
Bill Gamelli
Well, you know, I started like so many just going into a training program of one of the big firms and learned very quickly that I needed to have a specialty. I was not going to be I didn't believe I would be successful being a generalist. I just didn't have the background, I didn't have the training. I didn't I didn't go to an Ivy League school like so many others did.

00:06:10:08 - 00:06:32:00
Bill Gamelli
So what I did is I threw another mentor. I found a specialization in what was a very small cottage industry at the time. We're talking let's go in a time machine back to 1995, the venture capital industry and the word private equity didn't even exist back then. It was private equity was a almost like a subset of venture capital.

00:06:32:01 - 00:07:08:04
Bill Gamelli
And private equity became it's not only it's own industry, but dwarfs venture capital. Now, in terms of the amount of money being managed in private equity. So as I was working with a few very small private equity funds, they were smaller than venture capital at the time. So I specialized in venture capital and private equity exits and I specialized in that business and I was very privileged to learn that business and also kind of become one of the founders of that type of business that I was doing, where there was a handful of us that did this business around the world, very small handful and others have gone on to be true men justly, hugely

00:07:08:04 - 00:07:33:06
Bill Gamelli
successful doing what they're doing. And we had a great run of it. But what I what I learned from it, what I took away from it, was I was working with entrepreneurs, founders, CEOs, venture capital, private equity investors. And I literally could have the bird's eye view of how people were building companies and growing companies and then bringing those companies either public or going M&A.

00:07:33:07 - 00:07:52:16
Bill Gamelli
And I saw a trend. I saw thousands and thousands of companies, some of which didn't do very well and some of which went out of business. But a few of them did extremely well. And I learned from that experience. And I and I thought to myself, I absolutely love what I do every day, but boy, would I. I feel like I'm well-suited to someday create my own company.

00:07:52:21 - 00:07:56:16
Bill Gamelli
So I made that my goal. And then, you know, here we are.

00:07:56:16 - 00:08:02:06
Jessie Ott
Wow. Okay. That's very interesting. And so the exit piece of it, what does that mean?

00:08:02:08 - 00:08:30:01
Bill Gamelli
So when when, when when a founder and a founding group of of investors and families or individuals come together to create a company, you can either grow that company and remain totally private. You can stay a private company forever, or you can grow that company and then sell it to a larger company. There, thereby exiting the company. Or you can become a division of that company.

00:08:30:01 - 00:08:57:10
Bill Gamelli
You may not exit really, but you may you may call it an exit transaction, but you may become a a division of a larger company. Or there's another pathway which is you be you stay independent, but rather than being private, you go public on the public markets, but through and through an initial public offering or an IPO. So for the investors I was working with and the companies I was working with, they were either going through a merger, an acquisition, or they were going public through an IPO.

00:08:57:12 - 00:09:14:19
Bill Gamelli
And that's where I would, you know, do the work that I was working on, which was basically helping them post public exit transactions. It sounds very sophisticated. It sounds sounds sounds like high finance. But really all I was doing was helping them gain access to their money that they had made. And they were they owned shares in a company.

00:09:14:19 - 00:09:24:02
Bill Gamelli
I was helping them gain access to the cash that they had that they needed access to through their company's shareholding. So that's really what all it was.

00:09:24:02 - 00:09:32:09
Jessie Ott
Okay, Interesting. Very interesting. What decisions did you make or what opportunities came to you to leave that industry?

00:09:32:11 - 00:10:00:16
Bill Gamelli
So again, being so fortunate to work with some really, really great, talented, super smart people. Over the years I had learned that my mentality, my chemistry, sort of just who I was. I was more geared towards being an entrepreneur than working inside of a huge company. And everybody has to find their calling and everyone finds their path. And for me, I just found that to be a very attractive path.

00:10:00:18 - 00:10:24:04
Bill Gamelli
So my partner and I, we left together on the same day to start a company and we went through that lifecycle and that didn't work out so well. We started a company and it just sometimes it doesn't work. And we, we actually went through that process though, and it was a tremendous, incredible learning experience. I don't regret, you know, anything I've ever done.

00:10:24:04 - 00:10:51:14
Bill Gamelli
It was it was it was just a big growth experience and a learning experience. But through that first company that we created, which was an international company based in, actually was based in China, but I was here in the U.S., I, I discovered this need, this desire through my wife and friends and family that existed for a an alternate of the two alcoholic products because there was just a lot of us being left behind.

00:10:51:16 - 00:11:14:02
Bill Gamelli
So when I saw the pain and the what my wife was going through as a person, as we were trying to get pregnant with our children, it was very painful for her to go through the roller coaster. You know, it took us a while. We we we were having trouble. It took us a while to have our kids, but she couldn't drink and she wasn't you know, she worked she had quit caffeine.

00:11:14:03 - 00:11:32:03
Bill Gamelli
She was doing everything she could possibly do to not only, you know, get pregnant, but stay pregnant. And and through that process, though, she became less and less social because I'm not drinking what? Of course, you'd be asked the questions all the time. Why are you're drinking? Do would you like a glass of wine? Can I get you something at the bar?

00:11:32:03 - 00:11:50:11
Bill Gamelli
Is everything okay? Are you sick? Are you know. Are you getting pregnant? Are you you know, are are you in recovery? Should I not be offering you a drink? And so there was a lot of psychological emotional roller coaster that goes on when you're not drinking. But most of the world was was sort of immune to it or blind to it.

00:11:50:11 - 00:12:08:04
Bill Gamelli
But she was really going through this and I saw the impact that it had on her and it took me a while to put two and two and two together. But once I saw that wait a second, this was just it's not that you don't want to be with your colleagues or your clients and your and your partners.

00:12:08:06 - 00:12:30:18
Bill Gamelli
It's this it's this this very disruptive, very unsettling conversation that you constantly have to have around. Why aren't you drinking? That's causing you to not be social. It's causing you not to want to be in those environments. So there must be a product, there must be something out there that we can bridge, you know, the gap. And that way you can stop talking about why you're not drinking and just enjoy yourself.

00:12:30:20 - 00:12:46:22
Bill Gamelli
So I searched the world over. I mean, the Internet was obviously invented at the time, so this was going back 11 years ago. 12 years ago. The Internet was clearly there. Google was there. I mean, I searched everywhere on Earth. I could not find anything. Well, there was one product. It was called modules. That was.

00:12:47:02 - 00:12:47:20
Jessie Ott
Yeah, right.

00:12:47:21 - 00:13:06:09
Bill Gamelli
The thing that was a distance and and but Tracy's not a beer drinker, so I was like, Gosh, I can't believe there's nothing out there. There's water, soda, lemonade, iced tea, and the God forsaken, you know, thing we always used to get was cranberry seltzer. That was literally, you know, that was the go to for everybody. I'll just have a cranberry seltzer.

00:13:06:11 - 00:13:33:14
Bill Gamelli
But how many cranberry seltzers can you have when everyone else is drinking beer, wine, spirits, cocktails, everyone's enjoying themselves and you got your cranberry seltzer. It's really not fair. It really is not back in class citizenship like you're leading. So I looked everywhere, and then one day on the beach, I'll never forget it. I sat up in my chair and I said, Oh my gosh, honey, what if what if we created a product that you could enjoy in those social environments?

00:13:33:14 - 00:13:51:06
Bill Gamelli
We could totally make this, you know, make make this product for you. And I had to think about it. So I put my Wall Street hat back on. I said, Well, is there a market? You know, is there pain? Is you know, what are the what are the market dynamics behind, you know, starting a product to solve any given problem?

00:13:51:07 - 00:14:13:18
Bill Gamelli
Like so many entrepreneurs before me, if you look at every new company, you know, everything from Jeff Bezos, you know, identifying that we needed to do things better from a supply chain point of view. And he started with books and, you know, Steve Jobs with what he did with bringing the mainframe computer to a personal computer, to other other everyday, everyday products.

00:14:13:18 - 00:14:33:12
Bill Gamelli
Michael Dell did the same. You know, there was just so many examples of entrepreneurs that identified, you know, a pain point or a need and then created products to address or services to address that need. That's all we did is we said there is a there's a huge need, there's a real pain. People would be willing to pay for products to solve their need.

00:14:33:12 - 00:14:57:21
Bill Gamelli
And so we started looking into creating the company. And then I talked to friends. This is just see where it was so unbelievably surprising when I talked to friends of ours and I said, Look, we're going confidentially. This is what we're going through, having trouble getting pregnant. Tracy's trying to become a partner in her law firm. And, you know, every time they asked her if she's why she's not drinking, Are you getting pregnant or are you trying to get pregnant?

00:14:57:23 - 00:15:17:10
Bill Gamelli
That's a that's a superhighway to the mommy track, not the partner track. Because, you know, if you're going to be a true partner, if you're really going to work hard and be a partner, then, you know, usually there's no you know, usually the people that are going to be partners in the in the in the firm, they don't have kids, especially women.

00:15:17:10 - 00:15:36:19
Bill Gamelli
So so the glass ceiling is real anyway. Any male, any man that's listening out there, we lived it. I want you all to know that the glass ceiling is real for women. I mean, you guys, as as as women have to decide a lot of things that we as men are completely ignorant to. We don't understand. So I lived this reality with her.

00:15:36:19 - 00:16:08:13
Bill Gamelli
And I when I called friends and say, confidentially, this is what we're going through. And I wanted to run this by you because, you know, we kind of feel like we're the only ones. And I was stunned not only to find out that our friends were going through the same journey we were, although for reasons we also learned on that on that first phone call that they were starting a beverage company to solve the same problem that I was starting mocktails to solve the same problem, and we just didn't go there, even though we had known each other our whole lives.

00:16:08:15 - 00:16:11:03
Jessie Ott
That's incredible. Yeah. Are you serious?

00:16:11:03 - 00:16:11:14
Bill Gamelli
Yes.

00:16:11:14 - 00:16:15:13
Jessie Ott
Yeah, I guess when you put it out in the universe, it really works, doesn't it?

00:16:15:15 - 00:16:32:22
Bill Gamelli
We. We were shocked. And so what we decided to do, Jesse, was we decided to meet and put it all out there and say, Let's look at your ideas. Let's look at my ideas. Let's let's all get together and figure out, you know, best of ideas, win, period, end of story. And, you know, maybe we can team up.

00:16:33:00 - 00:16:58:02
Bill Gamelli
So we did in our in our three families, there were three drinkers and three nondrinkers and we said, wow, we look just like America because 45% of American adults do not drink alcohol in any given month, whether that's for medication or pregnancy or religion or recovery, whatever your reason is 45. And that's the USDA, the the Department of Justice and the CDC all agree on that number.

00:16:58:04 - 00:17:18:11
Bill Gamelli
There's a huge number of people in any given month but are being social that aren't drinking. And then around the world, there are literally 3 billion of the 7 billion people on Earth don't drink for their own reasons. So there's a lot of people out there that need access to a better solution or a solution than just soda, water, lemonade, iced tea, cranberry seltzer.

00:17:18:11 - 00:17:43:00
Bill Gamelli
So we just joined forces and found a company with our three families. But the other interesting thing was we weren't creating a product for non drinkers only. We took a completely different approach to most companies that are in the space. Most companies that are in the space are creating alcohol alternatives only, and and that's what they're doing, which is perfectly fine.

00:17:43:00 - 00:18:09:03
Bill Gamelli
And I think there's a lot of great, great products out there. But we we chose to basically solve for the occasion as opposed to create a product for non drinkers. And what I mean by that is we are a fully inclusive product, which means if, if you're if you're in mixed company and men, women, old, young, you know, drinkers, nondrinkers, that's fine.

00:18:09:03 - 00:18:34:12
Bill Gamelli
The drinkers want to add alcohol to their mocktail. They're welcome to do that because our our desire was for the six of us as three nondrinkers and three drinkers. We just wanted to enjoy time together. We wanted to be together. We wanted to literally celebrate together. And we didn't want to be on different platforms. We didn't want to be drinking our beer, wine and spirits while they were drinking some nonalcoholic products.

00:18:34:12 - 00:18:51:18
Bill Gamelli
So basically we created something for the occasion that addresses the solution where everyone can be together, drinking the same drink in the same glassware at the same time. The differences. Jesse You might have alcohol in yours, but I may not have an alcohol in mind, but it all looks and feels the same. And no one has to ask you why you're not drinking.

00:18:51:20 - 00:19:18:14
Jessie Ott
Yeah, Or even Really? No. I mean, you know, I mean, if they are if they, uh. If everything looks like a cocktail, then nobody's going to even bother to ask. And what I love about what's happened with this industry in these last few years is it's become normalized and accepted. And people are they're not judging or it's not so much a judgment, but it's not like kind of the struggle that your wife went through.

00:19:18:14 - 00:19:35:18
Jessie Ott
Well, why aren't you drinking? Why aren't you drinking? Why aren't you drinking that There's I've been meeting more and more people over the years that just don't drink. And it's and now I'm excited to have them over. And, you know, I have I have a lot of options to to choose from. So it's it's a win win for everybody.

00:19:35:18 - 00:19:45:15
Jessie Ott
And I'm I'm super excited about what you guys are doing. So. So what happened after you guys kind of talked in and like, what was the next step?

00:19:45:17 - 00:20:05:04
Bill Gamelli
That's where that's where the journey began. And yeah, and it's been quite it's been quite a trip for sure. So, well, we two of our founders had been bartenders and they helped us come up with formulas for the drinks. And what we decided to do at the time was to come up with flavors that people were familiar with.

00:20:05:06 - 00:20:27:00
Bill Gamelli
So things like Moscow mule and sangria and cosmopolitans and margaritas people know and love. So we decided to start there. Later in the journey, we've decided to, you know, move on and we can share some of the new product development things that we have coming. But we decided to create flavors that were loved and understood and create nonalcoholic versions of those.

00:20:27:00 - 00:20:50:20
Bill Gamelli
And really the first thing I did was I said, Well, if I can just take a margarita mix or take a cosmopolitan mix and just water it down and drink it, then there's no business here. There's no there's no pain here. But as it turns out, you certainly can't do that, especially in the United States. Here in the states, we have so many chemicals, preservatives, yellow dye, number 57.

00:20:50:22 - 00:21:16:13
Bill Gamelli
I mean, every filler and and chemical you can think of in preservatives. Oh, my gosh. It's really like we wanted to create something that was not just a nonalcoholic alternative, but we wanted to create something that was truly better for you. And because my wife was going through pregnancy, what we decided to do was we decided to say if a pregnant mother would not put it in her body, it doesn't go in the drink, period.

00:21:16:15 - 00:21:35:06
Bill Gamelli
There is nothing that we're going to put in these drinks because what if a pregnant mother wants to have a non alcoholic drink at some stage and she has a choice and then she drinks something in your drink that could, you know, harm her or her baby or whatever. We're just like, why? There's no need. There's no need to put that stuff in drinks.

00:21:35:06 - 00:21:58:04
Bill Gamelli
But for whatever our U.S. food system has produced just thousands and thousands of food additives and chemicals and preservatives and so forth. So we decided to go the fully clean route and and then it was getting to work on how do we actually make this drink taste good. So that was the next problem was, well, that's a bigger issue than anybody could possibly understand back then.

00:21:58:06 - 00:22:27:11
Bill Gamelli
There's a lot of products today that taste good, but there were none back then. And all the junk in the product was very difficult. Now, something that Ezra Starr taught us, who Ezra Starr is one of the world's best mixologists, and she helped us create the formulas that we make today. But one thing she said was is, hey, it really is easy to take all the junk and gunk out of a product, but it doesn't taste good, or it's really easy to to make it taste good, but it's full of junk and gunk.

00:22:27:13 - 00:22:50:14
Bill Gamelli
But it's really, really, really hard to take all the junk and gunk out and have it taste beautiful. And that's what you've done and that's a victory. And we're going to make it even better by working in balancing our flavors. But that is a victory in and of itself. So that was the process of starting with an idea, starting with a concept, and then iterating on that concept.

00:22:50:14 - 00:23:17:15
Bill Gamelli
And, you know, to really start not just a new a new company, a new product, but to start an industry that's never been there before. You have to learn quickly and you have to learn to fail and be okay with family and then moving on. So we had our first version, our second version, our third version, and we've ended up in a place where we've got, you know, now world class ingredients made to the absolute top standards and world class awards.

00:23:17:15 - 00:23:23:22
Bill Gamelli
And, you know, we're the most awarded nonalcoholic cocktail company. And, you know, but but that's been an evolution over time.

00:23:23:22 - 00:23:51:13
Jessie Ott
Jesse Wow, that's awesome. I love what you say, what you said about failing. You know, I think that's definitely it's hard to do. It's hard to do. But, you know, what's what's exciting about that is that you've had so many iterations and you've learned so much, I'm sure, through different flavors and combining different ingredients. And, you know, on your website you say you scour the earth to go find all these really cool ingredients.

00:23:51:13 - 00:24:06:16
Jessie Ott
And I think that is so smart. And and I, I can't say this for sure, but I would I would say that if you were doing this, you know, that long ago, that that was you were you probably were the industry leader in doing that, you know.

00:24:06:18 - 00:24:28:19
Bill Gamelli
Well, we were the you could say we were kind of crazy because we we we thought it could be done. And that the question the question we literally asked that the six of us had to sit together and say, is it too much to ask to have a clean drink that tastes adult and tastes great without the alcohol?

00:24:28:19 - 00:24:44:04
Bill Gamelli
Is that too much to ask? And we said, well, we don't think so. We think the answer is no, but let's go out and prove it. So it really took a lot. And I'm so glad that some people do read the website because, yes, that's the way we had to scour the earth. And, you know, it's somewhat getting easier.

00:24:44:06 - 00:25:05:11
Bill Gamelli
And there are processes and procedures that now you can go through. But we internally, now we have a new product development process, which is we think second to none. And we think we can have dozens and dozens of flavors over time and and have them be world class ingredients, world class flavors and literally, you know, the word mocktail, I want to put it right out there.

00:25:05:11 - 00:25:25:09
Bill Gamelli
The world, the word mocktail is controversial. You know, when I first started, there wasn't a person that I met anywhere in the United States of America that even had heard of the word mocktail before. I mean, it was like 99.9 out of a 99.9 people, 99.9% of the people had never heard of it before. Then it was like, huh, that's a great idea.

00:25:25:09 - 00:25:50:02
Bill Gamelli
Wow, what a great concept. Then it became, Well, we don't like the word mocktail because you're mocking something. And I'm like, Well, not really. Mocktail just happens to rhyme with cocktail and it describes what the product is. And so so some people actually didn't like the word mocktail because it sounded it seems like it was a little bit too pedestrian and it reminded people of of, you know, a Shirley Temple and, you know, a kids drink.

00:25:50:02 - 00:26:10:17
Bill Gamelli
And and so we've gone through that phase. But what what's actually happened is, is because we came around and we made we are mocktails dot com. You know we created mocktails as a brand. We got the name out there. You know, when people would Google nonalcoholic cocktails, the word mocktail would come up. And now other companies have adopted, you know, the verbiage of mocktail.

00:26:10:17 - 00:26:31:12
Bill Gamelli
Basically the word now mocktail has become the global concern that the global consumers way of describing what it is they want is the word mocktail. So we've gone through this, these operations. And so, yes, it was not easy. We did have to scour the earth. We had to be the first and and it was okay. I mean, we we've been through a lot.

00:26:31:12 - 00:26:55:19
Bill Gamelli
We've been through, you know, many years of perfecting what we have today. But what's wonderful is we're in a great position today. We've lived through the trials and tribulations. We've lived through COVID and Brexit and everything else that we had to live through. But today we have a tremendous brand and a tremendous platform and a tremendous new product development methodology, and we're excited for that for what's to come.

00:26:55:21 - 00:27:00:05
Jessie Ott
So what's the tie into the UK?

00:27:00:05 - 00:27:24:15
Bill Gamelli
It's a great question. Thank you for asking. After we got started in the U.S., it was very clear to me that I could not quite get the ingredients and the the super hyper clean drinks I wanted at that pinnacle. I want it to be not just a better drink, I want it to be the best drink on Earth is what I was going for.

00:27:24:17 - 00:27:59:19
Bill Gamelli
And I couldn't get there because of our are ingredient sourcing. There was a lot of GMOs in the in the market. There was the flavorings weren't quite there. There was fracturing processes, weren't there? The manufacturing equipment wasn't quite right for what I wanted to accomplish here. So for years I struggled mightily. And, you know, through struggle, you learn to get better through through struggling and realizing that I could not create the world's best drink with what I had access to in the United States.

00:27:59:19 - 00:28:23:11
Bill Gamelli
What I learned was if if I if I want to have the absolute world's best ingredients and world's best solution in the right packaging in the right way, I wanted to do it. I had to open up my mind and say, Where on earth can I make what I think is the best on earth? And what I realized was, is there was a renaissance going on in the UK.

00:28:23:13 - 00:28:45:20
Bill Gamelli
So there were other people that were, you know, looking at this premiumization of soft drinks. And there was this this nonalcoholic trend was beginning over there, too. And decided to do was, you know, if you want to be a part of the Renaissance, you have to move with the Renaissance is happening. So we decided to be a part of the Renaissance going on in and around London.

00:28:45:22 - 00:28:46:11
Bill Gamelli
And so it.

00:28:46:12 - 00:28:48:19
Jessie Ott
Was that.

00:28:48:21 - 00:29:11:18
Bill Gamelli
That was we we started our process in 2017 over there. And by the time we had a drink in the bottle over there, I think it was 2018. So we basically started from scratch. We completely started everything all over again. And we asked as we started help us out and we we started from the ground up. We basically rethought every ingredient.

00:29:11:20 - 00:29:12:15
Jessie Ott
Oh, wow.

00:29:12:21 - 00:29:34:22
Bill Gamelli
Processes. We basically took the original flavors that we had loved but weren't quite what we wanted them to be. And we started from zero and we completely rebuilt the the ingredient deck, the supply chain and the manufacturing processes. So we basically moved the the, the facility that the facilities and the idea of making the product to the UK.

00:29:34:22 - 00:29:40:20
Bill Gamelli
And now we can export from the UK to the rest of the world. So we're an imported product into the US today.

00:29:40:22 - 00:29:46:15
Jessie Ott
Oh wow. Okay. So you started all over from scratch on for your, your four cocktails.

00:29:46:17 - 00:30:09:15
Bill Gamelli
Yes, we did. And thank goodness we did because that's when, that's when Ezra helped us and we started all over again. And I think what we went from is I would call we had in the U.S. all those years ago, I would say that was a four star solution. And it was it was it was good. And we got a lot of praise and we got we got so much support back then.

00:30:09:15 - 00:30:44:18
Bill Gamelli
In fact, we were in Whole Foods. I mean, we were we were moving the needle, but we weren't what we wanted to be. So I would say once we got the the whole system redone and we sourced the world's best ingredients, not just the best ingredients from the US, we sourced the world's best ingredients. Now where I would say we're a five star drink and there's there's double blind, you know, Spirit award ceremonies from San Francisco to London that have a basic confirm that it's not just me saying that that's independent sources have confirmed that, you know, we've got double golds and masters and platinum and silvers.

00:30:44:18 - 00:31:05:14
Bill Gamelli
And, you know, we've got all these awards now that that backed that up. So what we say is we are redefining what a nonalcoholic cocktail experience can be and therefore redefining what the word mocktail is, because some people still think of mocktail as Shirley Temple. But we're redefining what the category and what the word mocktail can be.

00:31:05:16 - 00:31:28:20
Jessie Ott
I love that. Is there anything you can tell us that, you know, like a major change from the first iteration to the second one here that you've created that really was a game changer was there anything that stands out about the process or the ingredients that, you know, really made the big difference.

00:31:28:22 - 00:31:59:16
Bill Gamelli
Yeah, I would say I would say the whole the whole way we thought about building the drinks is totally different. And and the way the way that we so first of all, what we don't do is we do not take alcohol versions of what we do. And then the alcoholize, which there's a lot of alcoholized beer and wine out there, there is very, very hard to dealcoholize spirits because it's, you know, 40% alcohol by volume.

00:31:59:16 - 00:32:28:22
Bill Gamelli
Very, very hard to do that. So what we what we do is we build it from the ground up. We don't we don't take alcohol in dealcoholize. But I would say we rethought the entire process from the ground up and we got into Ezra helped us get into literally the rebalancing of of ingredients, everything from, you know, wine grapes to sourcing lime juice to botanicals and spices and acids.

00:32:28:22 - 00:32:53:00
Bill Gamelli
And what I would say is the quantum leap was in the chemistry of how we balance all the flavors so that it becomes a subtle and sophisticated flavor rather than what I would say. What we had earlier was a beautiful, clean drink. That was it was it was taste good, but it was it wasn't balanced. So it's hard to point to one thing.

00:32:53:00 - 00:33:15:11
Bill Gamelli
Jessie see what I'm getting to is we had to rethink everything. And and we even we even sought out, you know, some of the world's best talent when it comes to sensory perception and the way that people perceive taste. And we learned that only 15% of what the normal human being perceives as taste actually comes from your taste buds.

00:33:15:13 - 00:33:17:21
Jessie Ott
Wait what? Would say that again?

00:33:17:21 - 00:33:24:14
Bill Gamelli
Yeah.15% of what the average human being perceives as taste comes from your actual taste buds. The rest.

00:33:24:15 - 00:33:25:19
Jessie Ott
Really.

00:33:25:21 - 00:33:52:21
Bill Gamelli
your brain. You're olfactory nerves in your nose, your throat, your that your tongue and the way that you perceive the the the mouth, what they call mouth feel. So what we perceive as human beings is taste is actually a SUITE, a SUITE meaning SUITE a SUITE of sensory perception, and that human beings absorb without even realizing it's all in the subconscious.

00:33:52:23 - 00:34:23:21
Bill Gamelli
So we actually got help understanding what that is like. And basically that's, you know, that's why I think our drinks stand out and we'll stand out for a very long time. We also wanted to present something that was totally versatile, inclusive and solving for the occasion. So we, we, we have a very, very different product that's out there to most of the rest of the world, which is doing a lot of carbonated drinks and dealcohol ization and, you know, and all by the way, there's room in the market for everybody.

00:34:23:23 - 00:34:43:00
Bill Gamelli
I'm I'm a big believer that there's going to be dozens of huge successful companies in our space. It's not there's not just one you know ready to drink company one beer company, one wine company and one spirits company that's going to win. They're going to be a lot of winners in the space because it's a it's a big and growing category.

00:34:43:01 - 00:34:59:06
Jessie Ott
Yeah. And it's it's getting more and more powerful. So let's talk about you being a founding board member of the head of government affairs for the adult non alcoholic Beverage Association. Do you want to kind of talk to us a little bit about that?

00:34:59:08 - 00:35:30:06
Bill Gamelli
Sure thing. You know, in in London in 2019, when when the very first nonalcoholic industry summit was was was coming around, it was the very first time that any of us that were slaving away in obscurity could meet. And it turns out that the company that was creating the event, you know, somehow we got in touch and we as Mocktails, ended up being the lead sponsor for that event.

00:35:30:08 - 00:35:46:14
Bill Gamelli
And I was one of the keynote speakers in the in the morning of the of the first day, I think it was me. It was the second day, but I was one of the keynote speakers. And what I what I tried to talk about was the industry why this is happening, the consumer psychographics behind why this is happening, what is mindful drinking and why is it happening?

00:35:46:15 - 00:36:04:13
Bill Gamelli
We had a lot of great speakers throughout the day, other leaders in the industry, lots of great thought leaders in the industry. And and I want to tip my hat to Ben Branson over at SEED, because even though, you know, we might have started around the same time, he got a lot of traction in the UK before I got traction.

00:36:04:13 - 00:36:30:01
Bill Gamelli
And so therefore he's really probably the first thought leader to break through to make really the industry really go. So see, LEP was probably the very first product to really break doors open for all of, for all of us. So hats off to Ben and thank you for, for doing what you did. But what I talked about was the need for us to come together as an industry and a rising tide lifts all boats.

00:36:30:01 - 00:36:55:00
Bill Gamelli
So let's all work together. And in the end, it was Mark over at Lyre's and Bill over at Athletic Brewing. And I came together to say, if we can somehow create the momentum behind working and creating a the industry association, we can then invite other brands and then, you know, started in the U.S. and then we'll and then we can have other chapters.

00:36:55:00 - 00:37:18:21
Bill Gamelli
So basically we worked together with Marco that we asked Marcos to join us and we created Ann, which is the Adult Non Alcoholic Beverage Association. We created the first chapter which is here in the US, and then we started a UK chapter, a UK EU chapter. And so now we have two chapters and but before you know it, we'll have something in Asia-Pacific and it'll just keep growing.

00:37:18:21 - 00:37:41:17
Bill Gamelli
So what we, what the vision was was to create a global adult non alcoholic beverage association that we could all work together to grow the market together with one voice. Yep. Because we're different than soft drinks and we're different than alcohol. We needed to be independent as an industry to share that voice with the rest of the world, to say, We understand there's a lot of nonalcoholic products out there, but we're not water.

00:37:41:17 - 00:37:59:07
Bill Gamelli
We're not soft drinks, we're not soda, we're not lemonade, we're not iced tea. And at the same time, we're not beer, wine or spirits. And we're not, you know, we're not cocktails, we're nonalcoholic cocktails and we're nonalcoholic beer, wine and spirits. So we have to have a voice and an industry association of our own. So we basically started that.

00:37:59:09 - 00:38:26:01
Bill Gamelli
And yes, I took on the government affairs piece and my colleague Ed Gerard here at Mocktail Beverages and also Rob Fink from Big Drop Brewing over in the UK. They're they're head of government affairs over in the UK because as a new industry, as you can imagine, there's concerns and needs in terms of regulation and, you know, marketing and making sure we get this right for the public.

00:38:26:03 - 00:38:48:22
Jessie Ott
Wow, that's really smart. When I when I first saw that on your on your LinkedIn, I was like, wow, that's super, super smart. So what does that look like for beverage companies or even any bevs retailers or bars or cocktail bars? Is this something that they should be a member of or how does that work?

00:38:49:00 - 00:39:22:02
Bill Gamelli
Well, so we as producers are, you know, and it's not just for nonalcoholic producers. There are there are alcohol producers that produce nonalcoholic products and they would join us as a full member. But we do have something called the affiliate membership. So if you are a packaging company, if you are a distributor, if you are a you know, if you want to be a partner in some way, yes, you can you can absolutely join as an affiliate member because we're creating, as I mentioned, we're creating an industry and that industry is a community.

00:39:22:02 - 00:39:40:03
Bill Gamelli
And so we invite the community to come join us to build this industry out. And I believe that this is not you know, this is not a niche. This is not a fad. This is not it's not a fly by night, you know, sort of thing. This is a new industry and it is a growing industry that will be here for decades to come.

00:39:40:03 - 00:39:52:12
Bill Gamelli
So it's just the very beginning. If you look at a clock on the wall, you know, we're probably in the first 10 minutes of the 12 hour clock for the industry. So we're going to we're going to be building this for quite some time.

00:39:52:14 - 00:40:06:15
Jessie Ott
What was the first year that you really saw brands kind of popping up and becoming a little bit more of a popular thing to to do or to want as consumers?

00:40:06:15 - 00:40:20:06
Bill Gamelli
Well, we were climbing. I felt like we were pushing a string uphill for a lot of years. Yeah. So I would say it wasn't until probably 2018, 19 that I saw a number of brands starting to come onto the scene.

00:40:20:08 - 00:40:21:04
Jessie Ott
And.

00:40:21:06 - 00:40:56:04
Bill Gamelli
Europe. So that was that was mostly in Europe. It's really only last couple of years here in the States, probably 20, 21, 2020, maybe 2021. I'll tip my hat also to Cheryl over at Dry Soda. Cheryl had this idea many, many, many years ago and she was even before me and the route she took because it was so early, she went down the soda route to try to get more sophisticated, better for you soda products in people's hands as a as an alternative to alcohol as well.

00:40:56:06 - 00:41:21:15
Bill Gamelli
So, you know, we were just a few see lip dry soda and a couple of others like me. We were just sort of these entrepreneurs that had this idea. But it was, I'd say 2018, maybe in in Europe and then 20, 2021 here in the States. Now Keep in mind that over in Europe, they today have probably 100 amazing nonalcoholic beer brands.

00:41:21:17 - 00:41:53:13
Bill Gamelli
And here in the States we are, you know, a handful. But all those beer brands are coming. And it's just the beginning of the category. It's it's coming and it's and it's going to be growing. And there's no there's no stopping it. The way I put it, Jesse, is if you're look, let's say you're standing on the coast and you look out at the ocean and you see a ripple, you know, on the horizon and you think it's a wave in the ocean, but you don't know that it's a tsunami until it comes onshore.

00:41:53:13 - 00:42:07:00
Bill Gamelli
And then you realize, oh, my God, that is not a wave. That's a tsunami. That's what's actually happening. There's a tsunami coming and most people can't see it. All they see is a ripple on the ocean right now. But it's coming.

00:42:07:02 - 00:42:24:12
Jessie Ott
Yeah, I completely agree. And I'm you know, I created this beverage food and beverage innovation kind of concept and it's kind of I'm going all in. And that's why I started this podcast, because it's just it's my passion. I love it. I love talking to entrepreneurs and people that are changing the beverage landscape. And you're certainly one of those.

00:42:24:12 - 00:42:58:13
Jessie Ott
So I absolutely love it. I love that my podcast yesterday was with the band Box Orlando. I interviewed Kevin's up and Victoria Van Winkle, and he has Orlando's first cocktail bar. It's really small concept. He was just testing it out. It's 500 square feet, so you have to make reservations. But he he said in our interview that he thinks it's going to end up being 5050, whereas people are people are going to be drinking 5050, you know, either like 50% of drinking alcohol or 50% non alcohol.

00:42:58:18 - 00:43:11:04
Jessie Ott
And I thought that was like a really big statement. But if you're saying 45% of people don't drink at any in any month, then those numbers probably aren't that far fetched.

00:43:11:06 - 00:43:28:12
Bill Gamelli
No, I don't think they're farfetched. But if you really think about it, we all drink more than 5050 non ALC as it is today, because if you do include your water, your soda, your lemonade, your iced tea, if you think about what you drink throughout life, you're probably drinking. You know, heavy drinker might drink, you know, 20% alcohol or 30% alcohol.

00:43:28:14 - 00:43:51:07
Bill Gamelli
As it relates to nonalcoholic, what we're really talking about is, is the drinking of adult nonalcoholic products in social occasions. I think that's what he means by 5050. Right. So, you know what? I don't I don't doubt that that will happen over time. It's just someone like him sees it coming. But not a lot of other people see it just yet.

00:43:51:09 - 00:44:09:12
Bill Gamelli
But I believe if we think back about 15 or 20 years ago, it was very hard to find a vegan meal. It was very hard to find a gluten free meal. It was very hard to find an allergy, you know, a a bar, restaurant, hotel, place to eat that if you had allergies, that they would work around your allergies.

00:44:09:12 - 00:44:33:20
Bill Gamelli
And now it's everywhere. It's become normal. And what I believe is that in five or ten years from now, it will simply be unthinkable for any food and beverage outlet to not have a full suite of non-alcohol adult nonalcoholic products for people to drink. It would be unthinkable. Or as today, they are like, What is this weird thing that's happening called mindful drinking?

00:44:33:20 - 00:44:52:16
Bill Gamelli
Why? Why don't why aren't you okay with just having soda, water, lemonade, iced tea? Why do I need to have something better? The same questions are being asked when someone would ask for a vegan meal like, Oh God, you know how hard that is. I don't have the supply chain. I can't find the products. I have to I have to make a specific meal for vegans and vegetarians.

00:44:52:16 - 00:45:00:11
Bill Gamelli
It's very hard for me to do as a restaurant, but over time the industry learns to adapt and they will learn to adapt here too.

00:45:00:12 - 00:45:22:08
Jessie Ott
Yeah. And for an industry, you know, really is, is, is slow as ours has been in the past. It's it's, it's not slow anymore. I mean there are more and more brands coming. And I think COVID was a great incubator for a lot of ideas because we have more products, you know, being launched all the time, whether whether it's a tequila or whatever it is.

00:45:22:10 - 00:45:49:12
Jessie Ott
And it's that's an exciting time. We also have a hotel here called the Ed Hotel E.T., and they are all nonalcoholic. The whole bar, the whole restaurant, everything, which I think is really, really cool. I got to get him on the podcast because I want to see how that's going. But yeah, I just I'm it's super exciting. I want to swing back to our earlier conversation on the name Mocktails.

00:45:49:14 - 00:46:02:01
Jessie Ott
So can you walk us through that process? Are you are you saying you guys created the name or you guys helped create the idea of of the mocktail name?

00:46:02:03 - 00:46:20:21
Bill Gamelli
Well, the way it was, it was a completely organic thing that happened. Again, we were so early in the process. I had never heard of a mocktail. I had I had no concept of what a nonalcoholic cocktail would be. And I remember, you know, it's in my notes, it's in my notebook. I remember going through everything, my whole analysis of can this be, is this possible?

00:46:20:21 - 00:46:42:01
Bill Gamelli
And so forth. And I started thinking about what the heck do you call this thing? And you know, the words nonalcoholic and alcohol free and cocktails and all those things were coming up. And I remember writing the writing it down and saying it is is there such a thing as it's a it's a mock cocktail? Is there such a thing as a mocktail?

00:46:42:03 - 00:47:05:15
Bill Gamelli
And if I could get mocktails dot com, I'm doing this like this is that would be the ultimate name because because that just defines the whole concept. Now there's nonalcoholic beers, wines and spirits. So that doesn't, you know, I'm not talking about those segments of our industry because they have a completely different thing going on. But for us and what we wanted to do, that would be the ultimate.

00:47:05:15 - 00:47:24:10
Bill Gamelli
And lo and behold, I looked it up and it was available and I was like, Well, it's either either I'm crazy or I got something here that's pretty, pretty cool and pretty unique. So I just I just took the name and I just created a brand around it. So. So so what was out there, though, Jesse, is there were no brands.

00:47:24:10 - 00:47:41:21
Bill Gamelli
There was no brands on Earth. What was out there as I found Mom's and, you know, some people around the world who had created something like recipes, there were there was recipes that were called a mocktail. And I could find some of them, you know, if I Googled, I find a lady in in in India that created something called a mocktail.

00:47:41:21 - 00:48:04:18
Bill Gamelli
I found someone in the UK or the U.S. or wherever it could have been people in Iowa or in California or wherever. But so so I didn't think of like I wasn't the creator of the word word. The word had existed like any word. And I think there's evidence probably going back, you know, into the eighties back in England, where people had said the word.

00:48:04:20 - 00:48:31:14
Bill Gamelli
But there simply was absolutely nobody talking about mocktails or products named mocktails. So mocktails dot com was available. And I just basically grabbed the URL and started building a building product line around it. And we literally were called Mocktails brand nonalcoholic cocktails in the beginning. And then we wanted to further define why we're unique and special. So we called it we now call our brand Is mocktails uniquely crafted?

00:48:31:14 - 00:48:32:21
Bill Gamelli
That's our brand.

00:48:32:23 - 00:48:46:07
Jessie Ott
Yeah, I like that because they are definitely uniquely crafted. So you mentioned something about more flavors. I see you have is this an espresso flavor that you have out?

00:48:46:09 - 00:49:09:03
Bill Gamelli
Yes. Yes. Again, being being on the cutting edge, we're the first company to do nitro nonalcoholic cocktails. And we were the first company to do an espresso martini, by the way. It's not so simple to get that done well and get it into a can, let alone a nitro can. So we were the first company, as far as we know, to do that.

00:49:09:05 - 00:49:31:22
Bill Gamelli
So we have a nitro charged line of products, which are our original flavors, plus our espresso martini. And it is it is wonderful. We actually you know, if you think about making espresso martinis one cup at a time, you make your espresso and then you make an espresso martini. We literally make our own we literally make with coffee, coffee grinds, coffee beans.

00:49:31:22 - 00:49:54:15
Bill Gamelli
We literally source the coffee, the best coffee on earth, all the things that we do just to make everything so amazing. We have to literally go through a process of sourcing the beans, grinding the beans, roasting the beans, and then pressing the coffee espresso. So to create our to create our amazing drink. So again, very unique. We're not just we're not just, you know, doing it from a sirup there.

00:49:54:16 - 00:50:03:02
Bill Gamelli
There are are going to be other great products that are out there. But we chose to do it this way. So yeah, we have an amazing espresso martini and I think you even have some with you.

00:50:03:04 - 00:50:04:14
Jessie Ott
I do. I do.

00:50:04:16 - 00:50:29:23
Bill Gamelli
Did you happen to put it in the refrigerator? Because the nitro cans you want to put in the refrigerator, if they're cold, if you want to even live, you could actually pop the can as long as you've got your espresso martini glass nearby, you can pop the can pour it from a little height, give it some height, let the bubbles kind of form and then poured into your into your espresso sorry, into your martini glass or your coupe glass, your fancy, you know, beautiful cocktail glass.

00:50:30:01 - 00:50:35:05
Bill Gamelli
Let the foam head create and then and then have a sip. And you can enjoy as we're talking.

00:50:35:05 - 00:50:37:05
Jessie Ott
Okay, well, why don't I go get it?

00:50:37:06 - 00:50:44:08
Bill Gamelli
Oh, my. Amazing. Yeah, let's. Let's do it.

00:50:44:08 - 00:50:46:04
Jessie Ott
So the nitro.

00:50:46:09 - 00:50:48:11
Bill Gamelli
That's a nitro Espresso martini.

00:50:48:12 - 00:50:51:08
Jessie Ott
Yep. Cafe. Carnival.

00:50:51:08 - 00:50:52:01
Bill Gamelli
Correct.

00:50:52:03 - 00:50:54:18
Jessie Ott
Okay, so it's coffee, cocoa and vanilla.

00:50:54:20 - 00:51:07:11
Bill Gamelli
I like we called it we called it Carnival because, you know, I think that the Brazil, the Brazilian Carnival is just so much fun.

00:51:07:13 - 00:51:15:00
Jessie Ott
It is fun. You have great names. I love the names of your stuff of the all the brands. Okay.

00:51:15:00 - 00:51:36:17
Bill Gamelli
Okay. That's the nitrogen exploding. So now pour it quickly into your glass from a little bit, height from a little bit of height. Give it some height. Here you go. For it or it. Yeah. All right, we go. Now, what we should see is we should see the the foam forming. So you see the bottom of the glass where it's dark.

00:51:36:19 - 00:51:44:11
Bill Gamelli
Yeah, that's the nitro. The nitro bubbles are escaping the liquid now and it's coming up and forming a nice foam head for you.

00:51:44:11 - 00:51:53:11
Jessie Ott
Oh, that is super awesome. See, like I said, no one would ever know. No one would ever know that you're not drinking alcohol.

00:51:53:16 - 00:52:19:22
Bill Gamelli
That's right. So now if you got your coffee beans, you can put them on top. So then all of a sudden, you know, you're going to have people drinking, you know, full espresso martinis with vodka or gin or we have people put tequila and bourbon, whatever you want in there. And then and then people drinking what you have there, which is nonalcoholic, but have a sip and enjoy while we're both talking it.

00:52:19:22 - 00:52:47:06
Jessie Ott
Oh, wow. It's silky and smooth. It's got, you know, a lot of times with some of the RTD is you get this kind of weird aftertaste and when you were talking about your senses and 15% you know in the wine industry we really learn you know what the after taste is and how long does it last in your mouth And, you know, what's the what's the finish?

00:52:47:06 - 00:52:59:15
Jessie Ott
And this is this is silky smooth, beautiful. I love it. It's it's not it's not overly sweet at all. It's it's I mean, it's you really kind of dug into the coffee, which I love. I got to try this again.

00:52:59:21 - 00:53:36:00
Bill Gamelli
Please keep. Keep, keep drinking. So what what we wanted to do so sort of get back to the ethos of the whole company was and we asked ourselves the question, remember, is it too much to ask to have something adult nonalcoholic rather than just soft drinks? And we thought, no, it's not too much to ask. But in order to get there what we believed we needed to do and we took the approach of is we think about making our drinks the way a master winemaker would make their beautiful wines or a master distiller or a master brewer.

00:53:36:00 - 00:53:57:21
Bill Gamelli
Would would the the care passion ingredients love all the stuff that they put into these beautifully crafted liquors, you know, wines and beers? We wanted to put the same passion and same care and love into creating something phenomenal. The only difference is it doesn't have alcohol in it.

00:53:57:23 - 00:53:58:15
Jessie Ott
Right?

00:53:58:17 - 00:54:19:06
Bill Gamelli
And and if we apply that level of passion and love to create beautiful products and beautiful experiences for people that they can create memories from. One of our our tagline is turn moments into memories. We don't want you to just consume something non alcoholic like you're consuming water or soda or lemonade, you're just consuming it for hydration or or whatever we wanted.

00:54:19:06 - 00:54:40:15
Bill Gamelli
We wanted people to to truly enjoy it and pair it with their food and to create memories from the moments that they have with their friends and family. This this is about creating an experience that you can enjoy. And so what happens is when you have someone that's not drinking and and let's say you're in a group and you've got two folks that are drinking and a few people that aren't drinking.

00:54:40:15 - 00:55:03:00
Bill Gamelli
The experience that the drinkers are having is a full food pairing, wonderful dining, what I would call a dining experience. And the people that are getting water, soda, lemonade, iced tea, they're kind of getting a second class citizenship level of service and level of of or lack of experience. They may have the same food in front of them, but it's certainly not the same experience at all.

00:55:03:00 - 00:55:14:13
Bill Gamelli
So this is what we wanted to accomplish. And we feel like, you know, the drink that you're having right there that you could have with any beautiful meal from any restaurant, from Michelin star down to pizza.

00:55:14:15 - 00:55:21:16
Jessie Ott
Oh, it's just delicious. I absolutely love it. So what sizes do these mocktails come in?

00:55:21:18 - 00:55:40:06
Bill Gamelli
So we chose specifically to be in 200 milliliter. Perfect. Served every time. No waste. One drink at a time size. You know, it's built for cocktails. So it's they're cocktail sized servings for a for a purpose and that was one of the reasons why being in Europe was easier than being in the States, because everything here was supersized.

00:55:40:06 - 00:56:00:06
Bill Gamelli
Everything was 12 ounces, much, much, much larger packaging. I was able to, you know, create drinks from Europe in the perfect serve every time. Because, you know, when you go to Europe, you go to Paris, you go to London, you go to Rome, you go to places. There's a lot of there's there's just things are made in smaller, more special, more premium packages and more premium liquid.

00:56:00:06 - 00:56:13:00
Bill Gamelli
So that's that sort of fit what what we were trying to accomplish here. So these are super premium, beautifully crafted single serve cocktails in every can, every bottle.

00:56:13:02 - 00:56:15:08
Jessie Ott
And the nitro came out when.

00:56:15:10 - 00:56:39:02
Bill Gamelli
Just recently I mean, we just got that finished. It's only been introduced in the UK in the last few months and then we just introduced it here in the United States during dry January. You can get it on Amazon and you can get it at our website Mocktails dot com and unfair for those bars hotels, restaurants, catering companies that want to purchase our product to serve to their guests.

00:56:39:02 - 00:57:00:03
Bill Gamelli
You can get it on fair and we have a number of distributors coming we're distributing the mid-Atlantic will be distributed in Florida, Texas, California and about 14 states here very soon for hospitality. We're distributed in the Northwest. We are distributed. You know, we don't have the country covered totally yet, but that's on the way.

00:57:00:05 - 00:57:03:15
Jessie Ott
So what kind of distributors are you using?

00:57:03:15 - 00:57:29:01
Bill Gamelli
Well, because the because the product is so versatile that we distribute through traditional alcohol distributors called three tier distributors. But then we're also distributed through grocery distributors were distributed through nonalcoholic, were distributed through specialty specialty distributors of all different sorts because it's very versatile. It can be in natural and specialty food stores, it can be in liquor stores, it can be in bars, hotels, restaurants, catering facilities.

00:57:29:03 - 00:58:08:16
Bill Gamelli
So you need to be in food service. So basically, we're not we're not limited to the to the distribution channels, but we because we're a nonalcoholic cocktail, we feel like the the alcohol distributors at some point will start to really understand that bars, hotels, restaurants and retailers really need to provide this to their guests. So those alcohol distributors that are traditionally serving their their customers that are that are the trade customers for beer, wine, spirits and cocktails that they will want to need to supply, you know, products like ours to those same outlets.

00:58:08:16 - 00:58:10:21
Bill Gamelli
So that's all coming.

00:58:10:23 - 00:58:25:10
Jessie Ott
Wow, That's great. That's exciting. Thank you. And as far as the nitro, was there a specific decision that was made to have these available in nitro cans?

00:58:25:12 - 00:58:50:08
Bill Gamelli
Thank you. You're asking all the right questions, Jesse. It's as if I wrote you beforehand, But I didn't. You know, it's for us. For us. We just didn't want to be a flavor of carbonated drink, which to me is there's room out there and there's there's plenty of great brands out there that will be carbonated alternatives, which is fine, but we just never wanted to be carbonated.

00:58:50:10 - 00:59:18:23
Bill Gamelli
We felt like we wanted to be absolutely true to the passion and faith of and sort of the presentation of true cocktails, true cocktails. You put them in a shaker and you shake them, but you can't shake carbonated drinks so you can make mixed drinks from carbonated mixers. But but to make a true cocktail in a cocktail shaker, which was our heritage, we had to be not we needed to be not only nonalcoholic, we needed to be non-carbonated.

00:59:18:23 - 00:59:21:13
Bill Gamelli
So that's why we ended up where we ended up.

00:59:21:15 - 00:59:38:23
Jessie Ott
Well, I think nobody's doing nitro, so at least I haven't seen it. And really most of it is carbonated. So you're really a niche here, I think, and that's really going to help you with your market penetration. I would think, because this is really cool. It's really fun.

00:59:39:01 - 00:59:48:04
Bill Gamelli
Imagine drinking what you're drinking, but it being carbonated and coming in a can that's carbonated, it becomes it becomes a coffee flavored soda rather than a cocktail.

00:59:48:06 - 00:59:56:20
Jessie Ott
Different. It's absolutely yeah. Yep. Absolutely. You definitely got the cocktail feel with this one for sure. Yeah.

00:59:56:22 - 01:00:20:17
Bill Gamelli
So thank you for asking that question. So our journey has been long and it's a long and winding road, but we're in it. We're in a great place and we have new flavors coming that, as I mentioned in the beginning, we were breaking open, you know, these concepts way, way early. We were pioneers and we decided to go down the route of creating things that were familiar to people.

01:00:20:17 - 01:00:44:12
Bill Gamelli
And we still like those themes. There's an untold number of, cocktails that are out there. There's almost no there's almost thousand, there's thousands of cocktails, almost no cocktail that we feel like we couldn't, you know, recreate nonalcoholic. But we're starting to get into flavors that have never truly existed before. And we create our own flavors. We create our we we create our own recipes.

01:00:44:13 - 01:01:09:20
Bill Gamelli
So you're going to see some really fun stuff coming. Really cool. Fun stuff. Yeah. And and will will always be in that cocktail lane. But we have some other things coming too that'll be really, really fun. And we also will have what we call regional flavors. So things that will appeal to folks in Asia might be different than the folks in the Middle East, which will be different from the folks in the UK, which might be different from the folks in California.

01:01:09:20 - 01:01:24:22
Bill Gamelli
Like there will be regional favorite flavors that will in South America, there will be regionalized flavors. As we grow around the world, we're going to regionalize our flavors and we're going to we're going to take inspiration from around the world as well.

01:01:25:00 - 01:01:47:16
Jessie Ott
That is exciting. I love this bill. This has been an amazing journey. Thank you for joining us. I've enjoyed minute of it. I think I'd I'd stay on this podcast with you another hour if I could because it's so you just you're an amazing person and I just really love what you're doing with your company. And so I can't thank you enough for coming on the podcast.

01:01:47:18 - 01:01:53:10
Jessie Ott
You are my seventh guest, so I'm super psyched that I had you and my first ten.

01:01:53:10 - 01:02:18:17
Bill Gamelli
So lucky number is Lucky number seven. Yeah, there's there's a story here as well. So my young son always loved the number seven and, and it turns out our last name Gemmell, is seven letters and he has always loved number seven and now he's actually wearing a Notre Dame hat right now because he's been recruited to play baseball for Notre Dame.

01:02:18:19 - 01:02:38:22
Bill Gamelli
We're so proud of him. Yeah, we're so proud of him. And he throughout his young life, throws young career. He became known as number seven. He was always number seven. So they call him his name is John, and so they call him G seven. So there's a theme here that number seven on your show, and it fits in with a big part of our lives.

01:02:39:00 - 01:02:43:05
Jessie Ott
Wow. The universe is is amazing that really cool. I love it's.

01:02:43:07 - 01:02:57:20
Bill Gamelli
I call it I call it karma. And it's no accident that one of our our our drinks is called karma. It's called Kamasutra. And the idea behind that was the literal translation is sweet karma.

01:02:57:22 - 01:02:59:06
Jessie Ott
Oh, I love that.

01:02:59:08 - 01:03:17:13
Bill Gamelli
And, and I believe in karma and the universe works in amazing ways. And, you know, it is karma that brought us together today through some amazing people that I've met along my journey who connected us today. So I want to thank you and thank them for having me on today and even putting us together. It's been a pleasure.

01:03:17:15 - 01:03:35:11
Jessie Ott
Likewise. Well, we'll have to get we'll have to stay in touch. I want to know your progress. And I was thinking about doing a little recap at the end of the of the year and just kind of maybe send an email or maybe do just a you know, maybe a quick podcast just to see your progress of the year.

01:03:35:11 - 01:03:49:14
Jessie Ott
Because, you know, you you have these people on as podcasts and your you learn their story and then you never know what happens after. And I don't want to do that. I want to make sure that we we keep in touch with your progress. So I see great things with this company and.

01:03:49:19 - 01:04:17:00
Bill Gamelli
I'd love to come on again. I'd love to come on again. And what we can do is, you know, we can create different themes, different topics of conversation, not just industry updates, not just company updates, but we can dive into all kinds of amazing topics. Like I'm a I'm a big student of, you know, consumer behavior. So there's just so many topics we can dive into psychology of of of things.

01:04:17:00 - 01:04:23:03
Bill Gamelli
And, you know, the of the market. And there's just amazing things we can talk about. So we'll agree to see each other again.

01:04:23:03 - 01:04:34:10
Jessie Ott
Yeah, I'd love to have your mixologist on with you too sometime. Maybe we can just talk about that journey as well and how she kind of helped you guys with this, this, this second, um.

01:04:34:12 - 01:04:45:08
Bill Gamelli
I guess iteration or second? Yes, Our new product line. Yeah. Yeah. Well, happy happy to put something together. Thank you so much for your time today, Jesse. Yeah.

01:04:45:10 - 01:04:49:01
Jessie Ott
Thank you. Okay, well, we'll say bye, okay.

01:04:49:01 - 01:05:27:18
Bill Gamelli
Thank you so much.