💥 From 882% Growth to Tory Burch's Stage How El Guapo’s Christa Cotton Built a Beverage Empire 🍸👏🎇

📢I talk🎙️with Christa Cotton, CEO of El Guapo👏🍷 🎇 🎉 ✨ 👏 🥂  😁 

 When Costco canceled her order at the start of COVID, El Guapo CEO Christa Cotton was ready to close shop. Instead, she pivoted online — and sold out in weeks.

 Now her New Orleans brand is in 3,000 stores and won Tory Burch & James Beard awards. Here’s how she turned crisis into cocktail success 🍸✨ 

From near bankruptcy to 882% growth 💥 Christa Cotton of El Guapo Bitters shares her journey from Georgia to New Orleans, mentorship, resilience & building a cocktail empire 🌿🥃 @ThirstyThursdaysat3PMEST

Engaging Summary + Key Takeaways:
In this Thirsty Thursdays episode, host Jessie Ott sits down with Christa Cotton, CEO of El Guapo Bitters, to explore her journey from small-town Georgia roots to leading one of America’s most respected non-alcoholic cocktail brands.

🍸 Key Takeaways:

• 🚀 Pivoted to 92% DTC sales during COVID → 882% growth in weeks
• 🏆 Earned the Tory Burch Foundation Founders Award & James Beard Fellowship
• 🌿 Built El Guapo on sourcing transparency, sustainability & bar inclusivity
• 💪 Mentorship & community power her journey from distillery to global distribution
• 💫 Launched canned NA bitters & sodas — now in 3,000 stores across 8 countries

🎧 Watch for inspiration on resilience, brand building & beverage innovation!

Call-to-Action:
👉 If you love stories of bold entrepreneurs reshaping the beverage industry, hit 👍 and subscribe to @ThirstyThursdaysat3PMEST.
💬 Which part of Christa’s story resonated most with you?

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

Host Jessie Ott's Profile on LinkedIn

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Krista Cotton and El Guapo
• 3:27 Krista's Journey from Georgia to New Orleans
• 6:06 Family Business and Entrepreneurial Spirit
• 9:05 The Birth of El Guapo and Its Growth
• 11:05 Navigating Challenges During COVID-19
• 13:37 Mentorship and Community Support
• 16:12 The Importance of Quality Ingredients
• 19:11 Defining Entrepreneurship and Personal Growth
• 30:54 Exploring the 13th Colony Distillery and Real Estate Ventures
• 32:06 Family Dynamics and Health Challenges
• 33:52 Empowering Women in Food and Beverage
• 35:37 Networking and Mentorship in Entrepreneurship
• 39:24 Navigating Distribution Challenges
• 45:49 The Rise of Non-Alcoholic Options
• 51:08 Innovations in Beverage Offerings
• 55:31 Crawfish Conversations and Culinary Adventures
• 59:10 Crafting the Perfect Old-Fashioned
• 1:03:11 Innovative Bitters and Flavor Profiles
• 1:08:08 Travel Tales and Networking in the Industry
• 1:12:23 Connecting and Closing Thoughts
• 1:13:50 Produced by Fedora J Productions
• 1:14:11 Tune in Next Thursday & Have a Great Week!

Transcript

Christa Cotton (00:00)
We had a website, but we weren't really all that focused on it. So 70 % of our business, roughly 65, 70 % on any given year before COVID was wholesale and distribution. And then that remainder, like 30, 35 % was the website. We went to 92 % direct to consumer and our sales went up 882%. So if you do the math on that, like we went, we crushed it. Like we sold all of Costco's inventory in three weeks.

Jessie Ott (00:09)
Mm-hmm.

Hello everyone and welcome to Thursday Thursdays. My name is Jessie and I have Christa Cotton CEO of El Guapo here today. El Guapo cultivates cocktail culture one drink at a time. Welcome Krista.

Christa Cotton (01:10)
Thank you for having me. excited to be here.

Jessie Ott (01:12)
Yeah, I'm super pumped. Just, you know, we're really excited. We're going to have a little tasting here at some point. So we've got some, of our awesome products that I can't wait to dig into. So we look forward to that for sure. Where are you calling?

Christa Cotton (01:25)
Awesome. Yeah, we're

gonna have a good time.

Where am I calling from? I am in my office in New Orleans. It's, you know, where you can find me when I'm not on an airplane. I'm here in the factory.

Jessie Ott (01:36)
That's pretty awesome. That is really super awesome. So where are you originally from?

Christa Cotton (01:41)
I grew up in a really small town in Southwest Georgia, population 2,600. It's called Leesburg. Tiny, tiny town. Don't recommend it, but yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (01:50)
I know, I know what if I'm from a town of less than a thousand. I understand 24

people in my high school graduating class. that included one person from the Philippines.

Christa Cotton (02:01)
Yeah, I graduated with 49 in the town next door. didn't even go in my hometown. yeah, small town, it's a big farming community. My whole family is pretty much still there. But a lot of people know my hometown more for the baseball players and the country singers like Luke Bryan and Phillip Phillips, all these people.

Jessie Ott (02:05)
Yeah, that's where it is now.

Christa Cotton (02:22)
And a lot people say there's something in the water because we do have like an uncanny number of professional athletes and celebrities that are born and raised in Leedsburg, which is strange, but true. but I, yeah.

Jessie Ott (02:32)
Wow, that's really cool. I'll have to come visit

and drink some of the water. Maybe you should sell that water.

Christa Cotton (02:37)
I mean, yeah, I got, don't,

yeah, maybe that can be the next product, but it, you know, I left ⁓ for college. went to Auburn and then I just kind of kept moving west and I always knew New Orleans is where I wanted to be. So when I graduated, I moved here. Right after my graduation, I packed a U-Haul and came here about 16 years ago and I've been here ever since.

Jessie Ott (02:43)
you

What made you want to go to the big speakeasy?

Christa Cotton (03:02)
So I have a pretty rich family history here in New Orleans. My parents started a commercial real estate company when I was five. And growing up, we would spend the summers here, which is counterintuitive. Most people leave New Orleans in the summer because it's a swamp and it's hot and hurricane season and yada, yada, yada. But ⁓ really to spend time with my parents, my dad was acquiring a lot of real estate here and we would stay in the quarter. And this is where we spent a significant amount of my childhood.

Jessie Ott (03:18)
Mm-hmm.

Christa Cotton (03:27)
My parents made us memorize the streets of the quarter and they would give us boundaries of, you know, where we could and couldn't go. And we would meet at a different dinner, different restaurant for dinner every night. And growing up, I really didn't appreciate that. I thought these three hour baking dinners were terribly annoying, but you know, in hindsight, my parents did me a real solid. And today as an adult, you know, people like T. Martin and Ralph Brennan are, you know, mentors and they're in my business circle. And I'm very grateful for that.

Jessie Ott (03:44)
Yeah.

Christa Cotton (03:56)
But, you it all started in my childhood and had a really strong love affair with New Orleans and the architecture, the culture, the music, the history, know, food, the great outdoors. There's so many things about this area that are culturally significant. And I know that this is where I'm meant to be. And I love it.

Jessie Ott (04:15)
Yeah, that's really awesome. You know, I love that they made you memorize the city and you had boundaries. I mean, did you ever like just cross the street just to be like, ha ha, dad? Nope. Real follower.

Christa Cotton (04:28)
No, I didn't. I was always the rule follower, but I still know the quarter. I

know the quarter better than any of my friends. And yeah, I mean, they made us memorize it, but now I have a daughter and I could, I would never. The stuff my parents let us do 30 years ago, absolutely not. But it's a different world. But yeah, I think back to my childhood and I'm like, my God, my parents really just like let us go. And I wouldn't do that. But you know.

Jessie Ott (04:42)
It's a different world, isn't it? ⁓

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I can't

imagine being in a city that size, but back home, it's like I either was on my roller skates or my bike and my parents knew when the whistle blew, I was supposed to be home. But if I didn't, they knew the three, two or three places I'd be and they'd scoop me up and make me come home for dinner.

Christa Cotton (05:07)
Exactly.

Exactly.

It was a different time.

Jessie Ott (05:12)
Yeah, real different. So it really made an impact those first years on you and that connection to the city.

Christa Cotton (05:17)
Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, and so growing up, you know, I always thought I would be here. I thought I would go to Tulane and I ended up at Auburn. It was about 45 minutes from where our family real estate office is headquartered. And the idea was that I would be in school and be working towards becoming a part of the family business. And so that worked for about two weeks until Hurricane Katrina hit my freshman year.

And I wound up spending almost every weekend of my first two years in college here renovating. Our family owns grocery anchored commercial real estate. So we don't actually own the grocery stores, but we own the property. And then there are tenants and pay rent. that was my first college job. And all of those stores were without power for weeks and months on end. They all needed renovation. was a very dirty, disgusting job, but it made me extremely passionate about New Orleans and wanting to make a difference here.

Jessie Ott (06:03)
Mm-hmm.

Christa Cotton (06:06)
And that only galvanized my interest in coming here, much to my parents' disappointment. think they really, know, especially in the beginning, wanted me to stay in Georgia. They wanted me to work for the family business. And yeah, so I ended up moving to New Orleans sort of against their, you know, what they wanted for me or what they saw for my future. And I really never looked back. And I feel that I know I'm where I'm meant to be. And I know I'm making a difference here. And I think that

You know, this is where I'll be forever. love it.

Jessie Ott (06:32)
No, that's great. So do

your parents still own real estate then in New Orleans? So they still have the business?

Christa Cotton (06:38)
Yeah, we,

yeah, so I grew up in an extremely entrepreneurial family. The real estate company was, you know, the first and that started when I was five. So by the time I graduated from high school, it was about seven and a half million square feet of real estate across 10 states in the, in the South. So huge. And, know, I learned a lot from a really young age. And then after, after Katrina,

Jessie Ott (06:58)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Christa Cotton (07:01)
The credit crunch hit so right as New Orleans was getting back on its feet. It was 2007. The credit crunch was happening 2007 2008 So two pretty bad financial situations back to back and my dad decided that as a family we needed to diversify and so um true story he saw an article in the Wall Street Journal about America's first craft distiller this guy's name is Seth Box and he lives in Atchison in Kansas And my dad said i'm going to start georgia's first legal distillery since prohibition

And everyone in our friend circle was like, sir, you are having a midlife crisis and we need to talk about this. But he got, he got in his car and drove to Kansas and found Seth and hired him as a consultant. And I spent my last two years at Auburn helping my family and my dad specifically open Georgia's first legal distillery since prohibition. So that was, we started working on this in 2007 and it, began, we did our first bottling in 2009.

And it's still a family business today. So my sister ran it for a while. My older brother runs it today and every it's called 13th Colony, but everything is branded Southern. So when you see, I have, well actually for our tasting today, I have a Southern rye whiskey, but anytime you see Southern, like this was my first, ⁓ spirit space project that I did. And I really, really loved it, but ultimately I kind of figured out that I love entrepreneurship. my dad says it's a disease. I say it's a personality type.

But I really wanted to go off on my own. so I moved to New Orleans. I worked in advertising for a while. I loved all of that, but I wanted to kind of marry my love of entrepreneurship and all of the experience I had at the distillery with products and advertising with an agency, kind of put all that together. And so I started making bitters in crawfish boil pots in 2017.

And here we are almost eight years later and now we have 3000 accounts across all 50 states and eight countries based here in New Orleans. Everything's made here and yeah, growing like a weed.

Jessie Ott (08:55)
That is awesome. Are you in the UK?

Christa Cotton (08:57)
We have a couple of accounts in the UK. We had a deal that we had put together that we were super excited about and then Brexit happened. so kind of fell apart and we've, you know, yeah, I've done a couple of different meetings in London and a few things in Europe and trying to like, kind of figure out how this is going to work. But especially now with the tariff environment, I think we're kind of just in a holding pattern to sort of see what happens. But yeah, we have a couple in the UK. We have a couple in Germany.

Jessie Ott (09:05)
No.

Yeah.

Christa Cotton (09:22)
We have lot of accounts in Australia, New Zealand, Canada is a big market for us and a couple other little things here and there. yeah, we hope to be able to figure out the UK here in short order.

Jessie Ott (09:33)
You're in Australia and Germany and Canada, you said? That's awesome. That is really cool.

Christa Cotton (09:39)
Yeah, I'll

be going to, I'm going for a conference, but I'm actually going to go see some of our Canadian customers in a couple of weeks. So, ⁓ entrepreneur's organization is having their women's conference in Quebec. And so, June 2nd, I'll be on a plane heading to Canada.

Jessie Ott (09:54)
Yeah, we're not far behind you. We're going for my wife's 50th birthday ⁓ with another couple whose kids are in camp. So we're going up there for a week and I've never been, so I'm excited.

Christa Cotton (09:59)
nice.

to Quebec or to Canada? To Quebec.

Jessie Ott (10:10)
to anything Canadian.

Christa Cotton (10:14)
Well, Vancouver is really

cool. I recommend it. I also really liked Victoria, but I'm very lucky with my job that I've been, able to see and do a lot in the last eight years and even before that with my family business. But, you know, the travel part is a blessing and a curse. I get tired and often don't know what time zone I'm in. But Canada is beautiful.

Jessie Ott (10:22)
Yeah.

Right. Or hotel room.

Christa Cotton (10:36)
Yes,

I have gotten better about I kind of have home based hotels in the cities that I'm in often and sometimes preferably they're owned by the same people. less jarring to wake up because they are aesthetically similar. And sometimes, but I'm getting smarter. But it's funny, I walk into hotels in New York and they're like, what's up? And they know me by name, which, you know, it's funny. But there's a lot of cities now where I'm like, kind of known when I walk in the door, which is fun.

Jessie Ott (10:49)
Yeah. ⁓

That's good.

That's

fun. That's the way you like it. mean, it is kind of nice to have that sense of family, you know, even though you don't see him all the time, but that you see him often enough. Yeah, that is really nice. That's very cool. Well, it sounds like you really enjoy the travel.

Christa Cotton (11:05)
Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

I I have a six-year-old and I love probably the best memories and things are when she and my husband can come with me. It's not possible to do that all the time, but she has nine days of school left and when she's out, she will be with me a lot in the summer and she gets to travel with me a lot on the breaks. But yeah, I did grow up in a family business. I was working probably before it was legal by American labor laws.

Jessie Ott (11:38)
We didn't even have seat belts back then. ⁓

Christa Cotton (11:42)
Exactly. Exactly.

And I love that experience for her because that is very much how I grew up. I was the like booth girl at the big real estate convention in Las Vegas every year when I was like 14. And, I want the same for my daughter. I want her to be able to, experience a lot from a really young age. My whole career, I've been pretty much the youngest person in the room.

at every job I've ever had. And a lot of that is credit to my parents because they really did give us, all of us, me and my siblings, a lot of opportunities and they kind of just gave us enough rope to hang ourselves. And so long as we never hung ourselves, they let us keep going. it's, you know, paid dividends for me in my career. And, you know, I'm very grateful to my family for everything they taught me.

Jessie Ott (12:18)
Yeah.

Yeah,

it's like a whole new level of emotional intelligence that you gained from all of that so early on. ⁓

Christa Cotton (12:32)
look at you up. It's funny what

I didn't appreciate. And now looking back on it, I'm like, wow, it's pretty great.

Jessie Ott (12:38)
Like I can see a three hour dinner would be kind of annoying. I mean, that's a lot to put on a kid really, but it became part of your culture and I think that's really cool.

Christa Cotton (12:51)
It's crazy. remember these three and four hour banking dinners. Like I met Paul Prud'homme when I was my daughter's age and you know, T Martin, I knew T from when I was, you know, six or seven. And now to be, you know, regularly working with her, I manufacture all of her, her cocktail products, like doing all of these things with people that I love and respect and have gotten to know pretty well in my career, just to know that, you know, a lot of

my first time meetings with these people, like I've really known them for 30 plus years and that's due to my parents. But you can't tell a seven year old that a three hour banking dinner is cool. on, there's no iPads at that point. You're just like, okay, okay. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (13:22)
That's so cool how it.

Yeah. No, you're like, counting the minutes

to get out of there. Yeah, a hundred percent. So does your family still have real estate then?

Christa Cotton (13:37)
Exactly.

Yeah, so we do. We still have the distillery. We have the real estate company. It's actually one of the largest in the Southeast for commercially for privately held commercial real estate companies. So the companies that are larger than us are ⁓ like very well known names like Publix, their real estate division. So yes, it's it's large and very successful. And I'm extremely proud of my parents for building that. So yes, we have the real estate company. We have the distillery, several other little things that we that we've done as a family here and there.

Jessie Ott (14:03)
Yeah.

That's really cool.

Christa Cotton (14:09)
But the

primary business is real estate and then the second business is the distillery. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (14:15)
distillery. Okay.

So do you get home to visit the distillery from time to time?

Christa Cotton (14:19)
Yeah, absolutely. We have a family farm that's about 15 minutes from the distillery. you know, yeah, I was just at home last week. I was there two weeks before that. So it's not often that I'm back, back to back to back. just, we've had some family medical things that we've been working on. So I've been there more often, but yeah, I try to go back.

you know, three or four times a year. And I definitely, you know, I'm raising a New Orleanian. It's a different experience. You know, she's kind of the reverse. She's here a lot and then gone three months, whereas I was gone nine months and here three months. So a little different, but I definitely, the older she gets, my daughter's six, but when she doesn't like, she'll point at, you know, I don't know, something growing out of the ground and she doesn't know like the difference between cotton and corn. And that bothers me a little bit. I grew up in a farming community and you know,

Jessie Ott (14:46)
Yep.

Christa Cotton (15:07)
I need her to understand seasonality and what's growing. And we come from a long generation in history of farmers and now I just need her to get it. So I'm trying to spend a little bit more time with family and in the South, in dusty fields. She needs to be exposed to all that too. She needs Mardi Gras, Parades and Glitter, but she also needs some farm life, a little bit. Exactly, yeah.

Jessie Ott (15:27)
That's right. Get her feet dirty.

Walk the fields. Yeah, we're from Iowa. We're big soybean, dairy, hogs, sweet corn. You know, we're snobby.

Christa Cotton (15:33)
Exactly.

Yeah.

of corn. So

corn, peanuts, cotton, corn, soybeans are a big commodity crop in Georgia as well. But yeah, so, you know, all those things. So yes, I take her to the family farm and, you know, try to expose her to what I can in the time that I can, for sure.

Jessie Ott (15:54)
Yeah,

that's great. So let's swing back to El Guapo. So you're working at an advertising agency and is there like a moment where you realize this is the time or was it a product or like what happened to kind of start you on this journey?

Christa Cotton (16:12)
Yeah, so there was a bartender in the French Quarter who had tried to do this and he was looking to sell. And so he, you know, asked me if I'd be interested in it. First, I said, you know, no way I'm really busy. I have a lot of stuff going on. And he gave me his financials. So I showed them to my parents and my dad said, if you don't do this, I'm going to, and that's sort of the push that I needed to get started. And so, you know, I did a little bit of research and I knew enough from the distillery to understand that if I went the alcohol free route, I could get around a lot of these.

Jessie Ott (16:30)
Hahaha!

Christa Cotton (16:40)
antiquated distribution laws. And so it really kind of started from that. And then, you know, started talking to food scientists and dabbling in recipes. And, you know, I acquired the trademark, but really, you know, it took me two years to formulate all of the recipes and to sort of figure out, you know, the direction I wanted to take. then right as I, in 2019, I'd been doing it for two years locally.

and had gotten my woman owned business certification and had gotten really confident in the recipe development and was really happy with where I had landed. And I got a 24 store supplier diversity deal from Costco at that point. And I thought I had it all figured out. And so, you know, I took out a high interest loan, manufactured pallets and pallets of stuff for Costco. And on March 8th, my buyer called, I was with my mom at Charleston Food & Wine actually. And she said,

I don't know if you remember the great toilet paper shortage of 2020, but she said, she said, there's a toilet paper shortage and we're canceling your order and reallocating your space. And at first I thought she was kidding, but I very quickly figured out she was not kidding. So yeah, I went from thinking I had it all figured out to laying off my entire team, cruising bankrupcy websites, all my clients were closing all around the country. My daughter's school was canceled. She was one and like climbing on my back. was terrible.

Jessie Ott (17:33)
yeah.

Christa Cotton (17:56)
but I very quickly figured out that we didn't have a recipe blog. So I created a recipe blog and put a bunch of recipes on the website and linked the ingredients and the recipe back to the website so people could purchase and very quickly discovered that desperate parents would pay anything for a good cocktail. Like they did not care. So yeah, it was great. It was, and we just.

Jessie Ott (18:14)
Yeah, it was the right time to be online and

yeah.

Christa Cotton (18:19)
We had a website, but we weren't really all that focused on it. So 70 % of our business, roughly 65, 70 % on any given year before COVID was wholesale and distribution. And then that remainder, like 30, 35 % was the website. We went to 92 % direct to consumer and our sales went up 882%. So if you do the math on that, like we went, we crushed it. Like we sold all of Costco's inventory in three weeks.

Jessie Ott (18:29)
Mm-hmm.

Christa Cotton (18:45)
So

Jessie Ott (18:46)
Yeah,

that's impressive. So that advertising position that you had helped you kind of refocus on the time where we were at. We were all home trying to reach out to the world because we were in such a weird place and it all just kind of came together and you had the right photography obviously for the recipes. And what kind of keys did you...

Christa Cotton (18:48)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sort of. like, yeah.

Jessie Ott (19:13)
Did you learn from that?

Christa Cotton (19:15)
Well, things were just weird and it was like getting hard to like buy milk at the grocery store. And so my, have a beach house and our family. so, like I said, my daughter was one, she was going to stir crazy. Everything was closed. So we like, we're like, okay, we're going to like regroup. And I was making this blog and figuring stuff out, but I would get up at 5am. We were at the beach and I would stage random pieces of furniture and like make all the photos. So like from that period of time, even still, if you go back and look at a lot of those

news articles that came out or like even things from that time period that are still on the blog today. Those pictures all face the beach, but all of that stuff was staged by me and it's like random furniture I drag outside from like my parents bedroom or whatever to like be able to take the pictures and make it look different. But a lot of that was just me and it was like, this is what I have and this is where we are and trying to put it all together and figure it out. But yeah, we grew really, really quickly. And after a very rough March, had a

insane April, which still like not anymore because we've gotten so much bigger. for years, my biggest month was April of 2020. Like we never could beat that benchmark because we really did so much business that April selling all the Costco's inventory and just like getting through everything. so

Jessie Ott (20:27)
So how did you,

did you run out of inventory then and had to kind of pull back?

Christa Cotton (20:32)
⁓

well, so then we just hired a bunch of out of work chefs to help us continue. were filling up full FedEx trucks and because we were a food business, we were considered essential and could stay open. So as long as we could do the social distancing requirements, we could stay open. So we would put shipping containers in the backyard to like have materials. We would fill up full FedEx trucks with orders, but the business shifted, like I said, from mostly distribution and wholesale to like.

by the box, like a bottle or two at a time. So it was a little bit of a diff, it was definitely a different business model. And we were kind of figuring it out on the fly, but we never actually ended up missing a single paycheck from our workers because I laid everybody off on a Friday and it was starting the process of paperwork and we got super, super busy the next week. like everybody made up their time and then some because of all the website orders. So it was wild, but once we got through that,

Jessie Ott (21:01)
Yeah.

That's so crazy. Was there something about

what your process was that you feel like caught on somehow? Was it just the right time at the right place or was there a post that kind of elevated things?

Christa Cotton (21:29)
Well, it's

I it

was a couple things. think people have an affinity for New Orleans and they love it here. whether, I mean, no matter what, you have a story about New Orleans and the fact that we make cocktail ingredients, it's like such a specific New Orleans thing. And most people understand like New Orleans knows great cocktails. We know great food. Like there is that love of the experience here and we're such a hospitality town. People were starved for.

travel and experiences. Everybody was locked away in their homes and I think I make the right product in the right city. And I think people were also catching on to my background and sourcing as sort of my superpower. It's what I'm known for and the fact that, you know, I grew up in a farming community and I understand all of this stuff and we really pay attention to the inputs. I feel like if you buy the best quality ingredients, then the output is going to be the best quality.

that you can make. We don't buy commodity spices. There is no such thing as flavorings in this business. We don't do that. If it's not a whole ingredient when it comes in here, I'm not using it. That's really how it is. And think people were catching on to that. And then we grew so much. We tripled the business in COVID. Truly, if the fire marshal had shown up, we wouldn't have passed because I had boxes up to the exit sign on the door.

one time a possum literally fell through the roof while we were bottling because we were the same block as the Mississippi River. And I think everyone on my team almost had a heart attack. Like I was like, okay, we're done. We're deceased. Like, ⁓ time, time out. It was horrible. But I mean,

Jessie Ott (23:05)
That would be horrible. I saw a snake yesterday

and I can, I can, I can like totally. Yeah.

Christa Cotton (23:10)
Yeah.

Well, so I mean, we also, found a snake in our closet, like all this crazy shit happened, but it only happened because the port shut down. So like the port is the only thing at that point between us, the facility and the Mississippi river. like if the port step, like you, whatever kind of creepy crittery crawly thing, like they were all coming out in droves and we were right there. So all of these things kept happening. We knew we needed a bigger facility. And then I got, um, connected with my mentor who's still my mentor today.

Jessie Ott (23:14)
Ugh.

Christa Cotton (23:38)
⁓ He had sold his business and stayed at home for two weeks. hit. It was with his kids and his wife. I think it took him two weeks to realize that he needed a job. so he got connected to me through other people in New Orleans and we still are incredibly close. He's actually the last phone call I had before we started this podcast, but we talk almost every day. that's been an amazing relationship for me, but he's gotten me to kind of

stop trying to survive today and really start thinking about the bigger picture and like, what does this business look like in one year, three year, five year? Like, you know, how are we going to achieve my long-term goals? And I give him a lot of credit for that.

Jessie Ott (24:16)
Yeah, no, that's great. I'm glad that you have a good mentor that you can kind of go to for that. I found one also through the NASDAQ entrepreneurial circles and he's a partner at KPMG. And so he's been really helpful from just having someone that you can talk to about business things that they understand like the back of their hand, you know what I mean? That they just want to kind of help and that mentorship is so important.

Christa Cotton (24:37)
Yeah.

I agree, totally agree.

Jessie Ott (24:43)
Yeah.

Yeah. Is there any other, since we're on that subject, is there any other mentors you want to talk about?

Christa Cotton (24:49)
Yeah, you know, I feel like I've done a lot of these different entrepreneurial programs. I've done Goldman Sachs, 10,000 Small Businesses, which I did that in the beginning to get my Woman Owned Business Certification. That was sort of the project I wanted to complete when I went through it. So I did that before COVID and then coming out of COVID, I did a tech accelerator, which makes no sense, but I was just like so desperate for help. did that. And that's actually how I ended up meeting my mentor. That's like my OG day to day person. And then I've done

various other ones. I'm a James Beard fellow, which I'm extremely proud of. I then did Tory Burch. you know, I've gotten a lot of questions about this recently, not even two weeks ago, I got the 2025 Tory Burch Foundation Founders Award, which is, you know, such an honor. And I'm so proud of that. And it's just Tory is just, she's incredible.

Jessie Ott (25:34)
That is awesome.

Christa Cotton (25:40)
her program and foundation. tell people all the time, if you qualify, please apply. You have to, it's like a women owned business thing and they have these requirements and it opens every September and the foundation really puts their money where their mouth is. And those resources have paid dividends for me. And, you know, it meant the world that Oprah's creative director cared enough to show up at this breakfast and, you know, present me with this award, but to have that opportunity to stand up and, you know,

thank Tory, but also give a speech in front of Martha Stewart and Anna Wintour. And, you know, they surprised me and my idol, Sarah Blakely was there and, someone knew that I have just absolutely fallen in love with her story is Amy Griffin. She wrote The Tell But to have to sit there and know that this award was about to happen and have Sarah and Amy magically appear at my table to have breakfast with me is like, it's mind blowing. Thank you.

Jessie Ott (26:26)
Mind blowing. Yeah, that's so awesome. Well, congratulations. You deserve it.

You definitely deserve it.

Christa Cotton (26:33)
Thank you. But Tory

Burch is like A plus and her, that program specifically has really done a lot for me. And I just, you know, I can't thank her enough. think it takes a lot of people like that, that love you and believe in you and, you know, want to see you do great things to kind of help move you along. And, you know, even the chairman of Tabasco has been someone who's been instrumental and, you know,

Jessie Ott (26:37)
Yeah.

Christa Cotton (26:55)
when you text people like this, a lot of times you just don't respect your response. But there have been times when I've been like, hey, I'm looking for this specific random piece of glass. And he's like, I got a guy call this guy like that kind of stuff really like, it helps you and yeah, but you need people like that. Like these kinds of multimillion dollar businesses don't just happen. And I think one of the things I run into constantly is people think I'm the one that has all the answers. No, no, I have built a circle around me. And it's really like,

Jessie Ott (27:08)
Isn't that great? Yes!

No.

network.

Christa Cotton (27:22)
a consortium of like, I'm having trouble here and people really do help me. They do.

Jessie Ott (27:27)
Yeah. Yeah. And that's great. I mean, it's all about building that network of people. I we're, I think the one thing about this industry is that we're pretty kind people and we all have a passion for the industry. And, you know, most people want to help other people in one way or another, you know?

Christa Cotton (27:43)
Absolutely. you

know, I really believe kindness and leading with with generosity and having like an open heart is so important and I just really kind of You know gravitate towards people that are Grateful and always looking to grow. It's a hundred-year life None of us know everything and we're always still trying to like learn and improve and not having a fixed mindset always having a growth mindset is super important and I feel like I have

hit my stride and I have found my people and I just try to always stay in that light and positivity I think has really helped me get really far. And, you know, I hope to always stay in that mindset.

Jessie Ott (28:20)
Well, given all your family history, mean, my mom and dad were always entrepreneurs as well, my grandfather. If you could define what it takes to be an entrepreneur, how would you describe it?

Christa Cotton (28:32)
Well, like I said earlier, my dad says it's disease. say it's a personality type, but if you can imagine your life any other way, then I would probably do that thing. But if this is truly like your calling and like what you're passionate about, then it is a very rewarding journey, but it's difficult and it takes a special mindset to be able to wake up and run into a brick wall every day. And you can't just do it for a month or a year.

Jessie Ott (28:37)
Ha ha!

Christa Cotton (28:59)
You have to do it for a long time. eight years into this and I'm finally starting to see like, okay, my bigger goals can come true and here's the pathway to get there. And not every business has the same like timeline. There's different time horizons for different things and some things catch on faster than others, but you have to have that stick to itiveness. And I think that that is not something that is innate in everyone. So, you know, I think I picked up a lot from my parents and I, and my dad is in it.

extremely successful entrepreneur in his own right, but not everything has been successful. I've watched him succeed. I've watched him close businesses. I've watched him, you know, go through struggles in different companies. Not everything is a raging success, but I had a lot of exposure really early on. And I was never that child who was like, I'm going to be a police officer. Or like, I'm going to like go to cosmetology school. I was always the one who was like, no, no, I'm going to be just like my dad. And here we are. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (29:51)
And there you go. There you

are. Now, is your sister, is she an entrepreneur or is she in the family business?

Christa Cotton (29:59)
So she works in the family business. have ⁓ two, have a younger brother and an older brother. The older brother runs the distillery, younger brother works in acquisitions. So he is more focused on acquiring new commercial real estate. So he's on the real estate side. My sister works in the office on the real estate side as well. So she's more just day-to-day management, which is what she likes. she has a new baby. He's super cute. We have a new little

I think he's nine months old in the family. He's amazing. Little Waverly, sweet baby angel. So, you know, she's busy figuring out new motherhood and, you know, working in the family company. And then I have two other sisters that are not involved in the family business, but you know, they're around and, know, it's just, yep, we're all somehow everybody's like involved somehow. It's just what, what are you doing? Yeah. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (30:27)
Aww.

somehow, one part. So where's

the business located then?

Christa Cotton (30:54)
So the distillery is in America's Georgia. Yeah, so it's very close to Plains, which is where Jimmy Carter grew up and where his boyhood farm is. So it's in America and it's called 13th Colony. And then the real estate company is headquartered in Columbus, Georgia. But like I said, it's across 10 states. So the home office is in Columbus and then we have property really all over. So it goes from Ohio to Miami and from

Jessie Ott (30:57)
Is in Georgia. Yeah.

all over.

Christa Cotton (31:21)
know, Acadiana, Louisiana, you know, that like further than batting runners like Lafayette area to Virginia. So I mean, it's a pretty it's a pretty big portfolio.

Jessie Ott (31:29)
Yeah, that's pretty awesome.

That's, that's so my, undergraduate degree was commercial real estate.

Christa Cotton (31:36)
Yeah, you fit

right in. Feel free to apply. We're always looking for people.

Jessie Ott (31:39)
Well, I could probably use another job. mean, I'm only launching like four businesses, but ⁓ what's funny about that and having you describe how you're in 10 states is that I didn't like being on kind of the agent side, I knew I didn't want to live in the same city forever. Like that just seems so boring. And so I'm like, I can never be a real estate agent then.

Christa Cotton (31:44)
Yeah, just come on down to Crazy Town. It's great. You'll fit right in.

Yeah.

Jessie Ott (32:04)
So I ended up in the liquor business.

Christa Cotton (32:06)
Yeah.

So we had a couple of issues with my dad owning property in the city where he lives. So that was always his one rule is we'll never own property in our hometown. And we never did. Yeah. Cause he was like, well, they, I mean, they can hate me, but I don't own anything in my hometown. So it don't matter.

Jessie Ott (32:16)
Wow, that's so funny. Now do they live?

Yeah, there you go. So do your parents live in Columbus then or do they live on the farm?

Christa Cotton (32:29)
So they travel a lot currently, my dad has had some health challenges. So right now we've been in Texas for a long time while we work on that. So we've been in Houston for about nine months. We have a rental house and we're working on that. Yeah, so no, no, no. mean, honestly, he has an amazing attitude and that's half the battle and I'm so, proud of him and we love his doctors. Shout out to Dr. Wolf and your whole team.

Jessie Ott (32:41)
yeah, that's right. Apologies for not talking about that.

Great.

Yay!

Christa Cotton (32:55)
Lauren, Kelly, y'all are awesome. So he's doing well, but they kind of bounce around. So we do have the family farm. My childhood home is in Leesburg, Georgia. So those are about 45 minutes apart. And then the beach house is a family thing that we've had for a long time and it's in Florida, like on the panhandle. So they kind of go around and when my dad isn't sick, they love to travel and they travel a lot, but that's kind of been put on pause for the last year while we've been kind of working on some things. But I think, you know,

Jessie Ott (33:20)
Yeah.

Christa Cotton (33:24)
I really can see a point in the next couple months where, mean, he's like getting excited again and asking questions about, you know, certain European cities and like, we can do this. I'm getting, yeah, so I feel good. I think they'll be back in full speed ahead here shortly. So it'll be good. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (33:30)
Yay!

It's time. Yay.

That's fantastic. I'm glad to hear the good news. That's great.

That's always good to hear. My mother-in-law is doing well as well. Yesterday we celebrated Mother's Day and her 80th birthday.

Christa Cotton (33:45)
Yeah.

Good.

That's so

sweet. love that. So yeah, the family health stuff is always, it's so hard, you he has such a good attitude. So I'm grateful for that.

Jessie Ott (34:02)
That's, you can't, you can't help people get that. So you gotta have it. So that's great. That certainly helps for sure. What about any resources that, I know you mentioned Toy Burch. Is there anything else that kind of helped you along your journey that you want to mention?

Christa Cotton (34:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes, so I do this thing in Charleston. I try to go every year. This year I'm kind of like, am I gonna be able, because of my dad's But there's a conference for women called Fab, F-A-B, and I think this is fab.chs on Instagram, but this amazing woman that I love and respect so much, Randy, runs this thing called Fab. And if you're a woman in food and beverage, I swear, it's like the best conference.

I just love it. It's the best thing ever. So that's every June and the dates have kind of fluctuated. It changes. She tries to not have it overlap with James Beard Weekend. So the Fab Conference is like my favorite thing, truly. And then there is, I love James Beard Weekend. I'm a James Beard Fellow in their Women's Entrepreneurial Leadership Program. So I try to stay pretty involved in that. But honestly, Tory Burch has been the one thing

that's been consistent for the last five years that has really, really helped grow my business. And I'm still very close to some of the women that I have met through that program. And I just love it. then, know, idea village here in New Orleans, I did that program. That's how I met my mentor. But I really believe it's the hundred year life and continuing to just, you know, learn and get better and not just be stuck in, you know, I think I know everything land is the best place to be. And I just am always trying to improve and meet new people and

Jessie Ott (35:16)
That's great.

Yeah.

Christa Cotton (35:37)
Experience new things. I also recently want to say recently. I guess it's been it's been a year. Honestly, I joined Entrepreneurs Organization and This was something that my mentor was very Passionate about and I didn't understand it and I thought it was crazy expensive. Like I was like, is a cult. What is happening and Honestly, it's the best so I started EO I love my forum. They have been great sounding boards for me

Jessie Ott (35:52)
You

Christa Cotton (36:01)
I just did the global leadership conference in Hawaii for EO and they had Marcus Limonis like crushed his speech. It was so good. And then they had people like Deepak Chopra, but like the whole experience and just learning everything and surrounding yourself with like-minded people has really made all the difference. And EO has been another resource for that.

Jessie Ott (36:11)
Yay.

Yeah.

That's interesting. Very cool. I have not heard of that before. I've not heard of The FAB either. That's a

Christa Cotton (36:26)
It's the best. You gotta fab. You have to fab.

Jessie Ott (36:28)
It's food and beverage?

Christa Cotton (36:30)
Yeah, and it's pretty much every heavy hitting chef, bar person, personality, restauranteur is it pulls a lot of people from the South, but there's people from all over and it honestly is my favorite. It's my absolute favorite.

Jessie Ott (36:44)
Okay. That sounds like fun. I need to start getting out of my office here, getting out of the studio. Okay. Yeah. You know, my wife loves Tory Burch and we missed the deadline to apply for the program last year. yeah, so we'll definitely try for this year, but she buys a lot of Tory Burch.

Christa Cotton (36:50)
Yeah, look up fab. It really is. It's so great.

Well, September.

Jessie Ott (37:09)
And for Christmas for her mom and me and my wife, I bought the Tory Burch women-owned business bracelets. Have you seen those?

Christa Cotton (37:09)
aww

Yeah.

So Tory gifts those to every fellow. So I think I have like 10 of them. I have them in like every color at this point. But yeah, so Tory is amazing. Her family is amazing. I am obsessed with her brother, Robert, and his wife, Patty. Patty is like life. She has goals. She is everything. So now it's like so fun to like get to know these people. And honestly, like the highlight of winning that award was honestly taking my mom.

Jessie Ott (37:23)
That's great.

No, that's so cool.

Christa Cotton (37:43)
because she hears me talk about all this kind of stuff, introducing her, like her jaw, like, I think she like, she hears me say Tory Burch, but she's like, but is she really there? And then to introduce them, and my mom was like picking her jaw up off the floor was like the best. Because, you know, I want my mom to experience it, you know?

Jessie Ott (37:52)
Ha ha ha.

I bet. That is so cool. Yeah.

I love that Martha is involved. I love her.

Christa Cotton (38:02)
Martha,

Martha's the queen. that experience, Martha giving, she gave me the biggest hug when I got off stage and she was like, I remember your product. I remember featuring you. I'm going to be in touch. And I'm like, what? But you know, it's so great. And she's wonderful. She really is. Go Martha, Team Martha forever. Have you seen her documentary?

Jessie Ott (38:08)
Aww.

You're kidding!

Yeah. I love her. ⁓

yes. Yes. So good. And it's just so ridiculous what they did to her. ⁓

Christa Cotton (38:23)
So good. So good.

But

you know what? She's the queen and you can on on Tory Burch's Instagram. Yes. And there's a part of her speech is on or like she did like a fireside chat with Tory at the event and it's on the Tory Burch Foundation Instagram. It's so good. But when they asked about her legacy, she was like, well, I never saw it going this way, but we have Snoop on the Stoop and Martha on the Mantle. And I'd rather be on the mantle than in the ashes. So good.

Jessie Ott (38:31)
She rose above it.

⁓ good,

good, good. I love that duo. Isn't it just like heartwarming those two? I just love it. It is. Yeah, that is so cool. I'm so happy for you. I'm so excited for you.

Christa Cotton (38:56)
I got it.

the best, really just the best.

Thank you.

Jessie Ott (39:08)
Moving on. Okay. It's hard to move off Martha though. What about pain points? mean, you're kind of not going through the typical three tiered distribution. And you kind of mentioned you're going direct to consumer. Is that still the case? mean, are you going through...

regular distribution channels, like are you in Specs? you in Totals? Are you in all those stores or do you have just sort of like this big online presence?

Christa Cotton (39:31)
Yeah.

So what happened was, so I did this truly like, okay, I can get around all these distribution walls. But then really what happens is, I mean, my brand is expensive, it's high-end, but our accounts are the coveted spots. We're on the menu at the Plaza Hotel, we're at Bimmelman's Bar, and these have become my little buddies. And it's that times a million because it's every major city.

Jessie Ott (39:36)
Hehehehe

Christa Cotton (39:57)
in the U S and then it's accounts that aspire to be like those flagship accounts. So I'm very, very fortunate. And the people that we interface with are just so talented and creative and amazing, but you do get to the point where these accounts, like the woman's orders about a gallon at this point, like they're not playing around. They're like, they're using it. They need it. And sure, we can ship by the case. And certain people like at the Plaza Hotel, they don't really care what it costs because they're just going to take whatever they're paying and put it in their drink costs.

Jessie Ott (40:24)
And add it to the cost.

Yeah.

Christa Cotton (40:25)
Yeah.

And if the drink's 30 bucks, I don't care because people are showing up at the Plaza Hotel and they're going to pay it. And I think that's great. But you do get to the point where in bigger cities like New York, we have all these other accounts who either don't have the bar space or frankly don't have the financial ability to have a carrying cost because they're having to pay on demand for every single thing in their bar. And they don't want a case of bitters and they don't want a case of syrup. They want two bottles of this with this and their Campari and whatever. And so ironically, I'm back with

all the things I started to avoid. Yes, now I have distribution and I have it currently, I think in 15 states, we're negotiating for another, no, wait, maybe I have more than that. Maybe I have 22 states. I don't know. I have a lot of states. We're negotiating for another eight currently. And I'm just very careful about the partners that I want to work with. So I'm spending a ton of time in New York right now. One of the issues with going back into this distribution thing has been, I really have three brand pillars. I care so much about the sourcing, which we've talked about. I care.

a lot about the sustainability aspect of it. We do live on the front lines of climate change. Storms are getting longer, stronger. The season is going crazy. There's just all these issues. You can't live in New Orleans and divide climate change. So I'm super involved in all the sustainability aspects of this company. That's very important to me. But the other thing is customer service. And I feel like if you really nail customer service and you have a great product, you can keep customers for life. You can keep them coming back. But then you sign up with a distributor and your OG people are like, no, no.

I don't want to talk to Ashley at whatever I want to work with you. And so it's a lot of time to get these accounts retrained and to work with the distributor and to understand our team is still here and we're still going to do events and we're still going to hang out and we're still going to come and do whatever, but trying to, to change behavior when you've had people ordering from you for years and years and years, it can be challenging. So there's, there is some of that going on, which I think is great. It's a, it's a testament to our team, but also, you know, switching.

Jessie Ott (42:08)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Christa Cotton (42:16)
mindsets and switching how we do business is a little bit of a challenge in certain markets. So yeah, we're working on it.

Jessie Ott (42:22)
Yeah, because is that adding cost for them as well then going through third party? No.

Christa Cotton (42:27)
No,

not really, because honestly, a lot of times it's less expensive because they're not paying the shipping on a case on a like per case basis, they're getting it with their liquor order. So of course the shipping is baked into the cost, but often the overall shipping because for me to ship a pallet to a distributor is much, much cheaper than, you know, a pallet of bidders is like, I don't know, 500 cases of bidders. If I'm shipping 500 individual things at $12 a case or whatever it is.

Jessie Ott (42:35)
Fair.

Christa Cotton (42:55)
that is like 10X what it's gonna cost me to ship that pallet and then for the distributor to then get it where it needs to go, it's just way cheaper. So yeah, that's kind of where we're at.

Jessie Ott (42:59)
Mm-hmm.

So you mentioned that you're kind of expensive. what is your cost to consumer and retail?

Christa Cotton (43:12)
Yeah, so the bitters are $19.99 is ⁓ the price of a four ounce bottle and then the vanilla is half size. So it's two ounce because vanilla in general is super expensive and that is a partnership with us and Pearl Elephant Barrel. We use the spice company as a single origin spice importer for some of our products and we do some collabs with them. They're amazing. So vanillas, yeah, they're amazing people. So that's ⁓ one of the partnerships and we love them. And then on the mixer side,

Jessie Ott (43:32)
That's cool.

Christa Cotton (43:40)
⁓ well, guess let's do syrups first. So syrups are meant to go with the bitters. So, you know, fancy cocktails at bars or at home, doesn't really matter. So the syrups, the small size is, I want to say $14.99 and the large size is $20.99. ⁓ so that's the bitters and syrups go together to make all the fancy cocktails. And then if you want, you know, easy pre-dough, pre-mixed, pre-batch port over ice and add club soda. If you want NA or add whatever spirit, if you want a cocktail, we have a mixer's line.

that currently has six different flavors in it. And that one, I want to say it's $14.99. I could be lying. I don't think I am. $14.99. I'm going, if this is, if Bob Barker's asking me, I'm saying $14.99.

Jessie Ott (44:15)
seem all reasonable. ⁓

Okay. Bob Barker is asking. that's really cool. Well, ⁓ where can consumers find this product?

Christa Cotton (44:21)
Great. Great.

Yeah.

So we have 3000 different stores. used, it's like, that's the hardest part of growing a business. So I used to have a personal relationship with every customer and you can't at scale. It's just not possible. So, you know, that's been one of the heartbreaking things and I still try to keep up and do as much as I can, but it's just really not possible for me as one human, you know, going from a couple dozen accounts to thousands. It's just, it's tough. And so, you'll find us at fine bottle shops and

Jessie Ott (44:39)
Thank you.

Christa Cotton (44:55)
Everything from cheese shops to bottle shops to re honestly retailers do great with our products. So have a lot of gift shops across the country that'll stock us and you'll see us in there. And then, Like a lot of work with a ton of Michelin starred James Beard chefs. Um, you know, I work with a lot of those people, a lot of my friends, it's like crazy for me to watch the current season of top chefs. Cause I'm like legitimately like text buddies with like half the contestants. So it's like crazy.

Jessie Ott (45:18)
The 24 hour

one? Have you seen... Oh, oh, oh, oh. That's funny. That is pretty wild.

Christa Cotton (45:21)
No, the one that's on right now, Top Chef Canada. Yeah, like I'm friend. It's like wild. Like all my friends are on the show. I'm like,

oh, I don't want any of my friends to lose. But you know, it's, it's just funny. Like I used to do some stuff for the show. like going from that and not knowing anybody to like some of the contestants being customers to now, like those are like, that's like legitimately my friends are, but it's just like a funny thing to like get to the point in your career where all your friends are on TV. So.

Jessie Ott (45:44)
It is funny. Yeah, it is. Yeah.

That's pretty cool.

Christa Cotton (45:49)
A lot of James

Barrett Michelin starred restaurants, a lot of very fancy hotels around the country. I do a lot with the Four Seasons team, just different things here and there. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (45:58)
That's great. And

what is your outlook? know, there's a lot of, know, people aren't drinking anymore. They've got these Wegovys and Zepbounds and they're saying they're not drinking anymore. And then you have CBD, THC and all the other things. Like, what do you think of all that?

Christa Cotton (46:07)
Yeah.

I think that bar inclusivity is a great thing. I think you should have options for people who drink, people who don't drink, people who are in the middle. think that's the new era. I think you have to have adaptability and part of hospitality is having something for everyone. We were alcohol-free before it was cool to be.

but whether or not your drink stays that way is up to you. So all of my products are alcohol-free and you can, we have tons of NA recipes. I actually just taught an entire week of NA classes at Rancho La Perta. It's the number one wellness spa in the world. So I've taught a full week of classes there in March and Mike White, the creator of White Lotus came and took my class, which is like insane. But, but you know, like,

Jessie Ott (46:56)
That's crazy. ⁓

Christa Cotton (46:59)
Super fun and the NA thing is here to stay. I I personally despise the word mocktail. I won't use it. I hate it I think it makes drinks sound juvenile. There's a lot of like sugar balmy juice things happening where it like tastes like an adult Shirley Temple and that's like kind of not the vibe like you need to have sophisticated amazing Things with depth and you can have depth and great flavor without having tons of sugar or alcohol or juice and you know

There's a way to do it. It's an art, not a science, but there are really creative ways to do it. So I think that's something that I am really good at. And I honestly don't drink all that much. certainly, at different points in my life, have drank more. Going through this experience with my dad has really made me a lot more health conscious because I'm watching what he's going through and it's bad. And it makes me think about myself and wanting to be around for as long as possible for my own daughter.

Um, but the, I guess I'm like kind of in the middle and I don't, I don't drink a ton. I, I definitely for my job, you know, can make amazing cocktails, but I think you can do the same. You can make outstanding drinks and they don't necessarily have to have spirits. So, um, bar inclusivity is what we advocate for. And I think definitely having options for both sides is, is really important. And I, one thing I'm very glad.

It used to be like if you weren't drinking, especially in the South, everyone was like, are you pregnant? And I think that the days of that, it still happens in my hometown constantly. But as long as I'm not in my 2,600 people hometown, like I think people are catching on. Like it's okay. like alcohol is the one drug that you're shamed for not using. And I think we're finally getting to the point of where it's like getting normalized to not drink and it's fine, you know?

Jessie Ott (48:26)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah, we can't wake up the next day or, you know, function. But, you know, it's also interesting and you travel certainly a lot and see a lot for me in our travels back and forth, you know, Florida, but they barely even have cocktail menus here. I mean, you're lucky to get a basic one.

Christa Cotton (48:44)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Jessie Ott (49:01)
let alone any mocktails, it's just not here. I mean, maybe in some of the restaurants in Orlando, I'm sure they are, but in Dallas, it's in every single restaurant that we went to. There's a mocktail section. And I'm sure it's like that in New York and wherever else you're traveling. I don't remember New Orleans, but we weren't there for very long. ⁓

Christa Cotton (49:01)
Yeah.

The scene is improving.

I would say we have some work to do in New Orleans, the ⁓ town of the American cocktail, ⁓ but it's catching on. Yeah, it is catching on, but yeah, there's a lot of work to do. And I definitely think there's something to this like early adopters to laggards and like the people that are somewhere in the middle and, you know, in bigger, more established markets like New York and Chicago, people look at you like you're an alien if you don't.

Jessie Ott (49:29)
Yeah, in Bourbon Street.

Christa Cotton (49:46)
have NA and you know the new wave of that is CBD and THC like people want options and they expect that and if you want people to pay top dollar and people will pay just what they're paying for a cocktail for just as nuanced of a drink without spirits and that's like really where I think a lot of restaurateurs are missing the mark is not understanding you can make the same amount of money it's not about

like you're missing money on the spirit sale. It's like if you can put together something that is truly outstanding and people are coming to you for the NA beverage things that you've put together, that's your margin. And you just have to put the time into an effort into developing that menu. Some people do, some people don't.

Jessie Ott (50:23)
Yeah, no, I think so too. And I think that, you know, you're compromising a potential cocktail cell versus a Coke or water, you know, and you're just leaving money on the table at this point. And not taking up that much real estate.

Christa Cotton (50:32)
Absolutely.

Absolutely, I totally agree.

I totally agree. One of my favorite things I've seen, I think I saw this for the first time in Paris a couple months ago, I wanna say, or maybe it was last September or January. I have a hard time with time because I'm gone like all the time. At some point within the last year, I'm pretty sure I was at a place in Paris and I saw this one bar was like mixing in there, like it was just a drinks menu, right? So like you get the menu and it comes out and the NA drinks were just like interspersed.

Jessie Ott (50:52)
Yeah, I get it. No worries.

Christa Cotton (51:08)
in the menu, just like regular cocktails. And it wasn't even like a separate section or a separate call out. And to me, that's like the new wave of inclusivity. It's like, you're not like relegated to like just this one section of the menu. It's just like, these are all the drinks, which one do you want? And I thought that was really cool. It was a different, it was the first time I've ever seen that. Yeah, I loved it. That was great.

Jessie Ott (51:25)
I like that. Yeah, I like that a lot.

And that's where we're going because it's becoming normalized so much.

Christa Cotton (51:32)
I agree. So I really love that. I love that approach. I've talked about that a couple of times during like panels and speeches and stuff. But yeah, I think that's kind of where this is heading. Stop making people feel ostracized or excluded or even just like asking questions about why, who cares why? Just like drink what you want to drink and it is what it is.

Jessie Ott (51:40)
Yeah.

It's none of

any... Yeah, it's nobody's business. Yeah. Awesome. Well, is there anything else that you want to say about the company before we move over to the tasting?

Christa Cotton (51:52)
Exactly.

No, we have very cool new cans, I guess that's like a thing. So yeah, we did cans. I have one here. So we have can for the first time we did canned bitters and soda. So I get I've been questioned so often over the years. And I have these like little bitty bitters samples that I keep in my purse and like I'll make a bitters and soda for myself. But people are like, nobody does that. Like Beyonce has hot sauce and you have bitters but like, can you just make a canned version?

Jessie Ott (52:06)
Ooh! Yeah.

Christa Cotton (52:30)
And I'm like, no, I don't want to make a canned version. Well, I made a canned version. So it was wildly successful. We sold out of the first run, I mean, in less than a month. I mean, it was like so fast. So we've already done a second. Those pallets are now in my warehouse. So, you know, we're selling through the second, but we're getting crazy inquiries about these like huge fortune 500s are like, Hey, we want to buy this. How much can we buy? So,

Jessie Ott (52:41)
That's great.

Christa Cotton (52:56)
Super excited for that and you know, working through what that could look like, but it's truly three ingredients. It's our bitters, which I mean have have ingredients, but it's our bitters, water and carbonation. That's it. And there's no weird words you can't pronounce, no flavorings, no dyes, no aspartame, no chemicals, no nada. And they're all no sugar added, no alcohol, non-GMO, gluten free, all the stuff. And so this is kind of my new

Jessie Ott (53:14)
that's fantastic.

Christa Cotton (53:22)
my new drink and I love it. It's great.

Jessie Ott (53:23)
I like it.

And they're, they're fun looking cans too. I love this love, love potion.

Christa Cotton (53:27)
Shout out to, thank you.

Lauren, our art director, is someone that I worked with at my advertising agency and she is my art director to this day. I'm fiercely loyal. Yes, I like keep the same people forever. Yes.

Jessie Ott (53:36)
that's awesome.

Yeah. Why

and why not? I mean, it's got your community, your network, right?

Christa Cotton (53:47)
Yeah, Lauren's the shit. We love her. She's, can I say that?

Jessie Ott (53:50)
Yes, of course. This is not for children.

Christa Cotton (53:52)
Lauren's

great. We love Lauren.

Jessie Ott (53:55)
All right, so I'm going to do this. I decided I'm going to do a rapid fire really, really fast and we'll do the tasting. Okay. All right. If you were a cocktail, which one would you be?

Christa Cotton (54:00)
Yeah, great. Okay.

and app roll spritz, easy.

Jessie Ott (54:05)
wow. Okay. That's interesting. What's your favorite movie?

Christa Cotton (54:07)
Yeah. Yes.

Okay, you're gonna make fun of me. So I have like three. When I'm really sick, I used to always watch Dunston Checks In and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Secret of the Ooze. So like those are what I have my daughter hooked on. But my real favorites are like the old school like funny ones like Rush Hour, like random stuff I used to watch. I'm not a big movie person. I don't watch a ton of stuff, but I like the ones that I remember from my childhood.

Jessie Ott (54:19)
⁓ that's funny.

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, like my go-to, I don't know why, still probably is is Pretty Woman. So I'm with you on that.

Christa Cotton (54:39)
You know that

that hotel is a customer of ours and it makes me so happy. Love the Beverly Wilshire. Yeah, they're amazing.

Jessie Ott (54:44)
that's great. Yeah, that

movie really had an impact apparently on my life.

Christa Cotton (54:51)
Big mistake, huge.

Jessie Ott (54:53)
Yeah. Hollywood, everybody moves to Hollywood. Remember the beginning part of that? Yeah. That's, that's great. I love it. okay. Well, the third and final question is what is your favorite food?

Christa Cotton (54:58)
Yeah, I do.

You are food. my gosh.

Jessie Ott (55:08)
Isn't that hard?

It's very hard.

Christa Cotton (55:11)
Honestly, like

guilty pleasure is probably beignets, but like every day I would say the thing the thing I make the most at home is gumbo. Like that's so basic for New Orleans people, but honestly, it's like a comfort. It's a comfort thing.

Jessie Ott (55:22)
Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Mmm. That sounds good.

Christa Cotton (55:25)
So yeah, and my grandmother's carrot cake. Love my grandmother's carrot cake. Yeah.

Yeah, it's real good. It's real, real good. But she messed it up when she put it in the like cookbook for the, I don't know, you know how they used to do like the ladies club cookbooks or whatever. She left out some ingredients and yeah, it's, yeah, it's a thing. So now we're trying to recreate it and we're like, this is not.

Jessie Ott (55:32)
Yeah.

no!

Oopsie.

It's going to stay secret.

Christa Cotton (55:47)
Right, right. We're working on that.

That's a work in progress.

Jessie Ott (55:51)
So are y'all crawfish people?

Christa Cotton (55:53)
Yes. Yes, but my favorite crawfish days are the days when my husband agrees to peel my crawfish for me and give them to me because I'm a nail person. And so I always have these like crazy manicures. So I don't want to mess them up. if I know I have a nail Morgan, my nail girl, if she's like my, my manicures is one of my best friends and has been for 12 years at this point. But Morgan will get so pissed at me because I'll show up and be like, I ate crawfish and she's like, damn it. But

Jessie Ott (56:01)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I see that.

HAHAHAHA ⁓

Christa Cotton (56:22)
But yeah, if I know I'm about to get a new manicure, I will chow down on some crawfish, but otherwise my husband has to peel them all for me. Sorry, Brian.

Jessie Ott (56:29)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's the only way I'll eat them, but I'm not a big fan. My wife just ate six pounds of them the other day. So we discovered a couple of places, one in Mississippi and one in Louisiana that we tried. So that's called the Crawfish Pit in Livonia, which is on 190 on the trip to Dallas. And so we get there and

Christa Cotton (56:35)
They're so good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jessie Ott (56:51)
It's cold and rainy and they're like, yeah, we're not having crawfish until 3:30 today because of the rain. No, no, we just did shrimp. so, ⁓ and then the next place, I don't know if you've ever heard of The Shed in Mississippi. So they have expanded upon this place now and that's, they have a covered event space where it used to be just tables.

Christa Cotton (56:57)
So you waited. ⁓ No.

yeah, in Mississippi, yeah, of course.

Jessie Ott (57:16)
And then they put in a bar over by the crawfish area. So she got six pounds of crawfish there. And then they put in this really cool oyster bar. And this, this woman who is running it, I think her name is Sherry. She, did this three oyster tour and she's like rated number four in the world for shucking oysters. And they literally get oysters

Christa Cotton (57:25)
Yeah.

can't believe it. Bless her.

Jessie Ott (57:39)
from all over the world. And then she was telling us about the celebration in St. Louis where the top 20 shuckers go and they will literally shuck 75,000 oysters.

Christa Cotton (57:49)
Yeah, it's a thing. I have to wear one of those steel gloves because I'm so worried I'm gonna like, you know, it's like an ice pick. But I love watching them. Like it is incredible. It's an art. It's very cool.

Jessie Ott (57:54)
Yeah, I wouldn't be able to do it. Yeah, I don't do that.

Yeah,

it was just such a fun little stop because we break our trip up and spend a little more time in the places that we're at. And we got to spend like two hours there and it was really fun. Yeah.

Christa Cotton (58:11)
That's awesome. Yeah, the shed is great.

They've expanded a lot over the years and the gas station across the street has really clean restrooms. You can tell us, yeah, I spend a lot of time on I-10. I can tell you where all the hidden treasures are.

Jessie Ott (58:17)
good to know.

well,

I did find one where I found that inside it was like almost a family owned little store. I'm sure there's many brands represented, but they had chow and they had pickles and they had all this stuff. And I have no idea to this day if it was in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi. We have no idea. Yeah. So if you ever run into one of those, let me know. Cause like that chow is so good.

Christa Cotton (58:41)
Where it was.

Yeah.

That's funny. There's a good one in Foley, Alabama. Stop there and see if it's the same one.

Jessie Ott (58:51)
Okay.

I'll be sure to put it on the map because it's kind of fun.

Christa Cotton (58:53)
so,

Yeah,

that's why my hair is so big. It's full of secrets.

Jessie Ott (58:59)
Like that.

All right, should we get on with the tasting? Let's do it. Okay, so I'm gonna empty out some of the water that's kind of melted here.

Christa Cotton (59:02)
Yeah, great. Let's do it.

That's probably a good point. Let's see

⁓ all right. So I'm going to.

Jessie Ott (59:13)
So I

am here to take direction.

Christa Cotton (59:16)
Okay, so we're gonna make an old-fashioned. Okay, so I have a baby Demerara with me. So this is just like one of our little sample bottles, but we so we partnered with a Louisiana cane sugar farmer Alma cane sugar to make our single origin Demerara. So it's literally just Louisiana cane stalks.

Jessie Ott (59:23)
Okay.

Christa Cotton (59:37)
raw. Like it comes to us, we still have like the parts of the stalks and the leaves and all that stuff in there. So we have to like sift through clean all that, but that's how we want it. We want it as natural as possible. And then we add a little bit of dried orange peel and it's a two to one. So this is like a rich simple syrup. So you don't need much. So I use like, honestly, like a quarter of an ounce max with a two, like standard two ounce bourbon old fashioned. You don't need a ton. So I use, yeah, like

Jessie Ott (59:46)
That's cool.

Okay, so a half.

Christa Cotton (1:00:03)
Half an ounce, a quarter of an ounce is like, to me, I don't like super sweet drinks. So to me, a quarter of an ounce, but if you like sweet, half an ounce is great. For a one-to-one, I would use half an ounce, but for a two-to-one, because it's more sugar than water, I don't use that much. And then our most popular bitter skew in the entire lineup forever and always has been Chicory Pecan Bitters. So Chicory Coffee is what New Orleans is known for. Fun fact, New Orleans is the largest coffee port in America. This is true story. Last year I did a...

Jessie Ott (1:00:14)
Yeah. Okay.

Interesting.

Christa Cotton (1:00:30)
did a whole tour of the port and it's very interesting to see it from the riverside and to learn all about how that operates. But, my uncle was our original pecan farmer. So this is toasted pecans. We now work with a couple different, pecan sources, but chicory coffee pecan. So I put probably four, four ish six ish dashes of this, depending on how bitter you want it to be. And then just because I get these for free.

Jessie Ott (1:00:45)
Mmm.

Christa Cotton (1:00:55)
Southern rye, this is the family distillery that we still operate. I do two ounces of bourbon in mine. And then my preference is to use a maker. We love the makers team. They're so amazing. I've worked in been a mentor for the Lee Initiative for a long time with Chef Ed Lee and Makers is the

Jessie Ott (1:01:08)
I've got, I've got makers.

Christa Cotton (1:01:20)
⁓ the sponsor of that whole program, which is to get more women, in leadership roles in food and beverage. So, we love makers. use makers alert too. And then, I'm putting one large rock in my glass and stirring this guy up. And normally I would garnish with an orange peel, but I am sitting in our conference room. I'm not at our bar, but here you go. And I'm using my El Guapo.

Jessie Ott (1:01:26)
That's great.

That's okay. Cheers.

Christa Cotton (1:01:43)
little glass. So, you know, we work with a local glassblower and he does the glasses and then puts the emblem on the bottom. And honestly, they're really heavy. They're not they're a nice weight, but good gift. And they're, they're, they're really nice. So

Jessie Ott (1:01:45)
That is awesome. I didn't know you had glasses. That's really cool.

Yeah.

Yeah, they look really nice.

Christa Cotton (1:02:01)
So yeah, classic. This is our classic old fashioned. And you'll see this, in a lot of different bars around town. Pretty much all the white tablecloth restaurants use the Chickory Pecan. Definitely in New Orleans, which you'll see it a lot in New York, Chicago, Boston, all over. ⁓

Jessie Ott (1:02:02)
Mmm.

The smell alone

is amazing.

Christa Cotton (1:02:17)
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Jessie Ott (1:02:18)
is

there cinnamon?

Christa Cotton (1:02:20)
A little bit. So there's a little bit of baking spice, but it's honestly mostly toasted pecans and it gets that caramel note because the toasting. But yeah, pecans, chickory coffee and a little hint of baking spice. We have more baking spice in the holiday pie bitters than we do in the chickory pecan, but there is a little bit.

Jessie Ott (1:02:23)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. I have spice.

minute.

Christa Cotton (1:02:36)
Yeah, please, by all means. It gets a little challenging when you're selling alcohol by the drop. So people are like, how many dashes? And I'm like, the more the merrier, use them all.

Jessie Ott (1:02:37)
So good. I like it.

That's right. this is really yum.

Christa Cotton (1:02:47)
And one of my other favorite tricks for this, I do this a lot. You'll see me on TV shows and whatever doing this. But if you get fresh heavy whipping cream, especially during the holidays, and you put two tablespoons of this in a pint of whipping cream and make fresh, I call it scented whipped cream, but for pies and cakes and even on top of like chocolate or like hot coffee drinks or hot chocolate, scented whipped cream that you make fresh is so good. ⁓

Jessie Ott (1:03:11)
Yeah.

Christa Cotton (1:03:15)
And I use a couple different bitters, holiday pie, vanilla, but chicory pecan is my like OG. But yeah, make heavy whipped cream with this and you won't regret it. But just remember, you heard it here first. It's like my party trick. That's a lot of fun. Yeah, it's really popular.

Jessie Ott (1:03:29)
Yeah, I think that's a fantastic idea. Does it make

it colored too?

Christa Cotton (1:03:35)
Not really, because the volume, not really though, because the volume, you would think so. And like when it's still in liquid form more, but when it, cause like think about the volume and how much it rises, the air and just all the stuff. it really, it doesn't, you would think it would, but it doesn't.

Jessie Ott (1:03:36)
Color it a little bit. No.

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Makes me want to do that.

I want to do that now. Make some cupcakes or something.

Christa Cotton (1:03:53)
mean,

by all means.

Jessie Ott (1:03:55)
I do have keto brownies. I can put them on keto brownies.

Christa Cotton (1:03:59)
but then this would be, it would make them anti-keto really fast.

Jessie Ott (1:04:02)
Yeah, I'm not really keto. So it's okay. Yeah. Well, this has been so fun. I love this drink. I really do. And I'm excited to try these other bitters. Do you want to try them or do you want me to just do it on my own sometime? Yeah. You want to?

Christa Cotton (1:04:04)
haha

There you go. Yeah. There you go. Yes.

good, I'm glad.

Yeah, I mean,

whatever. Yeah, I, let's see what I think I, what else do I have in here? I'm sitting in my conference room. What do you have to play with?

Jessie Ott (1:04:26)
I'm so

I have the cucumber lavender and love potion.

Christa Cotton (1:04:30)
Keep this one safe.

yeah, those are delicious. Wait, for the cans or for the actual bit? yeah. So cans, so we tasted these as a team and honestly, I let the team decide what they wanted to can. Both of these turned out, like I feel like in bitter's format, the cucumber is more prevalent than the lavender, but for whatever reason in the can, I think the lavender is more prevalent than the cucumber.

Jessie Ott (1:04:36)
Yeah, for the can.

Christa Cotton (1:05:00)
switcheroo on me, but it's really, really good. And then Love Potion is meant to be super floral and delicious. I personally tend to drink this cucumber lavender. I'll open this one and have a sip with you. I drink this one the most, but the Love Potion is also delicious. And then the next one that we're coming out with, we're working on a charitable tie-in for the next flavor, which we're super excited about. But that one will not have floral notes. It'll be...

something different. So we have a couple things that we're working on in our lab, but these are just really good and they're just a natural alternative to,

Jessie Ott (1:05:31)
Yeah, or put vodka in it.

Christa Cotton (1:05:34)
Or that, yeah. And we've had a lot of people that do say like, this is my favorite new mixer, which like, sure. mean, like use it however we don't care. But for me, mom life, it's like you want a sophisticated option that has more depth of flavor and nuance than just like a one note thing. Or you don't want a bunch of chemicals in every, you know.

Jessie Ott (1:05:39)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Christa Cotton (1:05:53)
flavored water you buy at the grocery store and you don't want things that have juice. So this truly is like zero calorie, no added sugar, you know, easy. And they are complex. Yes. Yes. Until you add the spirits. Then not so much.

Jessie Ott (1:06:02)
Mm-hmm. This is keto friendly.

Yeah,

maybe not. This is really good.

Christa Cotton (1:06:11)
Thank you. But these have been really fun to make and I really avoided doing this for super long time and now looking back on it, I kind of wish I had done it earlier than I did, but everything that happens for a reason and you know, they're good. They came along when it was time.

Jessie Ott (1:06:25)
Well, you were probably

focused on something else at the time that needed your attention too, you know?

Christa Cotton (1:06:30)
Me? No.

Jessie Ott (1:06:32)
I don't know, like traveling to Paris three times a year.

Christa Cotton (1:06:32)
Just kidding.

Dude, the flights, I know I have three and a half million scum miles, so I know. My dream mentor is Ed Bastion, the CEO of Delta. Like I'm obsessed. He's probably going to have to file a restraining order because I'm like obsessed with him, but we'll get there. We'll get there. Me and Ed, we're meant to be. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (1:06:38)
Wow.

Well,

at least you're talking about it.

Christa Cotton (1:06:54)
I love Ed, if you're listening, I love you the most.

Jessie Ott (1:06:58)
Well, maybe you could share the podcast with him.

Christa Cotton (1:07:01)
I tag him all the

time on Instagram. It like bugs me that he never sees it. He doesn't follow me yet. He's gonna one day he's gonna. Yeah, but Delta Delta is my dream customer and my you know, I just I think there's there's such a logistical masterpiece. But yeah, that's my me and Ed. We're going to be buds. It's going to happen.

Jessie Ott (1:07:07)
One day he will. One day.

That's cool. I

used to fly Delta when I lived in Florida a long, long time ago and now we live five minutes from Allegiant.

Christa Cotton (1:07:24)
Yeah. Well, yeah.

Well, you, you do have to do what works to the city you live in because people are always asking me about that specifically. Like, how did I do that? How did, how did I get that many miles? But I grew up in Georgia. Like that's our hometown airline. So yeah.

Jessie Ott (1:07:30)
Yeah.

Yep. Yep. Cause that

was my territory. I had 70,000 Delta miles and I didn't use them and I lost them.

Christa Cotton (1:07:43)
Mine never expire. No, no, but I, yeah, I mean, it's like a game at this point. I'm trying, I only have 1.5 million in my million miler account. So that's how many have flown, but I have to get to 5 million because that's how you get lifetime 360 membership. So I'm like super focused on that. So you're like, how do you not get annoyed by travel? And I'm like, because I'm trying to get my lifetime 360, obviously.

Jessie Ott (1:07:46)
Not anymore.

Yeah, we're doing the same.

have American Airlines card, but we also have Marriott points. And so we're trying to get the lifer gold or whatever, whatever executive platinum thing it is. Because make your money work for you.

Christa Cotton (1:08:17)
Yeah.

Yeah, you get it. You understand.

Yeah, I have a special version of crazy. All my friends think I'm insane, but I feel like that's like a compliment. Like if you don't think I'm crazy, I'm not doing a good job. yeah.

Jessie Ott (1:08:33)
Well, what did you call entrepreneurs?

Christa Cotton (1:08:35)
It's a disease or a personality type depending on who you're talking to. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (1:08:36)
Yeah.

So there you go. There you go. Yeah. Well, I'm an entrepreneur. I don't travel too much, but I'm not, you're very on trade, more B2B ⁓ situation, but you also love being out there and mixing cocktails and meeting people. And I think that's great. Hopefully I'll get to do that one of these events, one of these days, maybe Tails.

Christa Cotton (1:08:41)
Yes.

Yeah.

It's so much fun.

Yeah, tails. That's another thing in the summer. feel like I always forget about it because it's in my own backyard. But yeah, we're super involved in tails. And tails is great. So yeah, New Orleans, it's the largest, a lot of people don't realize it's the largest cocktail convention in the world. And it's here in New Orleans every July. So a lot of that is trade only, but they do have a couple of events open to the public. But if you haven't been to tails or are like looked into that, I do highly recommend it. It's a very cool experience.

Jessie Ott (1:09:25)
Yeah, absolutely. haven't been, I think I went to it 20 some years ago and haven't been back. It has changed a lot. And, ⁓ I love the bar centric focus that it has in bartender, artistry focus. I think that's really cool. And I tried to go last year, I ended up, ⁓ having a cancer thing, but, I wanted to set up Thursday, Thursday outside the convention hall and just randomly interview people.

Christa Cotton (1:09:30)
It has changed a lot.

Jessie Ott (1:09:50)
You know, I just think it'd be so much fun and do hashtag, ⁓ tales news and, you know, describe tales and three words, know, just silly, stupid stuff like that. And, ⁓ it's just such a, there's so much going on all the time. It kind of makes your head spin.

Christa Cotton (1:09:51)
Yeah, you totally can.

Absolutely. I agree.

Jessie Ott (1:10:08)
But yeah, I definitely want to get there at some point.

Christa Cotton (1:10:11)
Yeah, come on down. It's a lot of fun. We're two months away. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (1:10:14)
Yeah, catch some jazz.

So, all right. Well, this has been a delight ⁓ did we want to try love potion?

Christa Cotton (1:10:21)
I don't have that one on me, but you're welcome to. I just grabbed this one really quickly out of the fridge, but that Love Potion is really great too. It is a lot of floral components, but the real, so like, I was kind of trying to think of like, you know, what is different than what's currently on the market. And we tasted all of the different flavors. And to me, Love Potion was just so unique compared to other flavors that are out there. And there are so many.

Jessie Ott (1:10:30)
Yeah.

Christa Cotton (1:10:46)
different components in that and just the fact that there's no sugar or artificial flavorings and the fact that it can be that potent is pretty unique. So that's why we chose that one, but it's definitely delicious.

Jessie Ott (1:10:52)
Mm-hmm.

It is so fun and it says on the can, Rose, Jasmine, Lavender, Chamomile, and Hibiscus. And I swear, like there's a layering effect in there and you can literally, you hit every single flavor in there. Like you can, you, definitely know that they're in there. It's really cool.

Christa Cotton (1:11:19)
the

labor of love. It's super cool. And we all of those come to us as whole flowers. And so I mean, they're dried, but like, there's a whole botanical process of things that we do. And we have such specialized equipment at this point that we're able to get more sophisticated and like more potent extractions done just because of the equipment that we've developed and acquired over time. But yeah, the love potion is special, especially as bitters and it's great as a bitters and soda, but I'm really proud of that one.

Jessie Ott (1:11:44)
Yeah, well done. It's all really good. I'm super impressed. I'm super stoked about you and all your success and nailed it with Tory Burch and you're such good friends with them. mean, that's just kind of shows you the kind of person that you are and your network and the communities that you build with your team and your company. And it's been such a delight interviewing you. I had so much fun.

Christa Cotton (1:11:46)
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're very kind.

Thank you.

You

Thank you.

Jessie Ott (1:12:11)
And I wish you all the best and hopefully we can meet somewhere.

Christa Cotton (1:12:11)
Thank you.

Thank you so much. Yeah, it's

on that 10. We'll just pull over at the same exit. But yeah, just let me know if you're in town. Yeah, I feel like I'm never really here. Like I'm here, there and everywhere. But yeah, when you're in New Orleans, definitely let me know. And thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and to tell my story. So thank you. And then if people want to figure out how to how to follow the brand or see what we're doing.

Jessie Ott (1:12:23)
Yeah. Eat some barbecue.

Yeah.

Christa Cotton (1:12:41)
We're at El Guapo Bitters on Instagram, which is where we're the most active. And then you can sign up for our newsletter and browse different products or purchase on our website, elguapobitters.com. And then to follow my personal entrepreneurial journey, you will find me on Instagram at Hurricane underscore Christa. And my name is Ch in Christ with an A on the end.

Jessie Ott (1:12:59)
Nice.

Nice. Okay. Excellent. Well, I did sign up for your newsletter today.

Christa Cotton (1:13:05)
good. Well, tomorrow morning the recap of everything that happened in March and April is coming out and then we'll do some other stuff for May since we're still trying to grapple with everything that happened in New York. So we're trying to get everything together. But yeah, there's a lot of cool stuff happening. So you'll be getting some cool newsletters coming out soon.

Jessie Ott (1:13:25)
All right. Yeah, I got to get mine out too. I'm a little behind. It's hard to do when, when you're by yourself. That's, know, yeah. Yeah. You know.

Christa Cotton (1:13:28)
I know it's hard to keep up with the writing.

Absolutely. I agree. It's hard.

Not do

yeah. awesome.

Jessie Ott (1:13:38)
Well, as Howard would say, you said it all.

Christa Cotton (1:13:43)
Well,

thank you for having me. really appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Jessie Ott (1:13:45)
Yeah, thank you so much. Okay, I'll let you get back to it. Bye.

Christa Cotton (1:13:49)
Thanks, bye.