Dry January Reimagined 🍾 w NA Wine Founder Lawrence Bremer

This week 📢I talk🎙️with Lawrence Bremer Founder of  St. Buena Vida Non-Alc Wine! Happy Dry January! 👏🍷 🎇 🎉 ✨ 👏 🥂 😁

What if Dry January actually felt like a celebration? 🍾
In this episode, Lawrence Bremer, founder of St. Buena Vida, shares how tech, taste, and logistics come together in one of the most innovative NA wines on the market.

🔥 Top Takeaways:
• 🤰 The origin story: a pregnancy, a bottle, and a surprise sip
• 🔬 Aroma capture tech that makes NA wine taste real
• 🚛 Global supply chain: Spain ➝ Germany ➝ U.S.
• 🥂 Crisp, clean bubbles with finish & balance
• 📈 Real sales data — not hype
• 🧠 Analytics mindset meets wine innovation
• 🧘 30 calories per glass = wellness crowd win

🎯 Whether you’re skipping booze or sipping smarter, this is a must-watch.
👇 Tap play and learn how NA wine is finally worth the pour.

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

Host Jessie Ott's Profile on LinkedIn

Chapters

• 2:28 Lawrence's Journey to Entrepreneurship
• 6:25 The Inspiration Behind Non-Alcoholic Wine
• 8:51 Sourcing and Production Challenges
• 12:21 Branding and Design Process
• 14:48 Product Launch and Availability
• 17:48 Future Plans and Expansion
• 27:47 Mentorship and Industry Insights
• 38:50 Navigating Distribution Challenges
• 41:13 Mentors
• 44:10 Resources
• 45:00 Major Pain Points
• 1:01:59 Produced by Fedora J Productions
• 1:02:20 Tune in Next Thursday and have a great week!

Transcript

Jessie Ott (00:30)
Hello everybody and welcome to Thursday Thursdays. My name is Jessie Ott and I have Lawrence Bremer here, founder of St. Buena Vida. Welcome Lawrence, how are you?

Lawrence (00:41)
Thank you.

Thank you, Jesse, so much for having me. This is our first podcast as a brand. Really great to be here. So thank you so much. Yep. Yep.

Jessie Ott (00:48)
Yay. I love that. your first stop. That's what I want.

The word is out. I love that. Where are you calling from?

Lawrence (00:56)
Totally.

So I'm based in New York, just in the suburbs outside the city. And our company is based in Manhattan.

Jessie Ott (01:07)
Okay, I used to live in Queens, right off 46th Street.

Lawrence (01:12)
Okay, so yeah, we're, mean, yeah, so basically I'm off park app in Manhattan.

Jessie Ott (01:19)
Okay. So you're not in a suburb.

Lawrence (01:22)
Well, the company

is, I live in Westchester. So that's about a 40 minute drive, 40 minutes north of the city.

Jessie Ott (01:25)
okay, Westchester.

Okay, gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had a, worked with a chef that ended up opening a restaurant up there. We went and visited him once.

Lawrence (01:41)
Okay,

yeah, there's good, really good food. A lot of people will take the Metro North from the city if they're wanting to try something new. They'll hop on the train and usually you can get to the Hudson, off the Hudson River. There's a lot of great places and they can, you know, hop on the Metro North and get out into Westchester for some food.

Jessie Ott (01:58)
Yeah. Nice. That's awesome. Very cool. So is that where you're from?

Lawrence (02:00)
Yeah.

I grew up in Westchester. Yeah. I grew up in Westchester. Went to school at Quinnipiac University, which is in Connecticut. Studied international business there for four years. Got into the nonprofit world after that and volunteered for a few years out in San Diego. And then did a 180 and started to work for a hedge fund in Connecticut after the nonprofit stuff. Sales and marketing. So it's

Jessie Ott (02:26)
wow. What did you do for them?

Lawrence (02:34)
It's called Bridgewater. It's the largest one in the world and they work with institutional investors. So really big pools of capital. And so I was on the sales team there for a couple of years. And then hopped over to a tech company and had been there for nine years prior to launching St. Pune Vida through the technology supply chain space, helping companies move product around the world. And was also in a sales role there for a number of years. then

you know, recently launched St. Bonavita and now full time on the wine brand.

Jessie Ott (03:02)
What kind of transportation anything just like a, truck trucking shipping company kind of thing.

Lawrence (03:06)
yeah.

Yeah, the company is called Flexport. They specialize in international transportation. So moving stuff on planes and boats and trains internationally all over the world from basically every country to basically every country. And I got to work at Flexport during the COVID era supply chain crisis. so yeah, my palms still get sweaty thinking about it. We were tasked with moving cargo for clients.

Jessie Ott (03:25)
⁓ yeah, that was great. Good times.

Lawrence (03:35)
at $25,000 per container from Asia and, know, really, really crazy stuff. you know, that was a, it was, I say the most challenging, but most fulfilling, you know, part of my career was working on behalf of clients to find ways to move stuff. It was just so challenging. when consumers were buying, buying, buying.

Jessie Ott (03:53)
Yeah, it was.

Lawrence (03:57)
sort of the back half of 20 and then certainly into 21 and 22 before that demand for consumer goods really started to taper off. But yeah, I sort of feel like I had a first class seat to global trade and seeing how companies operate. We work with nearly every industry, consumer goods, construction, have a toy company, every sort of commodity out there.

With the exception of wine, I never actually got the chance to move any beverage, but pretty much saw everything else.

Jessie Ott (04:27)
Hahaha.

Awesome. Well, that's super, super cool. That's a great experience. you know, I was with a broker and with the military and so trying to get shipments around the world was a real challenge trying to get promotions. They just had to start canceling them because they just couldn't get the product, to the stores. And so, it had a huge, obviously COVID had its own impact all around the world, but

Lawrence (04:42)
Mmm.

Jessie Ott (04:54)
Trying to be in that world during that time was certainly a challenge. For sure.

Lawrence (05:00)
Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, I like to think I took a lot of my learnings with me. we, the, brand we source wine from Spain, our glass comes from France. We put everything together and manufacture the product in Germany. We shipped to the U S so it, you know, but despite my experience in the supply chain world, we still had so many issues.

And it was really quite challenging. And I was sort of a part of this, going into it where I was like, you know, I got this. I've moved thousands of containers for hundreds of clients over the past decade. I'll figure out how to do this. And it's turned out to be quite challenging. despite a lot of experience.

Jessie Ott (05:27)
Yeah.

Well, there's more rules

and regulations and duties and yeah. I'm learning that now with the international world. Yeah.

Lawrence (05:48)
Certainly, especially in

this economic and tariff environment, it's quite tricky. Yeah. On the wine front, once you de-alkalize the wine, you really have to move quickly to get everything bottled. We were sort of moving it around. So you really need to be planful and execute the trip from Spain to Germany is basically two days.

You have to dealkalize it effectively immediately, get it into a tank, get it bottled, and really nothing can go wrong. I think you can expect in supply chain there will be delays and problems will pop up, but when you're moving wine, you really have to be careful. You have to move fast and be very planful, make sure every partner is ready to go.

Jessie Ott (06:37)
Yeah.

Lawrence (06:46)
make sure that that goes well prior to production.

Jessie Ott (06:50)
So let's talk about the brand. Are you ready?

Lawrence (06:53)
I am so ready.

Jessie Ott (06:55)
Okay. So how did you get the idea to start a non-alcoholic wine?

Lawrence (07:02)
Yeah,

I, you know, I was introduced to the category when my wife was pregnant. this was back in 21, when really there were a couple options out there. Like, you know, there's since then, you know, there's been a lot of great wines that have come to market. But a couple of years ago, there really weren't many, at least that I could find, know, what's what's on had had recently opened in New York. And so could sort of.

you know, stop into the shop and see what they have on the shelf. But, NA wine really was like just kind of getting started. At least that's sort of what I perceived at the time and kind of looking back on it, what it seems like. and I remember, you know, she was pregnant. I bought her a bottle. I had my bottle of champagne that I was going to drink that night and I kind of felt bad. You know, I'm opening the champagne. She's having this NA stuff.

But then I started to taste that I could see, actually, I'm having a very wine-like experience right now, even though what's in my glass doesn't have alcohol. And just got interested and started testing and trying and was surprised many times at some of the good quality out there and disappointed, think, often as well, with some of the options there. But just got interested in it. And I've been a wine enthusiast.

Jessie Ott (08:06)
Mm-hmm.

Lawrence (08:12)
I've collected and as a wine consumer over the years, I've always been interested in wine and trying wines, but just started to notice a change in the way that I was consuming. I think probably I over consumed during COVID and like many and just started noticing changes in my life. think probably as I got older,

Jessie Ott (08:26)
Yeah, like Minnie.

Lawrence (08:34)
the kids just started to change the way in which I was consuming and got really excited about what I was seeing in the NA category and also learned about new technology that was coming to market. And I think that's really the thing that got me most excited was learning and hearing that, there is some new technology coming that is going to really change the game. And that's what I found through Solos, which is what

you we're, we're using to de-alcoholize and, you can really create phenomenal wines now that have a lot of wine, like character and expression, can almost be a one-to-one replacement, with, with a, alcoholic wine. and that got me really excited. And I said, you know, I, I've got, you know, I've got to find a way to build a really cool brand that, you know, people can get.

behind and get excited about that will also deliver really quality products. And that's when I set out to build a brand took about two years from when we sort of, oh man, was, it was calling around, was calling around in Germany, like to various groups that I heard could de-alkalize a wine. It was,

Jessie Ott (09:32)
What's your first step? What do you do?

Lawrence (09:48)
messaging people on LinkedIn who I thought had some experience in de-alcalization and figuring out, hey, can I talk to you? Like it was really just information gathering for probably three or four months. And then someone had given me the tip to go to Pro Wine in Germany, Dusseldorf, the world's largest wine fair. ⁓ It is great. There I got to...

Jessie Ott (10:05)
Mm-hmm.

is great.

Lawrence (10:12)
you know, try a hundred different NA wines and had set up some meetings with potential suppliers. And then I walked the floor looking for our, base wine. And there's no better place to be than at that trade show at that, that fair to quite literally have the opportunity to taste thousands. Not that you'd have the time for it, but you could.

Jessie Ott (10:23)
No better. Yeah.

Lawrence (10:33)
Thousands of wines from all over the world, essentially every country that's, know, wine producing countries is at that show. And so I spent two days just tasting hundreds and hundreds of wines that I thought could potentially make for really interesting de-alkalized wine. And, you know, we went to Italy, we went to France, ultimately we landed in Spain, where found some really great producers, one in particular that we're now partnered with.

and really loved their Chardonnay, which is the one that we ultimately decided to go with after rounds and rounds of benchtop sampling and figuring out.

Jessie Ott (11:06)
What was it about

that Chardonnay? I mean, did you know that you wanted to make a Chardonnay or did you come to Dusseldorf with sort of an open mind?

Lawrence (11:14)
Totally open mind. Totally open mind. I wasn't set on Chardonnay. I was certain that we'd start with a sparkling wine. And I think naturally like Chardonnay will come to mind for that reason. So I certainly thought Chardonnay would be a contender. But no, we didn't have yet, you know, in mind particularly and was open. We had a Verdejo that was great and a few others.

Jessie Ott (11:36)
I love her, Dejo.

Lawrence (11:37)
Yeah,

yeah. Yeah. I think Verdejo would make for an awesome, know, bubbly, de-alkalized wine, but, we ended up going with Chardonnay, just sort of fit the profile that I thought would be best. and yeah, that was such a cool experience because, you know, you're in the middle of like, when you're at that wine fair, you know, you have access to, you know, so many producers and you just get to taste and try and, ⁓

Jessie Ott (12:00)
Mm-hmm.

Lawrence (12:02)
It was almost overwhelming because there was so much that I liked and sort of where do you go? and, you know, and then following that there's a lot of testing, right? So a lot of sampling the different wines and figuring out which ones are winners and losers. And, you know, we, went through that and that in and of itself probably took three or four months to be doing the samples in Germany, waiting for them to get shipped, giving the feedback and sort of iterating on that process.

Jessie Ott (12:25)
Yeah, because if you're having to pick a wine, you pick Spain when the process is done in Germany. So guess you test it, you shipped test wine to Germany. They did the process and then they bottled it and then shipped it over. Yeah.

Lawrence (12:43)
Exactly. Yeah. the,

the, machinery is massive. so, they have a, you know, bench top way of doing that, where you're able to send, you know, 10 liters of wine and they can run it through. And basically, you know, you'll get something very similar to what it would taste like. once you did a full production run, but yes, it was shipping them, you know, lots of different samples, you know, waiting.

for it to be processed and then shipped back to us for us to taste. Which we were also the first US brand to be doing this with them. And so there really wasn't like a playbook of like, do we do this efficiently? I think I probably would have done a couple of things different in terms of like order of operations, but we were the, you they weren't quite even ready to work with the US brand. And so.

There was a little bit of that, but I'm happy that we sort of went through that, you know, some of that friction because we ended up with something I think is great. But it was just, yeah, it was a little challenging working internationally and kind of going back and forth on that.

Jessie Ott (13:48)
And so,

What about the name? Talk about the name and the branding and all in the story.

Lawrence (13:54)
Yeah, so,

I work with a really great agency here in New York called Forge to figure out where our positioning was going to be and what our branding and design was going to look like. And in retrospect, I'm really happy I worked with this group, which I think we came out with an awesome, really awesome brand and really great packaging. We're getting really good feedback from the market on the packaging. They had no non-alco experience and hadn't really

had any wine experience. And I think that was great because it sort of all forced us to like do like really deep discovery and sort of have no assumptions about the category and they were new to the category. And it's important when you're coming up with a new product and a new brand to obviously be thinking differently, right? You want to stand out on shelf, you want to stand out in the market. And so it was really

Interesting experience. My first creative process, I had never done through anything like this. put basically, you know, all of my trust and saying, Hey, I'm going to share my thoughts and POV on the category and where I think, you know, we can be different and where I think we can find an angle. but then really took their lead on that. and so, you know, that was a six or eight month process, just getting to sort of a final result there.

Um, we went with it, sort of a bottle that was shaped with it kind of has a conical shape to it, presented all sorts of issues for our label. Like, you know, there was tons and tons of, um, you know, our, our neck label, uh, wasn't sticking properly, just all sorts of, you know, everyone I'm sure goes through that to some extent. We certainly did as well. Um, but yeah, the name St. Puevita, um, you know, we're leaning into this idea of the good life and, um,

indulgence and, you know, sort of took a lot of inspiration from European coastal summers, sipping this great wine on the water during lunchtime. And what does that mean? And what does that feel like? And what does that represent? And what can that mean for someone on a Tuesday afternoon at six o'clock that's maybe just wrapping up their day, but wants to pop a bottle and have something to kind of denote the end of their day and

take a deep breath and cook a great meal and have a wonderful night. And so it's just an idea of like, what does it mean to live the good life and the good moments? And so that's where we came up with Buena Vida. And then I'd say, know, St. Buena Vida, we took some inspiration from like the monks, right? Who were doing winemaking hundreds of years ago. And Spain has such an interesting history with wine. You know, I think that that history can sometimes be forgotten and like,

Jessie Ott (16:17)
Right.

Lawrence (16:28)
kind of cool to bring some of that back. And so you'll see some of those icons in our branding, like the praying hands and things like that. And yeah, that's that's like, sort of the short short story there. But that's like, by and large, how we came up with the name and and some of the early design concepts.

Jessie Ott (16:43)
Very cool. And so how can people buy it?

Lawrence (16:47)
Yeah. So, right now we are in a handful, 25 or so stores. We're online at st. Pointevita.com. we're launching formally. we've soft launched in January. We're launching formally on May 28th. By the time this episode comes out, we'll have been launched. and we'll be available online and pushing, you know, pedal to the metal in terms of getting into, retail shops across the country. we have a couple of things in the works.

the retail side that are unconfirmed, pending. ⁓ But right now the easiest way for folks to grab us would be at their local favorite non-op bottle shop or online at stbuenavita.com.

Jessie Ott (17:14)
Right.

And that's ST for Saint, right?

Lawrence (17:25)
stbuena

Vita.com exactly yeah

Jessie Ott (17:28)
Yeah.

Nice. I like it. That's really, really, really cool. talk a little bit about the logo and the bottle. You kind of mentioned a little bit about the bottle, but I can kind of see the theme now. So I have some ideas, but I'd like for you to explain, because people in the audience that are listening, haven't seen the bottle yet.

Lawrence (17:49)
Yeah, so we went with a of a sleek kind of, you know, a little bit untraditional in terms of sparkling. Actually, even from a bottling perspective, a lot of the bottlers that we had started to connect with initially, their equipment could essentially only fill like a very standard, traditional sparkling bottle. And so we even had a couple issues where like, and this is like,

pretty standard. Like it's not that crazy. Had some issues where we couldn't work with particular bottlers because the bottle wouldn't fit the line. But this is, you know, it's it's a sort of a sleek dark colored bottle. ⁓ It has a little bit of a conical shape to it on the front here, but otherwise, you know, it's just nice and easy to hold. It's on the lighter side. So we didn't want to go too heavy with the glass material. I think just from a, you know,

Jessie Ott (18:26)
Yeah.

Lawrence (18:40)
an environmental sustainability standpoint, wanted to opt, glass already, you know, isn't, candidly, isn't the greatest. But we wanted to opt for something on the lighter side and have a dark bottle that, you know, sort of sits really well on shelf and kind of looks like the more traditional champagne bottle that you'd see. Yeah, so that's,

That's sort how we ended up with that.

Jessie Ott (19:05)
And what about the logo?

Lawrence (19:06)
The logo. Yeah. My niche at Forge is a really talented artist. We went through probably five or six different iterations on the logo. We wanted to have something that looked a little bit more old world. You know, I think there's a lot of great brands today that, you know, in the wine category that are a bit more modern.

but we sort of wanted to have a little bit more of an old world feel to the logo, the bottle, the different icons that we're using on the label. And so that's, you that was basically our designer coming up with something that we thought really represented that look and feel.

Jessie Ott (19:48)
Nice. Well, should we try it? ⁓ one more thing. What is the price?

Lawrence (19:51)
Let's do it!

Yeah, so the retail price is $32. Yeah, the retail price is 32, 32 bucks.

Jessie Ott (20:04)
And are you looking to expand to other varietals?

Lawrence (20:09)
Definitely. We started with the Chardonnay. We are next will be likely a sparkling rose, ⁓ also sourced from Spain. And then a couple of still wines. So a still white and still rose. We're I'm not convinced like, yeah, on the red wine side, we're gonna pause, you know.

Jessie Ott (20:16)
nice.

Lawrence (20:28)
Right now, I think for us, it's really about sparkling and then eventually the still lines, the still white.

Jessie Ott (20:34)
Is that because of the

production of it? The process?

Lawrence (20:38)
Yeah, yeah, the bubbles, know, in a sparkling wine, the bubbles really help from the mouth feel and body perspective. You know, we don't add much sugar, but a little bit of that sugar will help some of those flavors come out as well. Obviously, when you remove the alcohol from a wine, in many ways, you're removing the backbone of that wine. And so it's important to make sure that you still have something in place.

You know, thankfully with Solos, the new aroma capture technology that we're using and that many other brands will soon have an opportunity to use, especially as Solos moves to the U.S., which they are in the process of doing now that equipment is being set up here in the U.S. You know, what we're going to end up with is a lot of really wine-like NA wines, you know, many, many people will tell, you know, folks who've been tasting for the past couple of years will say that, I don't know, maybe 70 or 80 % of what's out there just doesn't get the job done. And I think.

Jessie Ott (21:19)
Which is great.

Lawrence (21:28)
that with these technological advances in aroma capture, being able to take that alcohol distillate after de-alcoholization, get back in there, take those aromas and get them back into the wine, it's going to raise the quality across the board. so US brands will now be able to leverage Solos, which I'm shouting it from the rooftops because I just think that the more quality NA wine out there, the better. ⁓

Jessie Ott (21:54)
Yeah.

Lawrence (21:55)
on-premise, restaurants will be more interested and likely to want to bring it on the menu. It's a good thing to have more quality options out there. so, a big believer in the technology and want to share that with anyone who will listen and encourage them to try it and produce a great NA wine.

Jessie Ott (22:13)
So can you explain any of the technical parts of it that, that, cause okay, so you're, you're picking the wines in Spain, you're putting them in a truck or a container that probably is it, does it keep it cool? So you got to have a cool guy. So that's.

Lawrence (22:22)
Mm-hmm.

Big tank, big tanker.

Yeah, yeah. Yep.

It's got to be totally full because you don't want any extra oxygen in there. It's got to be totally full. It's got to be cold. So they keep it cold. And then the transit from Spain to Germany is just two days. So it's not like it's in there for very long. But the key is to make sure that it's full and it's at a good temp. And then of course, it's

Jessie Ott (22:38)
Oxygen.

Yeah.

Now is this just

juice or is there any lees or any other material?

Lawrence (22:57)
It's a finished wine. So this is a finished wine. The winery that we partner with in Spain sells this Chardonnay as is in a bottle, right? So we're just basically very lucky to be purchasing what they're willing to sell us, but it's a finished Chardonnay ready to go. Yep.

Jessie Ott (22:59)
Okay.

Okay. Ready

to go. Okay. And so it gets into Germany, it goes to manufacturer or solos. ⁓ it's a winery. Okay.

Lawrence (23:22)
Well, another winery. Yeah. It's another

winery. Yeah. And that winery is using Solos. And so, yeah, they'll accept the wine. They'll unload, get it into a tank, get it through dealkylization quickly. They'll run that aroma capture process.

Jessie Ott (23:37)
What, what,

do you know what the, how they removed the alcohol?

Lawrence (23:42)
Yeah, so the first part, and I'm not a winemaker. ⁓ So the first part is via vacuum distillation, which has been around for a very long time. Vacuum distillation is sort of the standard dealkylization process out there. So it goes through vacuum distillation. That isn't particularly unique to the technology. That's just vacuum distillation. It's how you can remove alcohol from a liquid. Once that's over, you're then left with an alcohol

Jessie Ott (23:46)
That's okay.

Lawrence (24:07)
Distillate that happens to have a lot of really important aroma compounds in it Because those those compounds look very similar to the alcohol. So when you strip out the alcohol Those compounds go with it, which is why up until today, you know when you do alcoholize a wine You're often left with like wine water, right because so much of that flavor aroma has gone out with Has gone with the alcohol

Jessie Ott (24:30)
structure.

Lawrence (24:32)
So now with this secondary aroma capture process, you're then able to go back in and focus on that distillates that has now been taken out of the wine. That's where you can identify the good aromas, the aromas that you want to get back into it. And that secondary process is really the key. And that's when you can identify those aromas, add them back into the wine. And you're left with a wine that has the really amazing wine-like aroma that you cannot replicate through juices and concentrates and stuff, you know,

natural flavors, like it's fine to use, you we can use that fine. But I just don't think there's anything that you can use to replicate that true wine-like aroma that only wine can give you. And so the beauty of it is you really don't have to add much back to this wine. We add a little bit of great must for sugar, but you don't have to add

Jessie Ott (25:13)
Yeah.

Lawrence (25:25)
really anything back into the wine, have a beautiful wine that's ready to go, full of flavor, good acidity, in balance. That's what the result is through this new technology.

Jessie Ott (25:40)
That's really cool. And it has no calories, right? Since there's no alcohol, there's no calories.

Lawrence (25:44)
Zero,

zero calorie. No. Let's see. So we're at 30 per serving. ⁓ Yeah. mean, it turns out that yeah, the alcohol does have quite a bit. Yeah. That's really where the calories live. So when you strip it out, you're left with, yeah, for in our case, about 30 per serving.

Jessie Ott (25:49)
That's low. That's great.

Yeah, because usually it's around 80.

Lawrence (26:05)
Yeah, or more, depending on the sweetness. yeah, I guess that's another benefit is just the low calorie count.

Jessie Ott (26:15)
Yeah, which is so important to so many. know, with keto and...

Lawrence (26:18)
Yes, totally. Yeah, I was actually, I

was kind of surprised. mean, I'm not the type of person, well, at least when it comes to this, where I pick up a bottle and I immediately look at the calories, but a lot of, a lot of people are. Um, and I've sort of heard anecdotally that like, you know, you kind of want to be like 20, 30, 40 calories. If you get like kind of above that people kind of, uh, people, the people who are looking, you know, will kind of opt for something, you know, maybe a different option.

Jessie Ott (26:29)
Mm-hmm.

I didn't hear that before.

Lawrence (26:46)
Yeah, if that's what they're concerned about, ⁓ they know that there's lower calorie options available to them. They might grab a different bottle.

Jessie Ott (26:49)
Right.

Interesting. Well, should we go for the tasting?

Lawrence (26:59)
Yes, let's do it.

Jessie Ott (27:00)
I've got my bottle on ice over here, so I gotta wipe it down.

Lawrence (27:04)
Okay, very good. Had my bottle has not been, was chilled before.

Jessie Ott (27:06)
wet.

That sounded good. So here's the bottle.

back so you can see the 30 calories.

Very cool. It's very good looking bottle.

So did you come up with the colors or did the agency of the logo?

Lawrence (27:22)
Yeah, I mean, it's totally collaborative. This was like everything else, multiple iterations. We sort of landed on this dark green that we really liked. The pink was critical. The pink really just makes everything kind of pop. I think it's a little bit more welcoming. And the gold foil, there you go.

Jessie Ott (27:40)
Yeah.

Woo, bubbles.

Lawrence (27:46)
Gold foil was something else that we played around with a lot. The thing with the gold foil is you could end up with a bottle that looks like, sometimes your mom or dad's favorite bottle of wine, the $8 bottle from the shop, that doesn't quite give you the look you're looking for. And in our case, I think we ended up with a great looking foil that elevates the

Jessie Ott (28:11)
Right.

Lawrence (28:16)
the front label.

Jessie Ott (28:18)
No, it really does. pops. The gold foil is a good idea. I like it. I like it a lot. And I love the pink, you know, as like the accent color with the little palm tree. That's so fun.

Lawrence (28:30)
The pink, yeah, the pink's important. The pink you'll see in other parts of our branding. We use that quite a bit, contrasted with that dark green color. Another thing is like, you don't see a lot of green on wine bottles. ⁓ That's sort of one of the colors that like you do rarely see. And so we, you know, we, again, we sort of saw that as another way to kind of stand out and, you know, use that color, but, you know, make sure it was still in a elegant.

Jessie Ott (28:42)
Mm-mm.

Lawrence (28:57)
elevated look and feel.

Jessie Ott (28:59)
Yeah, I like it. I like the choice of the font too.

sort of that traditional meets modern.

Lawrence (29:07)
Yeah, that's what we're going for. Totally. you know, this, you know, we wanted to call back that old world, you know, vibe, but, you know, make a drink for a modern drinker who, you know, is, is appreciating these beverages and, you know, wants to see some of that, you know, modern influence as well.

Jessie Ott (29:10)
Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Well, it smells delicious.

Lawrence (29:33)
Yeah, I get a lot of on the nose I get

Jessie Ott (29:35)
Lemon, honeysuckle.

Lawrence (29:37)
Yeah, definitely citrus, a bit of stone fruit. ⁓ Yeah, white flowers. a sommelier friend of mine yesterday called out acacia.

Jessie Ott (29:40)
citrus, stone fruit, flowers.

Yeah. For me, the color and the nose, my brain goes, this is from a warmer climate. I don't know where in Spain this is made, but that's just my guess. don't know if it's-

Lawrence (30:02)
Yep, totally.

Yeah from from La Mancha in Spain definitely warm warm climate Yeah, that the apple is a little bit The apple and pear a little bit more on the riper side that stone fruit I kind of got like a peachy Like a ripe peach and then some of the citrus and the white flowers

Jessie Ott (30:09)
Yeah.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yup.

Yeah. All right. Let's try it.

Yep. Look at all these bubbles. It's great.

Yeah, that's really good. It does have a little sweetness on the palette. It kind of sticks with you. But it's crisp, it's clean. It's got a great mouth feel to it. I mean, it's got this great finish because I can still feel it.

in my mouth, like literally all over. It's not like it just dissolves or goes away. It's really nice.

Lawrence (30:52)
Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's spot on. Um, I'm glad, I'm glad you love it. Um, yeah, we had a little bit of, of acid that acid is really important. You can lose some of that in the delocalization as well. Um, but to, get that wine into balance, um, yeah, there's some good acidity here. I still get it. I'm still feeling it. Um, yeah. And on the sugar, you know, like any good sparkling wine will have some sweetness. Um, you know, we, we sort of went.

Jessie Ott (31:04)
Mm-hmm.

There is some, yep, a little tart.

Lawrence (31:21)
kind of in the middle, ended up, think I want to say around seven grams, around seven grams, which is sort of middle of the road. You know, wanted it to be approachable, kind of dry, you know, on the drier side, but give give a little bit of that, that sweetness that bite. And, and yeah, that's, that's where we that's where we landed on the sugar.

Jessie Ott (31:43)
Nice. Well, this is an exciting time. mean, you just quit your big, big job. That's scary. Really scary, but exciting.

Lawrence (31:49)
Yeah, it's, yeah,

yeah, I just, I feel like, you know, you know, to go all in and, and, really give it full effort required that. And so I'm really excited to be going full time on St. Buenavita, getting it out to, you know, as many people as possible and, and starting to build our distribution and our network and building a loyal

a loyal consumer base that can get behind the brand and behind the beverage. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to our launch, which is happening formally next week. ⁓

Jessie Ott (32:23)
Where are you having your

lunch at?

Lawrence (32:24)
Well, so we had a, we had a, for our soft launch, had a great event in New York, in Manhattan. That was back in January and that was really to get, you know, some folks from the press and some people in hospitality space in New York together to taste and try and, sort of announce kind of what the early plans are. We're actually not having a formal event next week. It'll be more so, you know, announcements in the digital, digital world. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (32:48)
Gotcha.

Lawrence (32:49)
But we are expecting to do some events this summer. We want to get people together here in New York. This is really such a great, I think the NA Sparkling Wine, especially in the summertime, everyone can get behind that. And so I think these summer months here in New York, we're to be looking to have a few events here in the city.

Jessie Ott (33:09)
good. So what is your distribution plan? Are you going to go with the traditional distribution of wine and spirit distributors?

Lawrence (33:18)
Yeah, so, well in New York, no, because right now that's not, you know, it's not possible with the current, set up where traditional wine and liquor distributors can really carry any products in earnest. that's, there's a, I want to say there's about 15 or so states where that's the case. yeah, we're going to, we, we are starting to have conversations with a few regional distributors, where

you know, we're hoping to get, you know, sort of see some, some early momentum with a few of the regional distributors, but we're going state by state. We're seeing where the opportunities are. There's a really amazing network of non-alcoholic bottle shops, which is where we sort of, you know, want to find our first customers. So we're in about 25 of those and there's probably another 50 or a hundred, for us to get placements with. so that's like a really just for any NA brand that's just coming to market, which is like such a wonderful way.

to get in front of consumers who are looking for this stuff, to get feedback, to see how the market is perceiving the product. And so I'm a huge fan of the small bottle shop that is folks that are experts in the space and can really identify the great products and kind of separate them from the rest. so certainly focusing on them. And then on-prem's big for us as well. So I'm very lucky to be here in New York where

There's just so many amazing restaurants that have fantastic, sophisticated, zero-proof menus or sections of the menu. And so we're going to be really focused on on-prem and making sure that we're introducing the wine to as many folks as we can on the on-prem side. That's the big focus for this summer.

Jessie Ott (34:52)
Did you, before you had your final product, did you take samples out to the trade and have bartenders, sommeliers try it and get feedback on what they thought would, to kind of get them involved in the process?

Lawrence (35:03)
Yeah

Yes and no, a little bit. What's really challenging about the process is, again, you can only do the benchtop samples where you really have very little liquid. you can't do, like if you do a full run, you have to have 10,000 liters or so. So when you do the benchtop samples, you just have a few. so, you can get in, obviously once you open it, it just doesn't.

Jessie Ott (35:30)
Yeah.

Lawrence (35:38)
It's not good for very long. And so I did have, you know, was able to bring out a few bottles here and there, but wasn't able to like go out to, you know, 50 contacts and have everyone taste it. It was more, uh, you know, basically friends who I have, you know, know in the industry who I could get it in front of. a couple of folks who had met along the way, but, um, that is something that I wish, you know, maybe I had done differently was like, think about a way to just get it out to more people early and just get all of that feedback as much as of it as possible.

Jessie Ott (35:47)
Right.

Lawrence (36:08)
But.

Jessie Ott (36:09)
Well, you can still

do that now and refine it even with the bottles you have. You can always evolve if that's what needs to happen.

Lawrence (36:14)
Totally.

Totally. Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. mean, yep. 100%. And, and I think that for our next, our next, uh, production run will certainly be, um, you know, we'll, we'll make that a bigger part of, of how we sort of finalize and adjust our, our, our final wine before we go to produce the big 10, 20,000 liter run.

Jessie Ott (36:40)
So and how is it being received? Have you given the bottles of this to some of those sommeliers in the trade? And what's the feedback so far?

Lawrence (36:49)
Yeah,

it's really been exciting to be candid. We were a showcase brand at Spirited Away. Spirited Away is one of the leading non-off bottle shops here in New York. we were a showcase brand with them earlier this year, which basically means we're one of the of the feature brands. They've done 60 of these showcases and St. Pointe Evita was the highest selling showcase that they had done. ⁓ And yeah, the, know, it's

Jessie Ott (37:10)
Wow.

Lawrence (37:14)
It's tough too, because again, how new the category is. Like lot of people I'm tasting just don't have a lot of experience, right? Like they're like, yeah, this is good. But would you compare it against like a lot of the Psalms that I'll even meet with, um, they'll have had a handful of NA wines before, right? So there's, still so much learning, um, for everyone that, um, you know, every, every conversation's a little bit different, uh, because of the, you know, how new everything is.

Jessie Ott (37:33)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lawrence (37:44)
but like overall, the feedback has been great. We were just at an event, at a month ago where it's very high traffic, very busy. People were grabbing glasses off the table as we were sampling. And most of the time we didn't have enough time to tell them, Hey, by the way, like this thing, this doesn't have alcohol in it. Look, you know, we didn't have any signage or anything that said, Hey, not alcohol. So people would take it, go off, come back 10 or 15 minutes later with an empty glass, maybe ask for a second, having no idea.

that this wasn't a glass of champagne or something that, you know, they'd assumed it was just a normal, yeah, it's, you know, I'd say the average consumer, if you were to put this in front of them, they wouldn't know that this wasn't an alcoholic wine. And so, you know, for the restaurants that are looking for that one-to-one replacement, this, you know, certainly solves that for them.

Jessie Ott (38:14)
They didn't care. just, they liked it.

Lawrence (38:35)
It's an elevated sparkling wine that people who are looking for that glass of bubbly and they want it to taste like their favorite sparkling wine, it accomplishes that for them. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (38:50)
Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. All right. So is there anything else you want to mention about the brand before we kind of move on to you?

Lawrence (38:59)
no, I think, you know, we're excited to get it out there. Like we're, you know, it's been two, years in the making and I'm just, you know, at the sort of the whole first part was really the figuring out production and figuring out how can we make something of quality that can command the price point that we believe it should, that can align with our branding and our positioning and figuring all of that out was.

Jessie Ott (39:03)
Yeah.

Lawrence (39:27)
an arduous journey. And now I think, you know, coming into this, thought, well, the sales will, that'll figure itself out. But you know, the sales is going to be just as hard. I'm, I'm harder, harder. But I'm just.

Jessie Ott (39:36)
harder. Yeah. But the

thing that you got is time on your side because you're early and you're high quality within a segment that doesn't have a lot of high quality. So I think that, you know, you're coming in at a good time. I think your price point is good. I interviewed, Oceana Wines owner, ⁓

Lawrence (39:50)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jessie Ott (40:02)
You know her? Megan?

Rachel Martin. I interviewed Rachel with Oceano Wines and I think hers, we tried a low alcohol, which was a, the, Syrah. And it was really good, but she said that she's, think, I don't know if it's the same company, but we're going to do a taste test of

Lawrence (40:11)
Mm.

Jessie Ott (40:22)
her low alcohol, no alcohol shard against this new technology that she's going to be doing with the new vintage. And we're going to taste test it against each other to see the difference in quality. And she's good from her previous vintage. But even at the $50 that she sells at, she sells out, but she doesn't have a lot.

Lawrence (40:33)
from her previous vintage. Very cool.

Yeah.

Yep. Yep. Yeah. mean, you know, the consumer who's interested in these products, are willing to pay for quality because there's, you know, there's a lot of, I think a lot of folks have been burned over the years just in shelling out $30 or $40 bucks and being disappointed. And so when they do find something that they like, you know, they're willing to buy and spend on that.

Jessie Ott (40:43)
Right.

Lawrence (41:03)
you know, in some ways I think that the price point in this category, I mean, reflects, quality in a lot of ways, uh, like, I guess like any wine, but, certainly seeing that here in NA as well.

Jessie Ott (41:14)
Yeah. Yeah, no, that's great. I can't stop drinking it. So switching over to you, do you want to talk about any mentors that kind of helped you? mean, being new to the industry, I'm sure you had to do a lot of research and, you know, reaching out to different industry folks to kind of help you navigate it a little bit.

Lawrence (41:17)
Awesome. Awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I will say, you know, not coming from industry, I think it has pros and cons, but surprisingly so many people are willing to help. know, once they've sort of validated like, okay, you know, there's a real plan here. There's some passion here. There's a, you know, there's something that Lawrence wants to accomplish this thing.

You know, they're really willing to help. I've been working very closely with Taylor Foxman over the past 18 months or so as an advisor. And she has been just unbelievably helpful in helping me to navigate the space and understand what's going on and what's worth pursuing. I think in the NA world, there really isn't a playbook yet.

Jessie Ott (42:01)
Right.

See you.

Lawrence (42:24)
for new brands, like there just isn't. It's too new. Yeah, it's too new. And so there really isn't a playbook. so having her in, you know, being able to bounce ideas off of her each week as we're running into obstacles and all sorts of problems and pushing through them and onto the next, you know, she's certainly a mentor in that sense. ⁓ And so, yeah, so many years of experience.

Jessie Ott (42:43)
That's great. No, she's a great resource.

Lawrence (42:48)
The industry is also changing so quickly that you really have to be able adapt.

Jessie Ott (42:53)
Which is funny

you say that because it was the same old, same old, same old until like just before COVID really. It's just been, it's just, it's a laggard industry and I can't really say that for it anymore. It's pretty, it's been reinvented by people that are from out of the industry.

Lawrence (42:58)
Yeah.

Yeah!

Yeah. Yeah. And, and, yeah, and I certainly don't, you I don't have the perspective that all the years of experience and perspective that you have, but even the past 18 months, you know, so many things have changed in the NA world and there's new brands coming out every week and there's, obviously becoming much more competitive. and so being able to like quickly respond and stay ahead of these things as you're perceiving them.

happening or about to happen, think is critical for the success of a small brand. And so just going back to your original question, yeah, being able to talk through those things with Taylor has been critical and has helped us get to the point where we are today, where we feel really good about our lunch, we feel really good about our wine. And now it's a matter of getting it out there.

Jessie Ott (44:01)
Yeah. No, know. Yeah, absolutely. What about any resources that you use to kind of educate yourself with the industry?

Lawrence (44:10)
Resources. So in this category, one of the key ones that I've been relying on is Dry Atlas. Victoria and Douglas running Dry Atlas. So many amazing resources for new brands, new founders. know, there's sort of the, you know, I go, I'm reading Dry Atlas every week. They're bringing up, you know, constantly what's, what's new and current. And there's lots of great newsletters out there.

And then, you know, BevNet, going to BevNet live here in New York in a couple of weeks have been to a couple of their events in the past and it's obviously much broader beverage, but same kind of fundamentals and following them closely. Those would be sort of kind of the two or three that I'm, you know, I'm visiting every week.

Jessie Ott (44:59)
Yeah.

Yeah, those are good resources for sure. What about any major pain points that, you know, you're, not really, into the full on distribution part quite yet, but you know, is there any major obstacles that you didn't foresee that you overcame that you want to kind of talk about?

Lawrence (45:19)
I'm sure they're coming. I'm sure they're coming. Yeah, candidly with now, I'm of formally launching it next week and starting to really ramp up those conversations. I'm sure there'll be all sorts of that coming our way. ⁓ I do think it's been a little bit tricky just again, obviously it's great. These products are under FDA purview.

Jessie Ott (45:22)
Hahaha!

Yeah.

Lawrence (45:44)
which is its own thing. We don't have to deal with three tier nuance. Shipping across state lines is easy. that part has been a breeze, just being able to get the product out to whoever, whenever same day. Like no, no, no questions asked. It's so easy in that sense. But I think where there are, you know, where there's more challenges is the fact that there isn't this already established network and distribution and

Jessie Ott (45:57)
Yep. 100%.

Lawrence (46:14)
You know, that infrastructure doesn't really exist in scale today. so figuring out, who are the distributors that haven't found the right products for their portfolio over the past couple of years who are now eager for that? Like, where can I go find them? you know, where are the, the, the cities, that are really embracing any products right now? I'd say it's, it's could be hit or miss, right? Depending on.

Jessie Ott (46:18)
Yeah.

Lawrence (46:40)
I think there's certainly some geos in the US right now that are really embracing it and others are a bit slower and maybe three, four, five years behind. But it's really just spending time thinking about those questions and pursuing them and placing the right bets and investing in those sort of assumptions to make sure that we're planning our three, six, nine, 12 months really thoughtfully and growing.

Jessie Ott (47:00)
Right.

So what is your outlook then for saying Buena Vida for the next 18 months or so? What's the plan?

Lawrence (47:10)
⁓

Yeah, I've tried to project that far out. I just don't think it's possible right now because yeah, it's hard and like even

Jessie Ott (47:18)
It is hard.

You don't want to be too,

you know, spread too wide with not enough volume. And, you know, it's a tricky game.

Lawrence (47:29)
And even, if you'd asked me that same question three months ago, like for today, like things, you know, it's, it's very, you know, it's just moving quickly. And so, for us, I think we're just keeping a really open mind to the different types of partnerships that exists, the different distribution opportunities that might exist, the occasions in which these drinks are going to be enjoyed. I think the use cases are like, that list is growing. you know, even recently, like getting hit up.

constantly by the wellness community and the, you know, spas and different, you know, wellness resorts. Like there's so many places for these products to live and to be enjoyed that, um, you know, we, we want to, you know, obviously be a part of all of that and pursue those pursue those, um, thoughtfully, but yeah, to ask, to answer your question, I have no idea in 18 months. I'd love to say that, you know, we have

Jessie Ott (48:22)
You

Lawrence (48:24)
you know, a couple of really great distribution partners, you know, where, you know, we're seeing some retail, in volume and, know, we've, we've, you know, we have our hundred or, or 200 on-prem accounts, you know, that, that are, ⁓ yeah, think those are some sort of general targets, but that's, you know, sort of what I'd hope that we can accomplish in the next 18 months.

Jessie Ott (48:37)
That's a lot.

Yeah. That's good.

Yeah, well, I think you've got momentum. know, Florida is behind. I most bars or restaurants here don't even have a cocktail menu. Right? But you go to Dallas and everywhere we went when we were back, everybody had an NA section or NA's on the menu. Like, it's normalized. ⁓

Lawrence (49:03)
Hmm. In Dallas. Hmm.

Jessie Ott (49:07)
So, know, go to the markets where they're embracing it. I'm not saying Orlando, I'm not saying that Orlando isn't embracing it to some degree. We've got the At Hotel here, which is 100 % alcohol free, but it's a high-end cocktail chef driven concept. And then I interviewed a bartender and the owner of another concept, but I guess they're not there anymore.

and they had a bottle shop so you could, he was kind of an actor so he'd come and do fun stuff. But the idea was, yeah, like five or six tables, you had to drink, your alcohol free booze, whatever, and then go on your way. And he had to make a reservation to get in because there's only a few seats. It's pretty cool. Pretty cool concept. I think, you know,

Lawrence (49:46)
Mm.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jessie Ott (49:56)
Do your research, talk to the AFNA community. Those guys I'm sure have lots of resources on the states and the markets and whatnot. It's kind of one of these things where you talked about earlier, all boats rise the tide together, right? ⁓ I'm sure you have a great community of network of people. There's zero proof. There's just so many people that are very active out there that...

Lawrence (50:10)
Mm, yeah.

Jessie Ott (50:22)
I'm sure have learned a lot already and can help you kind of lead you into the right direction.

Lawrence (50:30)
That's another thing I really appreciate is that so many brands I've been introduced to and have been able to be in contact with have that same mentality. so when that sort of momentum can work, when those sorts of people can build that momentum together, you can really start to push a category and really start to grow it. And so that's another thing I've really been appreciative of.

in just the short amount of time that we've been in the market is seeing that and feeling that from other brands. I think it's pretty critical for a new category that's trying to get on the map.

Jessie Ott (51:03)
Yep.

But they also have an event every year in DC ⁓ that I think, yeah, so I mean there's ways for you to get great exposure.

Lawrence (51:09)
Yeah, mindful drinking fast. Yeah.

Yes, yes. And there's more of those. There's drinks with benefits is going to be the first one in New York happening here in the city on September 27th, 30 or 40 brands. There's going to be, I think those are going to be popping up all across the country. And for the consumer, how cool of an opportunity is that to get to go and taste 30, 40 brands tastes is such and sampling and trialing different brands is such a key thing in this category that these types of venues,

Jessie Ott (51:26)
Great. Yeah, they will be.

It really is.

Lawrence (51:43)
you know, those events are going to be critical. And so we want to participate in all of this.

Jessie Ott (51:49)
Yeah. Well, and I don't think you should, you know, not, I would use the 30 calories as a way to brand for sure, because go to the keto communities, you know, go to those places. Go to those communities where...

Lawrence (51:59)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah, I don't know if this is keto

certified. I haven't looked into that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jessie Ott (52:08)
Well, yeah, I'm just saying, but 30 calories

a glass, like you said, it's under the thresholds or at the threshold of somebody making a decision whether they're going to drink that or something else. So I just feel like you're hitting a lot of marks here, you know, for a lot of different groups of people.

Lawrence (52:19)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And we don't, haven't really leaned into any of that in our messaging just around sort of the nuts and bolts, like from the health, like the, the, just the intake perspective, but that's it's, I forget that that really is oftentimes a key consideration for people and says, it certainly makes sense to figure out what, you where you want to message that.

Jessie Ott (52:47)
My best friends are keto. So, and it's so funny because the different groups of people that come and visit your, your consumption changes with them, right? And so when she's keto, when I talk about NABF, she's like, well, there's too much sugar in it. That's, that's that. mean, she, that's just what she, she feels is, is, is out there. Cause that's what she's tried or that's what's, what's she's seen so far. Right?

Lawrence (52:49)
Hmm

historically,

Jessie Ott (53:12)
And so now I can say, well, I have another option and it's only 30 calories of glass.

Lawrence (53:19)
Yeah.

And yeah, and historically sugar. Yeah. That's a big objection that you get from folks who've maybe tried, tried around and they just felt like a lot of, there's a lot of sugar in their drinks. Um, yeah, brands are certainly, I think, backing off of that, you know, to some extent and you're seeing some really interesting, you know, know, dry, bitter, like flavor profiles that aren't just the sweet sort of juicy sweet. Um, totally.

Jessie Ott (53:31)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And maybe that's

your brute Rose. Maybe you decide to go a little bit drier on that because that's a hot category. I love brute Rose and you know, go even lower on the sugar. Nobody, nobody will, know, cause if it, if it fits or if it fits your, I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just saying that could be an option to you have this one that's for this community and this one that you can go cross over a little bit more. It's just an idea.

Lawrence (53:52)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yep.

Totally.

Jessie Ott (54:12)
I just like to talk about it. I'm a visionary. can't help it. It comes just pops in my head.

Lawrence (54:12)
Yeah, of course. Well, you'll be in our brute rosé tasting committees soon as we have it.

Jessie Ott (54:21)
Fantastic. Well, I do want to tell you that if you do have a new product coming out, you can come back on the show. We don't have to do the full interview. We can just do the tasting.

Lawrence (54:30)
Yeah, we'd love to do that. Let's plan on it. Let's plan on it. It'll probably be early next year. ⁓ So we should be perfect. We'd love to do that.

Jessie Ott (54:32)
Yeah.

That's fine. That'll be great. Then we can catch up. We can see what's going on.

Alright, well this has been so much fun. Thank you for sending me the bottles. I've got one right there. Do you see it?

Lawrence (54:49)
Thank you for having me.

off screen slightly, but maybe, maybe just be my, my ratio of what I can see. But what is that? Yeah, I can see him. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yes. Yes.

Jessie Ott (54:57)
must be. Do you see this guy?

Grogu? I moved him around in the background.

And so I'm going to create like a funny video where, where's like for people to find Grogu. Where, where is Grogu? Yeah. Yeah. It'll be fun. It'll be really fun. Um, well, do you want to play a little game? It's a little fun game. Okay. So I'm going to ask you three questions. I don't even know what they are yet. And, um,

Lawrence (55:13)
for each episode. Yeah, I love that.

Sure.

Okay.

Jessie Ott (55:31)
Because it's a beverage show, sometimes I have to throw in a beverage question.

Just don't overthink it. Just whatever pops in your head. If you were a cocktail, what would you be?

Lawrence (55:41)
a Negroni Spagliano, the low ABV version.

Jessie Ott (55:44)
⁓

Okay. What's that? is that?

Lawrence (55:48)
We had

it at our launch event. it was Campari, Vermouth and Saint Buena Vita. And it was like a low ABV Negroni Spagliano. It was delicious. It was absolutely delicious. And I've been thinking about it ever since. Why does that represent me? It doesn't really. I've just been thinking a lot about it.

Jessie Ott (56:02)
That sounds good.

Yeah.

Lawrence (56:12)
And that's the first thing that popped into my head.

Jessie Ott (56:13)
Yeah,

it made a big impact on you. That's great.

Lawrence (56:17)
Yes, yes

it did. Yeah. And I think it's cool too. Like this idea of like the sliding scale of, you know, alcohol in a drink. It's, you know, this was sort of a low AB version because it had the Campari and the Vermouth, obviously very low amounts, but then it also had the same BV and it was just super tasty. ⁓ yeah, people, people loved it. People loved it.

Jessie Ott (56:37)
Lively, little bubbles. Yeah.

I want to go make one now, but I don't have the low ABV one. So what is it? What's the recipe? Is it just a little bit of Campari? ⁓ don't worry about it. Okay. I'll just go bartend my way through it with my mad skills. Okay.

Lawrence (56:44)
Yeah.

⁓ man, off the top of my head, I don't remember. ⁓ Yeah.

Okay, I'll send you the recipe that we had for that day.

Jessie Ott (57:01)
What's your favorite place to travel?

Lawrence (57:02)
I, well, I'd say two places. One would be, Italy. I have a soft spot for Florence. been there a couple of times and, got engaged there, love Florence. And then a 90 minute or two hour trip from New York, would be my favorite would be Bermuda. which I've been to.

Jessie Ott (57:20)
Okay.

Lawrence (57:21)
a couple of times. Yeah, people forget that it's on the same latitude as North Carolina. And it's very, you know, at least from where I am here in New York, it's a less than a two hour flight, if I recall, it's about two hours. So you could go there for a little three day weekend and feel like you're, you know, in you are in the middle of the ocean. But it's a really nice, it's a really nice little, little getaway and, and I

Jessie Ott (57:35)
That's nice. Yeah.

Right. Here in the middle of nowhere surrounded by sharks.

Lawrence (57:50)
Yeah, yeah, but it's such

a fun little spot, for a couple of days. I think you can only do that for a couple of days.

Jessie Ott (57:57)
Yeah.

Well, it's probably not very big.

Lawrence (58:02)
No, no,

no, you can take a motor scooters and get across the whole island in a day.

Jessie Ott (58:08)
What is your favorite food?

Lawrence (58:10)
My favorite food is

Jessie Ott (58:12)
Or let me say

this, what would be your last meal if you could pick it? That's a more fun.

Lawrence (58:16)
Yeah, man, last meal. ⁓ It

would probably be like, it would probably be pretty hearty, like a chicken parm with like penne vodka and some bread that I'm like dipping in some like really good olive oil, probably. Like that just makes me happy every time. Every time I have that type of meal. ⁓ Last meal, yeah, that'd probably be my last meal. Yeah, maybe a slice of.

Jessie Ott (58:33)
Yeah.

Yeah, makes me want pizza.

Lawrence (58:44)
Neapolitan pizza on the side, probably. Something like that. The Italian flavors. It's like that question if you could only eat one thing every day for the rest of your life, what would it be? I don't know that I'd have the same answer for that. ⁓ But for my last meal, probably.

Jessie Ott (58:47)
Yeah, you want to eat all of it.

Mm.

Yeah, I like that. Italy all the way. We went in 2019 and it was incredible. And I'm gluten intolerant or grain intolerant, know, like quinoa and some buckwheat and just certain things I can't process. And I didn't have a problem eating anything over there. I mean, we did walk five to 10 miles a day, but you know, and that helps certainly. But man, that food.

Lawrence (59:14)
Hmm.

Yeah, yeah, we say.

Jessie Ott (59:30)
It's so good.

Lawrence (59:31)
Yeah, that's

what they say is that you can go over there and just, it just doesn't hit you the same way it does here. ⁓ I don't know what the science is, but that's seemingly what,

Jessie Ott (59:37)
Mm-mm.

Ancient grains, no GMOs. don't, they

don't screw around with the yields and all the things as much as we do here. You know.

Lawrence (59:51)
Yep. Yeah. That stuff. That stuff. Uh huh. Thank you so much for having me. It a lot of fun.

Jessie Ott (59:52)
That stuff. Well, this has been so much fun and thank you.

Yeah, good. Good, good, good. And I will let you get back to your day and best of luck for your launch. If I can get a little snippet out and send it out, I'll try. That could be kind of fun to wish you luck. Yeah.

Lawrence (1:00:10)
Thank you so much.

Wonderful. Yep. Thank

you. Thank you. Yeah. May 28th, we'll launch in earnest and, you know, please follow St. PV and find us online at st.puanavita.com. Reach out to me at laurence at st.puanavita.com. And if you want to connect over email or DM our Instagram, cause I'll get it there as well.

Jessie Ott (1:00:20)
Yeah.

Awesome. Is that your primary social media site then the Instagram?

Lawrence (1:00:42)
Yeah,

yeah, it is. Right now it is. We'll get on to the, you know, TikTok at some point, I'm sure. But yeah, I don't have as much experience with that. So Instagram feels a little more familiar, a little bit more cut and dry. So that's where we're building our early following for now.

Jessie Ott (1:00:51)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's a good place. mean, I just started TikTok a few months ago and it's actually been, it's been really a great experience for me.

Lawrence (1:01:02)
⁓ okay.

Cool, are you making videos every day?

Jessie Ott (1:01:09)
No, I just take snippets of the, so like everybody gets a week and I try to post videos throughout the week. And so, you know, I have to way too many channels. Don't ask me why I did it. I did them all. But with Adobe Express, I can click them all and just send everything out in one, one, one swoop. And then I have to do it on YouTube separately, but.

Lawrence (1:01:12)
Yeah, yeah,

Very cool.

Anyway.

Okay, cool. I will be sure to follow you on TikTok knowing that you're posting there as well.

Jessie Ott (1:01:41)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that'd be great. You can comment and like stuff too, if you want. ⁓ All right, well, I'm going to wave to you. Goodbye and best of luck. I'm rooting for you.

Lawrence (1:01:45)
Yeah, I certainly will. I certainly will.

Thank you. Thanks so much

for having me. Thanks so much for having me. See you soon.

Jessie Ott (1:01:57)
You bet.

Take care. Bye bye.