 Welcome to this episode of Fort Worth Forward. I'm Michael Crane, and you won't believe what we have in store for you today. We have Mania Shore from the Fort Worth Public Library, Kathy Nice-Brown with the James L. West Center for Dementia Care, Cameron Cushman with the UNT Health Science Center, who's involved with innovation and entrepreneurship issues in the area, as well as Marcus Kiprios with Black Land Distillery. Let's get started. Thanks for joining us today. I'm very excited to introduce to you Mania Shore, who's the director of the Fort Worth Public Library, as well as Kathy Nice-Brown, who is head of the James L. West Center for Dementia Care. Welcome, y'all. Thanks for joining me today. Thank you for having us. Yeah, no, very excited to have you here today. You know, Mania, you've been the director of the Fort Worth Public Library for four years now, is that right? Almost spot on four years. Four years, and you came from... Tell us shortly where you came from and why Fort Worth. Sure. So most recently, I came from the D.C. Public Library in the District of Columbia, but I've been in public libraries for over 23 years, and I was recruited to Fort Worth, and I love it so much that I've been here longer than I have been anywhere in the past decade. Wow, and we hope you're not going anywhere. No plans. Good, good. Well, we have this mutual admiration, I would say, for Libby, my other girlfriend. Why don't you tell the audience who Libby is? Yeah, we don't tell Joanne. Right, so Libby is the name of our e-book and downloadable audiobook service, and it's how people get e-books on their kindles or audiobooks on their phone, which they listen to as they drive, which is what I think you do in your car. And Libby became so popular during COVID that we saw a jump of 40% usage because people couldn't come in for a while and get material. And this year was the first time we passed one million downloads. Downloads. That's great. Pretty amazing, and because I know you love Libby so much, I have a gift for you. It is a Libby mug. Look at this guys, look at this here. A Libby t-shirt? A Libby t-shirt. Oh my gosh, this is Libby. So if you don't know Libby, go check out Libby. It's free on the fourth app or the library app, right? Yeah, that's right. I always say that if you are paying for Audible, you're wasting your money because you should be getting it free from the public library. All you have to do is go to FortwordLibrary.org. That's great. And I know a lot of people appreciate that, appreciate all the things that we did and do to help people connect. I know we have Wi-Fi as you can check out and other things so people can keep learning and rigging and all that thing during different, you know, everything that goes on in our lives, right? Absolutely, yeah. We are here to provide for our community. That's great, that's great. What I also love are a lot of public-private partnerships. That's a private partner. I guess it's public. Collaboration really with Here Fort Worth. Tell people about that. So Amplify 817 is our local music streaming service. So we feature and we pay local Fort Worth musicians to license their music and then people can stream it for free or download it for free. The money comes from the Fort Worth Public Library Foundation. So it's private money that pays the musicians and it's in partnership with Here Fort Worth which is a division of Visit Fort Worth. And so far we have almost 50 artists and we have a curated contest every, twice a year. So we just add on musicians over time and the goal is to bring music from Fort Worth to feature the diversity of Fort Worth music and bring it into people's homes. That's wonderful and I, who are some of the artists that you feature out there? Yeah, so the number one artist that I always think of is Lou Charles. He's amazing. He just did his album was just solely on Amplify at 170. That's right. We just did an exclusive deal with Lou. So he gave us the rights to his album for one month before he puts it on with the regular streaming services. We have a lot of different kinds of genres. It's important. We all love country music but that's not all that Fort Worth music is. Fort Worth is bigger than that. So much bigger. I'm really proud of that partnership and all of our collaborations that we have with our partners. That's great. Well, that segues perfectly into Kathy and East Brown. We've known each other for a long period of time and love what you're doing right now with the West Center. So tell us a little bit what, how the West Center helps people with dementia and then let's talk about the collaboration piece of it. Of course, well, James and West was founded almost 30 years ago by a group of community volunteers from Fort Worth who identified a need to provide support for persons with Alzheimer's disease and dementia. And Mr. West was a Radio Shack Tandy executive who was impacted but had nowhere to go. They allowed him to come to the office and sit in a conference room and his wife said there's got to be more and there needs to be more. So in the Fort Worth way, the collaborators came together and created James L. West as a residential care facility. Then about 10 years ago, caregivers were calling by the volumes asking what do I do with my person? And the Sid Richardson Foundation started the education program at James L. West. So in 2022, we'll celebrate 10 years of support for caregivers in the community. Fully underwritten by philanthropic donations, we spend about $600,000 a year on education programs and community collaborations to support caregivers and train healthcare professionals as well. Because diagnosing dementia is incredibly difficult, so by and large, you have more than 50% of our aging population with dementia but undiagnosed. Oh, okay. And so the West Center has identified that community need and addressed it. And partners like Mania, who also dream of Technicolor and love to collaborate, helped to bring about the memory box project that we're always collaborating. So we're working with Fort Worth ISD as well, training certified nurse aides as the first clinical partner in the post-acute space nationwide to work with the high school to address training for the future. Yeah, so let's talk about this memory box. I think it's important for people to continue to exercise their memory, right? Sure. And that helps Alzheimer and dementia patients sort of maybe stretch out a little bit longer before, so if they're doing that. So how did this idea come about and how does it help? Well, this idea, the memory box idea, started in Effingham, Illinois in their library. And the Effingham Public Library has a forget-me-not resource center. Okay. And the memory boxes are an important part of the resource center because it's the long-term memory that you're tapping here. So short-term memory is often, you know, here today, literally gone this afternoon, gone within an hour, but these memories of scents and smells and tactile things that they use all their lives. And when you have one person with dementia, you really have two, because you also have their caregiver. Sure. And so the caregiver is walking the same road and suffering in a very different way than the person living with dementia. And so these memory boxes are focusing on content areas that every single one of us enter into our lives, whether it's construction or cooking or games, arts and crafts, those type of things. And they are conversation starters for caregivers. Yeah, that's what they get to expect as part of this. They're conversation starters. Yes. Yeah. It gives you a tool because often times you don't know how to carry on a meaningful interaction with someone with dementia. And so this can work for someone in the very early stages or the more advanced stages because you have the sensory side to this box as well. So I guess the idea behind that is it does, maybe for me personally, you have a smell and it reminds you of something or it takes you back something and maybe it gives you a little bit about of your functionality back. Exactly. Or brings back and the senses remain when the memories are gone. And that is a big part of people with dementia as well. And so it is an opportunity for me to talk to you, Michael, about cookies that are made with cinnamon, things that smell with cinnamon. Fall is the time when cinnamon usually arrives, those type of things. You can take this spoon and spatula and talk about their uses, but they also make noise. Noise is a super popular thing. And opening and closing the lid on the Rubbermaid container talking about these. You can use these as an arts and crafts type of item as well as a baking item. You can also talk about the colors and the textures and the patterns because tactile becomes way more important when people are advanced in their dementia. And so each one of these can be used in a very different way. Interesting. And you train the caregivers to talk about this. We'll host classes in library locations at four different locations to talk about the use of the memory box. These are extensively on loan through the Fort Worth Public Library, but you can create your own. So part of the class will be creating your own memory box with things that are important to your loved one. These are very generic. And this was funded by the Junior League of Fort Worth. Great. Good shout out. They did great work. Why is it important for the library to offer these types of things? Because we are everywhere. One of the things that Kathy and I talked about very early on is how difficult it is for someone who has a family member with dementia living in their home and them not knowing what to do, which is why she has the education arms for James L. West, but they can't be everywhere all the time. And we have 17 locations across the city. So we can move these around. People can check them out. And then we can host the workshops at any location that is convenient for people. We have a lot of programs about coming downtown, either to the Central Library or to James L. West. They can go somewhere near their own home. That's great. Are there any other sort of programs that the library offers to help dementia Alzheimer's? Well, we are... I asked Kathy to help me remember what it's called. We are certified as age and dementia friendly. We went through a program with Kathy to make sure that our staff understand how to identify a patron and how to help them, how to engage them. Because there can be high emotions when you're working with someone with dementia. And then this past year, do you want to talk about the virtual program? Sure. James L. West transitioned as everyone did with COVID to provide online education. And we hosted an event with Tepa Snow, who is a national educator. Tepa talks about the practical care of persons with dementia and communication and those type of things. We had over 400 subscribers to that program through the Fort Worth Public Library. Again, offered free of charge. And it's just one of many programs that James L. West offers. James L. West is also a Tepa Snow certified training organization. Okay. And so that was a great partnership. The city of Fort Worth is also age friendly and dementia friendly. And made that pledge under mere price. And so this continues that commitment as well. I think where we go from here with James L. West, I'm not exactly sure, but like we always say, we have this mutual admiration society. And we're really committed to our residents who have dementia and the families that support them and figuring out how we can be a part of that. That's great. Well, thank you for being here today. How can people find you? Where can they find you? Of course, James L. West has an online education portal at Fort Worth Library.org. And then James L. West has a website, of course, JamesL. West.org. And James L. West is in the library system. James L. West is in the schools. It is important to remind your providers that there is a free resource in James L. West for dementia education and diagnosis. And the library, of course, is everywhere. Yeah. So people can find us at Fort Worth Library.org. They can also find us on social media, of course. We're very active on Facebook, on Instagram. And then I would just remind everyone that we don't just serve our senior residents. Many families who have parents who have dementia also have young children. So we have programs for young children. We have a story time at every location at least once a week. So Fort Worth Library.org is where you go to see everything we have offered. And Libby will be on there, too, right? And Libby's on there, too. There we go, guys. Thank you all again for being here. We'll be right back. And now I just want to do a quick shout-out to Pat Finch and Donna Walker for a very thoughtful gift. Pat was my high school student council sponsor. And she and Donna got together and gave me these great bottles of cake bread wine. They had them engraved with some of the sentiments I made the night I was sworn into the city council. This one says Moving Fort Worth Forward. And it says when those who are less fortunate succeed, we all succeed. I'll say this. We all have teachers that have probably made a difference in our life that we haven't told. Reach out to them, send them a letter, call them on the phone, an email, whatever it is, and let them know that they have made the person that you are today. I know that's the case with Pat. And so thank you all very much for continuing to cheer me on in all the things that I'm doing. Now it's my pleasure to introduce you to longtime friend Cameron Cushman, who is assistant VP of education systems at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. Glad to have you here today, Cameron. Thanks for having me, Michael. It's great to see you. It's like I'm in your living room. It's a little bit, right? This is fine. It's great. You can't see the big green screen that's really behind us and all that other. Don't tell the audience. Magic of TV, right? Well, thanks for joining us. I know you're very busy and doing a lot of different things here. I've long appreciated your work on our entrepreneurs here in Fort Worth. So tell us a little bit about the ecosystem. Why entrepreneurs are just very important to the ecosystem of any city? Well, entrepreneurs are important to all cities and to our country and to our world. And if you think about there's really three things that entrepreneurs do for us. They bring new products and services to market. They create jobs for people and they build wealth for our society. A lot of people will criticize their trades or the Elon Musk of the world because they're billionaires. They make a lot of money. How much money have they made for people? How much wealth have they created for our society because they brought new things to market and they gave a whole lot of people jobs and our society is definitely better off because those people, those entrepreneurs did what they did and it's the same thing here in Fort Worth. We talk a lot about how do we get the next corporation to move here? Bring those jobs from somewhere else to Fort Worth. But you're not actually creating any jobs at that point. You're just moving them from one location to another. We also talk about retention, right? How do we make sure that company that's growing? That company that needs more space or they need more people? How do we help them stick around? That's a very important part of economic development. What I focus on is kind of that third leg of the stool which is what I call the grow your own approach, right? The entrepreneurs, the small businesses, how do we help them get started and then kind of rig the system so that they can grow faster, create more jobs, make more innovations to market faster, avoid failure and continue to do those things that entrepreneurs do for our community. They kind of foster them through the process. Exactly. Starting a company is probably the hardest thing anybody will do in their entire lives and yet they're so important to our economy. So we need to figure out how we can do everything we can in our power as a city, as a government, as a academic institution, really just as a community to help those people succeed. I know at the city level we've done a lot of partnerships, collaborations, etc. In one of those collaborations you're very heavily involved in. It's called SparkYard. It's a collaboration with the City of Fort Worth and TCU. So tell us a little bit about that and why it's important. Absolutely, yes. I spent some time, I'm a Fort Worth native, but I spent some time in Kansas City before this and SparkYard is built on a platform created by US SourceLink. We changed it to make it a little bit more Fort Worth. You know, if you think about it, every business starts with a Spark. The center of commerce in Fort Worth was the StockYard, so we changed it to SparkYard. Very creative. But it really does one important function. It creates a way for entrepreneurs to connect into our local ecosystem. There's a ton of resources out there, most of which are free for companies, existing small businesses, and people that have an idea, but they don't know where to start. You know, they wake up in the middle of the night, I've got this idea, I've got to go raise venture capital. There's all kinds of resources from what we call our resource partners here in town that people can access, talk to, find a mentor, get maybe some startup capital instead of some of that later stage capital. SparkYard is really a function that helps them find that right resource at the right time in their development. Built on top of that, there is an event calendar, so you can find all kinds of events going on around different topics. We've also done some research on our entrepreneurial ecosystem. How are we doing as a community? How do we rank against other Texas cities? Talk about that, the data. I know you all have a lot of metrics around that. We were kind of shocked when we started that there weren't many metrics around this. Nobody was really tracking it. Other cities do, everybody does a little bit differently. I would say we really tracked it on three metrics. One was the number of companies that are started. If you want to think about where to start, what's the top of the funnel look like? We started in Fort Worth and Tarrant County every year, and we lag other big Texas cities in that, so you're not putting the companies in the pipeline that can then go on to the next step, which is raising early stage capital. We really rank far behind in that category. One way to think about it is we're the 13th largest city in the country by population, but through some data and analytics that we did using a platform called Pitchbook that we have access to at the university, we found out that we really rank about 40th when it comes to early stage capital. So we're a really big city, but our local startups aren't raising money like they should, and that's a problem. So we need to kind of think about how to close that gap. Were there ideas behind closing the gap that you would have? Yeah, and we can talk about some of those, but a lot of it's just private investment. You've got to have the companies to fund, you've got to have the entrepreneurs that are starting the companies, the universities that are seeding into that with research dollars and experiments and things like that, and then you've got to have the funders, the venture capitalists, the angel investors, all those people that fund things along the way in the life cycle and the development of the company. And then the third thing was Inc. Magazine tracks the fastest growing companies. So Fortune 500 tracks the biggest companies, the Inc. 500 tracks the fastest growing companies, and Fort Worth only has about 10% of those companies in the DFW area. So we're just not getting the companies started, and then the ones that are getting started aren't growing as fast as some of the other ones, even Plano, Frisco, some of those cities outrank Fort Worth and we're a way bigger city than they are. Interesting, interesting. Well, lots of I think work that we need to do there, and I know the city's committed to finding those next generation Fortune 500 companies that are already here, aren't here yet and are here, but maybe it's someone's garage or somewhere else to foster them, and I'm glad Sparkard exists to help them through that process. You know, shifting a little bit, you know, podcasts are sort of a new medium. I think this is an older medium of being in front of cameras, but podcasts are this new medium where you can listen to things on the go and you have one called Innovate Fort Worth. Tell us a little bit about that. You know, who's on it? What are you trying to feature? What's the mission? Tell us about it. Well, it's funny because we're actually about to launch or release our 50th episode and so it feels like we've been around forever, but yes, so many of these kind of podcasts and shows have popped up just in the real recent past. So, we really started this podcast with a very specific thing in mind, which was to say that there are so many people in Fort Worth and you talk to them all the time. They're doing cool things. They're starting new businesses. They're thinking about solving problems in totally unique ways and nobody covers them. You know, they're not going to end up in the Star Telegram until you're, you know, a multi-million-dollar company. Nobody's going to, nobody in the traditional media is going to cover you and you don't have any social media followers because you just started last week or last year. We really wanted to shine a light on some of these innovators and entrepreneurs that are doing really cool things in Fort Worth that nobody knows about. So, our hope is that these are people that are starting companies that this may be the first time they've ever really had this kind of an exposure. And it's not just about, we try to cover the whole ecosystem. It's not just about the entrepreneurs. It's also about the researchers that are doing some really cutting-edge work on this. It's also about funders. What are they funding? And then it's also about some of the legacy folks that have been doing this work for a long time. Our fourth guest ever was John Adams, the founder of Musinex. Nobody knows that Musinex was started here in Fort Worth. It's like probably the biggest household biotech game ever. Exactly. And it was created right here in Fort Worth. So we're trying to tell that story that, hey, this is a cool place that you can innovate, right? We invented hydraulic fracturing. We had Radio Shack for a while. Who are those next companies that are going to be the next Musinex, the next Radio Shack that'll start and grow right here in Fort Worth? Well, I'll say that part of the reason of this program was to tell cool Fort Worth stories and some glad of any avenue, medium, etc. that's doing that, because we do have a great place. And we probably don't tutor Horn as much as we should so the rest of the world knows about us and knows about that this is a great place to innovate and just live life. One thing I want to talk about too is you've written a white paper called Startup Fort Worth that was really maybe a call to action to us as city council members, the rest of the community. What drove you to write that paper and give us some key factors in it? Yeah, it's a great point and I do want to stress too, it wasn't just me. It was a team of several of us that work on this and think about this all the time. We're nerds, we admit it, but you know from your time in DC a white paper is something that you write to call attention to something and then recommend a course of action. And with a brand new mayor who was super young and talked a lot about innovation and entrepreneurship during the campaign and of a new city council, I think what, five out of the nine seats turned over? Well, if you include the mayor, yeah. Yeah, so it was a big chance that we saw. So we saw a chance that hey, this is an opportunity to rewrite the narrative and start the conversation. And plus too, a lot of times what happens is we need to study this issue. Don't study the issue. We have some ideas about what we can do to get this thing going. So we threw this thing out there. We built a little website. We put it up there and we created an opportunity for people to comment and a polling function. We know we don't have all the good ideas, but let's get the conversation started and jump in and see if you have a better idea for us. So really we broke it down into three sections. One is the government, right? What can the city do? What can the county do to help some of these entrepreneurs have more success to rig the system to tilt the playing field in their favor so that they can get to market faster and create the jobs we need to create. The second was just the community, right? I worked at the Kaufman Foundation in Kansas City. Wealthy entrepreneur died in 1993 and left his fortune to building the entrepreneurial community in Kansas City and the rest of the country. We don't have that person here. It's not to say that Fort Worth's not generous. We have plenty of philanthropists, but it just has to be oriented in that way. Not someone solely focused or a foundation solely focused on that area. And then you have big companies, right? BNSF, Lockheed Martin, American Airlines. Great companies, right? A lot of jobs. A lot of great services they provide for our community, but none of them have really been oriented in this pro-innovation, pro-entrepreneurship kind of way. So how do we steer them? What are some things that they can get involved with? And the third one was just education. If you don't know who the startups are in your community that are working, you don't know how to help them, right? And who are the startups? Do they know how to go raise venture capital? Do they know the steps that they need to do to even start their business? Much less grow it, hire people, take those next steps. So we have a few programs in there that people can take a look at to see, hey, does Fort Worth need this? Is this a gap that we need to try to fill? Wonderful. And you brought up Mayor Parker, one of the things that she's done and it was announced today, actually, that we're looking at different pieces of how we run our committee structure at the city level and they've not been run the same way. So she's created this entrepreneurship and innovation committee that she's appointed me to from the city council perspective that can help maybe continue to shepherd some of these things along from the government. I'm glad you bring that up. The government plays a role, but there are many people that need to play or organizations that need to play a role. We just need them all around the table talking forward, right? Yeah, and if you talk to some of the people like Kerry Crow from Melt Ice Cream and these iconic brands that make Fort Worth special, those are small businesses, right? Those are entrepreneurs who took a risk. And if we like the cool, funky hotel dresses and the Melt Ice Creams, we need to encourage more of those kind of people to start companies, make sure that they stay in business and can weather things like global pandemics and things like that because that's what makes Fort Worth cool, that's what makes Fort Worth funky, right? And you and I love living here for those very reasons. Let's make sure those guys have all the right tools that they need to be successful. Sure. And I think that also will help across the board with smaller business, diverse businesses that make Fort Worth special. Right, that's great. I know you're spending a lot of your time on Global Entrepreneurship Week and you have this cool little button there, I say pin. Tell us what would you like. I would. I would. There you go. You have one for me? I got it. There it is. So tell us a little bit about this button here. Sure. What it means about Global Entrepreneurship Week, why it's important to Fort Worth. You brought it here, started here, so tell us a little bit about it. Yes, so Global Entrepreneurship Week has become this global phenomenon that is going to happen the second week of November in 170 countries around the world, which is just kind of mind-boggling. There's going to be about 40,000 events that happen all around the world that just shine a light on entrepreneurs, the start-up community, the people that take the risks, the innovators, the funders, everything that's involved in this what we call ecosystem to try to move this forward. And Fort Worth had an effort several years ago and it kind of died away. So we brought it back, this will be our fourth year coming up here in the second week of November and last year we were actually the number one location in the United States. We had I think 93 different sessions all focused on entrepreneurship. It was all virtual, of course, because it was 2020 and that was a weird year. But this year we're going to have, looks like about 110, 120 different sessions going on in locations all around the city. We're also going to have a base camp actually in my office at 550 Bailey on the campus of the Health Science Center and we're going to have a bunch of virtual and kind of hybrid events as well. So all over the city, people can watch online or get online. There are some just solely online, right? There's some pre-recorded content. There's some interactive content that you can watch online or you can show up in person if you're comfortable and been vaccinated and all those sort of things. So yeah, so we would love for your viewers, your people in your district to come and just learn about entrepreneurship. Hear some of the stories about people who are doing really cool things in our city and also figure out what they need to help their own businesses succeed. So the website is www.fortworth.org. It's real simple. Global Entrepreneurship Week, GEWfortworth.org and sign up, come to some sessions and we'll see you in the second week of November. That's great. Well, thanks for being here, Cameron. Appreciate it. Appreciate everything that you do in the city, especially highlighting people I know that need that exposure so we can build those new companies and you just help people out. So appreciate what you do. Thanks for being here today. Thanks for having me. That's awesome. Thank you. And now we'll shift from talking about entrepreneurs to talking about entrepreneurs. I'm thrilled to introduce my friend Marcus Kiprios who is a recovering attorney and now owns Black Land Distillery. Marcus, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me on. Very excited to talk to you. It's great. Well, I want to warn our audience that some of these bottles are half empty. We have not touched any of them. That's true. Yes. This is my day-to-day life of just going out and tasting and promoting the product and that's what happens. Well, that's great. I mentioned that you're a recovering attorney and at one point you said, I want to open a distillery. Yeah, let's talk about that process. What are you thinking? I'm from Fort Worth. I was born and raised and I was an attorney but at night I went to culinary school. Then after I graduated from culinary school I got into wine and part of the sommelier exam is Distilled Spirits. Then I went to five schools around the country to learn how to make alcohol. I saw it was very much like cooking and so then I left my firm and built the distillery and here we are. That's great. So your distillery is... Where is it located? It's right behind Montgomery Plaza on Wisenberger Street. We have a really cool cocktail lounge for those that have never been there. It's a great place to have a drink before or after dinner. A really special place. Tell us about it. I've visited it, obviously, and done a tour but for our audience you've got all your vats, it's a full production facility and then in the front we have the tasting room and right now we're in the middle of an expansion so we're adding another 5,000 square feet for really more barrel storage and then a new bottling room as we grow. That's great. What does the Distilled Spirits look like here in Fort Worth and in Texas in general? As you've launched this brand and been out there, I know huffing it to sell the product. I would just say Texas in general is a pretty young whiskey distillery state in comparison. When we talk about the oldest whiskey distilleries in Texas are Garrison and Balcones and that's 2008 which is just not that old when you think about Kentucky or think about Scotland or Ireland. We're sort of on a new landscape here and a lot of new places are opening up but Texas whiskey is like everything that is Texas is becoming its own individual thing standing out from everywhere else and we're certainly on the upswing right now. Which of these did you develop first and how did that progress? Well the vodka is usually the first spirit that you make because it's the fastest and it's the easiest. It's not always the best because I know we've all tasted bad vodka but... Maybe the morning after. Yeah maybe. I try to tell everyone please drink my vodka but if you don't drink good vodka. There's plenty of both out on the market and life's too short and then the gin was just next because the clear spirits are quicker and easier because they don't have to age in a barrel over time and then the bourbon and the rye and our latest creation which we released last November was the Texas pecan brown sugar bourbon which has become our number one seller and is really great around the holidays too. It is great around the holidays it's great. It's beautiful enough to just drink by itself I think people put it in hot chocolate and other things to give it a little different flavor. Yeah we've seen hot chocolate we've seen coffee, certainly eggnog around the holidays, I support all of it. There you go, what about your other drinks that can be made with your... You can do some special drinks at the tasting room. Yeah because we have five spirits we can curate a pretty incredible cocktail menu that's seasonal around the spirits and so of course we have old fashions we have a lot of classics in the tasting room really it is a sophisticated cocktail lounge is what I like to say. And I know you spend a lot of time and it's always a comment about how beautiful the bottles are and you spend a lot of time sourcing these finding these so talk a little bit about that process. Well the bottle is the brand you're a competitive alcohol market you have to stand out and so people come in all the time and they say I bought this because I love the bottle and then I drank it and I loved what was inside. So it's the gateway for us to the brand it's the attention grabber we always get great shelf placement we're not going in the well with a bottle like this especially because it says black land it says Fort Worth people like that and that's really been great for us not just here but all over Texas. Yeah so a lot of people don't know this and even I growing up here didn't we live in the Black Land Prairie there are seven eco regions in Texas and the Black Land Prairie runs north of Fort Worth all the way down to San Antonio and it got its name because hundreds of years ago there were frequent wildfires causing the soil to be black and charred and I like that because we age whiskey in charred barrels I like the geographical connotation and I like that you know that's where we live. Interesting, interesting story. What's next? What are you thinking about for Black Land Distillery and the rest of this into the next year what is the future of Black Land look like? Well we're growing quickly which is great we've just introduced these 50 milliliter bottles for the holidays which is a great gift set that you can buy in the Distillery they'll be available and then we are now available in Texas but in January we'll be launching into eight new states Louisiana, Arkansas Mississippi Alabama, Kansas Colorado, Arizona and I'm sure I'm forgetting one at this point. That's interesting you can sell these I think it's a limit still two bottles that you can buy in the the state law prohibits us to selling two bottles per person per month which is the equivalent it's really 1500 milliliters just think of it as 30, 50 milliliter bottles 30 small bottles or two large bottles or one in 15 I wrote a chart out for my staff I'm confident we can get through the the holidays Well thanks for that I'd like to just talk about owning a small business and advice to other small business owners that might be wanting to take a leap and want to be an entrepreneur but maybe there's things that they need to overcome but what would you give yourself advice five years ago or whatever when this was all started Well first I just encourage everyone to follow their dream and their passion and go for it and then secondly on that same note make sure that you're fully funded and it will always cost more no matter what business plan you implement you can't possibly foresee all of the costs and expenses and you certainly can't plan for natural disasters or worldwide pandemics and so I would just whatever you think you need double it that's true that's true well you talked a lot about we talked about the tasting room but where else can people find your products yeah so we're available in over 1500 liquor stores in the state of Texas so the big box stores of course but I like to support the independence especially here in DFW and then we have a lot of relationships and support from bars, restaurants, hotels all over Fort Worth you can usually find one or two of our spirits on the shelf and that just grows every week okay great where can people find you yeah so you can go to our website and then you can order through a third party called reserve bar it's on our website and it will ship anywhere into Texas awesome news well congratulations on such great products I've personally tasted all of them myself on a routine basis and share them with friends so appreciate what you do and appreciate all that you do for our community too thanks Marcus for being here today no problem thanks for having me thank you for watching this episode of Fort Worth Forward if you have someone or something that's happening in the community you'd love to see highlighted on the show send us an email at district3 at fortworthtexas.gov again thanks for joining us we look forward to seeing you soon