 Cider is a unique category in the way that it's been around longer in America than beer or wine. It's the oldest alcoholic beverage in this country and through the 1700s-1800s into prohibition for 250 years in this country, cider was the number one alcoholic beverage in the market. That's what everyone was drinking. But it wasn't what you know as angry Orchard or Woodchuck. There was no sugar in it at all because it was fully fermented out. Nowadays we make alcohol pop, you know, basically apple soda with alcohol and people call it cider but it's made from everything but cider. It's not juice. It's concentrate blended with water and essentially it's soda with alcohol. This is Started to Storefront. Today we've got a two for one special. Our guests are Mark McTavish and Brendan Brasier. Together the two of them are revolutionizing the American cider industry by sitting back and letting mother nature do her thing. While that might seem a bit simplistic, they realize that there's no need to add any extra sugar, water or substances to their cider. They literally juice the apples and let them sit for three months before canning them and selling them. That's it. That's their entire process. And let me tell you from my own taste test, I'm a big fan. Now Mark says that anyone can do this at home but I'm going to keep letting them do the work so that I can enjoy the fruits of their labor. So listen in as we cover everything from how Mark was inspired by the day drinking culture in Northern Spain, how many apples do you have to juice to get one serving of cider, and why the wine industry has lobbied to make it illegal to put ingredients on anything over seven percent alcohol. Now back to the episode. Welcome to the podcast on today's show. We have the founders of 101 Cider House and then pulp culture. Let's talk about 101 first. What was the first idea for you launching and we have Mark here for Mark in terms of launching the company in terms of wanting to be a cider distributor? Yeah. So actually my story goes back to Ontario where I'm from in Canada. I've been drinking a lot of cider and was in the fitness business, actually started out in craft beer then made the move to fitness through my 20s. And I was always the guy buying rounds of drinks for my buddies and coming back with a a tray full of beers except one of them was hidden in the middle. It looked like beer and it was cider. And I didn't want the guys calling me out saying I was drinking a girly drink. So I kind of disguised it as a lager and then went to drink with everybody else. But the reason I wanted to drink cider was because it was gluten-free and I had an intolerance to gluten and it made me inflamed and made me feel very good. So I made the switch over to cider just for health reasons, felt better drinking that versus beer. But then it led me further down the path years later. I really got more into natural wine and funkier wild fermented things that just had more complexity. And you know, it actually was a shift down to California from Canada that got me into this. I moved down here as an immigrant for the first time in my life. My wife said to me, you know, what do you want to do with your life now? And I said, well, I'm going to merge the two paths that I've gone down, which is beverage and fitness and make the world's fittest beverage. So I truthfully wanted to make the world's healthiest alcoholic beverage. And I set off on this journey online first just to discover the drinking cultures around the world where I could find the healthiest drinking culture that existed. And I found it in northern Spain, specifically in Asturias, which is close to the Basque region. And Basque is known for wild fermented cider, wild fermented apple juice. And it's funky and sour and they pour it from above their head into the glass and there's no bubbles, there's no carbonation. So they pour it from above their head to aerate the product and give it that sort of life, that bubbly sort of pleasing palate. So yeah, it was a really fun experience for me to kind of research this culture in northern Spain. So I flew over there and got to know a lot of the makers. I actually took my father there. We had an incredible journey there. And we just discovered this culture that was celebrating day drinking. And, you know, they would drink from 11 a.m., the beginning of their siesta, right through to three, four or five p.m., sometimes even later, but typically during the day when the sun is shining. And they would enjoy their beverage with food and they would be sharing that with friends and sharing stories, singing, laughing, dancing, just enjoying the day. And they really do have this knack for celebrating life over there. And I thought this is such a great culture, but drinking is such a big part of the culture. And some stats on that. Cider in northern Spain, they consume at a rate of consumption and also rate of production that's greater than any other alcoholic beverage culture in the world. So these guys are drinkers and they make a lot of it. And they don't export any of it. Typically it's all consumed there. So when I found this culture in northern Spain, I thought this is so mind blowing, the world's healthiest alcoholic beverage, zero sugar, probiotic. It's just 100% juice. It's something these people are drinking all day long every day. No one seems to be hungover. They're not overweight. They're not angry. They're not a sobbing mess off in the corner because they consume too much during the day. There's no fighting in the streets. It seems like a very positive polite experience and something that I didn't recognize because here in North America, we don't see that. So I thought, you know what, I really need to bring this back to where I'm from and put a California spin on it. And what year was this? Because I mean, the cider movement, so I'm just speaking from experience and we can feel free to discuss it. But like angry orchard is the only cider. I grew up in Massachusetts for the most part and angry orchard was it. And my personal taste preference, it was just the sweetest thing. It was way too sweet. I mean, way too much sugar and just, it tasted more like a Red Bull than I guess like a beer of sorts or something in that line. And so when you first came and wanted to launch, what year was it? And did you feel like it was super early to be in the cider business? Definitely very early, but you know, I tend to live my entrepreneurial life on the fringe and then bring things to the middle. That's kind of my goal always is to do something disruptive, but with a sense of purpose. And if there's a reason to do it and it's viable, then I definitely want to do it. And I loved cider, you know, through my twenties, I started drinking at 19. That's legal where I'm from. And I was drinking cider. So I really had an affinity toward that, but specifically dry cider. And I felt like when I came to the U.S., there's all this angry orchard, all this sweet stuff. And I was continually disappointed by the products that I was finding on the shelf here. And I thought, you know, it's such a disrespectful thing to the category of cider to kind of present all this sweet junk. I mean, there was this stuff on the shelf that really wasn't paying any sort of respect to the category. And cider is a category like beer or wine. I mean, if I showed up your dinner table and you said, hey, can I get you something to drink? And I said, yeah, I'll have a beer and you come back with a Guinness and I've never seen anything but logger. I'm going to be like, Hey man, what's the deal? I asked for a beer. This isn't beer, right? So categorically, you know, there's a broad range of beers on the market and there's a broad range of wine on the market. If you sat down at a restaurant and you said to me, let's say I was sitting there and you're my server and you said, Hey, Mark, can I get you a drink? Yeah, I'll have a glass of wine. They're like, cool, I'll be right back. And you walk away. What's the problem with that? Right? You haven't said red, white, sparkling, rosé, whatever, right? So cider is a unique category in the way that it's been around longer in America than beer or wine. It's the oldest alcoholic beverage in this country. And through the 1700s, 1800s into prohibition for 250 years in this country, cider was the number one alcoholic beverage in the market. That's what everyone was drinking. But it wasn't what you know as angry Orchard or Woodchuck. There was no sugar in it at all because it was fully fermented out. It was wild fermented. It was probiotic, lower ABV. You know, it was good for the gut. It helped people with their immune system. It boosted their immune system. So it was good back then because it kept them healthy. Nowadays we make alcohol pop, you know, basically apple soda with alcohol. And people call it cider, but it's made from everything but cider. It's not juice. It's concentrate blended with water. And essentially it's soda with alcohol in it, right? And did you ever think of like opening up a tasting room also? Or was it always you just wanted to go like, why the decision to go distribution and not tasting room? Yeah, because again, I like to do things from the outside in, you know, and most craft breweries as a comparative here. Craft beer, typically you do that in your garage, then you maybe open a tap room and you bring some people in. And once people say, Hey man, we love your beer, this is great. You guys should go to the big market and get it into the whole foods or get it into the liquor stores, you know, and then people get distribution from there and they go outward and start selling at retail. For me, I wanted to build my own distribution company to give myself an immediate pathway to market and then just put it out in the market and get the feedback immediately from consumers that were more broad reaching across the state of California. So by being sold at Whole Foods and Bevmo and other big chain accounts and lots of independence as well across the board, we got a lot of incredible feedback from a diverse sort of audience, right? Where if we had a tap room, there's a very specific audience coming in for that. And they might be telling us the things that they already know we want to hear, right? So I like to be told the things I don't want to hear because I want to address the flaws and the ways in which I can improve. And I felt like going to market at retail is the best way to do that. And then over the years now through cultivating that experience further, I've been able to hone in and perfect the product. And now we are going much bigger. So now we are opening our own tap room and outdoor day party venue here downtown LA. So we're 13,000 square feet. We've got a huge outdoor patio surrounded by palm trees and bamboo and cabanas and we play sexy chill house music and it's a day party. Our whole slogan in here is it's 9am somewhere. You said something really interesting and I want to just illustrate it for people who don't understand it. And so if you're creating a beer or a cider or something and you want to get and so like the people that come to your tasting room are already fans, but if you take it to like a bar and you meet like let's say the head person at the bar and you have them taste it, they're asking you way more complicated questions than just like, oh, I like it. It's like, how do you position it? Where do you sell it? What's it next to? What do people drink with it? What do people drink instead of it? And it's a way more detailed conversation. And so to your point, getting that market information only exists in the retail chain. That makes a lot of sense. A lot of people miss that. And I feel like a lot of people that have tasting rooms once they once they sort of open that door, it can be crushing, right? Because it's like, so you're not a logger, you're your own spin-off. How do I sell it? How do I position it? Now I have to educate my bartender on everything you just told me. It can get pretty complicated pretty quickly. For sure. That's pretty awesome. I really like that. And so tell us a little bit about your building something or when is the grand opening. I mean, I know COVID probably slowed some things down, but where are you now? We've already been here through that whole experience. We started opening for private events back in November. So in November, December, and January, we were quite busy with big parties, having people in here that were within our network, other brands we collaborate with. And we had a Super Bowl party, a plant-based Super Bowl party. So everything was plant-based and had a really fun time for that. But then we also had Expo West came, and that was a big conference here in the natural foods world. That got canceled. So we hosted an impromptu party for that as well. I had a couple hundred people in here. And that actually got some coverage as well in the Wall Street Journal, which was kind of cool. So we've done some really cool parties in here, but we haven't opened to the public. So in a way, what it's actually shaped up to be is a place to host meetings and bring people in and kind of just spread the good word. But we play our sexy, chill house music, and we have meetings in the cabanas. And my kids come down here and play during the day and on the weekends. And it's a place for a whole team to get together as well and have that connectivity. And just like everybody else, we're trying to work through this very unpredictable time. But at least we have this really cool spot where we can hang out every day and figure that out, you know? The one question I have is like, when I compare tasting rooms to Cider, to like a Cider house, and I'm just envisioning it, is it the same market? Is there an education that you've had to go through? Is it? I think some people listening might say, oh, the Ciders are mostly female market, right? Gluten-free, super health conscious. And I want to debunk some of those myths because me personally, I like drinking something that doesn't, that isn't heavy, not heavy on the carbs, right? Something that's light, but also not a light beer. I'm just not a fan of, I'd rather drink a sparkling water than a light beer. Sure. Just personal preference. And so what have you seen in terms of the market? Who is the market for? Is everyone, is there a little bit of an education that has to happen? Yeah, thankfully with where we live in the market, it's not as a Cider, truthfully. And we don't play as a beer or wine either. Where we play is we're a fermented beverage, period. And the best for you fermented beverage you can find. So as better for you became a really big talking point in many different segments or industries, whether it be, you know, beauty care or automobiles or even clothing, better for you is a big thing right now. People want to do better for themselves, for the people around them, and for the planet that they live on, right? So we look at better for you in a lot of different ways, but as a fermented beverage, not truthfully, not as an alcoholic beverage, but as a fermented beverage that happens to contain alcohol, we have taken on this identity now with both brands. Pulp culture is a hard pressed juice. 101 Ciderhouse is a sour cider. Both are full spectrum alcoholic beverages. And what we mean by that is you're getting the full spectrum of natural fermentation. So it's not just alcohol. That's one of the many outcomes. What you get with us is 6 billion CFUs of probiotics that are good, gut healthy bacteria you're putting into your system. Six times more probiotic, the most kombucha you find on the shelf. Also a range of organic acids, vitamins, nutrients, phytochemicals, things that make you feel great. So our whole goal in here is to give people an experience that they look at as helpful, but it is definitely an alcoholic beverage experience. So we think that the best way to do that is to give them a great day party. So when you come here, you feel like you're actually at a juice bar that's designed for adults only. So you're not going to see it as a craft beer tap room. You're not going to see it as a cider house. You don't see it as a winery tasting room. Now these are all things that people identify with because they've been before they've seen that. This is truthfully something that people have never seen before anywhere, not just here in LA. This is a proper day party venue. When you walk in outside and you see a half football field long, we've got this massive patio surrounded by bamboo and palm trees and cabanas and there's this sexy chill house music playing. You actually feel like you're in the Mediterranean somewhere, specifically in Ibiza, Spain at a proper day party. And that's the vibe we want to deliver to people because we want to show the people here that you can have meetings, you can hang out with your friends, you can be productive and creative and still take the edge off and have a good time, but you're not just here to get drunk. You're here to enjoy a well-made fermented beverage and you're going to feel the effects of that. It's a great buzz, but we're not sending you home at 3 a.m. drunk and then expecting to hear from you later the next day saying that you're hungover in the morning. It's interesting. What you're describing reminds me of a lot of Starbucks. The whole Howard Schultz mentality was how do we bring this European coffee culture to America? And a lot of American investors and business people just thought this would never work here. It was just very much Dunkin' Donuts, very much like grab and go, no one cares about what it is. They just want the caffeine and it's not about caring, it's just about the purpose, the function. Yeah, it's all about the packaging. You have to figure out what clothes to put on a person before you invite them into a party they've never been to before and they don't know anybody. You have to dress appropriately, act appropriately and kind of set people up for success. So with what we do here, it's not a craft beer tap room. It's truthfully not even just your average juice bar down the street because we do serve alcohol here, but it's also not a wine tasting room where you're sitting there talking about tasting notes and writing things down and it's not a hoity-toity kind of pretentious experience. It's much more about the base level roots of alcohol. The reason you consume an alcoholic beverage for me anyways and for most people is to have fun. Right? So it should be fun. It should be just taking the edge off, listening to good music, talking with your friends, being social, and that's why people come here. But they also want to discover the beverage that will actually make them feel the best and leave them feeling great the next day. We want them to come during the day to enjoy that, not at night. So we're not open at night. We shut down at sunset every single day throughout the year. Wow, that's amazing. Let's shift gears here to pulp culture. Brendan, maybe you can introduce some people listening on the call. Yeah, for sure. So Mark and I actually met, it was about two years ago now, and I was at Whole Foods in Venice, just my local Whole Foods. And I saw a can of scrumpy sitting on the shelf, just caught my attention, picked it up, looked at it, had one ingredient. It was just apples, like no water, nothing, but had zero sugar and probiotics. So I didn't really get that. I thought, how is this thing that has one ingredient, apples that have sugar, how does it have no sugar? And it has probiotics and alcohol. I just didn't get that. So it's the first time I've ever done this, but I actually emailed the company, so info at 101sider.com. Mark responds probably 20 minutes later. He's like, hey, man, I know about Vega and heard of you from Canada. So we connected, we hung out, became friends. And I learned a ton about fermentation and what he was up to and just thought it was super smart. And I liked the analogy used with Starbucks and how it holds, because I actually look at it the same way, like finding something that's done in a culture really well and bringing it and Americanizing it. And of course, for coffee, that was making it bigger and sweeter. But for cider, it's a little different, but I totally agree. And that's the way I looked at it as well. So I just thought, yeah, this is something that has a lot of potential, just from a business standpoint. But also, I hadn't drank in 14 years. This was the first time I tried it, because when I drank 14 years prior, I just didn't feel good. The next day, I was tired, a headache or stomach ache or whatever. And being an athlete, I just didn't like that. So I thought, well, if I drink, it's a compromise. I don't want to do that. So I thought, well, apples, how bad can apples be to drink? Fermented should make them even better, because now they have the probiotics and really help my digestion. Just helped me feel clear and focused. Went to the gym a few hours later, felt great, no hangover. Even started using it as kind of a new traffic, just to focus. I felt more creative. I felt more focused when I was working. So I became a big fan of what Mark was producing there. So like I say, we became friends and an investor in his company. And then Paul Kulture, we did that together. So it's really very similar. The base is fermented juice, just as 101 is. But then we ferment superfoods as well. Superfood juice, goji berries, for example, and then blend in botanical adaptogens. So it's not only not bad for you, it's actually good for you. So what's happening now is, I'm sure you're aware, I mean, folks are trying to drink better. They're trying to drink things that are less bad for them. So maybe they'll have vodka and soda. And they think, well, it's less bad because there's not a bunch of sugar in it. But why not drink stuff that's actually good for you? Like why do we have such a low standard of alcoholic beverages? And the people I know, we don't need anything without reading the ingredients and knowing the process, knowing where it comes from. So why do we just ignore that when it comes to drinks that have alcohol? And I like what Mark said too, and I totally agree, is that we don't look at these as alcoholic beverages. We look at them as fermented beverages. And one of the byproducts of fermentation is alcohol, but so is organic acids and B vitamins and probiotics and all these things that are incredibly healthy. And so many benefits from that. So yeah, it really just got me rethinking drinks that do have alcohol in them. Then I learned about how beer is made and how hard seltzer is made. It's a malt liquor. And it's not a nice process. I'm sure you know, but a lot of folks don't know that. And I certainly didn't. So learning about that and just becoming educated on the process in the industry is really eye-opening. And I think just ready for disruption, again, going back to your point, really seeing Mark kind of as that character who, you know, brought this over and just Americanized it. But I think that's important too, is because we don't look at the cider industry. I mean, I have no idea how big or small it is. And I don't think it matters. I see this as, you know, far beyond folks who are drinking cider. We're not marketing to them. It's kind of like Beyond Meat doesn't market to, you know, vegans. They market to everyone because people like burgers. So a similar kind of approach. I love what you guys are saying. I mean, I definitely walked into this interview. I guess not thinking this, not thinking about this as like a lifestyle, like I thought, oh, this is a niche. These guys are carving out super interested only cidery and here in Los Angeles. What's the market? But you're bringing a whole another element to it around culture, around a vibe, around day drinking, around health. Yeah, I wanted to touch on something you mentioned, Brendan. You said that just one ingredient in there and you made you think about everything else that goes into the process of these other alcoholic beverages and whatnot. And I actually, in researching ahead of time, I've stumbled upon an LA Times article that mentioned that the reason that you guys are able to put the ingredients and the probiotics on the label is that you keep it below 7% alcohol content. And the FDA mandates that if it's above 7%, you are not allowed to put anything on the label. I wanted to talk to you guys about, I don't know why this is a rule, but maybe there's a good reason for it. But and then the conscious decision to keep it below that 7% just so that you can advertise the probiotic nature and the lack of extra filler ingredients. Right. Yeah. And I'll let Mark speak to that because he's he's the expert there. But isn't that amazing that you actually, you can't let people know the ingredients if it's over 7% it's actually illegal. So I mean, we're all about transparency. Like we want people to come down, you know, we'll show show everyone the tanks, we'll show everyone our whole process, how it all works. And that's a big part of the brand, especially Paul culture is transparency. We we want people to ask questions. And like I say, we're happy to show them start to finish. And we're really proud of that. Yeah. And not to be too much of an evangelist here and really drive home these points. I'll just speak to the common facts that are available to anybody out there. If you drink a bottle of wine, and if you ever have in your life, I can guarantee you've never known what was in it. If you guys were to guess what's in your bottle of wine, you would say probably one thing. What's that thing? Grape grapes. What if I told you that you've never consumed a bottle of wine that had any grapes in it? That would blow my mind. Not even the grape skins. You would think that's crazy, right? There are certain people who have only consumed certain brands of wine that are typically, you know, sub 10 bucks that all they are is water with flavorings, colorings, powdered acids, powdered tannins, things that make it taste like wine. It's essentially just concocted to look and feel and taste like wine, but there's no grapes in it at all. Is that your two buck, Chuck? Yes, 100%. So, you know, the thing is, is if you're in the business, you know, packaging the way that I do, you know that you can't actually buy a bottle of wine. That's 100% fresh press grapes right from the vineyard, the way that you think it is for anything less than about 15 bucks a bottle. You just can't. So if you're spending less than that in your wine, you're probably not getting real wine. You know, that beautiful rosé that you pick up right from Provence that's at your local bottle shop and you got it for 9.99, you're like, ah, score. This is a Provence rosé that I love. My friends will really enjoy at the pool party today. That's great, but there's no grapes in it. And just so we're clear, when you guys say wild fermentation, you mean it's naturally fermented, right? Well, yeah, but the thing is, is naturally fermented gets thrown around all the time. I mean, you can look at other cider brands that are basically alcoholic soda with apple flavor and they say they're naturally fermented because they add yeast and well, yeah, yeast are natural. They're not in the way that you use them, right? So what we mean by wild fermentation is spontaneous fermentation, okay? And that's the differentiator there is it's spontaneous entirely. So let me ask you this, if you go to a juice bar or even to an apple farm and you get some fresh press juice, right? It's unpasteurized. It's just made right in front of you. You take it home and you forget about it on your countertop for three months, right? When you go back to that plastic jug, what do you think is going to happen to it? What do you think it's going to be looking like and tasting like? It's a science experiment, vinegar, all sorts of crazy things. Well, actually, it wouldn't be vinegar. It would be alcoholic and it would taste fantastic. So where you think it will go bad, this is the funny thing about American winemakers and also cider makers and brewers too, but a little bit less with craft beer now because craft beer kind of like the Belgians compared to the Germans back in the day. Craft beer people are exploratory and having fun and they don't mind things that are sour and funky and farmhousey. In fact, it sells for more money if it goes bad, right? So when the wine world, if something goes bad, they dump it down the drain. In the beer world, if it goes bad, you barrel age it and sell it for five times the price. It's a very different world. So that was what I loved as far as that dichotomy between wine and beer and the intersection of that being cider because cider truthfully is wine by definition, which is fermented fruit, but it's appreciated in the market like beer and the way that it's lower ABV, it's fun, it's not taking itself too seriously, that's beer, right? So it's interesting when you look at the consumer behavior and that kind of guides the discussion here. What do people want? What are they interested in? Right now, people want better for you. They want lower ABV. They want things they can share with their friends. They want things in a can. So we speak to a lot of that right now, but as far as fermentation just as a science, that's a gift from Mother Nature. It's something that existed long before any of us, right? And in science, when you look at fermentation, it's a natural process. None of the people that are saying naturally fermented right now in the market are actually naturally fermenting anything. They're pitching yeast, they're killing it off, they're sterilizing in a lot of ways with sulfites and pasteurization and sterile filtration and all these different techniques that they use to make technically well-made beverages. And I'll speak to wine for just a quick second. Wine makers in this country, they would meet me and ask about my product, they would think, well what if it goes bad? And my immediate response was always, what if it goes good, right? And they'd be so confused, like they never even let the juice get to the point where it could go good. They're so concerned and worried about it from the start that they kill the juice when it comes in by sulfiting it, right? They add sulfites to kill it off. Then they have their clean slate and can pitch their predictable yeast strain to get a predictable outcome because they know they've done that before and that worked. So the reason that you have 7% as this barrier, by the way, above 7% would be wine. In fact, if you found a well-made wine somewhere in this country that was less than 7%, the wine drinkers would be like, that's not real wine, it's too low. The ABV is too low, right? They wouldn't care about it. It had to be at least 8.5% with maybe like a certain European virtual meter or Riesling. You can find them at 8.59% and they're beautiful. They're really nice wines. They're very delicate and very floral and fruity and they're amazing. But 7% and below is not really part of the wine category. It's much more part of the wine coolers category, right? So if you're drinking a wine cooler or ready to drink like a Zima back in the day or a Four Loco or some of these cheap party drinks, they're always below 7%, but they're wine based. They're wine coolers. So it's something that they just didn't care about. And what I mean, they is the wine lobby. The wine lobby in this country is the most powerful lobby that we've ever known, even beyond petroleum. I mean, these are the richest people in the world that have always dominated the wine business. And the question becomes, well, why? Well, it's because the richest people are the only ones that could ever afford wine. Going all the way back to the beginning, what would you need to make wine? Grapes. Where do you get grapes in a vineyard? Where do you find vineyards on big areas of land? Who owns the big areas of land? People that are wealthy. So only the people that had money always could afford to make wine, consume wine and enjoy wine and then run the wine industry. So when you hear names like Ross Child, these are rich families that have been very wealthy for generations that dominate the wine world too. And some of these private businesses in the wine business that are not publicly traded are making billions of dollars hand over fist year by year with nothing more than grape soda. That's the mass market, unfortunately. It's always a bummer. But that lobby protects the wine and says, hey, you can't put ingredients on labels of wine, surely, because then the consumer would know what they're drinking and they would never buy our crap. So I say it openly because I know it's a call out to reality. The reality is, as a wine drinker in America, you will never ever be allowed to know what you're getting in your body or in your drink. You're not allowed to know what someone put in the wine that you're now buying and paying for, taking home and sharing with your friends and family, the people you care about. And you don't know any of the 80 different chemicals they were allowed to put in that wine to make it pretty and taste the same every time and maximize yield and all that stuff that crap that's in your body now is to help their bottom line. It's interesting because I think there's certainly that, right? There's like the whole. So I think about this like in the cannabis industry where the cannabis industry for a long time was just a bunch of bros that's called them having a good time. And how the executives come in, right? It's like now we have times executives coming in and what do they always focus on? Just yield and then how we can sell more. And those things aren't usually aligned, right? And so I think about cannabis industry, it's super interesting. One anecdote, I was in Australia and they taxed the, they taxed beer differently. So anything over 5% gets like taxed. So if it's 6%, it's one tax. If it's 7%, you're essentially paying a higher tax, which I thought was so fascinating. And so we went to a brewery in Australia and it was like everything was under 5%. And I was like, Oh, why, why do you guys do, I thought it was because of driving. I was like, Oh, maybe, because in Australia, you can get pulled over for any reason. You just get pulled over and we were there on holiday. And so it's like, you can get, you can go to jail, like no questions asked. There's no like, Hey, roll down your window. And you saying, I don't want to roll down my window. That doesn't exist. It's like, it's an immediate stop for any reason. And so I was like, Oh, do you guys do this because it's like holiday or something? And you don't want people driving drunk. And they're like, No, we pay a tax for anything over 5%. The tax system is there to protect the consumer and also to make sure they can earn money for regulatory bodies that do need to be paid. Of course, they have people to hire and employ people to govern the system. By the way, I would say the FDA does a great job of protecting consumers. So we love that they demand nutrition facts and ingredients be put on the label. We love that. And the 6.9% thing on our products, as far as being below 7%, that's actually just by fluke in nature, what these things end up becoming in nature. So if you press apple juice, you're going to have a beverage that contains about 14 bricks of sugar. That's how they measure it. Okay. When you ferment a beverage that has sugar in it, you get about half of the bricks become alcohol. So 14 bricks becomes 7% alcohol. Now, the FDA says and the TTV, the governing body say you have a half percent of forgiveness on either side of that number. So if you are truthfully 7%, you can label it as 6.5 or 7.5. So why would we want to put 7.5 and not be allowed to put our best marketing tool on the label, which is our ingredients and nutrition facts and have all the transparency that we want, when if we just put it at 6.9, we're good. So it just makes sense that it would be 6.9. And it's naturally in nature. This is where apples want to come in at on an ABV scale. They end up fermenting out fully with no sugar left becoming about 7% alcohol. It's a great coincidence. Yeah. No, it worked out great, man. I couldn't be happier about it, to be honest. You know, every time I've ever used a juicer, I've always been so frustrated at the lack of yield that comes out of whatever I'm trying to juice. I'm curious how many apples does it take that you have to juice to fill up one bottle of cider or one can of cider? Yeah, it takes about 1,000 pounds to create about 165 gallons of apple juice. Okay, so it's a lot of apples. Yeah. I mean, you're talking probably four or 5,000 apples becomes 165 gallons of juice. Okay. So it's a lot. But the reason we really love what we do too is we don't have to change the natural way of things. So when you press an apple, you get a high yield. It's a very fleshy fruit. There's a lot of juice in it, right? Grapes are a bit different. They are very small and take a lot of them to create juice, right? So you're paying exponentially more for grapes to get a ton of them versus apples. Apples are just a bigger volume, widely available. They're grown in more places with varying climates. There's not so much push on the idea of has to be grown in this soil with this amount of water and blah, blah, blah, blah. And with wine, you're watering these vineyards like crazy. There's irrigation all over the place is the big impact on the planet, big impact on the local sort of culture, the ecosystem. And these mono cultures now that exist in Sonoma and Napa are horrible for the environment up there. They've literally ripped out apple trees that have been there for decades because it was the biggest apple growing region in California was Sonoma specifically. They ripped them all out and planted Pinot Noir because they figured, hey, apples go great in this type of environment, but so do Pinot Noir. We know that from other places in the world. So let's rip out all the apple trees and plant grapes. So you have this mono culture now that basically kills off the ecosystem because the same insects and microorganisms can't live anymore because they don't have these apple trees they used to feed off of. So also you're pulling all this water out of the planet to then water these vineyards in a very specific location. So you're sucking water out of the system here in California, which has been in drought for as long as we've ever been here. Where apple trees are dry farm, they have root structures that go down to 100 feet below the ground. They pull water from the water table down below. They don't need any irrigation at all. So we don't use any energy in our facility as far as heat. We don't heat things up. It's cold fermented juice. We don't use any water in the process here in the facility or even to grow these apples. They're all dry farmed. So our carbon footprint, our water usage is very, very low, very minimal. We're really comfortable with that. We feel like we're doing something good there. In addition to that, when you press an apple, you get a lot of yield and there's a lot of apples available in this country. It's a constant stream of supply. The number one fruit produced in this country by volume is apples. So it's very easy for us to always get the juice that we need. And when it comes in, it's fresh, fresh juice, it's delivered to us overnight. And when it comes in here, it sits for three months and does its own thing. We don't tell it to do anything. We literally just sit there and watch, you know, like anyone could do this at home. You guys could literally make what we make at home. I don't know about that. I won't try. I won't try. Well, that's the thing. People won't try. We're happy to, you know, let people in on that secret because we feel like the chances are they're not going to do it on their own, you know? I know Brendan has to jump, but before you do, Brendan, just give us a sense of where people can find the product of where people can purchase, can come and enjoy. Yeah, well, right now it's at all the Whole Foods in Bev Moe's in California. And I believe Arizona as well. Is that right, Mark? Yeah, all the Whole Foods in and as well, Bev Moe, Total Wine, places like that in California, Arizona, we're moving into other states right now as well. But the best way to find us, absolutely, because it's quick and easy, just go on the website. So if you go to pulpculture.la, if you go to 101sider.com, you can actually do direct consumer ordering there. We'll ship right to your doorstep, virtually across the country. Because we're licensed as wine, we're allowed legally to do that. Where if we were beer, kombucha or seltzer, we wouldn't be able to do that. So again, another reason we love being fermented juice. And just the question I have in general, in terms of COVID-19, do you guys have like a membership, like a cider membership or a cider club that has really helped you guys out during this time? Big time. Yeah, we've been able to really grow our following and do a lot of business online. We used to do 0% online coming into March. And then halfway through March, we launched our new websites and the online purchasing, we now do about 15% of our overall businesses online, which is fantastic for us. And we really appreciate that. The people that buy from us, we couldn't be more thankful for them right now. It's been able to help us get through this time like everybody else, but keep all of our employees on a payroll. We haven't let anybody go and our business is doing well. We're so thankful for that. Of course, alcohol typically performs well on a downturn. So sure, but better for you is really the buzzword here. And when people are at home drinking and they're stuck indoors all day, they're going to have a drink. But what are they going to drink now? Something that makes them feel good, lessens the impact as well. There's less of that negative outcome, the hangover, the gaining weight, they're not feeling good, whatever it may be. So I feel like we're really well suited to this time. And purchasing online is a great way to find us too, because you get to interact with us directly, we get to know our fans, we know who they are, where they're coming from, what would please them the most. We hear their feedback as well and helps us to kind of curate the experience. I love it. Thank you guys for coming on the podcast. It's certainly very enlightening for me, very eye-opening. Give me a whole new look that I hadn't had before. So thank you guys for your time. Thank you guys for coming on. And I'm enjoying the sunlit while we've been having this. All right. Well, we appreciate you having us. And thanks for allowing us to ramble on about all things fermentation.