Mocktails Or Messy
Mocktails Or Messy
#25: "WithCo Cocktails" Rise to Walmart & Target
How did a backyard party spark a nationwide phenomenon in the world of cocktails? Join us as Josh and Sean from Withco Cocktails share their incredible journey of turning a simple idea into a celebrated brand known for organic mixers made with real ingredients like lavender, rose, and garden mint. You'll hear firsthand about the humble beginnings, the challenges faced, and the sheer passion that propelled Withco into the spotlight. Whether you’re a cocktail connoisseur or a fan of non-alcoholic beverages, this episode offers something for everyone.
Discover the versatility and unmatched quality of Withco's mixers as we unpack how nine different products can create over 30 unique drink combinations. We’ll explore how Withco caters to a variety of preferences, from vodka and gin to tequila and champagne, without ever compromising on quality. Learn about their commitment to fresh ingredients and how it not only enhances flavor but also offers functional benefits. If you’ve ever wondered how high-quality cocktails can be both affordable and exceptional, this conversation is a must-listen.
In a more personal segment, we capture a heartfelt and playful exchange between Kelly and Ryan as they celebrate Ryan's six months of sobriety with a toast using Withco's mocktails & and Cock for Kell. We also take you behind the scenes of some unlicensed bar events that helped shape Withco's identity, including collaborations with prestigious venues and the excitement of turning small gatherings into unforgettable experiences. This episode is filled with warmth, camaraderie, and an inside look at what makes Withco Cocktails a standout brand.
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This is Kelly Musgorski and Ryan Frankofsky and you're listening to.
Speaker 2:Mocktails are Messy Kelly, miss Misty Misted, missy Messy, what are you drinking?
Speaker 1:today I am drinking Withco with tequila.
Speaker 2:I like the bouquet. It is Withco Cocktails and it stands for Withco is With Company Cocktails. They sent us a shipment of these amazing organic. It's lavender rose water, mmm. Oh my God, it's Josh Ellis and Sean. What's going on, Mr Ellis? Hello, how are we?
Speaker 1:Hi, we're good. How are you?
Speaker 3:We're doing great how are you guys?
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining us. I know you guys are super busy.
Speaker 4:No worries, we're excited to be here. It's good to put a face with a name. I'm Josh Ellis, co-founder Started this company with a gentleman named Bradley Ryan, who comes from beverage restaurant hospitality space. When I met him, I asked him to batch up some of his recipes. We had only met one time up to this point, but I was like man love to have some recipes for a birthday party. Could you batch them up? And he took recipes right out of the bar that he had made up with some really unique flavor profiles, and I had a backyard party with a bunch of friends and family.
Speaker 4:And you know, this moment kind of hit me where I was like why can't we have drinks like this all the time? And I wasn't really a consumer of mixers. Many of our customers are not because you know back what 2017, there really wasn't much out there. So you're either batching a recipe from Pinterest you'd have a bunch of leftover ingredients so you couldn't pair it just right or it was the go-to Coke ginger ale Sprite and so the idea was why don't we take these recipes right out of the bottle and put right out of the bar? Put them in the bottle and see if other people who like to gather with company, which is what Withco stands for. Maybe there's other people who like to gather with company, which is what Withco stands for. Maybe there's other people that like to host out there, and so that was really this ideation of bringing one of the first and I can with confidence say that, the first ever Foley juice and botanical mixer on the market.
Speaker 4:So, back in 2017, when we started this idea, it really wasn't a better for you space. There was definitely not a non-alc space that was openly being talked about and what it is today. So we just set out to like, build something that worked in our lives and I think, funny enough, trends kind of have caught up to it. But, yeah, we've been doing the same thing since day one, which is just like no preservatives, additives, no sweeteners or concentrates, just like use the real lime, use the lavender, use orange, use real cucumber and garden mint.
Speaker 4:So it started in the backyard and you know, now it's in Thousands and thousands of backyards around the country, with customers that are using it both as a cocktail and a non-alcohol alternative, and, again, with hosting. These days, having a solution for both is what it means to be a good host, is having that awareness and being able to say, hey, let's not make the one person not feel like they're included, because we you never know who now is practicing or involved in the non-alc space, and so you know it's just continue to be a great way to gather. You know, whether you're hosting at home or you own a bar or restaurant, you're hosting guests at the bar and that's how a lot of places use the product as well we definitely are loving our bouquet lavender rose water bouquet like a flower right I like to say bouquet as well, because it's got the rose petal and rose buds in it.
Speaker 4:It's uh, it's actually one of the first of all of the skews that bradley uh my co-founder had put together. So there's a fun story behind that one, but it is a great. It's a great drink Very floral, crisp, really refreshing.
Speaker 2:Yes, honestly, it's like everything lavender. I don't know if it's this summer or just in general. I love the flavor. It's got like a floral note to it. But very like sexy, you are busy with production and you're going all over the country with Walmart Target Sprouts.
Speaker 4:Just trying to figure it out. It's kind of like you get up and get your teeth busted in and you learn how to smile through it. Like that's entrepreneurship pretty much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have a bar at our space in another location and we have like the mocktail bar and the messy bar with like the liquors and everything and my co-host, kelly, she likes to drink and I'm like been six months sober and so we really find like your Withco cocktails like super inclusive with our message of you know, bringing the mock tailors and maybe the messy drinkers are just like the people that want to go back and forth for health reasons, or, you know, I'm getting older. I want to take a break sometimes from being hung over all the time. I mean, we're, we're the same way it's. You know I'm getting older. I want to take a break sometimes from being hung over all the time.
Speaker 4:I mean we're the same way it's. You know whether it's. I did a six month stint last year and then January, february, march did 70 days and you know it's just. I think it's good and everyone has different reasons, right and no reasons right or wrong. I think an individual decision is.
Speaker 4:It's good to take a break and I think one thing that Sean and I love about the product and that accounts like about it is there are some non-alcoholic spirit alternatives. I see Ritual. There's some amazing brands out there that do that, and you know our goal is like what if we were everything in the drink besides the spirit? And so when customers now do it as a non-alcohol, a lot of them are shaking it. What we recommend some restaurants do is shake it with ice, nothing but with cohen ice, pour that in your glass and then top it with a little bit of a soda water, whether that's flavored or not, so it kind of can give you like a botanical forward, uh spritz if you will. And then if you want to go the spirit alternative route, then it is a great yin and yang to like the ritual and the non-alcoholic spirits of the world. So I love that it can. It can work in many different ways. Um, so I'm glad you guys are enjoying it. Uh, how are you guys drinking it right now? Probably tequila and ritual.
Speaker 1:How did you guess?
Speaker 2:We got tequila on the messy side and then we also have the ritual. But I will say, like I even like I like how you have it so super clear on the bottle, like add this, this, this, this, and also sometimes you just have, like you know, the whiskey so you kind of worked with with Co, your brand, to like really be inclusive with any type of add in or mix. I guess, like whiskey, tequila, gin, Is there any recommendations that you wouldn't add to your cocktail?
Speaker 4:You know, a lot of what we have added are things that our customer over the years have told us like hey, you know, I drink bouquet with whiskey and we're like really, is it good? And they're like it's the best. And we were like who would have thought lavender, fresh lemon juice, and then like a dried rose petal and rosebud. And then we're like well, I guess that could be like a lavender sour. And we were like let's try it. And we're like, oh my God, that is really good. And I think it's become a distinguishing part of our company because even though we have nine SKUs, we have over 30 different ways of drinking them. And I think, for maybe a listener that just heard what you said, for clarity, what you were speaking to is our bottle might say an ounce and a half of Withco and then ounce and a half of vodka or gin or rum or tequila or even champagne or soda water. And I think for us we were like man, when you're using this, like real fruit and botanicals spirits give them a different life of their own. So, like that bottle, right there on the front is the ginger mule. You know it's fresh ginger root, Angostura, bitters and lime. Well, you can go gingerita with tequila. You can go like a mezcal mark, which is a mezcal mule, which is how we love that. You can do whiskey and do a Kentucky buck, or vodka and do more traditional. Or when I'm not drinking, that's actually my favorite one to do with soda water, because the ginger is just so. The root is so refreshing and I think so many people are used to ginger beer that when they have a product with real ginger it's like, wow, I could kick a cold with this thing. So you know, bars use them in different ways, Customers use them in different ways.
Speaker 4:It's like let's take it back to hosting. Let's say you, you guys were getting together and some friends came over and someone's like I'm a whiskey person and the other one's I'm a vodka person and the other one's like I'm tequila. You're like well, do you like ginger? Yeah, we love ginger. Well, great, we can all try this in our own way. And if you don't like liquor, hey, it works for you as well. If you're not drinking, it works for you as well. So it's just the versatility of it has really been awesome. Um, you know, it could be on a na menu at a restaurant and then it can be up at the top on a happy hour or a you know a cucumber mint gimlet and be on the cocktail section as well. So it is fun to mess around with. But yeah, in the beginning it was like, let's try this, hey, that looks good, put that spirit on the label and you know, some of it's just versatility and flavor profiles and you know also just shooting in the dark and winging it at the same time.
Speaker 1:If I was to try to make something like this at my house on my own, I'd have to pick up multiple products, and I love the simplicity of just grabbing a bottle and adding whatever I want in. So that's what I love the most about with Co.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it gets expensive when you're buying all those ingredients individually and I know Kelly loves whole foods so that's not cheap. But like just to find all these things, how do you guys keep the cost at? I think it's $20 a bottle.
Speaker 4:That's pretty, that's pretty low a bottle. That's pretty low Economy as a scale helps. Also, using fresh is not as expensive, I think, as people might think. But let's say the four of us decided to launch a beverage company. There's two routes. Hey, what if we buy everything fresh? That's going to be expensive and a lot of labor.
Speaker 4:Oh well, we could buy this ginger syrup flavoring from this flavor company and then we try and we go. You know, it's pretty close that we could just do this and it would be we could just get to market faster. And that, I think, is really like where a lot of the industry is gone is get as close as you can in the cheapest, most scalable way, right? So natural flavors there's nothing natural about flavoring. Get as close as you can in the cheapest, most scalable way, right? So natural flavors there's nothing natural about flavoring and there's no functional benefits to flavoring. And so for us we're like, wow, what if it could not just taste good but also could have benefits to the body?
Speaker 4:And you know, I think at the end of the day we just figured out that it was that the unit economics still made sense. There's a quarter pound of ginger root in that bottle right there, and bitters are relatively inexpensive and we called Angostura and bought them directly and we're like we can do this without sacrificing quality for convenience. It can be a convenient product and it can be in the best quality. I don't even think we, I can tell you right now, I don't even know what it would cost to make our product the the cutting corner way, if you will, because we've never thought about going that route, we've never looked into that. We've just been stubborn in our pursuit for fresh since the beginning. Um so 20, it works.
Speaker 4:Also, we have places like Walmart and Sprouts that are $12 and $13 at retail and you look at the wholesale price of the distributor plus the cog, so we've been able to really make the best possible product we can for the least amount of money. And for us we're just stubborn and it's got to be fresh or we're not doing it Like. Even if someone came in tomorrow and said we can lower a 60% cost and it could taste the same, we would go yeah, but our ethos from the beginning is it's got to be fresh juice and real ingredients, and so I would say we're willing to leave margin on the table by just doing, standing by what we believe in from the very beginning.
Speaker 3:You know, and even to follow that up, you know, some people see $20 on the bottle and it's sometimes a sticker shock to them, yeah, and they realize, okay, well, you know, I, you know, for most of our products it's it's for those balls in front of you. That's 10 cocktails you know, per bottle that you can get. So really, then when you again you break down the unit economics, it's really honestly not that bad, plus saving on the prep. You know the labor of getting everything else you know ready to go, the versatility of it. You know that's where we're like. You know what? I think this will stand behind the price point, from not only the quality but the amount of cocktails. When we see some other competitors on the shelf, that may be a little bit lower, but then you actually look at it and you're like, oh well, that's only getting me four cocktails per bottle. Now I got to buy a lot more.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I know Kelly was a little sticker shock at a competitor of yours. That was $30 a bottle and I was like, well, you know, kelly, you have to divide it per cocktail. Like you're going to go out, you're going to spend $15 minimum on a cocktail and then she's like, okay, that's a good point, you know. Like you know, sometimes blondes need to be broken it down. You know, I wanted to ask you, since you did say that you taking breaks from the alcohol. I'm taking a break, but like we have really like love discussing our messy past with guests and like you guys are in Nashville we know everybody gets a little nasty in Nashville and we weren't sure if you had a messy story that involved with co or maybe before you started with co, maybe when you were like in your partying days. Like do you have a funny messy story that we could like get a little insight on?
Speaker 4:my daughter was definitely conceived, uh, after a bottle of ginger mule. I'll tell you that it was a, but let's talk that was a beautiful mess, because she's amazing, yes, but yeah, I mean's, we've had late nights.
Speaker 4:I used to throw these parties called cocktails in community. Uh, we would convince people to let us use their warehouse or their uh, private event space after hours and we would basically create an illegal bar, cause you're not really allowed to set up and sell alcohol in just an unpermitted space. But you know, I talked to an attorney and she goes well, it's an entry fee, not a drink fee. I'm like, okay, I like where you're going with this and you know those are wild nights, right, it was just basically 15 bucks to get in. And then there was two or three with co bars. I'm like hiring my friends, like, hey, uh, just pour this and this, you know, and those are fun nights.
Speaker 4:I mean, not not a specific story, but just getting anywhere from 40 to, I think the biggest one, we had 200 people at an event and it's kind of all you can with co. You know there's there's plenty of those late night stories, but yeah, I mean, I think we all have them. But you know, that was the first one that came to mind was like I remember when we finished a bottle of ginger mule and you know, now I have an amazing five-year-old out of it.
Speaker 1:Those are good stories and that after hours thing is genius. What about you, Sean? Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3:My first thought was we did a fun partnership with the W Hotel here in Nashville and we really wanted to.
Speaker 3:You know, as we were trying to break the on-premise which is kind of the restaurants and hotel spaces, this product was kind of born behind the bar, then made its way into the bottle, which you know retail and grocery and liquor stores, and now it's kind of made its way back into the bar and we're like we need to showcase this a little bit more. Let's partner with some of these amazing hotels. And the W had just opened and there's probably 350 people that were there. We were supposed to just have this little event room that then spilled over into their lobby, which then ended up taking over their lobby bar and then it ended up just being an entire Withco party, because anybody that came to the hotel was like, well, wait, what's that? And then ended up joining. So it ended up being just, oh, there's just going to be this kind of small thing. That ended up being like an all night, like taking over the entire hotel, which was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Well, that sounds fun. I got one more, not just messy, but literally messy.
Speaker 4:My uh co -founder back in the day we first started this I'd be like, hey man, I got these people that want with co for a wedding so he'd have to go and cook all this stuff in his kitchen. I'm sure his wife loved it, right? You know, it's just a mess. He's like seeping ginger root and then they got all the lime. It was just, it was a terrible mess.
Speaker 4:And so, anyways, we were having a Halloween party at our apartment complex in the Gulch, which is in Nashville, concrete floor kind of loft style, and and he brings over let's see, I'm trying to think what happened.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, he brings over all the ginger mules.
Speaker 4:So we were not making it in bottles yet, we were just making it in these large crock pot or cooking like a pot on the stove, because a lot of our product, our process, it actually we do cook at like 200 degrees before it gets bottled and that's a big part of our shelf life. So it's really hot and as we're like carrying it across, I somehow he drops it and like I would four or five gallons hit the concrete floor and spread across the living room and this is like an hour before, uh, you know, 30 or 40 people are coming over all dressed up in Halloween outfits, costumes, and the whole night it just was like from everyone's feet into the bathroom, the hallway, outside of the loft, like because you just have all this fresh lime juice sprawled all across your floor and we were like mop it once. Hey, everyone's here. And I remember for weeks or days, I should say, just that noise, that just like sticky natural sugars from lime juice and tons of it. So, oh, you know, these things happen.
Speaker 2:Whenever you get it down to like you know a science, like all those ingredients. Do you feel bartenders and mixologists are kind of like? Why, like like? This is going to ruin our you know business of having all these like fancy mixes available or brought into the bar, because that's taking away from our job If we're going to just have a bottle of that served at the venue or the restaurant.
Speaker 4:I mean, there's different tiers, right, there's places where a four to six step cocktail does make sense, and that's kind of what you're paying for too. The wait is not something that's about becoming impatient because you're like I know that the drink, how it's being made, and that's part of the experience you're paying for. Then there's the other, the whole other huge part of the sector that it's about speed, it's about quality, and you're going to places will start losing business when ticket times are increased. And then talk about going and getting an old-fashioned at your favorite place. A friend back. The next time a different bartender makes it and it is not a great old-fashioned. Now, all of a sudden, consistency becomes a big thing and you know, for us, like I think that where the pushback may hat lies is, uh, it's a mixer. And I think that that whole industry is very misunderstood because of the type of products that have been out there and in this age of disruption, of us trying to create a product that is different, there is that pushback from being misunderstood like, oh, we don't do mixers here. What is very different about our product is when you see these bars that have a 750 milliliter with a strip of blue tape 1200 Buffalo Wild Wings or 900 divisions of Hyatt or Marriott. What they're going on a lot of times in their mind is hey, how do I support all my locations? Staff training is a big deal, bartender education, a lot of things post-COVID have kind of taken a little bit of a nosedive. Where they're actually going, how can I create a solution where all 600 locations they feel supported? Because we created a beverage program that is sustainable. It reduces prep labor, probably.
Speaker 4:We know there are places, the places that we would get the pushback that you just painted a picture for is also the type of places that we're not putting a lot of energy in because we respect the art of what they're doing well. But we also know a location that has 800 bowling alleys that their turnover is high and they're constantly having to retrain. They want to figure out how do I get 3,500 margaritas to these lanes as fast as possible with a great quality experience. So then they'll reorder, driving up ticket times and overall revenue and they go wow, we didn't know that we could get a product to solve those, but also it'd be only fresh juice. Where have you been all of our lives and why didn't we create this product?
Speaker 4:And so, to answer your question, it's taken some time to not be the. We're here for everybody and go. We know where the pain point is and then the places that do adopt the product in, we can kind of already, we can already expect the feedback we're going to get. It's like the psychology of sales, like we know your pain point and we know where the solution, but give us a shot and then the feedback is always the same, which is like guys, the bartenders love it. We're pushing out more drinks. Uh, the same drink, made the same way in the same amount of time, regardless of bartender training. That's the. That's the world we're going after, and when you look at it, it is like your custom fresh juice beverage program. Is this big? This consistent pain point of everything we just listed? The segment is this big, and I think that's where we're trying to live.
Speaker 1:That makes total sense.
Speaker 2:Do you guys have a last question for us that we didn't get to ask, and maybe you want to ask us a messy question before we sign off. No pressure.
Speaker 4:Maybe more for you guys in the podcast. What was kind of your vision when you started this, like the type of conversations that you want to bring into the world? Where do you want it to go Like in an ideal world? I paint the picture for us. We've talked a lot about our journey and company, but maybe give us a little snippet and why you started it and kind of where you want these conversations to go in the future of the podcast.
Speaker 2:We want to personify a lot of these non-alcoholic beverage companies that have really just inspired us. We want to continue the party and you might not need the alcoholic. You might just be able to be included in with this fresh cocktail with, like you know, an undercover ritual or like some kind of sparkling water, and still be part of it, because we noticed that, like you, can get that placebo tipsy with co cocktails without the liquor. But I still want to hang out with my messy friend Kelly, who might want to, like you know, turn things up a little bit, and she doesn't maybe have a problem, like I do.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 2:Love it.
Speaker 4:You got with Connell and, like I said, it works both ways with us.
Speaker 2:We're like grab a bottle and drink with company, yeah, and I go both ways. So like it's great to have something that works both ways, love it.
Speaker 1:Josh and Sean sean.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for sharing your product and your stories with us and we're excited to do our brand launch with with co cocktails super simple, easy to use, all right, see y'all, see ya, bye. I was really happy to finally get them on the pod because you know that was our first product sent to us and you know I got to give them credit for, like you know, finding the mocktail messages that are going out there, even though I don't know if they need us to be promoting since they're all over the country at Walmart Target.
Speaker 1:Oh you know we love sharing things that we love.
Speaker 2:Yes, and the country at walmart target. Oh, you know, we love sharing things that we love. Yes, and they inspire us. I mean you could tell that that was a little uncomfortable, like I go both ways, like I don't know if I was trying to be funny I think it.
Speaker 1:Just I think it took them a second to get it oh, it just didn't land yeah, it took them. They smiled after a couple seconds oh yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:I mean, I guess it's july so we're no longer this isn.
Speaker 1:This isn't Pride Month anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're just like moving on to the next thing. Right, I do got to say you look really sexy today. Look at this little outfit. You look like a Southern belle, oh, I mean I used to be I know you were in Beaufort, south Carolina and Mississippi. Oh fuck, that's right. Oh, my God, I've been all over.
Speaker 1:I've actually been in the South, I mean.
Speaker 2:More than you've been in the North.
Speaker 1:In the last 10 years.
Speaker 2:yes, Thank you so much, Kelly, for bringing on With Co Cocktails.
Speaker 1:And thank you for cheersing to my sobriety six months over. Thank you for listening to. Mocktails Are Messy. This is Kelly Msgorski and Ryan.
Speaker 2:Frankofsky, we love you guys. Piss myself. Did you want to pee yeah?
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