Labeling: Why the Story of Your Product Should Take Center Stage with Sam Richardson

Thanks so much for having us.

It's great to have you here. I didn't even realize it originally, but we've been together before and in the beginning of the pandemic. And now, we're here again, and we get to learn more about you guys. And NextGenChef, not just myself, but our team that are big fans. So we're excited to learn a little bit more about you and Curious Elixirs.

Appreciate that. Yeah, it's really cool that we're circling back around.

It is. It's been almost a year and a half, or two years since the beginning. It's like timing off.

It sounds right.

It feels like a lifetime.

Yeah, it's been both, very fast and slow these past couple of years. Yeah.

I've lost time.

Mm hmm. It's like, one big lapse where we're like, oh, I guess this is normal, so let's just keep going. But it feels like 20 years, and like 20 seconds at the same time.

Exactly. Exactly. The day where this woman was gone for five years, and she doesn't know what happened. That it's similar in the sense that, here, it's like two years and so, what have we done in the last two years? I mean, I feel like a lot has happened, but also we're getting older, and all these things are happening, and all these things are changing. And yet, we're just some things have stayed still.

Yeah, but my age is frozen in time. I'm just gonna keep going by the same age.

I think I'm gonna do that.

Now that I'm in my 40's I'm like, yeah, I'll just stay there. I'll just stay there.

Okay, so next year, I'm gonna stay in my 40's too. I'm gonna follow your lead. I like that.

Yeah. I will admit, I switched from the 30's into the 40's during the pandemic. I'm not still claiming that 39, but I'll just stay at 40 for as long as this pandemic rages.

I think I'm just gonna stick in my 40's as long as this pandemic rages, but I'm not anything further than that. So John, for those people that are unfamiliar with what Curious Elixirs is, I think if you would just tell them a little bit about what Curious Elixirs is?

Sure.

I'm curious.

Yeah, me too.Curious Elixirs, we make booze free craft cocktails. And what the heck is that? Well, basically, it means that I've been in the bar and restaurant industry since I was 18. And I love it. I've been a bar owner for over a decade. I love cocktails. I even love alcohol, but I was just loving it way too much. And so after one particular crazy night of over 20 drinks, I woke up the next day and I was, I was fine miraculously after 20 cocktails, and it scared the crap out of me. So I knew I had to make a life change. So I did. And really, what came out of tinkering in the kitchen for a few years is like these little bottled beauties which are modeled after different at my favorite cocktails and many people's favorite cocktails, but with a little twist. So that's really what we do. We've been pioneering this kind of non alcoholic movement since 2015. So we've been doing it a few years now, and it's been a wild ride.

Wow, that's great. So how many different cocktails do you have?

We have six, and we'll have the seventh one right around the time. Hopefully, this episode comes out. Yeah. So Curious No. 7 is coming soon to a website near you.

Okay, well, they'll have to stay tuned because we won't tell them about it now, I guess.

That's right.

Is there any sort of essence we can give them, a flavor?

What I would say is for a flavor, it's something extraordinarily celebratory. Something that you could use to toast at any wedding or any celebration of any kind. So I think that'll give you a pretty big clue as to what we're going after.

It doesn't happen to be coming out around New Years.

Exactly.

I don't want to go in too deep because I don't want to--

Yeah. Well, it's coming soon, we're only a few weeks away now so it'll be fun. But one of the things I've learned is that there's thousands different types of people who either don't drink or are drinking less, whether people are pregnant, or they have a health condition, or they've struggled with alcohol, like me, or they're training for a marathon, or any number of other reasons. There's just hasn't been anything adult to drink until we started making them. And now, we're starting to see a lot of good movement there, and more and more people just don't want to drink, or they just want to drink less. I don't identify as sober. But because I still drink a little bit, and many, many people are that way. So it's been really fun to work on and fun to explore the different flavors that people latch on to, because everybody deserves something delicious.

Yeah, I would agree. And I know back in around 2000, I was very happy to share a bottle of wine and have a cocktail. And that was 20 years ago when I was younger, and I could handle my alcohol, go to sleep later, wake up earlier and go to work the next day. But as you get older also, and I think even women metabolize alcohol differently than men I've read. And my body reacts to it. I don't recover the same way, and I choose not to drink alcohol, maybe because I've stopped drinking it. So the very little bit affects me so much. So my go to alcohol for a long time are my go to drink, not alcohol, can I have sparkling water was some bitters place.

Same, the same. And I still do that if I'm in a place where they don't serve Curious, like we're in hundreds of restaurants, different clubs and stuff like that. But we're not everywhere yet. So yeah, soda and bitters, great way to go, add a line. Perfect. It's the best that you can do. Even though that still does have some trace alcohol in the bitters, but unless it's somebody who's really going to be triggered by that tiny amount of alcohol, it's generally fine for most people. But it does get old.

Many times, people want to go out and have a cocktail with a friend. I always felt like I was participating, because I still have my fizzy water with a little splash of bitters of it. And I was still participating, and I wasn't getting loaded, or I wasn't getting a headache because I seem to get headaches from drinks. And I could still, but this is such a nice way to be able to participate and have something that's fun and friendly, and different and unique. So I'm curious, though, you entered this space, and I think it was your early adopter there. Would you not agree?

Yes. To my knowledge, we were the first people in the US working on this, trying to make adult beverages that are non alcoholic and handcrafted. And we really have found the ritual of having something that's well crafted. Having a drink when you're out with your friends that has a beginning, middle and an end to it is really game changing in terms of people feeling included and feeling relaxed and not just because of the ritual. But another thing that we do is we use different herbs and adaptogens to help the body on wine. The one that I'm having right now is Curious No. 4, this is our little blood orange, green mandarin spritz. So for fans of an aperol spritz, you know that it's gotta a little bit sweeter, a little bit bitter. But we also use american ginseng in here to give you a boost, because I wanted something that was going to kind of bring me up for this podcast. I wanted something that may give me a little bit of energy. And then it also has holy basil and turmeric, which is going to help my body soothe over the next hour or so. So there is a little bit of function going on here too. Because I was curious, I was like, hey, can we make something that's adult, that is like takes you on a flavor journey and also makes your body feel good? And the reality is, yes, you can. So that's what we're doing with each one of our different flavors.

It sort of it borders on functional food, almost.

It is. Absolutely yes. Yeah.

So which is another, now, you're bridging the gap between having a drink, which is a non alcoholic beverage, that's one category. And also approaching this category of functional food, which is a really big category now. So you're bridging those gaps and bringing them together, which is really nice. That actually wasn't healthy for people in abundance, and giving them access to something that they can have in abundance or at their leisure and actually making it healthy for them.

Exactly right. And we try to keep it as low and natural sugars as possible because nobody wants a ton of sugar. That was the thing like, one of the inspirations for Curious is not only my own struggle with alcohol, but my sister in law getting pregnant, and one of my best friends, he's a Broadway star and he's been sober for eight years. He doesn't drink any alcohol. So whenever we would go hang out in Manhattan, like go have lunch or something before one of his shows, there was nothing interesting to drink. You might get like a ginger beer which has 60 grams of sugar in it. He doesn't want 60 grams of sugar right before he's gonna go sing for two hours. You know what I mean? So that was really trying to fill a need for people that were close to me. And once I saw that there were all these different types of people that were drinking less or not drinking at all, I was like, maybe there's a business here. And lo and behold, there's a business here.

And when you started this business, what was your first, did you think it would take off in the way that it has?

I was surprised at how fast it took off. It's one of the fastest growing companies I've ever worked on. My past, I was head of marketing for Thrillist, the third employee there, taking them for as a media company from 10,000 readers to 10 million. And then Daily Harvest which is a superfood smoothie and soup company, I was head of marketing for them. With both Daily Harvest and Curious looks, as I was kind of stunned by how fast they grew, how ready people were to have high quality food and drinks sent straight to their home. We were pre pandemic, it was just kind of stunning that hundreds of thousands of people are just willing to get food sent to their home. But I guess it goes back to people want convenience, and they really do want to eat and drink more healthily. You just gotta make it easy for them, and you have to keep it delicious. If it's not delicious, nobody's gonna care.

Taste is really premium and key in any of these products that we're talking about, functional food, or a cocktail, or alcoholic cocktail. Tastes are really the key. So obviously, you have a very strong background in marketing. I mean, that's what you've been doing. So can you share with us some of the things that you've done to help your brand here, Curious Elixirs, what it is today?

Sure. Well, I think the first thing that we did was, we decided we don't want to villainize alcohol, that's not the enemy here. It's not that alcohol is bad, it's that too much alcohol is bad, and we need better options for those of us who want to drink less. And actually, remember our night out on the dance floor, or in the comedy club, or at the wedding. And so we decided, let's use humor. Let's make it have a fun, whimsical brand that leads with humor first. So with our first, we launched on kickstarter over five years ago now. And what we learned is that we made, I wrote it myself, I had done some things in comedy before, but we hired comedic actors and a comedic director to make this video. And that video has been viewed over 20 million times. So that's kind of like the secret sauce of how we kickstarted it. Let's make something that relates to people, and let's make something that's funny and relatable, because there's so many people that just made a change in their life. And they're like, you know what? Yeah, I would like something fancy to drink that is not just bitters and soda.

Yeah. I like funny too. Who doesn't like funny?

Funny works.

You have to have a sense of humor and a little levity in whatever you're doing.

And try not to take it so seriously. As my father always said, no one gets out alive.

Your father was a comedian.

Yeah.

So now that you've launched this five years ago on Kickstarter, that was pre pandemic. So how has the pandemic affected your growth now in the last two years?

It's accelerated to the point where we can't bottle it fast enough.

Wow.

One of the things is that, obviously, everybody's been talking about how supply chains have been harder and stuff like that. And that's true. It's certainly been true for us in terms of getting enough elderberry juice and stuff like that. But it's really accelerated the rate at which people are willing to have beverages shipped to their homes or have anything shipped to their homes. And a lot of people, there's been two big groups that we've seen of new customers as the pandemic started. One is people who drank a lot at the beginning of the pandemic and then decided like, whoa, I need to take it down a notch, or take it down a few notches. So that's one big group that has been coming and becoming Curious Cocktail Club subscribers, people who get curious every month. But another big group is people who right at the beginning of the pandemic were cutting alcohol out immediately because they want to keep my immune system as strong as it possibly can be. And that's one thing that definitely takes your immune system down as is drinking. So those are two huge groups that have been coming over to us now. And now we've got hundreds of thousands of customers across the country.

Wow. Are you finding that your direct to consumer has been affected?

That's been up like 600% since the pandemic started. We weren't focused on wholesale before the pandemic started, and we're starting to do more of that now getting into more restaurants and bars, and specialty stores and things like that. But if we had been too reliant on these kinds of retail shops, I think we would have been in serious trouble at the beginning of the pandemic. So luckily, we had a good group of people who were just getting us shipped to their door already.

Yeah. Because I found a lot of these direct to consumers really skyrocketed during the pandemic. It's been exciting to see, especially for these smaller companies because it's given them a new kind of opportunity. But in line with that, what are some of the strategies you've used to market to some of these people that have never heard of you?

Trying to use storytelling just like any person since the dawn of time. You've got to really talk to people at their level, and keep it fun and interesting. That's why we lean on humor so much, and that's why we lean on video so much. We released a little parody video yesterday just about like an old Fred Astaire clip from like 65 years ago. And it went from zero to like 35,000 views in the first 20 hours, because it was just Fred Astaire like dancing. And it was like, oh, me trying to stay booze free through every holiday party. It's just something silly, but it really spoke to people because we all kind of feel like we're tap dancing when people offer you drinks. Like, no, I'm not drinking, thank you. But I've got upset, upset. I'm good. So I think that that's one of the strategies that we use, short, relatable content that people can understand, that tells stories that are applicable to their lives.

Yeah. I think that that's great. We have so many founders that watch these video casts and listen to these podcasts. And one of the things that they always say to me is that they love to hear some of the strategies and the stories that people are sharing. Because while some of it seems second nature to you, or to me, or to them, you'd be surprised that these little tidbits come and they say to me, wow, that was pivotal for me. That really inspired me to do A, B or C. And it's so amazing. So I always ask our guests to share some of their stories because it really does inspire them, and inspire whoever's listening to make some new changes, and to think outside of the box in some new way. So I love that you're able to share that with them. I appreciate that. It's great. In line with this, you have these new 7th Curious Elixirs coming out, what else can we look to see in the future from Curious?

Well, we're starting to do more things in person. I'm sitting here at our Club Curious, which is our sober speakeasy somewhere in Brooklyn. I'm here in the lab portion of this little multi room, Victorian townhouse from 1901. We've actually got a jam session going on tonight. So there's different musicians coming to the cabaret, which is next door to where I am here. So you're gonna see us supporting more people that are artists of various stripes, people that are sober, curious. We've done Curious Creators Grants. And that's something where we gave $10,000 and working grants to artists that have been affected by the pandemic, that are working on something new. So that's something you're gonna see more. We're trying to take what we do, which is just providing options and different things that we create. My art form is drink, but many other people make visual arts and things like that, and they need our support because that's one of the things that we want to support too. What does life look like if more people create things rather than just consume? And so we're taking some of the profits that we make from our amazing group of customers, and giving that to sober curious artists so that they can create more work. So that's something you're gonna see happening in real life here, that Club Curious, and also through our grants. Just making new stuff.

And so what kinds of things are you going to be making?

Well, working on Curious, we just released Curious 6. And now, we're having a quick follow of Curious No. 7, which is coming out. I'll be working on a couple more flavors for next year as well. So that's something that we'll be working on. And I'm also advising a company in the non alcoholic spirits space as well. An amazing woman founder that is in Kentucky, she's making the best non alcoholic bourbon in the world. So I'm excited to see that come down the pipe that'll get released next year as well. And then who knows, we're going to probably take this sober curious culture on the road. Maybe a roadshow, we'll see.

Great. Now, I have a question for you. If one of our listeners or one of our viewers was curious about maybe submitting for one of your grants, how might they do that?

Well, we're going to be announcing it toward the end of January. And so that'll be an open submission process. And people, they just need to submit one existing work. And basically how to contact them in one paragraph, kind of like a very short artist statement. That's it. We're trying to make it really easy. We did it last year at the end of January, and we had over 2000 artists apply, which was great. And I can't tell you the artists and the art that has been created now out of this, it's just a joy to be able to help support them. And we've had some incredible dancers, musicians, visual artists and bartenders as well, and people poets, are there six different categories. So just look at our Instagram, I think is probably the easiest and best way, but also our email newsletter, which we send out twice a week as well.

Wonderful. And we'll do a follow up in our newsletter to let everybody know if you give us the information as a follow up. So we'll include that. Yeah, no problem, of course. So if anybody is curious about buying Curious, or about buying Curious, where would they buy it?

The best way to buy it is just on curiouselixirs.com. We recommend that they try a month in the Curious Cocktail Club. They'll get a variety pack of different flavors to try, and then that'll give them a sense of like, ooh, I really like No. 1, which is a pomegranate Negroni. Or I really liked No. 5, which is a smoked cherry, chocolate old-fashioned. Or whichever flavors they gravitate toward. That way they can kind of see, and we rotate the flavors every month or so now that we've got six of them and soon to be seven. So yeah, our website is the best way. We're also available in a few different Michelin Star restaurants and nightclubs, like House of Yes here in Brooklyn and places like that. But the best way is still on our website, and the most affordable.

Okay. For those folks that are watching you from other places outside of the New York area, maybe like California, are there any stores out here or restaurants out here that folks might find you in?

There are. Yeah. We've been carried, I can't remember the name of the new store. Oh, it's gonna drive me nuts. In Southern California, they've been selling a ton of Curious. No, not Erewhon. I'm trying to remember the name of this store. It's specifically like a non-alcoholic bottle shop.

I'm in Northern California, I'm not much help.

In Northern California Ocean Beach Cafe is the place to go. This guy Josh who runs that place. He has really made himself into one of the experts in the space, and they carry all six of the Curious Elixirs. And that's a fantastic place for all non alcoholic options. They're great cafes, all day cafes near the beach. And I think that's a great place to go if you also just want a little bit of a scene, Ocean Beach.

Awesome. Well, John, thank you so much for joining us. I can't wait to try a variety of those cocktails. I know that our viewers and our listeners really will appreciate all the tips that you gave us. Thank you for No. 7, which I'm super excited about maybe, well--

I'll send you some.

I appreciate that. I look forward to it. They will use it for a reunion in the New Year. And don't forget to tune in every Tuesday to Essential Ingredients. So again, thanks so much for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you here every week.