Beginner's Luck? We'll Take It
Didn't trip over the tent stakes this time
Holla!
How’s it going? Done anything new or random? My once-in-a-lifetime event happened last Saturday. We’d heard the day before that the Whole Foods near us (on Broadway) was leaving by the end of the week. It bummed us out a little bit because we’d recently discovered that they carry this French cider in cans, Aval, which is really good. Slightly sweet, heavy ferment flavor, and nice price tag. (I love French ciders, some people say the Spanish make it best, not true, the French do.) And now, where besides France are we going to find it??? But at 6 pm Saturday, Chris read on Reddit the Whole Foods was selling absolutely everything for half-off. When we arrived it had already been going on all day and it was just swarming with people. Moving down aisles was tricky and finding a basket was a task. But it was really surprising how polite everyone was. The fact that some areas were pretty picked over and some still had gems gave it all a heightened fever vibe but nobody was totally losing their heads, completely unlike the recent videos of fighting at Costco for Pokemon cards. I think part of the reason was that things at Whole Foods can be pricey, so you still had to be thoughtful. I held the organic raw almond butter for a while, but set it back when I realized that even at half-off, Trader Joe’s has it cheaper.
Everybody was really cheerful and talkative, it was better than holiday spirit. Chris and I were debating if we should get a fifth 4-pack of cider, and this jolly guy, said “Why Not??? Do it!!!!” and then proudly presented us his 4th shopping cart full of carefully curated wines and beers.
Our First Festival!
We participated in our first festival, the UW Bothell Block Party and Brewfest. We had so much FUN. It honestly went so well. Really, except for it raining a ton at the start, this went as good as we could possibly have hoped for. We had a line for a good few hours when the weather cleared, and we received extremely positive feedback. Many of our customers became repeat customers and were using two tickets at a time to get 12 oz pours. It was wild! My favorite part was spotting a familiar face bee-lining for our table again from the music area.
Both of us had been so nervous. What if people really didn’t like what we make? I tried to get as mentally prepared for bad reviews as I could, and thought, if it’s really bad we can always open up a taproom and just sell other makers’ ciders. Neither of us slept very well. But people agree that tea and cider go really well together. Earl Grey we went through 7-8 gallons, and Sunny Jackfruit something like 6 gallons, and Pretty Berry 5 gallons before we switched it to Afternoon Royale. What a compliment. And it was so much fun meeting so many friendly people. I hope all our festivals are just like this one.
Coming Up Festivals
The Washington Brewers Festival is just days away. It’s two whole days. They’re expecting 2,500 people. It’s BIG. I’m nervous about this one. We just got the layout map of where our table is going to be and we’re placed inside. I really wanted to be out on the lawn. But, hey, we’re close to the nice real toilets. Why am I nervous? I don’t know. It’s new and different. I won’t have a place behind me to hang our banner so we fast shipped a banner stand, I got anxious about running out of Earl Grey so we’ve made extra, but the new fear is that our specific load in time is 12-2 pm on Friday and our mentor just said he doesn’t think he can bring our cider until later after his day-job. That really freaks me out. We want to bring like 6 kegs and they’re under his bond so they’ll arrive when he does. But I’m just nervous overall, I know him, he said that yesterday, but he’ll have it all figured out by Thursday evening. He always gets invited to dozens of festivals, so he knows when it’s time to get there. I just really care about this.
Oh SNAP! I almost forgot to remind you all to get tickets! I’ve got a new 20% off discount for you: WABF2025FRIEND just apply it at check-out: tickets. Even if I didn’t have a table, I would strongly recommend attending this event. This is WASHINGTON’s brewery festival, so there’s beer from all over the state. AND it’s unlimited tastes. They’re 2 oz pours, so not very big, but the idea is that you can try all kinds of stuff. So, if I were an attendee game-planning this, (I always game-plan) I’d arrive early, or least close to the start, so that I’d have all the time available to taste as much of everything as I could. OH, and there’ll be a stage with wrestling, and there’s going to be live music. Please come and have a great time this weekend! I promise I’ll be chill as a cucumber by the time you get to my table and loving it.
Check-It-Out!
This festival is on Saturday, July 12th from 12 – 5 pm. It’s in the lovely Gig Harbor. Honestly, I don’t really go to Gig Harbor at all. It sounds like a place I went as kid, maybe I went a lot as kid? You’d have to ask my older sister. I spent a significant amount of time day-dreaming, so a lot of places my parents took me as kid I more or less stumbled out of the car and just went with the pack. God knows where they took me. But! This festival looks really fun, they made a little promo-video of a previous year, and it looks like a great outdoor party. They’ll be locally made cider, wine, beer, cider, spirits, mead, cider, live music and cider! It’s for a great cause too. Proceeds support environmental education, stewardship, and conservation initiatives within the KGI Watershed.
Pop-Up Pours
Sunday, June 29th
1:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Republic of Cider in SoDo is offering us the chance to pour ciders at their tasting room! This will be one Sunday a month: July 27th, August 24th, and September 28th as well. So if you struggle getting out to different festivals outside of town (it’s an 11 minute walk from the SoDo light rail station), don’t enjoy purchasing a ticket (there’s no cover, that’d be ridiculous), or maybe there’s someone under 21 that you'd like to bring with you (all ages tasting room), please come! It’s also pretty dang close to Costco, so if you have some shopping to do or just have a hankering for a hot dog, stop by the tasting room too.
We’re going to be doing a special: 2-for-1 tasting flights, so you can try all our ciders twice. Or share, I guess. You know, you do you, be someone’s generous provider.
Thoughts and Feeling Time / Keeping it Real
K, starting with the Pop-Ups. This is a very good learning experience for us. I’ve already had to work harder on the website so that I can then post the event on Ever Out. I rush ordered a massive amount of discount cards to hand out at the festivals as well.
Don’t think that you need one of these cards by the way, your flight will be 2 for 1.
The temporary tattoos I ordered came, so we’ll have those this time around as well.
Then, I ordered a bunch of stickers to label 32 oz glass bottles with our name and logo so that if you want to take a bottle home we can fill it up like a growler. Or, you could always bring your own growler as well and maybe have a sticker? These things are freak’n cool and I can’t wait for them to arrive. I ordered the color morphing style, so when the bottle is full of cold cider it’ll turn pink and be purple if it’s warm.
A number of people asked about merch at the Bothell event, so I’m in the process of ordering tote bags. Just waiting on a proof at the moment. Main reason, I could use another bag. And, I won’t upset someone too much if I don’t have their size. I hunted around and found some attractive and highly ethical bags, they look like leather but are washable paper. If you’re skeptical check them out, they’ve got character: Out of the Woods.
Because our business is based around providing an engaging space for people and serving directly to customers, I feel like this pop-up is an opportunity to see how it goes. Maybe we’ll realize there’s something we’re missing in our plan or that we have to change.
Marketing is the big thing we’re trying to learn right now, cause Republic of Cider is usually closed on Sundays for a reason (it’s in SoDo), so any folks that come in will probably be there because we got to them.
The last festival was fun, and we have more lined up, a few in August, September and October. It’s both nice to have an excuse to come in and make more cider and it’s a hassle. Our mentor is a busy guy and getting in around his schedule is pretty challenging, and usually something isn’t quite as planned. On the other hand, we are learning things and gaining some confidence.
Are we making any money? No. A lot of the festivals are donation based, so either some or all of your kegs have to be donated to the event. Some are like the Bothell one though, and they actually paid for the kegs we went through. So it was nice to go through as many as we did. But, we sold them wholesale price, so $120 for a 5 gallon keg. Then our mentor takes his cut of the sale. Then there’s taxes and keg washing, and on top of that the organic ingredients we buy for the cider. So, we came away with lunch money. Luckily, earning money this summer wasn’t the point. Oh, and for the pop-ups we won’t earn anything more than at a festival, because we will sell the kegs at wholesale price, and give our mentor his cut, and then the tasting room will get the revenue per glass. When hearing the break-down of our earnings after subtractions, I kept thinking of Baby Billy from “The Righteous Gemstones”
If you’ve never seen this show, I HIGHLY recommend it. I laughed so hard. A warning though, it gets violent sometimes, especially the first few seasons. So if you get squeamish with a bit of blood and death, you might need to look away at times but it’s worth it. Like all good things in life.
Same for this plan to start a business. It’s been a very long and bumpy road. I can’t believe you’re still watching. But the dream is becoming more real, and it’s definitely been fun at times. Thank you for continuing to read and follow along on our story. It feels better with friends. Hope you have some lovely things planned for the rest of your week.
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