A Brewmaster, His Son, and an Energy Drink That Actually Makes Sense

A guy walks into a hospital gift shop at 2 a.m. while his wife is in labor, reaches for an energy drink, and realizes every option on the shelf was made for a teenager. That moment sparked Mocean Energy.

This week I sit down with Tony Vieira, a brewmaster who spent 36 years at Anheuser-Busch, Coors, and Mark Anthony Brewing, where he helped develop White Claw. Tony breaks down the science of hangovers, what it was like building million-square-foot breweries during COVID to meet White Claw demand, and why he and his son Christian walked away from corporate life to build a clean energy drink rooted in Eastern medicine and his Filipino mother's home remedies.

Find Mocean Energy at drinkmocean.energy or on Amazon.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:36):
You know, Tony, I gotta tell you, I it never
ceases to amaze me how softwareuh can just not work.
And it's one of the reasons whyI decided to not do IT as my
real job, because I think Iwould probably hardware pretty
much works 99% of the timeunless you get it done, right?

(00:56):
It's always the software that wehave issues with.

SPEAKER_03 (01:00):
It'll bite you in the ass, brother.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01):
It's no there's bite you in the ass.
Now you're an entrepreneur, soI'd imagine you've you've
probably dealt with your fairshare of of issues, but this is
the Drink a Clock Podcast.
I am your host, Rob Valencius.
I have the pleasure of havingwith me Tony Viera.
And I should probably shouldhave double checked to make sure
that's how you said your name,because I always screw it up.

(01:22):
Did I say it right?
What did I miss?

SPEAKER_03 (01:23):
Vieira, you got it, brother.

SPEAKER_00 (01:25):
Let's go.
Let's go.
Now, Tony, you're an executivein Brewing Innovation, and you
are you've been in the beverageindustry now for 36 years.
Welcome to the podcast, man.

SPEAKER_03 (01:36):
Yeah, thanks, Rob.
I I do appreciate being here,and it's fun.
I've watched a couple of yourprograms and um uh, you know, I
I appreciate the time and tohave a cocktail because you know
it's been one of those fuckingdays, brother.

SPEAKER_00 (01:49):
So it's always one of those fucking days.
So so I'll be 40 this year, butyou'd think I'm 70 the way I
talk.
So when I'm at work, I work inan office and I'm always someone
says something to me and I'mlike, it is what it is, you
know, or um, you know, just justI I have a couple staple
sayings, living the dream.

(02:09):
I should probably get that on at-shirt because I say that
multiple times a day.
And I to the point where I havepeople at work now saying it
too.
And I don't know if they'redoing it because they know uh
that when I say that, it's it'stypically not a good day, you
know.
But cheers, man.
Appreciate you coming on theshow, man.
What you got in your glassthere?

SPEAKER_03 (02:26):
Oh, I I got a single malt um Japanese whiskey.
Yeah, it's great, actually.
It's called the Yamazaki.
It's it's it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 (02:36):
I think I've had that before.
Now tell me if this is true.
I actually saw something, andyou can't believe everything you
read online, but I saw uh I'm abig I I like X or Twitter.
I still call it Twitter, but Isaw a guy put uh I found a lot
of like health people.
And this guy was talking that uhhe was saying he was gonna try

(02:57):
only in America, only drinkinguh Japanese like uh alcohols
from Japan, like that wereimported here to see, and he
said that he got a he got zerohangover from those
comparatively to drinking, youknow, whiskies and all that
stuff that were made here inAmerica.

(03:18):
Um can can you shed some somelight on obviously I know I'm
sure there's a million chemicalsin ours compared to uh you know
Japan.

SPEAKER_03 (03:25):
I no, I think actually there, I think um I'm I
I don't know if I'd buy it for acouple of reasons.
Right.
Uh one is you know thedistillers here in the US are
are are excellent, the big thebig distillers in particular
because they can fractionate thedistillate um like you know like
it's going out of style.
So they they I I and they're notthey're not putting product out

(03:50):
there that is gonna give you syou know make you susceptible to
a hangover because they don'twant to, right?
Um but I think you know therethere's a lot of in in
distilling, you can separate theheads and the tails, and you
know, then you get the heartsand so forth, and you know,
depending on how you blend thosetogether, you know, it it

(04:12):
determines the quality of theproduct.
Um the major distillers aren'tgonna they're aren't gonna mess
with that.
Um and there are you know thereare some smaller distillers that
can't fractionate like likeother big big distillers, and
that might be, you know, achallenge for them.
Um and then but uh but theJapanese uh you know that

(04:33):
they're they're precise.
Um they do make high qualityproduct there.
And um I you know I I a lot ofthe hangover is due to
overconsumption and how yourbody metabolizes and you you
move from um alcohol to you knowyou break that down into other

(04:53):
components, and as thosecomponents sort of um build up
in your bloodstream, those canlead to headaches, right?
And and hang out.

SPEAKER_00 (05:03):
Is it um is it methanol that it breaks down to,
I think?

SPEAKER_03 (05:06):
Well it it it it breaks down to acid aldehyde.
Acid aldehyde is a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 (05:10):
Okay, that's what it yeah, that's what it is.

SPEAKER_03 (05:11):
And and in fact, and a lot of Asian men, something
like 25% of the Asian men can'tmetabolize acid aldehyde, and so
they're cheap drunk, right?
Um or they well, they they endup getting impacted by the
alcohol worse, headaches, etc.
And um so you know, there I youknow, there is a there's a huge
science to to distillation.

(05:33):
And you know, my hat is off tothem.
When I when I was with um partof my background, uh I j I just
retired from Marc AnthonyBrewing, and they are the they
are the group that that weowned, we own, or they own
distilleries, they owned umwineries, they are they're the
makers of white claw, Mike HardLemonade, um, Gwendelock

(05:56):
whiskies, and so forth.
But part of my role there was umI oversaw a pilot distillery for
them and so forth.
And um so I I have uh the utmostrespect for the spirits industry
and you know the alcoholindustry in general, because
that's where I um you know cutmy teeth.

SPEAKER_00 (06:16):
Yeah, see, look, it would make sense.
Now that I I asked you thatquestion, in my head, I'm
thinking about like look, right?
The big the big guys, they wantyou to drink every day if they
cook, right?
Because that's that's that'smarket share, or they want you
to drink their brand.
So they're not gonna try tointentionally make it so you get
a hangover by putting even morestuff in there because they they

(06:38):
want it.
It's it'd be like a drug dealer,right?
Like they're not gonna uh poisontheir their meth they're selling
you because they want you backtomorrow, they don't want you
dead, you know.
It's a convincing concept.

SPEAKER_03 (06:49):
It would be a very myopic view, you know, if they
tried to, you know, to meaningshort-sighted, right?
And and that yeah, if if if ifthere was intent to make a
product that was not, you know,really good quality.
And and and if it was if it wentif if it I guess promoted you

(07:10):
know hangovers and things likethat, it just doesn't it doesn't
make any business sense.

SPEAKER_00 (07:14):
And so so I'm not talking for loco here.
You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (07:19):
So I call a bit of bullshit on on the the guy who
never had a hangover from youknow I you know you you can get
a hangover from any any alcoholthat you drink in it uh uh an
enough of in excess, right?
There's no doubt about that.

SPEAKER_00 (07:33):
That's true.
That's true.
So uh yeah, and but and beforewe get into your backstory, I
used to back in my heyday beforeI had all the gray hair uh, you
know, and crack every time I Ibend down.
Um I uh I used to I became acertified Guinness pourer.
Um and I worked uh I worked alot at beer fests and uh the

(07:53):
wifey um she she uh modeled, soshe was like one of the beer
girls.
So she was she was the thepretty and I was the the brawn
behind pouring the the pints ofGuinness um because there's a
special way to do it, you know,you gotta do it right.
But while we were doing that, wegot to learn.
I I was I basically took classeslike once a week for uh like a
month, month and a half.

(08:14):
And they paid us, but uh theytaught us about hops and and all
that stuff and and what theirbrewing process looks like.
This was right around when uhyou know Guinness Nitro got big
when they were um when they werein, you know, kind of really
trying to push that.
So we had to learn about um youknow their their brewing

(08:35):
process, how they kept alleverything in the cans and so
that it wouldn't go stale.
And um it was a really coolprocess to learn about the
science behind.
I'm a science-y type person, youknow.

SPEAKER_03 (08:46):
Yeah, yeah.
It's it's it's it's fun to getyou know get sort of uh absorbed
into that tech of the of thebrewing science.
And I so I I'm a brewmaster bytraining.
Um and I'm glad you brought upGuinness because it's it is like
the nectar of the gods, right?
I I really, really loveGuinness.
In fact, I've got a tap in mygarage right now with a Guinness

(09:09):
faucet on it.
And and um I converted it.
Uh I used to have you know awhole bunch of different beers
on there, and all we'll alwaysserve is Guinness on there now.
But in fact, the guy that gaveme this is a good friend of
mine.
His name is Eddie Corcoran, wasa Guinness brewmaster.
He replaced me when I retiredthis uh this past year as the
brewmaster at Whiteclaw.
Um nice! Yeah, so uh, butanyways, I love I love Guinness.

(09:34):
Um and that nitro pore is I meanit's it's there's nothing like
it.
Uh it's uh it it is amazing.
Um it's a the product is onethat will I it will never go out
of style, ever.

SPEAKER_00 (09:50):
Yeah, it's on the bucket list to go to go out and
and go to the home factory.
That's that's where I want to goto the home brewery, check it
all out.
Absolutely um one of these days.
But uh we're from we're fromPhilly, so you know, everywhere
around here it's you know, ifyou say you want a lager, you're
getting a Yingling because theYing Ling brewery is I mean,

(10:12):
Jesus, probably I could drivethere in maybe an hour, hour and
a half, you know.

SPEAKER_03 (10:16):
Um Pottsville, right?

SPEAKER_00 (10:18):
Yep, Pottsville.
Yep.
So it's not it's not far.
Uh, but we're that's what we'reknown for here in the in the
Philly area.
But uh listen, let's talk aboutgrowing up, man.
Before we get into yourbackground and some of the stuff
you got into, you know, growingup, uh, you know, where'd you
grow up?
What'd you get into, and uh whatwhat kind of drove you?
I know you have a veryinteresting backstory because
you weren't always in the thebrewing, you weren't always a

(10:40):
master brewer and you kind ofmade a decision, but talk to me
up to that year 36 mark, right?
Like you know, get up to there.

SPEAKER_03 (10:48):
Yeah, so well, I I I I I tell you, um so I'm also the
the family historian, right?
So I'm doing a little researchon my family.
I'm I'm Portuguese and Filipino.
My last name is Portuguese.

SPEAKER_00 (11:00):
Um it might not look it, but I'm actually Puerto
Rican.
I'm Puerto Rican.
Uh yeah, my dad's adopted, andmy real family is from Puerto
Rico.
Now, I had to get a 23ME test toprove it to my very my my wife
is uh 100% Ukrainian.
She was born here, so it's notlike she has the Ukrainian
accent, but uh I had to prove itto her.
I'm like, listen, I'm I'mtelling you, that's it.

(11:22):
And we didn't she didn't believeit.
And then uh she bought thetests.
So I was like, all right, let'stake a look.
And and uh it it showed nowobviously Puerto Rico, people
migrated to Puerto Rico.
They didn't they weren't justliving there, you know.
So where people migrated from inEurope was pretty much uh
everywhere where people whosettled in Puerto Rico were.

(11:44):
So uh it's it's it's fun to havean interesting background.

SPEAKER_03 (11:47):
Yeah, it really is.
I'll tell you a funny story.
Like I did the 23andMe and turnsout that uh, you know, it's
supposedly one of uh one of youknow, if you go back enough a
thousand years or whatever, I'mI you know, and and you and
you're probably in the sameboat, actually.
We're probably brothers, right?

SPEAKER_00 (12:06):
Um We're all brothers in the long run, right?

SPEAKER_03 (12:09):
Um related to to Nile of the Nine Hostages, who
was a guy who was a uh a warlordin the in Ireland who basically
took hostages from the otherclans, and and that way he
controlled uh he controlledIreland at that time, and his
name was Nile of the NineHostages.
So he he would that's how hekept control.

(12:30):
He'd he'd like take your sisteror your mother, and then you
your clan would be subservientto him.
So we're we're yeah, you're butyou're probably in that lineage
as well, because every when Ilooked at it, it was like
everybody in the world was inthat lineage.

SPEAKER_00 (12:44):
That's that's wild to think, isn't it?
Like it kind of throws you for aloop.
Yeah, I had some veryinteresting people that I was
like connected.
The the wifey did hers, she'sconnected to all royalty.
It's like royalty and uh youknow, people in in higher.
I had like an inbred uhsomething or other, a baby, and

(13:04):
I'm like, where did you guys getthis shit?
How do you know that this inbredand then like a something uh day
massacre victim?
I was like, how do you know thatI'm related to the to these
victims of a massacre from 400years ago?
You know?
Uh wild science.
I'll I'll say that.

SPEAKER_03 (13:22):
It is wild.
Uh yeah, so so my so mybackground, just to continue
that wildness.
Um, so I was born in thePhilippines.
My mother, um who was she passedabout 20 years ago, but she was
a little four foot ten Filipinowoman.
And growing up, she used to tellme that she was born in a
jungle.

(13:43):
Right?
And I said, Okay.
So so as when she was getting onin a year, she was she was
really sick.
We started she started tellingmore about her childhood.
I never knew any of this growingup.
Um she uh so she tells me thatshe was born during the during
the Japanese occupation of thePhilippines during World War II.

(14:05):
And she was on a on on anisland, one of the minor
islands, and they were fullyoccupied by the Japanese, and
the Japanese had at the time,you know, were were sort of
burning down villages and and soforth.
And so she and her small familyor her her her parents and their
small family sort of went outinto the jungle and were hiding

(14:29):
out in the jungle.
My grandmother Illuminata washer name, um, which means the
enlightened one, um was uh youknow, was was pregnant and she
was, you know, in her in herlate her her late um pregnancy.
So her and my my grandfather,when she went into labor, the

(14:51):
decision was made that sheshould actually they should
leave the clan and go hide bythemselves because they didn't
want the noise of the cryingbaby and the birth to attract
the Japanese and you know andand potential conflict.
So my mother is born out in thethis jungle and my um couple

(15:14):
days later my my grandfathergoes back to meet with the
family to tell them that she'sborn, and while they were gone,
the rest of the family had beenkilled.
Oh wow.
Yeah, so my mother, you know,she she carried that sort of
weight with her.
And then later on, she grew up,her her her father died of
tetany, which is a horrible wayto go when she was five, and

(15:38):
then her and her her and hermother, um, and I don't know why
I'm going to all this, but it'sit's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 (15:45):
I love the history stuff, man.
I'm a I I could I could eat itup.

SPEAKER_03 (15:49):
She um her she ended up when she was about fifteen,
her and her mother were at acarnival, and my mother got
raped, and she got she was beingattacked by this man.
My grandmother intervened.
It was it was somewhere off inthis carnival.
They both get stabbed, they bothget rushed to the a clinic in

(16:12):
the Philippines, and they're ontables next to each other, and
they only have enough blood forone of 'em.
And so my grandmother in thePhilippines at the time, they
gave blood to the to the oldestperson.
It was the way that that youknow, if they had to make a
choice, they gave it to theolder, the elder.

(16:33):
Um my grandmother refused theblood.
My mother got the blood, mygrandmother died that night, and
so my mother at fifteen was byherself.
So, anyways, fast forward.
I'm born in 1967 in thePhilippines in the clinic that
my grandmother died in.
And that's how that that's howmy story starts.

SPEAKER_00 (16:56):
So that's that is wild, man.
That is absolut Which I guess itmakes sense to give blood to the
older person if because they'reprobably more likely to die for
from blood loss, but at the sametime, it's like they're older,
and wouldn't you want to savethe person that's that's
younger, I guess.
I don't I don't know.
I guess it's one of those uh oneof those questions above my pay

(17:20):
grade uh on on who you who youshould save.
But that I mean, my um my wifey,her mom has an uh an interesting
like backstory because she wasborn in Venezuela.
She's Ukrainian, but she wasborn in Venezuela.
And uh, you know, she joined thearmy, was a secretary in the
army, but uh knows she knowsUkrainian, Spanish, like she
watches Spanish soap operas, andbut if you looked at her, you

(17:42):
would never know that she knowsall these languages, you know,
and uh it's it's a pretty wildthing.
But nothing is uh is horrible asyou know, some of that stuff.
I mean, that's that's wild.
But hey, look, man, you made itout of out of all the you know
turmoil, right?
So there's there's uh reason tocelebrate there.

SPEAKER_03 (18:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
So, you know, so we we ended upcoming over to the U.S.
Um, I grew up um primarily inNew Hampshire, in um southern
New Hampshire.
And um and uh, you know, I was asoccer player growing up.
I know you were as well.
I I I saw that.
Um so I played a little bit ofball, and then um in col you

(18:24):
know, my wife and I met incollege and uh we we got married
in college.
He was pregnant in our junioryear.
And so you know when wegraduated, we I had a
one-year-old son, right?
And wow, I I I was a biologymajor, so I had and and I drank

(18:44):
enough Budweiser back then,right, to I figured they owed me
a job, right?
So I send my I send my resume into them.
And and uh I had done someinteresting research as an
undergrad.
And um so anyways, I I I end upgetting this interview.
I go to St.
Louis and they're interviewingme for their brewmaster training

(19:06):
program, right?
And um and I'm with the vicepresident of human resources for
the brewing division for theworld, right?
And he's interviewing me.
He takes out my transcript andhe looks at it, and it was
miserable, man.
It's a fucking I mean, it was soit uh it's embarrassing.
I won't even tell you how low mymy GPA was, right?

(19:26):
So he's like, hey, um wait asecond here.
You want to talk about your GPA?
And I said, I said, well, hisname is um Dr.
Brunell, Don Don Brunell.
I said, Dr.
Brunell.
The only I will tell you this,the only 4-0 I ever got was in
blood alcohol content.

(19:48):
And so we that kind of broke theice, and you know, we ended up
uh I ended up getting theinterview, and it turns out they
hired me for their brewmastertraining program.
So I started there right out ofcollege.
Um and and thank you know, sofor me, I was just trying to get
insurance because my kid was,you know, I had a kid and a
wife.
So so I started a brew mastertraining program and it changed

(20:09):
my world.
Anheuser Busch changed my world.
And um I went from there, did anumber of jobs, and I finished
up with um with White Claw uhback this summer.
And um I was the head of brewingfor them and uh quality in the
US and um ran their pilotbrewery and technical services

(20:30):
and co-packing.
And so um but it was time for meto go.
I you know, I I knew, you know,I I wanted to start a business
with my son, and so that's whatwe did.
And then so last summer we welaunched this this new
non-alcoholic energy drink thatwe produce.

SPEAKER_00 (20:47):
So that is cool, man.
I mean, look, um I I look Istarted I I wanted to I went to
college, I wanted to be apsychologist, and then I
realized that uh I didn't wantto go to school for six to eight
years.
I wanted to do it in four.
Only managed to end up doingtwo, and I didn't finish then, I
finished later in life.

(21:07):
But um, you know, and I I got adegree in IT, but I work in
insurance, so I you know, I Ithink um your career and where
you are uh almost sometimesnever match up to kind of what
you thought it was gonna be.
I'm really good at what I do,you know.
Um so it kind of just workedout, but I think it's pretty
cool.

(21:28):
How do you feel the biologydegree kind of helped you as a
brewmaster?
Do you think it came into cameinto play in in like random
points?
Did you think it was gonna bereally useful?

SPEAKER_03 (21:40):
Yeah, you know, I like so I wanted to be Quincy.
I mean back when I was the kid,the the show was Quincy.
You he was the first medicalexaminer on television, right?
And so I wanted to be Quincy.
That was the guy, right?
So I wanted to be a biologymajor and I wanted to be a you
know pathologist and a forensicpathologist, and of course.
I um I didn't have thediscipline academically, right?

(22:03):
Um but I but I got my biologydegree.
And um what it did for me withbrewing was that it helped it
you know to to get into the thesciences and even you know in IT
and and and so forth, you know,you you gotta be a curious you
gotta be curious, right, ingeneral, right?
And so I think it because webrewing is required, it's a

(22:30):
basically it's a it's an activeyou know fermentation of culture
that's going on with yeastcells, live yeast cells and and
so forth.
My biology degree helped me toto really be able to understand
what was happening in the tankover a course of time, you know,
to from when you start with asugar and you turn it into an
alcohol and it can reduce CO2and heat and so forth.

(22:52):
Um, those are the things that umreally benefited me.
And and the discipline ofworking for the major brewers is
I know that there's a lot of alot of them are getting, you
know, they they get bad pressbecause they are big, but they
have really good discipline,really high quality standards,
and they understand brewingscience like no one else.
And you know, Dennis is a greatexample of that, right?

(23:15):
I mean, you know, it again, thenectar of the gods, right?

SPEAKER_00 (23:19):
So and been around for a very, very, very long
time.
Yeah, yeah.
Now, what does a research breweractually do?
Give me some day-to-day, becausein my head, I'm thinking, oh,
this guy gets to just brew somebrew some beer and drink all
day.

SPEAKER_03 (23:37):
You know, uh Yeah, I well, you know, it was it was it
was really cool.
Uh so it basically I worked inthe the the coolest brew pub
brewer brew pub size brewerythat you could ever work in.
We actually took grain in.
We we we malted it ourselves, sowe got it to grow in

(23:58):
compartments and sprout, and weran the kilns and all this
other.
So we we made our own malt andthen we'd grind it and you know,
so what what what so I'd walkwalk in on you know on a day and
they'd hand me a brew sheet, sookay, we're gonna make some
experimental, you know,Budweiser today, right?
And you might do hop hopevaluations, you might do rice

(24:22):
evaluations, different maltevaluations or or whatever.
And so you knew what theobjective was.
You know, this is we're gonnachange the mash temperature on
this one.
We're gonna, you know, we'regonna add uh this type of hop
this time.
And so it was great.
Um, and you did that, that's allwe did, right?
We just is like re we breweddifferent types of beer.

(24:42):
So one of the one of theproducts that that benefited me
down the road that I worked onback in 1989 was a clear beer at
at Anheiser Busch.
And that be you know, that's thetype of product that yeah, well,
that was that was Coors.
I worked on that one too.

SPEAKER_02 (25:01):
Oh okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_03 (25:03):
Um, but but they they you know but that's that
knowledge of how I how thoseproducts are made is how I
helped um you know with the MikeMike's hard lemonade and and
white claw.
Um which which and White Clawended up being I really believe
this, I although I haven't seenthe numbers um to to to I

(25:25):
haven't I've never seen it youknow fully calculated out, but I
think Whiteclaw was the fastestgrowing alcoholic product in the
history of alcohol, like sincethe Mesopotamians are spitting
in pots, right?
I mean, th this this productgrew faster than anything, you
know, that that's ever beenproduced before.
And so you know, but all ofthose things um helped inform

(25:50):
you know my career.
And you know, and then you know,you get to a point and you say,
you know, I think I want to dosomething of my own.
And that that's how we my son,my son had come to me with a
personal challenge, and that'show we ended up making motion,
this this new energy drink.

SPEAKER_00 (26:05):
That is that is cool, man.
And um, yeah, I gotta tell you,so uh during COVID, we drank uh
a decent amount of so white clawactually actually me and the
wifey actually were in greatshape and we eat you know I I
had the least amount of stressin my life during COVID because
it was I got to work from home.

(26:26):
There was I didn't deal withtraffic or like it just I spent
more time with her.
I spent more time with my dogs.
It was just uh I loved it.
I'm not gonna lie to you,because you know, the her and my
dogs are what I care about mostin this world, so I got to spend
more time and um it was just acool three months because my
company, we were old school.

(26:46):
We went, we were pretty muchright back after three months,
you know.
Uh as soon as they said wecould, we were there.
Uh they they were really goodwith it though.
We did like layered, you know,every you know, Monday we were
in, Wednesday we were out, butTuesday another, you know, row
of the office was in.
So they they they phased us backin.
But um it was it was a cool timethere.

(27:08):
But we drank uh the wifey loveduh White Claw had a do you
remember the White Claw 70calorie that they had?

SPEAKER_02 (27:15):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (27:16):
She loved it.
She loved it.
I mean, that's what she drankall the time, and then
eventually it just poof wentaway.

SPEAKER_03 (27:22):
Yeah, I mean, you know, the the market will tell
you, right?
Uh in the end, the the fivepercent, I think, was was really
what was and still is theirbiggest, I think, you know,
segment of of it.
Um, you know, it's interestingyou you talk about um COVID and
so forth.
Um, so during COVID, we werebuilding breweries at at Mark

(27:44):
Anthony.
We we built three breweries in acouple of years, uh, like two of
them over a million square feetfor Whitequaw.

unknown (27:52):
Wow.

SPEAKER_03 (27:52):
Yeah.
I mean, we everything beforethat was pre-sold at White.
The brand was so popular thatthe the logistics guys were
having to allocate.
You put an order in, you say, Iwant I need a I need a pallet of
White Claw.
They'd send you 10 because theyneeded to split that pallet, you
know, between 10 other guys.

(28:13):
And and that's how it was forthe first uh I don't know,
several years that we weremaking it.

SPEAKER_00 (28:18):
Wow.
I mean it's tasty.
I'll give it that.
I'm not um I'm not like thebiggest seltzer person.
Um I'll drink it.
It's not like I'm like ew, youknow.
Um, but for me, it's just Idon't know.
I'm not I I feel like it'scertain it's a certain taste for
people.

SPEAKER_03 (28:36):
Well, you know what, you know what it you know what
it was?
It was a f it and it's you know,it's a it's still a a great
product, and the seltzers are,you know, it they're they're a
category that isn't gonna goaway.
Um, you know, I think what itdid back then was it was the one
product that the dude and thegirl could agree on, right?

(28:56):
And it was like, you know what,let's just get let's get you
know, and and that that's how itended up becoming so popular.
We had fraternities orderingpallets of it because and they
were pissed.
I remember seeing an articlebecause I think it was in
Georgia, University of Georgia,where the fraternity was like,
Yeah, we're you know, we'rereally pissed at white claw
because our cost to throw aparty has gone up because it

(29:19):
used to be that we could just doa punch bowl, but now we got to
bring in pallets of white claw,you know.

SPEAKER_00 (29:24):
So that's funny.
And it doesn't doesn't surpriseme, especially for a southern
school, because a lot of times,like, you know, those southern
schools, that's all they got iscollege, you know, college
football, college, everythingdown there.
Um yeah, I mean look, whiteclaw's good, man.
Uh seltzers are good.
Um and I'll definitely drinklike if someone's like, yeah,

(29:45):
all I got's a seltzer, I'm I'lldrink it.
It's not gonna deter me.
Uh, but we actually drink, wereally enjoy um so Bud Light
came out with Bud Light next.
Oh, I think it's so it's it'sthe it's the only beer that I
know of in the market that'szero carbs and has four percent
alcohol and it's uh 80 calories.

(30:06):
Oh, I haven't tried that.
It's light.
I mean, look, it's you you'redrinking a light beer, it's it's
gonna be super light, but it'slight, it's crisp, we enjoy it,
and uh, you know, we try to beconscientious of what we're
putting in our bodies.
And if I could drink, you know,10 of these at 80 calories with
zero carbs, I'll feel way betterabout myself and probably better

(30:28):
in the morning than if I drankuh, you know, uh like just a
straight, I haven't had astraight, just like Budweiser.
I think I might not have everhad one because I've always been
more of a light beer personanyway.
Uh outside of I I don't I feellike uh uh Guinness, even though

(30:48):
it's a it's a darker beer, Istill feel it's super light.
Just the whatever the whateverthey use, it's it's a light beer
to me.

SPEAKER_03 (30:56):
It's not a high alcohol product, and then and
and it is and it is, you know,it's it's uh it's it's it's got
the same, you know.
I think calorically it's thesame as like a Budweiser.
You know, you'd think that it'sheavier, but it's not.

SPEAKER_00 (31:08):
So I feel like the color, the foam, it it makes you
think it's it's like a malt,like a you know, a big time
heavy beer, and it's really not.

SPEAKER_03 (31:16):
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (31:17):
Um, and it's delicious.
I haven't had one in a while.
Now I'm like fiending for one.
Um so you know, you went fromobviously your research role uh
and then you went into the brewpub partnership.
Yeah, big leap there.
What did you learn from like theabout the business of beer that
you probably couldn't havelearned about, you know, from
like the big corporation?

SPEAKER_03 (31:38):
Yeah.
No, that that that is a greatquestion because I, you know, I
I when I when I I tell peoplethis, they don't really
understand.
Um so at Anheuser Bush, youknow, I I uh you know, I'm I'm
I'm working, I I I know how toformulate and um I've got all
sorts of resources, you know, wegot uh these labs with you know

(31:59):
a hundred thousand dollar grassgas chromatograph there and all
you know.
Well, you get into a brew puband you got nothing, right?
So it's that's where you knowall of the technical training
comes out.
You you know, you you it's likethis intersection of the art and
the science.

(32:20):
And if you can't figure it out,no one else is gonna figure it
out for you.
There's not a team, there's nocorporate brewers coming in, you
know.
And so that was, I think for me,it gave me a you know, having
to, you know, you you formulatefrom scratch and you you start
to figure out, well, why didn'tthat turn out the way I I wanted

(32:42):
it to, or what could I have donedifferently?
How do I get this hop to to comeout more in the beer?
Um and I think that that processof of running my own brew pubs
and and so forth, I think it itit helped polish off sort of my
technical knowledge, I think, inparticular.

SPEAKER_00 (33:03):
Do you feel like a like a mad scientist when you're
doing that?

SPEAKER_03 (33:07):
You know, it's a lot of fun.
You look, you know, you know,you know you're in the right
role when you lose time, right?
And and and for me, I lose a lotof time when I'm making beer or
when I'm you know making myproducts or or working with my
family.

SPEAKER_00 (33:20):
So yeah, I mean look, uh it's I've always I've
actually almost thought aboutdoing it just for shits and
giggles at home, like in thegarage type thing.
I have we actually had a couplepeople that uh were friends of
ours that have kind of brewedtheir own stuff that was not
good.
It was not good.

SPEAKER_03 (33:39):
Uh it tasted like beer mixed with nail polish
remover, but you're like, oh,this is you know, I think it's
it's it's it's it's really notit's not an easy thing.
It's not the hardest thing inthe world, but if you don't do
it well, you can end up with alot of shit, right?
And I think that's the truth.
So when I had my brew pubs, theones you were talking about,
people would bring in theirbeers for me, you know.

(34:01):
I'm like, hey, the brewmaster'shere, you know, hey, this is a
beer I made, you know.
You got to choke it down topaint a smile on, right?
Like, yeah, it's fucking great,man.

SPEAKER_02 (34:09):
And then delicious terrible, right?

SPEAKER_03 (34:14):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (34:17):
Um, now, you know, the one thing that would
surprise people is the FedExchapter, right?
So, how does a brewing guy endup as a corporate strategy
advisor for a logistics giant?
You know, what did thatexperience teach you um that you
that you think beer couldn't orwouldn't teach you?

SPEAKER_03 (34:35):
Yeah.
Um you really dug in, brother.

SPEAKER_00 (34:39):
I uh Hey man, this is what I'm here for, baby.

SPEAKER_03 (34:43):
Yeah, so I I worked at FedEx for um uh for a number
of well, a couple of years.
Um so what happened was I workedin Memphis, Tennessee at the
CORES plant there, and my lastrole there, they were closing
that plant.
And so I was I was a quality guythere, and then I was a brewing
guy there.
And then my last role, I wasactually working for

(35:06):
international as a technicalbrewer working in international,
and my my role was then tomigrate all the brands that we
were making out of the breweryso we could close it.
Okay.
So that is a tough role to bein, right?
So you're my you know, you'reyou're my buddy.
I've been working with you forthe last 10 years, and you know

(35:28):
every time I leave the building,I'm going to I'm going to
another brewery to take volumeout of the plant, right?
And so that was that was tough.
Um my kids were in high school.
Um my my youngest son, uhactually, yeah, I know you're
you're from Philadelphia.
My my son was uh he went toPenn.

(35:50):
So he was an undergrad at theWharton.
Um my other son was he went touh St.
Louis Hugh and then got hismaster's, he got a dual master's
out in California.
Um but so so these two are at athome, and my great my
grandmother, who's 90 years old,is living with us.

(36:11):
And so when they went to closethe plant, I had just finished
my MBA at Vanderbilt.
And I had a it was an MBA thatspecialized in corporate
strategy, and so um I you know Itook the hit.
It was like, you know what, I'mgonna I'm gonna not move the
family because they want thecores wanted me to move at the

(36:31):
time, and I took the hit, and umI I shouldn't say that because
FedEx was was good to me.
Um, but I I I went intocorporate strategy and we tried
to we launch a small um brewinglike contract brewing business
called Naked Lion at the time.
And um, you know, you can't getwhat the thing with making beer

(36:52):
is you can't really get it outof your system.
That's the problem, right?
So I want to make beer, right?
I I like making beer.
Um and uh and you know and sothat that was kind of where we
ended up.
So and that's how I mean it.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (37:08):
Yeah, I mean look, I I'm one of those people, man,
like uh every every three tofive years I'll rebuild my
computer.
Because, you know, computers Iand uh to be honest with you, I
mean there's a couple thingsthat I just put in there a
couple years back that aretotally fine.
There's one or two things Icould probably adjust out, but
um, it's like there's nothingaround the world except me and

(37:32):
the computer.
I just zone out I and I enjoyit.
I I don't know why I enjoy it.
It's like you're putting thispuzzle piece together that is
very, very complex.
And if you miss one step, thewhole fucking thing doesn't
work.

SPEAKER_03 (37:48):
And then um, that's a lot like Megan Beer.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (37:52):
Yeah, yeah.
You know, it's it's about a lotof things in life too, right?
Uh, you know, it's uh a lot ofit's trial and error, but
there's something about me, andI I think it's uh, you know, in
a lot of people too, and I thinkentrepreneurs and it it's
solving problems.
And absolutely, you know, thewifey will tell you if if if
something happens to my computerand say it just I blue screen or

(38:16):
it crashes or something, it justwon't turn on.
I won't be able to go to sleepwithout thinking about it.
I will wake up thinking aboutit.
And I will need I'll be at workgoogling issues and and trying
to see if other people had thesame problems, and then I'll
come home and I'll have to workon it.
Because if I don't, it it willeat me inside.

(38:39):
Um, and I I think that there'sif you if if you're someone that
likes to solve things, it it'sjust ingrained in you to have to
get to the end.
Because if you don't, it'lldrive you fucking bad shit
crazy.

SPEAKER_03 (38:50):
No shit, man.
I I I mean I agree, I agree withyou a hundred percent, right?
Um, I think you know, success isa very poor teacher, right?
So when you when you fail, whenyou have to go figure it out,
that's where you learneverything.
So when I when I was a brewingsupervisor on midnights, I

(39:11):
wasn't learning anything wheneverything wasn't running like a
you know a Swiss watch, right?
It was when stuff crashed iswhen when you gotta dig in and
figure out what went wrong.
And so like I said, I you know,I I I really believe that you
know there's this there's youknow, there's a curiosity in in

(39:31):
entrepreneurism, right?
There's a curiosity that it's anitch you gotta scratch.
And um so I I I understand whatyou're talking about when you
rebuild that computer, right?
And it it just it's gotta it'sgotta work, right?
And if it didn't work, right,that's when you learn something,

(39:52):
right?
It's not a y you you figured outhow to fix it, you know, and
that's that's when all thelearning happens.

SPEAKER_00 (40:01):
Yeah, I think, and that's that's part of what makes
us human, you know.
Um, and that's why I brought itup earlier about software,
because it's always a lot ofit's the software, man.
It's so your fault.
Yeah, no, it's not always yourfault to a certain degree.

SPEAKER_03 (40:15):
But so you know what I'm dealing with now is we're
doing like so.
My son and I have this this thisbusiness, and it's so we we're
doing everything ourselves,right?
It's just us two.
So I'm doing AI prompts to tryto generate videos, you know.
And I've never done I've neverdone that before.
You know, so I'm learning likeit all of that is just and you
again, you end up spending moretime than you would ever expect

(40:38):
and and not realize it becauseit's in a lot of ways it's it's
so stimulating and and and fun,you know, to learn a new new
skill or new learn a newchallenge.

SPEAKER_00 (40:48):
And anyway, it's it's uh AI is a is a fucking
wild thing, Tony.
Um have you have you played withuh Claude Cowork at all?

SPEAKER_03 (41:00):
No, my son, my son Christian, who's my business
partner, is is is is working inthat and um he's he's blown
away.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (41:09):
It's it's and and I'll tell anyone listening to
this, it is a wild thing.
And I so I uh I I I'm anentrepreneur, right?
So I have a couple businesses,and uh one of them is a
collectibles collectiblesbusiness.
So I'm also a degenerategambler.
I say degenerate, I'm I I don'thave a problem.
I haven't been to a meeting, butuh I like to we like to me and
the wifey like to open Pokemoncards.

(41:30):
It's just a fun thing that we dotogether.
Um, but what I do is, you know,everything that we get, I
categorize, I organized, Isleep, I put it in my inventory
and I sell it.
Yeah, you know, so we get toenjoy the experience and also I
will make money back.
So it's you know, a catch 22 insome cases, right?
Because you're not always gonnaget a great thing.

(41:51):
Uh but what I did learn is Ihave a spreadsheet that I keep
track of, my inventory that alsokeeps track of how much I'm
spending, what my PL is, thingslike that.
And I would but it's veryrudimentary.
Uh, you know, for me, I I wouldget it.
But if I showed it to somebodyelse, they'd be like, what the
fuck is this?
You know, that's how all yourExcel spreadsheets start, I feel

(42:12):
like.
Uh so I'm like, you know what?
I need to I need to update myinventory uh because I'm behind
like you know, 20 sales.
It's weird in the collectiblesworld, man.
You'll put stuff up, it won'tsell, and then uh a month goes
by and 20 things will sell onthe same day.
And sometimes at one point I waslike, all right, I gotta chill
because I put up 50 things and30 things sold, and I'm just I'm

(42:36):
doing it all myself, right?
So you gotta put the shippinglabel, you gotta it's just it it
and I got a full-time job on topof it.
Yeah.
Um so I take my my spreadsheet,I go to Claude Cowork, and I'm
like, hey, I need you toredesign this spreadsheet.
I need you to make it lookbetter and make it make sense.
I also need you to go on thiswebsite, I need you to log in.

(42:59):
I need you to go to everytransaction after the one that's
already in my sheet.
And I want you to plug in all ofthe information for the sales I
got.
And it said, all right, one,download the Claude core the
Claude uh extension for Chrome.
Done.
It's like, okay, uh, make surethat the tabs open before you
start.
Done.

(43:20):
Did it all in it probably tooklonger than you'd normally think
because it's you know, it'sgoing in, it's clicking on
everything, taking the data,moving into Excel.
But it did it in a coupleminutes, not even and got all of
the information.
And that was after I already hadit rebuild the entire uh
worksheet.
And it just blew my fuckingmind.

(43:42):
And it's we're at the infancystage, Tony.
We're right here.
You know, this is like the birthof dot com and the internet.

SPEAKER_03 (43:49):
I saw the article there was an article recently
where a guy built his wholecompany with with AI and within
a year, uh you know, was doingsome coup some Several hundred
million dollars worth of salesand stuff.
It's crazy.
Everything he built was exactlyhow you just described it.
And it was all done with AI.
And then, you know, so him andhis brother are now running this

(44:12):
company, but it's like two guysand a bunch of AI.

SPEAKER_00 (44:16):
So yeah, and and we're at a uh a stage where AI
agents are uh kind of at theforefront.
This year is like the AI agentthing, right?
You probably have seen Claudebot, which turned into some
other things and because Claudegot pissed off and uh turned
into Molt bot, and then theycreated a social networking

(44:36):
platform for these AI agents,and there was a whole bunch of
crazy stuff.
But AI agents are really coolbecause at the end of the day, I
was actually um talking to a uhAI guy earlier today, and we
were talking about this, and weare so early on.
These these agents are going tobe able to take a lot of this

(44:57):
data and you should never haveto worry about data entry.
And if you have a data entry jobright now, you should probably
be working on your resumebecause at this point, AI is is
doing everything it can, likewhat we're doing, what we're
training it, to take the thosemedial tasks away from us, like
transferring information from awebsite to an Excel spreadsheet

(45:20):
or an Excel spreadsheet toanother Excel spreadsheet.
All of those things are justgonna go away because AI will be
able to do it efficiently andvery quickly.
Like to a you know, when it getsit's gonna get to a certain
point where it'll beinstantaneous almost.
Um I mean, ChatGBT, I don't knowif you played with it, they just
launched their 2.0 for their uhimages.

(45:44):
Fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_03 (45:48):
Actually, I haven't tried any of it.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (45:51):
If you have a subscription to Chat GBT, you
should definitely mess with it.
It it um I use Chat GBT tocreate all of my YouTube
thumbnails.
And uh in the very very earlystages of the images, it was
rough.
Um to the point where I'm like,fuck it, I'm not using that.
I'll do my I'll create my own.
I'm I'm a pretty creativeperson.
So I was doing my own and theneventually it got pretty good.

(46:12):
Now it's it's it's pretty good.
Like, um, let me see if I can Iyou know I'm not gonna share my
screen because it's always apain in the ass when I'm editing
the video, but um you can youcan do some really cool stuff.
So like I could take an image ofyou and say, hey, this is Tony,
right?
I don't have any image.
I could just take an image fromfrom here.
I say, hey, this is Tony.

(46:34):
This is the name of the episode,which I already got from AI.
Claude does all of my stuff, itcreates the title with me.
Um, it remembers the cool thingabout Claude is you can download
it.
It's a program on your PC, ithas memory.
So anything that I talk toClaude about, it remembers from
any past chat.
And I just I I like thepersonality with Claude.

(46:56):
I think Chat GBT is very yes,sir, no, sir.
Like it gives you all thepositives, whereas Claude will
have a little bit more of apersonality.
Like, are you sure you want todo that?
Um, like as a for instance,right?
I'm um I I'm redoing myfinances.
And because I want I'm a techguy, I want to get a Tesla.

(47:19):
So I'm redoing my finances, andthe wifey here was like, all
right, stop buying more shitwithout paying off some of the
old shit.
So we we made a deal here whereI gotta pay off some stuff and
then I'm gonna I'll get theTesla.
Um, and so I had two creditcards I was working on, but I
also owe the wifey some money,which is on my spreadsheet.

(47:42):
And, you know, my money's hermoney, her money's my money, but
we she got an emergency.
Anyway, so it was on myspreadsheet to pay her.
And I I you know, I said, Hey,you could take that off for now
for the next three months.
And and Claude goes, Are yousure about that?
Uh, you know, not not paying,not paying back friends or
family or business associates.

(48:02):
It's not a great look.
And goes into this stuff.
And I'm like, that's prettyfucking cool that it would like
kind of give me like a now.
If I plugged it into Chat GPT,it's gonna be like, Yeah, here
you go.
Yeah, great job.
You're doing you're doing great,you know.
Claude's like, maybe you shouldthink about making tour and I
was arena tour.
And she's like, she's like, oh,that's hilarious, you know, like
it was making sure that I wasn'tgonna be pissed off that you

(48:25):
weren't paying me, you know.
Um, but AI is just uh it's it'sit's incredible.

SPEAKER_03 (48:32):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (48:32):
It is.
It's gonna take a lot ofpeople's jobs.
Yeah.
Um, and who knows where we'regonna be in the next three to
four years, but um, it's alsogonna create a lot of jobs.
It's gonna create a lot of time.
I mean, I feel like there's alot of people that's gonna have
a lot more time on their hands.

SPEAKER_03 (48:51):
Yeah, that's a that's a good point.
You know, I I I I only dabble init, so I'm not I'm not, you
know, I'm not a I you know, I'mI'm not a good utilizer of tech,
right?
I've I've only recently got onInstagram because we got a
business going, right?

SPEAKER_00 (49:08):
So Yeah, um I hate insta I hate the social media
shit, man.
I have to use it.

SPEAKER_03 (49:12):
I I'm you know, I I got on X recently, but I I've
actually never really used it.
So I you know, I'm trying to getmyself.
Um somebody wrote to me andsaid, you know, I I what did
they say?
I I said, well, you know, wewere we're thinking about doing
some media on on TikTok and Ispelled TikTok wrong, right?
And she corrected me.

(49:33):
And she's she's like, dude, yougotta get with it because it's
your age is really showing, youknow.
Okay.

SPEAKER_00 (49:42):
Well, those, I mean, you'd be surprised though, man.
You really don't need, you know,and and let's talk about your
your company before we get intoanything else, too, right?
So um drink motion dot energy.
Um, you know, what one, wheredid the idea come from?
Um, you know, I know you'reworking with family, that's
always an interesting thing.

(50:03):
So you get talk a little bitabout the dynamic there.
Um, and and why not an uh analcoholic beverage since that's
what you've been used to.
Did you challenge yourselfthere?
But talk a little bit about it.

SPEAKER_03 (50:14):
Yeah.
Um well the inspiration for thethe the brand or the I for
energy um came from it was uh Iguess it was almost six years
ago now.
My son, um, who's now 37, um heand his wife were his wife was

(50:35):
going into labor with theirfirst child.
So they're in the hospital attwo in the morning.
He goes down to get somecaffeine.
And he's not really a coffeedrinker, so of course he goes to
reach for an energy drink in theum hospital gift shop or
wherever it is, and it is a youknow, neon colored, you know,

(51:00):
candy, cotton candy flavoredsomething, right?
Yeah, and he's about to pick itup and he's like, Who the hell
am I?
What am I doing?
I'm about to be a dad, and I'mgonna drink a cotton or a candy
flavored energy drink, you know?
And he realized he had outgrownthe the um that market.

(51:21):
And so we fast fast forward youknow a couple of weeks and he's
telling me the story, and I'mlike, you know what?
Well, we could make an energydrink, you know, we could make
it so that it is a uh you know,uh we we could be the adults in
the room, right?
Instead of marketing to 16 to 24year old males, you know,
testosterone and and you know,and you know, uh skydiving out

(51:42):
of uh uh you know from outerspace and you know, let's just
make it like for for everydaypeople, right?
So that was how it started.
Um and we we so motion um wasthe hardest, you know.
So I'm a formulator and youknow, uh had been in alcohol my
whole life.
And but this was an idea thatyou know, we like we think it's

(52:06):
got legs, right?
Maybe, you know, you go whereyou go where where life takes
you.
So that's so we started to talkthrough this concept, and it
became um the formulation workedgreat.
You know, I I knew what wewanted to do.
This was during COVID, right?
So when we first first startedtalking about this.

(52:28):
And so we, you know, we said,let's do something with immunity
and energy.
And and so I said, Well, youknow, when I was a kid, my mom,
that little four foot tenFilipino woman that I was
telling you about, Karina, shewas if I was sick, she was a
fucking witch doctor, right?
So like if I if I got sick,she'd be whipping out the

(52:49):
echinacea, the ginseng, theelderberry, you know, and I'd be
taking all this shit.
And it worked.
And so we said, you know what,let's do an Eastern medicine
approach.
We'll use, you know, my mymother's approach to when when I
was a kid, all of thoseingredients got into this
formulation.
And so we went with awhiteboard.

(53:10):
We said, okay, what what are thefunctional benefits that we want
somebody to to get out of ourenergy drink?
Said, well, immunity,antioxidants, and so forth.
What are the ingredients that weneed to get there?
And what are the what are theminimum amounts of those
ingredients in order to give uhthe the benefit?
Because one of my pet peeves isthere's a lot of shit in energy

(53:33):
drinks today that is you know,unnecessary and maybe harmful,
right?
So and and so I did I I wantedto to do the opposite.

SPEAKER_00 (53:46):
That's cool, man.
I look, I am um I am energydrink clean.
I haven't had an energy drinkfor I think four years.
Uh maybe three.
It's three or four years.
Um but I was drinking two energydrinks every day.
Uh sometimes more, sometimesthree for twenty years.

(54:07):
Probably uh because I'm not acoffee guy either, and I still
am.
I I can't, I I think the onlything I can have is an espresso
martini and and enjoy it, butI've done everything I could.
By the time I was drinking thecoffee at the end, it was an
abomination.
It wasn't really coffee.
You know, my friends can drinkblack.

SPEAKER_03 (54:26):
More like uh ice cream coffee.

SPEAKER_00 (54:29):
Yeah.
Yeah, it was it was one, it wasdefinitely way unhealthier for
me than just drinking a zerocalorie energy drink.
And um, I flopped around, man.
I did Red Bull for a long time,but Red Bull's a rich man's
energy drink, you know.
So then uh, you know, I did Idid Jolt Cola for a while.
I loved Jolt Cola, man.

SPEAKER_03 (54:48):
That was one of my favorite Joel was around when I
was in college.
I I drank that.

SPEAKER_00 (54:53):
When they brought it back, it was in the I don't know
if you remember this, it was ina giant can that was in the
shape of a battery.
No, it was a uh it was huge, andI would drink those and they
were so they were so good.
I was a lot younger then.
So I could drink two of those,like that with then they had 250
calories or whatever, orsomewhere zero, and be totally

(55:14):
fine.
But um, they were they were sogood.
And then, you know, ultimately Idrank monster probably the most
for for for a lot of that.
But um I ended up I I was like,all right, I'm 35, I gotta start
to think healthier.
And people knew me as the energydrink guy.
It was like a thing, you know.

(55:34):
So I stopped.
And when I stopped something, Itypically I go cold turkey and I
just stop it.
Yeah.
Um, and I actually thought I wasgoing blind.
So I stopped drinking it.
And I thought maybe I haddiabetes or something that I
didn't know.
So I stopped drinking energydrinks and I was fine.

(55:55):
I didn't even get a headache.
Uh, and then like two dayslater, I'm driving home from
work and I wear contacts, likeI'm blind as shit.
And with my contacts in,everything is blurry.
Like I can't read the driver'slicense plate in front of me.
I can't read stop signs, likejust signs in general.
So I'm freaking the fuck out.

(56:17):
I call the wife, I'm like, Ithink I have diabetes, I think
I'm dying, I'm going blind,going blinds in like my top
three of things that I don'twant to fail uh getting older.
And so I go to my, I go to myeye doctor, he tests everything.
He's like, dude, they're youreyes are healthy as all can be.
Did you make any recent dietarychanges?

(56:38):
And I'm thinking, I'm like,well, I stopped drinking energy
drinks a couple days ago.
And he goes, bang, that's it.
Brings his laptop in, sits it onthe counter.
He's like, typing in.
He's like, Yeah, I just read astory not too long ago about its
effects on your eyes.
And he's like, just so you know,you've been drinking this for 20
years, your eyes have been cokedup like this for this long.

(57:00):
And what happened was is itactually improved your vision
because of how long you weredoing it.
He's like, when you did, whenyou stopped drinking it, they
eased up.
So my my vision got four clicksworse in each eye.
And then uh he told me, youknow, obviously keep doing what
you're doing.
He's like, you should normalize.

(57:21):
So eventually, maybe a monthlater, maybe two months, it
normalized to two clicks worsein each eye.
So that's where my actualprescription got worse.
I had to get all new glasses andan all new contacts
prescription.
Wow.
So I'm not against energy drinksat all.
I just caution people whenthey're drinking stuff,

(57:43):
especially.
I mean, you look at some of thelabels of these, man.
I mean, it's it's appalling.
Some of the like, oh, B vitaminsand this and that, and you know,
look, there's 2,000 milligrams.
And it's like, you don't Ididn't need 800 milligrams of
caffeine every day.
I didn't need that, but my bodysure had it.

SPEAKER_03 (58:03):
No, that's I mean, what you're talking about is
exactly what we were talkingabout back when we started
looking at this, because youknow, there's there's a you
know, this this availabilitybioavailability of the nutrients
that you take in, right?
And so if if if you are oh youknow, who needs a thousand
percent of the US RDA ofanything, right?

(58:25):
Because in the amount of timethat it spends in your body, you
can't metabolize that, right?
And so a lot of it is just beingpissed out.
And so we s you know, look whenwe will, you know, when when I
said to my son Christian, look,if we're gonna do this, I'm I'm
I I want to be able to look Robin the face and be able to say,

(58:46):
you know, this is this isn'toverdosing on anything, and this
is like a cup and a half a cup.
So this is like a cold coffee,right?
Instead of all this other shit.
And that and so that's that'show that's our approach.

SPEAKER_00 (59:06):
So what's been uh what's it been like?
Um, you know, how has it come tofruition?

SPEAKER_03 (59:11):
Like have you uh run into any struggles against those
uh elephants in the room, yourRed Bulls and monsters and Yeah,
you know, it's it's early daysfor us, and you know, they now
they I you know right now theydon't know about us or you know
um we're we we just went intoproduction, um finished
production in November of lastyear.

(59:31):
So we did our small run and sowe're online, we sell in some
mom and pops, and you know, umhere I live on Cape Cod.
He lives in um outside of LA inuh in Orange County, and so
we're you know, this like thisbi-coastal approach to things.
Um and in the beverage industry,what's interesting, and then if

(59:55):
there are some beverage folks onthe on the line or on on
watching your podcast, there'sthere are resets that happen
that are really important to bein front of, right?
We knew because I you know,because I had been in the
beverage industry for as long asI had, I knew that we had missed
a reset by the time we went intoproduction.
So we we wanted, you know, wewere taking this time.

(01:00:16):
So what happens is this summer,all of the big stores and they
make their decisions for fornext year, this summer.
And so when we started ourproduction in, you know, last
fall, last winter, we knew wehad missed a reset for 2026.
And so we're online at Amazon,we've got our own website, we're

(01:00:37):
in some mom and pops, but we'regetting ready to try to get into
those conversations this summerso that we can try to get into
some of the retailers.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:46):
That's awesome, man.
I know that's not an easy convo.
I definitely know that's not aneasy convo, but hey, there's
always like a a shark tank.
Get yourselves on some sharktank, man.
I'll I'll watch that shit in aheartbeat.

SPEAKER_03 (01:01:02):
Yeah.
Um and we are self-funded, soyou know, they're there they're
you know, we we gotta be carefulabout how we spend our capital
and you know, that sort ofthing.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:11):
Yeah, at least you don't have to answer to anybody,
right?
At the end of the day, I thinkthat's the fun thing about uh
being a business owner.
You don't have anyone to answerto but yourself.
So, you know, I always tellpeople, uh, this has the been
the best year of my podcast, butI'm at year four.
It's taken me, you know, a longtime to get here.
And so when I have podcasters onthat have just started or

(01:01:34):
they're I try to give them asmuch advice as possible because
I think it's like it's the crazynumber is like 10 and then I
think it's 10 and 25.
So if you make it past um mostpodcasts fail I think before
episode 10.
Like they just yeah, and then 25is like longevity.

(01:01:56):
So I'm at like 160, I think.
So but I it's taken a long timeto get here, and I learned a lot
along the way, right?
And then it's the same thingwith the collectibles business,
especially paying the tax man,you know, that's always fun.
Um but there's just somethingfun about being your own boss
and being able to make thosedecisions without having to uh,

(01:02:18):
you know, um check and ask.
It's it's almost like likeasking to take a vacation day at
work is always just yeah, it's aweird thing, you know.
But it's the same concept,right?
You know, if you guys decide youwant to sell to Costco, you
could do that.
You know, you can make thatdecision without having to, you
know, and then but then once youget investors or uh you know

(01:02:40):
someone with money involved,then then you have to run things
by them, and it kind of takes alittle bit of the fun out, I'd
imagine.

SPEAKER_03 (01:02:45):
Yeah.
You know, it's it's it's it's sotrue, right?
I mean, so this is my son.
He's the kid that was, you know,that my wife and had my wife my
wife had when we were incollege, right?
And so he's now my businesspartner.
Right.
So we've come a long way, right?
So he knows how to call bullshiton me, I call bullshit on him.
But half of our time when wespend it, it's it's can I can I

(01:03:09):
get this kid to laugh, right?
Is is that like we if we'rewe're trying to make each other
laugh with ideas and you know,so and and so this is a funny
story.
So for April Fool's, we put outa um uh we punked, we punked a
new system, right?
And we said that we were comingout with a durian flavored

(01:03:30):
energy drink.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:31):
And I don't know if you oh no, you know what's I
watch a lot of the watch a lotof the food network and I've
learned what Durian is, yes.

SPEAKER_03 (01:03:38):
So we we said we were coming out with the world's
first durian flavored energydrink and part of my Asian
heritage, right?
So we so it got picked up bylike 900 news outlets, the
Manila Times picked it up,right?
So that was like a personal winfor me, right?
So, anyways, it's part of it.
This was right after theMcDonald's CEO had done the the

(01:04:00):
video of the big arch, right?
So Christian, who's actually gotan MBA, but he's also got a
master's in film production andso forth.
So he's like, I'll do a video ofme doing the tasting of the
durian.
And he's he's like, I'll do aspoof of the McDonald's video,

(01:04:21):
right?
I said, okay.
So I package up carbonated waterform.
We had cans printed ineverything, right?
So it's got a durian can.
So this is our this is our thisis our uh this is my blueberry
pomegranate can, but we had oneI love your marketing.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:36):
Yeah, I love I love all your website's really great
too.

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:39):
I was saying he's he's the guy.
Yeah, that's really good.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:43):
Tell him, tell him I said it's it's a really well
done website.

SPEAKER_03 (01:04:46):
So we we had durian cans printed up and everything.
So I fill them with carbonatedwater and I send them out to
him, and he's gonna do thevideo.
And I and I'm like, I only got acouple of them, so don't waste
these fucking things, you know.
And so he's so he goes to openit up.
What I didn't tell him is that Ialso spiked it with mama lamb's
hot Malaysian sauce, right?
So so he's tasting and herealizes that I'm fucking with

(01:05:10):
him in the middle of his video,you know?

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:13):
That is so good.
Um could you not?
That was like perfect, yeah,perfect.

SPEAKER_03 (01:05:18):
It was it was it was priceless.
So, anyways, that's that's sothe you know, but that's how you
know we get to do that kind ofstuff, right?

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:25):
So it's that is awesome, man.
Well, look, um, I didn't get to90% of the shit I was gonna
bring up because it was a goodinterview.
I always tell people anytime Idon't get to all my list, we had
fun.
Uh, but look, do me a favor,plug away.
Tell me um where can everybodyfind your stuff, your website,
your content, anything else youguys are doing in the near

(01:05:45):
future you think we should knowabout.

SPEAKER_03 (01:05:47):
Yeah, thanks, Rob.
I you know, sorry if I was longwinded, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:51):
Um, dude, dude, I I listen, if I'm the one driving
the convo the whole time, it'sit's it it taxes me sometimes.
I love when people Talk and weget some fun out of it.
It's it's it's why I love doingit to be honest.

SPEAKER_03 (01:06:05):
Thank you.
Um we were available online atAmazon.
Um so under you know you cantype in motion, motion energy, M
O T E A N so M with Ocean.
Um and then um we're alsoavailable on our our website, uh
www.drinkmotion.energy.

(01:06:26):
And that's the wholethingode.com after that.
Um and uh again, we're we'rejust getting going.
We'd love the we'd love um forpeople to try it and to leave us
some reviews and we'd reallyappreciate the support you've
given us and um enjoyed theenjoyed the conversation.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:44):
Awesome, man.
Well thank you so much.
Uh my podcast is drink aclockpod on all socials.
Um you'll you'll enjoy this onebecause it's drinkaclock.beer
for my website.
And uh this web this will be outbefore you know it.
And uh look, man, I appreciatethe combo.
And let's do this again soonwhen you guys are uh big time,
when Ann Eiser Busch buys youguys.

SPEAKER_03 (01:07:05):
Yeah.
Yeah, from your lips to God'sears.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:08):
So have a good night, Tony.

SPEAKER_03 (01:07:12):
Thank you.
Take care.
Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_01 (01:07:32):
Raise your voice, please break the battery.