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Yes, I drink cocktails... and this week I'm sitting down with Ken MacKenzie from Fresh Victor! We dive into the world of premium cocktail mixers that are not only fresh but also made with clean ingredients—no more high fructose corn syrup in our drinks!

Whether you're shaking things up at a dinner party or kicking back poolside, we’ve got tips and tricks to help you enjoy cocktails and mocktails that are packed with flavor and super easy to make!

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As we've become more sophisticated, it stood to reason, why wouldn't your mixer be just as sophisticated as your spirit choices? You're consuming it.

And if the mixer is 2/3 of the glass, why would you forego that and just say, let's get a $60 bottle of spirits, but let's get a $4 bottle of high fructose corn syrup?

It makes total sense. Well, hello there. Welcome to Sip with Nikki. It's Nikki Lamberti coming to you from Sonoma County, California.

That is what it is all about.

And of course, that first ever Grenache has a very special pink accented label and wax to commemorate my victory over breast cancer this past year, with a portion of the proceeds from each bottle going to the V Foundation for Cancer.

We also just secured our first restaurant placement with our Solavato Sangiovese at Bottega Napa Valley, which was one of my first favorite restaurants when I started vacationing out here. So if you're planning a trip to the Napa Valley, definitely have Bottega on your list for dinner.

And ask for the Solevato Sangiovese because it is a perfect pairing with the Raviological with sage, brown butter, egg yolk and truffle on top.

And if you're not coming out here anytime soon, Solavato wines.com that's s o l l e v a t o wines.com and we can ship to most states in the US and make sure you use the discount code that I've created for you. It's pod listener. All one word, pod listener. And that'll get you 10% off your purchase of our beautiful wine that we are so very proud of.

So clearly you all know that I love wine. I mean, that's kind of why we're here. But I don't just drink wine.

I like a nice cocktail from time to time, especially on vacation, by the pool, on the beach. I really do enjoy them, and I enjoy learning more about different craft cocktails and ingredients.

And so when I got connected with Ken from Fresh Victor. I was really excited to dive deeper into his fresh Cold pressed cocktail mixers. And of course, I had questions like, okay, what's the big deal?

What makes these so special? You know, we can mix up our own cocktails anytime. We can buy different brands of mixers on the store shelf.

So I'm really excited for you to hear what makes these awesome mix mixers unique and special with their clean ingredients and cold chain delivery. And Ken and I definitely related to each other in that we both love to entertain.

But a lot of times then you find yourself working, whether it's hand stretching pizzas, which I'm generally doing when I have company, or for him being stuck behind the bar mixing cocktails, which he loved to do but wasn't really getting to enjoy the company when they were there. So. Ken Mackenzie is from Menlo Park, California, and has a long history in the spirits world.

He and his wife launched their own premium tequila brand Even before high end premium tequila was a thing.

And spent a lot of time in Mexico bringing beautiful spirits to the US he's conducted tequila seminars for wine and spirits distributors and all types of national restaurants. Soon realized he wanted to make it easier and faster for people at home to make delicious craft cocktails with really high quality ingredients.

When we come back after the episode, I will tell you about how I took some Fresh Victor mixes with me on my recent vacation. And also a surprising way we were able to use the mixers that I wasn't even thinking of.

So whether it's a cocktail, a mocktail, can't wait for you to hear what makes them different and exciting. So here we go with Ken from Fresh Victor. All right, it is 4 o' clock on a Tuesday afternoon and we are about to mix some cocktails.

Thank you for being my guest, Ken.

The pleasure is all mine. And thank you for having me on a Tuesday afternoon.

I should be doing other work, but this is way more fun. And what I've been learning about you, I'm like, this is a perfect fit for sip with Nikki. I know my listeners are gonna be like, what?

She's taking a detour from wine for an afternoon? Yes. I drink other things besides wine, mostly wine. My partner Michael is even more of a cocktail drinker, especially tequila.

And he is bummed he was gonna be here and participate, but he got a work call.

We'll save some for em.

We'll save some. So thank you for being here.

Honestly, it's my pleasure.

I know you've been in the world of spirits for quite some time, so My first question is, as we were connecting and I was learning about Fresh Victor, I thought, oh, okay, I'm gonna be talking with Victor. And then it was like, oh, it's Ken. Victor is not your name. Let's start with name Fresh Victor. Where does it come from?

One of the things that's most important with what we do at Fresh Victor is we wanna create occasions. We want to bring people together.

And the way that happens usually is meals, drinks, celebration, communication, just getting back to sitting in front of each other and actually having a good time.

It's really that basic and it sounds almost elementary in a lot of ways, but with screen time and with academic requirements and work requirements and the way society has shifted so much away from being together and physically in the same room, it's really important to us to create an environment where people feel like, hey, I had a great time last night or I want to thank you for having us over for dinner.

And we wanted to do something that was specifically geared towards what used to be our grandparents recipes, when things were simpler, when there wasn't so many preservatives and so many things that created situations where you were buying something because that was what was available. We wanted to go back to what's on your grandma's shopping list.

What are three or four simple ingredients that you understand right off the top of your head and you can feel good about both serving your guests and consuming? And that turned out to be kind of a challenge. You know, the world's geared towards. Can you make it shelf stable?

Yep.

Can it be a ready to drink? What do we have to do? And I said if it's going to be really good, you need to refrigerate it because it's fresh.

And we wanted to offer something that truly was preservative free, kosher, non gmo, fair trade.

If you can go down that list, what it really represents is something not only you can feel really good about, but the natural attributes of that go back to it's going to be lower calorie because we're not putting a bunch of preservatives in it.

Yeah.

And so for us, and I'll get to the Victor thing right now, it's a victory. It really truly is a victory what you're drinking. And it was really hard fought to get there.

It sounds amazing when I put it in perspective, but it was really difficult to get a cold chain product done. Every part of the chain was resistant to it. Hey, we have to freight, it has to be refrigerated on shelf Needs to be refrigerated at home.

Needs to be refrigerated. Because that's how it really should be.

Short of you squeezing your own limes and blending agave nectar with water and cutting it and boiling it off and all that. We wanted to be able to provide that to you, but in a way that was extremely convenient.

And so when I listed off kind of those attributes on the label, we call those claims. You're making real claims out in the world. And the first word we wanted you to understand, Nikki, was this is fresh.

And so that's the first word in the name. Fresh.

Love it.

Uh huh.

Yeah.

And then the next word is victor. You are the Victor. You're drinking something that's actually really good. And in my time, I grew up in the 80s and.

Me too. I think we're probably about the same age.

Okay, this will be a fun conversation. Mixers were an afterthought, a complete afterthought, I think you'll agree. They were neon green, cloudy, high fructose corn syrup.

Hey, that's what's available.

What the heck was in those things?

Yeah, and the word craft got thrown around so much that you went, what does that imply? What are you doing? That's so craft. And so I. My space, especially in the a hundred percent agave tequila category, was margaritas.

Americans have always been really hardwired or conditioned to shots and margaritas for tequila. We've grown up here in the states and that has really prodigiously changed over the last 20, 30 years.

But back in the 90s, I think we all had that tequila nightmare from school where I can't smell it, I don't want to get near it.

See, I'm not clairvoyant, but I had a feeling.

And when that happens, what you really want to do is explain how epicurean and curated tequila actually is very complex spirit, with a blue agave being the main ingredient that taking 8 to 10 years to even grow and mature. And so if you imagine the mineral content in that compared to an annual crop, it's extremely complex. But yet we didn't know that when we were young.

So as we've become more sophisticated, it stood to reason why wouldn't your mixer be just as sophisticated as your spirit choices? You're consuming it.

And if the mixer is 2/3 of the glass, why would you forego that and just say, let's get a $60 bottle of spirits, but let's get a $4 bottle of high fructose corn syrup.

It makes total sense when you put it that way. Total sense. But it was not the norm for the longest time.

Yes, it had a really bad kind of attachment to it as far as, hey, mixers are just something that you have to deal with, that you have to figure out. If you compare it to baking and measurements and mixology, you're really saying that a huge part of that glass is what you're mixing.

It's probably the main ingredient with anywhere from an ounce and a half to 3 ounces of the spirit against it. If you do mixers in the right way. I think that we're at the point now where we have nine flavors.

These are really, Nikki, designed to be mixed with absolutely anything you like, because it's fresh, cold, pressed citrus. And so it doesn't matter if it's tequila, mezcal, vodka, rum, gin, whiskey, bourbon, pisco.

Ooh, what about, like, Campari or Aperol or those kind of things? Those will change the flavor a lot more. But. Right. That could be a fun twist, too.

So much fun. And it is like baking. You can keep adding ingredients, and so you can really curate it to your likes and dial up and down the ratios.

But it's really wonderful. All nine of our flavors with sparkling wine, champagne, mimosas.

All right, now you're talking my language, Ken.

Wine for sangria.

Them together. Yes.

A dry white for sangria. But then you've got the whole other neighborhood to explore of mocktails. You know, a lot of people aren't.

Drinking as much, especially this month being dry. January for many. Not me. Nothing dry over here. No.

That's the fun thing about this being a mixer. You can really take it any direction you want.

And I think that you and I have probably had a similar experience in the sense that over time, as we've gotten older, we've watched friends, relatives, co workers, whomever kind of either taper off alcohol or the younger generation isn't drinking as much. And so when you explore ways to.

To come together and celebrate together, you don't want it to be us with our cocktails and them with a can of coca cola or a bottle of water between us. And when you. You can drink the same things, and you can say, hey, I've got Mexican lime and agave with sparkling water.

You have Mexican lime and agave tequila. It brings the conversation more to the center.

I love that. I love that.

Especially because one of the first things you said when we hit record today was bringing people together, and we have that in Common, because when you read the back label of my solevato wine that I make, we are about bringing people together around the table. So we're definitely speaking the same language. So I didn't really think about that ahead of time.

But, yeah, the fact that you could do it as a mocktail or a cocktail but still have the same base means everyone can be experiencing it together and tasting similar flavors together and very different flavors.

And the kids, too, My daughters really love it with just different flavors of sparkling water. Yeah, you could just add regular water or flat water for agua fresca.

Nice. How old are your daughters?

15 and 10.

Okay, nice.

So that's really rewarding because I think that if there's one thing most of my adult life, at least, it's been such a joy to be able to really invest time and effort in tequila education and really showing people everything tequila can be.

But at the same time, I'm finding that this next chapter has been equally rewarding, if not more, in the sense that we're able to show how people can really create occasions and how these mixers can even have a culinary facet to them. Like, we use the jalapeno and lime all the time for ceviche.

Oh, my gosh, I love that.

Or for marinating fish on the grill. Or let's say the pineapple and ginger with chicken on the grill.

Yum.

Salad dressing.

Now you've got my. The wheels are turning in my brain about what else we're gonna do with these open bottles tonight with dinner. Love that.

I also thought it was interesting, too. Right. When you talk about Victor. Right. You're the Victor, and it's healthy, and you're drinking something that's really special.

And I also love, too, on your website, where you tell the story about being the person behind the bar, which is fun and loving to create these cocktails, but how many minutes does it take you to create each one? And now you're not a part of the party, and you're not a part of the conversation, but this gets you out from behind the bar into the party.

Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because to me, as someone who hosts all the time, that is victorious to be able to stop the prep and have something that's efficient and fast but.

Delicious, you hit the nail on the head. It's exactly that. There's so much common ground between you and I as far as that goes. And you.

You really want to feel like you're taking care of your guests, and it's something that they're gonna talk about the next day.

Yeah.

Do you remember that drink? That was fantastic. We wanna share that with other people.

And I had found that I was missing most of my own dinner parties because I was behind the bar literally most of the evening.

Cause you love doing it, right. And you like, brings you fulfillment. If you're anything like me to do that with me, it's usually at my kitchen counter.

But making pizzas for everybody. But like, same thing. We love that, but love it.

Yeah, we love it. And I never felt ostracized. Everybody was coming to me.

Yeah, yeah.

They would dress you behind the bar.

They're coming to you. Or when you got the pizza dough in your hands, they're coming to me.

A hundred percent. You didn't feel left out in any way, but you weren't sitting down and enjoying the moment in real time.

You weren't conversing with multiple people at once. It was more of a one on one experience, which is also a great experience.

But what we found is if you don't have to necessarily stress yourself with, hey, I gotta go and get all the ingredients and I've gotta build these cocktails one by one. If you're able to take that off your plate, there's a lot more time for that enjoyment and connection.

What about. And this is how little I make cocktails. Couldn't you just batch them in pitchers for efficiency?

Or does that change flavor profile, freshness if you're doing larger quantities on your own?

It's a great question.

So for us, one of the things that we realized over the course of time, whether it was dealing with on premise, national accounts, restaurants, bars, cruise ships, or whether it was the home consumer at the end of the day, when you're taking raw ingredients, when you're taking limes and lemons and oranges and simple syrup and agave nectar and ginger and mint and etc. It's going to range from week to week, from case to case, from package to package.

You're not always going to get the same level of bricks and acidity and pop when it comes to the mint or what have you. And so the drinks are going to differ. You can batch that up in a single serving. Of course, you can dial it in.

For that serving, for that serving, that day, that moment in time.

That moment in time. And that's exactly what I was doing to a certain degree, because I would have to go out and get everything. But it takes time. It takes.

You're not insured with what you're going to get what I really like about the fresh Victor proposition and the victory, if you will. Woohoo.

Is that week over week, month over month, year over year, as we're batching for you, we're checking the PH levels, we're checking the Brix, the acidity, the Scoville levels on the jalapeno, the spiciness, to really ensure that each and every time you engage our product, it's always exactly the same, what you expect and what you truly love.

I love that.

Now we're getting, like nerdy into the chemistry of bricks and Scoville, which, of course, my mind goes right to Hot Ones, which is a favorite show in our house here, because we also make hot sauce here in this house. So you're speaking our language there. So, yeah. So from a consistency standpoint, that makes total sense.

So then we talked about the efficiency and the consistency, and that's one of your sort of taglines that you have on your website. It said, premium mixers for consistently delicious and efficient cocktails and mocktails. And I'm like, those are two of my favorite words.

Consistent and efficient. Check, check. So, yeah, that makes total sense.

How hard was it to formulate these and how long, from the idea in your head to being on a store shelf, what was the process to get it there?

Funny enough, it was so much more difficult than I would have anticipated. And I'll tell you why it usually.

Is with these things. Everything right with business.

I'll totally tell you why.

And I wish that, that I had the presence of mind to understand this beforehand because it would have just psychologically made everything so much easier.

When you're thinking about four ingredients and you're thinking about how basic that truly is, it's about ratios and it's about dialing it in to your taste. And that's what I really highly recommend for everyone.

Oftentimes when people ask me about the ratio of spirits against fresh nectar, I say, hey, I can give you a general guideline, but then you get to decide.

And there's a guideline on there of how many parts to how many parts. But that's a guideline, right? Is it a Tuesday afternoon at 4 or is it a Saturday night at 10? The guideline is fluid.

That's exactly right. And it totally depends on the individual.

But to get to that guideline is what you're asking about, like, how did I formulate this in a way where I really felt good about it? And in the kitchen, it was pretty easy.

You start in your kitchen, like in your House.

Yeah.

Kind of putting these together. Okay.

Yeah. It took a couple weekends.

And I felt really good about the fact that I was doing so much of the squeezing of the limes and the blending of agave nectar and the such that I was really competent at making a margarita or a cocktail, let's say, with a Mexican lime being the first one.

But what I didn't realize as much is when I went to the commercial kitchen and actually was scheduled to tie trade up to a production run that took from my kitchen to the commercial kitchen, it took about 18 months.

Wow.

To get the acidity and the brix level and the ph where it was very stable. It took so much longer than I anticipated. I truly, between you and I thought it was going to be probably four to six weeks.

Sure.

Oh, nailed it. Okay, we're ready to go. It wasn't at all. It kept batch after batch.

It kept coming back and I was like, yeah, but it just doesn't taste the way that I was hoping it would taste strong on the acidity. It would be flat. Sometimes when we finally got it right, it was the best day ever. And I felt, hey, we're really onto something now.

If we can do this, if we can emulate this. Because it should be an algebraic formula. Right. You get all the variables right. Then once you nail it, you should be able to emulate that.

It's like blending wine on a bench trial and then extrapolating it out over a 3,000 gallon tank. You think it would just be algebraic and you can just increase the numbers. But the chemistry changes, right? Yeah.

And you don't anticipate it even though you're. You're probably doubling.

A batch of cookies is not always the same as the single batch.

That's right. And you can intellectually realize that and be like, hey. But secretly your emotional intelligence kicks in and you're like, hey, I think I got this.

This is going to work out.

Just because you're an entrepreneur. Right. And you have this idea and you're bringing it to fruition and you, you know, you want it to be there.

And 18 months later, that was just for the first one, which was the Mexican lime and agave. Is that the OG flavor?

Yeah. So the lime flavor was the very first one and that's the one that took quite a while.

I had that base of how we wanted the formula to be on the citrus. The other eight were a lot faster.

Yeah, usually is. Yeah.

We were using different ingredients and we would go through test trial batches and the such and we Would probably. As opposed to going through a year and a half of trial. It was much more. Eight to ten weeks of.

Hey, we tried batch A, B, C, D. And we love D. Because you.

Learn from the process in the first one. Yeah. Even if it's not the same product or the same flavors. Just how to test and adjust. Hopefully it gets quicker. And so now there's nine.

There's nine.

Wow. Okay. So I have two here in front of me. And now I'm excited to try them all, so.

But we've waited long enough, and I think it's time to do what we call our Sip Spotlight. Sip Spotlight. So I have the Mexican lime and agave, and I have two tequilas here. Now, I know you know a thing or two about tequila.

I am much less of a connoisseur. So I know you said it's really preference, but tell me first. In the first iteration of this drink, I've got a.

And this is just what Michael had in our liquor cabinet. Cazadorus Cazadoras Reposado. And then I also have illegal Mezcal Reposado, which of course, is gonna change the flavor a lot. I do like Mezcal.

Where should I start? Which one?

Let's go with the Cazadoras first, because I just like you. I have one here called Lalo.

Ooh, nice. Tell me about it.

Blanco. This is Don Julio's grandson.

Okay.

And he's in Austin now. And he has this fantastic tequila brand where he started, and he came out with a blanc.

And it became one of the most coveted sipping and mixing tequilas in the States.

Okay. Michael probably knows it. Cause he is more of a tequila sipper than I am. Speaking of sipping, this is like the winemaker in me. I wanna taste.

I haven't even tasted these yet. I wanna taste this first. Just the mixer, please. Without anything else to get familiar with it.

So I call it getting a baseline.

And that's what it is. So should I pour it into a glass or just sip it right out of the container?

You just pour it in a glass. Just put a little sip in there, and it'll open up for you.

Oh, my God. Mouth watering. It almost has the freshness of lemonade slash limeade. Because there's a little bit of sweetness.

Yeah.

No bitterness. Lots of layers of flavor. Just really fresh. How yummy. I could just drink that. Oh, my gosh.

It's the biggest compliment you can get.

Delicious. And it just says four ingredients. You set filtered water, lime juice, cane sugar, and agave nectar. That's it.

That's it. So what is that balance for it? I know we're going to cut that against something. And so there's two things that I'm anticipating.

You're going to introduce a second liquid to it. So it can be a spirit, it can be a wine, a sparkling wine, a sparkling water. You're going to introduce.

Secondly, you're probably going to have ice against that. And if you shake, I'm going to get. You're going to get a half ounce to an ounce of dilution from the ice.

And so what I anticipate is, when you're done, the end product is going to be pretty well balanced.

Okay.

Speaking of ice, I know that dilution is a thing, so I know when we do have cocktails at some of our local places, and then here in our freezer, we do what's called the sexy cube. The big cube.

Sure.

Do you like that better than a bunch of small cubes because do you feel like there's less dilution?

I would say that for presentation purposes, when you have the end glass, I really like the big cube.

We call it a sexy cube for a reason. Reason. It looks pretty damn sexy in the glass, right?

100%. I'm all about the ice cube, the garnish. I think the garnishes go such a long way to making a brilliant drinking experience. Look at that.

That's just beautiful. I just put my sexy cube in my little rocks glass and that. And that's all so far? Yeah. Okay, talk me through this.

Yeah. All you need to do is put some ice in the shaker, and that's where I would probably use smaller cubes when I'm shaking.

Yep, I got both here.

Okay. So that's gonna be great.

Okay. I love how my desk has become a bar. It's amazing.

Yeah.

All right.

And then I would add a ounce and a half to 2 ounces of the cazadoras.

Okay. I do have a shot glass here, so that's perfectly helpful for measuring.

Yes. So do one of those.

Okay. This is so fun. We have not done any cocktails on sip with Nikki. This is amazing. Oh, Lord. All right, Tequila in shaker.

And then all you need to do is you can measure anywhere from two to three measures of the fresh Victor. And I'd probably start with two.

Okay. There's one.

If for your palette, you feel like it's still a little bit strong, you can always dilute it. But otherwise, I think you're in pretty good shape. All right, I'll do the same thing.

Okay, you go with me. Stereo shaking.

And it's really just that easy.

I'm gonna pour it over my sexy cube. Let's do a little asmr Pouring. Watch me pour it on the microphone. Wouldn't that be funny? And then I have some lime wedges here.

Do I need a lime wedge? No, wait. Yours is frothier than mine. Talk to me. Did I not shake enough?

Hey, that's totally up to you. We can retry.

Yours is frothy. I feel like I want some frothiness.

Yeah, you definitely. I really enjoy the frothiness.

All right. No, we're going. No, we're going back. All right. I think I just wasn't vigorous enough.

Yeah, Do a good strong 10 seconds. There you go. It's all coming together now.

It's like back in my TGI Fridays days. Oh, there's the froth. Okay, There we go. Just being too ladylike with it.

That's the lime juice. And introducing air.

Much better. And now lime wedge. Sure. Okay. Cheers, friend.

Cheers.

Oh, my gosh. Dangerous.

Isn't that bun?

Beautiful balanced, but there's a richness to it, for lack of a better word. But then really fresh on the finish. Oh, my God. I don't drink these enough because I'm always drinking wine, but this is beautiful. Congratulations.

Oh, thank you. Means the world coming from you. This is something that we're so proud to be able to provide to people and to create those occasions.

Even when they're together, they can all be at the same table and they're looking at screens. And I'm saying, hey, a lot of. I think the world's problems would evaporate fairly quickly if we conversed more.

And this is a great way to facilitate that.

Yeah. And the dialogue is a lot more open when the beautiful margaritas are accompanying the conversation.

That's right. Brighten up the day.

It's delicious. Hey, clearly, I am not the only one who thinks that this the OG The Mexican lime and agave is fantastic.

You got an accolade, a pretty big award from Food and Wine magazine, and it was. They rated 10 different. Different margarita mixers, and you got number one, best overall of 10. And here's what they said about it.

It had a true fresh lime flavor without any additional bitterness. I will second that review. As someone who tastes a lot of things for a living, as a winemaker, there is no bitterness, and it's very fresh.

So congrats on food and wine.

Yes. No, thank you very much. Yeah. It was unexpected and very rewarding for people like yourself to be able to find us and taste what we taste.

The pride that goes into the nine flavors is really predicated on me having the fervent hope that you'll want a second or third drink that you're really going to feel like, hey, this is something that I can really enjoy with family and friends and feel good about and not feel like I'm doing something that's bad for me or that I wouldn't want to share with other people or anything else. And I think that when we can get recognized like that, when they're saying, hey, this is done in the right way, that feels really good.

It feels like it's all worth it.

It should. Did all of these flavors come out of your brain?

Yeah. And over a long period of time. It wasn't overnight per se. It was more just learning and curating. It's.

The flavors are predicated on what we know from the bar on premise and restaurants and bars and casinos and the such swimming pools and what people like at home.

We tried to create flavors that a had broad appeal, so we knew that, like, for instance, the grapefruit and sea salt's perfect for palomas or salty dogs or any neutral based spirit with that is fantastic.

But two ingredients that are a little bit more difficult to use, like, bartenders don't love when you're talking about jalapenos or prickly pears or cucumbers or ginger.

Sure, it adds a layer of complexity, and so it's always so much better when we're able to create something that people genuinely enjoy drinking, but we take the prep out of it.

Yeah. Hey, I'm going to put just a tiny dash of mezcal in here because I'm curious.

Yeah, we call it a floater.

Yeah, I'm gonna float just a little bit on there because I love Mezcal. I find it very interesting. I like my tequila smoky and my bourbon smoky. I do not like my wine smoky. So those fires can stay away, please.

Oh, just the smell. Right? That's fun, too. Totally different. I knew the mezcal would change it a lot because it's a. A very distinct nose and flavor, but.

Ooh, that's yummy. Michael's gonna like that.

Yeah, that's a great way to go. We find that especially with mezcal. The smokiness of Mezcal marries so beautifully with the Jalapeno and lime with the pineapple and ginger.

Yeah, there's just the lemon sour. There's just so many ways to cross section the products. And we really encourage people to experiment. Just find what you like best.

Yeah, how fun.

When you were talking about cruise ships and beaches and pools and restaurants and I'm heading on a girls trip this weekend to Walt Disney World where I used to live and work. And yes, we'll be drinking around the world in Epcot and enjoying margaritas in Mexico. But we're also going to have some pool time.

And I'm like, oh, I am going to bring some of these because I bring a wine suitcase with me when I fly. So I check liquid on the plane. I think a couple of my wine slots in that suitcase just got taken up by Fresh Victor.

Fresh Victor's going to Disney World this weekend.

Here we go. Here we go.

That would be delicious. Laying by the pool at the Grand Floridian, which is where we're gonna be. Oh, my God. I'm even more excited now.

That's exactly what this is intended to do, to bring a smile to your face. And I can already see that you want to share it with your friends.

I'm already thinking Kim, my best friend from growing up, it's her 50th birthday on Monday, which is why we're going and I cannot wait to share this with her at the pool.

I'm going to show up because I have this beautiful like corkcal thermos and I'm going to bring it down to the pool with my govinos and I'm just going to pour this for her. It's going to blow her away. I can't wait. I can't wait.

Please wish her a Happy birthday from Freshwick.

We're 50. We're all turning 50 this year. It's the that year. This is how we're celebrating. Let's do the cactus, pear and pomegranate.

I'm excited to try that too. And that I just have the house vodka. And by house, I mean of our house. Tito's.

Perfect.

Tito. You approve of Tito's as a spirit guy?

I sure do.

Okay, good.

Austin based.

Okay, cool.

Yeah. And you can just use the exact same ratio if that worked out well for you, or if you. That's perfect.

Just a 2 to 1 ratio and shake with ice and you're all set to go. You're off to the races.

Are you tasting another one with me or am I?

I still have my full glass, so.

I'll just continue a new sexy cube in my second glass. We're going shot glass of Tito's.

Here we go.

Dude, I'm spilling all over my desk. So funny. It's all right. Nobody needs spill to know. Except I just told everyone. So here's our Tito's in the shaker.

And now, cactus, pear, and pomegranate. Okay, so ingredients here.

Filtered water, lime juice, cane sugar, prickly pear puree, pomegranate juice, and the same agave nectar that is in the other one, right?

Yeah.

All right, we're going. Two parts of this gorgeousness, this beautiful rich pink color. I love this. I love having a podcast.

Yeah, I love you having a podcast.

What kind of podcast do you have, Nikki? Do you get talk about news or things that are important in the world? Nope, we sip. We sip things.

I think we can put this under current events.

This is a current event for me. Oh, she's pretty. Would you lime this?

You can. Absolutely.

I like a lime plus just pretty with the green against the pink, Right?

I would never discourage lime. Yeah.

Okay. She's gorgeous. All right, here we go.

I just went from being at the pool to now I'm like on the deck of a cruise ship, and we just pulled into Puerto Vallarta. Yeah, that's what happened here.

Yeah. That prickly pear, I feel, is a very unutilized flavor profile.

So it's not. What is a cactus pear?

Prickly pear.

It is. They're used interchangeably. You can call both things prickly pear or cactus pear.

I think whenever I just answered my own question, prickly pear grown on cactus. It's cactus pear. People love it in the Southwest. And so, of course, you have Arizona and New Mexico and even a good part of Texas that.

That really likes to use the cactus pear. It's also used a ton in Guadalajara, Mexico, and around central Mexico, both in a culinary way, but also it's a favorite ice cream flavor. Like, it's.

It's such a great flavor profile that it makes total sense that people would want that in their cocktails and mocktails.

Yeah, they're very different. We're talking about also a base of tequila versus vodka and how I made them. I know you said it's preference, but now my wheels are turning.

What about mezcal in something like this?

100% yes. Yeah, I checked that box of vodka.

Or in addition to.

Oh, wow. Never been asked that before. That's a great question. No, that's. That's like the lime garnish question. I would never discourage. So Nikki.

These are, again, designed to be mixed with whatever you like. And so the cactus pear you can test drive with any spirit, any sparkling wine, any wine for sangria, it is totally up to you.

And we're finding more and more as we're talking to consumers that they're mixing two or three of our flavors together.

That's already where my brain is going. I'm like, again, this is probably wine and thinking, blending and layering. Like, how would these play well together?

And I think the combinations are endless, knowing that you have nine of these. Yeah.

A lot of people like to mix, for example, our jalapeno and lime with the cactus pear and pomegranate or the pineapple ginger or the strawberry and lemon. And they call it sweet heat.

Oh, I like sweet heat.

They cut against each other, so that's a lot of fun.

It's like hot honey. Why do we love hot honey on our pizza?

There you go.

There's, like, fast combination together. Ooh, I'm gonna try that. All right. Keep the combinations coming. What else? What else do people do?

Oh, man.

You know, the cucumber's lovely in the sense that we keep the skins on the English cucumbers when it goes into the emulsifier, and then we introduce the fresh, cold pressed lime juice.

And so when you open your bottle of cucumber and lime, the first thing that's going to hit your olfactory is going to be the English cucumber, and you're going to go, wow, Like a garden. Like, you're just like, hey, the best.

You go wow with an accent because it's English.

Totally English.

It's a wow because I'm from New Jersey as opposed to wow because it's English.

You can enjoy it both ways.

Look at three. Three sips of alcohol, and I'm already doing improv over here.

There you go. That's what we want to bring. Cucumber lime is a great example of. You can add gin and club soda and a tall glass.

I know people are very polarized about gin. Like, people that love gin love it. And there are a lot of people that are anti gin. Just like chardonnay. People tend to love it or hate it.

I love gin, so I will be excited to try gin with either of these. But then especially the cucumber one, because gin is so aromatic. Right. That juniper. I love the aromatics of gin.

The botanical facets of gin really lend itself to the citrus, and especially with the cucumber, and so I really like that. But you could see how Easily. You could substitute rum or vodka or tequila or mezcal. There's no limitations to this.

And so that's where I really like when people become mad scientists.

I really do love that part about it. So the bottles come in two different sizes?

That's correct. We do a half gallon. So 64 ounce bottle. The 16 ounce bottle is perfect for you and Michael if you just both want a couple drinks.

And then if you're entertaining or you're doing a girls trip and you're by the pool, the 64 ounce is perfect for 20 to 25 drinks.

So when you're talking about batching, I mean, you just grab a 64 ounce handle of fresh Victor and a 750 or a liter of your favorite spirit and just pour those two together and you're off to the races.

So I know you have some retail distribution. I actually saw it recently in local Whole Foods by me here in Sonoma County. But what is the best way for people to find Fresh Victor near them?

The best way to do that is through our website.

If you just go to freshvictor.com we have a fulfillment center on site at the production facility and we're actually able to send it to the lower 48 states very easily and even really Hawaii without much of a problem because these boxes are cold chain. So they have freezer packs with them and they're going to your doorstep.

And the best thing about the offerings are we have some ideas for you, but you can curate the box to exactly what you want and the sizes that you want.

Oh, that's great. So they just go to fresh Victor.com and then you and your team have been kind enough to create a discount code for our listeners. It's the SIP 20.

So all caps, the SIP and then the number 20 and that's 20% off anything on your website. Thank you so much for that. That's great. And how else can they learn more about you and what you guys are up to?

With Fresh Victor, it's really easy to look us up. We have Instagram, LinkedIn threads, Facebook.

But additionally, it's great to go on our website to join the newsletter and we'll kick something out to you that has recipe ideas, the events that are going on, launches where we're launching into new restaurants or stores.

Oh, that's really exciting that they can see where it might be launching by them and events that you have. Very cool. You should be really proud of this product. I'm not just saying this because I'm sitting here with a cocktail in my hand.

But this is really exciting and I feel like it definitely provides a solution and an upgrade to what most people are typically doing at home.

And.

And I cannot wait for Michael to get home so that I can share these with him.

Thank you very much for your kind words because they mean a lot to me and what you just said, that Michael's coming home and I'm going to share it with him. That's exactly why we did what we did.

Thank you so much for doing what you do and for spending time with me today so everyone could hear more about it.

The feeling is so mutual and so much respect for what you do. And on top of doing the wine, you have a podcast. Congratulations, Nikki. The pleasure was all mine.

And thank you so much for having me on virtual Cheers.

Cheers. So they are seriously so delicious. Maybe a little too delicious.

I've been enjoying cocktails a little bit more frequently than I normally would because Ken was kind enough to share their way. Whole Lotta Llama pack, they call it, which is literally a bottle of all nine different flavors. So we are working our way through those.

In fact, last night when Michael and I both finished working and we kicked off our Friday night happy hour, we tried the lemon sour and the recommended recipe on the bottle is for bourbon and egg white. So you shake it up and it gets all frothy and we poured it over the sexy cube and that is how we kicked off our weekend.

But shortly after we recorded, I headed back to, you guessed it, Walt Disney World to celebrate Kim, my childhood best friend's 50th birthday, and was able to surprise her at one of our poolside afternoons. And she very much enjoyed the cucumber and lime with gin, as well as the jalapeno and lime with tequila.

The jalapeno and lime was also a favorite of my other friends who joined me one evening in Walt Disney World. Shout out to David, David, Kathy and Ed.

We kicked off our monorail crawl with some cocktails in the room before we headed out to Grand Floridian, a Polynesian, and just ate and drank our way around the Magic Kingdom resorts. And I think they really enjoyed their fresh Victor cocktails in an extra magical setting.

And the night that I finished recording with Ken, I was able to share these with Michael, who is, like I said, much more of a discerning cocktail connoisseur. And he was impressed. And we were making fajitas for that night.

And per Ken's recommendation, we used the rest of the Mexican lime and agave mixer to marinate our chicken and so then we had the last cocktail of the lime and agave with the fajita chicken that was marinated in that and so they played really well together from a pairing standpoint and now my wheels are just turning as to the infinite types of combinations that we can do with layering different mixers, different spirits and then also trying them as just a mocktail when we need to cool it for a minute or blending it with some sparkling wine which makes my heart happy.

So visit freshvictor.com and you can have them shipped right to you like he said with that ice pack nice and fresh and use the discount code the SIP20 for 20% off their website. Be sure to follow them on Instagram and Facebook.

Hviktor and if you're not already following me on Instagram Nikki Lamberti I have a highlight bubble on there with some of my fresh victories. You see what I did there. Looking forward to our next time together and whatever you do between now and then I hope that you sip well. Wa. Don't.