Founder & Sergeant Major Mike Waskewich (Ret.) on Flavor Matching, the Adult Beverage Ecosystem and Building What the Industry Was Missing

Building Disco Fizz for the LGBTQ+ & Beyond with Ben Zumsteg

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2547712/fan_mail/new] Ben Zumsteg is the founder and CEO of Disco Fizz [https://discofizz.com/], a sparkling functional non-alcoholic beverage built for the dance floor. A first-time CPG founder with 15 years of brand strategy experience behind him - working with clients like L'Oreal, Ralph Lauren and Four Seasons - Ben stopped drinking on New Year's Day 2023 and spotted a gap nobody was filling: the LGBTQ+ community had nowhere to turn in its own spaces when it came to non-alc options worth actually ordering. In this episode, Ben walks through how he commissioned original quantitative research on LGBTQ+ drinking habits (the only study of its kind), how that data pointed him toward moderate-caffeine functional energy rather than a mocktail and why he named the brand Disco Fizz on purpose - "inherently queer, never exclusively".  Nate and Ben also dig into brand distinctiveness, the "slap a rainbow on it and leave after Pride" problem, tiered caffeine formulation strategy, the premium packaging decision to go matte black with bare aluminum and why being for someone means you have to be okay with repelling someone else. Ben is pitching at BevNet Live [https://www.bevnet.com/events/bevnetlive]and recently landed a spot in Paris Hilton's Pride Shopping Guide [https://shop.parishilton.com/products/disco-fizz-lemon-hibiscus-chill-yuzu-mango-heat-multipack-4pk]. Disco Fizz is currently rolling out on premise in New York City with DTC and retail to follow later in 2026. Find Disco Fizz: discofizz.com | Instagram: @drinkdiscofizz Follow Ready To Drink Podcast: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | ReadyToDrinkPodcast.com [http://readytodrinkpodcast.com/] Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2547712/support] Presented by The FreeMind Group - FMGStrategy.com

Cannabis Disinformation, Hemp Advertising Suppression and the Fight to Normalize the Plant | Madicyn Marinaro, CCAT

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2547712/fan_mail/new] Nate Fochtman sits down with Madicyn Marinaro, Executive Director and Principal Researcher of the Cannabis Council for Advertising Transparency (CCAT), for a raw and unscripted conversation on one of the most underreported forces shaping the cannabis and hemp beverage industry: structural disinformation. Madicyn breaks down how Reefer Madness-era propaganda built the algorithmic and institutional bias that still governs platform policies, banking decisions, and financial risk models today. She quantifies what she calls the Disinformation Tax, documenting that cannabis companies pay nearly five times more in advertising costs than mainstream businesses, and explains how narrative control through advertising scarcity concentrates power in the hands of large operators and MSOs while freezing out legacy growers, independent brands, and single-person operators. The conversation covers the cannabis lobby vs. hemp lobby battle and why that conflict makes zero market sense unless you follow the money, the parallels between craft beer's battle against the big three in 2008 to 2012 and what hemp beverage entrepreneurs are facing today, why hemp and cannabis ultimately compete with oil and textiles rather than just alcohol and tobacco, how banks are creating the very risk they claim justifies refusing to serve compliant cannabis businesses, why 75 percent of cannabis research funding targets risks rather than benefits and what that does to the public information environment, and the independent retailer data gap hiding the true size and health of the hemp beverage category. Nate also shares the Pennsylvania primary research survey project currently underway, a 500 to 1,000 response statewide calling operation targeting independent retailers to capture real ground-level data on hemp beverage adoption and barriers. Both guests share personal stories of opioid addiction and how cannabis and hemp beverages played a direct role in their recovery. Ready To Drink Podcast covers the emerging adult beverage categories, hemp-derived THC, functional RTDs, and the entrepreneurs, operators, and advocates building the next great American beverage category. Subscribe and follow for new episodes weekly. Follow Madicyn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/madicynmarinaro/ Ready To Drink Podcast is hosted by Nate Fochtman, founder of The FreeMind Group, a strategic advisory firm serving adult beverage brands since 2008. Follow Ready To Drink Podcast: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | ReadyToDrinkPodcast.com [http://readytodrinkpodcast.com] #1 on Spotify for RTD Market Growth & Beverage Founders #1 on Apple Podcasts for Hemp Infusion  #4 on YouTube for Functional Drinks Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2547712/support] Presented by The FreeMind Group - FMGStrategy.com

Quick Sips: Cannabis Research Is Rigged - 75% of $1 Billion Studies Risk, Not Benefits

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2547712/fan_mail/new] Madicyn Marinaro, Executive Director and Principal Researcher at the Cannabis Council for Advertising Transparency (CCAT), breaks down one of the most overlooked structural problems in cannabis policy: the research funding gap. Nearly 75% of $1 billion in cannabis research funding goes toward studying harm, not benefit and when benefit research is attempted, federal law restricts it to isolated cannabinoids - not whole plant cannabis. The result is a biased information environment where patient stories, positive outcomes and counter-narratives cannot scale. This is not an accident. This is structural disinformation. Full episode with Madicyn Marinaro drops soon on Ready To Drink Podcast! Subscribe so you do not miss it. Ready To Drink Podcast is hosted by Nate Fochtman, founder of The FreeMind Group, a strategic advisory firm serving adult beverage brands since 2008. Follow Ready To Drink Podcast: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | ReadyToDrinkPodcast.com Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2547712/support] Presented by The FreeMind Group - FMGStrategy.com

Hemp, Recovery and the Fitness Channel Nobody Is Talking About | Jay Ashton, Last Rep

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2547712/fan_mail/new] Jay Ashton is the CEO and co-founder of Last Rep, an athletic recovery cocktail (ARC) built for the gym crowd, the run club, the jiu-jitsu mat and everywhere else people are moving their bodies and trying to do it right. Last Rep is not a get-high-in-a-can product. It is six calories, zero sugar, CBG, ashwagandha, L-theanine, electrolytes and a clean ingredient profile designed to let people recover the body, the mind and the social spirit all at once. Jay and I met at the AltBev Expo in Florida this year and I knew immediately this was a conversation the Ready To Drink Podcast needed to have. What we get into here goes way beyond the product. We talk about how Jay and his co-founder Steve Samson went from GPS technology and cybersecurity exits to building a THC beverage brand in under a year. We talk about why the fitness and wellness channel is the most underserved distribution lane in the alternative beverage space right now. We get into the real reason big beer opposes hemp regulation and why it has nothing to do with child safety. We talk about the dispensary model versus the liquor store model, who the actual consumer is and why the hemp beverage industry needs to stop bashing alcohol if it wants to win over the soccer mom with the Prosecco. I also go on record about what I told Congress in DC, what the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America just did and why the craft beer playbook is being run again right now on this industry word for word. Topics covered: functional drinks marketing, athletic recovery beverages, drink entrepreneurship, THC beverage brand building, functional drink brands, growth strategies for beverage startups, sales strategies in the fitness and wellness channel, mindful drinking, hemp industry regulation and the alternative beverage category. Check out LastRepARC.com Connect with Jay on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-ashton-/ Instagram - @LastRepARC  Facebook - Last Rep TikTok - @LastRepARC    Host: Nate Fochtman, Founder of The FreeMind Group  Follow Ready To Drink Podcast: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | ReadyToDrinkPodcast.com Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2547712/support] Presented by The FreeMind Group - FMGStrategy.com

Cannabis Beverage Certification, Sober Founders and the Hemp Beverage Revolution | Leigh Gall

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2547712/fan_mail/new] Leigh Gall is the co-founder of Cannabis Beverage Certification and host of The Enlightened Buzz on YouTube, the leading education channel for THC beverages. She came up at Boston Beer, spent years in national accounts and distributor training, got sober, and then helped build the first professional certification program for hemp infusion in the beverage industry. This is her story. In this episode, Leigh and Nate break down why education is the single biggest gap in the hemp beverage category right now, what happens when an untrained retail rep sends a consumer home with the wrong product, and why the cannabis beverage certification model mirrors what Cicerone and Sommelier programs did for craft beer and wine. They also get into the honest conversation most people in this industry avoid: what it means to be a sober founder in the adult beverage world, why both of them left alcohol behind after careers built inside it, and what that actually looks like on the sales floor, at conferences and in distributor meetings. Leigh shares the story behind distributor partners Tryon, Badger Wholesalers and Opici Wine Group certifying entire sales forces, why Climbing Kites built education into their onboarding from day one and what the "Dylan on Aisle 7" framework means for the long-term trajectory of the functional drinks market. They also cover the three-tier distribution argument for HB2309 in Pennsylvania, why the same system that governs beer can and should govern hemp beverages and what drink entrepreneurship looks like when you are building a category that did not exist three years ago. Topics covered: * Cannabis beverage certification and the Cicerone comparison * Hemp infusion education for distributors and retailers * Why alcohol sales are declining across beer, wine and spirits * GLP-1 drugs, the Bud Light effect and portfolio diversification * Sober founders in the adult beverage pairing space * Building a two-hour course that pays for itself in the first week * Tryon Distributing, Badger Wholesalers and Opici Wine Group as case studies * Visionary entrepreneurship and being comfortable being misunderstood * HB2309, the three-tier system and the regulation argument for hemp * Functional drinks trends and the consumer education gap Connect with Leigh LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/leighgall Cannabis Beverage Certification: cannabevcertification.com  The Enlightened Buzz on YouTube: youtube.com/@enlightenedbuzz  Host: Nate Fochtman | The FreeMind Group  Ready To Drink Podcast drops new episodes weekly. Subscribe, leave a review and share this with a distributor rep or retailer that needs to hear it. Pennsylvania breweries, distributors and retailers: get behind House Bill 2309. Learn more at iwantmythc.com Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2547712/support] Presented by The FreeMind Group - FMGStrategy.com