Her cider journey has taken her from a HUGE commercial cidery in Michigan to a small production cidery and tasting room in North Carolina where they use pet nat processes and disgorging. And each experience feeds her passion for cider and the apples that make it. Becca Galvin joins me to share her wild cider ride and share how she has made a place for herself both behind the bar and behind the scenes.

Annie Delre was intrigued at an early age by human nature and why we do the things we do. She harnessed that inquisitiveness into becoming a health and wellness coach for those trying to make their lives more productive, goal-oriented, harmonious, and happy. She joins us today to share some resources that she uses to help us reduce the stress, improve time management and increase our general sense of self worth. It’s a crash course in coaching so you better hold on.

She has three kids under 10, she’s running one of the most successful cideries in West Virginia, she’s the Vice President of the Board of Directors for the American Cider Association and she balances it all so well. Brooke Glover shares how she built Swilled Dog Cider from the garage up and how she’s making it all work.

Amy Reiley has a website, cookbook, and built a small publishing company so that she could help other independent writers get their cookbooks out to the people. She is also the leading authority in aphrodisiac gastronomy, blending chemistry and the power of persuasion into crafting the book on what you can eat to make you better in bed. She has a passion for the history and cultures around food and now shares her journey and the lessons she has learned along the way.

Virginia has a thriving wine culture and tradition where Corry Craighill continues to make her mark as a winemaker. Now at Septenary Winery in Central Virginia, Corry has learned both the art and science of making wine through hands-on experiences at wineries on multiple continents. She shares her journey and advice she has for carving out a name for yourself and finding the position that fits you best.

This is a thing. You’ve poured your heart and soul into a business, a career, a relationship. It’s toxic, you’re emotional, you’re drained, you’re not yourself. Yet you stay with it because you think it’s worth it. You’ve invested so much. The sunk cost fallacy is absolutely a thing and here is my story of how it impacted us and our cider company. And disclaimer - this might not be pretty.

HOPS! They’re required to make beer and tastes mighty nice in cider as well! Because I didn’t know most of this myself, I want to take you on a brief tour of hops - what the hell are they? Why and how they are used in beer, the history of growing them in the US, and why we liked them so much, we made a flagship cider with them.

Maggie Skinner of Revolution Brewing has seen every side of beer sales from getting small breweries off the ground and into the market, to managing the house - the whole house - to working for a distributor and their portfolio, to now managing sales for a brewery with a regional market. She’s experienced all levels and all sorts of people and is here to tell us all about it from her base in Milwaukee.

Starting with baking, Courtney Lorenz knew she wanted to work with fermentations while also helping people lead healthy lives. This joint mission led her to kombucha and building an amazing brand and product in Northern Michigan. On this episode she shares her fermentation journey, why she is so drawn to this beverage, and how she has single-handedly built this company over the last 8 years.

Jess Lander from the SF Chronicle joins me to share her story as a wine and travel writer and her perspective of the wine industry from in front of the tasting room bar. She has always had a passion for writing and focuses those skills on telling the stories of vintners, producers, little known wineries, and big news in the alcohol world.

She’s focused her education and career on empowering women and advocating for their well-being. Now she has put her experiences into words with a new book about cultivating assertiveness and finding your voice. Cara Tuttle Bell joins me to share her personal journey and dive into why the systems are failing women in the workplace and what we can do to help ourselves and each other. Harness that rage ladies!

We head to the Commonwealth of Virginia to a cidery focused on dry ciders, local ingredients, and unique flavors. Tegan Biun is half of the cidermaking powerhouse team over at Lost Boy Cider in Alexandria and brings her wealth of cider knowledge, experience and passion to their production processes. She shares her winding journey that got her to Virginia, the ciders she makes, and the importance of cultivating equity in the alcohol community and supporting each other as women and as producers.

The Sober Curious movement is gaining traction in this country which I am reminded of at the start of every year with all the Dry January posts. And if you need to reassess your relationship with alcohol, please, by all means. But on behalf of alcohol producers, I feel compelled to say a few words about how a neo-prohibition movement, no matter how small, must not negate the love, respect, and passion that producers have for the beverages they make. These professionals have an avid dedication to the craft and they are very aware that it comes with great responsibility.

In the Central Coast of CA Morgan and Maggie have been building Two Broads Ciderworks - focusing on locally grown apples and wild fermented, co-fermented, single varietal, and classically blended ciders. They have bootstrapped a small business and also continue to face challenges, like most in the queer community in America. Despite it all, they’re staying true to themselves and their company vision, growing organically, and adapting to meet every obstacle.

Starting in the tech world as a programmer, Limor worked her way up to manage teams of engineers both in Israel and the US, all while also raising four children and moving between countries. She has recently redirected those skills to helping other women in the tech space as a coach and mentor. On this episode she shares her story and some helpful tips to making your LinkendIn profile the best that it can be, and it should be!, and ways that women can reach out for professional guidance and to be always looking at ways they can grow.

You’re trying to grow a market for your brand but you’re running out of time in the day? You’re in a state where you can’t sell your own products in the market and have to work with a wholesale distributor? Just interested in what it takes to sign with one? Shopping around for the perfect distribution partner would take til the end of time, but here are the questions to ask and the things to think about for companies that want or need to make the next step to larger distribution.

It’s been 20 years since Meagan Bishop and I said buh bye to high school and set off on our own separate courses. She actually jumped into sales and the alcohol industry much earlier than I did so while I am still in Virginia we are sitting down to discuss her journey through golf courses, tennis lessons, winery tasting rooms, and all that has led her to wine sales and distribution. She has the Irish gift of the gab and is here to share where that can take you and how her passion for wine has gotten her to where she is today.

For this episode Jamie Barlett of PolyPay joins me to talk about the great resource that she has developed to connect small businesses with the payment processing tools that they need while also sharing her journey of building this finance company from the ground up as a female in a male dominated financial industry. It’s another example of carving out your place and making it your own.

Adelaide spent years assessing risk for an insurance company, using her math background to save money and work out inefficiencies. During COVID she got the entrepreneurship bug and changed gears entirely. Now a couple of years into building a spirits brand from scratch she shares her story - why she made the leap to the alcohol industry, her passion behind the Brazilian drink of cachaca, and a few pointers on getting a company started from the ground up.

Laurie Gilbertson was a criminal prosecutor in New York for 10 years and then made the jump to consulting, sharing all that she had learned with other lawyers and entrepreneurs. She shares her experiences being a female in another male-dominated industry, and some tips and tricks for putting your best self forward for a sales pitch or any communications in the business world.