Episode 30 | Host: Joe Rouse | Guest: Andy Szwejbka

🔥 Why This Episode Matters

A lot of entrepreneurs talk about building something from nothing. Very few actually live it out in a way that requires daily discipline, risk tolerance, and long-term commitment without shortcuts.

This conversation matters because it pulls back the curtain on what it really looks like to build a business in a hands-on, operationally heavy industry. Not from theory—but from experience.

Too many business owners get caught chasing momentum, waiting for motivation, or looking for the next big move. What Andy brings to this conversation is a grounded reminder that real success is built through consistency, discipline, and doing the work when it’s not exciting.

If you're in a season where things feel slow, heavy, or uncertain—this episode will hit home.

🎧 Listen to the Episode

👤 Meet the Host & Guest

• Joe Rouse — Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | Profile

  Joe Rouse is a Brotherhood Beyond Business leader and host known for direct, practical conversations around entrepreneurship, accountability, and personal responsibility. As owner of Breakaway Fitness & Performance, Joe challenges men to build strong companies without sacrificing faith, family, and integrity.

• Andy Szwejbka — Profile

  Andy Szwejbka is the founder of Hidden Ships Distillery, a craft distillery based in Surf City, North Carolina. He has built his business through discipline, hands-on execution, and a commitment to quality in a competitive and regulated industry.

• About Hidden Ships Distillery — Instagram | Website | Facebook
  Hidden Ships Distillery is a craft distillery focused on producing high-quality spirits with an emphasis on craftsmanship, consistency, and community. Built from the ground up, the business reflects a long-term commitment to doing things the right way, not the easy way.

📌 What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• What it actually takes to build a business from scratch in a tough industry

• Why discipline matters more than motivation long-term

• How to navigate risk and uncertainty without quitting

• The realities of starting and running a distillery

• How consistency compounds over time in business

• Balancing business ownership with family and life priorities

• Why doing things the right way builds lasting success

🧩 Episode Summary

Joe and Andy start by unpacking Andy’s journey into entrepreneurship and what led him to build Hidden Ships Distillery. From the outside, it might look like a passion project—but the reality is a business that demands discipline, structure, and constant effort.

As the conversation unfolds, they dive into the challenges that come with building something in a regulated and competitive space. There are no shortcuts. Every step requires intention, patience, and the ability to stay committed when results aren’t immediate.

A major theme throughout the episode is the difference between motivation and discipline. Andy shares how showing up consistently—especially on the days you don’t feel like it—is what separates those who build something real from those who stay stuck.

The episode closes with a grounded look at what it means to build a business that supports your life, not consumes it. It’s not about chasing more—it’s about building something sustainable, intentional, and worth the effort.

🕒 Episode Timestamps

[00:00] Intro & overview
[03:10] Andy’s path into entrepreneurship
[10:45] Starting Hidden Ships Distillery
[20:30] Risk, challenges, and early struggles
[31:15] Discipline vs motivation
[42:00] Balancing business and life
[52:40] Lessons learned from building a business
[01:02:10] Final thoughts and advice

💡 Quote Highlight

“Discipline is what carries you when motivation runs out.”

🚀 Next Steps

👉 Download our Your Circle is Your Ceiling eBook

👉 Learn more about Our Method

📚 Resources & Links

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• Watch the full episode on YouTube

• Want to listen to this episode: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Buzzsprout

🚀Full Transcript

Andy Szwejbka (00:21)

Yeah.

Joe Rouse (00:20)

Alright,

welcome to another episode of the Brotherhood Beyond Business podcast. Today I'm here with Andy Schwepka, the owner of Hidden Ships Distillery here in Surf City, North Carolina. And I know Andy through, let's see, Andy, I've met you...

first met you through Breakaway Fitness, you come to work out, you inane me, and I can tell you had experience working out because you moved well and you rocked out and you smart protecting your back because I know you had some back pain. But then I almost feel like I've seen your son brody more than I've seen you.

Andy Szwejbka (00:40)

That's right.

I did, yeah. ⁓

your

Yeah, probably lately in the last couple years anyway. Yeah for sure.

Joe Rouse (00:59)

It's fast too. He's fast. but it was fun watching him play. So I'm excited today to just to learn more about you, to learn more about hidden ships and also we'll probably dive into just some of the, like the specific aspects related to just being a business owner in general and some of the hard stuff like with staff and things like that. We'll see kind of where leads us. But, before that, and just tell us, tell me a little bit about you.

Andy Szwejbka (01:18)

Sure.

Yeah. Well, first, thanks for being here. Appreciate it. Excited to do this as well. What do think that timeframe was? I think I joined your gym probably, it was before I retired. So probably 2020, I think COVID was still kind of happening and I couldn't work out on bases frequently. so probably 2020 was there for, yeah, it was already, was there for a solid year.

After I retired, and I guess that answer is background, right? My background was I played Marine for 21 years, joined in 2000, retired in 21. So I was a member of your gym kind of in that year leading up to my retirement. But then as soon as I retired, my wife and I, four kids and a dog, spent a year traveling the country in an RV, which was a cool experience. And, you know, we'll see if we come back to that at all.

Joe Rouse (02:16)

Sure, that sounds amazing.

Andy Szwejbka (02:17)

Yeah, it was a unique experience, unique set of circumstances that allowed us to do that. But four, just four, they all came with us on that trip. so pause my gym membership. And then when I came back, I was going back to the gym, probably did another solid year. And then frankly, that's when we were into heavy construction. although that's

you know, probably when you need the gym the most, was just one of the things that I, cut at that time. Yeah. I mean, I just was so focused. was dirt floor when we got this place. So that was just taking so much of my time, decided to step away from the gym. But I've always appreciated, you know, my time there and what it is you're doing and what it is you're building. So yeah, I mean, again, background on the Marine Corps. When I retired in 2021, we spent that year traveling, but came back.

to this area in 2022. And that's when we got real serious about building this business. And then we ended up opening by September, end of September, 2023.

Joe Rouse (03:17)

got you interested in opening a distillery? Like do you remember like were you watching a movie, a TV show, or you just loved bourbon? Like what was your first thought?

Andy Szwejbka (03:25)

Yeah.

Yeah. So our, our origin story really starts at another distillery. Uh, that was early 2019, January, 2019. Uh, we were up visiting my sister-in-law, brother-in-law. Uh, they live outside of Charlotte or they did at the time. And right around the corner from them was another distillery called Myrtos Maid. if any of your listeners were ever in that area, I highly recommend that distillery.

and just had a great experience. The Myrtos has a similar business to model to us in terms of the distillery in the back of the house, the front of the house, cocktail bar. Had a great experience. Had this beautifully presented, smoked old fashioned. And at that point in my life for probably the 10 years leading up to that experience, every time I saw a brewery open, I looked at it and said, darn it, I should have done that.

And that was just kind of my mindset. was in the Marine Corps, of course, at the time, but I had that entrepreneurial kind of mindset. Yeah, I just looked at it like it would have been awesome. And so from that experience at the distillery in 2019, I started researching the craft distilling industry and what I assessed at the time. And even now, six years later, I think it's still true. But certainly in 2019, the assessment I made

Joe Rouse (04:18)

That is true.

Andy Szwejbka (04:38)

from the business perspective was I think craft distilling is where craft breweries were in terms of popularity or prevalence maybe 15 years ago. And so I thought, let me jump into this as much as I could. I still had two years left before I could retire. So just decided to do as much as I could at the time. And that was to enroll in the University of Louisville's graduate program. Of course, Louisville is the heart of Bourbon country. So I thought that was a pretty good school to go to.

That was an online graduate program, nothing hands on distilling, but really they call it the business of distilling. So it gave me really firm foundation. regulatory issues, legal issues were a highly regulated industry, but also sustainability operations and then history of distilled spirits. And I was a history undergrad, so I really nerded out on that course, had a lot of fun with it, it was my favorite.

but finished that course really in spring of 21, right? It's the same time as I was retiring. So that gave me a firm foundation and that was us, you know, thinking about the distillery at the time, dreaming of it, certainly getting that education, but it's still, you know, I could have gotten that degree and done nothing with it. It was still a jump after to actually, you know, dive in and open it. So, but it was a great foundation of knowledge, certainly.

Joe Rouse (05:52)

didn't

decide. So you were in school, let's say you graduated, but you hadn't decided 100 % you were going to open a distillery at that point.

Andy Szwejbka (05:59)

No, would say, yeah, I think that's accurate. That's a good way of saying it. So finish the program 21, retired June of 21. And again, we set right out when I retired, like within a few days we'd packed up our house and we spent, we started that year long RV trip. When we left North Carolina, we essentially went right to Kentucky Bourbon Trail though. That was our first stop really 10, 11 days there for us. We got to call it research. was a lot of fun.

hit the big distilleries of course, but also we're hitting craft distilleries since that was gonna be more our size. And I would say that trip was inspirational for what it is we try to do here now. Specifically with tours and tastings, it's a big deal for us. So that was inspirational, certainly about halfway through that year long trip, we made the

business decision, the first investment into the company. And that was a decision for Amy and I both to attend Moonshine University. That's a funny sounding name, but very legitimate curriculum. Again, it's back in Louisville. And so this was a six day course that we attended right after the trip ended. So we got home early May and we went back up to Louisville end of May of 2022.

And I say investment because it certainly wasn't cheap. was something like six grand for each of us to attend. that's a big check to write for just still in the dream phase of a business plan. But it was really important, not that I just attend, but that she attends with me. We saw during the course other husband and wife's teams and just the husband would go to class. And for me, it was really important that Amy, my wife, was just

involved in all of that knowledge. Plus I knew, you know, number one, I didn't want to be responsible for taking all the notes and then, you know, downloading on her, but I also knew that she was going to gravitate towards different subjects and pick up on things that I wouldn't miss. So specifically, you know, during that six day course, of course, you know, it was hands on distillation, but there was different courses kind of built into the week. One of them was, marketing, merchandising. and she takes lead on that now.

And she learned a lot at that course.

Joe Rouse (08:04)

Man, the more guys I've been talking to, business owners in this area, the more I've learned that it's more of a husband and wife team a lot, like often. Like that seems to almost be like the local thing here. Like, and that's my wife and I worked very closely together, but it how we started. It was kind of like, just went, I had this opportunity and I just jumped on it. I was like, oh, by the way, honey, I'm opening a business, which there was lots of learning there for the next several years.

But like a good example is I'm actually interviewing Tyler at Chris Brazilian Juice next or this week and he really his wife is the brains behind it he ended up telling me like it's he and hers we might interview both of them but what when you were going to that school like what why you might have already explained yourself but why was it so important to you that your wife being part of that?

Andy Szwejbka (08:55)

Yeah, again, I'll tell you the specific example that I drew upon. So when you get out of the military, whether you do four years or 20 years, you have to do what they call, I don't even remember the name of it. It's a transition seminar. And I went to, it was a week long of lots and lots of classes. And of course, you know, naturally your spouse is going to have questions about your transition. For me, in my case, it was about retirement and

and I would come home and I would try to explain things and I just couldn't explain it very well. And I remember that because I had the option she could have attended with me and it just was a timing thing. It's not that I didn't want her there. It was just, we just couldn't make it happen. And that experience like really kind of developed in like, I'm not going to be responsible for trying to explain all of this. Cause you go to the courses like that. Think about a six day course, you know, they're throwing a lot at you.

Yeah, they gotta get a out of And it's a fire hose of information. And I just knew that there was no way I was gonna be able to effectively pass on that information. I knew that I wanted her to be an integral part of this and she wanted that as well. So that's why I say it was so important for her to be there. And again, I knew that if she was there, would pick up on things that I would have missed.

Joe Rouse (10:12)

So this is, I mean, it's a joint dream.

Andy Szwejbka (10:15)

Yeah, for sure. mean, I think it probably started with me, but I've had other business ideas in the past. Some of which I started, some of which I didn't. My wife, Amy, she was always supportive in terms of wanting me to go try, but maybe had reservations on some level. This was probably the first business idea that I pitched and this is going back to 2019.

and she was immediately like, heck yeah, I'm in, let's do it. Yeah, so.

Joe Rouse (10:43)

Yeah, if your watch is support you like that, is a big deal.

Andy Szwejbka (10:46)

Yeah, for sure. And that's when I was going to the course. I wouldn't say that I necessarily, I I shared with her what I was learning in the course, but even signing up for the course, she was supportive of that, with that. like, yeah, go learn this stuff. And then when it came time for both of us to attend that six-day course, again, being such a large investment early on, yeah, she was in. She's like, yeah, I need to be there too.

Joe Rouse (11:06)

That's a big deal. You team up and you raise your kids, you own a house, you know what mean? It's something that took me, I think it's cool that you guys started that way. Because it took me a long time. I think there's benefit in that attack to a business for most business owners. Maybe not everybody's perfect to do that with their spouse. But there's so much growth that happens with your spouse when you open a business. Because there's going be growth. ⁓

Andy Szwejbka (11:27)

For sure.

Joe Rouse (11:30)

And I didn't start that way with my wife, but now that we're both intertwined in this thing together, now it's if I go to a course, we go to all of our courses together. So there's another layer of teamwork and us growing together as business owners. I think it changes the relationship sometimes.

Andy Szwejbka (11:37)

Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. mean, that's been our experience. And, you know, for us, there's still a bit of divide and conquer certainly, because again, we have to manage the household and manage the business. you know, there's, there's, there's some pretty clear lines, roles and responsibilities that she has here. I don't know if I was to throw a number at it, maybe it's like 70, 30 or something like that, but that is a direct correlation of, of my impact and input.

maybe on managing the household, right? Because we homeschool our kids. she's the teacher. She's most days homeschooling, you know, our kids at home while I'm here maybe doing distilling. But we're both involved to certainly some extent in both those areas.

Joe Rouse (12:26)

Yep, can relate with them. Yeah, I mostly handle Aiden's, our older son, whereas Melody handles the younger ones. Alright, so you go to the course, the $6,000 course.

Andy Szwejbka (12:27)

Yeah.

12 for both of us. That was a big check. That's right. For sure. That's right.

Joe Rouse (12:41)

It's an investment.

⁓

So you're in that course, you know you want to open this at that point.

Andy Szwejbka (12:51)

Yeah, for sure by then and again, when I said we wrote that, that was about halfway through that year long trip, we had to sign up for the course and of course pay them. But we attended May, my plan, and this is genuine, my plan going into that course, end of May of 2022, I thought I would go to it. I would come back and spend two to three, maybe even three to five years after the course figuring it out. I really assumed that I would get some other job.

nine to five type job with my background in the Marine Corps. I had opportunities to do that. And I really thought that that's what I was going to have to do, right? Provide for the family while I figure out this distillery. That was the plan going into the course. What I did instead was go to the course, graduate and sign a lease for this place two days later.

Joe Rouse (13:38)

Tell me about that. How did that happen? Was that a random conversation or were you on the internet just kind of randomly looking at opportunities potentially?

Andy Szwejbka (13:42)

or it was a...

No, I think, and again, the six day course, throw a lot at you. You can't learn it all in six days. Certainly what it did for us was give us a belief that we could figure it out. And so came back, I say two days, it may have been a couple of weeks, but it was pretty quickly thereafter that we started looking in the local area, looking at real estate. we did some assessment on leasing this space verse could we buy land, build our own building, et cetera, and just doing that kind of cost comparison.

At the time, to not to get too into the weeds, but Surf City at the time was a little bit restricted on new construction. So the word we were kind of getting from the city level officials was, what we have right now is what we have and we don't know when we're going to build more. So that influenced our decision to move quickly and that had to do with sewer capacity of all things, right? So they had kind of a moratorium at the time on new commercial construction.

And so we saw this space, this whole building, this is five units here. There's another five, 10 units up there. All of it was new builds. They were all empty, unleased. As you mentioned, this was a dirt floor when we walked this space. And we just felt like if we didn't take that opportunity, there may not be another one in the local area. And by then we had decided that we wanted to do the distillery here. So it was like, okay, if we really want to stay here,

and there may not be new construction for the next couple of years, let's go ahead and do it now. So we wrote another large check to sign this lease. Didn't have a business plan at the time, didn't have funding secured, but again, it went back to belief that we would figure it out. So wrote that check in probably June of 22, and then we spent the next couple of months figuring it out. Did write a business plan. And of course, that wasn't covered in the Marine Corps.

They didn't teach us how to do it. So had to learn that process. For us, had to figure out the funding. We had to raise some money from equity investors. Of course, we put in a pretty large chunk of our own money. Yeah, which we could get into that. But we've raised that capital, found investors, put our own money in, and all of that was just enough money to borrow more money from the bank to actually make this place happen. So by...

Joe Rouse (16:01)

kind of like getting, scrapping together a down payment.

Andy Szwejbka (16:03)

Essentially, yeah. Think about 20 % down on a mortgage. It was the same idea. We needed 20 % for the bank to fund the rest. And spent that summer doing all of that, had funding secured by probably October of 22, and broke ground in this place April of 23. By then it had seemed like a really long time had passed, but

you know, looking back on it, really moved really quickly because April of 23, we had our grand opening about six months later. yeah. I look at other businesses or even corporations where this is what they do. They open restaurants and bars and it'll take them a year, year plus to get open. So yeah, coming soon for two years.

Joe Rouse (16:34)

Yeah.

like two years and you know don't know it wasn't all that

Andy Szwejbka (16:52)

I don't either, but I was proud of it and you know as we were going through to be like, okay, seemed like it took a long time from the time I, you know, signed the lease to getting funding to actually breaking ground. That was a nine, 10 month period. But then from construction day one to grand opening, really about a six month period. And you know, in terms of pushing that thing through, I think that's where my experience in the Marine Corps really came in.

Okay. because I was working with a general contractor, had a great, fantastic general contractor. I hear horror stories from other business owners about, you know, all the bad general contractors they worked with. Mine was awesome. actively helped me solve problems as they came up. Couldn't have asked for anyone better during that phase, but I was also, I had to then look at his construction plan and figure out, okay, when are we bringing in distillery equipment? When can I actually start distilling, cetera?

And so we just came up with a really solid six month plan to make that happen.

Joe Rouse (17:48)

on. That's cool. So you say broke Grant, what does that mean? So there was an outer shell, right?

Andy Szwejbka (17:55)

Yeah,

so this unit I think is like I said, five, five or six units. have two. So they're divided internally. We took these two units. When I say broke ground, what I mean is started construction. It was dirt floor on April 14th. And the first thing was they brought in a little skid and started digging the trenches for plumbing. And that was like such a cool day for me just to see it like, okay, we're really starting construction. And then the next day they laid all the plumbing and you know,

Couple weeks later we had concrete going over it. So that's what I mean by, you know, starting construction. I pretty much did. I mean, again, I had the plan for what was supposed to be happening each day and just kind of monitored and yeah.

Joe Rouse (18:26)

every day.

I'm sure there was some unique plumbing requirements. I would assume. don't know. guess it was above ground.

Andy Szwejbka (18:38)

Um, yeah,

the plumbing is just fairly standard for a bar. Of course you have to have floor drains and all the other plumbing. I had a map out what the bar was going to look like. I designed, uh, the bar, the space behind the bar. Um, after I retired, one of the things I did was go be a bartender and that was deliberately for experience. Um, again, not anything I had done in the Marine Corps. So.

I knew I wanted to be a bartender for experience, every place I worked at, I looked at how they designed their bar back area. And I was coming up with ideas and drawing out what do want my bar back area to look like. So when it came time to have the architect put the plans in, the bar design was all my planning. So then it had to be plumbed to meet that specification, knowing certain equipment was coming in.

In terms of back here, the, you know, the only thing kind of unique, wasn't so much plumbing. was reinforcing the ground. So the area underneath the stills and then behind this curtain, we store barrels. The area underneath barrel storage had to get reinforced with rebar. And it's actually the same specifications of a runway that plans land on, or planes land on, because there's so much weight. And so that was kind of like during the concrete pour.

reinforcing those areas to make sure that the ground could support it. Yeah, this whole area has rebar under it and then the area underneath the barrels. Yeah, I don't even know what it weighs anymore. I think it had more to do with like, all right, filling it up with hundreds of gallons of liquid after the fact.

Joe Rouse (19:56)

Did you have to do that under the still?

is a still way by itself.

A lot of weight.

Andy Szwejbka (20:14)

Yeah, and probably will restore the barrels is even heavier. But I will say, I my architect over engineered it, but that's what he told me. He said it's the same specs as a runway, which I just remember that.

Joe Rouse (20:23)

So that's a good fact. do you, how long you could, because you distill your own bourbon. I know you do other things as well, but you distill like actual bourbon here now, but there was a process before that, right? Or am I off?

Andy Szwejbka (20:37)

Now, I mean, you're close. So bourbon is an age spirit. takes years and years and years to sit in a barrel. When I was writing the business plan, I made a decision that I wanted bourbon day one, which meant I'd be sourcing initially. Sourcing spirits in the spirits world is incredibly common. Some breweries will source from each other, some wineries will, but it's not as common. But in spirits, it's very common. You may have heard of a little company called Four Roses.

So that company started because they went to Rose's distillery and picked out their first four barrels. So it started as a source. Yeah, it started as a source. So again, I just mentioned that story to kind of let everyone know it's very common. So we sourced initially and we're still sourcing today. We are making our own stuff from grain, but it's still a couple of years before that's ready. So in that meantime, we're sourcing from another North Carolina based distillery called Southern Distilling.

They're north of Charlotte. I love being partners with them. The reality is I could have saved a lot of money sourcing bourbon from other states, but it's just not the story we wanted to tell. It goes back into branding and marketing, right? And what story do you want to tell for us? It was, we wanted to be able to say that all the corn in our bourbon is grown in North Carolina, and that's how Southern does it. All the corn in that bourbon is grown within 20 miles of that distillery, which again, we just think is a great story.

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. For sure. So we'll stay partnered with them. One of the things we do after I get the barrels sent to me from them is we do a secondary aging and that's just to make it unique to us. And so that only takes two months once we get it in house. Each barrel gets a piece of oak wood soaked in sherry. That sherry wood goes into the barrel for two months. And then when we dump it, it has a sherry finish.

So that makes it unique to the marketplace. So that's kind of bourbon. Clear spirits though, we have a vodka, we have two gins actually, we have two rums. Vodka, two gins, two rums. Am I forgetting one? I feel like I'm.

Vakajin from yeah, Burman. Yeah, so I hit them all But those we make we make those in-house. Yeah, so that's kind of all done internally

Joe Rouse (22:36)

Is it what's different now, like when you originally envisioned all this, just from a spirit's perspective, like is there anything different? are you doing, do you guys do more of something than you thought you would, or is it kind of similar to what you envisioned?

Andy Szwejbka (22:49)

I think it's basically what I envisioned. I think what I probably would have envisioned by, so we're a little over two years old now, is I'm sure at one point I thought that our production cycle would be much more dialed in. How often we're distilling, you know, and it would just be, I would be able to set this perfect calendar of like, all right, distill this day, distill this day. And as things have turned out, that's just,

That's not where we're at yet. Not to say we wouldn't get there at some point. You know, we have pretty good data now of sell through rates. So how many bottles are we selling? How many bottles do we go through in the bar? But our big push now is distribution. So my really, my whole business model is based on distribution. The bar is essentially, we show seasonality. So some months are bigger than others.

But year-to-year growth is, you know, if we get an 8 to 10 % growth on the bar, that's pretty solid. Whereas on distribution, I think we have an opportunity for significant growth. And I anticipated early on that it would take us our first 36 months before we would see that spike in distribution. And being about 27 months in, I think we're on track for that.

And that for us in North Carolina is predominantly through the ABC system. Yeah, so I mean, there's 140 different boards. So there's a state ABC board. And of course we have requirements to give to them. But essentially each board, think of it, the easiest way to think about it is each county kind of controls. And so we have to sell to each of those boards individually.

They make decisions. They make decisions on what's coming in to their stores because they're all running their own businesses and they only want to bring in things that are profitable. They have their own overhead to worry about. They have their own costs to deal with. And so a year ago today, we were only kind of in three boards, which is our home county where Jacksonville, North Carolina is and where Wilmington is. most of last year I spent

being the kind of number one and only sales rep and that was okay. That was intentional at the time. But we ended up bringing on our first full-time sales rep end of July of last year. And it took him a few months and I knew that it would to kind of figure some things out. And he's done that and already, you know, I think we're in 14 boards now as opposed to a year ago being in three. Yeah. It's significant.

You know, for us, that's where the significant growth opportunity lies to the point where it should by this October, our sales from distribution should exceed what the bar does on an annual basis. That's exciting. Yeah. It'll help me sleep at night better, no matter what the bar does. Yeah. Even if the bar has a slow night, I know that we're selling bottles out there across the state.

Joe Rouse (25:29)

That's gotta be really exciting.

So what's it like if you're a salesperson focused on distribution for your business? Outside of the regulations and the things you had to get done just base level, what did you have to do? Were you calling scheduling appointments to meet with the owner of the ABC stores? And you just walk in and you're like, hey, I they can't legally sample it there, right? You can do that other states.

Andy Szwejbka (25:58)

Yeah, so there's kind of a two-tiered approach. to throw out some industry terms, we would call it on-premise, which means you drink the alcohol there. So think bars and restaurants. That's on-premise. And then off-premise would be where you take it off. You take it home. So that's an ABC store. And we go after both. In this state of North Carolina, every single bar and restaurant is assigned to an ABC store to go pick up everything that they need to operate.

which means if we can convince a bar manager to bring us in, they have to get it through the ABC system and it makes it easier for that ABC store to order it knowing that they have, you know, this one bar already is going to make an order. So we'll go after bar managers and those that order and, but simultaneously we'll go right to a board and say, Hey, you know, here's our story. I can do tastings with them, like general manager level.

So we'll do a tasting with them. If they like us, they'll bring us in. So we just did that down in Brunswick County, a couple counties down, and had a great meeting with the GM. And after the tasting, they decided to bring us in. And so that's kind of the approach to growing our footprint across the state.

Joe Rouse (27:07)

So the guy that you have hired now, did he come with you a lot? Did you create systems to train him with or you talk about him figuring some things out over the first few months? mean, did you mentor him or did you kind of allow, you're like, here, I created this schedule for you, here's where you're gonna go, go, and then come back and report to me? Like, how did that, how does that process? Because that would have been the first time you've hired a sales person.

Andy Szwejbka (27:08)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, first sales rep. I would like to believe I'd mentored him. I think he would agree with that. Great guy, was also retired Marine. Certainly that wasn't a prerequisite, but it was nice to have that common background. But he retired almost over 15 years ago now. And he spent that time from retirement in that 15 years, he was a sales rep. Oh, wonderful. For various different companies, largely I think in like DOD contracting type.

not sales, but he understood the sales cycle. He understood inherently relationship building and rapport building, filling a need of a customer, right? Like I didn't have to teach him sales. When I say it took him a couple months to kind of figure things out, that was just because selling spirits in the state is so specific, meaning how do we go after those restaurants and bars? How do we go after general managers at the ABC store? I have beer reps here at our bar. When a beer rep comes in,

and they say, here's our new beer and we sample it and we say, great, I'll take it. That sales rep leaves with a purchase order and that sales rep likely gets a commission and they go back and get paid and then they deliver the beer. That's not how it works with spirits. We go into a bar and we do a tasting and whether or not they're just being polite, generally they all say they love our stuff. And then it's like, okay, great. When are you going to order?

I always do my orderings on Tuesday. I'll order you next week. Awesome. We'll give it a couple of weeks. We'll follow up and say, Hey, did you get our bottles in? I forgot to order. And that's not because they don't want us. That's just because again, business owners are busy. Managers are busy. They just forgot to do it. Most of the time. And so we found that, you know, it really does take six or seven touch points at any one place before we're actually going to see our bottles on their shelves.

So it's that follow-up. And again, his name's Cedric, great dude. He understands that that's what it's going to take. So he has a great system in place for the follow-up. So I don't know that I mentored him from a sales perspective because he brought so much experience to it, but learning kind of the, there's some laws and regulations that kind of dictate how we do that. I would say yes.

Joe Rouse (29:38)

Did you know the six or seven touch point mark before he came on or was he kind of like, did he sort of figure that out based on maybe he had to do that at another sale?

Andy Szwejbka (29:47)

No,

I think I got that advice from another sales rep and when I was kind of the number one sales rep and only sales rep and then I found it to be true. Like yeah, it really does take that follow up because you'll leave it tasting, you'll feel great. It's like, okay, well, let me go back and again, have rapport building, right? You don't want to be a pain in the butt with them. You don't want to call them every day. Do you order us? order us? But giving it enough time, doing the follow up.

being present, stopping in, checking in on them, seeing how it's going, like, okay, yeah, then you're gonna be front of mind when they go to do that order.

Joe Rouse (30:23)

I mean we have to do that every day with following up a lead. I can have somebody physically fill out a Facebook ad because they want help losing weight, getting stronger, confidence, or they want help with balance and strength. Something like that and then I can immediately reach out to them five minutes and they'll be like, I didn't fill that. I'm like, you just.

Andy Szwejbka (30:34)

Sure.

Who are you? ⁓

Joe Rouse (30:43)

minute

ago and I'm I mean I'm a person texting but I understand the lead follow-up and how much work that can take and it's really interesting to hear that how you have to nurture that relationship even because I'm sure you have to nurture that relationship ongoing too.

Andy Szwejbka (30:57)

Yeah, for sure. mean, it's we try to be active partners, both with the ABC stores and the bars and restaurants with helping them sell. It does no good for me if they order and then it sits on their shelf and collects dust, just like it does no good for them. And so we try to partner with them. So when we're partnering, like Brunswick County, I mentioned, we're committing to helping them sell bottles by doing those in-store customer facing tastings. So they placed an order.

We've fulfilled that order and now we've scheduled in-store tastings to make sure that it's gonna help their sell-through rates. They make the money and then hopefully they put in another order. And so it helps our sell-through rates. And so that's what we're trying to foster. Same thing with the bars, right? We can do customer facing tastings at a bar, which we've done on occasion. When I'm meeting with bar managers,

I tell them pretty much upfront, especially if they liked us, by the end of that meeting, I'm letting them know that the biggest win for us is when and if we can end up by name on their menu. So as an example, you know, instead of saying Tito's Vodka in this particular cocktail, can we get listed hidden ships Vodka? You can bring in whatever you want, whatever works for your bar, but the biggest win for us is getting named on your menu.

understanding that they're not going to reprint a menu every week. It may take till the next season when they're ready to do that menu reprint. Now we've established a relationship. They've already ordered us. It's like, okay, now can we get it by name listed on the menu? Because then I know we're not going to collect dust. They're going through and selling the cocktails, making money, and then ordering more.

Joe Rouse (32:37)

I'm curious as a restaurant owner ever or a bar manager ever said, well I can get you on the menu sooner if you can satisfy X, and Z. Is that a thing? I mean I have no idea.

Andy Szwejbka (32:47)

No, I don't know that I've seen that. think that, you know, how we incentivize, because we can't really do like case cost discounts, other states you can. So I can't really say, you know, order 11, get the 12th free. But we can support them, like I said, with the the tastings. So we'll come, we provide those samples for your customers, creates an event maybe for that night.

My only stipulation is by then they have us at the bar and that night they feature us certainly in a cocktail, right? So someone tries the bourbon in a tasting, I can let them know, hey, you can go get a bourbon cocktail at the bar tonight. And then I guess the only other way is through some swag. If they have the tin tacker signs up on their wall because it fits their atmosphere, then certainly we'll give them one of those or some bar coasters, whatever it may be. I think that's a way for us to support them.

Joe Rouse (33:35)

And you started, you talked about Pender, Onslow, and O'Hanlon in now your 14 counties.

Andy Szwejbka (33:40)

Yeah, boards, but yes. 140 boards.

Joe Rouse (33:42)

Yeah, because there's a hundred counts. said how many...

So 140 boards. Have you thought, have you given any thought at all to what that looks like? I mean you're already almost kind of there I would think with 14 boards. What does that look like at scale? 140 boards. Like let's say you hit 140 boards. Yeah. how many boards can a sales rep handle?

Andy Szwejbka (34:05)

Well, I yeah, I think we would expand right now. His title is director of sales. We do have a brand ambassador, so that's not a sales rep per se. That's someone that represents our brand up in the Wake County Raleigh area. Former ABC store employee that kind of wanted to make a transition. He was already working up in Wake for the last 10 plus years, so he was very familiar.

And so he approached us and said, Hey, you know, is there anything I can do? And so we kind of came up with this role for him as a brand ambassador. And so he's there doing store tastings in that market. He's also hitting those restaurants and bars to set up those tastings to try to get them to order. So as we think about scaling across the state, yes, we would increase like the director of sales, Cedric.

Joe Rouse (34:45)

you

Andy Szwejbka (34:53)

that role will grow with sales reps that report directly to him.

Joe Rouse (34:57)

uh... to backtrack let's say that let's go back to like when you just uh... maybe it's a month maybe it's let's say like it what do you

Andy Szwejbka (35:09)

So we opened like September 29th essentially October 1st of 23.

Joe Rouse (35:14)

I'm assuming because we're in Sarsity the summer is the busiest time?

Andy Szwejbka (35:18)

Yeah, for sure. So I mentioned, I thought we went really, really fast during construction and we did. When I did my initial kind of timeline, I was trying to hit summer opening of that summer of 23. Obviously with some delays in construction, it didn't happen. Turned out, know, hindsight being what it is, that was a blessing in disguise. Cause I think if we would have opened May 1st, we would have gotten so slammed that maybe we would have hurt our reputation at least initially, potentially.

Whereas, you know, the season kind of dies off here, you know, end of September, middle October for Surf City. And so it was almost perfect timing for us to launch because we still had a great grand opening. We still had a lot of support from day one, but it was manageable enough for us to learn lessons and implement them and try to adjust very, very quickly.

Joe Rouse (36:09)

That's

what I'm curious about. As a business owner, right? And teamed up with your wife, what was the... Maybe tell me about the first moment where maybe you, assuming this happened, maybe it didn't, you went to bed at night and you were a little unsure about revenue or about business or things had slowed down. Maybe the newness wore off a little bit.

Andy Szwejbka (36:31)

Well, I'll try to address that, but something I'll mention just because I thought of it here was, know, when we opened, I spent, so we finished construction technically September 1st. I then had a month. I spent the first two weeks of September in production, so we were distilling, and then the last two weeks of September hiring staff, hiring and training staff.

But I didn't have a bar manager because that was my role then, right? So like the month of October of 23, I was here constantly. I opened every day, I closed every day. And just what I thought of was when we closed every single night, it takes about an hour.

to clean up and just get things set back up. That's pretty standard at any bar or restaurant you work at. But I was there every night and we held like a small huddle with all the staff and we talked about, all right, what went well, what didn't go well, what can we do better the next day? And so certainly that first month we held that meeting every single night. And so I think that was important just in terms of what you were talking about. In terms of the revenue, mean, it's still a thing.

This is an equity intensive industry to be in. As we've grown and we try to scale, so have our bills, right? So, you know, I mentioned that we source bourbon, you know, I got eight barrels coming in soon, but that's a $25,000 check I got to write. We get, you know, maybe I tend to order about 3000 bottles at a time. That's a $10,000 check we got to write.

It's like we, the bar is profitable and we make a little money each day and then I write these massive checks. And so like any business, is king. Ours happens to be particularly equity intense. And so that pressure is still, you know, prevalent today. I think, I hope as when we hit those distribution goals that, that that eases a little bit. Certainly that's what I'm hoping for.

as we sit here today.

Joe Rouse (38:30)

Trust me, having a second location and pouring all money into opening it.

Andy Szwejbka (38:32)

Yeah!

for sure. you know, that's kind of, you know, the summer are great months for us. This particular time of year, we're sitting here in February, you know, January, no matter what we do is going to be slow. February still was slow. Yeah, it does.

It's definitely more prevalent. It is more of a trend. You know, we do offer non-alcoholic cocktails that we try to appeal to people and say, even if you do in dry January, you can still come out and enjoy some time with your friends. think it, you know, frankly, dry January has an impact. I really think it has more to do with just being a new year. Maybe people are getting those credit card bills from all the Christmas presents they bought and they say, all right, we got to tighten up this month and we're going to go out less. And I think.

That's the comment. And then of course, you know, we don't have that Taurus influx for Surf City, right? So no matter what we do January and February, gonna be a little bit slower. It starts to pick up around March. And so again, the challenge when it comes to, you know, I'm writing big checks right now in anticipation of what March, April and May are gonna bring to make sure that we have the spirits ready to go and ready to sell to bring in that revenue months down the road.

Joe Rouse (39:41)

Have you, so it's interesting that you say January and February. I want to say you're probably the second or, probably the second third business owner I've spoken to who talks about how revenue is different in January and February. And I say that because it's also, it's different in the gym business, with a group training, personal training business as well. And it could be because people just spend a lot of money in December on everything. It's interesting in our business because we get, there's a significant amount of interest.

Andy Szwejbka (39:59)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Joe Rouse (40:05)

But as far as taking action on that interest, it's significantly harder to get people in the door just to meet and talk about how we can help get healthier. But that time, January, February, it's almost like we have to plan ahead for that, even in our business.

Andy Szwejbka (40:18)

Yeah, I that

first year. again, October of 23, we opened, we had a great, you know, fall the newness of us in October. We had a great month. November was great. By December, we start to see an increase in bottle sales for gifts. And so our merchandise room does very, very well. December. Typically what we see is maybe the bar slows down a little bit, but revenue kind of stays the same because it's, you know, supplemented by bottle sales.

But then, and then we happen to host a pretty popular New Year's Eve party. So we close out December 31st, really solid after a solid month. And then it's one January and it's faster, feemin' or feast or famine, right? And so that that's definitely the time where in that first year, January 24, I thought I was prepared. I was not. It was emotional just to be looking at it and looking at the.

bills that we had to pay and how do we plan. I was slightly more prepared for it last year and again this year I hope that we're even better prepared for it and part of that is just having a little bit more revenue, a little bit more you know kind of cash reserve for working capital.

Joe Rouse (41:31)

Yeah, I could imagine that being an experience to go through. Oh, yeah. And people who haven't been through it won't understand it necessarily. Maybe if you got somebody who has a job and they are really struggling to make ends meet or something and they're worried about their mortgage, but it's like when you got a business, it's like, and you're looking, you know these big bills are coming or you know the lease is coming up, your rent's gonna

Andy Szwejbka (41:53)

sure.

Yeah.

Joe Rouse (41:53)

know, stuff like that. All those things that cut into your expenses are coming. You've got to consider things that might even be months down the road.

Andy Szwejbka (41:59)

Yeah, and especially, know, with, again, because we source bourbon, I kind of have a luxury of not having to forecast four or five years out. We're kind in that four month forecast period. One I need to buy to do our internal two month period so that we can dump the barrels in time to get them bottled in time to have ready to sell. But.

The spirits industry, particularly with bourbon and whiskey that ages, they're trying to forecast demand four or five years from now. And so that's even more challenging than what it is I face, but it still has challenges here.

Joe Rouse (42:35)

Yeah, yeah. So do you have enough data, or said it's been almost two years? Do you feel like you have enough data, and it's an experience, I guess, to prep for those slower times now? I mean, you kind of alluded to that, right? Yeah.

Andy Szwejbka (42:40)

Little over two years, yeah, over two years.

I think, mean, fortunately for me, I can say we've never been at risk of missing payroll. So that's great. Really it's been more about a decision of I would want to order this right now, but let's wait a few weeks, something like that. And that has bit me a few times where, you know, as a result of delaying a certain purchase, we didn't have a certain product, maybe a couple months down the road. So we do try to limit that now, certainly.

But it does happen. And for me this year, kind of the theme, last year we focused on some product developments. We came out with a new product called Marine Raider Rye, which is a rye whiskey. Very, very popular. That took a big effort to actually bring to market. Harder than just, I could have developed a Hidden Ships Rye Whiskey. It would have been pretty straightforward. But we wanted to do this in honor of

Marine Special Operations Command. And so there were some extra licensing agreements, some extra legal hurdles that we had to figure out before I could bring that to market. So that was a big effort last year. We also launched 50 milliliter, the airplane-sized bottles. That was a big goal for us. And then the third thing that we worked on last year was what we called direct-to-consumer sales. So I sell through the ABC system in North Carolina, but we can sell...

to customers in 45 states where we ship it directly to their door. So that was kind of product development for last year. That was the theme. This year, the theme is how do we scale smartly? So scaling smartly is my theme. To give you an example of that, we recently had an issue with our supply chain on our bottles, which hadn't been an issue for the first couple of years we were open.

But we had some supply chain issues that we're still struggling with, but what that's prompted is really two things. One, I got a larger storage space that we can now receive more bottles at once. instead of, because we have this space, I have a shed in the back. At the time I had another 10 by 10 storage unit down the road just for some surplus. That has now been transformed into a 45 foot long, it's technically an RV storage unit.

Joe Rouse (44:57)

That's what I'm picturing.

Andy Szwejbka (44:58)

⁓

So we have that and that's going to allow me to bring in more bottles at once. It's also prompting us to sign a contract to have a custom bottle made this year. So we'll be transitioning bottles. And that was lessons learned from saying, what do mean you don't have bottles? I projected the bottles I needed. You told me you'd have them for me. And now I'm putting in my purchase order. You're telling me none are available.

Joe Rouse (45:22)

because other people use the same.

Andy Szwejbka (45:24)

Yeah,

exactly. They can use it if they want it. So now we're working with a company that'll be totally custom to us. We'll have the intellectual property on it so no one else can use it. But again, scaling, right? So I used to buy three pallets at a time, about 10 grand. Now I have to commit to 21 pallets at a time, what they call a container, and that's a $45,000 commitment. So how do I scale smartly?

I have the space for it now, that's a win. And now, you know, we'll figure out the money. What's nice about paying that bill upfront is obviously, you know, for the next six months after that, I don't have any more bottling expense, right? Yeah. That's what, yeah. Well, maybe even, yeah. I mean, we want to increase, right? So Cedric is out there selling. I told him, like, you keep selling, we'll figure it out. good problems to have, but first two years,

We did about 12,000 bottles a year. This past year in 2025, we were at about 15,000 bottles. So this container of 21,000 bottles, in theory, lasts us a little over a year, maybe a year and a quarter, something like that. But if we can increase our sales through the ABC system, then yeah, then that 21,000 bottles should be about a year. And then we'll scale from there.

two or three of them a year. That's ideally where we kind of grow into.

Joe Rouse (46:49)

Run you I can't think of a good term right now. Is it ever okay? Distribution we've got bars and restaurants and we have ABC stores and then you just mentioned essentially I would kind of call it drop shipping but like direct to consumer like you can ship to consumers 40 Do we almost have to look at this as like three or

Andy Szwejbka (47:03)

Yeah, 45 states.

bar.

Joe Rouse (47:13)

Maybe retail, like three or four separate businesses? It's different marketing plans.

Andy Szwejbka (47:18)

Yeah.

Different marketing, different strategy, right? So, you know, I sell bottles to the bar that supports all the cocktails that we sell. But the way the state considers it is it moves from this distillery area and then I sell it to myself. Right. And so I have reporting and taxes and all that stuff that's due for it. And then I sell bottles to my merchandise room and then we sell those full bottles to customers that come in here. We sell the bottles to the ABC system.

So that's that stream of revenue from that and then we have the what we call again direct to consumer stream of revenue and so they are different now we don't We don't have a ton of revenue coming in through that channel Some of that is a deliberate decision on my part because to really increase sales there. We'd have to significantly increase Say our advertising budget for that specifically

Most of the sales that we see through that are largely organic. And I look at it as more of a service offering to our customers. So specific to being a tourist destination, we have a lot of visitors over the summer. Maybe they flew in, they don't want to fly home with a bottle. We can offer them when they're maybe buying a t-shirt, hey, just so you know, you can order right here on this QR code and the bottles will be waiting for you when you get home. So that's a service offering more so than driving a significant

source of revenue right now, I like that we're positioned in that space. Of course, e-commerce in general is only increasing. so we're positioned, we have a great partnership with that company that does all the fulfillment. We're just not driving it. Our focus is in-state sales distribution to the ABC system.

Joe Rouse (48:50)

That's

smart you to focus on the one the main keep the main thing the main thing

Andy Szwejbka (48:54)

And certainly it is. mean, and to add a fifth just for down the road, I again, going back to my business plan, this is what I said, and it's still true today. We won't look for traditional out of state distribution, meaning it's available in another state's liquor store till about year five. And I think that's still true today being two and a half years in that there's an awful lot of spirits that we can sell in this state and we need to get that foothold.

learn those lessons, build the framework, know that we can scale to that level before we would look to commit to any kind of out-of-state distribution deal.

Joe Rouse (49:29)

I think that's wise. I that's how it should be done. because I would assume the revenue can be strong just being insane.

Andy Szwejbka (49:35)

Yeah,

we certainly hope so. And based on our increase from three boards to 13 or 14 boards, we've seen that already kind of start to get some of the fruit of that labor coming in.

Joe Rouse (49:49)

Do you have a goal per quarter on how many more boards per quarter or is it a slower add?

Andy Szwejbka (49:55)

Last

year I set a goal and I'm big on goal setting. think you are too. My wife and I do a goals retreat every year. I remember, think I it on social media. Yeah, so we did it again this year. So going back to last year, I set a goal of there's 140 boards. I wanted to be in 35 of them by the end of 2025, which would have represented 25 % of the state. Okay. I thought let's put that mark on.

And as it turned out again, most of the year I...

I wasn't able to be as good a sales rep as I wanted to be because I'm also doing everything else in the business, right? Not everything else, but I have to kind of keep eyes on overall the business. And so didn't hit that mark. That's okay. I think we were probably by the end of 2025, you know, maybe like eight or nine boards, something like that. So not, not terrible. And it wasn't terrible to go after and pursue getting 25%. So this year I didn't really set

Joe Rouse (50:47)

Yeah.

Andy Szwejbka (50:50)

A specific goal. it has more to do with having Cedric on the team, knowing that he's out there focused on this daily, doing all those followups. And we've, you we've already seen a significant increase in distribution sales. so I didn't set a number per se. I have a number of overall, like, like I said, by October of this year, our 36 month in business Mark.

that the sales from distribution should at least equal what the bar does is doing. And I obviously have solid data on what the bar does for the last two years. And so what I've always said is if we can get to that point, then again, I can sleep better at night.

Joe Rouse (51:29)

how many does that take?

Andy Szwejbka (51:30)

I don't have a number in terms of how many ABC stores. It's more about revenue, right?

Joe Rouse (51:36)

and sales in a given area so that can fair any profit. Okay, so as the founder.

Andy Szwejbka (51:39)

It varies, yeah.

Joe Rouse (51:43)

Do you foresee, let's, mean as you scale, like are you, let me backtrack. How much do are you in house now, like here?

Andy Szwejbka (51:50)

Pretty often. I spend almost... I don't have a set schedule, which is one of the things I love, retiring from the Marine Corps, which is very regimented. And I actually did well in that environment. But one of the things I looked forward to a lot when I was still in and thinking about retirement was I wanted to...

to own my schedule. wanted the freedom of schedule to control it myself, right? Yeah, and I love it now. And so, you know, I'm here, you know, five, six days a week at some point throughout the day. Some days are long days when we're distilling. We bottled most of the yesterday, almost all day. So I'm here for all of that. So I'm here often. I try not to be here in the evenings as much anymore. Again, you talk about building a team. I mentioned Cedric, but really from day one,

The current bar manager, she was a day one hire. She grew into the role of being the manager and she pretty much handles everything on the front of house. So I have to think very little about what occurs in the bar now. That's great. Yeah. That's wonderful. And it allows me to focus externally, right? Yeah. One of the things I've picked up from various business mentors or heard it somewhere was the more you work in your business, the less you can work on your business.

And so I've had to kind of balance that of I need to be working on the business, thinking externally, thinking how we're going to grow. Some of that's marketing, advertising, whatever, thinking about scaling smartly or figuring out those bottle supply chains. Understanding that we are still a small business. Yes, I do lots of work in it, but I try to have the right team around us to fill those other roles.

Joe Rouse (53:20)

Do you ever see yourself scaling out completely? Maybe not 100 %

Andy Szwejbka (53:25)

but

I would say. Yeah. I don't think I'll ever be an absentee owner. There's nothing wrong with that. just don't think that's our model. ⁓ Right. I going back to my business plan that I wrote, I thought it was solid, but I probably could have been criticized in that plan for not having an exit strategy. Two plus years in, I still don't have an exit strategy.

Joe Rouse (53:27)

All right.

You get to choose things about it.

Andy Szwejbka (53:50)

I think there's some opportunities where right now I'm kind of thinking, what do we look like eight years from now, so our 10 year mark? And what opportunity could that present itself in terms of, does it have enough brand equity to sell at that point? Or is there some situation where I sell percentages of it and maybe sit more of in a board role or something like that where maybe I...

have a part in profit sharing but am less active in the day-to-day operations, I think that is all becomes possible. But we have a lot of work to do between now and then to even create those opportunities.

Joe Rouse (54:28)

This seems like the kind of business you can do that with.

Andy Szwejbka (54:30)

I think so. mean, yeah, there's, there are some spirit companies that set off from day one with an exit strategy. and they typically though, like I have multiple spirits, Faka gin, rum and bourbon, rye whiskey, right? Usually what you'll see in the spirits industry is someone will create a specific brand in a specific one spirit. Maybe they're going to do gin and they'll try to build that.

with the intention of being bought out with one of the three or four big players in the industry. And that works. know, Ryan Reynolds, Aviation Gin was around before he bought into the company. The celebrity endorsements certainly helps, but it doesn't always work. There's other examples where it didn't work very well. Ryan Reynolds with Aviation, that was a great example. He was actively building that brand, and then they were able to sell it to one of the big three or four players that are in the industry.

and had a massive payout at the end of all that. And so I don't think that that's my business model per se. I think what we can do is build it over the next eight years as a functioning distillery that offers multiple spirits. And then what I would like to do, what I envision is selling it to someone that wants to scale it to a level that I'm not willing or wanting to scale it to, right? So if I can make this

you know, certainly regional brand recognition, and I can sell to someone that has enthusiasm and ambition to make it a national brand, you know, that would be the perfect situation for me eight years from now. So that's kind of how I think about it. No, no, like I said, I truly, I mean, I didn't have an exit strategy. You know, all I ever said was I don't want to run it when I'm 70.

Joe Rouse (56:03)

Is that how you started out thinking?

Andy Szwejbka (56:14)

I knew that for sure. But beyond that, no, I would say kind of this 10-year horizon has kind of developed over last two years.

Joe Rouse (56:23)

It's interesting how, first it's great to have control over it, but it's interesting how much visions change and how much you don't know about what you don't know. Like when you first start, and even just as you go through business, just how things change, right? Like you can be so passionate about something, especially when you first open it, and then to think like, well, maybe I can sell this to somebody else.

Andy Szwejbka (56:45)

Yeah, and I think entrepreneurs will inherently understand that, whereas those that look at what you and I do and they just think it's too risky, right, they may never understand it. for me it was prepare as much as I can, study as much as I can, know as much as I can while knowing that I'll never know it all. And that's a tough thing to do.

Joe Rouse (56:46)

Right person came along.

Andy Szwejbka (57:08)

So, you know, I had people asking me certain specific questions while we were in construction, while we first opened, about, you know, things that I didn't think mattered. If I would have tried to wait to figure it all out, you'll never do it. You'll never take the action, right? You can't know it all. That doesn't mean don't do your due diligence. That means prepare. So part of me doing that graduate program was preparation to know as much as I could.

doing the Moonshine University was preparation to know as much as I could. And then understanding that you'll never know it all. So if you wait to have all the answers, you won't take any action. And I would say that was for me probably another lesson that I learned from the Marine Corps. know, early on in my career, I had a hard time with this concept of making decisions based on 70 % of the information. Because I'm probably more naturally, you know,

I kind of want more information. And so the Marine Corps taught me, hey, you know what, you'll never get all the information. Make the best decision possible that you can with 70%. And so I think that lesson carried over to running this business. That's a valuable lesson. Yeah.

Joe Rouse (58:14)

I've

never heard it put in percentages like that, but that really makes sense. I think early on I heard the term, imperfect action is always better than no action. And people who haven't...

Andy Szwejbka (58:21)

Yeah.

Joe Rouse (58:23)

own a business or been in a leadership role or like been responsible for other people or something bigger than themselves maybe they don't understand like they can they may even criticize from the outside. Sure. You did this but you didn't do this quite right you didn't do this quite right or maybe you have a staff member trying to give you feedback and feedback's valuable. Sure. But there's always things that certain people don't understand and it's like no but we got it out there we got it started and now we'll the process and we'll make it better.

Andy Szwejbka (58:49)

Yeah, there's a really great passage called Man in the Arena by Teddy Roosevelt. I have a copy of it in my office and I read it pretty often. But essentially, it's easy to criticize. It's much harder to be the man in the arena or to will update it and be more politically correct just to be that person in the arena. Right. So taking those risks, making the best decisions that you can at the time, knowing that it's imperfect. Right. So we're not going to do nothing. Like I said before, if you wait for it to be perfect,

you'll never do it, because it won't ever be perfect. And even going back to when we wrote that big check and made the decision to go after it, you know, sooner than we had thought, it was, okay, here's the information we have. I got criticized even back in 2022 about, the market's shifting, now's not the right time to be opening any business, let alone spirits. It's like, well, if you wait for it to be perfect, you know, it's never gonna be. ⁓

Joe Rouse (59:42)

What

was the market supposed to shift?

Andy Szwejbka (59:44)

Oh, there's

a market shift. mean, we talked briefly about, you know, non-alcoholic cocktails and that is a growing trend in the industry. Oh, like alcohol is sitting down. Yeah, correlating with that is a general decline in spirit sales nationally and internationally, globally. Beer and wine have had significantly bigger decreases than the spirits industry has, but overall there's still been a decline in sales. Well, that's true, but we're a craft distillery.

Joe Rouse (1:00:12)

Yeah.

Andy Szwejbka (1:00:13)

there is plenty of room for us still to grow, even with a national trending decline in sales, right? And so...

Joe Rouse (1:00:20)

to craft than they are nationally. I don't know if numbers show that. I would just say from experience and talking and meeting people all over the country in business, like everything, we go, it's like, what do you have that's local? Whether it's beer, whether it's spirits, it's.

Andy Szwejbka (1:00:22)

Yeah, and I agree.

Yeah, I would say the numbers, you know, the numbers do show that there's a genuine interest by the consumer to know the story and connect to the brand. 100%. And that's why we wanted to be transparent with storytelling, you know, from day one. We got our corn in North Carolina and here's why. There's some distilleries that maybe shy away from being overly open with the fact that they source spirits.

We've never shied away from that. We're proud to partner with Southern Distilling. We think they're a great company to partner with. They make a great base bourbon and then we take it and we make it unique through our secondary aging and we think we make it better. In fact, that particular spirit was called best bourbon under eight years old at a Berlin spirit show last year. so, you know, market differation, whatever, bringing something unique to the market, right? And so, yeah, I think that's.

Joe Rouse (1:01:24)

Nobody

else has done this. Locally, mean, I don't think there's maybe something open in like, Anzillo County or something. I don't remember if I heard something like a distillery open, but locally, mean, you absolutely jumped into, like, as an entrepreneur, if you can find a problem to solve, usually you can be successful, at least for a little while, and you definitely jumped into a market in this area that was completely underserved or not served at all.

Andy Szwejbka (1:01:52)

Yeah, think. Yeah, certainly from a distillery that there's, you know, we're in Pender County where the only distillery still we were the first and now only in Pender County. There's certain pros and cons to being first. You know, one, you have to figure it out. People don't know. You know, can we even have it right? Yeah. So we had to be the first kind of break that ground and, know, and now the benefit of being first is even if another distillery pops up, I think it's good to be first. And, you know,

Joe Rouse (1:01:52)

from a distillery standpoint,

Andy Szwejbka (1:02:22)

the area is growing, maybe it supports another distillery, that would be okay. We'll always have that distinction of being the first. So I think that's a good thing. So, yeah.

Joe Rouse (1:02:31)

That helps a lot. There's been plenty of gyms that have come and gone. Most have actually stayed pretty well in the like, Hampstead area. And I've been through it. There's an F45 that's going to be opening up. We've always had at least one CrossFit a quarter mile from us. At one point it was both. Bought up the other one years ago. But it's, I don't know, just adjust your marketing plan. You do what you gotta do. And more on ads. You do what you gotta do.

Andy Szwejbka (1:02:35)

Sure.

Sure. Yeah, I remember. Oh yeah.

for short.

Joe Rouse (1:03:00)

Sometimes I've found that it actually helps business over time.

Andy Szwejbka (1:03:04)

Yeah, mean, yeah, I mean you have to. ⁓

Joe Rouse (1:03:06)

I don't love it.

I'm very competitive, but I still love to get to know other business owners and stuff. I've found it's helped us more than it's hurt us.

Andy Szwejbka (1:03:19)

I mean in your business and again having been a member like do a great job of building that community building those relationships You know, obviously you want to attract new potential customers, but you know customer retention also, right? And so For sure. Yeah. Yeah building those relationships over time helping people see those results Absolutely. So it's correlation

Joe Rouse (1:03:31)

Thank you.

Track here

like the difference or can you even track like returning visitors versus new visitors? Yeah.

Andy Szwejbka (1:03:47)

Yeah,

I we get data through our point of sale system. I would say the general trend is it's actually pretty even for us. Some months are greater than others, obviously, but on an annual basis. I haven't pulled the full two and a half years at one data, but even like annual reviews were generally about 60 % new, 40 % returning, something like that.

Joe Rouse (1:04:12)

I would assume that's probably typical for a beach area.

Andy Szwejbka (1:04:15)

Yeah, because this summer, obviously, we're trying to attract as many of those visiting tourists as we can. But you have a limited opportunity to let them, if they're here for a week, you know, we have to kind of let them know we're here on their day one so that a few days later they come in. I think one of the things that's over time is that now we are a little bit more well known in general amongst the community. So.

they're recommending other people to come see us as an attraction. And we've tried some marketing techniques of, you know, we have, you know, fridge magnets, you know, in the rental properties, several, you know, that's one way several hundred magnets that are out there in rentals. And so if they rent the place and they see us on their fridge, then maybe they'll come see us.

Joe Rouse (1:04:58)

Yeah, I could see that, especially as a local place. Right. you want to go somewhere local. So I got two more questions. I thought I didn't realize we were already over an hour. Have you mentioned mentors? Have you had any, early on or even now, did you have anybody who sat down with you and was like, Andy, this is exciting. I see your passion. I think you're going to be successful. Here's all of the...

the terrible things that you're gonna deal with. Here's why I would say this, this is a really tough business to be in.

Andy Szwejbka (1:05:30)

no. and I'll try to answer that in two ways. Number one, wouldn't say, I guess he's been a mentor in some extent. although I pay him, I had a fantastic consultant. so yeah, sure. And you pay for coaching sometimes and you pay for mentoring and that's okay. fantastic consultant. when I went to moonshine you that

curriculum has a base set of instructors that are on staff, but then they have other outside instructors that are essentially consultants come in and teach certain portions. So one of my lessons learned from doing the course was I need a consultant. So we got back, like we do with all things, can I find a consultant in North Carolina? And sure enough, found one. There's a very popular distillery down in Wilmington called End of Days.

I've gotten to know that owner pretty well. It's a fantastic establishment and they're doing great as they go into their sixth year or something like that. But when they first opened, I was at their grand opening and he was their master distiller for their grand opening. Worked with them with that company for the first two years, decided to leave it and start his own distillery consulting company. And now he's got clients all over the country, all over the world.

But when I was looking for consultants, I went to his website. He had some photos of him being an end of days. And so when I had my phone call, I mentioned that with them. And of course, that's when we realized that I had met him at that grand opening, which was very, very cool connection. But I realized from day one that I needed, I had him on retainer. You know, again, talk about forming a team or, you know,

there's a saying of, you know, try never to be the smartest person in the room. And I have certain skill sets that I think I bring to the table. But I understand that I can't be an expert. I don't want to be an expert in all those areas. And so, you know, I told them what my vision was. I want to be able to make Fakajin rum and bourbon. He said, buy this equipment. Right. so, right. And whatever I've paid him, he's helped save me 10 X.

because I didn't have to waste money and learn those harder lessons and make those mistakes. He consults now with companies that maybe didn't bring him, bring someone like him in early. And he has to go in and just say, best thing you could do now is scrap this equipment and buy new stuff, right? And that's a very costly mistake. So I didn't, I had the benefit of not having those types of mistakes because I had a great consultant. So industry specific, I would say, you know, that's what I had for that.

Outside of that, you talk about mentors. I've had some great mentors that I've never met in person, because I've read their books. And so I've been committed to lifelong learning for the last 15 plus years of my life. And spent many, many years, again, while was still in the Marine Corps, what we would generally just call personal development. But how do I get myself better? How do I become the best version of myself?

And a lot of that's through reading some of these great books that are available. So I spent years and years and years doing that. That's how I ended up teaching a goals seminar was I had worked through so many other goals systems and that I started to piece together my own system, did that for a number of years. And it was again, actually Amy, that was like, oh, you should offer this to other people. I was like, okay, well, we can do that. And so that's just, but that came after a decade plus of development.

Joe Rouse (1:08:43)

What's a you'd recommend somebody won't know about business? Maybe in general, somebody who has a similar entrepreneurial mindset.

Andy Szwejbka (1:08:46)

Yeah, I mean...

I always go back and...

And it's a harder read, so that's I'm hesitant. But there's just a classic personal development book called Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. that one, if you've never been exposed to any of those kinds of ideas, I think it's a great place to start. And it's stood the test of time, probably written in the mid-80s at this point, but it's still incredibly valuable. nothing else, what you'll learn is,

you have more to learn. So that may put you on a path of reading some other books. There's guys like John Maxwell and Darren Hardy that I've read all of those books and I think those are all incredibly impactful for becoming the best version of yourself.

Joe Rouse (1:09:30)

What's one tip you would give somebody, a new entrepreneur who's trying to break into any business or potentially wants to open a business? Or even if it's a couple of tips rolling in the...

Andy Szwejbka (1:09:39)

Yeah,

think we kind of hit upon it earlier in terms of do the work, work really, really hard to learn as much as you can and then balance that with understanding that you'll never know it all and don't let that fear overtake or cause inaction, right? So take that action. I think the other kind of philosophy that I developed and I developed this philosophy in that lead up of getting to grand opening.

There were multiple days. So I mentioned that we signed a lease and that we had to work on getting funding in that six month period. I was pretty sure on any given day, the whole thing was going to fall apart. And I developed this thought that you have to have an, like a, imagine a bottomless well, an endless well of belief that you'll figure it out.

Joe Rouse (1:10:19)

you

Andy Szwejbka (1:10:30)

There can be no body as soon as you think you've hit the bottom that well you'll figure out that no you It keeps going further. You need more belief to figure it out, right? And so that concept I think correlates to that first point of working really hard But understanding that you'll never know at all but take action and so understand that you have to develop this bottomless well of belief in yourself that you'll figure it out

Joe Rouse (1:10:52)

I

think that's why you're an entrepreneur. Because everything, a mentor of mine one time told me everything, not everything, but just, the term I got from him was it's figure outable. And that having, I love the analogy of the bottomless well, like it's gonna keep going, there's gonna be things you have to figure out, you're not gonna know. I learn new things every year as a business owner of almost 13 years now. It's wild. And there's other people who, I still learn a lot from other people. Maybe haven't even been in as long as I have.

Andy Szwejbka (1:11:02)

Yeah.

sure.

Yeah.

Joe Rouse (1:11:22)

Yeah, it's been impactful. And yeah, I appreciate your time. Yeah.

Andy Szwejbka (1:11:25)

We went a little over, but this was awesome, man. I appreciate you being in here.

Yeah, right on.