Host (00:05)

sometimes they're interview based, like question based, and this is not, this is just a long form, yeah, rambling conversation on the life kind of thing. no, it's all good. Often those little tidbits of the tangents are the golden points. But there is one scripted question, and the only one is, are you from Kelowna?

Peter (00:13)

Stop me when I'm talking too much.

originally or no where are you from I'm from Medicine Hat Alberta the Tigers yeah grew up running around the rink around the top well my dad was watching the games and

Host (00:27)

Yeah, were you born? I'm done

Oh, man, it's the Hot Tigers.

yeah, ⁓ cool. it's how many years were you in medicine half for?

Peter (00:43)

I moved out when I was 22. girlfriend at the time, now my was going up Edmonton to go to school, to go to university. And so I followed her up there. And during that year, we decided we should get married and move to jobs, no potential. We've both been here as kids and I was like...

Host (01:01)

Had you been to Kelowna

Peter (01:05)

I was an avid snowboarder. started snowboarding in 1981 and I wanted to be near lakes. I wanted to be near mountains. And I remember as a kid, you could pick cherries in your yard if you looked at Kelowna. And I went, well, that's pretty much got everything I need. And we basically packed up in May of 1986 and moved here, found a place to live and never looked back. Within two weeks I said,

you're, I'm only leaving this valley in a wooden box. There's there's no getting me out of here now. And Kelowna was quite a bit different in 1986. It was a little scary driving through town when we come again from the North and it was a lot of strip malls and underdeveloped. And we were like, Oh my God, have we made a mistake? And we went, okay, look how beautiful it is here. We'll, we'll figure it out.

Host (01:55)

What area town did you land in originally? No, but what area? ⁓

Peter (01:58)

⁓ Kelowna.

⁓ We were in an apartment building behind the Capri Center there. was like living in the dorms at university.

Host (02:09)

Is it still there? Yeah,

is that the one on like that green one? The apartment building is all in there.

Peter (02:13)

I don't know. There's like 20.

And it was literally like there was cars doing burnouts at four in the morning. Yeah, it was interesting.

Host (02:25)

Yeah, totally different.

Was Orchard Park Mall built back then? that was there.

Peter (02:30)

But

there was still a 40 foot Fred out where. So, yeah, it was old school Kelowna, you know, the 80s was the recession. Apparently, I mean, we were too young to really understand what that even meant.

Host (02:44)

My thinking about that my so my parents they bought their house right before giant housing. I don't know what you call it in the 80s where interest rates Yeah, up to like 19 20 % Yeah, and she actually this was just a couple years ago. She found their old

mortgage statement like year-end annual statement you got so they were working full-time paying a lot of their wage to the house yeah and at the end of the year they had paid a total of like twelve dollars and thirty two cents off the principal of the mortgage and you're just like

Peter (03:17)

Thanks

I can't even imagine. you could buy houses all over this area here for 30 to $40,000 basically. Which in hindsight, what we should have done is took all of our money, bought a house, renovated it yeah.

Host (03:38)

everything's fine.

Well, that was me, like when John was on the podcast, you know, he was a waiter at the keg and on a waiter's salary, he could save enough for a down payment and bought his house. It's like, wow, the times are so different.

Peter (03:49)

yeah.

It's crazy. Yeah. We bought, we ended up moving to the West side and we bought a lot over there. It's like almost three quarters of an acre, 270 degree Lakeview for 34,000. Yeah, I know. We're like, and we were like, that's a lot of money, you know? And my dad came and he's like, this isn't the flat law. I'm like, but look at the view. And he goes, yeah, but it's a lot of money, you know?

Host (04:02)

Wow.

Who knew?

Peter (04:15)

Who

knew that would be $500,000 now for a lot?

Host (04:17)

Yeah,

or more. So you came here without a job. what was your first job?

Peter (04:23)

We both took jobs in the hospitality industry and the restaurants. I was the kind of the bar manager where you know where where Tam is now the Mexican restaurant right on the highway. Yeah. So that was a I forget what they were trying to do something kind of sort of fine dining came out of that when I was in Edmonton I was working in hospitality as well and doing some bartending and had already developed a little bit of an interest in wine.

yeah, we both started working in the hospitality industry and both of our restaurants went out of business within a month of each other and stiffed us on our last paycheck. we're like, wow, I don't like working for other people anymore. How are we going to pay it rent this month? Right. So yeah, was, we decided at that point that we were not, at least not immediately, we weren't going to work for anybody anymore. And so ⁓ we started up a

Host (04:57)

Cool.

Ouch.

Peter (05:14)

deli restaurant in what was the main street market, beside sort of behind MEC. There's that giant.

Host (05:22)

yeah, the white building where the wood fire bakery is.

Peter (05:25)

Yes,

exactly. okay. Yeah. So that started off as kind of a Granville Island-y. Yeah. And they just, they were in way over their head and maybe even ahead of their times or anything. So we ended up, I learned what a midnight move was, where you line up trucks and you move your business You start at six o'clock at night and by the morning your business is empty. When they show up, there's no one there. Yeah. I've never heard We were about to lose all of our equipment and everything. Everything was, it was very sketchy. Yeah. And so.

Host (05:30)

Yeah. Concept? It was cool back in...

Peter (05:55)

we ended up moving over to Springfield Road, where I think it's still Delhi City. And that was our first business that we ran for five years. that's neat. There was two couples. basically, I had the most cooking experience, nothing professionally. the other couple, the wife was really great at sales.

Host (06:03)

And you did it together?

Peter (06:18)

We kind of each found our place. My wife ended up being a master caterer and things like that based on that and Learned it on the fly kind of Yeah, that was a little scary too there was a but we knew we wanted to do it we work six days a week and on Sundays that we'd go to big white or Hit the lake or whatever and just try to enjoy that the reason why we moved to Kelowna

Host (06:27)

So cool. Wow.

Yeah. yeah. To not lose sight of that, right?

Peter (06:45)

We

were watching it through the window going, so we moved to Kelowna and we're seeing it from the inside of an air conditioned space. That's not right.

Host (06:52)

Yeah, my goodness you got him in the grind. So then how many how many years did you were you at delhi? Was it called delhi?

Peter (06:59)

It was called Deli Studio right at the beginning. Yeah. We did that for five years and our partners were about 10 years older, so they already had kids and we didn't have kids yet, but we wanted to have kids and we're like, how does that work? How do we fit kids into this lifestyle? We understood how the old adage was, if you have a restaurant, your kids are going to be in the back and we're like, that's probably what's going to happen, right? So we sold to our partners, we sold out our shares to them.

I started working in the alcohol business. was working for Okanagan Spring Brewery. they had never had a rep sort of in the South Okanagan. It was back when there was three breweries in all of British Columbia that were not commercial breweries. And so I was, you know, heading out and letting people try these beers that everyone thought were terrible. They're like, you know, how do you, what do have to do to make a beer taste that bad? I'm like, no, you don't understand. It's not.

It's not commercial beer, it's there's beer with. It's in Germany and yeah, so got very tough skin and really good at handling rejection, but toughed it out for probably five years with Okanagan Spring and developed a whole Okanagan and Kootenay territory and sort of introduced the first craft brew taps. You know, my big mission was getting rid of kokanee. I would even tell the other breweries cause I think it was.

Host (07:54)

Water. ⁓

That's all.

Peter (08:21)

Vancouver Island and Gravel Island and there's very few. And I'm like, I'm never gonna take one of your taps. We're all in this together and we're just trying to get some, any visibility to people at all. Because once people try it, they're gonna like it. And it's funny, the parallels to coffee are the same way, right? Most of the world drinks commercial beer and commercial coffee.

Host (08:45)

Yeah. it's interesting. Like you are, your experience you've had with the craft beer is right from the beginning. Yeah. Very unique. yeah. You were in it at the beginning.

Peter (08:55)

doing all the liquor store tastings, everything. So I was getting the direct feedback and it was, it was interesting. Especially the old grizzled, you know, the lagers and the, the rednecks that came in and they're in there. No one's turning down a free sample of beer. So. Yeah, that's true. You know, I'd give them the lager and they're like, oh, that's, you know, a little bit too much flavor, you know? And then they'd get to the IPA and they're like, what? Like, or a porter or anything like that. And they're like, this, this is terrible. Like you should quit your job while you're ahead. Oh my goodness. Go on.

Host (09:24)

Good thing he didn't quit. So what when do you think was the like did you feel a dramatic shift at any particular point where all of a sudden things started changing the craft beer game momentum?

Peter (09:36)

Absolutely. Yeah, it was basically I think was the guys that started Shaftbury. ⁓ They were I think they were working at

story now if it was they were working at Earl's or anyways they won like the $100,000 lottery the big ticket right and and one of them decided to open up

the restaurant chain and the other one decided to start a brewery. And so they sort of, they were kind of the cool, hip new brewery in the lower mainland. Most of the other breweries had been started by older kind of German influenced style brewers and beers. And even the brewers were from Europe. And these guys were more like the US, ⁓ California West Coast vibe. And they were so busy that they were

literally cranking out beers like on a weekly basis instead of letting them age. And they started coming out to the Valley and we were already established with taps in most places and then they would get taps and then we all was that really all of a sudden started that second wave of craft brewing where you saw a lot of the breweries that are still around today that opened up and sort of really exploded. was cool to see it because there was nothing when we started. was every brewery or every.

bar you went into was like, what you want to do? What you make beer, how, you know, it's, but yeah.

Host (10:57)

Wow, what did like, it's so different than what it is now. ⁓

Peter (11:00)

Yeah, yeah, it's

great. It's been, it's been awesome to watch it because I always knew that that could happen. And I really believed in the whole movement. And I knew that, that once people tasted, you know, what the different styles of beers that were out where they would eventually go on. I, I converted so many people from mainstream lager to hoppy IPAs. And the first sip is always like, what, what?

What is this and then you know within a week or two they're like, that's all I buy now ⁓

Host (11:33)

Your palate just needs a moment to adjust.

Peter (11:35)

Absolutely.

You can't go back either, right? They're like, shit. You go back and you're like, that other beer is actually sweet. And you're like, yeah. You wouldn't think that when you were drinking it, sweetness is never something that you thought of when you drank a coconut or a Canadian. ⁓ But once you have had beers that actually have proper bitterness and balance of flavor, you go back to them and they're like, ⁓ that's why people like this. Cause it's adult pop.

Host (11:38)

You can't.

Yes.

No, you don't associate-

Peter (12:02)

That's basically a popper adults, right?

Host (12:04)

Yeah,

with a kick. It's kind of, yeah, very interesting. So you're at Okanagan Springs and then when was your next move?

Peter (12:11)

Well, the next move was because Nelson Brewing Company had started up while I was there and they were, that was part of my territory. And so my typical plan was when I did a city that had a little brewery, I would go to them first. I go, hi, I'm Peter. I'm with Okanog Spring because we were, you know, the established big boys, which was funny because we were small. And I would lay it out and say, I'll never take one of your taps, you know, cause I respect that this is a movement that we're trying to create here.

I said, so I just see us as partners and we're trying to gain market share for the whole industry. so naturally all the buries that I met were quite open to that and they didn't feel threatened because they were little one, two men from mom and pop shops and now it was the big Okanagan spring was coming in, know, and I'm like, no, that's not me. And so we became friends with the...

I became friends with the guys from Nelson Brewing and started trading beers every time because they liked some of the beers we had and I liked some of the they had. And then one day, Okanagan Spring got purchased by, it was then a venture capital company and then Sleeman's took over and, to their credit, they came and interviewed, everybody in the company and they were, you know, I thought that was very personal, but when I met the, the owner, he,

He basically, at that time, I think there was maybe nine or 10 berries in BC. And his statement to me was, Peter, there's too many micro berries in BC and we're going to do something about it. And I'm like, what? I was like, my brain kind of, I didn't believe what I was hearing. I'm like, this is the opposite of what this whole movement is about. So I came home to my wife and ⁓ said, I'm going to quit, I got to quit my job. And she's like, what?

Host (14:00)

You got to do what? You had kids at this point?

Peter (14:03)

Really? We had one. She was like, yeah, does that make sense right now? And I said, it's just, I can't work for this. It's totally against everything I believe in, right? And like most things that have happened in my life, it's a phone call came like two days later. It's the owners of Nelson Brewing Company. They're like, hey, we need somebody that does what you do because we want to expand. None of the partners want to leave town.

So you're already used to doing that. So how'd you like to come and be our partner and take over marketing and sales for us? And I'm like, are you kidding? And then I assumed that that amount of money would be way out of my reach to even consider. And luckily we had our house that we bought the lot for $34,000 for, and had just enough equity built up, you know, because the market value had gone up and you know, there was a house on it now and everything. And we were able to,

borrow enough money to purchase a quarter share in Nelson Brewing Company and so did that for another five or six years.

Host (15:05)

Wow. Yeah, that's wild. I must say I really really like is it their hazy pale ale? that a yes?

Peter (15:11)

Yes. That

came after my time for sure. There was only four or five core beers when I started there and they were in ⁓ those tall 650 mil bottles and we moved into six packs and then for two years I traveled from Souq to Fernie every month.

Host (15:29)

wow, wait, sooked? How have I tried to drive his ass?

Peter (15:32)

Well, I didn't, I would spend a ⁓ week in Nelson. Yeah. A week in the Okanagan, a week in Vancouver and a week on Vancouver Island and rinse and repeat every month. for a couple of years, I was putting about 60 to 80,000 kilometers on my little mini van and hitting every liquor store sort of south of the number one highway, ⁓ east to west until we had an established distribution and then we hired our first rep.

in the lower mainland to look after that area.

Host (16:03)

How you say that? You've gained like so much knowledge and scaling up a business. Thick skin, that's thick skin. ⁓ wow. But you were able to stay in Kelowna. Yeah.

Peter (16:06)

yeah. Lots of rejection.

Yeah,

cause we really, I mean, we loved it here. My wife loved it here. She had a really great, ⁓ family that she worked for to mark a garden and they were really flexible around parenting and everything like that. And she's so passionate about growing and vegetables and gardening and everything. So they, they would do anything to keep her around. And she was great in the shop because she's like so personable and everything. So yeah, it was, it was really worked out quite well.

Host (16:41)

And so then where did life take you after Nelson Brewing Company?

Peter (16:45)

Ah, well they wanted me, they wanted us to move there because one of my partners wanted to retire and he was kind of the general manager. And at that point we had kids that were close to 10 years old and we were established in town here and we were like, and Nelson, it's only four hours away, but it seems like it's in the middle of nowhere. Like it takes just as long to get from Nelson to Calgary as it does to get from Kelowna to Calgary, even though they're further East, right? But it's because of the road. Right.

Host (17:12)

Yeah, mountain

rangers,

Peter (17:14)

And

it's a small town and I there's great things about small towns and there's not great things about small towns. And I just decided that I didn't want to uproot the whole family and move there. My wife did definitely didn't want to move there. So we decided to sell our shares in Delta Brewing Company. And ⁓ at that point, ⁓ Tree Brewing Company was kind of floundering. I knew again, I knew the owners really well because

We met the same way I met all the other people and they said, well, hey, if you're not at Nelson anymore, why don't you come work for us? We'd like to develop a new beer find a place for you, right? And so we basically worked and put out Hophead IPA, which was the first commercial craft IPA available in BC. And so that was really exciting for me because I had never been able to.

create a recipe right from scratch. know, at Nelson, was always about tweaking what they had and because I was a home brewer before that.

Host (18:14)

So sorry to interject, did you actually you got to brew it at no

Peter (18:17)

At

Nelson, it was more like recipe development. And so I would brew when the brewer would go on holidays. So twice a year for two weeks, I'd put on the boots and gloves and be brewing.

Host (18:27)

Was

who and did you get gain any experience at Auckland Springs?

Peter (18:31)

No, Okanagan Spring was pure. got not brewing experience, but I did because at that time, you know, when when craft brewing was so new, I wanted to go out into the field and know more than anyone I was talking to about craft brew. So they had six brewers up there. So I made an appointment with each brewer to take me on a tour through the brewery and give me their spiel. And so there was one brewer who was particularly more interesting than the rest of them. And he was a...

very well versed, very experienced brewer. I think he already had over 10 years brewing experience at that time. He was just a couple of years older than me and showed me around the brewery and we'd be in a cold room and he'd go behind a tank and he'd bring out this little pop canister of home brew that he'd made that he was conditioning at the brewery and taking advantage of their refrigeration basically. And that's where I tried my first IPA, cause that was the style that he was brewing at home already. And so he let me try it. I'm like,

What is this? Like, it was that first moment of what, what, what am I tasting here? This is crazy. Right. And so he goes, well, you want to learn how to brew? I'm like, yeah. So I guess one of him and one of the other brewers were also home brewers and they had an all grain home brew set up in the basement of one of the, of the other brewers house in Vernon. So that weekend, I went up there and started all, all grain home brewing. then we had a full-time, ⁓ welder.

working at Okanagan spring because they were so busy and so expanding constantly that they had a welder that just he would that's all he did every day was help expand this brewery. And so he would for beer, he would turn a keg into a brew vessel. So as a rep, I would get lots of samples of beer. And so I would just I went to a bar and I go, how much is the deposit on those Guinness kegs? Because they had the biggest kegs.

And they're like, well, they're 150 bucks. I'm like, well, here's 150 bucks. You lost your keg. And then I got the, uh, the welder to turn that those kegs into a home brewing system. And, uh, you know, so that got my interest going in brewing. And that's where, you know, when I became involved in Nelson, one of the stipulations was I really wanted to, I didn't think that their beers were true to style. And so, you know, I decided to be cocky and go, okay, I

Host (20:27)

So...

Peter (20:50)

I would like to come and work with you guys, but I would like to have some creative control over the brew beer. And one of the other partners was the head brewer and he was British. there was, he was like, Hmm. Well, he was like, well, what exactly would you like to do? And so I had, I was ready and I kind of went through each beer and I went, okay, for this one, I, this, I think it's not true to style because of this. And I think we should do this. And so it was all logical and it was all factual. And he was like,

Host (21:02)

Clash of Eagles.

Okay. ⁓

Peter (21:19)

Cool. Let's

do that. that was like, so that went well. then, ⁓ yeah, so that kind of, but that at Okanagan spring, there was none. Like there was, it was all, they were making beer the German way and their brewers all went to, you know, brewing school in Germany and there was no room for anything in there. So it all came after.

Host (21:38)

that's fascinating, ⁓ that's so cool. It's interesting. Yeah, you've just gained all this little knowledge along the way.

Peter (21:41)

Yeah.

And just watching

the industry develop, go, holy cow, who knew, right.

Host (21:51)

Yeah, that's wild. Okay. So where are we at now in the story? You're at tree. And you're starting to.

Peter (21:55)

⁓

So

tree brewing, yeah, that was, we released that new beer, but they had had some really bad financial advice from a family member that was sent to like, go big, you need to go big. And so they went public and they raised a bunch of money and it's the worst thing to do. Like, because you're fighting against companies like Molson and Bats who will, they can afford to lose money to make you go out of business. And so that's essentially what happened. They were

bought out by a like a soda pop company like RC Cola. don't know if you remember. These guys had this mission. They were going to, they were going to crush Molson and Lavats in Vancouver and go after the cheap beer market, which also translates into no profit. And so I got out of that and I just said, this is not, this is not sustainable. And they were, they were, they were so cocky. were like, we're going to

Host (22:33)

Yeah, I do.

Peter (22:54)

double this business in one year and in one year they had halfed the business. And so they basically lost it. And then the whole thing just floundered for a few more years. And then I think it eventually got, I think you got taken up by Big Rock in some sort of a trade deal. not even, I don't know the specifics of that. So what happened there? ⁓ one of the sales reps that I worked at Okanogis Spring with, it's like, well, hey, what are you doing? And I'm like, I don't know. And they're like, well.

She was working for a wine distribution company in the lower mainland who was a big Australian company that they owned 47 wineries and they had no rep in the interior. And she goes, take the job. Like this company is amazing. Their training is amazing. They have good pay and you will get to drink amazing wine. I'm like, geez, I don't see anything wrong with this, right? So ⁓ I jumped on board with that company and I did that for five, five or six years and it was incredible. Yeah.

they pretty much every two months they would fly in a winemaker from one of their properties to Vancouver and ⁓ fly me out to Vancouver and all the reps would spend two days doing training and tasting and it was incredible. Like unbelievable. They had a great training budget. They understood that the people were the most important part of their business, that the people that were facing their end customers had to be the right people or this was never going to work. And so.

Wow. Yeah. So that was, that was my introduction, introduction to the wine world. And so I was traveling up and mostly physically in kind of, the lower part of the interior sort of again, from Kamloops down, but it would occasionally get up to the North and everything like that. So it got a really good, development of the palette development of, you know, marketing of wine and things like that. But I could see that the, the next

sort of progression was going to be to move to Vancouver. And I was like, nah. Cause the only way up in that company was going into management. And I was like, I don't, like even with a raise, I'll be making less money because the cost of living is so crazy. And every time I went to Vancouver, I was like, how do people not carry handguns here in their cars? So that when shit just gets crazy like this, they just like, get out of my way. I just went, don't want to have no.

I didn't want to have anything to do with that. know, just from traveling out there with sales and coming home on a Friday and jumping into that rush hour traffic. And I was like, there's no way you cannot pay me enough money to do that. If I moved to Vancouver, I would want to work where I live and not drive. That's only way it would work. Right? So, it's just not going to happen. And so, yeah, I don't know what happened after that. Geez.

I guess, yeah, that was when I was, was Christmas time is always the craziest time for wine companies because people buy a shit ton of wine at Christmas time and sparkling wine and the wineries do everything they can to entice people to buy their wine, which, ⁓ in the bigger companies includes hanging little free stuff. Yeah. So I remember it was one December and I was crawling around on the floor of Orchard Park Lake Restore, hanging little doodads on bottles going this.

Host (25:54)

Oh right. the bottles, right?

Peter (26:05)

like this is my life, like I'm 40 something years old and I'm on the, no. And I ran into an old friend who had started a little company that I knew nothing about. And he just kind of, I think it was at Doc Willoughby's. And I was there having a beer and he popped in with some friends and he goes, hey, what are up to these days? So we weren't super close, but we knew each other well, we had met through tree brewing and. ⁓

Host (26:09)

You

Peter (26:31)

I said, well, I'm actually hating life right now. He goes, gives me his card. And he was a refrigeration tech and the card said, seller tech on it. And I'm like, seller tech, but you must build wine sellers. That's what probably what it is. I'm like, I'm in the wine business. This could be a cool little venture, you know, right? So I went home and I looked at their website and I realized that they actually sold commercial winery equipment to wineries.

And I went, ⁓ this is way more exciting. This is actually way cooler than I thought it would be. So I phoned him up the next morning and I said, I'm in. said, I want to be your partner. And again, had just enough equity in our house to borrow again, to get into partnership with that. And, ⁓ and that turned out to be one of the best decisions I'd ever made. mean, we were right at the cusp. That was 2007 and we were right at the cusp of.

everybody and their dog wanted to build a winery in the Okanagan. And we were there as the only supply company to sell them like everything you need from the moment the grapes hit the door until the bottling line on the other end. Yeah. So it was, it was crazy. Like my job was just to go out and meet every winery in the Valley and

get to know them and find out if they needed anything and we'd be happy to bring it to them. And so I had a little minivan again. I thought my life was 20 years of minivans and I would load that thing up till the bumper was touching the ground and head south and just start dropping off and talking to people. And yeah, it was quite interesting. So that company is still going, I mean, I'm still a partner in that company today. And we've really seen again,

the wine industry go from, pretty much its infancy, especially considering that I had seen it in 86 already. Like when I was at that first restaurant, when I was developing the wine list, I phoned all the wineries in the Valley and I met them all on the same day.

Host (28:33)

This is when you're on the highway by Tams or whatever it was. wow.

Peter (28:35)

So I think

there was 10 wineries. And so I lined up 10 appointments in one day and I tried all the wine of the Okanagan in one day, which would take a year now if you could even get to them all. So yeah, so again, to see that industry go from infancy of people not really, like I remember talking to the original winemaker at Heinle.

And one year when they'd had a, not a great year, he'd be like, this would be a good year to not buy Okanagan reds, like in general. He's like, you might want to look at import wines for your reds this year. Okay. And so, you know, and then watching, you know, international wine makers find the Valley and realize that this is actually, you know, a microclimate on the edge of sustainability for wine making. we found out last year, how close to the edge we are. and.

they just started coming and bringing these international skills from, you know, Europe and Australia. And that's when we just saw the wine industry, the quality level just started going up like crazy, right? All of a sudden we're now drinking world-class wines made in our little valley here. And anywhere you went, nobody had ever heard of the Okanagan. They didn't believe it. So I remember going to my first trade show. The great thing about CellarTech is all the trade shows are in Europe because there's almost no

equipment being made in North America. It's almost all made in Europe. So the really big show is in Milan in Italy. So, darn, I have to go to Milan to work. It was always in November, December. So it wasn't exactly the, but there was no tourists to worry about. It was a great experience. And what they consider cold is what we consider warm. I would be.

walking around in t-shirts, everybody's got down-filled and scarves on, they're like, you must be from Canada. And I remember I was at a dinner once for one of our suppliers and I'm sitting beside these Italians and I'm like, where are you from? And they're like, oh, I'm from Canada. And they're like, what do you do? And I'm like, oh, we have a winery supply company for equipment. And they're like, why? I'm like, what do mean why? they're like, how can there be wineries in Canada? I'm like, what do mean? I'm like, we have vineyards. And they're like, no.

Host (30:41)

Yeah.

Peter (30:46)

Too cold, it's too cold. So we finally, we thought it would be fun to make up a story. said, oh well, well yeah, of course. The vineyards are all under greenhouses. So the entire valley has 10,000 acres of greenhouses. Oh, well that makes sense. So there's probably half a dozen Italians right now that go, in Canada, they grow all their wine in greenhouses, right? But they couldn't believe that we would just naturally have vineyards that produce. There's no way they could ripen in the igloo, right?

Yeah. Oh. Yeah. And that kind of, you know, that traveling to Italy and then there's the, there's one trade show every year in, uh, in the U S as well. And I've always been a coffee guy. I've always liked, I've been home roasting for 25 years kind of thing. Right. And so everywhere we would go, we would immediately try to find.

Host (31:14)

Wow, that's wild.

Peter (31:38)

the best coffee closest to me kind of thing. Cause I can't drink bad coffee now. And so it was really cool seeing the coffee culture in Italy and seeing how it's just, it's like bread and water. It's like.

Host (31:52)

How'd you get into roasting at home? Was this near the same time as like home brewing?

Peter (31:57)

to

say? Yeah, no, it's, I think it was after home brewing was much bigger, but I had a friend who was doing it and I'm like, what? You roast your own coffee. He goes, yeah, it's so much better. He goes, cause you can, you can buy beans from this place in Toronto, you know, buy, five pounds or whatever, and you can buy beans from all over the world and you get to control. Cause we already were on the like dark roast, you're ruining all the flavor that is inherent in that bean. You're turning it into a.

commodity product that tastes like every other dark roasted coffee out there, right? And so, yeah, it was one of those things where I'm like, okay, I'll try it. So I was at his house and I'm like, these little, you know, they roast 300 grams or something like that. And they were $200. I'm like, okay, well, that's kind of cool. And then in my mind, I'm like, well, green beans are way less than roasted beans. I'm technically...

There's an ROI here that this roaster, to my wife, this roaster will pay for itself. Well, absolutely. In a matter of time, you know? And of course, in the summer it's all great. I can go out and roast on the balcony, but in the winter it's too cold and it's because it uses air and so it can't heat it up enough. So you're roasting inside and it doesn't matter how good your exhaust fan is on your kitchen stove. Your whole house smells like a coffee roastery. And I love that smell.

Host (33:20)

Is

that a bad thing?

Peter (33:21)

Yeah, I love that thing. And especially, you know, in Nelson, had a roastery, also Negro was in the same building as the brewery. They were our biggest tenant. owned the whole building and they were the biggest tenant. And so, and the neighbors would all complain about the smell. they're roasting coffee. Yeah. And I'm like, I love that smell. What's going on? Of course, my wife and my daughters also did not agree with me about the whole smell of coffee roasting. So yeah. Anyways, so we were kind of.

I think it was just like my partner and I at Seller Tech, we just had an aha moment. We were like, we're so into coffee. Like everywhere we go, we're looking for roasters, we're looking for coffee. Like we should sell coffee roasters as part of our equipment. Like we should go into the coffee part. And we're like, okay, that sounds kind of cool. So we started looking into it and most of the roasting companies are very well represented in North America because there's a big boom.

of coffee going on in the last 10 years, right? And so it was really not that easy. And then he came to me one day and he found this cool looking roster. was because it looked really cool. And I'm like, wow, that doesn't look like any other roster. that is, and they were just a traditional roster, but they, put some design into it, right? And so it just didn't look like a typical roster. Yeah, it did. Right. And so, or a sculpture. And so we, we, we contacted them and they're like, my God, like.

Host (34:35)

Was it like a piece of art?

Peter (34:43)

It's so funny that we're actually we've been around for 25 years, but we've never sold in North America because we haven't had any representation there. And we've been so busy in Europe and Asia and Australia that we haven't really had time to focus on North America. He goes, but we get orders from North America because we go to these specialty coffee association exhibitions and they have a booth there. And so inevitably somebody from North America finds them. And so they they probably sold.

I don't know, couple hundred roasters, mostly smaller shop roasters, but they were very excited to talk to us about it. And so we signed a distribution deal with them. And part of that was they wanted us to have the three smallest roasters as demos. So set up in a little demo room where if a customer wanted to get on a video call with you or was close enough that they could travel to you or just wanted to...

travel to you and see how the roasters work, you'd be able to do that. And we thought, well, I mean, if we're to do that, might as well start our own little roastery while we're at it, because we all have these machines sitting there. And we have the building where Cellar Tech was in, and we had an extra space that was kind of coming available. We went, hmm, we turn that into the demo roastery, and then we could convert the front end into just like to sell the

Host (35:44)

Yeah.

Peter (36:05)

the bags of coffee and some coffee drinks. Not a cafe, not a restaurant, but a coffee outlet. Basically like Taylor and Aaron are doing. We're like, these guys are awesome. We could do this. And they were so supportive. They were the same way as when I was in the brewery. They're like, the rising tide floats all the boats. Don't worry about it. not. And so they were like, you need any help. You want to talk about sourcing. You want to talk about roasting. They were just just come and talk to us.

We spent a lot of time drinking coffee with Aaron and Taylor at the bar and talking to them about roasting and trying their beans and getting into it. And then went to the big show in Chicago last year and they have, I would say. ⁓

400 different coffees on the floor because every green bean supplier has all of his beans Roasted and turned into samples so they're they'd have five pots at each table that you could try You know one ounce samples. Yeah, all day long It's the opposite of a beer show where you're drinking beer at night of the morning at the coffee show You're drinking coffee samples all day long. Everybody is so wired by the end of the day. They're just like You could not

keep people stop from stopping or stopping from talking, right? And, and, and we just went, okay, this is awesome. Like, holy shit. There's, I, it exploded my brain on the possibilities of the flavors. And I'd learned so much. thought I knew from roasting at home, I thought I knew so much about roasting and I realized I knew nothing about roasting. I know how to turn on this roaster and I knew kind of how dark I wanted the beans to be. That was my limit of my, of roasting process.

And this whole thing just turned my head and I was like, wow, now I know what I don't know. Okay. And we met, you know, at our booth, had a, our central American representative and he was from a coffee family. dad was a coffee grower and he'd been roasting for 30 years and we had shop roasters that were working in the booth. So he would roast with us in the booth and, start to, and I was like, my God, this is incredible. Right. So we thought we were mostly going to be selling roasters and now we're like, no, I want to.

roast coffee now. So we started talking to all the, you know, the green bean suppliers and really trying to get a feel for, know, what, what are the differences? Like, what are the, what makes this coffee tastes like this? And then you start to realize that, you know, a lot of these countries have had, you know, three, four generations of families growing coffee, mostly, you know, originally for the commercial trade making almost no money, you know, all the money was made by brokers and

and the end consumer. And that's really where the whole specialty coffee association started. They were like, how do we return more money back to the farmers who are actually growing, putting their blood, sweat and tears into this. And it's only one of their crops. And if it doesn't work out, that's no money for them for that year. And how do we make this? How do we improve that? And even though it's such a small percentage of the overall world coffee, like I think I've heard

like less than 5%. It was nothing, you know, 10 years ago. So it's actually, it's working. We went from nothing to 5 % and we're seeing that value going back. And we're now seeing, you know, coffee growers that are getting empowered and they're going, holy shit. And now we're seeing, you know, third generation coffee growers that are in their thirties and they've been to university and they've been to agriculture school and they're like, okay, what, how do we bring more value to coffee? there's,

because it was traditionally picked, pulped, dried off to the wholesalers or off to the brokers, right? So there's that important step in between picking and drying that, you know, I think it was before it was sort of a, they would wash them, there would be a natural fermentation that occurred, which does some transformation in the beans and then they're dried and off it goes when they went, well, what if.

Instead of just relying on the natural yeast that comes in off the fields, we inoculate with the yeast and we cut off the air supply. And they started experimenting with different ways of dealing with the beans after they were picked, but before they were dried and sent off to the market. And that's where we just saw the flavor profiles just multiplied by a thousand. It's so crazy.

the difference from a coffee that tastes like strawberries. You're going, how's, what? I remember having a pour over like, I don't know, four or five years ago in Victoria, a really progressive new coffee shop that they were focusing on pour overs and they were focusing on light roast. And at that time I was kind of medium roast, Cortado cappuccino. I wanted it strong, but I wanted some milk in there and no sugar or anything. ⁓

But I'm like, I gotta try this pour over thing, you know? And so they pour you this light roast and they're like, it's gonna have apricot and lemon. And I'm like, what? What happened to chocolate? And you know, all those flavors that we want in coffee, right? And I remember tasting it I'm like, how is this coffee? I'm it doesn't, I'm not getting any coffee notes at all, but it's still interesting, but I just don't get it. And I walked away from that experience going, yeah, I don't know what this whole light roast pour over.

Host (41:28)

Did you feel like those old men in your in trying the beer? What's that? Yeah. Yeah.

Peter (41:33)

Yeah, I was that guy. Yeah. And it's only now that you pointed out, I'm like, Oh my God, I was that old guy. I didn't say anything going out and you make your coffee, it tastes as bad. Cause I didn't think it tasted bad, but it just, it just didn't remind me of coffee. I'm like, okay. Like, I guess if this is a thing, it's a thing, but whatever. Um, and now I found myself pretty much exclusively drinking that kind of coffee. It's like, Oh yeah, that's how it happens. You get a flavor and you get a taste for it and there's no going back. So now I find mostly.

Host (41:40)

Yeah.

Peter (42:02)

most of the coffee that I try is not good. It's like, there's so much bad coffee in the world, even, you know, roasteries, it's certainly brewing too. There was a plethora of microbreweries that opened up and at least half of them had good brewers and knew what they were doing. And the other half thought this was a good way to make some quick buck and how hard could it be. And when you try their beers, you realize how hard it can be. And I'm finding that same thing even with coffee and even

you know, working with customers that were trying to buy a roaster and you you usually do a little bit of a deep dive on them before you get on the phone with them to see what they're doing, especially if they're already roasting and you go, my God, these are, they just want to burn coffee. That's all they want to do. So I almost feel like when I talk to them, I'm like, I don't think we're the right company for you. Of course, my business sense says, well, you never know because maybe we can convert them as well. Right. But yeah, it's just.

Host (42:52)

What the fuck?

Peter (43:00)

one of those crazy things that you go, I don't know how you change that. But I think that I've always been a big fan of lead by example. so, yeah, some people will always be that. I love my Budweiser and I love my commercial coffee. We won't mention names here. We know, we all know what we're talking about, right? And you go, well, that's okay. At least they're drinking coffee and beer as opposed to not drinking coffee and beer, right?

Host (43:28)

So.

⁓

Peter (43:29)

There's

a hope we might be able to convert them or maybe they're kids. ⁓

Host (43:32)

know.

yeah.

Peter (43:33)

So I don't know where to kind of, I'm basically around.

Host (43:36)

No you're not this is awesome we have an amazing story you know I just I just think that because you were there from the beginning and your philosophy like if we think back when you're at Okanagan Springs and your whole

I'm not your competition. not going to take your tap. We're going to bring each other up. Yeah. Like I feel like you might be one of like the, the foundational layers of that culture. But was when you talk to the other breweries in town, some of them have been on and that is still the culture. The culture is we bring each other up. We support each other. You're like the grandfather of this culture. You probably are. probably are. You know, and that's like, that's.

Peter (44:09)

Yeah, it's not.

Really, ⁓

Host (44:19)

That's pretty cool.

Peter (44:20)

Yeah, no, it's, and I, it was never intentional. was just, I just didn't think there was any other way that it would work. Right. You know, it didn't seem like there's, there's enough business to go around. I'm not, I don't ever want to, like, I don't want to be a Starbucks and I don't ever want to be a Budweiser. You know, that's not my intent. I don't even know if I, if I could manage that, you know, it'd be too stressful. I still really.

enjoy the Okanagan because of big white and the lake and mountain biking and skateboarding. you know, that's, I'm here for the culture and the weather. You know, I, I, I always joke that I have jackets that I brought from Alberta that never made it out of the closet. Like it'll never get cold enough to wear that jacket, you know, and that kind of thing. And so, I think it's awesome that it transpired that way. And I'm glad that.

that I had that approach to it and that, and it's the same with my partners now too, with Redbird Brewing and now Vice and Virtue Brewing and with the roastery, we're just trying to maintain that this can be for everybody, right? It's not necessarily for everybody, but we can make it inclusive for everybody. It's not a snobby club that you belong to or that's not what it is. It's just sort of like,

I don't know. It's all about, I think the quality is first, right? The quality, and then you have to just treat people nice. Like I think people appreciate being treated nice, right? So, which is what I think the, one of the reasons that I really ⁓ gravitated towards Taylor and Erin, because they were just so open. I'm like, these are my people. These are people like me. Like this is exactly what I would do. And this is what we'll do when we're, when people come to us at Redbird Roasting in a few years and like, my God, how did you, I'm thinking about doing this. I'm like, okay, well come in.

Here's James, our roaster, come and hang out with him for the day. And, know, because it's not, it's not a threat really. It's not a, yeah. Our job is to the masses, not, not compete against the other people in the 5 % group that we're in. Right. So,

Host (46:09)

Yeah.

Yeah, that's really cool. Do you know much knowledge of the background of the naming of the business and all that stuff? Of course, I feel like there's a connection to clone

Peter (46:26)

There

totally is. Adam Seminuk, the founding ⁓ partner of Redbird, I met him. came to me because he wanted to open a brewery. had it in his brain, whatever it was. I can't remember what year, probably eight years ago or so. And he looked online for brewing equipment and he said, my God, there's a place in Kelowna that sells brewing equipment because we do winery and brewery and cidery. And ⁓ so he phoned me up and he goes, hey.

And I about opener brewery and I always, my first question is like, so you're insane. And just so unclear, you are insane. And he laughed and he, so he came to meet me and we talked for a couple of hours about, you know, what it would take to get into brewing and my experience with brewing and you know, what, you know, some of the pitfalls to look forward to. And he was, at that time, he was looking at the space under, under the, I guess the new Parquade or the.

Host (46:57)

that.

Peter (47:21)

Parkade that's where is it? There was a pizza studio in the bottom of it right beside. Yeah, downtown downtown right across from actor studio. Not you know that parkade that's right there.

Host (47:27)

or by

library per kid. That's it. Yeah, that's okay.

Peter (47:35)

Yeah, the

library blanket. yeah, that there, so he was going to take two of those spaces, like 4,500 square feet. And the rent was like $10,000 a month. so he put together a great business plan for the brewery. And, he had a number that he had in mind of how much it was going to take to get everything going and, know, put a fudge factor onto that. And then he just started going around Cologne and talking to.

Host (47:36)

yeah, on the corner there.

Peter (48:01)

anyone with money who thought he might, that might be interested. And he got to pretty darn close to the amount that he needed. And he, but he was tapped out. He had talked to everybody and he was still in his mind about 500 grand short, which is not a small amount of money. And, and I told him like, it's probably going to be more because there's hidden shit that pops up when you're building stuff. So count on that being a million. And so he just went, well, there's no way.

He had to literally sign a lease and he was going to start paying like 10 grand a month in a week. And he was like, ⁓ I'm not doing this. So he basically told everybody, thank you very much. I don't want your money. sold his house and borrowed some money from his family. And we, my business partner at seller tech, him and his brother owned the property where, ⁓ Redbird started the little spot and the whole spot actually. And they said, well that

the tenants moving out. there's 900 square feet there, we'll rent it to you for 800 bucks. So he was like, well, that sounds a lot better. And ⁓ at that time there was a little loophole in the beer licensing or microbrewery licensing that as long as you made X amount percentage of beer on site, they would give you a manufacturer's license and then you could supplement the beer with beers from other breweries or brew it contract at other breweries.

So he bought a little 75 liter brewery, literally could fit it in this corner of the room here and got that started. we were kind of, my partner and I were kind of business mentors because he was across the street. So we were always over there and we were talking about beer and we were talking about money and how to run the business and everything. And he just, it took off, right? That little place, you know, it the little engine that could, and he just kept getting busier. And then they started.

He was really good friends ⁓ with Mitch Howard Luck, who is now our music director. And they said, well, we should like bring in a band here or just like a one solo or a duo act. And Adam still talks about it. goes, yeah, there would be Thursdays where it was me and Mitch watching the band. was nobody here. And he goes, but we knew that we were not going to build a following by not doing it. And so you just have to bite the bullet and then, you know, built the patio and then that.

Host (50:24)

Thank

Peter (50:24)

Eventually

Host (50:24)

you.

Peter (50:25)

got the, and then COVID hit and we were able to expand into adjacent properties, which was a parking lot, which we were like, sure. And so that allowed, I think Redbird actually did better in COVID than it did the year before COVID because we were able to have more people. We were able to actually go up to our full capacity, which at that time was about 99. And, uh, and then that's when we.

He wanted to move into the back space. was a per, ⁓ previously it was a machine shop and they built parts for snowmaking machines. So they didn't need to be in downtown clone. They could be anywhere. Right. And so their lease was coming up. And so my partner and his brother started talking to Adam about moving into that space. And they're like, well, Peter's the only guy with any commercial brewing experience. Maybe we should bring him into the fold. And so we did a big swap of.

cash and shares and everything, and all ended up as equal partners in the building and the property and the brewery itself. And it was great because we have four guys that all have completely different specialties that don't really overlap other than that we're all really big on craft beer and providing, you know, great experiences for people and for everyone and not, you know, not being a snobby club or whatever. Right. And so then.

that I mean and of course going back to the redbird Adam wanted he wanted the brewery to be about Kelowna he wanted it to be Kelowna's brewery so he wanted the beers to have stories about Kelowna he wanted the brewery to have so he went to the to the museum and he hung out in the museum and just started digging around looking at artifacts and looking at photos and trying to get like inspired because his background was he was he worked for for

at the Disney studio. So he worked, he had a group of graphic artists that he, that he worked with. And so he, for five years, he knew all these graphic artists. So when he was researching for the name and for ideas, he saw this picture and you'll see it in the, in the brewery and it's of, ⁓ one of the little transfer boats that would take people from the ferry to the landing on any of the

landings that were too shallow for the ferry to come into. And it was called the red bird of Kelowna. And he was like, that's it. No logo, nothing, just the red bird of Kelowna. He's like, that's it. He just said he got, he was like a strike of lightning. And you're like, that's, that's the name. I just got to figure it out now. So he then leaned on his, he leans on his old team that are all off doing their own thing now. And one of them was really good at logos. And so he called him up and he goes, I got this idea. I'm going to do.

Redbird brewing and he says they just started sketching and all of a sudden the logo that we have today came up and he's like, they were both like, that's it. That's the logo. And he showed it to us and we're like, my God, like that right away. That was before we were partners or anything. We were just kind of mentors. And I'm like, that is a killer logo like that. I can't even believe it like that.

That's better than any idea if you've had so far. And coming from a snowboarding background, it reminded me of the Burton logo. It doesn't look anything like it, but it's square and it's really strong brand. I'm like, that is just crazy. I love that logo. That logo, you'll be able to put that on shit and people will be able to go, that's Redbird. And I'm like, that's so cool.

Fast forward to whatever seven years later. Now I was in Nelson walking down. had a street market downtown at night. I'm walking down to have my redbird hat on has nothing on it other than the logo. And I'm up at a booth and, and they're like, you're from Kelowna. And I'm like, okay. They're like, well, redbird. And I'm like, Okay. Wow. Okay. So that was.

Host (54:21)

sweet

Peter (54:25)

I'm like, I told you, I told you that logo. he, mean, he knew it too, cause they were all in design and they, it, you know, it's one of those things where it comes out, you're like, and there was a bunch of other great ideas. But, and so then anytime we have a beer that goes into a can now, other than Bird Light, ⁓ cause that was just, we want it to spoof on Bud Light. And we knew they couldn't really do anything to us about it. Like it's, you know, we're Redbird, so we're allowed to use the word bird and it's not.

Host (54:46)

You

Peter (54:52)

anything. ⁓ But the rest of the beers all have a Kelowna story to them. And Adam painstakingly digs through storybooks and tries to find a cool story about each one so that it's not just named after a street or something. It's named after a person or a story or even now, we wanted to bottle or can our sour. And it's a

What is it? Passion fruit, orange guava? think, yeah. So that it was based on the old drink. Remember Pog? Pog juice or like it was, it was like an eighties kids. No. Anyways.

Host (55:30)

My pogs for me were like things at school they bang.

Peter (55:32)

yeah, those. Yeah,

exactly. Yeah. So there was, there was this drink called Pog and, ⁓ and then we were, we wanted to put it in a can and right now it was just called Pablo because it was passion fruit, blood orange. So forever for the last few years has been Pablo Sauer and we're like, wow, we need a Kelowna story for this. And then I think it was our, our new brewer. And he was like, how was there no Ogo Pogo beer in Kelowna? I'm like, what?

There's no, nobody has an Ogopogo beer. I know. And part of Ogopogo is the Pog. So it's Ogopogo. So that became like, just one of those things where you go, my God, shit. So yeah, we're going to, that's our new beer coming out will be the Ogopogo. Yeah. So the labels just, well, it's probably a spoiler alert, but yeah, that label is being designed as we speak and kind of thing. Probably Adam will shoot me now that I.

Host (56:03)

weird.

Yeah, right.

that's hilarious.

⁓ will it be done before? yeah. Mid October. Okay, well it'll be out. Yeah.

Peter (56:33)

yeah, no, it'll probably be up by then. Yeah.

So yeah, that's how that whole thing got along or got together. And, and you know, when he wanted to move into the back, you know, he didn't really have all the tools in the kit in order to pull that off by himself either. So that was when we went, okay, first of all, my partners and his brother were like, well, nobody's doing anything in that backspace without us. Cause we're, we're, we want to be involved. And then they got me involved and then, and then

COVID hit and what else was another weird one? There was a huge freeze in Texas. So they had this massive freezing going on in Texas. And so everybody's pipes that were not buried deep enough, which were all of them, all frozen, broke and everything. So that was during COVID or just before. And so was right when we were running all the services from the street back to our building, because we had to put more water in and it was all plastic conduit.

Host (57:17)

Remember this.

Peter (57:28)

Well, guess what? There's none available because it's all being shipped to Texas because their entire state where it froze needs new piping, which is like unprecedented amount of piping. So our whole construction project got halted because of the frost in Texas. Wow. You're just going, how is that even possible? Right? Yeah. And so ⁓ it delayed the construction by six months. It was just a crazy drag it out slow, but

Luckily it was during COVID and we were able to use the parking lot. And so we were able to continue doing business at like full tilt right through till opening almost. was, we were even doing live music because we had that, the patio or the apron in front of the brewery was basically an outdoor stage facing towards the parking lot. So we were, we were already doing live music ⁓ before it opened because there was, we could. Why not? We kept going, somebody's surely going to shut us down.

No, you're maintaining social distancing and da da da. And so, yeah, it was one of those very much ⁓ fortuitous, the way things happen to work out. Because it could have been a disaster. It could have been, you know, not allowing us to have outdoor patios. And we would have been a year and half with no income. Yeah. It would have been quite a different story than it turned out for sure. So, yeah.

Host (58:50)

And it was one of the few places you could like go.

Peter (58:53)

Yeah. I mean, we had the tents and the propane heaters in the tent and then trying to exhaust all that. Cause we're like, we're putting exhaust from fire inside of this tent. cannot be healthy. So then we would rent these blowers from construction sites and get that, you know, blowing the arrow, but trying to control it from not sucking all the heat out. And yeah, I was, I don't miss those days. It's really fun to look back at. Yeah. I haven't talked about it for a while. So.

Host (59:14)

my gosh. Fun to look back.

That's funny. Yeah, you kind of have, know, kind of, you definitely have the trifecta of wine, beer and coffee. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. And when you think of Kelowna you think of like wine, you think of beer now and now the coffee scene is getting huge. So you're like, yeah.

Peter (59:27)

Yeah, all of our vices are covered.

And it's

cool with Vice and Virtue, we're kind of leaning into our, seller tech customers, for the wine list and trying to, because at Redbird it's about the beer or a brewery. We have wine and we have obviously other things available because not everybody drinks beer, but, ⁓ at Vice and Virtue, we wanted to really elevate the food. And when you elevate food, you've got to, in this Valley, you've got to include wine. And it's just great being able to support our customers.

and bring in and meet them and try their wines and bring in their wines. and basically the whole wine list is made up of stuff that Perry and I really love because we're wine geeks as well. So we're basically wine, coffee and beer geeks.

Host (1:00:18)

Whoever would have thought like, you when you're when you're young moving to Kelowna. Yeah, this is

Peter (1:00:23)

No clue, not a I thought it was going to build a golf course. ⁓ Yeah. That's what that was. Cause I worked with a guy in Medicine Hat who he took over this large, like 50 acre chunk of property in a, in a valley with a creek running through it. And he converted it into a little executive golf course. And I, hired me on the first day. we were kicking horses off the property because there was a hole in the fence that they had come through. we.

I was, I'd never dealt with horses or animals. We're trying to wrangle horses with a little three wheel ATV and chase them around, get them through it, then fix the fence. And then I helped lay out the course and put the irrigation in and plant the grass. And I'm like, this was cool. I'm doing this in Kelowna. I'm going to come here and build a golf course. How much could that cost? I was 20. I had no clue, right? ⁓

Host (1:01:15)

You

Peter (1:01:18)

And then the whole time I was here, I got here and I'm still hell bent on figuring out how to do that. And I saw the site where Two Eagles is now on the West side there. It's across from Walmart there. I'm thinking that's public land, not knowing that it's, know, indigenous land or anything like that would be a perfect place for a golf course.

Host (1:01:38)

No.

Peter (1:01:40)

turns out when you're 22 and you need to like raise $50 million to build something that's not as easy as it sounds. So gave up on that dream for briefly decided I'm like, well, maybe we could move to to Saskatoon and build a golf course. So I knew some, I had some connections out there and we went out there to look at some land and it was in the winter time.

Host (1:01:59)

It's not much summer there.

Peter (1:02:01)

No,

and it was like minus 40 and we would go to the restaurant and all the trucks outside were running and I'm like, no, no, we're never moving here. My wife's like, thank you, thank you. But it seemed like a good idea. And even when we looked at the land, I'm like, well, where's the water? Oh, you have to drill a well. I'm like, what do mean? Like there's no running water or lake, anything to, no. I'm like, okay, well, no, I'm not. See ya.

Host (1:02:23)

Wow. Imagine how different your life would have been.

Peter (1:02:25)

And after you live here and going to Saskatoon, I mean, it's a cool city in the summer and it's a university town. yeah, no, it's in it's in the middle of Saskatchewan.

Host (1:02:33)

Yeah, well, north, north middle. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's really cool. Yeah, you seem like you're in a good place in life now,

Peter (1:02:36)

Yeah.

Well,

I have definitely nowhere near retirement.

Host (1:02:43)

That's

for sure.

Peter (1:02:44)

When I think by my age, it would be time to start thinking about it. But it's like, no, no, no, I'm doing more.

Host (1:02:49)

Yeah, but yeah, and your kids must are they still around?

Peter (1:02:52)

31,

my daughter, actually both daughters are here. My youngest daughter just turned 30. She was in Calgary for nine years. She went to university there and got her degree in kinesiology and got into the climbing community and turned out she could make more money managing a climbing gym than being a kinesiologist. So she did that for the last four or five years. And then decided that Calgary was just not.

she wanted to live and so she came back home and she's going to go back to school to get her, add onto that degree. But in the meantime, she's ⁓ a shift leader at Redbird Bring. I have Intel ⁓ directly from the inside now. So I don't know what we're going to do when she leaves. Cause I get to hear all the, all the things that are going wrong that we would never hear about if you didn't know somebody.

Host (1:03:30)

There you

Peter (1:03:45)

And my oldest daughter has been here. She's never left. She works with Spinco. She's the manager down there. She has her own flower gardening business that she's developing right now with my wife and they're selling bouquets and doing flowers for events and stuff like that. one is What's that?

Host (1:04:03)

What's

it called?

Peter (1:04:04)

I I think it's called like Auntie Auntie Liv's garden or something like that because her name is Olivia. Okay. And so it literally just started in the last few months. And my wife was we were doing a ⁓ market at Redbird for Mother's Day. We had the coffee there because we were tasting coffee and selling bags of coffee and there was a flower booth and

My wife and daughter were like, my God, this such a beautiful booth. And at the end of the day, we bought some bouquets off them. And my daughter kind of joked and said, you should hire my mom. She would love to work for you guys. And they're like, okay, tell me more.

Because my wife had just she had suffered a torn Achilles and then fell off her knee scooter and smashed her shoulder and it's just like basically hadn't worked for six months, but it was looking to kind of do something right. So she loves gardening and so they were like this working a couple they both have full-time jobs, but they have like an acre property in East Kelowna and they grow flowers to do events for it and they were looking for somebody and so

Host (1:04:54)

mentioned before she was all into gardening

Peter (1:05:09)

She went up for training one day and they're like, so you're going to be training us. Okay, good. She immediately got the job and she's helping them now just to help them garden basically and prepare for their events and stuff like that. And the bug was caught by my oldest daughter. And so she's turned her whole yard into raised beds and much to her fiance is like, what is going on with my yard here? But it looks beautiful, right? ⁓ And so she's just.

Host (1:05:14)

So.

Peter (1:05:36)

And she has that creative flair and very personable, very outgoing. And through spinco she started bringing a couple of bouquets and going, those are for sale. And they would be gone immediately. you you put.

20 spinners in at six o'clock, they come out and they're like, I'll take that for 25 bucks. So now she sells, you know, 10 to 15 bouquets a week. And she's like, how do we, she's already contracting people to grow flowers in their yard because she's getting married next year and we're having a party at Redbird. so my wife, her, and I'm sure half of her friends are going to be growing all the flowers for the wedding. So it'll be the most amazing flower arrangements you've ever seen. And it'll be close to free, which.

Host (1:06:15)

would be perfect.

Yes. ⁓ once again, can I?

Peter (1:06:21)

Yeah,

so she's not leaving she'll be here and I don't know my youngest daughter Hannah She wants to go back to school in Hannah in Calgary. So it's hard I think she loves going to though she took a while as you know when you come back None of your friends from school are here anymore You need to find and you don't have any friends and so it can be very lonely You know, you can only hang out with your mom and dad so much before you go crazy

Host (1:06:44)

Yeah.

Peter (1:06:45)

But now she found the climbing community locally and she has a whole group of friends here and so we would love it if she decided to stay here and root herself here but well time will tell.

Host (1:06:57)

Yeah. this is so cool. Yeah. Well, I can't thank you enough for coming on. Yeah. Is there anything else you wanted to touch on or?

Peter (1:07:04)

Yeah, mean, I think we covered more than anything I thought. an Yeah. So Well, I mean, I'm looking forward to this, coffee festival. think it's going to be really great to connect with so many roasters in one. We're hosting like a meet and greet of everybody. One of the suppliers to the industry is based out of Calgary and they sell all.

Host (1:07:10)

Amazing journey.

Peter (1:07:28)

all the equipment, like the pour over equipment, espresso machines and all that kind of stuff. And they sell coffee as well. They're called Eight Ounce Coffee. And so they wanted to sponsor a meet and greet. so we're doing it at Redbird. we're going to have boat. All the, all the exhibitors from the coffee exhibition or from the coffee festival are going to be meeting there on the Friday night before the coffee.

Host (1:07:48)

That'll

be fun y'all can mingle and never care.

Peter (1:07:51)

We'll probably inevitably end up over at Redbird Roasting to look at the new roaster that we're. Absolutely. Yeah. We're just in the process of putting in, cause we've been roasting on a 2kg electric roaster for the last year and a half. And we're literally just moving the new gas roaster in, I think today or tomorrow. we've got.

Host (1:07:56)

absolutely.

Peter (1:08:11)

the nightmare of lining up the four different contractors that you needed to install the water, the gas, the piping and drill a hole through the roof and do all those things. So I'm thinking would be great if it was all up and running and we're roasting by the time the festival happens. I'm pretty sure we can hit that. it's doable. Yeah, I think it's doable. There's one contractor that hasn't really committed to anything yet, but, he's the crucial one. He's the one that is going to be hooking up all the ducting. So it's like we need him. So yeah.

Host (1:08:37)

Yeah, maybe throw in some beer or something. Yeah worth as well

Peter (1:08:40)

So

yeah, exciting new chapter in Redbird roasting coming soon. So we'll finally be able to have enough coffee to go up into the market instead of just being in our little closed room there.

Host (1:08:50)

Yeah. Cool. So.

I think that's a beautiful way to end it. Let's wrap her up. you so much. Did you have fun? I did. ⁓ that's so cool. ⁓ wow. Like you're the, you're the, like the godfather of. Yeah. Microburial and all this.

Peter (1:08:54)

⁓ Thank you.