Hitting the Nutcase Jackpot in Vegas
This continues from my previous post on how chocolate milk is fucking magic and my inspiration for taking on Nesquik. So here I was, determined to create the ultimate better-for-you chocolate milk. With cashews. And it was time to test it in the real world.
I happen to own a Berlin Döner shop called Wolf Down (that’s a whole other story), which, despite doing shockingly well, is not the most obvious spot to sell nut milk. But who cares. Cause seriously — who wouldn’t want some delicious cold chocolate milk with their meal?
First though, we decided to test it with our managers. These guys aren’t exactly the nut milk types, which perfect, cause I’m curious what dairy lovers will think. Without telling them what it is, I hand them each a glass. Without asking questions, they chug it.
I can tell just from the look on their faces and the sounds they make that they like it. “Yooo, this is fire!” Scratch that. They love it! Then I confess it’s cashew milk. They look confused. “Seriously?” Their disbelief is the best reaction I could hope for. The vote is unanimous: we need to put this on the shelf.
Ok, but if we’re gonna do this, let’s do it right. I love branding, so this is the fun part for me. First, we need a name. I think of words related to nuts… I know: Nutcase! I’ve been called this more than a few times... I love it. Let’s go!
Wait! We need bottles. Duh. We find a supplier online. Minimum order is 500 bottles. Oof! It sounds funny now, but it felt like a lot at the time. I quickly designed labels and found a local printer. A week later, we receive the bottles, sticker them, and damn… these actually look pretty legit.
I lug my Vitamix down the street to Wolf Down as Brooke stocks up on cashews from Costco. We get to work on our first batch featuring the four flavors we dreamt up in my kitchen: vanilla (classic), chocolate (nostalgic), peanut butter (eccentric), and coffee (energetic). We take pictures, post them on Instagram, and just like that, Nutcase v1 is real.
Without expecting much, we toss the bottles into the drink fridge and add them to our Uber Eats menu. Before we know it, they’re all gone. We quickly make more. Again, they fly off the shelf. Those first few weeks, I often found myself running down the street to Wolf Down at midnight to restock. It was nuts!
Just as surprising was who was buying it. Naturally, we expected the vegan yogi hipsters — but it had much broader appeal. Everyone loved it! Seeing the faces of grown men light up when they spot our chocolate milk makes my day every time. And the reaction when they read the ingredients and discover it’s made with cashews and no refined sugar is gold. “You mean this shit is actually healthy?” Minds blown.
Somehow, we had pulled off a better-for-you chocolate milk that tasted better than the bad-for-you stuff. We made nut milk so delicious even those who never drink nut milk got obsessed. After all, this was our goal: not just to make the best plant-based milk, but the best milk, period.
We still sell hundreds of bottles a month at Wolf Down, bringing in tens of thousands of dollars in additional drink sales for the restaurant annually. It wasn’t long before other restaurants and local retailers started noticing and reaching out, asking who our supplier was and where the hell we were getting this hot new drink from. They had no clue we were just making it in the back. We might be on to something…
The demand was undeniable. I saw so much opportunity and untapped potential. I knew we had to try to grow Nutcase. But we could only do so much with a Vitamix and 1 week of shelf life. We needed to figure out how to scale this. Just one problem, I had no clue what I was doing, or how to start a beverage company. And remember, this was mid-COVID, so while I was fired up to get shit done, the world was still at a standstill.
I started researching online and discovered something called HPP (high-pressure processing). It sounded like it could be the solution to our shelf life issues. I found a company in Montreal called Natural HPP and connected with a nice man named Pierre. He patiently explained the process to me, asking questions about Nutcase along the way. He believed it could work, but noted that our milk would need to be below a certain PH.
Pierre then asked if we had a co-packer (we did not) and suggested we check out North House, the only co-packer here in Ottawa. We set up a meeting and they loved the concept. They gave us a tour of their facility and said they were interested in working with us. It all sounded so promising.
The first step was to adapt our recipe for their massive machines. They asked us to show them how we make it for reference. They signed NDAs and we set up the Vitamix to show them our highly unsophisticated process, including my super professional explanation to “pulverize the shit out of it” which greatly amused them.
The next step was to measure the PH (PTSD of high school chem), which they correctly predicted would be too high. We needed to get it down. How? Acid, that’s how (I finally understand why I see citric acid on so many labels). This, of course, fucks up the flavor, so we counteract it by adjusting the other ingredients to attempt to mask the tartness. They said HPP will also dull the acidity, so we won’t really know the flavor outcome until after.
A week later we got our bottles back and taste test. The acidity was faint in the vanilla and peanut butter. It works! But the chocolate and coffee were so bad I had to spit it out. Back to work. At the same time, we started shelf life testing. They would open 1 bottle a week and do some sort of micro-bio science test to see if it’s still good. We got up to 6 weeks before things started to get wonky.
Then things go quiet. We reach out, but don’t hear back. Crickets. We wait. And wait. Months go by. Finally, they followed up and apologized for the delay, explaining that they were busy moving into a bigger space. But good news — they were ready to test the first big batch with us. We decided to focus on the chocolate milk first. Here goes nothing…
It works! We regain a little hope. But then, things stall again. We were starting to seriously doubt these guys would actually follow through, so Brooke made a list of every beverage co-packer in Canada and reached out. Few answered. Those who did basically just dismissed us and said we were too small. At this point, we were pretty discouraged. Am I a nutcase for even thinking we could do this?
A friend of mine once told me: “Things start to happen when you stop giving a fuck.” It seems counterintuitive, but it’s proven to be true for me time and again. So that’s what I did. I let it go. Lucky for me, the timing was perfect, because suddenly my workaholic self had the best distraction ever: my son Jack was born… in Vegas.
It took a month for us to get our little American a US passport to take him back home to Canada, so he lived the first weeks of his life in between the Cosmo and Aria. It may sound crazy to live out of Vegas casinos with a newborn, but actually, it was kind of awesome. Yes, it was exhausting, and of course, we had no clue what we were doing, but we figured it out (and tipped housekeeping extra for all the poopy towels).
Being away from the comforts of home, we went out for lunch and dinner every day — taking the little guy everywhere with us. From healthy patio lunches at True Food, to indulgent patio dinners at Al Solito Posto — baby Jack got a ton of fresh desert air.
PS not parenting advice, but I truly believe that being exposed to all the noise, lights, and excitement of Vegas from Day 1 is why Jack is such a chill baby — totally comfortable with chaos, people, and able to sleep anywhere… even Roy Choi’s super loud (and delicious) Best Friend.
And of course, my friend was right. Just as I give up on Nutcase and shift all my focus onto this tiny and adorable new creature in my life, that’s when something happens… over brunch in Vegas.
So we go to Catch at Aria to catch up with our buddies Rich and Jonah. We chat about poker and EDM over stunning sushi (shout out to sushi master Stan), a killer kale coconut salad, and their deadly cinnamon roll pancakes. The conversation shifts to startups and Rich mentions they launched a VC fund called Dream Ventures which invested in CPG brands like Mezcla and Toto.
He then asks me about this Nutcase drink he’s seen me post on Instagram. I’m caught totally off guard, but I’m always happy to talk about my crazy ideas, so I share the story and explain the opportunity… ending with how I just couldn’t seem to get it going.
Rich gets it. He loves chocolate milk. He loves our brand. Most importantly, he sees the potential. “We need to figure this out,” he proclaims. He mentions that Mezcla, one of their portfolio companies, had an ops consultant who helped them get started — maybe he could help us too? He promises to introduce me to the founder and hooks us up with boxes of Mezcla bars (which we instantly get hooked on).
Just like that, the Nutcase dream is back to life. I call Brooke to tell her what just happened. She’s as shocked as I am that this random brunch in Vegas might just be our lucky break. Quick side note on luck. In order to get lucky, I had to start. To try things. To put myself out there. Isn’t it interesting how the more things you do, the more lucky things happen? And at that point, is it really just luck? Debatable.
Anyway, it’s still a long shot, but as much as I tell myself not to get my hopes up or get too excited… let’s be real — I’m fucking pumped. No poker face.
But wait. Hold up. What am I thinking? What am I getting myself into? The beverage industry is notoriously brutal. I have no clue what I’m doing. I have a newborn. I’ll need to raise a lot of funding. It’s a ton of pressure. What if I fail? It’s so easy to get overwhelmed. To psych myself out. There are a million reasons why I shouldn’t do this.
But we need better chocolate milk. And there’s nothing better than creating something that brings people joy. It also bugs me that there are no alt milk brands that speak to people like me. I feel like this limits the potential of nut milk. We need to make milk cool. I mean, if Liquid Death can make water cool…
It’s crazy. It’s scary. Luckily, I’m a nutcase. LFG!
Next part coming soon.
