The Indiana Cocktail Startup that Took Over the Midwest

gone in 2 weeks. So I was like, "Wo, maybe there's something here that we didn't expect."

What does building a startup look like? Wearing a lemon costume and playing the drums for social media.

We can help them tell the story of Indiana agriculture in a really unique and modern way. What's the biggest misconception about owning an alcohol brand from South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between? This is Get In, the show focused on the Hoosier State and the incredible stories happening here today. I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. Before we get into the show, I need to remind you that today's episode is brought to you by my friends at NCW. You might remember when I had Dan Natalie on the show talking about how they built a national staffing recruiting company over the past 25 years specializing in skilled trades.

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com and tell them you heard about it on Get In during your interview. Today, my guest is Dan Farner, the co-founder and CEO of Indiana Shakeup Cocktails, formerly High and Mighty Distillery. They're best known for their canned lemon shakeup that launched at the 2022 Indiana State Fair. They have a mission rooted in family fairs and flavor. Dan has grown a regional canned cocktail brand recognized across multiple Midwestern states. We're going to be talking about how they built this distillery on the grounds of the Indiana State Fair, the Indiana State Fairgrounds, right?

Uh we're going to talk about how they've expanded. They had to go through a rebrand. The process goes there. But today they work with some fun university partners and have some really cool things coming down the pipeline. I'm really excited to uh to hang out for a while. Dan, welcome to Get In.

Thanks, Nate. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

I have to give the the background. So, I usually start every episode talking about how we ended up getting connected. The first time I ever got to hang out with Dan, he was in a lemon costume

playing the drum set for our good buddy Ian's band as a promo on his back porch. I'll never forget, but I didn't know that you I didn't remember that you were there.

Yeah, I shot that video. That was like early on when I had just gotten like into content and I was like, you know, Ian was a good buddy of mine promoting his show and uh I was there kind of like the creative director of this promo where they were singing and you were playing the drums as Lemie. We launched this product in the in 2022 at the state fair and we thought like what can we do to really kind of like make a make ourselves known like how do we stand out and so we were like what about a mascot and we had this little character on our old cans and it had it's like a lemon mascot doesn't have any arms it's got legs and cowboy boots and so we're like we got to make a mascot of that. Um, we had our friend Jess West who makes costumes. She should be on the show, by the way. She was on like a Netflix like competition.

Jess West costumes. Okay.

Yes. Anyway, she made this costume. Flash forward a few years when we met. Um, my friend Ian wanted me to wear the costume while playing drums. I'm a drummer. The catch with this thing is that you can't put your arms down. So, your arms are out like to the sides like this. And then also, you can't see. There's like little things that you could see, but like you can't bend over because this it's you're in a giant lemon. And so I'm basically like this. Can't see anything. Just like, you know,

and we had to do like seven takes of it, I feel like.

Yeah, probably. But uh it wasn't too bad.

The video turned out great. It was awesome.

It was kind of a hit actually for Ian, you know, whatever. Working with Ian and getting

Oh, yeah. So, it's like, you know, what does building a startup look like? It looks like wearing a lemon costume and playing the drums for social media.

Oh yeah.

Um but yeah, I guess I don't even know when that might that might have been 2024. 2023.

Probably at least 23.

Probably 23. So that was like you were a year into it like you were figuring it out. But the story kind of starts before that where you and your wife Jamie decided to build this brand. Kind of give us some background of of how this brand came to life.

Yeah, you bet. Well, so um I live I've lived in Indie now for since 2006, so almost 20 years. Grew up in Chicago. I've lived here longer than I lived there. So I'm a Hoosier for sure. And this is home. She grew up in the northwest uh in northwest Indiana selling barbecue at county fairs with her dad. And so she grew up

What part of Northwest Indiana?

Uh Crown Point.

Crown Point. Go Bulldogs.

Crown Town. Yeah. Uh Lake County Fair. Shout out. Um so we spent a lot of summers up there, you know, at the county fair and like

selling barbecue. selling barbecue. Yeah. And so she was drinking lemon shakeups as a kid, you know, it was like a nostalgic thing. Like they would show horses all, you know, they were like fair life, right? Her dad would like literally sleep in his truck at the fair smoking meat throughout the night.

That's legit.

Impressive. Yeah. Anyway, when we realized that we wanted to go into business together, kind of, you know, we're cocktail nerds and we thought, you know, maybe there's something here with these can cocktails because a couple years ago was really just starting like during co, right? Um, now they're everywhere, but back then a couple years ago, not so much. Um, but we thought like what is more nostalgic than a lemon shakeup? And then, you know, flash forward like a year or so, we got in contact with the the Indiana State Fair and we're able to actually build our distillery there.

So, I'll go into details on that, but that's really where it all started is my wife growing up, you know, in fair in like, you know, in in the fair life, um, in fair culture and then, you know, realizing that that flavor profile, especially with the lemon shakeup and there are others with fairs like, you know, like elephant ears and things like that that people like they look forward to every year and like it's a special special experience.

It's interesting because it is a delicacy, right? Like you don't get elephant ears every Tuesday. Like you get them when you go to the like you have to go to a place and experience a thing and and it takes you back there. Like mine is always that uh like the dairy bar ice cream. Oh yeah.

Like it's it's just unique like the flavor like the what and it takes me right back to the Marshall County Fair in Argus, Indiana. Shout out. Were you guys like from the beginning like when you guys met got married you started you know careers like yeah we want to start a business.

Uh not exactly but I I kind of have a entrepreneurship background. My parents ran their own business and I went through school for entrepreneurship at Ball Ball State and um we had four kids in four years so our life was a little nuts for a while there. Um we had twins as a BOGO. Um so there's a good story there with our gin later but uh you know I think that like we got we got we got to take a a vacation away from the family out to Maine uh in 2019 and that was like a chance for us to kind of just like zoom out and like you know dream a little and we realized that we wanted to go into business together. So,

yeah. So, I mean, since 2019,

there are pluses and minuses. There are people that are pro going into business with your spouse. There are people that are like, "No, it just wouldn't work for us." What makes it work for you guys?

We did a bunch of therapy before that. So, I think we were in a really good place in our marriage generally. Um, so there's that. Like, I think on the emotional side, like you have to really work through all the stuff that can kind of accumulate all the conflict in your relationship. Um, we also, my mother-in-law lives with us, her mom lives with us, so we have, um, kind of like a multigenerational household, but she, you know, is like a third parent and so like it helps with flexibility, like she can babysit, we can travel, we can do, you know, we can be out on the town working at events or whatever. So, uh, you know, those kinds of things really seem to help.

And then eventually you hit a stride and your kids are old enough and our youngest are nine now. You know, they can they can party a little bit by themselves here and there. There we go. Okay, that's good. I I always love that because uh we've had a few different spouse or family businesses or just and those dynamics are always interesting. Okay, so it's 2019, you get back from Maine and you're like, we want to go into business together.

Did you know from coming back from the main trip that you wanted to get into the alcohol business or what were you thinking? Part of the inspiration is that like whenever we travel as a family, like we're a lot like we come in and we come in hot and like kids are just like, you know, running around and whatever. They're they're a little older now, so like we if we asked them to sit down, they will, but like back then it was just like, all right. So anywhere we would go, we would need to go uh to like a restaurant or what have you with a lot of space. And often times breweries seem to accommodate like larger like outdoor spaces quite a bit more. And so whenever we'd travel we'd like hit breweries because the kids could like run around and we could have a drink and whatever.

Um so that was kind of the initial inspiration. Probably would have started a brewery if it were 10 years ago. It was more about like having a community space um that was accommodating for like families and what have you, events, that kind of thing.

Okay. So then you land on distillery. Yes, we land on distillery because there weren't that many in Indiana. I mean, even still today, you know, there are, you know, a couple dozen, but most of them you probably never even heard of because they're small time or in small towns, what have you.

It does seem like the distillery was like 10 years maybe behind like the distillery boom and the craft cocktail boom. Y

like I mean craft cocktails f seven years ago, six, five years ago, 2020. I don't know if people were talking about craft cocktails as like that's just rolls off the tongue today. It was definitely craft beer, you know, all through like late 2000s to the 2010s was like really hot. I feel like Oh, yeah.

And it's still like very prevalent. Like, you know, people drink a lot of craft beer, but I feel like craft cocktails the last 5 years probably have just been

up and to the right.

So, you guys land on a distillery. Yep.

And are you guys working at the time? Do you quit your job? Like, how does this look?

Yeah, I I worked for myself. I run ad campaigns for brands or I have historically. Now I'm officially full-time with Shakeup but prior to this uh yeah I worked in advertising and a little bit of software but I worked for myself and was able to work from home like during co and so I had some flexibility to be able to start this treated as like a client if you will.

So you guys decide you're going in on this. What does the first steps of starting a distillery look like?

Yeah, there's a lot of red tape. Um, and unfortunately in Indiana there's even more so just like a lot of hurdles. First things first, you had to have a concept. And so, actually, one of the things that we did first was there is a like basically like a distillery school you can go to down in Louisville. Um, it's called Moonshine University. It's awesome.

You're a proud graduate of MU?

I am. Absolutely. And you can do like a oneweek long workshop and it's not cheap but it's like you literally learn everything that you need to know from like a regulatory standpoint like you know understanding like financials like marketing. I mean literally

moonshine boot camp.

Yeah. Moonshine university.

Home of the shiners.

Go Shiners baby. Come on. All right. So you guys it's a week long intensive boot camp.

Yeah. So I did it in September of 2020. So it was like co everybody was masked up and you know

so in co or in September you're on site still though not a virtual.

Okay. So you're down in Louisville learning how to operate a distillery.

What were some of the biggest takeaways for Moonshine University? I mean, honestly, one of the biggest takeaways is that like we had a special concept and at the time we did not have our agreement ironed out with the Indiana State Fairgrounds yet, but we were in talks with them and that was like one of the first pieces of validation was like, okay, we have a unique setup here, like a really unique concept, whereas a lot of folks they're like, you know, talking about starting farm distilleries and like that's a real destination, you know, to draw people out into the corn fields. Um, you know, and so that that was like step one was validation.

How did you get in contact with like how did you get the conversations wrong with the state fair?

So we live very close to the fair. We're just south of you here um in South Broadripple uh 40th and central roughly. And so literally like we take our kids over to the fairgrounds to like ride bikes around and stuff like that. Anyway, uh a friend, a very close friend, um was talking to the fair like around uh let's say it was like late 2020. You know, during COVID, they they had like almost a zero revenue year, like no state fair, no events, like nothing in person in 2020. And so the board for the fair, which is state funded, um was encouraging them to kind of diversify revenue streams.

So they had they were like looking at like okay what do we h what assets do we have that we can use to kind of bring in some financials um and one of them was buildings they have a bunch of huge underutilized buildings and so like all right well what if we find some tenants and like literally we came knocking like right then and there and they were immediately interested and the reason I think is that you know we can help them tell the story of Indiana agriculture in a really unique and modern way you know um people can understand like I mean you think about like you know corn fields and soybean fields and like you know what is that actually used for? Often times it's feeding cattle or what have you. In this case it's like botanicals that we can grow are turned into gin you know and like people can see that they can understand it. So it's kind of a cool way to kind of

Yeah. I feel like the one thing though um for better for worse Indiana isn't always quick moving on whether it's breweries, distilleries, sports betting, all the things. So, like going to the state fair that is funded by the state of Indiana and getting them to sign off on on one of the tenants being a distillery, was that hard?

Shockingly, no. And truly, it's I think I mean, they have a very special unique um like leadership team there and there was a board decision, but you know, I think the leadership team had a real vision for us. It seemed like the right fit at the right time for them and for us and

that's awesome. Still is.

And I mean, and the fact that it's a a shake at the time. So, High and Mighty was the original name, but the flagship product was that Lemon Shakeup.

Yep.

What did it just called the lemon shakeup?

Yeah. Lemon Shakeup can cocktail.

So, you know, there was a lot of synergy overlap there, but was the original concept to open up a destination where people would come and hang out at?

Yes. And that was part of that was probably a bigger part of the draw for the fair is that they were looking for like an amenity on site. They have all these events like at the time it was like the fuel and like basketball games. Uppui was playing basketball there and like tons of like every weekend there's an event at the state fair but there's nowhere for people to go inside the fair besides like the concession stands for like food or refreshments or whatever. And so like they're like all right if we can keep people on the fairgrounds longer they're likely to spend more money here, have like a better experience, tell their friends. That was the plan originally was to open this destination like bar, tasting room, restaurant concept inside the fairgrounds and really just kind of capitalize on that foot traffic that comes in.

Yeah, that was that is the thing. Well, was the thing when the fuel were there? like Fuel Games, rocking good time, but you need to be like

uh Broadripple or South Broad like you have to go somewhere different and like you know get dinner or whatever before and then you like have to Uber over to the game or whatever and like there wasn't necessarily anything right in the neighborhood there to uh to get rolling. So that was the the concept. Obviously that has shifted. How did that evolution kind of come together?

Remember that was like our dream. That was the original vision. It was like 2021. You might remember back then like interest rates started skyrocketing. We were pre-revenue. So we had all these financial plans, bring them to banks and you know to try to bring on some funding for the buildout of this bar, restaurant, tasting room.

It was about like a $1. 2 million project. They were still funding breweries at the time, but distilleries were new. For whatever reason, the difference was big in people's minds. So finding cash was hard. I had two bank deals that went to the very last decision point and they both died at like the board committee decision and one of the questions that I got back was doesn't jin make people go blind so it's like and obviously like moonshine did that like whatever 150 years ago sure you know so it just goes to show that I think that there's kind of like a a gap in education and what distilling is um modern day so anyway we had those two deals die.

That took like nine months and it was like, "All right, I we can't wait another nine months. So, let's just bring our products to market and then we'll come back to like fundraising for the restaurant concept." Yeah.

Then, so we launched three products. It was uh twin gins, so we had two gins, a floral gin and a savory gin, uh which is like a fun like little Easter egg story with our twins. And then we launched this lemon shakeup can cocktail. We launched it right around the fair in 2022 and this thing just took off and like we didn't see it coming. Our distributor at the time asked they said like, "Hey, why don't you make like a pallet or two and that'll probably take us the whole summer and a pallet is like a 100 cases. Um, you know, that's like 2,400 cans roughly."

Like, "Yeah, that'll last us a summer." Well, guess what? It was gone in two weeks. So, I was like, "Whoa." Uh, and we did not have plans. like we didn't have anything prepared, you know, like I like am not, you know, working on this part-time, like you know, we didn't we're still getting getting our bearings.

And so, um, you know, that was kind of that was a challenge, but it went to it, you know, gave us like kind of this like idea that, okay, wait, maybe there's something here that we didn't expect.

Where were they moving? Like, where were there 2,400 cans in two weeks is a lot.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, it was the Indiana State Fair. They're being sold there directly. So, like at the bars, at the fair through Europe concessions, who's awesome.

Oh, that is like easy money.

Yeah. Right.

The lemon shakeup cocktail. Come on.

Yeah. Bingo. Um, but secondly, it was like, you know, off- premise. So, that would be like retail, like liquor stores. Um, not grocery yet, but like some bars and restaurants here in Indie, but also like lake towns and like northwest Indiana, like by Lake Michigan, like resort kind of towns. Um and even in some rural spots, people who just kind of have grown up and you know understanding lemon shakeup and that being a part of their like nostalgic childhood memories.

Question before we kind of get pick up back of you sell out in two weeks. Why Jin?

There's a billion vodka brands and honestly um both on a sponsorship level and at the retail level they like kind of categorize products by their base spirit. So like, oh yeah, we already have four vodka cocktails, so we can't bring on another one. Doesn't matter if it's like lemon shakeup or long drink or whatever it is. Um, so you know, that was part of it. We love gin. Jin is kind of like it's a unique spirit. Um, you can do a lot with it, especially making cocktails. And also, it's not aged. So like for instance, like if you're starting a distillery, you don't have to like put back whiskey for four years, you know, you can release it right away, which is kind of nice. So, um, that's really what it came down to.

Yeah. Okay. So, you launched three products. How did the Twin Gins do?

They Well, they did well at bars and restaurants. So, a lot of the craft cocktail bars, we were talking about the craft cocktail movement taking off around the same time. They got it right away. They picked it up. We created this savory gin that is pretty unique and that you can't really find. I mean, there's still nothing really like it out on the market. And so, bartenders around here just, you know, went nuts for it. And you can still find it in some of the, you know, the best, my favorite cocktail bars here in the city. We realized very quickly that it was a very different audience and different sales process. So like bars, you're selling to bartenders, they might buy one case, it'll last them six months.

Canned cocktails, you're selling to liquor stores, they might buy 10 cases and it'll last them two weeks. And so it's like, okay, we can turn this over a lot quicker. And so it just became really hard to kind of like justify both of those sales processes. And so we just kind of eventually realized, all right, we got to make a choice. And the choice was to go all in on the shakeup brand. Today's episode of Get In is brought to you by Cow Pokes Work and Western Baby, a local Indiana shop that has built its name on quality clothing and boots that fit your American lifestyle.

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No, not really. I mean, we basically like made enough to make it through the state fair, but then like that was it. And and you know, we just didn't really have the back stock to like finish out the year strong.

So then what I mean, you saw it's awesome, but it's also like you kind of need to capitalize while momentum is there. So then you kind of like stall to zero.

Yeah.

You got to like go back through the whole distillation process, got those recan, all the stuff there.

Did you have a full facility on the fairgrounds at that point?

We did. It wasn't fully operational yet. We were kind of outsourcing some of the processes, but by May of 2023, we were like fully operational.

So then you do, you know, those 2400 cans. When do you get more can like how long does it take you to get back to market?

I mean, I think we got back to market by like September or so.

Okay. So, like a month or so.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I mean, mostly because some of the raw materials are harder like there's there's a lead time. So like cans, you know, and at the time there was a pandemic because like, you know, it was like everybody stop the the manufacturing plants, they stopped making cans because like, you know, everything ground to a halt and then like everybody bought the cans and so then they were just gone, right? So stuff like that. It's kind of wild.

No one thought about the pandemic, right?

We should have prepared for the pandemic.

The pandemic. Okay. So you get back rolling. Was there like feedback or push back of like, okay, the fair is over. like this was fun but like whatever or like how do you just keep rolling?

There was pent-up demand. It worked in our favor in a way we just didn't expect like people were like uh especially because I was really really active on social media. My background running ad campaigns especially on digital like we we were hammering it like building up this demand like this thing sold out and you know whatever. And so often times scarcity drives demand. And so like as an example, just south of where we are here today, there's a liquor store called Sobro Spirits. It's like kind of like our hometown liquor store.

Is that the one that's like right next to the gas station?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. They rule. Um they literally were taking down phone numbers and email addresses and they had a hundred cases pre-sold for when we came back online. When is that due to they people got it at the state fair or they had it before or is that due to like you're in the neighborhood down there and like people

little both. Yeah. Little of both.

Or you just like hey five bucks go in there and get you know pre- buy a case for

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Little both. Little both.

That's awesome. No. And that that's like the demand the drop kind of like the the scarcity like that that can work in your favor for sure. Like we do that for all of our merch drops. like everything is limited and once it's gone like we don't do another like we have to think of a new concept or design or something different versus like just like hammering the same things over and over again. So yeah, there's definitely a whole strategy behind that.

So you drop you have at one liquor store specifically, you have a hundred cases pre-sold. Like that's incredible. Uh how do you continue to build off that momentum and like what was the next big domino to fall for y'all?

Yeah. Well, we launched kind of like a fall cocktail that that fall, which gave us a chance to kind of work directly with retailers a little bit more. So, you know, we kind of got that out there.

Is that the

It's called Spiced Apple Sidekick, and it is It's honestly delicious. It's It's like our uh like our deep cut, if you will. Like a spiced apple, like we use all real stuff, so it's like real apple. We make it with brandy, which is delicious. Um

I actually remember this one. Yeah, it's very good.

Yeah, it's it's it's awesome. But anyway, it gave us a chance to like continue like figuring out how to do sales and you know travel around the state and that kind of thing and and then so that when it came time to for spring to like kind of get back on the lemon shakeup train like we had a bit of a process.

Okay. So this is spring of 23 probably around the time that I I ended up meeting you. Yeah.

High and mighty are you're rocking and rolling are but are you working on this full-time yet? No, I'm I was literally My first paycheck slashf full-time day was January 1st, 2025.

Oh, boy. So, you still had two more years. Uh, was it Jamie full-time?

No, I mean, we were working pretty much full-time in the business, but not like I mean, we're unpaid interns. We could say we have our distiller was full-time.

Okay.

All of 23, 24, 25. And he's our business partner. He's awesome. You're rocking and rolling, gearing up for spring of 23, but like what give us like a size like it's still a very local brand at that point.

Yeah, for sure. And I think there was kind of like an X factor that happened then, which is that like we had a little bit of cash available for marketing and so we went pretty hard into like social advertising. The second thing that happened was we started working with Johnson Brothers of Indiana. They're distributor. They're probably one of the largest now. How hard is it to get? So before, who was your distributor?

They're called Crossroad Venters.

So like kind of a maybe a more localized, smaller brand.

They're more of a wine and spirits brand uh distributor. They do really well with like, you know, restaurants, bars and restaurants. like all the bars and restaurants around Indie that you would love and visit like they partner really well with them but they weren't necessarily built for selling volume of canned cocktails at retail at grocery across the state. So we went from like a 10erson sales team to like a 200 person sales team.

How do you get in with someone like Johnson Brothers as like how do you prove out that there's a space for you? Cuz again this would have been 23 it was starting to get more competitive today in 2025 it's very very competitive. Yeah, I've had the founders of Mom Water on. I've had Bryce on. Yes. And he talks about like sometimes it's like getting lucky, right place, right time, like new concept coming to market. What was that story for you guys?

We got really lucky. They were courting us, which is pretty rare. Um, it turns out Mom Water, I think at the time, was leaving Johnson Brothers for a different distributor um that was part of like a larger deal or something like that. So they literally like there was a spot on their roster for an RTD can cocktail and like we were the new like thing in Indiana and so it was just like it was right place, right time for sure.

And how did that change the trajectory of your brand?

Significantly. So we went from like being in like 20 stores to being in like 300 like over the course of a couple months. Sometimes though, you know, with rapid growth like comes new problems like unforeseen stuff you didn't know about. Was it like just because they're on shelves places like the worst thing that can happen is you get a shelf space and then it doesn't move. Yep.

How were you like providing the marketing air cover or just like how are you moving?

Yeah, we got really aggressive like on the grassroots side. So, I talked about the social media marketing and we were playing up lemon shakeup like, "Hey, remember the drink you or whatever you grew up drinking at the state fair? Guess or at the county fair? Guess what? Now it's in a canned cocktail and it tastes just like a lemon shakeup." Which is true. We use real lemon. We use all real stuff. It's good. Um, but then secondly, we went hard with events. So, one of the ways that we met was partnering on events. Um, we went from do, you know, we didn't do any events in 2022 to doing like a hundred. And at that time Jamie and I were doing them ourselves. Um, so we were out in the market like meeting people and people love meeting the owners, right? And so it was like very much mom and pop. Um, but it did definitely burn me out.

Oh, for sure. Uh, we did um

the Indy500 together in 2024. Yep.

And we had I mean we had all Indiana everything, you know, brands and I mean the infield of the Indy500 like people didn't know they needed a lemon shakeup but they were the first thing gone. Like I mean everyone was like, "Oh, dude, come on. It's hot. It's the infield."

Um, so you're doing all these events. You're growing kind of the grassroots way. When you say that you were in 200 like were they all based in Indiana?

Yes. At the time cuz it uh the way distribution works is like you have to have a different distributor for every state. Okay. So yeah, that's kind of a legal constraint.

Yeah. Okay. So you start to like get some traction across the state of Indiana. Yep. This is like you're going through 20 and you're gearing up for state fair 2023. Yep.

How does how does that go?

Yeah. Well, first thing we knew is like we needed another product because the lemon shakeup was hot at the time, but we needed something new to talk about from a PR standpoint. And so we kind of put it out to our like social audience and we're like, "Hey, what would be the next flavor you would want to see?" And like literally they voted and like so we did kind of like a crowdsource kind of thing and

cherry lemon shakeup. It was a cherry shakeup is what was chosen. And so we made a cherry shakeup. We launched at the fair in 23 and boom we had like another you know knockout and um so you know we had like we had a little recipe you know it was like grassroots and social and audience engagement like that was really working and then it was driving demand and then we could kind of keep up on the sales side because we had a larger sales team.

Uh I mean incredible love that what point did you get picked up to go into other states?

Yeah. So we kind of made that decision towards the end of 23. We were like, "All right, well, first of all, at that point, I think we realized the dream of the like bar restaurant is dead. Like, that's not going to happen because we have something here. We have something we didn't expect that could be really special." And so it was kind of like either we go back to trying to raise money for that or we try to expand regionally.

And so that was what we chose. And so, um, I grew up in Illinois, we have a lot of family, actually Jamie partially grew up in Illinois, too. We have a lot of family and friends there. it was like, "All right, that's kind of a natural next step. There's already demand. Our our our family is asking when they can get it."

That kind of thing. So, it's like, "All right, maybe there's something there." Um, so we did end up linking up with the distributor there. And then at the same time, we were like, "Well, we'll already be in Chicago. What if we just like spend a little time up north and hit Wisconsin, too?" And uh so we launched in Wisconsin through a contact from Hotel Tango uh which you know so we have the same distributors.

That's one piece that uh is underrated of like other brands like hooking cuz like not that you would be necessarily competing directly against their you know cuz they're like bottled spirits but it's like you know at a time when alcohol consumption is going down like people kind of like I don't know tend to like tense up a little bit but for them to like make an introduction to you that's huge.

We're very very grateful for sure. In hindsight, I wish we would have opened only one state instead of two. I was we were already stretched thin. I was not even full-time in the business then. We didn't have a sales staff. So, it was like it made it really hard to like provide proper air cover for all of those new for like Milwaukee, Madison, Chicago, Chicago BBS, even downstate, indie, Fort Wayne, Southbend, you know, it was just like the list goes on. And so, we weren't we didn't have the process nailed down for that. So that was maybe in hindsight I would have done it differently. Um but you know then it push you pushes your back up against the wall. You figure it out and we built the process.

Okay. So now how many states are you currently available in today?

We're still in those three. So yeah, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, but we are planning to expand into Kentucky and Ohio over the next couple years as well.

Heck yeah. That's uh that's a and it's yeah you got to think about boots on the ground and like how people especially because what worked the recipe right was doing all those events and it's like it is unrealistic for you to do

a million events in three different states all the time every weekend gone you have you know you have said your youngest were nine like that's a really hard state really interesting stage of life to be in throughout this then you have to go through a rebrand.

Yes. So that was part of the decision to like move away from the bar restaurant and like move all the way into the canned cocktail business because at the time well let's say this we kind of had an inkling that this might be necessary in early 2024 maybe like late 23 because High and Mighty Distillery and Lemon Shakeup were two different brands and we were known for Lemon Shakeup and when we went into Illinois and Wisconsin like nobody cares about High and Mighty Distillery. doesn't mean anything to them. Lemon shakeup does. And so I was like, "All right, well, maybe we need to go a little further into that." That was what we ultimately did.

But not just because of that, the other thing that was happening at the same time was that, so our old cans had these like little characters on them. I described the lemon guy, the lemon character. We made into a mascot. Very cute, very fun. Oops. They look like a kids drink.

We were getting a lot of flack. Um,

like from where? Well, there is a body that governs like all of the labels um called the TGB and we have to submit through that. And so we were getting feedback like, hey, this might not be something you want to like do long term. Like technically it's legal, but like you're kind of in a gray area here. It looks like a kids drink. And then we were also getting um feedback from potential investors that were like, "Hey, this is really fun. You're making great progress. The characters are a no-go for us. There's too much liability. Looks like a kid's drink. It looks like the Little Miss characters, like the books from like the '9s.

I I loved the characters. Uh Lemie was awesome.

Yeah.

Great time. But I like I can see from like a legality perspective that, you know,

it was a lot of personality, but um

so then with the rebrand, you had to grow up unfort Yeah. You know,

so you have to drop the characters cuz I remember the little stickers like every drink had its own character.

Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty cool. But like it does make sense. I see how it all comes together. So you have to drop the characters.

Yeah.

You have to you rebrand to Shakeup.

Rebrand to Shakeup.

Did you have to like change the design of the can or anything?

Just the label itself. But I mean really what we decided to do was kind of lean into the fair association a little bit more. So, if you could see this on the video, like there's like the circular aspect to the logo and like these lines that are kind of it's like, you know, the Tilta World or the Ferris wheel and then inside the lettering is like these little lights that remind you of like, you know, golden hour at the fair. Everything lights up. It's just like special, right? Um, I just remember being a kid like going to like it was like the Fourth of July like neighborhood carnival kind of thing and like the lights at night it was like oh I get to stay up late and like go on rides until I puke and like whatever. So um that's what we tried to mimic here.

Yeah. And that launched uh May of 25.

Yeah. We just or it was like Yeah. It was like this spring

like what a couple months ago.

Yeah. A couple months ago.

Um how have things been going?

Well, it's going well. Um, I was telling you before like there's still a lot of our old packaging on shelves. So, it's taken some time to kind of like move a lot of that out and get all the new stuff in. And so, that's definitely a process. But, one of the things I mean, we get a lot of feedback now. People are like, I love the logo. I love the brand. Buyers for liquor stores are like, this looks so much more professional. Like, I get it. Like, the fair, yes, I love it. So like we're getting a lot of really good feedback but ultimately the roll out is just like it takes like a year basically.

Oh yeah. And during this time you also ended up getting to work with some cool university partners. Was the cherry shakeup uh first?

Yes. So yeah in 2023 we launched the cherry shakeup with the fair. We actually partnered with Ball State University on that. So, um, a close friend of mine, Sean Sullivan, who lives in the neighborhood, who's now, um, over, uh, he he worked for Ball State at the time as like an associate or assistant athletic director, and he was like, "Hey,

can cocktails beer licensing with universities is becoming a thing. You should check this out."

Is this Sean with now he's with Horizon League?

Yes.

Yeah. He's spectacular.

Also, uh, Pacers and Fever announcer like in stadium.

PA announcer.

Yeah, PA announcer.

Yeah, Sean rocks.

Sean rules. So he was like, "Hey, you should check this out. By the way, Ball State might be interested." And I was like, "Oh, I went to Ball State. That's my alma mater. There's a good story there. I went through the entrepreneurship program. Here I am like prodigal son returning home to like, you know, make good on university, whatever." So anyway, we launched it with Ball State. Um, you know, Ball State, it's a big school. Uh, lot you know, huge alumni base. So, you know, it helped us kind of get some exposure through that alumni base and that was pretty cool.

So, was it sold on campus? It was sold on campus like football stadium, basketball, games, um, etc. But Muny's not really a huge town. So, the influence was pretty much through university alumni exclusively. So, it really um there was it was somewhat limiting in terms of what we could do with that license.

Yeah.

But then we realized, hey, like Butler University here in Indie is a much bigger market. Um the alumni base is pretty big as well.

And they're bringing more people in like and this is no dig on Ball State or anything like that, but it's like more people go to Butler or boys men's basketball games than I don't know probably several of Ball State sports combined.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Butler basketball's huge. They had the run in 2010 and 2011. It was a total blast. Well, my wife Jamie is a Butler alum, so it just made a lot of sense. We could, you know, start a conversation with them really easily. and they got it on the PR side. It was like, you know, we can tie this together. It tells a great story of our alumni being successful in business, you know, outside, you know, after they graduate, what have you. Um, so, you know, they put it in the mag in their Butler magazine. Um, they help us promote at events. They helped us, honestly, they brought it to like JMV on, you know, 1070 the fan or whatever, that kind of stuff.

What was that one called?

Pool Blue. So, it is not a shakeup. Like, it's a butler can cocktail. So, it's got the butler, like the vintage Butler logo with the bulldog on it. Um, it says cool blue and big letters. It's just like fun and bright.

It's the And is it gin based?

That one is actually vodka based.

Vodka based. So, they're not a shakeup. Not a shakeup. So, it's like if we're not doing shakeup, we can do whatever we want. And they were like, hey, let's do the 100 calorie thing like a high noon blueberry butler blue, you know? So, it's a blueberry lemon vodka cocktail. Yeah, it's delightful. It's lighter than a lemon shakeup, but I mean it's

When you say lighter, what do you mean by that?

Different categories in the RTD space. Almost everybody thinks about like High Noon. So,

because they're like a head and shoulders and I've talked to Bryson like they're like the market leader of RTDs.

Absolutely. And like Mom Water is another example where it's like Lacroy with vodka almost. I That's maybe I I don't mean to knock them in that way. That's not like a knock. It's more just like it's a light essence based flavor profile. light flavor, no carbonation. Like it is it is like but you have to like that.

Yes, absolutely. And and I'm a fan of mom water for sure. Um but like even with high noon it's like

it's just like there's a whisper of a flavor there. It's light. You can drink a bunch of them if that's your thing. Um

what do they sessionable

sessionable lemon shakeup? We we make it like a a lemon shakeup. So it's it's all real stuff. We use real lemon. Um you know we make a gin with it. We use like real cane sugar in it. So, it's not like I mean it's not like super sweet. It's very balanced. Um, and we it's not like high sugar or anything like that, but it's when you taste it, it's like, "Oh, that's a full flavored cocktail." When you taste a high noon, you're like, "Oh, okay. That's something I can just chug ifable, right?" Versus you're sitting down to enjoy a um a cocktail, a lemon shakeup cocktail. Then with the cool blue, it that is more on the like lighter, you know, sessionable side.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they thought

as long as the dogs are winning

for sure, which we'll get there. We'll get there again. We'll get there again.

Uh I love it, man. Okay, so you guys roll that out. Was that last season?

Yeah, that was last season.

Cuz that would have been 24 25,

correct?

Okay.

There's a couple other things that we introduced this year, which are like really like nailing it now. So the first is that we did an a variety eight pack. So, it's like lemon shakeup, cherry shakeup, peach shakeup, which we launched last year, and then a brand new blueberry, which is like blueberry lemonade. And that one is lights out. It is so good. We use a real wild blueberry. It's like just dynamite. And so, people are buying it, you know, because they want to try the blueberry flavor. And that was like, remember when I said, "Hey, audience, social media audience, what's the number one flavor you want to see from us?" Well, everybody said blueberry this year. And so, I was like, "All right, let's do that."

So, blueberry lemonade.

Yeah. It's a blueberry lemonade. Not a shakeup.

It is a shakeup.

So, blueberry lemonade shakeup.

Yeah,

that sounds fire.

It's delightful.

Wait, did we get some of that in our

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. There we go.

Yeah. And then um on in on top of that um we did we also launched an iced tea lemon. Just you know, iced tea is very popular with spirits right now.

Kind of like that Palmer. Little Arnold Palmer.

We have a wizard on our team. His name is Nick Trager and he uh

shout out Nick.

Yeah,

he's the wizard. The flavor wizard.

He is. And he crushed it.

I love it, man. It's so cool. Especially uh I feel like I got introduced to you guys pretty early on. Uh and to be able to like follow the process time like throughout all these past couple years. It's it's awesome. And just the innovative way. You can definitely tell that you guys are uh like you know people that go and start businesses sometimes they're product people, sometimes they're sales people. Like I mean one thing you guys do really well is your social media in general. Like just like marketing. Thanks.

I think your brand is really really strong and it's always fun to watch with or without Lemie. It's still fun to watch, right? So, uh it's cool to see this evolution to Shakeup and what you guys have been doing. And I think that's such a great brand.

I'm surprised honestly that that wasn't like

I know. Me, too. Somehow I got the trademark.

Hey,

the trademark for Shakeup and Lemon Shakeup. So, hey, I'll take

You have the trademark for lemon shakeup.

Well, it's they do it by based on category. So, I have it for alcohol, but still. I mean, that does feel like

That's kind of sick.

I know. It does feel like it should have been done before, but that might be worth like I don't know $5 million on its own. The the alcohol trademark for Lemon Shakeup. Like that seems like that has some like brand equity behind it on its own. That's sick. Okay. I love it, dude. It's been cool. I'm excited. So, we have a few fun Indiana based questions left. Before we get to that, I do want to say I feel like from the outside looking in, especially before I started having lots of conversations with beverage brand owners, like it's like, "Oh, it's all fun. You're drinking. You're building." Like, what's the biggest misconception about owning an alcohol brand?

On the back end, it's not glamorous at all. Like, our distillery is like a manufacturing plant basically. Like, we have a canning line. We have all these tanks. It's it's a warehouse. So, it's not super glamorous on the front end in social media. Like, you know, it's all about like the customer, the people who who enjoy our stuff. So, like I make our social media, our marketing about them because like that's really like what the brand has become.

Okay, this next question, it's brought to you by our friends at JC Hart. They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond. Check them out at homejart.com. My question for you, Dan, why do you call Indiana home? Part of the reason I've stayed in Indiana because I mean there was like this huge brain drain like thing you know um phenomena in the mid 2000s around here um people leaving they graduate from IU or Purdue or Butler wherever and and they would leave the state to get jobs on the coast or whatever. Part of the reason I stayed is that like you can do anything you want here. If you want to start a media business like telling the story of Indiana, you can literally just do that and here you are Nate. Um, if you want to start a distillery, you can do that. And guess what? I did

a distillery at the state fairgrounds.

Yeah.

Absolutely. And back at the time when I moved here, I actually was a traveling musician. I was a starving artist. And so I was like, I can live on Butler's campus basically for super cheap with my bandmates and we can tour the country and like we don't have to worry about like crazy debt. Like so anyway, you can do whatever you want here. Um, economically it's a pretty great setup.

I love that, man. Okay, we got some rapid fire questions for you. What flavor are you holding out for? Like if you could just like snap your fingers and launch a new flavor of Shakeup, what would it be?

Oh man, it'd be like kind of like an apperal spritz kind of thing.

I'm going to toss it up for you.

Bring it.

Peanut butter and jelly shakeup.

Whoa. Heyo.

Peanut butter is my favorite treat. So, you nailed it.

I think when I think of like, you know, childhood nostalgia type stuff, like the lemon shakeup, there there might be something there. Uh, you and Jamie both grew up around fairs or especially Jamie grew up around fairs, but when you think about your time at state fairs, county fairs,

what are your top two things that you got to get every time you go to the state fair?

Kids, they love the grilled cheese at the dairy barn. Um, but there's like some fun hidden gems at the fair, which we didn't really get into, but like when I bring the kids to the fair, there's like a couple things that they have to do. Number one, they love going to the DNR building, the Department of Natural Resources, and fishing. you can go fishing at the state fair and they love to fish and it's just like a catch and releaseleas thing but like it's awesome and hilarious. Yeah. And it's outdoor but I mean it's like awesome. Um so there's that.

Probably everyone catches a fish like it's like a small enough

literally like everyone catches a fish. Yeah. And then like you know in the Pioneer Village area there's like it's like a maple cream that you can get and they'll like give you free samples and that is delicious. So the kids are like all right number one we're doing this. Number two we're going to get the maple cream. Number three we're going to the dairy barn.

There you go. What was the first local partnership that you guys got where you just like were over the moon about?

Hi-fi music venue down in Fountain Square. Like we partnered with them pretty early. They took a chance on bringing us in and our stuff just flies there. It's awesome. We have a 16oz tall boy lemon shakeup. Oh

and they just Yeah. It like I mean it just flies and so it's fun. Like I don't know like that's like one of my favorite venues. I grew up playing music as a musician. So, it's like you go to the concert, outdoor venue, lemon shakeup. It's just like that's summer right there.

Do you have any good advice for first time state fair goers?

I would go in the morning like for sure. So, like if you have to go on a weekend, like get there like at like 900 a.m. and like go through like early afternoon so it's not crazy hot.

Top three things. So, you kind of talked about what to get, but are there like booths or spaces to go visit or rides to ride or things to do while you're in the catch and release fish? That's pretty cool.

Yeah, the DNR thing is cool for sure. Um, there is uh for little kids there's um little hands on the farm is this like special like little experience where they like learn about day in the life of a farmer and they like go through this little trail and they pick up like like um seeds and they plant the seeds and that kind of stuff and then at the end they get like a chocolate milk or like a granola bar. Yeah. And so they're like, "Oh, we got to get that granola bar." But that's like a fun special thing.

Yeah. I love that. These are the same three questions that I ask everyone who comes on the show. It's where we learn a little bit more about what Indiana means to you and some cool stuff going on. So, first question, Dan, you're originally from uh Illinois, right? Chicago suburbs.

Uh what's something the world needs to know about Indiana?

Indiana has this flyover state like reputation. Hopefully that's changing. I think you're doing a lot to change the image of Indiana. Um it's a beautiful state, like amazing state parks. Um so for me, it's like I I would love for people to know that like this is a place that you can come visit and like have a really special experience. So like we love going to Turkey Run and Shade State Parks and like there's awesome lakes like all over, not just like near the Bloomington area, a ton of like really killer lakes um up north like as well. Northern Indiana is like our like the little version of like Minnesota, like the land of 10,000 lakes. Like there's a ton of and they're different. Like the lakes down here, like the lakes down around central to southern Indiana are different than the lakes up in northern Indiana.

Uh it's just like an interesting as I explore more of the state. It's cool to see these different regions and like what their, you know, what life looks like in the southeast part of the state versus the southwest part of the state versus the north. I don't know. I love it all. Um, next, this is where you get to shed some light on a piece of the state that more people need to be talking about. What is a hidden gem in Indiana?

Southbend area is really fun. Uh, there is a town directly next to Southbend called Mishawaka and it is awesome. Like there's like this downtown river area that's beautiful. And then um there's some really killer restaurants there too. Like there is a like a beer bar, like a craft beer bar called Hopstation. Shout out Hopstation and Casey. Have you been? You know them?

Yes. They are awesome.

They We've sponsored uh Connect 574's 574 pizza racket and Hopstation One cuz they do the craziest stuff with pizza with pizza. Italian like hot dog. It was crazy. Like it was nuts.

Lots of hidden gems, but Mishawaka is one. M

I just was up in Mishiwaka. We did a whole video about Oh, it's called Indiana Rug Company. They sell a bunch of merch and different Southbend and Indiana specific stuff and they have uh some really cool stuff there in the history of Mishawaka and there's this whole thing with ball band rubber and these boots and wow they this is a really cool kind of like overlooked part like everyone says South Bend but Mishwaka is an awesome like they're basically the same thing but they're right there. Well, don't tell the locals that I said that though. Uh, finally, this is where we get recommendations for guests to be on the podcast or people that we need to know about. Who is a Hoosier that we need to keep on our radar, someone who's doing big things.

Yeah. I mean, I would go Jess West costumes for sure.

Jess West costumes.

Yeah, you got to have her on. So, she, if you Google her, she's been on, you know, the cover of Indie Star and stuff like that because she makes these like amazing costumes that you see like basically like she is like somebody who creates costumes for films almost. So like she'll do like like a Chewbacca replica costume and it's just like oh that's Chewbacca. Um she does all kinds of stuff. And then recently I think it was like within the last two years she was on it must have it was either Netflix it was it was or MTV or something she was on a reality costume contest TV show. And I don't know how far she made it in there but you know it just goes to show that like there aren't that many folks doing what she does um across the country or across the world or what have you.

Um, but she's right here in Indie and she's a gem and she made our Lemie Lemon costume and even though I couldn't put my arms down, it was a total blast to wear.

What happened with the costume?

I still got it. So, when you're ready to wear it,

it's ready for you.

Yes. There we go. I love it, man. Dan, thank you so much for coming on the show. Uh, thank you for telling us the journey of launching this distillery at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, your guys' expansion into three states, shifting from, you know, having to rebrand as as Shakeup and all the amazing things you guys are doing, partnering with Ball State, partnering with Butler. Uh, I'm really excited to continue to follow this journey.

Well, thanks for having me, Nate. It was a blast.

Love it, man. Talk soon.

Cheers.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Get In. If you like what you heard, make sure you leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all of my gear recommendations at sweetwater.com. If you want a behind-the-scenes look at everything we're doing across the state, make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok, Nate Spangle. Thank you so much for listening and being part of what makes the Hoosier State great. We'll see you next time here on Get