cider and the downfall of tim tebow

Before I go into anything about cider, let me first say how much pleasure I got watching the embarrassment of an offensivive effort that was put forth by tim tebow and the broncos.  Ben has been bathing in tebow all year and I've had to listen to him talk non-stop about how all tebow does is win.  I guess it's over now and I couldn't be more pleased.

A lot of our efforts recently have been on locking down a plan for canning our cider.  We have gotten a lot of positive reviews, along with people asking where they can get our cider in stores.  We're working to make that happen.  I might have mentioned this before, but there is a law that says beer and cider can't be packaged in the same facility.  It doesn't make any sense, and prevents us from making our cider and shipping it to a packaging facility.  We have to do it all ourselves, which is a bit of a change in our plans, however, it is not such a bad thing to have the ability to control every aspect as the liquid goes from fresh-pressed sweet cider to a finished hard cider in a six-pack.

To finish off the post this week, and all future posts I suppose, I'll be giving some kind of personal insight into our lives.  We went to the pawn shop the other day and bought Madden '10 for $5 (which seems like a preposterously good deal).  Needless to say, I am the champ right now (and to Ben and Tyler, when you read this: "yes, no you won't, and I'll do it as the Rams"), but the real story is how awful Ben is at football video games.  I can't describe how lopsided our life record is.  From when we met in high school and I was spanking him in ESPN 2K5 during "senior english thesis writing sessions" I have been beating him mercilessly into the ground.  Must be why he likes tebow; empathy.

I caught some flack for making fun of Tyler and Ben last week and not mentioning myself.  I thought about it, but I'm the writer, so instead I'll include a pleasant picture of myself riding a bicycle 5 years ago.  Enjoy your week:

First Pint

Pretty monumental week for us.  We finished kegging our first run and sold about 25 kegs each to Pine State and Nappi.  We then went into Mainely Brews to have our first cider on tap.  I can safely say we were all really nervous.  We didn't expect any problems, but never having kegged anything before, we were hoping the keg didn't have just foam, or explode or anything.  No explosions, and the cider came out great.  We'll update our website with all the places you can get Downeast on tap.  We have a bunch of verbal commitments, but they have to finish the barrels that are in place before they put us on, so you should see a much more complete list in the next couple of weeks.  If you want to put us on tap at your bar/restaurant just give any of us a call, email, or just comment on the blog.

As for the behind the scenes kind of stuff, our roles are starting to change slightly.  The name of the game is selling.  Tyler is our head of sales, so he does most of the selling, but with this being a pretty crucial time to sell, both Ben and I are also out on the road.  Selling is a wild beast.  It's exciting, depressing, scary, fun, but never boring.  I never thought of myself being a salesman, but here I am going door to door cold-selling cider.  It's kind of weird because you know that a lot of people are annoyed with you, but it's your job to ignore that.  You have to have thick skin because not only can you go through really long bouts of rejection, but some of the owners can be less than welcoming.

Funny story about my first sales trip.  I went to a town which I'll call town X, so as not to offend anyone who might be from there.  Ben told me town X was really nice (there was a company with the same name that made really nice water vessels, so he assumed the town was nice as well).  As you could guess, town X was not the kind of place that a premium local hard cider was going to gain traction.  Imagine the reception you might get trying sell Ferrari's door to door in rural Mississippi.  Not quite as extreme, but you get the idea.  I established a principal about bars during the day though.  As opposed to the traditional theory that the nicer the bar, the more crowded it'll be, the opposite applies to bars in the morning.  The seedier the joint, the more crowded it will be.  Maybe a tip for those of you with nice bars that are having trouble grabbing onto that mid-morning crew: hang up a false-front with peeling paint, busted windows, and burnt out lights and you could become a day-night powerhouse.

Finally, fun facts this week to learn about Ben and Tyler.  Ben doesn't like onion rings.  He says it's because he doesn't like when you bite into the ring and the onion comes out without the fried part, but I don't know why he doesn't either eat the whole thing in one bite, or just bite down with a sense of purpose to make sure there's a clean separation, like a normal person.  As for Tyler, I don't know if I'm making too big a deal of this, but I used the word "tom-foolery" the other day and he had no idea what I was talking about.  How do you make it 23 years without coming across tom-foolery?  Both very bizarre to me.