RJ Balde, host of the Hash it Out Podcast, talks to Josh Lizotte, CEO and Co-founder of Rebel Coast Wines. Rebel Coast specializes in alcohol free cannabis infused wine and beverages. They discuss the company's transition from producing alcoholic wine to bringing the world's first cannabis infused wine to market. They also talk about a new line of beverages that's looking to compete in the hard seltzer space.

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RJ: Coming to you from the International Space Station...I wish, I'm RJ Balde and this is the TRICHOMES Hash it Out Podcast. On the show, we feature conversations about trending cannabis topics. We also bring in Industry insiders and influencers to discuss their point of view. In this episode, I'll be talking to Josh Lizotte about his company's transition from producing alcoholic wine to bringing the world's first cannabis infused wine to market. We'll also talk about a new line of beverages that's looking to lay down the law on the claw and much more. Without further ado, let's hash it out. Today, I am joined by Josh Lizotte, CEO and Co-founder of Rebel Coast Winery, which specializes in alcohol-free cannabis infused wines and beverages. Rebel Coast, here's to now, Josh welcome to the show man. 

Josh: Hey, thanks for having me.

RJ: Thanks for coming back again. I appreciate it.

Josh: Of course, of course, no problem at all. 

RJ: For sure. So how, you know since the last time we spoke it was probably about over a week ago, maybe two weeks ago, a lot has happened since then. How have you been doing? 

Josh: You know, we've been doing good. A lot has been going on, especially in the LA area. We’ve been doing okay, you know a little hectic though. With everything going on people are definitely worried about the excitement that's happening but yeah, we're still moving along though.

RJ: Cool. You're in LA right now, right?

Josh: Yeah. 

RJ: Okay, so you're kind of in the heart of the unrest at least in this state.

Josh: Yeah, absolutely. I know we were right in the thick of it for a while. We had to actually stop production for a day because of it.

RJ: No kidding, huh? 

Josh: Yep. No we were right in the thick of it for a day. 

RJ: Wow. Alright. Are you back up and running now? 

Josh: Yeah, but we just kind of stopped it for this week. You just let things settle out. The team is a little uneasy so we're just going to hold off and let things chill out for a little bit then we'll resume.

RJ: Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah well, I'm glad you're staying safe out there man. It's you know, certainly a very interesting time of the new chapter. Hopefully a new better chapter in our country's history will come out of all this.

Josh: Yeah, I hope so. I hope people just listen, you know, there's people that are definitely not happy. They’re angry, you know, so things need to change.

RJ: Exactly. That's what I've been thinking too, it's so important to listen, you know, when situations come up like this that divide people I think a lot of listening goes out the window, a lot of people get defensive about their stance and they just kind of want to stake their claim and you know, they have an instant knee-jerk rejection to anything that might challenge their normal, you know, what I mean or their way of life or their privilege.

Josh: Yeah, people are scared of change, you know, but they need to accept it and you know, we need to change. 

RJ: Yeah, now shifting here to Rebel Coast, I understand that in 2012, you began producing regular alcoholic wine through what you call the virtual Winery. So can you explain what that is? And then what fueled your transition from alcoholic wines to cannabis infused wines?

Josh: Yeah, so Rebel Coast was a traditional virtual winery, launched in 2012 and what that means is essentially no like hard physical assets. So there was no winery. Our bottling facility was virtual in the sense that we worked with vendors and wineries and buy bulk wine, blend it branded it, market it, label it and then sell it. That's really just, you know like no big physical assets, none of that, none of those hard Capital costs. 

RJ: And then what fueled your transition then from cannabis infused wines? How did you start with that? 

Josh: So, you know, so I've been in the Cannabis space for like a decade and my old partner, he was doing wine for like 15 years. He started out, you know, he launched traditional alcohol Rebel Coast in 2012 and then in 2017, him and I linked up and had the idea of making, you know, let's make a cannabis infused wine. He had the wine background, I has the cannabis background, so it was like, “let's try and figure this thing out.” So we had the idea in 2017 and how to do a bunch of R&D to actually, you know, we had to remove the alcohol in it. You can't mix cannabis and alcohol in California.

RJ: Oh, is that technically illegal?

Josh: Oh, yeah that’s a law, you’re not allowed to mix, exactly. 

RJ: Got it.

Josh: Yeah, regulators don't want people to be crossfaded, we’ll say. 

RJ: Yeah, totally totally. Yeah, for sure. Now can you tell me about your process? Like you said you had to learn how to work 2 dealcoholize the wine and not only that but make it taste good rather than tasting like sour grape juice, which is what you said it usually tastes like in an interview with Forbes before you make it taste good. So what's your process?

Josh: So yeah, so removing alcohol from wine is pretty standard in the wine industry. At least a part of this small amount of it. That's because there's different tax brackets and federal tax brackets depending on your level of alcohol. So say for instance a wine grower, they let their grapes sit on the vine too long, too much sugar, that sugar would then convert to more alcohol and it puts you over a certain threshold. So they would then remove a little bit just to be under that tax bracket.

RJ: Okay.

Josh: So we just remove it all. We teamed up with a couple of different patented ways to remove alcohol from wine in a gentle fashion. So we teamed up, we tried them both, we teamed up with a, you know, big alcohol removal plant up in Northern California and we work with them on just the de-alcoholization but you're right, usually when you take the alcohol out of wine it tastes like bad grape juice because alcohol does have some much flavor and mouthfeel to the wine, so after we de-alcoholize it, first of all we have to startup with a good wine, right? You can't, any bs wine won't work because you need to have the right flavor notes, the right aroma. So then even after we de-alcoholize it, you know, we do have to adjust sugars and acids with it to help balance out that alcohol loss.

RJ: Got it. 

Josh: Yes a bunch of R&D went into it. I think we did, 8-12 months of actual R&D on the actual flavor itself. Just to get the non-alcoholic wine tasting good.

RJ: Wow. 

Josh: Yeah.

RJ: How many iterations did you have to do before you got it right? Did it taste, the first time you did it, did it taste good? 

Josh: No, I mean so yeah because removing the alcohol was one issue, then actually having our water soluble formula with THC in it, we had to add that to it as well because that actually also impacts the flavor of it but no our first trials did not taste good. You know, I don't even know how many iterations we've had of actual flavor trials. Maybe the first product we launched on the market in late 2018, you know, that was our 20 milligram bottle. It wasn't great, you know in my mind. We just wanted to see what the market, you know, it was the first batch. It was like three or four cases, a small batch to see what the market said about it, even though we didn't really think it was that great.

RJ: Sure. 

Josh: You know it was hit or miss, some people loved it right away, some people said they didn't like it, you know, it's not going to hit everybody's palate but we've been changing the formula ever since then, you know, we're listening to budtenders and consumers. We do like tasting panels of each batch coming out. So we're always changing the formula slightly. I think we've done maybe five or six large batches in 2019 till now, the actual bottles, you know we’re always slightly tweaking that formula, you know trying to balance out those sugars and acids to actually make it taste better. So we're always trying to improve on it. 

RJ: Oh yeah, totally. There's always a way to make it better and I think that definitely sets you apart because you're always constantly looking for a way to make the product better, you know, some people just rest on their laurels so I think it's cool that you're definitely always working on the formula to improve it. 

Josh: Yeah, I mean it can always be better, you know, even if I just like it, it doesn't matter, you know, we need to have the consumers, the mass mass buyers, they need to like it. You know, one person's opinion is not going to cut it, so we're always trying to gather more data and see what other people like and what they don't like and this is why we give out the product all the time and you know, I tell people I'm more interested in the negative feedback. It's not really negative to me, you know, I want people to be fully honest and transparent, tell me what you don't like, so we can try to make it better. 

RJ: Hopefully in a constructive way.

Josh: Totally. Yeah. We don’t want people to get bashful, they don't want to hurt somebody's feelings, but it's just like tell me the truth, you know.

RJ: Yeah.

Josh: We need the negative. We need the constructive feedback to actually improve on it.

RJ: Definitely, definitely! Now, you know, we kind of know that alcohol, once you're consuming it usually hits, especially in comparison to like cannabis edibles or beverages and things like that an alcohol product when you consume it, usually hits you a little bit faster than like an edible might.

Josh: Absolutely.

RJ: So what did you do in order to sort of shorten that delay, if at all?

Josh: Yeah, so that was a big part of our R&D. So in the beginning, we all know that most Edibles take like 45 minutes to an hour to actually feel the effects of it and we didn't want that. I think the majority of us have been in this situation where say you eat like a brownie and you know, you don’t feel anything in like 45 minutes do you decide to eat another one and now a half hour flies by and you’re stoned off your ass way too hot.

RJ: Oh, yeah. Yes indeed. 

Josh: Yeah, we didn't want that. You know, we were trying to emulate the same aspect of drinking alcohol. Drinking a glass of wine where you have a very fast on set. So we have a formula that actually makes our THC water soluble and with that it makes it extremely bioavailable. So most Edibles when you consume it, you have to process it through your digestive tract and your liver. That's the really long onset before your body absorbs it. Our THC acts more like a sublingual so once you take a sip of it and say your mouth, that THC is actually being absorbed through your mucosal system and then goes right to your bloodstream and then even once you swallow it, once it's in your stomach the THC is transferred through your stomach lining right to your bloodstream. So it's a very very fast onset, of about 15 to 20 minutes usually. Which is much faster than traditional Edible.

RJ: Absolutely. Yeah. Definitely. 

Josh: And it's a different high as well.

RJ: Sure.

Josh: It's more like the smoking high. I mean, it's not a heavy edible couch lock, traditional edible high. It's more of a smoking high. It’s very unique.

RJ: Okay. Yeah I was going to ask about that too because certainly Edibles and Cannabis beverages traditionally can feel a lot different than smoking cannabis.

Josh: Yeah. Absolutely. Yep. That's it. Usually converts, its Delta 9 THC usually once it is processed as an edible it's converted to Delta 11 which is a different high.

RJ: Got it.

Josh: Our research stays at delta-9 as it does when you're smoking.

RJ: Got it. Now do your products, what is the average THC level in your products on average?

Josh: Yes. It's 10 milligrams per serving.

RJ: Got it. Okay, so would that be something that you might recommend to maybe someone who has never tried a cannabis product before because that's a lower dosage than a lot of stuff that's on the market.

Josh: Absolutely. I would yeah, absolutely. New consumers, that's kind of who we were targeting originally. You know, because once legalization happened, there was going to be a lot more consumers in the market and I mean you go into a dispensary there’s thousands of things to try. So it can be intimidating and you see these hundred milligram Edibles, which is just frightening to a new consumer. So we didn't want to overwhelm people, we want you to be able to have many drinks, you know, not just one and done, you know, you're not eating a hundred milligram chocolate bar. It's just like alcohol right, you usually don't just have one glass of wine or one beer. You're gonna want to have a few of them. So we've dosed it so you can to emulate that so you can have multiple drinks.

RJ: Yeah, I like that. Now moving on to this here because when did this wave start maybe like last summer? Like the Seltzer wave?

Josh: Yeah.

RJ: Everyone was in on it all of a sudden and on 4/20 this year Rebel Coast announced a new line of beverages. So can you tell me about the new line of Seltzer and sparkling beverages? And can you also tell me why white claw has been real quiet since y'all announced it?

Josh: Yeah, so, you know, we have had this in R&D for eight months now or so.

RJ: Nice.

Josh: We just produced our first commercial batches of our Seltzers. We have a black cherry, a lemon-lime, a mixed berry Seltzer, you know zero calories, zero sugar. This is literally natural flavor carbonated water in our cannabis. Still 10 milligrams, you know, we saw everybody going on the let's call it the White Claw Seltzer trend and we've been talking to dispensaries and people were wanting low calorie, low sugar products and I'm like, you know what? I love Seltzer's. We all like Seltzer's. It’s a big trend. Let's just try to see if we can make this thing. 

RJ: Yeah.

Josh: So we did it, you know, we did our first commercial batches with that and also in a 12-ounce sleek can, you know moving away from big glass bottles.

RJ: Yes indeed

Josh: So cans, ready to drink and then also with that, we transitioned our wine into a can as well and created our sparkling wines to go with it to complete the lineup. So now we have both of our whites and rose, still wines in a can and also reformulated those and carbonated them to make a sparkling wine like a champagne in cans as well.

RJ: Mmm are those available yet?

Josh: The first deliveries to dispensaries go out this week so they should be on the shelves next week. You have to go through all the compliance stuff once it actually gets to the dispensary but yeah, they should be able to pick up next week for everybody.

RJ: Awesome. Is that for dispensaries like in the California area?

Josh: Yeah all in California. So it'll be in all of our dispensaries in California and also our state wide delivery services that we’ve teamed up with so you can just go online and go online to Rebelcoast.com and click buy now essentially, order now and it’ll be delivered to your house usually within an hour.

RJ: Oh really? 

Josh: Yeah. 

RJ: Wow,that's awesome. Now how difficult was it for you to set up a delivery system for cannabis products?

Josh: So luckily we didn't have to do it. So we don't have our own delivery license. We just teamed up with Statewide delivery service actually and they integrated they're ordering platform with our website. So it looks like you're getting it right  from Rebel Costa with ease of use but on the back end, logistically, it's actually fulfilled by our license delivery partner.

RJ: Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay. That's awesome. It's nice that you were able to sort of not have to worry about that responsibility and have someone who knows what they're doing sort of take care of that part for you.

Josh: Yeah, well all I know is making and branding the product, we’ll let them handle what they're good and that is delivering.

RJ: Definitely definitely. Yeah let people who have their own talents definitely take the lead on whatever that may be.

Josh: Exactly.

RJ: Out of all the products, which one is your favorite? 

Josh: Cherry black. 

RJ: Black Cherry! Nice! Yeah, yeah I'm partial to black cherry stuff myself.

Josh: Yep, black cherry. I mean that I do love our sparkling wines too, they're really good. Yeah, I mean, I'm just some kind of a Seltzer fanatic. I'm stoked on them, you know.

RJ: For sure. I didn't really get into the Seltzer craze until maybe like, I don't know maybe only just before quarantine started so maybe February? February was when I had my first White Claw, those things are good. 

Josh: Yeah White Claws are pretty good. Yeah. I mean, I just drink normal Seltzer, just flavored sparkling water every day.

RJ: Oh sure!

Josh: They're just delicious. They quench your thirst, they’re easy to drink and they're dangerously easier to drink though.

RJ: Yeah that's why it's definitely good that you only have ten milligrams of THC per can because it would be easy to just like slam those back.

Josh: Yeah, they're really easy to drink. So we’re even contemplating doing a five milligram too. We might release a small batch of five milligram a can.

RJ: Oh interesting.

Josh: Yeah.

RJ: Interesting. Yeah, it's perfect. I love the design. Your branding is great. The designs of the cans are great. Like I can definitely see me taking a case of these to like some socially distant beach bonfire or something.

Josh: Oh, yeah. There you go. 

RJ: You know what I mean? Everyone gets their own though we're not passing for now. 

Josh: Yeah. 

RJ: Now I wanted to bring this up because we talked about this last time, you know, there are so many cannabis products on the market that advertise providing certain effects, even though it's often found that the same productor strain can affect someone each individual differently, but there aren't any alcohol products really in the space that claim to provide a specific type of inebriation. Although there are many different types of being drunk and many different types of drunk. Why do you think that is?

Josh: You know, I think it's kind of like just the history of cannabis, you know historically we've always heard of indica and sativa right? To distinctions in the Cannabis realm. Well alcohol, I mean you have 50 types of liquor. It wasn't as distinct as oh this is an indica and this is a sativa. I think that's kind of just stuck, you know with the industry as a whole. There's nothing like that for alcohol. I mean right now, how would you classify a whiskey drunk? Would you say it's a whiskey drunk? You know?

RJ: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, like do, you may know this...do different alcohol products have like you know, cannabis products that again might be a different strain that has a different terpene profile, do different alcohol products have different terpene profiles or anything that differentiates them other than I guess the way they taste?

Josh: Yeah. I mean, I definitely think there's a differing terpene profile to liquor, it would be kind of cool to do an analysis on it to see what terpenes are in them. Yeah that’d be actually kind of cool but I’ve never looked at terpene quantities.

RJ: Sure. Yeah. It was just baffling me that it had just come to my mind that I've never seen any, yeah, there's so many different alcohol products, but they all sort of I guess are meant to do the same thing I guess? But each person is different too so yeah, it's just it was an interesting sort of thing that I was pondering the other day when we talked about on our last recording. It's definitely interesting, but it would be cool to see like you said a study on that. I'm surprised it hasn't been done. To be honest.

Josh: I wonder if somebody has been that has done it. That's something I'll look into now.

RJ: Someone has! Some dude at home probably did like some extensive home research.

Josh: Come on. There's gotta be something on it. 

RJ: Yeah, man, so you mentioned that the products are being sent out to dispensaries this week. You also said that, you know, people can go onto the website and get a delivery. So where else can people other than your website, which is Rebel Coast, just RebelCoast.com, right? Or where Rebel Coast Winery?

Josh: Yeah, just Rebel Coast.

RJ: Rebelcoast.com. Where else can people keep up-to-date with Rebel Coast, with the work you're doing and with what you're doing personally?

Josh:  Definitely our social media, you know, we're really active on Instagram. You can catch us there, you know, you talk to us, interact with this, you know, I personally am on responding to people on our Instagram. It’s usually me and our marketing director Priestly. 

RJ: Nice.

Josh: He runs it then I'll pop on every now and then to just respond and chat with people. So you can usually catch what we're doing on there. Obviously our website, our newsletter that we send out,  you know, every couple weeks to subscribers really gives you more in depth of what's been going on. LinkedIn a little bit but Instagram is probably the most prevalent way to keep up with us.

RJ: Yeah and Instagram, it's @RebelCoastWinery, right? 

Josh: Yup!

RJ: Yeah and the memes you guys have been uploading lately have been pretty fire, especially during the Rebel Coast sparkling Seltzer, sparkling wine sort of launched, the memes that you posted are pretty top-notch. I liked them.

Josh: Yeah, that's our marketing director.

RJ: Nice shout out. What's her name? 

Josh: That's Priestly. 

RJ: Shout out to Priestly man. Keep up the good work. Right on man. Well Josh again, thank you so much for taking the time to rush into the office, sit in traffic and have another conversation with me. 

Josh: No problem it was great.

RJ: The last one was gold but I say this one is platinum level.

Josh: Yeah. Yeah, definitely nice to have a better connection. Huh?

RJ: No doubt. No doubt. Yeah, it's all about that audio fidelity they say. Right on Josh. Well, thanks again man. I hope you continue to stay well and stay safe and hopefully I'll be able to see you in person sometime soon.

Josh: Absolutely, man. Let's make it happen. Thanks for having me. 

RJ: My thanks again to Josh Lizotte for joining me. If you are a member of the Cannabis community and have a story you want to share with us. We would love to hear from you. You can reach the show at HashItOut@TRICHOMES.com. You can help others find the show by taking a moment to subscribe to the podcast and write a review. You can also join in on the discussion with industry insiders and get your voice heard by joining the community at TRICHOMES.com and following us on all social media. Hash It Out is produced by David Fortin and presented by TRICHOMES.com. I'm RJ Balde, thanks for listening.