277: Inside the Clubhouse w/ Fiddlers Elbow & Winebow
Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of a prestigious golf championship? Well, buckle up as we invite Ian Hock and Tommy Donovan to share their unique experiences in the club industry. From navigating the chaos of the PGA championship with 5000 people in the clubhouse to sharing anecdotes about golf - we've got your curiosity covered.
Get ready to witness a deep dive into the future of golf, as we discuss the introduction of the liv tour, a concept that's both shaking up the landscape and transforming the sport. Plus, you'll discover how Fiddler's Elbow is pushing the boundaries of the club industry with its innovative beverage programs. We're talking unique ice cubes, custom-made canned cocktails, and an inventive wine program that's sure to whet your whistle.
Lastly, let’s not forget the elephant in the room - how has Fiddler's Elbow tackled the challenges thrown up by the pandemic? You'll hear about the club's creative adaptations, their strategy for rebranding, and their approach to building a community with their members. Plus, we’ll explore the potential impacts of climate change on the wine industry and the shifting wine preferences among the younger generation. So, sit back, relax, and get ready for an entertaining tour through the evolving world of golf and club culture.
Huge thanks to Ian and the Winebow team for the delicious wine
& Tommy and Fiddler's for the delicious spread 😋
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Hey everyone, welcome back to Private Club Radio. I'm your host, denny Corby, and before we get into this episode I've got to tell you a story. Short story long is I was performing at a CNA event and I was there early and I met this really cool gentleman named Ian Hawk, with Winebo I like wine. He was a cool dude, so we obviously hit it off. But we just started chatting and thought it'd be cool to do a fun episode together and he came up with the idea oh, why don't we go to one of his clients clubs? We can chat with them, have some wine and have a really cool conversation. So he reached out to his buddy, who is a trustee, and Tommy Donovan over at Fiddler's Elbow, which is a fantastic club, and we had a really fun conversation. We were in their speakeasy wine cellar. We were just having some meats and cheeses and I don't want to say this is not an educational episode, but it's us just having a good time and just talking about the industry and just enjoying good company, good wine, some good meats, some good cheeses and just good conversation. So we talked about the club world. Ian and Tommy actually met previously at a PGA event and then they both ended up back in the club world. So really cool stuff. But so big thanks to Ian for hooking this up and Winebo for hooking up with the amazing, amazing wine. It works Going to talk about it a little bit there but especially thank you to Tommy for or. This is going to be one of the longer episodes. This is a long one, but it was a really nice conversation and I know you will enjoy it too. So let's welcome Ian Hawk and Tommy Donovan to private club radio. She is gentlemen.
Speaker 2:Cheers, cheers, here, here. Thank you, sir Salud. How about a way?
Speaker 1:to spend a Thursday. Okay, has an oaky afterbirth. Your breath, absolutely.
Speaker 3:You say somewhere around 85% French.
Speaker 2:Wow, you know your facts, Tommy.
Speaker 3:Hungarian.
Speaker 2:He doesn't even sell a wine.
Speaker 1:Is it? Is it yours? I'm just very good at drinking it. Now, this is like a special wine, right?
Speaker 2:This is a special wine, so Special Company deserves definitely special wine. So this is a wine that we actually distribute, Not this particular bottle but this winery. It's called Peugeot. So this is called Barrel EXP. Barrel Experiment Sarah Fowler is the winemaker and this is 100% Napa Valley Cab. She does an experiment year after year that you can only buy at the winery and this is one of those bottles 85 French Oak, 13 American and 2% Hungarian oak. So she does a little kind of experiment with the oak and then she kind of displays it at the winery and other winemakers in the Napa Valley. So it's a nice little tree for everyone. Wow, Mark nice little touch Thank you. Wow.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:I actually got this on my honeymoon, believe it or not. So in the wine industry, when you go to Napa Valley, you have to buy a little bit of wine when you're out there.
Speaker 1:So wait a second. On your honeymoon you took your wife to Napa Valley. Yeah, it was like me taking my wife to Las Vegas to go see all the magic shows.
Speaker 3:Wow, okay, I think we have Gabby to thank for this more than you, though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pretty much it was a little one-sided. We eventually made our way to Sedona the following year, this past year, so that was kind of her side of things, but she enjoyed it. She enjoyed it at least. So we had a great time.
Speaker 1:Now, tommy, how long have you been with? What is your story? Because you guys both came from the private club world too.
Speaker 3:So I first met Ian. Ian and I became really close over the last few years. First met at Baldus Raw we, I think, had about a year under his belt before I got there and we ended up putting on the PGA championship in 2016 together on the clubhouse side in the food and beverage. So it was a pretty remarkable experience to put on a golf major at such an incredible club. So getting close to Ian and learning from other people within the industry and gaining industry friends has been awesome and being able to do things like this and experience good wines and different applications within the industry has been quite the experience. So it's been a great run for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, breaking your bearings in, I guess for me I think it was my second year in and getting into a PGA championship. That's one way of doing it right. Throwing the fire at that point. Yeah, yeah, 50,000 people a day. And ours was a little uncanny because we had several randallies where we expected 5,000 people in the clubhouse and an even flow throughout the day. But when you have randallies, 5,000 people come into the clubhouse all at once. So complete chaos.
Speaker 3:I think it was more than 5,000, because we actually had a Tiki bar out of one of our extensions on our patio and people were handing their clubhouse passes over the bar to then get more guests in, more fans in. So I think that 5,000 number is probably a little low, but it was a packed clubhouse for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, definitely could have been more. I just couldn't see past three people in front of me at the time. We had bars that we couldn't service just because the amount of people stacked in the hallways. We had buffets that we couldn't service just because, obviously, we couldn't get to them, so the members weren't the happiest. However, we did put on a pretty good show, I think.
Speaker 3:I remember getting a tap on my shoulder in the hallway and turning around and it was Adam Scott If he made a wrong turn out of the player's dining and got lost within the fan section, so he needed a clip, clip, clip tour.
Speaker 1:Sir, you don't belong here, get out.
Speaker 3:You don't have to be for that credential.
Speaker 1:You can go steal one from outside.
Speaker 2:Yeah, attacking Adam Scott. I also had an interesting run-in with John Daly. He is a personality, to say the least, but he choked on a steak on the Champions' Dinner. right, yeah, he did choke on a T-bone during the Champions' Dinner, which was that's a whole another story that we can dwell on, but some fun times. Yeah, we saw a ton of great professionals that week Champions' Dinner for Jason Day, which we got to coordinate, so we got to meet Jason, his wife, which is great, which also another interesting story we find out. The day after that his wife, ellie, ended up getting sick and we thought it was food poisoning right off the bat. We were sweating, but it ended up being. I think she got an allergic reaction to the linen in her bedsheet. So, yeah, right after the Champions' Dinner. So we were just like, if there was something that could have gone wrong, that would be the worst thing, but sigh of relief that up.
Speaker 3:A weekend was over before it started a little. Yeah, exactly. Oh man, you have a true professional. He was great to me and he was a good winner, so that was good. Champions' Dinner, yeah absolutely Absolutely.
Speaker 2:You put up a fight, that tournament as well.
Speaker 3:I did?
Speaker 2:He came down on the wire with Jimmy Walker, but Jimmy Walker ultimately took the show.
Speaker 1:What do you guys think of the live golf stuff?
Speaker 3:Interesting and polarizing topic for sure. I think there's still new information out there that we don't necessarily know yet, but certainly on the forefront and the headlines up until today. It's definitely a staggering thing to see, and it's from somebody who's been in golf or who's respected and kind of been a PGA toward disciple for so many years. It's, I guess, a little uneasy. If it's better for the game of golf in longevity terms, then it's good. I think where the money comes from or whatever that is, the combination is a little scary, but all in all it's good for the game of golf. I think it'll be good.
Speaker 2:The game has to grow in a certain direction and if this is the direction that it takes, it's just interesting how the dynamic is going to develop even more. We just have a taste. The headlines initially just came out yesterday, so we all just have kind of a brief taste of what it's actually going to look like. But see how it plays out. Rory gave an interesting interview yesterday that I caught a little bit of Certainly some heated debate, especially with the commissioner, Jay Monahan, but we'll see how it turns into a. Yeah, I think if, ultimately, if it grows the game in the right direction, I think it's beneficial for all the golfers Right, I think there's some pretty substantial questions still to be asked.
Speaker 3:I mean, all these players of the tour kind of held on to and asked to stay part of the tradition and gave up hundreds of millions of dollars, I mean, where does that go now? So a lot of these people who ended up making the right decisions, maybe for the wrong reasons, but they're now being held accountable for what they should have gotten and the PGA tour kind of has to answer to that and recuperate some of it.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean Tom, you've seen a little bit of the live golf, kind of from a second hand view, because he's right across, I mean Bedminster. Obviously we're in right now and Trump Bedminster being right next door In the event coming up I think in early August. You see, kind of there's a lot of talk between the members and I'm not sure how much membership overlap you have with them, if any, but there's definitely a lot of talk in this area immediate, just because of Trump's love beer right next door.
Speaker 3:Right. I think the concept was interesting. I think everybody kind of thought live was interesting from the start. They all maybe had their opinions on the back end of it, but it became more fun for golf and I think that's what the direction the golf needs to head in order to stay healthy. I mean, golf's becoming younger. It's not really becoming a traditional sports anymore. It's a fun activity for a lot of friends to go out and have fun. If you make it competitive, great, If not still fun that way as well, and I think live has really opened the doors for that. They've done it in a very unconventional way, but all in all they're changing something that's been traditional for so long. So people have to adapt to the change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, it's just a fun atmosphere. I mean you see it on television, you know how fun it looks and you know. Tommy, when we go out to play you know what I mean we're blasting music in the golf cart anyway, so we can relate to a certain extent right Transfusions. Yeah, exactly. So you know. It just brings out a certain side of the game which, you know, some people love and enjoy.
Speaker 1:I thought it was fun. The one video I saw was the opening shot, with Brett Kirchner coming out and like taking off his shirt and doing everything and the crowd going crazy, burr-kreischer, burr-kreischer, the comedian, the comedian, yep. I thought that was great. And then the one shot it went viral. Obviously he got a hole in one and everyone's throwing their beers and everything Chase Kefka that's awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's probably.
Speaker 1:Chase. Kefka, Like that is like that must feel so cool, like it's almost I don't know. I feel like to do that, and they just go like yes, and they high-five their caddy master.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you see it. At what is it the Phoenix?
Speaker 3:It's got to say the waste management, waste management right, they almost live, almost develop their entire tour based off the live management specs of that.
Speaker 1:Right, make it fun.
Speaker 3:Make it loud and obnoxious, make it drinking, make it, yeah, it's very casual, if you will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, and it's a, I mean, it attracts, you know, the younger generations for sure.
Speaker 1:I think it does bring that energy too, and for me it's. I don't care what, everybody has to be quiet. Every other sport people can make noise and stuff. How come these golfers get the benefit? Right, I was getting all this silence. Like I want to see somebody hit like with, like a crying kid or like a really pissed off fan, like that's.
Speaker 3:Yes, not enough pressure and golf Add pressure. Yes, Definitely.
Speaker 1:Like can you like? I saw it was a video of Tiger on his backswing. Somebody yelled something and he stopped mid-swing and it was this whole thing. Like Tom Brady can't like go back, you know? Someone screamed can you stop? Yeah?
Speaker 3:I'm trying to play football here and it's snowing and it's cold.
Speaker 1:Come on yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, football, they had to stop a game because too many snowballs were being thrown on the field.
Speaker 1:I remember that. What, when, where was that? Last year it came from the stands right Bangles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I might have been. Yeah, they had to stop a football game because too many snowballs were being thrown on the field. So well, it's not screaming, right, but yeah.
Speaker 1:That is.
Speaker 2:It's kind of funny.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:What's your point about the waste management? You see, there's always that video that comes up of Ricky Fowler teeing off and he's throwing his arms in the air trying to pump up the crowd. He wants the noise, he wants the fun, and that's what golf should really become right now. Right, it's cool to see this direction. It's certainly a change for the people who've been in the industry for so long, but it's exciting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but everyone wants to hold on to the traditions of the true traditions of the PGA Tour, and I think that's what's really kind of hitting home for a lot of the golfers that stayed true to the PGA Tour is the traditions involved and the fact that they stayed true and they stayed with the tour instead of going into live tour. I think that's where really the heated debate is coming into play, because those golfers that stayed true, I feel like they're almost being penalized for staying with the PGA Tour and some of these players didn't necessarily need the money.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think Tiger giving up a whatever $600 million contracts obviously $600 million, he's fine on his own, but some of these smaller players who were offered essentially career earnings out of one time signing and they had to give that up to try and stay true to their belief and now they're kind of paying the prices for not having that cash in the bank, Right, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm also just playing dumb too, because I just I know just enough to be dangerous. Why even come to like, why are they even merging? Like, why can't they just do their own thing, like, what's the big deal?
Speaker 3:It's a brilliant question because I think that's something that we don't quite know yet. I think there is more information out there that we're still trying to uncover, because why did the tour essentially bite all their words over the last two years and completely flip flop onto it and do we think the tour kind of understood that they were losing fans, losing spectators to the other tours and essentially dropping their ratings and whatnot? Or is it for a larger thing? There's talks that they thought this would become they would have to become a more legitimate business and whatnot, and actually drop their non-exempt status and they would have to pay tax in America, and there's a lot of information I think we don't necessarily know. That's really going to be enlightening within this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean to be honest as a viewer. There's a lot of golfers on the lift tour that I miss watching on a regular basis that I like seeing, not in a team atmosphere, but out there playing against. I like seeing everyone play against the best. You like seeing everyone together playing against each other and the best golfers in one arena. So I think it was just a matter of time where we would have hopefully gotten back to that stage but maybe this is a step in that direction is to really get everyone back in one playing field again.
Speaker 3:They almost added the competition. We saw a little bit of drama unfold even before the lift tour really came to be Brooks, kepke and Bryson and whatnot and they're off the course kind of drama and hatred towards each other. Golf kind of went from a friendly, gentleman's, traditional spectator sport to now becoming more casual, more fun, more fighting, more competitive if you will. And I think this new live tour kind of became the drama between the PGA tour and live golf and seeing that fight almost had people pick sides and make your heart worth more in that sense. And with competition comes a bigger end goal and a greater winner, if you will.
Speaker 1:I think morning brew I was listening to, and wasn't there a bit also where the players who left to live and then if they merge you're gonna have to pay a penalty to come back in? I think there was something going on there.
Speaker 2:I didn't see that but maybe.
Speaker 3:So there is some simulation. Right. And then if you ended up breaking your contract I might have this wrong, but if you broke your contract on live tour, you had to pay your contract back, like in two-fold or three-fold. So essentially they were strong arms. So Dustin Johnson $125 million contract, would have to pay a lot more than that if you ended up coming back to the PGA tour. So they're forced, they're handcuffed, essentially Right, that's a bite. It's a bite who? The reason rumor I heard of why this rumor or why the merger came right now is they're trying to wrap this up before the Ryder Cup. So the Ryder Cup is not a PGA tour event, it's not a live tour event, it's not a DP World Tour event.
Speaker 1:It's just an event.
Speaker 3:So how do you really judge who comes onto the teams, who gets picked and whatnot? So the current rumor is that they wanted to wrap that up before the Ryder Cup.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean that makes a lot of sense, makes a lot of sense they got scared.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you have a fantastic club here. Appreciate it. We are in the Speak Easy, which has one of my favorite things secret doors. Because I do magic, I want my whole basement to be like a magic trick. My wife's like, no, we are not doing that, but this is amazing. You have so much stuff going on your parking lot could even get a place to park. I just parked right out front. I don't know Very good. Hope I don't get a ticket or anything Like. I don't know what you guys are giving away here, but there's not a place to park coming in. This is a phenomenal club. How do you get here? Appreciate it? You just don't. This just doesn't happen.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, and it's kind of a long family story, if you will. But my grandfather was in the heavy construction business for so many years and this is actually at the time that Route 78 was being put in, which is where Fiddlers is off of. So he ended up driving down one day and noticing this large farmland and ended up walking up to the front door, knocking on the door to try and get more information and saying, hey, I might be interested in buying your property, like, would you be interested in selling it? And the farmer at the time said you're not allowed to leave my property without giving me an offer. So my grandfather essentially pulled an offer out of his back pocket that he was not prepared to go back to his business partner and tell him, and the farmer actually accepted on the spot. So then he was the owner of about a thousand acres that he had no idea what to do with. And then from there they kind of figured out a small corporate country club would be a good idea, and thus Fiddlers' level was born.
Speaker 1:What a time to be alive. I'll give you five benes and a frank. Just sign here.
Speaker 3:No deal, here's a thousand acres, seriously my grandfather never played golf. This was a sure poor business decision and luckily it worked out for him. I'd say so.
Speaker 1:And the club's been around since how long?
Speaker 3:So started in 1965. And, yes, it's been essentially corporate only until about 2008. The financial crisis happened and we slowly transitioned between 2008 and 2012 to become more family-centric and now we're about 80% family, 20% corporate, and that transition has kind of created our philosophy to be a club ran by a family, four families, so we're brothers and sisters serving brothers and sisters, and that's really our philosophy here that if you're a member of your staff here, you're part of our family and it's just what you do at home you serve each other and you become friendly.
Speaker 1:And what's your position here?
Speaker 3:So officially I'm a trustee. My family is all very active within club. We all have pretty comprehensive and complementary roles here. So I'm a trustee here with my brother Matt, my dad Ken and my aunt Maryl, and it's us four that really set the goals and the vision of the club and let the staff really do what they're best at, and that's creating perfection at the club.
Speaker 1:Now you've seen the club grow Ian right, so has there been a bigger? When was a lot of this transition? You said it was like 2012. So you've been friends since what time?
Speaker 2:So right around 2015, 2016, right around 2015, I think, we met.
Speaker 1:So how's the club changed, in your point of view, then, from 2015 till now? Because I know sometimes being on the inside, you see, but it's interesting to see from you.
Speaker 2:I mean it starts, I mean for me obviously dealing on working on in wine sales and distribution. I've noticed Beverage Program. I mean it has always been at the pinnacle of New Jersey and I mean the industry as a whole. Their Beverage Program here at Fiddler's Elbow and I don't say that lightly, obviously we came from a club, baltus Roll. The Beverage Program there was incredible. Obviously Tommy and myself were a major part of that and managing that program. But Fiddler's they just always were ahead of the game. They're always forward thinking.
Speaker 1:And I didn't mean to interrupt, but when we first met and we were planning this, you told me the exact same thing. And I'm like, oh, I've heard this so many times. Like how many club you hear people like, oh, we are cutting, we are, you know, we do our Manhattan, we have the smoke machine. And you're like, oh well, finally, speak of.
Speaker 2:Manhattan. I just have a great story on that alone. Here I walked in, I was coming to see Tommy and I believe this is for the steak night. And I was coming to see Tommy and he invited me to the steak night and we sat down at the bar and he's got, I got something to show. I was like, okay, this is going to be interesting. You know, I knew something, that new, new, innovative, creative thing that they just came up with. And he brings over pretty much a glass and he brings over this metal tee and I was like, okay, this is getting a little bit more interesting, more interesting. And then he signals to the bartender to bring out, I guess, this ice cube tray. But it was the ice cube was. It was a single cube, but it was. It was a little bit bigger than the size of golf balls, the shape of a golf ball. Right at the cube was an entire Manhattan cup. So what he said is signal the bartender. The bartender put the ice cube in the glass and the entire cocktail was in the cube. So he takes this metal tee and they have this little hammer and what they did was why are we drinking wine?
Speaker 1:Why is this not down here?
Speaker 2:So they hammered. They hammered this this little. I mean, they used the tee. The metal tee has a little pick to hammer the ice cube and it cracks in half and it literally the cocktail flows into the glass out of this cube. And I just sat there and I was like this is literally the coolest thing I've ever seen. But it should. That is just like a small glimpse and this could have been done elsewhere. I don't know if this was lightning in a bottle, but small glimpse at the really cool things that you see here at the club, and it just blew my mind initially.
Speaker 1:And then, even when I first showed up and I looked at the bar and I was like, oh, you know, everyone's bar has all bourbon, all these bottles. And it makes you take a second look. And then you keep staring and you realize the spirit collection, like not just like, it's very detailed in single batches and certain bottles and just not just five of the same bottle, like you have a phenomenal collection of just all the spirits, like this. When you said this is a great program, they fantastic program.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you, appreciate it. I mean our team is, we believe, top in the industry and we thank them every day for that. I mean they're they're never. They're always turning over new leaf, always looking for the next thing and really not afraid to try new things. We honestly say it's a blank slate here. So whatever you want to draw on it, let's see what sticks and you go from there. So no idea is bad until it's proven wrong.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And I mean as far as innovation, I mean just kind of goes outside the beverage program as well, and Tommy could speak to this more than I certainly can. But you know, you're obviously having the garden right outside the club where they grow a ton of their own vegetables and having that kind of sustainability. Tommy is, you know, he has a team that makes pretty much cheese canned cocktails that he uses for outings, golf outings at the club.
Speaker 1:Wait, you custom make your own.
Speaker 3:Our own canned cocktails. So basically what we find within value in some of our initiatives is when you combine different programs you end up becoming more efficient or they become a better strength of a program. So we have a pretty comprehensive sustainability program here at Fiddler's Albo. We're very environmentally friendly and focused. To my knowledge we actually are the only private country club with a commercial composting facility, if you will, on property. So we actually have our own commercial compost or back by our receiving area where we compost all of our to-go containers, all of our straws, basically everything we can. So combining different initiatives really kind of makes both a little bit stronger. So the canned cocktails came to be. We wanted to limit the deliveries we were getting, to limit our carbon footprint and also creating the value standpoint of personalization. So we'll use it for outings, as sponsorships, we'll sell sponsorships and put the corporate logo on the canned cocktail label. We're all. Everything is really made on property. So we'll create the label, we'll print the label, we'll apply the label, we will batch and fill the can. We have our canned semer and we completely close it and then from there we'll distribute that to the members and the guests and it really brings a big value standpoint. We see members and guests all the time taking pictures with their cans. Half of them don't even open them because they want just to take them home and put them on the shelf. We had a fundraiser a couple of years ago it's mixed sticks. It's one of our larger internal fundraisers for charity and we put every single guest's name individually on the label and had them in their cart. So when they got to their cart they had a transfusion with their name on it in their cart. 350 players a small headache, but the perception and the value of perception that they were experiencing was as high as it could have been.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot of different facets that really have kind of set fiddlers apart of a lot of clubs that I currently work with. And it's not to toss any other clubs under the bus, just I've noticed through personal experience this club really kind of take it always to the next level. And also Tommy has been a friend and we've worked together, literally sweated together in the PGA Championship and at Baltus Rull, but he's been extremely humble and a great friend to me, both on the business side and personally, and it's just from top to bottom, like I said. But the wine program I could speak to that right, that's my forte. I could definitely speak to that.
Speaker 3:Speaking of.
Speaker 2:Topis Officer yes yes yes, so we'll pour a little more peju here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, ian, with the help A lot of our bar program team here in Markovar in-house, somalia, I mean Ian has really helped shape our wine program to where it is right now. I mean we really excel in our wine program, our wine dinners and the value that we're able to give our members because of people like Ian, from a friend and professional standpoint, is extremely grateful.
Speaker 1:It's grateful.
Speaker 3:It's good stuff, it's grateful.
Speaker 1:And we're done. Yeah, go ahead the wine program.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, so obviously we're.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. We are looking at. If you can describe what we're even looking at, I can't even describe. It's a glass wall enclosure. I want to say humidor, but that's for cigars. This is a. What would you call that? A wine?
Speaker 2:cooler no, it's temperature controlled. Yeah. Wine display yeah, I mean. I don't know, Tommy, how many bottles.
Speaker 3:Do you have in there? A few hundred, I think. It's about 400 bottles in total. So really just our showcased wines, some of our first growths, drcs and so to speak. We have a vault in the back where we store some of our deeper bins, if you will. So this is our really our showpiece. Whenever we have our wine dinners and fun events down here, our members get to see some of our top end bottles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'll sorry, I'll put a photo of this when I post it, but this room is fantastic. What made you guys convert this room?
Speaker 3:So before we converted this, this was we called it our wine cellar and it was essentially just a large storage closet for wine. It was not temperature controlled, it was floor to ceiling, just bins. We had maybe about 2,500 bottles down here and it was working great, but it was an underutilized room that we occasionally had a wine dinner down here. But it's a beautiful room, it's underground, it kind of has the ambiance that you're looking for and it wasn't really utilized. So during the pandemic we made an initiative to really shape this and change it into a more utilized speak easy, if you will. So we added the speak easy door with the little, the password, the password hatch, if you will. We have the exit bookcase. That opens up that you have no idea if there's a fire or not.
Speaker 2:But yeah, if there was a fire in here, I don't know if anyone would know how to get out of this room, which is Just lock the door and you have yours worth of wine.
Speaker 3:You're fine. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1:It's also temperature-good. So you obviously, then, since this was a storage for alcohol, you built the room, or you can build the program around the wine or the wine around the room. So did you specifically build this room for a specific wine program?
Speaker 3:Maybe not a specific wine program, so to speak.
Speaker 1:I was trying to sound smart. No, I love that.
Speaker 3:I was really trying to put some words together. Maybe the wine program in total or the prestigious side of the wine program, if you will. Like I said, there's the first groz or some of the nicer bottles down here. So this unit that we're really looking at was non-existent in the old room. It was a little bit of an engineering nightmare trying to figure out how to do this. This is kind of a wet room, if you will. If you look above us there's a lot of pipes and whatnot, but it almost added to the speak easy vibe. So once we really put in everything it kind of came to be a traditional wine room, speaky's room where you can actually program off of it, rather than what it was before, which was kind of a makeshift storage closet. So I think the wine program really shifted out of here because of what we're able to do now thanks to help from Ian and everybody.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And being a distributor I mean I've worked at Winebone now for two years as a district manager Our outreach as a company, I mean we're in 18 different states that we distribute, we're in all 50 that we import to. So we're both a distributor and an importer. But my forte is really private clubs and kind of touching over about 50 clubs in the state and working with fiddlers is always a pleasure just because they literally touch almost every region that you can really imagine and in our portfolio. That is a dream to be able to have that flexibility and to be able to offer those wines to Tommy and really showcase these wines at the club. Not every club can do that. But fiddlers really has a membership that embraces different wines, different regions, different varietals, and we certainly do plenty of events that also help promote these bottles. But they really have a great membership also that gives them that leeway to be able to really kind of do what they would like with the program and really elevate it to where they would like.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head there. I mean, it's easy to sit back and say we have a great program and it's just happened because it happened. But it's obviously not true. The membership is spectacular. We again genuinely believe that our membership is the best that you could possibly have. The receptiveness to new ideas and new initiatives and education is at an all time high. So Ian excels in what he does and he always brings us new wines, new education within that. So our membership are always very responsive in looking forward to the next thing. We're not the traditional we only drink California cabs type of club, so they're always looking for new wines, new flavor profiles, new palates and Ian does a really good job bringing that to us. So always appreciate that Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And you always. Again, like I said, not every club is the same and that's really what I try and do in different private clubs is to tackle what their membership needs are and kind of come up with creative ways that we can kind of exploit what they like and obviously take their creative ability to the next level. But I often find myself coming to Fiddlers and again not to to Tommy's horn and Fiddlers horn so many times here on this podcast. But I often come to more than not. I come to Fiddlers and learn more than the knowledge I provide.
Speaker 1:It probably goes both.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a lot of mistakes and a lot of poor initiatives under the table. You don't necessarily see before you see what the good that happens around the club. Sure yeah, a lot of trial and error in this industry, a lot of experimenting right, a lot of experimenting, sure, that's exactly it, though, and, like I said, we are blank slate and, honestly, we're lucky we're not a board of directors type of club, so any decision that has to get made gets done pretty quickly. There's one of four people that have to write off on it, so any of these little initiatives are relatively easy to start. Whether it works or not is up to the membership and the staff, but in order to try something new, we're always excited to try the next big thing, and we're really not afraid for one of these initiatives to fail, because there's always one right behind it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:This is different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a cool experiment, I think she plays with different barrel aging each year, barrel XP, barrel experiment that she kind of showcases just at the winery. And this is always I believe it's always Sarah. I apologize if it's not always 100% Napa Cab. I believe it's always 100% Napa Cab that she experiments with. But shout out to Sarah, she is a top wine maker in Napa Valley. Incredible what she does in her wines just stand out every time I drink them.
Speaker 3:Great stuff, sarah. We need the bottles to be a little bit bigger next time, yeah.
Speaker 1:Can you give those like comic ones that are like the ones you see in?
Speaker 2:restaurants Three liters, five liters, the one that is actually.
Speaker 1:Like are they actually filled or are they just like proper show?
Speaker 2:Actually filled. Some are showcased. There are some that are showcased, okay, purposefully, just because some people that don't want a bottle that's filled just want to have like it displayed in their restaurant. You know what I mean. But you can always sell because obviously the cork you know isn't unsealed. Sure, some.
Speaker 3:But you know be able to touch on it more about bigger bottles age longer, they're better for aging and whatnot. Bingo.
Speaker 2:Bingo. Yeah, I mean, it's simple. I mean, the larger the bottle, you know, the more age extension it has on it. So does that mean?
Speaker 1:Sorry, so I'm trying to figure out in my head. So like when you say that, meaning if you have the same amount of liquid per area in that bottle, if you have another bottle that's 10 times the size, it has the same amount like a liquid, like it's filled to the same position. That's still better than it's all about. Are you talking about the extra space inside the bottle?
Speaker 2:It's yeah, it boils down to the oxygen and how Okay? And really how that affects.
Speaker 1:So obviously smaller sized bottle oxygen can affect a little quickly then no larger school and do good on the test where it's like, okay if you have this and this.
Speaker 3:The fun thing about wine is the only way to learn more about wine is to drink more wine. So Bingo, we kind of went to special schools, bingo can have enough.
Speaker 1:I call it special, they call it Montessori. The whole school is the short bus. Like that's really how, how, what.
Speaker 2:Was this? How long ago Me.
Speaker 1:So I think we're all like around the same age, right? How old are you 34.?
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're still no. Um, I went from third grade to eighth grade. Second grade eight, oh God, it was like super small. It was like first and second grade together, third and fourth fourth and fifth, there was something I forget like what it was, but yeah, it was small. They're encouraging you to take off your shoes to call their teachers by their first name. You're like yo Lou, what's up? Yeah.
Speaker 3:I do that for them.
Speaker 1:Like we had recess at eighth grade, like it was Right. But like I look back now and I'm like, oh god. Like I look at like who was in my class? And I'm like, oh, I was also in that class too. Like okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was going to find a whole school to create one sports team Prior.
Speaker 2:I was going to ask prior to you starting the podcast, so you were just solely doing magic and comedy. Got it?
Speaker 1:Yep, so I think you remember. Do you watch the TV show the Office? Of course. So I'm from Scranton and my family owns the paper supply company in Scranton.
Speaker 3:No way.
Speaker 1:So like the real, like Dunder Mifflin for the most part. So for years I thought I was like run the family business and my dad has a couple other things. I've worked, you know, in a bunch of different capacities, got up since I was like 16. I was like stripping the waxing floors, cleaning bathrooms, just like going up. And then they knew I love like the entertainment stuff and they were like, hey, listen, why don't you go try like the magic full time? We don't want you to be like, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60, looking back, going like, oh, like what if I would have tried it? Sure, so somehow made it work and found the club industry and just my show and vibe and energy I think just clicks well with the club world and the members and the membership. I think sort of growing up in a slightly similar environment. So we weren't members of clubs but like we're all in the same same same groups. I think just with my know how to hit. You know, just like with the comic timing and ability and like the trick, like it's about the members in the show. It's like you're doing like a show in someone's living room. We're not really a show. Like, of course, it's like a little bit of a different thing. I just found, you know, from an entrepreneurial business background, like, oh, a lot of my clients are becoming clubs and I enjoy club shows and oh, there must be an association. Then I found the CMA and like here's, here's all of our members, and I was like there's my client list. And now, now I have private club radio.
Speaker 3:So we obviously have the reputation. So this is a all of us do.
Speaker 1:This is a pretty good. I did not expect this to be as good, as it is not anything bad. But you know some people always like hype it up.
Speaker 2:You're like all right, of course, yeah, I just you know again like it fiddlers up, like as soon as you were like, oh, maybe we don't fill them in close like fiddlers, I was like you know, let me talk to Tommy, let me see if he's open to doing a podcast first, you know, because I guess not everyone is open to doing podcasts, definitely a first experience, but, yeah, this is great.
Speaker 3:to be honest, I appreciate you having me.
Speaker 2:I was like maybe he doesn't want to do a podcast, but let me find out that no, it's fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, it's just nice. Also, like I love hearing about. I'm all about the relationships and people. So just the fact that friends from different things and it came back together and like I don't know, it's like, it's a cool, just a cool story. And then the fact that you actually have a cool club where you're doing amazing things and having a really fun and engaging you know, family program. I was just down at a champion's run with Ben Lorenzen. They're alienate in the space of programming and entertainment. They have like, I think, like a million dollar or like water park. They have a mascot. They do like a lot of cool things in the summer. They have cabanas people can rent out and every Saturday or maybe it's every weekend, it's every time a certain song plays. That means they pick a random person from the, a random kid from the pool area. They have 30 seconds to get like a half court basketball shot. If they do, all the kids get free juice and all the adults get free margaritas. But they have like t-shirt cannons and they do like a lot of fun stuff. So what kind of stuff do you guys do?
Speaker 3:Like I didn't mean to set up like that, but like that's just like I enjoy.
Speaker 1:You take that step forward and I think, when going back to the wine program, the reason why it's successful is you even said earlier, you take those risks and sometimes they fail, sometimes they don't, but I think, as people realize, they can see the journey like hey, we're all on this together, guess what, some stuff's going to flop, but for the most part it's going to be good, so we don't mind trying that. It might not, you know whether it's a bottle of wine or an event, they might go, it was okay, or you know wouldn't get it again, but at least it's that there's no like. I don't want to say animosity, but you know like sometimes it's that like you're not doing well enough, it's like it's this nice communal, certainly, yeah.
Speaker 3:I think the interesting thing about the industry is it's probably somewhat similar to other industries, but obviously I'll speak on the one I know. But the health of the industry relies on the health of each club. So while it is cut through, like all other businesses, you want all, like other clubs, to survive as well. You don't want to be the only surviving club. So we don't really believe it's us against the world or us against the other clubs. We want everybody to succeed, because we want the communities to succeed. So while I guess, by definition, fiddler's Elbow is a country club, we're been in the process of rebranding and we're actually turning into a lifestyle. So we're really Fiddler's Elbow and our members know that they're still part of Fiddler's Elbow, whether they're on-property or off-property, and we do a lot of function off-property as well because it's not our, our boundaries are not really just to our property line. So we actually have a program called TAP Travel and Adventure Program and we'll actually take groups of members to various different events or traveling actually, and we just came back from a trip to France and visited a bunch of different wineries and restaurants, michelin stars to France. So we're trying to get into the little bit of the lifestyle game where our membership is part of our family and families travel together, they do things together and it's not really just bound by one location, if you will.
Speaker 1:You're creating a community. It's really fantastic, absolutely fantastic. It's amazing.
Speaker 3:And our members outside of the club and without involving us. Our members travel together. They're very friendly, they're very clicky, I think I mean Ian knows as well. I mean you go to various different country clubs and golf clubs around the country and sometimes they're a little bit clicky, with the weekday warriors only playing on one day in their group and you have different skin and ashes going on in another group. But we're thankful and grateful that our membership is one, it's not really divided and they're willing to travel and do things outside of the club or inside the club together, and it's because of the lifestyle nature.
Speaker 1:And then also, I think it self filters out who's going to be a member and who's not.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:I mean so if someone just researches Fiddler's elbow and from the stuff they see on social media, when they come here they're going to get the vibe of whether they think they're going to be a fit or not. So you're just self filtering out bad potential members, not bad members, but not a good fit for this club.
Speaker 3:And I'm sure those people who might not be a good fit here will have another club who's the perfect fit for them. And that's the beauty of the industry and it's not one size fits all and you have to find your best place. But, like you're saying to, champions run. I mean they're trying to make clubs fun again. I mean it used to be this traditional nature and I think we're trying to mimic that as well. And it's cool to see the industry becoming family focused and fun, because it's not just hey, play around a golf, have your beer and go home to your family. It's kind of hanging out, it's camaraderie within your members and your guests and everything. It's becoming a destination and a full on activity rather than just traditional golf and leave.
Speaker 1:What I liked is when I was talking with Ben about it is his reference was I guess there's like a lot of like younger tech people where he's at, and you know he's like people want to come after work, after the soccer games. So when I was like hey, like what's the attire that's where my text is you I was like, oh, is there something I didn't know? He was like oh, like whatever. And I was like, oh, okay, so where, like a polo in this? I turned the corner, he's in like orange shorts and a T shirt oh man, it's champion's run. And I was like, oh, and then the more we talked, he's like you know, we have certain areas where you know there are dress codes or certain nights and policies, but it's a family environment and we want you to come here after your soccer game. We want to be a place that you want to come to, that you want to go to, not that you can't, because you can't go because of like a dress code, or to be like, hey, if you want to come celebrate your kids win or whatever after a sock, come on. You know what I mean. So it's that communal going back all full circle.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you don't want to restrict somebody's experience because of what they're wearing.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yeah, I mean, and kind of to the opposite effect. Right, baltasrall, where we worked, you know it was there was no jeans allowed, right you?
Speaker 3:came to dinner with the jacket after six o'clock, right.
Speaker 2:So it was, you know. But again, baltasrall has such a tradition at the club where it's kind of followed that suit for so long and members respect that. There's no club, there's no, you know, cell phones in the club, really. I mean texting is minimally allowed but no phone calls unless you're at in a certain certain area of the club. But you know the members like it that way, right, they want it to be an escape from kind of their day to day. So you know, you, you respect the tradition involves that clubs like that. But also, again, all clubs are different, you know, and everyone wants to find you know what clubs that suit them best. And you know Baltasrall, again, it was, it was. Baltasrall was probably one of the greatest experiences of my lifetime, definitely. I imagine Tommy's. We actually have a mutual kind of person that drew us in Baltasrall together. I have to give a shout out to the podcast there was. His name is Brian Baldwin.
Speaker 3:So Mr Brian Baldwin, I definitely want to give a shout out to, if you're listening, I think you still owe us a few dollars for not wearing a jacket after six. Maybe we used to find each other $5 if you didn't have a jacket on after six. Yeah, exactly, break out those Benjamins. Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:So, but so it's funny enough. So Brian used to be the clubhouse manager here at Fiddler's Oboe and then he shifted years to Baltasrall, where I was at the current time. And I believe Brian, you know what I mean, it's kind of who encouraged Tommy to come to Baltasrall, to work at Baltasrall. But Brian is one of those energies, right, that you feel like. When we met Denny, I just felt the energy. I was like all right, this is a great guy and he's got that positivity to him that just draws people into the room. Brian has that energy, he has that persona and he was just a really passionate person about hospitality and he was always at the club. He was day shift, night shift, he was there on the floor and, to his maybe detriment, brian got me involved in wine when I was at Baltasrall and I fell in love with wine a little bit too much. Sorry, brian, but Brian was really a driving force and certainly someone who I consider a mentor, but that's ultimately how me and Tommy connected, and I think it's a good part of the story is Brian. So props to Brian, cheers to Brian.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a great industry. I mean everybody who's in the industry knows it's very demanding, it is cutthroat, it's long hours, it's sometimes low pay and you really only join this industry if you have that pure passion behind it. And I think the people that we've met in the industry at Baltasrall and throughout Fiddlers or whatever other club we've really been at I mean you meet some people who have uber amounts of passion for the industry and you really need that in order to make it here. Yeah, I mean their energy is almost in the room before they are.
Speaker 2:You know you kind of you just feel that passion and you know, if you feel that positivity and it just it resonates with the whole staff. You know what I mean. There are certain people that you meet in life that are special like that and Brian Brian definitely was one of those person is still one of those people for me. We keep in touch but you know I'm dead to him on some days after. You know I left for the wine industry and I'm, you know I'm not on other days. So you know it's a kind of back and forth love hate relationship with me and Brian. But yeah, shout out to Brian. Yeah, enjoy your time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think a rattled golf is long overdue.
Speaker 2:Yeah definitely, we've seen.
Speaker 3:Brian dress like he's a scratch golfer and then shooting a 102. He's always one of my favorite things.
Speaker 2:He always dresses the part.
Speaker 1:He dresses the part. I am so tempted to not put that part in, because you guys are going to tell him oh, we mentioned you in the episode. And then the episode airs like you didn't mention me at all. No, were you just saying about how people dress, too good for how they golf?
Speaker 3:Some people think the way they dress is going to be the way they shoot.
Speaker 1:Oh yo I probably shouldn't say this because I'm on private club radio, but I've tried to golf. I'm just not. I can't hit the ball. I can keep up in any sport, I cannot hit that ball. And then when I was starting to learn or want to learn a little bit more, I had like a back injury and they're like that's not good for I was like all right, so I haven't really pushed it Fast forward. Year or two ago went to my friend's bachelor party, went to Florida to golf. I don't golf but still had a great time. I drove the golf cart, we had drinks and they all talked a big game. Like they talked, like they golf a lot the one dude works for I forget who and does that and I was like okay, wow, and like they brought their collects Some of them have them, like you know. They brought them in the plane. I'm like okay. And you see them in the morning, they're ready to go, they're wearing their. You know, travis Matthews, they're, they're, they're looking good. And then they get up there and after like the first, I think it was like whole one Like what is going on here, guys? I'm like why are you dressed like that and have all that stuff and golf like that? Like you should not something's off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we're not happy. Hopefully play well. You know, hopefully play well.
Speaker 3:Sometimes it doesn't always work out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah I mean, but you know, sometimes you want to look the part. You know you want to feel the role of a good golfer and maybe your game will get there one day.
Speaker 3:I think outing days were always our favorite, whether at Baltus, raw or here. There's always love observing outings, because it's these people who are part of a corporation. And no, no, not to them by any means. But they don't get out in the golf course too much, so their swings are a little bit rusty and you see, them tee off in the first tee and some good sometimes, or mostly, not really make it to the next tee.
Speaker 2:And yeah, yeah, it's like bumpers in bowling. You know, they should probably use a couple bumpers.
Speaker 3:You know, you know in the first hole, but that's why they sell mulligans at outings sometimes gentlemen's, gentlemen's first tee shot there.
Speaker 1:You should go back to the driving range. Maybe just warm up for another half an hour?
Speaker 2:Yeah, or the putting green just stick to the putting green, maybe the putting green Driving range. You could still probably hurt some people putting green, maybe you'll. You know you'll do. Okay, keep the ball on the ground.
Speaker 3:Yeah, hit a foot or two, but I think you're all right, I'll have lunch down in our grill room with my brother and on an outing day occasionally we'll see a ball bouncing through the grill room, so many duck hooks. One bounces right through and comes towards the grill room and, for people who've not seen our grill room, it's nowhere near the green that they're shooting at.
Speaker 2:So that was one of the dangers of baltostrol too is the 18th upper bordered our terrace. So I mean, listen, you didn't really have to hit that bad of a tee shot for that to duck hook literally. I mean we had shattered glass at least two or three times since I was there.
Speaker 3:We would be setting up for dinner service and a ball would come bouncing and break a water glass on the table or hit somebody. Yeah, it's part of the game.
Speaker 2:It's a dangerous industry to be in. You had to sign a waiver before you worked at baltostrol. No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1:I drove my uncle's car down to him in Florida 10 years ago or so, you know some early 20s. They were like I need, you want to drive it? I'm like, yeah, sure. So I drove it down and he's a big golfer. He's at a polo club in Boca. He's like, hey, how you know, tomorrow we'll we'll golf a little bit, we'll go eat lunch. I'm like I'm not going to golf. He's like I'll go for a little bit and then we'll go eat lunch. So I was like let's go to the driving range. We went to the driving range. He watched me for like five minutes. He's like so you want to go grab lunch? And I was like all right, thanks, appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Honestly direct yeah.
Speaker 3:As long as you're having fun on a golf course, doesn't really matter what you shoot, and that's the important thing I mean we're we're not professionals, we're not making money for it so, as long as you're having fun that's all it is.
Speaker 2:Keep it loose.
Speaker 3:Keep it loose. Yeah, there's a. I've had a friend who lives in New York and he invited or I invited him out to go golfing. He didn't have anything going on. I picked him up in Jersey city, drove him out here, drive all the way up to the forest course and start playing. We played three holes and he turns to me and goes you want to go home now and ended up going back to the grill room having a couple of drinks and ended up going all the way back home. So the cards were not in our favor for that day. But yeah, aaron we'll get back out there.
Speaker 2:Make it happen. Who does that?
Speaker 1:Who does that? All right, we're going to crack that second bottle. I was about to say you want me to get another bottle of wine. We can, that's the only way.
Speaker 2:I want one. Whatever you want, tom, I don't like that. No, no, no, no, it's your option. Whatever you want to do, it's your. It's your bottle now. It's your bottle.
Speaker 1:Is that like a special bottle?
Speaker 3:This is you know, tell more about this, but two areita red agafas. It's very prestigious.
Speaker 2:Yes, two areita, two areita, it's.
Speaker 1:I'm going to say I don't know enough. So if you guys want to crack something else, I have. It's totally okay. Honestly, you can crack it. You can go go crack something else. You won't worry about this wine, unless you drink this wine. I was going to say this is a special occasion Okay. This is a very special occasion.
Speaker 2:We actually had a New Jersey Club Manager's event with the son of Rita Tua. His name's Giovanni Fraisola, so shout out to Giovanni. Just recently was in the market doing a Club Manager's event at Charlies of Lincroft, so we displayed these wines there. This is part of our heritage division, so we have two divisions on our import side. So our heritage division covers the two areita wines, but based out of Tuscany, so this wine is there, considered their flagship wine. This is 100% Merleau and also happens to be my favorite, but also happens to be the most the priciest wine in the lineup. We won't discuss price. We won't discuss price. It tastes great. Yeah, not trying to sell you on anything.
Speaker 1:I love the color. I love the color.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, I'm dead serious. So it's, you know, listen, it's 100% Merleau. And again, people are, I think, warming back up to Merleau. You know, we'll see.
Speaker 1:Time to tell Now. When did Merleau start going down?
Speaker 2:Because I didn't know Merleau needed. This movie's called Sideways, paul Giamatti. Apparently there was a feature in the film where they bashed Merleau. I haven't seen the movie, but that's kind of that makes sense. That's what happened. And Merleau sales actually, you know, tanked so but however, I don't know if people ever try Merleau and try 100% expression of Merleau. You know, I think you know they're pleasantly surprised.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean investing in spirits. Investing in wine. You know, wine sales this past year have, I think, been down about 4% in the US. Believe it or not, 4% Premium sales. Premium wine sales have gone up. Spirit sales are through the roof, but wine sales are interesting. Also, investing for a couple of reasons. People warming right has caused a little bit of a shortage in you know the past few vintages. You know those who invest in Bordeaux right now or past vintages. You could potentially see a pretty good return if you invest in something now because Bordeaux, because of climate change, is getting warmer. Certain regions are getting colder, so it's causing some issues out in the market. So investing in wine is honestly not too bad of a decision currently because you know there are a lot of great vintages that you can put away. That listen could be worth quite a bit more in the future because of the limitations that we're seeing now currently.
Speaker 3:Now would you say, or can you even say, I mean in terms of an investment in wine would you say that it's a little bit better for the investor to try and find some library wines and back to it and pay a little more just because it'll be worth a little bit more at a more recent date, or try and buy some current vintages and hold on to them a little bit longer?
Speaker 2:It's interesting. Yeah, I mean it depends on, I believe depends on the region. I think you know investing in Napa Valley currently, I mean Napa Valley 2020 was a tough vintage right, so 2021, certainly more promise. Looking at European wines, you know, actually pretty consistent for the most part, some down vintages, but I've been pretty consistent for the most part. But I think people, you know people are interested to see what, how global warming and climate change is going to have an effect on the wine industry, and it certainly has already. So people might be investing a little bit heavier because of you know potentially where vintages could go and what yields we could see or lack of yields we could see in the future. So I certainly the investment discussion has kind of, you know, taken an increase just because kind of uncertainty that we've seen, you know, at least in the last five years, in the wine industry.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So in terms of honestly it's multifaceted, but it's on the consumer, but it's also on the producer as well. I mean, you see, some of these top producers and top vineyards really not necessarily moving locations but opening up new locations in different, different areas to try and test those soils and those climates to see if they can produce the same juice that they've been producing, just because they know that the longevity period on their current area is not necessarily it's not full, it's not, it won't stay, I guess half. So we, like I said, with our TAP program, we just had a trip that came back from France, but over the summer we had won that one to Italy. So we all, we took 14 members to the Piedmont area and ended up going to some really good vineyards, really unbelievable restaurants. But one place we went was Gaia. So we ended up meeting and having great conversation with Angelo Gaia and he really spoke about his progressive thinking and he's an older gentleman, I think in his 70s, but he is as mentally and young thinking and forward thinking as you could possibly be in the industry and he's actually moving parts of his vineyards and whatnot and planting clones in different regions within Italy northern, southern trying to almost not necessarily manipulate the weather but manipulate his wines based off where he can find similar weather to where his current vineyards are. So you see a lot of these producers that are really becoming experimental and trying to find the next thing within wine production and keep that integrity of what their quality is. In a different area, it's really interesting to see how people are combating climate change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had a seminar with John Williams, owner of Frogs Leap, and he really emphasized towards the end of his seminar really kind of the focus and technology advancements that they were making at Frogs Leap but to combat climate change. So I think a lot of wineries are making steps forward to kind of protect against what could be. I've already seen signs this past couple of years of wildfires and things like that and smoke taint. I mean, I was first hand witness in 2017 to the wildfires out in Appa Valley. I had to be evacuated as apocalyptic like and as we're speaking, we're surrounded by smog here at Fiddler's Elbow and the rest of the state because of the Canadian wildfires. I mean it's intense. It's intense, I mean people are having to make the adjustment.
Speaker 3:It's such a lucrative industry it's honestly dependent on so much that's out of your control. I mean, winemakers can be as good as they are, but with Mother Nature against you you can't do much. It's interesting, I mean even it's outside the US as well. We saw a couple of years ago in France and people were lighting midnight fires trying to keep the frost away. I mean, garbage can full fires really is trying to warm up. Unnaturally, unconventionally. They're vineyards trying to keep their vines healthy and surviving it's tested with a good winemaker.
Speaker 2:A good winemaker can make great wine in a bad vintage truck. Yeah, that's a true test. That's a true test. So yeah, I mean the creativity technology advancements in wine are going to be key moving forward, but it's an interesting dynamic that we have.
Speaker 1:In the magic world we say this and really it's. Anything is limitations, force creativity. So when you have some of these weird times, it makes the people who are really in it go all right, I have to make this work. What am I going to do? It might not be the best, but at least have to try and do something of a good product. I think you can almost tell when somebody has that care and passion, even though it might not be the best, but you're like, okay, you had something happen, but hey, at least you tried, at least compared to a group or a place that might just go. Oh, this is happening. People just keep doing it the same way and hope people enjoy it or buy it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pandemic, point blank right Pandemic forced a lot of creativity in the industry, both on private club and on the sales distribution and everything right, because I mean as far as restaurants, I mean it just hit them harder than ever. But as far as private clubs, they really became creative in how you operate it. I'm sure Tommy could speak to this a little more in depth, but it just when something forces you to a certain extent where you have to really adapt and change and come up with different ideas and force that creative hand, some interesting things come out of it. I'm sure Fiddlers did some real I mean from what I've heard, did some really cool things during the pandemic. Yeah, certainly.
Speaker 3:I mean I think we were in the same boat as all other clubs, certainly, but, like I was trying to touch on before, being a lifestyle is kind of that keeps your importance within the membership when they're not on property as well, and during the pandemic. I mean, all in all, now that we're looking back on the pandemic, I think I hate to say but I think the pandemic was one of the better things for the golf industry and the private club industry. It really provided a safe haven for a lot of people to feel comfortable in where their destination is. But during the period during the pandemic was certainly a little uneasy and a lot of reaction and a lot of adaptation and trying to become like this lifestyle almost played an important role during it trying to have the communication, the forefront thinking within the membership when they're not on property because legally they weren't allowed to be on property during those couple months that we were shut down. So, like a lot of other clubs, this wasn't really an individual thought by any means, but we were doing like Zoom meeting, zoom wine tastings, trivia, everything like that. So we would, because we're not legally allowed to sell our wine off-premise. We essentially create a package and have our members go by, kind of set up within different bottle shops, whatever else, and have them pick up these specific bottles and we would send out meal packages.
Speaker 1:This is how their new bottling thing came, because it would take it from a wine bottle, put it into a can.
Speaker 3:Now, it's a different product.
Speaker 1:That's how they were able to get around and sell it. It could have started that way. We could put cocktails in too. You're genius.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You can't get it all Get it in there.
Speaker 2:All in there.
Speaker 3:All in a pop top? Yeah, no, that's exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:Forces the hand. Yeah, forces the hand, forces the hand.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You wanted to get the experience that members typically enjoy consistently on-premise and you wanted to give that to them off-premise. And that's the challenging thing when you don't have the staffing, you don't have the equipment, you don't have anything that you typically do, but you still want to give that same experience to your paying members. So it was an adaptation period by far, but we were even having magic shows over Zoom and everything. So people would enjoy wine being able to see each other. Yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did a ton of Zoom wine dinners where we would send the wines home to memberships. This is outside of Fiddler's Elbow as well, but members would have the wines and Chef would cook a pair of meals that the members could pick up and we would do wine dinners and that kind of facet. But it's an interesting time. But yeah, creativity, like you said, it's just where people kind of dig deep.
Speaker 1:You had to? Yeah, you had to.
Speaker 3:It was wild, yeah at the end of the day, the members are still paying their money and they still want their value, so it's really up to the club to provide that, regardless of what's happening in the world.
Speaker 1:That bill is still going to keep coming.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Right Right.
Speaker 1:How many members do you guys have here?
Speaker 3:It's tough to say how about. So we do something that's really we kind of call it internally all the membership. So we have we're pretty large operation, we have golf rackets, obviously food and beverage. We have a gym, we have a massive pool facility. So it's not just one membership and you've accessed all. You kind of get to pick and choose. And then a little deeper than that. We're a little family friendly, so if you are, if you remember yourself, then your wife is a member, your kids are members, they all have access. It's actually challenging and almost impossible to give an exact number and I think industry typically don't necessarily share all exact golfing numbers of you all. But, I mean in terms of people who have access to our food and beverage operation or our club in general. Because of families and memberships and all that is certainly in the thousands. We have a large membership.
Speaker 1:I would hope thousands yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean it's 200.
Speaker 1:Like wow, you guys are killing it.
Speaker 3:Very active members, 200 very active and USGA headquarters for New Jersey is on property. The PGA of New Jersey headquarters is on property.
Speaker 1:Why did we not lead off with this?
Speaker 3:They're on our driving range. We have a pretty impressive performance facility up there, so the PGA headquarters of New Jersey is on our property as well up there. So we have a really good relationship with them. And Mike Adams, who's one of the best instructors in the entire world, resides here, so he's able to go hand in hand with the PGA of America and deal with his clients and his students.
Speaker 1:That's cool, thank you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's ever changing. The industry is ever changing. That's the fun part about it. It's always adapting. It's always progressive thinking and trying to figure out what's next in the industry and setting those trends. I remember first hearing Greg Patterson speak. I'm sure people listening to this will know who he is. But his one line is there are no original thoughts in the industry. We steal from everybody and we run to the bank laughing and it's kind of true. Like we said earlier on, you want the health of the industry to be prominent. You don't want to be the only surviving club, you want everybody to be surviving and you want to learn from each other and I hope that some of the things that we're speaking on here can help other clubs adapt and go forward, because we're all in this together, definitely.
Speaker 1:That was me and my friend talk about this with entertainment, because magic's a very smaller community. So there's people who are like when magicians get a big break on TV or they win America's got talent or something, they're like it's good for all of us. Like now you're like, oh, magic's cool again. Oh, we can't afford him. Obviously, he just won. Let's see who we have local. So it helps just bring it about. And then it's just like you know, going back, you're creating your own environment. You don't want every single person, you want the people who are? going to enjoy it, be part of the community that you're building, which is really what it is from what you talk about. All these people, just you know, being here and not just even on property, but doing these crazy trips.
Speaker 3:That's absolutely correct. I mean the memberships by design. Certainly every club wants to design their membership to be tailored towards their philosophy and their fundamentals. And I think one of the scary things about being a club owner is you don't want to be in a position where you're accepting everybody because you have a cash flow issue. You just need that initiation, you need that membership due and you really want to be able to not necessarily pick and choose but allow who you want into the club. And it's not a not really a restrictive kind of mindset, but it's a protective mindset. You want to protect your membership as a whole, not as an individual. So if you have a member who's applying you think might be a little detrimental to membership as a whole and won't really fit into that philosophy, then that's certainly a decision you have to make to not allow. And if you have to make that decision based on money, it's a tough decision because you have to survive first.
Speaker 1:So now I'm just wondering like what? What's your process like, since you're independently owned Makes?
Speaker 3:it easy.
Speaker 1:So you just like what's your process.
Speaker 3:We have applications that get emailed to us daily dozens, and we're actually for the first time in our history, we have a waiting list, which helps and yeah. I appreciate it. It helps in our ability to filter out the applications and we are not a I don't think Ian can hopefully attest to this. We're not really a button up type of restrictive type of club. We're very friendly, very folks. We allow a lot in, but you just have to be a good person. My dad's line is he always says it would I have a beer with you? Test If we, you must kind of say like, oh, like you're a normal person, I would go out and have a drink with you and have a dinner with you. Yeah, you probably fit in our club, but if you can't have a drink with that person, you're probably not a fiddler's type of person.
Speaker 2:You know it's such a good philosophy and I have to share. Also, my boss, sean Woods, has the same philosophy when he's hiring Are you a good person, right? You know what I mean. Are you flat out a good person? I think that's it just speaks volumes. You know we also hire athletes, right, who play in sports and competitive. That's kind of the sales part of the job, but it just boils back to okay yeah, are you a good person, right. Genuinely like do you care? You know about your position and your job and growth and what you're doing, and it's just such a key component into hiring and yeah, yeah, I want to give Sean credit On that because, yeah, I mean, this was just a recent conversation we had too, but it just makes so much sense.
Speaker 1:There was. I don't know if it was like one of like a business story, but there had to be at some point now there was a hiring person, you know, a boss. Whatever he, his test was, he would. There was two different ones. I heard of one. It may have been Einstein, probably not, I'm thinking of making that up, but if they they, they took a potential hire to eat and if the first thing they did, without tasting the food, was put on salt or pepper, he would not hire, they would not hire them. Because if you're going to just assume the food is going to taste a certain way without tasting it, and assume it needs salt and pepper, like that was. That was interesting and the other was it would be a restaurant that you know the guy would know or go too often, or just go early and tell the staff hey, here's a very healthy tip. Whatever you do, tip them up front if it's a place you know. Be rude to my guests just to see how they would respawn. And so there's like oh, like, mess up the order, like don't be, just be off a little bit Right. And I don't think he would do that like a club but like a more, like you know, normal restaurant. So it's obviously like it's not as like personal, but he would see how they would react under certain situations of like oh, if they, you know, not like allergies, like mess stuff up, but like if they're like you know, if they just try and Not trying to kill a guy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, pretty yeah.
Speaker 1:On his insurance policy he needs to pay him off, but but no, I was like, oh, that's actually kind of fascinating just to see how people would respond, and certain situations, or yeah little tests and quirks. Or even just to like know something's coming, just to see how someone.
Speaker 3:Well, the real response is like you keep saying so much of this industry's reaction. You can't plan for 90% of what we do, and to see how people deal under pressure and stressful situations is certainly a big hiring practice. Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and another give. Give Sean another shout out here too, another one of his kind of tests. During the interview processes we have a front desk assistant. Her name is Pat Milan, and any interview candidate that walks to the front door of the office you know, you know who meets Pat initially right, should get her name, or find out what her name is, you know, introduce themselves, right. So by the time they sit down with Sean, you know, they know obviously what Pat's name is. So Sean will be like, oh, so who's the lady out front? You know what's, what's her name. And if they remember, obviously they're genuine, you know they really want to meet the person and really want to, you know, make that connection, but if all of a sudden they forget, it's like, okay, well, you know how, how genuine are you are, you know, coming in approaching this, this interview? You know if, if you can't remember the person's name you just met, you know this is.
Speaker 3:Correct, so it's just a performance. I mean, I guess short answer of our mission statement is we're trying to provide our members with while moments they can't live without, and that's what fiddlers is, and we're trying to remember names. That's not necessarily a while moment, that's kind of standard within the industry but you're trying to provide experiences to members that they can't get anywhere else and able to remember with them whether they're on property or off property, like we keep. Like I said before, like lifestyle is important because it's not a one time destination. If your members remember an experience that I had on the club while they're off the club, that means that you did your job perfect. It's that emotion. You're trying to bring out those positive emotions within the members day over day and however you can do, that is a correct answer.
Speaker 1:You guys read, read books or audio books or anything.
Speaker 3:I only listen to private club radio. That's a fail.
Speaker 2:That's a fail. No, you don't.
Speaker 1:Unreasonable hospitality. Will I forget his last name, but he helped open up 11 Madison Park.
Speaker 3:So he worked with Danny, whatever the guy's name is, yeah, danny Meyer.
Speaker 1:But his. I just finished his audio book and he talked about we'll just talk about like opening up 11, madison Park and all that stuff and just like unreasonable hospitality. Thank you, thanks, sir. It's a pretty good listen or read speaking about like that sort of stuff Definitely going to shy.
Speaker 3:I mean, Danny Meyer's obviously had the pedigree of our, I guess, public side of the industry within food and beverage.
Speaker 2:So it's really cool to learn from him and his experience. I mean nationally, I mean Northeast Salon, but nationally, yeah, danny Meyer.
Speaker 1:So his book I started listening to. I couldn't get through it, but Wills is pretty good. Yeah, it was just like neat just hearing like the stories and like his process and then work with Danny, and I think they call it when you want to do something good for somebody without saying it. You're like, oh, like Ian, make it nice and that's like the keyword to like do that like little extra bit, but just like how make it nice, but then also just listening and being observant. So he was saying I don't know if it was him or one of his waiters overheard. He enjoyed when people came in with their luggage because that either meant you were their first meal of the city or their last. So either way it's a big impression that you're making. So he overheard these, these group of ladies. They were about to leave and they just forgot to get like a street pretzel or like a street hot dog. So of course he went out I think he he tells a story went out to the guy in the corner. He knew like ah, pat, I need a thing. He's like what are you doing? He brought it. He brought it into the kitchen and made the chef like put on a plate. And I guess chef had like an outrage, like what are you doing? Bring in like a you know sure, all Park, frank, hebrew national or nothing. And he brought it but they like cut it up. And then he brought it out to the table and was like hey, I overheard you said you didn't have a New York, you know hot dog. But they like classed it up still to like a you know, chopped it up, put like that's exactly the experience though.
Speaker 3:But that's that's a wow moment, and it's. It's interesting to hear that story because in the private club industry you're in the business of memberships. You're trying to make sure that your members, who are essentially repeat customers, are happy all the time. You're not going to come back in the public side of the thing Half the time. You don't care if they not that you don't care, but your business is trying to give the right experience. Got the customer in, you got the customer out. But in Danny Meyer's view and all these kind of top restaurants in the city, in a way it's not a membership like a dues paying membership, but you want you want the legitimacy of those people to come back every single time.
Speaker 2:It's almost close. That's the experience. It's close. You know you want those people, you want those return customers. Right, you know it's not a member, but it's close to a member right. Exactly, you know in a sense, in a sense, just because you want that person coming back and feeling, you know that effect that you know, every time I return here I get the same service. Right, I get the same. You know the same top notch. You know cuisine time after time.
Speaker 3:And once that expectation's been set, then the challenge is just to meet that every time. But those top restaurants obviously do. That's why they got to where they are. Right, yeah, business and membership is funny. You're always trying to bring value to the people every single day. So constantly changing, constantly bringing something new. Every day you're not improving, every day you're not creating, is a day that you're falling behind. Right?
Speaker 2:So that's the challenge and the fun part. So I gotta ask the one side of me coming out how do we enjoy this is?
Speaker 1:Reddigofing. Wow, I do like it more than the first.
Speaker 3:Wow, wow, hey, all right, so in your mind we're low coming back, you know we'll cut this part out.
Speaker 1:Breaking news Merlot on the rise. You know I'm the type where whenever I travel to other cities and stuff for gigs and shows, they just go to a local brewery. Hey, just because you know the foods, they're more locally owned. I like supporting, I hate traveling places and going to franchises Like it's just like a weird thing I have. So I get used to go to a brewery. The foods are gonna be good, like the beers, and I always tell the bartender servers whatever I say, because like, oh, how many in a flight? They go five. I go, okay, whatever, and they go, what do you like? I'm like, well, I tend to like this, but whatever, and they're like all right. You sure I said I can tolerate any, like I'll drink any small thing. Right, yeah, I won't get a whole glass or a bottle, but like I'll enjoy it and try it and if that's what they like, or whether they just pick random ones or not. So for wine, you know, like I've been to wine tasting. Some of these people are taking it so serious. I was on a cruise, I was on a, my wife was with me. To me, everything is funny, like everything is funny. So when you go to like a wine tasting, there's serious people. So we, we showed the wine tasting and it was like wines of the world. And this woman who came in late with her partner she overheard like wines of the world. She's like I thought this was the Oregon wines, cause there was an Oregon wine tasting. And like you can tell, her partner was like just sit down, like we showed up late, just sit, it's gonna be fine. And it was just like one of those like in the way people describe, I for the first time heard somebody go cause the Somalia was. You can see. He was going around to people Like you knew who he was going to. And this one woman was like I smell mushrooms. And like me, people on my table, what are you sniffing? So of course he comes over to me. So I'm like he's like what do you smell? And I went my mom, and if you ever look at it just to make an impression. If someone asks how the wine smells, just say it smells like your mom. Guaranteed laugh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's some like there's listen. I mean, there's everyone gets a different you know aroma out of the other one. I guess some are very interesting. But yeah, I mean, why is this like a stigma of being intimidating, I think?
Speaker 1:cause it's unknown. Like you get vodka, it's vodka. Like you know, it's this you're always gonna get Tito, always gonna get this. Sometimes a wine, even if it's a, it might be inconsiderate. Like it's a plus, there's the labels and the price, and sure you only get four glasses per bottle. Yeah, like this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, there's listen, there's a certain level of sophistication behind wine and it provides an, I think, an intimidating factor, especially, like you know, millennials, gen Z's, who you know are like all right, give me the seltzer, you know, and give me the high noon, give me the white cloth, things of that nature. But like yeah, exactly yeah, uh-oh.
Speaker 3:It's a whole rising Canceled. I was waiting for you to pause, so I knew to go in and cut that out.
Speaker 2:Canceled, but no. So yeah, I just again, wine is, I think, to you know, when I talk to Tommy, you know I feel like we're almost kind of a little bit of a rare breed, you know, for our generation, when we talk about wine, because I would say probably 95% of my friends just just don't understand wine in a remote sense, that I, you know what I mean, where I could talk to Tommy and we really understand obviously certain varietals, certain regions, but I just think I don't think you know it hopefully will develop over time into, you know, pallets shifting from seltzer and from beer and from you know, rtds into wine. Hopefully that transition will happen. But as of right now, yeah, it just doesn't seem to really take effect, but I don't know. So maybe we could change it.
Speaker 1:I will say, though, I did one wine tasting and it's definitely changed. For me it makes sense when they it was a food and wine pairing and it was sip this, eat this, eat this, now sip that. And sometimes it was good and sometimes it was bad, and they would do it on purpose to show, because sometimes for you everything tastes good and sometimes for you everything tastes bad for it. But you know, hey, here's like the, here's the graph. This is supposed to taste like this, but it was just neat to go. Oh, I sort of get it now, like I'm never like a white rose, you're just like a white, like white wine person. But of course, like when you put it with the right, like oh snap this is pretty good.
Speaker 2:And it gets people out of their comfort zone and like when it's paired well.
Speaker 1:it's like I think a lot of times when people try this stuff, they try wine. It's cause they're at happy hour, and you know what I mean. I'm not saying it's bad wine, but like, oh, you just had appetizers of calamari, and now you know what I mean. So it's I think that's the hard part too is and I'm just saying, for me, getting older now, like I'm very young at heart, like I don't feel 34 at all, so I'm still like 20, but like this is not real, but no, I think just you know growing, and then you're like, oh, you can just have fun with it. This is like interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean listen, and that's good way to kind of get the buy in early on is kind of expose them to different things that you know maybe they wouldn't try initially. Right, if they sit down and they order a glass one you know they fault to the standard Napa Valley Gab, or you know, let me get the you know your Pinot Grigio at $10 glass, it's a good way to expose them to different, you know varietals and get them outside of their comfort books. But yeah, I think our generation is very is very brand unloyal, right, so they're open to trying different things, but they're also, you know, you see this huge shift into low calorie, low alcohol, organic, Skinny margarita. Exactly, you see it going. You know it's a huge part of it, so it's gonna be again. It's gonna be another interesting take, you know, moving forward Right.
Speaker 3:And wines, relatively, are very subjective in that sense. I mean, I think you and I have had this conversation in the past, the funniest things. When somebody comes up to you and goes like, oh no, I don't drink white wine, or oh, I don't drink Chardonnay. Sure, you might think that because the few that you tried were against your palate. But let me give you something that you might enjoy. I mean, there's always a white wine, always a Chardonnay there's. I don't think it's really fair for people to block off an entire varietal or even color of wine, so to speak, just because of a couple of bad experiences. I mean, I think everybody can find their positive nature in whichever varietal or type of wine.
Speaker 2:But also, yeah, I mean, obviously you know you wanna keep it up, but you know, when it comes to club sense also you know those members that wanna come in and they wanna have that glass of wine made by that producer, right?
Speaker 1:Every single time, no matter what they order Right, right, right.
Speaker 2:But that's the because they will have that consistency at the club and that's the beauty of clubs too right. It's because they provide that consistency to the membership and they know every time that that member's coming in and sitting down, that glass should be at the table ahead of time.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Ian's great at what he does. So Ian will come up to us with some bottles of wine for our wine glass program and whatnot that really stand out, really stick out to our members and they're perfect for our members. And you almost become a victim of your own success at that point where the members just drink out the supply and then you'll go back to the distributor, ian, and be like, hey, can I get another 20 cases and it's like you already drank out all but maybe there's more left.
Speaker 2:Fiddlers can run through a few vintages. You know what I mean. They have the membership. You know where they can burn through a few bottles.
Speaker 3:So once you find distributors that know you and know your member's profile, like Ian knows our member, like the back of his hand.
Speaker 2:I mean, he knows what our members like to drink, and he always brings us the wines that we need, so our members always like that Again that's the most important thing too, though right Is because your membership is a certain way right and it isn't a direct reflection of what another membership is gonna be right down the road, right? So I mean, that's what I try and do, is try and tackle different memberships much differently, and that's my approach, especially in the sales. That's what I learned. Obviously, on the opposite end too is because, you know, working in clubs I've worked in several different clubs other than Boltsboro, applewamas, springdale and I've seen obviously different trends in how members react to certain product, and some were very negative and some were very positive. So you just you want to, you know, you want to make sure you make the right fit, so you have to be careful. It's a balancing act, but ultimately, I think, you know, I think again, that's the beauty of memberships is because everything's different and members can find the club that they feel you know is the best fit for them.
Speaker 1:But and I think that's important. A lot of people want to join a club because they want to be a part of that club. Sometimes they aren't a good fit for that club right. But then, going back, it's also a vice versa from earlier, where it's, you know, every club should be taking in every single member. Like, if you don't fit in with the vibe, like, there's nothing wrong with saying, like nah, oh, but that was a fun-.
Speaker 2:A lot to cut up here but, but no, yeah, this is great. No, listen, I think we all bring a lot of younger perspective to the industry which is great, which you don't get to you know, listen to you know too often right now. And in the fact that you're kind of I mean in a sense pioneering this yeah.
Speaker 1:Thank you guys so much for joining us, Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me here. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Ian Tommy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I appreciate you both coming out. It's been wonderful to share this experience with you at Fiddlers and Absolutely, maybe someday we'll do it again.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, danny, thank you so much. This is an absolute pleasure. Hopefully, hopefully, we can do it again.
Speaker 3:For your wine and better company.
Speaker 2:Yeah thanks, danny. Thank you sir.
Speaker 1:Stop sucking up. All right, hope you all enjoyed that episode. I had so much fun talking and hanging out with Ian and Tommy. Hopefully we can do it again. Gentlemen, that'd be fun. If you guys are looking for some really cool unique wines and spirits, hit up Ian Hawk at Winebow. Ian's all over the LinkedIn too. She can find them there. That's it for this episode. Catch y'all on the flippity flip.