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A podcast that spotlights the women reshaping the hospitality industry, breaking barriers, and carving their paths in the ever-evolving world of restaurants, food, and community.
Sara (00:35)
Today I'm talking to Melissa Katrincick, the co-founder and CEO of Durham Distillery, which is, in my completely unbiased opinion, the best craft distillery in the entire country.
They produce the award-winning Conniption Gin, which I'm sure you've had. And if you've been through the airport at Raleigh Durham, you will have seen the Conniption kitchen and bar, where they make an espresso martini with gin. Spoiler alert. Melissa is a baddie. she owns and operates Durham Distillery with her husband, Lee. She's also the
first American distiller inducted into the Gin Guild, which is a huge honor. She and her husband are both scientists, actually, by training. So they approach distilling, of course, with craft and heart, but
Also with an actual chemist's brain, which is so cool. In this conversation, we talk about how to navigate crazy PR nightmares when they inevitably happen for your brand. We talk about her experience taking the leap from her corporate life into entrepreneurship and what happens when outside forces that are not in your control change the entire directory of your business.
Her next chapter is all about deepening involvement and rootedness in the community here in the triangle area. She's somebody I admire. She's such a generous, wonderful, and very real person. So please enjoy my conversation with Melissa.
speaker-0 (02:22)
Hey, so I went to conniption at the airport. So I,
speaker-1 (02:26)
I text you that? I don't know that you did.
speaker-0 (02:29)
in January I flew to New York for a very quick.
workshop with the James Beard Foundation and I had some time and so I stopped and had an espresso martini with gin which I've never had and it was wonderful.
speaker-1 (02:42)
Yeah, mean, it's surprisingly. Yeah,
there's so much more depth when you gin instead of vodka in it.
speaker-0 (02:48)
Yeah, was kind of scared, but I was very pleasantly surprised. And it was like just sweet enough. It was an afternoon flight too, so it was OK. And I was going to a place where I had no children. So I felt like an espresso martini is the perfect thing for me right now.
speaker-1 (03:04)
It's just that little bit of a moderation. It was wonderful. We do. We do.
speaker-0 (03:08)
Do you have that at the? You do. Is it popular?
speaker-1 (03:12)
It's very popular. I will say that we just were basically asked by the general manager over at the RDU location to not have it with gin.
speaker-0 (03:23)
Why?
speaker-1 (03:25)
It requires a hand cell. So that's the thing. It's like, yeah. But you're.
speaker-0 (03:30)
That's your
product.
speaker-1 (03:31)
It is well so is the vodka now too. Yeah, the damn fine vodka.
speaker-0 (03:35)
Yeah.
speaker-1 (03:35)
Yeah, so I mean it's it there are things that I think in 2026 I'm going to continue to try and push in terms of education and exploration and trial. And there's things where I'm just tired.
speaker-0 (03:45)
Yeah.
speaker-1 (03:46)
And that's one of the ones where I was like, okay, okay, if you really think that you're getting more knows, and people who want it made with just vodka and not gin and of course, like the batch recipe is for gin.
Right. So it isn't exactly the same experience flavor profile. It's not a one-to-one replacement, right? So we had to come up with the build for vodka.
speaker-0 (04:08)
Yeah.
speaker-1 (04:10)
But you know, those are the kind of things where I'm just, well, you
speaker-0 (04:14)
Pick and choose.
speaker-1 (04:15)
really do. I think especially right now in this economy.
speaker-0 (04:20)
In this economy.
speaker-1 (04:22)
Yeah,
in this economy where I think I posted up something in the last couple of weeks where small businesses are really the canaries in the coal mine and no one's listening to us yet.
speaker-0 (04:36)
Yep. And when did you start? Like what your
speaker-1 (04:40)
We started, well, 10 years, so 2020, 2015, yeah. Wow. Mm-hmm. No, not markedly so, right? Yeah. And certain things were decisions, like proactive decisions of removing ourselves from certain states, just because distributors are a little bit of a mess. Yeah. So those are actionable items that I was like, OK, that's not a factor that's making me feel any which way about it. Yeah.
speaker-0 (05:08)
Yeah, yeah,
speaker-1 (05:09)
But just to see the continuation, think of one of the bellwethers is casual restaurants, so chain casuals. And when they start to bring people in with deals. So one of the things that you can look back at is 2008 to 2011, when that recession was full on. That's when your Applebee's, your Chili's, your.
what is it, Ruby Tuesdays of the world, that's when they started to have those deals. And in the last six months, they've come back in a flurry. so they're already, yeah, so we're, I mean, we're solidly in a recession. But we're not talking about it because the stock market is what it is. Shh.
speaker-0 (06:01)
I'll just say out loud that at the time of recording this, there's just like so much heavy shit that's being unveiled and it's hard to like, yeah, it's hard to function normally.
speaker-1 (06:13)
Well, as a business
owner, as a woman, as a mom, yeah, there's a lot. It's a lot.
speaker-0 (06:19)
Like the
Matrix is really unraveling for me.
speaker-1 (06:23)
Yeah, and how do you control what you can control and then let the universe do what it's going to do?
speaker-0 (06:29)
like punch you in the face with coffee this morning.
speaker-1 (06:33)
Did you see what happened to us last Friday?
speaker-0 (06:36)
No
speaker-1 (06:38)
That's so, that's really, I think that's a perfect example. All right, so just to kind of let you know, right? So Durham Distillery, when we filed for our trademark in 2013, early 2014, we, within two days of filing our trademark, and we were two days late, so this matters only because of the global trademark rules.
Two days prior to us filing Durham Distillery in the United States, Durham Distillery UK filed. I'm literally within two days. And there's-
speaker-0 (07:12)
chance.
speaker-1 (07:13)
I know. Well, but that's sort of the thing, right? Is that it was the start of the craft distilling boom globally. And there are other Durhams. I mean, we're not, know, just kind of like Springfield. Sure. So,
We could have taken it two different ways. We could have said, okay, well, let's rename ourselves. Let's not go hard into a trademark or we can find out and get to know our colleagues. We chose that route. So I contacted John Chadwick who started Durham Distillery UK within probably another two days. And they were a little bit further along than us. So they anticipated that they'd have product probably six months sooner than we would.
But he was amenable to, let's get a coexistence going. with the US trademark office and also the UK trademark office and then what that would set for a global, it's actually like, okay, we can exist together. We have our different marks, we have our different, yeah.
speaker-0 (08:13)
It means both of you could be trademarked as Durham Distillery. And just understand that there were.
speaker-1 (08:19)
We have
sort of domains of...
Well, did do it sort of the, know, if they needed to ever have a conversation about entering into the United States market or vice versa, us into the UK market, we did have an agreement at that point that they would have Durham Gin because we knew that that was the trademark they were going after and we would have Conniption.
speaker-0 (08:42)
and Jen.
speaker-1 (08:44)
Now, Conniption was also in process at that time, so we didn't own it yet. It wasn't fully published. But, okay.
So the two of us were like, OK, we're going to exist together. And so much so that in 2018, when Lee and I flew over to London to get inducted into the Gin Guild, they had their master distiller come up. And the Gin Guild actually did a feature story on the two Durham distilleries. Oh, that sounds lovely. It was beautiful. We both tried each other's products for the first time. And they sat with us at the same table, right, because you have seating assignments at these things.
And it was just a really great, I think, model of how these things should if you are in a supportive industry work. OK, fast forward. 2019. 2019, the Durham Distillery in Ontario, Canada, decides to form itself.
speaker-0 (09:37)
No! Okay.
speaker-1 (09:40)
so John and I watched them. We were like, OK, well, you know, they appear to be fairly tiny.
we're not really going to worry about them. mean, even at the time of 2019, to import into the United States was sort of like a pipe dream for them. So I wasn't really thinking like, OK, I'm just not worried about them right now. At some point, if they get to a growth period, hopefully they'll do the right thing and they'll proactively reach out. Because there's no way.
that you wouldn't have done an internet research and realized that, we're like, probably like five to 10x larger than Durham Distillery UK. You would know. Like if you search for Durham Distillery, you're going to come up with us. Right. Yeah.
so yeah, so it was starting to get a little bit messy in terms of social profiles because they did go after the Durham Distillery. I mean, they literally did put the, so that was their differentiator. We're like, okay. And then of course they did gin and they did whiskey. I was like, all right, this is what it is. All right, so last Friday, I am, it's round about,
I think 11am and we're going to have our meeting our weekly or bi weekly status with our PR agency in New York. What good timing, I gotta tell you, because within 10 minutes prior to the start of that meeting, we all get Google alerts that come out that say Durham distillery shuts down after dispute with town.
speaker-0 (11:11)
my God. And everyone thought it was you. Yes, but it was not. was.
speaker-1 (11:15)
But
was not but that was the headline. my god. different media outlets covered it. my god. One of them had a picture of our internal Gertrude still on it. I know. Sure.
speaker-0 (11:27)
That just seems sloppy. Well.
out.
Where's your phone blowing up with people being like, oh my god.
speaker-1 (11:36)
Well,
not quite yet, because I think we actually found ourselves a path forward as fast as possible. And I think that's what PR mitigation is, right? But I will say the Discover Durham, Margaret and Victoria over there were on it with me right away because I wouldn't have reached out to them initially, but town is in it. And that's kind of, you know, I need their help.
So we were able to quickly contact the media outlets. We put out something on Reddit. And Reddit can be scary. For a company
speaker-0 (12:11)
Reddit's.
speaker-1 (12:13)
owner, is a scary place.
speaker-0 (12:16)
Yeah.
Do you frequent Reddit? Do go on? Do? can't. have to draw a line. Because I just.
speaker-1 (12:19)
for sure. You know, mean, I well, the bottom of
the the bull city one is very, active. Okay, very active. And they know my handle now, right? Because they asked some very pointed questions. The I don't know if you've seen you saw that nine months ago. The the title of that post on Reddit was what's going on with Durham Distillery. Okay.
I was sitting, or not even, I was in bed. You know how when you wake up and you grab your phone and you're like, you're just looking at it? Sure. Holy shit. So that was nine months ago. And all of a sudden I'm like, all right, well, right? Because that actually was a couple of texts. People were like, you got to look at this. Yeah. I went downstairs and immediately wrote what I wrote to respond to all the questions and also to get ahead of it. Because I'm like, I'm a very accessible.
business owner in Durham. So if you have a question, I want you to ask it, right? I'm going to tell you if I can't answer it, but I'm going to answer it if I can. Sure. That's the way I am with my entire team.
But that was right as we needed to reframe who Durham Distillery was going to be long term. That was nine months ago, right, when we knew that we weren't going to go for a national brand. We knew that all of the investment community was dried up or drying up for alcohol. And the writing on the wall with our strategic partner was we were breaking up anyway. So it was like, OK, so let's just go ahead and figure out how to have conversations with our community through that.
So that was why I had to do another post, right? Because they were going to get wind of seeing that Google alert. then so it was good in the fact that I could get ahead of it. But what a sort of a through line of what small businesses are going through right now, too, because you just never know what's happening.
speaker-0 (14:13)
I
speaker-1 (14:14)
Where's the next kind of not hurdle, but
What do you have to address and how do you have to stay accessible to community but also very aware of what your intent is with it, who your consumer is?
speaker-0 (14:30)
very
hard to learn, or it has been for me, to learn what to address and how quickly. And is this issue that...
has arisen, is this something that you need to offensively address and get ahead of? Or is it something that you'd be better served just leaving? quiet? Yeah, being quiet. And then you you don't know you don't know what the right path is you make the decisions that you think are best. mean, I yep, this is not the same thing. I mean,
speaker-1 (15:03)
hopefully never get them.
speaker-0 (15:05)
I remember we were in it a few years ago by canceling
an event with a conservative grassroots organization and it and then the news picked it up and wrote a headline a certain way and we put something in clicks. We put something in writing that I wish we hadn't done but we did and then it never dies. Once you put it in black and white it never dies.
speaker-1 (15:32)
Never
dies. You've got to be really confident that what you're saying is
speaker-0 (15:35)
It escalated
from like, we had canceled this event to Chris and I were getting death threats from anonymous lurkers on the internet and people threatening to come harm our baby. Yeah. Like it was just, and.
speaker-1 (15:55)
It's traumatic.
speaker-0 (15:57)
traumatizing
thing.
speaker-1 (16:00)
We get it.
speaker-0 (16:00)
ever since then, we've sort of have, we took that as a learning experience for sure. But it's just hard to know.
speaker-1 (16:07)
It's hard to know. hard. have to, yeah, it's constantly like risk assessment. Every single time something comes out, like you're right. Like what is the messaging strategy? And you cannot, and I think that's the thing is that you realize probably pretty quickly, you have to be as true to yourself as absolutely possible. Because whatever you put out, you have to stand by no matter what. And I think that's the thing is at least,
And that's not something that came easily. I think it was getting more confident about who I was as a business leader, but also what I wanted that a stillery to continue to stand for. I think that there is a level of now feeling comfortable in my own skin that I might not have had initially.
So yeah, and I think that there's probably questions that happen just normally if you see a business leader respond to something online. Is that them? Is that actually them? And I'm like, if you see anything that says this is Melissa, you better, you will know in no uncertain terms that I am the one that wrote that.
speaker-0 (17:16)
Yeah, you want people to know that.
speaker-1 (17:18)
I do. And I was like, none of my team writes for me.
They do not. They might put something in front of me that they want me to respond to and add my own voice to, for sure. But that's not what happens normally. I mean, it is a collaborative effort to making sure that whatever gets out there is actually my voice.
speaker-0 (17:37)
So how does this saga conclude?
speaker-1 (17:39)
I don't think, I think it's done. And I think in a good way, right? I mean, I think that there were a couple of outlets we were waiting to hear, because of course it's a Friday. Fridays are always. So there might be one that might hopefully change the headline or tweak it a little bit so that it's explicit that it's Canada and not the US.
But I think other than that, I did also post up something on my personal LinkedIn of this is sort of a learning. If you are going to take someone else's name and you didn't have a right to it because it had been established. I if we came out at the same time again, it would be a coexistence. But they knew what they were doing. And I have a lot less empathy for what they're going through.
because of the fact that they've now looped me in. They've looped a 25 person team that's trying their absolute best to succeed into their mess.
speaker-0 (18:41)
that's closing or the journal.
speaker-1 (18:43)
No, the other business is closing. I don't have any, I really don't. I don't have sympathy to their situation. I would have had they been very upfront and had conversations with me John at the start.
speaker-0 (19:01)
Well, let me take it all the way back to when we met.
speaker-1 (19:08)
my goodness, is that 20s? Which 17?
speaker-0 (19:11)
I it was 2017.
in 2017, 2018, where I think I basically attacked you online and said.
speaker-1 (19:26)
Would you please have coffee with me? I don't remember it that way.
speaker-0 (19:31)
I'm going into this thing as a entrepreneur and I'm doing it with my partner and yeah, I don't I know that I'm excited about it, but I don't know what I don't know. Will you please come hold me in your arms and tell me what you know? And you were so sweet about it.
speaker-1 (19:51)
Go ahead.
speaker-0 (19:52)
Generous and I truly will never forget the way you made me feel at the coffee shop. Yeah, being so generous with your time and just it's just
It's who I've come to know you as is a very open book, very transparent, very real,
speaker-1 (20:08)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (20:08)
very generous in intention. I appreciate that. And it was such a great, you were such a great role model in, for me, as an emerging leader of this is how I want to be. This is how I want to be with anybody.
speaker-1 (20:24)
And I think you asked very pointed questions, which for me is always helpful because I'm like, I don't know until I sit down with somebody, do they want the bullshit or do they want the truth? And you wanted the truth. And I was like, you got it. I'm not especially as starting something with your partner, starting something when you knew you wanted to have children. Yeah. And so.
I was like, I do not want you to walk in with blinders on in any way, form. No. no. But I think we talked about that, too.
speaker-0 (20:55)
And has it gone the way I thought? Has
it gone perfectly? No. gosh. And I don't have, I really don't have regrets. have, there are a lot of things looking back that I'm embarrassed by. Like I looking back am, yeah. I'm.
speaker-1 (21:14)
Really? But
that's an emotion probably that maybe is an embarrassment, but you wish you'd known something a little bit more earlier.
speaker-0 (21:23)
You know better, you do better, right? When you know better, you do better. And I do feel like I know much better today about a lot of things than I did that day at the coffee shop when we first met.
speaker-1 (21:33)
It's drinking from a fire hose.
speaker-0 (21:35)
Yeah.
speaker-1 (21:35)
An entrepreneur is, especially in an industry, yeah.
speaker-0 (21:40)
But
it was a big question that I had of, can I pursue this entrepreneurial thing in food and beverage and have a family? And the question wasn't really, can I do it? Because I knew I was going to do
speaker-1 (21:54)
Yeah, you knew you were gonna do it.
speaker-0 (21:56)
it. But really more of like, tell me what you know about that experience.
speaker-1 (21:59)
Right.
speaker-0 (22:01)
The other thing that you said to me that I will never forget, well, it's not what you said. It's what you didn't say. You didn't tell me not to do it.
And a lot of other advice
speaker-1 (22:11)
That's not my right to ever tell somebody not to do that.
speaker-0 (22:15)
we received was don't do this. Really? Yeah. Like they tell, it's akin to what you hear as an actor where you're like, they're like, well, if you could do anything else, then do that. This is not actually really helpful for someone who's like, okay, well, I am going to go for it. Yeah. Yeah. And
listeners, you know, the way it's turned out is since that date in 2017 2018, whatever that was, I have had two children. And since having the children, which truly has been the most humbling experience I've ever been through. Yeah, I'm not as involved in the business anymore.
And that's how it's turned out for me. In my specific situation, I'm not a chef. I'm not needed on the floor during service for any specific role. But I've also designed it that way on purpose, knowing that a family was a priority or making space for a family was a priority for me. And what it's looked like for me is sacrificing some time on the business side. And what you said, too, is like it's just a shifting Tetris board all the time.
speaker-1 (23:23)
All the
speaker-0 (23:25)
But that's life,
whether you're running a business or not.
speaker-1 (23:29)
No, I mean, it's and I think especially in a successful business, being able to continuously evaluate where your focus and priorities should be. That's the name of the game. As soon as you don't pay attention and you think that you've got it is when you don't.
Yeah. I mean, and I think a perfect example would have been if you'd said, OK, I need to say this level of engagement in the business for you personally. And then you would have felt like you didn't give it your all for the kids. Yes. Like, this is life. Like, the business has to be part of it. It doesn't have to be it. And it has taken me a long time to also figure out what that's meant to me. What?
speaker-0 (24:16)
that meant to you in different chapters? maybe the answer changes.
speaker-1 (24:20)
It sure as shit changes.
Yeah, it sure does. I'd say, know, like the first four years, three years of the business were, you know, we did not start Durham Distillery to sell it. We started it to really be integral to the triangle, integral to craft distilling community in the United States. There wasn't this pie in the sky that we're gonna be on bars across the world or across the country. That was not it.
And I think that that's a different mentality than a lot of people who came into craft distilling after 2019. They don't have that kind of rooted. Like that this was something that was a passion project first, not a way to turn and burn and get an exit. And you see that with craft brewing too, right? I mean, the early on in craft brewing was all about the passion and then it shifted and that's why you had the bubble. So craft.
speaker-0 (25:14)
has popped.
speaker-1 (25:14)
The bubble has popped in craft distilling too. So the amount of quiet closures that have happening are continuing to happen in craft distilling is pretty, pretty significant. So I think for us, the first three years of the business was getting our feet underneath us. Like who did we want to be? What was the opportunity really looking like? And I probably was a lot more.
conservative of managing my time between being at the distillery and being present with the boys. They were tiny.
speaker-0 (25:52)
Because how old were they when you guys started? They were in elementary school, right?
speaker-1 (25:57)
Uh huh. so Brennan was, Brennan was four and Ethan was just around seven and a half towards eight.
speaker-0 (26:06)
And Can you talk about your experience taking that leap out of being a W-2 employee?
speaker-1 (26:12)
Hahaha!
speaker-0 (26:14)
And looking at your two angel babies at home and being like, mm-hmm, OK. I
speaker-1 (26:18)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (26:18)
think that was the leap.
speaker-1 (26:19)
I
know the leap wasn't as hard for me because I had done consulting so You know my background as a marketer I had I had gotten out of straight w2 when I was pregnant with Brennan and I was doing Consulting at that time and I did not go back into corporate until he was about eight months old Okay, and then I was back in corporate everything was fine And I really wouldn't have made any jump towards entrepreneurship if I had not had
I knew I was going to be laid off. So it was a situation where- I forgot about this. Yes. And it's very critical because I think everything, the universe had to align for me to even think about this. So in 2012, I knew that we were doing a bigger deal. I was at a pharmaceutical company that was a boutique pharma in Chapel Hill. And we were doing a licensing deal with a huge pharmaceutical company headquartered in France and also had US headquarters in Jersey.
So it required that all of the commercial plan that we had built, and I'm saying we in terms of the marketing team and the commercial ops team, we had to be able to stay in the seat and transition all of that knowledge to the new team. So you were sort of beholden. Did you a contract? No, but there was a pretty big carrot.
speaker-0 (27:43)
and it's like. Okay.
speaker-1 (27:44)
It was a big carrot to stay.
And I would be, I would have been really dumb not to take advantage of that carrot. I knew it was
speaker-0 (27:51)
But you knew it was gonna end.
speaker-1 (27:54)
going to end. Yeah. And I also reported into a really strong just role model of a woman. She was our chief commercial officer and she was someone who, she intimidated the shit out of me. She still does.
Right? it's funny because I think some of my team members say the same thing now about me. I'm just like, and
speaker-0 (28:17)
I can see that though.
speaker-1 (28:19)
I don't understand. Now I get it a little bit more. I do. Yeah. But like, but Liz.
speaker-0 (28:23)
Watching you be like, this French 75 is wrong.
Fix it.
speaker-1 (28:32)
it like Meryl Streep.
speaker-0 (28:33)
It was bad. Well,
but it was bad. It was bad. So you do have that.
speaker-1 (28:41)
Yeah. no. You have it in
me. It's a good thing that Ethan and Brennan aren't in the room. my God. They take me down and peg right away. Teenagers are really good at that. So but I reported into Liz. She was amazed. She continues to be an amazing woman. And so when we had this epiphany moment, essentially, Lee and I in May of 2013 that we wanted to start this business.
speaker-0 (29:09)
Lee is her husband.
speaker-1 (29:13)
I came back, think, you know, because it was a trip and I came in on that Monday to talk to Liz and it was a very casual kind of, at that point you knew you were out almost within six months. So there was a lot of conversation that wouldn't have been happening in a corporate environment. Let me just say that. Yeah.
speaker-0 (29:32)
you could just be real about it.
speaker-1 (29:34)
Yeah, yeah. And so I started talking to my colleagues and as well as Liz and about the idea and they were supportive. They, I think, thought maybe I was nuts and they wouldn't say it, which is fine. It's fine. You know, yeah. But it wasn't a like, what the hell are you thinking? But she, she asked so many pointed and helpful questions from a strategic.
point of view that I was able to take what she offered, start my research while I was still working. And then build the business, start the business plan. So much so that Liz and her husband Bob, you know, they were one of our initial family and friends investors. So and they've been with me this whole way. And it's for me, it's kind of like someone who believes in you and sticks with you.
But yeah, they were that tiny. And I think the first three years, I was much more of, I want to be more present for them. Especially in elementary school. To the point where when Ethan was in second grade, I was one of the class moms. And I had never envisioned that for myself.
he still remembers, like I would come in and I would do certain things. And it wasn't a whole heck of a lot of time commitment. I wasn't like gonna be in that, I just, you I'm not that way. I've never been on a PTA. But to support him in that. And I really, really love elementary school.
Like, because it's when they're just exploring and learning so much so quickly. And it was just I was really it was sort of that sweet spot. Have you heard that before? Sweet spot was something I'm really lucky that we had sweet spot before COVID hit so that we had established sort of the core for me, my husband and the two. We have very open conversations as a family. And so that helped.
immensely as we headed into COVID. And so running the business, we also had the strategic investor come in in August of 2019. So we had a completely different trajectory from 2019 through mid 2025. All that's changed. it's a lot of back to basics.
but it feels more authentic to me. And I was talking to my executive coach about it probably at the end of, yeah, it was the end of 2025 and we were trying to figure out what was that word. And it was just really reclamation.
Is that your word of the year? Well, was the last six months of 2025 was Reclamation. And as I headed into 2026, it's into rebirth. Yeah. so and I think if you had
speaker-0 (32:38)
That is powerful as shit.
speaker-1 (32:44)
any...
member of our team in here and they would they it is markedly different. Wow. It's like okay we're all in this together now. Yeah. In a whole new way.
speaker-0 (32:54)
Well, that
is something I wanted to ask you is sort of you had said midway through 2025, the vision shifted. And part of it was on not in your control. then part of it was, right? Part of it was.
speaker-1 (33:10)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's there's two ways that it could have gone once we knew that we had a different plan and that it was I
speaker-0 (33:20)
But can you talk about that?
speaker-1 (33:22)
can talk about it a little bit. There's a lot of legal things I cannot say.
So for me, it was a decision that was not in our control at all. It was a decision that was not negotiable and it was a decision that didn't just impact me and didn't just impact our own distillery. That's what I can say. And it took a long time to unwind that relationship from a legal perspective. These things always take time. It took longer than I think any of us anticipated. But it is done now. It is done. It did not get done until...
end of 2025.
speaker-0 (34:00)
listeners. I know we're
being like super cryptic, but I just don't want to put Melissa in. I
speaker-1 (34:03)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (34:05)
just don't want to put it in her in a spot. But yeah, you were on like massive, massive growth trajectory. And then now you are not. We're not anymore. can say that.
speaker-1 (34:12)
We are not at all. No, right. We can
completely say that. And I and and there's there's again that two ways of looking at it. You can say, OK, well, we still want to stay on this completely like national high growth track. And we might have thought that of ourselves. I'd say if this was twenty twenty two or twenty twenty three, because things were booming.
speaker-0 (34:34)
Yeah, well, people were.
speaker-1 (34:36)
Yeah, they were a lot and the industry was still very much like on a high.
speaker-0 (34:43)
Yeah.
speaker-1 (34:46)
You know, we started our raise. So an investment raise was our B2 raise. We started that in May of 2024. And our valuation was
really good and we could figure out, this was the amount of dollars that we needed to fuel, continue to fuel this growth. We felt great about it. And then it would, the shift was fast and it had nothing to do with us again, right? So this was, this is when you could start to see what,
the industry was thinking and what the investors and especially venture capitalists were starting to think. And there's a part of me that I think the universe was like, Melissa, don't sign. Don't go for any of these because something's coming. I really do believe that there's been a lot of guardian angel kind of things that have happened to this distillery and my life as things have evolved. And thank goodness because
to be able to be in control of your decision making again as a business owner, especially when you know that we're in more challenging times than COVID. And I don't agree with that. Again, I don't think a lot of people understand that. But from a hospitality perspective, this is harder.
speaker-0 (36:07)
is harder.
speaker-1 (36:08)
It's harder because people are tapped out.
speaker-0 (36:12)
Well, also COVID changed social behavior potentially permanently.
speaker-1 (36:18)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (36:22)
you have to really really have a very sexy incentive on the table to get people to put on pants and leave home
speaker-1 (36:31)
Yeah, at least I have the option of either they don't have to put on pants, just have to put
speaker-0 (36:36)
pants.
speaker-1 (36:37)
a cocktail together. That's right. Yeah, I do have both worlds. yeah, I can see it's harder to get them out the door though. Yeah, the incentives to getting them in the door are critical right now.
speaker-0 (36:49)
So Reclamation's so powerful.
speaker-1 (36:51)
rebirth.
speaker-0 (36:53)
What does the next few years look like for you all now?
speaker-1 (36:56)
community.
speaker-0 (36:57)
Community, just really doubling down here.
speaker-1 (37:00)
Yes.
So our first ever employee Erin, she's still with us, right? So she celebrated her 10 years last year. know. Yes. And she started off as our general manager. And then she moved into doing some some more stuff with the bar because she has a hospitality background. But there was a point at the end of 2025 when I could see like, OK, we have a big hole. We don't we don't want to hire
a salesperson because this isn't really about sales. we're, yeah. It's not.
speaker-0 (37:34)
And it's not about exponential growth.
speaker-1 (37:37)
Yeah. I mean, but you have to, you have to think about it in terms of what is it that it's going to move the needle, not only for awareness, but for people to really see us as an authentic voice as we continue to grow and continue to wanting to be. We want to continue to be the distillery that people think of in the triangle.
And we've had a lot of competition come in in the last four to five years. And I will say, not all of it great. There have been a notable few that they steal ideas. It's hard. It's hard to say that out loud, but it's true.
speaker-0 (38:15)
scrunching my face. You all can't see my face. I'm going,
speaker-1 (38:18)
Yeah. And we've always prided ourselves as a team of setting the standard.
speaker-0 (38:25)
Yeah.
speaker-1 (38:27)
Not only from a product quality perspective, but...
an innovation perspective and also from a community perspective. And when I looked at that at the end of 2025, I'm like, okay, we continue to still push product innovation, right? The relaunch of the damn fine liqueurs. I have not heard anything negative about that. And for me, like that has been my baby, right? Because the original recipes are mine. And when I took a look at that and I was like, I gotta redo these completely because...
They need to be better, because I know that they can be better, like better tasting and better quality. But I also was like, there's a purpose for them. Yeah. Because real ingredient liqueurs are not a thing. Mass produced, they can't be. So those big guys producing Baileys, there's nothing in there that's real.
speaker-0 (39:15)
Yeah.
speaker-1 (39:15)
All fake. Synthetic. Uh-huh. And so for us to say, we know that that's an innovation that still has a need. It's still a consumer. Once they taste the difference, they get it. So we had that. felt good about that. The Mocha bourbon cream was a 4 AM wake up. So perimenopause, like I can't fall back asleep. It really was. And I was just like, I don't really just want to redo Mocha. I want to.
put bourbon in it and then I was like whoa I'm off to the races and I had really a lot of fun with that one that one is now the lead skew okay
speaker-0 (39:52)
Hey.
speaker-1 (39:53)
for yeah and chocolate
speaker-0 (39:55)
It sounds delicious. I haven't tried that one. god. should have. No, no, no, no. Don't. I didn't even. didn't. I
speaker-1 (39:59)
No, know you did.
speaker-0 (40:01)
was not fishing for any.
speaker-1 (40:02)
No, know that, but I want you to try that. Yes, it is. Yeah, that and a little bit of coffee. See, I really should have brought it because we could have had that. know. That's
speaker-0 (40:11)
Pre-game your lunch.
speaker-1 (40:13)
right. Woo! Anyway. Yes.
speaker-0 (40:16)
Maybe we should do a dinner. Maybe
we should do a dinner. Cocktail dinner.
speaker-1 (40:22)
Now you got lots of options.
speaker-0 (40:25)
Okay, I'll put a pin in the net.
speaker-1 (40:28)
So innovation we have. We still felt like we were setting the standard. And then it came to community. And it really felt like a wah-wah. It did. Why? Because I think we were so focused on external North Carolina growth for four years. Because we were forced to. We were forced to.
speaker-0 (40:49)
Yeah, I mean that had to be a reason. You just didn't
focus on nurturing the community here in the state. I
speaker-1 (40:57)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (40:57)
mean you can only do so much. You can only do so much.
speaker-1 (41:01)
Yeah, but then we had RDU open in October, right? And RDU is a different animal altogether for those. wouldn't about that. I know.
speaker-0 (41:07)
Wish we had time to See you next time.
speaker-1 (41:10)
So it was not, it didn't feel like we were, people didn't know us anymore. And the amount of transplants to the triangle.
from COVID on is so dramatic. It's so dramatic. It's crazy. mean,
speaker-0 (41:25)
right now.
speaker-1 (41:27)
we were like, we keep hearing and actually in Raleigh career, in the Raleigh market, there's people who are like, we didn't know Conniption was made by Durham Distillery. Come on. We're like, who
speaker-0 (41:38)
Okay,
alright, we got work to do.
speaker-1 (41:39)
We
got work to do. And especially, you know, it's great on the one hand. We had some people that would say like, I had conniption for the first time in New York and we didn't know it was made here. we're like, yeah, well, that's great. But yeah, it was made in Darb Distillery.
speaker-0 (41:55)
I think about community a lot, a lot, a lot as a just sort of a deeper connective tissue.
speaker-1 (42:05)
Yes. To it.
speaker-0 (42:08)
And I've said this before, but my true highest best use for the company is being sort of the idea generator.
speaker-1 (42:18)
And yeah, you and I are the same way. Yeah, just like the creative.
speaker-0 (42:22)
Nine out of ten do not work and are not good one out of ten is really good and does work And I've gotten much better now about like the impulse and like just sort of sitting with an idea before Calling, you know, yeah, I'm hands on deck. I mean like I got this new idea. We got to do this thing
speaker-1 (42:43)
But.
speaker-0 (42:43)
I am curious what you think
about approaching community in this next era. What does look like for
speaker-1 (42:49)
Mm-hmm.
speaker-0 (42:50)
you guys?
speaker-1 (42:53)
It has a lot of different elements to it. think that the team...
recognized first and foremost that we had a tasting room that was being underutilized. They realized that at the latter part of the summer and they were like, why don't we rebuild this as a community space? so they like a third place, a third place is that upstairs? Yeah. So we rebranded it as the Juniper room. So it's, an event space, but it also, and it's not big, right? So this is also fitting a niche that is, it's really interesting. Like this whole area has, ah,
very big event spaces. They don't have tiny. And especially tiny that are not associated or part of a bar or restaurant. And our upstairs is not part of a bar or restaurant. Yeah, the license goes up and stairs and downstairs to the bar, it's its own unit. It's so cute up there.
It is really cute. Yeah, they actually we they they redesigned it. They came up with a budget proposal for how to have it rework. And then they came up with a whole private events as well as community events. So we've had a couple of community events already this year. First was a vision boarding. I know. Yeah, it was it was great because they took inspiration from the vision boards that you and I had worked together on. And those are in my office, by the way.
Yeah, so they came up with a vision boarding which was on a Sunday afternoon in January and That event, you know, you're getting a lot. We're getting our legs underneath us. It was tiny, but it was okay It was doesn't need to be huge and I think it's actually better. It wasn't
speaker-0 (44:33)
mean, how many people could you put in there? 20? 25?
speaker-1 (44:36)
You can put about, with seats, just about 20. But I think, you know, on a vision boarding session, you want like the maximum space in front of you. So I think it was good that it was just about 10. And then they just executed last week a Galentine's event.
Which was just it was
speaker-0 (44:55)
.
speaker-1 (44:56)
it was fantastic. So it was a couple of different like you could do a card making station. There was a build your own mini bouquet station that we had gotten all these different like fun flowers, which if anybody really wants to see baby's breath that is unicorn Trader Joe's has a unicorn baby's breath. It's all these different colors. Wow. I know it's really fun. I think you could do that easily. Like if you put it like it's almost like an Easter egg. Right. But obviously I'm not doing that. It was really neat to
And then Molly actually worked with Candle Science, right? Because they're down the street. And we had a build your own station for a candle that had a kind of a dry gin essence. And then I don't remember what the other one was. They were both beautiful. So it was just really fun.
speaker-0 (45:46)
How could you engage in your team in that way?
speaker-1 (45:49)
that is the really big difference, I'd say. I do not want to run this company where I'm the hub of the wheel anymore. people, my team has, over the last six to nine months, started to get really understanding what that means, that Melissa doesn't want to be the end all be all of decisions or anything like that. And they are embracing it in a whole new way. I'm really excited for where the company is headed.
speaker-0 (46:16)
level
stuff right there. And they gave you a budget proposal. just yeah, that cool.
speaker-1 (46:20)
yeah.
speaker-0 (46:22)
And then they have buy in in the whole
speaker-1 (46:26)
Yeah,
they've got you know, there's certain individuals now that have PNL responsibility. Yeah. yeah. So the goal for this company, and I I'm putting it out in the universe is we are returning to profitability this year. Okay. And a lot of people will be like, and I'm sure like, there's, there's some listeners who are like, what is how can you run a company of this size and not be profitable?
speaker-0 (46:52)
come
on.
speaker-1 (46:55)
Yeah, I think. Yeah, we were profitable in 2018. Then accepting internal or accepting external rather investment and a new strategic initiative.
That puts the company in a whole different way. I think anyone that wants to understand what that means needs to really look at the analogy and the trajectory of tech companies. No tech company, really, unless you can point it, and I'd love to be proven wrong, who's gotten acquired for hundreds of millions of dollars has not been profitable. God, no. No. Works. Not how.
speaker-0 (47:33)
Not in the growth stage. That's just not how it Well,
because you're reinvesting. You're reinvesting. Right. And. Yeah.
speaker-1 (47:45)
So we have shaved, we had to do some layoffs, which were extremely terrible. they're painful. They're just painful. We haven't had to do any since mid-year. But I really believe that this company can get back on profitability.
speaker-0 (48:03)
Well, it only takes one penny. Okay. It does.
speaker-1 (48:08)
One penny more. That's
right. That's right. Yeah, I got some work to do, but. Thank you.
speaker-0 (48:16)
I want this for you. And if you
are saying it out loud and your team knows it and your team has a share in it, there's,
speaker-1 (48:23)
they do.
speaker-0 (48:26)
you know, like you said, control what you can control,
speaker-1 (48:28)
Right.
speaker-0 (48:29)
control what you can control and let the rest shake out. I'm so excited for you. You sound good. Yeah. You
speaker-1 (48:33)
You sound more grounded.
speaker-0 (48:39)
sound real good compared to the last time we really sat down.
speaker-1 (48:42)
That was the throw zone.
speaker-0 (48:45)
Mm Yeah. I'm so happy to hear all of that. my god. Okay, so this is the year of rebirth Durham distillery all about community everybody you should check out the Juniper room. If you are local to the Triangle area of North Carolina. If you're not local and you're coming here to visit, please do check it out. Please also do not miss conniption in the Raleigh Durham Airport. No matter where you live if you are coming through here and get
Maybe we can encourage people to just like bang down the door and be like, no, we need our espresso martini with gin. bring it back.
speaker-1 (49:22)
I mean, I'm sure that the team will make it with gin if they'd like it.
speaker-0 (49:26)
Can we
get the conniption espresso martini potion at the downstairs bar?
speaker-1 (49:32)
yeah,
of course. OK. OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no. OK. It's really just, yeah, it's just the refiguring what the both bars with their personalities are. Yeah. Yeah, because
speaker-0 (49:42)
Yeah, that makes sense.
speaker-1 (49:43)
especially you use a restaurant too. It's not just a bar. Right.
Hold on. You know. There's a lot that goes on with that. But yeah, and then there's the, do, you know, actually I don't know if you know, so conniptiongin.com is where we, that's our shipping. So anybody outside of North Carolina can actually order and get it delivered.
speaker-0 (50:05)
I was gonna ask where can people find you so conniptiongin.com. C-O-N-N-I-P-T-I-O-N. Gin is spelled G-I-N.
speaker-1 (50:16)
It is, yes.
That was good. That was really good. You certainty on your face as you were doing
speaker-0 (50:23)
Well, I'm like, is there one more I?
speaker-1 (50:25)
it.
speaker-0 (50:25)
I don't know. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you so much for your time. You are a mentor, a leader, a role model. So glad to have you as a friend. Yes, like the best. Thank you. All right, everybody drink gin.