8 Questions with AJ Soldo from Nelson's Green Brier Distilling

Nelson’s Green Brier is one of Nashville’s most historic distilleries. And every May, this iconic producer releases its Belle Meade Bourbon Honey Cask Finish to statewide fanfare.

Last year, over a thousand people showed up to grab one of these special bottles, putting the distillery and its employees under serious strain.

When the time came to organize this year’s rollout, AJ Soldo, Hospitality Manager at Nelson’s Green Brier Distillery, wanted to find a way to move everything online.

After exploring a variety of options, AJ eventually leveraged Oznr to bring the launch to life.

We sat down with AJ to chat about the challenges of releasing a highly desired bourbon and how the Oznr app helped facilitate the distillery’s largest release of the year. 

GW: How did you hear about Oznr?

AS: I was introduced to Oznr by Matt Griffin from Untappd. I met Matt through Clubhouse. We were in a room chatting. It was perfect because I was in the room to learn something from the beer industry as far as how to change how we do special releases.

Matt said, I have a great solution for you! You should talk to Jon Childress from Oznr. He made the connection because I told him about some issues we were having with special releases. I knew Oznr had the beer side of things figured it out because so much a part of what they do are the special releases.

So I talked to Jon and that’s how this journey started. It was perfect the way it all worked out.

GW: You mentioned that you initially went into that Clubhouse room because there were some issues you had around special releases. What were those problems that you were looking to solve?

AS: Right before the pandemic hit, we sort of had a really big release. We were really excited about it. We put a bunch out on social media. We promoted it a ton. And it was a mess.

We had 450 bottles to sell. We thought, This will be great. We’re going to sell out in an hour. Well, the day before the release, 1,000 people showed up and camped out. We realized we couldn’t have 1,000 people showing up and lining up at the distillery, especially after COVID. So we needed another solution to manage the flow of people coming through.

We were like, Great, let’s start doing this online. We tried it with a release, and the first time we did it through a JotForm on the website. Through that platform, we were able to do some cool things, like schedule times people could come, but it was very thrown together. It’s also JotForm, meaning that it's not meant to facilitate that amount of traffic we were getting. It’s just a form. You can tell the form to stop collecting after a certain amount of submissions, and it did tie back to our Square account and payments ran through Square, but it certainly wasn’t perfect. And it didn’t look good. It wasn't pretty.

We tried it again with an even more popular release and this time we used our scheduling software. That worked great in a sense that it was perfect for scheduling people to come in at a specific time. We created slots and people could pick a time they wanted to come. But again, that system was not set up for that type of traffic. It’s set up for slow and steady, not max load, where a bunch of people hop on at once. The system didn’t crash, but it looked like it crashed to the outside.

So even though the scheduling platform kind of worked, we knew it wasn't a long-term option. We thought we’d try an online release one more time and looked at Shopify, but luckily the connection with Oznr came through.

GW: Were there any other problems you were experiencing around releases?

AS: We have a private whiskey club called the Coopers Club. And we were trying to give club members a really easy way to get their bottles first, or at least separately. Before Oznr, we tried setting up a 48-hour window during which members could get their bottles. We’d close it at a certain time and then open it up to the regular public.

However, with that method, it was hard to let members know the Coopers Club window was open. We didn’t ever feel like we had a handle on getting the club a cool way to get cool stuff. Or even a way of segmenting the club so members could only buy one time and not buy again.

The last big thing we needed to solve was making releases fair. We knew people would get pissed when they couldn’t buy a bottle, but as long as we’re fair and it looks fair to everyone on social media, then those people get drowned out by the positivity.

Doing Oznr’s Random Draw was just fair. People can’t complain about it. There is nothing they can say. And they didn’t, either.

GW: Those Random Draws were the first time you used Oznr. Can you walk me through the process?

AS: We set up Random Draws for the Belle Meade Bourbon Honey Cask Finish release. The product derives from traditional bourbon, but we finish it in honey casks. We also do vanilla, Madeira, sherry, cognac, and brandy versions that we finish in bourbon barrels, but this one is by far the most popular.

Basically, with this release, we had two different versions. The massive part of the release came from a 7bbl blend, so around 1,300 bottles. And then we had a single-barrel version of that, which we left just for the Coopers Club.

The main drawing was that 106-proof blend. We put 120 bottles aside for Coopers Club members, so we had about 1,050 bottles that we released for 6,800 entries. It was great. I was really surprised at who got a bottle.

For the Coopers Club, we had 120 bottles of the single-barrel version. We put a cool medallion on the bottle where it said, “Coopers Club Exclusive.” And it came in a wooden box with custom foam, a custom Glencairn, and some of the actual honey that was aged in the barrel. It’s just a really cool package. We sold that for $225 per package.

And then we threw in another 120 of just the bottles to the Coopers Club as well. So really, the Coopers Club had 240 bottles that they had a shot at. There were about 1,000 members and 670 of them registered for the release. So if you were a Coopers Club member, you had a 1 in 3 chance that you might get a bottle, whether that was the really nice commemorative package or the blend. Either way, there was an advantage to being in the Coopers Club because you were getting in on a smaller group of people than in the main drawing.

I don't know how we would have done it any differently. We really thought a lot about it and for this release specifically, the Oznr app was perfect.

GW: What did you like most about using the Oznr app?

AS: Oznr easily had the most plug-and-play stuff we needed to make that Belle Meade Bourbon Honey Cask Finish release happen. It would’ve taken too much work to get Shopify up to where it needed to be. It didn’t have everything integrated that we needed. Oznr doesn’t have every little thing either, but it had the most tools that we needed to do the release somewhat quickly.

It worked great.

We also pushed really hard for folks to sign up for the app and subscribe to our location on Oznr because you’ll get notifications when we drop something. It’s better than email, better than social. Big complaints we’ve always gotten in the past are that people have a lot of opinions on how we should announce drops. We shouldn't do it through email because everyone doesn’t get their email at the same time, or you shouldn’t do it through social media because I’m not always looking at social media. With Oznr, you can just sign up for this app. We did it for the Honey release so you know we got the most people we could to sign up and subscribe. At this point, if we drop a few on the Oznr app and people complain that they missed it, I don’t know what to tell them.

GW: How many new subscribers did you get through Oznr? And how many new subscribers did you add to your newsletter?

AS: From this release, we had 4,347 subscribers on Oznr and 6,800 people entered the Random Draw.

As far as new newsletter subscribers, I have to look. I actually don’t even know if I’ve sent that over to the web team yet. I forget that a huge part of what was cool about this was seeing if we got new people on the email list.

I will say the lady who does our social media noticed that we got so many new followers to our accounts. We have one for Belle Meade and one for Nelson’s Green Brier, our parent distillery. We got tons of new followers. It’s definitely worth noting for sure.

GW: How do you want to continue using Oznr in the future?

AS: I’d like to try the Pre-Sale. I don’t want to say we’re going to do a Random Draw all the time. For Honey, it was perfect because that’s our most popular product, so it made sense for that release. But our next few releases are smaller, so do we want to use Oznr? We’ve had some great success with Gift Shop drops. For a smaller release or “never-done-it-before” products, we’ll drop it in the Gift Shop, post on social media, and see how that release performs.

At least for the rest of this year, if we continue to use Oznr, I see it being just for the club. Even if we drop it somewhere else, maybe we throw 50 bottles or 30 bottles on Oznr for the club just to say, Hey guys, we didn’t have that much, but here’s something for y'all. The folks who benefit the most from those drops are local because people hear about it and its first-come, first-served. It's also like all the next releases we’re doing this year are all stuff we’ve never done before. It wouldn’t make sense for us to plan these big huge release events because we don’t know if it's going to be popular. We have to see if it's worth it.

In the fall, we do have one coming up with a calvados finish that has a little bit more for us to play with. We’ll probably do something on Oznr. Maybe not Random Draw, but when we drop it, I’d like to throw some on Oznr to see if folks who are not local have a chance at it, too.

We’ve talked about facilitating our Coopers Club through Oznr for new openings. People want to get in the club all the time, and they ask me, How can I get in? I tell them to watch our newsletter for when we announce open slots. They’ll tell me, I didn’t make it, or I didn't see the email. I don't know what to tell them. It’s a really popular club and you just have to try your best. How much more fair can you make it? With that in mind, we know the club is about as popular as anything we have available, so why not do that through Oznr to make sure that it's truly fair as well? Right now with the club, when we open up slots, it's just JotForm, and it's just so basic that I think there’s a better way to do it.

GW: Anything else you wanted to add about using the Oznr app or you think we haven’t covered?

AS: I would say that overall, everyone was really happy with what the app offered and what it accomplished for us. And even fans were all very gracious about the fairness and the way we did it. I’m excited to see if we can continue the partnership.

I actually had a friend who reached out to me. He runs a whiskey app and a CPG product around whiskey. He asked, Why are you using a beer app to release your whiskey? I told him, Dude it works. I’m telling you, yeah, it's a beer app, but it hit most of the things we need to accomplish. It did it for us. Yeah, it's a beer app, but I don’t know; there are no whiskey apps out there doing what they do. He said he could build it for me, but I’m like, I don’t know, man. Oznr is kind of crazy robust in what they can do. So, I’m excited to see Oznr get more into the spirits world.

Hopefully, what we did here is a launchpad for the spirits world to realize, Hey we can utilize this even if it's just craft. 

11 Questions with Adam Lynch from Standard Meadery

Standard Meadery in Villa Park, Illinois, specializes in all things mead, from dessert-inspired beverages to the more standard still styles and even session meads. They received their license last March, only a week before COVID shut down much of the country.

However, despite significant challenges, the meadery has excelled, gaining popularity for its variety of traditional and whimsical releases such as the Meadowfoam Blackberry Blossom traditional-style mead or the Symbiosis Piña Colada smoothie-style session mead with pineapple, coconut, and key lime. 

Behind the wizardry is Adam Lynch, owner and head mead maker at Standard. Starting as a one-man show, Adam often found himself in charge of everything from making the mead and running the meadery’s day-to-day operations to organizing can and bottle releases and spearheading the meadery’s membership club. 

So before officially launching, Adam decided to leverage Oznr, a direct-to-consumer eCommerce platform, to help out with his one to two monthly releases, bottle pickups, and Finer Things Club.   

We sat down with Adam to chat about opening a meadery during a global pandemic, how he first heard about Oznr, and how the app helped Standard Meadery continue to grow. 

GW: For those who are unfamiliar with Standard Meadery, give me a couple sentences about the operation. What are you all about?

AL: We do a very modern version of mead. We play more in the dessert-style meads on the sweeter side. We do make everything from dry to sweet meads, but the majority of what we make is on the sweeter side. 

Right now, we make two different styles. We do our still mead, which is more of a traditional mead, higher ABV, served 1-2oz pours. Much like a port wine. And then we do session meads. They’re lower ABV, carbonated, and range from 5-6.5% alcohol. We do a lot of lower ABV stuff, everything from seltzer-style—we call it honey seltzer—all the way up to full-on smoothie-style meads similar to stuff like 450 North. We can that product, and all of our other stuff is served in bottles. 

GW: You started using Oznr before your taproom opened. How did you first hear about Oznr? Why did you start using the platform?

AL: I’m really good friends with Phase Three Brewing, and they started using Oznr before we did. We talked to them, and then when the Oznr team was in town, we actually met them. It seemed like a good fit for us because, when met with them, we hadn’t even started our membership program yet. We were still waiting on the licensing to come in. And once that came in, we initially ran our membership through Oznr. 

We got licensed the weekend before everything got crazy last March. We used this platform to sell and set up pickups at our facility for everything we sold for at least six months. We finally got to open [the taproom] in the fall for six weeks before everything closed again. We reopened this March and we’ve been open since March in the taproom, but we’ve been selling product the whole time. 

GW: You said Oznr seemed like a good fit for your membership club. How does the app help you manage your membership program?

AL: For us it was the ease of use. We don't have a large staff. We have a fairly decent-sized membership of around 300 members. They get first access to everything we produce before public sales. They also get exclusive member bottles included in the membership, which roll out over the year. Oznr gives us a way to track all of that.

Additionally, Oznr makes proxy pickups very simple. The customer can set their own proxies on the Oznr app [iOS + Android]. They come in and we can pull up by email to see everything that needs to be picked up by that one person that is proxying. My staff doesn’t have to spend a lot of time managing the actual membership. A lot of that is handled by the consumers themselves. When they come in to pick up, we have everything in order and pull everything and get it ready for them. 

GW: You mentioned the app saved your staff a lot of time. Do you have any specific metrics on that?

AL: I can’t exactly say, but for every release, if we had to actually field emails for proxies and create a spreadsheet to manage that, you’re talking about potentially 100-150 people emailing us that [want] someone else to pick up their bottle. And we would have to track that on [a] spreadsheet and then get stuff ready. We have members that pick up [for] 14 to 15 different people. So for every release, you could be talking about somewhere between 20-30 extra man-hours, I would think, just sorting through emails and making sure everything is straight. Now, with the Oznr app, we can just pull everything up on one screen and pick out the bottles while they’re here. 

GW: When was your first official release? How did it go?

AL: Our first release was in May 2020. We’ve been pretty lucky. We have a decent amount of interest in what we do. We have been able to sell out quickly. 

Some of that might be due to the fact that Chicago is a great market for Oznr. There are quite a few breweries and two meaderies here that use it. The audience is really big. We have a lot of subscribers on Oznr. They get an alert three minutes before the sale. It’s almost like we have a captive audience when we put something up for sale. They’re staring at their phone already because they just got the alert, so we have a lot of people attempting to purchase product at that moment as opposed to us putting up an Instagram and then two days later our consumers have to remember that it goes on sale at noon.

That captive audience has been really good for us in terms of selling out quickly. People can just go on Oznr, they already have a credit card saved, hit Buy Now, and make a purchase and then move on with their day. Instead of the release being a whole ordeal and setting up 30 minutes early. 

GW: How many followers do you have on Oznr now?

AL: At one point we had more followers on Oznr than we did on Instagram. Right now we have 2,970 followers on Oznr (we’re really close to 3,000) and 2,850 on Instagram! 

This is because people in the area are essentially shopping in the Chicago tab. They look through and decide maybe they want something from them and they’ll subscribe and if we send out an alert they will get that on their phone. 

I think having subscribers makes Oznr really valuable. Also because we have really popular breweries in the area that are also using Oznr with two to three times more subscribers than we do, we can get more eyeballs on our listings when they go up. 

GW: What are the top things you like most about the Oznr?

AL: The eyeballs are great. 

I also like how easy it is for the consumer and how easy it is for proxies to be set up and how easy pickups go. Rather than us having to pull up a spreadsheet and search for a name on the Oznr app, it just comes up and we can claim everything right there. 

We don’t have any issues with it. 

GW: Have you ever used the Random Draw feature?

AL: We’ve used the Random Draw a couple times, but it's been very limited. We haven’t done anything big, but when we have very limited products for members, we used it just to be fair and equitable for our members to have a shot at something we didn't have enough for everybody on. It works well. I like that we have little to no control, it's totally random. I’m not picking winners. 

That feature seems to work well. We really haven’t used it too much, just a couple of times. 

GW: What would you say has been your most successful release to date on the Oznr app?

AL: They’ve all been pretty successful! The releases have been very good on Oznr. We’ve sold out in seconds pretty much every release we’ve done, which has been fantastic. 

Our Peanut Butter and Jelly session mead was one of our largest releases that hit the public. We had a pretty good amount for the public to purchase. We make 7bbls, so it’s not huge but that’s big for us. That one sold out.

GW: If you were to recommend Oznr to someone else and pay it forward, kind of like Phase Three did for you, what would you say? 

AL: They’re really good guys, they're super easy to work with, and they pick up the phone when I call, which is awesome. They’re super accessible and receptive to any ideas I might have. They’ve implemented a couple of our ideas, which is great. We’ve been a user since early on. 

GW: What are some of the ideas that you had that Oznr implemented?

AL: Simple little things like the way things are sorted, display screen, so you don’t have to go back into the offer to view all settings on the offer. Just things that make our life easier on the back end. Front end, they have a handle on that. It looks great in the app. 

The easier they make it for the consumer to purchase, the easier it is for us to get them to purchase. You just hit a button! 

Now they’re implementing shipping and we’re working on our back end to get our permits in line, so we can start shipping to other states. We’re starting with 10 states first and slowly growing that over time. We’re technically a winery, so if we file the proper paperwork, we can ship to 43 states. We’re working to build that back end so when we scale up we won’t need distribution in other places, we can just ship direct-to-consumer. Oznr has a platform to offer that ability. We've been working with them on the back end there. What information do we need, so we can properly report to all these states taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes, tracking gallons, and stuff like that.