The signal is here.
This is Blood Channel Radio.
Welcome, gentle pioneers, to the lightning-laced airwaves.
This is episode 152 of Plep Chain Radio, and this is going to be a fun one.
Ben Justman returns to the show.
It's been about a year and a half.
Last time, we were fermenting a revolution.
I wonder what it'll be this time.
If you are hearing my voice right now on Spotify or Apple, thank you for listening.
But also, welcome to the Legacy Feed.
It's a reliable signal, but it's read-only.
Over here on Fountain and Noster, the frequency is open.
This is a value-for-value broadcast.
There are no corporate scripts and no algorithmic nudges here because the producers of this show, that's you, fuel the engine.
If you want to move from passive listener to active participant, come join the signal on the V4V side.
Now, let's set the table for the final word.
The executive producer chair for next week is currently empty.
As always, the top booster secures the title and the right to close out the show.
The rules of the board are simple.
Ratify or rectify.
In a few minutes, I'm going to lay out the sermon.
If the message resonates, boost in to ratify it and add your context to back it up.
If I miss the mark, boost in to rectify it and set the record straight.
The board is in session and the top supporter gets the mic.
And before we get into the sermon, you might have noticed that in the last three or four episodes, including this one,
I didn't state the date and time of recording of the episode at the very top as I usually do.
That is because these last few episodes were recorded in early February ahead of some travel I have in the middle of the month.
So by the time you hear this recording, the topic I'm about to talk about might well be dead and buried, and that would be a good thing.
But as I'm recording this, it is not, and it's very real and very raw.
There's been some very disappointing news that's come out in the last few days about respected Bitcoiners being possibly associated with Epstein or at least in some form of contact with him.
While being part of an email thread isn't conclusive evidence of wrongdoing by any means, the stench of association is unescapable.
And sadly, by extension, it jumps onto Bitcoin itself, at least in the public eye.
Of course, this news is being fully capitalized on by bad actors and enemies of Bitcoin in an attempt to thrust the knife in.
So today's sermon addresses that, the distinction between Bitcoin and Bitcoiners.
Here's the sermon, the compromised substrate.
The idols are bleeding.
We watch the pedestals crack and the statues topple.
names carrying weight yesterday and now radiate a toxic half-life the scavengers feast they brand
the entire network with the sins of a few men eager to paint the protocol with the same brush
used to mark the predators we forgot the foundational axiom biology is a compromised
substrate humans act as leaking vessels of ego and vice prone to rot from the inside out
We project our hope onto these fragile containers, expecting saints.
We inevitably find sinners.
Every hero in this space eventually disappoints given a long enough timeline.
Consider the absolute moral vacuum of our other tools.
The fiber optic cable transmits a death threat with the exact fidelity of a love letter.
The highway bears the weight of the ambulance and the getaway car without distinction
The cellular tower routes the command to fire a missile alongside the call for a ceasefire
To blame the asphalt for the crash is the logic of a child
We accept this duality in our steel and our silicon
The combustion engine propels the tank across the border just as effectively as it drives the school bus
The piston fires regardless of the driver's intent.
Gravity pulls the assassin's bullet to earth with the same equation it uses to hold the oceans in place.
Bitcoin operates in this same vacuum.
It validates a transaction from a saint and a monster with the exact same cryptographic certainty.
The ledger acts as a cold, distinct mirror reflecting only truth.
Char 256 ignores your emails. It ignores your island visits. It cares only about the work.
Let the critics howl. Let them try to chain the invention to the operator's flaws.
They attack the passengers because the train itself is unstoppable. The code remains open.
The code remains auditable. The code remains sovereign. We build this system specifically
to escape the fallibility of kings.
We should not recoil when our own captains prove human.
Kill your idols. Burn the posters.
The signal remains pure even when the broadcaster rots.
And with that, it's time to bring on our guest, Ben Justman.
Welcome back to Plep Chain Radio.
Great to be here.
Yeah, good to have you back, Ben.
How are you doing, my friend?
At the time of recording, this isn't the happiest time.
Number go down.
Epstein stench is all over.
Well, as I said, it's being capitalized on by people anyway to taint Bitcoin.
How are you doing?
Yeah, honestly, seeing that is kind of refreshing.
I think it revitalizes Bitcoiners in a lot of ways that we've always been pariahs or crazy or looked at negatively from the government's eyes.
And I think there was a shift with the Trump election and, you know, hope for a strategic Bitcoin reserve and, you know, nation state adoption or corporate adoption.
and this 50 drawdown and what i think is a bunch of bot accounts um or like orchestrated by
someone um to attack bitcoin and in the social sense calling it pedo coin connecting it to epstein
um i think it's it's nice like rallying of like oh right they're still attacking us
we're still the you know they they still want bitcoin they still want to keep bitcoin down
so they can buy it or they can destroy it and it's us bitcoiners that see the signal
and are not worried by 50 dips i mean it it hits you to a degree but um i think
you know when bitcoin goes up the the social media rallying cries is the total opposite of
what you should do financially if you do need to offload or change your risk profile.
And at the bottom, Bitcoiners are absolutely the signal and buying the dip, staying strong,
knowing why they're here.
And that's been awesome to see over the last few days.
You know, that's a very refreshing perspective, Ben, because one of the interesting things
that's happened to Bitcoin, especially in the US, since the Trump election is somehow,
it went from being this punk rock dissident cultural thing to getting full mainstream
acceptance almost, right? Or at least that's what it seemed like. The government loved Bitcoin,
for heaven's sake, right? When was the last time that happened? And then you had this wave after
wave of institutional adoption.
So the last year, year and a half,
has been a really odd place to be in
because a lot of Bitcoiners,
I would include myself in this,
who sort of viewed myself on the dissident side
of all of this, the cypherpunk side in some sense,
found ourselves in a really strange spot
where, wait, people want to work with us?
Like, what's going on?
So in some sense, I think it is,
as you said refreshing um to see that that's not entirely the case there are enemies of bitcoin out
there and perhaps fairly powerful ones yeah it's i kind of got caught in the trap as as well um
thinking things were different now and i i think they are to some degree but they're not as different
as we were thinking they were going to be,
or things aren't changing as fast as we hoped.
And I think there's times where I got caught up in politics over the last year,
and I'd kind of come back with Bitcoin dip
and just how things got so crazy in the United States over the last few months.
um it's been clarifying for me as far as like look i agree with some of the things that are
going on politically i disagree with a lot of the you know a lot of the things that are going on
politically um and fundamentally i i whether i agree like specifically with some trump policies
and and i think it's generally better for the direction of my country um than the alternative
And especially from a Bitcoin sense, overtly, at least.
It's kind of this this sea change of Bitcoin price and like just kind of clarity that a 50 percent drawdown provides is very refreshing as to why I do it and how it's on me to be safe to save myself.
And the world's not going to get fixed.
um the politicians are my enemies and um at you know at at best maybe they changed my life a little
bit but it's really it's really up to me in so many senses and um you kind of lose that a little
bit when prices go on your way and everything's okay because the price is up um but yeah the veil
definitely comes off after a 50% crash. And, um, I don't know, it's like, while, you know,
you wish you like, I didn't accomplish my financial goals this cycle, um, because I was waiting for
the next leg up to, to sell a little bit, to get out of some debts. Um, and now it's this refresh
and like, dang, do I got to wait another four years to reach those goals or get more creative?
But it just kind of resettles in as to, like I said before, the value of this mission, the long term nature of it.
And I don't know.
I guess it's humbling and not in a horrible way.
And that's nice.
I like what you're saying there, Ben, because when the price is working in your favor.
And this is a trap a lot of Bitcoiners, including myself, by the way, fall into, which is at some level, the thinking becomes, well, I'm waiting for Satoshi in some sense, right?
To set me free.
And what I mean by that is, oh, Bitcoin's just going to do magical things and I'm just going to ride.
And I think at times like this, the realization is, oh, there is no one coming to save me.
I'm the only one who can save myself.
So it reinforces the need to reclaim your agency and not wait for really a neutral technology, a neutral money to take you somewhere.
You've got to do it yourself.
But I do find myself, Ben, I don't know if you're experiencing this in any way.
but this is a little different for me personally
because one of the things I did
seven or eight months back was
and this is a big risk I took
because the price is nowhere near
a place where even at 110k
or whatever it was back then
to justify this move
but I quit my Fiat job because I just had enough of it had enough of pouring my time and attention into something so soulless as fiat work And I plunged headfirst into Bitcoin and Nostra
and I've been living off that.
And with the assumption that, look,
yeah, maybe it's not going to go to 200K this cycle.
It might not, but at least it's going to stay above 90 at least, right?
And obviously that hasn't played out
at the time of recording anyway, we're just, we're hovering in the 60, 70k range. Maybe when folks
are listening to this recording, it'll be a minor blip and they can laugh it off. But it doesn't feel
that way right now. It's that really strange sense of angst that creeps in saying, oh crap,
I'm kind of, what's happening? My purchasing power has just gone down by half and I've
nowhere to turn do i go back to fiat like what do i do yeah man i i relate with that
like really strongly because you know i i was selling to fiat customers at farmers markets
and ski towns around me um and last year i believe last year was the first year that i
went full-on bitcoiners um like i'm not you know fiat people and you can pay in fiat but like fiat
people. I'm just like, you're not my customers. If you want to buy my wine, please. But like,
I'm not seeking you out. And I, you know, I expected more of a bull run as many other people
did. And I expected that to increase my sales like crazy. And the boringness was, is almost
the worst thing that can happen. We'll, we'll see on that maybe a caveat there. But when you get
bored with price and i'm selling over social media the you know the engagement is lower um people are
waiting for that next price run to buy something um as i was you know you know i totally relate with
everyone in that way um when like looking from the outside in on my product um
and it it didn't pay off in the way that i kind of totally wanted and then now i who knows what
this bear market looks like 50 down is a bear market whether it looks the exact same as time
wise as um the previous ones who knows and you know it's all an adventure but when price drops
50 it's so much different than where i was in last bear market because last bear market i was
i still had a i'd pick up a restaurant job in the winters um and would sell wine all summer
And so I wasn't even fully all in on on wine necessarily.
I was just getting going, was just getting going on my Bitcoin stack.
And, you know, I would sell like maybe two.
I was psyched when I sold two thousand dollars a month of wine online from Bitcoiners.
So now that that's my entire income stream like that no longer cuts it.
and if i'm gonna try and convince bitcoiners to buy my wine when the bitcoin price is 50 down
i better step up my fucking game and it's kind of been that kick in the ass of like like you're
saying i get caught in the the moments of like oh well you know whatever like in a in a month
bitcoin will be 150 200k i'll you know i'll be able to have a little bit more money and um
buy those things I was saving up for waiting for the right price and it never came.
And now so now I'm like, oh, OK, cool.
So we're down that much.
And it's not I can't live in this fantasy world of the price is going to go crazy in
the next month and I'm going to be able to get all these things that I was planning on
that I saved up for without selling Bitcoin for way lower.
And so the onus really does come back on you in moments like these.
and yeah when the water recedes you see the mistakes you made in the euphoria of the bull
market even though we tell ourselves like yeah 100k wasn't you know it wasn't euphoria man um
but we're up 700 from the bottom um i mean it's like yeah sure compared to other bull markets
whatever i wasn't around for other bull markets to really you know i started buying at the top of
the 21 so don't really have that to compare to and you know you're up and you kind of just get
like you said oh it won't go below 90 i was like yeah we'll go up to like 150 200 trump will print
a bunch of money for the election and we won't ever go below 100 again because look at all this
time we've had consolidating here um well nope honey baja dgaf man that's that's what it is
Yeah.
So how's the wine business going?
I know last time you were here, we were talking.
I think it was fairly established even back then.
You were making some varietals.
I don't think you were growing all the grapes.
You were getting some from elsewhere, and you were fermenting them at your winery.
What's the latest?
what is the 2025-2026 crop looking like?
Well, it's really too early to say as far as production-wise.
February here is still very much, I guess, tail end of winter.
We never got – what really is dangerous as far as the next year's crop is –
well, I guess last year we found this first time I've seen it is there wasn't enough snow.
And so I guess certain varietals, everyone kind of lost a third to a half of their vineyard.
Like, you know, it comes back from the ground and you retrain it.
Not like you lost the entire vine, but you lose that year's production, which is a pretty major hit.
And we think that that happened because of lack of moisture.
And this winter has also been extremely dry.
So I do expect to lose some more vines because of that.
But the main thing I worry about is really hard freezes in the winter.
In American degrees, getting down to like negative 10 happens every few years.
And you lose a lot of the vines above ground.
They should come back, but you lose a year of production.
And that hasn't happened.
So that's great.
um so basically i have no idea how much how much wine i'm gonna get from my vineyard next year but
my plan is to be 100 from grapes from my vineyard next year um not to say i'm gonna do that every
year um i my best product is my estate pinot noir and that's always just gonna be the case we have a
great vineyard um and i have my hands on it you know can really make it mine um but my cellar's
full. I, when I was starting the business over the first five years, six years, whatever,
um, I just made as much wine as I could buy, um, realistically and produce. And so I just kept
making more every year, not knowing how big the vineyard was going to be, not knowing I would take
this Bitcoin direction. And like, I thought I would never sell wine online. So, um, it's just
kind of always been a flux go where, um, go where things lead me, go where it makes sense. And I
just produced more wine that i could sell which was always the plan i knew i would get to that
point and i did that just because it's hard to it's hard to scale up it takes two years to produce
um and it's really easy to scale back as in this year i can just not buy any grapes and i was kind
of torn i was like well if we're going to be in this raging bull market don't don't i want to
spend the money and buy the grapes this year um so i guess now that we're down and not gonna i
I mean, I don't know if we go to 200K in 2026, I would be very impressed.
But it makes sense to especially now to not overproduce this year because I don't have this crazy influx of money from Bitcoin.
So, yeah, I don't know. Things are good.
Um, sales have been solid and I'm kind of just really, this whole process is figuring out how to market, run a business and sell wine and, um, you know, be a valuable member of the Bitcoin community in that way.
We have a couple of comments in the live chat, Ben.
Bray says the estate Pinot Noir is outstanding.
And then someone called G says his rose is excellent as well.
hashtag handsome Ben needs to bring it back.
I actually happen to have, funnily enough, Ben,
I have the receipt.
I actually was able to dig it up from when I got it,
when I last purchased, which is unfortunately a while back.
It's over a year ago.
And I got the 2021 Tempranillo and the 2021 Carbonet Franc.
I did not try the estate Pinot.
and with unfortunately with the price being where it is i don't know if i when i'm going to try it
next but i do want to understandable uh g is a a good friend of mine from the real world who's on
nostr um we met before bitcoin and i uh i give him about the last 10 bottles of my rosé for his
wedding so um he's always pushing me to bring it back but we'll see i have a new vineyard of
Pinot Noir coming up.
We had some frustrations getting it going with some bad weather.
So it's taken a long time.
We planted it in 2020.
And I think that the move for it, once it really starts getting into production, is to make a rosé out of it for the first few years.
So that'll be a fun adventure, getting back into rosé and making it with Pinot Noir this time.
So exciting because, I mean, Pinot's awesome.
I love red wine, but it is nice to kick back a tasty rosé in the middle of summer, nice and cold.
I don't know, man.
I'm a red wine maximalist.
It can be 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside and I will still have a red wine.
Hey, man.
Well, I have the wine for you then.
Is that the estate Pinot?
Well, yeah.
I mean, it's a lighter red, so it's very much approachable in the summer.
I don't know, I guess, I mean, cellar temp would be really nice that time.
But just to say, like, pretty much my whole cellar is red wine was my comment.
So when the Tempranillo and the Cabernet Franc, those were not a state, right?
Those you were getting the grapes from elsewhere?
Yes.
If I'm not wrong.
Yeah.
So I only grow Pinot Noir.
And I started my first vintage was 2019.
and so I made 2019, made 2020, and then I started selling wine in 2021. But in the fall of 2020,
there was this frost that hit. The first breeze of the year dropped like 13 American degrees from
70 the week before, and it killed off all the grapes in Colorado above ground. So
So I had been getting grapes from a nearby place in Colorado.
But that year, that 2021 that you had with the Cap Franc and Tempranillo, I had to go out to California because there was nothing in Colorado.
But outside of that, I've been very focused on.
Actually, I only have Colorado wine.
So it was that one blip year.
And then I've gotten back to it.
And, you know, I'm much more focused.
I want to make a name on my vineyard, my estate Pinot, but ultimately people have different tastes and there's certain years where I don't have much Pinot that produces because of the variation.
So I need to buy just to have both variety and volume.
And I have less control over it, but I still get great grapes and they're local, so they're not shipped halfway across the country.
So I get them the day they're picked and start making wine with them.
So less control, less touch with them as far as like I'm not with the vines all year.
But ultimately, I do get awesome grapes from from other growers in Colorado, about an hour away from me.
And they're in a place where you can grow different varieties.
It's not far from me, but it's a completely different climate.
It's about 2000 feet lower, much more deserty, so much warmer.
And Pinot Noir, it doesn't grow there.
It's too hot for it, but a lot of other reds do.
So it allows me to have variety while really focusing on what I do great here.
So is there something about the Terroir in where you are in Colorado, where it's more amenable to a gentler, a milder grape like Pinot Noir, as opposed to maybe the Cabernet Sauvignon or a Sangiovese or something like that?
it's interesting because you think that pinot because it is delicate because it is hard to grow
and hard to make wine out of um it wouldn't do well here because it is harsh i'm in the highest
wine region in north america and you know we have relatively short growing season and cold winters for a farming climate But something about it it just does insanely well here We weren the first to
plant it, but since we planted it, there's been a lot more plantings of Pinot Noir since it's been
so successful um it loves it it seems to love the hot days and cool nights that you get at altitude
so um just changes the ripening pattern and slows down ripening at the end which i think
is kind of the magic sauce where if you know if you're down south or just in a different
environment you might pick in august but we pick in october and in august it's just so hot that
the grapes don't their grapes just are kind of constantly ripening as opposed to
ripening during the day and then calming down at night and then ripening during the day
so i think that that brings out a little bit more of a gentle tone where if you're gonna grow pinot
noir in a very warm climate if it survives well there which it doesn't elsewhere in colorado
you're just gonna get a much more robust pinot which in my opinion and i'm absolutely biased
doesn't really fit the grape.
I've had a lot of Pinots in my life that are like,
dude, you're making this for a Capsaub drinker.
That person should just drink a Capsaub.
This is over-extracted.
It's overdone.
It's big.
This is a delicate grape that should be treated like that.
And I get it because that's the palate of a lot of wine drinkers.
They want something robust, especially Americans.
They want something robust.
I think men typically like, you know, they want something powerful.
They want to feel manly when they drink.
You know, I love whiskey as well, but especially like whiskey drinkers are that way.
And I think the beauty of I mean, the beauty of my Pinot is that it is delicate.
It's complex.
There's a lot of stuff going on, but it is it's light.
It's not like it's got the complexity, but it's light.
It's kind of the beauty of it.
but i guess to say more about the toir is the altitude is the main thing but um i'm the only
one here to differentiate myself within my tiny valley is i'm the only one growing it on river
bottom on the river bottom so um i'm in alluvial soils which do create a little bit of a lighter
wine and also allows me to do a lot less irrigation because when you're elevated up on
the mesas there's not as much groundwater and not enough to for the vines to survive so they're
constantly adding water input to the surface um if you do a drip irrigation it really concentrates
the roots if you do flood it it you know it raises the groundwater a little bit more than
concentrating the roots but it still brings a lot of the roots to the surface and what that does
is it's going to deplete the soil at the surface, which in the short term, absolutely.
Like, you know, there's a ton of nutrients there.
It's not a huge issue.
But over the course of a vineyard's lifetime, which you hope to be, you know, 40 to 100 years,
it's that soil is going to degrade and you're just going to have to continue adding inputs.
And, you know, you lose the connection to the full on land, what your style of soil is a little bit more
because your soil is just going to become your inputs eventually.
Whereas I can kind of live in this world where I have enough water, I irrigate if I need to, maybe once or twice a year.
And the roots are then also forced to drop down, searching for water and kind of mixing in, using so much of the soil underground.
um and you know i'll i'll add chicken manure to the roots and as a little bit of fertilizer and
um i'm gonna add all the grape skins and seeds back to the vineyard this year um to try and keep
you know as much nutrients as possible there because everything you pull out you need to put
back in um to a degree less so when it's when you're taking up more of the soil letting grass
grow between the rows and and letting everything kind of decompose back into itself but um still
the the idea is that like if you're constantly taking out grapes skin seeds everything putting
it back in is just replacing that nutrients that you took out so you're removing less
and keeping that system a lot more stable
so you know i ben i use the term terroir uh and you used it as well and i just realized not everyone
listening is going to be familiar with it and in my mind terroir is this sort of incredibly
nebulous concept it's almost a dark art in some sense of it's a combination of soil alkalinity
the bacterial composition the water whether you know whether you're growing on the north side of
mountain face, south side, the air. I mean, it's everything. That's how I think about it.
In my mind, there is no fixed definition because it's just a combination of all of these
environmental factors that give the grape its complexity. But if you had to describe the concept
of terroir to a layperson, how would you go about it?
I think you're right that it's extremely nebulous and there's not a great definition
And there's not a really a great way to totally experience it, because I think in addition to like Tawar is is typically referred to as refers to the climate generally.
But in each growing season, the different weather that is exposed to the soil, like you said, the slope of the of the earth, how much water, how much nutrients, like all this other stuff, like every basically every environmental factor.
But I've also heard it used, I think it can also be used to include the winemaker.
And I know it's typically more meant for the climate and the soil and all the environmental stuff.
But I've also heard it used for all the winemaking decisions as well.
And so the only way to really...
Let's do it, man.
The emotional state of the winemaker.
Why not?
Well, the only way to...
What I was going for is really just the only way to experience it.
would be like to have a winemaker make the exact same decisions on two different plots of land
that have slight differences and i don't know it's it that's it almost gets to the point where
i'm like okay cool it's almost like a worthless term like we kind of get what we're saying but
like it's a worthless term because it's it's all covered up it's all it's so complex that it doesn't
It's like saying everything without saying anything.
And there's times where, I don't know, it's worthwhile.
Like I did a Burgundy tasting and I tasted grapes that were grown and made by, grown by the same people, made by the same winemaker from vineyards that were a football field away with that had different soils.
And you could, it was a massive difference.
And so, I mean, that's kind of like there's specific vineyards that are known for crazy flavor and everything.
And there's little times you can experience it. But like, it's I think it's the more you dive into towar like I'm doing now, the more you think about it, the less meaningful it becomes. And if you kind of just think about it generally is like, OK, well, generally grapes grown in this climate have these attributes or generally grapes grown in the soil have these attributes.
but and you can kind of look for those things but then you realize that it's all like the you know
the systems the weather everything is is infinitely complex and there's no really
totally understanding everything that went along in that um that it can kind of if you're really
into wine it's this sweet rabbit hole to go down that you know wine is always different year to year
uh both in the bottle and like in the vintage so aging versus production as well year to year
versus waiting an hour for it to open up or the next day to open up.
It's this constantly evolving thing that the more I get into it, the more I realize like,
oh, I see why people go down this wine rabbit hole, just like Bitcoiners go down this wine
rabbit hole or their own rabbit hole, because there's constantly more and more and more to
learn and experience and this new wine to try in this new area made by this new producer.
Like it's never ending.
and that's what's exciting about when you find a rabbit hole when there's no end you just keep
going and um it's awesome and if you are really sensory driven if you're really driven by taste
and smell that those are the people that really get into it and for most everyone else it's it's
just like the you know bitcoiners we all get into the like oh bitcoin's gonna change the world in
this way and this way and this way oh and you can do this and this and this with it and it's amazing
and it's and other people are just like dude does number go up um and to those people we just say
stay humble stack sats like just you know just slowly buy and i mean realistically that's great
advice for everyone else as well um whereas with wine it's like it's overwhelming because it's
it's constant you know there's all these different things to try there's all these different words to
say about what things taste like and why uh but ultimately it just as just like kind of in bitcoin
and it comes down to the simple thing of does it taste good?
Do you like it?
And then we can kind of look into maybe why that is if you want to explore it more
and you can find other wines that are similar to it.
Yeah.
This reminds me of what you're saying, Ben.
There was a Frasier episode.
Have you ever seen Frasier?
Generally familiar, but no.
Okay.
Well, I would recommend just finding the reruns.
it's a really good and funny series
but
he and his brother Niles are members
of this wine club
and
one of the episodes they're discussing
creating a governance structure for the
wine club so they get up on stage
and they're talking about bicameral
legislatures and you know they're just sort of
nerding out on the governance
aspect of it and there's a guy
who's sitting
down listening to them and he
He turns to the person next to him and says, you know, there used to be a time when I came here just to get drunk.
And I think that's kind of the point, right?
You can go down the rabbit hole if you so choose, but sometimes the answer is very simple.
Well, hopefully it's not because you want to get drunk.
Hopefully it's because you like the taste of it.
I mean, sure, that's a good answer too.
But that's kind of hits on like I fell into winemaking as like a great opportunity to scratch my running a business itch and realize that like I'm not one of those people that goes down the wine rabbit hole to that degree, which is rare for a winemaker, I guess.
But I did find that there's a lot of things that I absolutely love about wine.
and there's I you know I've had enough and I've learned enough that like I can go down the rabbit
hole a little bit but what drives me with wine is more like hey let's have a great bottle with
friends let's pair this great wine with this great meal let's elevate our experiences and so
I guess I relate with the the more average wine enjoyer a little bit more because you know and
and kind of can be a bridge in between the two extremes that tend to exist.
Because yeah, it's really cool to try all these different wines,
but like I've got the Bitcoin rabbit hole to go down.
I'm not going to go down every single rabbit hole with a ton of wine.
And also like, I don't know, I have a ton of my wine.
I don't need to be drinking. It's, it's interesting.
It's fun to do and I do it occasionally,
but like I don't need to be going out and buying a ton of different wine from a
bunch of different places to go down the wine rabbit hole and experience all these different
things because i've got enough of my own wine and all my friends whenever they come over like they
don't want to drink someone else's wine they're at my house they want to drink with the winemaker
so um it's fun to taste other bottles but ultimately the the value in wine for me is
is the elevation of individual moments
about a man can only go down one rabbit hole at a time
it might be true
so Ben there's some more chatter
you obviously have a lot of fans
on Nostra because the live stream is very active
nice
there's some chatter about your higher blend
now that is
I have seen you post about it
and it is obviously
at this point very painfully
unfortunately and ironically named
blend after
the Creed song which is supposed to be the anthem
for the last for the for the for the dead bull market i think it's safe to say the last one uh
but you did come out with this blend and i've seen you post about it on nostril uh talk about that a
little bit yeah that so in kind of my i'm going down the bitcoin rabbit hole becoming a bitcoiner
orienting like my entire life to bitcoin um including the wine business um there's a bit of
you know if you run a winery
like you gotta especially this kind of started out
with my I was selling to normal people and I starting a wine brand Peony Lane ultimately And I got to make wine that is that brand I got to make you know my varieties And when you make a variety you call
it that variety. It's kind of like, you know, that's just wine. But then I just had some
opportunities where, you know, blending all the barrels together for a specific variety. I had a
couple left over that were more than i could fit in the blend i was making of that of the just to
say every barrel tastes slightly different so you blend them all together before you bottle
um in a variety but i had a few extra barrels lying around ultimately and uh i i mean i planned
for this so it wasn't that haphazard but um in that i knew i was going to make a blend and in
coming up with blend names it's like well i don't know i have enough wine that i can sell elsewhere
What if I just try out this Bitcoin thing, selling, making a Bitcoin wine, because that
scratches the niche for me.
And actually, before I did that, I guess I picked the best barrel of my 2021 vintage
and made that Satoshi's Reserve.
That was really scratching the itch because that was one barrel.
If that takes forever to sell, fine.
You know, I can test that out.
And that went so well.
And I had that was limited.
So it was very high price.
And I had Bitcoiners being like, hey, I want a Bitcoin bottle that isn't so crazy high price.
So when it's not so crazy high price, I have to make a bunch of them.
And it was kind of this awesome bit of like, you know, whatever creative moment or just like this ability for like I was able to take my work and really like just ram it into my passion where I was addicted to Creed.
I was listening to Creed all the time.
I found out like a year into it that my mom used to blast Creed when I was a kid and put it on repeat.
She had a human clay CD.
I didn't even remember this, but she would play it all the time.
So it's probably why I love it.
And that meme taken off was was so fun for that first little bit of euphoria.
I ever felt blasting up to 74K before the halving.
that it was like yeah that's fucking funny i'm gonna put creed on this wine bottle and it's
gonna be bitcoin and people are gonna buy it and the fact that like i sold out it was good wine
and uh i get to forever be like yeah i named a wine bottle after fucking creed uh and it's sold
like that's so fun for me um you know no matter what you do work can get monotonous and uh making
it just fun while also maintaining like you know a bit of seriousness and in some other parts like
i don't want to be a fully like just bitcoin branded winery where it's like there's no you
know it's all novelty but a little bit of that is really fun and it people were psyched on it and
that's you know that's just uh makes me fired up to to just dive into creative pursuits like that
was it uh i i can understand bitcoin is buying it for the name and you know they caught up in
the euphoria uh and i did not get to try it uh but i guess what is your verdict on it apart from
it being a fun meme and um you getting to do it right but was would you say it was a
was it a good wine from your perspective?
I see you dancing around, not knowing how to ask that question.
Yeah, it was good.
I mean, it was a blend of Merlot, Cab Sauve and Cab Franc.
So kind of a classic Bordeaux blend with, you know, my own style of winemaking.
So a little bit less leathery, a little bit less, a little bit more fruit forward, I guess.
And yeah, I mean, it was really good.
it was on par with pretty much all my other wines from that vintage which were were good and you know
sold out of them for the most part at this point um there was basically the only difference between
that and any of my other wine was just that it was a blend of different varieties um same quality
same winemaking because it was literally just from those um it was just like this excuse to put
bitcoin on it to put creed on it and have a little fun because i you know i have to call it a red
blend legally so why not give it a fun name how many bottles do you make well um this year is
going to be quite a step down just because i overproduced um i've made up to 10 000 a year and
um probably down to maybe two or three thousand my first couple years um i meant of the higher
Of the higher, let's see, five barrels, about 1,500 bottles.
And those sold out pretty quick?
Yeah.
Yeah, pretty quick.
I mean, the way I wanted to sell them, some people bought a ton of them, but the way I
always kind of wanted to sell them is like, just from a marketing perspective, it's, hey,
I have this fun meme bottle.
I want you to buy one of those and I want you to buy five normal bottles.
um so i honestly like selling it quickly was not in my prerogative i wanted it as this
attention grabber and i wanted you to buy one of those and five of the others um so yeah i don't
know it probably took a little bit less than a year to sell out um which is you know per vintage
that's about what i want um so yeah i mean it went really well i was really happy with it it
was fun and people enjoyed it and now i've got my next vintage i auctioned off the first 21 bottles
but um i'll be releasing my next satoshi's reserve vintage at some point
soonish um waiting on state grapes yeah that's from a state grapes so that's from state pinot so
the the social reserve is like the higher and i'll i'll change up i'm not going to go back to higher
may call it that but i'm going to change up the graphics and the design and everything
that's like a bigger blend that i kind of want to be like hey every year let's change it up let's
get it do it use an artist or get my graphic designer to design something sweet have some
fun with it and then my satoshi's reserve is that's my best barrel of wine from every vintage
and that is going to remain a little bit more consistent um more much more limited as a number
bottles and higher end and yeah so i kind of have this like consistent higher end bitcoin wine and
then a high quality but not necessarily my best single barrel that i choose out every year um
and have a little bit more fun with the the other one
we have a question from rosetta cypher in the live chat who asks any plan to distill the mediocre
batches and turn them into into brandy or partner with the local distillery that's actually a good
question ben or brandy or you know i'm more partial to grappa the clearer version have you considered
that yeah i'm i'm not really sure of the legality of me selling it in the future but um in my first
couple years of figuring out how to make wine i definitely messed up a couple barrels and i've
just been sitting on them from the perspective of a distillery they haven't you know just sitting on
them as it's the wine's already ruined ruined so um they're just i need to contact a distillery and
get it done uh my dad back in 2014 he knows what he what he did and how he fucked up but uh
it's a stupid mistake and he had his entire vintage go bad um and he got it he got those
distilled and so i guess we're 12 year old brandy now um that he's just been aging and
i don't know i would do a better job than he does he doesn't really have much sense of taste but um
I don't know. It'd be fun to do. I don't know what the liquor licensing would be like because getting a limited winery license, they make pretty easy here, but they take spirits a lot more seriously.
So it's possible, but like ultimately, cool, I'd get it distilled and then you wouldn't want to drink it for another 10 years.
So you're saying there's a chance.
i'm saying there's a chance but you got to be patient um but yeah i i think i i am actually
planning on doing that it's just like well once you do it then you've got to sit on it even more
so and are you considering grappa at all or is it's going to be just straight brandy
if that if it does happen um i'd have to look into grappa more um really haven't decided what
i want to do with it i need to talk to the distiller first i'm still in uh i'm you know
i've got so many fires to put out as running a business that um it's just since it's not i don't
need to get it done tomorrow it's not on the top of the priority list right now well i don't know
ben there's a there's a new business model idea that's just come up in the chat uh which has have
the distillery sell it with their license and take a percentage and buy bitcoin look if they're down
100 absolutely i would liquidate that and just take the lump sum um
maybe take a little bit for me and bottle it cool and whatever but um yeah i would absolutely lump
some sell that stuff and buy bitcoin right now so ben is are there other are there enough
vineyards in your vicinity in um uh in colorado where if a big corner said you know what let's
just do let's do a sideways trip because why not as the bear market might as well just do a road
trip we'll go vineyard hopping um that sounds like a nice thing to do maybe not in february
maybe we can wait till may or june yeah and and uh is but is that is that even a possibility now
Oh, absolutely. There's, I forget the exact number, 10 to 15 in my town. Definitely more than you could hit in a day. People usually spend a weekend here. And then an hour for me is 40, like a ton.
um more yeah just and much bigger scale i think in my like obviously i'm biased but i think
in my town generally on average you're going to get better wine whereas there's some great
growers out great growers and producers out there but the average is kind of brought down
um with some bigger producers but yeah there's i mean western colorado is kind of becoming a wine
region um that people are finding out about it you know it takes forever because it takes i
I think the first grape was planted in the early 1970s, and it's going to take, you know, a while for that grape to mature to five years for it to mature and then another year or two to get wine from it.
And then a little while to say, oh, that actually tastes good.
And then the next farmer to plant to see that and plant more.
um so it takes a few generations to kind of develop a wine region because of the the length
of time for grapes to grow for wine to age and then um to see the consistency of the growing
season and for people to make the long-term decisions to start wineries to plant grapes
on their on their farms so um my town probably late 90s is when things really got kicked up into
the first notch and then was established in the mid 2010s.
And then kind of a year or two before COVID,
some newer blood came in and maybe a year or two before I started and has
taken what was like, not quite old timers,
but becoming the old timers now what they were doing is they were,
you know, they were making solid wine, but they're, you know, they weren't,
they were just doing their thing.
And then some outside young energy comes in and kind of takes on the expansionist ideas.
Recently, this this guy who is he's pretty insane.
He he's his family is his grandpa's in the Smithsonian Institute for grape growing in California.
So he was a big producer growing family in Napa Valley who moved out here because he tried some awesome wine and thought he could really make it happen.
out here so he's kind of in his first year as a production and that's just to say like there's
people discovering it and discovering it like for him it's like this he's been around fucking wine
and um discovering it and being like wow i want to plant roots here literally and uh build it like
build my own place out here build this place up and um i don't know i i think that that's kind of
And I've seen it with people messaging my dad back when he was making wine from our vineyard, not really knowing what he was doing.
People telling very high-level Psalms, being like, holy shit, this is really good.
I didn't know what to expect, and I found this world-class wine.
And then I went to a tasting with some big-time wine collectors, distributors.
We did a blind tasting of 20 Pinot Noirs all around.
from mostly high elevation environments all around the world.
Um,
so some from my region and some from incredible wineries all around the
world.
And,
um,
when we,
I didn't know it was mine at the time,
but,
uh,
when we got to my wine,
everyone was like,
Oh man,
this is great.
Old world.
This gotta be a burgundy.
And it was my wine.
So I think that there's these,
like you get,
it's really hard to establish credibility as a wine region.
Cause there's so many other good ones that have been,
been doing it for you know a thousand years and so it's like who the fuck are you you're in
colorado doing it okay um and there's a lot of people who want to like you know they try my
maybe try my wine but like they don't open up their mind enough to really experience it it's
like oh yeah okay colorado wine whatever it can't you know they put an artificial cap on how good
it can actually be yeah and when you do those blind tastings it really especially mixed in
where it could be wine from anywhere um with people who really know their stuff bunch of
winemakers bunch of bunch of tasters um professional tasters and um that's when you really kind of know
quality um and it's definitely here it's just people don't know about it and people don't take
it seriously and um it's hard to get on the map as a wine region yeah there's a comment in the chat
that basically and it's a good point this must have been like what california napa sonoma must
have been like back in the day i don't know when in the 70s or so right this facing the same i don't
know when napa and sonoma took off actually they made a movie about it called bottle shock um because
it was such a big deal for a california winery to win um i don't know the exact name of the award
but basically best in show for the entire world um there's always old world producers that won that
in 1970 1973 maybe 1971 for the meme um a california wine won for the first time and it
like blew the wine world up as far as perception and um then yeah tons of investment went into
california and that's why um you know that's why there's so much wine produced there um but
ultimately a lot of california has been california wine has been commoditized uh because you can just
slap the california or like napa or sonoma coast or whatever that brand on it and it doesn't have
to actually be good because you're riding on the wave of of that brand um whereas when you're in the
smaller producer you you know you have to fight that perception in the opposite way so um there's
a lot of california wine that's become lazy that's um you know it's made to all taste the same and
made with a ton of additives it's a cab from california tastes like a cab from california
should with no nuance um you know part of that's just like you know victim of their own success
and there's absolutely insanely incredible wine from california but um and there's there's bad
wine from colorado as well it's just like um you can kind of see when you can coast on the region
as opposed to when you really have to fight to make the region known yeah it seems like every
state in the u.s has some kind of wine industry i mean i went i was in tennessee or maybe i can't
remember if it's tennessee or texas and i mean it doesn't matter it could have been either one
and the waiter said,
would you like to try some local wine
or is it a steak restaurant?
I said, what are you talking about?
Oh, our wine is famous.
And you see what I'm saying.
I mean, Tennessee,
not states you associate with winemaking.
And it does seem to be a thing.
I mean, now I happen to live in New York State
and I've tried wines from Long Island.
I've tried wines from the Hudson Valley
and from the Finger Lakes region.
And they're actually not bad.
Long Island makes some good reds,
But it is interesting that how these things, they tend to be self-contained within the states.
The only reason I know about Colorado wine, Ben, is because of you, right?
Because you're a Bitcoin.
Otherwise, I wouldn't have known about it.
So another question in the chat.
Do you tinker with the char or toast levels of the French oak barrels?
You know, I guess I have a little bit.
I buy generally neutral oak barrels.
I don't have a it's pretty hard to get brand new ones at all times.
And sometimes I'm producing a couple barrels of a variety.
So if I did new oak, it would be way too much if I did half new oak.
So like and for the Pinot, I want neutral barrels.
I think I think really adding much oak influence in that kind of destroys what makes it beautiful.
and ultimately you know i kind of maybe become victim to the disease of what i was saying with
pinot makers elsewhere make wine for cab drinkers i probably make other wines more in the lens of
i'm a pinot drinker because you know that's that's what i like it's who i am um and so i lean more
towards less oak in all my in all my wines and that makes it a lot easier to do it makes a lot
easier for me to do more neutral barrels and add oak cubes to the wine I have a lot more flexibility
in how much oak I want to add and I used to do medium toast Hungarian oak and then I've switched
to French just I think I like the flavor profile a little bit more it's a little bit more mellow
um and like i'm not doing a ton of oak generally so um yeah i mess with it i'd probably change it
year to year and um each each uh variety has i do it differently and i i kind of just added in
by taste um this like i taste something i'm like oh this this needs a little bit more and you know
add it and taste it a few months later and um see how that's changed and that's just kind of by feel
um i mean realistically a lot of my winemaking is by feel it's um that's how i was taught to do it
and you kind of just i don't know get the hang of it tasting it you've you've made the same wine
year over year and you kind of know how it develops and you know what to add um and generally my
philosophy is don't do much so i'm not in there with the crazy science lab adding different
chemicals to manipulate the flavor in all different ways it's it's more subtle pushes and um yeah my
oak regime is not like this crazy intensive way of doing things i mean well look i love to hear
that ben i you know i'd much rather one making be an art than a science although um they're both
always but yeah all right ben why don't we do this we're just a little past the one hour mark
we can pause here for our value for value music segment uh and we're going to switch lanes here
in the last couple of episodes we've had some heavy doom and we've had some political rock
so now we need some personality and this next artist has without a doubt and i've been doing
this for i don't know 12 almost 20 episodes now the best name for a musician or band that i've
played on the show it is garage t rushington the third the track is called crescent dawn
and while the name sounds like a surf noir movie,
the delivery here is what grabs you.
It's got a cinematic storytelling quality to it
and a voice that sounds like it's seen a few things
and lived to sing about them.
A little lo-fi, but it's got a lot of attitude
and it's exactly the kind of vibe shift
I need anyway with everything that's going on.
So put your sunglasses on for this one.
guitar solo
I found my voice in a smoky cathedral
I had no choice, it was set in stone
And from this voice with no longer a whimper
I lifted a prayer into the unknown
Oh, crescent on with your silver glow
Illuminate my confidence
guitar solo
To finish lines one way or another
Oh, crescent dawn with your silver glow
Illuminate my confidence
To guide me through the dissonance of love's remains
Oh, crescent dawn, guide me through your veins.
Oh, Crescent Dawn, with your silver glow
Illuminate my confidence
To guide me through the dissonance of love's remains
Oh, Crescent Dawn, guide me through your veins
That was Crescent Dawn
by Garage T.
Rushington III.
The guitar tone is one thing,
but what about that vocal presence?
It's got that specific raconteur
vibe, like a guy
holding court at the end of the bar.
The combination of that gritty
garage-style instrumentation with the
storytelling lyrics give it a
real sense of place. So I've got
the 90% splits set up for the
chapter. If you appreciate
a songwriter who puts character first,
then please send Mr.
gt rushington the third some sats we need to keep unique voices like that in the ecosystem
ben what did you think of that dude that was that's my my style for sure it's uh i kind of
blend all the way like from grunge is kind of my main jam but with like a little bit of uh
surfer vibes with some i wouldn't say there was country twang in that but there was like a little
bit of something that was uh i don know that just like down home like in in between the grunge and that so i i really enjoyed that song yeah uh and so uh by the way if you like grunge so I can play Nirvana and Alice in Chains and stuff on the show
for obvious reasons, licensing and all of that stuff.
The only types of music I can play is if it's in the open music ecosystem,
right, RSS or Noster and what have you, Wave Lake Fountain.
And there's a reasonable selection there to choose from.
and I found this
Finnish grunge band called
Polanski
they're a contemporary band
and it's incredible
if you listen to them it's like
is this the Stone Temple Pilots or is this Alice in Chains
and I played a couple of their songs
on the show in previous episodes
so check it out
you'll find them on Fountain
it's called Polanski
hell yeah
All right.
So we were talking about the oak barrels.
Let's change track a little bit here.
It's interesting, Ben.
So last week's guest was – I realize this is the third farmer in a row,
if you don't mind me calling you a farmer, Ben.
Yeah, sure.
You're the third farmer in a row I've had on the show.
last week I had Ryan Cooper from Big Corn Ranch out in Missouri in Farmington and then the week
before I had Augie who he's he's he's also based in Missouri I think near Kansas City and he's a
tech developer turned regenerative farmer both of them are regenerative farmers and they were
talking about this idea of a denim road right where it's I don't know if you've heard about this
But it's a bunch of Bitcoiners who are into regenerative farming, regenerative agriculture.
There's some beef initiative stuff going on there as well.
And if I had to imagine like a Silk Road, not Ross Ulbricht's Silk Road, but like the Silk Road from back in the day, from like thousands, whatever, a thousand years ago.
So I imagine this belt going diagonally across the country, maybe starting in Texas, I think encompassing a bit of Colorado as well.
It just happens to be in the belt spot, going through Missouri, a bit of Indiana.
And I think it kind of curves the western Pennsylvania as well.
I don't know if Ohio is kind of in the way.
I don't think it's really part of it.
And it's a bunch of Bitcoiners who are trying to create this decentralized human marketplace, really, of these goods and services.
There's a Noster angle to it.
The Meshtadal guys are involved.
Have you been paying attention to any of that stuff at all?
I mean, outside of knowing that there's a bunch of awesome regenerative ag people within the Bitcoin world and meeting them over the years.
No, not that specific stuff.
No.
Yeah, I'm wondering if there's an, if, I mean, you're right in that belt.
And I wonder if there's some way in which Peony Lane Wine can become part of the Denim Road and the Mesh Tadal and all the other cool stuff that's happening.
I love it. I mean, basically, like, whenever Bitcoiners roll through my town, driving from somewhere to somewhere or just randomly being in Peonia.
I love having them over doing a tasting, going to the cellar and popping a bottle, just hanging out, talking Bitcoin because, you know, I have a couple of friends that I could talk Bitcoin to, but not a ton.
But I am a little out of the way.
Generally in Colorado, people, I'm four hours west of Denver.
So it's not all the time, but it's enough where it's awesome.
But just I guess I say that because I built my business to not have a customer facing area outside of online.
But when Bitcoiners roll through, it's awesome.
It's great to connect with other Bitcoiners.
So I love seeing that.
And I don't know what being part of it means, but I'm totally aligned.
yeah I mean I can
if you're interested I can make the introduction
in public on NOSTA even
and you could have the conversation in public
just to see if anything
if there's anything aligning
I suspect there is
we're trying to build
resilient
I guess trade routes
that are not dependent
on the fiat system
having courier services
that are not UPS
a few of these but um yeah i guess with with wine it's uh i'm pretty siloed into my fiat system for
liquor licensing and liquor taxes in different states that um i'm not as free to
try like you know i'm all in bitcoin all in bitcoiners um but i'm like and i i would go
so much further in Bitcoin tech as far as payments and really cool things going
on with it. But I'm just,
I'm not really able to do things in the fully self-sovereign way without
taking on legal risk and risking the business from that perspective.
So I guess in, in,
I'm hearing about those courier services and stuff. It's, it's like,
that's awesome. I would, I would love you guys to build that,
but I'm not going to be able to be an early adopter.
Yeah.
What we need then, Ben,
is we need prohibition to come back
so that we can actually do this stuff.
So I'll just be pregnant no matter what.
Yeah, exactly.
It'll be Moonshine, you'll be a bootlegger.
Bootlegger on the denim road.
That's an album.
Yeah, exactly.
But what about selling, you know,
so I understand,
and I think you touched upon this even last time
you were here a year and a half ago on the challenges with how alcohol specifically,
well, alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, let's just say, are regulated in this country.
And I get that.
What about, you know, since then, Nostra marketplaces have greatly improved, right?
I think it's NIP 99.
anyway it's it's for listing events there's plebeian market there's shopster there's uh
conduit market with eric fj i had on the show in december he's building essentially decentralized
marketplaces where where any vendor can list their items and then you just get paid in bitcoin
shipping all of that good stuff is that even is that on the cards given the regulation and
oversight that you have to go through and that's great i i did one i forget if it was plebeian
market or shopster i did one sale um i a year year and a half ago probably right around when
we were talking um put up a a box of wine that people could buy and um had never messed with
e-cash before so set that up and the person who runs whichever one of those is the only person
that ever bought wine from it.
And then I didn't, you know,
I don't really know what I'm doing with eCash.
And so I went to transfer it to like my Lightning wallet
where I was more comfortable
and it was going to cost me 4,000 sats
and I was cheap and didn't do it.
And then the next time I went to look at my eCash wallet,
it wasn't there.
I never knew how to withdraw it.
So, I mean, it was like 300K sats.
If someone showed me or if I just, you know, figured out a way to switch it to lightning real quick, great.
But ultimately, I mean, honestly, I'm not even seeing my stuff on here.
So maybe that's part of the reason.
But I wasn't really seeing any demand from it.
So I wasn't putting much energy towards it.
But you can.
You can put your wine up on Plebeian Market or Shop Store, any one of those things.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I mean, I thought I had some on there this whole time.
So maybe that's why no one's been buying it, if I'm seeing this correctly, but looking at it right now.
But yeah, there wasn't demand and people were buying directly from me on Noster via Zapsnag.
So that's been working fine.
I don't know if these Plebeian Market and Shopsters still kind of require e-cash or whatnot.
um i don't know what the status is with that but um it's it kind of just got put to the back burner
because demand wasn't there for me and i was getting other sales on nostr and um and i lost
i lost the bitcoin so um it's cool to see these are still kicking though i honestly haven't looked
at them in a while it's kind of i put to the back of my my brain um but this is absolutely the future
to me i mean this is like this is fucking awesome and something i love um it just wasn't like
it i i wasn't getting the hits and i think that might be looking at it now i think maybe my my
listing got taken down over some update or something or expired um but it's yeah i don't
know what what more can you tell me about it well before we get into that ben i just as you were
speaking, talking about demand.
I just realized there's a great
paradox here,
which is
you are a Bitcoiner,
you're an artisan, and you
bring those Bitcoiner values
to your craft, and
therefore, you create an
incredible product that needs to be priced
accordingly.
We are now in a
bear market,
and
obviously, there's always a good
time to drink good wine but but this is the best time i think or not the best but that's i'm
phrasing there's always good times but there's always a good time but this is the time when
people will will need to drink wine the most but they're broke because it's a bear market
so that's the paradox absolutely and it i there's another paradox within that is
kind of around the similar.
What I was doing at first was I was selling wine for the price that other wineries here
sell it for because other wineries here are selling Colorado wine to people who look down
on Colorado wine.
And I was selling it for around those prices and to get my margins before I was having people
pay for shipping.
And I wasn't really getting many sales.
And then I basically I raised my prices a decent amount, but made shipping free, which my margin stayed about the same because shipping line is ridiculously expensive.
I mean, it's not insane, but it's it's not it's not shipping a letter, shipping something that's fragile, heat and cold, sensitive and heavy.
so difficult but um i realized that no one wants to order go through the process of ordering wine
that is as good as the wine that they can get at the store and this is generally i'm referring to
people who have not tried my wine because once you try it you love it you get the brand loyalty
all that stuff and you know what you're ordering but if you see it priced the same as wine you
normally buy at the store you're not going to order it because it's you know it's just that
other wine like cool it's supportive bitcoin or that's going to convert some people and um buying
low intervention wine is going to convert some people but um why is that nicer wine that you're
telling me it's nicer why is it priced the same as the rest of the wine so um i'm kind of stuck
in this world where like i can't lower the prices uh because then it looks like cheap wine that
you're not going to order um and you know i feel like i'm in a good price range where i have some
high-end stuff.
I have some...
A lot of my wine's around...
It's $49.
But I also don't want to offer
a ton of sales because then it like okay well you not as much of I trying to sell a more luxury product a higher wine and as soon as you start doing sales you um
destroy the value of the brand uh not destroy fully but you decrease it um and that's fine
for a more commodity product but for something that's more art something that's more in this
higher-end field um that is seen like wine is a specifically like kind of a you know a classy
experience um higher end product that you you want it to be higher end you want it to feel that way
um this is some i'm saying this to say this is something i've been thinking about a lot is like
the last bear market i wasn't established enough to worry about this um in this bear market
it's like okay so now that bitcoin crashed 50 am i just gonna go dry on sales right when i like
i'm also broke um i you know i saw this coming uh but there's not really any way around it outside
of finding other customers and that's really just kind of been a no-go for me as far as
my drive to do so um getting like it's not a my wine's not good enough or i'm not good enough
a business it's like it's okay putting my wine in front of other people either involves like
being on a street uh driving a ton and selling wine or the markdown for what i have to put it as
because then it's just another colorado wine to people um is crazy low and wine people won't take
it seriously because they're you know they have this envision in their mind but also like consumers
don't know Colorado wine. So anyways, I'm in this like weird paradox. I found my niche. It works
with Bitcoiners, but there's this one major problem where every so often we're all fucking
broke and I'm one of them. And, uh, I don't really know how to get around that except like,
I just need to be better and, uh, provide value more and do like, you know, tell people more about
my wine, get it out there. People love it. I mean, the same time, like, cool, we're down 50%,
But like, you know, compared to four years ago, my net worth is much higher.
I've stacked I've stacked my ass off in the past few years and we're still at fucking 70 K.
So, like, you know, we're broke comparatively and we're broke compared to our expectations.
But ultimately, we can all survive.
And I always remind myself that people's savings and a lot of people on Twitter, like prolific people on Twitter or on Noster, like they make money from Bitcoin and kind of the same position I do.
But most people have a normal job.
Most people have put in good savings.
Most Bitcoiners are successful.
And so like, yeah, sure.
The Bitcoin price might be down and their their priorities might be shifted a little bit more towards buying Bitcoin as opposed to buying other things.
But ultimately, like other people's income is not as Bitcoin price sensitive as mine is.
And it's this trap that you can get into when Bitcoin's high of like, oh, or it's this trap you get in with Bitcoin is like, I've just got to wait on Bitcoin.
And I guess I just keep telling myself, like, no, you can't wait on Bitcoin.
Like, obviously, you can't wait on Bitcoin.
You need to be out there.
You need income.
um but not everyone is as susceptible to it and i can't just wait on bitcoin to go back up to
continue by business so um it's this trap we get into both on the upside and the downside like
woe is me we're down 50 ah man bummer um and oh bitcoin is going to go up more and i'll be able
to achieve my dreams and you just it's the kind of the hard part of being in bitcoin is like
you know over time the volatility of bitcoin is going to work in your favor and you're going to
do well but uh you can't just wait on that yeah it's like i was saying at the beginning when it's
waiting for satoshi like like the play waiting for godot no no one's coming it's you you if
if anyone's coming it's you and you gotta you gotta do it um uh well i want to answer your
question real quick on you asking about the
Nostra markets and then
we'll turn to a couple of questions
in the chat.
I think it's a
NIP 90 something event. I can't remember
the name off the top of my head.
But as a seller, you don't
even need to worry about that. All you have to do is
just go to the new plebeian
market. I think they just relaunched
It's a nice website.
I'm on it now.
They've done a great job and I see a bunch of
marmalades
and jams and cakes that I imagine my wine would be in that same section.
So, yeah, sorry to interrupt.
I need to get on this and get my wine back there.
Yeah, so either Plebeian, Shopster, Conduit, you just go there and, you know,
I mean, I'm saying sign a NIP 93 event.
The interface will do all of that for you, right?
I think from your – I've never sold anything on them.
So I don't know what the seller experience is, but presumably you have a UI,
you type whatever stuff in and you click send and it'll create that nostril event and you'll get
listed yeah i i was really easy to set up um maybe there was a little bit of uh with the cashew i'm
not sure if i still have to use cashew for this but um the one funny thing was that as as always
it always comes back to nostril dms being weird and uh since primal is my my main go-to for just
browsing um i always got to keep amethyst ready and check it every once in a while because the
the messages about sales would always would uh come through a different dm protocol or whatever
yes yes because amethyst uses a slightly more secure nip 17 dms and the ones that primal and
and a couple of others currently support i just it's a good they're a privacy disaster um
but um cool okay so we have a question from bray in the chat uh who asks when's the best time of
year for a trip out to paonia like harvest time or the time of year the wine is being made which
of which of those times would be better um best time to come to paonia and uh if you're gonna
try my wine um and meet up with me is not harvest time because i am very busy um stomping on those
barrels with your feet yeah i kind of go insane every year that time of year it's hard to you know
it works out sometimes i've had plenty of visitors over the years but um the best time i think is
probably july and august because that is cherry and peach season so my town is um
awesome for tree fruit and farming and tons of amazing food in general um as far as production
of food goes, farm to table stuff.
So cherries start ripening in early July and then through August, maybe into September
is peaches.
And, you know, the wine is absolutely a draw and you come drink wine.
But the farm stuff, the amazing fresh fruit everywhere and focus on regenerative ag and
organic farming is very high here.
There's not really any non-organic farms, as far as I know.
So being able to experience that is awesome.
And, you know, it gets hot, but it's not insane.
We're up in the mountains.
All right.
You heard it here, Bray.
You know when to go.
In fact, I would love to make a trip out there too, Ben.
And maybe we could, if you're open to it, we can see if you, again,
It's hard to think when Bitcoins drop from $120 to $70, especially for someone like me who's living off my Bitcoin now.
But hopefully, if we make some kind of recovery, maybe it might be worth considering a meetup, gather some Bitcoiners, and show up at Peony Lane Vineyard.
What do you think?
Oh, absolutely.
That'd be really fun.
um there was one of those almost happened i think some personal reasons kind of made it fall through
for the whoever was putting it together last year um like i said i love when bitcoiners roll through
i love making time for it um it's it's very fun for me to enjoy my wine with with people who
um appreciate it and uh just because like you know my friends do but um i don't do a ton of
in-person tastings anymore
since I'm
all online. I really enjoy
that with Bitcoiners.
It's awesome. I'd love that.
Sweet.
Yeah. Well, let
the price recover a little bit. I'm waiting for
Satoshi. Come on, we're back at 70.
What are you talking about?
Yeah. I'm really hoping,
man, because this episode, like I mentioned earlier,
it's going to drop two
and a half weeks later. I hope
people listen to it and
this price conversation is just a
relic from a brief and painful
moment in Bitcoin's history, but
we shall see.
So Ben, last time...
Sorry, were you saying something?
No, no, no, go for it.
Last time you were here,
I asked you when James
Suckling rating
on your wine
or
anyone. James Suckling is just a guy
I happen to
who stays seems to be closer to mine the ones he rates higher i tend to like there's obviously
robert parker and a bunch of others right but and you were like that's all fiat which is absolutely
true by the way yeah i mean like i think there's a lot of like i blame you know it's it's more
complicated than this but if you're gonna like if i'm gonna meme something into existence i think
that robert parker destroyed the wine industry and i'm not the only person who thinks that um
but yeah i don't know i think it's i think it's really just in this like uh oh that's the that's
playing in the fiat games of the wine world and i get it like you know it's it's it's there's
something to be said for like oh yeah i got rated this and you don't know who the rating is but like
you know you think james suckling has good taste like there's nothing wrong with following what he
likes and generally using that as a gauge of like what you should buy because you know you have a
limited amount of time on earth and if you're buying a bottle of wine that and you found that
he likes wine that you like like that's awesome um i don't know it's just like it gives me the ick
to lean into the fiat wine world.
And maybe that's bad business
because there's a human element to it.
But something about it just kind of grosses me out.
I am not necessarily him,
just I'm kind of speaking in generalization.
I am going to try and start sending wine
to different competitions more and see how that goes.
From what I've heard, a lot of times you get,
you get the results back like after you sell out of that wine so it's like okay how useful is that
for a smaller winery but um i don't know i guess it's cool to get awards i get it um you know it's
it's all kind of a sales pitch and everything but just speaking from someone who like you know i'm a
small producer in a region that is on the come up but is not taken seriously um you just don't get
treated well um i'm just i'm tired of people not giving the wine a chance um and then seeing when
when they're forced to give the wine a chance because it's a blind tasting then love it
so uh it's just kind of disheartening to interact with that world um these days i mean it's like
being a big corner at a at a financial conference yeah no i i understand that aspect of it uh then
So maybe I'll reframe the question.
It's one of curation and discovery, right?
And in some sense,
it's kind of like that on Nostra too.
Because you show up on Nostra as a new user.
There's this absolute fire hose of data
that coming at you And you like okay how do I find what I looking for And the point is you cannot unless there someone within your network who says okay I following this person this person this person
I'm zapping this.
I'm interacting with this.
You have some way of seeing that and saying, okay, maybe my discovery and curation is through my web of trust that way.
And I face this problem, by the way, first of all, on NOSTA, which is at times it feels dead.
And I'm like, how do I find new accounts?
Well, I don't know.
Apparently, there are people having conversations in little silos in Nostra.
I would never find out about them because there's no web of trust.
My followers and my followers' followers don't interact with them.
So I never see any of that, right?
Similar thing, finding music, for example.
You have all of these RSS feeds with music.
There's Fountain and Wave Lake and all of that.
How do I find something that I'm going to like enough to put on the show?
I don't know.
There's no way of discovery.
So I would apply that to a similar type of thinking to wine, where there's hundreds of thousands of options, maybe even millions.
And life, as you said, is too short.
We only have a limited amount of time on earth.
I would say life is too short for bad wine.
And it gets shorter if you're having to try a lot of bad wine until you get to that good wine.
So you need some form of curation, someone you trust who says, someone who's taste in the specific context of wine drinking, who you trust who says, okay, yep, this is good. Try this one. I liked it. And ideally, you have more than one person who can point you in the right direction so that you don't waste your time drinking terrible wine.
so maybe that the the system that existed the rating system got completely fiatized
absolutely right that's what happens but there's got to be a better way of discovery and curation
of wine right yeah absolutely i mean i don't know it kind of seems like
it's it's hard for smaller producers um the the idea that comes to mind is like i don't know you
just um if you can figure out some tasting notes or figure out some generalities of what you what
you like putting them into uh ai and having it recommend wines to you but it's going to recommend
the bigger ones, um, for the most part. Um, and I don't know, man, like, I don't have a great
answer for you. Um, I like my saying no to it is potentially just like a stupid business decision
that I'm making on principle. Um, and like, you're, you're a hundred percent right that it's
hard to find good wine. Um, and it's hard to know what you're going to drink. Um, and it's
life's too short for bad wine um and for buying a bottle that you hate i hate that when i open a
bottle i don't like um but and it's literally killing you right yeah totally um i don't know
maybe maybe like like i said maybe it's just a bad business decision on my part um as like someone
who doesn't have to go out and find wine but that's my job to make it easy for you to find my
wine um it's just inner i've it just comes back to interacting with with the fiat wine world is
just so frustrating to me that i'm just like hey i want to be a winemaker for bitcoiners and um you
guys will probably all eventually try my wine or know someone who likes it and build it more from
the ground up uh within my community as opposed to going kind of a top-down approach like um the
one that you're suggesting which isn't bad or wrong it's just different well i wonder if there's a
nostril solution to this man and i'm going to sound like one of those guys is good he's going to try
and Shuhon Noster into everything.
But I wonder if we can crowdsource wine reviews
and then filter that out based on your web of trust.
And maybe that...
You know, I've got a long list of screenshotted of comments
that say my wife loved it.
Right.
So just make that a Noster note.
Get it organized somewhere in a Weinster website.
and maybe that's your recommendation engine for wine yeah totally i mean um just having other
people drink it and continuously new people trying it um and posting about it i think the most valuable
thing is when someone drinks my wine and likes it and posts about it is is super helpful and the
the bitcoin community has been super uh good at that um which has been great for me i mean as far
as like there's some great photographers out there i don't even have to get product photos
done because people just uh drink the wine take a great picture and and post it
you've just given me an idea ben winester i'm gonna make this happen because i'm i have a
company that's building web of trust stuff for nostor uh and we uh we're really building more
infrastructure tools but uh winester there you go do it please all right uh ben anything uh
anything you'd like to plug uh before we wrap this up yeah obviously i talked a lot about wine
today um so please try it if you're interested or ask me if you want recommendations better uh
flavor notes and uh pairings or whatever that you're looking for as far as questions go um
i'm pretty focused on nostr these days um both for that my personal account everything but also
building a show called soak quest uh oh yeah actually sorry i was gonna ask you about that
sorry if you have some time we should talk this next five ten minutes talking about that
yeah i got a couple minutes yeah so talk about uh soak quest man that is a show i've seen videos
it seems really funny it's edited it's fast moving uh tell folks about soquest yeah um
i don't know it's it's there's a lot of bitcoin podcasts out there and long form is tough um
because you find a few that you love and you know you're dedicating a ton of time to each one of
those so you don't have a ton of time for other stuff and it's just gets kind of old there's a lot
of the same guests coming over and over because that's who gets clicks. That's who gets listens.
They say the same thing over and over. And that's fun. I mean, I've learned a ton from all these
people, but there's got to be a better way to package it that just makes it a little bit more
approachable to the everyday person or the person who's interested in Bitcoin, but not crazy about
it. And so we're trying different ways. We've got one continuous show going weekly where it's an
interview with a bunch of fun quips going to make it a little bit more watchable as opposed to
listenable. We want to make it more of a show than a podcast. Short five to 10 minutes,
easy listening and fun. Great for YouTube. And then working on a few other things as far as
content goes. I mean, I think I'm going to start riffing on just short rants daily based off of
what's really kicking off in Bitcoin world.
Probably a little bit more focused on Noster that way.
And then we've got some cool educational videos kind of put together with
AI tools.
So just kind of built as far as like explaining specific topics in
educational, fun, entertaining ways.
um it's me and a team of four guys and um so just a great crew of people and um you know i'm doing
all the interviewing and um there's a lot of awesome creative work going on behind the scenes
but um it's been fun to build i didn't think we'd be building it building it in the bear market but
um we'll know if we really have something um if we get traction now
love it and is the is it a weekly thing the so quest yeah so we're posting our main episodes
weekly and um i'm posting the that's on like youtube rumble i do post it on nostr and twitter
um and then i'm posting the like full hour-long interview that we cut down to 10 minutes
on any podcast app.
And then we're working on a couple more,
like I said, a couple more types of content
that will go up a lot more frequently.
So I'll probably be posting something that I record
maybe every other day or so.
And then we've got some cool,
like I said, the cool educational content
that I don't know the frequency.
We're in the early stages.
We're trying to figure out what works
and the frequency, how much we can really do things
because none of us are making any money on this yet.
So how much, where's the low hanging fruit
to really kick ass in our skill sets,
explain things and educate and have fun.
Really, it's like, we want to be able to laugh at ourselves
at the end of the day
because we're all retarded autists
that are cool with Bitcoin going down 50%
and bragging that we didn't sell.
And we're all crazy.
so like let's lean into that love that anything else ben beyond that um that's the main thing i
got going on right now um help me get through a bear market help me survive so i don't have to
go sell my soul to the fiat wine world uh buy some wine save it up um drink it in the bull market
and you'll love it.
It'll be worth the sats.
It certainly will.
I will buy your latest batch soon, Ben.
I'm in pain right now a little bit.
This is what I'm living off.
But yes, I will get down to doing it.
And if you listening can or are in a position,
you actually have a fiat paycheck hitting.
your DCA is looking a lot better than it did
six months ago, I'm telling you that
so spread some of that love
in Ben's direction
get some wine
thank you Ben
always fun chatting with you
love chatting about wine
and
I actually was not kidding
about the
meet up in Colorado
hopefully by May
it'll be a lot warmer in many ways
so we'll maybe we can plan something for then and i'll i'll at some point i'll start a thread
on nostris while connecting you to the denim road guys to see if there's something there
right if nothing else uh you'll get to meet some cool folks on nostrum yeah absolutely i'll be
looking forward to it and reach out whenever you're ready awesome well thank you ben and
thank you to our live stream audience for listening for your lively conversation really was a lively
live chat today and for your zaps as well if you are listening to the recording as always notice
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