At Home In CT 8-9-26

Hey, it's the sports junkies. If anybody knows about die-hard sports fans, it's us. We get to live and breathe the excitement of the season all year long. For advertisers, that passion matters. It's exactly why sports radio performs for brands. People who listen to sports on the radio via streaming or on sports podcasts are nearly three times more likely to consider a brand that supports their favorite team. If you're interested in reaching sports fans, we have the playbook for you. Check out our comprehensive e-book, state of audio, sports fandom. Check out state... of audio.com. This is At Home, Connecticut, hosted by Joey Bergoin, highlighting events and happenings that are taking place in your home. Connecticut on WTIC, News Talk 1080. Good morning and welcome to another episode of At Home in Connecticut. I'm your host, Joey Burgoyne, and joining me as a new friend and hopefully a long-time friend. Patrick Moore, the new owner of Avery's beverage right here in New Britain. They're no longer on Jeremy Corbyn. They moved locations. We'll get into that with Patrick. But first of all, Patrick, thank you for joining me this morning. I appreciate it, sir. Yes, thank you for having me. So let's get, you know, people might not know of you, but they might know of your business. This isn't your first Connecticut-run business. This is number two. Hilltop Bayberries. It's been around about almost 20 years. It's been a hobby of my dad's beekeeping. And now we've grown to six farms throughout the Farmerton Valley and sold in Whole Foods and stop a job in Big Wye in the area. A lot of farm stores. So now, you know, a little history, give us a little history lesson. You've got Hilltop apiaries. You've worked with Avery's in the past. When, you know, how did the conversation start just between you and Rob that we were like, hey, let's keep this thing going? Yeah, well, I grew up drinking Avery's. My dad worked in New Britain for many years at American Savings Bank. So I was born in New Britain and went into Britain General Hospital. So I knew of Avery's growing up as a kid and loved it. So when I owned Hilltop, we wanted to make a honey soda or sparkling honey water, but couldn't find a co-packer to make it. So I actually just showed up at Avery's with a 60-pound bucket of our wildflower honey and said, Rob, I want to make some honey soda. And he said, oh, honey's difficult to work with. And I said, yep, I really want to make a honey soda, though. And here's the honey. 60 pounds is a good amount of weight, so he didn't really, I don't think want to move it anymore. So he agreed to make the first batch, and that was Beehive buzzing beverages, which we've been selling for about five years. And it's going pretty well, and then Rob was agreeing ready to retire and didn't have anybody to take it over. So I didn't want to let the name die.

It's so hard to build a brand and reputation, and Avery's been around since 1904. Unfortunately, the property on Jeremy Corbyn Avenue needed too much work to get it up to code. So the soda has actually been made the last three years at the Hartford Square location, which is right down the street, still in New Britain. And so that's where we still are today, door 19B at Hartford Square and New Britain. We still can, customers can still come, and we make the soda there using the same formula, same ingredients. same glass bottles, pure cane sugar. We got the classics. We've got the totally gross sodas, now in a natural sodas. We've got the honey soda. So we got a lot going on. We have a soda with Pop Douglas of the New England Patriots. We just did for him, strawberry cream soda. So it's pretty exciting. Now is one of my, you know, I was talking to a few people that they were excited I was going to talk to because there's like, I have questions. I was like, me too. I will get to them. You know, that's, I grew up on Avery's too. Strawberry, strawberry was my favorite growing up, like, The campground we camp at now had an old Avery's vending machine back in the day where you threw your quarters in, opened the little door, pulled out the glass bottles. We all tried to scam two bottles out of it, but that thing was like Fort Knox of soda vending machines. So I grew up on Avery's Sasparilla, Root Beer, Birch beer. I'm a big fan of the original, shall we say, but I mean the totally gross flavors. And one thing Rob did that I hope you could, like I said, we have a bunch of bottles here. They were political, but there was no hold bar. Like, we have the Biden, the Kamala Harris, the Trump bottles. I mean, taking over it and there's the legacy, but like you said, you didn't want the brand to just go to the wayside. Like, are you looking at doing things like that in the future with the brand? Yeah, so we're going to, some of the political ones were a little touchy and didn't sell well, actually. So we were going to do every four years, we will do a presidential soda for the two main running, wherever the candidates are, and we'll lampoon both equally. Both deserve to be probably lamp on equally. So whoever is going to be running in the next election in 28, we'll certainly keep that tradition going every four years to do us. a funny presidential soda and of the same character who does the designs for the labels, come up with something. I'll keep that going every four years. But we're just, we're focusing on growing the brand. It's known locally, but we think we have pockets of distribution throughout the United States, but we think that, like, you listed off the birch beer, the cream soda, the Sesperol, my personal favorite, like, we think that was in the totally gross, which kids seem to really like. We've got pockets of distribution in Texas, California, Florida. I hit the Texas. We go visit family a lot in Texas, and there's a candy store in Fredericksburg. And every time I go in there, I grab an Avery's. I'm like, it's like home, but I'm in Texas. I mean, I've seen your stuff. And like said, you're covering the country. Florida, I've seen it. Lake George, there's a store up there that carries it. Like I said, down in Fredericksburg, Texas, just outside Austin. So, I mean, the brand is. you know, national, but it's worldwide. I mean, Avery's is a thing, and for you to be able to then want to continue that tradition, it's pretty cool. Like you said, the bottles have been, you know, bottled in the new location at Hartford Square Unit 19B. Are people, are you still doing like the birthday parties? Because, you know, I'm 45-ish, and I can still go for a birthday party to make my own soda, if that's a thing.

Yeah. So the insurance was not happy with having kids around machinery. So we had to do away with the tours and the birthday parties, unfortunately, for kids, just for safety reasons. But what we did instead was anybody who orders on drinkabries.com, they can order our classics, our natural soda, their honey sodas, the totally gross, and also sampler packs, and we ship anywhere in the continental U.S. And so all you have to do is go on our website, drinkavery.com. And what you can do is download a free, make your own party with our totally gross flavors. So we send out a PDF and email with every order that customers want. And they can actually have a party at home. They could do a blind taste testing. They can do a ranking. So everything people used to do at the barn they can actually do now at work or at their home with family and friends. So we actually, my girlfriend, Kelly, she's very creative. She came up with these scorecards, and there are these colorful printouts that people can get downloadable free with their purchase of their 12-pack online. Oh, I think we totally need to do that as a morning show here at WTIC at Brian and Company. I like it. The podcast Campus Files is back with more stories of scandal, crime, and intrigue on college campuses. It is not hard to destroy a college. It's almost like a university and a siege. Listen to and follow campus files. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. I like that idea. Sure. Yeah. So are people still able to come in and like, I remember going back in the day, you'd pick your own bottles and put them in your wooden case or the cardboard crate? Like, are people still able to swing by the Hartford Square location, New Britain, and pick and choose, or is everything mail order now? I know you can still come by for sure Tuesday through Friday or open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. while the guys are bottling and Kyle's there to help people. Saturday's 10 to 1. But we're also in Stu Leonard's. We're in some shop, some big wives. We're talking to stop at shop. I mean, we're going to try to get into some more this Highland Parks and Geisler's. So we're trying to get into more grocery stores so that people don't have to come to New Britain. I mean, you're welcome to for sure, but trying to make it convenient for people. Since we already have some distributors lined up to get us into some grocery stores and farm stores. We're hoping to just make it... Avery still be fine, found anywhere in the state, and hopefully everywhere in the country soon. That's pretty cool. And I know you guys do a lot on your Facebook and Instagram. It's at Drink Avery's on Facebook and Instagram. So now you see there's the totally gross flavors. Like are you behind the scenes? Is it like are you concocting trying to come up with new flavors or are we just staying even in keel right now and we'll look at the future when the future gets there?

Yeah, we're saying even keel. We have 40 flavors, so that's a lot to bottle. And so we're just focusing on the ones that we already have because they're delicious and people enjoy them. And we do get some ideas every now and then when Pop Douglas from New England Patriots, his business manager is from Southington called us and said Pop wants to do a soda that we actually donated the proceeds to Covenant Prep School in Hartford and Covenant School in Bridgeport, Connecticut. So that was cool to partner with him on that. And he's a real nice guy, and so we donated the proceeds to that. So we're hoping to do that again this year, and hopefully the Patriots do great again this year. But, yeah, he came out of the tour bus, the Patriot bus, holding his Pop Douglas, Strawberry Cream Soda, which got picked up by the NFL, and we got 100,000 views. So that was cool. But, you know, those are kind of, like, few and far between because we're really, again, looking to just sustain the brand, build the brand up so that it's a more grocery store. Talking to Costco, we're trying to get into more places to get Avery's more into more hands. Because, again, there's not many places that are still doing glass bottles, still doing pure cane sugar. And it's expensive. I mean, it's not easy to do business in Connecticut. I mean, I get anywhere. But in particular, it's tough for small businesses to compete with bigger brands. But we feel like we're holding our own. Yeah. I mean, I totally agree. There's something about grabbing a glass bottle out of the fridge. It just stays colder, crisper, longer. And the fact you guys use real cane sugar. May I say, God bless you and thank you? Like that, I can't do the fake sugars. They're just, the taste is wrong. It'll never be right. The cane sugar, you know, I'm not a doctor, so take this for what it will. It's better for you from what I heard. I'll take the cane sugar any day. Nice cold bottle of Sasparilla sitting by the campfire. There's nothing better. than that so again Patrick Moore the new owner of Avery's it's been about what a year and change now Patrick yeah about a year in three months now so yep so that's cool so you know like said the new location one Hartford Square Unit 19 be in New Britain not too far from the other location follow them on Instagram and Facebook at Drink Avery's you know there's the flavors are endless just like there's things to you People are always looking for something to do. The kids are going to school very shortly. You're looking for a quick little trip during a day. You want to do a little picnic. Head to Avery's. Grab some soda. Grab the blanket. Go be a tourist in your own state. Patrick, I thank you for joining me this morning. I'm going to head down probably later this week. Early next week, like I said, I have like a case of empties to return. I got to pick up some new flavors. So thanks for talking with us to me this morning. I appreciate it because go drink some Avery's people. It's made right here at home in Connecticut. You've been listening to At Home in Connecticut, a public service project produced by WTIC News Talk 1080.

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