Go With Your Palate
Joe Wagner, 5th Generation Winemaker, presents the podcast "Go With Your Palate." A podcast about wine, entrepreneurship, and whatever the F else. So buckle up - this isn't your normal wine podcast.
Go With Your Palate
E92 Brad Leone PT 2 | Joe Wagner
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
The guy who made fermentation cool on YouTube just pulled up to the pod.
Brad Leone—It’s Alive, Local Legends, full-send food energy—breaks down fermentation, fire cooking, and how he built one of the most entertaining brands in food.
This one’s flavor, chaos, and good vibes start to finish.
🎙️ Go With Your Palate: Brad Leone | Fermentation, Fire & Full Send Flavor
This week we’re joined by the one and only Brad Leone—chef, fermentation wizard, outdoor adventurer, and the personality who helped redefine food content on YouTube. From his breakout days at Bon Appétit’s It’s Alive to building his own platform with shows like Local Legends and Makin’ It, Brad has turned curiosity, chaos, and creativity into a full-blown culinary movement.
We dive into the magic of fermentation—why it’s having such a moment, how it connects directly to wine, and where to even start if you’re fermentation-curious (without blowing up your kitchen). Brad also shares his journey from behind-the-scenes test kitchen grind to becoming one of the most recognizable faces in food media—and what he’s learned building his own brand along the way.
And because this is Go With Your Palate, we let it rip a little—getting Brad’s real breakdown of North Jersey (don’t mess that up), talking outdoor cooking, food adventures, raising kids, and yes… introducing the first-ever special guests on the pod—his baby chicks 🐥.
It’s equal parts flavor, storytelling, and straight-up good energy—with plenty of laughs woven into the chaos.
If you love food, fermentation, and content that doesn’t take itself too seriously, this one’s for you.
Grab a glass, maybe something pickled, and come hang. 🍷🔥
Welcome back to Wet Your Palette. We got our special guest today, Brad Leone. He's a chef, but he does a hell of a lot more than that on online on his own channels. Tons of great shows, great content, great information. He's got an awesome perspective on the world of food from really the whole chain of supply. And we go into that on Go With Your Palette. So thank you for being here, Brad.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's my pleasure, man. And uh anything to help kind of just push the needle and uh in food and people coming together through the universal language of food.
SPEAKER_03We got deep into fermentation. Uh we were talking in East Coast, West Coast living.
SPEAKER_05Love it. It's it's a it's right up Aura Alley because uh getting people around a table, getting people around, you know, each other back into a community, food, wine, culture, everything, it all comes together, throw some music in there, makes it a nice feeling. Did you see the pandemic as like a a big catalyst to like a more of a just maybe not a catalyst, but a a huge
Great culinary content getting people through the Pandemic
SPEAKER_05ramping up in viewership? People are curious doing stuff at home.
SPEAKER_01For sure, man. It was kind of a little happy accident, weird bubble, I think, for the whole world, I mean the whole world, uh, for that matter, where everyone was home and watching stuff on TV, watching stuff on YouTube. Um, and I don't know the numbers, but I'm sure if you ask the people at YouTube, there was a huge spikes in consumption of content. And for what we were doing with Bone Appetit at the time, and then starting, they made us like shoot it at our houses and stuff. Yeah, I think people to this day, a lot of people, I think one of the between noodling with Maddie Matherson and pandemic cooking is probably what people talk about the most when they come up to me. Oh man, you got me through the pandemic, you got me through the pandemic watching your your cooking, and and and so I think it was like a nice escape for folks where a lot of that time, maybe a good percentage of the folks wouldn't have maybe watched, been watching. It was a pivotal time for a lot of folks, man. You know, um, whether becoming content creators or consuming it more or all, I mean, everything changed, right?
SPEAKER_05It was such a I think there's more scrutiny and consideration about where you're getting your products from and you know, people having kind of like this overarching I don't trust the government of any country. I, you know, I want to be a little more self-reliant. And yeah, so I think I think that all kind of goes hand in hand with it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, we were talking about gardening before, and like you might want to fact check this, anyone that's listening, but I think they kind of like went away a lot of the home gardening when a lot of families started to become two income households by necessity. Um you know, and I I think it was like a World War II, maybe after war or before World War II, or I forget when the heck. I remember hearing this somewhere, but it just they it started to to fade out when when homes became less community oriented and more personal oriented, and both and money money and both families had to make money just to survive. I don't know, maybe not.
SPEAKER_05That's a good hypothesis, good theory, and I'm sure that I'm sure there's I'm sure that's gotta be a good contributing factor to it. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, because you know, and I think it is there is a reinsurgence of it now, right? But I I think more corally was the complete, and this is probably a lot more of what was causing it, but like I think a lot of it was just like the broken industrialization of our food system since kind of that same time era that I was talking about, where every you know, bigger, faster, more, and instead of everyone growing more locally, they could grow seven million acres of a mono crop and spray it with Roundup and you know, the whole big ugly story of where we're at in our food system and agriculture now. Um, so I think you know, it becoming everything was cheaper and easier. Why am I gonna grow a tomato and I can go buy one for a dollar at the supermarket? It's such a pain in the ass. It takes forever. Actually, it cost me $50 to grow the damn things. Well, because they're better. And I feel like when before people could go buy everything, they had to grow more. You know, you had to be more uh reliant on yourself a little bit. Yeah, that's an excellent point.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, but I I think it goes back to your point of like quality. Once people taste the difference, oh yeah, it's just it's it's absurd. Like, well, we don't raise we don't raise like we don't raise cattle, but um we'll raise like pigs and whatever. But um every year we'll go to the auction and we'll buy a steer from somebody in 4 H. And the quality of that beef is like so good. Oh my god, it's like just like lights out compared to what you buy at at the store, even at the highest level at the store. Um and and then you get to hear the whole story. That actually, to your point, like what you were doing, you you get to walk up to these kids and hear their whole journey of what they did, how they treated it. I mean, if anything, you feel kind of bad slaughtering the animal because this kid loved that animal, and but you're like, you know what? It's putting food on the table and uh and it's helping it's helping a kid with their future. So uh, but yeah, that's that's definitely agree. Once you get the taste of it, you don't want to go back.
SPEAKER_01No, and I think another major problem is that good food, right? Real food or properly handled and cared for, whether it's an animal or a plant for that, is that it's expensive, right? It's it's you know, for a lot of people, it's if food's expensive as hell as it is, you know, just going to the supermarket and buying the bullshit, let alone the organic aisle, you know what I mean? Like, what a luxury. And that's why I've really man, I tell people all the time if you can, you know, grow something, right? Grow radishes, they're so easy and they're so good, you know, and just like and again, that's it, it's not for everyone. And it's I'm not saying that you know have everyone having a little garden's gonna save the world, but it ain't gonna hurt.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, he was I was gonna say too, he was a little uh late, but you know, COVID, I know there was the big going back to fermentation and stuff, but the sourdough, right? There that there was a big uptick in that. But he just recently got into now that this dude's like put he should you should have your own bread service doing like 18 loaves a week or something. Well, it's I know you had great content on that too.
SPEAKER_05But it's just about like, I mean, we should
Fermentation (Sourdough, Kombucha, oh my!)
SPEAKER_05get into fermentation now at this point because as a as a winemaker, it's kind of like you know, yeah, and I've I've I've made kombucha before. And once you kind of understand yeast or bacterial fermentations, then then you want to you're like, okay, I I get it. I know how to manage this. I know, I know what these things like to make it to make it grow grow and blossom and everything. And and so I just got into sourdough. My wife does a a you know great job with like doing all the her add-ins and and shit like that. And uh, and then her scoring is beautiful. Mine is just kind of like cut the top. I'm so bad at scoring.
SPEAKER_01I still don't know how people sometimes do it, man. Like people draw a beautiful thing, looks like a rose petal on it, man. Not mine. I've even tried.
SPEAKER_02I mean I I've I've I've seen I've seen some of your scoring that was a little R-rated. Yeah. I believe it. It happens sometimes. Are you kidding?
SPEAKER_05You don't you know how happy people get when they get a nice good loaf of homemade sourdough that's got a penis carved in the head?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, dude. I mean, that's a perfect game. You let them figure it out. Yeah, you don't say anything, you give it to them, and then you're gonna look what happened in the oven.
SPEAKER_01That's the magic of the yeah, no, bread's bread's the best, man. And like you said, if you're in the wine world already, um, you know, fermentation. If you can, if you guys are, you know, have wine that you can sell to people that's delicious. You can definitely make kombucha. Well, I mean, wine, fermentations and and projects like that are right. It's kind of like I always say wine, and I'm the winemaker by any freaking means, but like easy to make, very hard to make well, uh, you know, and consistently, you know. That's a good point. Yeah. Have you made have you? I can make wine. Have you made it? I've made wine. You can you can get drunk on it, but it ain't it's not very good. It's a little hot, it's a little bready, it's not uh it's not good wine. It's very petinette.
SPEAKER_02You don't know though. You don't know. There might be a market for that. I mean, you know, just think about it.
SPEAKER_05There there is the spectrum, right? Like there is a best version of pruno, right? Like in prison. Where they're taking prune juice and they're you right? You don't do you know pruno in?
SPEAKER_02You coming out of here straight out of gin pop right now, just like I'm just saying.
SPEAKER_05Fermentation is easy, like if you just let it go. But it's easy as done time. But it's not gonna be, it's not gonna be great if you you know, it's like hard, hard to make, hard to make well. But like, like, dude, if somebody put their mind to making like a quality pruno, I bet it would be pretty good.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. Why wouldn't it be? I mean, yeah. But if it's gonna be authentic, it's gonna be an out of the toilet. Oh, you etiquette that's a little bit more than a little bit. We want to be authentic, Bruno, okay?
SPEAKER_05We're not gonna stainless steel toilet.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, stainless steel steel.
SPEAKER_05There we go, dude.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like stainless steel.
SPEAKER_05So are are you working on fermenting anything right now? Because you it sounds like I mean, you've done you're using it in the in a culinary sense as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I just uh listen, we're coming into I'd like to I get really inspired with fermentation with this uh seasonality of stuff. Like I'm not really dying to go make sauerkraut from some cabbage at the supermarket right now. But like, like I said, I do a lot of gardening. So like when the phases of different produce start to come in, um, and I have a lot of it, uh, it's really then then it really shines, you know, like peppers or cucumbers, you know, you can make pickles or you know, uh, you know, different kimchi. I really like putting, you know, all different types of produce and stuff in it. Um, so like as that starts to happen, I tend to do more projects. Uh I've been on a little bit of a focaca kick lately. Oh, all right. Oh, yeah. Just in the bread world of fermentation. Um, it's just so easy and it's so good. And uh I've I kind of got it down now. I've been really enjoying it. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_05That's uh that's one thing I've not tried yet, but uh I was just gonna say the same thing.
SPEAKER_03I gotta catch up if you got the an episode.
SPEAKER_01Oh, if you're making like bulles and like if you're making loaves of bread, you can definitely make focaccia.
SPEAKER_05I've heard focaccia's pretty like it's a great start. Like, I mean, again, probably to perfect it, it's gonna take uh effort and and dedication and everything. But uh yeah, that's I'll have to give it a shot. I'll let you know how it goes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean it's like it's like wine, right? It's easy to make, uh I guess a little harder to make really well. But not really. If you have good crumb already and you're baking like really nice structured lobes that have good gluten formation, um, yeah, you're you're pretty much set. Just dump it in a s in a square pan.
SPEAKER_05All right. On on the side of you mentioned sauerkraut. On the side of sauerkraut, uh if you're run if you're if you're jumping from you know one to the next batch, are you utilizing any portion
"Back slop" guys (Fermentation con't)
SPEAKER_05from your previous batch or are you starting fresh every time?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm a little bit of a back slop guy. Industry term. Um yeah, it's like where you take a little bit of, I think they call it back slop, right? Where you uh it's in maybe they use that in beer and wine as well, where you can add a little bit of like the um just a it's not mandatory. You know, a lot of things are very eager to ferment on their own, especially lacto fermented vegetables. I mean, the the yeast and the bacteria, it's all it's everywhere, right? But if you add a little bit of that, it definitely it definitely helps kickstart the party.
SPEAKER_05Do you do you feel like there's a difference like if you're growing all your cabbage, right? Or if you go to an organic market and buy, you know, some some other cabbage, do you feel like there's gonna be a difference in a in in fermentation dynamics if you don't do that black back slopping?
SPEAKER_01So you're saying if I get a cabbage from a farm and a cabbage from my house, are they gonna yeah, is there gonna be are they gonna ferment different?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um probably not. I think um there'll probably be subtleties maybe in like the sugar content if it was like different varieties of cabbage. Um, but if it's like an organic farm, we're doing kind of the same stuff, uh, you know, as long as he's not spraying things on it. Yeah, because like I said, that that that that what you need that for for to do a lacto fermentation like sauerkraut, it's it's everywhere, it's in the air in your kitchen. Are there gonna be different different you know nuances from one farm to another? Sure, but I don't I haven't seen I think once those bacteria really take over in the fermentation process, I'm not sure there are. I think it's just like pretty standard. But what you do notice is the eagerness in fermentation. If you go get just um a run-of-the-mill cabbage from you name it bad supermarket, opposed to the one from the farmer's market or the one that you grew organically in your back. I mean, they don't even look the same. The the the the the the yeast bloom on the leaves, everything is just that will ferment extremely quicker and more active than the one that's picked seven weeks ago and stored in a warehouse and kicked down the staircase, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yep. I I agree with that. I've I've I've done that both ways, but uh you mentioned kimchi too, and I was like, that's one thing I'd love to ferment. I haven't done that yet. And you're just yeah, man, it's you're just making your own melange.
SPEAKER_01It's sauerkraut, man. It's sauerkraut with with a bunch of Korean spice in it and some scallions. And I mean, essentially, I mean, there's a lot of and not to I'm sure some Korean folks will get mad at me, but like it's it's more the method and the recipes and the traditions of certain things. Um kimchi, easy to make, a little hard to make really well, that's for sure, right? And I think it's it's really like anything, right? So like it, but if you're making it, it's it's basically sauerkraut, you know.
SPEAKER_05So fermentation, I mean, it's been part of uh human evolution. I mean, I I actually was reading an article where they were correlating kind of like the evolution of kind of the the the humanoid primates and and it's its correlation with alcohol um or fermenting fruit, right? Uh have
What's Scrumping? Clue: it's not a dance...
SPEAKER_05you heard about scrumping? Have you heard about this? Is it a dance? No, so scrumping, like so they they thought that like these so the humanoid primates that evolved out of like Africa, uh they they were the first to begin this process of scrumping where they would no longer climb trees to get their fruit. They were eating the fruit that was overly ripe and partially fermented on the ground. And they thought that that was a safety thing. Their hypothesis was that that it was uh safety, that the uh that the apes were like, I don't want to climb the tree, I might fall and hurt myself. But then they now have a new hypothesis that and and these you know, apes or primates are still doing this in the wild where they go down and they share uh like rotting fruit um from the ground. And so the hypothesis now is that that natural fermentation on the ground, although it was a small percentage of alcohol that was created, it started to create more of a community and and kind of like free-flowing ideas, um, and you know, just just a very different like you relax a little bit, you're not so worried about predators, you're kind of just chilling, and and it opens up a whole new, you know, dimension to where where your thinking is. And the hypothesis is that that is what really diverted the humanoid primates uh from the rest of the primates uh that are that uh that are up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it reminds me of um where it was like the stoned ape theory, right? Where like um they think, you know, there was that time where what made the brain jump from, you know, because like I'm gonna butcher this, but like where it it jumped in size and doesn't they don't they can't figure out why or what happened or and there was a theory from uh I think it was McKenna um where primates started eating um like psilocybin or certain type of uh psychoactive things that stimulated this new growth and and stimulation in the brain that caused you know that jump from primate into the human or I don't fucking know, you know.
SPEAKER_05I mean, I think it's it's gotta be a mix of those things, and you know, I wouldn't be surprised because we we really don't have any other explanation. Makes sense.
SPEAKER_01But I agree with you with the uh with what you call it, scrummaging. Uh scrumping. Scrumping. Scrumping. I'm sure they did that. And like sounds like a nice dance. That's why I was saying that does. Listen, if like if you're not worried about, oh, there's dirt on it, or it looks a little mushy or gross, or there was bugs on it, which you know, humanoids or or primates certainly probably wouldn't care. In the big picture, it's probably the sweetest fruit. And a happy accident would be some of the the probiotic benefits from it starting to to lactoferment and break down on its own. And then you're having contact with the soil and other organisms, and and that, you know, just that that microbiome of being untouched on the ground and different molds and penicillin or whatever the hell is growing on it, probably contributed to a lot.
SPEAKER_05That's a great point. Yeah, that wasn't in the article, but I I like that hypothesis uh as an add-on there. That's good. You know, it kind of makes sense. Oh, it really does. I mean, it's yeah, especially from uh even a digestion standpoint and um energy for that matter, if you know you're it's more sugar, more energy. But also, yeah, the whole the whole biome part, yeah, I think that's one thing that we we really got away from as a society for that matter. I mean, you know, it was just like you know, processing America for sure. Nothing alive, like that's I mean, even you go to you know, go to Europe and like their cheeses are unpasteurized, and like, you know, you you're really like eating something that is alive. And the fact that we still have this like desire to be overly cautious of everything needs to be killed and shelf stable. I I just don't buy it. I mean, and now that's why people are like picking up stuff, you know, fermenting at home and and making their own stuff because that's where you're gonna get it.
SPEAKER_01We've been we've been eating and living like that for a lot longer than we have it, right? Like uh it's a that's where like the you know, with fermentation and and and and just preserving foods, you know, it was all pre-refrigeration. You had to, yeah, right? You know, and if you had all this fish or all these vegetables or you grew 25, you know, uh 200 cabbages, you know, you you had to find a way to you had root cellars or you preserved them and you ate them in the colder months, and like yeah, it was a huge part of it. And then probably just due to like I was talking about before, that industrialization of it, which not to get all dark on it, but it was all just chewed up for profit, right? People are like, how can we just take, take, take more and make, make, make more, right? I all they do uh the entire model for the most part for the past what you do the math 50, 60 years was just take from the soil, right? We're spreading it with fertilizer because we're not, we're just doing monoculture of the one thing, and it's just such a broken system. And it's there's a lot of great farms and people and communities that are you know help in that that paradigm kind of shift back and that pendulum swing back to how things are need to be done. Because from what I've learned over the years and talking to people far more connected and smarter in this topic, is that we're kind of screwing it up in a major way to where it's like it's a bigger problem than like a lot of people realize.
SPEAKER_05I would agree with you, and I don't think we're gonna see the media jump on that bandwagon anytime soon.
SPEAKER_01So no, sir. But I think we There's a lot going on there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think the shift in society, though, is definitely happening and through all this is access to content that we're getting and knowledge.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and Brad's earlier point, like there's a ton of the of great information on the internet, right? Like whatever platform, like yeah, there's a whole bunch of BS, like mostly BS, but if you're looking for the right things, you're you're gonna you're gonna be able to find it. And it just completely negates like the the just general news that you see. Like I try to tell anybody who's telling me about the news, I'm like, stop watching the news.
SPEAKER_00You gotta like do go build a garden. Yeah, yeah, go build a garden.
SPEAKER_02Go get your hands down.
SPEAKER_01Go, yeah. Well, and and I feel like you know, in this day and age now, man, like where it feels like you're just speaking as uh a fellow American here, it feels feels like our country's falling apart, you know, from the inside out, for God's sakes. It's like it's unbelievable how uh and I feel like a lot of people are being forced in a way, in a good way now, to like are fed up with it and want to garden more and it start to take a little bit more accountability for the the products they're getting and where their food's coming from. And you know, we just need uh we need the people in charge to start helping.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. As you start moving that narrative to the front end and and uh yeah, you'll you'll start to see, I think, a a big change.
SPEAKER_01Well, we don't have enough time to talk about that once I get out. I'll start ranting about that. We'll be putting the tin, we'll be putting the tinfoil hats on real quick.
SPEAKER_02This is gonna become a series, dude. Yeah, no shit.
SPEAKER_05Well, back to the fermentation. What's your
Fermentation favs! Ramp it up...
SPEAKER_05what's your favorite thing right now to ferment? Like what are you what are you enjoying?
SPEAKER_01The focaccia's been a really uh fun journey for the for the past couple months. I've really been enjoying it. Um but yeah, I guess I haven't really haven't done a big fermentation project in a little bit. I have a couple vinegars going, um, but that's that's not really too much.
SPEAKER_04That's a pretty hands off uh uh just letting it rot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But but like I said, man, like with spring really starting to poke its head out and some of those first things coming. I'll answer your question, even though I'm not doing it yet, is um ramp, like a ramp kimchi that I do. Like this um, it's actually a recipe in that cookbook I did a few years back where it's I take cabbage and cucumbers and a whole lot of ramps. I don't know if you guys are familiar with ramps. Yeah, yeah. Um yeah, heck yeah. So and they ferment that's like what's one of my favorite things to ferment. It's so delicious, it's so active. Um, like it'll blow something up if you don't check on it. Um really. And it's oh my god, and they're just so delicious. I do a little zatar, which is like a Middle Eastern spice, um, kind of like oregano-ish, uh, with some sesame seeds, you can use some garlic. No, no garlic. I'm sorry, we use the ramps. The ramps, cucumbers, all you know, leaves and bulbs, and just let that lacto for I cannot wait. I'm not gonna be able to do it until May um when the ramps start coming, but uh really looking forward to that.
SPEAKER_05All right. Nice. Yeah, we you put that on anything. We don't have a lot of ramps here. That's not a I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01So one thing you we got is on California. The one thing we got out of here. You ain't getting ramps out there, I don't think no, sir.
SPEAKER_05It it is funny though that there are like regional, there's there's produce that's more regional. Because
Regional produce/Organic prices
SPEAKER_05I I know, I mean, well, citrus, like you said, it's you know similar. Um, but yeah, there's there's some some stuff you go around the country. I mean, hell, I I know people up in the Midwest that are like they come to our grocery stores and they're like, oh my god, you guys have produce. I'm like, you guys don't have fresh produce? So like it's just minimal. Like, you know, wintertime, they're eating you know mostly like canned and frozen cheese.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it sounds like we eat pretty well, but it's amazing how unhealthy a lot of people do eat. Yeah, and like how much how many food deserts there are in this country where like you go to the there ain't options, you know. Like some people like unless you're growing it or know someone or there's some little community a lot of places, man. You go into the one supermarket and it's you know, it's hot dogs and and white bread, you know, and right on, man.
SPEAKER_05It's yeah, that's very surprising to me, but it is so true. And uh, I like how you call it a food desert. That's that's what I mean. I'm all for a good hot dish every now and then, but I also want to have you know the majority of my food to be much, much more wholesome. Yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, it's you gotta mix it up, right?
SPEAKER_03We've also gotten to this this place though, too, where I feel like if you want to start following um this trail of organic or you know, um more freshly and and well-made foods and stuff like that, you're gonna be going to whole food well and then you're gonna be paying a lot more. And so, like, that's also kind of a I think like the farmers markets and stuff like that. I would like I I always love to see those still like thriving and everything and and having more access to great quality ingredients.
SPEAKER_01It's tough, man. And it you make a great point because it is the majority of the population in this country probably can't afford to spend the extra few hundred dollars, whatever it is, to buy the better chicken, to buy the better lettuce, to buy the better. I mean, my mom was a perfect example growing up. She we had she cooked the meal. I mean, we ate dinner together, a home cooked meal every night. But in hindsight, it was like the buy one, get one free Tyson boneless chicken bread. It was the worst shit, you know what I mean? Yeah, spam.
SPEAKER_02But she cooked it and she made it.
SPEAKER_01But like that was you even like you go tell you know, back then, mom, oh, maybe you can get the organic uh Kubota squash from part. She'd be like, get the fuck away from me. Like you want it's $17 for a chicken, you are out of your mind. And like, and would they love to? Sure, right? I'm sure most people would love to, but it's just not reality, and not to go down this uh the you know, end on a uh, but it's gonna it requires more than just because it it's not it's not just people making their own gardens. We need major systematic change to our food system in America, and it's part of why I do the show Local Legends and my podcast Lay It On Me and Making It Right. I like cooking, but like I could easily never make another YouTube video and feel be fine about myself, you know what I mean? Like I don't need that to live, but I do I'm very fortunate and love doing it for a career, and it gets me to learn all this stuff and hopefully help just push the needle in the right direction, man. Because I do believe it's uh it's beyond just important, you know, it's crucial.
SPEAKER_05Do you feel like you've got other people in that that world that are that are doing something similar? Because I mean, I'm gonna put our my perspective on this as well. Like where wine, as you've heard, or alcoholic beverages in general are having a tough time. Uh people are moving to weed or uh GLP1s or uh just abstaining.
SPEAKER_01Um so well that ain't gonna allow you know who's gonna have a better track record is alcohol that knows damn.
Alcohol Industry vs US Food Supply
SPEAKER_01Hey, I do the research on those things. It seems like it's fucking people up, man.
SPEAKER_05I completely agree with you, but like just before we jumped into this podcast, I was outside, and my cousin, who's also a winemaker, he happened to drive by, and then and then uh Jim McMahon, who's also an another winemaker, they were both outside. And so we were talking, we're like, yeah, man, it's you know, crazy what's going on. But um, we all kind of saw the same thing. It's like the rumors out there, the big companies, the publicly traded companies that got into wine just all for profit in the 90s and the 2000s, they're there the rumors are they're gonna be going out. Like they're gonna be either minimizing their SKUs or just getting out of the business in general. And to me, that's kind of a hand back over to what it was in like the 80s, where it was family-owned, family operated, uh, you know, size-wise, predominantly small to medium, uh, maybe a a few, a small handful of large uh uh like the you know, Gallo would be like a large family owned and operated, although that's that's gigantic, but they'll they'll still be in it and they still do good things for the industry. Um, but the uh the just the profit uh the profit like runners or whatever you want to call it that are just making bad decisions every quarter to to show their shareholders if they get out of it. I mean that that's a positive thing for our industry. And I think I would see that. And and so I'm thinking like education is a big part of that, right? Where you can you gotta tell the story, and people that are at the end of the day, the consumer, they gotta be the ones recognizing the difference between their options. And and I feel like we don't have enough voices in wine to be uh to be, you know, really projecting that as broadly as we need to. So I guess back to my question, do you feel like there's enough of that in the you know, culinary world, the the the food supply world? I mean, is that is that something, or are you one of few?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think there's I think there's a a lot of that. I think there's a lot of folks talking about it and a lot of folks doing it, and and um and that's good, right? And I um like, yeah, there's there's plenty of folks just you know making covering awesome content and just more importantly, like showing people how to use it. And I I you know how it is, man. Like it with the YouTube stuff and just and how people are consuming information and and and inspiration content for that matter. Um, there's a page for absolutely everything, right? People are like, you could have a gardening, so it takes it takes a it takes everything, right? You need the gardening channels, you need the cooking channel, you need the channel that goes and shows the farmer and how the wine's made, and how Tommy and Sally have been making wine this way for the last 75 years. I mean, those are that's what I love, Dylan. But like, so I think it takes I think it takes a whole village of because it's a big topic, right? And I think it it's a it takes a whole village of different perspectives and and and focuses to really move the needle, I think. Because there's a lot of shit, there's a lot of fluff out there. There's a lot of noise and a lot of obnoxiousness. I have two young kids and like we don't let them really watch YouTube, right? But like some of this, I'll catch them sometimes and they know they're not supposed to do it. And it's like the mo and it's not that bad, but it's like the most obnoxious shit. And they get like seven million views every episode. I'm just like, it's I guess ugh. And again, I'm not trying to like there's a thing for everybody, and I'm not knocking their hustle. Listen, they crack the code and whatever. It's but like who are you helping with like being a 27-year-old adult making YouTube videos and talking like an idiot and acting like a like a 13-year-old, like with a million bucks, you know? Like, sounds like a pervert. Yeah. Who knows, man? This day and age, Christ almighty, half of them might be. Yeah, exactly. I'd but I mean, it sounds like you're not familiar with it, but then I would why would you be? But there's creators that are like making a ton of money doing exactly what I just described. Ton of money. That's disturbing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I mean I've never I've never seen it, but yeah, I mean, I and yeah, I know that I do remember one of my kids watching like the the like grown adults like playing dolls like doing these whole sets. What the fuck are we doing? Right.
SPEAKER_00I know it's like no, for sure, man.
SPEAKER_01Like, some of the biggest channels some of the biggest channels are like other kids watching kids build Legos or unboxing toys. Like, even if I was a kid, like I don't who I don't want to fucking watch that. I would never watch that as a kid.
SPEAKER_03Well, I've seen like the thing where we're like watching more, I think, adults playing video games, but watching them play the games. Yeah. But then also it's more of adult atmosphere language and stuff like that, yeah. Um, content-wise. But I, you know, I see some of this stuff like uh local legends. I would imagine there's a lot of blood, sweat, and tears that goes into that from you know, the traveling and hardships and the editing and all of that. Um I was just curious, is is there any like maybe uh current um highlights of a like story that maybe was behind the scenes that didn't get caught on camera or or a perseverance story where something didn't go the way you planned um that comes to mind right now that that you could share? Or I like to give a little insight to people that are trying to create and and overcome this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean the thing like and that's what's it's crazy because there's
Local Legens BTS/Creator Content tips
SPEAKER_01no rules, right? When you're doing your own thing, it's not like you're shooting with some network. You can you can do whatever you want, um, which is which is cool. But the thing I struggle with is like the edit. Editing is like, and I don't edit. I um, you know, I have a couple editors that I that I work with that are phenomenal at what they do, but um it's the you shoot some the way I shoot too is um pretty loose. There's we have an out, especially for local legends, there's an outline and a run-of-show uh foundation, but it all pretty much is um it kind of just you know, you kind of do your own, you know, we kind of just shoot it. Uh it's pretty loosely. I guess what I'm trying to say is we have a lot of there's a lot of stuff that I don't use that sits that gets edited. And I would like to and a lot of good stuff. And then like, yeah, because I'm not the one who's going through and editing it all, and there's a I bet you I have terabytes of like really good moments that just of course we couldn't fit six hours into a 30 second 30 minute video, right? So there's so much stuff. Um, so I guess a tip maybe this I don't know if this is answering your question at all, but a tip for anyone would be like learn how to edit and learn how to utilize all your stuff, right? Like, because you can especially nowadays where so like shorts are important, and I'm a big long format guy, and I'm always gonna be a champion of that. And I think it's I think the the short um bubble is going to burst of this low attention 15 seconds. They're proving it's actually very bad for people's brains, especially kids. So thankfully I've invested in long format. Yes, dude. So have we, dude.
SPEAKER_05Well, we are we are whores in a way because we we try to we try to capture the audience on the short form if that's how they want to interact with it at first, but the intention is to pull them into the long form. And and that's where you really get you the get the education and and you know drive. But like it's like you gotta peel it back one layer at a time. You know, find find the viewers where they're at, and then hopefully they learn a bit more deeply about you know whatever wine we're making, or you know, same thing with with uh with learning about what you're doing. So it's yeah, it's it's it's a weird world we live in right now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is, man. But it's uh like I say, I always I try to keep it positive when there's so much negative and bad. There's also a lot, I think there's a lot more beautiful and good people that want to do and feel just like how we are. You know, I think a lot, I think most of the of the population. So I'm optimistic in a in a very cloudy time.
SPEAKER_05Well, I I think we could go on philosophically alone for a long time as far as com conversing goes. And I'd like to do that.
SPEAKER_03Can we let's continue that in person?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I'd like to I'd like to do that over uh over a glass of wine or something.
SPEAKER_01Twist my arm and come out to Napa boys. You know, it sounds like we gotta do a little wine video or something. So find what's the story out in Napa? Let's go. Let's find it, dude.
SPEAKER_03All right.
SPEAKER_05Well, hey, uh I I I know we gotta get running here, but I wanted to say thank you again. Um, I think I think people are gonna find this very interesting and and uh really do look forward to meeting up in person.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, same here, man. Cool, man. Thank you. All right, thank you. Well, thank you guys. Appreciate it, man.