Fell Into Food Podcast

Ken MacKenzie is the visionary founder and CEO of Fresh Victor, a premium line of all-natural, cold pressed, refrigerated mixers for effortlessly delicious cocktails, low-alcohol and spirit-free drinks. With over 20 years of experience in the
creation, import, and distribution of spirits and craft beverages, Ken is a successful serial entrepreneur with a rich history in the industry. Before launching Fresh Victor, Ken co-founded Republic Tequila and Republic Spirit Blends. His impressive career also includes the import, development, and launch of unique spirits like Onyx Coffee Liqueurs and his highly demanded 100% agave tequila brand, Amate.

Ken's journey in the spirits industry began in 1997, when he apprenticed in Guadalajara, learning the premium pure agave tequila business from the ground up. He soon launched his consultancy, La Mission, S.A. de C.V., dedicating the next decade to pioneering the importation of high-end 100% agave tequila into the United States. After returning to the U.S., Ken founded Travesia Import Group, continuing to import, distribute, and consult on premium liquor brands. He then expanded his portfolio to include bespoke Texas spirits and mixers, distributed by Republic National Distributors. Ken is a frequent and respected speaker at high-profile industry events, educating the beverage market and hospitality
industry on 100% agave tequila. His Republic and Amate tequila brands have garnered over 15 top industry accolades, including recognition from Wine Enthusiast magazine and numerous medals at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and Denver International Spirits Competition.

In this conversation, I talk with Ken about what actually convinced him tequila wasn't a phase — and why he never went home. He walks through how agave tequila is really made, from an eight-to-twelve-year growing cycle to a single glass carrying over 300 distinct flavor compounds, and how that same discipline shaped everything about Fresh Victor. We get into why he refused every piece of advice to make it shelf-stable, what it cost him to spend 18 months chasing the right acid balance on one flavor, and the early stretch where the company was pouring out almost as much product as it was selling because the shelf life was too short to survive distribution.

We also get into where the non-alcoholic and zero-proof movement is really headed, and why Ken built Fresh Victor so the same drink works whether or not there's alcohol in it. Nine flavors in, he says they've barely scratched the surface of where this goes next. 

Website: Freshvictor.com
Instagram / Facebook / Linkedin / Tiktok: @freshvictorcocktails.com
X: @freshvictormix

For being a listener Ken has decided to give everyone 20% off their next order from their website freshvictor.com using promo code FELL2FOOD20. No minimum purchase requirement. Can’t combine with other discounts. Active from today until Dec 31, 2026

0:00 From Tequila to Fresh Mixers — How the Pivot Started
2:23 Why Food and Drink Actually Bring People Together
5:42 Following Love to Guadalajara — and Never Leaving
8:19 How Tequila Is Actually Made, From Agave to Bottle
13:55 What You Should Actually Be Tasting For
17:24 Building Fresh Victor — Four Ingredients, No Shortcuts
19:00 Refusing to Go Shelf-Stable
24:56 The 18-Month Fight for the Right Acid Balance
28:21 The Hurdles That Almost Ended It
34:44 Zero-Proof, Connection, and What's Next for Fresh Victor

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.
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YouTube: https://youtube.com/@FellIntoFood
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I sat down with Nicole Bentler this week — a health and wellness pro turned maple farmer, who bought a run-down, two-hundred-year-old farm in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania back in 2019 with no real plan beyond having a place to bring her family.

That farm is now Pocono Maple Water, a farm-to-bottle maple water and maple syrup brand, and Nicole's one of only a handful of female-owned maple farms in the country. We got into what maple water actually is before it ever becomes syrup, the finding about our water supply that made her trademark the phrase "What's In Your Water," and why she's turned down Target and Walmart more than once to stay direct-to-consumer.

Website:
www.poconomaplewater.com
Instagram: @poconomaplewater
Instagram: @poconomountainmaple

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/55qBuFe9dQh5jLLdg0KLoL?si=08455ef88e554b91
Apple Podcast - https://apple.co/41RoTm4

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@FellIntoFood
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food/
Instagram: http://instagram.com/fell_into_food
Facebook: https://facebook.com/fellintofood
FellintoFood.com

CHAPTERS / TIMESTAMPS
Timestamps pulled from raw transcript markers — confirm exact in/out points against the edited cut before publishing.
00:00 — Cold open: cracking a maple water on mic, and the question everyone asks first
00:44 — What maple water actually is, and how it's different from syrup
02:57 — Buying a run-down farm in 2019 with zero plans to build a beverage brand
05:19 — Six to eight miles a day tapping trees in the snow
06:27 — The estrogen finding behind the "What's In Your Water" trademark
09:53 — Big bottled water brands, spring-water lawsuits, and knowing where your water comes from
14:08 — Three bears, a raided bee yard, and building a team in a corner of agriculture with almost nobody under 40
18:17 — The six-week harvest, the subscription model, and turning down Target and Walmart on purpose
20:32 — The cans-vs-cartons-vs-glass packaging fight with her partner Dante
25:10 — What maple water actually does for the body, and the empty-stomach test

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Jason Olinik is Senior Vice President of Operations & Partnerships at Rudy's Hospitality Group, where he leads growth strategy and every client relationship across workplace dining, markets, and restaurant concepts. He's spent 23 years in hospitality — starting at sixteen scrubbing grease off the back dock of a Chili's in Brighton, Michigan, then running a limited-service hotel in Naples, building restaurant concepts inside an airport, and working luxury resorts in Florida before landing at Rudy's. He's also the author of Discernment: Seeing Through the Narrative Economy.

I sat down with him to talk about the gap between what a report says and what's actually happening on the floor — and why the leaders who stay close to the floor are the ones who catch it before it costs them. Jason talks about the meeting culture that crept in after the pandemic, the seventeen systems his teams were juggling just to load a menu, and the moment he realized he'd drifted too far from the work that built him. He also tells me about a ledge in the Jemez Mountains outside Albuquerque, and the jump that changed how he's approached every hard decision since.

Book & author site: jasonolinik.com
Rudy's Hospitality Group: rudyshospitality.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jason-olinik-57355464
Instagram: @j.olinik_author
Book: Discernment: Seeing Through the Narrative Economy

TIMESTAMPED CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
0:10 The Chili's Loading Dock, Age Sixteen
2:22 What Makes a Great Operator
11:07 Why Workplace Dining Needs Restaurant Standards
16:10 Thin Center, Strong Field
18:15 AI, Automation, and Where It Actually Helps
26:41 Writing Discernment
33:41 The Meeting Culture Rant
36:06 The Jemez Mountains Jump
41:30 Where to Find Jason

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/55qBuFe9dQh5jLLdg0KLoL?si=08455ef88e554b91
Apple Podcast - https://apple.co/41RoTm4

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@FellIntoFood
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food/
Instagram: http://instagram.com/fell_into_food
Facebook: https://facebook.com/fellintofood
FellintoFood.com

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Jeff Tonidandel and Jamie Brown are the husband-and-wife owners of the Tonidandel-Brown Restaurant Group (TBRG) in Charlotte, NC — six restaurants (Supperland, Haberdish, Ever Andalo, Growlers Pourhouse, Leluia Hall, Olivelli Deli), three of them Michelin Guide American South recommended. They co-host the podcast Jeff and Jamie Feed and the national PBS series Fork & Hammer, recently nominated for a Daytime Emmy in Outstanding Culinary/Cultural Series. Jamie's first book, Eleven Tables: A Wild Ride Through Food, Failure, and Figuring It Out, is out now.

Jeff Tonidandel and Jamie Brown left corporate jobs at the peak of the economy, backpacked across Europe and Asia for eight months with paper maps and a burner phone, and came home to the 2008 recession with an idea and no restaurant experience. They found their first space in Charlotte's NoDa neighborhood because of a pink slip taped to the door — an unpaid gas bill. That eleven-table crepe shop is now Tonidandel-Brown Restaurant Group: six concepts, three of them Michelin Guide American South recommended, a national PBS series (Fork & Hammer, just nominated for a Daytime Emmy), a weekly podcast, and Jamie's first book.

In this conversation, Jeff and Jamie talk about why Jeff is campaigning to brand Charlotte the "City of Hospitality," what the city's food scene was already doing right before Michelin ever showed up, and what it actually takes to turn a 100-year-old church into a working restaurant kitchen. They get honest about the harder calls too — closing a thirteen-year, still-profitable restaurant to become Ever Andalo, and retiring their doughnut shop after one too many equipment failures. Plus: running a 330-person team across six kitchens, two shows, and three kids, and what's next — dry-aged fish, a new commissary, and hotel projects on the horizon for 2029.

Website: tonidandel-brown.com
Podcast: Jeff and Jamie Feed
PBS series: Fork & Hammer
Book: Eleven Tables — Amazon / Barnes & Noble

Restaurants:
Supperland 
Haberdish 
Ever Andalo 
Growlers 
Pourhouse 
Leluia Hall 
Olivelli Deli 
Wyatt's Superfine (coming soon)

Chapters
0:00 Welcome, Jeff & Jamie
1:01 The one thing they want listeners to take away
2:29 Why Jeff is campaigning for Charlotte as the "City of Hospitality"
5:03 Transplants, small-city warmth, and Bible Belt hospitality
7:48 What Charlotte's food scene was already doing right before Michelin arrived
10:02 Charlotte as a culinary crossroads — and the 200-farm network behind it
12:07 Turning churches, a clothing store, and a general store into restaurants
14:25 Supperland's 14-foot fire grill, and blending old-school with tech
17:30 Why they closed a profitable restaurant to become Ever Andalo
20:22 The 82-square-foot doughnut shop that broke one too many times
23:02 The eight-month backpacking trip — and the pink slip that found their first space
27:05 Where the entrepreneurial fortitude actually came from
29:15 Jamie's six years working a day job to fund the dream
32:56 Running six restaurants, two shows, and three kids with a 330-person team
36:26 How Fork & Hammer landed on PBS — and just picked up a Daytime Emmy nomination
42:08 Jamie's book, Eleven Tables
43:58 What's next: dry-aged fish, a new commissary, and 2029 hotel plans

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/55qBuFe9dQh5jLLdg0KLoL?si=08455ef88e554b91
Apple Podcast - https://apple.co/41RoTm4

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@FellIntoFood
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food/
Instagram: http://instagram.com/fell_into_food
Facebook: https://facebook.com/fellintofood
FellintoFood.com

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Matthew Cutolo is the Executive Pastry Chef and third-generation chef at Gargiulo's Restaurant, a Coney Island institution since 1907. He helps oversee both front and back of house, preserving rare Italian-American dishes seldom found elsewhere. A sought-after culinary voice, Cutolo has been featured on the Today Show, CBS's The Dish, The New York Times, NBC New York, PIX11, and Fox's Good Day NY. Beyond the kitchen, he creates content championing classic Italian traditions and is now building his own digital platform dedicated to his culinary philosophy, signature recipes, and entrepreneurial ventures, establishing himself as a culinary entrepreneur for the next generation of food lovers.

Chef Matthew Cutolo was halfway through an accounting degree when his uncle called and asked one question — you coming to work when you're done? That was it. No speech, no pitch. He's been in the kitchen at Gargiulo's ever since, third generation now, running a Coney Island restaurant his family's had since 1965 in a building that's been slinging Italian food since 1907. A hundred and nineteen years in one spot.

I've had guys work under me for years before I'd actually show them anything real — call it selfish, call it survival, but you learn fast who wants to be great and who just wants the paycheck. Matthew's version of that is a guy named Mike the Bake, forty years as Gargiulo's pastry chef, the only man alive who ever had the cannoli recipe. He didn't just hand it to Matthew. Months of watching, no bowl, no measuring, nothing written down — and there's a theory on why Mike kept walking away mid-recipe for years that's got nothing to do with baking. It's about figuring out who's serious and who's just talking.

Socials
Website
Instagram @Matthewcutolo

Listen to the full episode and more! It would mean the world to me if you could leave a 5 star review on your listening platform to help grow and expand the Podcast.
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/55qBuFe9dQh5jLLdg0KLoL?si=08455ef88e554b91
Apple Podcast - https://apple.co/41RoTm4

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@FellIntoFood
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fell-into-food/
Instagram: http://instagram.com/fell_into_food
Facebook: https://facebook.com/fellintofood
FellintoFood.com

CHAPTERS / TIMESTAMPS
Timestamps pulled from raw transcript paragraph-start markers — confirm exact in/out points against the edited cut before publishing.
00:00 — Cold open: a family business, a phone call, and the third generation who said yes
01:25 — Mike the Bake — the pastry chef who trained Matthew for over 40 years
06:28 — Was disappearing mid-recipe actually a test of whether Matthew really wanted it
08:57 — The pressure of running solo, and why no two written versions of the same recipe matched
12:16 — The phone call from Uncle Louie that pulled him out of an accounting degree
16:23 — Working with family — who wins the argument when the food's on the line
17:50 — Staying true to tradition while everyone else chases what's viral
20:28 — From an internship on The Chew to his first solo TV hit
27:22 — Jarring the sauce, shipping nationwide, and the real math on freight cost
29:17 — The Gargiulo wine on the way, and why he keeps building past the restaurant

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