Comment by mattmaroon
9 hours ago
Well after software I wanted a life that involved a lot less computer usage and a lot more being on my feet. So now I sell beverages via a few food trucks and also syrups people can use to make draft sodas/mocktails. We make everything ourselves because we’re all-natural everything, with the lone exception of Coke products because you just can’t get people to drink anything else.
I basically went from no real knowledge to being able to develop commercial-scale beverages and walk them through all phases of production.
The money’s not as good as software (but decent) and being active rather than sedentary with most of my time has done wonders for my health and mood. Man was not meant to sit in one place for long hours daily and I’m just not a gym rat no matter how many times I tried so I just reengineered my life.
>with the lone exception of Coke products because you just can’t get people to drink anything else.
gotta say I don't like Pepsi, but I love Jarritos Cola and Fritz-Kola, they're both bitter enough. Most other Colas I've had in the U.S are too darn sweet.
Seconded that I'd love to hear more.
A couple years back I bought a "cooking from your garden" book that introduced my family to shrubs, and since then we've been making a lot of home made drinks. We mostly do different types of shrubs and tepeches. I've found that doing better than store bought isn't very hard, but I have no desire to try and scale any of my recipes.
The other thing I used to do before I had a kid was make really fancy alcoholic snacks. Super labor intensive, but really good. For example I made a jello piña colada. I'd sweeten canned coconut cream with some white sugar on the stove, add gelatin, and some rum. let it cool a bit. Drain a can of pineapples and keep the juice, use the juice to make pineapple jello again mixed with rum, with a piece of pineapple in the middle. Join the two jellos when they are both half set. (I used silicone molds.)
Tada! Bougie piña colada jello shots.
With a kid now I am limiting my creativity to non-alcoholic drinks. 90% of the shrub recipes online are absurdly basic. Honestly doing "better than average" is easy because the bar is so damn low.
That's a really inspiring story to me. Do you have any more info about your business e.g website or blog? (I realise these are computer things and exactly what you were moving away from.)
You should get your website up and running and start writing and tell others not only how you made it, but also why. What you felt in this change in your life etc.
I guess a big part of this is figuring out how to make money doing that. I wonder how did you get there.
I've always had the desire to make soft drinks and I have a similar concern about how we are sitting the entire day...