From Music to Whiskey: The Story Behind Lodestar (BRC S4 E15)

kerry: [00:00:00] Well, hello ladies. How are we doing today? Good. We are in this really great place. Tell me about this place you guys found for us to do this. Where, where are we?

Wendelin von Schroder: We're at Melrose Umbrella Company in West Hollywood. Um, it's an amazing cocktail bar. It's an industry favorite. Um, and we love it here. They make amazing cocktails also with load star load stars on the menu here.

Wendelin von Schroder: Um, and yeah, they're really good friends.

kerry: Fantastic. I love it. I'm gonna start. Seeing if I can do some events here. I think it's really cool. I know it's a cute spot. It's really cute. Okay, so let's start from the very beginning. 'cause it's a very good place to start. It is, right? Sure. We all know the song.

kerry: Um. Y which one or both of you were in the music industry first? Both of us. Both of you? Okay. I mean, first, me, me, me, me. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let's start with you. Okay. When you were a wee little s, what did you see yourself doing? Did you always know you wanted to be in music? And then after you were in music, how did you transition to whiskey?

Anna Axster: Um, initially when I was a teenager, I wanted to be in [00:01:00] film. Okay. I wanted to be in the writing directing world of film. That's what I ended up going to school for. Same, um, that's what I ended up doing for a while. And while I was working in the film industry here in la, I kind of ended up coincidentally.

Anna Axster: Being in music as well. Okay. First through directing music videos. Very cool. And then through kind of just ending up in that world. And then I was kind of balancing both, but it became more music heavy over time.

kerry: Okay. And um, when you were a we little less, did you say, I'm gonna follow in the family way and.

kerry: Do the same? Um,

Wendelin von Schroder: no, I, um, I, well, I guess maybe, but, um, I actually went to school for acting, so I studied acting, noticed our, I think already in college that maybe I was like having some [00:02:00] second thoughts. Arrived out here in la, got more into producing. Um, and then Anna was starting. Her own shop and she was like, do you wanna work for me?

Wendelin von Schroder: And I was like, yes, that beats working at the gym and also at this place and that place, and at that place and every other place. Yeah.

kerry: So your own shop, what kind of shop was that?

Anna Axster: It was a very small, independent record label. Okay. And it was like an artist management company. Oh, fun.

kerry: Mm-hmm. And do you still do that at all?

kerry: No. No. Done. Okay. So how did you guys go from working at this small little studio? Artist management to loadstar.

Anna Axster: So we were in the artist management world. We traveled a lot, we were on tour a lot. We, um. Traveled literally to almost every state traveled to internationally in that space. Whiskey was the drink of choice.

Anna Axster: Yes it is. So we um, while I think we [00:03:00] both initially were introduced to whiskey through our fathers, we ended up kind of developing a taste for it. 'cause that was what was always available.

Wendelin von Schroder: Mm-hmm.

Anna Axster: And we started developing a passion for it, kind of a little bit, developing our palette. And we had this little thing where wherever we went, we would try different whiskeys that you couldn't maybe get other places.

Anna Axster: And so it just became a little bit of a, a thing, a passion of ours. And that's, initially, that was the extent of our interest in whiskey.

kerry: Okay.

Anna Axster: Um, during that time though, as well, we started noticing. That ordering a whiskey is a woman at a bar or a restaurant. Yes. Usually elicits a reaction. Yes. Be it positive or negative.

Anna Axster: And this was something that we noticed and then talked about and it was just kind of like, what is going on here in this space? Right. Um, little did we know that we would end up working in it one day, but I think that [00:04:00] was the first little spark.

kerry: And how long ago would you say that was?

Anna Axster: A long time ago, um, maybe six years ago.

Anna Axster: That's not a long time ago, seven

kerry: years ago when all that was happening, and it kind of sparked, when did you finally say, okay, we should look into making a whiskey company, and how are we gonna do this? And how did you decide whether you're going to distill it or source it or both, or. I'll let you take that one.

Wendelin von Schroder: Um, well, when the pandemic hit, everything in, music stopped overnight, like in a lot of other industries. Um, and we, I. It gave us the opportunity to kind of slow down for a second. And then I, I would say it was probably a little bit of a drunken night on whiskey, perhaps, perhaps. Um, and we just kind of looked at each other and, um, Anna was, you know, she was like, let's just go for it.

Wendelin von Schroder: Let's just see where it takes us. Let's explore. And so, and we know, we knew we had a lot of learning to do, so we rolled up our sleeves and we're like, what's this [00:05:00] gonna look like? How do we get there? What do we do? Um, and in this time where we were really like developing our palettes and developing our passion for, for whiskey, we had started developing kind of like our ideal flavor brief.

Wendelin von Schroder: Okay. Um, and it was. Pretty like detailed. Um, and so that was kind of a guide. We're like, this is our starting point. How do we get it in the bottle? And then that's kind of where it started. Okay. And what, I

kerry: haven't tasted this yet. I've been dying. It's been what months now. And I even have a bottle at home.

kerry: For our fundraiser we're doing, 'cause you guys so generously donated. And I was like, I almost said, Hmm, maybe I should just take it for myself. Um, so I'm looking forward to that. Um, so what is the, what is the, the mash bill?

Wendelin von Schroder: It's a blend of a highrise bourbon and an American single malt, which is oh my two favorite.

Wendelin von Schroder: Oh, there

kerry: you go. Yeah. Okay. Who's pouring? Um. I'll, um, okay, so when you guys were researching this, I mean, I know during the pandemic were you able to like go to Kentucky [00:06:00] or anywhere to like kind of like start tasting barrels and kind of do all that kind of stuff or.

Wendelin von Schroder: Um, yeah, I mean the height of pandemic, no.

Wendelin von Schroder: Um, but we started doing a lot of outreach and just talking to anybody who would talk to us. And luckily for us, the space is, is pretty open. Yeah. And we were able to, to talk to some great people and get some good advice and um, and then as soon as we were able, yes, then we would start, we did like more of a detailed, like, let's go here, let's try this.

Wendelin von Schroder: Um. And then, uh, yeah, we ended up working with a master blender and because our flavor brief was so detailed, um, they were really excited to jump in. And are you allowed to say who that is or was, or

Anna Axster: was? Um, when, we haven't worked with him in a while, but that was who we initially worked with. His name is Sam Schmelzer.

kerry: Okay. And

Anna Axster: where, where would I know Sam from? He's been different places. Um, he's now, I What's the place that he's

Wendelin von Schroder: now? 'cause he, he joined a new Uhhuh [00:07:00] company. Oh. I wish we knew. 'cause it was gr it would be great to give it a shout out something with an owl. I don't,

kerry: oh. Am I Kentucky? No, not Kentucky. No, not

Wendelin von Schroder: Kentucky.

Wendelin von Schroder: Although I love Kentucky Owl.

kerry: They just sent me a sample, but I Oh, also have it opened. So, but not the San Diego one that closed? No, no, no, no Owl. There's some owls out there. Yeah. But yeah,

Wendelin von Schroder: it was great and, and he was really excited 'cause he is like, I've never seen something that's this detailed and you guys are really thinking about this in a different way.

Wendelin von Schroder: So we. Really thought not only about the flavor, but we thought about who's drinking it, where would they be drinking it, how would they be drinking it?

kerry: So did you guys like take a bunch of your favorite. Whiskeys and say, okay, and start experimenting with blends yourself to come up with that, or it was just the idea of like, we like rise, we like single malts.

Anna Axster: It was the idea of different things we liked from different whiskeys we had tried, and also clearly knowing what we didn't like or want in there, and again, how we wanted it to be consumed, which was. Versatility was important to us. And so all that informed the brief [00:08:00] as well. Mm-hmm. Like it needed to have certain elements so it would work in this way or in this way.

Anna Axster: Um, and so we put all that together and then collaborated with Sam and he was excited about it, which was fun. And then quickly we realized in order to get to this. Flavor profile that we were aiming for blending would be the way to get there. Um, yeah, and then we started kind of with him experimenting with different things and fine tuning and, and to our surprise, fairly quickly ended up where we wanted to end up.

kerry: All right. Let's taste where we wanted to end. Let's taste. Cheers. It's got a great smell too. Thank you.

kerry: Oh yeah. Uh, I think this is my new favorite blend. Oh, yay. 'cause both of those are, I'm a big single malt person and I, I like, um, Highrise or Rye better than high corn. Mm-hmm. Same. And I could totally see [00:09:00] that chilling like that. Mm-hmm. At a nice little barbecue and relaxing and.

Wendelin von Schroder: Yeah, so that was one of the things that we talked about too, was that again, we want to be able for you to enjoy it neat.

Wendelin von Schroder: Um, but if you wanna put a rock in it, it shouldn't water down too quickly. So that's kind of how we decided to have a higher proof Viscosity was important to us. Uh, we wanted something that wasn't too thick in syrup. We, you know, a lot of age, much older products have that quality. That's wonderful. But if you're newer to whiskey, that might be a little overwhelming.

Wendelin von Schroder: And we wanted to start welcoming more people, specifically, also more women to start drinking whiskey. So, oh, I think you

kerry: guys have done a fantastic job with this. Thank you. So let's talk a little bit more about, are you allowed to discuss where you're sourcing from or is that like a. Yeah. NDA thing? Yeah.

Anna Axster: No, no. We are allowed. Um, so we are not bound to any one distillery. Okay. It's important to us to keep it simple and clean. So we're only doing those two components, no [00:10:00] additives, but we, um, source from different distilleries. Okay. We taste every barrel. Oh, wow. Um, and make sure it fits the flavor profile.

Anna Axster: 'cause we are aiming for consistency for this expression, at least. This particular bottling is from with MGP product. Okay. Um, I was gonna guess 'cause it's pretty darn good. They, they make amazing whiskey. They do.

kerry: They know what they're doing on there. They do.

Anna Axster: So yeah, that's kind of where we're at.

kerry: Okay. So both, both components into the expression components

Anna Axster: in this bottling

kerry: is from mg.

kerry: Okay. That's fantastic. That's great. So you're tasting each barrel so you're not having them make it for you. You're picking from

Anna Axster: what they already have. Mm-hmm. And then. But we take the barrels and we work with a small kind of mom and pop distillery who then blends it and bottle it for us. Okay. And

kerry: where's that small mom

Anna Axster: and pop store also?

Anna Axster: It's in Bloomington, Indiana. Okay. Mm-hmm. Also in Indiana. Gotcha. And they's been a great,

Wendelin von Schroder: and it's close and it's great 'cause it's middle of the country, so shipping is also easier.

kerry: Right? Yeah. Yeah. That is awesome. All the

Wendelin von Schroder: little details.

kerry: Let's look at this here [00:11:00] for a second. Um, let's talk about the name.

kerry: Sure. Who wants to tell me about the name?

Anna Axster: I will tell you about the name. Um, so yeah, it was pandemic. We, it was a pretty wild career pivot for both of us. Obviously. I'm gonna have you read the back too in a minute. Sure. Yeah. And we were trying to then come up with what do we wanna do with this brand?

Anna Axster: What's important to us? Um, things that came kind of up over and over and over where we wanna, um, put something out in the world that. I guess through the pandemic, everybody including us, realized how important community is Yes. And how much we were lacking it at that time. So community was something that was really important to us and that we wanted to build around this.

Anna Axster: Um, inclusivity was important. That kind of goes back to the beginning of the spark of like, what's going on when we order a whiskey at a bar. And um, so it was important to us that this would bring. New people into the category, open it up, make it more inclusive. [00:12:00] And the third one that kept coming out was joy.

Anna Axster: Um, we wanted to create something that we could cultivate some joy around.

kerry: I'm Joy. I'm very, I'm very joyous right now. So good.

Anna Axster: So then we were like, those are the things that are kind of guiding us in this process of trying to figure out what we wanna do with this product and this brand. And when we kept talking about what guides us.

Anna Axster: The name Load Star came up, which is a navigational star. So the North Star, for example, is a load star, and we looked up the word and it means that it's a navigational star and like sailing or whatever. Um, and then there's another meaning, which is on the back of the bottle, both of them, um, a person or principle that serves as a guide or inspiration.

Anna Axster: And so it seemed like a fitting name. And then strangely enough, it was available. So we just went for that. That's awesome.

kerry: And then tell me about the design. Like, did you guys come up with this together? Did you get a designer to do it? Yeah, we [00:13:00] worked

Wendelin von Schroder: with, um, a female, um, designer based out of la Um, she had designed a lot of the menus and logos, et cetera, for some of our favorite restaurants around the city.

Wendelin von Schroder: And so, uh, we found her and, um, loved just her vibe and also she really understood what we were going for. Um, and so yeah, we just, we, we worked on it with her together and, yeah. After a few iterations, this is the result.

kerry: Yeah. It's gorgeous. It's gorgeous. Gorgeous, gorgeous. Yeah. We

Wendelin von Schroder: wanted it to like be a nod to tradition, but also feel modern and contemporary.

Wendelin von Schroder: Um, and but timeless too. And we feel like we, I think guys nailed it. We got there. I think you nailed

kerry: it. It's a beautiful bottle. Um, and the color of the spirit is. Beautiful.

Wendelin von Schroder: Thank you. That was also something we talked about. Mm-hmm. Because we were like, you know,

kerry: don't it too light. Don't want too dark.

kerry: Yeah,

Wendelin von Schroder: exactly.

kerry: It's too dark. It's got too [00:14:00] much oak in my opinion, but Correct. No, it's a, it's a great color. Um, so when did you guys launch your first bottle?

Anna Axster: So we had something in our hands. So it didn't have a label or anything on it? I would say two and a half years ago. Okay. But then it just, about a year and a half ago is when we had a bottle that we could take to an account and be like, do you wanna put this on your bar?

Anna Axster: Yeah. Awesome. So we launched just over a year. Soft launched like a year and a half ago.

kerry: Okay. And where can people find you right now?

Wendelin von Schroder: Uh, well, they can find us online and we ship to anywhere where people, where alcohol is legal to ship, uh, which is most states. There's a few that where it's not allowed.

Wendelin von Schroder: Right. Um, and then we're available in bars and restaurants across la All of those are listed on our website. Great. Um, and then we also are in a few [00:15:00] indie bottle shops around la. We've expanded a little bit into Santa Barbara into Long Beach, um, starting San Diego soon. So, yeah.

kerry: So how, how do you feel the product is being received?

Anna Axster: Very

kerry: well, luckily. Good, good, good, good.

Anna Axster: We felt, we felt really proud of the product and we felt really strongly that we had a good product. But before you go out in the world, you have no clue how. Right. You know, so we ended up, once we started, you know, we, we really like. Boots on the ground. We're doing most of this ourselves and intentionally to a certain degree because we wanted to learn and understand and make strong relationships with these initial accounts that we have and all of that.

Anna Axster: And at the same time, also, like we're just a small business still. Right. Um, is it just the two of you? It's the two of us with like an extended team of like Shea and Sheila who's the designer and a couple of people who help with sales. Okay. Um, but yes, so. [00:16:00] Luckily, most other people think of it the same way we do, that it is actually a really high quality, approachable product that's tasty and easy to drink and works well in a cocktail because it has enough rye to where it doesn't get lost.

Anna Axster: Right. Um, so it's not been. A hard sell, which is, you know, helps. Yeah. I think

Wendelin von Schroder: the story too. Yeah. And the story resonates with people, um, because

kerry: are you guys gonna write a song to go with this that I,

Wendelin von Schroder: I definitely won't, but you know, people

kerry: tell, tell 'em you need them to write a song. Maybe we can ask chat.

kerry: GBT. Okay. So what's the, um, retail price on this ish?

Anna Axster: So. Suggested retail price is 45. Okay. Some places sell it for 40 at some 4 48 or 49, but it's in between those numbers. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. We also, that was also intentional. Obviously we wanted That's approachable. Yeah. Approachable price. We didn't want it to be exclusive to where people like we wanted this to be something [00:17:00] people can just buy and offer to their friends and come together and have a good drink together.

Anna Axster: Cool. Yeah. We also a little bit caught the blending bug while we were doing this. Oh, I bet. And isn't it fun? It's so fun. It's so fun. And it's also just such a creative process. 'cause your palette is endless. Right. So

kerry: do you think you guys are gonna. Come up with another expression soon. Then we also, do you already have one in the

Anna Axster: works?

Anna Axster: We don't have one in the, we have things in our minds. Um, but yes, we definitely wanna do another expression. Okay. In the not to distant in the future, we wanted to keep it simple and come out with a really, like one really good product. Right. Um, but yes, we're excited to do something. Yeah. To do another expression,

Wendelin von Schroder: I also like, I, um, joined the our Whiskey Foundation Mentorship program.

Wendelin von Schroder: Okay. Last year. Nice. Um, I was very lucky to be paired with Maryanne Eves. Oh, I love her. Yeah, she's been on the show. Oh, there you go. Um, I love her too. And, um, so it's been really fun to like, talk to her about blending as well. Um, [00:18:00] and yeah, like Anna said, we've, we've come up with some really fun ideas and through, you know, when you're working with barrel brokers and you're sourcing your whiskey, you sometimes, depending on how good your barrel broker is, get to taste some very interesting.

Wendelin von Schroder: Things. Um, and you know, it's like, oh, this, there's only 150 barrels of this, because the distiller was just cleaning out the still and he had some extra grain left and was just having fun. And so, yeah, I think there, there's definitely opportunity to do something that's, that's, so do you

kerry: think you'll, you'll do like, like obviously the flagship and then do you think you'll have like some special like Yeah, one time only expressions?

kerry: I think like the

Wendelin von Schroder: limited release kind of thing is, is where our heads. Pointed towards, yeah. Those are

kerry: fun. Yes. And then people can collect them and then, you know, down the road when you can't get 'em. People will be like, guess what? I have?

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Wendelin von Schroder: As Anna was mentioning, we do a lot of the sales still ourselves. Um, and we, you know, we're talking to all of the restaurant, the GMs and the bar managers and whatnot, and yeah, it's, it's LA has been through a lot. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, um, yeah, between.

Anna Axster: Between COVID the strikes, strikes, the fires, the fire fires.

Anna Axster: It's kind of crazy. The raids. Mm-hmm. Not forget the raids. Exactly. It's

Wendelin von Schroder: not. Um, but yeah, it's, we, we hope that it will come back because we love LA and this is where we're based. Um, but yeah, it's, it's definitely people should go out and drink.

kerry: I gonna drink and take Uber or that [00:20:00] driverless, driverless car that keeps driving by.

kerry: Have fun. Dinner parties at restaurants? Yes. Yes. Speaking of restaurants, okay. Which restaurants? I know you're in this one, obviously. Mm-hmm. Because we're here. Um, what other restaurants? Like, are there any really well known restaurants you might be in? There's a bunch now. We've

Anna Axster: gotten into a bunch of really great places that we love.

Anna Axster: We're at

Wendelin von Schroder: Carmel next door. Carmel Next. The Benjamin across the street. Mm-hmm.

Anna Axster: You guys just nailed Mel. Smell, rotate. Speed. We drive a bunch of places in Highland Park. Yeah. Oh yeah. Highly likely. Uhhuh. Checker Hall. Yeah. We're at like cool bars, like Goldline and um, the Arroyo Club. And then we are at like some fun places too.

Anna Axster: Like we're at Surf Writer Hotel in Malibu. Oh, fun. Or we're at like shutters on the beach. Oh, we love shutters. Yeah.

kerry: They always have the after party for the spirit awards there. So not the spirit. The spirit, the independent spirit. Yes,

Anna Axster: they

Wendelin von Schroder: have. We're on the menu in a smoked old fashioned. It is so

kerry: good.

kerry: At Shutters? [00:21:00] Yes. Mm-hmm. Well, now I have to go all the up to the beach just to have that. You have to. Um, have you guys gone to Luc Lake and done a Foreman's Tavern? No, we have not. Do you know about Foreman's Tavern? No. It's a great little whiskey bar. Oh, amazing. Amazing side drive. We just

Wendelin von Schroder: got into Idle Y Tavern, which is in,

kerry: in

Wendelin von Schroder: Bur Burbank, I think.

Wendelin von Schroder: Okay. But yeah,

kerry: idle y, not I, idle

Wendelin von Schroder: Wild. It's a new place. It's a new,

kerry: and then there's also, um, idle Hour, which is, um, shaped like a barrel, and it's on Lankershim in North Hollywood. Oh,

Wendelin von Schroder: cool.

kerry: Right at that six way intersection with the Vineland and yeah, it's right there. Cool. We gotta check it out. Yeah. Yeah.

Anna Axster: But yeah, all the places that we're at are on our website.

kerry: Yeah,

Anna Axster: we're adding every week. It's fun.

kerry: Okay? Mm-hmm. So what's your five year plan? Whiskey domination. I get that answer all the time. That's what everybody wants

Anna Axster: in five

kerry: years.

Anna Axster: Um, no. We wanna first expand to other markets in California. We wanna get into San Francisco.

Anna Axster: Oh yeah. Um, and do all that. [00:22:00] Then our. Plan is to expand into New York. Um, that would be our second market. So we, we, our five year plan is we don't wanna rush anything. We wanna keep learning, we wanna keep building a strong foundation and not just try to be everywhere at once. Right. 'cause we don't think that makes sense.

Anna Axster: Right. Um, and then build on that to where we expand into other parts of the us.

Wendelin von Schroder: Yeah. It's like building the playbook, right? Yeah. It's like we know this works, we know this works, this doesn't work. Right. And then we can replicate it once we have all of that foundation really solid.

kerry: So here's a question.

kerry: Did anything in the music or production industries help you with this business?

Anna Axster: It's, I mean, both are people business, so that definitely helped us.

Wendelin von Schroder: Both are male dominated, so we know how to do that. True, true, true, true.

Anna Axster: Very true. Um, I don't want it, I mean, I don't regret any moment I spend in [00:23:00] the film and music industries.

Anna Axster: It was a great experience. Yeah. I was positively surprised how open this space is comparatively. Yeah, the people are more open. Hospitality. It's a, you know. Yeah. Um,

kerry: I'll make this the last question. Are you guys looking to open your own distillery, or are you planning to only source, or are you open to it and haven't decided yet?

Anna Axster: We're plan I, so far our plan is to keep sourcing. Okay. And kind of keep it that way to where we, again, we caught the planning block. We wanna like keep expanding on that. It's super creative, it's super fun. You can create so many different things. I mean, also never say never. I don't know what the future holds exactly.

Anna Axster: Okay. Yeah.

kerry: Well ladies, thank you so much for this time, um, and for setting up this beautiful location. Uh, and I, forgive me this beautiful dram. Cheers. Cheers. Tears. [00:24:00] All right guys. Well that's it from the Melrose Umbrella Company. Thank you guys for watching, and we'll see you soon.