Today we’d like to introduce you to Lucas Ryden.
Hi Lucas, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’ve always loved being in the kitchen. But it was in my last year of college at UCSB, with graduation and thoughts of a desk job looming over me, that I made a conscious decision to pursue a more creative career in the food & beverage industry. I decided I would stay in Santa Barbara after school and work in bars and restaurants until I found a path that clicked.
About a year later, in 2013, I was learning to bartend and geeking out on homemade syrups and tinctures and bitters and the like when I came across shrubs for the first time. I immediately felt drawn to the flavor profile and history of these wonderful preserved syrups and began experimenting with my own recipes; it didn’t take long until I had conjured a vision of a brand that sourced seasonal produce from local farms and preserved it with vinegar and other interesting fruits and botanicals. Basically, in one bottle that you could just add to booze or seltzer water to create a delicious drink, thus making “craft” cocktails easier and more accessible to everyone. I moved home to San Diego in 2015 to turn that vision into a reality. I initially called the business Nostrum, but after a very strange and annoying trademark battle with a multinational beverage corporation, I decided to rebrand it to Cool Hand Co. in 2020, and here we are.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It hasn’t been a smooth road, but it’s been an interesting and rewarding one for sure. Soon after launching, I found myself in a legal battle with one of the largest beverage corporations on the planet. They basically muscled me into changing my brand because they owned another beverage company that had a few letters that were similar in name. Their reasons were totally stretched and arbitrary, and I have yet to meet anyone who thought they had a case against me. But I dropped out because they’re massive and they were going to bleed me dry. And that taught me an important lesson about leverage and about running a business like a ship – you have to keep your rig tight and ready for any storm, even on the clearest day. That mentality has been super useful for treading through 2020. This year has been crazy and difficult for sure, and my business has suffered due to COVID, but it’s mostly forced me to be more creative and pivot the business in certain ways, which is pretty manageable in the grand scheme. I’ve learned to hope for the best while expecting the worst. I think that’s as close to an inspirational quote as I can get these days.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Cool Hand Co?
Our mission is to engage the community in two ways. First, we want to teach folks about shrubs – about their history, the valuable role they’ve played in food and beverage history, and the valuable role they can still play in our modern world. Secondly, we want to inspire people to support local agriculture by buying ingredients from their local farms. There are some awesome farms in San Diego, but we’re a commuter city, so local farms are out of sight and out of mind for most San Diegans. Most of them are at least 30 minutes from where we live. But there are plenty of ways we can support them without living out in the sticks – through farmers’ markets, CSA boxes, and locally made products likes ours. We hope our shrubs can become a channel for people to get into that and learn more about local farms and how supporting them is vital for a healthy ecosystem and local economy.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Geographically, I think San Diego has some of the finest real estate in the country, if not the world. I’m an outdoors person, so growing up here surfing, hiking, and experiencing the landscape has been unreal. I feel very lucky to be here and am still blown away every time I see an epic sunset across the mountains or the beach. In terms of what I like least, the cost of living is getting pretty insane but I suppose that’s par for the course these days. The traffic is also pretty bad and I’m tired of getting cut off by Range Rovers on the freeway. People drive insane here, so I think we could all afford to slow down a bit in more ways than one.
Pricing:
- 8.5 0z shrubs – $16
- 17 0z shrubs – $28
Contact Info:
- Email: hello@coolhandco.com
- Website: coolhandco.com
- Instagram: coolhandco
- Facebook: coolhandco
Image Credits
Brooke Frederick Brendita Nuñez
