Brandon Holzhueter and Brad Merten — Narwhal's Crafted

Brandon Holzhueter (0:00)

Try to change the perception of what that could be, what a frozen cocktail could be. Not a slushy, but like an actual cocktail.

Lauren Healey (0:07)

Right.

Brandon Holzhueter (0:08)

So that was pretty much kind of what we tethered to the entire time was just like, how can we do something that's unexpected and to push the limits on that.

Lauren Healey (0:17)

Big thanks to our partner SWADE Dispensary for sponsoring The Sauce Podcast. With 12 locations across Missouri, SWADE is more than a business. They're neighbors, vibe-setters, and a real part of the St. Louis community. They're all about celebrating, collaborating, and elevating their neighborhoods, SWADE style, and we've loved being partners with this team for years now.

Hello, welcome to The Sauce Podcast. I'm your host Lauren, and I am here with Brandon Holzhueter and Brad Merten of Narwhal's Crafted and they do some amazing frozen cocktails here in St. Louis. So, guys, can you just tell our listeners what you're all about?

Brad Merten (1:01)

Well, like you said, we're all about frozen cocktails, but kind of our whole premise and everything we've been built on is everything in-house, from scratch, full kitchen, you know, Narwhal's does not do food. However, we have a full kitchen dedicated to making all of our own purees, simple syrups, infusions, so when we say strawberry basil lemonade, it's real strawberries, it's real basil.

And so, yeah, just re-using real ingredients to make real frozen cocktails.

Lauren Healey (1:28)

I love it. Okay. And how long have you guys been around?

Brandon Holzhueter (1:31)

Well, we just celebrated our 10-year anniversary. So we are a decade old now.

Lauren Healey (1:37)

That's so awesome. Okay. And tell me about like how this all got started.

Brad Merten (1:42)

Oh, well.

Brandon Holzhueter (1:44)

Where do we begin?

Brad Merten (1:45)

Yeah. So what two friends don't want to open a bar together. But really, we got our start in the restaurant industry by Franchising Pickleman's Gourmet Cafe. That was how we got into business together and opened that first one in St. Louis in 2010 And we're super successful in that brand and in that operation. We opened a second one in Creve Corps, but quickly realized that the food industry obviously has its challenges and we were open late and we did delivery, we do catering, and between two stores, we had a full army of employees. And it was just a lot of bandwidth for us to take up. And being in a Franchise concept, you had your limitations and creativity, freedom and what you want to do. And we felt we kind of want to branch off and do our own concept. And we felt that craft cocktails and owning a bar, there was an opportunity there, but how can you differentiate yourself and the frozen cocktail realm was one that we saw as an opportunity and something that hadn't been really done well. And frozen cocktails have been done in New Orleans, and but they're kind of the artificial and overly sweet and the colic have and the yardstick and kind of more kitschy. And again, we felt that we could take a more thoughtful approach to what a frozen cocktail can and should be.

Taking cocktails that are known just in the cocktail world, the Manhattan, Negroni, Old Fashioned, but do it in frozen form and that also hadn't been done. So that's kind of where the idea started. And then obviously a decade later, it's evolved to a lot more.

But that was kind of where, in my basement, you know.

Brandon Holzhueter (3:33)

Yeah. Well, and to expand on that, I mean, Brad and I have known each other since middle school and we've been kind of like best friends since eighth grade.

And he was working in Columbia after college at, you know, the original Pickleman's where it started. And I had gone into like an accounting business path. But when we decided to do Pickleman's together, you know, as you said, we were really happy. That was a good thing for us. But I don't think, I think once we got to two, we were like, okay, we want to do something that's our own.

How can we take what we've learned from the Pickleman's experience and apply it to something that would be our own? And so, ultimately, you know, we just, we saw a lot of creativity in cocktails elsewhere, you know, we're post college at this point. So like, oh, there's more to more to cocktails than bottomless cup and, and Penny pictures. And as you saw, just some of the creativity that was out there with garnishes and with presentation and all these other things. And then, you know, then we go get a frozen cocktail somewhere and be like, okay, this is, it's just expected, you know? And, and so I think we wanted to try to change the perception of what that could be, like what a frozen cocktail could be. Not a slushy, but like an actual cocktail.