Ain't life grand?
If you could, right now, “transition” away from your current job and start a new career, what would you become? A Cirque du Soleil performer? Seasonal Halloween superstore manager? Surf traction and accessories rep? If “making money” is the actual goal, it’d be hard to dismiss getting into the alcohol game. Beer brand St. Archer flipped a few years back for tens upon tens of millions of dollars. Balter, Mick Fanning, Joel Parkinson et. al.’s brainchild, flipped days ago for tens upon tens of millions of dollars.
Well, iconic surf filmmaker Taylor Steele is a smart man and switching from surf film making into tequila mastering, much like George Clooney, and let’s learn about his certain future tens upon tens of millions of dollars. Let’s tuck right into The San Diego Union-Tribune, pour some salt on our hands and ready a lime wedge.
For more than 30 years, legendary surf filmmaker Taylor Steele has been traveling the world with his career in overdrive.
But this year, the 47-year-old father of two has intentionally shifted his life into a lower gear. He moved back to North County after more than 20 years away and last month, he officially launched his Encinitas-based lifestyle brand, Solento.
A composite word that Steele says means “slow sun,” Solento reflects a new phase in his life where he’s reconnecting with old friends and taking the time to savor his environment and enjoy life more. The company’s first product is a high-end organic sipping tequila designed to be savored slowly.
“Tequila is an entry place to have a ritual experience with people,” he said of his entry into the bottled spirits industry. “It might feel like it’s a bit of a change to someone looking from the outside, but it feels very natural to me. It’s where I’m at in my space, trying to connect more.”
It was while he was living in Australia that Steele discovered artisan tequila during a trip to a family-owned agave farm in Jalisco, Mexico.
“I fell in love with the intricacies of tequila. It’s more like wine than vodka. Each harvest has a different flavor. It’s a beautiful thing,” he said.
Etc.
The piece goes on to detail how Steele hopes to grow the Solento brand beyond tequila and it is an inspiration but, back to you, to us, if we were going to get into the alcohol game together which sort should we choose?
Let’s take tequila off the table, let’s not compete directly with Taylor Steele and let’s also leave craft beers behind which leaves us with…
Scotch?
Spiced rum?
Sparkling wine?
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If we don’t get Beach Grit by Chas Smith Rosé by next year I quit life
Baiju. Super cheap. Super nasty. Gwrs you hammered after one sip. And suler profitable. Albeit smelly!
Chupa Mi Verga Pinche Cabron Tequila by BeachGrit
Lick , sip , Chupa ……
I prefer my tequila to be administered by a Mexican that puts me in a headlock, pours the nastiest kind of rotgut tequila straight from the bottle down my throat then violently shakes my head back and forth while blowing a whistle. Solrapido!
Snort the salt , shoot the tequila and squeeze the lemon / or lime juice in your eyes …. It’s Party Time !
You are too kind, sir.
Acai berry cider! Cater to all the hippies and it still tastes amazing
And potentially actual fights when slapped out of your hand!!!
I am “transitioning” currently also.
My man-boobs are coming in nicely and I’m having my wiener lopped off at Scripps Encinitas after the holidays. Maybe I’ll start playing cards in the shore break wearing a Rolex while sipping hard booze soon, too….
Your myscripps.org portal must be a fun read!
You can Scripp this ?
Hospitals, news corps, oceanography institutes, tract home developments are all part of the Scripps!
I have an excellent old family recipe for pruno. Handed down for generations.
surfing cocaine surfing alcohol surfing weed surfing meth surfing opiates
I believe some kind of Long Island iced tea concoction involving all of the above would be appropriate.
Easy – hard seltzers like white claw, although that shit’s kind of nasty…It can surely be improved.
Auntie Chas’ Triple Distilled Premium Vodka has a nice ring to it.
Surf Bro Vodka: distilled from fermented kelp with the essence of wetsuit bucket drippings and sunscreen. Made in a leaky shed behind a surfboard factory by a glasser on meth.
Meth sweat would be the secret ingredient that really makes it pop
With a just drop of essence of bootie juice .
You could substitute blue cheese in if you were wearing your booties and didn’t want to take them off.
If you can’t Roquefort ….don’t fucken come ?
In a blobby font
With a small bundle of rovings in every bottle
“So We’ll Go No More a-Roving” or so said Lord Byron .
So, the way I imagine that image is to be read is: “Drink this and you’ll get to fuck attractive women who are possibly less than half your age”.
A rather unimaginative pitch, but that’s where the money is I suppose; leached from the lowest common denominator.
And demonstrating sea level rise.
So drink up.!
The reality is one gets the attractive women to drink this and sadly they may end up with blokes twice their age ….?
That’s how I did it
Bex OO7
Seriously, lifestyle alcohol businesses are penny stock successes right now. When surfers jump on board its getting late in the game.
In the shorebreak no less
“Anton Chekhov , famously said that a gun appearing in the first act of play will inevitably be fired in the third .”
Now if we replace the gun with a coffee table than we all know that Mr Steele is asking for trouble in the shorey ?
Chekhov’s Gun!
Chekhov would Go ?
If a 10′ gun appears in the first scene in momentum 2, it will be surfed by the third Pennywise song
10‘ …. it will probably go Straight Ahead !
He actually looks young, but the girl is half his age.
She would not only not know how to play cards,she would not have the attention span.(although, this looks like it’s going to be a quick game)
I think icky is the correct term here.
Agreed, but there’s no telling whether the woman and knees pictured are attractive or not if one uses a contemporary broad definition of “attractive”.
However, if like me your attractive barometer is calibrated to “any woman, effeminate man who tricks me or even a big burly brute of a man who looks at me with bedroom eyes” then YES, gimme some of that love juice!!
Do you think it would be hypocritical of me, as a former (?) alcoholic, to attach my name to a ‘high-end’ tequila or similar?
I feel in this post-truth economy, anything can be rationalised within the generous framework of newspeak.
This includes a nobody like me ‘attaching my name’ to anything in the marketplace.
Does that translate as
The current bullshit economy?
Bull Market Genius.
Artisan, organic, non-GMO, blah blah blah. All he needs is to “curate” something and the transition to complete pompous, pretentious jackass is complete. I’m so jealous.
Beach Greeter.
Moonshine Corn Whiskey.
It’s the only true American spirit.
When you drink moonshine, it’s America you’re tasting.
I hope it tastes like the parts of Americans that have been thoroughly washed ?
North American spirit
Although feel free to expand on that
You’re right regarding North America.
But I said American, not Americas.
I love moonshine. So damn good.
Really sad picture.
I would have more respect for the guy if he just said he wanted to cash in on the market where you attach your name to a bottle.
Hopefully he can still shoot weddings while the tequila plan grows legs. Most of us momentum gen guys are on to our 2nd, 3rd efforts. Bro deal?
Pretty sure trying not to sink in the sand on that chair is harder than any surfing he’s doing these days.
Yeah, that photo’s wrong on all levels. But I think the name Solento is good..
Every man and his dog has a small scale gin refinery here these days.
But if you want a BG whisky I’ll hook you up. There’s a distillery just down the road. Then another. Then another. Then another. And so on and so on.
I’m not sure BG warrants a malt, but we could batter a blend together and market it hard.
Cuntshark whisky.
Winner.
I was hoping you’d weigh in here with real options… it’s perfect!
positive wall distillery. follow laphroigs model where every punter gets a square foot of land with every bottle purchased.
I think another suitable BG brew would the Turtle Bay Minesweeper:
“A thoughtful, handcrafted artisanal, curated blend of anything resembling alcohol, leftover after the Surfy Backslapping Awards.”
Oh, BTW. I’d be happy to help crowdfund an episode of The Grit whereby we send Chas-n-Dave a few bottles of Bucky and they go in on it hard, live on air.
We could make our own Tequila and call it R SOL ? Or a Prosecco R SOL OMIO ….
Modern VAL ladies would love your R SOL!
Cuntty Shark!
very clever
Tequila will take the edge off Taylor’s mid life crises, no worries. Next stop #vanlife
It’s where I’m at in my space, trying to connect more.” Sounds like
online dating. Does his wife know?
Cry for help
arak
Yes! The good stuff though where the methanol has not been burnt off yet.