THE HOST

Nate Fochtman has spent more than twenty years in the trenches of the beverage world - long before “RTD” became a category and long before hemp, functional and craft innovation started rewriting the rules. He’s worked inside the system and outside of it, watching the entire landscape bend, stretch and reinvent itself in real time.

What kept him here wasn’t the trends. It was the people. The builders. The founders who mortgaged comfort for a chance to create something the world didn’t know it needed yet. The chemists who stayed in the lab until the formula finally clicked. The brewers and distillers who kept showing up on the days when no one believed in them yet.

The Ready To Drink Podcast was born from that instinct - document the real story while it’s happening, from the voices who are actually shaping it. No scripts. No sanitized PR talking points. Just honest conversations about what it takes to survive and grow in an industry that refuses to sit still.

Today, Nate sits across the table from founders, risk-takers, policy shapers, distributors, creators and the next generation of beverage entrepreneurs. His questions come from lived experience. His curiosity comes from two decades of watching brands rise, fall and reinvent themselves. His mission is simple: capture the turning points as they happen, before they become hindsight.

With more than a hundred interviews recorded and lined up across hemp THC, functional beverages, craft alcohol, CPG, retail, distribution and regulatory leadership, Nate is documenting the evolution of one of the fastest-moving beverage eras ever recorded. 

If you’re building something new in this space, Ready To Drink is where your story gets told - straight, unfiltered and in your own voice.