This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features JW Wiseman, founder of non-alcoholic craft cocktail company Curious Elixirs.
Image credit: Nick Cova. JW Wiseman, founder of Curious Elixirs.
Launched in 2015, Curious Elixirs made $2.2 million in its first five years and surpassed $50 million in the last five years. The brand has served millions of customers in some of the world’s best restaurants, including Daniel and The French Laundry; in night clubs like House of Yes; and in their homes through direct-to-consumer businesses. The brand is projected to generate $176 million in revenue by 2030.
Answers have been edited for length and clarity.
What was your day job or main occupation when you started your side hustle?
Helping clean food startups like Daily Harvest and Chomps get their first million customers through my marketing firm, Good Business, along with opening a bar called The Whiskey Brooklyn and a nightclub called OUTPUT. It took about five years before we had a stable enough cash flow for me to devote full time to Curious Potions.
Related: How to Start a Side Hustle with Facebook From 4 People Who Did It and Made Over $1 Million a Year
When did you start your side hustle and where did you find the inspiration for it?
Working in nightlife and being a huge New York cocktail lover, I’ve loved hospitality for ages…and ended up drinking too much. One winter night in 2012 I had over 20 drinks and didn’t have a hangover the next day – it was scary. I changed my attitude towards alcohol and started drinking less. But I still wanted to be social and have an elevated cocktail experience – which literally did not exist at the time. That’s why I started creating it.
What we did was create sophisticated alcohol-free cocktails using the world’s best ingredients, inspired by new and old cocktails. We collaborated with bartenders, food scientists and herbalists. And Curious Elixirs was born.
Image credit: Courtesy of Curious Potions
What were some of the first steps you took to get your side hustle off the ground?
Getting busy in the kitchen, reading books about herbs, and getting a chance to make something that never existed before: a non-alcoholic craft cocktail of herbs and adaptogens to help you relax.
While working on a hibiscus negroni recipe early one Sunday morning, the name struck me—Interesting Potions—and I kept working on it until it was finally ready for testing at parties in Brooklyn and Queens.
Related: ‘Everyday Hustle’: These Friends Started Side Hustle With $2,500 Each – Snowballed Over $500,000 And Became A Multi-Million Dollar Brand
At the time, we had a hotel called the Playland Motel in Rockaway Beach, and I made the Curious Potion for opening weekend. I didn’t even label it as non-alcoholic, but people continued to drink more of it. I knew I was onto something.
To learn more about the non-alcoholic space, I sought advice from hospitality professionals while also apprenticing with food scientists. I learned how to adapt bartending craft cocktails to scale drink production with the highest quality clean label ingredients from around the world.
Related: Did Dry January Really Lift the Spirits of Soft Drink Makers?
What were the biggest challenges you faced while building your side hustle and how did you manage them?
When Curious started as a business in 2015, many non-alcoholic ingredient extracts made the drink bitter or spicy—our Curious No. 1 in gentian or Curious No. Like ancho chili at 2 – it wasn’t available yet. It takes years of effort and practice to create these extracts and mix them to make complex alcohol-free cocktails.
Another challenge was filming Shark tank In 2018 and not doing the show that owns the segment. Curious Elixirs were ahead of their time, and the Sharks didn’t realize what a huge opportunity the non-alcoholic segment would become. Although we have passed 10 years, it is still early. Back then, we often ran out of product to sell, so it’s great that it didn’t air.
Image credit: Courtesy of Curious Potions
Related: ‘I was just in a rush’: She won more than $300,000 in gifts last year — and it all started with a side hustle
How long did it take you to see consistent monthly income? How much did the side hustle earn?
Because of my experience taking Daily Harvest national, we launched the Curious Potions with a monthly subscription called the Curious Cocktail Club. People loved the drinks right away, so we had consistency from the jump, but it was small to begin with. In our first five years with Curious Elixirs, we made $2.2 million.
Interesting was also in the front, because we were to create crooked. It took five years before Curious paid me enough to work full-time… that was in January 2020.
When the pandemic hit, there were two waves of newcomers to alcohol-free options: those who quit drinking as soon as the lockdown hit, and then a second wave of people who drank heavily during quarantine and decided to do “sober curiosity.”
What does growth and revenue look like now?
The interested person turns 10 years old. We made about $176,000 our first year and are now north of eight figures in revenue at a 30% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) annually. Curious Elixirs boasts a 20.8x brand growth rate of $50 million in revenue over the past five years – all without any outside investment.
Image credit: Courtesy of Curious Potions
Related: She Started Side Hustle That Made Over $1 Million in Year 1: ‘Show Your Best Life’
What do you enjoy most about running this business?
Our mission has always been to change the way we drink socially, and it’s really accelerated in the last few years! People are realizing that life can be more fun, creative and memorable with less booze.
What is your advice to others hoping to start their own successful side hustle?
Get started today. Right now. Take five minutes and build a side hustle with small, consistent movements. And always stay interesting!