Veteran Beverage Festival 2018

Come join us at our family friendly competition as beverages from all over the nation – civilian and veteran crafted alike are judged by the 30 top leading Veteran influencers in the world! Oct. 13-14, 2018 in San Antonio Texas

In addition to the adult beverages there will be over 100 veteran and first responder businesses to acquaint yourself with their goods and services!

If you like Texas BBQ we’ve got a BBQ Competition benefiting Operation Phantom Support and OATH as well. Like bikes? Of course you do!

Combat Veteran Motorcycle Association, Patriot Guard Riders and any and all bikers that support our troops are invited to show off their rides! They’re even raffling a 2018 Harley Fatboy and we’re buying you three raffle tickets when you buy a VIP package for you and two friends before September 20th!

Jeepers and Classic Cars welcome too! There’s even a car show put on by Redcon-1 Car Club!

Get your event tickets now and save! Each ticket is a chance to win amazing prizes from our charities and sponsors! For more information go to https://www.facebook.com/vabevcomp and www.vabevcomp.com or email Jason Justice at info@vabevcomp.com.

arkers. Start ke? How laxation? You

r Toggl and est about how ing your ideal

ness, it’s time where you e you are right

Why do this? Well, I was tired of seeing folks in my industry getting taken advantage of in these competitions – you know the average entry fee for these is $150, some on the distilled spirits side are $600 or more per entry. What is even worse, some of these competitions aren’t exactly ran with a lot of integrity, basically if you enter your product, you also have the option to sponsor at “gold, silver or bronze” levels. Guess what your beverage happens to win when you sponsor at each level? So after speaking to several members that know what a sham some of these are and I’ve got to stress, not all of them do this, but there are some out there that do and all for a marketing tool you get for a year. There is also the issue of who the judges are, self-proclaimed experts, people that are certified in made up programs agreed upon by the majority of the industry (or some would have you think) or people that write reviews or literature for beverages. It really creates a conflict of interest with some of these competitions especially with craft beverages that aren’t always following the norm but are outstanding, however, they don’t fit in a category so they are not given the credit they deserve. The final issue is packaging contests being integrated into scoring, this is the new “hip thing” for competitions to try to differentiate themselves giving upwards of 25% of a score to packaging. So, what was your solution? I wanted to bring things I am passionate about first off, veterans, entrepreneurs and the alcohol industry. I needed an event that could do that so after several months of research and planning I decided I was going to make a unique competition for beverages – all inclusive of craft that doesn’t fall 100% into the categories that exist and have it judged by people with normal tastes. But who would care if some normal person would score them and not one our industry pundits right? So I picked veteran community leaders and company founders or owners, people that served and are also entrepreneurs. It just so happened by chance that several of the judges are also either craft beer fans, whiskey geeks and oenophiles. Then I made it affordable to even small operations at $70 for early bird and $100 regular registration and

we’ve got over 130 beverages registered so far this year. Ok, you put together the competition the way you envision it should be, then what happened?

Well, I wanted it to be inclusive of veterans, and there’s always this latent stigma about veterans with alcohol, I should know better than most people. I was a functional alcoholic for several years after my deployment, combat injuries and “integration” into civilian life working in oilfield services. Well, it got to the point that I decided I should make my own alcohol, I had been making wine for a few years and wanted to get into spirits, I dabbled in beer and wasn’t that great at it so I stuck with spirits. Really working in a highly regulated industry that has procedures and steps and routine helped me stop drinking. I know it sounds ironic but I became sober when I became a distiller, in 2017 I met George Rice and we started the Distiller Brewer & Vintner Network a place where alcohol professionals connect and I discovered something amazing. I wasn’t the only one that found peace by making alcohol, there were several veterans who had life-changing experiences by getting into the alcohol industry, it was challenging, rewarding and structured, the things we missed from military life. There is also a sort of comradery, people help each other out all the time.

Wait, so you want more people in the industry? Doesn’t that mean more competition?

Yes, I want more people in my industry! It doesn’t mean more competition necessarily. A lot of people get in thinking they know what they are doing but this industry isn’t all its cracked up to be, its cut throat and hard once you start distributing. People don’t make the money they thought they would or they miscalculate taxes. I’ve seen many an excise tax audit kill businesses in my industry. I’ve seen over-expanding kill a business, just because you won a silver medal and placed your product in 150 locations doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have an aftersales plan. Most make that big sale, spend the money on expanding to fill more orders like that only to never get another order like that because the original inventory “died” on the shelf – in other words, never

moved once it made it to those 150 locations. So this Veteran Beverage Festival kind of helps facilitate that growth and expansion by exposing products to a large demographic that resides all over the country – veterans. Veteran Beverage Festival, tell me more about that. Well it started as just an idea for a beer festival type event to go along with the competition. Each day however it seems like it’s growing into something else – its got a sanctioned BBQ competition, a Car Show, a Jeep Club meetup, a Vetpreneur (Veteran Entrepreneur) meetup, a mini-Bike Rally – I don’t know what else we can fit in there but if it compliments our mission I’ll work it in there. What IS the mission? It is more of a vision to be honest, there’s missions for each of the demographics I am catering towards. So for beverage manufacturers our mission is to provide a fair, non-pay-to-play, double blind competition and expose their winning products to the veteran community. For vendors our mission is to provide value to the public ensure good attendance so they have the opportunity to get a good return on investment. For our sponsors our mission is to take the workload of sponsorship off of them and create exposure to attendees, businesses and the public so that they receive the most value and return on investment for their support. Got it, but you mentioned a vision, what is your vision for the Veteran Alcoholic Beverage Competition?

I want people to get excited about the alcohol industry, I want people to connect and learn about it, grow their existing businesses in the industry with the exposure we provide to the veteran community. I want people thinking about starting their own businesses to look at alcohol as that option, its not as expensive as people make it out to be – I bootstrapped with $25,000, it wasn’t easy but it proves it can be done. Finally, I want people to stop viewing it with negative connotation when we’ve got an opioid epidemic and veteran suicide issues. Once a person understands the work involved and takes pride in what they are doing they will enjoy the brews of their labors and not abuse them, I know that firsthand and have seen several others with similar experiences. Is there anything else you would like to say about the event? Sure, it’s going to be unlike anything ever done before and it’s only going to get bigger and better each year. Jason Justice, owner of Justice Label Distillery is the founder and organizer of this event. Justice Label was started by Mr. Jason Justice, a Military man that had an idea. Bringing the good folks of South Texas his grandfather’s Moonshine. Fully self-funded, Veteran owned, and crafted by his own hand, this ‘shine is a labor of love. It doesn’t taste like flavored vodka like other so called “moonshines”

on the market. Whether you grab a bottle of our clear shine or one of our the great flavored shines, you will know, after the first sip, that this is real Moonshine like his grandfather made back in the day. At first you will get that great Moonshine burn, and then the corn flavor will dance in your mouth making you wonder why you never tried this before? That’s because we are the first moonshiners, whiskey and rum distillers in South Texas! With all the good fun we have in Texas why not enjoy our great state with a spirit made in it? From Amarillo, to Brownsville and El Paso to Beaumont enjoy Justice Label on your next adventure! Justice Label is South Texas Whiskey, Moonshine, Vodka and Rum HQ!! Our Shine is a family recipe that has worked its way down from the hills and hollers of West Virginia to South Texas. This isn’t your off the shelf watered down moonshine, it’s a full in your face, make you knock the dust off them boots and get to dancing Moonshine!! The strongest, most flavorful ‘shine you can get, without the law getting after you! Our Whiskey is ultra-smooth, made from 100% Texas corn grown right up the road from our location and with an added Pecan wood twist! Our Rum is made from 100% Texas grown sugar cane molasses from the Rio Grande Valley. Sign up at www.justicelabeldistillery.com today to keep up to date with products, offers and news!