Something New and Somm-Thing You

In the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, people found creative ways to bring elements of their former public lives home. Online spaces changed the way people exercised, found entertainment, and socialized with friends. Along with making days spent at home more vibrant, they also opened the door for new business ideas.

Three Alaska entrepreneurs—Vanessa Raymond of Telesomm, Kalene Morris of Full Moon, and Cory Leicester of Charon’s Crate—each launched a businesses during the pandemic that continues to thrive. All three Alaskans were driven to keep the craft beverage sector alive by offering new ways for folks to find, know, and enjoy great drinks.

At the start of the pandemic, Vanessa Raymond of Fairbanks conceived of Telesomm—an online platform that connects wine lovers with wine professionals (sommeliers or “somms”) from around the world. Her customer base stretches across the U.S. and includes many folks in mid-sized cities like Detroit, Chicago, and Atlanta. Through her app, sommeliers can come to your house or meet you at a wine bar in your own community to provide their expertise. They can also Zoom with a group of people gathered in person, or host an entirely online tasting. The somms often provide advice for an upcoming trip to wine country, or provide a tasting flight based on a particular country for an international meal at home.

A self-described “Samoan wine lover who wanted to see herself reflected in the wines she drank,” Raymond saw the business as a way to help service industry workers still get a paycheck during pandemic shutdowns. As a remote tech worker, she recognized that service industry workers didn’t have the same flexibility she did. Raymond sought out sommeliers from diverse backgrounds to offer services on Telesomm. Many are single parents, for instance, and others may have difficulty making money in the more traditional wine industry because of their backgrounds.

Having an interest in wine wasn’t a given for Raymond, whose mother came from Western Samoa and whose father came from Massachusetts. She lived in Saudi Arabia for a time growing up, where alcohol is illegal. Her interest in wine stemmed from her lifelong love of jazz, food culture, and her prior work as a chef. Raymond liked that wine can be part of the eating and listening experience and the ritual of coming together, and it speaks to her values. “Wine is a product of agriculture and weather and people,” Raymond said. “It’s related to social justice, tribal sovereignty, climate change… Alaska comes up a lot in my role at Telesomm. It’s a great way to talk about wine, and these important issues.”

A teacher at a Catholic school in Anchorage, Kalene Morris started her syrup business, Full Moon, on a whim in summer 2021. While selling at a summer market, a representative from Value Liquor approached her and asked if she’d be interested in wholesaling. Morris decided to go for it, and she felt like she stumbled upon a relatively untouched market in Alaska. Before long, she found other wholesale partners in Anchorage as well as Fairbanks, Juneau, Sitka, and Kodiak. She also sells her syrups online, shipping them nationwide.

Full Moon sells infusion kits and sugar cubes for different cocktails, like a spicy pineapple margarita, but Morris’ all-organic syrups are the main attraction. The Turkish Coffee, Cardamom Vanilla, Jalapeno Lime, Cranberry Spice, and other kinds bring tailored and fresh flavors to cocktails and zero-proof drinks, even food. Morris notes that she loves to add her syrups to shortbread cookies, coffee, salmon or chicken, salad dressing, ice cream, and stir fries with soy sauce. She offers recipe cards too, noting that a recipe for caramel corn (the syrup is mixed with butter on the stove and then drizzled on the popcorn) is the most popular (recipe on next page).

Full Moon sources ingredients like rhubarb and mint locally, and Morris offers larger bottles to restaurants and bars to use in their drinks. She’s developed a loyal following, often selling her products as fast as she can make them. As a first-time entrepreneur, Morris is grateful for being introduced to a network of local folks making “beautiful, amazing things.” She says she didn’t anticipate “all the fun and interesting connections I could make doing this… hanging out at markets with other creative folks is really life-giving and inspiring.”

Cory Leicester says he’s been behind a bar for over two decades, first falling in love with the drinks industry in his home state of Colorado as he bartended his way through school. He came to Alaska for what was initially a two-week consulting gig for the new speakeasy inside Williwaw in Anchorage, and he ended up staying.

Leicester developed Charon’s Crate (Charon is pronounced car-in) out of necessity. He’d been revamping the cocktail menu at SubZero Microlounge in Anchorage when the pandemic hit and he saw industry-wide layoffs happen overnight. “I realized I had all my eggs in one basket. All of a sudden I found that my industry was shut down worldwide,” Leicester recalls. “Bartending used to be one of the most secure jobs since bars and restaurants were always there.”

Charon’s Crate provides customers with all the ingredients to make high end, cocktail bar quality drinks at home, including the alcohol. “You provide the tools, ice, and glass; we provide the rest,” he says. Detailed recipe cards are included in each box as well as a link to a training video that walks customers through the drink making process. The cocktail recipes are all developed by Leicester and often incorporate local businesses and guest bartenders. He and his partner, Fiona Cerny, make all the ingredients themselves. They even sous vide their syrups to control evaporation and dehydrate the garnishes.

Leicester launched Charon’s Crate in November 2021 and created monthly crates through May, when he took a break to focus on setting up the bar program for a new restaurant in town—Whisky & Ramen. Crates will be available in November 2022 for the holidays, and are currently only available for pick-up in Anchorage (he has partnered with La Bodega) since state regulations prohibit shipping alcohol to customers, but he has plans for national expansion.

Leicester says demand for his crates was high during the 2021 holidays and expects it to be so again this year. “Timelessness in the (drinks) industry isn’t the product itself, but the friendship and the social aspect driven by a cocktail or craft beer or locally produced wines. It’s in bringing people together and driving connections.”

Originally published in Issue. No. 26, Winter 2022