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The App That Lets You Buy Someone a Drink - Shared Spirits Pt. 1-6 May 28, 2026

Show notes

Sherman Mohr is co-founder and COO of Shared Spirits, and Over50Pros.

In this episode Sherman cover how wine brands fight for placement at restaurants and retail stores, how Shared Spirits works as a mobile platform for buying, sharing and redeeming drinks at restaurant partners, how Sherman's promo agency grew to 1,700 events a year doing retail wine and spirits sampling activations, the surprising reality that the average age of their best brand ambassadors is in the 50s and 60s, and Sherman's newest venture Over50Pros — a resource platform for professionals over 50 navigating career transitions.

Contact Sherman at sharedspirits.com and sherman@sharedspirits.com.

Also check out his newest adventure - over50pros.com.

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From a Library Pamphlet to $5.3 Billion: The Ernest Gallo Story May 27, 2026

Show notes

Ernest and Julio Gallo founded E. & J. Gallo Winery in Modesto, California in the fall of 1933, just after the repeal of Prohibition. Their starting capital was less than $6,000 — $5,000 of it borrowed from Ernest's mother-in-law, Teresa Franzia. Their winemaking education came from pre-Prohibition pamphlets retrieved from the basement of the Modesto Public Library. With a single tractor running back-to-back 12-hour shifts, they produced 177,000 gallons in their first year.

What the front label doesn't show: Ernest and Julio's parents died in 1933, the same year the winery was founded. Their father shot their mother, then turned the gun on himself. Ernest was 24. He never spoke about it publicly.

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Pop The Quiz: Flying Whale Edition — No Mercy, Just a Wine Quiz May 26, 2026

Show notes

Hosted by Rusty Sellers, producer of The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast and resident quizmaster of the Pop The Quiz segment

Flying Whale Edition — ten questions based on the Maba Ba interview series

Round One: Multiple Choice (5 questions)

Which African tribe inspired Flying Whale Wine? (Dogon)
Which star system did the Dogon base their belief system on? (Sirius)
Where did Maba Ba grow up? (Dakar, Senegal)
What unexpected event led him into wine? (A random meeting in Miami)
Before wine, Maba primarily worked as what? (Filmmaker)
Round Two: True or False (5 questions)
- The Flying Whale name comes from a real animal used in winemaking (False)
- Maba met his winemaking partner shortly after their first introduction (True)
- The vineyard was newly built from scratch (False — 5th generation, 100+ years old)
- His red blend was inspired by big California Cabernet wines (True)
- He believes rosé should only be enjoyed in summer (False — "that idea is ridiculous")
Scoring breakdown: 9–10 correct = locked in / 6–8 = mostly listening / 3–5 = wine in hand / 0–2 = you just liked the intro music

Rusty's closing line: "Wine isn't just about what's in the glass — it's about the story behind it. And sometimes that story involves a flying whale."

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Spirits to Second Acts: Sherman Reinventing Your Income After 50 Pt. 6 May 21, 2026

Show notes

Sherman Mohr has spent years placing brand ambassadors for spirits and wine companies — and the data kept pointing to the same thing: the best ones were over 50. That pattern sparked a new venture called Over 50 Pros (over50pros.com), a platform dedicated to helping people in that demographic understand that their experience has real market value — they just need a new narrative for delivering it.

Sherman notes that roughly 35% of all gig work in the U.S. is currently performed by workers over 50, many of whom are doing it for reasons that go beyond a paycheck — engagement, community, mental sharpness, and yes, fun. He calls them the most mentally healthy people he knows.

The wine and spirits industry itself gets a vote of confidence too: Sherman describes it as relatively recession-resilient, a good sign for anyone considering it as a career lane.

Connect with Sherman:

Shared Spirits: sharedspirits.com
Email: sherman@sharedspirits.com
Socials: @sharedspirits
New venture: over50pros.com

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Back Label - 1 Station Wagon, 1 Crazy Bet, The Birth of Oregon Wine May 20, 2026

Show notes

David Lett didn't discover the Willamette Valley — he invented it as wine country. When he arrived in 1965, Oregon was timber and berries. Nobody was planting Pinot Noir there. Nobody serious, anyway. Lett and his wife Diana set up in the Dundee Hills and did it anyway, with no roadmap, no guarantee, and no backup plan.

For years they were written off. The market wasn't interested in Oregon wine. If it wasn't French or Californian, it didn't matter. But in 1979, Lett entered his 1975 Eyrie Vineyards Pinot Noir in the Wine Olympiad in Paris — and when the results came in, his wine ranked among the best in the world. Just like that, a region nobody respected demanded a second look.

What Lett built in the Dundee Hills didn't just put Oregon on the map — it rewrote the map entirely. Today, the Willamette Valley is one of the most respected Pinot Noir regions on the planet. All because one man decided the biggest risk wasn't failure. It was listening to people who thought they already knew everything.

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Senegal to Napa: How a Filmmaker Built a Wine Brand Worth Talking About Pt. 1-5 May 19, 2026

Show notes

Maba Ba — founder of Flying Whale Wine, based in New York; originally from Dakar, Senegal; serial entrepreneur, filmmaker, WNBA enthusiast.
The Flying Whale name is rooted in the Dogon people of West Africa, whose ancient cosmology centered on the Sirius star system — they believed an amphibian being called the Nommo flew to Earth in a whale-like ship to deliver the first humans

Maba grew up in Dakar — a peninsula surrounded by the Atlantic, the westernmost point of Africa — with a lifelong connection to the ocean and whales breaching

His whale philosophy: "They keep trying to get out of the ocean and fall back in — so I gave them wings"

The wine partnership began in June 2022 at a Miami lunch meeting; by August 2022 he was in Perpignan, south of France, meeting winemaker DJ Rodriguez (flies into Barcelona, drives to meet him)

Flying Whale Gold (Red) — 2023 vintage Grenache Noir/Syrah blend; inspired by big California Cabs but crafted silkier, rounder, less tannic; meant to be enjoyed slightly chilled or with a meal; soft launched at Aspen Food & Wine, June 2025; fully launched August 2025

Flying Whale Rosé — Grenache/Syrah; fuller body, dry, strawberry/peach with citrus balance; designed as an "all season" rosé — equally at home by the fireplace or poolside

Flying Whale White Gold (in development) — a Viognier that drinks like a Chardonnay; floral nose and finish of Viognier + buttery/greasy mouthfeel of Chardonnay; inspiration struck at Miami Vine Expo

Maba's creative process: ideas come at 4–5am; keeps notebooks everywhere including bedside

Bottle design philosophy: "striking simplicity" — the medallion/coin aesthetic was designed to feel like a collector's item and a gift

Writing the tasting notes was harder than the visual design — references the Pascal quote about not having time to write a short letter

Partnership dynamic: Maba brings a beginner's mind and bigger dreams.

flyingwhalewine.com

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Wine Tech You Didn’t Know You Needed: How Shared Spirits Could Change Tasting Rooms Pt. 5 May 14, 2026

Show notes

What you’ll learn: Why Shared Spirits is built as a progressive web app (PWA)

How saving it to your home screen makes it behave like a native app

Why wineries and tasting rooms could use this tech to drive foot traffic

How drink gifting works during wine tours, proposals, and special events

Why digital gifting is now normal thanks to Amazon, Starbucks, DoorDash, and Uber Eats

How Shared Spirits uses digital signage, social media, and marketing partners

How wineries, distributors, and restaurants can reach out and get involved

The revenue model: free for consumers and restaurants, funded by supplier campaigns

How restaurants can deploy drink credits to influencers, ambassadors, and VIP patrons

The surprising stat: one bar customer spent $22,000 in a single year

Key takeaway: Shared Spirits isn’t just a drink‑gifting app — it’s a flexible hospitality tool that can expand into wineries, tasting rooms, and any venue that sells bottles or glasses.

Guest: Sherman Mohr — Co‑founder of Shared Spirits.

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Back Label - The Oldest Wine Evidence on Earth Is in a Museum — The Story Nobody Tells May 13, 2026

Show notes

In this Wine Wednesday Back Label Story, we take you to the Caucasus Mountains of the country of Georgia — home to what may be the oldest evidence of wine on earth. Clay jars called qvevri, buried in the ground and stained with 8,000-year-old grape residue, tell the story of a human relationship with wine that predates the pyramids and the Roman Empire.

But the real twist comes from the Greeks and Romans themselves. Despite building entire cultures around wine — complete with gods, poetry, and legendary philosophical drinking parties — they considered drinking wine straight a sign of barbarism. Every symposium, every gathering, every social occasion ran on wine cut with two or three parts water. Drinking it undiluted? That was something the Scythians did. Barbarians. The people you never wanted to be compared to.

So the next time you reach for a glass of water alongside your Cabernet, raise it. You're not being cautious. You're being civilized — exactly the way the ancients intended.

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The Wine That Works by the Fireplace AND by the Pool Pt. 5 May 12, 2026

Show notes

The Flying Whale rosé is a Grenache/Syrah blend — fuller body than a typical rosé, dry, with strawberry and peach fruit balanced by citrus, finished with that signature silky texture. Maba's word for his entire wine lineup so far: "silky" — it's the through-line he's chasing across every bottle. He rejects the idea of "rosé season" — he designed this wine to work year-round, from poolside in summer to fireside in winter; he calls it the "all season" wine. The third wine (White Gold) is a Viognier — inspiration struck at Miami Vine Expo after Napa tastings had him leaning toward Chardonnay. His goal: a Viognier with the floral nose and finish of a classic Viognier but the buttery, almost greasy mouthfeel of a Chardonnay — a challenge his winemaker partner initially resisted.

The partnership dynamic: Maba brings a beginner's mind and bigger dreams; his French-trained winemaker partner DJ brings deep Old World tradition — the tension is productive and fun

Maba notes that long experience can sometimes mean thinking inside a very rich box — his outside perspective is what keeps the collaboration exciting.

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How COVID Accidentally Launched a Cocktail Tech Revolution — Shared Spirits Party Pack Pt. 4 May 07, 2026

Show notes

What you’ll learn:

How Nashville’s bachelorette scene inspired the “Party Pack” model

Why Shared Spirits struggled pre‑COVID — and why everything changed afterward

How QR codes, Instacart, DoorDash, and Uber Eats trained customers for mobile transactions

Why people now trust text‑based drink gifting

How the app notifies recipients, customizes messages, and handles number masking

Why mobile‑first behavior made “buying someone a drink” digitally feel normal

How the backend logistics evolved to support campaigns, gifting, and redemption

Key takeaway: COVID didn’t just change restaurants — it changed customer behavior, paving the way for Shared Spirits to thrive.

Guest: Sherman Mohr — Co‑founder of Shared Spirits.

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