Gabe Jackson from The Beverage People is here today with Steve Jaxon, Mark Carpenter and Herlinda Heras. Plus, later in the show we have a phone call from Tara Nurin, from New Orleans.

The Beverage People is a retailer that has all the supplies, ingredients, equipment and instruction for home brewing and for making other foods at home, including wine, cider, mead, cheese, olive oil. Home brewing was legalized in 1979. The company started in San Rafael, as Great Fermentations then created a second location in Santa Rosa in 1980. They changed the name to The Beverage People in the mid 1980s.

They have classes on brewing, winemaking, cider making, cheesemaking, etc. They sell a beer kit for a 5-gallon batch of home brewed beer. They have brought the brewing tank to the studio, and also some hops and cold live yeast. They sell small amounts of ingredients and they pack yeast especially for 5-gallon batches. There are short and long classes all the time on all their subjects.

If you have an olive tree you can harvest the fruit and process the olives at home. You can do Greek style (the dry salt method, -ed.) or with lye. (There is also a brine process.)

Tara Nurin calls in from New Orleans, at Tales of the Cocktail. It is the biggest cocktail party and bartender convention in the world. There are seminars and parties and tastings, all for the community of people who work in the beverage business. They are actually talking about preventing sexual harassment, inclusivity, mental health and wellness in the restaurant community.