Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Trea Feist. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Trea, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?

I strive to leave behind for my daughter, what I never had, a future and a planned path on how to be successful. I come from humble beginnings so having a successful business that she can one day take over would complete me as a human being.

I strive to be the inspiration to other entrepreneurs who are just waiting to take the leap… TAKE THE LEAP!!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Trea Feist and I am the Founder of Dank Spirits Inc. where we are the World’s First Terpene Liquor Brand based out of Waxahachie, Tx. I am Texas born and raised, an Army Veteran and a bartender by trade, before bartending I started off as a server then a drink runner, drink expo, bar back then bartender all the way up to operations. During this time I got tired of seeing big premium brands that didn’t have premium juice (alcohol) so I wanted to do something about that.
Everyone was going after making another Tito’s brand but didnt focus on the premium suppliers who claimed to be top shelf.
Dank Vodka is the true sipping Vodka as we carbon filter out all of the grainy impurities that other brands leave for you to drink as well as continuously distilling our Vodka for up to FOUR hours after the 6x.
Dank is a clean liquor meant to be sipped on the rocks or even neat, but can make some of the best cocktails you have ever had from Margarita’s, Mojito’s, Negroni’s and even Old Fashions.
All of these recipes are available on our website at www.dankspirits.com/recipies

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I have been fired or quit almost every job I had in my younger 20s.

I have been to prison for a year for marijuana, 11 years ago.

I finally got my shit together in my mid-20s and created a plan and a path to accomplish that plan all thanks to a man by the name of Steven Turner of the US Army. Steven was my bar owner at one of the places where I was fired and then he drove 45 minutes to my house to fire me, he brought a double paycheck and the business plan to his bar. He gave me the plan and said “Only 4 sets of eyes have been on this and now 5 with you, if you haven’t started anything within 3 years, then I have failed YOU. You are not an employee, you are an owner-operator.” He went on to explain the reason I get fired from places is that I was meant to do something bigger than where I was, he saw something in me.

Keep in mind I have never taken a business class, I was in high school, in the Army then bartending, with no schooling. So I had to teach myself what this thing meant that he had so graciously entrusted to me.

I went on to get fired from a few other places over the next 2 years but had the idea for Dank shortly after he told me that at my next manager job… where I actually quit! lol
I had the idea and slept on it for about a year, and in that third year, I pulled out that 32-page plan and got to work, just replacing the bar name with Dank Vodka and a ton of google, research, printing articles and learning the trade after that!

So I had put my life together and moved on from my past and decided to complete the business plan, I found investors, I found a distillery to make my formula, and I had everything ready to go. We were scheduled to launch in April of 2020 on the 20th then out of a sudden… COVID.

So I moved back in with my mom and stepdad, barely paid myself, and tried to do whatever I could to keep myself and my company alive. I couldn’t sell my product even though our industry is considered “essential” because reps were not allowed in stores then. I couldn’t sell my product to my friends that own bars because they can barely keep the lights on and aren’t ordering any liquor.

Of course, just my luck, I’d get my shit together and of course, a pandemic would happen to a brand I had stored away for years!!

A lot of prayer and perseverance got me through the hard times, the doubt of success, and the fear of failure.

To top it off my investors backed out and I had the worst possible contract any entrepreneur would ever want to see. I had to pay back my investors at any given moment their investment plus 7% interest within 30 days or they owned all proprietary information and rights to Dank Vodka.

I could have given up several times, I was told to wait a year to launch, I could have done nothing, but I decided to do something. I went through my phone of 1,300+ contacts and evaluated and took names down one by one. 78 people I had written down who owned businesses, invested in start-ups, have a ton of $$ or were just friends who are well-networked. Out of those 78, only 1 got back to me after our second phone call, JUST ONE!!

He was my angel and said: “Trea, if you can find 1 person to invest, I’ll bring my team in and help save your company but if you can’t find anyone then why should I put mine in?!”

I asked all around for days…

Then one day my mom’s neighbor, Gary Fahs my second angel, asked how they were going and I told him I needed $100k to save my company and he said, oh yeah I got it, I wouldn’t mind at all, I believe in you”

I found angels who came in and saved me and my company and have kept us afloat since and are amazing people who teach me about business ethics, strategies, sales, building relationships, accountability, decision-making, and much much more.

Things have not been rainbows since all of this but this was one hell of a ride at the beginning stages of building my brand, there have been handfuls of roller coasters since then and will always continue to be but this one hit home. I barely made it through and was blessed to have been able to, God was definitely looking down on me and showed me my path clearly.

I truly believe that you have to be buried in order to grow.

Just because life, work, or your business is down doesn’t mean it is all downhill. Before every Hail Mary, a quarterback has to take a few steps or even 5 backward before he launches a touchdown Hail Mary pass.

Stay focused and do not let any obstacles come in your way, go get what you want and roll with the punches!

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

I met Paul, the one in the story above, and the black gentleman in the suite in the pictures presented, at a bar in Frisco Texas. This was actually the same bar where the bar owner gave me the business plan just different owners and different names, but the same location almost 3 years later. Talk about “coincidences” and just “being in the right place at the right time”, or was that destined to be?

Paul is a serial investor and was in town meeting with one of his business partners of a company he was invested in, this bar happened to be a Scotch bar called The Roots and was the biggest Scotch bar in Frisco. Paul happens to be a huge scotch guy, Scotch Old Fashioned to be exact.

Well, Paul had gone to the bathroom right when they got there and he told his partner to get him an Old Fashioned. To his surprise coming out of the bathroom he saw a tattooed white guy with flames going behind the bar as I was making a signature old fashioned I had created by doing excess bitters then burning it off, smoking the glass, and doing a flamed orange peel. So Paul ran over hollering for me to stop and what the hell I thought I was doing and I basically told him in a cunning way: “Sir, go sit back down and I’ll bring your Old Fashioned to you when I am done and, I promise if it is not the best Old Fashioned you have ever had I’ll remake it any way you would like”.

So we grinned at each other as he went outside to smoke a cigar.

As I brought him his glass he had an even more giant grin and was just eager to tell me what he does for a living and explain why he thinks he knows that I couldn’t fulfill the promise I had made. Come to find out Paul had just sold his house on 2 acres in the Virgin Islands, bought a 70ft boat, and went down to Puerto Rico but travels the world as he can work from anywhere that has wifi. Seeing as most bars have wifi and Paul loves to finish off the last hour at happy hour or most of the time the last call and enjoy a cocktail or 2. He has done this WORLDWIDE lol!

So he took a sip of my Old Fashioned and paused, then looked at me directly in the eyes, serious as can be, and said: “Damnit you weren’t lying, this is by far the best Old Fashioned I have ever had and I just told you how much I travel. How did you make it?”

After a brief explanation of the process, he said: “Why are you bartending, why aren’t you owning a business, you’re not supposed to be behind a bar your supposed to own a bar so what are you doing?”

I opened up, barely knowing the guy, and told him all about Dank and I was getting ready to start writing a business plan (and it and this was the true reason I pulled that business plan out and went for it) and it is going to be amazing bc it will be so smooth and no one in the world has ever used Terpenes. After explaining what terpenes are he was instantaneously interested and told me to call him when I was ready.

Well a year passed and I completely forgot about running into him and I had finished the business plan and was eager as a mouse to get to producing. The bar I had been working and managing for 6+ months owner wanted to invest. But come to find out he was a horrible investor who I also talked about above that tried to steal my company. This is where Paul came in because in the story above HE is the one who says “Why should I invest my money in you if you can’t find anyone to invest in you?”
Paul is the saving grace that believed in me and gave me the drive to get out there and go find investors if I wanted to see this thing go, and so I did and still do!

But that Ladies and Gentlemen is the story of how I met Paul Herbert Doucette and became best friends!

Contact Info:

• Website: [email protected]
• Instagram: [email protected]
• Facebook: [email protected]
• Linkedin: [email protected]
• Twitter: [email protected]
• Youtube: [email protected]
• Yelp: [email protected]
• Other: World Original and Award Winning Terpene Vodka Veteran Owned & Made in Texas! Zero Added Sugars Carbon Filtered Gluten Free

Image Credits
Adam Cooper Creative Customs Florida IG: @creativevustomsfl FB: @CreativeCustoms Dank Vodka IG: @DankVodka FB: @DankVodka