A Personal Update on What's Changing
Reflections on eight years of recipe videos and the road ahead
Eight years. That's how long I've been posting drink recipes online.
The first video went up in March 2016, filmed in my parents' garage with a $47 blender I got from Target. The lighting was terrible. I had 23 views in the first month, and 19 of those were probably me checking if the upload worked.
Things are different now. We hit 340,000 subscribers last week. The garage is gone (my parents sold that house in 2019). I work out of a small studio space in Portland that costs me $1,400 a month. I'm making some changes to how this whole thing operates.
The Recipe Archive Problem
I've been putting off dealing with this for three years. The old recipe archive on the website is a mess. 847 recipes sitting in a database that runs on software from 2014. The search function barely works. People email me every week asking why they can't find the watermelon mint cooler from 2018. I know exactly why. The tagging system I set up back then was garbage.
We're rebuilding the whole thing. My brother-in-law (he does web development for a healthcare company in Ohio) agreed to help me migrate everything to a new system. He's doing it for free, which means I owe him. The timeline is about six weeks if nothing breaks.
Video Format Changes
The 20-minute recipe videos are going away. I started making those because that's what the algorithm seemed to want in 2019. Longer watch time, more mid-roll ads, better revenue. It worked for a while. I've been looking at the retention graphs and people drop off hard around the 8-minute mark. They just want to see how to make the drink.
New videos will be 6 to 9 minutes. One drink per video. No more "5 summer cocktails you have to try" compilations. Those took forever to edit and the engagement was mediocre anyway.
I'm also cutting the intro sequence. That animated logo thing cost me $800 back in 2020 and I've been using it ever since because I felt like I had to get my money's worth. It's 14 seconds long. Nobody cares about your intro. They're already skipping it.
The Ingredient Sourcing Issue
Here's something I should have been more upfront about earlier. A lot of the specialty ingredients I use in videos are sent to me by suppliers. The high-end syrups, the imported teas, the Japanese bitters. I've always disclosed this in the description box. I know most people don't read that.
Starting next month, I'll say it out loud in the video when something was provided for free. I'm going to do more recipes with stuff you can actually find at a normal grocery store. The comments have made it clear that people get frustrated when the recipe calls for high-end specialty syrup that only one store in Brooklyn carries.
Equipment Reviews
I've avoided doing equipment reviews because that space feels crowded and kind of compromised. Every kitchen gadget channel I watch seems to love everything they review. Probably because they want to keep getting free products.
I'm going to try something different. I bought 11 different cocktail shakers with my own money over the past two months. Price range from $12 to $180. I'll post honest reviews starting in January. If something is overpriced junk, I'll say so. We'll see how that goes.
The Podcast Situation
Some of you remember I tried doing a podcast in 2021. It lasted 16 episodes. The format was me interviewing bartenders and drink creators. The production quality was fine. I ran out of guests I actually wanted to talk to. There's only so many times you can ask someone how they got into making drinks.
I'm not bringing it back. I thought about it. Decided against it. Podcasts take a lot of time and the audience overlap with my YouTube viewers was smaller than I expected. Around 2,100 people listened to the final episode. That's not nothing. It's not enough to justify the hours.
Patreon Changes
The Patreon has 1,847 members right now. When I set up the tier system in 2020, I promised monthly bonus recipes and early video access and a quarterly Q&A livestream. I've been bad at the livestreams. I did three in 2023. I did one in 2024. That's not what people signed up for.
I'm restructuring the tiers. Dropping the price on the basic tier from $5 to $3. Removing the livestream promise since I clearly can't keep it. Adding a recipe PDF archive that actually works (see earlier section about the website mess). The current Patreon members are getting an email about this tomorrow.
What's Not Changing
The upload schedule stays the same. Tuesdays and Fridays. I've missed maybe 12 uploads in eight years and most of those were when I had COVID in 2022 and couldn't taste anything for two weeks. Hard to make drink content when you can't taste.
I'm still based in Portland. I've gotten offers to move to LA for "collaboration opportunities" and I keep saying no. I like it here. My rent is reasonable. I don't need to be in a content house.
The channel is still just me. I hired an editor for six months in 2023 and it didn't work out. He wanted to add more cuts and zooms and trending sounds. I wanted the videos to look like they've always looked. We parted ways. I'm back to editing everything myself. It takes longer. I prefer it.
Timing
Most of these changes roll out in January. The website rebuild might stretch into February depending on how the migration goes. My brother-in-law has a day job and a toddler so I can't exactly demand he work faster.
I'll post updates on the community tab when there's something worth updating. Thanks for sticking around this long. Eight years is a long time. I still remember when getting 100 views on a video felt like a big deal.