Bruxa was approached by the Gitcoin/Schelling Point team to have Thirsty Thirsty host a natural wine tasting at their Schelling Point Paris house, during ETH CC 2023.

Our goal became to reconnects Gitcoin House guests to the power of flavor & connection through a soulful wine party. TT and partner Rerenga Wines, voted Best Caviste in Paris by Le Fooding in 2022, curated a selection of four festive, French summer wines for up to 70 heads for a 2 hour gathering. We created a respite from the usual conference chaos, and a opportunity to bond in a meaningful way that reminded guests they're in Paris.

• Nathan, owner of Rerenga Wines, created the beautiful prompt of Community Wine: Wines interrogating the questions of ethics, inclusion and the aesthetics in search of a truly equitable wine community. He selected the wines, coordinated glassware, delivery, and presented the wines at the event.

• @Fiowl, DAO XP/Member and lead of TT's Wine Cocoon tasting series in Amsterdam in 2022, was there to host and share about our community.

• Paris hospitality locals, Clare & Dom, were the assistant Somms helping to pour the wines and work the room.

• Photographer Jainima took photos for us.

• @bruxa produced the event from afar by pulling in Parisian community and vendors, creating an ROS, laying out sequencing and to-do’s, designing tasting info cards + assets, liaising with the Gitcoin & TT team.

  ​

The Wines

• 2022 Dom. Perraud ‘Balance Ta Bulle! Gamay Beaujolais, FR

  “Isabelle Perraud’s juicy, 8% gamay rosé. Residual sugar balanced by lip smacking bubbles. 1€ per bottle goes to Paye Ton Pinard, addressing issues of sexism & harassment in the wine industry.” - Rerenga Wines

• 2021 Complemen'Terre ‘NoLem’ Melon de Bourgogne Muscadet, FR

  “Manu & Marion Landron make this creamy & enveloping Melon de Bourgogne. Briny acidity + lees-y warmth. Certified by Nature et Progrès, the most ethically rigorous of the organic certification boards.” - Rerenga Wines

• 2022 Dom. des Grottes 'Voulez-vous Hybrider avec moi?’ Hybrid Blend Beaujolais, FR

  “A blend of white & red hybrids (Solaris, Cabernet Cortis, Plantet, Seyval Blanc) planted to experiment with zero treatment farming. An alien! Dusty peachy fruit with vibrant acidity. Romain, an absolute darling and radical os championing new labor structures & polyculture. ” - Rerenga Wines

• 2022 Absurde Génie des Fleurs ‘Zmeurica’ Cinsault blend Languedoc, FR

  Tom & Miha’s 7 layer blend of Cinsault, Grenache & Mourvèdre is a deep one of brambles and blues, an homage to the mystical power of 7 and the link between earth and air. Áerian and terrestrial. Guiding lights on Southern French wines.”
  - Rerenga Wines

Hypothesis going In:

The major goal of this event was to explore a partnership with Gitcoin and connect more deeply with their community. Originally we were approached to be an F&B partner for the full house programming, but due to the Gitcoin’s token dropping scope was reduced to one tasting event. This reduced the budget and Bruxa’s ability to be onsite. We hope to explore what more robust programming could look like for Gitcoin or other communities going forward. Inspiring!

This was also a moment where we got to execute with Euro community on the ground, with Bruxa producing from afar.  

What went well:

“Even though Bruxa was organizing the event from US, the timeline & set up all worked really well. It was super clear weeks before, exactly what needed to happen and when. Even tiny details were covered making it super low stress for me,” -Fiona.

“It's a vibe. Everything looks great, and Raf’s cheese and Charcuterie is on point as well!” - Jonathan, Gitcoin Schelling Point House Lead

We were able to find an incredible TT team from within the community to execute the event vision. A professional and rad crew, who pulled off a beautiful event highlighting thought-provoking, quality wine & products. Our event had a very different atmosphere and a cozier vibe than the others days, from what we heard.

Clare was at the door to personally welcome all of the guests, which differentiated us from the start.

The crowd was very nice and from a bunch of different realms of web3. The day we hosted was great as well, since the day’s programming was focused more on Impact and consciousness. Many guests had good knowledge on wine and were interacting a lot during the pouring with Nathan. 

Event gave us good exposure to new people. QR codes helped people to connect to what we’re up to. 

We had about ~160 RSVPs on the lu.ma that was mostly by invite from Gitcoin community. We did very little promo of the event. We thought it would be pretty packed, but the atmosphere was more intimate and chill. Wine was set up in the dining room, which created various nooks for micro-communities to emerge during the event.

We got everyone paid correctly. We were pleased to have our budget proposal met asking to cover all overhead for vendors time, labor, and materials, with a 20% cut to go back to the DAO treasury. We had Gitcoin drop the funds into our Juicebox treasury, too which felt really good.

What was challenging:

With a tight 2hr window, we had hoped folks would make it on time and stay for the duration. Attendance was lower than expected. We probably had 50-70 attendees come but never all at once. The house location was challenging, in the 14th, the South of the city. Many of the events were in other parts of the city so there was a lot of leaving early or arriving later, making it difficult to create a strong container. 

Nathan and Fiona gave an intro at the top of the event, explaining who we are and what we are doing, but many missed this. Those there at the beginning got the full intro + knowledge of who we really were. 

Many people weren’t familiar with Thirsty Thirsty - pros & cons. This was a very different crowd for us, but a beautiful group, who were very engaged and leaders in the space.

Paying vendors in fiat was clunky after the event. Thirsty Thirsty LLC had to pay directly into Euro via CC. Crypto would make way easier.

It was also unclear what to expect from the space when planning. We only had the airbnb listing to go off. Fortunately Jai had been photographing the previous two nights and provided some intel about the layout and suggestions for us to improve upon it.

What did you learn:

As always, it really depends on who shows up to determine the vibe. Attendance was heavily influenced by it being an internal Gitcoin event, at the house. 

Many people weren’t familiar with Thirsty Thirsty - pro & con.

It was a lovely collaboration that we’d like to further. However, when we are one party on a roster of heavy programming there isn’t much marketing support from the main host.

Atmospherically, we had to trust significantly in the inherent atmosphere of the house since we didn’t have the budget or ability to transform it.

This was an experiment production and leaning more into catering for other companies, which left less emphasis on our ability to position our community goals.

https://thirstythirsty.mirror.xyz/h1gYZcrDSgxrqV1PD3hoWuxcoKhknziBuhXHW_T6fyw

Why a new season of membership?

• We need better money and membership orchestration.

• We need to redefine NFT utility based on Season 0 learnings.

• We want to keep experimenting in an evolved, collaborative container.

• A web3 native way for folks to contribute to the DAO and solidify their connection.

What is an onchain treasury?

Our new onchain treasury is:

• A formal set of rules that are expressed in public and changed following a collective decision making process, aka governance.

• A system to schedule & track recurring payouts.

How is this treasury supportive?

Our new treasury with Juicebox:

• Increases our transparency.

• Can connect to other project treasuries for programmatic payouts.

• Is a digital record of financial contributions from individuals & sponsors.

• Disperses ownership more fairly with $THIRSTY token than just NFTs.

How is $THIRSTY token going to be dispersed?

• All S0 holders will be airdropped $THIRSTY based on amount of ETH they originally paid.

• All Friends & Family will receive token equivalent to the value of the NFT - 0.2ETH

• Any community or individual who puts funds into the treasury will receive $THIRSTY that means they can govern the DAO's funding. This includes sponsors & strangers.

Welcome to Season 1 Membership! Our new onchain treasury allows for programmatic payouts, transparency, and makes it simpler for folks to support our build. Season 1 Membership NFTs give you priority access to our events, and our new $THIRSTY governance token lets you help sculpt how we use our treasury.

Thirsty Thirsty is a community for those desiring deep reconnection with Mother Earth through natural wine and food-centered experiences, ancestral teachings, and emergent web3 tooling. We believe that wine is a conduit for the stories of the land, people, and practices that shape it. We remember our sacred and joyful relationship with Mother Earth through thoughtfully-crafted natural wine, delicious food, ancestral agricultural teachings, and empowering experiences with nature. Web3 tooling can create transparent systems of ownership, distribution, and decentralized collective earning for proactive members of our community.

Check out this post to see what we did in Season 0, and check out photos here.

Why a new season, and why use Juicebox?

• We need better money and membership orchestration.

• We need a better system for scheduling and tracking recurring payouts.

• We need to increase the transparency of our operations.

• We need to empower and reward community leadership and decentralized production.

• We need to improve the digital record of financial contributions.

• We need to redefined utility based on Season 0 learnings.

• We need an accessible way for more folks to get involved in Governance.

• We need to lean on trusted and stable infrastructure that we can co-own as users.

About the new Season 1 NFT

Our members and partners are experts committed to cultivating Earth knowledge that we’re eager to share in web3 native ways and IRL. We are experimental web3 builders, wine & hospitality professionals, farmers and artists.

Together, we co-create Natural Wine-Centered Experiences to share Mother Earth’s lessons. As a member, you become a part of the build and enjoy access to unique ‘Frens & Family’ events at restaurant & winery locations around the world.

Our Season 1 Membership NFT:

• Cost: 0.2 ETH, unlimited

• Utility:

  • 16mm art NFT by Nathan Zack, Film Guild Community Member & Artist

  • Prioritized access to our workshops & events

  • Future TT event access/member benefits for NFT holders

Our $THIRSTY token

• Cost: 10,000 $THIRSTY per 1 ETH sent to the treasury. Any amount of ETH can be sent to the treasury, including sales from Season 1 Membership NFTs. Half of these $THIRSTY tokens (5,000) will go to the payer, the other half (5,000) will be reserved for the Thirsty Thirsty multisig for redistribution according to the standard governance process. This distribution is subject to change based on governance proposals.

• Utility:

  • Governance - vote on proposals.

• Note: $THIRSTY will be airdropped to current Season 0 NFT holders proportional to their cost, including NFTs distributed to Friends & Family without purchase.

  • 1,000 $THIRSTY to Tier 2 holders.

  • 2,000 $THIRSTY to Tier 1 holders.

Why a fungible $THIRSTY token alongside the Season 1 NFT

Anyone who contributes to our treasury, in any amount affordable to them, should help us govern our collective funds. NFT holders may get priority access to events as more substantial patrons, but all with $THIRSTY tokens are welcome to have a voice in what those funded events are.

Risks

• Juicebox is comprised of smart contracts that operate openly on Ethereum. Something unexpected could happen.

  • Keep pushing the Juicebox team to budge security and audits. We also receive voting tokens (JBX) for operating to help govern that treasury.

• Juicebox.money (the most maintained Juicebox interface) might be too complicated for some or not branded enough, for potential buyers/members.

  • Presence is required in the DAO to continue advocating for elements in our best interest.

• Two tokens adds complexity.

What the future holds…

• The ability to build other projects that connect to and programmatically payout to this foundational treasury.

• Community-led wine tastings and events.

If you are in hospitality, viniculture, farming, land protection+ and are interested in web3, please fill out this interest form here.

If you are passionate about food and wine experiences and would like host an event, let us know here.

“What’s the deal with decanting?” “Do you swirl sparkling wine in your glass or is there a different way to taste it?” Questions like these bubble up in a wine-newbie’s mind. Silently. Because what if this is a stupid question?

Hypothesis:

I come from a family where food is not a central point of conversation and recipes aren’t handed down from mother to daughter. My folks drink beer, not wine. I didn’t grow up collecting family food secrets on the sideline of the dinner table. Yet, I love food and wine against these odds.

As an adult, I started choosing quality over quantity and educating myself about how food and wine are produced. It has been a journey. “Just ask questions,” is the common recommendation. This is easier said than done when the restaurant waiter explains the special maceration techniques of your wine, when you can barely remember the word “maceration” to google later.

I know a bit about wine now. I’m familiar with Chardonnay and Syrah, about oakiness and can maneuver a menu in an elegant restaurant. I still catch myself nodding when I don’t have a clue. It feels intimidating when it shouldn’t.

There aren’t many options to learn in a group that don’t get you drunk or deplete your bank account if you aren’t a professional. I decided to organize a wine tasting with friends, but had no idea how to introduce technical wine knowledge into it.

I had to go all the way to New York City to get a connection in Amsterdam that could help make my idea happen. Enter Thirsty Thirsty: I met Bruxa in New York in June 2022 at the NFT launch event at the NFT.NYC. I loved her enthusiasm and excitement to try out things that could build out the community. With this connection my initial idea got a bit more shape. I felt it was worth a shot to ask for her help. Not only did she agree to answer our questions about wine, she also introduced me to Sauvage; a natural wine cellar in Amsterdam with a tasting room.

What we did:

Besides the general idea I had three aspects I had to find a solution for: Location, wine knowledge and wine selection. I approached the Sauvage owners, Dorian and Chad with a rough proposal (see an excerpt below).

They were keen to give it a try. Besides allowing us to use their space, they agreed to put together a selection of their wines for us (a big thank you to them for being so trusting and open-minded). Together with this and Bruxa’s knowledge at my fingertips, I felt ready to give it a first try. On October 19, 2022 we hosted the first of four wine club sessions.

Below is a summary of the implementation.

The Proposal

“There are many stories to be told about wine: about who made it, about where it came from and the season it grew in, about varieties and soil, about craftsmanship. What’s a “good wine” anyway? You might have been curious about the topic for a while but how and where do you get started?

The goal of this project is to demystify the world of wine for prospective connoisseurs; Drinkers who are likely to become wine enthusiasts. Create an opportunity to learn. If you understand something you can value it much more. I see it as an opportunity for stakeholders in the wine industry, too. To find new fans, showcase producers, and raise awareness for their work.“

The Audience

I decided to go with a soft launch within my personal network. These direct contacts were encouraged to invite people from their own network. Every session had a few new people that also I didn’t know.

Everyone considered themselves a beginner with natural wines.

We had a total of 22 participants. Besides me, one other person joined all four sessions. Two joined for three sessions. Eight joined for two sessions. Ten people joined 1 session.

The Specifics:

• 10 people (limited by the space)

• 4 sessions in a 2-3 weeks cycle (19.10.2022; 9.11.2022; 23.11.2022; 7.12.2022)

• 5-6 wines per session

• ± €30 per person per session (everything included)

• Tested different food options: e.g. bread & dips, empanadas, pizza

• Always hosted on Wednesdays, experimented with starting time: from 18.00-19.00; open-ended sessions.

• Announcements and communication via WhatsApp group, from session 2 onwards using Google Sheets for the signup process (simplification & more clarity)

Example invite:

During the evening:

• We started roughly 15 min. after starting time, to allow everyone to arrive relaxed (most people came straight from work).

• Participants helped to set up the space (setting up glasses, putting the food on trays, etc.

• Every session had new faces so we started with a little intro round:

  • Background explanation of the project, how and what I wanted to accomplish for expectation management; emphasis and encouragement to ask “stupid questions”;

  • Each participant introduced themselves (name, country of origin, how they heard about the evening/who invited them, their “relationship” with wine, 1 silly question (e.g. what do you usually eat for breakfast, what stupid question have you recently googled?, etc.)

  • Introduction of the first wine

• There was no fixed schedule or program

• Sauvage provided me with background info on the wines (name, grape variety(ies), country, winemaker, alcohol, some specifics about the production, tasting notes), some background about the wine maker, sometimes extra articles, etc.

• “Stupid questions” - post-it’s for writing down questions no participant could answer, or things we wanted to learn more about; I forwarded these questions to Bruxa on Discord; answers were shared in the following session.

What Went Well & Wrong:

This is a summary of my own perceptions and feedback I collected via a typeform after all four sessions

• 2 weeks is too often, better 1x month

  • Only 10 spots on an ever expanding group created some competitiveness for the last two sessions (first come first serve principle).

• The time frame 19.00-23.00 seems to work well (all sessions naturally came to an end around this time).

• The introduction was a great way to set the tone on the entry level of wine knowledge. It helped to make people feel comfortable.

  • Everyone had entry level wine knowledge, but were enthusiastic to learn more.

  • Every session had different characters, yet each group found its own dynamic and worked out well.

• Information transfer

  • Difficult to present written content (reading out loud a long article didn’t fit the mood); used an iPad to show infos on wine.

  • We need a better solution to bring the information to the group; previous participants didn’t hear the answer to their question because they weren’t there in the following session.

  • Need to set up a ‘Notion’-board with a Wine-101 where participants will have access to; this board can constantly be extended and altered.

  • Helpful resources and material could be incorporated (e.g. aroma wheel, key vocab).

  • Want to set up: when people sign up, folks get a first article to create a foundation and bring everyone on one level.

  • I experimented with different formats to introduce content about a specific topic:

    • Long-form articles don’t work (too formal).

    • Quiz-format worked well (needs proper preparation, maybe extra material).

    • Send written content after the session.

• In the last two sessions we included a quick “how to taste wine correctly” at the end of the introduction round.

• In a few sessions we had an extra bottle of supermarket wine from the same grape to compare; was well perceived.

• In the responses people stated that price-value ratio was very fair, but expressed overall the willingness to pay a little extra for improving the quality of the experience.

Future Visions

Lastly, I want to share some of the feedback I especially loved and give you some outlook on what could be coming next.

“I liked the diverse group of people, the nice atmosphere and the curiosity everyone had towards wine.”

“I liked the fact we could ask "silly" questions without feeling ashamed for not knowing something.”

“I liked that it allowed drinking and experiencing very different wines than what I’m used to (bc all natural!)”

“I have come to know and appreciate wine differently.”

Receiving purely positive feedback made me really happy. Surely, there are things to work on, but it seems this project hit a nerve. People are excited to join again and even requested following sessions.

For the future I’d love to incorporate more comparisons (e.g. same grapes, different area, different soil). People were excited and mind-blown by the differences. This was lovely to see. Personally I’m also very keen to hold some sessions specifically on wine pairings and dive deeper in maceration processes out there.

The time frame asks for a dinner option for the participants. It seems difficult to match one option with all wines. Ideas include to be working together with local food providers (local restaurants, catering, take aways, food startups) or to adapt the schedule, e.g. matching the food to the 3rd wine of the evening.

Do you have ideas for improvement or more questions about my experience? Feel free to contact me in the #🌷amsterdam-wine-cocoon channel on discord.

What TT did:

Launching Membership NFT

We launched our first crowdfunding membership NFT in June 2022, with the goal to give minters VIP dining experiences at top restaurants, wineries, and lands around the world. We onboarded six partners that made up Cohort 1: two restaurant groups, one chef/food studio, one Indigenous-led farm, and two winemakers.

We took this group through five sessions of education workshops led by @Cryptowitch, that filtered all of web3 to share food, bev, farming, and economic redistribution efforts happening in the space and building a case for this dining club experiment.

We worked with Rajat Parr, winemaker and cohort partner, to secure a barrel of high-end Pinot Noir from his cellar to use as a private label for TT minting. We worked with artist Marleigh Culver to make art that was used as both the membership NFT itself and as a real life label for the wine.

We offered two tiers to mint membership and had a custom smart contract built for us by @dheavy. Tier 1 membership promised access to tailored dining experiences at all participating locations + one private label bottle. Tier 2 membership offered only access to the participating locations.

Enough NFTs were minted to cover the overhead cost of the wine and pay the artist’s commission. Friends & Family Tier 2 NFTs were also issued to Cohort partners, core team contributors, past core Thirsty Thirsty contributors pre-web3 shift, and subsequent emergent contributors through April 2023.

Season 0 Launch Team:

@bruxa - founder/partnerships

@cryptowitch - education/ops

@dheavy - developer/strategy

@kim l community - community/marketing

@trian.eth - artist management/grants

Activation Footprint

1. We successfully threw eight key events led by various community members in 2022:

   • Fete launch event w/Cabin at NFT NYC

   • Creamy w/Oddfellows, She Fi, & 0xx at NFT NYC

   • Ferments w/Frothy at ETH CC Paris

   • Magic Space w/Mochi in LA

   • Farm Hang w/280 Project & Spirals + 5 other natural winemakers at SF Blockchain Week

   • Confluence w/Celo, Endaoment, HubCulture, OCN.ai, & Phocus at Art Basel Miami

   • Larder w/Cabin & Id Est Hospitality at ETH Denver ‘23

   • L8 Nite Hang w/Hey Kiddo (Id Est Hospitality) ‘23

2. Produced three activations for other DAOs:

   1. Wine tasting for Bubble in NYC led by @trian

   2. Retreat for Juicebox in Colombia during DevCon by @bruxa & @furda

   3. Wine Garden for Friends with Benefits Festival by @bruxa

3. Led a series of seven free digital wine tasting classes for our community in discord by @bruxa.

4. A community-led wine tasting club emerged in Amsterdam called Wine Cocoon at Selection Sauvage led by @fiowl.

5. A Brand Book for our community and voice was created by @erickamabrie.

6. Numerous design assets for social media and NFTs were produced by @ediciones and @adam.

7. A film guild emerged led by @cowtools and captured footage of:

   • An Intro to Thirsty Thirsty trailer was shot & produced by @cowtools.

   • Full day of Rajat Parr on the Phelan Farms property in Cambria with @cowtools

   • Full day of chef Kelly Whitaker & celeb chef Deuki Hong testing fried chicken recipes with ancestral grains in San Francisco with @nathanzack

   • A week of filming with Juicebox & Juanda during DevCon with testimonials, video podcast footage, and event footage with @furda

   • 16mm photos at Farm Hang SF & tiktok captured by @nathanzack and @empowa.

   • Full event capture at our ETH Denver events for social video creation by @empowa.

8. Through grants we were able to fund solar panels to Juanda’s project in Amazonas through @jango & Juicebox.

9. We are proud alumns of Seed Club’s Cohort 04 - @bruxa and @cryptowitch participated in the cohort leading up to launch.

Hypothesis Going In:

Our hypothesis going in was our existing community pre-web3 would be excited to join us in our new endeavor.

We thought we could be many food & bev lovers first NFT.

We thought dispersed and organic Cohort partners would make it more accessible for members who travel frequently.

We hoped partners would support promotion and proactively push the concept with us on their respective platforms with little requirement or directive from us.

We thought there’d be increasing interest in web3 building during the last Bull Market cycle.

What went well:

We accrued an incredible roster of members & collaborators who are forces in web3 or their respective industries.

We were able to pay off our major overhead.

We were able to leverage our new found web3 network to begin producing events for others and work to capture content around the exciting voices in our network.

We have a small treasury governed by a multi-sig majority to continue investing in community initiatives.

What went wrong:

• We have not had a consistent or reliable channel to communicate with our members, cohort partners, or community.

• All of the participating parties are scattered; many are highly analog and remain infrequent users of Discord where we designated as our primary place of communication.

• We could not retain our launching core team since we could not provide salaries or funds to pay adequately for their work.

• Cohort partners had little bandwidth to participate fully, particularly after the education series concluded.

• Without a liquor license from the ABC (California branch of government overseeing sales & distribution of alcohol) it is illegal to sell and distribute alcohol. Wine fulfillment was challenging and overwhelming for Tier 1 holders.

• In addition, we did not integrate a thorough redemption process after minting therefore data had to be gathered after the fact.

What did we learn:

• DAOs are hard.

• People are magical. Relationships are critical.

• Stating your needs cannot be undervalued.

• DAOs need an agile product to generate a recurring revenue stream.

• Investors were highly selective about investing in DAOs, product market fit has to be evident.

• Web3 is desperate for IRL connections of quality like TT provides

• Intimate gatherings are higher impact than large ones. Localized gatherings create community.

• We can rework our food & bev patronage idea but it needs to be lighter and simpler for folks to use and locations to implement.

• Web3 doesn’t care as much about IG.

• Folks are crazy busy during conferences, food takes the backseat, networking is the priority.

• Memes reign, TT doesn’t have a meme.

• Web3 business models should be tight, light, and meme-able.

• Web3 is like highschool. Happy we’re a community of food freaks & Earth geeks!

We’d love your feedback or love from related to any Season 0 experience you had with Thirsty Thirsty. Fill out this typeform (2mins).

Follow us: Tiktok.Instagram.Newsletter.Website.

What you did:

Community voted (Proposal 5) to fund a wine tasting for NFT NYC 2023. We focused on FLOWER wine notes and our target was ~20 heads prioritizing XPs, aka our NFT holders. We landed at Dandy Wines in South Williamsburg, with owner Lily Peachin excited to lend her time and support to host us and teach attendees. Ericka was our community lead holding space, printing assets, on site to produce the event. Eileen, a new friend of TT (hey xx) hopped in to help check people in and support too. The event went from 2:30p-4:30p.

@Adam - Digital asset design

@Empowa - Post-Event TikTok Video here.

@0xBruxa - Concept design, coordinated venue, rates, timing. Pre-production. Wine selection. Wrote & designed print asset tasting cards.

@Erickamabrie - Concept design, asset printing, production, live hosting.

Eileen - On-site support, check ins, vibes.

Hypothesis going In:

We did very light promo and got ~ 70 RSVP requests. We didn’t want it to be too big since we budgeted only 150$ to cover wine, so we approved around 30 people prioritizing XPs. Considering the tight window we hoped folks would arrive on time and be able to enjoy tasting wine together as a group while learning the methods, more of a workshop vibe that references Thirsty Thirsty’s old sequential wine tasting events but in a smaller setting.

What went well:

“Immaculate vibes” - Maya, community attendee

“It was a super nourishing time and LOVED Lily” - Ericka, Host & Core Contributor

Dandy Wine Shop was an easily accessible location and the team (Lily, Bob and Mary) were welcoming. Set up was quick. Attendees came in good spirits, ready to connect and learn. There was excitement about future Thirsty Thirsty events and widespread interest in getting more involved.

What was challenging:

Folks showed up in waves which meant a staggered tasting like a classic “in-store” wine shop tasting rather than a more community educational wine party. We want to go for something stronger, more intentional and connected that balances learning with play. Our old motto of “festive but discreetly educational” stands true.

What did you learn:

We need to create stronger communication around coming to these workshop events on time. Specifically to explain WHY being on time transforms the gathering into a stronger experience, allowing hosts to build a container and guide community through the vision/themes/flavors of the event.

The FARM HANG (SF Blockchain Week) model is what I think we should continue using for now while we are small i.e. pull funds from the DAO to cover upfront costs, but charge tickets for attendance with it being free to XPs/NFT holders.

Attendance rate for this event was 50%.

![Film by Lukas Schmiell

](https://images.mirror-media.xyz/publication-images/EYrT7BkwOgzg85eL4IBqp.jpg?height=3583&width=2395)

The following article is the start of an ongoing series that aims to explore the place and path of “ancestral wine”, navigating the intersection of culture, agricultural science, and commerce that makes ancestral wines such a core part of diaspora cultures.*

This is an attempt to translate the depth of Chinese wine in a US context, somewhere in the middle of food science and oral history.

On a hot July day in 2008, my grandmother caught a wayward snake on the cool tile floor of my family’s old apartment in the Dongshan neighborhood of Guangzhou. Grandma (nickname?) has always been a no-nonsense woman. One smooth motion was all it took; as she tells it, she grabbed the ophidian from the floor; gave it a smack against the counter to render it unconscious; and plopped it unceremoniously in a giant, brown glass filled with rice vinegar. The lid was sealed shut and shrouded with a piece of plastic wrap. Then, the urn was relegated to the kitchen cupboard closest to the family altar to Guanyin and forgotten for a decade. After graduating from Fudan, the family decamped for new shores. When they visited their old home years later, jug, snake, and snake wine were all gone. To this day, my grandmother still laments the thousands in snake wine lost when we moved from China to the States.

However, my grandmother did emigrate with her impossibly vast knowledge of agriculture and gardening. She acquired this practical wealth tilling rice patties when she was young. In her new home, she grew lush heads of lettuce; impossibly long string beans; and squash twice as large and long as my head-so green they almost glowed. In fact, her first triumphant act after the move was to painstakingly replace our new lawn with vegetable beds.

During long summers in the suburbs of New York City, my grandmother laid large pastel tubs of submerged sticky rice on the kitchen floor; large, repurposed glass jugs stationed nearby at the ready. Year after year, I’d walk downstairs to find her stepping on the rice, mashing it. Then she dumped the mash onto the kitchen island to air out. The rested mix was portioned into one of the behemoth jars. A store bought starter, imported from Shanghai, was added. Finally, she carefully wrote out a prayer from one of the sutras in sharpie on a strip of red paper. We’d heft the batch into our new cupboards. Then came the wait.

One day in the depth of each winter, I would wake up and yelp as I stepped on the ice cold floor. The door would be cracked open just enough to preview the Northeast winter that awaited during my walk to school. But, the open door was for the Ancestors who were being invited inside for a warm meal. Incense burned at the head of the kitchen table (which was actually two Ikea tables pushed together and covered with a tablecloth) and eight places were set in front of the wooden chairs. The formal tableware was out, plates that were brown at the edges with the centermost circle colorfully painted with scenes from dynasties old in bright colors; matched tiny tea cups that fit between your thumb and forefinger; small gold goblets stamped with characters for fortune, health, abundance for wine from years past. One of the wine jugs was positioned at the center of the table, surrounded by offerings of food: fried tofu, zongzi, steamed bamboo sprouts, carrot cakes made from the same sticky rice as the wine, and a whole chicken. We make sure the ancestors eat well, and drink well too, with food and wine made with our own hands to honor the sacrifices they made.

“Rice wine –no mei zou– is ubiquitous at every holiday, Western or Eastern, at funerals and visits to shrines; the drink is one of the only connectors of a family that transcends time.”

Chinese wine culture, like many cultures that fall under the new ‘ancestral wine’ movement, is borne out of fermenting whatever’s there, with whatever’s available. The result is a decadent, diverse palette of flavors that can turn from bitter to sweet within a single sip, sometimes with hints of fruitiness or spice. Borne out of the chaos of home brewing, no two batches taste exactly the same. Every family is a little different, but for mine it’s never really about drinking the wine for the sake of drinking the wine. Rice wine– no mei zou– is ubiquitous at every holiday, Western or Eastern, at funerals and visits to shrines; the drink is one of the only connectors of a family that transcends time. No mei zou is wine that both honors those who came before and made our lives possible and celebrates how we move forward. It’s also a story of knowledge lost (particularly during the bans on homebrewing imposed during the Japanese occupation) and reacquired. In the growing conversation about returning to ancestral wine practices within US food culture and writing, where does Chinese alcohol fit?

“In the growing conversation about returning to ancestral wine practices within US food culture and writing, where does Chinese alcohol fit?”

Despite a storied history, Chinese alcohol exists in something of a liminal space within the realm of ‘natural’ wine. “There are these unspoken belief systems that say one is worth more than the other,” observed Mara King, chef and author of The People’s Republic of Fermentation. “A Japanese meal is worth more than a Chinese meal. In a Japanese restaurant the ingredients are high quality; at a Chinese restaurant, the ingredients are low quality. We have these expectations in the United States of Asian food because of the exposure in this [US] country.”

King outlined three main factors contributing to widespread adoption: commercial availability, local production, and connoisseurship. When comparing the rise of Japanese and Chinese food in the United States, for instance, Japanese food and wine “came up” in the food world at approximately the same time, and as a result disseminated at approximately the same time. Sushi bars become ubiquitous, with sushi itself also becoming available at supermarkets, and sake production in the United States, for the the United States market, becomes more widespread, particularly in Portland and San Francisco: this also allows for the rise of connoisseurship, of sake pairings becoming as normalized as wine pairings. Mara also notes that sake, despite also being made from rice, tends to have a less varied note than Chinese baijiu, and could be more aligned with the Western palette for this reason. Baijiu, though, has so much nuance to it in its own right: umami palettes, savory and salty, at times even sweet and citrus-y notes mixed in with the above. “There’s a lot that’s really ‘foreign,’ and it takes something of an education for people to appreciate it.”

The story of this richness begins with mold: unlike other types of alcohol brewed with rice, like soju and sake, baijiu uses wild fermentation instead of dealing with more pure cultures. “Mold based fermentation has a long history in China,” Mara says. Some factories that produce it have been using the same cultures for over 400 years, with the earliest written recipes for such spontaneous fermentation dating back at least 2,750 years.

Even within the baijiu umbrella, diversity abounds: all in all, there are eleven formally classified forms based on four primary flavor types: maotai flavored to strong (or Luzhou) flavored, light, and rice flavored. Just as China’s food culture varies widely depending on the region, with local food being as much of a fingerprint of where one is from as dialect,  baijiu is divided into different types based on production area, process, starter type, and the resulting flavor. Two fermentation processes are typically involved – jiuqu making and baijiu making. Jiuqu refers to the starter for the fermentation – the raw materials, microflora, enzymes and aromas that ultimately create the flavor profile. The latter refers to the alcoholic fermentation process. Because of the semi-controlled environment, it’s difficult to generalize a single process for its production: more than 2,400 chemicals have been identified that contribute to baijiu’s flavor to date, and the “tastemaking” process of categorizing such flavors is still in its earliest stages.

“Even today, in industrial factories producing baijiu and other fermented foods that are staples in the Chinese diet, wild fermentation is the norm for how mold is grown.”

Even today, in industrial factories producing baijiu and other fermented foods that are staples in the Chinese diet, wild fermentation is the norm for how mold is grown. A state-sponsored factory in Sichuan province making doubanjiang features an entire football fields’ worth of fermentation happening simultaneously, all with the same wild cultures. There still isn’t any consensus on what exactly causes the spontaneous fermentation – it could be the space that has been used multiple times, or the people and place; perhaps this brand of mold is native to Sichuan.

Further, it would be remiss to equate all of Chinese alcohol culture to baijiu, despite the wine’s diversity. The practice of homebrewing wine in a combination of reptiles, shochu, a concentrated mixture distilled from rice that’s around 40% alcohol, is also fairly common and informal.

Summers where we went back to Guangzhou always involved, at some point, a visit to my family’s old village, where my great grandmother is buried. The sun is so hot I half expect my back to melt off. The climb begins by crossing a concrete bridge over a small, muddy, creek to access a path upwards that runs – perilously slippery and steep – next to a former neighbor’s paddy field. Then it’s upwards across a dirt path that spirals upwards through sharp grass that used to leave cuts across my forearms when I was shorter, grabbing exposed roots as handholds to cross the steepest parts. A few other small shrines are scattered here and there along the path, well trodden. Then, across a grassy knoll, we’re there– a large concrete monument for tai tai flanked by two clay ovens for burning offerings, usually money and large gold pieces my grandmother has folded herself out of gold paper from a Chinese supermarket in Brooklyn. The wine has made it too, thanks to the stamina of my uncle, this time bought from an old friend of my grandmothers’ who runs a local tea store. The village stretches far below, almost imperceptible between the trees– classic Chinese architecture, a combination of wooden and concrete walls and paved courtyards standing behind wet fields of rice; trying to catch a bit of a breeze, with the fire adding to the humidity, we pour some out in a line directly onto the memorial, and set out three cups to honor her memory.

As much as agricultural practices, cultural and informal production practices shape how foodways operate and are important in discussions on how they’re made more sustainable. “I think there’s this really interesting natural and karmic thing that’s going on with these cultures, many of whom are incredibly long standing. In China, these cultures are very much alive. People ferment their own rice alcohol in villages all over China everyday: the alcohol culture is still very much intact in that country. But when you look at other countries that have literally become part of the Japanese empire, you can see how much the alcohol culture has been disrupted.”

“People recognize that power comes from being able to control [alcohol production]. That power was held by monks, religious organizations, or by the government throughout history – it has been less in the hands of the people. It is still illegal today to homebrew alcohol in Japan.” - Mara King

In Taiwan and Korea, Mara explains, it became illegal to homebrew alcohol in the years around 1911 – when Taiwan first became a Japanese colony – to around 2011. (The law was only changed so people could make beer). In Korea, between the 1930s and the late 1990s, homebrewing was also made illegal. “I think it’s really fascinating to see how one culture can control another, and alcohol production in Japan has always been really controlled: people recognize that power comes from being able to control it. That power was held by monks, religious organizations, or by the government throughout history – it has been less in the hands of the people. It is still illegal today to homebrew alcohol in Japan.”

The homebrewing practices that are core to the experience of Chinese alcohol culture provide a more pluralistic engagement with the food system. “There are a lot of similarities [to Japan] in the USA where alcohol production is also controlled by the government. Why would the government want to strictly control alcohol production? Is it a way of controlling human beings? Is it a way of controlling money? Wherever you find that people have a long enough history of that [alcohol production] being a skill they just come into life with, though, you can see in those spaces more robust agricultural food systems, because the government is not controlling this one major aspect of the food system. It's such a natural thing - you grow grapes, you make wine, you have wine, you enjoy wine. That is an important part of being in an agronomic situation. For one reason or another, if governments intervene and begin controlling the agronomics, it takes the human beings out of the system. Human beings are losing the knowledge, the practice– it takes years and years to become a master, because there's so many subtle variations to how you can go about doing things. By controlling the systems of production, you take the people out of the equation, you remove them literally from the natural world and how they would interact with that space.”

When exploring the world of Chinese wine, then, in some ways it's even harder to separate the final product from the people and places that made it, given how ingrained it is in cultural rituals. Chinese wine and alcohol culture has been given an unprecedented amount of leeway to evolve organically through a combination of formal and homebrewing processes tied together by the common practice of wild fermentation that makes each result unique and worthy of consideration. It’s also a challenge to the image of what one conventionally thinks of as “natural” wine. As Mara articulates, in the beginning all wine was natural, a way of engaging directly with food systems and a crucial part of how humans interact with foodways. As the movement continues to evolve as the culture is carried around the world through the diaspora, perhaps this relationship could also play a role in deconstructing how foodways have been designed in modern food systems and who they benefit, integrating the formal and informal labor and cultural elements that make up “natural” wine into broader conversations about the its relationship to agriculture and food science.

The Current State of Climate Change and Cryptocurrency

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in September warned that cryptocurrency mining operations could hinder the country’s ability to mitigate climate change due to their necessity to be powered by our current electricity grid. However the recent Ethereum blockchain upgrade promises to enhance the network and reduce energy consumption. It’s been proven that proof-of-stake consensus mechanisms are more environmentally friendly than proof-of-work consensus mechanisms.

So what’s next? We’ve only just begun to uncover the power of what cryptocurrency can do and accomplish. In its current state people are wondering how do we get out of the energy crisis we are in a sustainable / non extractive way and work with young and earth conscious investors towards a regenerative financial market and energy market for a better future.

After just recently attending COP27 in Egypt we’d like to note key takeaways and issues discussed at the conference.

• Loss and Damage – The urgent need for a new fund to help countries deal with the immediate impacts of climate change. Rich countries have resisted this discussion for 30 years, fearing that since they played a major role in causing climate change, they will have to pay for it for centuries to come.

• Phasing Out vs. Phasing Down Fossil Fuels – Richer countries wanted to phase out the use of the most polluting fossil fuel. Larger developing economies including India and China did not. They settled on “phasing down” rather than “phasing out”. This was highly disappointing as fossil fuels are the biggest contributor to climate change.

• Keep 1.5 Alive – A rise of 1.5C is viewed by scientists as the threshold to very dangerous levels of warming – but there has been considerable worry here that the commitment to the idea would be watered down, especially as India and China were concerned it was no longer scientifically feasible. How can we modify and evolve the current power-grid to more sustainably support our energy needs?

• Nature Based Solutions - countries agreed to support and invest in regenerating nature based solutions parties are “encouraged, as appropriate, to consider nature-based solutions or ecosystem-based approaches” in their climate adaptation and social sustainability plans.

Key Event Takeaways:

• Supporting Regenerative Finance / ReFi - a movement towards a more equitable distribution of crypto-wealth to projects working to make a positive impact on our planet

• Collaboration + Community - continuing to connect people and resources to further climate tech and solutions through decentralized financial systems.

• Re-centering and Prioritizing Indigenous and Ancestral Wisdom - an essential aspect to re-rooting ourselves and falling in love with the Earth again, to revere Earth's natural elements, manifestations, and creatures as sacred, and to return to peaceful co-existence and respect for all life.

Mint to Support Regenerative Earth & Ocean Work

Grateful to these epic artists for donating climate consciousness inspired NFT pieces with funds going to support our Regenerative Ag work on land and OCN’s mission underwater.

**Future Nature by @yasly **50 generative noise paintings focusing on finding moments where conflicting systems overlap. Mint now ~

https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0x177C9599b1Fd1aF66009393a6C9Fc8d91a64F672/1

, … keyb0ardi3s by **@fabiolaio **E-waste interpolating crashing between keyboards and circuits in metal ocean waves. Machine Learning model trained in e-waste landfills. Mint here.

https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xa19Aaf1A3CdC0be38920CB1c348313b8d11EDD8A/1

AI Alignment #1 by **@moisesdsanabria **AI agents and humans holidng hands around the planet earth living together in cybernetic harmony.** **The artwork is a custom Stable Diffusion model creating fluid dreamlike interpolations depicting the idea of peace in the age of Artificial General Intelligence. Mint now.

https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0xF826A4dca21B1f0774798308136E6a6E434Dc482/1

These art pieces were created as a container to highlight projects in the web3 space that can be supportive to climate thinkers & activists, and challenge trends in web3 that don't make for holistic futures. You can learn more about them on Juicebox.

Event Resources:

The Antrhopocene - an unofficial unit of geologic time, used to describe the most recent period in Earth’s history when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems

**Superflux’s A more than human manifesto** - bringing together fifteen creatives across various disciplines to propose ideas that can change the world over the next fifteen years.

Ecopsychology & the Anima Mundi - Ecopsychology draws us away from the mind-body split, and instead embraces an ancient concept popularized in Greek classical thought: the Anima Mundi, translated from Latin as the soul of the world.

Panelist Resources:

”The regenerative finance movement in web3 offers hope to both the climate conscious and the crypto-curious. At the intersection of these two unlikely worlds lies an ecosystem of innovation and experimentation that is discovering answers to one of humanity’s most important quests: How do we redesign money and heal the earth?”

Some of the climate and crypto projects that most inspire me are Kolektivo, Spirals, GreenPill, and EthicHub. - Nikhil Raghuveera, Founder of Celo Foundation

**Klima Dao https://www.klimadao.finance/ - **fight climate change and earn rewards with KLIMA, a digital currency backed by real carbon assets.

**Endaoment https://endaoment.org/ - **an organization that manages and encourage the charitable giving of digital assets.

**Celo Ecosystem https://celo.org/ - **building financial systems that creates the conditions for prosperity—for everyone.

**ReFi Podcast https://refipodcast.podbean.com/ **- How do we redesign money and heal the earth?

What are some of the dimensions beyond taste and nutrition that we can use to describe the value of food? What makes for a truly rich food?

Before answering those questions, let me first share a personal story about a favorite food of mine. It’s a food that I believe is among the most valuable foods on Earth!

Backstory: My History With Ethiopian food

I grew up in Rhode Island, in a family that would rarely go out for dinner.

My father, who immigrated to the US from Italy as a teenager, did all the cooking at home. This meant that six out of seven nights a week we’d eat pasta for dinner. And, if we went out for dinner, it was usually to an Italian restaurant on Federal Hill, Providence’s Little Italy.

So it was unlikely that I would be exposed to Ethiopian food at an early age.

But I had an older cousin who lived in Boston. An adventurous college student, she invited us out for Ethiopian food one night.

I was probably only seven or eight years old, but I remember the experience vividly. The restaurant was dim and spacious. We sat on the floor, surrounding a large basket that served as our table. The food was like nothing I’d experienced before -- rich, full of unfamiliar flavors and textures. We ate with our hands.

It felt like a celebration, an occasion centered on the food, which we all partook in as equals; not an occasion centered on grown-up talk with a kid’s meal and placemat for me to draw on.

I’m assuming what we ate was beyaynetu.

If you’ve ever had Ethiopian food before, then you’ve most likely had beyaynetu. It’s a colorful spread of different vegetarian sauces served on a large roll of injera.

This is what it looks like.

We went to the Ethiopian restaurant in Boston a handful of times after that. If we were going to Boston, that was my one request. It was something I looked forward to for days in advance.

In middle school, I created a kid’s cookbook that included a recipe for injera in it. As I got older and became more independent, I sought out Ethiopian food whenever I had the chance.

In 2007, I visited Ethiopia for the first time. I would go on to live in Addis Ababa from 2008-2013. I still travel to Ethiopia often, and seek out Ethiopian food whenever I’m exploring a new city with a large Ethiopian diaspora.

The Eight Forms of Capital

I recently learned of a concept called the “Eight Forms of Capital”. It provides some new language for thinking about the value of things.

The idea was first published in a blog post on AppleSeed Permaculture by Gregory Landua and Ethan Roland.

The Eight Forms of Capital are:

• Social capital, such as influence and connections.

• Material capital, non-living physical objects, both raw and processed

• Financial capital, currencies and other tools of the global financial system

• Living capital, living beings including plants, animals, and soil

• Intellectual capital, knowledge learned from a book or school

• Experiential capital, knowledge gained by doing

• Cultural capital, shared knowledge of a community

• Spiritual capital, religion, spirituality, or other means of connection

The most important takeaway is that there’s more than just financial capital. Even in your food.

Ethiopian food -- and beyaynetu in particular -- is rich in all eight forms of capital. I think this is what has captivated me about it ever since childhood.

Here’s what I mean.

1. Social

At meals in Ethiopia, everyone gathers round and eats off of the same spread. It doesn’t matter if you are lifelong friends or new acquaintances.

People feed each other (”gursha”). With their hands. It’s a sign of unity and togetherness.

https://twitter.com/ObangMetho/status/1172593051702910976/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1172593051702910976%7Ctwgr%5E36ec0dab2c0445ba17a56861e1cf230dcb35a73e%7Ctwcon%5Es1\_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmirror.xyz%2Fcerv1.eth%2Fjpe5NGhHDL-1JjtY2jE0MYbc055cfP-138jDBhZ2Z9A

2. Material

Ethiopian stews (a.k.a wots) are cooked in clay pots.

There are no plates or silverware -- just injera, which you eat, and your hands. There are no napkins -- water is brought to you before and after eating to clean.

3. Financial

Yes, you can purchase Ethiopian food with money at a restaurant. However, it will never taste as good as a home-cooked meal.

Beyaynetu is a staple food eaten by the rich and poor, peasants and emperors.

4. Living

Injera is made from teff, a lovegrass native to Ethiopia.

Farmers grow teff in rotation with lentils & split-peas, which are nitrogen-fixing. They take advantage of bacteria already in the soil to capture nitrogen from the air -- essentially making their own fertilizer.

5. Intellectual

A typical Ethiopian spread is full of kale, collard greens, carrots, lentils, and split-peas. These foods are rich in brain-healthy nutrients like vitamin K, lutein, folate, and beta carotene.

Plus, the darker the injera is, the more iron it has in it. Ethiopian food is good for your brain and your body.

It also carries deep ancestral wisdom. Recipes have been passed on for generations. There are no cooking schools. There is only learning as an apprentice.

“Individual family matriarchs would experiment and add their own unique additions to their spice blends, tweak recipes and techniques, perfecting them through the years.”

--Tsehai Fessehatsion

Methods for fermenting and baking injera, for cooking and seasoning the stews, maintain a close connection to the land and reflect the unique constraints and gifts of the Ethiopian highlands.

3. Experiential

Ethiopians give great attention to the experience around the meal.

At feasts and holidays, people wear traditional clothes, dance. They sit on traditional 3-legged stools, eat off woven baskets.

Meals are completed with fresh coffee, roasted on the spot.

7. Spiritual

Ethiopia is a pluralist nation with different religions and ethnic groups all sharing the same food. “National” food has the same meaning anywhere you go, regardless of other regional specialties.

Beyaynetu is halal, kosher, & “fasting”. Fasting is what Ethiopian Orthodox Christians call food that is free from animal products, effectively vegan food. Orthodox Christians are expected to fast for ~180 days, including the lent period before Easter and on Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year.

https://twitter.com/MarcusCooks/status/1039999666933256192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1039999666933256192%7Ctwgr%5E36ec0dab2c0445ba17a56861e1cf230dcb35a73e%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmirror.xyz%2Fcerv1.eth%2Fjpe5NGhHDL-1JjtY2jE0MYbc055cfP-138jDBhZ2Z9A

8. Cultural

Eating Ethiopian food is a celebration of Ethiopian culture & heritage.

Sharing a meal - and receiving a “gursha” (someone else feeding you) - is the most important induction into Ethiopian culture.

The most famous Ethiopian restaurant in Addis Ababa, Yod Abyssinia, bills itself as a “cultural restaurant”. It fills up each night with families, friends, tourists, office workers, and partygoers looking for much more than a good meal.

Seeing the Eight Forms of Capital Everywhere

Once I grokked the Eight Forms of Capital, I started looking at everyday objects in a new light.

“Much of our food system depends on our not knowing much about it, beyond the price disclosed by the checkout scanner; cheapness and ignorance are mutually reinforcing.”

-- Michael Pollan

White bread, for example, may be rich in financial capital: it’s cheap to consume and profitable to produce. But it is exceedingly poor in other forms of capital.

When we only prioritize financial capital, we miss out on the richness of ancestral wisdom and culture. We neglect the living and material connections to our food.

Natural wine, on the other hand, is rich in all forms of capital. Each producer, each vintage offers a wealth of latent value. No two wines are alike. And this value manifests in an equally rich range of settings and contexts at the time of consumption. Sometimes an occasion calls for a specific wine and sometimes a wine calls for a specific occasion.

These are the types of foods we need to seek out and create more of. We need much more than financial capital in our world to make us healthy and whole. We need foods that regenerate our land, our bodies, and our communities.

I encourage you to reflect on that the next time you eat a meal -- and to share it with the people sitting next to you.

Author’s Bio: Carl is a startup operator and DAO contributor based in New York. He is an early supporter of ThirstyThirsty, but tends to drink way more coffee than wine these days. He lived in East Africa for 10 years, including 5 years in Ethiopia, where he worked with smallholder farmers to form cooperatives and adopt regenerative agricultural practices. You can view more of his writing at carlcervone.com.

A big thank you to Carl for sharing this story and energy to inspire us!

We’re launching our first crowdfunding membership NFT, which transforms you into ‘Frens & Family’ at top restaurants, wineries, and lands around the world.

Thirsty Thirsty is a remembrance project disguised as the coolest food and wine membership DAO on earth. We welcome hospitality, farmers, and land protectors into web3 and they offer incredible restaurant and winery experiences back to our Members. Wine, food, and travel are joy. Ancestral stories are our medicine.

Why?

1. Thirsty Thirsty will be web3’s hospitality plug. Our partners are industry legends and leaders. Look to TT to dine right!

2. Thirsty Thirsty has proven success in web2 cosmopolitan environments. We want to experiment with what we’ve built, in a web3 setting.

3. Web3 brings our communities together to create a circular economy that creates financial options. We create a more resilient store of value together, in a scalable way.

4. Our communities hold Ancestral Wisdom that is essential to inform our future, and our future is web3.

About the NFT

We educate hospitality, farmers and land protectors about web3 technology. Together, we co-create epic dining experiences that nourish our Members on all dimensions. As a member you transform into ‘Frens & Family’ at all of our nodes. Each location becomes your TT club house.

TT Partnership offerings:

Assembly Hospitality (Austin, TX) Offering: Bespoke XP* experiences that vary visit by visit at Comedor and Garage. Experiences can look like:

• Off menu dishes and beverage pairings

• Learn with Head Chef Philip Speer

• Cooking classes

• Farm tours

• And more at all future locations

• Supercharge your XP status to unlock the more you visit

*XP = Extraordinary Patron

Édiciones (New York, NY) Offering: Producing our NFT NYC Launch Event, Private Chef access for TT members

Id Est Hospitality (Denver & Boulder, CO) Offering: Bespoke XP experiences that vary visit by visit at The Wolf’s Tailor, Bruto, Basta, and Dry Storage. Experiences can look like:

• Off menu dishes and beverage pairings

• Learn with head Chef Micheal Diaz de Leon

• Off menu beverage pairings

• Fermentation classes

• Cellar and Mill tours

• Cooking classes

• Supercharge your XP status to unlock the more you visit

Rajat Parr of Phelan Farm (Central Coast, CA) Offering: Collector Pinot Noir exclusive for Thirsty Thirsty’s 1st NFT, Winery visits and tastings at Phelan Farm with wine icon Rajat Parr, Work in the Vines

Two Eighty Project (San Francisco, CA) Offering: Filoli Manor Vineyard Visits, food tour with Chris around SF

• Visit and learn about Two Eighty Projects rare hybrid vineyards at the iconique 650 acre property and manor

Yanawi (Juanda)(Jungle, Amazonas) Offering: Digital workshops with Amazonas Elders, Cermonial experiences in Amazonas, Indigenous Jungle Foodways cooking experiences

Grab our NFT at two price tiers:

Tier 1

• Supply: 270 at 0.4 ETH

• Utility:

  • 1 bottle of Collector Pinot Noir EXCLUSIVE to Thirsty Thirsty, made by Phalen Farm (Rajat Parr) + NFT art by Marleigh Culver as the wine label

  • Fine art NFT by Marleigh Culver

  • Launch Party access to our NFT NYC lunch

  • VIP dining access at top restaurants and bakeries

  • VIP Winery access

  • VIP Private Chef access

  • Digital workshops and healings

  • First access to TT travel experiences (ex: Harvest Experience, Ceremony in Amazonas)

  • Future TT event access/member benefits for NFT holders

  • Supercharge your XP status to unlock the more you visit

Tier 2

• Supply: 518 at 0.2 ETH

• Utility:

  • Fine art NFT by Marleigh Culver

  • Launch Party access to our NFT NYC lunch

  • VIP dining access at top restaurants and bakeries

  • VIP Winery access

  • VIP Private Chef access

  • Digital workshops and healings

  • First access to TT travel experiences (ex: Harvest Experience, Ceremony in Amazonas)

  • Future TT event access/member benefits for NFT holders

  • Supercharge your XP status to unlock the more you visit

A percentage of all NFT proceeds will go to support our Indigenous partner Yanawi in unceded Amazonas.

What the future holds…

Since starting Thirsty Thirsty in 2013 we have created countless events, workshops, cellar consultations, built wine lists, a wine club, and roamed in vineyards in 13 countries.

Today, TT has morphed to leverage web3 tooling to celebrate Mother Earth with our inspiring network already doing the work.

We have already begun conversations with folks for Cohort 2. We are committed to continually bring new, epic, and nourishing experiences to our Members on all dimensions. We hope you come along for the ride; this is just the beginning.

If you are in hospitality, viniculture, farming, land protection or something adjacent and are interested in being a part of our future cohorts, please fill out this interest form here.

If you are passionate about food and wine experiences and would like to see an establishment in a future cohort, let us know here.

Call to Adventure

Thirsty Thirsty is an ancestral remembrance project disguised as the coolest food and wine club on Earth. Through celebrating ancestral agricultural lineages, we regenerate the planet and our interconnectedness – deliciously. 

What is Ancestral Agriculture?

We use ancestral agriculture as a catch-all term for agricultural practices that include organic, biodynamic, and regenerative farming while championing oral, cross-cultural, and Indigenous farming techniques passed through people. 

From Natural Wine Club to Regenerative Gatherings

Alexis founded Thirsty Thirsty in 2013 as a playful side project in Lyon, France. Over the course of nine years, TT transitioned from intimate wine gatherings to pop-up wine bars and large guided tasting events to corporate education and consulting across the United States. TT’s most recent pre-web3 project was a natural wine club supported by friends helen’s in Los Angeles.

In 2020, it became clear that TT must root this work in intersectional environmentalism and reconnect food and wine consumption with the people who tend the land. 

Five percent of the earth’s population is Indigenous, and yet these communities protect 86% of the earth’s biodiversity. As food and wine lovers, we have the opportunity to be active participants in protecting our global ecosystem by amplifying Indigenous wisdom and celebrating ancestral agriculture. Similarly, hospitality leaders, farmers, and winemakers are deeply connected to land protectors. Archiving land stories and global farming techniques can help restore reverence for Mother Earth. 

Today, Thirsty Thirsty educates hospitality leaders, farmers, and land protectors about web3 through our Thirsty Thirsty Cohorts. In return, we co-create epic dining experiences that nourish our community members. Members luxuriate in these experiences while building relationships with the inspiring people behind their food, and connecting with our planet’s deep knowledge. TL;DR: Reveling in epic culinary adventures together reinforces our connection to our food, each other, and the earth.

Meet Our Inaugural Cohort

We’re excited to announce our inaugural Thirsty Thirsty Cohort. Each of these groups and individuals demonstrates a commitment to ancestral agricultural methods. We’re excited to onboard these Cohort members to web3, and to co-create delicious culinary experiences for TT members. 

• Assembly/Comedor is a prominent force in the Austin hospitality scene. Their team has made impact by sourcing from small-scale, sustainable farmers around Austin. During the pandemic they shifted to direct-to-consumer produce boxes accompanied by dynamic chef-led cooking videos unlocking a whole new world for food.

• Édiciones is a queer food studio based in NYC. They are known for throwing food parties that weave Latinx heritage and queer culture, a party oasis. They are also committed to food sovereignty work in Brooklyn.

• Id Est Hospitality is the restaurant group in Denver and Boulder Colorado. They have four critically acclaimed restaurants and a mill focused on ancestral grains. They are already involved in Blue Carbon sequestration efforts and support a major network of small farmers across Colorado. They are also a zero waste food program and known for fermentation wisdom. A Slow Food domestic reference!

• Two Eighty Project is a winery in San Francisco with extensive sommelier and fine dining backgrounds, who has made major impact in the wine world as a critical voice for black winemaking in California and land access. They work to create food sovereignty for the hood, and have begun farming scholarship opportunities with other major wineries in Northern California.

• Rajat Parr of Phelan Farm in Central Coast CA is one of the most revered wine voices in the world. After a glittering sommelier career in San Francisco, he has committed himself to regenerative farming. Raj explores blending Ancestral farming techniques from his Indian heritage with inspiring grape cuttings from reference winemakers in the Jura.

• Our Indigenous partner Yanawi (Juanda), is an Indigenous leader in the unceded Colombian Amazonas. He and his community are building a restaurant and community center for cultural revival. He hopes to archive food ways, elder wisdom, and make being Indigenous cool for the youth.

Team

TT is led by Femmes & BIPOC2+ storytellers, artists, eternal students, and parents dedicated to the longevity of Mother Earth and people living in reciprocity.

Alexis Founder and Partnerships. She is a child of Brazilian Indigenous, Portuguese and adopted Jewish ancestors. She founded Thirsty Thirsty in 2014, offering a natural wine focused wine club, events, and consulting. She has worked in the global food and wine industry since 2009, focusing on natural wine importing, distribution, and generative farming with growers in thirteen countries. She holds a WSET Level 3 accreditation with Distinction. Twitter: @0xbruxa

Cryptowitch Education and Operations. A crypto educator and founder of 0xx, focused on educating women and underserved communities about web3. Previously she worked for two decades in the wine and wellness worlds. She holds a M.A from New York University in Food Studies, focusing on the relationship between food & conflict. @cryptowitch6

Davy Head Developer and Tech Strategy. Davy Braun is an independent consultant working as a strategist, sometimes UX designer, oftentimes developer and tech lead for the web — and as of late, web3. An academically-trained designer turned technologist, he has worked extensively in the past 12 years for the luxury industry, art market, and institutions such as the OECD. He currently advises on web3 small digital fashion DAOs and designers, large luxury groups and “Maisons”, and co-organized the first successful auction-house led NFT art sale in France, where he is based. Twitter: @davypeterbraun

Kim Community Ops lead and Marketing. Kim has a background in marketing and project management. In the past, she has specialized in building partnerships and creating marketing campaigns for various direct-to-consumer brands like Grove Collaborative, Quip and Verb Energy. She’s bullish on the possibilities that Web3 can offer, especially in terms of bringing financial freedom to traditionally underrepresented groups. In 2021, she completed SheFi’s 10-week crypto course which helped shape her understanding of how Web3 technology and tools can help elevate various industries. At Thirsty Thirsty, she leads our marketing and community operations efforts. She’s eager and excited about Thirsty Thirsty’s mission to recenter Ancestral wisdom through joyful wine and food experiences powered by the blockchain. Twitter: @chimmyken

Trian Artist Relations, Financials, Special Projects. Trian began in web3 as an NFT collector and curator and quickly decided to develop a career in web3. Focussed on woman lead projects. She joined the Thirsty Thirsty team after securing a scholarship to Eth Denver through Blue DAO. In addition to working with Thirsty Thirsty, she is a NFT art and music curator. While developing her own community driven project.Twitter: @trian.eth

Join the Thirsty Thirsty Movement

Donate to support ancestral agricultural remembrance and celebration. Directly support our launch events (coming for you this June during NFT NYC), legal and fulfillment expenses, and contributor compensation. Donate now via Endaoment. (Donations are tax deductable.)

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We are filled with gratitude for all who are holding the vision and walking into this incredible experiment with us. Food, wine, and travel are our joy. Ancestral stories are our medicine.

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