The Ritual Behind the Can

People occasionally ask where the idea for Halo's Edge came from.

The short answer is that I was sitting in a kava bar one night and decided I was going to make a great tasting seltzer.

The longer answer is a little more complicated.

A few years ago, after my marriage ended, I suddenly found myself in a situation I wasn't entirely prepared for. I was lonely. And not just lonely, but like soul-crushing loneliness. I wasn’t used to being alone and I didn’t have people to hangout with the way that I really needed during this post-divorce period of my life.

Most of my friends were what I'd call "couples friends." We had all spent years doing things together—dinners, parties, vacations, you name it. The friendships didn't disappear, but life changed. My friends were busy raising kids, running businesses, coaching sports, attending recitals, and generally doing all the things married people with families do.

There was another issue too.

The wives of my guy friends weren't always thrilled about their husbands spending too much time with the newly single guy.

I get it. No hard feelings. But it does make socializing a little more challenging. And I needed new friends - urgently.

At the same time, I wasn't particularly interested in hanging out in bars trying to meet people. I wanted to go out often, rather than staying at home, and if I were in a bar, invariably I would grab a beer. The prospect of doing that most nights wasn’t appealing - at all. I wasn't really looking for a bar scene. I was looking for people. There's a difference.

Around that time I was visiting my mother and heard about something called a kava bar. I had never been to one. Honestly, I wasn't even sure what one was. The whole thing sounded unusual enough that I decided to check it out. The place was Island Root in the Eau Gallie Arts District (EGAD).

Only ten minutes from my mother’s place, just over the Eau Gallie bridge, in a quaint little section of town, stood this cool bar. It’s a former house on the corner of the block that had been converted to this awesome surfer/Hawaiian style hangout. I remember walking up to the front door as a song from Sublime was playing over the speakers on the side patio area. I walked in through and immediately thought that I had come late to some sort of orientation meeting. Everyone seemed to know everyone else. People were talking, laughing, working on laptops, playing games, and drifting in and out of conversations. Yet somehow complete strangers seemed just as welcome as the regulars.

Including me.

Now, I consider myself a reasonably skeptical person. So naturally my first reaction wasn't, "What a wonderful community.” My first reaction was, "This has to be some kind of cult."

I spent the better part of an hour trying to figure out what the catch was.

What I eventually discovered was something much more unusual. A genuine community.

When I returned to Orlando, I immediately searched for “Kava bar” on maps and low and behold, Zenva popped up. It was in Winter Park. Fancy… I’m all in. The next day I go to check out the place and, just as I walk through the front doors, there’s this guy looking at me and he says “hey, I’m Ken. How ya doing?”. A typical welcome at a kava bar. We’ve been great friends every since. 

Over the next several years, I became part of that community and made countless friends. Some were old enough to be my parents. Others were young enough to be my children. Somehow none of that seemed to matter. The kava community has always struck me as one of the most accepting groups of people I've ever encountered. People connect because they enjoy each other's company. It's really that simple.

Looking back, I recognize that this is the primary reason that drew me into the kava community. And it was the kava community that, in many ways, saved my life.

At that time I was an entrepreneur without a gig. Having just ended a 25 year run with my former life and business partner, I needed to find something else to do, on my own this time. The problem is that I can’t work for anyone but myself. Being an entrepreneur is in my DNA. Literally.

I come from a family of entrepreneurs and have spent most of my life building businesses of one kind or another. Even while I was enjoying becoming part of this new community, there was a part of my brain quietly observing everything around me.

What's working?

What's missing?

What could be better?

I knew eventually I would start another business. I had no idea what it would be, but I was fairly certain it would somehow involve the kava community - because I wanted to build something for the people who had unknowingly helped me rebuild my own social life.

Then one evening I was sitting at my usual spot at the bar, drinking kava and doing what I normally do after drinking kava.

Trying to get the taste out of my mouth.

Now before the kava enthusiasts come after me, let me clarify something.

I enjoy kava.

I enjoy the ritual.

I enjoy the history.

I enjoy the calming effect.

The taste?

Let's just say the taste isn't why I showed up.

Like many people, I'd developed a routine. I'd drink a shell and then immediately chase it with something. Sometimes mixed nuts. Sometimes pecans. Most often, a flavored seltzer.

One evening, after finishing a shell, I reached for a pecan and took a sip of the seltzer sitting next to me. I'd probably consumed hundreds of those things by that point. Maybe more.

And yet it suddenly occurred to me that I didn't actually really enjoy any of them.

Sweetness hits quickly and drops off gradually and then comes the bitterness. It doesn’t meld necessarily well together. And then there’s the aftertaste. What is that? I got the sense that they had been designed by for functionality rather than flavor.

Years in the wine industry had trained me to notice these things. In wine, and in craft cocktails, balance matters. The best wines aren't necessarily the biggest or boldest. They're the ones where everything works together. Nothing overstays its welcome.

These seltzers often felt clunky.

That's a wine term, by the way.

Around that same time, I remember asking one of the kavatenders which flavor was her favorite.

She shrugged and said, "They all kind of taste the same."

She wasn't complaining.

She was being honest.

And suddenly I realized that people were consuming these beverages every day without being particularly excited about them. They enjoyed the experience. They enjoyed the community. They enjoyed the conversations. The beverage itself was almost secondary.

That fascinated me.

As I sat there finishing my drink, a thought popped into my head.

What if the beverage tasted as good as the experience surrounding it?

Not sweeter.

Not louder.

Not more extreme.

Just better.

More balanced.

More interesting.

More enjoyable from the first sip to the last.

The thought followed me home that night.

And somewhere along the way it stopped being an idea and became a challenge.

That's when I knew.

I was going to make a frickin' awesome tasting seltzer.