ERIN COCHRAN AND STEPHANIE BRUCE
Co-Founders and Co-Owners, C&B’s Bottling
“When you go out to a bar and don’t intend to drink alcohol,” says Erin Cochran,” your options are pretty limited—soda, juice and tonic water. Soda and juice made my partner [Stephanie Bruce] and I feel like we were back in elementary school, and tonic water was so sickly sweet that it wasn’t fun to drink.” That changed following a visit to a restaurant where they saw how delicious tonic water could be and realized they might be able to produce the stuff on their own. They researched many, many recipes, did some “tinkering,” and—voila—they had a business, C&B’s Bottling (the “C” and “B” stand for their last names), selling tonic water throughout the world. That, of course, is not to say it was easy. “There were permits and licenses and inspections, and nowhere could we find a list that said, ‘Do this first,’” says Cochran. “… So we basically started everywhere at once, which ended up being a good plan. Starting a business can be frustrating at first, but once you get the ball rolling, it all just comes, and you have to try to hang on for the ride, while deciding how fast to let it roll.”
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