A Shot of AG
Don Archdale and Big Horse Vineyards
Season 7 Episode 5 | 29m 25sVideo has Closed Captions
Rob Sharkey visits with Don Archdale about Big Horse Vineyards and its growing ventures.
Don Archdale returns to A Shot of Ag to tell Rob Sharkey how his family farm in Lewistown became Big Horse Vineyards. They discuss growing grapes, getting wine onto store shelves, adding an inn for wedding guests, and expanding into canned beverages, including the new Giddy Up energy drink.
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A Shot of AG is a local public television program presented by WTVP
A Shot of AG
Don Archdale and Big Horse Vineyards
Season 7 Episode 5 | 29m 25sVideo has Closed Captions
Don Archdale returns to A Shot of Ag to tell Rob Sharkey how his family farm in Lewistown became Big Horse Vineyards. They discuss growing grapes, getting wine onto store shelves, adding an inn for wedding guests, and expanding into canned beverages, including the new Giddy Up energy drink.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship(cheerful music) (cheerful music continues) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Welcome to "A Shot of Ag."
I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.
What if you have a vineyard?
What if you just keep going?
You just do a hotel and then you do energy drink.
You do all sorts of things.
Well, then you would be our guest today.
It's Don Archdale from Lewiston, Illinois.
How you doing, Don?
- Good.
Thanks.
- Yeah.
You are the owner of Big Horse Vineyards?
- Correct.
- Okay.
And well, people that don't know, where's Lewiston?
- Well, I got to correct you, because it's Lewistown.
- I don't care.
(Don laughs) What's the difference?
- Last time I was on the show, I said Lewiston too, and I got crucified at my town for calling it Lewiston.
- That's impossible because nobody watches this show.
Do you know, I don't know how many shows we've done.
I'm pretty sure you were our first show ever.
- [Don] I'm pretty special then.
- There was you and Tessa Pasha.
I think you were the first.
Remember we were over there?
- Yes.
She reached out to me too about maybe doing cheese with the vineyard.
- Oh yeah.
What, you say no?
- We just didn't make it work out.
- Why do you hate her?
(both laugh) Yes.
A lot of stuff has changed though.
My gosh, the things that you get into.
So Big Horse Vineyards, obviously it was a big horse farm, right?
Not so much anymore, is that right?
- This is the first time in my whole history we haven't had horses on the farm.
I sold my last ones last year.
It just got to be too much for all the other projects we're taking on.
It just wasn't fair to the horses or just fair for me to take care of them at the time, so I can always get them later, but everything's still around there.
The shows, it's a big horse place, all the lots and the barns and everything.
- We're going to try to go through everything that you're doing, but I don't know if you even know everything.
Why do you do so much?
- I'm stupid, I think, because my wife calls me crazy because I bug her all the time because I don't never sleep.
My mind just won't shut down.
- Do you do that thing where you're like, "Oh, you know what we could do?"
And she just walks away.
- Oh, she don't want to hear it.
So I bend my buddy's ear too.
- (laughs) Okay.
Tell me what Big Horse Vineyards is.
- Big Horse Vineyards was my home farm where I grew up.
And after my parents passed away, I inherited the farm and it wasn't big enough to do row crops or anything like that, so we mostly just did hay, a little bit of corn.
So I wasn't really set up to do farming like that.
So we still had the horses and it was an expensive hobby to have and I wanted to justify a way to keep the horses.
So I always liked vineyards.
I really didn't know that much about growing wine, growing vines, whatever, so I put 100 vines in first and they took off, went really well.
And I just liked the scenery for them.
And I got about 2 1/2 acres of vines now.
They've been in there since 2013.
Doing well, we don't use a lot o I actually buy a lot of juice from New York, from the Finger Lakes region.
I use ours, but I'd have to have 100 acres of grapes to do what I need to do.
And most all these vineyards around this area, they all buy from New York or California, have it shipped in, just the raw juice.
- Well, I mean, I'm not a wine expert by any means, but from what I understand, Illinois has good grapes, but sometimes you need to sweeten them up a little bit.
Is that what the New York grapes do?
- Midwest are more sweeter grapes.
If you think of the New York, you think of Welch's, that's where Welch's is at, in the Finger Lakes region, and they've got thousands.
New York actually has more acres of grapes than California.
- Really?
- Yep.
Because of Welch's, because everybody farms for Welch's, but they have more of the type of grapes that I use.
My little niche in the market is I do mostly sweet wines and fruit wines is what I do.
- Because why would you want anything else?
I mean, I've had really, it's supposed to be the best red wines.
I mean, it's good, but I like the sweeter stuff.
- Well, if you go into a grocery store or a liquor store and you'll see rows and rows of dry reds or dry whites.
There's a small section of sweet and that's what my niche is and that's where I make it.
- Well, is it just me or isn't that what people want?
- I think most.
I mean, we'll have some people will come in the vineyard, and we do a Pinot and we do a Pinot Grigio and a Pinot Noir just to satisfy them customers.
I'm not saying it's going to win any awards, but that'll satisfy some of the wine snobs that come in there and want that type of wine.
But our biggest wine is probably our sweets, and like this one right here is our number one sell.
It's called Romeo Red and by far we just sell that everywhere.
- Romeo Red.
Okay.
Was that named after a horse?
- Yep.
That was our stallion and he's still alive at 26 years old.
- It's not a twist cap, is it?
- No.
- Okay.
They did bring me a thing here.
You just keep talking.
So you've got the wine.
So was this the start, you did the horses and then you moved into the wine, and then tell me the progression to where you're at.
- Well, I had a partner from Pittsfield that got me started into the wine business and we was making everything down to his place and then he was private labeling for me, but we got too big, too fast, and I had to build a production facility myself right up the road from our winery.
So the production facility, I've got quite a few tanks and I just recently purchased a canning line to do our wines in cans, which is what these are.
- Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
A canning line?
This is wine?
- This is a new product that we just came out with, released this year.
It's sparkling wine in a can.
It's carbonated.
- I didn't know you could do that.
- Well, we did it.
It's something that's new.
Even the big boys are not really doing anything like that with the sweet wine in the can.
- Well, because there was a guy and they sold it at Casey's or it had like wine in a, like it was a little cup.
- Cup of the Vino is on Shark Tank.
I remember seeing it.
- Yeah.
Is this different?
- That's different because that wasn't carbonated.
It was just what they call still wine.
This is carbonated, kind of like you can't call it champagne or you can call it sparkling.
We just called it fizz, so it's different because it's got carbonation in it, bubbly.
- That's a good cork.
And then you just pull it out, right?
(cork pops) Ooh!
- That's the perfect noise.
- Okay, that was good, huh?
Are you supposed to smell the cork and stuff?
Anybody want to smell it?
Yeah, they don't care.
I think they're more of a Pabst.
They're more of a Pabst crew.
Yeah, we don't have a glass.
- It's sweet with a little bit of a tartness like a cranberry to it.
That's been our best seller.
It's better when it's chilled.
Holy cow.
- It ain't bad when it's not chilled.
See, this was the kind of wine I like.
- It's kind of like, I'm okay.
I got a cold.
I'm on cold tablets.
- I get that a lot.
That's a good wine.
- It's our best seller.
We sell that- - You can drink that all day.
- That's our number one favorite one.
And every time I restock it in the stores, it's always a Romeo Red.
That's the go-to.
- Where do you sell them?
- I'm in a ton of Hy-Vees, a ton of county markets, a lot of gas stations.
- So the big boys.
How do you get in there?
- Just go in there and beg.
- Do you really?
- For shelf space.
The first place I got into in Peoria was at the Hy-Vee at Grand Prairie and the guy, I had to beg to get his two slots.
And I said, "Eventually, I'll have the whole top shelf."
He said, "Okay, we'll see."
And I had the whole top shelf and then some.
I'm probably one of the best regional wine sellers that's in there.
- Huh.
So we have Just Peachy.
What's Moonlight?
- Moonlight is like a Pinot Grigio.
It's a little bit more drier, less sugar.
- And you got the Romeo Red.
- Yeah, we got the Romeo Red in there and that's our bestseller in the cans too.
- Well, should I taste that against the bottle or should I taste- - Absolutely.
- Okay.
All right.
- It's probably a little bit more sweeter and like I say, it's bubbly.
It's 12% by volume.
- That's a little aggressive.
Yeah.
And this, okay.
Shh.
- This is easier.
- Okay.
Shh.
(tab pops) Kind of anti-climatic, wasn't it?
- Yeah.
- I thought it was going to be something special because it was wine, but no.
Smells like wine.
It tastes the same as this.
I mean, is it supposed to?
- When they're cold, they're different, but it's with the carbonation.
But yeah, it's the same wine, just carbonated.
- I thought it'd be a lot different though.
- It's a little sweeter.
- How strong is this stuff?
- It's 12%.
Two of them will knock you on your butt.
- Gonna have fun with the next guest, aren't we?
- My favorite's the peach.
It's 100% peach.
- Well, I should open that up.
- Try that one too.
- (laughs) Dude, I've got a lot of interviews today.
All right.
So this has to be like a whole new venture.
I can't imagine the hoops that you'd have to jump through to be able to can a wine and to have it sold at like a grocery store.
How hard was that?
- I mean, the hardest part was the FDA, getting all the labels approved.
- Those guys.
Yeah.
What do you have to do for that?
Just pay off a bunch of people?
- No, I actually had to hire a guy out of California that was good, that knew, because everything's got to be labeled a certain way.
I mean, there's going to be a certain position.
So it was kind of a pain in the butt.
- [Rob] And you're the only one doing this?
- The only one doing that style can, yeah.
I mean, there's like Barefoot that does it and they'll do some in the cans, I think, but that's the only one really doing it in the cans that I'm aware of.
- Well, I assume like a hard part is you get this done and now you got to have to convince people that they need to try it because it's brand new.
- That's the thing.
People look at fizz and say, "What's fizz?"
So that's the stereotype I have to overcome because they don't know what it is.
I usually, when I sell in the stores, I put them on displays, I put the bottles and the cans together, so that kind of gives it.
And it actually, since I came out with the cans, my bottle sales have gone up dramatically too.
People will buy both.
- Really?
Do they want to compare it or what do you think?
- They just want these for on the go and this is like at home.
- Okay.
And both of them should be cold?
- Yeah.
The sweet wines you want cold.
I usually put this, like a peach.
- I don't think this matters.
- Yeah.
I mean, like a dry red usually at 70 degrees is optimum temperature for a dry red, but I like it cold.
- And because you don't listen to your wife, you ventured into the Giddy Up.
What's this about?
- Well, I want to be diversified since I got this canning line.
It took me two years to get the thing and finally I got it and it just opened up a lot of opportunities for me and I want to diversify myself, not just alcohol.
And the energy drink market is huge.
I mean, it's a crowded space, but it's huge.
I'll go to Casey's in the morning to get a cup of coffee and I'm the only one getting a cup of coffee.
Everybody else, they're getting two or three energy drinks at a time.
So I observed, I mean, it's just a huge market.
And so I kind of came up, but since I've got all the tanks and all the equipment and I bought a pasteurization tank, to heat it up to about 200 degrees to pasteurize it, so I can do a batch in two days.
I can do each batch two days, two days, two days.
- [Rob] Okay.
No alcohol in this, right?
- [Don] No alcohol.
It'd be a good mixer.
- I tell you, that's my first drink.
If I go out at night, it's like a vodka Red Bull.
- Yep.
These would be like a Red Bull.
They've got 200 milligrams of caffeine, 1,000 milligrams of taurine.
- It's not enough.
- B12 vitamins.
But they're pure cane sugar.
- How much caffeine can you force in there?
- I could put a lot more, but 200 will give you, I mean, that's plenty.
- You want to separate yourself from the rest of the market because there's a bunch of those.
So if you could put 1,000 in one of these- - (laughs) It might give you a heart attack.
- It's a small price to pay.
Yeah.
I like the logo.
You got the horse there in it.
The horse looks angry.
- That's what it's supposed to be.
- Because they're ready to giddy up.
- I wanted the ladies to like it because it's Giddy Up and it's a horse, but then I wanted the guys to like it because it's a mean looking horse.
- Honestly, you're going to get people making tattoos of that.
- Yeah.
That'd be sweet.
- Did you design that?
- No, we had a graphic artist design it for us.
It took a while.
- I mean, we have a lot of people that do stuff, or they're maybe not inventing to your level, but I mean, this is next level stuff.
So I got to imagine you just have to be okay with hiring some of this stuff out because there's no way you can get compliance.
There's no way you're going to come up with a design like that.
How do you find people that are going to help you and be competent at it?
- It's hard.
I mean, I've got some good people that surrounds me that I've got contacts and stuff like that.
The Giddy Up design was a lady from Chicago, a mutual friend that used her for his business, and that's how I got ahold of her.
- And when does this come out?
- We should, production will start Monday.
- Okay.
So the next time we have you on in four years, you'll be- - We got six varieties that'll start out right now.
- You probably won't talk to us the next time though, because you'll be the king of all this stuff.
The extremely saturated market though.
Are you worried about that?
- It is a saturated market, but there's a lot of opportunity still.
I mean, if you look on Facebook, there's more stuff coming out all the time.
Seems like everybody's got some type of energy drink or health drink or something like that.
The cans have just took off and everybody's starting to do it, but you just got to have a neat marketing.
We got some neat marketing ideas that we're going to release with the Giddy Up, but it's all natural.
It's all natural flavors.
There's no... Like Alani has aspartame in it that gives you that terrible aftertaste.
This is pure cane sugar, which doesn't give you that aftertaste.
- That's what my wife drinks is the Alanis.
- I mean, they're huge.
- Do you not like her now?
- (laughs) I just, I don't like Alanis.
I mean, they taste good up front, but then you got the aftertaste right away.
It's that fake sugar.
Aspartame's worse for you than pure cane sugar.
- Yeah, but Bobby Kennedy's going to put that chip on our neck to where we can't drink these anymore.
Are you worried about that?
- [Don] I haven't heard that.
- I mean, he is.
He wants to do away with this stuff.
Is that a concern?
- I mean, it's not the best stuff for you in the world, but you do it in moderation.
I mean, you don't want to drink 10 of them a day, but if you drink one a morning, it's like coffee.
I mean, it's 200 milligrams caffeine, and these are actually lower calories intake.
It's got lower sugar.
It's only 120 calories.
Red Bull's 160.
Monster's 200 for the same size.
And they use other fake sugar besides pure cane sugar.
And I think Red Bull uses 200 milligrams, and I think Monster's 160 milligrams of caffeine.
- So if I was you and I was doing this, my biggest concern would be how do I get that shelf space in a Casey's or something like that?
Does that bother you?
- Not so much because a lot of the stores I'm in already, I use these really kind of neat displays and I think I'll use the same displays for that.
It'll stick off the... If you can get it off the shelf and put it like in an end cap on a display, it sells a lot better.
- So tell me what your wife said when you brought up the idea of a hotel.
- She actually, that was her idea.
- Really?
- Yeah, she wanted a hotel.
There's an old hotel in Lewistown that was pretty bad shape and we end up buying it and tearing it down and building a new one.
And that was kind of her deal.
She wanted to run the old one.
I said, "There's no way we're going to fix the old one up."
But she just takes great pride.
If you look at her reviews on there, she gets great reviews on that hotel because they keep it spotless.
Her and her crew just keep it spotless.
- That's all anybody wants.
I mean, honestly, you could have a lot of stuff wrong with it, but if it's clean, if the bathroom is clean, I'm happy.
- The whole thing is.
I mean, she gets so many good reviews.
I'm so proud of her because she takes great pride in that thing.
- Yeah.
Nothing worse.
We were at a vacation one time with the kids and it was a deal where we need to stop because I'm falling asleep.
And then when you want a hotel, you can't find one.
So we stopped at the first one and it wasn't good, I will say that.
And then you know how it is, the next morning you get on the road, and two minutes, it's like a beautiful, I don't know, hotel, whatever.
- We just had that experience.
We went to the state fair and we went to a concert for Lainey Wilson, and it was a late booking, so we tried to find a hotel and the one we found was not the best hotel.
(laughs) In the morning, we didn't want to take our clothes out of the suitcase.
- (laughs) I've been there.
It's like let's sleep on top of the blankets type of thing.
- Everything itches after you get out of there.
It's like you think you're getting bug bites or something.
- But it's not easy to keep something that big, that clean.
There again, you're going to back to finding people.
- She's got a good crew, and my wife, she's a clean freak anyway.
I mean, everything, she takes care of it.
I mean, she's very prideful of it.
- So does this all marry into the vineyard?
Because that's an event center.
Tell me how that all works together.
- Well, she actually takes care of all the bookings for the events.
We have a wedding coordinator that does that.
- [Rob] What do you do?
- I'm the grunt in the background.
I do everything I'm told to do.
But I'm the idea guy and she grounds me.
She'll bring me back down.
She'll holler at me about all my ideas, and then after I do them, then she gets on board with them.
- Has there been that one big idea that is absolutely a no?
- Yeah.
We ended up buying a couple Dairy Queens and turned them into an Archie's veranda and fast food.
- Archie's?
- Yeah.
We called them Archie's for Archdale.
- Oh, okay.
- I had a horse signature on it and everything.
It was pretty cool.
It's kind of like a Culver's.
And I ran them for about a year, then I sold them to- - Do you serve horse meat?
- No.
- Oh.
- That actually came up because my logo is a joke, but we had really good hamburgers.
But we ended up selling them.
- Focus.
(laughs) Okay.
So the event center, right?
So you have the vineyard and you have the hotel.
And tell me how that all marries in together.
- Originally, when we built the hotel was because there was no hotels in Lewiston and all the weddings we was getting from out of town, there was no place to stay.
So we thought we'd just build it for the weddings.
Then it progressed.
Now it's probably 75% occupied just like a regular hotel all the time.
- That aren't going... Because you guys have weddings and that, I got to imagine, because that's the thing, when you have a wedding, you want to keep all your bridesmaids all corralled into one place so they don't end up at a strip club.
- Yeah.
Well, there's not one in Lewiston, but- - Yet.
You got a lot of big ideas.
- No.
I'd get crucified if I did that, by my wife.
- Well, it's not like you're going to be dancing at it.
But that's all combined.
And that was on purpose?
- Mm-hm.
Just because we had to just try to draw more people into our little town.
Our little town's only like 2,400 people.
And we've always had Dickson Mounds, which has always been a big tourist thing, so now then the old apple orchard.
So we added our vineyard, then there's another vineyard right next door to me.
So our little road kind of out there is kind of a little touristy area for us.
We draw a lot of people from an hour, two hours away.
We'll get Chicago, we'll get St.
Louis people coming up there.
- [Rob] Really?
Is Dickson Mounds still open?
- Mm-hm.
- But it's not like you can- - Not like it used to be.
I mean, it's still great.
I mean, it's a nice spot.
And I think they're doing some more stuff with it, but right now it's not.
And there's a new guy just bought the orchard and he's building a fabulous mansion up on top of the hill overlooking this beautiful house, and he's going to revamp the orchard.
And we're probably going to do something with him with the apples and stuff like that with another project we got coming up.
- So what's next?
I know there's something.
- Lots of things.
We got more products.
With this canning line, it's opened up a lot of markets for us.
We're going to do flavored lemonades, flavored teas, and then we're going to do another coffee company called Black Maple Coffee.
We're in the works with doing some cold brew coffee for them in the cans.
Then we're working on another, like a health drink that's got apple cider vinegar based in it.
- So is all this just come about because you have the canning?
- I have all the equipment in my production facility.
I'm kind of proud of it.
It's like a little factory itself with everything it's got in it.
- And you're able to find a workforce there in Lewiston?
- Yeah.
Really, it's pretty automated.
I mean, once you put it in the tanks and turn it on and mix it, then you just pump it.
I mean, they don't take that many people.
- A lot of times when you have the smaller things, the cans, you can tell.
These look like anything else you'd get at the drink section.
So I mean, is it just you have the... You must have the facility that is like top of the end.
- I think so.
- Okay.
- [Don] We've put a lot of money, invested a lot of money into it.
- And when will these come out?
- We'll start production Monday.
- How they taste?
- Delicious, of course.
- I mean, come on.
- They are.
I like them way better than any of the other ones out there right now.
- All the ones out there taste the same.
- The ones I like, it's actually is Lotus is my favorite one right now that's out there because it uses pure cane sugar.
No aftertaste.
It's delicious.
- That's a difference, real sugar?
- Mm-hm.
- Okay.
But you do a Red Bull, you do a C4, a Ghost, to me, they literally all taste the same.
- Yeah, they kind of got that aftertaste.
I mean, they use high fructose corn syrup is what they use, but they also have a lot of chemical stuff in them.
Ours is no chemicals.
I mean, it's got like five ingredients is all it is.
And they're all natural.
The flavor's all natural.
It's no artificial colors, no artificial flavors.
It's all natural.
- So we run a white-tailed deer outfit, or my son does now, and I've always enjoyed that because we're part of people's memories, some of the best memories that they have.
Here you are, you're running a venue where people have weddings.
I'm sure there's other stuff.
I mean, how's that feel to you when someone's having a wedding at your place?
I mean, are you able to enjoy that or is it always work mode?
- If we're not doing the food, it's enjoyable.
When we got to do the food, me and my wife and another two people do the kitchen and we have to provide all the meals.
That gets a little hectic sometimes, but otherwise you can kind of enjoy it.
Our Fun Day Sundays is what we really like to enjoy because we've got enough staff that once we get the rush right off the first, we get to be able to go out and kind of enjoy and mingle in the crowd because we'll get 400 or 500 people out there for our Fun Day Sundays on bands.
- What kind of music?
- Different.
I mean, this week we got a band called Stone Cool Cowboys, which is country.
We've had Captain Geech, which is kind of a '80s, '90s dance band.
Then we've had Brushville, which is a mix.
And they draw big crowds for us.
- Yeah.
So you've done quite a bit there.
Your brochure here, you've got the waterfall.
You built that?
- Yep.
Me and another guy built it.
It took us a while to get it accomplished.
- When you say me and another guy, did you watch the other guy do it or did you help?
- No.
He operated the hi-ho and I was the grunt pushing him into place.
- I mean, the place looks gorgeous.
I mean, just like the... I don't know, what do you call that?
- [Don] That's our wedding pavilion.
It's on the lake.
- Okay.
And that looks well built.
Did you build that?
- [Don] No, the Amish built that.
- That's why it's done well.
- Yeah.
Then we got a covered bridge on there too, the Amish built for us too on one side of the lake.
Then we got a fountain, you don't see it on there, but there's a fountain right the middle of the lake too.
- Are you able to enjoy the place when you walk around or are you always picking out all the stuff that needs fixed?
- Oh, I'm always mowing or my wife's mowing or pulling weeds.
In the morning, I'll get that cup of coffee and I'll walk around it on the outside, the perimeter of the pond.
- And you've got the Heart of Illinois Wine Trail.
You're part of that?
- Yeah, we just created that.
The group of us created that, I think it's been three years now.
So we actually have our, there's so many wineries now in Fulton County.
There's four wineries in Fulton County.
Two of them, I mean, us and another one right next to us, and there's two in Canton, and one outside of Canton, but then all the ones around Peoria area, we kind of got a trail and we kind of do functions together.
- So we got nine of them?
- Nine of them, yeah.
- Which one do you like the least?
- (laughs) I'm not going to say that.
I like them all.
- One of them came to mind.
- No, no.
- Okay.
We'll let that go.
- Probably better.
- So in the event space, the agritourism, I mean, that does not seem to be going away.
And it seems like almost COVID just kicked that into overdrive.
Is that momentum still going?
- I think so.
I mean, I just think everybody right now is fighting the high cost of everything because we used to do a restaurant inside the vineyard too, pre-COVID, and I could do like a ribeye special for 18 bucks on a Friday night and be packed.
Now you can't touch a ribeye for 35 bucks.
I think it's hitting hard to home on people.
I think you don't see as much people coming out and buying everything like you used to pre-COVID.
But I mean, it's still steady.
I mean, it's still a good business for us, good business model.
- I mean, 35 bucks on a steak, you're probably not going to buy the second bottle of wine.
- Yeah.
I mean, prices haven't gone up that much for wages, but food has gone up, you know that.
Crops, everything.
- Yeah.
- Beef is really expensive.
- It should be coming down, right?
- I would hope, but... - I don't even want to talk about that, because I tell you what, those beef guys are not happy right now with everything that's happened.
But anyway, that's another show for a different day.
But with this, I mean, it's such a unique... You just don't see this in central Illinois, done by an individual.
This is something that like a large corporation does and that.
And are you excited about this?
- Oh, I'm ecstatic.
I mean, like excited, my brain don't shut down.
At nighttime, it's hard to sleep.
I'll sleep about four or five hours.
I can hit the pillow and I'll be asleep, but then I'm wake up two o'clock in the morning.
I just can't- - Maybe some more of this.
- Yeah, maybe.
- Well, if people want to find out more about you, where would they go?
- We have a website, bighorsevineyards.com, and we're on Facebook of Big Horse Vineyards also.
And it links to our Big Horse Inn & Suites is the hotel.
Then we got a new company that's called Big Horse Beverages for the non-alcoholic beverages.
- And you're just going to keep going Big Horse- - Well, Giddy Up's- - Ping pong paddles and stuff like that.
- I think we're going to call, our flavored lemonades and flavored teas are probably called Archie's.
- Archie's.
Okay.
So if someone has not been to your place, what do you suggest like the first thing, like the Sundays or what would you suggest?
- Sundays are probably the best because we're so booked up on weddings on Saturdays that it's hard if people come in there, and we have to shut down early, about two o'clock, to the public because they kind of encompass the whole thing.
So it's not really fair.
Sundays we have music when they come out there, that way you've got more of a crowd and it's just entertaining and they can walk around.
I mean, it's like a park.
You can walk around the whole lake and go across the bridge and all that stuff.
- Well, it's good to have you back.
Last time now, did I call you Dan or was the name on there Dan?
- Yes, you called me Dan.
No, I think you called me Don, but on the thing it was Dan.
- So it wasn't my fault.
- Well, that's to be proven yet, but... - What do you mean proven?
No, this is all I do.
The rest of it's all PBS.
So you can- - So you're blaming these guys.
- I blame them all the time.
They don't care though.
They're happy when you feed them.
That's about it.
- So I got ridiculed because I said Lewiston, and I got ridiculed because it was Dan Archdale.
So it's Don Archdale and it's Lewistown.
- Again, none of this was my fault.
Don Archdale from Lewistown, Illinois.
Thanks for coming back.
It's been a pleasure.
Thanks for getting us kicked off.
I know when you were first reached out to and said, "Hey, some idiot farmer's going to do a show on PBS, please come," you probably were like, "Whatever."
- Well, congratulations on your success.
I've been following you everywhere you go.
- Oh, I didn't say it was successful.
- You're still here.
- (laughs) Don, thank you so very much.
Everybody else, hope you catch us next time.
(rock music) (rock music continues) (rock music continues) If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to explore more of our local content.
You can connect with us on our social media platforms, visit our website, or download and watch the free PBS app.
We can't wait to see you next time on "A Shot of Ag."
(calm music)
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: S7 Ep5 | 29s | Don Archdale recalls how he won shelf space for Big Horse wines in Peoria. (29s)
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: S7 Ep5 | 42s | Don Archdale explains how his family farm became Big Horse Vineyards. (42s)
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: S7 Ep5 | 46s | Don Archdale shares how his wife’s idea led to a new hotel in Lewistown. (46s)
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