WHYNATTE

The blurry figure in the background of this photo is none other than Soulja Boy, and the delectable ready-to-drink latte in the foreground is none other than the Whynatte Latte.

I’d write something more humorous if I weren’t about to run out of the office to meet my accountant for lunch, only to be told that I have to write an enormous check to the government, and that I’m the worst client to ever walk the face of this planet. I wouldn’t be surprised if I walked into the restaurant, couldn’t find my accountant, and suddenly felt the distinct feeling of a rusty shiv entering my spleen.

So, in summary:

- We hang out with famous rappers.
- We take photos of the Whynatte Latte in the presence of said famous rappers.
- If you’re fishing off the coast of Maine in the winter months, you’re likely to catch mostly mackerel.

The last time I sat down for a photo shoot was 18 years, when I was modeling the latest yarmulke fashions ago for Bar Mitzvah Monthly, a Hebrew trade magazine that was basically the equivalent of US Weekly at the local synagogues.

Fast forward to 2009, and I’m striking a pose for the newly launched 944 Magazine. 944 Magazine has been around in cities such as LA, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Miami, and now brings its non-douchebag blend of culture and style to Atlanta. Thankfully they’ve kept the photos of prickly haired guys in Ed Hardy shirts to a minimum, instead choosing to focus on some of the more interesting people and things that the city has to offer.

You can pick up a copy of 944 Magazine at bars, clubs and salons all over the city.

I tried to get them to let me pose while holding a full grown anteater on a leash, but apparently the photographer was allergic to anteaters:

Thanks to Bill Hallman for hooking up the shiny shoes. He lent them to me for a wedding, and seeing them in a magazine should effectively remind him that I never gave them back:

While you were busy coating your bloated naked body in homemade orange marmalade, we were busy having a raucous Halloween party. First stop was Center Stage, for the so-called “Greatest Halloween Party Ever.” How do I know it was the greatest ever? Well, I found myself drinking moonshine with a man in a full sized hamburger outfit at 3 in the morning, and then proceeded to demolish three Taco Cabana fajita tacos before hitting the sack. When I woke up wearing a 4 inch gold dollar sign medallion, I knew that the party had been a success.

New Rule: Anytime you wake up wearing a gold dollar sign medallion that’s larger than 3 inches, you know it was a good night.

Big thanks to Lee Starnes for setting up and manning the photo booth.

Quick story: I decide that I’ll be Maverick from Top Gun for Halloween. I procure a full on Maverick flight suit off of Ebay, with guaranteed delivery by Halloween. The flight suit doesn’t arrive in time, so I’m stuck with no costume on Halloween day. Maybe they meant guaranteed delivery by Halloween 2012. With no Halloween costume and only a few short hours until the party, I did what anyone in my position would do: Wear a full Adidas track suit and headband. When some irresponsible jackass on Ebay gives you lemons…

BTW, if anyone is in the market for a Top Gun flight suit, I’ve got one for cheap:

Nice to see the Esperanza ATL foam hand making a cameo appearance at the party:

Looks like business casual day at Whynatte Enterprises:

Who said that a mop can’t be used as a Halloween costume?

Finding a babysitter on Halloween is always a bitch:

Per usual, The Constellations made me long for the days when people used to fight with swords:

Andy rocks the lower side farmers tan:

This guy was a dead ringer for Jon, from Jon & Kate Plus 8. And yes,  I want to slit my throat for even knowing who that is:

Pretty sure this is the hamburger-headed fellow that I found myself drinking moonshine with at 3am.  Although, that could have just been the moonshine:

Killing spoiled bratty teenagers with hatchets is the kind of activity that is endorsed by Whynatte, so I was more than pleased to see our product all over MTV’s new movie My Super Psycho Sweet 16. In fact, I was so overjoyed that I actually thought about releasing one of the bratty little kids from my shed, but then decided against it after realizing that there was a new episode of The Hills on after the movie. Another cold rainy night in the shed for you, Ralph. That Lauren Conrad is just too damn dreamy…

Anyway, while I’m busy getting investigated for kidnapping by the FBI for the above paragraph, take a minute to record My Super Psycho Sweet 16 on your DVR. Being that it’s airing on MTV, I’m guessing that they’ll be playing it more than once between now and Halloween:

Another still from the movie. Whynatte is all over it:

So I was about to head out back and feed a box of crayons to my llamas, when a photo in the most recent issue of Creative Loafing caught my attention. It was a photo of a bar scene, or possibly a refugee camp, with people crowded together trying to get to a man in a striped shirt. Or perhaps it was a photo of the aforementioned refugees pushing forward to get their ration of rice. The scene appeared frantic, with a woman in red weeping in the foreground.

Regardless, I felt that I had seen this scene before. It was all too familiar, but from where? It appeared almost like the recent B.o.B/Whynatte Party at Smith’s Olde Bar…

And then it hit me. For some reason, Creative Loafing was publishing photos from my Bar Mitzvah. Now it all makes sense:

Sure, the sign is a little bit over the top, decorative, and elaborate, but you get the general idea:

Wow. Now that’s what I call a party. The Whynatte One-Year Anniversary Party with Bobby Ray was one for the ages. All ages. Including those the age of my mom. But that’s neither here nor there.

Thanks to everyone that came out. You made me so happy that I wanted to build a big helium balloon and float off into the sky above Northern Colorado. But that move is played out, so I just stuck to drinking copious amounts of latte and enjoying the evening.

While we wait patiently for the professionally edited footage from the kids at Motion Family, here are some amateur yet relatively high quality videos taken from the show (more photos and footage to come):

Backstage interview with Bobby Ray, Tuki from Hollyweerd, and Pill. Someone must have been burning some incense or something…

Tomorrow, October 16th, is the Whynatte One Year Anniversary Party at Smith’s Olde Bar!

With Bobby Ray as our headliner, it’s bound to be a ridiculously good time.

Get your tickets at TicketAlternative.com, and get there early - we’re giving away a free Whynatte shot to the first 100 people through the door!

Oh, and Andy is searching far and wide for a pair of urns - if he can get his hands on them we’re going to provide the option of drinking “hot” Whynattes like the kids used to do back in the day.

See you there!

Anyway, in case you missed it, there is a movie being made about this whole Whynatte adventure. It’s called 23 Seconds and if I told you why it’s called 23 Seconds I’d have to kill you.

From the film’s website, “23 Seconds is the semi-humorous documentary about two men who turned an inside joke into a beverage company. It follows their enduring commitment to create their very own cocktail to the unexpected turns that led to the founding of their company, to their present day struggles that force them to compete within a multi-billion dollar industry.”

From my brain, “I can’t fucking believe that there is a movie being made about Andy, Whynatte, and me.”

Check out the newly mixed intro scene of the movie here:

23 Seconds - Coming Soon from Tanya Ryno on Vimeo.

I don’t threaten our beloved customers with injections of cobra venom on a regular basis, but missing the Whynatte 1-year anniversary party would be the type of behavior that would warrant such a strident treatment.

Yes, it’s been nearly a year since we launched the Whynatte Latte. We started with nothing but a latte and a dream, and now we’re somehow running a beverage company. Yet none of this would be possible without your help, and we at Whynatte understand and appreciate how important your support has been to our success. I imagine one day selling this company and using the proceeds to build an enormous silk cocoon with which to provide shelter for everyone that has contributed to making our vision a reality.

So, as I wipe away the tears, it’s now time to get together and throw an enormous party.

Unless you’ve been living in an underground den for the past year, you already know that B.o.B aka Bobby Ray is the smoothest live act to come out of Atlanta in many years. B.o.B is headlining our party. Trust me when I say that you won’t be seeing B.o.B in small venues like Smith’s Olde Bar for much longer.

Leading off the night are local acts The Greater Vavoom and Gypsy Sol. Basically, these two acts guarantee that your Saturday will start with a banging headache, sore legs, and a confused gaze at the person sleeping next to you.

Most of the details are on the flyer below (thank you Esperanza ATL for the badass flyer). Procure tickets early at TicketAlternative.com and get there early - we’re giving away a free Whynatte shot to the first 100 people through the door!

A little footage, courtesy of Motion Family, from our last party with B.o.B:

These photos from the Glenn Hotel are overdue like a giraffe that’s been gestating for 20 months. Given the fact that the normal gestation period for a giraffe is a hearty 14 months, that would mean that it’s high time I put some of these photos up on the Whynatte blog.

The Judi Chicago 7″ release party at the Glenn was a party in the truest essence of the word. But don’t just take our word for it, listen to what’s being said out on the interweb:

The Whynatte Party at the Glenn made the haj to Mecca look uncrowded. - Partytown.com

Judging by the quality of the photos from the Whynatte party at the Glenn, Mixtape Atlanta somehow hired Annie Leibovitz to shoot the event. - TheProperUnicorn.net

If you don’t come to the Whynatte 1-year anniversary party with B.o.B on October 16th, your home will be burned to the ground by vandals. - PartyThreats.com

And now, a few photos from the party. Thank you to Mixtape Atlanta for shooting the event. Thank you to Esperanza ATL for helping with the creative side of things. Thank you to all the talented DJ’s and artists that made the night a success. Thank you to 4th Ward Heroes for putting it all together. Thank you to our intern Lauren for basically masterminding everything good that has ever happened in the world.

To see all of the photos from the party, click here: LINK

Find the name, date of birth, and exact weight in kilograms of the guy that’s wearing the red striped shirt on the far side of the stadium and WIN a free baby gazelle and a case of Whynatte:

Back before you could buy it in a sleek 8 oz can, a Whynatte was made by hand. There were no cans, no late night forklift rides, no swimsuit models eating pistachios, and no convenience stores, For that matter, nothing about traditional Whynatte preparation was convenient. Unless you consider having to draw an urn of hot coals while walking through a scorpion nest “convenient.” It was hard labor, but in the end the payoff was worth the effort.

There is still a small group of agrarians, for lack of a better term, who prefer to make their Whynattes the old fashioned way. For the most part they live on farms, and shun the big city. They are adept at breeding show cattle, harvesting barnacles, and building barns. Rarely are they seen off the farm, and even more rarely are they caught on camera.

Until now.

Take an exclusive peek into the life of an old fashioned Whynatte farmer:

Tools of the trade. A jar of glue, and some sort of ancient milk frothing machine:

Thricefold, Jebidiah would lay out the morning Whynattes on the table:

I don’t remember the latte farmers looking like this when I was growing up on the lactose ranch:

And while the preparation of a Whynatte may have evolved over the years, the method of consumption remains the same. If you’re just joining us, this is actually how the Whynattes were made in the old days:

There are more of these reclusive Whynatte drinkers out there than you might think. They harvest in small groups, and wear tight fitting fleeces. In the end, they keep the tradition of the Whynatte alive, so that one day our children’s children will know what it used to mean to “take the hatchet to a Whynatte.”

These are a few of the different article titles from the Business section of last Sunday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution):

Recession chips away at granite kitchen tops (clever)

Diversified portfolio remains a good idea (practical)

and,

Coffee with a shot of alcohol…’Why natte?’ (inspiring)

If you haven’t guessed already, I was not being interviewed about granite kitchen tops. Nope, I was in the AJC to discuss all things Whynatte, and drop a little knowledge on the business community at large. Check it:

Unfortunately, they left out the question about what I plan to be for Halloween (mermaid) and what I think is the most underrated wind instrument (double bassoon). No worries, it would have been impossible to fit in everything from the hour long interview with the ninjaesque reporter Jeanne Bonner.

When I was a young child growing up on my parents latte ranch, I always dreamed of one day winning a “Best Of” award from Creative Loafing. Well, thanks to you wonderful people, my dream has finally come to fruition.

Yesterday it was announced that Whynatte won Best Local Personality to Follow on Twitter for 2009. This was a Readers Choice award, which basically means that I have everyone who took the time to vote to thank for this honor.

To see what the Whynatte Twitter is all about for yourself, please click on this LINK to follow us. We run a lot of Whynatte induced scavenger hunts, give away money and mammals, and typically forget that we’re supposed to be conservative because we’re running a legitimate business.

Anyway, thank you to everyone that took the time to vote, and thank you for supporting our company and brand!