Meet Katie Green | Student of Herbalism & Botany, Cocktail Enthusiast

We had the good fortune of connecting with Katie Green and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Katie, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
On March 16, 2020- my partner and I woke up to text messages from our employers stating that we would not be coming in for our scheduled shifts that evening. The pandemic had initiated a citywide mandate that threatened the security we once found within the hospitality industry. We had been “furloughed;” a threatening and unfamiliar term to me at the time, now marks the turning of a page. Reflecting on the moments that felt chaotic and uncertain, the conversations that challenged my relationships with loved ones, the time I spent playing, and providing myself permission to pursue earthly knowledge, now appear as a way to take ownership over my personal legacy.

Looking at my partner Dylan in disbelief, we had suddenly lost both sources of income until further notice. And we were recommended to seek out unemployment benefits as quickly as possible. But, within the day the Colorado Unemployment website had crashed due to the thousands of new entries. The people of Denver and the planet became afraid of the air that occupied the space between them.
The news haunted our daily lives, the murmur of conversation in every public place, and the buzz within my thoughts was filled with nothing but the thought of an invisible enemy, a virus that had infiltrated human connection.

I can honestly say that quarantine was my first real break since I had moved to Denver. I have lived in Colorado my whole life but moved to Denver in 2015 to attend college at The University of Colorado Denver. I took college head-on, as I do most things. I met some of the most amazing educators that turned into mentors, I pursued academically accredited research, and I also got to travel internationally. But, attending classes often required me to work 2-3 jobs at a time. But, I can confidently state that I was able to walk across the stage in 2019 to receive my diploma debt-free. And for the first time since I had moved to the city, quarantine put time on my hands, mandated by the city. Free time started out feeling like a punishment; I was suddenly not able to measure all the things I had to do with my level of self-worth. I had to find new ways to feel productive, you can only clean the kitchen with that level of confidence so many times in a day…

Come May of 2020, I needed to recuperate, I was in desperate need of family time and a break from the city. I packed up my little blue car and headed for New Mexico, to be with my dad, stepmom, and 3 little brothers. The land they live on has healed me more than once and I could hear it calling. At this point, I was still considering going to grad school- to become an art therapist. But the impending debt was stopping me in my tracks. I began researching Herbalism; I have always had an interest in plant medicine but had never permitted myself to pursue it. As a child, I would play pretend games with my cousins on this property, where I would blend potions for our imaginary ailments with wild sage and dandelions. Conveniently, I was the witch doctor and also the banker, where I would exchange potions for our marble currency. Almost immediately into my research, I came across an herb program offered by The Denver Integrative Massage school- Herbalism Roots a 500-hour herbalism certificate program. I had an interview with a counselor before breakfast and had enrolled in the program by lunch- I was hooked.

By choosing to pursue education strictly for a desire to learn, shifted my entire mentality on the current circumstances, it gave me hope. All of a sudden the ample amounts of free time I had been provided became a blessing. It was an opportunity to make art again, to read, to rest, to plant things, to make delicious food, to ride bikes, to have fun, and to begin making herbal medicine. These were vital parts of myself I had been neglecting, since childhood, due to my long and more demanding list of adult responsibilities. In the time I spent being unemployed and not being able to find work, I realized that it was just as risky to become my own boss as it was to go and work for someone else. I had to make myself “essential.” And that is when The Boozy Botanist was born.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
What The Boozy Botanist does best: The Boozy Botanist’s line of Bitters & Potions has been created to inspire others to incorporate herbs into their artistic expression and self-care practice. Our line of accessories enhances an evening cocktail, a cup of tea, a refreshing glass of soda water, or a relaxing bath! The products we specialize in are herbal bitters, tinctures and elixirs, simple syrup kits, infusion kits, specialty glitter-flower-sugar cubes, dehydrated garnishes, tea, and floral, citrus bath blends. I am constantly developing new variations of these products, as my plant knowledge expands, inspiration for cocktails develops, and the growing season’s change. We focus on using local, organic, sustainably sourced ingredients, as well as setting positive and loving intentions in and around making our products. The business has 3 major branches, Cocktail Accessories, Self-Care Supplies, and Floral Design. The cocktail side of the brand is where we started and is my personal favorite; Our products make the craft cocktail experience more accessible to the home bartender. Providing the pieces of the cocktail puzzle and guidance for the customer to make something new, at home, with an herbal spin. The Self- Care sector of the brand supplies customers with products to encourage relaxation and an intimate way to connect with healing herbs. Cocktail in the tub is our specialty. And lastly, the floral design element of the business is the most recent and colorful development of The Boozy Botanist. We create both fresh and wildcrafted, dried arrangements for a monthly floral delivery service, with an emphasis on providing floral services to small businesses in the Denver Metro Area.

I am the most excited about making new products and sharing them with my community. I love the creative freedom that this job allows me to have. I have the freedom to not only be creative but also the freedom to use my time creatively.

Starting The Boozy Botanist has definitely enhanced other outlets of my creativity, one of which being my love for collecting vintage and thrifted goods. And, has truly enabled my hat addiction… I have always loved clothes and antique furniture. My grandmother owned an upholstery shop in Brighton when I was a kid and she also was a collector of previously loved items. My mother showed me how to thrift for clothing, she has always been the best dressed and it was all usually found second hand. My grandmother would remodel antique sofas and furniture and give it new life. I love the thrill of hunting for unique items in the heeps of discarded clothes and I do enjoy the satisfaction of telling others it was thrifted when they ask where I got it. In all ways, I strive to be one-of-a-kind. In my love and appreciation for vintage goods, I have also pursued a little modeling. A few friends of mine started a vintage shop in Longmont called Archives Vintage and they have invited me in as a model in a few of their styled shoots. It’s been a great way to push myself out of my comfort zone, to play an extravagant character. It has been a huge inspiration in the design element of my brand and has shown me all of the ways we can display product.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Drink- Coffee- Weathervane Cafe (Order the coconut green tea or the Happy Camper latte with oat milk)
Cocktails- Green Russell (Anything Dylan mixes up is delicious) Ft Greene Bar (Order the Tom Cat) Death and Company,
Meadowlark (for jazz night)

Visit-
All of my favorite thrift and antique shops
Antiques Ext
Colorado Antique Gallery
My secret arsenal of the best Goodwill’s in Denver
and my favorite Apothecaries!
Herbalism Roots- Nurture Wellcare Market Place
Terra Apothecary
Apothecary Tinctura

Hang out AND Eat at Made By Us Market!
Miss B’s Vietnamese (most amazing Cool Noodle Soup and Sweet Sesame balls)
Twans Burger (Best burger I have ever had in my life- hands down)
Samosa Shop (The most incredible curry and samosas with the best sauces, you can’t miss Chef Dave Hadley with his megaphone)
Moon Racoon (The most decadent pastries, caramels, and baked goods- can’t be beat)
Shopping at Made By Us:
Amada Artesania (The best hat dealer in town)
Velvet Roots Apothecary (The most beautiful CBD preroll joints)
Yummy Lotus (Most spicy and delicious pepper jams)

At the Made By Us Market, you can shop and support small businesses, like The Boozy Botanist, listen to live music and enjoy amazing street food.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Person: Dylan Brannan- my partner in life and love. Dylan has shown me how to have fun and how to indulge in life. He also has to be one of the most genuine and kind humans I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. We have been together for about 3 1/2 years and our relationship seems to be getting better with age. We have had our struggles, I think the pandemic took a toll on all of us, and we have faced challenges as both individuals and as a couple but we have managed to remain kind and supportive of one another’s growth. He has been incredibly supportive of me, The Boozy Botanist, and unreasonably understanding of my creative disarray. He is always there to help me and the business excel.

And of course my parents. My parents have never told me to be anything less than the best I can be, I am incredibly grateful for their support.

Book and Podcast: The Lion Tracker’s Guide To Life- Boyd Varty
Boyd Varty describes himself at the beginning of every podcast as an artist of experience; his passion is to create transformational experiences for himself and others as a way to explore what it means to truly live. His central exploration is what he describes as the track of your life, to him this means to live courageously towards the discovery of what you are called to and to what life asks of you. He is following the trail of his own life and reporting back. During quarantine, he put out a daily podcast from treehouse where he was living on the Londolozi game reserve in South Africa, for 40 days. His place of isolation was vastly different from that of which I was also experiencing. His words enlightened me, he served as an escape and made me aware of the wildness I was lacking. His words empowered me so much so that I tattooed his closing remarks 4-0 out onto my rib cage. I had two major takeaways after loyally listening to Boyd, one being his concept around safety. Safety is an ideology and external safety does not exist. It does not exist in our relationships, in our jobs our even in our communities. Safety only truly exists within ourselves and our ability to be aware of our surroundings. Boyd is not a survival man, this was not a book or a podcast about his ability to battle nature and win, although it did present challenges. He believes that nature lets you know when you have crossed over the line. There are ways to avoid danger before you have entered a scenario where you must escape, being a tracker of both the wild and your own life requires you to pay close attention to yourself and your surroundings. His ability to connect modern, human life back to the functioning of nature brought clarity and peace to me in a very chaotic time. I forgave aspects of humanity after gaining a better understanding of nature’s functioning. The second major takeaway was that “nothing in nature has ever experienced a should.” A lion does not think he should or should not do anything, nature is always in the present. This revelation came to me at a time when all of the things I thought I SHOULD be doing had been stripped away because of COVID. I now had the opportunity to live in the present moment and reevaluate what I actually wanted and not what I thought or what others thought I SHOULD be doing.

Group- Herbalism Roots
Herbalism Roots provided me with so much inspiration. Not only did they introduce me to the fundamentals of herbalism, wild foraging, and medicine making but they also indirectly showed us what is possible for a small herbal business. So many of my classmates started an herbal side hustle based on their love for making things for others. I had developed the idea for The Boozy Botanist business before starting my herbal program but it definitely accelerated the process. One of the things I love most about herbalism is the fact that herbs and medical plants grow all around us. And that we are intended to consume the plants that grow nearest to us, we should be relying on what is local first. Very powerful and helpful medicines can be found in your alley!

Organization: Made By Us Merchant Collective-
(TIMELINE) I sold my products for the first time at a Seed and Bulb sale at a local flower farm, Blossom and Branch on November 1st and I nearly sold out- I was ecstatic. I launched my first product line and eCommerce site on December 1st and joined my merchant family, now known as Made By Us Market on December 5th! It has been a whirlwind. I was able to begin selling my products almost immediately to the public. Not only did this opportunity help me financially, to have the means to put more into my business but it also provided me with an incredibly supportive network of vendors and patrons. I attribute so much of my success as a business owner to the support of this community. I have a team of people to call on, to ask questions, and to learn from as we all pursue the life of a young, independent business owner and vendor together.

Website: www.theboozybotanist.shop

Instagram: @the.boozybotanist

Other: the.boozybotanists@gmail.com

Image Credits
Portrait- Juliet George Product Photos- Chandler Kim