Ep. 9: Preston Campbell | The Danger Den Podcast w/ Danger Foley @SXSW

In this episode of The Danger Den Podcast, host Danger Foley sits down with Dr. Preston Campbell, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of BRĒZ, a fast-growing cannabis beverage brand rooted in neuroscience, product innovation, and wellness.

With a PhD in physiology and years of experience in both academic research and biotech, Preston shares how he brings rigorous scientific thinking into product development—especially in the fast-evolving world of cannabis and functional beverages.

From redefining the user experience to exploring the impact of microdosing, this episode dives deep into what it takes to build something both effective and intentional.

In this episode:
– How BRĒZ bridges science and everyday wellness
– What it means to design cannabis products from a neuroscience lens
– Ethical, sustainable product development in a new industry
– The future of functional beverages and microdosing
– Preston’s journey from the lab to entrepreneurship

Whether you're in wellness, biotech, or curious about cannabis innovation, this conversation offers real insight into the science behind the sip.

Learn more about BRĒZ:
drinkbrez.com

Follow Preston:
LinkedIn – Preston Campbell, PhD

Watch the full video episode on :
YouTube – The Danger Den Podcast

Connect with The Danger Den:
Website: https://www.thedangerden.com
Instagram: @dangerdenco
YouTube: @TheDangerDenCO

Transcript

0:04

Hi. I am Danger Foley, and we are back in the danger Den at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. I am joined this time by Preston Campbell. He is a mad scientist and he is actually behind the formulation, behind breeze and many other amazing concoctions. Welcome to the Danger Den. Thank you sir. Yeah, thanks for being here. We mixed stuff, but, you know, I'm gonna be clear. It's like it's a team of us. Oh, of course it is. So which is the fun part is my counterpart is, Travis, and he's very creative type, and I'm very analytical, and he's very intuitive. And, you know, I need to see the data. But then we come to the same conclusions and we do some testing and we do some experimentation. it's a really good working relationship and find out cool stuff. Right. We make interesting products and they really work. And I don't know why. Some of them work as well as they do. How did you first get into wanting to test and study different elixirs? Probably after my first psychedelic experience at 15. Tell me more. I was like, well, you know, scientists are like, always the scientist, reading encyclopedias, that kind of stuff for a lot of us. And as soon as you see it and your eyes open and you kind of, oh, I see all these connections. You want to try to do that again. And so then you get curious about, well, can I just make it? And that's that's kind of how it starts. Okay, so what was the first concoction that you made? mushroom tea. A mushroom tea. Yeah, a psylocybin mushroom tea Like pick them out of the cow patties kind of kind of thing. Really. did you meet yourself? Was it for real? 15. That's a really young time to be having such profound experiences. What was that like? Yeah. It was eye opening and intense, like, the first one was just. Hey, what is this? And not a lot of thought in it. And then after that, I went to the library, all that, all the papers I could find on LSD, this amazing, like, 70% cure rate, single dose for alcoholism cures, depression and all this kind of stuff. And I was like, this is published like 40 years ago. And why don't people know about this? Yeah, that's what happened there. And then I said, okay, I need to know about this and what it does and then how to how to make it. And is there anything I can make that's different than that? And then it kind of sparks from that, that first experience. Yeah. And then, you know, I had, like mental illness in my family. And so I didn't want to be like that and so when I was reading all of these, these papers that god this was 1990, mid 90s, Reading all these papers about sort of the curative effects of psychedelics, I said, oh, I can do this. I can fix all this if I try and so I set out with intention. Where'd you go to school? I went to high school, Buckhorn High School in Huntsville, Alabama. Okay. Lots of, psychedelic mushrooms in those cow patties out there. There are. There are quite a few. Had a really good field. Really good field, really good field. that my mom knew about, from when she lived there. Really? Yeah. So did you. Did you and your mom ever partake in an experience together? Not together? No. No but my son's. Yes. And my dad was the closest to us. He would know that I was having a psychedelic experience. And I come home and, he would mess with me. Oh, my God, the worst trip. Trip buddy ever. He's. It was funny. He's trolling you, and you're. Oh, it's like, why does your nose look so weird? Everyone's staring at some really bizarre movie, and not say anything. Oh, my God, that's hilarious. Funny. That's pretty awesome. Did he party? No, not with not with me. He's done it separately. So it's always been something that was encouraged in terms of exploration and self-exploration. In your family. There were no, like, rules against stuff. I mean, you know, growing up in the 80s, 90s, you just a latchkey kid, right? Totally. Home by dinnertime. Yeah. It's always. Oh, yeah. Oh, my dinner time. The lights come on. You you come home and if the lights are still on, you stay out. Your lights aren’t on and you stay out. Totally. And what a time to be alive. You guys really got the last of it. We had a bunch of really messed up stuff happened when we were, you know, eighth grade through high school. And so, yeah, it's like war and. Oh, yeah, and I mean like 911 where the parents just started to get paranoid about kids just being like, I don't know, but just people got scared, I guess. Yeah. and it's still happening. Oh yeah. It's getting crazier and crazier. What a great opportunity it would be to be a kid these days, right? Yeah. Yeah, that would be. That would be the leader. That’s the dream. You'd be the leader of all of them. Or she. Of course, of course. But hey what are we toasting to? An amazing group of people in South by Southwest and meeting amazing people and just talking about doing other amazing things. Cheers to that. Cheers to you. It's pretty good. It's so good. So what's in it? We talked a little bit about it with Travis, but I want to hear it from you because this is the whole analytical take of it. So, don't put a whole lot of THC, we are not trying to and do not not going for that effect. But what the teach you that we do put in, it's a full spectrum hemp extract, and then it's, an emulsified, like 40 microns. So it's really fast delivery for 40 nanometers, really fast delivery. And then the lion's mane, there's a proprietary method for pulling it out with a partner of ours that’s down in Florida. And he makes this extract, and somehow they interact with one another, neurologically. And then limonene kind of plays a role. I think also because that's a, you know, calming, relaxing thing. Limonene is something that I just found out about within this last year. And it's actually kind of crazy because I use cannabis to help me with my neck. I had neck pain for so long, and so cannabis was something that I would use. But because, I am who I am, I suppose I would just get horrible munchies like the worst. And so it was always like the biggest problem of trying to not use, you know, narcotics and these other things and wanting to stay with something natural, but then having the consequences of being like a human. Yeah. Garbage disposal, where I literally like, give it away for me. But limonene was something that I found where apparently it's and I wouldn't say it's it's not an appetite stimulant like so many strains are. Right. And so with the terpenes and all of these different elements, how did that ingredient process go into making this? So the limonene is one of the principal. The major players in the entourage effect. And, you know, it's been sort of overused, but, of cannabis. Right. Like it's not just the one, it's not just THC, CBD and The Limey has this relaxing thing whenever you inhale it. Which is why it's in a lot of essential oils, citrus oils and that kind of thing. And it has some real pharmacological activity in your head when that happens So it's actually genuinely lowering their stress receptors. Yeah. And actually having an effect. It's not some placebo. there's a whole field of research that was sort of parallel to the essential oils, it was really like, what does aromatherapy really mean? And there's a, thing called shinrin-yoku, which is forest bathing. in that, you just walk around and kind of live and breathe and feel in the forest, and it reduces all your stress levels. And one of the primary components that is limonene that’s being made out of these pine trees and things limonene, pinene and a few other ones. But then they you smell all these molecules back to nature. Yeah, yeah, it's communication of the plants to you. And then that has an effect on you and I mean, it leads into whole whole manner of different like interactions from fungus to plant to people. Right. And you put somewhere at the middle of them, there's kind of some magic. And so what really motivated that was like trying to keep for all of our drinks. We'll have a mushroom, some kind of mushroom, depending on what the effect is going to be. And then we'll have a plant always have a fungus and a plant. And that needs to happen for the key to unlock kind of a thing. It is 95% of plant species have symbiotic root fungi that they must have to live. Wow, and those fungi can't live outside of those plants. Wow. So it's literally a lock and key situation where one needs the other, and they work in a network, in a system. And, it's been like that for a billion years or whatever. And then but so one truly, you can't have one survive without the other, right? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And that's why whenever you transplant one thing to another thing, you get the root but you got to keep the whole root ball with it or otherwise you're going to lose your mycelium network. You're still tearing up the network, but you've still got the core. And do you transport a lot of plants because you work with a lot of rare plants, right. I take the extracts around, you know, we source from a bunch of different places and a, you know, Nepal and some other places. They have really good, botanical people over there. Their industry is really good. So they do a lot of essential oil extractions and seed distillations and that kind of thing. And so that's where I most of this stuff I just, I have, I know reputable people and they have a really qualified product that has, it's always got the same terpene combination, that kind of thing. And then they send it to me and I tested amazing. And there are, yeah, lots of things to test that. So yeah, it sounds like it. So what's the process from working on in the field to actually getting something that you can then put into a product? Yeah. There's a lot of steps. So yeah, years and years and years or is a couple months we figured out a way to do it faster? And this is the philosophy, there are 50,000 plants that have been used medicinally by humans, 50,000 safely. Yeah, well, some of them safer than others, but. Yes. Are you referring to plant? You said plant medicine. Plant medicines, 50,000. That's including iowaska, that's including but that's not including animal medicines like bufo or DMT. Right? Right, right. Yeah. Just just plant plants. Wow. Okay. All right. Oh, where was I going with that. I don't know. What were we talking about? I don't know this stuff's really good. You're talking about the the the interaction between the fungi on the plant. Yes, yes, yes. So there's a there's a third part of that which is animals come in. And so this is a very common, thing that happens here. You see it most with like insects. You know, where the mushroom, cordyceps mushroom grows out of the back of the head of the, so what's happening? And you see this with termites is you have a fungus and a plant that are working together, married. And the fungus is sometimes controlling the plant, which is controlling the animal. Parasitic. It's symbiotic. Okay. Into, like cordyceps, it becomes parasitic. Yeah, yeah. Our cordyceps. We don't grow on bugs. You can do it. You can do it. That's good. We like that. No bug cordyceps up for us? No, sir. Man, that went down a real rabbit hole there. But that is, fascinating. And so you and Travis, we call Travis the kitchen wizard, and we call you the mad scientist. And the difference between those two titles is you would say that Travis is on the more creative side, more of the big visionary things. And you are the actual measuring beakers testing chemical compounds. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, I think about these these, you know, psychoactive compounds a lot, for a long time. And so I have some also has some stuff like, because, you know, you kind of dig into your memory, you go when you actually put your mind to it, you think, and you have the sort of the information for whatever you can access some memories about some different altered states you've had. I've been there, and it's a wild feeling you can infer between two. So you know, is it psilocybin and nitrous and that's a thing. Right. Cannibis you put in there then, that's a, that's a, that's a thing. And so we sort of play with those ideas of like, well let's you know, two different ways to. We have like an energy and a sleep and it's like, how can we get somebody to where they can have an altered state that will reduce their stress and then make them have the freedom then without fear, to be able to connect to other people. So we'll have an energy type drink. It's uplifting and it's energy thing with cannabis. And then there will be asleep thing and then there will be a drift thing. And so it truly is about the actual chemical response. And so this is a much more data driven scientific process than most drink companies, which just simply take a marketing approach. Correct. Right. Yeah. and Aaron knows which our, CEO, I've worked him with him at a previous natural product company called monk ten years ago. And he's he's very passionate about the science. It's it appears that way. Everybody has the best things to say about him. Yeah. He's a he's a great guy. He really, really wants to know what's going on and make sure that we're doing it right. And that's good. That's really good. So I want to here at least a couple of really crazy stories about either the wildest place that you've gotten a plant from or the craziest I just. I feel like you've got a lot of stories. There are some. Some I can tell. Come on, there's liability issues. But. So can't have that. When we were developing some stuff, this company, that I work there, it's one company. We're trying to figure out ways to Inhale, different combinations of plants without nicotine to, really my goals for smoking cessation. But then we can we can alter mood states in different ways. And that gives you sort of, it's a lot of stuff to play with. Right idea wise. Cool sandbox. Yeah. And so the idea going in, my primary motivation was I want to make a limitless type drug. I want something that can unlock flow states and allow people to be like their their truest, you know, lose time and do your deep work like that. That's that was my goal. It's interesting. So it's crazy story. Got a, a vial of this, essential oil called sugandha kokila and this berry that is in Nepal. And I got it from, like, a back alley, almost like a Diagon Alley apothecary in London from this guy. Cool. And I get it, and I thought it had, it was supposed to have, based on the part of the plant that it was. And that extraction method was supposed to have this weak a serotonin agonist called the elimicine And I was like, oh, wait, you can get sort of a microdose effect and you get in it and it'll just go right in your brain. It'll be great. Serotonin happy boost. Happy to work on your stuff. Right? Okay. Yeah. concocted some stuff. My formula at that time was, my wife Catherine, because she's a plant scientist, and this is her thing. And so she, got some other ones that she thought about of me. And, we put them all together with this little pen. Have a little vape pen, and, when you inhale off of it, everything gets a little bit brighter, And then it enhances your vision by like, one and a half lines for like an hour or something. I have no idea that's happening. And this is why I don't have any idea. I thought it was going to be a elminicine and a combination that kava and some other stuff they would, but when I went to scale up this process and actually make a batch, really start making a batch that we can, you know, commercialize it, I got a, you know, bigger quantity of the stuff from the same guy. Just emailed me and then it didn't work. so that's how that's that's terrible. What am I going to do? And so we exhaust all the literature. my neuroscientist was working with actually, she read enough Hindi and so exhausted the Hindi literature on this particular plant, trying to find out what combination of stuff, how long does that take? Months. It was it really just a couple of weeks? Okay. A couple of weeks, you know, doing other stuff. I've kind. You put a group of scientists together to, like, figure this thing out. Totally an hour. They're like, okay. Yeah, yeah. And so at the end of it, I'm talking to the guy, over an apologetic movie association which controls their botanical and agricultural stuff and their exports to protect them. extraction guy out there? And it was a bunch of stuff. And I'm talking to him about he's like, yeah, I heard about this, this particular set of compounds and this one extract. but we couldn't get we couldn't figure out why it was a thing. He didn't he didn't have the information. And I needed to identify what this thing was because it wasn't what I thought it was when I bought it. So, in the end, I sent a flight to Nepal. All right, then, Kathmandu, take a prop plane over to, Nepal and then go up to Karachi in the agriculture area where all the farmers are about like 5000, that where the earthquake was. Yeah. Well, it started over there, but it it wrecked Kathmandu pretty bad. So I get out there, and it's like three hours, it's after monsoon into this, like road washouts and that kind of stuff. That are still there. And we get out to, the middle of this agricultural region is beautiful fields everywhere with the Himalayan in the way back, you know, it was like this gorgeous place, my driver to go over there was my translator, and we got, they got all the village elders to work on this gigantic Kokila plant as part of their picking them up and, and then these elders just passed a little thing around and smelled it. And then after they smelled, they talked a little bit and then they said, okay, it's from this. It's the same plant you're talking about, but it's from this part of the river this time of the year. And so specific to this exact single place for the sake. Yeah. This time you just knew. And then. Yeah. Ancient wisdom. Yeah. So we figured it out and I got an extractor to do it and then headed back to the States and made this interesting product. And so where is this product now? I'm sure it's still out there somewhere. We we parted ways with that company. Well, we want limitless smelling things. Sounds pretty great to me, man. But imagine the productivity, I mean. Well, there's also something to be said, though, and this is something that I wanted to ask you as we are moving away from drinking as a culture, what is and obviously the difference can be argued that this is not harming your brain long term. The ways that we are going about this, and that is the major benefit from staying away from alcohol. But when we're talking about the even bigger mission to get people grounded and in themselves is there a difference between, you know, something else that is so considered numbing or mind altering for something like that versus something like breeze? Does that question make sense? Yeah it does. And so what we're right. What we're trying to go for effect wise was and anybody can go get an edible and just get absolutely stoned. Blitzed But we wanted to have something a little, more subtle. And we wanted to have something that would be like a 1 to 1 replacement for beer. And so if we can just reduce drinking by a couple of drinks a day for people, even if they still, you know, had a and have something else, that we've totally reduced the risk and reduced harm. And that's, the that was the objective. And so it was sort of designed to have like the same you just just replace. And you'd have like an hour and a half and it's, you know, some pleasant little lazy river experience. And so yeah that was, that was the goal to, to just have a 1 to 1 replacement and reduce harm from, you know, alcohol. And did you think it would ever be this big. No. Are you are you ready for the success of it? I mean, it's crazy how quickly it's growing. you kind of have to be right once you're in it, right? You gotta go. Oh, I feel you there. Yeah. But what's next? I mean, you're this just launched or is it launched officially yet? Yeah, it was a limited release, and now they're doing another batch that's really, really, really good. But, I mean, you want to keep going with these different types of spirits or you. Absolutely. Because everybody sort of has their own individual response to different, you know, psychoactive. Totally. And we want to give an experience that gets the widest number of people the ability to achieve this moon state that they want, and not have so much alcohol. Right. And so we could have like an energy uplifting, cannabis and mushroom and some other stuff, and you could have a sort of a drifty kind of out of body if you combine like the lotus and cannabis, you know, that kind you. This is the kind of stuff we talk about. Totally. Yeah. And a question that I feel just like called to ask you is what do you feel your bigger purpose is within this whole thing? You know, this this week at this particular show, this particular culture, that sort of dawned on me, like, what am I what am I doing? Like, what? What is this that I because I didn't put it to words. So somebody help me. First night I got here kind of get my words around it, but it's really connection. To a cause that uplifts humanity. Right? Connection with all those team members. Connection with the people that we're reducing the harm. Connection you with. Because that's really what. That's what drives everything, right? The all forms of matter from across scales that you have interactions and those interactions cause complexity and and that and then they somehow humans come out of it and we can have this conversation. How cool is that right. And it's really an honor and a pleasure to talk with you. Is there anything else you have the mic that you want to say? Anything that nothing that won’t get me in trouble? You know, right I just have a Slim Shady just rap battle right now. That's good. Yeah. Cheers to you. Thank you so much for being here. Spending the day with us. This has been amazing. Absolutely. Yeah, It's an honor that we got to spend it with you guys, because I know how hard you've been working. It really is, it's inspiring. And I know, and specifically Liana has been someone that has been running just as fast as I have. And to see this team and to meet all of you guys and to see just the quality of humans behind this mission, it makes it so much more impactful to me. Like, this has been so great to get the time with you and to hear how you got to be where you are. 15 years old, making your own tea. I love it so much. But I mean, Preston is a true expert and he spent the afternoon helping us install, hydrogen and water filter. And so this is the the homie stuff, and this is the, the things that really matter. And it's truly such a pleasure to have you here. So let's go get back out there and keep hanging out with everybody. What about that cherry juice?