November | Meet the Makers | Megan Klein & Little Saints

A Student of Plant’s Medicines 

Little Saints, a functional canned cocktail, founded by Megan Klein, replaced alcohol for nutritious plant based ingredients, terpenes, reishi mushroom, and CBD. CBD is a naturally occurring chemical, derived from the hemp plant, that is non-psychoactive and contains an immense amount of health benefits. All natural, tasteful, fun, and healthy!? Sign me up! Megan’s passion for connecting people with certain plant ingredients led her to the creation of Little Saints. Spicy margaritas, paloma's, ginger mules, mimosa’s, and much more… buckle up!

Megan’s Roots 

Megan is a proud Midwesterner from Wisconsin. She’s been an entrepreneur in the plant-based wellness space since 2014. Before she trekked on the journey of entrepreneurship almost 10 years ago, her love for plants led her to the career path of an environmentalist lawyer. Fighting factory farms and cold plants, she loved the mission, but hated fighting. She was called to continue her environmentalist purpose by inspiring people to love plants through their personal consumption choices. 

Hug A Tree 

Megan believes the more we intentionally connect with plants in whatever way we can, we would all be happier. Plants are a natural serotonin booster, as Megan reaps the benefits regularly, as she walks barefoot whenever she can, rests her forehead against trees, and uses natural scented oils in her meditation practice. (If you’re not a tree hugger like Megan, I suggest you give it a try sometimes, you’ll thank yourself later!)

Field + Farmer 

Little Saint’s wasn’t Megan’s first successful business, prior to, in 2015, she created a salad dressing and dip brand called Field + Farmer. It was the first packaged product in dressing and dips of its time to include local produce as an ingredient. 

Alcohol-free Awareness  

As a current non-alcoholic brand owner, Megan admits to possibly being the biggest partier in her business school class. She drank, a lot, like many of us do in our college years. She was surrounded by other drinkers in her peer group, and she didn’t think of how her frequent alcohol consumption was affecting her. Depression and anxiety crept upon her, but she didn’t tie it to drinking at the time. Only after she connected the dots, realizing through her research just how bad alcohol can be for you, and living in a society that is addicted to alcohol and social drinking, it’s hard to give up. Plant medicine played a big role in her life as she was dedicated to transforming her emotional wellness for the better. 

Emotional Wellness

Emotional wellness is the overall state of your emotions, life satisfaction, and your sense of meaning and purpose. It’s the ability to pursue your goals and encompasses more about how you feel about yourself as a whole, instead of asking yourself “do I have depression or anxiety.” Megan wanted to improve her emotional wellness during the time of the pandemic. She faced herself, and noticed how she was a healthy eater, a wellness entrepreneur, and how drinking alcohol at night was only canceling it all out. 

The Birth of Little Saints 

Megan had done many Dry January’s prior, but her attempt in 2021, was different. She was conscious of it and intentionally wanted to change her relationship around alcohol. She ordered a bunch of non-alcoholic drinks online, but she couldn’t find anything with that 1:1 experience of cocktails that she was looking for. She wanted to create a drink that wasn’t this big jump from drinking to not drinking. The taste, the smell, the feel of the non-alcoholic beverage, she wanted it to feel as much like a cocktail as it could. 

Megan worked with a food scientist with a masters in adaptogens, and a sacred plant medicine shaman (um, so cool) to come up with Little Saints. So, by Memorial day weekend of 2021, Megan and her cute green vending trailer, Baby Mint, traveled around the midwest for 4 months, taking Little Saints to different music festivals and events, receiving customer feedback on her products before ever even launching them.  

 

Functional Beverages 

Being into adaptogens and plant ingredients, Megan wanted to bring aspects of that into her product. She wanted to recreate getting into the parasympathetic nervous system, take the edge off, and produce the effect that your first sip of wine does. Hence, the reason many of us drink. A tiny serotonin and dopamine boost wouldn’t hurt either, and that is what’s waiting for you in a can of Little Saints. 

What are Terpenes? 

Have you ever wondered why you are attracted to some people, over others? Did you know that a major contributor to that is their smell? Yes, it’s true. We subconsciously go back to people we like because we like their smell. We also subconsciously go back to alcohol because we have gotten some positive experience with say, the smell of wine. Terpenes are aromatic compounds in naturally occurring herbs, flowers, and veggies. When you are interacting with a plant in any way, it’s what you smell, and what makes you feel good. Little Saints contains terpenes that bring you in and keep your taste buds happy. Plus, it will make you feel good too!  

Megan’s Health and Wellness Routine  

As busy as Megan is as an entrepreneur, she still has the time to hug trees, amongst other wellness practices that keep her sane. She credits her strong morning practice as her “key to sanity.” Upon waking, Megan meditates for 15 minutes, doing breath work with some essential oil, and follows it with 15 minutes of yoga. “No matter where I am, this is my stability, so I feel grounded.” Megan also loves to dance, and is a certified chakra dance teacher! You may not know what this is, (I didn’t either), but Megan informed me that the chakra centers in our bodies hold different emotions, and if you dance through each of your chakras it’s doing emotional healing to yourself. Other than plant and nature medicines, dance is one of her medicines. 

As for medicating her spirit through Little Saint’s - she is a Paloma lover all the way!

Try them out for yourself! You can find all of the flavors here:

Mimosa - like a summer cocktail party on a boat - elegant, energizing, and the height of taste 

Paloma - bathed in sunshine and breezes - grapefruit, citrus rinds, hint of agave 

Spicy Margarita - it’s that sexy hotel pool - juicy lime, mild jalapeno, orange blossom

Ginger Mule - like taking the sweetest breath of fresh forest air - ginger beer, lime, hint of lavender